Give the JO's a promotion!

[Jedi Marso]

Okay, think about it. Enterprise is the first Warp-5 starship, and for four years she was out there making first contacts, preventing wars, defending against the Xindi and the incursions of parallel dimensions.

By Season 4, don't you think Hoshi and Travis deserved a promotion to at least LTJG? Arguably, Malcolm rated a promotion to lieutenant commander as well. I know Starfleet isn't the USN, but in the USN after two years you get almost auto-promoted to O-2, and you don't have to save anyone, much less the planet for it to happen.

There's also the matter of the rapidly expanding starfleet. Officers like Hoshi, Mayweather, and Reed should have expected to see pretty rapid promotions so they could eventually head up departments and be in line for command on the up and coming ships. There is no way starfleet was going to let Archer bogart all the experience forever. (Limits of a TV show notwithstanding) Discuss.

 

[mattman8907]

I was thinking the same thing too. and plus what really bugged me was that in enterprise you had Hayes, a Major calling Reed, a Lieutenant (equal to an Army, AF and Marine Corps Captain) "Sir".

 

[Willow]

As former military myself, I totally agree! The lack of promotions irked me to no end! And the fact that Reed was quite knowledgeable in some engineering aspects and was responsible for upgrading weapons systems. And Hoshi was a linguistic genius - making first contact and establishing communications with species never encountered before.

I think there is an interview out there with Keating from before the first airing , when he spoke about his character being a "Lieutenent Commander" and I'm not sure why they changed that. Earths first warp 5 starship would likely have a senior officer of that ranking as a weapons/tactical officer (I think they also refer to him as an "armory officer" which just doesn't sound right to me either)

It did bother me slightly that Hayes called Reed "sir" , but I think they explained that away by making the MACOs subordinate to the Starfleet officers. Not that it makes any sense to me that way either. And there were times that Hayes' delivery of "sir" was dripping with sarcasm.

 

[eyeresist]

Malcolm is navy. Hayes is army. When you're on Malcolm's boat, you call him sir!


More seriously, I imagine that when troops are transported by ship, they don't have any sort of authority to command the crew, whatever their rank might be.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It did bother me slightly that Hayes called Reed "sir" , but I think they explained that away by making the MACOs subordinate to the Starfleet officers. Not that it makes any sense to me that way either. And there were times that Hayes' delivery of "sir" was dripping with sarcasm.

Isn't Reed higher in the chain of command?

 

[Anna Yolei]

Malcolm is navy. Hayes is army. When you're on Malcolm's boat, you call him sir!


More seriously, I imagine that when troops are transported by ship, they don't have any sort of authority to command the crew, whatever their rank might be.

They don't, but equal ranks are equal ranks. An O-1 Navy Ensign will still salute an O-3 Marine regardless.

As for Marso's point, it is ridiculous that none of them would have gotten any promotions. I cold sorta hand wave it on the other series since most of the casts were at least the equivalent to our military O-3 (many commissioned officer can retire honorably as O-4s), but even on DS9, Nog out ranked Ensign Kim by the end of the show

So yeah, Hoshi and Reed and Travis all should've had better career options beyond riding Archer's shirttails at the end of the series.

 

[Riverside2233]

Agreed. Especially with the series finale! They flash forward another five years (total of ten years together) and no one had a promotion?? I can't remember if it was DS9 or VOY, but I remember thinking the same thing at one point with some of the characters.

 

[Willow]

Agreed. Especially with the series finale! They flash forward another five years (total of ten years together) and no one had a promotion?? I can't remember if it was DS9 or VOY, but I remember thinking the same thing at one point with some of the characters.

And THIS is a major reason why that I view TATV as more of a flawed holoprogram rather than "reality".

 

[suarezguy]

IIRC, the original show had the Lt. Commander rank but not Lieutenant JG and Enterprise set earlier had neither Lt. Commander nor Lieutenant JG ranks.

 

[Shikarnov]

While I agree about TATV, I think for the rest of the series there's a plausible explanation: Enterprise was Earth's first deep space explorer -- and with few exceptions, promotions usually involve position changes or expanded responsibilities.

Since there are only so many posts on a starship to fill, it may very well be that Mayweather, Sato, and Reed decided that they'd rather stay put on Enterprise than transfer off to some ship staying close to home, patrolling trade routes, guarding the local systems, etc.

Granted, Columbia launched a couple years later, but still, two ships out exploring the great unknown does not a lot of opportunity make for senior-staff advancement.

 

[The Wormhole]

IIRC, the original show had the Lt. Commander rank but not Lieutenant JG and Enterprise set earlier had neither Lt. Commander nor Lieutenant JG ranks.

No, TOS had Lieutenant JGs. TOS rank representation as follows:
Ensign: No stripes
Lieutenant JG: Half stripe
Lieutenant: Full stripe
Lieutenant Commander: One full stripe, one half stripe
Commander: Two full stripes
Captain: Two full stripes, one half stripe

 

[T'Arwen]

Since they never do anything with Travis, I can kind of see why he wouldn't get promoted. But Hoshi? She demonstrated leadership ability in Terra Prime. Granted, it's unrealistic to give the job of acting captain to an ensign. But she stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park. How could she not get a promotion for that alone?

 

[Michael]

Well, I guess on the other end of the spectrum you've got something like The Next Generation, where at the end of its run everyone was a Commander. Kind of strains credibility, too.

But yeah, they should have promoted people like Harry Kim, Hoshi and Travis.

 

[apollo1984]

Well, I guess on the other end of the spectrum you've got something like The Next Generation, where at the end of its run everyone was a Commander. Kind of strains credibility, too.

But yeah, they should have promoted people like Harry Kim, Hoshi and Travis.

