Chopping and changing jobs - does it make sense?

[Shamrock Holmes]

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 would agree that Worf's priorities appear to favour Security over Tactical, but I would suggest that his position on the Bridge and in the chain of command suggests that he is primarily the Tactical Officer (focused on ship operations particularly in combat) in terms of his official role.

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.

But that's the thing... Kim was the Operations/Communications Officer*, not the Chief Operations Officer, that was Tuvok (at least in the sense of being the ranking member of the uniform department who the members of the different departments reported to), who was also third-in-command and eventually promoted to the rank of LCDR.

* The equivalent night-shift position on the E-D was a JGs billet, so Voyager's being an Ensign makes sense.

 

[Farscape One]

Worf and Geordi wearing red in season 1 does make some sense.

For Geordi, we've seen every helmsman of the classic era wear command division. (Him and Paris red, Mayweather and Sulu gold. And a majority of the speaking and nonspeaking TNG rotating ones wore red, as well as Wesley when he was made a full ensign.)

For Worf, he tended to be the fill-in for a lot of the positions when the need arose. Him being made Security Chief after Yar died made sense because he was on a lot of away missions that year, plus he would man tactical multiple times while Yar was on an away team. It also made sense for Worf to be picked to replace Data in "The Most Toys" because he has experience there during season 1 on the Operations side, and he was made acting XO during the "Gambit" two-parter when Data was acting captain, as well as Riker's choice in the mock fight in "Peak Performance". It would also work for him being Second Officer, too.

(In both instances, Geordi, as Chief Engineer and a higher rank, he could have been slotted in as acting XO. We know Riker picked Worf specifically because of dialogue, while we can only assume Data had the same conversation with Geordi in "Gambit".)

 

[Lynx]

I know on an entertainment level it's just putting characters you know in different places... but as I got up to mid season 4 I just realised how silly it is in TNG.

We had Geordi going form a low-ranking pilot... to being chief engineer.

Worf can go from pottering around at the back of the bridge, to head of tactical, to operations officer when Data was believed to have died. Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to become second officer but remain in tactical? Aren't these roles very different?

And the one that really was absurd was rewatching The Wounded and O'Brien a non-commissioned officer, who spends his whole day just beaming people back and forth... was a tactical officer. Responsible for the safety of the ship in combat and he's not even comissioned. And then of course he goes on to be a chief engineer, of foreign tech no less.

You'd think in Starfleet they would train for a certain discipline, and while able to jump in and 'make do' but is it logical they could do such career shifts? Both in terms of competency, but also why would you?

Career wise, sanity wise... would you want to do an O'Brien and going from the bridge as tactical officer to shut in a transporter room all day?

Would be curious to if anyone has any real life examples of this sort of thing in the navy too.

Maybe all that will be possible in the future wherStar Trek exists.

Maybe the possibilites are better in the Star trek future than in the somewhat rigid society with a narrow-minded thinking that we have here in the Gray Universe now.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

We had Geordi going form a low-ranking pilot... to being chief engineer.

Well, he did work in Engineering a couple of times in the first season, and we got a story later (probably in The Next Phase) about Geordi being a shuttle pilot and engineer when Picard first met him).

Worf can go from pottering around at the back of the bridge, to head of tactical, to operations officer when Data was believed to have died. Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to become second officer but remain in tactical? Aren't these roles very different?

There's certainly no reason why he couldn't have been Second Officer and Tactical Officer (see Tuvok) in-universe, but for the purposes of the episode it was simpler for him to replace Data in both roles.

However, I'd also point out that Worf replaced Data at Ops several times in the first season, so the skillset was established long before the episode in question.

And the one that really was absurd was rewatching The Wounded and O'Brien a non-commissioned officer, who spends his whole day just beaming people back and forth... was a tactical officer.

Presumably, he wasn't the original Tactical Officer, but rather the (temporary) replacement due to losses during the war, possibly at Setlik itself.

And then of course he goes on to be a chief engineer, of foreign tech no less.

Given that it appears to be Cardassian technology that he first "cut his teeth on" as a Starfleet engineer, it could be that he was one of the few available experts on Cardassian technology.

Would be curious to if anyone has any real life examples of this sort of thing in the navy too.

