Education in the Federation
- Thread starter Shamrock Holmes
- Start date
It certainly is portrayed as something completely optional to the blueshirts taking it. In the absence of explicit references to it being related to exact rank or anything else, it's best treated as something Jim Kirk can pass on his second year as Cadet while Deanna Troi would only feel the need at LtCmdr rank and McCoy could take it as Rear Admiral to fight boredom, or then never.
Whether the UT works on written symbology or not is a bit unclear. Our heroes and villains fluently operate the fundamentally visual control panels of systems alien to them, but then again, Starfleeters apparently are fluent in Okudagrams that feature nothing but strings of Latin numbers. Perhaps the operating skill sidesteps the language issue altogether and relies on a different level of symbology, something fundamental and intercultural that any competent starfarer ultimately learns - or something that also lies at the root of the ability of the UT to operate on foreign speech?
Rom can read enough Bajoran symbology to correctly identify the names of collaborators on a hand-written list that would have no excuse of having been written in non-Bajoran, but is that a learned skill or his UT at work?
On (rare) occasion, the audience sees alien text in English - is that due to the same UTs installed in our TV sets that turn the alien speech into English? Or are we provided a special high-end model for this specific occasion, while usually we have mere hero-standard UTs?
More questions than openings for answers there. But that's just about all we can say about the issue.
Timo Saloniemi
Whether the UT works on written symbology or not is a bit unclear. Our heroes and villains fluently operate the fundamentally visual control panels of systems alien to them, but then again, Starfleeters apparently are fluent in Okudagrams that feature nothing but strings of Latin numbers. Perhaps the operating skill sidesteps the language issue altogether and relies on a different level of symbology, something fundamental and intercultural that any competent starfarer ultimately learns - or something that also lies at the root of the ability of the UT to operate on foreign speech?
Rom can read enough Bajoran symbology to correctly identify the names of collaborators on a hand-written list that would have no excuse of having been written in non-Bajoran, but is that a learned skill or his UT at work?
On (rare) occasion, the audience sees alien text in English - is that due to the same UTs installed in our TV sets that turn the alien speech into English? Or are we provided a special high-end model for this specific occasion, while usually we have mere hero-standard UTs?
More questions than openings for answers there. But that's just about all we can say about the issue.
Timo Saloniemi
Given the other signs that UT don't normally translate written (I like your universal concepts idea) I'd be inclined to assume that Rom can read Bajoran (and therefore presumably Ferengi) which backs up the idea that Nog's issue with "reading" was that he couldn't read 'Federation Standard' probably at least in part due to the very different script, and potentially due to the often imprecise, idiomatic and eccentric nature of the language (if it's actually [mostly] English).
Of note might be that the book Jake and Nog study is describing the Bajoran star system, and getting it wrong. That is, Bajor is said to have three moons when it actually has five - suggesting the book indeed is a Federation one, and written before anybody there had any real interest in Bajor.
One wonders whether the education provided by Keiko O'Brien amounts to anything much. Given her supposed lack of formal or practical competence as an educator, the absurd demands of teaching a culturally diverse lot of already rather advanced age, and the lack of actual common goals, it's probably more an exercise in making cultures meet, and perhaps in making the kids interested in getting "actual" education from sources closer to their cultures and means.
Timo Saloniemi
One wonders whether the education provided by Keiko O'Brien amounts to anything much. Given her supposed lack of formal or practical competence as an educator, the absurd demands of teaching a culturally diverse lot of already rather advanced age, and the lack of actual common goals, it's probably more an exercise in making cultures meet, and perhaps in making the kids interested in getting "actual" education from sources closer to their cultures and means.
Timo Saloniemi
Mixing cultures and keeping the kids out of trouble seems to be the most important part - the computer can deal with the functional aspects of teaching just fine.
I thought it was Troi who was promoted after the BOT, but not Crusher? Crusher as a physician likely would have climbed the ranks solely owing to her profession and the fact that we frequently saw her exercising management responsibilities. Without the BOT she could reach captain or admiral one day, although never command a ship
Troi might have stalled rank wise because she was in a specialty and wasn't in command of a large group of subordinates.
To be honest, I'm surprised she was promoted to Lt. Commander.
Troi was explicitly promoted solely due to taking the course from Lieutenant Commander. By contrast, LaForge (who is about the same age) would have taken the test (or equivalent) as an Ensign and didn't make LTCDR until 2366, at least two years after her, and after a year as ChEng (managing a team likely a similar size to the entire crew of the NCC-1701!) as well as being a certified Bridge Officer and pilot with some scientific credentials. She should have been a LTJG or an LT at best as the E-D wasn't IIRC her first Starfleet assignment.
I imagine being a bridge officer is something similar to the Rating Forming Part of a Navigational Watch (RFPNW) endorsement in the modern US Merchant Marine. I took a week-long course with a test at the end for the helm and lookout positions, getting sign-offs for various tasks I could be expected to perform on a nav watch which I then turned in to the Coast Guard for the endorsement. So now I can stand watch on the bridge. Notably, however, I can't take the conn during a nav watch because I'm not licensed as a mate, which has another set of instruction and tests for that position. Troi was a bridge officer, in that she was always on the bridge during watches, but she had to take the Bridge Officer's Exam in order to be allowed to take the conn during a bridge watch.
I find that no one really signs using cards anymore, but that is to be somewhat expected after over a decade of Chip and Pin cards and Contactless cards within the last few years.
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