The best first officer in the Fleet?

[blssdwlf]

In both of these cases, they did maintain their command qualifications. It's all about qualifications, just not the color of your uniform.

The current uniform color or even a color change of the uniform apparently has no indication of one's command qualifications.
Uhura (yellow > red) possibly command qualified but situation never got to the point she needed to take over?
Scotty (yellow > red) third in command?
Sulu (blue > yellow) fourth in command?
DeSalle fifth in command?
Chekov sixth in command?
there probably are a bunch more on different shifts we don't even see...

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Now I'm thinking we need an anthology: You Have The Conn. Showing various officers' first time in the chair, however temporary.

 

[blssdwlf]

She was only allowed to do so in cartoon situations providing they were not prime-time.

Which is unfortunate. Although I wonder if in TAS was she the highest ranking female officer with command qualifications onboard the Enterprise? For Uhura to take command in that episode all the male officers had been effectively incapacitated. I guess there were no female command qualified Lt Commanders on the ship at the time?

But back to TOS, for Uhura to take the conn that would mean that Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, DeSalle, and Chekov were all off the bridge leaving only Uhura and some unnamed officers. Out of all TOS episodes was that ever the case?

 

[UssGlenn]

Scotty (yellow > red) third in command?

Scotty never wore yellow, in the Second Pilot he's in the Tan color that later became red, not the same yellow shade as Kirk.

 

[Warped9]

Candidly I think it was writers’ chauvinism rearing its head.

 

[Holopat]

Candidly I think it was writers’ chauvinism rearing its head.

More likely the network. They are the ones that jettisoned Number One. Not that I think the series wasn't the better for Spock being Exec, rather than Majel and her Number One. I know she was Roddenberry's girlfriend/wife but goodness her acting was wooden IMHO. The series did very well with the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate.

 

[blssdwlf]

Scotty never wore yellow, in the Second Pilot he's in the Tan color that later became red, not the same yellow shade as Kirk.

Point noted, looking at it again, Scotty wore the same tan color that Mitchell and Kelso wore. Which is different from the yellow Kirk and Spock wore.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

But McCoy is not in the line of command

He explicitly says this in more than one episode. His specific wording at one point is "if I were an officer of the line, I would..."

a medical officer a warrant, NCO or a commissioned officer of some sort

Based on numerous data points from another thread from sometime back, it can be suggested that the blueshirt corresponds to a staff officer, especially one in the sciences, who would not take command, with a few exceptions (Spock, Krasnovsky, Will Decker, and Admiral Kirk). Spock being a special case is the very topic of this thread. Admiral Kirk being an exception can be justified by the plot points in TMP which suggest he could command, but may not be recently doing so. Decker, who has a yellow uniform in some promotional shots, may still be wearing a blue uniform from his time as a commander, and never gets to change because he is moved to science officer when Kirk takes over command. That just leaves Krasnovsky as unexplained, but perhaps that can be explained by the fact that some have suggested he is a science ship captain, and therefore wears blue while in command. It would also explain the USS Kelvin officers, if you wanted to count that movie as being included, not sure I want to

Since Anne Mulhal and a few others are science officers who wear red, and we have Kelowitz as a tactical officer in blue, it seems possible that in-universe there some rules that determine shirt color in more detail than just command/science/engineering within certain parameters. My theory on this is that many officers are double-trained, and they, or the captain, have some choice in what qualifications they display, based on the job they are doing.

Maybe Spock developed some revolutionary duty assignment approach that affected the assignment of shirt color (that is the way officers are identified while on duty), and that is partly why he is considered "the best first officer in the fleet"?

I believe his exact words are "Mr. Chekhov, take over" as he (Kirk) heads for the turbolift clutching his side.

I'm pretty sure Uhura takes command in TOS at least once, but I'll have to think about which episode.

Uhura is never explicitly shown in command, but I think it can be said to have been "strongly implied" in at least three episodes I can recall.

"In Balance of Terror," when all of the "regular cast" officers are at the wedding, she is the one calling from the bridge. So there either has to be an offscreen person with a higher position than her on duty (there could be some candidates, but not in the episode itself), or she is in command.

