Long overdue improvements to Starfleet

[7thsealord]

it's quoted on wikipedia that he said sometime in the 60s or 70s that he thought the Enterprise had Marines on board, but it doesn't say he never figured out how to use them. christ, they could've easily been used in Errand of Mercy or even The Trouble With Tribbles. or they honour guard in Journey to Babel could've been given different uniforms as Marines...

There you have it. Considering the problems TOS had budgeting for normal uniforms (and just about everything else), it is doubtful if they could have afforded name-tags, never mind anything more.

So it sounds like in TOS it was probably money that killed the idea more than anything else. But, by the 80's, GR's thinking had taken .... a different path, to put it nicely.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

They could have simply had the redshirts be Marines and be done with it.

 

[Captain Rob]

Give the Marines OD Green shirts.

 

[T'Girl]

6 ) There's some bizarre brain bug Star Trek writers have that says you have to be the rank of Captain to captain a ship. This is absolutley bizarro. Let's get some Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders up in that business.

Given the stripes displayed by Kirk, it would have interesting to reveal that James Kirk was actually a Lieutenant Commander in rank. He still would have been the captain of the Enterprise.

 

[Vanyel]

6 ) There's some bizarre brain bug Star Trek writers have that says you have to be the rank of Captain to captain a ship. This is absolutley bizarro. Let's get some Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders up in that business.

Given the stripes displayed by Kirk, it would have interesting to reveal that James Kirk was actually a Lieutenant Commander in rank. He still would have been the captain of the Enterprise.

Riker was given command of a ship, as was Data during Redemption. Data kept his rank as Lt. Commander but assumed the position of Captain of the Sutherland. So it is conceivable that other ships in Starfleet do have Commanders or Lt. Commanders as Captain.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Dax and Worf on the Defiant in DS9. And that cadet on the Valiant. All called "captain" as title, not rank.

 

[Vanyel]

^Dax and Worf on the Defiant in DS9. And that cadet on the Valiant. All called "captain" as title, not rank.

They weren't just called Captain, they held the position of Captain.

 

[The Wormhole]

6 ) There's some bizarre brain bug Star Trek writers have that says you have to be the rank of Captain to captain a ship. This is absolutley bizarro. Let's get some Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders up in that business.
7 ) More enlisted people. Starfleet officers take 4 years to train. I very much doubt the entire fleet is officers. Starfleet needs somebody to keep their lights running.

there's probably a whole laundry list, but I can't be bothered.

DS9 did try to have officers lower than Captain commanding ships. There is of course Worf and Dax, Dax even got referred to as "Captain" during her term in command. Then there was the officer commanding the USS Prometheus in Second Sight who was a Lieutenant JG. Although my understanding is the intention was for him to be a Lt. Commander, someone just screwed up on his pips.

Meanwhile, Star Trek's attempts to show enlisted folk have usually ended up rather sloppily handled. We know O'Brien is enlisted, but otherwise enlisted are seen very rarely and when they are seen their depiction is usually screwed up somehow.

^Dax and Worf on the Defiant in DS9. And that cadet on the Valiant. All called "captain" as title, not rank.

Actually, the cadet in command of the Valiant did hold the field rank of an actual Captain. He even wore four pips on his uniform.

 

[CoveTom]

Meanwhile, Star Trek's attempts to show enlisted folk have usually ended up rather sloppily handled. We know O'Brien is enlisted, but otherwise enlisted are seen very rarely and when they are seen their depiction is usually screwed up somehow.

Star Trek has never been able to make up its mind on whether or not there even was such a thing as enlisted crewmen, and that's led to it being very inconsistent. In TOS, we had quite a few people being referred to as "crewman," but by the time of TNG, Roddenberry had decided that there were no enlisted personnel. I guess he felt that being enlisted denoted a lower class, more menial position, but I don't agree with that at all.

Regardless, the idea of a fleet composed entirely of officers is rather absurd, and by the time of DS9, they tried to walk that back and correct that, even retroactively making O'Brien an enlisted officer (starting in TNG's "Family," I believe) where he had previously worn the pips of a lieutenant.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Meanwhile, Star Trek's attempts to show enlisted folk have usually ended up rather sloppily handled. We know O'Brien is enlisted, but otherwise enlisted are seen very rarely and when they are seen their depiction is usually screwed up somehow.

Star Trek has never been able to make up its mind on whether or not there even was such a thing as enlisted crewmen, and that's led to it being very inconsistent. In TOS, we had quite a few people being referred to as "crewman," but by the time of TNG, Roddenberry had decided that there were no enlisted personnel. I guess he felt that being enlisted denoted a lower class, more menial position, but I don't agree with that at all.

Regardless, the idea of a fleet composed entirely of officers is rather absurd...

