Hmmm. Spoiler: The above I mean, I don't know that I'd consider the resolution of the Andorian genetic crisis a spoiler per se, because, let's face it, we all knew one way or the other that the Andorian race would be rescued from extinction. Since the blurb for A Ceremony of Losses made it clear that the arc would get resolved one way or the other here, that meant that, realistically, the salvation of the Andorian race was inevitable. The story, to me, lies not in whether or not Bashir will save the Andorians, but in what price he will pay to do so. Meanwhile: Admiral Riker? Hm. I mean, the man was Captain Riker in "The Best of Both Worlds." Promotions don't always stick to this guy. We'll see what's up.
Spoiler: possibilities ]They do command ships when that ship is their flagship. Don't forget in the anti-time future we saw Admiral Riker clearly in command of the Enterprise-D that was his flagship. Not to mention but Admiral Jamieson clearly said in Season 1 when he came aboard. Jamieson made it clear that for that mission Picard was still in Command of the Enterprise while Jamieson was in Command of the mission. That sounds like other times when an Admiral is aboard ship for a mission, the Admiral is clearly in Command of both ship and mission.
Spoiler: my thoughts AGT was an exception to the rule, and they only put Riker in command so they wouldn't have to cast another actor to be the actual captain. The other times an admiral had direct command of a starship was Kirk in TWOK, and that was only because Spock voluntarily handed command over to him. Indeed, in TMP Kirk had to demote himself down to captain to command the Enterprise. Then there's the oddity of Commodore Decker commanding he Constellation in The Doomsday Machine, though that was primarily dramatic license to have an officer who outranked Kirk.
He did, but we don't know for sure that he had to. I interpret it as the tradeoff, the price Kirk had to pay in exchange for Nogura giving him command back.
Didn't Bob Wesley command Lexington in the Ultimate Computer? Flag officers serving as second class commodores (ie commanding both ship and squadron) are rare in real life these days but not unheard of back in the old days...especially if a station was shorthanded.
Not to mention, but in The Best Of Both Worlds we saw that Admiral commanding a starship (via viewscreen --- or else he was on the holodeck of the ship in order to make it look like he was sitting in the command chair of the ship, while the real captain was in the real command chair) at the Battle of Wolf 359. But Wormhole complete missed the point from TNG Season 1 where it was explicitly stated on screen for that mission with Jamieson about the division of command in regards to the mission. Wouldn't that be an odd thing to say if every time that an admiral came aboard a starship, both the Captain and the Admiral knew that each one commanded the seperate parts; however it's not odd when it comes from the angle of an already established rule that Admirals are the highest ranking officer on board and when they are on the ship, the Admiral, not the Captain, is in command of the ship.
Or he was on the Flag Bridge, a separate bridge reserved for flag officers. Odder than that is that Jameson ends up contradicting himself when he sits in command chair and makes Picard sit in Riker's chair, thereby taking command of the ship. None of the navies in the world today operate that way, so why would Starfleet? Indeed, most other times we see an Admiral on board a ship in Star Trek they are rarely in command. Admiral Pressman really was in command of the mission only in The Pegasus, not in command of the Enterprise. Admiral Ross was stationed on DS9 yet Sisko stayed in command of the station. Even in the current Voyager novels Chakotay is in command of the ship even though he has superior officers on board with him.
Because it's a multiworld service and thus might have practices and customs that didn't originate on Earth? Generally it is portrayed in a very Earth-centric way, but it certainly stands to reason that there should be some non-Terrestrial influences on the way it operates. And that can be a handy explanation for some of its oddities.
There's some precedent of flag officers commanding their own ships even in terrestrial navies (even if not "modern" ones). Given that the XO is effectively already the head of the departments on a ship anyway, having them fill in for the flag captain for the admiral in a relatively small squadron or task force probably isn't a big deal in Starfleet. What I find odder is that none of the admirals we see on Trek have staff officers. Even in an all digital age, I doubt they'd reduce paperwork and bureaucracy THAT much.
Admiral Forrest in ENT had Commander Williams (who is now, as Captain Williams, doing the same job for Admiral Archer in Rise of the Federation). And wasn't that basically Sisko's job for Admiral Ross for parts of the Dominion War?
Archer actually have a staff in RotF was pretty great. And Sisko I think was working more like a subordinate squadron commander than a captain of the fleet. I know that constraints on character cast size often make it impractical to have large numbers of secondary lackies, though, so it's not necessarily something to hold against writers in general.
I think we do see them, although most of the time it is just a hand or arm on the view screen (in BOBW, before we see Hansen on the ship bridge, his prior communication is from his office and we see some sort of aide (mostly just an arm) hand him a padd.
Admiral's staffs are occasionally mentioned. Off the top of my head, Picard was in contact with one of Admiral Nechayev's aides to learn her favourite food. In fact, we know Commander Benteen was Admiral Leyton's aide. Norah Satie had her entire staff with her in The Drumhead. And so on.
Didn't Starfleet phase out that rank by the 2300's? I never really got what Commodores were suppose to be in terms of the chain of command in Enterprise or TOS.
Commodore is the lowest flag rank, the naval equivalent of a Brigadier General. The US Navy renamed the rank Rear Admiral, Lower Half in the 1980s. It's generally presumed Starfleet did the same in the early 24th century.
Late 23rd, actually, since the last time we heard the commodore rank used by in-story chronology was in the Epsilon 9 comm chatter in ST:TMP. And if they were switching from commodore to rear admiral around that time, it might help explain why Kirk was an admiral instead of a commodore. (Though I don't get why they wouldn't make the switch fleetwide at the same time.)