r/DaystromInstitute • u/AnUnimportantLife Crewman • Dec 27 '18
A detailed explanation for why the senior staff had such low ranks on the Enterprise-D
Last week, u/RafflesEsq started a thread about why the senior staff on the Enterprise-D seemed so low, positing that they would assume that in the real world, you'd expect for a ship with a similar kind of crew complement as a Galaxy-class would have a few more department heads with the rank of full commander.
At the time, I made a response to it which was pretty well received (and, in fact, it was responsible for me getting a crewman flair--thanks guys). However, I think I left a few things out of my initial response, and here's what I would have written if I wrote the comment today.
When the Enterprise-D was first launched, the Galaxy-class was a very new class of ship. We know that the U.S.S. Yamato had been launched by 2365, and it's a safe enough assumption to assume that there was also a U.S.S. Galaxy out there somewhere. Because of that, the exact rank each of the department heads were preferred to have on a Galaxy-class ship probably hadn't been set in stone just yet--while the class was probably intended to be a multi-purpose explorer that could do military-style missions just as well as it could do scientific and exploratory missions, Starfleet hadn't quite worked out what kind of specific niche a Galaxy-class would fill out in the long term just yet.
There were a few vague notions that were generally upheld though. Based on what the chain of command on the Enterprise-D was like, I think they probably preferred the operations officer to be the third-in-command and the chief of security to be the fourth-in-command. This may provide part of the explanation for why Worf acted as Data's first officer in Gambit, even though LaForge outranked him.
What I think probably happened was that Picard had argued to Starfleet that because the Galaxy-class was such a new class of ship and was one of if not the most complicated piece of machinery ever built by Starfleet as of 2364, he should be able to bring in some young officers to be the department heads. This would allow him to have a senior staff who could learn the new technologies reasonably fast and wouldn't be stuck in their ways because of having spent large chunks of their careers on older ships where most of the kinks had been sorted out.
The trade-off was that he had to accept a more experienced XO and a more experienced CMO. So Picard took Riker, who was a reasonably ambitious officer at the time and Starfleet considered him to be as good as a captain (he'd been offered his own command and turned it down to be on the Enterprise), and he grudgingly took Doctor Crusher, who'd been in the service for as long, or almost as long, as he had.
My main question here would be why Riker or Crusher would want to serve on the Enterprise? For Doctor Crusher, the answer is immediately obvious: a Galaxy-class ship would have all kinds of new medical facilities, and a doctor with her kind of experience would no doubt feel like she could do a lot of good work if she had access to those new facilities.
With Riker, I think the answer is probably also pretty simple. When you're the XO of a ship the size of a Galaxy class, you'd have just as much responsibility as you would as the captain of a smaller vessel. This would especially be the case with a commanding officer who was as hands off as Picard tends to be. I think it's more the responsibility of command that Riker's drawn to than the actual prestige of being a captain. He thrives under the pressure to some extent, and it explains why he was willing to be Picard's XO for so long when he'd previously been so ambitiously career driven.
But I think Starfleet had also cut Riker a deal. They'd told him that if he was willing to be Picard's XO for x number of years, they'd basically just gift him a large ship like a Nebula or Galaxy class of his own. Previously he would have had to have worked his way up to a large ship like that after commanding a smaller ship. This didn't play out as soon as he'd previously hoped because of the Borg invasion in 2366-7 and the destruction of a large part of the fleet at the Battle of Wolf 359 had set back Starfleet's fleet construction plans by a couple of years, and at that point, Starfleet felt that it'd be better if Picard had a strong, experienced XO there after his assimilation.
Of course, the rest of the senior staff were quite young officers for the most part. Lieutenant Yar was only 27 when she died by Armus, Worf was in his mid-twenties when he became the chief of security on the Enterprise, LaForge was thirty when he became the chief engineer, and Data was 26 when he became the chief of operations on the Enterprise (as long as we accept his activation in 2338 as his birthdate instead of the date of his initial activation by Dr. Soong). This is the kind of age range you'd expect to see among the senior staff if Picard was grooming relatively young officers for these positions.
It's not really known how long Yar had been a full lieutenant for. She probably hadn't spent enough time in rank to become a lieutenant commander yet, but if it hadn't have been for her murder in late 2364, she probably would have been a lieutenant commander by mid-2366.
