Cadet James T. Kirk

[SpyOne]

"Tactical officer" isn't a term used in TOS, anyway, that was more of a TNG thing. In "Arena" "tactical people" are mentioned, but their official positions are vague. The actual fighting of the ship seemed to be handled by the helmsman, with, in later episodes, some kind of "scope" that he used when action was imminent.

Yeah, the jobs got shuffled a bit.
In TOS, Sulu did the steering, fired the weapons, and (at least in the Mirror Universe) seemed to be in charge of the Security guys. They apparently took the "steering the ship" part of that job away, merged what was left with Uhura's job, and called that "Tactical". Mix in the "running the sensors" part of Spock's job.
OPS is mostly the job Scotty did from his station on the bridge, but with Chekov's job thrown in occasionally. "Mr. Data, lay in a course for ...." He also sometimes ran the sensors, and answered the phone.

In TOS, helm was the glory job: you got to do everything and look cool doing it. By the time it became CONN, it seemed like it wasn't that special anymore. "Ensign Ricky, would you like to man the CONN station?"
In TOS, "Conn" was the name for the Big Chair. "Inform the Commodore I'll be beaming down immediately. Mr. Spock, you have the Conn."

Forgive me for drifting a bit further away from the topic and towards the rocks as I share my favorite quote from a Trek novel: it is Montgomery Scott, telling someone the six "most frightening" words he ever heard spoken on a starship: "Mister Scott, you have the Conn."

 

[A beaker full of death]

I don't know what process an M.D. goes through to enter the U.S. Navy today, but they don't go to Annapolis for four years.

Well, only a tiny fraction of people in the US Military came from one of the Service Academies. As a result, their curriculum can be somewhat ... limited.
As far as I know, none of the US Service Academies offer a pre-med degree.
Thus, a Doctor in the Armed Forces got there one of two ways:
1) he went to college, majoring in pre-med, then went to Med School, completed his residency, and then joined the Military. He will be run through something like Basic Training for officers, and then through some kind of Officer Candidate School. Since he is a Doctor, he will enter at an advanced rank (O-3, which is Captain in the Army and Lieutenant in the Navy).
2) He went to college and med school in ROTC, which means the military paid for part of his school and he spent some of his spare time getting that Basic Training and OCS. Otherwise the same as above.

Thank you. Of course, this goes for clergy and JAG as well.

 

[Timo]

On the issue of what Kirk did back in "Obsession", it's a bit weird that the cloud creature would only kill about half the ship's crew (killing the skipper but explicitly sparing at least Kirk) - or, if the 2250s ship only had a crew of slightly over 200 rather than the 400 mentioned for several 2260s starships, that the "slightly over" part would somehow manage to escape unharmed. There are a couple of ways to rationalize that...

Perhaps the creature attacked the starship directly, and Kirk failed to fire the ship's phasers; the cloud proceeded to kill the ship's crew; but somehow somebody managed to punch the proper buttons for venting out the cloud and escaping to warp, and the cloud was too stunned or well-fed to pursue. But in that case, it's odd that some people on the bridge (Garrovick) would die while others (Kirk) would merely lose consciousness and survive with such minor symptoms that the whole phenomenon would come as news to McCoy later on. How was this venting achieved back then if it was so difficult to pull off during the episode?

Alternately, perhaps somebody simply punched the warp engage button, and the half-phased creature was left standing still while the walls of the ship went to warp through the creature. Still, the distribution of casualties is odd. And how come the ability of the creature to infiltrate a spaceborne starship seems to surprise even Kirk during the episode?

The third option is that Kirk was doing landing party duty, standing at "the phaser station" with his sidearm at the ready, guarding the landing party that (predictably) included the ship's captain. In that case, one would think the casualties inflicted by the cloud were too high - a landing party of 200 people would sound unlikely.

The third option is perhaps the more interesting here anyway. For one thing, Kirk was explicitly concerned about how fast Garrovick Jr. could fire his hand phaser; the phasers of the ship were never mentioned as a factor until the creature became spaceborne. For another, it seemed to surprise Kirk initially that the creature could go spaceborne at all - apparently, he had been thinking that it would be condemned to stay forever on another, distant planet (now no doubt quarantined by Starfleet). If so, how could it ever have reached the Farragut directly to feast on her crew?

Perhaps the Farragut had sent down something more substantial than yer usual landing party. Perhaps there was a major field expedition underway on the surface, with something identifiable as "the phaser station" to protect that multi-hundred-person endeavor?

FWIW, didn't the Ashes of Eden book/comic suggest that Kirk was on the surface but his lack of triggerhappiness with his sidearm allowed the creature to proceed up to the starship to do the carnage there?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BenRoethig]

I don't know what process an M.D. goes through to enter the U.S. Navy today, but they don't go to Annapolis for four years. If I'm not mistaken, under the draft a doctor's education and experience brought them into the service as commissioned officers. I imagine circumstances today are similar. So, McCoy volunteered, went through Starfleet basic training, and entered service as an officer (Lieutenant?) but didn't attend the Academy.

