Riker's Age and Career Path

[Mojochi]

I agree. For a guy who gave up so much in personal life costs in order to achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a captain, and then for him to turn down so many opportunities is just silly and completely suspends belief.

I think it actually helps to look at the entire Riker arc (Unintentional though it may be) I use to think they way you do, but now I look at how they rounded out the character (& yes, I'm even including TaTV) It's clear that his experience on the Pegasus was a skeleton in his closet for him. It haunted him. That he was a go-getter as a young man, who may have built his fast & impressive early career trajectory on the recommendations of a corrupt captain who covered up their blame, & drove himself to stand out heroically, because of the guilt of having played a role in the deaths of so many on that ship, could be the very reason why once he was in position to actually claim that prize of being a Starfleet superstar young captain, he subconsciously shunned it out of a feeling that he didn't deserve it

You can even retcon him getting back together with Troi into that, being that she was the one who helped him deal with his guilt over the Pegasus, which shortly thereafter led to him finally taking command of the Titan

 

[MAGolding]

I don't know TOS that well but wasn't it said that Kirk was the youngest person to be made captain? Was it said how old he was?

So if someone joins the academy out of high school at 18, spends 4 years there and then gets a posting as an ensign at the age of about 22....8 years later he's turning down offers to be a captain. That seems very fast.

In modern US service academies the official age range for entry is 17.0 to 22.0, I believe, though being a high school graduate is required. Thus after a four year course one would be graduated aged about 21.0 to 26.0. And during war some cadets are graduated earlier. A relative of mine entered West Point on his 17th birthday and was commissioned aged 20 years and a few weeks. I believe that in times of war during the 20th century there have been a few even younger graduates.

Anyway, according to the official (but not canonical and somewhat flawed) chronology:

Scott was born in 2222.
McCoy was born in 2227.
Spock was born in 2230.
Kirk was born in 2233.
Sulu was born in 2237.
Uhura was born in 2239.
Chekov was born in 2245.
"The Cage" 2254.
"Where No Man has Gone Before" 2265.
First season TOS. 2266-2267.
Second season TOS 2267-68.
Third season TOS 2268-2269.

Thus in the second season the official chronology makes Scott 45/46, McCoy 40/41, Spock 37/38, Kirk 34/35, Sulu 30/31, Uhura 28/29, Chekov 22/23.

I believe the official but not canonical chronology makes Kirk become captain of the Enterprise age 30/91 in 2264.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

In Starfleet, when you have all sorts of species joining whose chronological age does not equal maturity, you could have an alien who's two Earth years old joining, because mentally and physically (according to their race) they're mature enough. NuChekov is said to have entered the academy as a 14 year old genius in a YA book.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I had the impression Riker was very young for a first officer on the flagship and got strings pulled for him by that admiral, Pressman, who was working on the cloaking device with.

His career stalling only happened when he turned down a promotion which is something you normally DO NOT DO unless you're torpedoing your own career.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I had the impression Riker was very young for a first officer on the flagship and got strings pulled for him by that admiral who was working on the cloaking device with.

Maybe also because of the fact his father was an admiral.

His career stalling only happened when he turned down a promotion which is something you normally DO NOT DO unless you're torpedoing your own career.

I'm not sure he was that young for the role, he was 11 years in service when he joined the E-D, that's a little early for Commander, but well in the zone for Lieutenant Commander.

Kyle Riker wasn't an admiral, he was a civilian "strategic attache" (probably attached to the Federation Security Agency). However, he agree that he might have contacts he was able to use to mitigate the "Pegasus Incident" until Riker threw it away because he "got comfortable" on the E-D.

 

[Mojochi]

I kind of got a feeling, but can't really be sure. It seems like his time on Betazed, while I'm sure fruitful for his relationship with Deanna, was a bit if a drag on his career. By the time he left out of there, with little to show for it. He was 4 years into his career & still an Ensign. I also feel like he was ditched there for so long as a way to let the Pegasus dust settle. Out of sight. Out of mind.

Basically, that promotion to lieutenant & posting on the Potemkin was his 1st real chance to get back into the game, after Pegasus. One could suspect Pressman had a lot to do with that course of Will's career (Shut your mouth, hide out for a bit, & you'll get a promotion & good posting). Oddly enough, that mishap on Nervala IV got him promoted & decorated for valor, which led to his posting as XO on the Hood

That's the rising star aspect to Will's career. He stalled at ensign for 4 years after Pegasus, but in the following 4 years, he went from Ensign on an outpost to being offered command of the Drake. That's enough to quake anybody in their boots

 

[flandry84]

Having been through the experience of a ‘bad’ captain like Pressman,it makes sense to me that Will would spend as much time as he could under the tutelage of a man of Picard’s moral integrity.

That said,Will would never have revealed anything about the Pegasus debacle had Pressman not re-entered the scene..so....

 

[Mojochi]

Having been through the experience of a ‘bad’ captain like Pressman,it makes sense to me that Will would spend as much time as he could under the tutelage of a man of Picard’s moral integrity

It also makes me think a lot of the heroics he is known for aboard the Potemkin & Hood were him overcompensating for some shame about Pegasus. The same overcompensation might also explain his elitist behavior we see on Enterprise

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

In Generations, when Will said, "I always thought I'd get a shot at this chair one day," I wonder if he was also thinking, 'Maybe I should have let you lead more away missions, after all.'

 

[TommyR01D]

Although it's well established behind the scenes that Starfleet is based on the United States Navy and so precedent from that institution can be used to fill in gaps between canonical sources, in-universe there is no reason that a 24th-century spacefaring fleet containing crews from several entire planets must exactly resemble a 20th-century seafaring fleet for one country.

Given that humans in the future are shown to live quite a bit longer (and age more gracefully) than humans in today's world, plus the mixing in of other races with longer lifespans (Vulcans, for example), we would expect the ages at whatever rank to have inflated substantially compared to modern standards.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

The best source for the average rank progression would seem to be Data's explanation in Datalore (TNG):

LORE: Promises he later proved to be true. Which made you and me possible, brother. Our beloved father. Will I soon have a uniform like that, brother?
DATA: If you get one the way I did, Lore, it will mean four years at the Academy, another three as ensign, ten or twelve on varied space duty in the lieutenant grades.

So assuming at potential officers enter at 18 Earth Years Old (EYO), then the average ages would be:

Ensign: 22 EYO (+0)
Lieutenant JG: 25 EYO (+3)
Lieutenant: 30 to 31 EYO (est +8 to +9)
Lieutenant Commander: 35 to 37 EYO (+13 to +15).

This would suggest that Geordi LaForge as LT-JG @ 28 EYO, a LT @ 30 EYO is fairly typical, although his almost immediate promotion to LTCDR is odd, and in fact probably shouldn't have taken place until he was assigned to the E-E in the 2370s.

However, Riker, who probably overlapped with LaForge's Academy years, appears to have had a positively lightning speed of promotion as he has Commander rank and a relatively high-profile billet after only seven to nine years out of the Academy, whereas the timeline above suggests he should have been a Lieutenant at best. Admittedly, this is/may also be true of Jim Kirk as according to Data he should only be a LTCDR not a (junior) Captain.