I'm still waiting for you to explain to me just which part of Rand's character--established
or intended--is in any way incompatible with her being chief of security (note: "It's 1964" is not a character trait).
How about
Yeoman to transporter chief?
Or
Navigator to Security Chief?
You really think I'm baiting you? I don't. I find myself reacting very legitimately to your knee-jerk objection to Janice Rand being anything OTHER than Kirk's personal secretary squire/girl with nothing better to do except make the Captain feel better. The franchise has been rebooted, I think we can do better than Communications Officer after a forty year career.
Don't forget O'Brien's tactical officer to helm to transporter chief to chief of ops/engineer. Personally, I don't find that level of breadth credible and it annoys me. Characters are only defined by what they say and do. I prefer them to be well defined within a fairly narrow margin.
And this would mean something if we were talking about anyone OTHER than Janice Rand. In terms of TOS, we never really saw her say or do anything particularly meaningful, so her character has never been well defined or explored. We've seen her DO a dozen different things in the TMP era, but we never got to know her very well.
Character development is what happens when a character discovers something about himself that he didn't know before or arrives at a new place in his life. The beauty of this is, the VIEWERS are learning about that character at the same time, and they take the journey together. In this case, we don't really know anything about Janice Rand, so just about anything she could do that introduces new information would constitute SUBSTANTIAL character development.
Troi's problem was that her role was defined as plot device empathy and fluffy counselor, which only has enough breadth for a guest character. There's a narrow definition and then there is so narrow that you serve nno useful purpose most of the time.
Is that not exactly what happened with Janice Rand anyway?
Travis suffered from this problem too. If they'd toned down Troi's empathy, formally defined her as the ship's diplomatic officer, treated her as an officer in a proper uniform and not a civilian showing off her boobs, and let her take the lead in more negotiations instead of just standing around and offering a line or two of advice to Picard, then I think the character would have been fine.
So what you're really saying is TROI NEEDS A REAL JOB.
We reach, brother. Because what I'm really saying is JANICE RAND NEEDS A REAL JOB. Captain's Yeoman just doesn't cut it; that's the fast track to making Lieutenant by the age of 55. If you don't like the security department (I only think it fits because the TOS cast otherwise has no regular character to fill that role and it seems like they ought to) then transporter chief would be a close second. But "I give advice to the Captain and I'm his friend and confidant" is so narrow a role that she is DESTINED to be the first element written out of any script. That role has so little importance to any storyline that to limit her to that makes her both disposable and irrelevant. She can be that as well, but for her to become an meaningful member of the Enterprise crew she needs to have A REAL JOB.
I agree with you in that there is no reason why Rand can't be trained in security instead of engineering - her engineering career is not an iconic part of her character. However, I see no reason why she has to be security chief.
For the same reason you would have been happier with Ilia as that role. Rand has virtually no backstory and little or nothing is known about her other than a handful of appearances in TOS and her precious few cameos in the movies. You could EASILY turn that sort of transfer into a life-changing moment for Rand in her discovering a few hidden talents that no one--least of all her--
ever suspected she possessed.
She is best known for being YEOMAN Rand in the same way that Christine is best known for being NURSE Chapel.
And yet, even Chapel became a full medical doctor. What's the next step up from Yeoman, exactly?
Conversely, as the captain's yeoman, Rand's role is far more flexible. She can interact with the other characters on many different levels in many different locations and she has a convenient reason to be at Kirk's side both on and off the ship. She can be a kick-ass security guard without the baggage that comes with security chief and the ability to develop a more personal realtionship with Kirk.
The only problem is, "Guarding captain Kirk" is another extremely narrow role that is only situational and contingent on Kirk specifically needing to be guarded. The plot requirement for Kirk to be endangered means writing Rand OUT of that scene by some contrivance, which again reduces her to uselessness (kinda like Troi's telepathy conveniently fails--or she just happens to not be around--at a time when it would be most handy).
Give her a wider role on the ship where she'd have a reason to guard Kirk or anyone else for that matter, then ANY situation involving saving Kirk's ass--or anyone else's for that matter--must involve her. Suddenly she has a reason to be there OTHER than Kirk, an actual job with actual responsibilities and not just the Captain's pet.
Plus, as with Tasha, it isn't the role of security chief that has any inherent worth (TOS barely used one).
Of course not, unless the security chief is intentionally given a lead role (as in, for example, Odo and Malcolm). The ROLE they are given is simply a context in which they are given things to do. But if you give them an incredibly narrow role, you find it hard to give them things to do and you eventually write them out of the story because they're useless.