Doctors coming in from the outside attend a training school and then are commissioned at O-3 Lieutenant (USN or Public Health) or Captain (USA or USAF) or depending on seniority even higher. In fact, Surgeon Generals coming in from private practice are direct commissioned as a Vice Admiral.

 

[johnjaypl]

I don't know what process an M.D. goes through to enter the U.S. Navy today, but they don't go to Annapolis for four years.

Well, only a tiny fraction of people in the US Military came from one of the Service Academies. As a result, their curriculum can be somewhat ... limited.
As far as I know, none of the US Service Academies offer a pre-med degree.
Thus, a Doctor in the Armed Forces got there one of two ways:
1) he went to college, majoring in pre-med, then went to Med School, completed his residency, and then joined the Military. He will be run through something like Basic Training for officers, and then through some kind of Officer Candidate School. Since he is a Doctor, he will enter at an advanced rank (O-3, which is Captain in the Army and Lieutenant in the Navy).
2) He went to college and med school in ROTC, which means the military paid for part of his school and he spent some of his spare time getting that Basic Training and OCS. Otherwise the same as above.
I don't know if it is possible to do one's Residency in the military or not.

Dr. Julian Bashir apparently went to Starfleet Academy and majored in pre-med: he'd always wanted to be a doctor, he joined Starfleet with the intention of being a doctor. He graduated from "Starfleet Medical" as second in his class, finished his Residency (not clear if this was before or after "graduation"), and then got posted to DS9 as a Lieutenant, Junior Grade. In the modern US military, it is impossible for a doctor to rank that low if he is serving as a doctor. (A person with an MD could, I presume, join the Navy and be an engineer instead if he so chose, and then he wouldn't get the automatic rank for being a doctor.)
So Starfleet is definitely different from how things work today.

A quick google suggests that a small number of West Point and USNA graduates go the MD route after graduation. Something in the range of 15-20 each year from each school. It doesn't seem to be the easiest way to become a doctor but it looks like it happens all the time. I didn't see anything about the other academies but I didn't look too hard either.

 

[Nerys Myk]

There is also this school: Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

 

[johnjaypl]

There is also this school: Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

That's interesting:

Approximately 80 percent of military physicians reaching 20 or more years of service are graduates of USU. A majority of medical corps leadership positions are occupied by graduates of USU. Graduates of USU make up a majority of Army Special Forces physicians.

 

[COMTACFLT]

This is late but I'll add mine to the mix:
1) The person that said a cadet is an academy student and a midshipman is a cadet during his year at sea/space is pretty much what I have read about naval career paths. In the coast guard the cadets do a summer in the between their 3rd year and 4th year.
2) I believe officers in the silent service (submarines) train/assigned in all aspects of submarine operations. Also in the coast guard, JO's (junior officer: ensign,Lt.Jg,Lt.)
are expected to qualify in all deck watches, esp. qualify as an officer of the deck which is a career breaker if you can't qualify. I would imagine kirk had to do a stint in engineering, comms, security, helm (gunnery officer since in the days of sails was an officers primary duty esp. a J.O.) and navigation. It would make sense that a line officer like kirk would need to know everything there is to know about running a star ship. Like in the episode, where lt.riley was re-assigned to engineering. Spock said he come up from engineering. Kirk replied “ Look spock I am the captain, the head chead here I say where my people go” or something like that. So since Lt. Riley wore a command shirt and not a support services shirt then I would think that he is a line officer trying to go the command track.
As an example in the coast guard an admiral needs to have some command billets under his belt/tickets punched on his card.
Example:
Graduates, assigned to a cutter. While there he/she is assigned to the deck department. Breaks in as a junior officer of the deck then officer of the deck. Picks up lt.jg gets assigned to a smaller ship maybe as an XO of a patrol boat (if he is a star).
Gets qualified on the patrol boat picks up Lt. gets to a large shore unit, maybe surface ops manager or ops in general. Does a tour at HQ and maybe gets assigned to an admiral aid or some job like that. Now he’s lt.cdr. back to sea and gets a spot as a XO or ops boss depending on the ship. Picks up commander goes back to shore and is either and XO of a large unit or CO of a small shore unit. Maybe a staff job. Then picks up captain back to sea (if he is star) as a CO of a large cutter. Now this officer should be able to get a Flag. Of course this all depends on the officer’s track if engineering than he would spend his time in the engineering field. If it’s marine safety than that field. Some officer’s in deck get the law enforcement/intel bug and spend time doing that.
3) the navy/coast guard use the US public health service for it’s medical staff, I would think that writers used that as an example for ole saw bones (dr. McCoy).
But by the TNG star fleet branched out and trained all of their M.O’s but I sure if a doc was experienced and wanted to sign up he/she could probably do some officer training and get a commission.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

A quick glance at wikipedia suggests a way "midshipman" might be used by Starfleet that is distinct from "cadet": a midshipman is a cadet on a ship.

