Rank in Starfleet

I would say that the ranking system does not need to be an accurate representation of the contemporary naval system, as these things can change over the centuries.

Kor

 

Starfleet also may not be as strict about ranks as a fully-military organization may be.

 

I think it's just one of those fanon-type things that sneak in when someone is ignorant of how the military works and how long it takes to achieve particular ranks. It's one of those easy shortcuts -- Kirk is soooo spectacular he graduated the Academy as a Lieutenant, you guys!!! And he finished it in three years instead of the normal four!!! -- that some writers take to make their characters seem more impressive.

It's really unnecessary, though. When you think about the size of an organization like Starfleet, and how few officers become Captain of a Starship, that right there is all the statement you need that they're an exceptional officer. You don't get to become the Captain of the Enterprise unless you're the best of the best.

 

Yeah, but he's not going to go from a PO or CPO to Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander. If they did that there would have been a thread, probably many threads, complaining about it as unrealistic and chastising the writers and producers. I'm glad they brought O'Brien ( and Meany) over from TNG, even if they didn't quite think things through vis-a-vis his rank in relation to his position

 

But obviously a star fleet would be many times larger than any sea fleet on Earth and thus it would have more ranks of admirals than any naval service on Earth. So peacetime fleet admirals are just a modest step in the right direction.

 

There is no canon statement that either of the Kirks graduated and was commissioned a lieutenant.

Kirk probably first met Gary Mitchell when they were boys, before either entered Starfleet, Academy, years before they became close friends and 15 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before":

Our task, transport down a man I've known for fifteen years, and if we're successful, maroon him there.

Kirk may have taken cadet cruises at the academy and with the rank of cadet or midshipman. In fact he seems to have participate din an important diplomatic event as a cadet.

"Whom Gods destroy" :

KIRK: "Very well. But my first visit to Axanar was as a new fledged cadet on a peace mission."

But Kirk should have been commissioned as an ensign upon graduation and assigned to the starship Republic under Captain Garrovik.

"Court Martial":.STONE: It's common knowledge that something happened to your friendship.
KIRK: It's no secret. We were assigned to the same ship some years later. I relieved him on watch once and found a circuit open to the atomic matter piles that should've been closed. Another five minutes, it could have blown up the ship.
COMPUTER: Ship nomenclature. Specify.
KIRK: United Starship Republic, number 1371.
STONE: Continue.
KIRK: I closed the switch and logged the incident. He drew a reprimand and was sent to the bottom of the promotion list

And:

SHAW: With reference to Records Officer Finney, was there in his service record a reported disciplinary action for failure to close a circuit?
ENSIGN: Yes, ma'am.
SHAW: Was the charge in that instance based upon a log entry by the officer who relieved him?
ENSIGN: Yes, ma'am.
SHAW: And who was that officer?
ENSIGN: Ensign James T. Kirk.
SHAW: Louder, please, for the court.
ENSIGN: Ensign James T. Kirk.
SHAW: Now the Captain Kirk who sits in this courtroom?

Thirteen years before "A Private Little War" Kirk, now a lieutenant, led his first planetary survey:

SPOCK: Aside from that, you say it's a Garden of Eden?
KIRK: Or so it seemed to the brash young Lieutenant Kirk on his first planet survey.

KIRK: When I left there thirteen years ago, those villagers had barely learned to forge iron. Spock was shot with a flintlock. How many centuries between those two developments?
UHURA: On Earth, about twelve, sir.

Eleven years before Obsession" Lieutenant Kirk as serving on the USS Farragut under Captain Garrovik:

KIRK: I suggest you look at the record tapes of past similar occurrences. You'll find the USS Farragut lists casualties eleven years ago from exactly the same impossible causes.

