Strategic Operations Officer

[Timo]

These points make me wonder why they even bothered fabricating a bogus "Strategic Operations Officer" title for Worf.

Well, at that point, Klingons were still supposed to be UFP allies; Gowron hadn't denounced the Khitomer Accords yet. It would have been politically unwise to publicly admit that Sisko had a specialist onboard whose sole purpose was to work against the Klingon Empire.

there was a deleted in scene in nemesis that explains why worf quit being the ambassador to quo'nos (end of ds9)

OTOH, we don't really know if Worf ever accepted the diplomatic position. At the end of DS9, he was still going through the bloodwine hangover from the victory party; the next morning, he may well have sat up in his bed and muttered "I promised what?", then contacted a few people and quietly skulked back to his DS9 job.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jamestyler]

"Strategic Operations Officer" was merely Worf's title. We didn't actually see him "coordinate Starfleet activity" in any episode (would have been pretty boring anyway).

Not directly, but we did see or hear him liase with people throughout. Little lines here and there about him talking to Intel etc.

I see it kind of like... Kira was his XO on the station, Worf was his XO regarding the local fleet he worked with.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

there was a deleted in scene in nemesis that explains why worf quit being the ambassador to quo'nos (end of ds9)
it was boring or what not so he went back to being chief of security on the enterprise

Still wouldn't explain why Worf was wearing a red command uniform when he's in fact chief of security again.

 

[Timo]

He doesn't get called "Security Chief" at any point of the movie, thankfully enough. He could have been a mere passenger on that flight, rather than an official member of the crew. Perhaps he's still the SOO of DS9 at that point?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JB2005]

^It's set after the end of DS9 though, at which point Worf should be ambassador...

I personally like the novels' explanation, though they don't explain why he was wearing red either...

 

[SoM]

On his apparent loss of the Ambassadorship...

I always thought that the Federation simply refused to sanction it. It was a private deal cooked up between Sisko, Ross and Martok, and the advantages of it to Martok were not merely obvious - they were far TOO obvious [Worf's a member of the House of Martok, AND he gave Martok the Chancellorship - is this REALLY the guy the Federation President, his cabinet and the UFP Council want to represent THEIR interests TO the Klingons?]

 

[Timo]

Agreed on that - it's rather unlikely Worf would even have agreed on the position if he were given a few days to think it over...

One would think he gave up the job almost immediately, or was turned down - so that the issue never even arose whether he could continue a military career along with the ambassadorship. I mean, Klingons would have found nothing odd with having an active officer as a prominent politician, but the Feds might have had qualms about that.

Even a brief stint as an Ambassador would probably show somehow on Worf's character. That he remains a redshirt Commander in the last two TNG movies suggests to me that he never was an Ambassador, and indeed never left Starfleet, although he may have left DS9 at some point after ST:INS. Hey, for all we know, Worf became Sisko's replacement after his former commander went Astral Without Leave!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DestinyCaptain]

Man, I just don't like any of what NEM did to Worf, either by inference or discarded dialog. The stuff about him being an ambassador was a nice bit of character growth. What the Federation thought of how Worf got the position is irrelevant. He is the BEST qualified person in either the UFP or the Empire to act as a diplomat between them. The fact that he is a member of the Chancellor’s own house only enhances this. Worf would be respected by Klingons; he did exactly what their society calls for given the circumstances. He saved the lives of countless valuable warriors from the hands of a Chancellor that only wished to send them to die as a means to cover his but. It was ridiculous to erase all of that with putting back into a security position in NEM. He whould have been in some kind of NON-SF uniform on the bridge and elsewhere on the ship. He may still hold his rank. I dunno if it is normal for former officers to wear their dress uniforms after they are nolonger actively serving, you'll have educate me there. I really don't mind him joining the crew in the context of the mission. I think it would have been far better to have the Shinzon reach out to Worf through the Klingons after he takes over. Having Worf deliver B-9 to Picard with some sort of note for Picard would have been interesting. Anywho, this is just one of many reasons why I think NEM is such a poor Trek movie.
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]

 

[jamestyler]

Unless I've missed it in here, what was the novel explanation for Worf on the Enterprise during Nemesis?

The easy route would just be to say he was there for the wedding.

 

[Timo]

But then we run into the issue of why he was in uniform.