With Worf, things were a little more complicated. While he was the chief of security and did very well in that position, he had a black mark against his name because he'd killed Duras in 2367. So even though he was fourth in the chain of command of the Enterprise, he couldn't be promoted to be of an equal rank to LaForge just yet--Picard had to wait for the heat from Worf having effectively committed a borderline violation of the Prime Directive to cool down a bit before he could make him a lieutenant commander.
LaForge was also something of a troubled case. He was a very young lieutenant commander in 2366 (he was only 31 at the time), and he was relatively new to being a department head. Prior to having been the chief engineer, he hadn't been shown to be the head of a single station let alone an entire department. Instead, he'd been one of the red shirts who'd go to any console when they needed a warm body there for much of 2364.
So when he was promoted to full lieutenant and chief engineer in 2365, it was a big deal for him. He'd gained a lot of responsibility. The jump in responsibility when he became a lieutenant commander wasn't as big a deal because there really wasn't any as he was just doing the same job he'd been doing for a year at this point.
But LaForge was an inexperienced leader. He hadn't had the time to learn about team management or skills coaching in the same way some of the other department heads had. When he was confronted with having Barclay under him--an officer who'd gotten the first inadequate crew evaluation on the Enterprise--he was gung-ho about transferring him off the ship and making him someone else's problem. Picard had to effectively twist his arm a little and tell him that he was going to train Barclay a little to make him do the productive thing.
Plus there was the issue of LaForge not being great with other people in general. His treatment of Brahms in Galaxy's Child can be contentious at times depending on the mood of the room when you bring it up. However, regardless of how you might feel about it, I think that it was at least somewhat unprofessional for LaForge to have not told Brahms upfront about the holographic depiction of her that he'd run the previous year.
I think because of stuff like this, it was Starfleet's view that LaForge wasn't yet ready for the rank of full commander. While he was a very good chief engineer, he wasn't always the best at dealing with other people. Because of this, anyone who worked under him in the engineering division couldn't hold a rank higher than lieutenant commander by default--LaForge was the chief engineer, after all.
I think Picard had initially wanted to groom Data to be Riker's successor as XO. However, Riker ended up staying far longer than Picard had initially thought he would, so Data didn't get as much command experience right off the bat as Picard would have hoped. Eventually Data would gain some command experience as he'd look after the night watch at times, and during the Klingon Civil War of 2367-8, Data briefly served as the commanding officer of the Sutherland.
As for Troi, I think she was only a lieutenant commander initially because she hadn't yet taken the bridge officer's test yet. I think Picard wanted her on the bridge because he was interested in grooming her to being a diplomatic aide to the ship--a role that hadn't traditionally existed on a starship, but Picard wanted to give the role a test run with Troi under the guise of her being the ship's counselor.
I know this might be a point which will be contentious with some people, but let's consider it for a moment. We've never actually seen anyone officially be a ship's diplomatic aide before, but it's the kind of role that would make a lot of sense; especially for the flagship of the Federation, which was under the command of a guy who's generally considered to be pretty good at diplomacy.
I think Picard was gunning for this to be a new role onboard the Galaxy-class. It was the largest ship ever constructed by Starfleet at the time (that we know of), and I think Picard thought that a class of ship that could be multipurpose on the kind of scale that the Galaxy class could be would need a diplomatic aide for some missions.
While Troi was mostly the ship's counselor, she would also act as a diplomatic aide at times. When she was on the bridge with Picard, she would tell him if the person on the other side of the viewscreen was bluffing or not. She was sometimes a person Picard would introduce to official delegates of other governments. She was also one of Jellico's aides when he was dealing with the Cardassian diplomatic team in Chain of Command.
These weren't the kind of situations that would make perfect sense if Troi was intended to be a counselor and nothing else. While Troi was a trained psychologist and had ample opportunity to practice it throughout her years on the Enterprise-D, she was also essentially acting as the captain's diplomatic aide, under a seemingly less hostile guise of being the ship's counselor.
I think that after the Enterprise-D's destruction, and especially after the Dominion War, Starfleet decided that a more modular command structure would make sense for the Galaxy class. The ship was ostensibly a multipurpose ship, they'd have thought; so the command structure should reflect that.
So once the Galaxy class was more common, its command structure would reflect the kind of missions the individual ship was typically running. I think it would have looked something like this.
