In Star Trek this obviously isn't true unless that enlisted man happens to be Miles O'Brien.
Eliminating the separation of Officer / Non-Coms
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
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I like that, only I'd call them MACOs out of respect to their United Earth predecessor, and my O-3 rank would be "Brevet Major".
As for my headcanon rank system--I go a step further. My personal system has U.S.-style warrant ranks as well, for characters who need the authority of an officer (ranking with, but after, Ensigns), but who prefer to remain more hands--on and specialized than Academy graduates (basically what O'Brien should have been). These are people who have zero interest in commanding a starship, (unlike basically every Academy graduate, regardless of division.) Like IRL, only prior-enlisted can be warrant officers.
<----- ASIDE: See that guy in my profile pic? He's been in Starfleet almost 80 years, and is a Chief Warrant Officer 3 (CWO3).
The above shows a separation between path courses for Officers and the Enlisted, right? The Enlisted do not have an Officers Commission = Non-Commissioned. Hence a divide. Whether moving through Non-Commissioned ranks enables one to be 'offered' a Commission is part of Starfleet's structure, I really don't know.
It may not be relevant but my Dad was Non-Commissioned for a good chunk of his Army life. In fact there was a bit of inverted snobbery in that many NCOs rejected the concept of becoming a lowly Lieutenant when being a Warrant Officer and RSM was the more senior of the NCOs . He did eventually go the Commissioned route (it was offered) but I'm not so sure if Starfleet models itself on real life military.
Just as an aside NCOs and the Enlisted don't feel lowly
In a system with a Chain of Command there is rank, there are orders and divisions. It works.
In my Head Canon, StarFleet offers you positions based on if that's what you want.
If you want to go the Admiralty Route, you can, if you want to be a StarFleet Captain for the rest of your life, you can!
If you just want to be the head of your department, you can!
Nobody forces you out of your position or "Force you Up or Out".
It's based on what goals you want to set for yourself and how you want to accomplish it.
If that means going Multi-Discipline and being good at it, then that is a viable option.
No Snobbery, No Elitism, No Pushiness.
The reason people want to be the "Captain" of a StarShip or StarBase is because of legendary stories of the previous "Great Captains"
If you want to be the greatest "Aviator" in all of StarFleet and fly the latest "Space Superiority" / "Atmospheric Superiority" / "Heavy Assault" fighter, then so be it. Or you can be a advanced "Shuttle Pilot". Whatever sticks to your fancy as an "Aviator". Or you can go and specialize as the pilot of a large StarShip and work your way up to the class of StarShip that you want to pilot.
We know from Janice Rand's career path (yeoman --> transporter chief --> communications officer (either a LT-JG or LT CMDR depending on source), that it's possible, both Tarses and O'Brien (also some of Wesley's scenes) strongly suggest that Starfleet follows the USCG route of 'competitive entry' rather than sponsorship (unless you are non-Fed citizen, that's probably a 'secret clearance waiver') so essentially - given that it makes sense that different roles require different training - the only proven 'divide' is a practical one of authority levels, not significantly different that between junior officers and senior officers*.
* I've read in several sources that this is somewhat the case in special operations, esp the Tier 1 units, in the RW. Also apparently somewhat the case with the USCG, mostly likely because its an emergency services agency as much as military one and follows much of the former community polices.
I would say there has to be a certain amount of turnover in higher ranks. The flip side of saying a person can occupy a slot they prefer indefinitely is that there is someone who would like to move up but can't. It's not like a business where somebody who doesn't get promoted can try with another firm, Starfleet is the only game in town. Historically, naval and military organizations without some kind of mandatory retirement and advancement standards end up stagnating in the upper levels.
I think that a maximum time in a particular posting isn't unreasonable at flag level, but I think by the "TNG era" given that there are thousands of starships, support vessels and starbases and therefore hundreds of thousands command posting and millions of officer and crew postings then I think that a "contribute, succeed (and innovate) policy" is about as far as it goes for captains and below and especially the "crew" levels.
At the "Flag Level", sure. If there are candidates who want to ascend from "Line Officer Level" to "Flag Officer Level" and there aren't vacancies out there, then a time limit should start happening and apply to posts that already exist, otherwise the time limit shouldn't be a thing.
But given how large my StarFleet is along with how many Fleets there are along with Planetary & Orbital Bases along with constant expansion of new Fleets once a Planetary Colony reaches 7 figures in population + integration of new species and their crew into the UFP.
The turn-over shouldn't be too high since the size of my StarFleet is far larger than the one during Pike's era with his claimed 7,000 ships.
Why would it make sense for captains who want to ascend to flag officer, but not for commanders who want to ascend to captain?