In "The Alternative Factor," she is shown standing next to the empty command chair, as Kirk enters and goes to Spock station. If Spock got there a few moments before Kirk and was not there long, she could have been in command, since this is an episode without Sulu or Scotty, who may have been "off-duty," or even at a base for briefing on some kind of new dilithium systems which are first mentioned in this episode.

In "The Trouble with Tribbles," Kirk is handing Uhura tribbles while giving her instructions on what to do, then leaves the Bridge. Scotty is not present, Sulu is not in the episode, and Chekov is only an ensign. So it seems that Uhura would be in command at least until Scotty can arrive.

In my view, Kirk giving Chekov orders to take over just before Kirk starts to bleed internally, especially knowing that it has been expressly stated in the episode by McCoy that Scotty could take over, indicates that whoever Kirk left in charge would only be filling that role until Scotty could get there. It does not, on its own, suggest to me that Chekov is somehow in line for command ahead of Uhura. That being said, some episodes of TNG and Voyager occasionally have the captain leave someone in charge who ordinarily would not be, so that person can gain experience. One example would be Geordi being left in charge of higher-ranks officers on one half of Enterprise after it had been separated. So just because Chekov may take command ahead of Uhura in one case does not mean he always does.

 

[Warped9]

More likely the network. They are the ones that jettisoned Number One. Not that I think the series wasn't the better for Spock being Exec, rather than Majel and her Number One. I know she was Roddenberry's girlfriend/wife but goodness her acting was wooden IMHO. The series did very well with the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate.

NBC did not object to the character of Number One or the idea of having a strong female in the command structure. At that time in the 1960s strong female roles on television were not uncommon. NBC objected to Roddenberry’s blatant nepotism in casting his widely known extramarital girlfriend in a key role on a show he was trying to sell to NBC. They also had some reservation as to whether Majel Barrett was a strong enough actress to carry the role going forward. It’s possible they could have read Majel wrong in thinking the cool demeanour of Number One was a limitation of her acting. Who knows?

It’s also possible Roddenberry could have recast the role of Number One in the second pilot and NBC would have been fine with it. Jeanne Bal, who later played Nancy Crater in “The Man Trap” was initially on a list of candidates for the the role of Number One before Roddenberry cast Majel.

 

[blssdwlf]

Uhura is never explicitly shown in command, but I think it can be said to have been "strongly implied" in at least three episodes I can recall.

"In Balance of Terror," when all of the "regular cast" officers are at the wedding, she is the one calling from the bridge. So there either has to be an offscreen person with a higher position than her on duty (there could be some candidates, but not in the episode itself), or she is in command.

Are you sure about this? It was Spock who called from the bridge to update Kirk before he started to officiate the wedding. And then Sulu cuts in with the alert.

In "The Alternative Factor," she is shown standing next to the empty command chair, as Kirk enters and goes to Spock station. If Spock got there a few moments before Kirk and was not there long, she could have been in command, since this is an episode without Sulu or Scotty, who may have been "off-duty," or even at a base for briefing on some kind of new dilithium systems which are first mentioned in this episode.

Not sure about this one either since Spock seems to be already at his station. Uhura might just be updating tapes.

In "The Trouble with Tribbles," Kirk is handing Uhura tribbles while giving her instructions on what to do, then leaves the Bridge. Scotty is not present, Sulu is not in the episode, and Chekov is only an ensign. So it seems that Uhura would be in command at least until Scotty can arrive.

This is one is definitely a possibility. Kirk could be singling out Uhura to clean up the tribbles as she was the one that brought the first one onboard but she is definitely the last person Kirk issued a command to while both he and Spock left the bridge.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Who would normally be responsible for small animal wrangling onboard ship? Depending on the number and type, anyone from a yeoman to a life sciences crewman to a security team.

 

[J.T.B.]

