The rank of "Doctor"
- Thread starter Itisnotlogical
- Start date
That's just Forbin. 
He does that when he says "good morning"!
He does that when he says "good morning"!
Indeed she did, as then-Lt Commander Troi specifically asked Command Crusher about her experience taking the examination and her reasoning for having done so.
As Pauln6 said, it appears to be a bit of both. In "Disaster," Troi needed to take command because it was a crisis situation wherein she was the highest ranking officer on the bridge. In normal times, however, without passing the Bridge Officer's Test and its accompanying promotion to Commander, she would not generally have been in a position to take command.
See her exchange with Crusher in "Thine Own Self":
And, of course, her exchange with Riker, when she brings up the idea with him:
God, what a terrible line.
The older I get, the more I cringe at the site of technobabble.
Is it, though?
We don't know the rules of their rank structure. If the rank of "Commander" requires that someone pass the Bridge Officer's Test, then it stands to reason that every Commander is Starfleet has taken and passed that test and is therefore qualified to be a Command Officer, whether they do it in practice or not.
And yet an alternate reality Jean-Luc Picard in "Tapestry" had only risen to the rank of Lt JG by 2369, forty-two years after graduating from Starfleet Academy as an Ensign.
Indeed. In general, Starfleet seems to have a relatively lax attitude toward rank, focusing more on the work performed instead.
Still silly. I find it hard to believe that the folks in charge of the various non command areas of Starfleet ( or any military organization) would be a Lt. Commander.
Once again Trekkery displays a lack of understanding of military structure. My cousin retired from the navy as an admiral. He was a dentist. As an admiral, he oversaw all the dental and related medical concerns for the fleet. though an admiral, he could never have commanded a taskforce, let alone a ship. That wasn't what his training or his assignment was.
The reason he resigned, BTW, is that as a medico (or a lawyer, or an engineer, or whatever profession), the higher up in rank you go the more bureaucratic are your duties, and the less practical and applied. He wanted to DO dentistry, not do paperwork on dentistry.
There is no way a ship's chief medical officer, in a real world situation, would command a ship unless everyone ELSE of officer grade was incapacitated.
The reason he resigned, BTW, is that as a medico (or a lawyer, or an engineer, or whatever profession), the higher up in rank you go the more bureaucratic are your duties, and the less practical and applied. He wanted to DO dentistry, not do paperwork on dentistry.
There is no way a ship's chief medical officer, in a real world situation, would command a ship unless everyone ELSE of officer grade was incapacitated.
And you display a lack of understanding of "It's a fictional story, not a documentary about early 21st century military". How is understanding military structure of todays military important when that's not even related to the topic and is something the show was never about? This is Star Trek, not JAG.
Guess what, that's absolutely irrelevant, because it's not a real world situation and it's taking place in the friggin future.
Starfleet's Doctors and Counselors in bunny suits can command starships if they take a test, that's a simple fact and no yapping about real world navies will change that.
Thanks for the input. It's probably true that the size of ship you are on dictates your upper rank within the hierarchy (per Voyager). So Admirals don't generally command ships but supervise starbases, formulate policy, and supervise fleet operations, and Scotty was only promoted to captain when he was assigned to Excelsior. I suppose we also have to consider that Trek humans don't have a need for a salary and have evolved beyond the desire for prestige - they just want to better themselves (or in the case of Worf, batter himself). The rank wouldn't be a real concern except insofar as the duties it would allow them to undertake.
True. Someone over seeing Starfleets entire R&D arm is going to have a rank equal to that position's responsibilities. An Admiral at least, even if they've never commanded a starship. Same for someone in a modern corporation. They're going to be called "The Senior Vice President for Research and Developement" or something.
Wasn't there an admiral seen in ops/engineering/security gold at one point?
If so, this may be evidence for your point.
If so, this may be evidence for your point.
I know in TOS we've Captains and Commodores in all three uniform colors. In TNG McCoy was an Admiral,
Looking at MA I find Admiral Toddman
There is something to be said, however, that Starfleet isn't simply today's navy transplanted into the future. Yes, there are many similarities and shared practices, but there are also areas where Starfleet deviates rather sharply. IMO, this isn't so much a case of Starfleet (or even Star Trek) "getting it wrong," as it is a case of Starfleet being ultimately a different kind of navy than anything we might know today...
Indeed, it should be noted that today's militaries are run in a way dictated by today's socioeconomic context. The rank structure is only periperally related to how the military commands itself in the battlefield: its principal purpose is to keep the organization running in the economic sense. Economics in the TNG era are supposedly wildly different from today's; it would be absurd for the military to cling to 20th century rank practices, then.
