Does having a non-officer in the "Chief of Operations" position make sense?
- Thread starter Citiprime
- Start date
It's OK; they're evolved.
Keiko referred to Miles as being promoted in order to get on DS9.
Certainly as far as future opportunities go. We know that direct entrants who come in as "crewmen" can chose to attend the Academy or various "on the job" options (like the Command Training Program from Discovery) and be promoted to commissioned officer ranks on merit at their discretion (which is basically how such promotions work in law enforcement, including Roddenberry's old employeers, the LAPD, the one of the most "strong enlisted" police in the Anglosphere, never mind the US).
Given that it was at least a decade earlier, it's possible that most of the surviving Cardassian War-era engineers have either mustered out, or have been promoted too many grades to be the ChEng for CMDR Sisko's understrength unit (the unit at AR-558 was about three times the size of Sisko's initial Starfleet contingent before attrition set in)
Yeah. I think if anything, going to Academy and being an "Officer" can be somewhat of a more fast-tracked career choice that could lead to one more likely to get into some sort of command position, while enlisting and going more "on the job" training can get you into potentially a more specialist field or something not on a command track, with potentially less of a commitment. Someone may want to just... be a Security Officer for a few years, see the galaxy, and then move onto other things. Going to Starfleet Academy is generally going to produce a career Starfleet officer. Officers probably have more positions available, given the trend towards having a generalist-type training. Someone like Uhura could go into the Academy directionless, try out a bunch of stuff and figure out what she wanted to. Enlisted... probably have to be a bit more specific with their intentions. Not that they can't get different positions, but it's going to be more difficult to bounce around departments as enlisted than an officer.
Real command level positions may require becoming an officer... we know from TNG becoming a full Commander is a big deal, and it seems to essentially unlock the job of starship command.
For most positions? Probably doesn't really matter.
The Cardassians are too present a threat to Fed territory to let any accumulated intel on their equipment wither and die.
I presume Miles got a thorough briefing from fleet operations before assuming his post which I imagine he himself can’t have seen lasting more than a couple of months.Ds9 (before the wormhole)wasn’t a high priority posting.
Also there must have been quite a lot of abandoned Cardassian tech on Bajor itself,maybe some Bajoran trustees had been allowed to operate it during the occupation.
I presume Miles got a thorough briefing from fleet operations before assuming his post which I imagine he himself can’t have seen lasting more than a couple of months.Ds9 (before the wormhole)wasn’t a high priority posting.
Also there must have been quite a lot of abandoned Cardassian tech on Bajor itself,maybe some Bajoran trustees had been allowed to operate it during the occupation.
Sure, but also the Cardassians seemed to do a fairly good job of destroying/sabotaging most anything of value. A half-century old space station probably wasn't really considered any great prize.
Two of them even..empok nor.
My point is that the producers keep treating Starfleet like areal organisation with courts martial etc. But then they completely ignore the real world implications of such an organisation.Starfleet seems not to have any (visible) planning or tactical or practical way of conducting itself.
Real world- -If an enemy force we’re leaving a territory they had brutally occupied for so long,Starfleet spooks of every type would be in like a flash hoovering up anything that might gain them an advantage in the next Cardassian war.(That is how military minds work).
Leaving it all in the hands of a single non-com..no dice.
My point is that the producers keep treating Starfleet like areal organisation with courts martial etc. But then they completely ignore the real world implications of such an organisation.Starfleet seems not to have any (visible) planning or tactical or practical way of conducting itself.
Real world- -If an enemy force we’re leaving a territory they had brutally occupied for so long,Starfleet spooks of every type would be in like a flash hoovering up anything that might gain them an advantage in the next Cardassian war.(That is how military minds work).
Leaving it all in the hands of a single non-com..no dice.
Last edited:
But O'Brien is already doing the work. Wouldn't he want the extra pay that would come from being, say, a Lt. Commander? Wouldn't he want the rank? Does he really WANT to have to salute Nog fresh out of the Academy?
Sure. Why not? It's not like he misses out on anything. If he wanted it he could have it.
Actually, it might not be that much of a pay bump. Currently the IRL USN pays a Senior Chief between $63k and $89k versus $69k to $116k for a Lieutenant Commander, so given that he would have had to spend some time as an Ensign and Lieutenant before making it to Lieutenant Commander, he could easily have lost money in the short term. And that's even assuming that Starfleet personnel get paid at all (no, I don't think it's necessary to debate that or the obviously related point here).
What, other than possibly money, would be the benefit. He's been quite clear that the social aspects of officer rank don't appeal to him and he doesn't seem like he'd enjoy being a middle manager.
