Dating "The Cage" - When does it ACTUALLY take place?

[Timo]

The use of the TOS movie era jumpsuits to tell apart non-officers is probably fallacy - TOS set the precedent of officers like Kyle or Uhura also wearing jumpsuits on occassion, and TNG/DS9/VOY followed suite. And then we have ST:NEM where a Cadet wears the jumpsuit complete with the black collar.

Rather, we might prefer to believe in a Starfleet where equality is being furthered by giving everybody the same uniform. One just gets to wear officer indicators with it if one flaunts the special training associated with the rank - otherwise one is Crew or NCO, and the latter only warrants extra attention in very, very special cases in the 24th century and perhaps in the 23rd as well.

Now, such a system definitely is futuristic. Not for the equality angle, but for the implication that officers are the ones to have special training worth advertising. Today, it's the common folks who have narrow specialities that make a difference. Today, Picard would wish to know whether Crewman Tarses knows his astrobiology or impulse engines, before Picard starts to care about whether Tarses outranks his colleague Featherses or vice versa. Tomorrow, Picard apparently doesn't care - but he doesn't care about the outranking issue, either, as there is no hierarchical status indicator on the crew, either.

The lack of the latter suggests to me that the presence of the latter on officers isn't for sheer idle hierarchy (after all, regardless of their collar pips, our hero officers are buddies, not superiors and inferiors) but for the clearance to command because one knows better. Which is weird, because we don't truly get the impression the latter would be true, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FreddyE]

You can't dwell too much on real-world aging like that. I mean, regardless of what the Okudachron claims, less than a year of story time elapses between TWOK and TFF (maybe a couple of weeks tops from TWOK to TSFS, three months from there to TVH, an unspecified amount of time for the trial and exoneration, and then, according to Harve Bennett, a 6-month shakedown cruised between TVH and TFF), but the actors visibly age 7 years' worth during that time. And the TNG cast are visibly older in the flashback portions of "All Good Things..." than they were during "Encounter at Farpoint," even Data. And let's not even think about "These Are the Voyages..." vis-a-vis "The Pegasus."

To bad we can't solve the "aging problem" like Doctor Who and just say its because of "shorting out the time differencial", eh? ;-)

 

[SolarisOne]

Two NCO ranks were specified below Ensign. I like that better than the concept of enlisted personnel. IIRC, somewhere in TMoST there's a line about all astronauts being officers.

FYI: Nommissioned Officers are just senior enlisted personnel. They're not actual officers.

 

[SolarisOne]

I don't understand the question. One is the next step up from the other, so how can it not be outranking?

Then again, Wikipedia says that both ensign and lt. j.g. are OF-1 and full lt. is OF-2. How can two ranks have the same number?

That's the NATO classification, which is different from the U.S. paygrade system, because it has to take into account the differing rank structures between the member nations. The NATO classification determines order of precedence during joint operations. So, for example, if we had WWIII, any OF-2 would outrank any OF-1, regardless of the relative number of ranks encompassed by those two grades in their home countries.

In the United States, Ensign and LTJG are indeed two separate ranks, and occupy the U.S. O-1 and O-2 paygrades, respectively.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

FYI: Nommissioned Officers are just senior enlisted personnel. They're not actual officers.

Yeah, actually they are officers. They're not commissioned officers, hence the term "non-commissioned officer."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_(armed_forces)

An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority.

In its broadest sense, the term "officer" includes non-commissioned officers and warrant officers. However, when used without further detail, the term "officer" almost always refers to commissioned officers, the more senior portion of a force who derive their authority from a commission from the head of state of a sovereign nation-state.​

 

[SolarisOne]

Yeah, actually they are officers. They're not commissioned officers, hence the term "non-commissioned officer."

The point is, the comment I was replying to implied that NCOs aren't enlisted personnel, but they are. As can be attested to by any NCO who has had to deal with an O-1 boot straight out of an Academy (or ROTC or OCS) acting all uppity because O-1 technically outranks E-whatever, even though the NCO has been serving for far longer. (At which point, the NCO very politely counsels the O-1 to stay in their lane.)

There is a very strong delineation between enlisted and commissioned.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The point is, the comment I was replying to implied that NCOs aren't enlisted personnel, but they are.

No, I didn't imply that at all. As I elaborated on elsewhere in the thread, I was simply floating a way to fit the square peg of the fact that enlisted personnel were seen on TOS into the round hole of The Making of Star Trek declaring that only officers served aboard NCC-1701, with the suggestion that perhaps only sufficiently experienced and capable enlisted personnel could serve on a starship of that class, while also pointing out that that's regardless reflected in the TMP rank scheme.

 

[SolarisOne]

No, I didn't imply that at all. As I elaborated on elsewhere in the thread, I was simply floating a way to fit the square peg of the fact that enlisted personnel were seen on TOS into the round hole of The Making of Star Trek declaring that only officers served aboard NCC-1701, with the suggestion that perhaps only sufficiently experienced and capable enlisted personnel could serve on a starship of that class, while also pointing out that that's regardless reflected in the TMP rank scheme.

I misinterpreted you, then.

