Does she? Her dialog sounds like it was written for Rand or the Yeoman of the Week.
Season 1 Uhura
- Thread starter Nyotarules
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She's leading the team using the tricorder and she's an officer, so she's in command.
As it happens, I think Ellison understood that Rand was a petty officer. In his graphic novel of his early version of City on the Edge of Forever, Kirk expressly left Rand in charge of the security team in the transporter room of the pirate ship, since she was more senior that the crewmen. In one of the first re-writes, the replacement yeoman encounters McCoy, gets scared and runs off to fetch the men. Then later on, Uhura replaced the yeoman and it looks like they smooshed together both the elements of being scared and being in charge of the men.
I respect Ellison's characterisation a bit more. Rand doesn't say I'm afraid at all. She says, yes sir!
I think that’s right, although I can’t recall any dialogue indicating whether she was an noncommissioned officer. However, we do know that Tina Lawton was a Yeoman Third Class.
On the other hand, Yeoman Martha Landon was a lieutenant. Weird.
I don't recall them stating she was a Lieutenant. She would have outranked Chekov so that sounds unlikely for the sexist sixties writing, even if evidence suggests she could have kicked his ass in a fight. I think if she'd been an officer she would have been titled with her rank rather than her position. Apparently it's naval tradition for crewmen and petty officers to be referred to by their position e.g. geological technician Fisher (likely a crewman) or science specialist Burnham (likely a junior petty officer after she was stripped of her commission).
The NuTrek comic introduced Yeoman Zahra as a security officer and promoted her to a Lieutenant. There is no reason why she couldn't be an officer in the new timeline but I feel it's more evidence of how writers seem to lack understanding of naval ranks.
Weirder for me, I had assumed that Keenser was enlisted since Scotty treats him like a skivvy and he barely speaks and displays no aptitude as an officer but in the comics he's a Lieutenant and the assistant chief engineer. I really can't see him taking the chair when others are off the ship! That said, the writers also promoted a command ensign with 6 months experience to be chief engineer in the worst case of cronyism since Trip Tucker so I tend to ignore such aberrations .
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I stand corrected . How did such a corrupt organisation found the UFP?
There’s a very good reason for that: she wasn’t. I thought she had a lieutenant stripe, but consulting there inestimable Trekcore.com, I see that I was mistaken.
I thought there was a yeoman with a rank stripe. And someday I may try to confirm that. Otherwise, I withdraw my objection. All the evidence points to yeomen not being officers.
Plenty of on screen lieutenants lack the rank stripe though.
If memory serves, in a Taste of Armageddon , The whole landing crew are lieutenants except Yeoman Tamula. In Operation Annihilate, everyone on the landing party except Yeoman Zahra has a phaser, even McCoy. She has a tricorder but all readings are taken by Spock and McCoy . Once Rand was gone, they certainly cared less about giving the token women on the landing parties anything to do unless they were falling for the villains of the week.
...Or everybody is getting promoted for the new adventure, and their colleagues have yet to catch on to the new ranks.
The other person addressed as "Ensign" in TMP, the woman giving Kirk pointers to Turboshaft Eight, might or might not wear the broken braid - the scene is shot at such an angle and distance that we thankfully can't readily tell (and Kirk OTOH at the time quite possibly might not be bothered to be accurate about).
Timo Saloniemi
TMP has spray 'n' wear clothing, as demonstrated in Ilia's sonic shower, and described in the novelisation. Admiral Kirk has the time to switch rank stripes (and make several clothing swaps). I am sure the Rhaandarite Ensign is wearing his correct sleeve rank, and Uhura wouldn't be making mistakes with his title.
Also, the officer on the cargo deck who welcomes Kirk aboard has the single broken stripe and is addressed as ensign.
She is wearing a uniform with shoulder boards and without sleeve stripes. I think it is unlikely that the shoulder boards are empty.
Edit: Yeah, I'm going to backtrack on the "shoulder boards are empty" thing. The TMP uniforms were never my favorite so i was completely unaware that there was a Rec Room full of empty shoulder boards. mea culpa
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They were not wholly consistent. Chief DiFalco and Chief Ross didn't have any insignia.
The "turboshaft 8" yeoman appears to have the triangle device on the shoulder tabs, usually assumed to be for petty officers. Chief DiFalco doesn't have shoulder tabs at all. Ross isn't referred to as chief in the movie (unless it's in the SLV) but is in the credits, so I'm inclined to give more weight to her blank red tabs, but YMMV.
Ok. So, I have done a re-watch of about 3/4 of TOS recently and there are opportunities that Uhura could have been in command but not have it shown. Balance of Terror is one; the other command crew are in the Briefing room and when the Bridge is called, it is Uhura who sound battlestations. I seem to recall similar events in The Alternative Factor, and in Journey to Babel, Uhura is shown on a screen while she possibly the only officer on the Bridge. In one TOS episode, (the exact one is escaping me) she is actually shown standing beside the chair, but is not in it, and was the highest ranking officer on the Bridge at that time. So Uhura very well might have taken command in TOS, and it was just offscreen.
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