Do officers 'inherit' positions in Starfleet?

[Mojochi]

Elizabeth Dennehy herself said on the 7th Rule podcast she had a two episode contract for the 3rd season finale and the 4th season premiere and that was it, there was no option to become a regular and not even informal talks to her or her agent if she was theoretically willing to come back in any capacity.
The entire "They weren't sure if Patrick Stewart was coming back" story is also something fans most likely made up not knowing better. Patrick Stewart was under contract, it was not his decision if he returned or not. He could have asked to be released but the studio would have had to agree to that, there would have been no uncertainty. Shelby was created to clash with Riker and to create conflict, that's what they used guest stars for all the time.

Yeah. This whole concept about "Will Picard be gone & Riker take over or will Riker leave & Picard comes back" thing seemed like a gambit cooked up by the writer, writing the show into a corner at a time when they might've been considering leaving. Am I remembering that right?

 

[valkyrie013]

A lot of people IRL conflate those in the retelling, but it's possible they were two separate incidents, and Picard just took over when the captain and first officer were killed, but a new captain (and maybe first officer) were assigned after the crisis, and it was a while before Picard was actually made captain.

post he held for twenty-two years, and the battle of maxia was in 2355. so he held it since 2332, 5 years after graduating the academy making him 27 ( if he joined at 18)

My own opinion, is that the ship was out in the boonies doing exploration work, take a look at the aftermath of the Battle of Maxia, as it was several weeks in escape pods before rescue.
So, he was put in in temporary captains position, and by the time they got back to a star base, he had done good enough to keep the command. As said, it was a 40+ year old ship, no one else wanted it.

 

[Takeru]

Yeah. This whole concept about "Will Picard be gone & Riker take over or will Riker leave & Picard comes back" thing seemed like a gambit cooked up by the writer, writing the show into a corner at a time when they might've been considering leaving. Am I remembering that right?

Not sure but I think they just wanted to write an exciting cliffhanger and wanted the audience to be uncertain what would happen, the studio knew the entire cast would be back. Had someone asked to leave and the studio was agreeable to that that probably would have been decided on by the time the episode was written and filmed.