Having different officers at the helm through the series makes sense, why would the same person be at the helm everytime the commanding officers are on the bridge.
Chopping and changing jobs - does it make sense?
- Thread starter AntonyF
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Having different officers at the helm through the series makes sense, why would the same person be at the helm everytime the commanding officers are on the bridge.
It’s their shift?
Hopefully I'm interpreting this correctly....
I guess I meant that the commanding officers need to be at the bridge at different times depending on the situation and the helm officer might change several times during one day.
Was that even close? =)
It seems that the CO and the rest seem to work the Alpha shift and for the most part all crises happen on Alpha shift. Though I would think if the Cardassians attack on Delta shift, Ensign Ricky is probably gonna call the CO to the bridge rather than handle it himself.
I imagined Geordi's background was in engineering, and in the TNG era it was common to have someone with an engineering background at the helm.
I imagined Worf was suited by training and disposition to be a tactical officer, but Yar was assigned to that role first. He was an obvious candidate to replace her in that role when she died.
I imagined O'Brien had many roles because he was very smart but was held back because he didn't have a college degree. During the war, he was a gunner (called a "tactical officer" although officer is technically incorrect) because he was a no-nonsense person who could do the job. He got the job of chief engineer on DS9 despite is lack of formal education because it was an undesirable assignment at the time, until the discovery of a stable wormhole nearby changed that. That's why Keiko agrees to stay even though there's no job on the station for her. She has an advanced degree, but for Miles an opportunity to be chief engineer on an important Star Fleet base is rare.
O'Brien's character rings true to me because I've known self-taught people who are very good at engineering. He occassionally uses regionalisms and epithets that we don't hear from officers, but oftentimes he has great practical ability to cut through extraneous issues and move things along.
All I can say is that I was an experienced graphic artist at a big defense contractor for over 30 years, was good at that and only that (and only wanted to do that). Then we got a new capt - er, boss for my last few years there, and he kept giving me assignments like doing clerical shit, taking meeting notes, videoing meetings, and (god help me) supervising the classified documents and computer system. And I flat-out sucked at everything except graphics (and got security hacks for making mistakes). I tried to tell him, but he kept yelling at me and giving me bad performance reviews anyway.
Cross-training is nice, and sometimes essential, but there's definitely such a thing as "outside one's skill set." And I'm pretty sure driving a starship during a crisis was outside Deanna's.
Cross-training is nice, and sometimes essential, but there's definitely such a thing as "outside one's skill set." And I'm pretty sure driving a starship during a crisis was outside Deanna's.
On that note they had some recurring extras, but it always annoyed me a bit they were mute or the other stations took on their lines. Why is Worf talking about navigation?
I know it's cost if they speak, but couldn't have Ensign Gates at least been able to say "aye sir"? I liked when you had speaking extras as it made the show feel a bit more alive.
Viridian III thumbs up this post." And I'm pretty sure driving a starship during a crisis was outside Deanna's.
Kinda like how Nagilum offed Ensign Haskell, while Wesley had stepped away from the helm for a potty break or whatever....
This is a bit of a digression but as I saw another helmsperson die at an exploding helm panel in All Good Things last night... I did think why are they running so much electricity into those things? They are basically just large iPads. There shouldn't be any more power than a standard domestic plug going into it. Yet they seem to run one of the main powerlines through it for some reason...
The exploding panels are an oddity in Trek that just kind of is what it is. I can usually come up with some kind of explanation to things. That one... I don't know.
Well Picard did specifically mention requesting for Geordie as part of his engineering staff based on his dedication to chasing down a problem with the shuttle they were in. It could be Conn was the only spot open since the then current head of engineering from the shakedown cruise was recommended by some admiral or someone else with enough pull to keep the posting and Geordie essentially had to punch below his weight until the position opened up, both because Picard wanted him there and for Geordie being chief engineer of the flagship is one Mother of a line item on your service jacket. So he did navigation and now and again helped with engineering when they got in over their heads all while seeing how the ship ran and how its people worked.
Worf got chief tactical officer by essentially being Tasha Yar's second in command or at least unofficial second in command given the pair worked together frequently.
No wonder Riker thought he'd get a decent shot at the Enterprise's big chair by flying as Picard's XO rather than transferring out and coming back in as her next captain. All the other senior staffers pulled that same trick.
Yeah, that's fair. Alot of people seem to move around positions. Look at someone like O'Brian, who has been a Tactical Officer, Conn, Transporter Chief, Chief of Operations, etc.
I really don't think it's out of the ordinary for Starfleet people to bounce around.
Which is somewhat odd, because Worf was in an entirely different department in S1.
I would still argue that being XO of Enterprise is better than being Captain of some random ship.
I would share that sentiment. If there's no 'up or out' policy and I'm somewhere that I feel suits me if there's no reason to move, why move?
Yeah, and Data wore "Operations Gold" for his entire tenure on both Enterprises but was basically the de facto Science Officer (and therefore should have worn blue).
Chief Exposition Officer.
Yeah and it seems pretty clear Starfleet absolutely does NOT have a policy like that. You can stay wherever you like.
Yeah it does seem like having a dedicated, bridge "Science Officer" is kind of "Captain's Choice". Some ships have them. Some don't. Data does just kind of act as a science officer, but it's more so just because he's really good at science.
I also think that the E-D's science crew is huge, and i'm not sure there is something like a "Chief Science Officer" onboard. Rather, I think they just treat each department as it's own thing. You don't really need a "Head of EVERY SCIENCE!", you have the Chief Medical Officer, Head of Stellar Cartography, Head of Anthropology, etc. From there I think they the individual heads would report to Riker, but given the often informal nature of Starfleet, Data might just handle most of the science-based things.
I tend to think of Worf much more as Chief of Security more than as Tactical Officer/Chief Tactical Officer, Tactical being a department, to me it makes more sense that tactical is a subpart of Security.
I think even in Season 1, despite having the different color uniform so technically probably not in the department, he still comes off as most focused in Security and yes still as Yar's second in command/protege.
It was pretty striking change, and weird contrast, that Chief Operations Officer went from being a Lieutenant Commander/the third in command on Enterprise-D to an Ensign on Voyager.
I think even in Season 1, despite having the different color uniform so technically probably not in the department, he still comes off as most focused in Security and yes still as Yar's second in command/protege.
It was pretty striking change, and weird contrast, that Chief Operations Officer went from being a Lieutenant Commander/the third in command on Enterprise-D to an Ensign on Voyager.
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