Could Janeway have promoted herself?

[Guy Gardener]

I'm not being rude, but if Janeway had bumped herself (And Chakotay?) up to admiral with how many ever stars or clusters then surely there would have been the appearance of room for advancement, that she could have handed out superficial promotions for her crew that tried so hard but had no where to go or be promoted to?

 

[ALF]

I also would like to preclude myself from being rude, but isn't the point of being an admiral to command a fleet of ships, and not just one?

Unless you count the armada of shuttlecraft they had to crash into the epilogue of every third episode.

Anyway... why Harry Kim never got one is quite a mystery. Picard knew how to hand out promotions. Everyone but Riker and Beverly got a bump up.

 

[Falcor5]

Anyway... why Harry Kim never got one is quite a mystery. Picard knew how to hand out promotions. Everyone but Riker and Beverly got a bump up.

Dr. Crusher did get Promoted to Head of Starfleet Medical during Season two but I guess she decided she liked life on the Enterprise more and came back? And Riker got offered the position of Captain many times by Starfleet. Not to mention he was actually promoted to Captain of the Enterprise during Best of Both Worlds but agreed to step down when Picard came back.

It really is odd that Kim never got a promotion. I wonder if the writers where trying to make it a joke or something??

 

[USS Triumphant]

No service I've ever become acquainted with allows one to promote themselves. Even in the MU, I feel certain there is a formal process involving the Imperial Command after killing one's superior. Likewise, you can't promote someone else to a rank equal to or beyond your own.

Janeway certainly could have promoted some of her crew up to ranks including Lt. Commander and possibly even Commander - but what would have been the point? They'd have still had to do the same job, and had to recognise the same superiors. In current era militaries, there would be a pay grade issue, but I gather that isn't a factor in Starfleet, and even if it were, getting the paycheck out to them would have been a bitch, and Vidians and Kazon don't take American Express.

One would presume that once Starfleet found out the crew(s) were still alive, someone in Personnel started working out the implications of all these things. They could have informed Kim, for instance, of a promotion through the "mailbags" Voyager was getting. But they probably went through the same thought process I illustrated above - better to let them enjoy rank (and pay grade, retroactively, if applicable) when or if they got home.

Not to mention he was actually promoted to Captain of the Enterprise during Best of Both Worlds but agreed to step down when Picard came back.

Not Captain. Acting Captain. His rank was not actually increased.

 

[Timo]

Actually, it was - he got his fourth pip in the mail in that episode. He managed to lose it again before "Family"...

He was acting captain in "Gambit" for a brief while, at Commander rank.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[nx1701g]

Everyone but Riker and Beverly got a bump up.

Wasn't Beverly promoted when she took the Bridge Officer's Exam?

 

[Timo]

Nope. That is, she took the exam long before the show even started, or so she says in "Thine Own Self". And she always wore the three pips of Commander in the show.

Troi got promoted from 2½ to 3 pips, from LtCmdr to Cmdr, as the result of taking that exam, but this probably wouldn't be the only way for a medic to get said promotion, and it probably doesn't guarantee such promotion, either. It just gives the performer some additional brownie points, plus the clearance to perform the menial job of standing bridge watches.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Actually, it was - he got his fourth pip in the mail in that episode. He managed to lose it again before "Family"...

He was acting captain in "Gambit" for a brief while, at Commander rank.

Timo Saloniemi

I hated how Decker got demoted in the Motionless Picture, but did everyone get to be acting Captin in Redemption when they were manning the blocade?

And Riker on the Hathaway for that matter, or Worf when he assumed command of the Enterprise in the Emissary to ease the minds of those cold stored Klingons.

UM, yeah. The Vooooooooyager forum.

 

[Kirk1980]

Well, the way I understood it in BoBW was that he had been field promoted and had the fourth pip before being 'officially' promoted.

Therefore, by the time Family came around, he just went back to Commander.

And I wouldn't have put it past Commandant Janeway to promote herself to Goddess or something.

 

[Timo]

Being in command of a ship doesn't require you to be a Captain, acting or otherwise. Riker could have been the CO of the Excalibur at Commander rank without in any way being "unofficial" or "informal" or anything like that, even though he knew he was just temping it. Yet in "BoBW", Riker did receive a promotion that came through in hard metal but was for some reason later revoked, while in "Gambit" he got the CO spot without any accompanying promotion and started dictating "Acting Captain logs".