That would actually track with the real-life Navy. There are far more Petty Officers than all three "Seaman" ranks combined, with PO2 (E-5) being the largest portion of the enlisted pie.

 

[J.T.B.]

Speaking of the "all officers" idea, a USAF major has written an opinion piece that proposes eliminating not just officer and enlisted classifications, but traditional ranks as well. Personnel would be grouped into "tactical," "operational" and "strategic" levels, and instead of being promoted grade by grade, would be appointed to jobs with suitable authority based on expertise, experience and qualification. Interesting ideas, for sure.

 

[Christopher]

Speaking of the "all officers" idea, a USAF major has written an opinion piece that proposes eliminating not just officer and enlisted classifications, but traditional ranks as well. Personnel would be grouped into "tactical," "operational" and "strategic" levels, and instead of being promoted grade by grade, would be appointed to jobs with suitable authority based on expertise, experience and qualification. Interesting ideas, for sure.

That is interesting. As a writer looking for ideas, I'm curious about the specifics of how such a "post-rank" system might be organized, e.g. what titles would be used for the people in different positions. If they aren't called, say, Captain, Commander, Lieutenant, etc., what would they be called instead? Or would it be like civilian organizations where they're just addressed by name and have job titles in addition to that?

 

[J.T.B.]

That is interesting. As a writer looking for ideas, I'm curious about the specifics of how such a "post-rank" system might be organized, e.g. what titles would be used for the people in different positions. If they aren't called, say, Captain, Commander, Lieutenant, etc., what would they be called instead? Or would it be like civilian organizations where they're just addressed by name and have job titles in addition to that?

Yeah, good question. I think there will have to be some kind of outward manifestations of authority for military discipline to operate, but it seems like you'd have to start fresh and jettison any "baggage" associated with the old titles. Maybe more functional like "supervising technician" or "group sub-leader." Maybe just level letters and numbers, and over time people would get used to them and titles like "tee-five" and "oh-three" would be as familiar and well-understood as sergeant and captain.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Depending on the task at hand, authority might be passed around like a hat (or in this case, a badge). It might be disorienting, however, to have the guy lowest down on the food chain for the surveying mission this week be the big boss in the first contact mission next week, with all the due respect afforded to them based on their experience.

You might also borrow terms from other languages, or invent new ones based upon the insignia used.

Or would it be like civilian organizations where they're just addressed by name and have job titles in addition to that?

Acronyms that turn into words, like if "CEO" became "Chee-oh". (Chee for "chief")

 

[ZapBrannigan]

You can't dwell too much on real-world aging like that. I mean, regardless of what the Okudachron claims, less than a year of story time elapses between TWOK and TFF (maybe a couple of weeks tops from TWOK to TSFS, three months from there to TVH, an unspecified amount of time for the trial and exoneration, and then, according to Harve Bennett, a 6-month shakedown cruised between TVH and TFF), but the actors visibly age 7 years' worth during that time. And the TNG cast are visibly older in the flashback portions of "All Good Things..." than they were during "Encounter at Farpoint," even Data. And let's not even think about "These Are the Voyages..." vis-a-vis "The Pegasus."

For those of us who haven't memorized 800 spin-off episodes, and far from it, what was the conflict between "These Are the Voyages..." and "The Pegasus"?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The Riker and Troi scenes from the former were supposed to take place during the events of the latter, but the actors were visibly older in the former than they were in the latter and the episodes that followed.

 

[Christopher]

For those of us who haven't memorized 800 spin-off episodes, and far from it, what was the conflict between "These Are the Voyages..." and "The Pegasus"?

Aside from the age issue mentioned above (which is superficial -- the events of ST II through V take less than a year of story time, but the actors age visibly between them), it's difficult to fit the events of TATV into the storyline of "The Pegasus." TATV shows Riker making his own decision to tell Picard the truth about the cloaking experiment and the fate of the ship, but "The Pegasus" has him forced by circumstances into revealing the secret. It's also hard to see where Riker would've had the time or inclination to watch a holodeck program during the events of "The Pegasus."

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Maybe it happened in an alternate timeline...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Aside from the age issue mentioned above (which is superficial -- the events of ST II through V take less than a year of story time, but the actors age visibly between them), it's difficult to fit the events of TATV into the storyline of "The Pegasus." TATV shows Riker making his own decision to tell Picard the truth about the cloaking experiment and the fate of the ship, but "The Pegasus" has him forced by circumstances into revealing the secret. It's also hard to see where Riker would've had the time or inclination to watch a holodeck program during the events of "The Pegasus."

Maybe there's another framing device that we can't see, and TATV was Riker's daydream of what he wished had happened during the events of "The Pegasus."

 

[Mytran]

TATV was a publicity stunt that Capt Riker & his new wife agreed to do in order to promote a friend's holonovel series, a series based (loosely) on the logs of the real Jonathan Archer

 

[uniderth]

"These Are The Voyages" and the rest of the Enterprise series aren't canon and should just be ignored. Kinda like the Star Wars Holiday Special.

That's the explaination I go with.

 

[Kor]

And to me, TNG isn't part of the TOS canon. So the whole discussion of TATV is moot.

Kor