Of Captains and Starships...

[Wingsley]

I happened to be on the road early this morning, when I discovered the TOS ep "The Omega Glory" on TV Land on a publicly available TV at a stop I made. Apparently, TV Land is playing UN-remastered TOS with the roosters.

When I had a chance to use my computer, I visited the Memory Alpha article on "The Omega Glory", then visited the article on the Exeter's Capt. Ron Tracey:

http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Ronald_Tracey

One passage in the article really caught my eye:

Tracey is the only Original Series character, other than James Kirk, to wear a Captain's rank insignia and be seen as the Commanding Officer of a starship. All other active starship commanders were commodores (Matthew Decker, Robert Wesley, and Commodore Stocker albeit temporarily).

This passage surprised me. Apparently, the authors were not considering Captains Krasnovsky and Chandra from "Court Martial" to be currently serving captains of starships. I'm not sure if this is an oversight or if their captaincies could be of vessels lesser than "starships" (presumably starships-of-the-line, such as the Constitution-class) or if they are awaiting appointments to starship commands, possibly with a promotion as well.

Could it possibly be that starship captaincies in the TOS era are usually reserved for flag officers, and that Kirk, as a "mere" captain, was on the fast track to Commodore as well? Could it be that Constitution-class vessels are usually commanded by Commodores or Admirals, and that Captains in this position are rare? If so, would the represent another discontinuity with ENT, or not?

One thing TOS did not really show are lesser classes of starships. Could it be that Starfleet of this era used Commanders and/or Captains most commonly for these unseen ships?

Or is Memory Alpha's article on Captain Tracey off the mark here?

 

[Red Ranger]

Wingsley,

For the most part, the Memory Alpha site is correct. The only guest starship commander that was seen that was a full captain, same rank as Kirk with the exact same rank braids, was Tracey.

However, other captains are mentioned but not seen. A Captain Harris is mentioned as c.o. of the Excalibur by Commodore Wesley in "The Ultimate Computer." It's the ship M-5 destroyed, thereby killing all hands.

Presumably, the other two c.o.s of the Constitution-class ships Hood and Potemkin, also part of the war games task force in that ep, were commanded by full captains as well.

Captain Ramart of the freighter Antares is seen, but he has two solid stripes on his uniform sleeves, so he may have been a full commander with the title of captain of his ship.

I don't remember the detail about the other officers on the court martial board in the ep of that same name. Did they say out loud they were captains? If I remember, one wore blue, so he may have had the rank of captain but be a science specialist or even a chief medical officer.

In the other ST series, there were many more guest stars that were captains (I posted a couple of threads on the subject recently).

Red Ranger

 

[Wingsley]

Just so I'm not misunderstood:

I was quoting a passage from the Memory Alpha article about Capt. Tracey.

The claim I quoted in the Tracey article seemed to contradict "Court Martial" and the Capt. Harris reference in "The Ultimate Computer", as you mention. (In "Court Martial", Commodore Stone introduces fellow board members as "starship Captains Krasnovsky and Chandra"; though both were non-speaking roles and I don't think anybody ever elaborated on which ships Krasnovsky and Chandra were supposed to command, and when. Did these two command small, Antares-style vessels, or were their ships "big" starships-of-the-line, like a Constitution-class ship or an early Miranda-class vessel? This is never made clear. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong there.)

Your point about the C.O.'s of the Hood and Potemkin is well taken. We can assume that they are Captains, extrapolated from what we do know: Bob Wesley, the task force commander, is a Commodore. Therefore, it is highly unlikely the Hood and/or Potemkin would be commanded by officers of higher rank than Wesley. This does not mean that these officers could not be of equal rank, however. It would be more logical to assume these officers were Captains, but they could be Commodores the same as Wesley.

My curiosity in starting this thread was TOS. I was isolating this era from TMP or TNG eras. Could it be that "big" starships-of-the-line were a little more exclusive prior to the TMP era? Or could that be exaggerated?

 

[AlxxlA]

Or, they were either waiting on assignments to starships, or they were based at UFP headquarters or on a Starbase.

 

[Wingsley]

So, does anyone other than Memory Alpha feel that Constitution-class starships are commanded by flag officers (Commodores) at least as often (if not moreso) than Captains?

 

[USS KG5]

Wingsley said:
So, does anyone other than Memory Alpha feel that Constitution-class starships are commanded by flag officers (Commodores) at least as often (if not moreso) than Captains?

Well as the most modern and advanced ships in the fleet they probably spent a lot of their lives as the leaders of small task forces and flotillas, hence a junior flag officer in command.

Kirk was on his own on the five year mission most of the time, and therefore presumably did not need a flag rank.