Was Picard Grooming Geordi For Chief?

[Christopher]

Tell that to the Star Trek: TNG writers.

SCOTT
One of them... I actually served
on two. This was the first...
she was also the first ship I ever
served on as Chief Engineer.

MAXWELL
How are you? I had no idea you
were on the Enterprise.
(turning, to Riker)
This was my Tactical Officer on
the Rutledge. Best I ever had.

And so on....

Did you not see where I already said that scripts are not meant to be seen by the audience, so their use of capitalization is meaningless? Scriptwriters often have little or no experience with prose writing, and nobody's expected to see their text except the cast, crew, and executives, so their use of spelling, punctuation, and style is often far looser than anything you'd see in a professionally copyedited prose work. A script is not a final work, but just a set of instructions for creating the actual work. So it's allowed to be rough.

More importantly, there is no precedent - zero! - for there to ever be two "Chief" engineers aboard any Trek ship or posting at any time in canon. Rather it has always been used exclusively to refer to one single individual who has that job, as the boss of that department.

Exclusively except in TNG's first season. We all know that. That's the entire point of this conversation -- to speculate about possible explanations for that anomaly.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Where are these scripts coming from? Which version were they?

 

[Crewman6]

Apart from TNG season 1 where it was explicitly said there was more than one person counted as “chief engineer”

Except they didn't. They just said, "one of our chief engineers", which could just as easily mean "one of our top engineers."

 

[Crewman6]

Did you not see where I already said that scripts are not meant to be seen by the audience, so their use of capitalization is meaningless? Scriptwriters often have little or no experience with prose writing, and nobody's expected to see their text except the cast, crew, and executives, so their use of spelling, punctuation, and style is often far looser than anything you'd see in a professionally copyedited prose work. A script is not a final work, but just a set of instructions for creating the actual work. So it's allowed to be rough.

It doesn't matter that the script isn't meant to be seen and it doesn't matter that the show's writers aren't following AP style guides to the letter.

It DOES, however, clue you into the mindset of the writers. They consider Chief Engineer, Tactical Officer, First Officer, you name it, to be important titles Worthy of Punctuation. And we can glean (maybe?) that the use of "chief engineer" that has everyone in a tizzy is thus meant to refer to the casual use of the word, not as an Important Title.

But, it's all just guesswork, as the scripts were written by different people over a span of years and I'm sure there's very little consistency to These Stylistic Choices.

I merely suggest a more likely scenario: that "one of our chief engineers" is used in the casual sense, since there has always only ever been on CHIEF engineer at any post across all Star Trek history both before and after TNG's fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants muddled first season.

 

[Christopher]

Except they didn't. They just said, "one of our chief engineers", which could just as easily mean "one of our top engineers."

We've already gone over why that's an unlikely interpretation. It's unlikely that people who use "chief engineer" as an official, formal job title every day would use the phrase to mean something else and thereby create confusion. If they meant to say top engineers who were not the chief engineer, they would've said "top engineers."

Also, the word "chief" does not mean "best." It means "highest in rank" or "greatest in importance." It is far easier for me to believe that a ship as gigantic and complex as the Enterprise-D might have more than one engineering department with a respective chief for each than it is to believe that an educated officer would misuse the phrase "chief engineer" in the way you suggest.

I mean, think about it -- the Galaxy class starship is actually two different ships, the saucer section and the stardrive section, that normally operate in combined mode. When they need to operate in separated mode, isn't it logical that they'd each need a separate engineering crew and thus a separate chief engineer? Given that the use of saucer separation was largely abandoned after the first season, maybe it was decided that they didn't need two chief engineers after all and combined the departments.

It DOES, however, clue you into the mindset of the writers. They consider Chief Engineer, Tactical Officer, First Officer, you name it, to be important titles Worthy of Punctuation.

I can think of several reasons why this argument is invalid, but I'll stick to the most basic one: You're citing the use of capitalization in scripts written by Ronald D. Moore and Jeri Taylor to argue for your interpretation of the lack of capitalization in a script written during the first season when neither one was part of the staff (probably by Maurice Hurley). You already conceded that the writers weren't bound by a style guide, so it makes absolutely no sense to argue that a difference in usage between unrelated writers demonstrates any kind of pattern rather than just individual variation.

 

[Cap'n Claus]

I'm glad they made the decision to make Geordi the sole Chief Engineer. It made sense.

LeVar Burton's delivery of technobabble is the gold standard on how to do it convincingly in the franchise.

Agreed, as early as "The Last Outpost" he convinced me that this made sense:

RIKER: Bottom line, La Forge.
LAFORGE: It's not good, sir. The Ferengi forcefield that holds this ship compensates almost as fast as we can increase power.
RIKER: Almost?
LAFORGE: Well, there's a point three hundred seventy two millisecond delay between use of our power and the neutralising counter force of the Ferengi. See, we push and they push back in equal force, sir.
RIKER: What's our acceleration delay between slow-reverse impulse and top warp speed?
LAFORGE: That's point three-hundred milliseconds. There's (realisation) Ah, I see where you're going. We shift down and then kick hard into warp nine. Yeah! Come back fighting! Woo-WEE!
RIKER: Can we do it, Geordi?
LAFORGE: Ask me after it's done, sir. (to engineer) I want a slow reverse into drop off over five minutes. We'll show them what this baby can do, sir.


I still don't know WTF he's saying, but he believes it and thusly, so do I.

 

[Sketcher]

I bet Picard got tired of people debating how many cheif engineers there were, so he fired them all and installed Geordi.

 

[Mojochi]

I bet Picard got tired of people debating how many cheif engineers there were, so he fired them all and installed Geordi.

If Logan & Leland T Lynch are any indicator of their personality, & MacDougal any indicator of their ability, it's no wonder they all got replaced by one competent guy

 

[suarezguy]

I think it's kind of surprising, weird that there isn't more connection generally between engineering and helm, you might think they would be pretty related, more related than command (and also weird that helm is so related to, seems to be the only thing particularly related to, command).

 

[Mojochi]

I think it's kind of surprising, weird that there isn't more connection generally between engineering and helm, you might think they would be pretty related, more related than command (and also weird that helm is so related to, seems to be the only thing particularly related to, command).

Interestingly, Geordi might be that link, of a sort. It might be no coincidence that he'd spent a year at helm, commenting on how Picard prefers his junior officers be cross-trained in multiple areas. Then, Picard replaced everyone in charge, down in Engineering, with him, who can establish a more reliable relation to helm and command.

One would think the propensity to have the helm officer be in command reds would be a reflection of wanting to have them, as bridge officers, be in legit line of succession to assume command (like Geordi had done once)

However, as we often saw, at least in Wesley's case, the helm officer is quite involved in working propulsion issues with engineering

 

[Frostscape One]

Twice... Picard put Geordi in command twice in season 1. ("Angel One" after Crusher told Picard to go to bed and in "The Arsenal of Freedom".)