Cross-training is pretty common in many Commonwealth Navies*, but rare in the surface fleet in the US (it's a bit more common on subs, but still less than elsewhere.

* In both the UK and AUS navies it's common for cooks to also be qualified as medics, helmsman and often damage control as well for instance.

 

[evilchumlee]

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.

Yeah I think Worf was always at least interested in Tactical/Security.

I've heard some things bandied around that Worf was basically a "relief" officer who could perform various duties as needed. It makes sense, and I can see that being a particularly valuable position for someone really trying to make a name for themselves. Rather than hyper-focusing on one specific discipline, Worf was basically like, "Let me do everything", and was essentially "on call" for whatever position needed filling at a given moment.

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.

Maybe, maybe not.

I think many positions require context. Operations on the Enterprise-D is going to entail much more than Operations on Voyager. I don't think it would make sense for there to be a universally applied "X position requires y rank" on Starfleet ships because they can be wildly different roles.

I do think that Starfleet does allow quite a bit of leeway for Captain's to structure their crew how they like. Some Captains may prefer to have a dedicated "Science Officer" generalist as a bridge position, while others may just go with having the various science departments report through Operations. Hell even exactly WHAT Operations is/does doesn't seem to be universal... Data on the Enterprise-D has a very different job than O'Brian on DS9... the latter being far more engineering-heavy, although Data is definitely involved in engineering on the E-D.

Meanwhile, on Voyager... "Operations" doesn't really seem to do... much? Kim mostly seems to monitor sensors, which Tuvok ALSO does, as well as generally dealing with comms. It seems Kim is mostly in charge of delegating the ships resources. I get the vibe... without actually much in the way of real proof... that Kim is subordinate to Tuvok, and unlike Data on the E-D, Kim is not a department head. He's manning a station and defers to Tuvok as the department head, likely because Voyager doesn't need a dedicated Chief of Operations.

On the note of "Science Officers", it seems to be a less popular position in the 24th century, along with a dedicated Communications Officer. The old roles, from two separate departments, appear to have been largely rolled into the "Operations" role by TNG, although perhaps more confusing, it's usually Security/Tactical that actually operates the comms on the bridge.

 

[Farscape One]

Jadzia was the Science Officer of DS9.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I worked for one company for 16 years…
I like stability

Only 16 years?

I've been with my current employer for 31 years. And I've been spending my weekends docenting at the International Printing Museum for nearly 15.

Personally, among the first season chief engineers (and there was at least one episode with Picard speaking of "one of our chief engineers"), I was rather fond of MacDougal. And I loathed Lynch. The whole reason we didn't have a chief engineer in the first season principal cast is that the Great Bird didn't think we would be spending much time in Engineering. And we did have a regular helmsman for the second through fourth seasons: Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher.

And historically, in the ST milieu, "transporter chief" is a job title for a person (a non-com, specifically a "chief petty officer," once ST admitted that Starfleet even had non-coms; TMOST postulated something to the general effect that everybody in Starfleet was a "qualified astronaut," and therefore an officer) who operates a transporter as a primary duty (as opposed to a chief engineer who could rebuild a transporter on short notice, and do it with people in the pattern buffer). Not specifically the most senior transporter operator.

 

[evilchumlee]

Jadzia was the Science Officer of DS9.

Yes. I specifically noted "less popular". They still exist. In the case of DS9, I think it makes sense over say, the Enterprise-D.

The Enterprise-D has a vast suite of science labs with a multitude of science personnel on board specializing in their various fields. Having a general generalist science officer isn't particularly necessary. In contrast, DS9 has essentially nothing in the way of science personnel beyond Jadzia. That makes sense... it's a random backwater space station, and they have a whole-ass planet they could get science specialists from if need be. So yeah, having just a general science person on tap is a good idea.

Personally, among the first season chief engineers (and there was at least one episode with Picard speaking of "one of our chief engineers"), I was rather fond of MacDougal. And I loathed Lynch. The whole reason we didn't have a chief engineer in the first season principal cast is that the Great Bird didn't think we would be spending much time in Engineering. And we did have a regular helmsman for the second through fourth seasons: Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher.

