Here's the situation: you're on a ship.
The Captain is supposed to be the commanding officer on the ship, and his word is supposed to be law. But sometimes, members of the crew don't see it that way. Maybe someone gets it in his head to become captain himself, and the current captain needs to go. Maybe the captain is a bit too tyrannical or soft for the crew's liking, or they think the captain has lost his mind and is leading them on a suicidal course, and the crew would rather go back to Tahiti. Whatever the reason, someone gets the bright idea to take up arms against the captain and before you know it, we've got a mutiny on our hands.
Militarily speaking, a mutiny is the military form of sedition, a conspiracy to disobey a superior officer whose orders one is legally bound to obey. But in popular fiction, particularly
pirate stories, the term is mainly used for the rebellion of members of the crew against the captain or other person in charge of a ship, either at sea or in space. Just like rebellions on land, a mutiny may or may not be justified, though it's worth telling that mutinies are far less likely to be justified than regular rebellions. In many stories (and in real life) the penalty for mutiny is usually death, so many mutineers do not live long if they fail.
It's not always illegal. If the commanding officer's actions are illegal, immoral, or are themselves contrary to higher orders, his ranking underling can take action to "relieve him of command", usually using those exact words.
Of course, the captain will still think it's mutiny. The junior officer
will, of course, be expected to justify his actions before a full inquiry, military tribunal, court martial, or other group of stern old officers in the
denouement. When
The Captain is the one who is technically disobeying orders from a
higher power, it's an
Anti Mutiny.
As you might expect, mutinies are a case of
Truth In Television, and there are many cases throughout history of mutinies happening not only on board ships, but on land as well.
Fictionally,
Pirate ships may face mutinies that are treated just as seriously as those on other ships. In
Real Life, pirates set up their ships so they could depose a captain as they pleased.
When the commanding officer does something illegal with the ship,
that's not mutiny, that's
barratry
.
Examples:
- Mutiny On The Bounty is a fictional recounting of the mutiny that went down aboard the HMS Bounty in 1789.
- The descendants of some of the mutineers still live on the island they sailed to.
- The Caine Mutiny concerns a mutiny aboard a WWII destroyer against a captain accused of cowardice and incompetence.
- Crimson Tide had a mutiny aboard a submarine during rising tensions between the United States and Russia that were set to go nuclear. Tricky, in that none of the participants are sure who the mutineer actually is, as both sides claim legitimate authority within the Articles of War governing the United States Navy.
- Pirates Of The Caribbean, a few times, notably The Black Pearl taken from Jack in the backstory.
- Battleship Potemkin. Truth In Television and a cinematic masterpiece.
- Kirk skirts this line over and over again in the new Star Trek reboot.
- HMS Defiant placed in the time of Spithead mutiny, the crew plans it from the beginning, and Dirk Bogarde's super-evil, sadistic first lieutenant gives them pretty good reason to do it.
- Treasure Island, Captain Flint's crew, under Long John Silver, rebelled in the backstory. They took over the Hispanola in the main story — although, this one was planned from the beginning, more accurately an infiltration than a mutiny.
- In F.M. Busby's Rissa Kerguelen series, spaceship crews sometimes mutiny in order to get free of their totalitarian government; we see two of these mutinies in the books.
- As Tom Clancy points out in the novel, not The Hunt For Red October. That's barratry.
- The Lost Fleet has the Glory Hound Captain Falco lead a mutiny against the Alliance fleet commander John Geary, whom he thinks is a coward. He takes off with 40 ships to break through the enemy forces. He comes back with thirteen.
- In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, the captain of the Eisenstein is told that what he is doing is mutiny. He retorts that mutiny is when the crew revolts against the captain; when a captain disobeys the commander of the fleet, it's barratry. He still, in defiance of orders, flees in order to Bring News Back of Horus's treachery.
- In the pilot of SeaQuest DSV, Commander Ford relieves Captain Stark of duty as she's about to launch a nuclear strike without just cause.
- Nearly happened a couple times during the second season of Star Trek Voyager; no surprise there, since a good number of the crewmembers were pulled from a crew that actively resisted Federation policies. A couple seasons later, Tuvok revealed that he had been preparing to counter a full-scale mutiny from Day One.
- Star Trek Enterprise. In "Hatchery" Archer becomes obsessed with protecting a Xindi insectoid hatchery at the expense of their mission to save Earth. The mutiny is plausible (at least more plausible than Star Trek: Voyager's attempts to explore this trope) as there are now two factions on NX-01 Enterprise — the by-the-book MACO's who follow the Captain's orders, and the crew who've been together long enough to realise Archer is acting strangely, and now have the self-confidence to do something about it.
- Commander Riker of Star Trek The Next Generation took his captain's side in a mutiny very early in his career; he later decided that had been the wrong call.
- Battlestar Galactica. With the support of Vice-President Zarek, Lt. Gaeta leads a full-scale armed mutiny against Admiral Adama and President Roslin.
- Exo Squad had several (yes, several) mutinies by the resident General Ripper Captain Marcus against the Big Good, Admiral Winfield. Ended every time with him taking control of the fleet and being beaten like a red-headed stepchild by whatever enemy he went against. You'd think his subordinates would learn...
- Whaddaya mean several? The first couple times he takes over the fleet is because Winfield's incapacitated. Although, he did try The Hero JT Marsh for mutiny after Marsh tried to prevent him for doing something intensely stupid.
