Data's rank
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I suppose, but usually they have one captain, one commander, then a number of Lieutenant Commander's under them, and usually it's just one bride Lieutenant Commander.
It depends on the ship. The D had ultimately three commanders (Riker, Crusher and Troi) and several lieutenant commanders (Data, Geordi, Worf eventually). Since we only saw a handful of the crew on a regular basis, it's hard to judge how many officers in a command grade were in the crew.
Data should have been a full commander before Troi, IMO, but it can possibly be argued that one of the differences between Starfleet and today's military is that actual rank is not as important as position. In that capacity, as long as Data was the designated second officer, it didn't matter if he was a lieutenant because he would still be third in the chain-of-command regardless if there were officers several actual grades above him.
It had to be that way, really, because otherwise Crusher or Troi would really be the second officer as both really ranked Data...
It had to be that way, really, because otherwise Crusher or Troi would really be the second officer as both really ranked Data...
Oh, it works that way in most militaries, too. Narrow-scoped specialists such as doctors or chaplains typically hold very high rank because rank is tied to pay and they deserve to be paid well, but these specialists aren't allowed to actually command people of lower rank except in matters concerning their speciality.
It is relatively seldom that a person would command another who outranks him, because any military can afford to shuffle personnel so that the higher-ranking one is the best suited for commanding the lower-ranking one. Indeed, if such shuffling isn't trivially easy, it may be that a person is quickly promoted to a rank befitting his commanding position. Some navies have the practice of changing a flag officer's rank at the drop of a hat to match his or her assignment, for example (something that might easily explain Janeway earning her three pips, while Kirk only ever had one for his decade as a flag officer).
Starfleet probably doesn't tie pay to rank - we still wonder whether the TNG era 'Fleet even pays its personnel at all. The pips still denote accumulated experience, and as such should usually correlate with who gets to command whom. In a slight deviation from today's practices, though, there seems to be no "up or out" policy regarding ranks in Starfleet: nobody has to accumulate a certain amount of expertise within a certain number of years and get promoted, or else discarded as a failure. Thus, a person happy with Ensign rank might stay down there for decades and still be highly regarded - and even a person who isn't happy with the low rank might be held down there for lack of competence at any higher rank, which may be what happened to Harry Kim.
That's pretty logical, really: it certainly does away with the current practice of promoting everybody to their level of incomptenence and sometimes beyond.
Data could easily accumulate much of the experience needed for promotions. He might also be interested in the new responsibilities brought about by a promotion. But Starfleet might feel that his android nature slows down his learning process (say, in matters of personnel management). Or then Data could be perfectly happy with the job of Chief Operations Officer aboard the Federation flagship, and thus uninterested in further pips on his collar when 2½ pips allow him to perform that job.
Timo Saloniemi
It is relatively seldom that a person would command another who outranks him, because any military can afford to shuffle personnel so that the higher-ranking one is the best suited for commanding the lower-ranking one. Indeed, if such shuffling isn't trivially easy, it may be that a person is quickly promoted to a rank befitting his commanding position. Some navies have the practice of changing a flag officer's rank at the drop of a hat to match his or her assignment, for example (something that might easily explain Janeway earning her three pips, while Kirk only ever had one for his decade as a flag officer).
Starfleet probably doesn't tie pay to rank - we still wonder whether the TNG era 'Fleet even pays its personnel at all. The pips still denote accumulated experience, and as such should usually correlate with who gets to command whom. In a slight deviation from today's practices, though, there seems to be no "up or out" policy regarding ranks in Starfleet: nobody has to accumulate a certain amount of expertise within a certain number of years and get promoted, or else discarded as a failure. Thus, a person happy with Ensign rank might stay down there for decades and still be highly regarded - and even a person who isn't happy with the low rank might be held down there for lack of competence at any higher rank, which may be what happened to Harry Kim.
That's pretty logical, really: it certainly does away with the current practice of promoting everybody to their level of incomptenence and sometimes beyond.
Data could easily accumulate much of the experience needed for promotions. He might also be interested in the new responsibilities brought about by a promotion. But Starfleet might feel that his android nature slows down his learning process (say, in matters of personnel management). Or then Data could be perfectly happy with the job of Chief Operations Officer aboard the Federation flagship, and thus uninterested in further pips on his collar when 2½ pips allow him to perform that job.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, rank was critical when it came to attaining or maintaining the rank of Captain.
Here's another thing that confuses me... the bridge officer's test. You must pass it to be a bridge officer, and apparently passing it gives you the rank of Commander (based on Troi's promotion). Data is the second officer, so he HAD to have passed the bridge officer's test, and yet he's still only a Lt. Commander.
If only he hadn't died at the end of Nemesis... we could've seen him at the end as a full Commander and first officer of the Enterprise...
If only he hadn't died at the end of Nemesis... we could've seen him at the end as a full Commander and first officer of the Enterprise...
