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Admirals in The Orville are much better than Star Trek admirals.
(startrek.website)
I finished watching The Orville, it was a masterpiece from the hands of Seth Macfarlane.
Here, they showed some exchange between admirals and the main ensemble cast quite often, but watching these certain scenes made me compare them to Star Trek admirals. I personally think all admirals in The Orville are great captains who got promoted to the rank of admiral as opposed to Star Trek admirals who are just dumb politicians where our main cast captains keep dealing with their nonsense.
Of course, there are a few reasonable and competent admirals we've seen throughout the franchise, but most of them I've seen reflect real-world politicians that never even had sat on a captain's seat.
Never watched Star Trek but in The Orville, it is explained that you get promoted to the higher job if you have a lot of honor and respect from society
So yeah I don't see how a corrupt politician could rose to admiral. They should either be military expert that already proven great success at a lower rank or as you said ancient captain.
One day we will probably have an episode one day with all the higher ups to see their struggle when they where younger, like a big battle flash back or something like that, it would be cool