Chain of Command after STXI

[M'Sharak]

As per Scotty, I'm a little confused as to why he'd be a Lieutenant Commander when he spoke about that instructor he had his fight with regarding the theory of transwarp beaming. Maybe he's referring to a former instructor though, Scotty does look a lot older than most of the crew, excepting McCoy.

Makes sense. If Scotty's "disfavored status" goes back to the time he had an instructor, though, he's got plenty of reason to be pissed off...

Doubtful. Scotty himself says he's been on Delta Vega for only six months, and later in the same scene he mentions having tested an experimental transporter method on Admiral Archer's beagle, a dog Kirk says he knows. A former instructor with whom Scotty had kept in touch and occasionally argued theory seems far more likely.

 

[Sanae]

So, pre-movie, we have:

Kirk - Cadet in his final year at the Academy
Spock - Working as Instructor at the Academy with Pike
McCoy - Working at the Academy as Doctor
Scotty - Working in Delta Vega
Sulu - Serving on some other ship/station
Chekov - Cadet in the Academy or somewhere else?
Uhura - Cadet in her final year at the Academy

Also, putting together everything you guys have kindly provided me with, the chain of command after the movie would look like this:

CO: Kirk; XO: Spock; 2O/CEO: Scotty; 3O/Helmsman: Sulu; Navigator: Chekov; Communications: Uhura; CMO: McCoy.

Does that sound right to you guys?

@Timo: I'm not familiar with every army in the world but in some European ones when the cadet is in possession of a university degree, he automatically gets an officer rank rather than having to start from the bottom. I assumed that with McCoy being a fully qualified doctor it'd be the same thing.

 

[Nerys Myk]

@Timo: I'm not familiar with every army in the world but in some European ones when the cadet is in possession of a university degree, he automatically gets an officer rank rather than having to start from the bottom. I assumed that with McCoy being a fully qualified doctor it'd be the same thing.

Thats why he's a Lt Commander and not an Ensign or Lieutenant after his Starfleet training. Same as in MASH where Hawkeye enters the Army as Captain.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ That's common practice for doctors. My dad was in the Army Medical Corps and he was commissioned as a Captain.

 

[Bob Karo]

Honestly, I always assumed TOS McCoy was a direct commission.

 

[Timo]

In STXI, Kirk and Uhura were both lieutenants when they boarded the Enterprise (when Chekov beams Kirk and Sulu up, the screen says "Lt. J.T.Kirk", Spock calls Uhura "Lieutenant" when the cadets are boarding the shuttles) although they're still cadets.

Or the the situation is so hopelessly confused that part of Starfleet thinks these people are cadets, while another part thinks they have just graduated (because why else would they be on assignment already?). The shipboard computer for one would probably be inflexible in its thinking and literally automatically assume the cadets had already gained their commissions.

Even then, we're left wondering why Kirk would graduate as Lieutenant when Chekov has to be Ensign first. Betting on Kirk actually being a postgrad student by his third year, as suggested in many comments above, is probably the best choice; certainly Saavik seemed to be postgrad when taking her no-win test.

For all we know, four years always means a combined undergrad+postgrad whole, and one gets one's Ensign commission after just one year if one isn't a hopeless slacker. And Chekov isn't. Canonically speaking, we've only heard of a few "command-line" heroes spending the whole four years studying; one villain aiming for command did five years, even. The various blueshirts, TOS redshirts or TNG yellowshirts might all have graduated in just a year or two, because nobody claims otherwise on screen.

(Well, perhaps somebody claims otherwise "on screen on screen", in an Okudagram somewhere. But not in dialogue.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

It's worth noting that that the chain of command doesn't have to apply strictly to the bridge. The watch officer is put in command using a rota presumably and is usually a junior officer from the command school. However, there should be some protocol for senior officers to take over if an emergency situation arises so you don't get the kind of wrangling Geordi got into with the (senior-ranked) duty engineer in TNG.

Essentially, Uhura's position in the chain of command may be quite high in TOS (as a depatment head) but as an engineer rather than a command officer, she would usually only be placed in command by a specific order rather than on the general rota e.g. if the watch officer has to leave the bridge suddenly (cue loud flushing sound). Why she changed from a command uniform to an engineering uniform is anybody's guess. Maybe she didn't like being on the command rota?

 

[Timo]

In production and stardate order, her stint in Command gold comes right after the ship takes casualties in "Where No Man". During that stint, the ship is also short on crucial supplies, that is, dilithium ("Mudd's Women") - and literally going where no man has gone before, mapping certain starscapes for the very first time ("Corbomite Maneuver"). We could well postulate, then, that the ship is making do with internal reshuffling of personnel because it is impossible to visit a starbase yet - because the ship is only slowly making her way back home from the edge of the galaxy during those two episodes.

For all we know, Uhura in TOS was a "bridge generalist" like Chekov originally, but narrowed it down to Communications to fill in for a fallen redshirt (Kelso?). Might be an upward career move from wallowing in a generic "watch officer pool" to having a definite department head role. During "The Enemy Within", a generic goldshirt is still crewing the Comms station, the last "goldie" to do so; we don't hear much of his career afterwards!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

Or maybe the replicator was screwy and gave her the wrong uniform a couple of times.

 

[Pauln6]

On the McCoy issue, Bashir is a Lt (j.g.) straight out of the acadamy and they made a lot of the education & rank vs experienced non-com issue in DS9. Nurses can be officers too and tend to be lower rank than the supervising doctor (usually ensigns but the head nurse may be a Lt (j.g.) such as Ogawa and Chapel in TAS. Chapel as a doctor in TMP was a Lt.

It would have been more common I think for McCoy as an experienced doctor but inexperienced officer serving under a CMO to be a full Lt. I think they just didn't think the ranks through all that well.

 

[Nerys Myk]

On the McCoy issue, Bashir is a Lt (j.g.) straight out of the acadamy and they made a lot of the education & rank vs experienced non-com issue in DS9. Nurses can be officers too and tend to be lower rank than the supervising doctor (usually ensigns but the head nurse may be a Lt (j.g.) such as Ogawa and Chapel in TAS. Chapel as a doctor in TMP was a Lt.

It would have been more common I think for McCoy as an experienced doctor but inexperienced officer serving under a CMO to be a full Lt. I think they just didn't think the ranks through all that well.

True, they wanted every one at their familier ranks. But if an idiot like Frank Burns can be made a Major, then I think McCoy can be the Starfleet equivalent of Lt. Commander.