Who was the original chief science officer on Voyager?
- Thread starter thestonedkoala
- Start date
^ No it doesn't. Yes, they perform some of the more science-y stuff on the bridge, but they are in charge of managing shipboard operations. That means stuff like life support, internal sensors (we saw Worf doing external sensor sweeps as well, IIRC), etc. On a ship as big as the Enterprise-D, that would be ops' role. For the smaller Voyager, I can see the argument, but the ship also had a science console on the bridge, so that would certainly imply they weren't in charge of sciences (Voyager just never used the damn thing).
It literally stands for Operations, not Sciences.
I rather tend to equate the Chief Science Officer with the Chief Medical Officer: a vitally important guy or gal or assorted being for the functioning of the ship, to be sure, but not somebody you'd want to have on your bridge at all times.
Spock would be a highly exceptional CSciO in the sense that he also doubled as XO, a key command officer. Picard's crew no doubt featured dozens of Science Officers and may well have included a CSciO to command that bunch, but said person never had any business being on the bridge. His or her findings were simply relayed to the consoles of the bridge heroes, much like Pulaski phoned in her observations and initially refused to attend bridge officer meetings.
Similarly, Janeway may well have had a dedicated department head for her science department, quite possibly one of the high-ranking casualties implied in "Ashes to Ashes" but never seen on screen. We never hear a full casualty listing in "Caretaker", and we don't even hear Janeway worrying about all the personnel whose demise plays a role in that episode's plot. She inquires about the death of the Chief Engineer, then proceeds to cover for him while leaving Paris to find out that the Chief Medical Officer is dead, too.
It's quite possible, then, that the Chief Science Officer and the Chief Operations Officer died off screen and below decks in "Caretaker", leaving the very junior Samantha Wildman and Harry Kim as the respective department heads from there on. And while Janeway needed the presence of an Ops chief in her briefings, no matter how wet behind the ears he was, she would be confident that she herself far outsmarted Wildman in whatever field of science the week's plot involved.
Timo Saloniemi
Spock would be a highly exceptional CSciO in the sense that he also doubled as XO, a key command officer. Picard's crew no doubt featured dozens of Science Officers and may well have included a CSciO to command that bunch, but said person never had any business being on the bridge. His or her findings were simply relayed to the consoles of the bridge heroes, much like Pulaski phoned in her observations and initially refused to attend bridge officer meetings.
Similarly, Janeway may well have had a dedicated department head for her science department, quite possibly one of the high-ranking casualties implied in "Ashes to Ashes" but never seen on screen. We never hear a full casualty listing in "Caretaker", and we don't even hear Janeway worrying about all the personnel whose demise plays a role in that episode's plot. She inquires about the death of the Chief Engineer, then proceeds to cover for him while leaving Paris to find out that the Chief Medical Officer is dead, too.
It's quite possible, then, that the Chief Science Officer and the Chief Operations Officer died off screen and below decks in "Caretaker", leaving the very junior Samantha Wildman and Harry Kim as the respective department heads from there on. And while Janeway needed the presence of an Ops chief in her briefings, no matter how wet behind the ears he was, she would be confident that she herself far outsmarted Wildman in whatever field of science the week's plot involved.
Timo Saloniemi
It's a Star Trek wiki found at http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Main_Page . There's a comparable wiki that includes noncanon material such as novels and RPGs, Memory Beta at http://startrek.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page .
While both are good reference works, both also sometimes support strange "facts" not grounded in the shows and books themselves.
Timo Saloniemi
While both are good reference works, both also sometimes support strange "facts" not grounded in the shows and books themselves.
Timo Saloniemi
Spock, T'Pol and Jadzia were the only 'chief science officers' any Trek series has ever had.
That's not to say that in TNG or Voyager there weren't such officers. There probably were. But we just never met them. There were officers responsible for *a* science (such as Samantha Wildman), we just never met the ones who headed *all* the sciences.
Data, OTOH, was originally going to be the Ent-D's science officer. But the blue uniform didn't go well with his makeup. So they 'invented' the position of Ops and gave him a gold uniform.
That's not to say that in TNG or Voyager there weren't such officers. There probably were. But we just never met them. There were officers responsible for *a* science (such as Samantha Wildman), we just never met the ones who headed *all* the sciences.
Data, OTOH, was originally going to be the Ent-D's science officer. But the blue uniform didn't go well with his makeup. So they 'invented' the position of Ops and gave him a gold uniform.
Hmmm, there's a mistake I found on Alpha 
exodus said:
Spill it!thestonedkoala said:
Hmmm, there's a mistake I found on Alpha
They link Data to Chief Science Officer and yet in the Chief Science Officer they make a contradictory statement that says he really wasn't but acted from time to time. So what was it?
Isn't the answer still "Yes"?thestonedkoala said:
exodus said:
Spill it!thestonedkoala said:
Hmmm, there's a mistake I found on Alpha
They link Data to Chief Science Officer and yet in the Chief Science Officer they make a contradictory statement that says he really wasn't but acted from time to time. So what was it?
No, he was never the designated Chief Science Officer but Alpha makes it sound like he was.
I think the assumtion is since he answered science questions he must be the science officer. I think he was more of a information specialist. A master of the search engine. Mr Google. Don't think he was ever called a Science Officer or attached to that department.
Similar threads