Here's another thing that confuses me... the bridge officer's test. You must pass it to be a bridge officer, and apparently passing it gives you the rank of Commander (based on Troi's promotion). Data is the second officer, so he HAD to have passed the bridge officer's test, and yet he's still only a Lt. Commander.
If only he hadn't died at the end of Nemesis... we could've seen him at the end as a full Commander and first officer of the Enterprise...
Yeah, that never quite made sense to me. I think they were reaching for ideas by the time they got around to that ep? "Eye of the Beholder" was it?
Maybe the bridge officer's test is only required for officers who are not considered part of a starship's normal chain of command like doctors and counselors.
Otherwise, I think that such a test would be required for all line officers while they were still cadets at the Academy, you know, their version of the Kobayashi Maru Test...
Yeah, that would have been nice to see Data in command red.If only he hadn't died at the end of Nemesis... we could've seen him at the end as a full Commander and first officer of the Enterprise...
Well once in a while his third pip is out of focus and looks solid.
He really ought to have gone to Commander in Ops. I don't think I could have gotten used to him in the burgundy. Although with the film uniforms it was less jarring. He was in a TNG red uniform in an alt reality somewhere, it just looked sooooo wrong. Data's more of a "spring" I guess.
He really ought to have gone to Commander in Ops. I don't think I could have gotten used to him in the burgundy. Although with the film uniforms it was less jarring. He was in a TNG red uniform in an alt reality somewhere, it just looked sooooo wrong. Data's more of a "spring" I guess.
Maybe a red uniform would look better on him if he changed his eye colour to red to match.
Anyway clearly the chain of command favours red and yellow coloured uniforms but the blue uniformed officers are mostly out of the loop, and probably require that Commander rank for bridge watch.
Anyway clearly the chain of command favours red and yellow coloured uniforms but the blue uniformed officers are mostly out of the loop, and probably require that Commander rank for bridge watch.
Well once in a while his third pip is out of focus and looks solid.
He really ought to have gone to Commander in Ops. I don't think I could have gotten used to him in the burgundy. Although with the film uniforms it was less jarring. He was in a TNG red uniform in an alt reality somewhere, it just looked sooooo wrong. Data's more of a "spring" I guess.
Parallels
Actually it was Future Imperfect, and another episode where he was made 1st Officer by Capt. Jellico.
That's what I always assumed. It's only the "blue-shirts" who have to take that test, I think, because they aren't normally command officers. They have to take a special exam to be allowed to have a stint in the command chair, and to be promoted beyond the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
McCoy, for example, must have taken the test sometime prior to TMP, because he was a full Commander in that film. Beverly specifically mentions taking the test. And we *saw* Troi take it. (Bashir has probably never taken it, since he was still a LCDR when DS9 ended.)
I see no evidence of that in "Thine Own Self". The rank part, I mean.
People like Pulaski and McCoy have reached the rank of Commander (or even Admiral!) without getting any sort of command competence. There's precious little reason for any doctor to get such competence, really. We know that Troi earned a promotion as the result of passing the test - but if Troi had held the rank of Lieutenant (jg) at that point, it would seem logical that the test would have given her the promotion to the rank of senior Lieutenant instead.
That is, performing this test gives you brownie points that can be used for upping your rank by one step. There must be hundreds or thousands of other sorts of tests that give you comparable points. McCoy might have taken the one that makes him qualified to be a space quack, or gives him competence to operate on Vulcans. Pulaski might have earned a promotion for taking a test on alien customs and rituals. And Bashir no doubt took this command competence test back at the rank of Ensign, along with tests on phaser marksmanship, shuttle piloting and a few dozen other fields (but under false names so that his superiors wouldn't catch on to his unnatural competence).
Also, the test certainly doesn't make Troi the equal of Picard or Riker in command qualifications. It makes her eligible to stand bridge watches - a menial task today burdened on the most junior officers so that the skipper can catch zzz's and the XO can do paperwork. It would be eminently logical that Starfleet would allow any of its personnel to voluntarily get the required minimal command competence, so that there'd always be the deepest possible pool of competent people to choose from. But such competence would not be required of the average blueshirt.
Timo Saloniemi
I think the terminology for the test was misleading. It is not a test for being on the bridge, because that clearly doesn't require a rank as high as commander. It is a test specifically for command line officers, as indicated by the tests Troi faced, and presumably is somewhat standardized for officers who wish to become commanders and perhaps later captains. The episode kind of used the term "bridge officer's test" interchangably with the notion that it was specifically a command grade test.
AFAIK, it was.
I was always flummoxed about Data and his stagnation in rank. I always think back to the TOS movies where we have Kirk, Spock, and Scotty as Captains, while McCoy, Uhura, and Chekov were all Commanders on the same vessel. By comparison, in Nemesis we have everyone with the same rank as the series with the exception of Worf.
There may be some at Starfleet Command who weren't convinced that Data *should* be promoted beyond LCDR. Or perhaps Data, being an android, did not have any 'ambition' to quickly rise through the ranks, and was content to stay where he is.
