Wait, How Many Departments?

[DavidGutierrez]

Consider this scene from "Scientific Method":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8-917vo9C8

How in the heck are there as many as thirteen departments on a ship as small as Voyager? And, why are they reporting to Tuvok? TNG seemed to suggest that department heads reported to Riker, not Data or Worf (second officer and chief of security, respectively).

For that matter, how could there be thirteen departments on any Federation starship? What would they be?

And, isn't security a department? So, isn't Tuvok a department head also? Why are department heads reporting to another department head? And, now we have fourteen departments on Voyager!

Thoughts?

 

[R. Star]

One, I can concede Janeway just used the comment 13 including Tuvok's for convenience's sake. She wasn't in her right mind at the time so details weren't high up on her list.

Two, I can accept them reporting to Tuvok because let's face it... Chakotay is just the token Maquis to keep the rest in line. A former terrorist is questionable, but she knows Tuvok is loyal. If Chakotay was handling that stuff, well he might start getting ideas of being Janeway's equal.

Three... well let's see. Helm, Operations, Security, Engineering, Science, Medical. That's six right there. Maybe Neelix is his own "department" with food resources. Maybe science is divided into separate departments like astrology, biology and what not. Maybe security and tactical are separate. There has to be a shuttle and torpedo building department for all the replacements they went through. So yeah, I can buy the number being thirteen.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I'm going with the theory that Janeway just made that up that moment.

I mean, Tuvok wasn't serious either about that floggin comment in that scene.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well, they would be reporting to him on security matters, not on crew performance.

At least, there's one security guard stationed in every department on the ship, and the department heads tell him if his security are doing their jobs and the security tells Tuvok if the Department heads are doing their job.

Seska.

Michael Jonas.

The Doctor (in Flesh and Blood & Equinox.)

Janeway (Well, the Doctor, but that's thepoint.) in Renaisance Man.

Or less insidious incursions like Quicksilver Tom and Harry.

Tuvok should have been fired for letting 40 aliens traipse about Voyager unchecked for months in Scientific Method.

Both times it happened (Flesh and Blood again.).

Seriously, Seska had a murderous hologram programmed to kill every one if she'd disappeared for two years, but Tuvok just lets Aliens take his ship without the merest hint of a booby trap.

Is Neelix a department head, or is the hedhog under the umbrella of whoever is in charge of the replicators?

I'd guess that the number of the 13 departments are in escapable no matter the size of the ship, even if the man power and admin looking after all those departments is consolidated.

 

[Timewalker]

Three... well let's see. Helm, Operations, Security, Engineering, Science, Medical. That's six right there. Maybe Neelix is his own "department" with food resources. Maybe science is divided into separate departments like astrology, biology and what not. Maybe security and tactical are separate. There has to be a shuttle and torpedo building department for all the replacements they went through. So yeah, I can buy the number being thirteen.

WTF?! ASTROLOGY???

So they had a department for casting horoscopes?

 

[R. Star]

Three... well let's see. Helm, Operations, Security, Engineering, Science, Medical. That's six right there. Maybe Neelix is his own "department" with food resources. Maybe science is divided into separate departments like astrology, biology and what not. Maybe security and tactical are separate. There has to be a shuttle and torpedo building department for all the replacements they went through. So yeah, I can buy the number being thirteen.

WTF?! ASTROLOGY???

So they had a department for casting horoscopes?

Astrophysics maybe. Oops. Though horoscopes might just make sense for some of the magic tricks they pull.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Stellar Cartography. One of the DeLanney sisters worked there in season 1.

If Voyager had a Science Officer, which it didn't, I would have put Stellar Cartography under The Science (Applied Sciences?) Department's remit and letterhead...

Although Janeway had no respect for Stellar Cartography.

From Deathwish, talking about Quinn.
JANEWAY: We could shut down Stellar Cartography with all the knowledge he'd bring to the job.

Then along came Astrometrics.

All those poor Stellar Cartographers put out of work so that the Astrometricians have something to do.

 

[lurok]

So I wonder where those poor Stellar Cartographers get reassigned?

Plasma duct cleaning?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The poor Delaney Sisters.

 

[Guy Gardener]

One of them was in love with Harry.

Sounds about ready for the rubbish tip to me.

 

[Nebusj]

Thoughts?

Well, heck, the Department of Shuttlecraft alone could be like three-quarters the ship's staff.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Part of the Operations remit is resource management, which means that Harry had to count all the tricorders and phasers, making sure that they were all put back in their cupboards at the end of the day.

That could cover Shuttles and other large hardware?

(How many dune buggies did Voyager have? Seriously, that's (also) what the transporters in the cargo bay are for. Paris is gunning the engine so that the buggy is already grunting at ninety towards the hills before it's even finished materializing.)

Morale Officer seems like the person who should be in charge of the holodeck.

Was there Neelix, and then there was a REAL Morale Officer too?

 

[Melakon]

Was there Neelix, and then there was a REAL Morale Officer too?

The real Morale Officer was always busy scrubbing down the holodecks after Tuvok and Vorik were finished with the Vulcan Love Slave programs.

 

[R. Star]

Can't you just make a holographic janitor clean up that kinda mess?

 

[Melakon]

Do I need to remind you about holographic janitor Dejaren (Leland Orser) in "Revulsion", and how well he worked out?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Riker said that the ships clean them selves.

Considering the chorus of "what's a nanite" after Wesley's homework became alive and took over the ship, and the disappointed frown when after the Borg had already attacked in Best of Both World they say "remember Nanites? That happened right? Wheat if we weaponized nanites to destroy the Borg? I mean if WE (The best of the best!) never heard of nanites 6 months ago, it's unlikely that an advanced machine intellect would have ever heard of nanites, use nanites or have fantastically sophisticated dences against foreign nanites" it's unlikely that the ships cleaned themselves with nanites.

Methinks that when a room or corridor is empty on a Starship, that the automatics use site to site transporter sweeps to shunt all dust and grime into space.

 

[Melakon]

In addition to his assigned duties, Neelix was probably gathering up all the garbage to stow on his ship in the shuttlebay, in case it turned out to be valuable somewhere. If Neelix didn't steal a replicator when he finally left the ship, he was an idiot.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Replicator? Who gave him the ordinance to fight those space pirates in Homestead?

 

[Melakon]

He was probably swiping stuff the whole seven years. Might explain how they lost so many shuttles and torpedoes.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

How I work out departments and sub-departments for fanfic is so:

Command
- Administration
Flight Control
- Shuttlebay (including Shuttle Pilots)
Engineering
Operations
- Cargo/Supply
- Transporters
Security
Tactical
Counselling
Medical
Science
- Life Sciences
- Physical Sciences
- Planetary Sciences
- Social Sciences
- Stellar Sciences

The likes of Engineering has multiple disciplines (such as environmental, structural, impulse, warp drive, etc) but all as part of the whole rather than separate sub-departments.

That's just how I work our things in my head and, so far, its worked out for the ships/crews I've created.