Who has the bridge during duty shifts??

[Mage]

Ofcourse, the captain is in command of the ship.

But who has the bridge during which shift?

I would assume that, since we've seen captains in their readyrooms with their first officers on the bridge, that the first officer has the bridge during alpha shift.
But what about beta and gamma shift?

In some novels, it's been established that ships have command officers, usually in the Lt.Commander rank, who are in command then. Nothing has been clearly stated about beta-shift. Has anything ever been mentioned about this onscreen?

And how would it work on an actual navy vessel?

 

[Finn]

Data

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

There were some efforts to have Data in charge of another shift (when they pointlessly turned down the lights). But in "Disaster" there was a watch officer who was killed in action (can't remember her name though), which led to Troi taking command.

In my fanfic, I like to have the other two shifts having their own Watch Officer, who is in charge of the standard day-to-day running of the ship. But when an emergency situation arises its all hands of deck and the senior staff assume their posts.

But thats just me.

 

[The Wormhole]

This really isn't covered in Star Trek. We know Data frequently commanded the Enterprise's night shift, and on Voyager Harry Kim was said to command the night shift once a week or something like that, but otherwise that's it.

 

[Timo]

I'd think the menial job of being in charge of the bridge during a shift would be given to as many junior officers as possible, as part of their further training. It would only be on a rare occasion that the senior officers would bother to sit through these watches unless something interesting was going on, or unless they needed to get more "frequent flyer" points or whatnot.

So, Data would not mind doing the tedious task, as he could do a dozen other tasks simultaneously, including relaxing; Spock wouldn't be far behind in that respect. Worf might do it out of a sense of duty. Riker or Dax would do it if the helmsgirl was cute enough. Kim or Chekov would do it in hopes of finally getting a promotion. Sulu would do it on those weeks when professionalism was one of his hobbies. McCoy would do it only on Diane Duane's orders. And Scotty or LaForge would do it only if there was a chance to wreck the ship and thus get sent back to Engineering.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Delta Vega]

I'd think the menial job of being in charge of the bridge during a shift would be given to as many junior officers as possible, as part of their further training. It would only be on a rare occasion that the senior officers would bother to sit through these watches unless something interesting was going on, or unless they needed to get more "frequent flyer" points or whatnot.

So, Data would not mind doing the tedious task, as he could do a dozen other tasks simultaneously, including relaxing; Spock wouldn't be far behind in that respect. Worf might do it out of a sense of duty. Riker or Dax would do it if the helmsgirl was cute enough. Kim or Chekov would do it in hopes of finally getting a promotion. Sulu would do it on those weeks when professionalism was one of his hobbies. McCoy would do it only on Diane Duane's orders. And Scotty or LaForge would do it only if there was a chance to wreck the ship and thus get sent back to Engineering.

Timo Saloniemi

I always thought that Scotty was a pretty decent stand in Command Officer when Kirk etc were indisposed on some misadventure down on the Planet surface.

 

[The Librarian]

I'd assume that, as with Disaster, unless there's something special going on it would be some random junior officer on a rotation, so that they could get experience. The senior officers would only occasionally take it to keep in practice, or when there's some sort of crisis or other important event going on that requires a senior officer's attention at all times.

 

[MacLeod]

Agreed, If it wasn't for his love of engineering, it would seem as if Scotty would have made a decent starship commander.

 

[Chaos Descending]

And how would it work on an actual navy vessel?

On an American naval vessel, the "Officer of the Deck" is in charge of the ship, on the bridge. The Captain doesn't spend all of his work day on the bridge in any case. Neither does the XO.

This wikipedia article give the general gist of that the OOD does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_of_the_deck

During general humdrum operations, there may be no need for the Captain to set foot on the bridge for several days in fact.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think in Starfleet, starship bridge shifts vary, with the schedule written by the first officer and approved by the captain. Some shifts may find both the captain and exec on the bridge, while others may not, IMO.

 

[Mage]

@ Finn: I was talking about Starfleet in general, which has more ships then just the E-D.

@ Chaos Descending: Thanks for that link!!

I assumed that there were officers assigned to the ship especially for those shifts, officers on the command track who can get some on the job training for commanding a ship of their own.

 

[sbk1234]

Possibly a sign up list, which must be approved by the captain or first officer. Something like how Lavelle wanted to volunteer for another duty shift, but Riker turned him down in Lower Decks.

 

[Bigjoe]

Data

This.

He needs no rest or sleep so is the obvious choice for bridge duty.

 

[Pavonis]

Data's so good that he can stand watch for every ship in Starfleet? Wow. No wonder Maddox wanted to take him apart....

 

[Timo]

Had Maddox been successful, that's exactly what Data could have done...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's really thoughtful of the Federation's enemies to always wait until Alpha shift to attack.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Or maybe when there's something serious going on, the Alpha Shift takes over regardless of what time of the day if it's comprised mainly of the ship's department heads and other senior personnel.

 

[Dream]

Doctors with command rank and a skeleton crew. They are good enough to destroy Borg ships with one shot!

 

[The Wormhole]

It's really thoughtful of the Federation's enemies to always wait until Alpha shift to attack.

Obviously everyone all over the galaxy is on the same sleep cycle. It makes things easier thay way.

 

[Timo]

I don't think that has ever been a problem in Star Trek.

After all, for this to be a problem, the enemy would have to be proactive. But Star Trek is about the heroes being the active party. It is them who choose when to engage in an adventure, and this timepoint of their choosing resets the clock for the teaser of each episode. The ship enters the orbit of the target planet with Alpha Shift in charge; the ship responds to the emergency call by summoning Alpha to the bridge and then the teaser begins.

On the other hand, when an episode begins without Alpha in charge, nothing much is happening. "We are en route to a conference" is a classic way to launch a teaser, too.

Timo Saloniemi