SPOCK: Precisely. Have you studied the incident involving the USS Farragut?
MCCOY: No. With all these deaths and injuries, I've only had a chance to scan the tapes. There are eight or ten hours of record tape there.
SPOCK: Fortunately, I read somewhat faster. In brief, Doctor, nearly half the crew and the captain were annihilated. The captain's name was Garrovick.
MCCOY: The same as our Ensign.
SPOCK: His father. Among the survivors was a young officer on his first deep-space assignment, James T. Kirk. And there is still more. I suggest you study this.
(Spock hands over a record tape.)

MCCOY: Am I? I was speaking of Lieutenant James T. Kirk of the starship Farragut. Eleven years ago, you were the young officer at the phaser station when something attacked. According to the tapes, this young Lieutenant Kirk insisted upon blaming himself.
KIRK: Because I delayed in firing at it.
MCCOY: You had a normal emotion. You were startled. You delayed firing for a grand total of perhaps two seconds.
KIRK: If I hadn't delayed, it would have been killed.
MCCOY: The ship's exec didn't seem to think so. His log entry was quite clear on the subject. Lieutenant Kirk is a fine young officer who performed with uncommon bravery.
KIRK: Don't you understand? It killed two hundred crewmen.
MCCOY: Captain Garrovick was very important to you, wasn't he, Jim?
KIRK: Yes. He was my commanding officer from the day I left the Academy. One of the finest men I ever knew. I could have killed that thing if I'd fired soon enough the first time.

Sometime after the Farragut incident Lieutenant Kirk returned to Starfleet Academy as an instructor. He gained a reputation as a demanding teacher. according to Gary Mitchell in "Where No Man Has Gone Before":

MITCHELL: Well, I'm getting a chance to read some of that longhair stuff you like. Hey man, I remember you back at the academy. A stack of books with legs. The first thing I ever heard from upperclassmen was, Watch out for Lieutenant Kirk. In his class, you either think or sink.
KIRK: I wasn't that bad, was I?
MITCHELL: If I hadn't aimed that little blonde lab technician at you
KIRK: You what? You planned that?
MITCHELL: Well, you wanted me to think, didn't you? I outlined her whole campaign for her.
KIRK: I almost married her!

At this time - years after they first met - Kirk and Mitchell became good friends:

DEHNER: I don't think so. I understand you least of all. Gary told me that you've been friends since he joined the service, that you asked for him aboard your first command.

Later Kirk went back to deep space,and he asked for Gary Mitchell to be assigned to his first command:

DEHNER: I don't think so. I understand you least of all. Gary told me that you've been friends since he joined the service, that you asked for him aboard your first command.

Gary Mitchell served on the Enterprise with Spock for at least two years, although we don't know if that was before or after Kirk became the captain of the Enterprise:

SPOCK: Our subject is not Gary Mitchell. Our concern is, rather, what he is mutating into.
DEHNER: I know those from your planet aren't suppose to have feelings like we do, Mister Spock, but to talk that way about a man you've worked next to for years is worse than

This outline of Kirk's career puts the events in a natural and logical orger. I see no reason to prefere a career outline that puts the events in an unnatural and illogical order.

 

Which seems to be at odds with Gary saying

Which implies Gary met Kirk at the Academy and Kirk is four or more years older than Gary.

 

...But can just as easily be read as the upperclassmen first meeting Jim, Gary's old childhood friend, there.

Episodes like "The Apple" suggest that the best way to forge a career in Starfleet is to live in a Starfleet family and be patronized by Starfleet officers who happen to be family friends. Jim and Gary playing Stun the Klingon together at the patio of the former's Iowa farm or the bubbleyard of the latter's Belt module is a pretty natural assumption to make.

Timo Saloniemi

 

That seems rather close to my version of Kirk's career.

Star date 1313.1. We're now approaching Delta Vega. Course set for a standard orbit. This planet, completely uninhabited, is slightly smaller than Earth. Desolate, but rich in crystal and minerals. Kelso's task, transport down with a repair party, try to regenerate the main engines, save the ship. Our task, transport down a man I've known for fifteen years, and if we're successful, maroon him there.

