Ensign Ro was intended to take over the conn officer/senior staff position, but that went the way of all things when Michelle Forbes decided she didn't want to be tied down to a (science fiction) series.
Can Anyone Explain TNG era Main Crew Positions
- Thread starter Emperor Norton
- Start date
I thought it was DS9 that offered her a regular role, which became Kira Nerys when she declined.
Voyager and Enterprise both had them as the same position too
TOS had the helm position also targeting and firing the weapons so there didn't appear to be a dedicated tactical officer on the bridge
To be fair, it makes sense that the helm officer would be a more important position on a ship that's traversing 70,000 light-years' worth of unknown, uncharted space.
As for Science Officer in TNG, I understood from one of the novels that Data basicly served as Operations Manager and Chief Science Officer, since he abillities as an android allowed him to multi-task.
In Greater Then The Sum, when Picard is still working on creating a smooth-working senior staff after loosing Riker, Troi and Data, he realizes that giving the same tasks to a human is just to much, so he recruites a dedicated Chief Science Officer.
As for some positions missing on Voyager..... Janeway once established that the reasons Voyager didn't have a councilor, was because it was only going to be a three week mission. Personally, I always asumed that was the same reason they didn't have a Chief Science Officer yet. It was a three week mission, chasing Maquis. Not a long term exploration mission. Janeway could have reasoned that she could select a Chief Science Officer when they got back.
In Greater Then The Sum, when Picard is still working on creating a smooth-working senior staff after loosing Riker, Troi and Data, he realizes that giving the same tasks to a human is just to much, so he recruites a dedicated Chief Science Officer.
As for some positions missing on Voyager..... Janeway once established that the reasons Voyager didn't have a councilor, was because it was only going to be a three week mission. Personally, I always asumed that was the same reason they didn't have a Chief Science Officer yet. It was a three week mission, chasing Maquis. Not a long term exploration mission. Janeway could have reasoned that she could select a Chief Science Officer when they got back.
I remember reading somewhere that Data was meant to be the Science Officer, in blue, but because the colour of his uniform clashed with that of his skin that idea was scrapped and the position of Ops Manager was created.
I've read that bridge positions were designed to reflect the space program rather than specific military traditions. Each position is filled by a leader/multi-tasker rather than a specialist. Dax, whom we recognize as DS9's science officer, was primarily the conn officer when on the Defiant (when she wasn't captain, of course). Dramatically, of course, it makes sense to have all the decisive and intelligent characters to be in one place rather than strewn all over the ship, and other shows tend to reflect this dramatic practice. On House, there were plenty of jobs that should have been done by techs and nurses rather than the physicians, but it saved time to give all that work to the leads.
Regarding the "Chief" thing, we can speculate on which of the various hero officers actually were heads of their respective departments and which were not. Say, Chekov was a Navigations Officer, yes, but one of the others manning the same console but holding higher rank is likely to have been the CNO; Uhura could have been senior to Palmer or vice versa; etc.
It rather boils down to whether a particular skipper wants an "A team" of "all stars" on the bridge whenever there is an alert or other important occurrence. Most adventures start out with the heroes already prepared for an event (orbital entry if nothing else), justifying the "A team" presence.
Timo Saloniemi
It rather boils down to whether a particular skipper wants an "A team" of "all stars" on the bridge whenever there is an alert or other important occurrence. Most adventures start out with the heroes already prepared for an event (orbital entry if nothing else), justifying the "A team" presence.
Timo Saloniemi
Plus Trek is not a military documentary. What makes sense in the real world can appear dull in a show. Having your lead stay shackled to the captain's chair is just plain dull. So Gerrold can take the credit for all I care--it was a bad idea.
But who says the commanding officer has to be the lead? Look at Stargate SG-1. The commanding officer of the SGC, General Hammond, was a supporting character, and the show centered on the team that was the equivalent of one of Gerrold's contact teams. And that was a formula that worked for ten years straight. In Stargate Atlantis, the base commander Dr. Weir, while more central to the cast than Hammond was, was still secondary in cast prominence to the team leader Major Sheppard. And there are countless cop shows where the detectives are the lead characters and the precinct captain is a supporting role.