There are at least three reasons today for forcing medics to take the limited staff officer path. One is familiar from TOS already; a medic might use his exceptional "medical powers" to gain advantage over a superior if he were otherwise empowered to benefit from such an advantage (i.e. if he were allowed to take the place of that superior after ousting him by medical means). But perhaps more importantly, medics today are seen as nerdy academicians (as opposed to licensed killers) and enjoy pious protection as deliverers of mercy (as opposed to licensed killers). These aspects are different in TNG, too: everybody is an academician, especially our top warriors like the archaeologist Picard or the engineer Sisko. And medics aren't a protected species: Klingons and Jem'Hadar probably consider them prime targets, and Starfleet responds in kind, arming its medics and hospital ships.
On the "bridge officer test", it's debatable what sort of powers it really gives to those blueshirts who take it. Standing a bridge watch is a menial duty for the most junior officers; if a bluehsirt Commander qualifies herself for the job, it's good for the ship, but doesn't mean said Commander would have command powers outside those situations where the CO has specifically placed her in temporary command by making her stand a bridge watch.
And clearly the test isn't a required step for making blueshirt Commander, since e.g. Commander Pulaski was adamant she did not have the command powers or duties Crusher demonstrated. Apparently, the test is merely one out of hundreds of ways to collect brownie points, and if Lt.Cmdr Troi takes it, those brownie points will make her a full Commander. If Ensign Bashir took it, he might make Lt(jg) instead. Although he probably took the course back in the Academy already.
The idea that Crusher would have special double training was a nice retcon for "Descent", and an acceptable futuristic development. "Thine Own Self" just didn't handle it too well. OTOH, the idea that Troi would be pushed to command when explicitly lacking said double training in "Disaster" is more difficult to defend - but we should remember that it was all about politics there. A bunch of novices and misfits were playing Lord of the Flies on an isolated bridge, and O'Brien saw it fit to promote Troi's powers over those of Ensign Ro, for obvious reasons. It might not have been in complete agreement with the Starfleet Field Manual, but it got the job done...
Timo Saloniemi
There are at least three reasons today for forcing medics to take the limited staff officer path. One is familiar from TOS already; a medic might use his exceptional "medical powers" to gain advantage over a superior if he were otherwise empowered to benefit from such an advantage (i.e. if he were allowed to take the place of that superior after ousting him by medical means). But perhaps more importantly, medics today are seen as nerdy academicians (as opposed to licensed killers) and enjoy pious protection as deliverers of mercy (as opposed to licensed killers). These aspects are different in TNG, too: everybody is an academician, especially our top warriors like the archaeologist Picard or the engineer Sisko. And medics aren't a protected species: Klingons and Jem'Hadar probably consider them prime targets, and Starfleet responds in kind, arming its medics and hospital ships.
On the "bridge officer test", it's debatable what sort of powers it really gives to those blueshirts who take it. Standing a bridge watch is a menial duty for the most junior officers; if a bluehsirt Commander qualifies herself for the job, it's good for the ship, but doesn't mean said Commander would have command powers outside those situations where the CO has specifically placed her in temporary command by making her stand a bridge watch.
And clearly the test isn't a required step for making blueshirt Commander, since e.g. Commander Pulaski was adamant she did not have the command powers or duties Crusher demonstrated. Apparently, the test is merely one out of hundreds of ways to collect brownie points, and if Lt.Cmdr Troi takes it, those brownie points will make her a full Commander. If Ensign Bashir took it, he might make Lt(jg) instead. Although he probably took the course back in the Academy already.
The idea that Crusher would have special double training was a nice retcon for "Descent", and an acceptable futuristic development. "Thine Own Self" just didn't handle it too well. OTOH, the idea that Troi would be pushed to command when explicitly lacking said double training in "Disaster" is more difficult to defend - but we should remember that it was all about politics there. A bunch of novices and misfits were playing Lord of the Flies on an isolated bridge, and O'Brien saw it fit to promote Troi's powers over those of Ensign Ro, for obvious reasons. It might not have been in complete agreement with the Starfleet Field Manual, but it got the job done...
Timo Saloniemi
That's just Forbin.
He does that when he says "good morning"!
Don't tell ME what kind of morning to have!
Actually, I was trying to argue the point. I don't think putting the doc in the center seat makes any more sense in 24th century fiction than it does in the real life modern navy. It makes about as much sense as letting the first officer have a rotation as chief surgeon, or requiring the chief engineer to be able to perform a heart transplant. They have different skill sets, different educations, different career paths, different interests...
