I disagree, it's not Hobson's place to decide if Data deserves his rank or not., just as with any other officer.
What is a Centurion's rank?
- Thread starter Scott Kellogg
- Start date
It is, actually, unless you have reasons to believe that an order is illegal (and they'd better be good) then disobey an order is a serious court-martial offense.
The chaps in the wardroom liked to call him "Devious" behind his back.*
*Trust me, the gag works in Romulan, too.
His girlfriend called him dipshit but that's because he cheated on her on Risa...
I don't remember M-5 giving Kirk any orders.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home shows a female Captain in command of the U.S.S. Saratoga <--- That was before TNG (not by much, but it was)
[DOH! - That's what I get for replying before reading the entire thread...]
Comparing Balance of Terror (BOT) and The Enterprise Incident (TEI), the missing rank in BOT is Sub-Commander. Either the Commander in BOT, was in truth, only a Sub-Commander but referred as "Commander" much like a Lt. Commander is also called "Commander", or, the rank was not required on the smaller crewed ship in BOT vs. the larger crewed ship in TEI. Additionally, in TEI, the Commander was also in charge of the group of three ships, so, Commander may be equivalent to Commodore and the ship captain under her and all other ship's captains were Sub-Commanders. One reason why Sub-Commander Tal used his full rank was to avoid any confusion with the presence of a full Commander on the same ship. Another option is that three ships don't a Commodore make, rather the Commander was simply the senior Commander over the other ships' Commanders, and as such, was in overall command of the situation. Also, I don't like that argument that all the ships are commanded by Sub-Commanders rather I think they are indeed full Commanders.
My solution:
My solution:
- The ship in BOT did not require a Sub-Commander ranked position due to the crew size, but had two Centurion ranked officers (where one has seniority over the other). My theory is that for every one hundred crew on the ship, one Centurion is required. So, the ship in BOT had a crew of two hundred and two Centurions. As for the purple uniform, I theorize that the highest ranking officers for each rank level wears purple, while the rest of the officers and crew wear blue.
- For crew sizes over two or three hundred, a Sub-Commander is required. Looking at the ship in TEI, the D-7 Battlecruiser was to be equivalent to the Enterprise, so, I assume the crew size is around four hundred. The large size crew in TEI would warrant a Sub-Commander rank plus a number of Centurions, perhaps four. On this ship, the Commander, Sub-Commander and senior Centurion would wear purple, and the rest blue. During TEI, we never saw the senior Centurion in purple on-screen, but he was there but off-screen. The Centurion that beamed over to the Enterprise was one of the lesser Centurions (but very brave and ambitious to volunteer). YMMV .
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Just to mess with people’s heads: If the commander from BOT turns up in, say, a Short Trek…James Frain should play him.
(You’ll figure it out. )
(You’ll figure it out.
)
Enterprise has 430 total.
Klingon D-7 has 438 (400 dead plus 38 survivors) total.
Assuming the Romulan D-7 is crewed about the same as the Klingon ship, we can compare the Romulan D-7 ranks to the equivalent Enterprise ranks and numbers:
Commander = Captain (one)
Sub-Commander = Commander (one)
Centurion = Lt. Commander (~three to four)
Decurion = Lieutenants, Lieutenants-Junior Grade, Ensigns? (~thirty to forty)
Crewman = Crewman (~400).
Sub-Commander = Commander (one)
Centurion = Lt. Commander (~three to four)
Decurion = Lieutenants, Lieutenants-Junior Grade, Ensigns? (~thirty to forty)
Crewman = Crewman (~400).
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FWIW, TMOST said "sub-commander" is a ship commander, "commander" is a fleet commander. That's definitely 3rd season thinking, and may ignore BoT. The BoT BoP (!) was said to be a flagship, though it's hard to imagine why a relatively small vessel on a solitary mission would need a fleet commander aboard.
I was thinking the same.
Perhaps there was more than one ship involved in the outpost raids, i.e. one ship for each outpost, and we only see the raid against Outpost 4 conducted by only one ship which happened to be commanded by the overall commander of the fleet (a later attack would be more dangerous since the Federation would be alerted and responding)...Evidence for multiple ships is that each raid seemed to be staggered (to gauge the Federation response?), and Outpost 8 was included in the attacks which is not in line with the other attacked Outposts 2, 3 and 4.
One might assume massive problems in coordination between invisible ships, especially if invisibility were a new technology for the user. Probably a whole lot of ships would have gone silent and made their attack runs, unaware of the success or failure of others and under strict orders not to ask or tell until safely afterwards.
This would minimize the utility of any "overall commander", but not necessarily dictate his omission.
Although if this really were prelude to the war the Praetor coveted, of course success should have been reported immediately, so that the fleet could take advantage of the breach before Starfleet managed to patch the holes in its defenses again. There might have been enough ambiguity in the orders, though, to allow the Commander to sabotage the mission by making Decius wait. Too bad this didn't work and more drastic sabotage was called for...
Timo Saloniemi
This would minimize the utility of any "overall commander", but not necessarily dictate his omission.
Although if this really were prelude to the war the Praetor coveted, of course success should have been reported immediately, so that the fleet could take advantage of the breach before Starfleet managed to patch the holes in its defenses again. There might have been enough ambiguity in the orders, though, to allow the Commander to sabotage the mission by making Decius wait. Too bad this didn't work and more drastic sabotage was called for...
Timo Saloniemi
That's a product of the time in which Star Trek was made, not an indictment of the Federation. TV shows made in the 60s featured plenty of sexism. You could say that the culture shown in the original Star Trek series was enlightened and you'd be right but only enlightened to a certain degree. You could ask the question, why couldn't they have portrayed a future sans sexism? That's a good question but I don't think they would have been bold enough to do so on a TV show in 1960s America even if they wanted to do it. We did see a woman serving as first officer though, implying that women could and did rise up to command ranks.
True, most of them did. But a few were better at female representation than Star Trek was. The Avengers, Mission: Impossible, and Get Smart all had strong, capable female co-leads, action heroines in their own right, not just futuristic secretaries, nurses, and switchboard operators in background roles.
Progress is relative. TOS did look rather feminist and progressive compared to most of 1960s TV. It looks backward today because we've come so much further. But for its time, just showing a military vessel with female officers in its crew was pretty radical. This was something like three decades before the US Navy let women serve on battleships.
That was a converted yacht as was several other 'flagships.' USS Dauntless for example.
I agree. That's why it irks me when someone proclaims it sexist when looking at it through the lens of 2021. And it's not just Star Trek. This sort of thing is going on with many old TV shows. I was just watching a youtube video about all the things "wrong with" The Flintstones. Of course, that judgment of wrongness was made by someone making the video in today's social climate. I'm not suggesting that just because something was considered acceptable in the past and isn't now, we should ignore it. I just despise judging things based on 50+ years hindsight instead of within the time it was made. No doubt some of the currently held ideas that are considered to be enlightened and an improvement over the cultural mores of past decades will look similarly archaic 50 years from now.
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Yes, indeed. It's amazing how much gets dumped out now rather than opportunities to learn and grow as a people.
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