Question about dax commanding the defiant
- Thread starter hayesc0
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There was a difference though...Dax had been placed in command...in the same way Data started wearing red in Chain of Command, you'd expect Dax would here...
Then again Data didn't wear red in Redemption and Tuvok didn't in Resolutions so...
I believe it's the same way in most modern navies. If an officer takes a temporary assignment in a different division, he doesn't change his cuffs.
I thought that just meant "until we get DS9 back."
Though I wonder if Farrell just didn't want to wear red.
Though I wonder if Farrell just didn't want to wear red.
She wore red quite well in Trials and trials and tribble-ations!
Crusher continued to wear blue in "Descent". Should she have changed?
Data changed to red in "Chain of Command" per the Captain's orders.
Data changed to red in "Chain of Command" per the Captain's orders.
Every ship or station is bound to have differences in how the crew comports themselves, and different standards for shipboard assignments. The DS9 crew seemed to routinely wear multiple hats aboard the station or Defiant, so swapping uniforms for extended assignments may not have been a priority, nor would Sisko have insisted upon it. When Nog got breveted to Ensign, he was the kind of spit & polish idealist to WANT to change his uniform right away to show off his new rank.
Other examples include Voyager, where Janeway not only made all the Maquis people wear standard uniforms AND unique rank pins, but also made sure everyone wore their combadges even when not in uniform; the aforementioned Enterprise under Jellico; and the relative "standard" we saw with the Enterprise under Picard (where really only he got to wear anything cool, but allowed Troi, Crusher (both of 'em!) and Pulaski to wear slightly different standards on duty). Jellico would probably seem the gold standard of adherence to decorum as laid out by Starfleet regs, but hey - when you're out in the middle of nowhere for years with the same people, there shouldn't be any problem loosening the regs sometimes. Even Janeway, who made non-Starfleet crew wear the uniform, stopped short of letting Neelix, Kes and Seven do the same - and Neelix WANTED to wear one!
Mark
Other examples include Voyager, where Janeway not only made all the Maquis people wear standard uniforms AND unique rank pins, but also made sure everyone wore their combadges even when not in uniform; the aforementioned Enterprise under Jellico; and the relative "standard" we saw with the Enterprise under Picard (where really only he got to wear anything cool, but allowed Troi, Crusher (both of 'em!) and Pulaski to wear slightly different standards on duty). Jellico would probably seem the gold standard of adherence to decorum as laid out by Starfleet regs, but hey - when you're out in the middle of nowhere for years with the same people, there shouldn't be any problem loosening the regs sometimes. Even Janeway, who made non-Starfleet crew wear the uniform, stopped short of letting Neelix, Kes and Seven do the same - and Neelix WANTED to wear one!
Mark
And it's pretty explicit in the story why Dax gets to lead: Sisko says that Dax has special skill in "navigating around the gravimetric distortions" of the Argolis cluster because she knows the science of the cluster better than others. Sisko is just thinking of using Dax as an advisor at that point, and commanding the ship himself; Ross changes this later on, but this doesn't change the fact that the mission will not hinge on the usual "redshirt" skills of command, but on "blueshirt" skills. Starfleet has done this "special skills trump standard practice, chain-of-command and common sense" thing often enough...
Add to this that outside the war, the Defiant often wasn't seen as a "real" ship but rather an attached asset that didn't warrant a permanent commander. Perhaps she never had an assigned ship-specific commanding officer during the war, either, and even Sisko with the Argolis mission was merely going to be pulling a sortie between those by other officers.
Timo Saloniemi
Add to this that outside the war, the Defiant often wasn't seen as a "real" ship but rather an attached asset that didn't warrant a permanent commander. Perhaps she never had an assigned ship-specific commanding officer during the war, either, and even Sisko with the Argolis mission was merely going to be pulling a sortie between those by other officers.
Timo Saloniemi