Well, saluting isn't part of Starfleet protocol FWIW, but O'Brien has never struggled to get the respect of senior officers, never mind juniors, so I don't see him being that hung up on the issue that represents.
It is by "Field of Fire" in S7; the computer claims that there are 900+ Starfleet personnel on the station.
Is there any increase in pay for being a Lt. Cdr.? They don't have currency-based economics, so I'm not sure he would.
Although, this did make me wonder how exactly housing would work in a non-currency based economy?
One of the privileges of being an officer in the US Military is having better government housing options than your enlisted counterparts (although, since O'Brien has a family, he'd be eligible for slightly better options than just a regular NCO). And we see that to a degree with Starfleet on-board ships. The officers have their own quarters. The bridge officers have the most spacious rooms. And the crewmen, cadets, and lower decks officers are sleeping in bunk-beds or sharing quarters.
Personal ownership of real estate on Earth seems to still exist, and there are family "owned" properties (e.g., Picard's vineyard, the Sisko family's restaurant, etc.), but I wonder if housing within United Earth and the Federation might be merit-based if there's no money on which to base affordability. Maybe a system where depending on your role within society, you might be eligible to live in certain properties or "earn" them? An officer within Starfleet might be eligible for a bigger apartment with a nicer view than a normal civilian.
I wonder if the vineyard and the restaurant are some form of long term lease that allows them to stay there as long as they are producing wine or feeding people. I suspect on a Starfleet ship or for base housing to some extent the bigger quarters might be based on rank - at least for the captain, perhaps somewhat larger for Cdr. and Lt. Cdr. But they would also get bigger quarters based on family size: O'Brien with Keiko and one and then two kids gets bigger quarters than Kira who's single.
Even Rom and Leeta got bigger quarters than when Rom was single.
If I knew exactly how to make non-currency economics work, I'd probably be in politics trying to bring it about instead of watching TV...
Even Rom and Leeta got bigger quarters than when Rom was single.
If I knew exactly how to make non-currency economics work, I'd probably be in politics trying to bring it about instead of watching TV...
Indeed, this was literally intended to be the case in a very visible way at least during TNG. The captain's quarters had four windows, commanders had three windows, lieutenant commanders and senior staff lieutenants had two windows.
Obviously DS9 didn't necessarily follow the TNG model, but I would have my doubts that even two adults and two young children would get "commander grade" quarters, though certainly married quarters would likely be equivalent to the general "senior staff" level accommodations.
Also, DS9 was inherited, so they had to live with the mix of large and small quarters that the Cardassians had built.
In the sailing navy days, even as most of the crew just had a trunk and a hammock on the gun deck, the captain's cabins were large and spacious. It wasn't just for the captain's ego. The captain's cabin was where he would entertain VIPs visiting the ship - a visiting commodore or admiral, the mayor of a port town unhappy about being under blockade, the visiting skipper of a fishing boat who gets a few guineas a week for passing on what he happens to notice about the activities in an enemy shipyard, where the captain would read his orders from the admiralty and think about how best to carry them out, where the captain would call a misbehaving officer for correction in private. If the captain had a couple of small ships under him as well as his own, in his cabin the yeoman and possibly ensigns and lieutenants would hand-copy the orders for them and they would be proofread. The captain might have a personal servant bringing him food for the galley and whatever private supplies he had put away, and help him dress and keep his clothes clean and repaired, and that servant might have a corner of the captain's cabin to sleep in. When the captain entertained the officers at dinner, it would be in the captain's cabin.
I hadn't noticed the bit in TNG with the windows in the cabin indicating rank - I'll watch for that!
In the sailing navy days, even as most of the crew just had a trunk and a hammock on the gun deck, the captain's cabins were large and spacious. It wasn't just for the captain's ego. The captain's cabin was where he would entertain VIPs visiting the ship - a visiting commodore or admiral, the mayor of a port town unhappy about being under blockade, the visiting skipper of a fishing boat who gets a few guineas a week for passing on what he happens to notice about the activities in an enemy shipyard, where the captain would read his orders from the admiralty and think about how best to carry them out, where the captain would call a misbehaving officer for correction in private. If the captain had a couple of small ships under him as well as his own, in his cabin the yeoman and possibly ensigns and lieutenants would hand-copy the orders for them and they would be proofread. The captain might have a personal servant bringing him food for the galley and whatever private supplies he had put away, and help him dress and keep his clothes clean and repaired, and that servant might have a corner of the captain's cabin to sleep in. When the captain entertained the officers at dinner, it would be in the captain's cabin.
I hadn't noticed the bit in TNG with the windows in the cabin indicating rank - I'll watch for that!
Similar threads