Well Enterprise D and E were much bigger ships in comparison so chances are the command structure was different, more men = higher rank of senior staff. By the time of generations the ranks were 1 x Captain, 3 x commanders (1 being a counselor and 1 being a doctor), 3 x Lt Commanders not sure about random people in the crew so I am only counting the senior staff.

But yeah, Hoshi and Travis should have gotten promotions, if not for their actions during the xindi mission then certainly they should have had promotions by the end of the series (especially in the finale with a 5 year gap).

On voyager, Janeway promoted tuvok to LT commander, despite him always being her security chief with the rank of LT (I assume the post was always a lt's posting) and despite all kim's heroics during the series I think he at least deserved to have been a LT JG if not a full LT. I remember that in a alternate future when Chakotay took charge of Voyager that Kim got a promotion so maybe it was Janeway who was holding him back.

 

[Anna Yolei]

While I agree about TATV, I think for the rest of the series there's a plausible explanation: Enterprise was Earth's first deep space explorer -- and with few exceptions, promotions usually involve position changes or expanded responsibilities.

Since there are only so many posts on a starship to fill, it may very well be that Mayweather, Sato, and Reed decided that they'd rather stay put on Enterprise than transfer off to some ship staying close to home, patrolling trade routes, guarding the local systems, etc.

Granted, Columbia launched a couple years later, but still, two ships out exploring the great unknown does not a lot of opportunity make for senior-staff advancement.

From my RL Navy experience, it would be the exact opposite. The harder the assignment, the MORE opportunity/chances to get promoted, such as being part of a commissioning crew, being stationed in Japan and now Spain in a forward deployed area (basically on-call deployment with as little as six hours' notice) and obviously active combat.....all of that looks good come promotion time. There's a bit more to it, but that's the general gist.

Granted, for 24th century crews, I could possibly see more stagnation, but when it's a whole new start up, it should be much wider than that.

Spoiler: for Star Trek Beyond

Especially given in Star Trek Beyond, where a former MACO was given his own ship upon disbandment, despite his limited time in space.

I'd think Starfleet could find something to do with the original Enterprise crew besides riding Archer's coattails of they managed that much.

 

[Shikarnov]

From my RL Navy experience, it would be the exact opposite. The harder the assignment, the MORE opportunity/chances to get promoted, such as being part of a commissioning crew, being stationed in Japan and now Spain in a forward deployed area (basically on-call deployment with as little as six hours' notice) and obviously active combat.....all of that looks good come promotion time. There's a bit more to it, but that's the general gist.

Granted, for 24th century crews, I could possibly see more stagnation, but when it's a whole new start up, it should be much wider than that.

Spoiler: for Star Trek Beyond

Especially given in Star Trek Beyond, where a former MACO was given his own ship upon disbandment, despite his limited time in space.

I'd think Starfleet could find something to do with the original Enterprise crew besides riding Archer's coattails of they managed that much.

Hmm. Interesting. So in the Navy, it would be entirely possible -- even probable -- for, say, Ensign Mayweather to be promoted, perhaps more than once, without a position change, due to the challenge of his position and the importantance of an Enterprise assignment? Is that correct?

Spoiler: RE-Star Trek Beyond

There's a lot we don't know about the history of the Franklin and the absorption of forces into the United Federation of Planets after the Romulan War. But since Enterprise pretty clearly stated that Archer's mission was humanity's first deep space venture (to be followed by Columbia some years later), I tend to think -- at that time -- that the Franklin was one of those "lesser ships" that were stationed closer to Earth. Perhaps, after the war, the new UFP was demonstrably "safer" and the ship was refitted and sent out as an explorer.

I'll grant you that Starfleet probably had hundreds of posts available and could have used somebody with Mayweather's (or Reed's or Sato's) experience, but would they have found any of them more appealing than being out on one of the only two deep space explorers? I don't know...

 

[Jedi Marso]

Hmm. Interesting. So in the Navy, it would be entirely possible -- even probable -- for, say, Ensign Mayweather to be promoted, perhaps more than once, without a position change, due to the challenge of his position and the importance of an Enterprise assignment? Is that correct?

Starfleet has it's own rules, I'm sure, but in most contemporary militaries, promotions have a 'time in grade' aspect to them that matters as much or more than position. Promotions tend to happen on a schedule for officers, and job assignments follow a career track related to the rank the officer is expected to hold after a given number of years of service.

For example, a U.S. Navy officer starts out as an Ensign. After 2 years he/she is just about auto-promoted to LTJG, and then promoted to Lieutenant at 4 years of service. There is a promotion board for O-3 but the pass rate for lieutenants is well up over 85%- you really have to be a fuck-up on your way out the door or to jail in order not to make O-3.

At the same time, the young officer (in the surface or sub community) will serve aboard ship as division officer, rotating through probably 2-3 divisions in order to gain knowledge and experiences, while at the same time qualifying as a watchstander and in their warfare specialty. After the first shipboard tour, they may get a shore assignment for a couple years, again as a div-o, and then back to sea as a lieutenant where they will hold more responsibility and begin taking on assignments as department heads and such (on smaller ships- on the larger ones, department heads can be O-4's and sometimes even O-5's). The career track for aviators is a little different as it involves going to flight training, but runs along similar lines. Anyway you get the idea.

Trek is Trek and Starfleet isn't the Navy, but it stands to reason that a young officer like Mayweather would reasonably have expected to have been promoted to O-2 or O-3 over the course of 4 years on Earth's first Warp-5 Explorer. He was out there solving problems, getting shot at, facing danger, and saving the home folks. Because even though he's still the helm officer (which in reality is a watchstanding assignment, not a div-O assignment unless it somehow is in Trek), doesn't he have a SERIOUS leg up on a first year academy graduate with no deep space time at that point in his career?