Remember what I said before: Riker, not Picard, was meant to be the Kirk counterpart. The two were meant to be co-leads of equal prominence, one the elder statesman and the other the man of action. The only reason we came to think of Picard as more central than Riker is because Patrick Stewart = awesome. If they'd cast different actors -- say, Stephen Macht as Picard and Billy Campbell as Riker -- maybe they would've stayed more equal in prominence, or Riker might even have been more popular and gotten commensurately more of the focus despite being second-billed (much like Spock in TOS).
Besides, even when the captain/commander is the lead character, there are ways to leave him on the ship and still keep things interesting. Just look at nu BSG, Adama was the lead character but very rarely left the ship to lead missions or any reason other than official business matter on Colonial One. And the show never suffered because of this.
Not in a Star Trek show where most of the action is planetside.
Aren't we forgetting that TNG did successfully pull off the format of having Riker lead the missions instead of Picard? It wasn't until a few years in that Stewart started pushing to carry more of the action, and even then it was never a constant. For the better part of three seasons, at least, they were able to have Riker lead the teams into danger without diminishing Picard's importance.
Well, there are a number of other positions available, but they couldn't show them on commercial television. 
And then the rest of the series Riker looked redundant.
Plus of those 3 years only one was considered good.
Would the presence of a chief of security be dependent on the type of vessel and/or specific mission? I'm not referring here to Voyager as an example. It would make sense that Janeway would rely on Tuvok to be in one piece and part of the complement after doing his part in delivering the Maquis, and so consequently serving as chief at that time (certainly needed at that point of the mission w/prisoners on board).
Would the Equinox though, or any Nova-class on a "standard" assignment, practically have the need for this role? I can imagine a number of mission types (medical, transport, as well as straightforward research) for which those security responsibilities that were deemed necessary, would have been subsumed by Tactical, or even Ops in some circumstances.
Are there references for these type of staffing discernments on non-"frontline" (that is those that we rarely see on any of the various series) ships contained in any of the bibles of source material?
Would the Equinox though, or any Nova-class on a "standard" assignment, practically have the need for this role? I can imagine a number of mission types (medical, transport, as well as straightforward research) for which those security responsibilities that were deemed necessary, would have been subsumed by Tactical, or even Ops in some circumstances.
Are there references for these type of staffing discernments on non-"frontline" (that is those that we rarely see on any of the various series) ships contained in any of the bibles of source material?
So if we combined logic and Star Trek trends of senior staff, then aboard a starship we would have:
1. commanding officer
2. executive officer
3. chief operations officer
4. chief science officer
5. chief counselor
6. chief flight controller
7. chief security officer
8. chief tactical officer
9. chief medical officer
10. chief engineer
I'm guessing 10 main actors is too much for network executives to afford on a new show?
1. commanding officer
2. executive officer
3. chief operations officer
4. chief science officer
5. chief counselor
6. chief flight controller
7. chief security officer
8. chief tactical officer
9. chief medical officer
10. chief engineer
I'm guessing 10 main actors is too much for network executives to afford on a new show?
It doesn't really make sense to me that the ship's psychologist should get such a prominent position on the bridge, including a seat right next to the captain. And though we did sometimes see her doing psychology work, most of the time she seems to be an adviser to the captain. I think it would have been more sensible from the start to have pegged Troi as the ship's political/diplomatic officer, especially as the Enterprise was supposed to be the Federation's flagship - someone whose main job was to assist the Captain in first contact situations, to supervise treaty negotiations and the like - a permanently assigned version of the various commissioners who used to be thorns in Kirk's side. There could even have been some antagonism between her and the captain, over the different demands of Starfleet and Federation dipomacy. It might have made her character more interesting for a start.
Don't see why not. Shows like Once Upon a Time have a large cast of regular, supporting and reoccurring characters
