The rest of the Pips were on tour.
Ranks and duties on the Enterprise
- Thread starter herofan
- Start date
And if Sulu was a head of department in Where no man, did he take a step down to be a helmsman or was it a reprimand? Maybe the pay was better!
JB
You may be right, in a way. Department head was probably as high as he could go in the Sciences Division. He took a step down to helmsman to get into the Command Division so he had a shot at Captain sometime in his career
People take janitorial work for granted. And Spock does at least train one person in Science Station operation (so he may be training others). That person is Ensign Chekov.
@PhaserLightShow
That seems wrong on the face of it since Spock was from the science division and was first officer.
Which division one is working in seems to have nothing to do with being in line of command. Apparently qualification for command resides in "officers of the line" ("A Taste of Armageddon"). Line officers can work in any division, and science and engineering officers take command regularly. Maybe Sulu was qualified and filled Gary Mitchell's helm vacancy, but at lieutenant grade rather than lieutenant commander.
Sulu was Head of Astrometrics. He was a Sciences Department Head. Medical is a division of Science. So is Astrometrics. Spock is the General Sciences Chief, Piper is the Science Medical Chief, and Sulu is the Science Astrometrics Chief.
@PhaserLightShow
Sorry for digging it out after almost a month, I just noticed. In Court Martial when Kirk is called to testify it is: "Service rank, Captain".
The department was called "astro-sciences."
Sorry, I don't follow what the point is, it just seemed to be a list.
There is one episode where McCoy is asked to report on the activities of the Life Sciences Division so there is some blurring of departmental responsibility. I would never have thought that the CMO was also head of life sciences and is life sciences a division that falls outside Spock's remit as Chief Science Officer? If not, and medical is just a branch of life sciences then Spock is also McCoy's direct departmental superior and there is no evidence that this is the case. Very odd.
It may be that Spock's principal role as Chief Science Officer is just resource allocation to all the sub-divisions and report reviewing but even then there is plenty of evidence that the CMO reports and requisitions directly to the Captain so I don't think that's the case either. In both TMP and TWoK, life sciences gets its own department colour after all.
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Gene Roddenberry set it up that everyone in Starfleet is an officer, with most (387 out of 430) being Ensigns and the rest (43) being Lieutenants and above.
Personally, I subscribe to the enlisted/officer concept. There is a topic down in the Fan-Fiction section titled "Creating a realistic crew manifest for a Starship. Ideas & comments?" which discusses a lot of this.
That was a temporary emergency promotion made to prevent female negro acting captaincy. Since he was never shown again after CATSPAW, he no doubt refused demotion afterwards and was very likely killed.
DeSalle was supposed to be a recurring character from Season 2 onwards. Gene Coon felt that someone familiar should be down in Engineering while Scotty was in command. That's why DeSalle was given the red shirt and a special mention in Kirk's log noting his new position. Why this only lasted one episode...who knows? Budget?
Doctor Piper is the Life Sciences head in WNMHGB (and the CMO). Life Sciences and Medical are sub-divisions of General Sciences (which Spock in in charge of). Spock is the general Science Chief, but Sulu and Piper still had Science jobs and were Science department heads (Astro-Sciences and Life-Sciences+Medical, respectively).
@PhaserrLightShow
Ah that's it. So technically, the CMO need not be head of life sciences? Still with only 400 crew, many of whom would be engineers and security, how many scientists could you even have in one department?
I suppose you would have the CSO, and then just key department heads underneath. Some of the smaller departments would cover multiple disciplines and you would have a scientist and several technicians assigned purely to that discipline, with others rotating in as needed. Key departments might be physics, astro-sciences, phsysical sciences (covering geology, chemistry, meteorology, computer science and whatever is left), social sciences (including sociology, history, anthropology, and archaeology), and life sciences (covering medical (including micro-biology, bio-physics, dentistry, and psychology) and life sciences proper (including botany, zooology, and astrobiology). You do get a feeling of too many chiefs and not enough indians though...
Based on anecdotal evidence then we've seen the head of physics (Sulu), the head of life sciences (Piper) and presumably the A&A officer is the department head of Social Sciences? I'd say it's implied that Spock is the department head of physical sciences too since he seems to be go-to guy for computer science. Presumably scientists can hold more than one position on smaller ships.
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That was on the page, but on the screen it was different. We saw Chiefs and Crewmen.
I was just thinking that. Why no mid-tier Petty Officers, I wonder.
I think Gen liked his main characters to be officers.
I take it you were a Master Sergeant in the USAF? My dad retired as USAF Master Sergeant. Your avatar makes me think of him.
Well, I don't know where those numbers came from but I really don't think Roddenberry got that specific, see below...
They were there, there was a third class yeoman in "Charlie X" and first class technicians mentioned in "Space Seed." When GR said later on in The Making of Star Trek that there were no enlisted personnel he was talking out his hat: He had written a chief petty officer into the very first pilot script. Though the later concept does work better with the wardrobe, as no one came up with insignia for any rank below lieutenant j.g.
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