.Was Fleet Captain necessary?

[James Wright]

This has probably been talked about before but, does anyone know if when GR established the ranks for TOS why he chose a so called rank or position as Fleet Captain which hadn't been in use for at least 250-300 years, did he ever write any notes?
Does anybody have any idea how many people serve a Rear Admiral in TNG?

James

 

[Nerys Myk]

Since GR based the rank structure on the USN system in place at the time TOS was created, I'm willing to bet "Fleet Captain" wasn't part of the plan. Its use in "The Menagerie" might have been to keep consistant with Pike being refered to a Captain in "The Cage".

 

[C.E. Evans]

Personally, I've kind of viewed "Fleet Captain" as being a grade between captain and commodore and featuring three solid stripes on the sleeves. I think the rank goes to senior captains without a current starship or starbase command, IMO.

 

[Unicron]

I kind of like the separate rank idea myself, and tend to think that a fleet captain might be placed in command of a task force of ships while a commodore would command a base or a very large fleet. FASA suggested that there were only a handful of fleet captains at any time and that their purpose was to oversee the actual development of new major starship classes. The FASA version outranked a commodore and was below admiral.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I've always liked to think of the rank of Fleet Captain as a position of prestige, not one of authority. It would be a rank that was bestowed on either well-known or well-respected captains, or people who had spent a large portion of their careers in the Captain rank with no future prospects of promotion.

I suppose I'm thinking of something similar to what the Roman Catholic Church does with it's positions of authority. Archbishops are positions of prestige, but they have no authority whatsoever over Bishops. Both Bishops and Archbishops run their own dioceses, but it's considered more prestigeous to be the Bishop of, say, Boston than it is to be the Bishop of Columbus, Ohio.

Maybe Starfleet runs the same type of system. Garth of Izar or Pike actually don't outrank Kirk, they're just considered more prestigeous Captains.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I suppose in order to determine whether or not Fleet Captain was necessary, we'd have to first establish what it actually was. It was only mentioned twice in the entire history of the show, and no real information was given as to it's place in the chain of command or what it's duties might be.

 

[Timo]

While the rank (if that's what it is) was mentioned twice in Star Trek, it was only mentioned in one episode...

In the opening scene of "The Menagerie", Kirk explains his presence with an expository line:

"Mr. Spock received a starbase transmission, a message from the former commander of the Enterprise, Fleet Captain Pike, urgently requesting that we divert here."

Soon thereafter, Commodore Mendez asks Kirk if he has met Pike before, and Kirk responds:

"When he was promoted to Fleet Captain".

Pike's rank is not mentioned after that. No other episode returns to the concept of Fleet Captain or suggests that somebody else would ever have held that rank.

To be sure, in "Whom Gods Destroy", Captain Garth is twice addressed as "starship fleet Captain". But that's in obvious reference to his elite status as a Captain in the starship fleet (and with respect to his related great responsibilities), not to his specific rank.

I personally prefer to think that since the universe is full of captains of all sorts, Starfleet Captains sometimes wish to stand apart. That is, Captain Christopher Pike, holding O-6 rank in Starfleet, would wish to be distinguished from captain Leo Walsh, holding no rank whatsoever while commanding his own freighter, but also from Commander Ramart, holding O-5 rank in Starfleet while captaining the Antares. And the formal way to do that would be to call Pike "Fleet Captain" rather than just "Captain".

Why would Pike be a "special case"? I'm postulating that he had plenty of captaining experience before reaching the O-6 rank. He'd be promoted from O-5 Commander to O-6 Captain (with Kirk watching) but he'd all the time be captain of some starship or another - indeed, by his sleeve stripes, he'd already been captain of the Enterprise while an O-4 Lieutenant...

To avoid confusion between Pike's rank and position, Kirk would thus emphasize the former by adding the seldom used specifier "Fleet". Kirk could have applied the same specifer to himself if he wished, or addressed Mendez as "Fleet Commodore" (perhaps to distinguish him from a convoy commodore or from a civilian with the title Commodore), but there was no corresponding need for that at the time.

Complex? Perhaps. But if it removes from the Star Trek universe an irritating detail that only exists in a single episode for the duration of about one minute, it's worth it...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Chaos Descending]

^^^ O-3 Lieutenant. Not O-4.

