Who determines the mission schedule details of the Enterprise-D?

[at Quark's]

From the show's intro, we know its primary mission: Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

I would assume this would give the crew a lot of freedom, as you probably can't schedule 'exploration' neatly, since you are heading into the unknown. But, does Starfleet hand out general schedules to the crew ('you will leave for Argolis cluster exploration starting at stardate xxxxx and we expect you will be done in y weeks'), or is the (senior) crew entirely free to select its own targets as long as it's within the general mandate and no direct assignment from Starfleet comes along?

Which of course sometimes happens: overriding emergency missions when the Enterprise is (of course!) the nearest ship, or just the more trivial ferrying diplomats and such. No argument there, except of course the general observation that it's a bit hard to reconcile a continuing exploration mission with all this mundane stuff they are ordered to do in between.

But there also are a lot of times when Picard seems to decide spontaneously where the ship goes. Now I can understand that a captain with an exploration mandate would have considerable freedom of action, but sometimes these are just plainly personal matters. For example, when Daimon Bok threatens his alleged son Jason Vigo, he immediately orders the ship to that planet. Realistically, I would expect Starfleet to say: "Captain, we will send a security team to protect Jason Vigo but in the meantime we need the Enterprise to be at X for reason Y. We would entirely understand you would want to be involved personally, but in that case we suggest you take up shore leave and let Riker take over for the duration of this mission".

So, how much freedom does the crew (Captain) have in deciding on a whim they want to be at a certain location?

 

[trekfan39]

They seem to get their mission assigned to them by Starfleet command with some down time every so often in between missions. So no it isn't up to them to decide where they go but I think a ships captain does have a little freedom when it come to investigating things.

 

[Mojochi]

But there also are a lot of times when Picard seems to decide spontaneously where the ship goes

I don't remember any specific times when Picard is just randomly selecting areas to explore though. The times he spontaneously selects a course are to investigate something, & on those occasions, it's pretty unlikely that if & when he informs command that they'd send someone else, given the great distances that are likely between ships. I seem to recall some investigations that are into uncharted territory though

Otherwise, I assume a coordinated exploration effort must be employed by command. It doesn't make much sense to have your fleet shooting out haphazardly

 

[Marynator]

@Mojochi you make so many wonderful posts in many of these threads I read, it is always such a pleasure reading your helpful contributions.

I agree that they probably get like orders to explore certain areas or do special missions, but there's probably a lot of leeway, because they have certain general directives that would supersede others, which is probably what the opening mission statement is all about? I have a feeling that different missions have different priority levels or something, and then there are general priorities. So like answering a distress signal is probably a Priority 1, so if they're on a Priority 4 mission they drop it to do that, but if they're on a rescue mission and think they might have passed an interesting wormhole, they go back to visit that later?

 

[Mojochi]

@Mojochi you make so many wonderful posts in many of these threads I read, it is always such a pleasure reading your helpful contributions.

Aww. Thanks I've been talking about this show many years. Had a lot of time to think on it. Some of my opinions are unusual or even controversial, but most of them are pretty commonly held. However, all of them are just my own way of looking at it.

I agree that they probably get like orders to explore certain areas or do special missions, but there's probably a lot of leeway, because they have certain general directives that would supersede others, which is probably what the opening mission statement is all about? I have a feeling that different missions have different priority levels or something, and then there are general priorities. So like answering a distress signal is probably a Priority 1, so if they're on a Priority 4 mission they drop it to do that, but if they're on a rescue mission and think they might have passed an interesting wormhole, they go back to visit that later?

I'm pretty sure they must have a prioritized charter. They almost never turn away from the possibility of a new discovery, or new contact, sometimes putting their current mission on hold to make the effort. They must be tasked with all manner of research, diplomacy, investigation & exploration. Basically, it's like if the U.N, NASA, CDC, & INTERPOL were all one body