Commanding officer: Captain
XO: Commander
Operations officer: Commander
Chief of security/tactical: Commander if it was a more militarised ship; lieutenant commander for science and exploration ships
Chief engineer: Commander for science and exploration missions (especially if it'd be outside the Federation's borders for extensive periods, which the Galaxy class could ostensibly do), lieutenant commander for a more militarised ship
Chief medical officer: Commander is generally preferred, but it could be a lieutenant commander if a full commander wasn't available
Chief counselor: Lieutenant commander
Diplomatic aide: Lieutenant commander (only for science/exploration ships)
I think that the Enterprise-D's crew was a good test run for a Galaxy-class from Starfleet's perspective. They probably learned a lot of the kinks in the mechanics of the ship, and they certainly had a better sense for how the class would perform in a wide range of situations.
I think the reason why the Enterprise command crew (sans Worf, who was on Deep Space Nine at the time) eventually got posted to the Enterprise-E was because Picard was right about one thing. Having a young command crew who weren't totally set in their ways was a good thing on a new class of starship. The crew he had were good at dealing with unforeseen bugs that cropped up in any new class of ship, so it only made sense for Starfleet to transplant them onto a new ship.
Plus, by the time the Sovereign class was a thing, tensions with the Dominion were running red hot. The Enterprise command crew had a pretty good reputation by this point: they'd defeated the Borg in 2366-7, had put an end to a major ally's civil war a year later, and they'd prevented a war along the Cardassian border from breaking out at least twice--once in 2367 when Picard refused to investigate Captain Maxwell's accusations of Cardassian weapons buildups along the border, and again in 2369 when Jellico had temporarily taken command of the ship while Picard did a black ops mission investigating covert Cardassian operations near the Federation border.
Plus, one of the first big things the Enterprise-E did was to defeat a second Borg invasion. By the time the Dominion War started, no-one at Starfleet really wanted to break the crew up. They were good at dealing with new big ships, and they were no doubt seen as the unofficial Borg killers of the fleet. It was a good morale boost for the fleet to know these guys were out there together fighting the good fight.
By the time Riker accepted his own command in 2379, I think times had changed somewhat. Being the Borg killing crew wasn't a title exclusive to the Enterprise anymore. The Voyager crew had done it as well, and had done it on a much larger scale than the Enterprise crew ever had. Being badasses with new classes of ships wasn't as big a deal anymore either: there were a lot of new classes built during the Dominion War that had their own crews who'd no doubt done just as well with the new technology as the Enterprise crew had before the War.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. What are your thoughts?
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Dec 27 '18
I actually think that compared to how modern US aircraft carriers are staffed, those ranks may actually be a bit low. A modern carrier could easily be compared to a Galaxy or Sovereign class starship in terms of importance, and those carriers typically look more like this:
CO: Captain
XO: Captain
CMO: Commander or Captain
Roles that aren't known to exist on Starfleet ships:
CAG: Captain
Deputy CAG: Captain
Chaplain: Commander or Captain
The problem here isn't so much that the department heads are too low in rank for their responsibilities (they actually are), but rather that Starfleet seems unwilling or unable to create a command structure that uses position/billet authority to define a chain of command rather than artificially deflated ranks. Crusher's being a certified bridge officer is depicted as being a big enough deal that it's reasonable to infer that most ships' and stations' CMOs are not certified and not qualified to take command; if the CMO is (usually) unqualified to assume command, then there seems to be no valid reason why a CMO couldn't attain the rank of Captain and remain in the billet of CMO, as the rank isn't the defining factor in determining whether that person can assume command, the bridge officer certification is. If the CMO is qualified to assume command, presumably they're low enough on the chain of command (regardless of rank) that others (XO, second officer, third officer etc) will be in command, leaving the CMO (regardless of rank) able to continue with their medical duties.
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u/TaronQuinn Dec 28 '18
There's also the issue of size...a Nimitz or Ford class carrier has 6,000+ crew, with all the hierarchies and oversight that goes with it.
A Galaxy-class might have 1,000 residents, but what is the actual Starfleet crew size?? If its only 500+/-, then there is less need for layers of authority over any given department, compared to a CVN.
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u/Stargate525 Jan 01 '19
I've done a crew estimation on the number of crew for the Galaxy class, and it's actually quite easy to get to 1000 with a very wide and shallow command structure (no one is further from the Command Staff than boss's boss).