Sorry for the long post, I'm way behind in the thread. But a few points:

Some of this has never been realistic. There is no reason for the captain or the F/O to stand watches. Their work goes far beyond supervising the bridge in front of the viewscreen, looking at empty space, hour after uneventful hour. The ship would have plenty of officers who could do that. The interaction that the CO and F/O need to have would be better done in a private office space. It would be administrative, too, so even if a writer could actually come up with that kind of business, it would be too dull for an audience to watch.

When the CO needs to be on the bridge for some reason, there is no reason the F/O must also be there. They could be if the captain wanted, but once the captain's there, that's all you need. In a real life surface ship, the XO's battle station is usually far separated from the CO's, in a position where they can take control of the ship if the captain's position is taken out ("auxiliary control" in TOS).

Dramatic considerations, though, mean that the captain charachter needs to interact with a near-peer, and they need to interact quite a bit. So the F/O needs to be on the bridge and close to the action, but where do they sit, and what do they do? TNG came up with a seating arrangement, but having the second fiddle sitting there when important things were happening was not always satisfactory, either. The same thing is true for more senior personnel. A flag officer aboard should have their own "flag bridge," but again they have to be able to interact with the captain character, so they too have to be on the bridge, and there's no good place for them to be and not much for them to do.

In navies there is a difference between being in immediate charge of the vessel (what the US Navy calls the Officer of the Deck) and actually succeeding to command in the absence of seniors. The OOD can be a relatively junior officer, and the duty rotates. There is always a more experienced officer quickly available if needed.

As for succeeding to command, the navy way of doing things is that after the CO and XO, the most senior qualified officer is next in line for command. So the most junior commander would be in line before the most senior lieutenant commander, then down through the other lieutenant commanders, then on to the senior lieutenant and so on down. It doesn't matter where they work, so in a USN ship it might go CO>XO>Ops Officer>Chief Engineer>Combat Systems Officer>Navigator, and in another ship it might be CO>XO>Ops>Combat Systems>Navigator>Chief Engineer. (The Operations Officer is almost always the senior department head, responsible for keeping the CO informed of the situation "outside" the ship, with the XO responsible for "inside.")

This mostly fits with TOS if we assume Scotty is next-senior to Spock (there are anonymous 2- and 1½-stripe officers seen here and there, but that's best overlooked!). Maybe the biggest wrinkle in this theory is that Lt Sulu is in command in "Arena" while LCdr Scott is available. This seemed to stabilize as the series went on and Scott became a go-to, and may be confirmed in LTBYLB, if we assume that the ship's top three officers are required to initiate a self-destruct order.

We know that some officers are officers "of the line" ("A Taste of Armageddon"), who apparently are those who can take command in the absence of the captain. Scott is one of them, McCoy is not. The weight of evidence seems to be that division/department assignment (and thus uniform color) has nothing to do with being "of the line." The "command" division seems to control ship movement and weapons functions, but despite its name does not have a monopoly on actual "command."

It appears that the "line" status is not visible on the uniform. In the US Navy there are uniform distinctions for line officers, but they are also shared by "restricted line" officers, who are not qualified for command at sea. The British Royal Navy in the mid-1950s decided to remove uniform distinctions between seaman officers, engineer officers and supply (now logistics) officers. Only seaman officers can take command at sea, but any of them can take command ashore. Medical officers still have distinctive insignia, due to international agreements on medical personnel being identifiable.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Are you sure about this? It was Spock who called from the bridge to update Kirk before he started to officiate the wedding. And then Sulu cuts in with the alert.

I might be thinking of the wrong episode for this example. Or it may be later in the same episode.

This mostly fits with TOS if we assume Scotty is next-senior to Spock (there are anonymous 2- and 1½-stripe officers seen here and there, but that's best overlooked!).

Giotto and the unnamed redshirt with two stripes would in my opinion best be treated as individuals who are not permanently on the Enterprise. With Spock being a LTCMDR and having two stripes, I do not favor the idea that Finney outranked him, but they could have been near-equals, with Spock as First officer. Anne Mulhal is an interesting case, since she does not outrank Scotty or McCoy, she does not have to be off the ship for most plots to work but some would work better if she was not on the ship.