I can understand (even if I don't agree with) the notion Roddenberry may have had that everyone in Starfleet was a college graduate. The never-demonstrated-onscreen idea that everyone in Starfleet was an officer works only if you eliminate the idea that Starfleet is exactly like any navy we know of today, IMO.

 

[captcalhoun]

Simon Tarses was a crewman in The Drumhead. O-Brien wasn't retconned as a non-com in Family, but Sergei Rozhenko self-identified as a Chief Petty Officer. 'Chief' O'Brien on TNG was a transporter chief.

 

[CoveTom]

Simon Tarses was a crewman in The Drumhead. O-Brien wasn't retconned as a non-com in Family, but Sergei Rozhenko self-identified as a Chief Petty Officer. 'Chief' O'Brien on TNG was a transporter chief.

For the first several years of TNG, O'Brien clearly wore the rank pips of a lieutenant. In "Family," he's still wearing the lieutenant's pips, but Sergey says "Always good to meet another Chief Petty Officer" when talking to O'Brien.

Later, in "Realm of Fear," shortly before his transfer to DS9, O'Brien finally gets the actual pips of a non-comm. Ron Moore, the writer of that episode, said in the Q&A posts that he used to do, that it was done for the plot point of Barclay being able to give O'Brien an order.

 

[The Wormhole]

O'Brien is a rather muddled example himself. In the early years he worse Lieutenant's pips, and I think Riker even called him "Lt. O'Brien" in one episode. The first mention of him being a Chief Petty Officer was in Family, even though he continued to wear Lieutenant's pips until Realm of Fear where he bagan wearing the single hollow pip he would continue to wear until DS9's fourth season where a rank pin consisting of chevrons was created.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

O'Brien is a rather muddled example himself. In the early years he worse Lieutenant's pips, and I think Riker even called him "Lt. O'Brien" in one episode.

AFAIK, I think that was when O'Brien was at tactical for that one scene. I don't think Riker was even looking in his direction when he said that. So Riker could have, and I admit this is a stretch, been unconsciously thinking of Worf, and thus used the word "lieutenant" because he was accustomed to talking to Worf at tactical.

Given the stripes displayed by Kirk, it would have interesting to reveal that James Kirk was actually a Lieutenant Commander in rank. He still would have been the captain of the Enterprise.

They definitely should have done that at the end of ST XI. It would have made a hell of a lot more sense, especially since Kirk was technically a Lieutenant for most of his time on the ship. A simple line about "James T. Kirk, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, and ordered to take your post as Captain of the USS Enterprise" would have been more than sufficient.

 

[7thsealord]

It would have made a hell of a lot more sense, especially since Kirk was technically a Lieutenant for most of his time on the ship. A simple line about "James T. Kirk, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, and ordered to take your post as Captain of the USS Enterprise" would have been more than sufficient.

Very reasonable idea. The only problem I can see are some fans complaining about him not becoming 'Captain" Kirk despite all he had done. Doesn't matter WHAT happened or how it was handled, I have no doubt there would still be flamewars galore.

For myself, I think Spock-Prime might have had more than a little to do with it - maybe trying to get nuKirk onto the "right" track ASAP. Given all that had happened, the divergance from "his" timeline was major and only going to get more so, and this was his only shot at assembling a team that he KNEW would be a winner.

Also consider the possibility of 'brevet' ranks, where militaries have been known to "temporarily" promote especially promising individuals to slot them into specific jobs. Breveted officers have all the rights and responsibilities of their "new" rank, but it is on the very clear understanding that this is a strictly temporary thing and can be rescinded whenever the Powers That Be choose to.

One noteworthy case of brevet rank is that of Bernard Freyberg ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Freyberg,_1st_Baron_Freyberg ). He was a very well-regarded British Army officer of ww1 (and became one of the Commonwealth's ablest divisional commanders of ww2). During the latter part of ww1, despite only holding the permanent Army rank of Captain, he was breveted to the rank of Brigadier, reportedly making hiim (at age 28) the youngest general officer in the history of the British Army.

 

[sevenstars]

Brain Protection.

You know, to keep from getting their brains hijacked.

 

[The Castellan]

Either ditch or re work that overrated and stupid Prime Directive.

When an alien species is about to be wiped out, due to some sort of approaching cataclysm, go in an help them.....it's better to 'contaminate' a culture than having no culture at all.

 

[F. King Daniel]

With it's ability to create duplicates, using the transporter as some sort of save/restore thing for crew members.

"Kirk to Enterprise, we need another Sulu - this one just got eaten by a rock monster."

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Seat belts.

To paraphase a TNG parody comic

"You want to be strapped to an exploding console!?"

 

[sevenstars]

Either ditch or re work that overrated and stupid Prime Directive

Oh yes. I change my vote to this.