Unless I'm grossly mistaken, it's very universal, across all ships of all navies.
Did Star Trek not know how to deal with Executive Officers?
- Thread starter sonak
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Unless I'm grossly mistaken, it's very universal, across all ships of all navies.
Chaos Descending makes a good point about Aircraft Carriers separating the XO and CO. When I made my statement earlier about them being together during Battlestations I was thinking of smaller vessels like the submarines I have served on, where there isn't really space for a great secondary control center. And even on subs if there's a casualty going on the XO would be dealing with that vice being on the Bridge with the CO.
And it does seem like most Starfleet vessels don't have a robust secondary control center. That or, again, Starfleet just seems less militant.
And it does seem like most Starfleet vessels don't have a robust secondary control center. That or, again, Starfleet just seems less militant.
Chain of Command
This happened in one episode that put Troi in command of the Bridge. But if the Bridge was knocked out, command would fall to the next in line, which would probably be the CEO assuming that person was not on the bridge.
As far as XO's duties, I seem to remember an episode TNG called Second Chance that introduced Thomas Riker. Picard was telling Will Riker about his Duties as an XO but I can't remember what they were.
Just because the XO doesn't fulfill an extra duty on the ship like Chief Engineer or Chief Science Officer, doesn't mean he doesn't have other duties.
The other XOs on the list have other significant duties that they must perform.
...The only exception I'm familiar with (by virtue of coming from a nation that has very few large naval vessels) is small craft, where there's no point in having the top officers distributed among the spaces. Instead, the CO and XO might stay in the combined navigation and command center and distribute responsibilities so that e.g. the CO liaisons with the rest of the formation and observes the battlespace while the XO fights the individual craft.
But that's for the twin reasons of lack of protection (a single good hit would kill everybody regardless of distribution) and facilitation of best possible internal and external communications for a fighting unit that cannot operate solo at all. In Trek, the same may well apply to capital ships: they utterly lack protection if shields go down, so there's no harm in putting all the top officers within sight of each other and allowing them to win battles by communicating. Not because they'd have to act as part of a greater fighting formation, but because fighting is part of a greater whole where scientific breakthroughs or sudden intel insight may be more decisive than tactical coordination.
Timo Saloniemi
Correct answer, swapping T'Pol for Trip of course (but she's an even better illustration of this concept).
It's that pesky second word... "fiction." 
Adhering to military structure duties doesn't seem to be a top priority for the writers.
They can make up whatever they want for the future... plausibility be damned.
Adhering to military structure duties doesn't seem to be a top priority for the writers.
They can make up whatever they want for the future... plausibility be damned.
It never really made any sense for the bridge to be located where it is. On an aircraft carrier or battleship, sure. You need to have a good field of view. But on a starship, your viewscreen is driven by cameras. Your bridge can be anywhere. It really should be in a better protected part of the ship. Granted, if shields do their job, you're fine. But we've seen a number of scenes where the bridge of a ship is destroyed... and wouldn't likely have been if it was several layers away from the surface of the ship. For the Enterprise and other starships, the bridge is probably located on the top for entertainment purposes--you know that beyond that outer wall, the command crew is busy at work. And in some cases, we've had camera pans directly to it, just for that reason.
I'm sure they do have other duties, but we very rarely see Riker or Chakotay doing them.(unless it's Riker leading Away Teams) In contrast, we see other senior officers doing their jobs(Geordi in engineering, Worf dealing with security stuff, etc.)
yeah, there's the occasional episode where Riker sits down with Troi and does personnel stuff, but most of the time, as I wrote, he's sitting on the bridge next to Picard as co-captain, just like Chakotay does with Janeway.
They just didn't know what to do with XOs unless they give them another specific job, which they really should've done with Riker and Chakotay. (this isn't a criticism of the characters at all, just how their jobs were written)
Also, this has nothing to do with expecting Trek to adhere to military accuracy. I wouldn't expect too much on that front, considering stuff like the Enterprise being the "flagship," and the way Troi and Crusher are in the regular chain of command, etc.
I just think having the XO sit next to the captain, redundantly issuing orders is silly.
Haven't watched any ENT in ages, but wasn't there something about Archer actually saying he wanted Trip as XO and Chief Engineer? Might have even been during Broken Bow when Archer is finding out about T'Pol being assigned as his XO
I think what you should be saying is that you really like the shows that come before TNG era shows. Be honest, Kira didn't do anything. Spock: Science Officer, T'Pol: Science Officer, Kira...Diplomat to her people?!? But what does she do while she is on the Defiant?
