One off admiral uniform?

[lennier1]

I always assumed that was an admiral who unlike most didn´t ascend through the usual command/career path (like Worf who switched from yellow to red when his duties changed) but rather stayed inside his division and ascended there through the ranks. Seemingly rather uncommon but not unheard of.

As for Bones, he was probably already retired and only a VIP guest because he served as CMO on two of her predecessors.
Either that or he pulled seniority. Remember the tantrum he threw with the transporter in TMP and then imagine the unspeakable things he´d do to a twenty-something Lieutenant who´d dare try to instruct him on stuff like dress code regulations. Would probably be stuff that only appears in the darkest of Klingon nightmares.

[edit]And why exactly is a discussion about an admiral from a DS9 key episode in the TNG section? [/edit]

 

[Red Ranger]

Out there in the Alpha Quadrant, there's a Starfleet Admiral whose one-off uniform looks a lot like General Custer's! -- RR

 

[hammerhead]

The fact that the two "captains" frequently correlate on Trek is either a big coincidence, the result of ignorance on the part of some writers, or a consequence of the fact that the majority of the classes of ships that have been focused on have for one reason or another merited a captain as their captain.

I believe not all cases where ships had captain captains were warranted. Just think of the Equinox, a tiny ship, but it still had a Captain. There must be many more examples like this. I think the only time we got to see a break with this habit was when Sisko became CO of DS9 and remained a Commander for three years until DS9 become a really important base.

We saw an example of this in the second season of DS9, "Second Sight" when Lieutenant Piersall is the CO of the USS Prometheus (off screen reason being so that Commander Sisko could outrank him)

 

[Timo]

To be sure, nothing in the episode dialogue really identifies Piersall as the CO. He could just as well have been the junior officer tasked with the bridge watch that night, and the real CO and XO might have been trying to stop the mad terraformer Seyetlik from pulling off his suicide-starbirth trick. That's what Picard and Riker would have been doing, at any rate.

Alternately, Seyetlik himself could have been the CO. Just because he didn't wear the uniform doesn't mean he wouldn't have held the rank and position.

Timo Saloniemi