Best Science officer in the Fleet

[Nerys Myk]

^
It's an assumption TMP sort of bears out - when the science officer is a no-show on account of being liquefied, Kirk gets his first officer Decker to do the job for the time being.

Only because former Captain Decker knows the equipment. I guess the rest of the Science Deparment arrives on Tuesday.

 

[Ronald Held]

Isn't that joke more for Generations?

 

[JoeD80]

I did not know about Spiner's makeup and blue having problems.

Me, too. You learn something new every day.

I read it on this forum from a guy who was probably quoting another guy. Take it as a Chinese whispers thing rather than a genuine factoid.

I believe it's mentioned in the Next Generation Companion; Data would have been colored battleship gray.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Isn't that joke more for Generations?

It's universal for when something that should be there, isn't.

 

[WendellM]

I'm sure Kirk thought so.

Agreed. From TAS's "The Jihad":

SPOCK: I appreciate your action on my behalf, but your first duty is to the group and the mission.

KIRK: Quite right, Spock. And that responsibility includes not losing the best science officer in Starfleet.

 

[milo bloom]

^
It's an assumption TMP sort of bears out - when the science officer is a no-show on account of being liquefied, Kirk gets his first officer Decker to do the job for the time being.

I'm pretty sure the old TOS tech manual tries to handwave this by saying it's not really a "science" station per se, but more of an information storage and retrieval station, which is best served by the first officer in his need to provide info to the captain. I'll try to look it up tonight at home.

 

[seigezunt]

There's a lot of Spock in Picard, too.

S/P?

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Oh my...

 

[Kegg]

You just know that in "Unification" Picard bonded with Spock over his grief concerning his father's death. They had a little too much Romulan ale, one thing led to another and well Q wouldn't speak to Picard for a month afterwards.

 

[milo bloom]

^
It's an assumption TMP sort of bears out - when the science officer is a no-show on account of being liquefied, Kirk gets his first officer Decker to do the job for the time being.

I'm pretty sure the old TOS tech manual tries to handwave this by saying it's not really a "science" station per se, but more of an information storage and retrieval station, which is best served by the first officer in his need to provide info to the captain. I'll try to look it up tonight at home.

Sorry it took so long, Real Life™ got in the way.

According the TOS tech manual (looks like it's the 1986 version), it's called the Command Intelligence Station. It took me a little bit to find it since I was specifically looking for something called the "Science Station". The description says "All scientific command intelligence is handled through this station." So, discounting Number sitting at the helm in The Cage, it looks like it's supposed to be a first officer's station first, and a science officer's station second.

I'd maybe wager that on another crew, without an officer like Spock, it would be a gold shirted command officer there, and the science officer would be normally below decks feeding info up to this station and others. He would only show up on the bridge for special things, like in WNMHGB when Kirk calls up Deiner, Ship's Mathematician Sulu*, etc.

I'm going to try to dig out my older Making of... books from the 70's and see if that clarifies what Starfleet's standard procedure for First Officers is supposed to be in that era.



*Now that'd be neat to see in a modern story.

 

[Elder Knight]

Spock brought along a lot of illogical Vulcan baggage ("You have to do what every seven years?!") But then again, he did save the ship from Avogadro's Number*-to-one odds over the course of the mission. So I suppose that he rates #1.


*That's 6.02 * 10^23.