Who was in Command after Data?

[Tiberius]

All he did was sit in the center seat and watch the show.

This is decidedly not true. I actually went and rewatched the scene in question before I made my comment, and I think you might want to, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLSJzOzNVfc
He has other members of the crew consulting with him throughout the sequence, which could have been very distracting from what needed to be done at the helm - unless you're suggesting that one of them should have taken over command rather than doing the important tasks that they were doing, or that he should have taken the helm and given Troi outright command....

Okay, I watched that scene again. Now, my opinion is that as soon as the stardrive exploded and the saucer's orbit destabilised, Riker should have taken the helm. Before that point, all Deanna had to do was maintain orbit and then move the saucer away from the stardrive.

But once the saucer was thrown about by the shockwave of the stardrive exploding, what did Riker do?

Deanna reported that helm controls were offline. Granted, that may not have been fixable, but I gotta think that if there was a way to fix it, a skilled pilot like Riker would have had a much better chance of fixing it than Deanna. In fact, as it was, Data had to take over and reroute power to the thrusters. If Riker had been at the helm, he probably would have been able to do it faster and get the saucer stabilised sooner. By the time Data got it done, the saucer had already fallen through most of the atmosphere.

All Riker did was call out, "All hands, brace for impact!" And anyone could have done that.

In short, once the stardrive exploded, Riker should have been at the helm. He didn't do much actual commanding, and what he did, anyone could have done. Deanna could have called out the brace yourselves bit.

 

[Marten]

I saw in at least two episodes, when the entire bridge was taken over or damaged, command of the entire ship was transferred to Geordi in engineering.

Wasn't that more of a temporary solution while they moved to Engineering? Until they got there, he was in command as the most senior officer present.

 

[Vanyel]

All he did was sit in the center seat and watch the show.

This is decidedly not true. I actually went and rewatched the scene in question before I made my comment, and I think you might want to, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLSJzOzNVfc
He has other members of the crew consulting with him throughout the sequence, which could have been very distracting from what needed to be done at the helm - unless you're suggesting that one of them should have taken over command rather than doing the important tasks that they were doing, or that he should have taken the helm and given Troi outright command....

Okay, I watched that scene again. Now, my opinion is that as soon as the stardrive exploded and the saucer's orbit destabilised, Riker should have taken the helm. Before that point, all Deanna had to do was maintain orbit and then move the saucer away from the stardrive.

But once the saucer was thrown about by the shockwave of the stardrive exploding, what did Riker do?

Deanna reported that helm controls were offline. Granted, that may not have been fixable, but I gotta think that if there was a way to fix it, a skilled pilot like Riker would have had a much better chance of fixing it than Deanna. In fact, as it was, Data had to take over and reroute power to the thrusters. If Riker had been at the helm, he probably would have been able to do it faster and get the saucer stabilised sooner. By the time Data got it done, the saucer had already fallen through most of the atmosphere.

All Riker did was call out, "All hands, brace for impact!" And anyone could have done that.

In short, once the stardrive exploded, Riker should have been at the helm. He didn't do much actual commanding, and what he did, anyone could have done. Deanna could have called out the brace yourselves bit.

I don't think there was really anything anyone could do. The helm was down. Data did his job as the OPS officer and rerouted power to the thruster to level their descent. Rather than Riker, it would have been Data's job to get helm back. Both Troi and Data are working at their controls, trying to get helm or thrusters back to try to get back into orbit; or at least high enough to burn off momentum and begin a controlled descent. Other than that, what could anyone have done without helm control?

 

[USS KG5]

In-universe it is really silly that a small nudge (that warp core breach explosion looked fairly small) could knock the Saucer into a terminal descent. Consider they were in a stable orbit which they then spend some time LEAVING...

Its a bluddy silly film, leave it at that.

 

[Mr. Scott]

LaForge was fourth in command. This was explained in an episode when everyone was gone and LaForge was on the bridge in a tight situation.

 

[Timo]

No, it wasn't.

