Why did they get rid of the rank of "Commodore"?

[t_smitts]

I've noticed that most senior officers giving Kirk orders or commanding starbases were always commodores with only one or two admirals in the whole series.

From TNG on, it was the reverse. It was always admirals, and not a single commodore. The only time I recall the title ever even being mentioned was Geordi calling a Romulan that as a joke.

Same goes even for the TOS-era movies. No commodore. Plus Kirk is an admiral and seems to have skipped the rank altogether.

My question is WHY did writers/producers/whatever decide to dispose of the rank? Did they just not like the way it sounded? What?

 

[J.T.B.]

Same goes even for the TOS-era movies. No commodore. Plus Kirk is an admiral and seems to have skipped the rank altogether.

Kirk probably held the rank at some point, perhaps for only a short time. We know it was still extant in TMP because of a line of radio chatter.

My question is WHY did writers/producers/whatever decide to dispose of the rank? Did they just not like the way it sounded? What?

My feeling is that personal experience and reference material available in the 1960's largely reflected WW2, when commodore was a rank in the US Navy. By the time of TNG, commodore had been absent from the USN long enough that encyclopedias, almanacs &c. no longer included it, and the TPTB for TNG either forgot about the TOS rank or just liked the sound of "admiral" better. The whole flag officer structure in early TNG seems only vaguely thought out.

--Justin

 

[erastus25]

And in TOS it seems not thought out at all. We have admirals, commodores, fleet captains, etc. and we're not even sure what the functional difference is between them. I can forgive the TNG creators for jetissoning this system and integrating a more regulated one.

 

[J.T.B.]

...The whole flag officer structure in early TNG seems only vaguely thought out.

--Justin

And in TOS it seems not thought out at all. We have admirals, commodores, fleet captains, etc. and we're not even sure what the functional difference is between them.

I don't think I agree with that. In TMoST it was stated that GR intended the commodores to have the next level of command above starships, the star base. Admirals are somewhere above that, but they are never specified as rear admiral, vice admiral &c., so we don't know how throughly that was thought out. The admiral's sleeve insignia, though only see behind-the-scenes for TOS, indicate that at least a couple of levels above Cdre were envisioned. Fleet captain is admittedly an oddity.

I can forgive the TNG creators for jetissoning this system and integrating a more regulated one.

More regulated? There were, what, three different flag uniform/insignia systems in the first couple of seasons? And vice admirals were also fleet admirals, and nobody to this day knows what the one-boxed-pip rank is called? I'd hardly call that more regulated.

--Justin

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

My question is WHY did writers/producers/whatever decide to dispose of the rank? Did they just not like the way it sounded? What?

I think JTB has it right. The rank structure in Star Trek was loosely based on the US Navy, but not the Navy of the 60s, the Navy of the 40s/WW II with which most of the production crew was most familiar. By the time Star Trek was made there hadn't been a US Navy Commodore in 16 years (Nobody had been promoted to that rank in even longer). By the time of TNG the Commodore Rank had been out of use for over 35 years (the very short lived Commodore Admiral not withstanding) and the rank structure, such as it was, in the new show reflected this.

That's my take on it anyway.

And anyone interested in the history of that rank in the US Navy should check out the Wikipedia article, its pretty informative.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The current rank in the U.S. Navy that's equivalent to "Commodore Admiral" is "Rear Admiral (Lower Half)."

 

[Rat Boy]

Gee, the rear admiral seems to be spending a lot of time with the privates.

 

[t_smitts]

I just caught this in one of those old Q&A's that Ron Moore did back in '97:

<<Hey Ron I noticed that there hasn't been a commodore on Star Trek since the
original series. Is there any specific reason for this? Also do you know if
the maquis were named after a real resistence group?>>

There seems to be a feeling around here that "commodore" conjures up images
of a yachting enthusiast with too much money and too little brain.
Personally, I like the term and have tried to work it in scripts now and
again, but to no avail. The Maquis, I believe, we named after a group or
French Resistance fighters in WWII.

 

[snuffles]

Maybe they thought people would confuse it with the computer brand.

 

[erastus25]

...The whole flag officer structure in early TNG seems only vaguely thought out.

--Justin

And in TOS it seems not thought out at all. We have admirals, commodores, fleet captains, etc. and we're not even sure what the functional difference is between them.

I don't think I agree with that. In TMoST it was stated that GR intended the commodores to have the next level of command above starships, the star base. Admirals are somewhere above that, but they are never specified as rear admiral, vice admiral &c., so we don't know how throughly that was thought out. The admiral's sleeve insignia, though only see behind-the-scenes for TOS, indicate that at least a couple of levels above Cdre were envisioned. Fleet captain is admittedly an oddity.

I can forgive the TNG creators for jetissoning this system and integrating a more regulated one.

More regulated? There were, what, three different flag uniform/insignia systems in the first couple of seasons? And vice admirals were also fleet admirals, and nobody to this day knows what the one-boxed-pip rank is called? I'd hardly call that more regulated.

--Justin

Wow...I just got owned. Thanks for the insight!

 

[Therin of Andor]

There seems to be a feeling around here that "commodore" conjures up images of a yachting enthusiast with too much money and too little brain.

Such as Commodore Schmidlapp in the 1960s "Batman" feature film?

 

[Michael]

There seems to be a feeling around here that "commodore" conjures up images of a yachting enthusiast with too much money and too little brain.

Such as Commodore Schmidlapp in the 1960s "Batman" feature film?

Ha ha, for a moment I thought RDM himself was a poster on this board.

 

[Wingsley]

One of the silly things about TNG and the TNG movies is that Picard has been a Captain forever; he's long overdue for a promotion to Commodore. I think it would've been a hoot to hear "Commodore Picard" in "All Good Things..."

 

[Phoenicianknight]

I think that the commodor rank is used as a non line officer, where as a line officer would be promoted to rear admiral.

Think about it a second, a Captain of Medicine is not really a line offcier, he is just in charge of the medical corp. If he is to be promoted, it wouldn't make sense to make him an admiral, when he could be in charge of a fighting force. So, he gets promoted to Commodore.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

I think that the commodor rank is used as a non line officer, where as a line officer would be promoted to rear admiral.

But that wouldn't explain Commodores Decker and Wesley from TOS who were both starship commanders.

 

[WalkinMan]

There may have been Rear Admirals in TNG...

I'm thinking that Fleet Captains, Commodores etc. might have been dropped to simplify, or maybe it sounded too militaristic. Or maybe it was simply more of Starfleet being defined differently than a navy command structure, but rather a different organization with some but not all aspects of it.

 

[ialfan]

I really liked the rank of Commodore. It just sounds a lot nicer than Rear Admiral.

 

[J.T.B.]

Wow...I just got owned. Thanks for the insight!

No big deal!

Maybe they thought people would confuse it with the computer brand.

Maybe. Of course, a lot of people would have been watching TOS on Admiral television sets!

--Justin

 

[Ronald Held]

Is there that much of a difference between Commodore and Rear Admiral, lower grade?

 

[Wingsley]

A commodore is a rear admiral, lower half. The U.S. Navy simply renamed the rank.