Bah? Everyone on the Enterprise referred to Spock as "Mr. Spock" more times than they called him "Commander Spock," including the lower ranks while on duty.
Doctor Simon Tarses, USS Aventine
- Thread starter Shamrock Holmes
- Start date
Fair enough.
I suppose Rand and Valtane could BOTH be LTCDRs and Tuvok and Valtane's relatively close relationship could be because Valtane is Tuvok's mentor. I still come back to the oddity of a LCDR bunking with an ENS.
I can't see any advantage to assuming that he's a senior officer when only Rand is really depicted as such.
I suppose Rand and Valtane could BOTH be LTCDRs and Tuvok and Valtane's relatively close relationship could be because Valtane is Tuvok's mentor. I still come back to the oddity of a LCDR bunking with an ENS.
I can't see any advantage to assuming that he's a senior officer when only Rand is really depicted as such.
I would imagine Starfleet's Unrestricted Line (Command) officers would have to attend the Academy in order to be commissioned. That would directly correlate to the real-life Navy.
On the other hand, in the Navy, enlisted can also commission as a "limited duty" officer. These officers are not eligible for command of a ship, and do NOT attend any service academy (or commission through ROTC)--they go to a special course for limited-duty officers. (Note, that the Navy does call it an "Academy", but it's just a four-week orientation program, tailored to the needs of newly commissioned limited duty and Chief Warrant officers.)
Note also that LDOs can convert to Unrestricted Line if they earn a Bachelor's degree and are selected to attend regular OCS. This is rare but does happen.
An aside:
Marines are a different story. All officers are "line" officers, whether regular, limited duty, OR Chief Warrant. This means that all Marine officers have to be qualified to command a combat unit (read: platoon), should the need arise. This is because the Marines have no "Staff Corps" of their own. The Navy supplies all of those.
On the other hand, in the Navy, enlisted can also commission as a "limited duty" officer. These officers are not eligible for command of a ship, and do NOT attend any service academy (or commission through ROTC)--they go to a special course for limited-duty officers. (Note, that the Navy does call it an "Academy", but it's just a four-week orientation program, tailored to the needs of newly commissioned limited duty and Chief Warrant officers.)
Note also that LDOs can convert to Unrestricted Line if they earn a Bachelor's degree and are selected to attend regular OCS. This is rare but does happen.
An aside:
Marines are a different story. All officers are "line" officers, whether regular, limited duty, OR Chief Warrant. This means that all Marine officers have to be qualified to command a combat unit (read: platoon), should the need arise. This is because the Marines have no "Staff Corps" of their own. The Navy supplies all of those.
Actually, while I suspect that attending the USNA offers a "leg-up" for naval officers, the only actual requirement is a four-year degree and attendence on a USN sponsered program. NROTC at a civilian college is a perfectly viable option in modern day and is may be the case within Prime!McCoy as he was identified as an alumni of UMiss and unfamiliar with some Starfleet Academy traditions.
Why LDOs have never been specifically identified in Star Trek (Starfleet lacking an 'up and out policy' means there is no real advantage over regular officers), it is canonically possible for staff officers to convert to or qualify as command officers (Crusher, Troi, Dax, Janeway) so something similar for enlisted seems plausible.
In that part, I was talking about Starfleet exclusively. There is no canonical OCS in the Star Trek universe.
In that part, I was talking about Starfleet exclusively. There is no canonical OCS in the Star Trek universe.
It's true that OCS doesn't canonically exist by name, but it's existence seems likely particularly as a four-year course for officer candiates (with or without post-high school education) is by no means universal even for civilian entrants in the RW and the scale of Starfleet v the limitations of the Academy @ San Francisco suggest that contrary to canon implications the full Academy course cannot be the only accession route*.
*DSC supports this as both Burnham and Georgiou appear to have gained their commissions other than at Starfleet Academy (The VSA in Burnham's case and the Laikan Military Academy in Georgiou's although this may have been post-grad).
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Actually, I think the existence of the Intrepid as a Vulcan-only ship may lend even more credence that Starfleet will accept university credit as equivalent to an Academy education, presumably with some sort of officer training or ROTC in there. If I remember correctly, Spock was supposed to have been the first Vulcan to graduate from SFA (I could just be talking out my ass here). So if there's a ship contemporary with Spock that was entirely crewed by Vulcans, then its officers had to have received some kind of higher education prior to enlisting in Starfleet. Especially if the Vulcan Expeditionary Fleet is so selective, Starfleet could have been a good alternative for VSA graduates who didn't make the cut.
Agreed. IIRC commissions in the Bajoran Militia (at least the officers) were expected to transfer over to Starfleet service with limited to no compulsary retraining.
That was never canon, and I don't think anyone really adheres to it these days anyway.
Yeah, I thought that may have been the case.
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