- Sean, Pedantic

 

[J.T.B.]

I personally prefer to think that since the universe is full of captains of all sorts, Starfleet Captains sometimes wish to stand apart. That is, Captain Christopher Pike, holding O-6 rank in Starfleet, would wish to be distinguished from captain Leo Walsh, holding no rank whatsoever while commanding his own freighter, but also from Commander Ramart, holding O-5 rank in Starfleet while captaining the Antares. And the formal way to do that would be to call Pike "Fleet Captain" rather than just "Captain".

First, there would be no reason to do that in the cases in "The Menagerie." Mendez would know as well as Kirk that Pike was a captain in Starfleet, there would be no need to specify to him what service Pike was in. And if there was only one rank of captain in Starfleet that one could be promoted to, there would be no need for Kirk to specify that to Mendez, either. It's just not the way people would use that language. Imagine a navy officer today telling his superior about a fellow officer: "I met him when he was promoted to navy captain."

Second, why would there be more of a need in Starfleet to distinguish between captains by rank and captains by job than there is in a r/w navy today? There are no special verbal constructs to note the difference, nor is there a need for any.

Third, if there were a need to distinguish a Starfleet captain from civilian captains, the most likely and sensible way would be to add "Starfleet" as a prefix, not just "fleet."

Complex? Perhaps. But if it removes from the Star Trek universe an irritating detail that only exists in a single episode for the duration of about one minute, it's worth it...

Just out of curiosity, why is the detail irritating? For whatever reason, it seems pretty clear to me that fleet captain is another grade in Starfleet. Yes, it was mentioned in the early days of the show when things were less thought out, and yes it was extremely rare and only in one series, but still, we're stuck with it.

As to whether it's necessary, I agree with Chaos Descending. To know the answer to that we'd need to know what the rank is for, and a lot more about the size of Starfleet, the numbers of its higher officers, its policies for flag and command assignments and on and on.

--Justin

 

[Chaos Descending]

Second, why would there be more of a need in Starfleet to distinguish between captains by rank and captains by job than there is in a r/w navy today? There are no special verbal constructs to note the difference, nor is there a need for any.

Well, unless you want to count Commodore as used by the United States Navy today, specifically a Captain that is serving as the commander of a squadron or similar organization.

 

[Red Ranger]

Was it necessary? Nope. I tend to agree with Timo and the others who think fleet captain is a title, not an actual rank. It's bestowed on captains with distinguished careers who have no desire to move up to flag officer rank (commodore, admiral). In the only two instances we know of, the circumstantial evidence, Pike and Garth being experienced starship captains held in some reverence, clinches it for me. It is kind of nice to think of a rank with three solid braids -- if only they just gave Kirk those three braids, though, to indicate full captain. As I recall, in the history of the U.S. and Royal Navy, at one time three gold braids did indicate a post, or full, captain.

 

[T'Girl]

I wonder if a Fleet Captain corresponds to the position of Flag Captain, a Flag Captain is the individual in command of the Admiral's flagship. The Admiral commands their fleet, but not the ship that they are aboard, that's the job of the Flag Captain.

 

[James Wright]

> Can someone explain the differances between a Flag Captain & Fleet Captain in the 18th century British Royal Navy, were both tempory positions, were they used in the U.S. Navy?
>
> >



In a large fleet the Captain of the Fleet (or First Captain of the flagship) was a "staff officer" who looked after much of the administrative matters on the Admiral's behalf. He ranked as a flag officer and shared prize money accordingly.The Flag Captain (or Second Captain) was the commanding officer of the flagship. Note that a Captain of the Fleet was only appointed to major fleets (sometimes defined as exceeding 20 ships of the line).


Peter Beeston


Here's something that might answer your question.

James
P.S.
i remembered how to cut and paste!

 

[Timo]

First, there would be no reason to do that in the cases in "The Menagerie." Mendez would know as well as Kirk that Pike was a captain in Starfleet, there would be no need to specify to him what service Pike was in.

Well, doh. But the idea here is to convolute away the concept of Fleet Captain - a harmless one-off bit of convolution to remove the possibly series-long or fictional-universe-spanning alternate convolution where Fleet Captain exists as a rank or a title.

