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Who's In Charge of What?

DEWLine

Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
That "round table" introduction of bridge crew members on "Brother" last week got me thinking: being in the alpha shift of the bridge crew isn't necessarily being a department head on the ship, right?
 
Correct--I don't think we've met the Chief Engineer or Medical Officer......has Dr Pollard been named that or is she just a doctor?
 
Here's a rundown of each bridge officer's assignment:
* Helmsman - Kayla Detmer
* Communications Officer - R.A. Bryce
* Spore Drive Operations Officer - Ariam
* Operations Officer - Joann Owosekun
* Tactical Officer - Gen Rhys
 
And even though Pike tried (and failed) to take the ranks out of the picture, let's enter them to see if these might actually be department heads or not.

Helm: Lieutenant Detmer
Comms: Lieutenant (jg) Bryce
Spore Driver: Lieutenant Commander Airiam
Ops: Lieutenant (jg) Owosekun
Tactical: Lieutenant Rhys

No Ensign Chekovs there. And LCdr Airiam is unlikely to be an underling of any sort. But otherwise we have no way of knowing if the ship's rank structure is top- or bottom-heavy yet. I mean, if all the department heads go unseen, top-heavy is a likely option. But if only the CMO is invisible and, say, Airiam is in fact the Chief Engineer, the rest of the bridge team could all be department heads and the rank distribution bottom-heavy.

It would be extremely odd IMHO for Lorca out of all people to favor juniors in his "adventure" bridge team, though. Considering his origins, he would be likely to a) insist on the highest-ranking people, the ones the most likely to scheme against him, so that he could keep a close watch over them, and b) consider low-rankers worthless sheep who'd jeopardize his quest to get the spore drive working and return home.

For all we know, this vast ship with mere 130+ people aboard, most of those weird eggheads with fantastic projects that would keep them from working the ship, simply doesn't have all that many officers to begin with, and the hierarchy is extremely flat. The stevedores and lab assistants might work five shifts (as per "Runaway"), but perhaps there are only two people trained to steer, two people trained to handle bridge comms and so forth, and most of the time these people just cover for each other, in a ship that never was expected to be taken into combat, or even into an alert where the bridge people would get busy.

Timo Saloniemi

P.S. I always get a kick out of people spelling Airiam "Airam", because that's a popular brand of lightbulbs where I live...
 
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Correct--I don't think we've met the Chief Engineer or Medical Officer......has Dr Pollard been named that or is she just a doctor?
I suspect Stamets is going to suddenly be chief engineer one day. Not that he'll be promoted, just that they'll decide he always was.
 
This unnamed guy (played by Jason Deline) is probably the Chief Medical Officer, or at least was at the time of 'Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad':

EXjhwvK.jpg


He's a commander and was supervising the Gormagander situation (probably checking to make sure there was no biohazard risk to the crew or the animal) before Mudd kept vaporizing him.
 
It would be extremely odd IMHO for Lorca out of all people to favor juniors in his "adventure" bridge team, though. Considering his origins, he would be likely to a) insist on the highest-ranking people, the ones the most likely to scheme against him, so that he could keep a close watch over them, and b) consider low-rankers worthless sheep who'd jeopardize his quest to get the spore drive working and return home.
Actually if I was going to launch an evil plan I would WANT JUCO's on my bridge. They often don't know the regs or have the guts to question senior officers. You could easily groom younger officers to become like Landry was..........extremely loyal to you, to a fault. Lt Commanders and above might buck unlawful orders or leapfrog you and report things to Starfleet.
 
I suspect Stamets is going to suddenly be chief engineer one day. Not that he'll be promoted, just that they'll decide he always was.
My bet would be on Jet for that, if she has a regular role.

It would be extremely odd IMHO for Lorca out of all people to favor juniors in his "adventure" bridge team, though. Considering his origins, he would be likely to a) insist on the highest-ranking people, the ones the most likely to scheme against him, so that he could keep a close watch over them, and b) consider low-rankers worthless sheep who'd jeopardize his quest to get the spore drive working and return home.

