Was Dax Sisko's XO circa 2374 ?

[Lighthammer]

There's some weirdness with who's Sisko XO and when, but on this run of watching DS9, I've been asking myself if Dax got promoted to Lt. Cmdr. after "Call to Arms" to be Sisko's XO during the Defiant's attachment to Starbase 357 (before she becomes skipper of the Defiant, temporarily, at least).

There's certainly a few scenes where Bashir, O'Brian and Nog hand her reports as if she's acting in that role.

Anyone have any confirmation or at least any further supporting evidence if this was the case?

PS I'm largely only talking about the stent between "Call to Arms" until "Favor the Bold"

 

[Roboturner913]

Probably so, she was the most senior officer with Kira absent and Worf part of the Klingon fleet. Even if she wasn't formally named as such, it would probably have taken on that structure at least in an informal way that was understood among the crew.

It always bugged me they didn't put her in a red command uniform when she took command of the Defiant.

 

[Lighthammer]

Well, what I was trying to pin down is when she got promoted from Lt to Lt Cmdr and it seems like it was after "Call to Arms" for that purpose.

I do agree with you - heck, post season 2, she never really did science-y things. She probably should have straight transferred to command.

She certainly played XO-roulette between Worf and Kira too outside this stent.

 

[Pavonis]

Dax was promoted to lieutenant commander at the beginning of the fourth season. She was just due for it, apparently, and it was not in order to be an executive officer. She was still the station's ranking science officer.

 

[Tomalak]

She got promoted between seasons three and four, before Worf was assigned to the station and became the Defiant's first officer. It makes sense that she'd be next in line for the Defiant in the original intention. Or maybe that was Eddington's function? He was basically assigned to the station to keep an eye on the Defiant. I guess after the Tom Riker debacle, they didn't want Kira to have free reign over their top secret battleship.

 

[Lighthammer]

Hmm, that's an interesting thought too, though I do recall some situations were Kira did serve as first officer on the defiant.

You are right though, clearly she was promoted between Season 3 and Season 4; not season 4 and Season 5 as I thought.

I wonder if she was promoted to be the XO of the Defiant and then Worf came on board and Sisko offered it to him ? Worf clearly makes statements on the station that suggests he's Sisko's XO later in that season.

There's a lot of times throughout the series where it seems like Dax, Kira and Worf are all but stepping on each's toes being the XO without getting in fights over it. It's a little weird --- to say the least.

Beyond that --- am I wrong in thinking Dax might have been the fastest promoted person we know of? I mean comparatively, we had poor LaForge who graduated the same year as Riker starting on the enterprise as an Lt Jg compared to Riker being a Cmdr. We know Riker was fast tracking, but that means it took LaForge 10 years to get to Lt Jg ...

At the start of the series, Dax had only been out of the academy for a short-ish time. Not longer then a year to a year and a half tops.

 

[Pavonis]

At the start of the show, Jadzia was 28, not a typical age for a freshly minted officer. She was also a full lieutenant, which is also atypical for a freshly minted officer. I think the idea was that Jadzia was not a new officer, but one with some experience before being posted to the station. Which would mean she was not a particularly fast rising officer. Faster than most, maybe, but not incredibly so.

And Geordi graduated in 2357 with Riker, but was a junior lieutenant at least by 2362, and probably before that. Then he made full lieutenant in 2365 and lieutenant commander in 2366, which makes him a pretty fast riser.

 

[Lighthammer]

Jadzia also spent butt loads of time with the symbiosis commission --- I know her previous assigned was Star Fleet Academy's Trill Campus at the Symbiosis Commission which is probably a highly specialized campus for joined trills.

Its unknown if she had another solid assignment before that one but I am of the impression she didn't.

I brought LaForge up tongue and cheek after a fashion because there were almost as many kneejerk reactions with his rank as there was Tuvoks >.<

 

[Pavonis]

How so? LaForge's rank progressed smoothly, whereas Tuvok almost certainly had to have been demoted at some point.

I don't know when Jadzia underwent her symbiosis training, but it easily could've been in her late teens. There's nothing saying that a symbiont is awarded immediately after graduation, only that they're eligible after passing the tests. So Jadzia may have passed her symbiosis training, went to the Academy, then bonded with Dax, and had a posting before meeting Sisko again at DS9. It's murky, like Kirk's backstory.