 

[Commishsleer]

What is Kirk actually doing on the bridge in between the action? Just sign reports.
I'm not even sure what Chekov and Sulu do after setting course for 5 days. Look out for space debris?
A least Spock could be working on some science project.
In TNG I think Riker is mostly off the bridge doing paperwork or dealing with crew dynamics. Only coming to the bridge for the action which sort of makes sense. I think at the beginning this was sort of to be Spock's role as he knew all about the people on board with ESP in the second pilot.
Are the Captain and XO on Navy ships ever on the bridge except at takeoff and arrival? I think thats the only time when Captain Lee (from Below Decks) is there.

 

[Holopat]

Kirk needs to concentrate on his mission, whether it is exploration, scientific, diplomatic or military. He should be reviewing all the data on his objectives, and making plans of action. Coordinating any concerns or special needs with the exec. The exec is responsible for making sure the ship is ready for whatever is going to be called of it, and that includes sudden military action, as well as every other contingency. So coordinating crew, organizing drills, making sure the crew knows and practices their objectives for whatever condition, be it ion storm, military action, loss of essential services, honor guards for diplomatic missions, training crew, etc. I think they would have plenty to do. Part of the reason the Enterprise survives the 5 year mission is that they were prepared, trained and flexible.

 

[J.T.B.]

Anne Mulhal is an interesting case, since she does not outrank Scotty or McCoy, she does not have to be off the ship for most plots to work but some would work better if she was not on the ship.

It would probably not be a stretch to assume she, like McCoy, is not an officer of the line and doesn't have a place in the line of succession.

 

[blssdwlf]

Giotto and the unnamed redshirt with two stripes would in my opinion best be treated as individuals who are not permanently on the Enterprise. With Spock being a LTCMDR and having two stripes, I do not favor the idea that Finney outranked him, but they could have been near-equals, with Spock as First officer. Anne Mulhal is an interesting case, since she does not outrank Scotty or McCoy, she does not have to be off the ship for most plots to work but some would work better if she was not on the ship.

Yeah, Finney sounded like he would've been 3rd in command based on his level of access. Even though Mulhal has Lt Cmdr stripes she may have been further down on the chain of command so it would have been unlikely that she would be called up take over since other regulars like Scotty, Chekov, Sulu and Uhura would be available. IMHO.

Who would normally be responsible for small animal wrangling onboard ship? Depending on the number and type, anyone from a yeoman to a life sciences crewman to a security team.

I'm guessing Kirk assigned it to Uhura because she brought the first one aboard (IIRC). When it became a ship-wide problem it looked like Scotty took over and got the whole crew to collect them all up.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Better to have everyone grab whichever tribbles were nearest them than have one person running all over the ship in hot pursuit. Much more efficient.

 

[Poltargyst]

Better to have everyone grab whichever tribbles were nearest them than have one person running all over the ship in hot pursuit. Much more efficient.

It was going to take 17 years for one guy to clean up K-7, so yeah.

 

[Henoch]

Yeah, Finney sounded like he would've been 3rd in command based on his level of access. Even though Mulhal has Lt Cmdr stripes she may have been further down on the chain of command so it would have been unlikely that she would be called up take over since other regulars like Scotty, Chekov, Sulu and Uhura would be available. IMHO.

Finney was passed over for promotion (probably several times), so, he was maxed out at Lt. Commander (even though he wore two solid strips which I believe only indicate a division head on a ship.) In addition, there's the chance that his line officer qualifications were revoked by Kirk/Starfleet Command, so, he could not take command of the ship.

KIRK: Who are you?
MULHALL: Doctor Ann Mulhall, Astro-biology.

Ann Mulhall is titled "Doctor" with Lt. Cmd strips indicating she is a specialist with several years of seniority in Starfleet. Again, she doesn't have line officer qualifications. Strange that astro-biology is in Engineering and not Sciences. (Maybe she looked bad in blue on camera.) In universe, she could be in astro-biology engineering specializing in ship-born equipment and sensors. Odd that Kirk doesn't know all the Lt. Cmd's on his ship...especially the pretty ones. Maybe she was on temporary assignment to the Enterprise to upgrade some astro-biology equipment and sensors.