Can Anyone Explain TNG era Main Crew Positions

[Emperor Norton]

TOS main positions I get. You have the Captain, and the Chief Science Officer, Medical Officer, Engineer, Communications Officer, Navigation and Helm. And if you wanna go into more detail, the Chief Security Officer and Transporter Chief. And the First Officer will be one of those guys.

The positions by the TNG era confuse me, though. I know there's the Captain, and the First Officer is just the First Officer, and not another position as well. But I don't really get the other positions, and for some reason there's no Science officer anymore although Data fills that role from what I can remember, etc.

So can anyone give a dummy's explanation of the main positions of the TNG era?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Captain-The ships commanding officer
Executive Officer-The ship's second in command. Ships in the TOS era were smaller and possibly needed to combine this with a secondary role.
Con/Flight Controller-Flies the ship, A combination of helm and navigation in the TOS era.
Ops/Operations Officer- Best I can tell they monitor the ship's systems. Probably done by a redshirt in the TOS era. Seems to cover Spock's "library computer" too.
Tactical Officer/Security Officer- In charge of the ship's weapons and security, including communications.
Chief Engineer-In charge of the ship's propulsion systems an other tech on board.
Chief Medical Officer- In charge of the crew's physical health
Counselor- In charge of the crew's mental health.
Science Officer-Oversees the science department. Not a main character on TNG, but is on DS9 (Dax)

 

[Timo]

Naturally, we have to explain away the first season of TNG somehow, or at least the first half of it. There was no specific officer for Ops or Tactical or Helm back then, just consoles thus labeled but arbitrarily manned by various members of the bridge crew.

I go by the oft-quoted idea that Picard was spending his shakedown year shaking down not just the ship but also the crew. Chief Engineers came and went, officers did various duties and were evaluated for their performance, and at the end of the year, Picard was ready to fix the positions. Why he would have such leeway when other, possibly lesser skippers started with a "fixed" crew (see Janeway!) is unclear - but we can speculate that Picard being in charge of the Federation Flagship, a showpiece vessel, would entail him also doing some PR stunts such as breaking in Starfleet's first Klingon and making use of Starfleet's first android, despite it being difficult to fit in these people by conventional means.

The concept of a Science Officer does not go away in the TNG era; we hear of other ships having Chief Science Officers (Janeway used to be one), supposedly comparable to Spock minus the XO duties. And Picard has plenty of science-dedicated officers, some of them Lieutenant Commander rank (see "Lessons"); he just doesn't see it fit to include a Chief Science Officer among his bridge crew.

Whether Picard has a CSO or not, we don't know for sure. From VOY, we hear that a starship can have many more departments than there are "department head" characters in evidence; basically, Dept Heads can be toiling on the lower decks, only interfacing with the skipper and her or his closest team through various reports and orders...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS Triumphant]

My understanding of the roles that are different:

The Exec or First Officer - Actually, Spock fulfilling this role and the role of Chief Science Officer in the original series was due to his Vulcan intelligence and constitution. Ordinarily, First Officer was a separate position. The Captain may lay out a game plan, so to speak, and give an order to the Exec to carry it out, and then the Exec gives all the detailed orders to the crew to make it happen. The Exec does crew evaluations with the ship's counselor, and the job really seems to be a way to allow a promising officer to understudy with a seasoned captain pending becoming a captain themselves.

Flight Controller (Conn) - I guess due to better computers, one person is now able to perform the functions of the old Helm and Nav stations.

Operations (Ops) - Resource management, including human resources. This included the Science department, and if there is still a Chief Science Officer, he/she/it no longer has a station on the bridge, but apparently relays information to the Ops officer, like many other departments do. (When Data's hands were moving across the controls on his station, he may have been rerouting power from phasers to shields while directing the Science department to focus sensors on specific points of interest in the area - such as an enemy vessel - while also filling out a requisition order to Starfleet for more Cardassian hair gel in response to a message from Mr. Mott, while ALSO sending a request to Chief O'Brien to have someone from his team look at a malfunctioning 'fresher in Crewman Hall's quarters.)

