Dax should have been promoted to Captain

[IntrepidMan]

Trek writers on the whole can be pretty lazy when it comes to promotions. Data went through the entire TNG run without a promotion, and if anyone deserved one I would think it would be him.

I agree that Dax should have been promoted, especially (as others have said) since Starfleet no doubt needed experienced officers commanding ships.

 

[MacLeod]

They were better back in the TOS era, If you include the movies as all the characters got promotions.

 

[InklingStar]

It would've been great to see Sisko become Commodore (always liked that rank a lot, it's like super-Captain), and Dax and Worf as Captains during season 6. But at least Kira became Colonel a season later, which I believe is equivalent to Captain.

Kira was a lieutenant colonel, which is equivalent to a Starfleet commander.

 

[apenpaap]

She actually wears the insigna of a full colonel, not a lieutenant colonel, though. She's never identified as a lieutenant colonel either.

 

[Gotham Central]

They were better back in the TOS era, If you include the movies as all the characters got promotions.

Actually...DS9 was one of the better series when it comes to promotions. Most of the Starfleet characters receive a promotion at some point during the course of the series. Voyager, conversely was laughably bad at this while TNG was ok.

Promoted over 7 years:
Sisko: Commander>Captain
Dax: Lieutenant>Lt. Cmdr
Bashir: Lieutenant JG>Lieutenant
O'Obrien? (not enough attention is paid to enlisted ranks to be sure)
Nog: Cadet>Ensign>Lieutenant JG
Not Promoted:
Worf (Promoted prior to arrival on DS9)

Compare to TNG
Promoted over 7 year:
LaForge Lieutenant JG>Lt Cmdr
Troi: Lieutenant>Lt Cmdr (Full Commander?)
Crusher: Lieutenant>Lt Cmdr

Not Promoted:
Picard (Turns down promotion)
Riker (Turns down promotion 3 times. finally accepts promotion in Nemesis)
Data
Worf (Promoted in Generations)

Compare to Voyager
Promoted over 7 years:
Tuvok Lieutenant>Lt. Cmdr

Not Promoted:
Janeway (Promoted at some point prior to Nemesis)
Chakotay (Provisional rank)
Paris (Demoted to ensign and then promoted back to Lt JG)
Torres (Provisional Rank)
Kim
Doctor (no rank)

 

[IntrepidMan]

^Both Troi and Crusher were full commanders. Did Crusher get promoted? I thought she was always a cmdr. Troi got the cmdr promotion in S7.

 

[Gotham Central]

^Both Troi and Crusher were full commanders. Did Crusher get promoted? I thought she was always a cmdr. Troi got the cmdr promotion in S7.

Well Riker refers to Troi as Lieutenant in Encounter at Farpoint, so at some point she gets promoted to Lt Cmdr.

 

[Gotham Central]

^Both Troi and Crusher were full commanders. Did Crusher get promoted? I thought she was always a cmdr. Troi got the cmdr promotion in S7.

Well Riker refers to Troi as Lieutenant in Encounter at Farpoint, so at some point she gets promoted to Lt Cmdr.

Also Crusher must have been promoted because in the same ep where Troi goes for the promotion she asks Beverly when she decided to do the same and take a watch position on the Bridge. That was not something that Beverly started with. So at some point she got a promotion. I assume that she was promoted when she left for Starfleet Medical.

Actually I forgot that Worf did get promoted during the course of the series. In season one he was a Lieutenant JG just like LaForge. He was promoted to full Lieutenant when he was made security chief.

 

[IntrepidMan]

Part of the problem is that ranks aren't always shown or referred to consistently--characters wearing wrong number of pips, getting called by the wrong rank, etc. Fans come up with explanations but really they are just mistakes on the writers part.

 

[Vanyel]

^Both Troi and Crusher were full commanders. Did Crusher get promoted? I thought she was always a cmdr. Troi got the cmdr promotion in S7.

Well Riker refers to Troi as Lieutenant in Encounter at Farpoint, so at some point she gets promoted to Lt Cmdr.

