Commodore Decker

Why was the Commanding Officer of The Constellation a Commodore? It was a Constitution class but did it carry more personal than the Enterprise, Exeter, or Defiant all of which were Commanded by Captains?

 

No particular reason. I guess they just needed someone who outranked Kirk.

In any case...Decker, as per DSC, is one of the most decorated captains in Starfleet history, so it makes sense that he could stay in command of the Constellation even as a Commodore. And perhaps, under normal circumstances, the ship was head of a battle group or something like that.

In any case, it's not as if this hasn't happened before. Robert Wesley, anyone?

 

In regular navies, a "Commodore" can be a rank or a title (US Navy has replaced that with "Rear Admiral, Lower Half").

Basically, a Commodore is a lower rank Flag Officer that can command a squadron or flotilla of vessels. At times, they have actually been directly in command of a specific ship without a regular Captain on board. This was very common during the age of sail in the British/English Royal Navy and the US Navy.

Decker could be the officer in command of the U.S.S. Constellation, and possibly also considered to be in charge of a squadron - like Bob Wesley.

 

Starship captains are depicted as Captains and Commodores consistently throughout TOS.

 

Maybe we need a "General TOS/TAS Questions" thread, like the one in General Trek Discussion?

 

In the earlier scripts Decker was a Captain, but senior to Kirk. It was changed to make it more clear to people who tuned in for the second half hour of the episode that Decker outranked Kirk.

 

My pet theory is that four starships form a cruiser division (or squadron if you prefer), and one ship is commanded by a commodore instead of a captain, who also has a second hat as division commander. Normally the ships are scattered about on different duties and the position is just administrative, but if the division was assembled to work as a unit the commodore would be in charge.

In this case Decker's badge would be for the division/squadron echelon. Unfortunately this theory does not account for Bob Wesley wearing the starbase badge.

I assume that will be the next thread!

 

And then Commodore Ritchie.

 

It's also important to note that not all Commodores are ACTUALLY Commodores... Some are actually Captains that have been given a temporary position (Brevet) or are only using it as a title.

Quite a few current US Navy submarine squadrons have a Commodore but, they are actually a Captain in rank.

 

SIGH...

He was Commodore [Curt] Decker from the very outset in the first story outline Spinrad submitted.

Where do you guys get this stuff?

 

If ships of this type are key assets (rather than just twelve pebbles lost in an avalanche of 7,000), they might be divided across the Fleet, with a few per a numbered Fleet. The Arrowhead Fleet would get some; the Oblong Fleet some; and the Starflower Fleet some. SB11 just happens to be the command base for Starflower Fleet, so we first meet the Starflower in the context of command and don't realize that every Greaser's Apprentice aboard a starship from that Fleet would wear it, too.

On a more concrete note on signs and symbols, Decker wears his Commodorehood on his sleeve. This sort of favors the model where Commodore is an actual rank, and something that goes with Decker even when he walks out of his ship. Although of course the swapping of sleeve braid need not be a major undertaking, in the 23rd century. (Indeed, it being easy and quick might explain why some people seem to wear incorrect braid on occasion: the relevant extra braid was left on the bedside table that fateful morning!)

But yeah, "Decker needs to be senior to Kirk, as blatantly as possible". Which is a pity, when quite a few in the audience would have understood if he were merely senior to the Captain rank.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Right. It's actually more widespread than that, too - commodore is used as a title for senior USN captains in all sorts of air wings, surface warfare operation squadrons, SEAL squadrons, and in fact just about every Navy group except carrier air groups.

I've always been glad that Star Trek had commodores. "Rear Admiral (Lower Half)" is a dumb and unwieldy title - not to mention silly-sounding - and commodore was a perfectly good and appropriate rank with some distinguished history that was phased out of USN usage *twice* for really specious reasons.

 

Decker was just a starship captain that was due for promotion but wanted to stay in the center seat. That is my reasoning.

 

Ugh.

 

I'd love to see Decker turn up in SNW. Would be nice to see him in his prime.

 

Does no one want to see them expand the universe? It is a really big place with lots and lots of people who wouldn’t just randomly keep running into each other.

 

This is a problem in TOS already. Sure, casting issues kept people from making reappearances, like, ever, so even SB11 gets two different Commodores for Kirk to interact with. But Jim seems to be on a first-name basis with just about every Commodore out there. It's not even a matter of the putative Starship Skipper Fraternity being small and intimate - all of Starfleet seems to feature these folks who consider Kirk their very own Jimmy Boy, even though there is no general gist of Kirk holding any particular significance within Starfleet as such.

Perhaps it's a matter of Kirk running a lot of errands, for Jose's chili peppers or Donald's criminal-curing pills or whatever Bob is smoking? Or is it that Jim Kirk is a celebrity for his past military heroics, those quoted by Garth, even though his current role in the organization is humdrum?

Or perhaps there's something to the urban legend of Kirk making it to starship center seat at an exceptionally early age, and all these Commodores take a special interest in the young man who only holds the lowly Captain rank at this position?

Timo Saloniemi

 

We keep throwing around Kirk being exceptional, but Windom was only 43 or 44 at the time of “The Doomsday Machine”. Matt Decker (assuming a similar age) would’ve been similarly young when he got the center seat for the first time.

 

I honestly think this is really simple...

Constitution-class starships in the time of TOS could be commanded by officers with the rank of Captain or Commodore. There really isn't anything more to it than that.

In my company, we have Director I, Director II, and Director III titles. They vary based on the seniority and experience of the employee and the scope of the role being occupied. But, you might have Director II's in the same role as a Director III's. The Director III is titled as such because they bring some additional experience to the role.

It's really just that simple. Decker was obviously supposed to be more senior and experienced, and it increased the drama to have him outrank Kirk as well.