I still think that just because the writers didn't give the details to what Riker and the others did doesn't mean they did nothing. As far as parrotting the captain, it might be SOP but I don't know what goes on on the bridge.
It has been said before that the show acts like a navy. Maybe this is another attempt to fake a mannerism.
It's silly really. I can see Spock acting as chief science officer primarily supervising his subordinate department heads. Can anybody see Trip giving up his engineering duties to write crew evaluations? Or conducting delicate diplomatic negotiations with alien ambassadors in the Captain's absence? He is apallingly qualified to be a top command officer. One of the most irritating things about Enterprise was the way Archer let his personal relationship with Trip give the man so much leeway. It would be as daft as making Chekov chief of security.
In a real sense, I don't think Archer had a "Executive Officer," oh he had a second in command and prior to T'pol likely it was Trip. But given the size of the crew, Archer was most likely his own executive officer, meaning he was his own administrative officer.
One of the times we see Riker fulfilling the duties of XO was while Jellico was in command of the Enterprise Dee and he instructed Riker to change the shift patterns aboard the ship (which Riker screwed up), reorienting ship wide crew work assignments would be one of the prime jobs of any XO.
I don't think we even saw T'Pol do any thing remotely like that, or any other administrative duties. Yes she was second in command, but that alone doesn't make her an "XO."
One of the times we see Riker fulfilling the duties of XO was while Jellico was in command of the Enterprise Dee and he instructed Riker to change the shift patterns aboard the ship (which Riker screwed up), reorienting ship wide crew work assignments would be one of the prime jobs of any XO.
I don't think we even saw T'Pol do any thing remotely like that, or any other administrative duties. Yes she was second in command, but that alone doesn't make her an "XO."
I'm not sure how you got that pattern from what I wrote. It's just a coincidence because T'Pol and Spock were both science officers, not that they were "pre-TNG shows."
My basic point was that they either didn't know what an XO does, or that they felt that having an XO actually do what one does would be boring and/or leave them off-screen and away from the action for too long.
Fine. Then resolve this by giving them an interesting second job, like science officer or something. Because otherwise they're just redundant junior captains.
Star Trek writers most likely are not militarily versed. The fact that probably every Starfleet vessel we have ever seen has been commanded by somebody of the rank of Captain, and in any real life blue water navy this isn't so. Only capital ships, like top destroyers or aircraft carriers, would be have a Captain rank as CO (at a push even, since in the US or Royal Navy a Captain could command an important base or have a desk job).
Regarding XOs, well an XO is supposed to be a CO's assistant, and provide alternatives to the CO when the need arises. The XO would also be the chief liaison between the CO and other departments, and ensure that the ship runs per the CO's orders.
Riker and Chakotay were in that mold, as it's unlikely that a CO ordinarly would perform personnel reports, or personally relay what Dr. Crusher's or The Doctor's requirements for their respective sick bays are.
A CO, as literally the commanding officer, should be the one laying down all orders to suit his/her unit's tactical situation (and translating what his/her superiors orders are for the unit). No wonder then that Riker said "a Captain's place is on the bridge".
Regarding XOs, well an XO is supposed to be a CO's assistant, and provide alternatives to the CO when the need arises. The XO would also be the chief liaison between the CO and other departments, and ensure that the ship runs per the CO's orders.
Riker and Chakotay were in that mold, as it's unlikely that a CO ordinarly would perform personnel reports, or personally relay what Dr. Crusher's or The Doctor's requirements for their respective sick bays are.
A CO, as literally the commanding officer, should be the one laying down all orders to suit his/her unit's tactical situation (and translating what his/her superiors orders are for the unit). No wonder then that Riker said "a Captain's place is on the bridge".
For these shows, the XO was usually there to be wrong. They would make a suggestion and most of the time their captains would go another way...unless the captain was captured or unavailable and then the XO stepped up and was right because as acting captain they had to be right.
Keep comparing Starfleet with today's navy, all you'll find is that they're not exactly the same thing. Similar, but not identical.
And a lot of differences too. More than enough that the writers also have clearly made them not the same navy, but more kindred ones, IMO.
I want to see an entire episode where Riker is confounded by a scheduling conflict in the duty roster, and he goes into the holodeck with Troi to see how Spock would have resolved it. That would have been a nice tie-in when Jellico told him to swtich from three duty shifts to four.
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