Omega Directive question

[Timo]

One infamous example is when they had a Lieutenant commanding a Nebula class starship. Though I think this was explained as the intention was that he was supposed to be a Lt. Commander, the costuming department screwed up on his pips.

To be sure, this junior Lieutenant was never explicitly stated to be commanding the behemoth Prometheus. He just happened to sit in the command chair during a single key scene where the ship and her command structure were in chaos - just like, say, LaForge or Worf might have done during the first season of TNG. One might imagine two or three more or less reasonable scenarios:

1) The ship's captain and the guest star, terraformer Seyetlik were the same person. Seyetlik's demigod personality would make it quite understandable that he would never don a proper uniform, yet otherwise his behavior was quite in line with him being the CO of the ship. In that scene, Seyetlik was obviously unavailable, and it would also obviously have been difficult for the poor Lieutenant to be more assertive because what this dubious Sisko character was asking him to do was act against the will of his CO.

2) The ship's captain was a Starfleet hero. So naturally he or she would be lying unconscious at the shuttlebay door, having failed to stop Seyetlik's suicide flight despite a valiant try.

3) Seyetlik was disliked, to put it mildly. None of the crew wanted anything to do with him - even the ship's doctor refused to attend to his wife's ailments! And the skipper would not honor him with his or her presence no matter what. The poor Lieutenant had to stand in...

As for access to the Omega secret, I guess Starfleet could always err on the side of caution. If the personnel in the vicinity of an Omega incident did not have proper clearance and training, it would probably be better not to let them do anything; their starship might "put them on hold" for the duration of the crisis and summon more competent help from elsewhere. Not an option in the Delta Quadrant, of course.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[G2309]

Having every computer show the same mysterious signal is a great way of keeping a secret. It truly is logical

 

[Dancing Doctor]

To be fair, all people know is that they're locked out, and that this symbol, the Greek letter "Omega" is shown. Other than that, there's nothing else.

I mean, it'll probably have people gossiping and asking around, as we saw in the episode. "Hey, do you know what this means?"

Besides, it's something that Lets The Audience Know It Is Important To The Plot, and Serious.

 

[Sector 7]

As far as Omega 13, the lid was blown off on that project by Commander Taggert.

You beat me to the punch line!

Seven years of Voyager with Commander Taggart in the "center seat" would have been awesome.

+1

 

[Leroy Langley]

I see some people saying that if Janeway dies, then what happens. Well, that is a special circumstance. Most starships never left the Federation, so if the Captain did die, thay would just haul themselves over to the Starbase and get a new captain, or have the first officer become Captain, therefore learning the new procedure.

 

[The Wormhole]

Still, the question is a legitimate one. What if the captain of a starship stranded far away from Federation space were killed, how would the crew overcome having the computers locked and encrypted, requiring captain's authorization to unlock them? And since the first officer now commanding presumably never got briefed on Omega, how would he/she know what any of this means?

That is what we've been discussing in this thread.

 

[DonIago]

Surely there must be protocols for transferring command authorizations in the event that the captain dies unexpectedly. I would imagine rights to access the Omega info are included there.

 

[Xerxes1979]

Still, the question is a legitimate one. What if the captain of a starship stranded far away from Federation space were killed, how would the crew overcome having the computers locked and encrypted, requiring captain's authorization to unlock them? And since the first officer now commanding presumably never got briefed on Omega, how would he/she know what any of this means?

That is what we've been discussing in this thread.

I think any half decent engineering team would be able to run manual bypasses of the main systems given several hours. I think TNG "Brothers" would be a good example.

Also the Enterprise-D was able to reload its OS after going fubar from the Iconian virus, so I doubt the Omega lockdown prevents a manual restart.

 

[T'Girl]

The Voyager's chain of command likely extends beyond Chakotay. It's like in the American government if there was a major terrorist attack, some undersecretary of transportation ends up as the President.

No matter how many levels you knock out, someone on board would be recognized by the computer as the Voyager's current "Captain."

In an emergency there would be no formal change of command codes. In the short term, the individual's former low level personal codes would be the new command codes. Short term.

 

[Robert DeSoto]

Still, the question is a legitimate one. What if the captain of a starship stranded far away from Federation space were killed, how would the crew overcome having the computers locked and encrypted, requiring captain's authorization to unlock them? And since the first officer now commanding presumably never got briefed on Omega, how would he/she know what any of this means?

That is what we've been discussing in this thread.

I don't think the whole computer system is disabled. Just the message is encrypted and the long range sensor data is blocked. The first officer would probably just go back to a Starbase and be like WTF is this? Then the Starbase captain will be like oh that, long story.

Of course Starfleet didn't expect Voyager to take 70 years to get back to base. They sent her to arrest some Maquis terrorists in the Badlands, not explore the Delta Quadrant.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Yeah, as others have roughly said...

I think the computer would first need to confirm that the previous Captain is either dead or missing. Then using the computer: the next three highest ranking officers would need to confirm the new Captain (according to the current active crewmen in the computer system). Then, this new change in command would allow the new Captain (whoever it may be) to have complete access to the previous Captain's current command codes (involving the Omega Directive, ECT.).

 

[The_Baroness]

As for "Federation flag officers", we could use that as proof that there are other organizations built on military hierarchy there besides Starfleet.

Timo Saloniemi

This would make sense.
We know for example that the Vulcans still operate their own ships, no reason why they can't still have their own military fleet, same for the Andorians etc. They'd still be Federation flag officers.

 

[Finn]

Oh, and if Janeway had died some time before The Omega Directive, say during Year of Hell as we saw in Before and After, Chakotay would have been Captain and the computer would have known it. So Chakotay would have been able to get access with his codes with no problem.

Of course, he would have done it in front of others since I think he was on the bridge at the time IIRC.


It would be more of a problem if Janeway died within the hour they detected the particle.

 

[T'Girl]

Of course, he would have done it in front of others since I think he was on the bridge at the time IIRC.

When he ask the computer what the omega symbol was, the computer might have told him that the commanding officer needed to be in private to be informed.