Also Crusher must have been promoted because in the same episode where Troi goes for the promotion she asks Beverly when she decided to do the same and take a watch position on the Bridge. That was not something that Beverly started with. So at some point she got a promotion. I assume that she was promoted when she left for Starfleet Medical.

Actually I forgot that Worf did get promoted during the course of the series. In season one he was a Lieutenant JG just like LaForge. He was promoted to full Lieutenant when he was made security chief.

Crusher was a Full Commander as early as The Naked Now (S1Ep2)

Troi's rank as far as I recall was always Lt. Commander.

Neither was in the command track. Troi has asked why Crusher became a Commander because she didn't need the rank to CMO. Crusher said she took the command test so she could take a bridge watch.

Her career path as a doctor does not exclude the rank of commander or higher. Unlike Bashir she was a seasoned officer and doctor. IMO she earned due to service. At some point before Thine Own Self, Crusher took the command test. Her rank before she took the test is unknown, it might have bumped her up, but we have no in-universe story telling when she took the test and at what rank.

Troi also started as a Lt.Commander, shown here in Encounter at Farpoint.

Her being called a Lt. was a mistake, much like Tasha calling LaForge Lt. in Yesterday's Enterprise.

 

[IntrepidMan]

Just watched Behind the Lines again where Dax commands the Defiant. They really should have given her her own ship.

 

[Timo]

Why did she get the ship? Surely Starfleet would have had an ample supply of redshirt skippers for the mission?

She actually wears the insigna of a full colonel, not a lieutenant colonel, though. She's never identified as a lieutenant colonel either.

There's no way to tell what Kira's insignia really mean. We have seen few Colonels, mainly in the Circle trilogy and now Kira. While Kira's pin is different from Colonel Day's, it would seem logical to assume that Kira is Lieutenant Colonel while Day is full Colonel, not vice versa. After all, the lower rank would be the one that should follow Major. It is also the one that matches Commander in the US Army/Navy set, and Kira is considered a Commander when she gets Starfleet commission for the Cardassian resistance military advisory mission.

Her being called a Lt. was a mistake

A natural mistake for the character of Riker to make, at this surprise encounter after a long separation. The last time he saw her, she probably was a Lieutenant.

[Crusher's] rank before she took the test is unknown, it might have bumped her up, but we have no in-universe story telling when she took the test and at what rank.

It might also not have bumped her up. If doing the test gives you 47 brownie points, then at some stages of your career that will take you over the next rank hurdle, but at other stages it won't. FWIW, Crusher says she took the test (or at least started considering it) eight years before the episode, thus before TNG began, and we don't know her rank at that time.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[IntrepidMan]

^I think Dax got the Defiant because she was next in line after Sisko (Worf being with Martok). Since Dax was capable of command, it made sense to give her the ship rather than bring in a new cmdr.

 

[Timo]

...Perhaps so if Defiant class ships were uncommon and few others had experience on operating one. But "next in line" shouldn't matter when there is no line there: despite the backstory of "The Search", the ship isn't Sisko's property, she's Starfleet's, and if she's no longer attached to DS9 there's no real reason to have former DS9 people flying her.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[IntrepidMan]

I can't say I quite follow your line of reasoning. Doesn't the chain of command matter? If Picard leaves the Enterprise, isn't Riker the natural choice to take over, assuming he is qualified?

 

[C.E. Evans]

Her being called a Lt. was a mistake, much like Tasha calling LaForge Lt. in Yesterday's Enterprise.

While it's customary these days to refer to a lieutenant commander as "commander" for short, the grade did start off originally as being a senior lieutenant (or "lieutenant in command"). Within the slightly different beast that is Starfleet, it might not be considered inaccurate to refer to a lcdr as a lieutenant, but perhaps it isn't something that's commonly done.

 

[Gotham Central]

Her being called a Lt. was a mistake, much like Tasha calling LaForge Lt. in Yesterday's Enterprise.

While it's customary these days to refer to a lieutenant commander as "commander" for short, the grade did start off originally as being a senior lieutenant (or "lieutenant in command"). Within the slightly different beast that is Starfleet, it might not be considered inaccurate to refer to a lcdr as a lieutenant, but perhaps it isn't something that's commonly done.