That shows that Kirk knew Mitchell for 15 years, and thus since Kirk was somewhere in his teens. So Mitchell could be older than Kirk, the same age, or younger.

DEHNER: I don't think so. I understand you least of all. Gary told me that you've been friends since he joined the service, that you asked for him aboard your first command.

This shows that Kirk and Mitchell have been friends, as opposed to merely knowing each other, since either:
1) Mitchell entered Starfleet Academy.
2) Sometime while Mitchell was in Starfleet Academy.
3) When Mitchell graduated and was commissioned in the service.

MITCHELL: Well, I'm getting a chance to read some of that longhair stuff you like. Hey man, I remember you back at the academy. A stack of books with legs. The first thing I ever heard from upperclassmen was, Watch out for Lieutenant Kirk. In his class, you either think or sink.
KIRK: I wasn't that bad, was I?
MITCHELL: If I hadn't aimed that little blonde lab technician at you
KIRK: You what? You planned that?
MITCHELL: Well, you wanted me to think, didn't you? I outlined her whole campaign for her.

This seems to imply that when Mitchell was in his first year at the Academy upperclassmen who had taken Kirk's class warned Mitchell about it.

If someone is named lieutenant X and has a class at Annapolis one naturally assumes that he is a lieutenant in the US navy and an instructor.

Thus it seems that Kirk was probably an instructor at the Academy several years after graduating and thus probably about five to ten years older than Gary Mitchell. Since Kirk was eventually established to be in his early thirties in TOS it became chronologically very difficult to have the beginning of the Kirk-Mitchell friendship happen at the same time as Kirk and Mitchell first knew each other when Kirk would have been a teenager.

Of course it is possible that Kirk was a teenage lieutenant in some other organization while a cadet at the Academy and was not an instructor. Instead Kirk might have been so smart that you had to study hard and think to get a passing grade if you were in the same class with him.

It is always possible to interpret things differently from the most obvious and natural interpretations.

Gary Lockwood was born February 21, 1937, about 5 years and 11 months younger than William Shatner born March 22, 1931. But Kirk was supposed to be about 2 years younger than Shatner. Gary Lockwood would have portrayed Gary Mitchell at the age of 28 in 1965. But Mitchell's file viewed by Kirk & Co. said he was 23, or nearly 10 years younger than Kirk. However, official files sometimes give previous ages dating from a change in a person's status. So Mitchell might have been 23 when first commissioned an ensign (about a years older than usual) or 23 when promoted to lieutenant commander (which would have been unusually young, probably younger than Kirk).

Thus the available information is inconclusive, but consistent with Mitchell being close enough in age to play with Kirk as kids and possibly younger enough to have had Kirk as an instructor at the Academy,

 

It is indeed remarkable that the file gives Mitchell's age in addition to his birthday. It's a medical file - perhaps the age of the subject is highly pertinent to how his PSI evaluation will go and what it will tell? A lot of water might have passed under the Bridge since that document was written.

That the file also gives Mitchell's rank as Lieutenant Commander (which is high for anybody 23 years of age, but also high for Mitchell to hold long before the events of the episode even if we ignore age, or else why has he been left behind by Commander Kirk now?) I'd like to interpret as the document telling us two truths:

1) the truth on Gary Mitchell the Starfleet officer (current rank, current place of residence, current age as defined by birthdate), and

2) the truth on Gary Mitchell the PSI weirdo (PSI specs back when he was evaluated at the age of 23).

And never mind that the document appears printed, with handwritten additional notes: it's a self-updating wholly computerized document that only imitates handwriting for stylistic effect.

Strongly agreed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Something I wrote on another discussion board back in 2011:

A few weeks ago, I was reading stuff on FanFic dot com. It annoys me when I read a fiction story and see "At age 28, he was the youngest Captain ever." Go to the next story, and the main character ther was the youngest at age 27. Two stories later, someone else made their character a Captain at 26. I'm waiting to see the story in which teen-agers are commanding starships. {sigh}

Using real-world numbers, one cannot go to Academy or West Point until age 17. It takes four years to graduate ... none of this "Four years? I'll do it in three!" So an officer can be a 2Lt / Ensign at age 21. It takes two years to make 1Lt / LT-jg and another two for Capt / LT. That's pretty much set in stone.

