Cavit > Why only Lt. Cmdr?

[Timo]

Timo, as you may also recall, in TMP, COMMANDER Branch commanded Epsilon 9, which would support the commanders command starbase theory.

Would this listening outpost / comm relay be comparable to a starbase? It sounds more like that Relay Station 47 from "Aquiel", really - at the lower end of the spectrum of Starfleet installations.

And to be sure, we don't really know if Branch was in charge of that facility, or merely of communicating that facility's findings to the rest of Starfleet.

Still, yeah, two potential Commander-rank installation COs (Branch and Quinteros) and one certain (Sisko), plus one full Lieutenant (Rocha from "Aquiel"). And Commander Uhura seemed to be CO of the Old City Transporter Station, a lowly assignment for a high-ranker. Others?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tino]

Year of Hell said:
Lt Commander and Commander are ranks.

First Officer is a position.

Thanks for the answer. I should've come to that myself since it's rather simple.;-)

As for all the others ... it's funny how many first officers you have mentioned
that weren't full commanders. I never realized that were so many. ;-)

 

[Squiggy]

sbk1234 said:
^^^Personally, I hated the fact that they wrote him as an asshole. What a cliche. Had they written him as an able, likable officer - perhaps the one who was ready to give Paris another chance - his death would have had some resonance.
But they didn't ask me.

Meh. They killed him off what...15 minutes into the series.

He could've offered Paris a happy ending and the audience still wouldn't have cared. Hell, the writers didn't even care enough to show a memorial service.

 

[USS Excelsior]

But having a First Officer at the Lt. Cmdr rank holds all the senior officers back from being promoted, as what happened with Harry Kim for instance.

And another thing that doesn't really make sense is that the First Officer would be of the same rank as the Chief Engineer.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

USS Excelsior said:
But having a First Officer at the Lt. Cmdr rank holds all the senior officers back from being promoted

How so?

as what happened with Harry Kim for instance.

Kim's rank doesn't have anything to do with anybody else's. If he did something worthy of promotion, Janeway could have promoted him (like she did with Tuvok) but he didn't. You have to deserve a promotion to get it.

And another thing that doesn't really make sense is that the First Officer would be of the same rank as the Chief Engineer.

I don't understand the connection there either. I'm not aware of any regulation that any given position on a ship *must* always have a specific rank (or that two positions can't have the same rank).

At any rate, the only Voyager chief engineer we ever met face to face was B'Elanna, and she was a lieutenant JG (judging by her insignia). All of the XO's we've seen on the show - Cavit and Chakotay - have been Lieutenant Commanders (yes, Chakotay was a LCDR as well - just look at his insignia pin).

 

[USS Excelsior]

USS Excelsior said:
But having a First Officer at the Lt. Cmdr rank holds all the senior officers back from being promoted.

Then for instance a Security Chief or Chief of Operations Officer can't be promoted to Lt. Cmdr themselves.

And as for Harry Kim I know there was dialogue about he's restricted to Ensign because of the Command structure on Voyager.

And another thing that doesn't really make sense is that the First Officer would be of the same rank as the Chief Engineer.

You would expect the First Officer to have the 2nd highest rank on the ship with the exception of the Doctor's who are out of that branch of command structure anyway.

 

[Tino]

Babaganoosh said:Chakotay was a LCDR as well - just look at his insignia pin.

FINALLY! Someone has seen it as well. I was thinking about this fact while writing
this thread but it slipped my mind.

When having a first officer with Lt. Commander, it still allows him/her a little bit of
promotion before he/she becomes Captain. Makes sense somehow that you can be
promoted WITHIN the position of first officer, doesn't it?

 

[Squiggy]

USS Excelsior said:

USS Excelsior said:
But having a First Officer at the Lt. Cmdr rank holds all the senior officers back from being promoted.

Then for instance a Security Chief or Chief of Operations Officer can't be promoted to Lt. Cmdr themselves.

Yeah they can. Tuvok held the same rank as Chakotay after the former got promoted to LTCDR. The First Officer is still the second in command, rank be damned.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The same rationale would also go for Data as second officer on the Enterprise even after Troi became a full commander.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

FWIW, in the Soviet Navy it was possible for one of the officers to outrank his Captain and still be subordinate to him. (Don't know if this is still true in Russia's navy.) For instance a ship's CO could be a Captain Second Rank, and the chief engineer could be a Captain First Rank, yet the CO is still, well, the CO.

 

[Good Will Riker]

^^^ That is how it is in the US armed forces as well.

 

[USS Excelsior]

If we have the First Officer at the same rank as one or two of the other senior officers then that's only going to make a difference when the 1st Officer is put in Command, since then he would be Acting Captain. But on away missions then those other officers may not be obligated to obey his or her orders.

That's why personally I think that the first officer rank be higher than the other senior officers, whatever rank that happens to be.

 

[nx1701g]

USS Excelsior said:
But on away missions then those other officers may not be obligated to obey his or her orders.