 

[LeadHead]

The Defiant XO situation is quite odd in regards to Worf and Kira. Dax was only superior to Worf in "The Way of the Warrior" on the Defiant. She was in command on the bridge when Sisko returned from Engineering, Worf was at Engineering station. Then, after he was a permanent part of the crew, he was always her superior.

Worf and Kira have a much stranger situation. Kira stayed with Sisko and basically defaulted command to Worf when the ship was damaged in "Starship Down" Worf commanded the Defiant with Kira aboard and taking his orders in "Paradise Lost" and "Rules of Engagement." In "Tears of the Prophets" when Sisko had to leave the Bridge during battle, Kira stepped in and took over without Worf saying a word.

So strange. To answer the original question, Dax was Sisko's highest ranking Officer during the occupation, so while it may never have been spoken on screen. I do wish that they had given her a Command Uniform for her tenure as Captain, but they do have the easy outs that there was a war on and bigger fish to fry, also, she may have wanted to keep the crew believing that Sisko would return.

 

[Tomalak]

In the middle of a war, changing her shirt to a red one probably wasn't top of their priorities. She had the authority, everyone called her "captain", so it doesn't really matter much.

In most of your examples, the logical person takes charge. Kira and Worf essentially seem to have parity in rank, so it's down to the particularly situation, and Sisko's orders, for who is in command. In 'Starship Down', Worf is the logical choice, because he is more technically versed in Starfleet operations needed for repairs to the ship. 'Rules' and 'Paradise Lost' reinforces the idea that Worf commands the ship in Sisko's absence.

'Tears' is the only slightly curious one, although it comes soon after 'Change of Heart', when Worf was on the receiving end of a dressing-down from Sisko, and may have been temporarily made subordinate to Kira. Alternatively, in that particular situation, they were in the heat of a battle, and Worf was manning the weapons. Probably best to leave him where he was and let Kira sit in the chair.

 

[Lighthammer]

@ Pavious, in S01E08: "Dax", it was stated Jadzia Idaris graduated Star Fleet academy BEFORE being joined and perused being joined only after she graduated; well maybe pursued is too strong a word as one would suggest her advanced studies in science was part of the journey to being joined. Memory Beta is where I am pulling the fact she was stationed on Trill before DS9 but that information in of itself is pulling from the novelized version of Emissary, so take it as you will.

The odd thing is, even in some situations where Kira and Worf are both present on the station, Dax is clearly the one in charge. An example that comes to mind (though Kira has mitigated circumstances for not being charge) is S05E10: "Rapture". Dax clearly pulls rank over Worf. That is after S04E18: "Rules of Engagement" where Worf gets the "talking down to" and eons before S06E16: "Change of Heart" where he sacrifices the Cardassian informant to save Dax.

Frankly this whole mess would have been easier to explain if, like Roboturner913 said, if they just would have stuck Jadzia in a red shirt and explained it away as "DS9 is a busy place and Sisko needs 3 XOs" >.<

Frankly, with as much as was going on and as much as he was in charge of, this isn't really unreasonable. Like I said earlier, its amazing how much Dax, Worf and Kira stepped on each others toes without actually ever getting in arguments. One could take the high road on that and say all three were really mature officers that really understood when who should be taking charge and when they should let them and not have a chip on their shoulder for it.

 

[Tomalak]

Perhaps they had a rota?

 

[USS Firefly]

One could take the high road on that and say all three were really mature officers that really understood when who should be taking charge and when they should let them and not have a chip on their shoulder for it.

I agree with this argument.
And I believe that Kira shouldn't be on the Defiant but on DS9 when the entire staff of DS9 is on the Defiant.

 

[Timo]

Many of the Defiant missions dealt with the fate of Bajor, and the presence of a representative was quite justified. Dealings with the Dominion in turn justified the presence of Odo on occasion. But there are always episodes where either one or the other should have been left behind, and sometimes perhaps both.

We could simply argue that since there were so many times it was necessary to have Kira or Odo aboard, a standard arrangement was created to cover for their absence - meaning they ultimately had no reason not to come aboard!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

How so? LaForge's rank progressed smoothly, whereas Tuvok almost certainly had to have been demoted at some point.

