Who was the original chief science officer on Voyager?

[Timo]

Spock, T'Pol and Jadzia were the only 'chief science officers' any Trek series has ever had.

Well, none explicitly had "Chief" in their titles, unlike Janeway on one of her past assignments. Still, one would assume that at least Spock had several other officers working under him in the Sciences Department.

Jadzia Dax probably didn't have any assistants originally, though. And whether NX-01 had any science crew worth mentioning (besides Sato)... Well, they launched on a supposed milk run in "Broken Bow" and never returned to replenish for the first two years. So possibly no scientists there. On the other hand, they stocked up with troops for Season 3, yet the total complement of the ship didn't seem to change. So did they offload some scientists? (They may also have offloaded engineers who were supposed to supervise the new warp drive on the maiden voyage, yet basically twiddled their thumbs for the next two years.)

And technically, Sulu seemed to be the "Chief Science Officer" of the ship in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", appearing as part of the gathering of department heads.

...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.

As for the sources of this, I think there was something in the TNG Companion at least.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Therin of Andor]

gastrof said:
Could I ask where this is established? (In other words, what's your source for this claim?)

I think I saw this in early "Starlog" columns on the development of TNG by David Gerrold, and also heard it at convention presentations by Richard Arnold.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Timo said:

Spock, T'Pol and Jadzia were the only 'chief science officers' any Trek series has ever had.

Well, none explicitly had "Chief" in their titles, unlike Janeway on one of her past assignments. Still, one would assume that at least Spock had several other officers working under him in the Sciences Department.

Jadzia Dax probably didn't have any assistants originally, though. And whether NX-01 had any science crew worth mentioning (besides Sato)... Well, they launched on a supposed milk run in "Broken Bow" and never returned to replenish for the first two years. So possibly no scientists there. On the other hand, they stocked up with troops for Season 3, yet the total complement of the ship didn't seem to change. So did they offload some scientists? (They may also have offloaded engineers who were supposed to supervise the new warp drive on the maiden voyage, yet basically twiddled their thumbs for the next two years.)

And technically, Sulu seemed to be the "Chief Science Officer" of the ship in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", appearing as part of the gathering of department heads.

...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.

As for the sources of this, I think there was something in the TNG Companion at least.

Timo Saloniemi

Wasn't Crewman Cutler in the Science Department before she was drafted to aid Phlox in Sickbay?

 

[od0_ital]

^

Medicine is still a science.

:thumbsup:

 

[Red Ranger]

People,

I'm quite certain Picard did refer to Data as "my science officer" in at least one ep, something along the lines of "I expect a more detailed answer from my science officer," but I just can't remember the ep.

I think ST got away from using the term "science officer" to avoid comparisons to Spock. Although that certainly wasn't the case with T'Pol. And I think that's rather silly; since Starfleet is supposed to be chartered with exploration, you'd need a chief science officer on board exploratory vessels!

As for the original question, I think Harry Kim served as a de facto science officer, much like Data did in TNG. I prefer to think that VOY's official science officer didn't make it on board before "Caretaker."

Red Ranger

 

[exodus]

Red Ranger said:
I prefer to think that VOY's official science officer didn't make it on board before "Caretaker."

Red Ranger

Good point.

Considering Voyagers first assignment didn't require one, this may be true.

 

[thestonedkoala]

exodus said:

Red Ranger said:
I prefer to think that VOY's official science officer didn't make it on board before "Caretaker."

Red Ranger

Good point.

Considering Voyagers first assignment didn't require one, this may be true.

This one kind of boggles the mind, though. A science officer would have been kind of handy to have in the Badlands.

 

[Good Will Riker]

There really didn't appear to be a science officer onboard originally, even with Janeway's background in science. Sure, Torres, Kim, and EMH did perform "science," but there was no one with that official position.

However, once Seven of Nine came onboard, she performed a lot of duties that a science officer does. So, I'll have to say that Seven was the closest to what we had as "science officer" eventhough that was not her official position on board USS Voyager.

 

[od0_ital]

thestonedkoala said:

exodus said:

Red Ranger said:
I prefer to think that VOY's official science officer didn't make it on board before "Caretaker."

Red Ranger

Good point.

Considering Voyagers first assignment didn't require one, this may be true.