Counselor - Presumably at some point, Starfleet decided that while McCoy's method of getting them tipsy/drunk and getting them to talk it out may have worked fairly well in the past, perhaps having someone actually trained in psychology and other mental medical disciplines on board might not be a bad idea. I don't recall it ever being stated directly, but the Counselor *does* report to the CMO, probably as a sub-department chief like the Recreation Officer Harb Tanzer was in some of the TOS novels.

Security Chief/Tactical Officer - I'm not sure that these are generally embodied in the same person on most ships: this may be a case of Worf being exceptional like Spock and Scotty were in TOS (I'm not sure that the Chief Engineer was also the Security Chief on every ship in TOS, either). But the Security Chief's job is to command internal security and away team security, and the Tactical Officer's job is targeting and firing weapons, and they have some amount of command over the weapons crew, as well. And for some damn reason, Worf answers the phone, too, even though that seems like it's a job that should either belong to a Communication's Officer, or to Ops in conjunction with a Communication's Department that like Science has no regular seat on the bridge.

 

[bbjeg]

I go by the oft-quoted idea that Picard was spending his shakedown year shaking down not just the ship but also the crew. Chief Engineers came and went, officers did various duties and were evaluated for their performance, and at the end of the year, Picard was ready to fix the positions. Why he would have such leeway when other, possibly lesser skippers started with a "fixed" crew (see Janeway!) is unclear - but we can speculate that Picard being in charge of the Federation Flagship, a showpiece vessel, would entail him also doing some PR stunts such as breaking in Starfleet's first Klingon and making use of Starfleet's first android, despite it being difficult to fit in these people by conventional means.

That's a great way to look at it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Naturally, we have to explain away the first season of TNG somehow, or at least the first half of it. There was no specific officer for Ops or Tactical or Helm back then, just consoles thus labeled but arbitrarily manned by various members of the bridge crew.

Tasha IDs herself as Chief Security Officer in "Encounter At Farpoint" and was usually seen at the "horseshoe". Could Worf had been the Tactical officer and then added Security to his duties when Tasha died?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Could Worf had been the Tactical officer and then added Security to his duties when Tasha died?

This has always been my belief regarding the situation.

 

[Christopher]

No, Worf's role in season 1 was the bridge watch officer. That's a naval position that hasn't otherwise been used in Trek, and it means he was responsible for commanding the bridge in the captain's absence (as seen in "Farpoint") and filling in on any station as needed (which is why we sometimes saw him manning ops when Data was away, for instance). Normally he monitored the five stations at the rear of the bridge that weren't routinely manned, including the two science stations, Mission Operations (for monitoring away teams), and environmental control. (The other aft station in season 1 was Emergency Manual Override, but in season 2 it was renamed to environment and the portmost station was turned into an engineering station so Geordi could still have scenes on the bridge.)

I'm not aware of any Trek series that treated tactical officer and security chief as distinct positions. They've been conflated ever since Chekov became security chief in ST:TMP and manned the tactical station (while an unnamed alien ensign manned the internal security station). So no, Worf was not a tactical officer until he replaced Tasha Yar. Note that replacing an absent bridge officer was part of his normal duties as watch officer to begin with; it just became a more permanent replacement this time.

Note also that there are science stations on the bridge, and we've seen that there are a number of science officers on the ship (e.g. Nella Daren from "Lessons" and the Bolian exchange officer from "A Matter of Honor"). It's just not a routinely manned bridge post anymore, not on TNG or DS9, anyway. However, DS9 did have Jadzia Dax as a regular science officer character who was part of the command crew on both the station and the Defiant. So it's certainly not true that science officers had been phased out altogether. The Enterprise-D didn't have a bridge science officer because Data effectively filled that role, and Voyager didn't have one because a lot of its crew was killed when the ship was brought to the Delta Quadrant and thus people had to double up jobs. (Note that Voyager did have a science station on its bridge -- the forward port station, directly opposite B'Elanna's engineering station.)

