The most valuable person for flying the shuttle would be the person with the most experience and skill not "everyone". I find the idea that everyone on the shuttle "is trained to fly and fix the shuttle." a bit dubious. This is the Enterprise with a crew of over 400 not the ISS, the Space Shuttle or Apollo where a very small crew needs cross training. The shuttle was out for a "three hour tour" with the specialists needed for observing the quasar.
Sure not everyone is an expert pilot (Spock certainly isn't) but Roddenberry's vision was that all the crew were trained astronauts ergo, they were all trained to fly the shuttle. In Immunity Syndrome, McCoy and Spock were vying for the mission because they can both fly the shuttle. Yeoman Barrows is a technician. She barely helps because she's a girl and her only stated job is to turn on the tricorder but she is likely basic tech assistance for Scotty and would be able to fly and fix (on a basic level) the shuttle.
Grace Lee Whitney described all the yeomen as 'cute and not very bright'.
Roddenberry was speaking in the most general of terms. Shorthand for people in space. Has anyone in Starfleet ever been called an "astronaut" by Starfleet? It's like saying every sailor can pilot a boat or ship. My father was in the Air Force. He had nothing to do with aircraft. He was technician working with intelligence gathering equipment. A lot of people in Starfleet are probably the same.
The effects don't show it, but I think the creatures were supposed to be fast, able to move around that foggy planet better than humans, and very effective with their spears. That made them close to equally matched against humans with phasers. That's why the crew suggests killing one: they don't have the power to kill them all in war of attrition, but maybe if they killed one or two of them, it would scare them away. Spock thinks shooting near them will scare them, but I think maybe it gave the creatures the idea that the humans weren't all that dangerous. McCoy says it's perfectly predictable that they might respond with anger, but I disagree. Maybe they would have been more angry if the humans killed one of them.
Officers go through the same Starfleet training, which includes the basics such as emergency repairs, transporter operation, etc.
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I'll give one of them this: Landon could fight. Chekov wouldn't ever have to worry about getting mugged, if only they'd stay together. And Tamura wasn't afraid of Barbara Babcock either.
Speculation and plot convenience.
This is true, albeit it's also true of every character and is basically why, over time, Spock is shown to be qualified in everything, including engineering. But demonstrating wider training is not without precedent. Uhura never once worked a transporter in TOS until STIII but are we to assume that she only learned how to do it to help the escape? Rand didn't work a transporter until TMP but was also shown to repair and work a transporter in the first draft of CotEoF. Since her scene never made it into the final episode, are we to assume that means she isn't qualified to do those things?
The personnel officer is still an officer. She would have 4 years of officer training which includes ship's systems. It was embarrassing and annoying for Marina Sirtis in TNG when Troi, a Lt-Commander, was shown be very ignorant of basic ship's systems. She might be a bit rusty on some but she would be part of continuous drills. The ship's counselor would still have jobs to do during a red alert, whether commanding a damage control team, managing the civilians, or assisting in sickbay. Her duties would be on rotation, not siloed.
Mears must be qualified to do something. She is armed with a phaser and doesn't spend any time assisting Scotty in any meaningful way so maybe she is trained in security?
They have jobs. “Missions” are only a fraction of that. What they do in their downtime is up to them. Collect plants, tennis, martial arts…
yes, because that’s how continuity works. Don’t mean a thing if it ain’t on the screen.
According to????
I think this is where the narrative approach to Starfleet makes a difference. On naval vessels, crew run drills all the time and non-coms take turns doing different jobs to round out their training. The idea is that anyone can step into an emergency role. Science crew may spend time on research but they would periodically be expected to refresh training in core systems and emergency processes. We see several blue shirts manning helm/nav. We have Sulu, a physicist transferring to command, we have La Forge transferring from helm to engineering, we have Tilly and Burnham bouncing between science and command etc. They couldn't do this unless they already had training, and Tilley opts for additional training to improve her command skills (it doesn't work and I have no idea how or why she was promoted to first officer over Nielsson but I assume Saru was drunk or high). Not everyone is good at everything (they can't all be O'Brien) but they should still have regular core training. Hell, I work in an office and we conduct fire drills, health and safety training/assessments, and financial crime training several times a year. Why would a starship be different?
But it is on screen. Rand is a trained astronaut. We know that because she works on a spaceship and Roddenberry confirmed all members of the crew are trained astronauts. Yeoman is her position on the ship; her job is astronaut. :-)
In ST09 it is stated to be a 4 year course akin to a degree level (typically 3 years) plus astronaut training and officer (command) training. Many characters have done one or more post-grads or extra modules. MD training seems assumed to be about 7 years like the real world, based on Bashir's career trajectory and some, like McCoy, Chapel, or Scotty qualify first and just do the additional training for astronaut and command.