So Starfleet appears to have at least three different protocols for giving impromptu command of a starship to an officer lower than Captain in rank - and actually adjusting the person's rank is only seen once, and revoked afterwards, so it might be something associated with highly special circumstances only. Say, Riker would have already gathered all the courses and merits required for the fourth pip by the time of "BoBW", unlike most temp-skippers, so Starfleet would give him the promotion. But when he turned that down after Picard survived (the fourth time he did that!), he became such a pariah that none of his temporary commands were ever considered grounds for promotion again.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jamestyler]

Anyway... why Harry Kim never got one is quite a mystery. Picard knew how to hand out promotions. Everyone but Riker and Beverly got a bump up.

Data was left out of the promotion loop too - he was Lt. Commander up to Nemesis.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That was after about 40 years of service in the fleet.

Krikey, Kim is such a Whiner.

"I didn't notice a little box in my chair?"

(out of context, that's quite grotty.)

 

[Lucy of Nine]

Janeway should have promoted herself to something like 'Super Mega Special Queen Captain' i think...

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm positive that that would have been a demotion.

 

[Kirk1980]

Being in command of a ship doesn't require you to be a Captain, acting or otherwise. Riker could have been the CO of the Excalibur at Commander rank without in any way being "unofficial" or "informal" or anything like that, even though he knew he was just temping it. Yet in "BoBW", Riker did receive a promotion that came through in hard metal but was for some reason later revoked, while in "Gambit" he got the CO spot without any accompanying promotion and started dictating "Acting Captain logs".

So Starfleet appears to have at least three different protocols for giving impromptu command of a starship to an officer lower than Captain in rank - and actually adjusting the person's rank is only seen once, and revoked afterwards, so it might be something associated with highly special circumstances only. Say, Riker would have already gathered all the courses and merits required for the fourth pip by the time of "BoBW", unlike most temp-skippers, so Starfleet would give him the promotion. But when he turned that down after Picard survived (the fourth time he did that!), he became such a pariah that none of his temporary commands were ever considered grounds for promotion again.

Timo Saloniemi

Well, bear in mind during BoBW, Picard had just been abducted and the Battle of Wolf 359 had just been fought. There was likely no time to do the OFFICIAL promotion paperwork/ceremony/etc but he was de facto captain and was just wearing the fourth pip. Then when SURPRISE SURPRISE, Picard still lived, it was an easy matter for him to go back to Commander since he never OFFICIALLY was a Captain.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm sure Riker talked to Starfleet and they told him he was in charge. It was that guy who went mental over the fact that war and peace was originally going to be called War what is it good for?

 

[Nebusj]

No service I've ever become acquainted with allows one to promote themselves. Even in the MU, I feel certain there is a formal process involving the Imperial Command after killing one's superior. Likewise, you can't promote someone else to a rank equal to or beyond your own.

Actually, Captain Charles Wilkes of the United States South Seas Exploring Expedition promoted himself to Commodore just as soon as his ships were out of sight of land. This was one of many, many things that left so many people eagerly anticipating to his court-martial when the four-year mission finally ended. He did feel that, as he had command of a six-ship expedition, he was within his rights to fly a Commodore's pennant. He avoided the issue of sailing into home port with the above-his-station pennant by going ashore in a boat ahead of the ships. (As a captain in command of multiple ships for a specific objective he had fair claim to the position of commodore as the term was used at the time. Also at the time the Navy had never had an Admiral.)

Mind you, he wasn't actually properly speaking a Captain either at the time. He was a Lieutenant. Promotions were slow in the Navy between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, and while he had fair reason to expect a promotion before the expedition started it hadn't actually come through. But, hey, Lieutenant, Captain, Commodore, what did he care? He was off on his own with no superior officers able to check up on him.

 

[Lucy of Nine]

I'm positive that that would have been a demotion.

Really? Well Im sure Harry would have taken the rank if he could... especially the 'queen' part....

 

[The Borg Queen]

Why would Captain Kathy have needed to promote herself?

It's entirely possible the ship's computer has protocols to disregard arbitrary ranks if they're not sanctioned by Starfleet Command if the one assigning the ranks is insufficiently qualified to bestow a rank of that level.

So the computer would recognise Janeway's promotion of everyone under her command, but would ignore her if she tried to tell it she was now an Admiral or anyone "below" her was now a Captain or higher...

 

[Guy Gardener]

there was a terrorist criminal in charge of Engineering and Borg running around free range. After the debacle of the M5, the idea of giving Star Ships AI is a spectacularly dangerous idea... You haven't seen the Valiant? With his dying breaths a captain field promote a cadet to Captain who then field promotes his entire class to Line Officers... Now you might be thinking of the Doctor being locked out in message in a bottle or L'll Picard being locked out in rascals and having to use the Kindergarten Computer to plan how to retake the ship... But if Khan and every other villian and their Dog can assume command of a federation starship unless Data encrypts everything with a 900 digit prefix, and janeway INVENTED the rank badge i really think that the computer is a tool and not some governing overlord like in Wall-E or 2001.