It may be up to a captain's discretion whether a science officer is part of the routine bridge complement. Maybe T'Pol and Spock were part of the command crew as science officers because they were also first officers, and Dax was because of the symbiont's prior relationship with Sisko.

 

[varek]

Part of the Executive Officer's duties was to assist the Captain with crew evaluations. TNG focused mostly on the officers, and the Master Chief Petty Officer (I'm not sure his/her rank) would probably have handled the evaluations of enlisted crewmembers. that doesn't sound like much of a job, but for hundreds of officers and 1,000 enlisted personnel, that could almost be a full-time occupation. The ship's counselors also helped, I think.
I'm not sure if the Medical staff of a starship had its own evaluation system or not, but that might not be a bad idea, since they are so specialized.

 

[Timo]

I'm not aware of any Trek series that treated tactical officer and security chief as distinct positions.

Well, all of them - save for TNG when it came to the hero ship, and VOY where heavy casualties dictated many odd crew arrangements.

In TOS, the position of Security Chief was very clearly completely separate from duties relating to the ship's weapons or maneuvering, and no high-ranking redshirt was included in the "Arena" landing party that supposedly featured Kirk and his "tactical people" (the fake Commodore's terminology).

In TNG, Worf may well have been a dedicated Tactical Officer until Tasha Yar's death; there's no pressing reason to claim he wasn't. We lacked deeper insight into other ships, but the Rutledge clearly had a position called Tactical Officer (although noncom O'Brien got to temp there!).

In DS9, the Defiant had separate Security and Tactical stations (although not much in the way of permanent crew).

In VOY, the ship launched without her Chief of Security, and then took heavy casualties, including many unseen officers of LtCmdr or even Cmdr rank; only then did Tuvok get to hold the two positions in practice, and I don't recall him ever being addressed as the Tactical Officer separately.

In ENT, Reed got to help fire torpedoes and grapplers but Mayweather pressed the buttons for phasers and plasma peashooters. Neither was the Chief Tactical Officer, but then again, the ship didn't have a Chief Security Officer, either...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Part of the Executive Officer's duties was to assist the Captain with crew evaluations. TNG focused mostly on the officers, and the Master Chief Petty Officer (I'm not sure his/her rank) would probably have handled the evaluations of enlisted crewmembers. that doesn't sound like much of a job, but for hundreds of officers and 1,000 enlisted personnel, that could almost be a full-time occupation.

An executive officer's duty is to oversee the crew and be the interface between the captain and the crew. Handling crew evaluations is just one facet of that overall responsibility. The captain is the one who makes the decisions, but the first officer is the one who oversees and directs the execution of those decisions. That's why the post is called "executive officer."

 

[YARN]

An executive officer's duty is to oversee the crew and be the interface between the captain and the crew. Handling crew evaluations is just one facet of that overall responsibility. The captain is the one who makes the decisions, but the first officer is the one who oversees and directs the execution of those decisions. That's why the post is called "executive officer."

Strangely, Riker thought his job was to quibble with the Captain's decisions and to lead the away missions.

 

[Nerys Myk]

An executive officer's duty is to oversee the crew and be the interface between the captain and the crew. Handling crew evaluations is just one facet of that overall responsibility. The captain is the one who makes the decisions, but the first officer is the one who oversees and directs the execution of those decisions. That's why the post is called "executive officer."

Strangely, Riker thought his job was to quibble with the Captain's decisions and to lead the away missions.

Are you saying he was wrong?

 

[Christopher]

It absolutely was Riker's job to lead away missions, and this was defined clearly from the very start of TNG. The captain leading the missions personally is a bad idea, because the captain is the least expendable member of the crew. It's a job that should be done by subordinates.

