I'm less familiar with Crusher leaving by my supposition was it was a temporary posting, possibly resulting in a temporary promotion to a medical captain while the permanent officer for heading up Starfleet Medical was found.
Is promotion "Sometimes" a bad thing?
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
- Start date
Possibly TNG era people, even in Starfleet, are not as career minded as TOS era people or 21st century people.
I think that Crusher did get a big but temporary promotion in rank as "cheif of Starfleet Medical". That certainly sounds like a flag officer worthy position. No doubt it was a temporary or acting promotion dependant on her positinas chief of Starfleet Medical, and when she decided to return to the Enterprise and her son she automatically dropped her flag officer rank
Nobody knows who was Kirk's XO in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". You should not treat your speculation that Gary Mitchell was Kirk's XO in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" as if it was a fact.
Nobody knows who was Kirk's XO in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". You should not treat your speculation that Spock was Kirk's XO in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" as if it was a fact.
I prefer to think that Spock was Kirk's XO in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Spock was apparently third in command at Talos IV about a dozen years before in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". If that is correct it would be high time that Spock became XO of the Enteprise, and Spock might have become XO years before Kirk became Captain, when NUmber ONe gained a command of her own.
But there is no proof.
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Honestly, doing a quick reading of Mitchell's Memory Alpha entry reveals no XO status as well as me being very sad that he died so soon.
I tend to think Spock is the First Officer. Wearing the same command gold and insignia as Kirk and is obviously very close on a professional level to him.
There is no on screen proof either way.
I mean, that was my impression upon first watching it and Gary's far more casual style on the bridge did not seem consistent with how Kirk presented authority in the chain of command.
Reminiscent of early Riker / Pichard, wouldn't you say?
This used to happen in the US Navy: They would "reach down" and give temporary promotions to fill important positions, as in this example of the Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in 1897 (medical inspector was the medical officer equivalent of a commander):
Of course things were much different then. Promotion was very slow, so officers in the senior grades were often past their most active and effective years. But Starfleet may be in a similar situation, with captains apparently going 20 or 30 years in the same position. At any rate, it wouldn't be totally unprecedented.
BTW the first US Chief of Naval Operations was a captain, given a temporary promotion to rear admiral for the post and then a temporary promotion to admiral when Congress authorized it.
The script said Spock was second in command, he wore the same color and badge as the captain, he gave (shouted!) orders to different stations on the bridge while Mitchell stuck to the helm. I know that some people are devoted to the idea that Mitchell was F/O but I don't find much to support it.
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Obviously it's not clear from the episode but I know I came across that idea somewhere, very explicitly. Something like Kirk saying to Spock "You're going to have to pull double duty now, SO and XO." Could it have been in the Blish stuff, maybe?
Mitchell could just as easily have pulled double-duty as First Officer and head of Navigation. There was only one center seat, unlike Enterprise-D or Voyager, so there wasn't a designated place to the First Officer to sit. As to the color of uniforms, they only had blue and gold, and both Spock and Mitchell wore gold.
You may be thinking of TMP. Kirk told Decker that he would have to double as science officer after Xon was killed in the transporter accident.
I remember that line, yes. Could swear that I remember something else from long before TMP, but it could just be a failing memory.
There were three colors, they used tan instead of red. Mitchell, Kelso and Scott wore tan.
Exactly. This shot in the turbolift is a good example of the difference:
http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x03/wherenomanhasgone034.jpg
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edit to add: @ChallengerHK The only thing I can recall on the FO/SO thing for TOS is that the computer in Court Martial says "Position, First officer, science officer."
That was Sonak. Xon is non-canonical.
That always looks like peach to me, rather than tan. My eyes read it as a dark pink, not a burnt orange.
@FormerLurker I've also seen it called salmon or light salmon. I definitely see it as a "pink-tinted tan."
You're right sorry about the mix up on the names. It's been quite a while since I've watched the movie.
I can’t imagine anyone willingly dropping flag officer rank. That would entail giving up some serious perks. But, YMMV.
Cheers,
-CM-
Too much paperwork and politics, especially politics. That would be enough for me to be done with a flag position.
I imagine that "Where No Man" is actually the season finale of a set of episodes we never got to see, that featured Kelso and Mitchell as main characters! Corbomite Maneuver starts out the 2nd year of the 5YM! How much more shocking would all of those events have been, if we had just gotten to know those characters over the course of a season of television?
Lol — If you’ve made it to the O-6 level... you’ve been driving a desk/paperwork and doing the political gambit already for more than a few years.
Cheers,
-CM-
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