It could have been Argyle, if the actor hadn't just been absolutely awful behind the scenes about it.

I do find it kind of funny that the Enterprise-D cycled through so many engineers at the beginning. I've kind of always thought that (in-universe) they were trying out something different, and rather than having a single Chief Engineer for the ship, it was SO advanced and complex that they had a team of highly specialized "Chief Engineers" working a bit more collaboratively. By S2, it turned out that experiment had largely failed and a true Chief Engineer was needed.

And historically, in the ST milieu, "transporter chief" is a job title for a person (a non-com, specifically a "chief petty officer," once ST admitted that Starfleet even had non-coms; TMOST postulated something to the general effect that everybody in Starfleet was a "qualified astronaut," and therefore an officer) who operates a transporter as a primary duty (as opposed to a chief engineer who could rebuild a transporter on short notice, and do it with people in the pattern buffer). Not specifically the most senior transporter operator.

I do still like the idea that while there are non-coms in Starfleet, it is still an officer-heavy organization and I tend to look at WHAT it means to be an "Officer" and "Enlisted" as being quite different than what those terms would mean and imply today, given Starfleet's not-strictly military organization.

I really think that rank in general is not as rigid in Starfleet was would be in a modern day military, and that Enlisted ranks aren't really what they are in the modern world, but more just "Did not attend Starfleet Academy". For most positions, it really doesn't matter if you are Enlisted or an Officer, only really becoming relevant at the commissioned rank of Commander, which has been presented as a fairly major step in command.

I don't see Starfleet having any issue with a Chief Petty Officer acting as a ships Tactical Officer or some such, or a general department head. If they wanted to pursue a command track, they could get up to an equivalent rank of Lt. Commander (and I do mean "equivalent", at least in general, with potential caveats), but would have to go through some sort of process to become commissioned and move on full Commander.

As for the Transporter Chief as a role, I think... yes, mostly that. But I don't think a ship would have multiple "Transporter Chiefs", I DO think that the role IS a senior role and O'Brian was in charge of the transporters on the Enterprise, and capable of at least some amount of maintenance on them.

 

[publiusr]

Chief Petty Officers are worth their weight in gold. Space Force looks to get beyond Napoleonic era ranks--and Russians don't even really know what an NCO is.

I would have stayed at my job longer had my boss not drunk up all the company's money and keeled over.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Chief Petty Officers are worth their weight in gold. Space Force looks to get beyond Napoleonic era ranks--and Russians don't even really know what an NCO is.

I would have stayed at my job longer had my boss not drunk up all the company's money and keeled over.

Space Force? Looks pretty much the same old thing to me.

Russia still has Serzhánt

 

[evilchumlee]

I would have stayed at my job longer had my boss not drunk up all the company's money and keeled over.

I'm far from a military expert, but I do like to use Russia as an example when military-minded people can't quite comprehend the idea of Starfleet being officer heavy. Not even every modern day, Earthbound military works the same way, there's really no reason to expect a 400 year in the future, multi-national force to act exactly in the same way as the 2025 US military.

"Officer" and "Enlisted" almost certainly have different meanings in Starfleet than they do in some modern militaries, and to some extend, potentially almost opposite to a point of what they might mean. I know alot of NCO roles tend to be specialized in say, the US Navy. I think in Starfleet, that is reversed... the Officers are the ones who have the specialized education/training, Enlisted are more... bodies to handle work. That's not to say Enlisted Starfleet personnel can't also have specialized training and in general be extraordinary people, but they probably don't sign on as highly trained starship crew like those who went through the Academy are. They'll tend to learn on the job, and I to reiterate an earlier though, I think there is a point where "Officer/NCO" ranks essentially become equalized.

Like... i'm going to speak very broadly here just to get a general idea, but there's probably more lower end steps in Enlisted ranks... Crewman 1, 2, 3 are all like under an Ensign. Once you hit Petty Officer Third Class in USN terms, that's functionally equivalent to Ensign. The Ensign might still outrank the Petty Officer Third Class on paper. Where my different would be is that the next level, the Petty Officer Second Class would actually out rank the Ensign. At that point, Starfleet doesn't actually care... rank is NOT as rigid as a modern military. There might be SOME restrictions on duty postings, probably in relation to command, such as in the event of some disaster and someone needed to take command a ship, if it's down to a Petty Officer Second Class and an Ensign, the Ensign takes command.