Here's the thing: If Roddenberry hadn't been such a credit hog, David Gerrold would have been billed as one of the co-creators of TNG. A great many of its basic concepts come from Gerrold. And in Gerrold's 1973 The World of Star Trek, in the chapter where he wrote about ST's flaws and mistakes and how he thought it could've been done better, one of the points he stressed emphatically was how silly it was for the commanding officer of the ship to lead the dangerous missions himself rather than sending subordinates whose job it should be. He proposed establishing a group of regular or recurring characters called the Contact Team, junior officers whose job it was to go into danger -- and who were more expendable than the captain and command crew. Now, TNG didn't go quite that far, since they still had the command crew going on away missions; but they at least accepted Gerrold's premise that the captain, the least expendable member of the crew, should not be the first one sent into danger.

Also, of course, the original intention was that Riker would be the new Kirk, serving as the action/romantic lead while Picard was more of a wise elder statesman and mentor figure, the commander who sent the action hero on his missions. This was because much of TNG was recycled from the Star Trek Phase II format, in which the more mature Kirk would've been more of a mentor figure with Will Decker taking on the action-lead role (since they couldn't be certain Shatner would commit to the whole series, and thus they planned it so he could be written out if necessary).

The thing is, both these considerations fell increasingly to the wayside when Patrick Stewart proved to be far more popular than Jonathan Frakes and started pushing to become more of the action lead himself.

 

[FormerLurker]

Christopher, re: post 8:

Ensign Mendon(say that five times fast) was a Benzite.

 

[The Wormhole]

In VOY, the ship launched without her Chief of Security, and then took heavy casualties, including many unseen officers of LtCmdr or even Cmdr rank; only then did Tuvok get to hold the two positions in practice, and I don't recall him ever being addressed as the Tactical Officer separately.

Actually, Tuvok's station is labeled "Security/Tactical" (as seen here) thereby indicating that it was the intent on Voyager for the security officer and tactical officer to be the same person.

And yes, it was even labeled the same in Caretaker before the crew took its heavy losses.

 

[Christopher]

Christopher, re: post 8:

Ensign Mendon(say that five times fast) was a Benzite.

Oops! Brain hiccup. I thought that was what I wrote, but I guess my hands had other ideas. In my defense, I posted after spending five hours selling books at a local comics convention, so I was pretty worn out.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Does anyone else besides me think that conn officer/flight controller (which I think should have a "chief" or "primary" in front of it) isn't really equal with chief science officer or chief security officer to merit being on the senior staff?

And before the Caretaker's displacement wave hit Voyager, was there an unnamed character at the primary science station? Afterwards there was never a chief science officer even though Janeway filled executive officer and chief engineer with Maquis members. Wasn't there at least one mere redshirt aboard with some good scientific background?

And when it comes to an admiral's flagship, do they have a permanent shipboard position?

 

[Christopher]

Does anyone else besides me think that conn officer/flight controller (which I think should have a "chief" or "primary" in front of it) isn't really equal with chief science officer or chief security officer to merit being on the senior staff?

Depends on the show, and on whether the producers decide they want their main-title regulars to include a helm officer. The Enterprise-D included the flight controller in the senior staff so long as Geordi or Wesley had the job, but not once it was held by a succession of bit players and extras. Ultimately organizational logic is trumped by television casting and storytelling considerations.

And before the Caretaker's displacement wave hit Voyager, was there an unnamed crewmember at the primary science station? Afterwards there was never a chief science officer even though Janeway filled executive officer and chief engineer with Maquis members. Wasn't there at least one mere redshirt aboard with some good scientific background?

I'm sure the station was usually manned by an extra in the background, and occasionally by science officer characters like Samantha Wildman.

Again, there are dramatic considerations in play here. TNG didn't feature a science officer as a regular because they didn't want to copy TOS (which is probably also why they avoided having a regular chief engineer in the first season). Maybe VGR avoided having a regular science officer character because DS9 had one.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Does anyone else besides me think that conn officer/flight controller (which I think should have a "chief" or "primary" in front of it) isn't really equal with chief science officer or chief security officer to merit being on the senior staff?

In the TNG, yeah. Once they dropped Wes the position was filled by a supernumeraries or guest stars. On Voyager is was Paris, who was a regular, so it was elevated to "senior staff" again. Though MA has Paris listed as Third Officer, so that might be was he's on the senior staff.