There was this episode, "Arsenal of Freedom", where LaForge and a bunch of other fairly junior officers were placed in command of the ship while Picard, Riker, Worf and Yar were down on the planet. However, the CO has the authority to place anybody he wishes in temporary command of the ship, and in this case, Picard chose to place LaForge in command - even though the ship had more senior and more experienced officers aboard. Lieutenant Logan, outranking LaForge, tried to get him ousted - but LaForge's mandate for staying in command came from Picard's direct orders of placing him there, not from LaForge's rank or position, and thus Logan couldn't uproot LaForge. Even Admiral Quinn or the UFP President couldn't have uprooted LaForge in those circumstances!

The episode thus doesn't tell us if LaForge would have been the fourth in the succession of command. It merely tells us that Picard placed him in temporary command - like he might have placed any of the young officers there, such as the cute but insecure Ensign Lian T'Su. LaForge might have been the ship's Third Officer - but this episode doesn't prove it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Of course there’s no definite proof, but my personal take on the chain of command thing is the following:

NCC-1701-D
CO: Picard
1O: Riker
2O: Data
3O: Yar in Season 1, after her death La Forge

NCC-1701
CO: Kirk
1O: Spock
2O: Scotty
3O: Sulu

DS9
CO: Sisko
1O: Kira
2O: Jadzia in Seasons 1-3, Worf from Season 4 onwards
3O: Jadzia in Seasons 4-6, not sure who held the position in Seasons 1-3 and 7

Voyager
CO: Janeway
1O: Chakotay
2O: Tuvok
3O: Paris, not sure who held the position when he was temporarily demoted to Ensign though (Torres or still Paris?)

NX-01
CO: Archer
1O: T'Pol
2O: Tucker
3O: Reed

I guess NCC-1701 and NX-01 are the clearest ones. I admit that I ignored Michael Eddington and the chief-engineers-of-the-week from TNG's 1st season here. :P

 

[KobayashiMaru13]

I could see Spot in the Captain's chair. If they only made a spoof clip.......

Captain Spot
Sub-Commader Picard's Fish
Chief Medical Officer Kukalaka (Bashir's Teddy Bear)
Chief Engineer Chester (O'Briens cat on DS9)
Chief Security Officer Porthos
Ensign Butler (kirk's dog)

....boldly going were Star Trek has never gone before.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Here are some other things to throw in to make the subject more confusing;

Sometimes it appeared that command was given based on what division the person was in.

The command division appeared to have priority even if they shared the same rank as a fellow officer.

On the Enterprise, Lt Commander Shelby was often seen in command even when Data was available. She even appeared to order Data around at times.

Shelby wore the red uniform from command division.


The same thing happened with Worf in a way. Once Worf was transferred to the command division on DS9, he was often given complete command over the Defiant, even though Dax and Eddington had been there longer, and had the same rank.

Once, he mildly butted heads with Kira over the issue.

It's an interesting combination of rank, position, and division...

 

[Gil T.Azell]

LaForge was fourth in command. This was explained in an episode when everyone was gone and LaForge was on the bridge in a tight situation.

No, it wasn't.

There was this episode, "Arsenal of Freedom", where LaForge and a bunch of other fairly junior officers were placed in command of the ship while Picard, Riker, Worf and Yar were down on the planet. However, the CO has the authority to place anybody he wishes in temporary command of the ship, and in this case, Picard chose to place LaForge in command - even though the ship had more senior and more experienced officers aboard. Lieutenant Logan, outranking LaForge, tried to get him ousted - but LaForge's mandate for staying in command came from Picard's direct orders of placing him there, not from LaForge's rank or position, and thus Logan couldn't uproot LaForge. Even Admiral Quinn or the UFP President couldn't have uprooted LaForge in those circumstances!

The episode thus doesn't tell us if LaForge would have been the fourth in the succession of command. It merely tells us that Picard placed him in temporary command - like he might have placed any of the young officers there, such as the cute but insecure Ensign Lian T'Su. LaForge might have been the ship's Third Officer - but this episode doesn't prove it.

Timo Saloniemi

I was also thinking of LaForge in "Arsenal of Freedom" but then there was Chief Engineer Logan, who got into the pissing contest with LaForge, Remember Picard only left laforge incharge until he got back and only until the ship was whole again.