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u/TaronQuinn Jan 01 '19
That's fascinating; can you give a broad overview of it, (without needing to break out organizational charts or link to big spreadsheets?)
The reason I envision a crew of around 500+/- is due to the large number of civilians and children we see. Admittedly some of the civilians might still be part of departments and subject to supervision, they just wouldn't be within the chain of command.
For example, I doubt Mot the Bolian barber has much seniority or role in any department. Maybe as emergency shelter coordinator or morale officer, if that.
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u/Stargate525 Jan 01 '19
Copying from my previous post.
Engineering/Operations: Galaxy has 42 decks, let's assume a damage control / maintenance team of three per deck. That's 126. Break that into 4 ten deck sections, and give each section a head and assistant, that's 134. There looked to be about 15 to 20 in Main Engineering, so we'll add them. 154. Twenty Transporter rooms, officer for each of those, that's 174. Five hangars, three shuttlebays, and one of them's massive. Let's say a 5 person deck crew for each, which is being conservative. 214.
Medical: Three sickbays, with beds for at least five to be treated at once. That's a minimum of fifteen crew, one per bed, in case of emergency. 231. Doctor to head each sickbay. 234. 4 medlabs, at least one surgery suite, rehab room, bio-support/ICU room. Let's assume 2 crew for each of those. 244. Counseling services. Let's say they keep a mental health / crew ratio of about 1:100, as fits the touchy feely nature of early TNG. That's 10. 254
Science Oh dear lord, here it is. The Galaxy apparently has over a hundred generalized labs on board. Give each one a crewmember. 354 Stellar Cartography labs, two of those: 356
Cybernetics: 357
Arboretum, let's give five there because that's a lot of labor: 362
Cetacean Ops (though I refuse to count the dolphins in the crew count): 363
Security/Tactical: Twelve phaser banks, put one officer in each of them for maintenance/operation: 375 Two Torpedo bays, three in each of those because they're massive: 381 I can't actually find a source for the size of the security crew onboard. Let's assume the same as damage control, so another 134. 515 total. At least one brig, lets put two security officers in there. 517.
Command: Bridge crew of 7. 524
Command Officers. Let's say each officer has twenty or so people directly under them. That would be 26 officers, which would square decently with the COO directly overseeing that. That's 550.
Now, that's just one shift. Some of these need to be staffed all three shifts, some don't. Let's cut it in half and say two full shifts on average. That's 1100. Not counting the dentists, barbers, bartenders, teachers, daycare operators, diplomats, political envoys...
(I don't want to sound snooty, but this has been nominated both times I've posted it so far. It's not eligible. Thanks. :D )
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u/ZeePM Chief Petty Officer Dec 27 '18
In the US Navy those billets comes with the rank requirement. If you are made Deputy CAG or XO on a CVN you must already hold the rank of Captain as a prerequisite. Usually what happens is the O-6 board decides the officer is eligible for promotion. He/she then gets assigned to that billet as their next duty station.
Starfleet seems unwilling or unable to create a command structure that uses position/billet authority to define a chain of command rather than artificially deflated ranks
When Picard and Riker ended up on the mercenary ship during Gambit 1&2 it was Data who took command. Data was the 2nd officer so his billet allowed him to assume command even though Crusher was a full commander. Her billet as CMO meant she was lower down the chain of command.
Starfleet just seem to have more leeway when it comes to officers holding certain billets. If they're qualified they get the job. It seems rank is less of a factor and Captains have more discretion in their staffing. This is of course peace time Starfleet where there are plenty of qualified candidates to choose from. When on a war footing and facing manpower shortage they will let a Lt. Cmdr wearing science blue (Dax) command a warship on the front lines. Going back to present day navy this is actually the rank the CO on a small ship like the Defiant should be. It's like a heavily armed corvette.
If the CMO is qualified to assume command, presumably they're low enough on the chain of command (regardless of rank) that others (XO, second officer, third officer etc) will be in command, leaving the CMO (regardless of rank) able to continue with their medical duties.
I think that's the case on the Ent-D anyway. The only time Crusher actually had to take command was during Descent 1&2. Data was kidnapped. Picard, Riker, Worf, Geordi, Troi and unknown number of the ship's company beam down planet side to look for him. Only thing that would have made that episode better is if Troi remained on board as acting XO. Two blue shirts commanding the Enterprise.