Lorca was a master manipulator and seemed to assemble the crew he wanted based on his experiences in the MU (and he was given a lot of leeway in that, helps to sleep with an Admiral), including, finally Burnham. MU Detmer, for instance, was a MU Burnham supporter, Killy was captain of the ISS Discovery, MU Owosekun was a Lorca faction member as was MU Landry. Hard to say if he wanted a non-human like Saru or if that was just one he couldn't shake off, or if he wanted Saru around for a celebratory feast after making it back to his own reality. "Saru, as my XO, you're looking a little thin. Eat something.. here I brought you a banana split and a couple of protein bars, take some time off."

Anyway I don't think age factored into it.
 
This unnamed guy (played by Jason Deline) is probably the Chief Medical Officer, or at least was at the time of 'Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad':

EXjhwvK.jpg


He's a commander and was supervising the Gormagander situation (probably checking to make sure there was no biohazard risk to the crew or the animal) before Mudd kept vaporizing him.
Nice spot.

I suspect Stamets is going to suddenly be chief engineer one day. Not that he'll be promoted, just that they'll decide he always was.
He's not an engineer - he doesn't even wear copper. I was expecting Jet to be chief engineer this year, but oddly absent from episode 2.
 
My bet would be on Jet for that, if she has a regular role.



Lorca was a master manipulator and seemed to assemble the crew he wanted based on his experiences in the MU (and he was given a lot of leeway in that, helps to sleep with an Admiral), including, finally Burnham. MU Detmer, for instance, was a MU Burnham supporter, Killy was captain of the ISS Discovery, MU Owosekun was a Lorca faction member as was MU Landry. Hard to say if he wanted a non-human like Saru or if that was just one he couldn't shake off, or if he wanted Saru around for a celebratory feast after making it back to his own reality. "Saru, as my XO, you're looking a little thin. Eat something.. here I brought you a banana split and a couple of protein bars, take some time off."

Anyway I don't think age factored into it.

I figured he wanted Saru because his experiences with Burnham's mutiny would make him a "yes man" XO who Lorca could steamroll.
 
Actually, a better question would be why there's an ops station and a communications station, a weapons station, at least one science station.... As the NX bridge already combined helm and primary navigation decades earlier, and arguably the Bridge station was mostly used for navigation/space sciences work anyway.
 
I have a feeling that the Ops stations on the Discovery are meant to be analogous to the Navigation station that we saw on Constitution-class vessels in the same "era".
 
Still not sure what Burnham's role on the bridge is now. Is she still listed as a specialist? Her apperances on the bridge before as specialist seemed to when she was called to the bridge. If she's there full time now, is she possibly the Deck Officer?
 
Actually if I was going to launch an evil plan I would WANT JUCO's on my bridge. They often don't know the regs or have the guts to question senior officers. You could easily groom younger officers to become like Landry was..........extremely loyal to you, to a fault. Lt Commanders and above might buck unlawful orders or leapfrog you and report things to Starfleet.

The thing there is, if Lorca chose juniors for those times he wanted to achieve things on the Bridge, but the ship still had seniors, Lorca would not win anything much. The seniors would be doubly irritated by being waltzed over and would work against Lorca pretty much like their MU counterparts, only with slightly duller knives.

So Lorca relying on people from Lt rank down IMHO shows the ship did not have people from Lt rank up.

Except for LCdr Airiam, CSecO Cdr Landry, CMO Smiling Commander Guy, and perhaps the unseen Chief Engineer and a couple of extra scientists or healers somewhere off screen and out of the action, I guess. And we know Landry was a Yes Woman, Airiam doesn't speak much, and the CMO apparently was happy as a clam with what was going on because Lorca segmented everything and kept Stamets' care secret. Which basically leaves open the CEO issue - Lorca was abusing the ship and rigging up all sorts of dirty tricks, but there's no whining from the boiler room?

Timo Saloniemi
 
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