Does it make sense combining Chief Of Security with Tactical Officer?

[Nerys Myk]

Gives the actor more lines
"Intruders on deck 5"
"Shields Down to 45%"
"We are being hailed"

 

[Nerys Myk]

Season 1 TNG had it right. It had a security officer (Yar) and a tactical officer (Worf). When Yar died, Worf should have stayed the latter or become the former.

Was Worf ever IDed as such? He was the fill in guy, yes?

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Was Worf ever IDed as such? He was the fill in guy, yes?

Yup.

IIRC, Tactical was even the station he subbed at least, his usual primary station was one of the Science ones (Navigation?), and he mainly subb'd at CONN or Ops, with a preference to the latter if both Geordi and Data were missing.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Yes & No, kind of like different shades of your favorite color.

The focus of each one is quite different.

Security is to make sure there are no threats breaking into your Facility/Vessel or traitors leaking out OpSec info.
If threats have broken in, you should have a solution ready to solve said threat.
e.g.
The only reason the Galaxy Class Enterprise-D lost was because of OpSec was violated when Dr. Tolian Soran modified Geordi's visor to leak Visual Info to the Klingons he was working with. That Visual info from Geordi's visor fed the Shield Frequency to the Dura's Sisters which let the Disruptors and Photon Torpedo's waltz right through the Enterprise's shields without any resistance. The fact that when they recovered Geordi, they didn't take away his current VISOR and hand him the spare backup VISOR. Check his Cortical implants, etc. Geordi's job is incredibly important and he is able see ALOT of sensitive OpSec info. It was security's job to check if Geordi's VISOR has been tampered with. It's also Security & Comm's job to monitor Subspace radio frequencies and make sure info that shouldn't be leaving the Enterprise is leaving. Normally a computer should be able to account for every single Wireless Subspace Radio transmission, if one is out of place, you're leaking data to the enemy.

Tactical's job is to man the weapons and monitor the shields so that a vessel is ready to fight and ready to win. Part of that is training, maintenance, practice runs in HoloDeck simulations, get everybody on the crew trained so that if there is a sudden need for battle, everybody knows the roles that they have to perform and aren't running around like headless chickens figuring out what to do on the fly.

Field Manager for a Tactical Away mission is similar to what Emily Bett Rickard's character of Felicity Smoak did on Arrow.
Felicity as "OverWatch" sat on comm's, monitored the progress of the field mission, hacked as needed, watched Satellite Overview for any 3rd party attackers coming the way of her team and gave her teams heads up about it, helped plan out the mission along with figuring out alternate solutions when things inevitably goes south. She also helps with research on problem solving when in the field and they need a quick and dirty solution.

So the job of a Field Manager is different since their responsibilities are different and they focus most of their time on making sure the away team's mission runs as smoothly and successfully as possible and if they fail, not to fail too hard and lose lives or screw up the objective too badly that they can't recover in a follow up mission.

That is definitely something I never thought of the position as separate entities and you're right, I'll definitely use your definitions for my Star Trek writings and reassess my characters' foundations and maybe have to invent another Operations stand in for the other positions. I didn't realize how specific these positions were and how vital they are when it comes to defense and safety of the crew.

As Star Trek: Generations, I felt Riker, Worf, and Data were sleeping by the wheel and failed to rebound from the Duras attack. They should've been able to modulate and reroute the shield variance and blow that bird of prey out of the stars. But the writing needed the Enterprise to out that way and make those officers appear incompetent.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I've never understood why communications were handled at tactical.

COMMs AKA Communications should always be a dedicated position, not just merged with Ops.

Given how much Intranet & Subspace Radio traffic is going by on a ship, that's a dedicated full time job.

Ops should be monitoring other parts of the Vessel and make sure everything is working in sync, and if something isn't, report it in to his SO (Superior Officer), figure out what it is, and come up with a solution to fix it or send the right staff to fix it.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

That is definitely something I never thought of the position as separate entities and you're right, I'll definitely use your definitions for my Star Trek writings and reassess my characters' foundations and maybe have to invent another Operations stand in for the other positions. I didn't realize how specific these positions were and how vital they are when it comes to defense and safety of the crew.

Glad I can help =D

Those are already seperate positions on my typical Senior Staff roster for a my Star Trek Head Canon and 650+ page
Star Trek New TV Series Universe
Writers Guide / Technical Rules Manual that I constantly update.

As Star Trek: Generations, I felt Riker, Worf, and Data were sleeping by the wheel and failed to rebound from the Duras attack.

Eternal Vigilance, constantly updating and trying to test and patch for security holes (Be it software or IRL) and not having a lackadasical attitude is what saves lives.