Actually the normal chain of command would still come into play. They would be required to follow his orders regardless of if they were at an equivalent rank because he would be mission commander.

 

[Timo]

Also, a little clarification in addition to all the above:

Tuvok held the same rank as Chakotay after the former got promoted to LTCDR. The First Officer is still the second in command, rank be damned.

LtCmdr Chakotay would still be senior to LtCmdr Tuvok in rank as well. Even if two people wear the same pips, the one who has worn those pips longer holds the seniority of rank - and unless it comes to a time difference of mere days, seniority is deferred to the "older guy" without argument or other fuss.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS Excelsior]

Another determining factor would be the uniform colour.

I think Red has the first consideration then it goes to yellow then to blue.

 

[Red Ranger]

Babaganoosh said:

Red Ranger said:Someone here also mentioned a chief medical officer being a lt., j.g. Don't forget Dr. Bashir was a full lieutenant when he took over as CMO at DSN.

No, actually, he wasn't. Bashir was a Lt. JG for awhile even after he became DS9's CMO. It wasn't until the 4th season that he made full lieutenant.

As for other fictional examples: The captain in "Das Boot" was a Kapitanleutnant, or Captain Lieutenant (which is, technically, the equivalent of a US Navy Lieutenant, but is more along the lines of a LCDR in practice).

Babaganoosh: Wow, I messed up Bashir's rank! I stand corrected. I believe Dax was a full lieutenant when she signed up at DSN, if memory serves. Thanks for the correction. -- RR

 

[Brennyren]

USS Excelsior said:
If we have the First Officer at the same rank as one or two of the other senior officers then that's only going to make a difference when the 1st Officer is put in Command, since then he would be Acting Captain.

I'm sorry, that's incorrect. He doesn't have to be acting captain to be able to give orders to other Voyager officers of the same rank. Being first officer, and second in command of the ship, is enough. In fact, if for some reason an officer from another Federation ship came aboard Voyager -- oh, say a sciences expert -- and was a full commander, thus of superior rank to Chakotay, as first officer Chakotay would not have to defer to him in matters regarding ship operations.

Just to throw another spanner into the works, do you know that IRL an officer doesn't actually have to hold the rank of captain to serve as commanding officer of a ship? Nope. He'd still be addressed as captain on his ship -- the CO of a ship is always called captain by his crew -- but he might only hold the rank of commander or lieutenant commander. Apparently that's true in Starfleet too -- I remember someone explaining it to Nog on the Defiant once.

Brennyren

 

[Squiggy]

USS Excelsior said:
Another determining factor would be the uniform colour.

I think Red has the first consideration then it goes to yellow then to blue.

Nope. Red just means "command-divison", hell...if you had nameless helmsman ensign going up against Harry Kim, Kim would win.

 

[Timo]

Not necessarily. We don't know enough about the Starfleet Way to judge decisively one way or another, but both ITRW and in Trek, the following would be considered, in this order:

1) Was Kim placed in command by somebody with the authority to do so? If he was, then the Grand Admiral of Starfleet would have to defer to him on matters of ship's operations (*) until the orders to give Kim this command were reversed.

2) Did either Kim or the challenger have restrictions on command? A blueshirt might be the equivalent of the real world staff officer, with an "honorary" rank that only gives him or her authority within his or her speciality - say, a chaplain Major who gets Major's pay but doesn't outrank his regular Sergeant organist in combat decisions. Whether yellowshirts would suffer from limitations in command is unknown. It is outright stated wrt yellowshirt Eddington that his shirt color (or what the color symbolizes) means he will not get starship command unless he literally changes colors, but this is neither here nor there regarding temporary command authority. Certainly numerous yellowshirts have held bridge watches, or commanded starships temporarily - say, Kim or LaForge. At least one blueshirt, even...

3) If neither party was formally given command nor was of limited authority, was Kim the higher-ranking person of the two? That is, had he worn the pip longer?

1 and 3 would apply outright ITRW as well as in Trek; 2 is the muddy part in both cases, rarely a concern in today's "purely military" ships but an obvious factor in the flexibly structured crews of exploratory starships.

Timo Saloniemi

(*) The Grand Admiral could tell the ship where to go and what to do, of course, but Kim would run the ship, and could say nay in certain circumstances. Compare to Commodore Decker taking over Kirk's ship: he doesn't depose Spock from command, he just gives orders to him regarding the ship's mission. Spock raises objections, but then drops them, apparently finding them insufficient, i.e. finding Decker's orders neither illegal nor an unacceptable threat to the ship in the circumstances.

 

[Sam_I_Am]

Good Will Riker said:
Most first officers in Starfleet have the rank of lieutenant commanders.

Commanders are usually head of starbases or heads of an entire facility (i.e. Starfleet Medical)

Riker held the rank of commander, because he was the first officer of the Federation flagship. A special privilege.

Indeed. And Kira held the rank of 'Major' in DS9, which is the army/air force equivilent of Lieutenant Commander today. Of course, that's assuming Bajoran ranks are equal to modern ranks, but that seems likely.