Where were the senior officers during the Vulcan rescue mission?

[Cadet49]

I really enjoyed the 2009 movie, but something that didn't make sense to me was why the Enterprise seemed to be lacking in older, senior officers during an emergency mission. Pike, Spock, Engineer Olson, and Dr. Puri (who was killed), seemed to be the only senior officers aboard ... in fact, when Pike leaves the bridge during the crisis, he leaves Chekov, who apparently is still a cadet (since we see him in a cadet uniform in the crowd at the medal ceremony at the end of the movie), and Spock later leaves Cadet Uhura in charge when he beams down to Vulcan, before Kirk is back aboard, and Kirk leaves Sulu, a new officer, in command when they return to the Sol System chasing Nero.

Where were the senior officers? Was Earth totally out of senior officers, despite the crisis in the Laurentian System? Couldn't they have sent personnel from Starfleet Command (Admirals, etc.?)

 

[Cadet49]

Could an explanation be that, in the rush to get experienced science and command personnel to Vulcan to help Vulcan officials investigate what the considered at that point to be an environmental disaster, Starfleet Command sent the Enterprise senior officers ahead on a high speed transport vessel ahead of the rescue fleet, so they could get going on the situation before the Enterprise arrived? So, because the Enterprise would be shorthanded on the voyage there, they supplemented the crew with cadets, but were planning on having the senior officers rendevous with the vessel once it arrived at Vulcan? That way, they would already have started dealing with the crisis when Pike arrived with the rescue fleet. Unfortunately, it was a trap, and Nero destroyed the high speed transport (and the senior officers), and the rescue fleet that arrived before the Enterprise ...

I know, it's a bit of a convoluted explanation ...

 

[Pauln6]

It was a bit ludicrous. I think it was exacerbated by leaving out the Number One character. If she had been on board but incapacitated so that Spock becomes the duty officer it would at least have made more sense. We do know that cadet cruises often only have a dozen or so fully-qualified officers on board and that Starfleet does send them on missions it doesn't consider dangerous from TWoK. so while it's silly, it's not without precedent.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It was a rescue mission. They needed the ships crewed as quickly as possible. So they got the bare minimum senior staff required per ship and flew all the cadets up to fill the gaps.

Using the cadets is a lot quicker than individually tracking down the various assigned crewmembers ahead of schedule, or disrupting officers who are already on other assignments.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Everybody and his dog was in the Laurentian system. Everyone.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Well... except Archer's dog

He was in a non-corporeal state, floating around transwarp space.

 

[Shatnertage]

In the Laurentian system.

 

[T'Girl]

You also need to consider that the Enterprise was newly constructed and apparently not scheduled to launch at that time, she might have been months alway from her builder trials, maiden cruise and official Starfleet commissioning.

With the exception of Pike and a few others, there simply were no senior officers assigned to her yet.

 

[Pauln6]

It's still not a very realistic proposition. With star trek's new ships crewed by twice as many people it's silly to suggest that they would not have been able to spread 50 - 100 experienced crew members they had among each of the 7 ships. For starters each ship is crewed for 3 duty shifts and since Vulcan can be reached in about an hour in NuTrek they could staff 3 ships with a full compliment of trained staff just by spreading out the trained crew of one ship - unless we're back to TMP where Starfleet headquarters was oddly understaffed and under-resourced.

 

[Yevetha]

It was an emergency.

They had a massive force and nobody expected that they are going too be owerhelmed.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

^Well... except Archer's dog

He was in a non-corporeal state, floating around transwarp space.

THANK GOD HE IS SAFE.

 

[Pauln6]

It wasn't really a true emergency, since they didn't know what was going on. It might have been better if they had said that sending cadet vessels to Vulcan to carry out an assessment would be a good training exercise.

 

[G2309]

Senior helmsman had lung worm. Senior at coms didnt speak Romulan. Poor guy gets replaced then forgoton because there one language he can't speak. Should have just pretended to and used google translator.

 

[SheliakBob]

...So the Laurentian System mission was actually a full fleet effort to rescue Admiral Archer's beloved dog?

Now, that finally makes sense! Things begin to fall into place...

 

[M'Sharak]

I think Bob may be onto something.

 

[G2309]

...So the Laurentian System mission was actually a full fleet effort to rescue Admiral Archer's beloved dog?

Now, that finally makes sense! Things begin to fall into place...

Sounds like the kind of thing Archer would order.

 

[Pauln6]

Maybe the beagle is the villain in the next movie?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Archer's beagle was Future Guy.

 

[Sharr Khan]

Where were the senior officers during the Vulcan rescue mission?

I'd say none, aside from the captain were yet assigned. After all it was an emergency launch. Which is not all out there for Star Trek.

But really, the lack of there being more senior staff is pretty much the result of the same thing that makes sure that the Enterprise is always the nearest ship to any crisis... the story/stories are meant to be about Kirk & Co. along with his ship.

Its not an egregious error or lack of forethought on the part of Abrams and crew here. Sure it might be nice to wonder the answer to this, story wise I can't but think it would become a sidetrack to explain. As it was the story demanded (no matter who told it it would have demanded it BTW) that a few other officers who were posted had to be conviently removed from their posts so the main attractions: Kirk, Spock, McCoy... ect could take center stage, as its a movie about them not some senior staff we could careless about.

 

[Cyke101]

There was also the Helm officer that got sick enough for Sulu to take over, as well the comm officer that Uhura replaced simply due to skill. There's no hard proof that they were senior officers, but they were definitely in place before our heroes.

Granted, it all seems a bit contrived, I won't argue with that, but if that's true for Sulu and Uhura's predecessors, then that at least answers the OP's question of whether there were other possible senior officers in addition to Pike, Spock, Puri, and Olsen.

Oddly enough, even if there were only four senior officers, there's a kind of precedent in Trek canon, with the Enterprise-B's emergency mission -- barring any novelizations or non-canon retcons, who were the senior officers aside from Harriman? Was Demura Sulu a senior officer? Were the others scheduled to board on Tuesday? But it was an emergency and the E-B was launched, bare-bones; it's possible that there were only a couple of senior officers on board as well. I doubt ST09 used that part of Generations as a guide or homage, but there's a small, debatable example.

And yes, we need a Number One. Even the name itself is deliciously 60s like the British Avengers and various spy shows at the time.