If you're referring to Tuvok still only being a Lieutenant despite being in Starfleet back in the days of Kirk and Sulu, the backstory for the character (fleshed out in the novel Pathways) had him resign his Starfleet commission for several decades to raise his family and explore his Vulcan heritage, having found interaction with humans difficult. He subsequently realised there was much to learn in Starfleet and had his commission restored, but at the same rank as when he left.

 

[Lighthammer]

Nope!

What we/I am are referring to is when we first saw Tuvok's rank, he was a Lt. Cmdr. in Care Taker, I don't recall when, but at some point a whole pip was taken off his collar and he was "demoted" to Lt. Jg. and only got "repromoted" down the road.

My take on the whole thing was it was a kneejerk reaction. At some point after shooting they realzied they were making Chakotay a Lt Cmdr instead of a Cmdr so they thought making Tuvok a Lt Cmdr was awkward and dropped his rank; either that or they made the decision in time but makeup, nor the directors got the memo.

I'm not sure this is something that can be explained away through some sort of inventive story explanation that everyone would generally buy.

As for LaForge's rank progression, I kind of do need to bring this up while I am thinking about; You don't go from Lt Jg, to Lt to Lt Cmdr in 1 year stepping stones. You just don't. I could buy LaForge being promoted from Lt Jg to Lt to take over Engineering in season 2 and then promoting him again in like season 6 or 7.

As long as LaForge was a Lt Jg, it gives the impression he was either king of slackers for a long time (which nothing in his history suggests that in the very least) or he took a sabbatical for some period of time. After a fashion, what really messed us up was finding out Riker and LaForge graduated the same year form Starfleet Academy --- that was the point when things just got unwieldy weird. As soon as we learned that, by all rights, LaForges should have been Chief Engineer in Season 1 STARTING with a rank of Lt Cmdr.

Grumble, grumble --- inconsistencies on screen make me sad when they are this overt.

 

[Pavonis]

Nope, not what I meant. Tuvok wore the pips of a lieutenant commander in season one, then only lieutenant pips, then lieutenant commander pips again.

 

[Lighthammer]

I was actually going to go look for the episodes to validate where that happened, but yea, you're right actually, he went down to Lt, not Lt Jg. I forgot Paris was a full Lt and Tuvok was very obviously his superior.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure this is something that can be explained away through some sort of inventive story explanation that everyone would generally buy.

It's simple enough to argue that Janeway demoted Tuvok as the result of his mutinous activities in "Prime Factors". His "extra" pip disappears after that, and although the disappearance is an odd and protracted affair where the pip flashes on and off between scenes of "Cathexis", we could turn a blind eye to that.

It's not our eyes or our plot-analyzing intelligence that present the problem here. It's our ears. On half a dozen occasions throughout the first season, Tuvok is verbally identified as "Lieutenant", not "Lieutenant Commander". Some of these we might chalk off as Janeway considering Tuvok her trusted lieutenant, regardless of rank. But several are formal introductions, often by Tuvok himself - say, in "Ex Post Facto". The short form "Commander" would be excusable there, but the expression "Lieutenant" would not.

Assuming that Tuvok got demoted presents us with several advantages. Many other characters got demoted around that time, too: B'Elanna Torres had been wearing varying "custom" versions of the Maquis pin, ranging from Ensign to full Lieutenant, but now stabilized on Lt (j.g.), and Tom Paris dropped from full Lieutenant to junior rank. Torres was part of the "Prime Factors" mutiny, and it's easy to believe Paris would find ways to make Janeway sufficiently annoyed at him.

If we assume Janeway demoted Tuvok, then we can argue that Janeway never promoted anybody. She just restored Tuvok's rank later on, much like he restored Paris' after the boy had suffered through his "30 Days" demotion penalty; perhaps she believed that she had no authority to promote anybody without first clearing it with Starfleet. This explains poor Harry Kim, the Eternal Ensign!

Hey, if skippers who are cut off from home base don't get their promotions confirmed, we have a long queue of cases that this could explain. This is why Spock is still a "Lieutenant Commander" in Starfleet's books despite wearing full Commander braid; this is why LaForge didn't get promoted on schedule, as he was stranded on a long and dull deep space assignment aboard the Victory; etc.

But, as said, this all requires us not to believe our ears. Sure, Trek is a visual type of entertainment first and foremost, but still...

Timo Saloniemi