You are CORRECT! StarFleet has gotten soft after SURVIVING, not winning, the Borg encounters!
AND
Winning the Dominion War which literally had the help of Benjamin Sisko's connection with the WormHole Aliens / Bajoran Gods.
If Sisko didn't use his connections to get the WormHole Aliens to make that invading Dominion fleet waiting in the WormHole vanish, the entire UFP and StarFleet would've gotten WRECKED.

Everybody in the UFP should be thanking Benjamin Sisko and his Deus Ex Machina like connections to beings with God-Like powers.

Also, everybody owes your GoAT Janeway a GIANT debt of Gratitude, not only did she violate the Temporal Prime Directive for the better, she literally hit the Borg with a severe blow by destroying their Transwarp Conduit network and bringing back new tech from the future along with alien tech that will help propel the UFP to new technological heights.

It's not a "Knock Out" blow, but it does force the Borg to waste ALOT of time & resources to rebuild their Transwarp Conduit Network, and now the UFP & StarFleet know what to look for in terms of new methods to breach into UFP space.

So, in the future, StarFleet can be on the look out for TransWarp Conduits and prevent them from being abused by placing a exit aperture near Earth or any UFP territory.

That has ALOT of long term knock-on effects down the time-line.

We know from ST: Lower Decks, that in the "Far Future", that the Borg still exist. The fact that a Borg child is amongst the students in school shows that the Borg haven't been fully defeated, even that far into the future. So the threat of the Borg is a constant one, long into the future.

Trying to kill the Borg is like trying to kill every ant or cockroach on earth, it's not going to happen short of extreme events like nuking the planet into ashes or glassing the planet completely.

They should've been able to modulate and reroute the shield variance and blow that bird of prey out of the stars. But the writing needed the Enterprise to out that way and make those officers appear incompetent.

Which they did & failed, that's why it's one of the greatest blunders in StarFleet history.

There's an old saying "Loose Lips Sink Ships".

Not checking for bugs planted on your "Chief of Engineering's" VISOR sunk the Enterprise!!

Under normal circumstances, that fight should've been the Enterprise winning against the Duras Sisters lone OLD Bird of Prey 1,000,000 : 1 odds.

But when you cheat, odds turn in your favor.

That's why in REAL combat, don't be afraid to cheat; because at the end of the day, there is no such thing as "Fair Play".
You're not playing a "Sport", in REAL war, every side does whatever it takes to win. Even if it's dirty and unsavory.

There are only survivors & victors, methodolgy be damned when it comes to REAL WARFARE!

 

[STEPhon IT]

There must had been something wrong with the Enterprise aft torpedo launcher because I never seen that ship ever launch just one torpedo. On the series it would launch like 3 or 4 in a row.

DS9 - you've been reading my posts. Never liked how that went down in "Sacrifice of Angels" but at that time Ira and the gang made the Dominion too massive and I think they wrote themselves in a corner.

As for VOY and the G.O.AT.??? Sigh. To me it falls under the Rey Palpatine wokeism of disbelief. Don't question it, sigh, it's Janeway.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

There must had been something wrong with the Enterprise aft torpedo launcher because I never seen that ship ever launch just one torpedo. On the series it would launch like 3 or 4 in a row.

The writers intentionally made the scene like that for "Rule of Cool" reasons after Riker forced the Duras sisters Bird of Prey to cloak, which means their shields automatically drop. Then they had to have their "Cool but slow shot" of the Torpedo coming to destroy them.

I personally would've spammed ALOT of torpedoes at them if I was in that situation, if they're bypassing my shield, launch the full barrage and keep on firing back, non-stop. Don't stop with the Phaser fires, everything you've got.

Obliterate that BoP by brute force ASAP.

We can make more Torpedoes, losing a Galaxy Class is not forgive-able IMO.

DS9 - you've been reading my posts. Never liked how that went down in "Sacrifice of Angels" but at that time Ira and the gang made the Dominion too massive and I think they wrote themselves in a corner.

I think I remember watching one of the DS9 BtS on DVD, they intentionally wanted to deal with religious themes on DS9 and this was a moment they set up to have a "Act of God" like moment while making sense given that the Worm Hole Aliens do have "God-like" powers.

As for VOY and the G.O.AT.??? Sigh. To me it falls under the Rey Palpatine wokeism of disbelief. Don't question it, sigh, it's Janeway.

I actually have no issues with the way Janeway handled her return home via Time Travel and cheating.
I thought it was a brilliant gamble, she had Plans A/B/C to make things work.

That's smart thinking and planning several steps ahead while giving yourself an advantage.

That's a leader worth following IMO, and she cheated for the betterment of the UFP / StarFleet.

I can get behind that!

Think about it, Ablative Hull Armor Generators, Transphasic Torpedoes, Neural Synaptic Transceivers, etc.

Who knows what toybox of future tech she brought with her to give to her younger self.

All that tech, even DISCO's Spore Drive and many of their future tech has been implemented in my head canon.