So we might say that Pike was a celebrity of sorts (the waves of "get well soon letters" mentioned might suggest this already) and his known service history featured him either proceeding from civilian skipper to Starfleet one, or then doing an exceptional amount of skippering before reaching Captain rank - thereby warranting the extra verbal care. That is, if Kirk said he was in Pike's "promotion to captain", he might mislead Mendez by a decade and a half. Or something.

Second, why would there be more of a need in Starfleet to distinguish between captains by rank and captains by job than there is in a r/w navy today?

Many navies do feel the need. Those using English as the command language currently don't, but that could change.

Third, if there were a need to distinguish a Starfleet captain from civilian captains, the most likely and sensible way would be to add "Starfleet" as a prefix, not just "fleet."

Here I disagree - Kirk wouldn't bother to say Starfleet when he could make do with 'Fleet instead. If he put that in writing, he might write Starfleet, though.

Just out of curiosity, why is the detail irritating?

Basically, it's the only issue on which UFP SF really dares differ from USN. As such, it undermines the idea that alien rank systems could be translated in terms of the "human" one; if the humans haven't managed to "standardize" their own system, then such translations would become quite futile. (I might buy there being a standard translation where the starting rank each culture prefers for the CO of a ship gets called "Captain", but it would be weird to call an ill-defined alien rank "Major" unless one could find direct parallels, a six-step line officer scale and so forth.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SpyOne]

This is quite interesting.

As I see it, from what was said above, Fleet Captain was likely a position for a Captain assisting in the administration of the fleet. Basically right below the Admiral in charge of Starfleet operations.
Most people think that Kirk met Pike when Kirk took over command of the Enterprise, although that would make the Commodore's question a little odd, and Kirk's response equally odd: would he not have been more likely to say, "When I took command of the Enterprise," or "When I relieved him aboard Enterprise"?
If that's what a Fleet Captain is, then it is interesting that the Enterprise seems to be a stepping stone to that job: Pike became Fleet Captain after leaving the Enterprise, Admiral Kirk was head of Starfleet Operations.

ANd Commodore might mean a Captain doing an Admiral's job, essentially? We've seen a few Commodores commanding a Starship, but perhaps the were the leader of a Task Force, and Commodore Mendez was played by an actor only 3 years older than Shatner, so some Commodores are pretty young.

(Side note: Commodore Mendez told Kirk that Pike was "about your age" despite the fact that Pike had been Captain of the Enterprise 13 years before, and Jeffrey Hunter didn't look like he was 20 at the time. )

 

[Red Ranger]

Here's an interesting non-canon tidbit. In the novel Enterprise: The First Adventure, Vonda McIntyre sidesteps the whole issue of fleet captain and just made Pike a commodore. It's also implied Pike was booted up to that rank because he didn't play politics, and would have preferred to remain a starship captain. Despite some flaws in that novel, I do enjoy it.

 

[plynch]

Didn't the OP ask if anyone KNOWS?

We could all conjecture till our fingers fall off.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Didn't the OP ask if anyone KNOWS?

We could all conjecture till our fingers fall off.

The OP assumes that GR had all this stuff nailed down from the getgo. Evidence would seem to indicate he didn't. "Fleet Captain" probably didnt enter the picture until they were plotting/scripting "The Menangerie" and then promptly vanished when they were done. My guess is they wanted Pike to be higher than Kirk in rank but not an Admiral (which might make him seem too old) or a Commodore like Melendez.

 

[James Wright]

In TOS what do "you" suppose the duties of a Fleet Captain were? I'm leaning toward a staff position that senior Captains hold briefly before being promoted to Commodore because Commodores command squadrons, assuming the ships sent against the Enterprise in "The Ultimate Computer" was a squadron, single ships like Constellation and Star Bases.If Fleet Captains commanded squadrons, single ships or Star Bases there would be confusion.
Never could understand FASA's version of Fleet Captain.

James

 

[Nerys Myk]

Rank and position don't always coincide. The size of the base may determine if the Base CO is a Captain, a Commodore or even a Commander ( like Sisko in DS9). I'm of the opinion a Fleet Captain is position not a rank. Who knows, Pike may have been Commodore.