Except of course that from day one, everyone refers to Data as Commander.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Her being called a Lt. was a mistake, much like Tasha calling LaForge Lt. in Yesterday's Enterprise.

While it's customary these days to refer to a lieutenant commander as "commander" for short, the grade did start off originally as being a senior lieutenant (or "lieutenant in command"). Within the slightly different beast that is Starfleet, it might not be considered inaccurate to refer to a lcdr as a lieutenant, but perhaps it isn't something that's commonly done.

Except of course that from day one, everyone refers to Data as Commander.

Which of course doesn't change what I said.

 

[MacLeod]

They were better back in the TOS era, If you include the movies as all the characters got promotions.

Actually...DS9 was one of the better series when it comes to promotions. Most of the Starfleet characters receive a promotion at some point during the course of the series. Voyager, conversely was laughably bad at this while TNG was ok.

Promoted over 7 years:
Sisko: Commander>Captain
Dax: Lieutenant>Lt. Cmdr
Bashir: Lieutenant JG>Lieutenant
O'Obrien? (not enough attention is paid to enlisted ranks to be sure)
Nog: Cadet>Ensign>Lieutenant JG
Not Promoted:
Worf (Promoted prior to arrival on DS9)

Compare to TNG
Promoted over 7 year:
LaForge Lieutenant JG>Lt Cmdr
Troi: Lieutenant>Lt Cmdr (Full Commander?)
Crusher: Lieutenant>Lt Cmdr

Not Promoted:
Picard (Turns down promotion)
Riker (Turns down promotion 3 times. finally accepts promotion in Nemesis)
Data
Worf (Promoted in Generations)

Compare to Voyager
Promoted over 7 years:
Tuvok Lieutenant>Lt. Cmdr

Not Promoted:
Janeway (Promoted at some point prior to Nemesis)
Chakotay (Provisional rank)
Paris (Demoted to ensign and then promoted back to Lt JG)
Torres (Provisional Rank)
Kim
Doctor (no rank)

You could also say Wes, was promted twice, To Acting Ensign and then to full Ensign.

As for Troi, I'm going to go with the previouslt mentioned, that when Riker last say Troi she was a Lt. So he addressed her as sucn not realising that she had been promoted in the intervening years.

 

[Timo]

I can't say I quite follow your line of reasoning. Doesn't the chain of command matter? If Picard leaves the Enterprise, isn't Riker the natural choice to take over, assuming he is qualified?

That parallel would require there to exist a chain of command for the Defiant. But there never appeared to be one. Sisko commanded DS9; the starship just sort of floated in the vicinity. Sisko then moved to a different desk job; there should have been no reason for the Defiant to cling onto Sisko.

OTOH, even if Sisko were considered the CO of Dax on the chain of command of the Defiant, Worf and Kira fell in between the two. Starfleet might "promote" Dax one step, but three? Better to get a high-ranking replacement for the two AWOL officers so that Dax could keep up the good work as an underling...

Well Riker refers to Troi as Lieutenant in Encounter at Farpoint, so at some point she gets promoted to Lt Cmdr.

Also Crusher must have been promoted because in the same ep where Troi goes for the promotion she asks Beverly when she decided to do the same and take a watch position on the Bridge. That was not something that Beverly started with. So at some point she got a promotion. I assume that she was promoted when she left for Starfleet Medical.

The rank pins disagree on both theories. Clearly, Troi was already a LtCmdr when Riker called her "Lieutenant". But Riker wanted to make her obey him; perhaps this issue had arisen at some earlier point in their shared lives already, and Riker was used to calling his Imzadi "Lieutenant" when he wanted obedience? Or then he was simply not remembering that Deanna had received a promotion when the two were apart.

As for Crusher's promotion, her pips didn't change when she left for SF Medical, or when she came back. We don't know if her pips changed a year before TNG when she supposedly took the test that allowed her to stand bridge watches, as we never saw her in uniform before TNG (that is, the flashbacks in "Violations" were with her in civvies). But we have no pressing reason to think that she couldn't have been a Commander the whole time.

Timo Saloniemi