The STTNG idea of everyone in Starfleet doing what they want for as long as they want still has to reckon with the pyramidal organization it also showed: more commanders than captains, more lieutenant commanders than commanders and so on down. If it's normal for captains to spend 25+ years in grade, like Picard, it's hard to see how that doesn't create a decade or two of backup in all the lower grades.
Even that probably varies tremendously, flag commmand roles (esp the more junior group or wing commands) are probably subject to relatively high turnover (five to ten years say?), whereas flag staff roles likely the Surgeon-General or the Judge Advocate General* might stay in post for decades.
* However, JAG Admiral T'Lara (Rules of Engagement) appears to be best candidate for the post, and per TrekLit was Senior Defense Counsel as 'recently' as the Stargazer Tribunal of '55, and would need to be promoted 3-4 times (depending on whether 'no pip' and/or 'one pip' are required benchmarks) in the intervening 20 years or so. Incidently, this appears to have been towards the end of a century long (she apparently retired about a decade later, having started her career as a relief helmsman on the Enterprise back in 2282.
It doesn't because there are plenty of people in the lower grades who are perfectly content with staying at their current jobs. Also, being a starship captain is a big deal. Only a minority of officers will ever make to that position.
Also, presumably it's a lot easier to create new captain's billets (which in turn creates hundreds more officer and crew billets) rather than create new flag officer posts.
This is why my Fleet Structure for the Core Fleet of Ships is Pyramid like as well with more Ships in the smaller category and fewer as they go up in size.
This allows a Captain to upgrade ships over time and stay most of their career as a captain because there are ALOT of ship types and even ships in a Fleet.
I think one of biggest problems with Starfleet "captains" is the fact that you lose a couple steps on the seniority tree with "captain by role" and "captain by rank" being the same thing.
In reality a Bridge Officer Lieutenant would have at least two or three options for progression at lieutenant (divisional officer, starship watch officer or even escort/support ship XO), and a couple more at lieutenant commander (department head, watch officer, XO), whereas Starfleet's "captains are captains, and spend most of their time on the bridge) basically limits them to divisional officer for progression at lieutenant (like Worf and LaForge), and department head or XO by lieutenant commander.
In reality a Bridge Officer Lieutenant would have at least two or three options for progression at lieutenant (divisional officer, starship watch officer or even escort/support ship XO), and a couple more at lieutenant commander (department head, watch officer, XO), whereas Starfleet's "captains are captains, and spend most of their time on the bridge) basically limits them to divisional officer for progression at lieutenant (like Worf and LaForge), and department head or XO by lieutenant commander.
Then we should expect to see a good number of 40-something ensigns and JGs, but we don't.
Of course. But, is it believable for them to park in that space for 20-plus years? I don't think it is. If that were the case, the organization should look different than the one we have seen.
Would more captains not result in more flag officers?
OK, wouldn't it work out the same, small ship captains moving up to big ship captains?
Named characters in that are rare, but given that we saw at least 1/2 a dozen white-haired junior officers (mostly male) on the E-D alone, there's certainly no policy against it, proven most concusively by Blue-Shirt!Picard and Lt Barclay might not exactly be a spring chicken either - his age is never given canonically, he may have been early 40s when he arrived on the E-D based on the actor (tho the Starship Creator places him about a third younger at 26) - and we know that he wasn't promoted to LT until 2371 and 2376 ('72 according to Memory Beta, and lieutenant commander in '83 during a tour as acting second officer on the Challenger)
Picard was a captain for at least twice that length of time, gained his second command at about his 60th b'day, his third just shy of his 70th, and many of his peers and immediate superiors looked about the same - Keogh, Jellico, Varley, Keel, even Aaron, Quinn, Hanson and Brand are old enough when they appear that they could have spent a couple of decades as a senior/commanding officer.
Not really, as captain - and apparently often is - the 'terminal objective' for many officers. The reason that many modern naval officers push beyond that is that they are forced to retire if they don't.
People can move up or around.
That includes commanding StarBases or Planetary Bases
Commanding StarShips/StarBases for the LISUS Force which is separate from the StarFleet main force.
Commanding a large group of Soldiers
Commanding a large group of Aviators and their craft
Or eventually moving up to the Flag officer role after being Captain for a while.
You want to give the Officer a wide range of choices, and not everybody wants to go onto Flag Officer Status.
A lot of people will want to have families, so many of them would choose to transfer to a StarBase or Planetary Base for a while before going back to being in space on a StarShip traveling about.
In the end, it isn't perfect, but it's a lot more flexible, wider system then most would think given how many StarBases / StarShips / Units of Soldiers / Units of Aviators there are within the system.
Umm, yes we do. And even older.
Yes. If they're good at it then why not?
No. We often see people staying in one position a long time, in Captain's position in particular.
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