Starfleeters?

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by DavidGutierrez, Oct 3, 2013.

  1. starburst

    starburst Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Starfleet Officer, Starfleet is made up of Commissioned and Non-Commissioned Officers. In some of the shows, mainly Voyager and Enterprise, they labelled the generic characters as Crewmen (even when some of them have rank)

    Its the military today who get hung up between Officer and NCO(fficer) ranks and who gets called an Officer.
     
  2. Use of Time

    Use of Time Commodore Commodore

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    All enlisted personnel are not called NCO's. An NCO is an enlisted person that achives the E-4 grade in the Navy and E-5 grade in the Army. Enlisted personnel below that are not NCO's. That is probably why "crewman" in Starfleet is most likely similar to "seamen" in the Navy or "Private" in the Army.

    That is why I disagree with the term "officers" as a catch all. That and most enlisted personnel hate to be mistaken for officers.
     
  3. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    It's seems to be exactly this. Although they are similar, they're ultimately different services with different terms and values.
     
  4. iguana_tonante

    iguana_tonante Admiral Admiral

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    How many Starfleet members do you personally know? Have you asked them?
     
  5. Use of Time

    Use of Time Commodore Commodore

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    HA!
     
  6. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    There are plenty at any convention... but all of them are officers.... captains usually. ;)
     
  7. Sigokat

    Sigokat Commander Red Shirt

    All true, but in the Army an E-4 can be an NCO if he/she is a Corporal. Yes it is a lateral promotion and the pay grade is the same, but he/she does wear stripes and is referred to as an NCO.
     
  8. Use of Time

    Use of Time Commodore Commodore

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    Yep, forgot about the CPL. I rarely encountered them during my tenure but yes they are very much NCO's.
     
  9. Sigokat

    Sigokat Commander Red Shirt

    Yeah it all depends on if the unit has CPL billets. I see them every once in a while and I used to think CPL was reserved for combat arms MOSs, but I have seen a few 42A CPLs and I think even a Supply one once.
     
  10. J.T.B.

    J.T.B. Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    OK, thanks. Any specific episodes?

    It does raise the question of why the same word would be used in two different ways, one that includes everyone and one that does not. But like a lot of issues dealing with Starfleet enlisted personnel, they made it up as they went along so there are bound to be inconsistencies.

    I don't think we can assume all enlisted personnel are non-commissioned or petty officers, which has historically meant a position of some technical and/or leadership experience. And "crewman" is apparently a rank or class of rank: "crewman first class" is used in "The Drumhead."
     
  11. neozeks

    neozeks Captain Captain

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    Eh, it's not like real life organizations always use consistent terminology (because of tradition, accident or whatever other reason). Strictly speaking the current system isn't completely logical either. Commissioned officers are officers but non-commissioned officers aren't. The word "officer" is part of both terms. But when used on it's own it's understood that it refers only to commissioned officers. So one could raise the question of why a generic word is used to refer to only one more specific version of it and not to the other.