The Senior Staff

[IAmAParrot]

I know the show is about the senior staff, and that we want to watch them, but is it realistic to have an away mission of captain, first officer, engineer, doctor, and other senior stuff all in one shuttle or away mission? Does this happen in real life in the navy?
Sometimes like in the episode the maquis, obrien and Bashir (a doctor) are in their own runabout going to a potential battle, and Kira and sisko are in another shuttle as well as Dax.

It seems so illogical. By doing this they risk losing all the senior staff at once, if not by violence then perhaps by an infection.

I was wondering if such things actually happen irl. And by that I mean constantly just like trek.

I also don't see how it makes sense for the doctor to be in the shuttle with obrien as well to go to battle..and doesn't obrien being non commissioned mean he shouldn't even be piloting the shuttle.much less engaging in battle? If those shuttles were destroyed by maquis, all of the ops would be gone. I know it's to keep us watching, but still. And the whole "captain I don't think you should go to this away mission" seemed to only have happened often in the early seasons of tng. By the time of ds9 and voy, the first officer basically never told the captain not to go on away missions.

 

[fireproof78]

I know the show is about the senior staff, and that we want to watch them, but is it realistic to have an away mission of captain, first officer, engineer, doctor, and other senior stuff all in one shuttle or away mission? D

No.

 

[drt]

If Starfleet was realistic, the most senior officer would be a lieutenant and they'd bring a field medic, not the ship's doctor.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Next Gen was supposed to address this with "contact teams" led by the first officer, with the captain seldom leaving the ship. It first appeared in some TOS novel and Gene liked it and had the bones of it in the first TNG bible.

But once the show got going, they realised dramatic tropes conquer all. So all the main cast beam down, irrespective of how tactically unsound doing so is.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

If Starfleet was realistic, the most senior officer would be a lieutenant and they'd bring a field medic, not the ship's doctor.

The team would normally have one officer at most.

 

[Bea Jonas]

I experienced something similar to this situation just the other day—when I realized we were out of chips and salsa at our house. Rather than subject myself—the ranking officer—to the hazards of transporting (driving the family car) down to the nearest planet's surface (our neighborhood market) for these vital supplies, I used my communicator (phone app) to have them delivered by junior officers (Instacart).

 

[drt]

Next Gen was supposed to address this with "contact teams" led by the first officer, with the captain seldom leaving the ship. It first appeared in some TOS novel and Gene liked it and had the bones of it in the first TNG bible.

Contact teams were definitely in The Galactic Whirlpool, written by David Gerrold, who helped Roddenberry co-develop TNG. It's been years since I last read it, but I think the idea probably first appeared in his World of Star Trek behind-the-scenes book.

The team would normally have one officer at most.

I figured there would always be some ensigns, since, you know, Star Trek.

 

[Finn]

I know the show is about the senior staff, and that we want to watch them, but is it realistic to have an away mission of captain, first officer, engineer, doctor, and other senior stuff all in one shuttle or away mission? Does this happen in real life in the navy?
Sometimes like in the episode the maquis, obrien and Bashir (a doctor) are in their own runabout going to a potential battle, and Kira and sisko are in another shuttle as well as Dax.

It seems so illogical. By doing this they risk losing all the senior staff at once, if not by violence then perhaps by an infection.

I was wondering if such things actually happen irl. And by that I mean constantly just like trek.

I also don't see how it makes sense for the doctor to be in the shuttle with obrien as well to go to battle..and doesn't obrien being non commissioned mean he shouldn't even be piloting the shuttle.much less engaging in battle? If those shuttles were destroyed by maquis, all of the ops would be gone. I know it's to keep us watching, but still. And the whole "captain I don't think you should go to this away mission" seemed to only have happened often in the early seasons of tng. By the time of ds9 and voy, the first officer basically never told the captain not to go on away missions.

If they always left the away missions to junior officers in Starfleet, in the Treverse, I'd hate to be promoted

 

[fireproof78]

If they always left the away missions to junior officers in Starfleet, in the Treverse, I'd hate to be promoted

James T Kirk? Is that you?