Now, to move up to Major / LtCmdr and then to LtCol / Cmdr and again to COL / CAPT, the law requires three years time in grade for each promotion. Of course, no one is ever promoted at the minimum time, but let's say somehow someone does. They will be 17+4+2+2+3+3+3 = 34 years old when they make O-6 Captain.

In theory, you can have a child prodigy get his degree by age 18 and then get a direct commission via OTS / OCS. That shaves off three years, and it is legal to promote from 2LT to 1LT in 18 months vice 24 (I've never seen it happen). Ergo, the absolute youngest a person in the modern-day US military can theoretically make O-6 is age 30-1/2 years.​

Hope that helps the conversation here.......

 

For all we know, Chekov may have only recently entered the Academy and was still technically a cadet there when the call came to launch the rescue mission to Vulcan. Same goes for Uhura and Kirk, for that matter. Their ranks on the Enterprise may have been based on the billet for their particular jobs.

 

For a Human yes, different species would have different ages of maturity, when they graduated secondary school, when they were ready to enter the academy.

Kes was a adult before her second year, Klingons are adults by age thirteen or fourteen, Humans at eighteen or twenty-one.

 

One thing we do know about Kirk in TOS is that he was three grades ahead of his lieutenant classmates at the club in "Court Martial." That seems like a pretty good indication of rapid advancement, but whether it was unique or unprecedented there's no way to tell.

 

Actually it's worse. He was applying to be a Vice Admiral, a higher rank than Rear Admiral.

 

One reason why I like John Ford's notion of short-lived Klingons (old at 40, Earth years). Adult early, yet living for 200 years as per DS9, doesn't quite work, even if most die early in combat and the veterans are rare.

 

Going back to the first post:

Midshipman is the proper term for a cadet at Navy Academy. In Star Trek, it seems to be pretty much interchangeable.

There's no such rank as "Sub-lieutenant", at least not that I can ever recall seeing in Star Trek. Maybe it's in the Romulan space navy, like they have Sub-commander.

Officers
O1 = Ensign
O2 = Lieutenant - Junior Grade
O3 = Lieutenant
O4 = Lieutenant Commander
O5 = Commander
O6 = Captain
O7 = Commodore (modern US Navy == Rear Admiral - Lower Half)
O8 = Rear Admiral
O9 = Vice Admiral
O10 = Admiral
O11 = Fleet Admiral

Enlisted personnel
E1 = Crewman Recruit
E2 = Crewman
E3 = Crewman First Class
E4 = Petty Officer Third Class
E5 = Petty Officer Second Class
E6 = Petty Officer First Class
E7 = Chief Petty Officer
E8 = Senior Chief Petty Officer
E9 = Master Chief Petty Officer
Also: Command Master Chief Petty Officer, Fleet Master Chief Petty Officer, and Master Chief Petty Officer Of Star Fleet

Titles such as Yeoman, Boatswain's Mate, Gunner's Mate, etc., are job titles, or "ratings", and not a rank. A YN2 is a Yeoman Second Class, an admin clerk with the rank of E5 = Petty Officer Second Class. (The current Secretary of the Navy wants to, over the objections of the Navy rank and file including upper-level enlisted leadership, eliminate all rating titles and associated specialized rank insignia because they're not "gender neutral". I can not repeat here what my wife had to say about that.)

I don't ever recall seeing any Warrant Officers in Star Trek, but in the modern US Army they have WO1 = Warrant Officer, CW2 to CW4 = Chief Warrant Officer, and MW5 = Master Warrant Officer. Warrant Officers typically hold technical jobs, e.g., pilot, signal corps, etc., and rarely hold a command position. As previously noted, Warrant Officers fall between Enlisted and Officers.