Canon Crew of the Stargazer

[Bry_Sinclair]

I've been having a very chilled weekend, so lots of little things are popping into my head that I fancy seeing who has what thoughts on

The Stargazer only has three named crewmembers: Picard, Jack Crusher, and Weapons Officer Vigo. In "The Battle" we saw three others. There was a humanoid in red at one of the aft stations (not someone I've overly concerned with for the point of this thread), then we come to Helm and Navigation, where we have a humanoid female in blue at the former and a humanoid man in gold at the latter. These are the two I'm curious about.

Going by TOS colours its likely both these officers should've been in flight control red, however under the Movie uniforms navigators wore science grey and helmsmen wore engineering mustard. As far as I can tell, this leave two possible explanations:
1. Ships of the time still using separate helm and nav officers complied with the Movie-Era assignments, with navigators coming from a more scientific background and helmsmen a more technical one; these two however were either in the wrong seats or the controls could be flipped about as needed. Or,
2. The two red-clad officers who usually sat there were wounded during the battle and the two we see are actually other bridge staff who filled the vacancies.

We also have the fact that the Enterprise-C, which was on the go ten years earlier never mentioned a navigator (though called Castillo the helmsman) but did have an operations post, which seems to be missing from the Stargazer.

Thoughts?

 

[Ithekro]

It would seem that Starfleet had switched to the newer TNG uniforms by the time Stargazer was lost, but also not long before Jack Crusher died. That isn't a lot of time really. A few years at the most. So maybe they hadn't fully established the resigned uniforms. Their pre-TNG uniforms seeming had lost any kind of color distinction they would have had back in Kirk's days. Or at least it is less obvious without the undershirt viable.

Stargazer is a much older ship than the Enterprise-C, so it probably is setup in a TOS fashion (though USS Hathaway is setup in a weirder way). It is possible they reversed it at some point in her long history so that it was closer to a more modern starship in seating arrangement so as to make it so the captain and crew would instinctively go or look to the correct station regardless of ship.

If the battle was very bad, than those crew would be the replacements for the regulars at those seats

 

[Timo]

I'm all for option 2 - as per Picard's dream, these two were crewing the console after the ship was already badly hit. Indeed, they perform the Picard Maneuver that ends the confrontation; casualties prior to this point are rather likely. And it seems the Bridge itself was on fire, making it all the likelier that bridge officers would be among those hurt or killed.

Adding to this, the two seemed quite indecisive to the point of incompetence, begging Picard for advice. Is this an artifact of the Bok-induced nightmare? Or does it reflect what happened in reality? If the latter, they probably indeed were the ship's Assistant Medic Third Grade and Sensors Maintenance Specialist Second Class (note the lack of commissioned officer markings on their collars), drafted to duty beyond their expertise or experience.

As regards the E-C, I'd assume the surviving consoles were reassigned during repairs. There may have been a Navigation and/or Helm console that got knocked out of commission, along with key officers (the prop that we do see on the damaged bridge). Or then such a console did not exist, and the casualties had collapsed next to some insignificant piece of hardware.

The Hathaway, OTOH, seems to have been mothballed in a fashion that altered the bridge layout: a generic control console was available for Worf, but apparently another of those was shoved aside to stage left. Presumably those consoles would be moveable (just like they evidently are on the E-D, an artifact of them being moveable in the real world), and they had been in fairly standard positions in front of the CO's chair on the Hathaway, but then moved aside when the mothballing crews tore down into the vessel. Whoever got the old ship to the wargames system might have haphazardly restored one console to that odd, almost-centerline position for the purpose of basic navigating, and Riker decided that full combatworthiness did not require restoring the other.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

then we come to Helm and Navigation, where we have a humanoid female in blue at the former and a humanoid man in gold at the latter.

Ships of the time still using separate helm and nav officers

Or more in line with the bridge layout in the later Galaxy Class, the woman to starboard was at the helm, and the man to port was at operations (ops).

There was no navigator.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, while Picard's dream is ambiguous, the layout of the Stargazer bridge is not. We know her central console is stenciled with "HELM" to port and supposedly "NAV" to starboard.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x09/thebattle_hd_345.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

The thing is, while Picard's dream is ambiguous, the layout of the Stargazer bridge is not. We know her central console is stenciled with "HELM" to port and supposedly "NAV" to starboard.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x09/thebattle_hd_345.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

I always thought that was kind of odd, the way the stations were labeled like that. Why?

 

[T'Girl]

After a hard night drinking, it helps the crewperson find their station.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

After a hard night drinking, it helps the crewperson find their station.

Had a couple of hangovers like that myself

 

[Ithekro]

Or maybe USS Stargazer had been a training ship like the USS Enterprise? They just never bothered to redecorate.