I thought there was no Commodore rank by mid 24th century. Is that a special rank for non line officers?
25th century ranks
- Thread starter Ronald Held
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It was never specified that it was gone, we simply had not seen it.
Commodore was featured in a few 24th+ century novels, Data was one at one point.
It was used during ENT, TOS, and the TOS movies alternately as both the lowest flag officer rank and the highest line officer rank depending on the assignment. During TOS, a commodore could command a single starship, a starship taskforce, a facility/starbase, or a small department of Starfleet. A commodore could possibly also serve as an adjutant to an admiral, IMO.
We never saw a commodore in the 24th-Century/25th-Century until PIC, although a few were implied during TNG. Presumably continuing the aforementioned duties perhaps.
Commodore in the modern US Navy is a title/position, not a rank.
Allegedly the costume department of TNG had a 1 pip Admiral marked down as 'Rear Admiral (Lower Half)' following US Navy ranks, but I've yet to see anyone provide proof. Not that it would matter since it wouldn't be canon.
But Picard and Discovery have both brought back Commodore in common use as a post-23rd century rank.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Commodore
Allegedly the costume department of TNG had a 1 pip Admiral marked down as 'Rear Admiral (Lower Half)' following US Navy ranks, but I've yet to see anyone provide proof. Not that it would matter since it wouldn't be canon.
But Picard and Discovery have both brought back Commodore in common use as a post-23rd century rank.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Commodore
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Ranks that are taken out of service can always be put back. 
That's never been canon. The Star Trek Encyclopedia presumed Commodore no longer existed in the 24th century and was replaced with Rear Admiral, Lower Half for no reason other than that's what had happened in the US Navy in the 1980s(?) and like it or not, TPTB in the 1990s really did view Starfleet as the US Navy in space. Indeed, this demonstrated how American-centric the 90s production team thought of Starfleet given the US Navy is the only navy to have eliminated Commodore as a rank and instead use the rank Rear Admiral, Lower Half. Every other navy in the world still uses Commodore.
Fortunately, Picard established in season 1 Commodore is a rank that is still used, so we can finally put to rest that bit of silliness from the 90s.
Have you met Star Trek fans?
Unfortunately, yes.Have you met Star Trek fans?
It has come and gone as an official rank (O-7) in the US Navy. Most recently for about a year 1982-1983.
Other countries have used it as a rank as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commo...modore_admiral/1983_rear_admiral_(lower_half)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_(rank)#United_States
What the US Navy did in the 20th / 21st Century should be pretty irrelevant to what Starfleet does hundreds of years later. For what it's worth, Commodore absolutely remains a substantive rank in the navies of many other countries. The US is not everything...
If Commodore was established as a Starfleet rank by the time of TOS (and we know it was) then why would Starfleet randomly revert back to something as unnecessary as "Rear Admiral Lower Half" just because one Terran navy used it for a few decades hundreds of years previously?
"Commodore" appears in comms traffic in TMP and then again on-screen in ENT (obviously pre-TOS but much later production dates) and now in PIC S1 and S3. Sure, it's long gaps but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that Starfleet ever dropped Commodore as a rank title in the intervening period; we just didn't see one as part of a story.
It's no longer the 24th Century.
Agreed.
Which is why I personally am not against the idea that Starfleet might have altered what they called the "one-pip" rank on occasion.
However, the idea that they would change it to "Rear Admiral, Lower Half" specifically rather than say... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flotilla_admiral or a plausible in-universe equivalent like group admiral... was AFAICT ridiculous, lazy American-bias speculation on the part of the Okudas and certainly has no basis in canon.
The entire Rank Structure really does need refinement and less "Redundant Wording" for the Ranks.
The concept of "Lieutenant Junior Grade" can be replaced with a completely different label in it's place.
The same with "Lieutenant Commander" can be replaced as well.
We need a clear seperation of each Rank, and one that is consistent for a "integrated force" where there is no seperate rank division of 'Officer' & 'Enlisted'.
Everybody is pretty much a "StarFleet Officer" within the show/universe.
The archaic class based seperation of 'Officer' & 'Enlisted' really needs to go away.
The only thing that irks me about it is that if the rank existed at the time, then Sisko should technically have been given the rank when he was working under Ross in charge of the fleet.
He was acting as an Adjutant, who is an assistant to an Admiral. I don't believe he had any direct command over the fleet, all his ideas had to run through Ross.
Sterfleet seems fine with giving people roles without giving them the rank. Miles O'Brien and Harry Kim were the heads of their divisions, so their role meant giving orders to people with a higher rank than them.
It seems likely that someone's current role is more important than their rank.
Well, I wouldn't say absolutely nothing. I think much of the confusion stems from TNG season 1 where admirals wore a weird rank braid insignia.
We've seen Quinn and Jameson with just the braid, Savar with the braid and one pip beneath, and Aaron with braid and two pips.
Since arguably just the braid should logically be the lowest admiralty rank and Quinn and Jameson were addressed as admiral, the implication seems to be that the one star rank wasn't called Commodore during that time.
https://startrekcostumeguide.com/tn...l-season-1/costume-analysis/uniform-analysis/
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