I was going to start a new thread on this but then I remembered this. When Crusher was posted off in season 2, she was supposed to be heading up Starfleet Medical. Now running the medical branch of star fleet seems to be a much much more important job then being the CMO of a starship (and incidentally one which would presumably require a rank higher than Lt Cdr). So it was a step down for her to come back, the TNG curse applied even to persons who had the promotion. Or did I miss something?
When I was in the military, I met someone who was changing rates and voluntarily taking
a pay of of one rate (from E-5 to E-4). He said he was doing it because his old rate had turned into a paper pushing job and he wanted to work with his hands. Crusher could want the same thing.
She fucked up. Tried to remove an Admiral’s appendix, sewed his ass shut instead. Letting her have her old job back was an act of generosity.
It’s the best explanation I can come up with.
Going from memory, but I think the Klingon was calling bullsh1t on Federation political correctness (because they wouldn’t let the Klingon Empire merge w/the Feds, when their home planet was going kablooey or something.) That’s when he said the Federation is a “Home Sapiens only club… present company excepted, of course.” Or something like that. He didn’t just ignore the vulcan, he pointed out what amounted to future tokenism.
Oh snap. Or in Klingon, Oh Kthnap!
Nitpick: Crusher was a full commander from the pilot onwards. Data & Troi were lieutenant commanders (though I’d prefer to call them lieutenants commander), Yar was a full lieutenant, and Worf & LaForge were lieutenants j.g.
I’m not sure that department rank always correlates with command rank, especially for those not in the red suit. Although Starfleet is partly military, that’s not it’s only function. How does it work in the real military? When you become chief surgeon, or head cook, does that automatically include a rank upgrade? In one timeline, Beverly did become a Captain.
Here’s the thing right here; you can’t assume people treat years the same way if they consistently live to be over a hundred years old.
Based on what we see in the show it appears people in the Star Trek universe age much more slowly than we do today and are pushing the limits of the human being’s biological lifespan. Today a full military career lasts about 30-35 years; it can be longer, but it can be shorter too (in the Canadian military you get a full pension for 20 years of service.) That’s a simple reflection of the fact that a hard job will burn you out by your mid-50s.
But in the 2300s, for all we know a typical career lasts 70 years. Sitting in a mid-to-senior position for 10-15 years would therefore be equivalent to 3-7 years today, hardly a big deal. You can’t be promoted THAT often. It’s not even very obvious how old these people are; while I’m sure Picard’s age is fanwanked in some knockoff book, he could be 50 or he could be 70. It doesn’t really matter.
Obviously the reason these people didn’t get promoted or reassigned was to stay on the show / in the movies, but still, it’s all explainable just by dint of not being today. Promotion in a modern military TODAY would be baffling to an observer from the year 1712, who would be utterly flummoxed by the concept of a professional officer corps - something that did not exist then. A true volunteer army where soldiers have rights would be equally puzzling. Why would we expect things to stay the same for another 300 years? Who says we’ve got it right?
Bones was 137 in this scene. So, the previous post seems like a good way to look at things. Read the rest of McCoy’s Memory Alpha page to get some idea of time he spent in various endeavors.
We, in fact, know there are.
Three specific examples of primarily-Vulcan crews are the Intrepid, Hera, and T’Kumbra.
Which is really odd (and stupid, really) that one of them is a famous British ship name and the other is a Greek goddess. Guess they’re short of things on Vulcan to name things after.
Big fish, small pond; or a position that is part Administrator, mostly Politician?
I don’t have any problems with someone who wants to actually work Medicine saying “Fuck that noise, put me back on a ship where I can do real work!”
Maybe this came up in the intervening pages, but the real dead-end job appears to be Second Officer. Data has a perfect service record and capacity of 800 quadrillion bits but is permanently stuck behind beardface.
Not permanently; Jellico relieved Riker of duty and installed Data as XO. Got him a red uniform and everything. Granted, it was temporary and this was pre–emotion chip, but I imagine Data was (temporarily) elated that he and his eight hundred quadrillion bits were no longer stuck behind the latest rock and roll sensation, Baked Alaska and the Facial Hairs.
Incidentally, O’Brien was stuck at Senior Chief Petty Officer for the entirety of DS9. One would’ve thought that, with his record, he would have made Master Chief Petty Officer at some point in the series, but no dice, apparently. (His record may be a bit overstated, however; it’s shown in the series that the station completely falls apart without O’Brien around, so he’s apparently either the Galaxy’s Best Engineer, or a really awful teacher who makes his subordinates utterly dependent on him. It’s mentioned in canon that Federation and Cardassian technology are really incompatible, so maybe O’Brien just has the knack for integrating the two, but it’s still kind of odd that he can’t teach any of his subordinates how to do it properly. He goes on to teach at Starfleet Academy after the series, so let’s hope it was just a really, really difficult and obscure specialty that has to be intuited, not taught.)
O’Brien’s rank changed almost season by season, it seemed. He started out in “Encounter at Farpoint” as a Lt. JG., I think. Later, on DS9, he was adamant that he was not an officer and had no interest in being one.
I don’t recall the Klingon (Azetbur, wasn’t it, the Chancellor’s daughter and future successor?) saying anything about “present company excluded,” or anything of that kind.
Sure, I can see some wiggle room, but you’d think being head of Starfleet Medical would be a position for an Admiral.
And even setting aside rank, you’d think there’d be some intermediate steps between being CMO of a starship and heading a branch of Starfleet, such as being a hospital director, etc.
Oh, kthlnap!
search on “homo sapiens”
AZETBUR: Inalien… If only you could hear yourselves? ‘Human rights.’ Why the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a ‘homo sapiens’ only club.
CHANG: Present company excepted, of course.
Enterprise isn’t a flagship, unless there’s an admiral aboard I didn’t see.
“Flagship” has a different meaning in the Star Trek universe.
Yah, she is described from time to time as the “Flagship” of Starfleet. Presumably it is meant in the context of being the premier example. The most advanced, most powerful ship sent to demonstrate the scientific, technological, political, and implied military might of the United Federation of Planets. Admirals don’t serve directly on ships in Star Trek except in the most dire situations. Even on DS9, Admiral Ross was more likely to appoint Captain Sisko to command fleets in battle under his authority than he was to actually travel to the front lines, presumably being very busy doing admiral-stuff like coordinating the larger war effort.
OMG, why would you want to risk an Admiral in battle? That’s what Captains are for. 