=D

 

[Skipper]

Worf went from physically stop a big bar fight in the Ten Forward to firing torpedoes passing through organizing security details for the away teams. One might ask why in a crew of 1000 there is no one to delegate any of these jobs...

 

[Timo]

Is there anybody aboard that ship with the guts and muscles to stop Worf from doing those things?

Worf would readily kill his own Captain "were he not the man he was", i.e. the hand that fed him and let him act as the ship's General Mayhem.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Skipper]

Is there anybody aboard that ship with the guts and muscles to stop Worf from doing those things?

Worf would readily kill his own Captain "were he not the man he was", i.e. the hand that fed him and let him act as the ship's General Mayhem.

Timo Saloniemi

(Still Tasha did the same things, more or less, right?)

 

[Orphalesion]

Season 1 TNG had it right. It had a security officer (Yar) and a tactical officer (Worf). When Yar died, Worf should have stayed the latter or become the former.

Except that Worf wasn't the tactical officer, he was a sort of gofer who filled in wherever he was needed.
Tactical was Yar's station on the bridge.

 

[matthunter]

Except that Worf wasn't the tactical officer, he was a sort of gofer who filled in wherever he was needed.

Remember that both Worf and Geordi wore Command red in the early days - it's possible Picard saw some aptitude for command in both and was rotating them through various assignments to get a broad range of experience to assist with future promotion plans.

 

[Timo]

As per ST:FC, a year-long shakedown in an operational environment isn't totally out of the ordinary - LaForge only starts to seriously gripe around the one-year mark there. Presumably the first season of TNG was a shakedown year, and Picard rotated pretty much everybody as part of that shakedown. Including, possibly, Chief Engineers (although I feel this was a separare thing, with Starfleet running a dozen of those through rotating-door airlocks so that it could train a maximum number of personnel on Galaxy class engines before the E-D went fully operational).

Yar could have been the chosen Chief of Security all right, and Crusher the Chief Sawbones, but pretty much everybody else would be in flux - and the consoles themselves would be reconfigured in search of the best combo, so that on occasion comms would be routed through the aft pulpit, sometimes through one of the forward ones...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Oddish]

Remember that when Worf becomes DS9's tactical officer, he reverts to red.

 

[Timo]

Uh, Strategic Operations Officer.

Which seems to mean he gets to play interstellar cop. Except when he does so, Odo (whose jurisdiction is strictly limited to Bajor and DS9) claims Worf is stepping on his toe-imitations.

But yes, Worf gets to fire the guns again, while wearing red. Although pretty much everybody else does, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Remember that both Worf and Geordi wore Command red in the early days - it's possible Picard saw some aptitude for command in both and was rotating them through various assignments to get a broad range of experience to assist with future promotion plans.

This was in fact specifically mentioned in dialogue during Lonely Among Us:

10 INT. SENSOR MAINTENANCE ROOM - ON GEORDI AND WORF

The room is small, busy with equipment, including one key console. GEORDI is leaning over the complicated console and talking to WORF as he runs a pattern on the panel.

GEORDI: Why the interest in this, Worf? It is just routine maintenance on the sensor assemblies.
WORF: Simple, Geordi. Our captain wants his junior officers to learn, learn, learn...
GEORDI: (grins) Not just the junior ones. (indicates) Okay, hold this relay off-line while...

Remember that when Worf becomes DS9's tactical officer, he reverts to red.

Uh, Strategic Operations Officer. Which seems to mean he gets to play interstellar cop.

Worf occasionally manning Tactical on the Defiant or the station is less about it being his specific job (which appears to be Second Officer, Intelligence Officer and Fleet Liaison, any security functions weren't acquired until after Eddington's betrayal).

 

[STEPhon IT]

The writers intentionally made the scene like that for "Rule of Cool" reasons after Riker forced the Duras sisters Bird of Prey to cloak, which means their shields automatically drop. Then they had to have their "Cool but slow shot" of the Torpedo coming to destroy them.

I personally would've spammed ALOT of torpedoes at them if I was in that situation, if they're bypassing my shield, launch the full barrage and keep on firing back, non-stop. Don't stop with the Phaser fires, everything you've got.

Obliterate that BoP by brute force ASAP.

We can make more Torpedoes, losing a Galaxy Class is not forgive-able IMO.

LOL!!! Agreed. The writing just didn't want it that way.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Except that Worf wasn't the tactical officer, he was a sort of gofer who filled in wherever he was needed.
Tactical was Yar's station on the bridge.

Isn't that what most "Lower Deckers" are until they figure out which department they want to specialize in?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

LOL!!! Agreed. The writing just didn't want it that way.

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This is why I appreciate the practicality of Malcom Reynolds:

@ 4:30, Zoe was going to let Malcolm "Handle the situation himself, because it was something he needed to do".
Malcom <while getting choked over a chasm> says: "No, no I don't".
And the rest of the team realizes that and plugs the bastard.
=D