 

[The Wormhole]

Not only is it not realistic for the senior staff to always be the ones on the away missions, it's even less realistic that everything that needs to be done is always handled by the senior officers. Like when shit needs to get done in engineering, it's always the chief engineer who crawls into the Jeffries Tubes and physically fixes the matter when in fact it should be one of the other engineers being ordered by the chief engineer to do it.

And before everyone starts on the whole "well, I like the idea of a boss who does the work themselves rather than making others do it," I get, no one likes lazy bosses. I've had more than a few in my day. However, a very legitimate argument can be made that the staff can never be expected to gain experience or learn their jobs if the boss is always stepping in and doing the job themselves.

But, Star Trek is of course a TV show, it makes the most dramatic sense for the cast to be the senior officers and therefore the senior officers are doing everything for the simple fact that they are main cast and need their screentime.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

We don't see the moments when the senior staff are not the ones fixing this and that. Or if we do, it's either in the background, a character moment, or said nobody ensign is about to be the sacrificial lamb (metaphorically or literally).

 

[drt]

The only scifi show that comes to mind where they had young officers/crew doing grunt work and senior ones making the big decisions was Battlestar Galactica (both iterations).

 

[maneth]

Not to mention that the Captain and the XO should really be commanding opposite shifts (12 hours), or maybe with the second officer in charge of the "night" shift if the day is split into three shifts. On TNG we got some of that because Data spent the night alone on the bridge because he doesn't need any sleep, but I long for a sci-fi show set in space where the round the clock aspect of life in space is actually taken into account.

That could be further developed by introducing species with very different circadian rhythms, much shorter or longer than standard, and how those could be accommodated aboard ship. The only example we got was Bajor with its 26-hour day, but humans seemed to adapt to it easily enough. That said, on my recent DS9 rewatch I noticed that they never said anything about going somewhere at 24:00 or 25:00 hours. I seriously doubt that the whole station was asleep at the same time.

 

[Takeru]

The only example we got was Bajor with its 26-hour day, ...

Which was dumb, a 26 hour day makes no sense. A bajoran day may last 26 earth hours but obviously the bajorans themselves would not divide their day into 26 smaller units and have a 26 hour clock.
The reason the 24 hour day developed on earth is because 24 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12, it is a very practical number to do math with. 26 is nonsense, it's the result of the writers wanting to show how a planet is different from earth without thinking it through.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Not to mention that the Captain and the XO should really be commanding opposite shifts (12 hours), or maybe with the second officer in charge of the "night" shift if the day is split into three shifts. On TNG we got some of that because Data spent the night alone on the bridge because he doesn't need any sleep, but I long for a sci-fi show set in space where the round the clock aspect of life in space is actually taken into account

Harry commanded the night shift on Voyager and an unnamed female commander (whose stuff was mostly cut, IIRC) in Star Trek Beyond.

But yeah, nothing like real life. And why does everything interesting happen during the senior staff day shifts? Do they get days off, ever or work 7 days?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Even when it does happen overnight, they wake the experts.

 

[J.T.B.]

Not to mention that the Captain and the XO should really be commanding opposite shifts (12 hours), or maybe with the second officer in charge of the "night" shift if the day is split into three shifts.

They don't need to command shifts at all, there are plenty of officers who can do that. In real life COs and XOs don't stand watches, but are are always on call.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

There ought to be an episode about crew from our hero ship being temporarily re-assigned to another ship. They're put into the duty rotation for the two weeks to a month it takes to rendezvous with our hero ship after said characters spend some time planet/stationside. On this temporary posting, the captain runs the ship like you'd expect - senior staff stays topside, grunts/lower ranks go below. Nothing new for our temps as they are among the non-senior staff on this ship.

 

[The Wormhole]

Even when it does happen overnight, they wake the experts.

Well, yeah. What else are they supposed to do, ignore it until morning?

"Sir, priority one distress signal coming in from a civilian freighter on our side of the Neutral Zone."
"Can they hold out until morning when the Captain wakes up?"

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

"I'll take care of it myself. By the time he crawls out of bed, it'll be all over."