Make me understand "Ensign" Kim as a "Senior Officer"??

[Timo]

O'brien was definitely a non-commissioned officer yet he issues orders to Ensigns! What gives?

One might say the station was originally intended to be run with a really small Starfleet crew, with no Starfleet officers serving in the Ops department running the station. That soon changed when the new mission of protecting the wormhole required the services of a few engineering specialists of commissioned rank, but there wasn't a pressing need to replace O'Brien, or to mustang him to Ensign or higher.

Alternately, Ops is still a completely enlisted-run operation, and O'Brien just commandeered one of the Ensigns from the Security department to do his bidding (we've seen plenty of examples of such cross-training of yellowshirts elsewhere in Trek). But it seems rather logical to have a few of O'Brien's techs hold officer rank due to their academic credentials or whatnot, yet still bow to the Chief for the benefit of the overall organization.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[alicelouise]

In real life there have been commands where the highest rank enlisted person runs everything in all but name. If the senior officer has the rank but no real world ability, believe me I've seen it and heard about it. If the nonCom hadn't taken charge nothing would've been done.

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

The real question is why a large space station with alien technology didn't require a commissioned officer or two from the beginning.

Of course, O'Brien was up to the job... but it seems odd.

The first Dax overlapped with his job fairly often, as I recall.

 

[Navaros]

Of course, O'Brien was up to the job... but it seems odd.

The first Dax overlapped with his job fairly often, as I recall.

That's not a problem with O'Brien, that's a problem with Dax. Much like Kim's character was a result of a token "racial minority" character, Dax's character was a result of a token "woman" character (yes they had Kira but they felt they needed "two women" on the show, much like how Voyager had other racial minorities but felt they needed Kim as another also). End result of these affirmitive-action minded decisions is useless bad characters with zero plot value to the show (Dax, Kim), and characters that overlap wth each other (Dax stealing O'Brien's lines etc.).

It also stands to reason that despite the common perception that Trek ranks are based on the navy, really that's just moot lip service by the writers/producers, and they did not actually make the Trek ranks akin to the navy at all. For viewers to then try to make it so is wishful thinking IMO. Trek ranks are a half-baked concept that don't hold up to scrutiny, much like Universal Translators.

 

[Mr. Fergy]

^Kira and Jadzia were pretty kick-butt, though.

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

Of course, O'Brien was up to the job... but it seems odd.

The first Dax overlapped with his job fairly often, as I recall.

That's not a problem with O'Brien, that's a problem with Dax. Much like Kim's character was a result of a token "racial minority" character, Dax's character was a result of a token "woman" character (yes they had Kira but they felt they needed "two women" on the show, much like how Voyager had other racial minorities but felt they needed Kim as another also). End result of these affirmitive-action minded decisions is useless bad characters with zero plot value to the show (Dax, Kim), and characters that overlap wth each other (Dax stealing O'Brien's lines etc.).

It also stands to reason that despite the common perception that Trek ranks are based on the navy, really that's just moot lip service by the writers/producers, and they did not actually make the Trek ranks akin to the navy at all. For viewers to then try to make it so is wishful thinking IMO. Trek ranks are a half-baked concept that don't hold up to scrutiny, much like Universal Translators.

I think there's a lot to that. Still, most Trek seems to have at least two science/engineering types... and to assume that those roles are pretty much the same. Scotty and Spock, LaForge and Data, Jadzia and O'Brien, Janeway and Torres, T'Pol and Tucker. That way each show has two people to spout technobabble at each other.

Even a physicist is quite different from an engineer. And since they aren't just out there to look at stars, since contacting alien species is the main point of their exploration, where are the science officers with PhDs in history or political science?

Anyway, you're quite right that Dax overlapped too much with O'Brien. I think that was far from the biggest mistake with her character, however... the real problem is that she got more 'Klingon' stories than 'Trill' stories.

 

[greenmystik]

Anyway, you're quite right that Dax overlapped too much with O'Brien. I think that was far from the biggest mistake with her character, however... the real problem is that she got more 'Klingon' stories than 'Trill' stories.

It makes sense though because Curzon spent so much time with the Klingons.

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

It makes sense though because Curzon spent so much time with the Klingons.

I know they had a reason for it, but I was disappointed; Trills were the new species (except for one episode of TNG where they were quite different anyway) and I thought TNG had already done a good job exploring the Klingons.

Also, the Trill episodes seemed to involve more of the rest of the cast (particularly, but not only, Bashir).