This one kind of boggles the mind, though. A science officer would have been kind of handy to have in the Badlands.

Only if they were goin' there to study the plasma storms.

They weren't.

They were goin' there to spank a Maquis crew and rescue the captain's pointy-eared buddy, if he needed to be rescued.

 

[Huntingdon]

But a science officer would be handy to analyse the storm patterns and track exhausts as well as monitor storm activity. The other departments could do all of that to some extent, but having another expert around wouldn't hurt in a dangerous area of space.

 

[mr.peany]

I always thought that Sam Wildman was Voyagers chief science officer. Could well be mistaken. In fact, i most likely am.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

mr.peany said:
I always thought that Sam Wildman was Voyagers chief science officer. Could well be mistaken. In fact, i most likely am.

She was the head of the xenobiology department. That's just one science. Not all of them.

And I doubt an Ensign would be the head science officer for the entire ship.

 

[Squiggy]

Harry was.

 

[DrTaylor]

Good Will Riker said:
TNG never had an official science officer position as part of the main bridge crew. This was the same for VOY and ENT.

Only TOS had one with Spock, and DS9 had with Jadzia from Season 1-6. Of course, when Ezri joined in Season 7 as a counselor, there again was no science officer as one of the main DS9 senior officers.

Data was science officer.

 

[exodus]

Huntingdon said:
But a science officer would be handy to analyse the storm patterns and track exhausts as well as monitor storm activity. The other departments could do all of that to some extent, but having another expert around wouldn't hurt in a dangerous area of space.

That would be a waste of time and resources if that wasn't their assignment. Janeway believed Tuvok's life was in danger, she had to hurry.

 

[J47]

DrTaylor said:

Good Will Riker said:
TNG never had an official science officer position as part of the main bridge crew. This was the same for VOY and ENT.

Only TOS had one with Spock, and DS9 had with Jadzia from Season 1-6. Of course, when Ezri joined in Season 7 as a counselor, there again was no science officer as one of the main DS9 senior officers.

Data was science officer.

It was nice of you to read the whole thread before posting your thoughts.

 

[Nerys Myk]

od0_ital said:
^

Medicine is still a science.

:thumbsup:

Spock seemed to have a different opinion in McCoy's case.

 

[Timo]

Only if they were goin' there to study the plasma storms. They weren't.

Actually, in "Relativity", Janeway specifically expresses the wish to remain in the Badlands for more than the three weeks allocated. This makes no sense in terms of the Tuvok/Maquis mission - it only makes sense in terms of Janeway wishing to explore the Badlands after Tuvok is recovered, hopefully well before the three weeks are up.

So I'd think Janeway would have her Badlands-studying team of scientists aboard and on standby for exploratory action, to be initiated as soon as Tuvok was back onboard.

Then again, it's Kim and (Tactical Officer?) Lt. Rollins who in "Caretaker" end up analyzing the star charts and plasma flows in order to trace down the Maquis. That, surely, would be a job for the science department of the ship if she had any. But perhaps Janeway has a different view of Science Officers than Kirk did - perhaps she trusts his Tactical Officer and Ops Officer with tactical analysis, without requiring the personal presence of a blueshirt academician.

And I doubt an Ensign would be the head science officer for the entire ship.

Before the "Caretaker" casualties, probably not. After them, probably yes. There's little indication that Kim would have been a department head until the ship's senior officers conveniently up and died. When coming aboard, he was just a run-on-the-mill Ops officer, one of several, never referred to as "the" or "chief" or anything.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[thestonedkoala]

exodus said:

Huntingdon said:
But a science officer would be handy to analyse the storm patterns and track exhausts as well as monitor storm activity. The other departments could do all of that to some extent, but having another expert around wouldn't hurt in a dangerous area of space.

That would be a waste of time and resources if that wasn't their assignment. Janeway believed Tuvok's life was in danger, she had to hurry.

Not really. If you're flying in, you don't want to be flying in blind.

 

[mr.peany]

Babaganoosh said:

mr.peany said:
I always thought that Sam Wildman was Voyagers chief science officer. Could well be mistaken. In fact, i most likely am.

And I doubt an Ensign would be the head science officer for the entire ship.

I dunno, wasnt Harry the chief of operations? He too was an ensign.