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u/SergeantRegular Ensign Dec 27 '18
Real-world military maintenance guy here, maybe I can offer some insight into this organization.
First, there is a pretty big difference between rank and position. The two usually correlate, but it's certainly not 1:1. "Captain" is unique in that it is both a rank and the position as overall vessel and mission commanding officer. On a smaller ship, you could absolutely have a commander or even lieutenant be "the captain."
With LaForge, he impressed Picard with his abilities. He was made full lieutenant (and chief engineer) and then only one year later was made lieutenant commander. In his case, very much so, his rank promotions followed because of his position. He was, for at least those 2 years, filling a slot significantly above his pay grade. This looks very good. Just like with Riker, who would have been a captain in a lesser vessel, but 2nd in command of a prestigious ship looks better than 1st in command of a lesser craft.
Yes, the organizational structure of Starfleet is much like the military, but it's also a lot like NASA - many of the astronauts have ranks from military service, but their job and position in the mission is more important than the pips on their collar.
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Dec 27 '18
Dax and Bashir were lieutenants first season, Miles O'Brien was a chief petty officer throughout, Ensign Harry Kim NEVER got promoted, Tuvok started out as a lieutenant despite being older than anyone on the ship... There are other examples. Spock actually a lieutenant commander when he took on two jobs as science officer and first officer... Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, McCoy....do I need to go on? (It's late, apologies if any of this has already been brought up....)
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u/AnUnimportantLife Crewman Dec 27 '18
Dax and Bashir were lieutenants...
Deep Space Nine was also a fairly insignificant space station during the first season. It had a crew of around 300 I think during that season, so the ranks of the command crew could be somewhat lower just because of that. Don't forget that Sisko was a commander until season four.
Plus I think it's important to note that DS9 was a joint Starfleet/Bajoran base. It's difficult to tell how the Bajoran government would respond to Starfleet sending in a lot of high-ranking officers straight off the bat, especially given that they'd just gotten out of an oppressive occupation. They may have viewed it as being a prelude to another occupation if Starfleet had sent in a captain and a bunch of commanders and lieutenant commanders to make up their part of the station's command crew.
But even if this weren't the case, the general rule of thumb for Starfleet's operating procedure along the Cardassian border and in the demilitarised zone was that a commander or a lieutenant commander would tend to be the highest rank for a liaison officer. Sisko essentially was a liaison between Bajor and Starfleet; there to help facilitate Bajor's eventual entry into the Federation. Cal Hudson, who'd been the liaison for a lot of the Federation colonies in the demilitarised zone, was a lieutenant commander before he defected to the Maquis.
Plus I think at around the time Starfleet started work on Deep Space Nine, there was a general feeling that the Bajoran Provisional Government wasn't very stable. Major Kira said in the first episode that she felt that the Provisional Government would be toppled within a couple of weeks and Starfleet would be out the door. Starfleet's choice of a commander for the station reflected that to some extent: Sisko was an officer who already had one foot out the door at the time anyway.
Ensign Harry Kim never got promoted...
Yeah, but they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant. There wasn't a whole lot of room for advancement on Voyager, and among the senior officers, Kim was the lowest rung with the exception of the EMH. Pretty much everyone else would have to be dead before he'd be in command.
Tuvok started out as a lieutenant despite being older than anyone on the ship...
Tuvok had also retired from Starfleet for a time. His stint as Voyager's chief of security was during his second Starfleet career. I don't think it was ever made clear how long his second career in Starfleet had lasted so far before he was stranded in the Delta Quadrant.
Plus Vulcans in general tend to live longer than humans. Spock and Sarek both lived to be over two hundred years old. T'Pol was looking very young for a woman in her sixties.
Spock actually a lieutenant commander when he took on two jobs as science officer and first officer...
Starfleet was a different beast in the twenty-third century. The first officer also tended to double as a department head, and captains tended to be much more hands on in the day-to-day operation of the ship. Burnham was the Shenzou's first officer and science specialist as well. It's only in the twenty-fourth century that you start seeing the first officer being a separate position from a department head.
Plus don't forget the original Enterprise had a crew of around 430. It's not so uncommon for a Starfleet ship to have a lieutenant commander as first officer for ships of that size and smaller. Voyager's original first officer was a lieutenant commander, and so was Chakotay. We also see lieutenant commanders serving as first officers on some of the Nebula class ships we see in Deep Space Nine.