In the early days of sail the way to become an officer was like any other profession: you apprenticed. Apprentice officers were midshipmen, and after 3 years they could try to take the tests to become a Lieutenant.
A few hundred years ago, both the Royal Navy and the US Navy started sending officer candidates to a Naval College, followed by 2 years apprenticeship at sea. And the term "midshipman" continued to be applied to these students during their whole training. By the mid-20th century, the time spent at sea was reduced to less than a year, but the term still held.

Anyway, I'm suggesting that a cadet at the Academy is called a Cadet, but a Cadet assigned to a ship for some training is a Midshipman. And if that is true, then Kirk met Finney while training aboard a ship.

Edit: I guess the Roayl Navy beat me to it. I knew it was a good idea.

Makes sense to me, esp. the last part about Kirk meeting Finney while on board a starship. After all, it was Kirk noticing and correcting a mistake Finney made ("Except for Finney, and his one mistake!") that apparently stalled Finney's career.

But while Kirk was a cadet on the Republic, he was an Ensign. Make of that what you will.

(We know this because Kirk is referred to *as* an ensign during his to-do with Finney, yet in 'Obsession' he said that Captain Garrovick - of the Farragut - was his CO from the day he graduated. And that Kirk was a Lieutenant while on the Farragut. So unless Garrovick commanded both ships, which is unlikely, then Kirk must have been a 'cadet Ensign' on the Republic, who had not yet graduated. Although I suppose his promotion from Ensign to Lieutenant JG could have occurred on the Farragut...)

 

[Timo]

Of course, we already know from several examples that undergraduates (midshipmen or cadets) serve on starships, and from ST2 that their instructors also serve on ships to educate them. I see no reason to assume that Ensign Kirk would have been an undergraduate in the "Court Martial" backstory, since we know that Lieutenant Kirk was a graduated instructor in the "Where No Man" backstory.

The simple and logical timeline then would be

1) Kirk graduates and becomes Ensign, but remains at the Academy as instructor
2) Kirk busts Finney onboard Republic during one of his Academy instructor assignments aboard that vessel
3) Kirk is promoted to Lt(jg), and still remains at the Academy as instructor
4) Kirk instructs Gary Mitchell (probably an old acquaintance of his)
5) Kirk leaves the Academy and begins to serve on the Farragut
6) Kirk visits Miramanee's planet, has other adventures, and finally confronts the Beta XII entity, has 200 of his crewmates killed, probably ceases to serve on the Farragut
7) Kirk is promoted to LtCmdr

At some point between #3 and #7, Kirk would also be promoted from junior to senior Lieutenant; dialogue cannot offer us any clues on the exact date, since the juniority or seniority isn't explicated in normal speech.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

A quick glance at wikipedia suggests a way "midshipman" might be used by Starfleet that is distinct from "cadet": a midshipman is a cadet on a ship.

In the early days of sail the way to become an officer was like any other profession: you apprenticed. Apprentice officers were midshipmen, and after 3 years they could try to take the tests to become a Lieutenant.
A few hundred years ago, both the Royal Navy and the US Navy started sending officer candidates to a Naval College, followed by 2 years apprenticeship at sea. And the term "midshipman" continued to be applied to these students during their whole training. By the mid-20th century, the time spent at sea was reduced to less than a year, but the term still held.

Anyway, I'm suggesting that a cadet at the Academy is called a Cadet, but a Cadet assigned to a ship for some training is a Midshipman. And if that is true, then Kirk met Finney while training aboard a ship.

Edit: I guess the Roayl Navy beat me to it. I knew it was a good idea.

Makes sense to me, esp. the last part about Kirk meeting Finney while on board a starship. After all, it was Kirk noticing and correcting a mistake Finney made ("Except for Finney, and his one mistake!") that apparently stalled Finney's career.

But while Kirk was a cadet on the Republic, he was an Ensign. Make of that what you will.

(We know this because Kirk is referred to *as* an ensign during his to-do with Finney, yet in 'Obsession' he said that Captain Garrovick - of the Farragut - was his CO from the day he graduated. And that Kirk was a Lieutenant while on the Farragut. So unless Garrovick commanded both ships, which is unlikely, then Kirk must have been a 'cadet Ensign' on the Republic, who had not yet graduated. Although I suppose his promotion from Ensign to Lieutenant JG could have occurred on the Farragut...)

Not necessarily.

2253 - Age 21 - Kirk graduates from Starfleet Academy, is commissioned an Ensign and posted to the USS Republic an older light cruiser commanded by Capt. Garrovick.

2254 - Age 22 - Republic is damaged and sent back to Earth for repairs, Capt Garrovick is transferred to the USS Farragut Constitution class heavy cruiser whose skipper was killed on a mission, he takes several officers with him as crew replacements including Kirk. Later Kirk is promoted to Lt. jg and acts as Garrovick’s aide at the Axanar Peace Mission.

 

[SpyOne]

Give that man a No-Prize: Kirk only says that Garrovick "was my commanding officer from the day I left the Academy". There is nothing to refute the idea that he was Kirk's CO on both the Republic and the Farragut.

 

[Timo]

...Or that he was in the Academy while flying around the galaxy.

Timo Saloniemi