Command order

[tharpdevenport]

Okay, when the series first began and Worf was a no one and Yar was at tactical, and slightly further in when Geordi was engineer ... what the the chain of command. Correct me if wrong, but I think:

Picard
Riker (1st officer)
Tasha (2nd)
Data (3rd)

 

[Kegek]

I believe Data was always the second officer, but I'm not certain. I don't recall any scene where Yar ordered Data around, but vice versa is also the case.

The command chain in the first season, however, established that even a lower-ranking bridge officer held precedence for command if he had been left in charge - as occured in 'The Arsenal of Freedom', when the current Chief Engineer, Logan, attempts to take command away from, ironically, bridge officer Geordi. Logan outranks Geordi, but Geordi's in command.

 

[Red Ranger]

Tharpdevenport said:
Okay, when the series first began and Worf was a no one and Ray was at tactical, and slightly further in when Geordi was engineer ... what the the chain of command. Correct me if wrong, but I think:

Picard
Riker (1st officer)
Tasha (2nd)
Data (3rd)

Tharpdevenport,

First, who the hell is Ray? (Guess you meant Yar, but you spelled her name backwards!) Second, Data was always second officer, hence, third in command. Tasha probably came after Data, and as another poster pointed out, if Picard or Riker left a lower-ranking bridge officer in command, he could not be relieved by anyone other than Picard or Riker, and probably Data, due to his status as second officer.

After Seasons 1 & 2, I'd guess Geordi would be next in the chain of command after Data, as he was a lieutenant commander by Season 3, then Worf as chief of security -- at that time a full lieutenant.

Red Ranger

 

[DanCPA]

Geordi was an engineer, and outside the normal chain of command after S2.

Picard
Riker
Data
Tasha
Geordi
Worf

With Tasha's death, everyone under her moved up

After LaForge went to Engineering, the chain of command changed to:
PICARD
RIKER
DATA
WORF
W. Crusher is the lowest ranking senior officer

 

[Kegek]

Actually... 'The Gambit.' Picard and Riker are on an alien ship. Data's in command. Worf is his first officer. See my above post, on the Enterprise the rank of the Chief Engineer doesn't equate to a position in the command structure.

Edit: I was beaten to it.

 

[tharpdevenport]

My fingers were off the marks. Or maybe Berman has utilized his amazing mind altering device which makes you think Nemesis was "good", and forget about Lt. Ray, who served at Tactical. ;-)


Okay, let's say Geordi is in command of engineering, Tash didn't die, and Worf wasn't present.

 

[Kegek]

Then Tasha would be before Geordi in command structure and would be Data's XO if Picard and Riker were dead, incapacited or otherwise unavailable.

 

[Red Ranger]

I guess it would depend on ranks and Picard's preference. If Yar and Geordi were both full lieutenants, like Geordi was in Season 2, then Yar most likely would be next in the chain of command after Data. Don't know if that would change once Geordi gets another promotion to lieutenant commander, but it seemed like he was next after Data once he got that rank and Worf went from lieutenant, j.g. to full lieutenant. Maybe the situation would be like in TOS, when we sometimes saw Sulu in command, despite the fact Scotty, as a lieutenant commander, outranks Sulu, who is a lieutenant.

Then there's the issue of Dr. Crusher. She was a full commander but never shown to be officially part of the chain of command, as her medical duties took precedence. In later seasons, it's revealed she took the bridge officer's test and serves as a watch commander on one of the off shifts, and indeed does command Enteprise in "Descent, Pt. II."

Red Ranger

 

[Red Ranger]

People,

Well, whether Geordi is in the chain of command, we do have a precedent for a chief engineer being third-in-command: Scotty. It's never mentioned on screen that he's officially second officer, hence, as I mentioned earlier, we sometimes see Sulu in command.

And it definitely seems that in TOS, McCoy is not a line officer, and is only once put in a position of "command" when he confines Spock to quarters in "The Menagerie, Pt. I." And in another ep, he does refer to Scotty as an officer of the line.

Red Ranger

 

[DanCPA]

Kirk can put whoever he wants in the chain of command... But in the Menagerie we see that Spock can turn command over to McCoy, so no doubt Kirk has authorized many people to take command when in need...

 

[AviTrek]

I recently rewatched All Good Things, I remember seeing something that made me think Tasha was ahead of Data, but I don't remember exactly what it was.

 

[nx1701g]

^ Maybe because they accidentally put data in a Lieutenant J.G. pip instead of Lieutenant Commander in the past scenes?

 

[AviTrek]

I think Picard might have left Yar in charge when he went to the ready room or something like that.

 

[CoveTom]

Tighs Eye said:
But in the Menagerie we see that Spock can turn command over to McCoy, so no doubt Kirk has authorized many people to take command when in need...

Actually, Spock turned to McCoy to make the arrest since McCoy was senior officer present. But he turned command of the ship over to Lieutenant Hanson, presumably because Hanson was qualified to command the ship while McCoy, being a medical officer, was not. Which just further cements the idea that rank and place in the chain of command are not the same thing.

 

[Nebusj]

In ``11001001'', Data takes charge in the absence of Picard and Riker. That makes it a fair bet that he's third in command, but I admit I don't remember if Yar was off the ship when the crisis arose. (Though if her presence were relevant I would expect Data would say so.)

 

[K-Star]

Well, in "The Last Outpost" the Ferengi Daimon mentions giving up the life of his second officer as required by Ferengi code and Data mutters "Fortunately, Starfleet has no such regulation regarding its second officers" out of concern for his own safety. I dunno where this lies on the timeline, but it's fairly early and I think it's at least before 11001001 so...

And there might have been mention of Data being second officer in the very first episode as well, but I can't remember it.

Oh, and Yar WAS off the ship in 11001001. She, Worf, and some others were playing Parrises Squares against a group from the spacestation.

 

[CoveTom]

The 11001001 example is probably the closest thing we can find to a direct canon statement that Data was second officer in the first season. I certainly think that was the intention of the producers, and I can't think of anything that would have indicated Yar was in that post -- in fact, did she ever, on any occassion, take command? I can't think of any.

 

[K-Star]

^I don't remember any statement in 11001001...

 

[Tomalak]

Kegek said:
Actually... 'The Gambit.' Picard and Riker are on an alien ship. Data's in command. Worf is his first officer. See my above post, on the Enterprise the rank of the Chief Engineer doesn't equate to a position in the command structure.

There is that scene in Gambit where Data shouts at Worf, telling him that unless he does as he's told, he will be replaced by Geordi. BoBW 2 also suggests Worf is above Geordi in the chain of command.

 

[Hermiod]

^If Geordi gave Worf an order he would be obliged to follow it as he outranks Worf.

The position of First Officer (and Second Officer), however, does not seem to require the authority of rank. Position should not be confused with rank.

This is why neither Crusher or Troi (after her promotion) are Second Officer ahead of Data, for example. Or, to use another example, why Nog continued to do what Chief O'Brien told him to do even after he received his commission.

Certainly, Tasha could have taken a shift on the bridge (much as Harry did in Voyager later on in the series' run) without needing to outrank whoever was running Engineering that week.

If I recall correctly, the one time in the first season that Geordi ended up in command it was, ironically, the Chief Engineer of the week (a Lieutenant Commander) that challenged his authority the most.

Season one, Lieutenant (jg) Worf seemed a bit too inexperienced to take command, in my opinion but even then he was a bridge officer and he did outrank Geordi.

Any situation where the command of the ship falls so far down the chain of command would have to be pretty disastrous anyway so I'm sure any decision would be on an ad hoc basis much as it was in "Disaster" when Deanna took command simply because she was the highest ranked person there.