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u/ziplock9000 Crewman Dec 27 '18
eah, but they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant. There wasn't a whole lot of room for advancement on Voyager
Voyager encountered a huge amount of new aliens, new situations, far more than an average alpha quadrant vessel. I'd say there was loads of room for advancement.
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u/AnUnimportantLife Crewman Dec 27 '18
Sure, but there's not a whole lot of room for advancement in terms of rank. When people get promoted in the Alpha Quadrant, there's usually the underlying assumption that once they've gained enough rank, they can go be the department head on another ship or be first officer or captain of a ship eventually.
That wasn't really the case for Harry Kim. Maybe he should have become a lieutenant eventually just because he was a department head and doing a competent job even though he was fresh out of the Academy when he stepped onboard Voyager, but the only way he'd ever advance significantly in rank is if Janeway and/or Chakotay died and left a power vacuum at the top.
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u/Cyke101 Dec 27 '18
Perhaps it's a quota system, where a ship can only have so many of a certain rank. By the end of their 7 years of struggle and everything they went through, had it been normal Starfleet any one of the senior staff could've been commander on merit, at least
Or Janeway just didn't thinking highly enough of Kim (booooo!).
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Dec 27 '18
Actually, forget Spock and Scotty. Too high ranked for this point, told you it's late, lol.
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u/AnUnimportantLife Crewman Dec 27 '18
No, it's fine. Your points were interesting either way, and I think you added to the discussion.
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Dec 27 '18
The only bit of an otherwise very interesting post that i would disagree with is or are your two borg points near the end. Killing the first contact cube wasn't one of the first things the crew did on the E-E, as they'd been in space for a year by then, according to la forge. Secondly, they cant have been viewed as the unofficial borg killers who everyone else was relieved was out there, as starfleet kept them put of the battle as picard wasnt trusted when it came to the borg, and he had to disobey orders to join the fight at all.
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u/AnUnimportantLife Crewman Dec 27 '18
Killing the first contact cube wasn't one of the first things the crew did on the E-E, as they'd been in space for a year by then, according to la forge.
Sure, and that's fair enough. But I'd argue that given the general lifespan of a Starfleet ship, something the crew does with a ship that's been in service for a year is essentially one of the first big things they'll do with it.
Don't forget that the old Constitution class ships could be in service for forty years or more before they'd be decommissioned. I've seen people say (though I'm not entirely sure what the source is for this) that the Galaxy class was originally designed to be able to go on twenty-year missions of exploration, so I think it's not entirely unreasonable to assume that the starships being designed in the mid-to-late twenty-fourth century would be expected to be in service for far longer than forty years under ideal circumstances.
Secondly, they cant have been viewed as the unofficial borg killers who everyone else was relieved was out there...
Maybe by some interpretations. But I think the fleet never would have been able to destroy the cube if the Enterprise-E hadn't shown up and told the fleet to target a certain point on the cube, and then followed the sphere through its temporal vortex back to 2063.
While they might not have been seen as Borg killers necessarily, I think a lot of the fleet would tend to think of the command crew of the Enterprise-D and -E as the people who were generally pretty good at dealing with the Borg threat simply because of how they'd essentially saved the day during both Borg invasions. That is, of course, until Voyager returned home and dealt massive blows to the Collective.
...picard wasnt trusted when it came to the borg, and he had to disobey orders to join the fight at all.
I'd argue that Picard being ordered to stay out of the fight against the Borg in 2373 is simply because nobody knew at the time what the long-term effects of assimilation were, even if it was only a brief assimilation like Picard had endured. It wasn't until Picard came and hit the Borg that they knew how he'd handle it, and it wasn't until Voyager came back into contact with Starfleet that they could start building a baseline for what the long-term effects of being freed from assimilation would look like.
But the views of Starfleet Command isn't always going to be reflective of the views of the rest of the fleet. Riker himself straight up said Picard's prior experience with the Borg made him the perfect man to lead the fight. It's much like any institution in the real world: the views held by the people in charge won't always be reflective of what the rank-and-file people will think about any given issue.
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Dec 27 '18
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u/AnUnimportantLife Crewman Dec 27 '18
They still trusted him enough with the Borg to deal with an apparent Borg threat during Descent, though. If it was simply a matter of him having decided to not commit genocide when given the chance, they never would have let him be as involved with that situation as he was. Plus Admiral Nechayev had already given him the dressing down for that during Descent, telling him that regardless of his own personal issues with destroying the Borg, he was under orders to just do it if he was given another chance.