If the UFP would choose to respect its old ways (i.e. remain a good analogy for the 20th century United States), then there'd probably be unease about allowing a noted diplomat to also be an active-service military officer. If, OTOH, the UFP would decide to consider the Klingon point of view, Worf would certainly be allowed to be an active officer, but he would most probably also be quickly promoted, at least to Captain and probably to the lowest flag rank as well, since that would serve the "let's impress the Klingons with their own stuff" purposes even better.

The red Commander uniform seems to represent stagnation for Worf no matter how the issue is viewed. Unless he got a lateral promotion of sorts - perhaps indeed taking over Sisko's old job, which was a relatively prestigious one for a Commander.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SoM]

The red Commander uniform seems to represent stagnation for Worf no matter how the issue is viewed. Unless he got a lateral promotion of sorts - perhaps indeed taking over Sisko's old job, which was a relatively prestigious one for a Commander

I don't see that DS9 would have a Starfleet Commander as the CO after the events of the series. Indeed, Sisko was being given responsibilities over and above those of a Captain toward the end, and even with the Dominion War over, the DS9 posting would hardly fall back to being the backwater posting it was at the beginning of S1. And on top of that, there's the permanent reprimand on Worf's file from Change of Heart, which makes it unlikely Worf could ever rise to a CO position.

What I could see would be following through from the strong implication (and stated writers' intent) that Kira "got the station", presumably with a Starfleet XO, mostly for continuity reasons (not in the "canon" sense, in the "most of the senior staff are leaving" sense), but also due to her record, the presumable continuing desire to bring Bajor fully into the Federation, and her Starfleet commission.

 

[nx1701g]

Unless I've missed it in here, what was the novel explanation for Worf on the Enterprise during Nemesis?

The easy route would just be to say he was there for the wedding.

In the novelization Worf had left the diplomatic corp saying he was not cut out for the life of a diplomat.

The TNG Relaunch novels have expanded upon this and have had him replace Riker as the Enterprise XO. Alexander became the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I think they should have put Michael Dorn into some sort of civilian clothing in "Nemesis" with a line explaining that he came to visit from Qo'noS.

Either that or he should have been promoted to full Commander, with a line explaining that he's now a XO somewhere in Starfleet. I think according to one of the novels, Worf was originally supposed to become Riker's XO on the Titan. This explanation is as good as any.

 

[ribbons69]

What I could see would be following through from the strong implication (and stated writers' intent) that Kira "got the station", presumably with a Starfleet XO, mostly for continuity reasons (not in the "canon" sense, in the "most of the senior staff are leaving" sense), but also due to her record, the presumable continuing desire to bring Bajor fully into the Federation, and her Starfleet commission.

Which is indeed what happens in the DS9 "relaunch" novels,Kira is in charge of the station,with Commander Vaughn as her XO.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

In an extremely tenuous attempt to conjure up an explanation...

It seems that some positions aboard starships are arbitrarily reassigned under different branches by their commanding officers. In Voyager, Tom Paris wears red as a helmsman, whereas in DS9 there have been helsmen who wore gold (not including Nog as he was Ops/Engineering). You could argue that this is because the Defiant has a joint Helm/Ops, but in Field of Fire Ilario is referred to specifically as a helmsman, and wears gold.

Worf could have been filling the tactical officer's position on the Enterprise, and there has been a distinction drawn between this and the Chief of Security's job in DS9, and in some of the novels (The Titan series for example). Perhaps Picard decided that the Tactical job could come under the command branch rather than operations, and so Worf kept his red uniform.

Tenuous, full of holes and most likely bs, but a possibility!

 

[nx1701g]

It seems that some positions aboard starships are arbitrarily reassigned under different branches by their commanding officers. In Voyager, Tom Paris wears red as a helmsman, whereas in DS9 there have been helsmen who wore gold (not including Nog as he was Ops/Engineering). You could argue that this is because the Defiant has a joint Helm/Ops, but in Field of Fire Ilario is referred to specifically as a helmsman, and wears gold.

The Role Playing Game supplements (which are very much noncanon) solved that by moving Flight Control in with Operations.

 

[Wil has a posse]

Let's not forget, Worf has had his share of cloudy job titles. What was he in the first season of TNG? "Bridge Officer". The most generic job anyone could possibly conceive of.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I think Sisko just invented the job because he didn't want to have to do as much work! Doing that stuff in Explorers made him think "why can't I do more stuff like this?", so he hired someone he could delegate to.