I think Starfleet ranks matter in a more situational / contextual role. We saw Acting Ensign Crusher placed in command a team with at least a Lieutenant, and the team had no issue following his orders. In that situation, rank didn't matter, stated authority mattered. That's where I think Starfleet places more credence in. The rank structure becomes more rigid in wartime, or a crisis situation, as well as when it comes to overall command. The rank of "Commander" and up are a bit more rigid in role... underneath that, rank only matters sometimes.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I think in Starfleet, that is reversed... the Officers are the ones who have the specialized education/training, Enlisted are more... bodies to handle work.

That basically equates enlisted personnel to at best "unskilled below decks labours" with "only a high school education" (at best) that Gene very specifically highlighted that he wanted to avoid, and completely flies in the face of the depiction of relatively inexperienced enlisted personnel on screen, and at worst would make them comparable to indentured servants if not outright slaves.

Personally, if I was reforming/reconciling Starfleet ranks, I'd start by making it clear that it is entirely possible to progress through to at least Senior Officer rank given time and effort given time, and that for Federation citizens* entry into either the In-Service or Graduate Track are entirely on individual merit.

Basic Training: All candidates undertake a basic "short course" of several weeks of generalised training suitable for positions within Starfleet, led by senior Academy cadets. (Modelled on the USCG "swab summer" for officers and ratings "boot camp").

After Basic Training, candidates will opt either:

a) complete initial pre-Fleet training (Trainee) in a specialism and then are posted to the Fleet in that role. Until they complete their "In-Service" academic training and achieve at least a Bachelors Degree, personnel on this track accumulate time-in-service at 0.5 years per calendar year up to a maximum of eight years**.

b) graduate training pursue an academic field to at least a Bachelor's Degree minoring in general Starfleet topics. While at the Academy, personnel on this track accumulate time-in-service at 1 year per calendar year.

*Non-citizen Federation residents and non-Federation applicant must also be sponsored in addition to merit conditions, but this is the case regardless of which track selected.

**Senior Academy training instructors should have completed their "junior time in service" and be eligible to apply for promotion to Ensign as a graduate but may opt not to.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

So apprenticeship vs higher education, then?

And given the hints we've seen of what primary education entails (calculus in elementary school, for example), what a "high school education" consists of is much different than how we think of the term today (though, to be fair, it might still be the same relative level of knowledge compared to what 24th century college/university grads learn.)

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

So apprenticeship vs higher education, then?

Apprenticeship for those who want only limited progression, combination apprenticeship/part-time higher education for those who want some practical experience and progression versus direct to higher education for the more academic and ambitious types.

 

[evilchumlee]

That basically equates enlisted personnel to at best "unskilled below decks labours" with "only a high school education" (at best) that Gene very specifically highlighted that he wanted to avoid, and completely flies in the face of the depiction of relatively inexperienced enlisted personnel on screen, and at worst would make them comparable to indentured servants if not outright slaves.

[/QUOTE]

That last sentence there got a bit extreme.

The thing is we are still looking at this through the lens of modern day. Education for the average person in Star Trek is bananas compared to us today. Those people with "only a high school education" are learning calculus in grade school.

Personally, if I was reforming/reconciling Starfleet ranks, I'd start by making it clear that it is entirely possible to progress through to at least Senior Officer rank given time and effort given time, and that for Federation citizens* entry into either the In-Service or Graduate Track are entirely on individual merit.

I snipped the details, but yeah. Honestly by and large I would agree with that, and I really don't think it's even at odds with what I was suggesting.

I think we're coming at it from slightly different angles, which is a good thing. You seem to be detailing how one advances in rank and the like. I was more talking about how rank in general is handled.

My one issue is that I don't believe NCO's in Starfleet are specialized, at least not necessarily. An enlisted crewman COULD pursue a specialization, and perhaps many DO, but I don't think it's a necessity. I'm looking at someone like O'Brian, the only NCO we have any real experience with. O'Brian was *NOT* an engineer by specialization. He says as much in "All Good Things...", and Picard assures him he would be capable of it. O'Brian bounced around from a Tactical Officer, to a Conn Officer, to a Transporter Chief, to Chief of Operations.

