• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Was there anyone in DS9 with the rank of Commodore?

So? What makes this star a rank indicator? We never saw anybody wearing a number differing from one!

Kirk's sleeve braid certainly suggests "flag rank zero plus one", so even if the epaulet star is a "countable", it apparently just stands for the "plus one" bit. A Commodore woul have the broad braid without the narrow "plus one" - perhaps his epaulets would be empty. But just as possibly the star stands for flag status or SF Command position (it being quite similar to that flower thing worn for the apparent latter purpose in TOS) and not for rank at all.

Timo Saloniemi
 
According to my Aubrey/Maturin books, "Commodore" was only a temporary command title for a mission. The Commodore, for all essential purposes, is an Admiral over a small fleet, but he does not rate a separate Captain for command of his own ship, and something to do with division of prize money where he has to give a portion to the commanding Admiral over the region.

Maybe Starfleet made the rank more permanent, but maybe both Commodore Decker and Commodore Wesley were only temporary in rank: an extended mission for Decker; and only for the M-5 exercise for Wesley.
That may be in the RN, but for the early US Navy did not have admirals, and relied on the rank of commodore for their flag officer rank. The government was wary of a position that had often been aristocratic in Europe. The Continental Navy did not have admirals originally, nor did the Revenue Cutter Service. The US Navy did not get admirals until the civil war, and it did not get rid of commodores entirely until almost 100 years later.
 
You know I never got the impression that Decker and Wesley were temporary Commodores. I mean Wesley was probably in temporary command since he had the starfleet command insignia But decker could’ve been in permanent command.
This article helps.
https://www.startrek.com/article/starfleet-insignia-explained ( I know it’s just a theory. But it’s a good one. And yes I know it does not include the defiant mission patch from in a mirror darkly but remember that was recont.)
 
Well, Starfleet had a pretty graphic rank identifier for Commodore in TOS...

My memory is fuzzy here, and I certainly could be wrong, but wasn't Komack wearing the same rank stripe as the TOS Commodores?
 
My memory is fuzzy here, and I certainly could be wrong, but wasn't Komack wearing the same rank stripe as the TOS Commodores?
I don’t think we ever saw Komack stripes
The only stripes we saw were
Fitz Patrick
And while we did not get a great picture you could tell if you passed it but he has a stripe above the Thick stripe and one below it. Which according to Thiess costume notes in a vice admiral insigna (although he is just address as admiral)
Here’s a clear picture
Well since the picturein my phone photo album it won’t let me post it. But it clearly shows the admiral insignia
 
Last edited:
I don’t think we ever saw Komack stripes
The only stripes we saw were
Fitz Patrick
And while we did not get a great picture you could tell if you passed it but he has a stripe above the Thick stripe and one below it. Which according to Thiess costume notes in a vice admiral insigna (although he is just address as admiral)
Here’s a clear picture

Thanks!
 
No admiral stripes were seen in TOS. Admiral Fitzpatrick's appearance in "The Trouble with Tribbles" is on a tabletop viewscreen and only his head and shoulders are visible. A costume with insignia was made, though, and can be seen in some blooper reel footage, but the stripes are never seen in the episode.
 
The Fitzpatrick stripes did not go unnoticed, though: in the 2009 movie, Admiral Pike in his wheelchair wears the three thin stripes appropriate for his four-star rank (as per the epaulets) in the distinct TOS order, one below and two above the thick "flag" band - and not in the otherwise de rigeur real-world order of all three above.

How Pike jumped from Captain braid to full Admiral braid in that apparently short time is not explained. Of course, Kirk went from fresh Lieutenant to full Captain in that same time, so we might argue it was a fairly long and eventful interval - possibly several years if need be. But that's not the impression we get for the general timeline from other sources, such as the career progress of other characters.

J.T.B., any insight into whether one might get assigned a high flag rank right off the bat to, perhaps, meet the requirements of a vacant posting when the need to put this relative junior there is politically pressing?

Or did Pike just slum it out at Captain rank like Kirk did, in order to be able to command a starship one last time?

Timo Saloniemi
 
How Pike jumped from Captain braid to full Admiral braid in that apparently short time is not explained. Of course, Kirk went from fresh Lieutenant to full Captain in that same time, so we might argue it was a fairly long and eventful interval - possibly several years if need be. But that's not the impression we get for the general timeline from other sources, such as the career progress of other characters.
Maybe it was because of the slaughter of nine Starships and its Starfleet personnel (~3600 crew) by Nero at the Destruction of Vulcan.
 
Enterprise did use a single pip rank insignia for Commodore Forrest in First Flight.
And in other episodes too. These commodores were in the backround
latest


latest


And of course
Then Commodore Forrest
latest


However in tng era it is conjecture.
Sorry if it’s hot linked don’t know how to fix it
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top