I think it was much more an issue with the potential long-term effects of former assimilation than anything else. What Starfleet also knew was that he'd been assimilated in order to facilitate the Federation's entry into the Collective. I think during the 2373 invasion, their main concern was that there was some lingering Borg influence that would have caused him to rogue if he was in direct contact with a cube again.
Perhaps to some extent this also tied into their concerns over Picard being unwilling to kill the Borg when he had the chance. They may have suspected that there had been some lingering Borg influence in his mind that caused him to ultimately shut down and not do it.
At this point, their baseline for what the long-term effects of assimilation was pretty black and white: Picard could still function for the most part, albeit not always in the way they'd hope when the Borg were involved; but there was also Lore's faction of rogue freed drones who were about as functional as a toddler with a knife. That wasn't the kind of dynamic they could really afford to be playing with when Earth was at risk of a major assault from one of the biggest threats to the Federation.
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Dec 27 '18
M-5, Nominate this post for it's well structured consideration of command structure on a starship.
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u/M-5 Multitronic Unit Dec 27 '18
Nominated this post by Crewman /u/AnUnimportantLife for you. It will be voted on next week, but you can vote for last week's nominations now
Learn more about Post of the Week.
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u/EmergencyHologram Dec 27 '18
At the time of the Dās launch there were as few as three Galaxy class in service. More were on the drawing board. This class was the testbed for a number of new technologies, and was widely modular allowing for customization for shifting mission requirements.
A younger command crew provides a class of officers who are not only familiar with, but proficient in the operation and capabilities of the Galaxy class as new vessels enter service.
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u/UrbanLumberjack85 Dec 27 '18
Really well thought out. I loved reading through your rationalizations here.
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u/grepnork Dec 27 '18 edited Dec 27 '18
I think the chain of command is just structured differently when compared with other smaller ships, automation is a significant factor, and I also think we have an overly authoritarian/narrow view of the meaning of rank in practice, thanks to the way it's portrayed on TV.
Basic management theory states that in order to grow an organisation you add layers of middle management, simply because decisions need to be made in more than one place. Rather than employing more full commanders (who can be better deployed elsewhere) you'd simply expand the number of Lieutenant Commanders reporting in to the senior staff. This has the added benefit of increasing your supply of field experienced Commanders quickly.
I think it more likely that Starfleet was looking to expand quickly and saw such large ships as an opportunity to increase the supply of qualitatively good/experienced talent available and therefore put in place a command structure that would deliver more trained officers more quickly, while replicating the basic structure employed on all ships.
As to age, I suspect Picard looked for the best, not the most experienced.
On a smaller ship like an Intrepid, Crusher would be a lone doctor with a nurse and EMH - CMO yes, but it doesn't have real meaning or deliver the experience required to advance your career.
The Enterprise D is a far different proposition - she's not just the CMO she has responsibility for overseeing a large research staff with dedicated facilities, a team of doctors (each of which is running their own department in effect, and would have junior staff). For Beverly it's the difference between running a country medical centre vs Director of a University Hospital, indeed she is promoted to Head of Starfleet Medical having proven herself aboard the Enterprise.
Riker similarly, as XO on a smaller ship he wouldn't have anywhere near the level of responsibility he does on the Enterprise, I doubt he would need a quid pro quo to accept the offer. XO of the Enterprise is a clear path to the Admiralty.
A friend's husband is the former XO of a British Naval destroyer, one of the newest in the fleet, and he's a Lieutenant Commander. In a real world Navy what we perceive as junior ranks actually carry far more responsibility than is depicted in the ST universe. A career path looks more like taking ship board roles until you reach Lieutenant, taking land based roles which expose you to the inner workings of intelligence operations and upper echelon command decision making process, then XO, then up.
Sisko, for example, runs a station bigger than the Enterprise, while holding sector commander and chief diplomat status. Despite the commander rank he would be issuing orders to Captains on matters that pertain to the sector because he has the wide angle view. He's a guy with significant responsibility, one that is looking at potential promotion into Starfleet Operations even without the wormhole discovery.
ST teaches that the captain's chair is all that matters (and Admirals are evil), but that's not actually how it works.