Starfleet is fairly liberal with how one goes about a role. They equally satisfied with somebody choosing a specialization and sticking with it as they are with people pursuing a more generalist role. We see with Uhura in SNW for Academy graduates it's even encouraged to bounce around and try different roles, as many Starfleet Academy graduates seem to have received a well-rounded education and training.

My notion that "rank doesn't REALLY matter" I think fits into Roddenberry's vision... everyone there is a professional "astronaut", some just came in from a different route. It's digging into the minutiae that is otherwise written as a straight up mistake, but I think it could go a ways to explaining O'Brian's ever-changing rank insignia.

It's really not ALL that inconsistent... he goes from wearing an Ensign pip, to Lt. pips, to the single black pip. (and that one time he had nothing at all, but that's where i'll chalk up to an error). It tracks with my theory... Starfleet may have, at that point, seen the distinction between Enlisted and Officer as so irrelevant, they just gave the Enlisted the same rank insignia as Officers for a span.

 

[Nerys Myk]

O'Brian bounced around from a Tactical Officer, to a Conn Officer, to a Transporter Chief, to Chief of Operations.

It's possible to have transferable skills and retraining. My father, a USAF NCO, started in air traffic control but ended his career in the Security Service (Electronic surveillance) He was then able to take what he learned in the Air Force to have a second career in the aerospace industry.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

My one issue is that I don't believe NCO's in Starfleet are specialized, at least not necessarily. An enlisted crewman COULD pursue a specialization, and perhaps many DO, but I don't think it's a necessity. I'm looking at someone like O'Brian, the only NCO we have any real experience with.

The problem is that we only have experience of O'Brien after he's been in the Fleet for at least a decade and has explicitly had new life experiences that led him to pursue other specialisms beyond what he was originally qualified as (likely either combat arms or Armory), so I would argue that it makes absolute sense that he has acquired a generalist education similar to junior commissioned officers.

Starfleet is fairly liberal with how one goes about a role. They equally satisfied with somebody choosing a specialization and sticking with it as they are with people pursuing a more generalist role. We see with Uhura in SNW for Academy graduates it's even encouraged to bounce around and try different roles, as many Starfleet Academy graduates seem to have received a well-rounded education and training.

Which is entirely common for commissioned officers in modern day, particularly in the US, as they are often taught a broad variety of specialisms as part of their degree courses (which are not mandatory in most Commonwealth Navies for example, who don't spend anywhere near as much time on "college classes" before commissioning, and commission "Command" and "Engineering" Officers separately rather than in combination).

My notion that "rank doesn't REALLY matter" I think fits into Roddenberry's vision... everyone there is a professional "astronaut", some just came in from a different route.

The problem with that is that "astronauts" spend only relatively short periods of time "deployed" and the vast majority of the construction, maintenance, administration, security and dozens of other roles that are needed to maintain the ships, crew and mission are done by "non-astronauts" on the ground, may if not the majority of whom are specialists, and many of whom would be considered "enlisted" in the Navy or Air/Space Force and would absolutely not be an option for starships that can spend months or even years away from a starbase.

It's really not ALL that inconsistent... he goes from wearing an Ensign pip, to Lt. pips, to the single black pip. (and that one time he had nothing at all, but that's where i'll chalk up to an error)

But it is inconsistent, both internally and with the rest of the material which explicitly retcons O'Brien as being a "Chief" (ie either a Chief Petty Officer or Chief Warrant Officer) during the events where he wore "an Ensign pin" and was explicitly identified as a Chief Petty Officer while wearing "Lieutenant's pins".

 

[Nerys Myk]

Costuming is often "Secondary" information,

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

It's possible to have transferable skills and retraining.

I used to know someone who joined the RN as a cook, then qualified as a helmsman, damage control party and eventually reclassified as a medical technician (after several years of doing it as a collateral duty) in order to the British Armed Forces medical training department.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Costuming is often "Secondary" information,

Yup.

Dialogue takes primacy because that's created by those who are directly involved in the production of the show, the costume department are focused on their particular element only in many cases.