…Which is a pretty formidable power. I’d be inclined to do whatever they say, rather than risk being declared unfit for duty.
Can you identify the episode I referenced above? Does she say “psychiatrist” or “psychologist”?
“Haven”, maybe?
Also: Compare and contrast Crusher’s and Troi’s personnel files from “Conundrum”. Crusher has an “M.D.” after her name. Troi does not.
So she’s just practicing. Not really doing it yet. 
But no doctor, fictional or otherwise, is going to make such a declaration without utterly unimpeachable reason, because any such action will be meticulously scrutinized by those higher up the chain of command. If the doctor’s pronouncement wasn’t completely sound the consequences would be at best career-limiting and at worst fatal (say, a court martial and execution for mutiny). Seriously, read Lieutenant Hornblower, which is a good take on just how far a doctor might go to avoid exercising this power.
The only known Cardassian to have facial hair.
I never had a problem with O’Brien being a chief and I assumed that he was like ‘Chief of the Boat’ in the Navy; the highest ranking enlisted man, and I guess that is what he turned out to be on DS9.
However, where are all of the other enlisted men? The only possible ones I can think of are the ‘red shirts’ on ST-TOS. The cannon fodder they sent down to the surface first, but I believe that those were always addressed as ensign or something; officers anyway.
Bob
Quite true about the sole bearded Cardassian!
Check out Diane Duane’s very enjoyable ST novel Doctor’s Orders, in which Kirk, good-naturedly annoyed by McCoy’s needling him for supposedly having a cushy job, places McCoy in temporary command on what is supposed to be a quiet mission. Good fun.
I can’t recall of any occasion where Uhura was anywhere near the top of the chain of command by basis of position (as opposed to by basis of interpersonal relationships, which gets more complicated).
In the reboot movies at least, the chain seems to go Pike, Kirk, Spock (switch these two around depending on the film for the desired character dynamic), Sulu, and it hasn’t dropped any lower than that, but it would seem that Scotty trumps Chekhov, since Chekhov had to fill his position as Chief of Engineering when Scotty was away. Uhura is officially near the bottom of the stack, but she’s wearing the space pants in a relationship with Spock, and Kirk seems visibly terrified of her at times. Mostly she doesn’t seem to influence major decisions though on a ship-wide basis.
Then again, I don’t think Sulu’s ever been in command when Scotty was an official member of the crew, so Scotty may very well still stack above Sulu normally.
As far as the original TV show goes, I’m only maybe six episodes in on the Blu-Ray discs, but it seems to go Kirk, Spock, and at this point Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Rand are all part of a rotating cast of minor officers (along with Nurse Chapel, but she’s a medical officer and thus out of the stack). Rand is probably at the very bottom of it, but I’m not clear if Yeoman is a rank (so possibly below Ensign or Lieutenant) or a position (like how Lieutenant Uhura is the Communications Officer, and Lieutenant Sulu is the Botanist/Helmsman/Whatever-it-is-he’s-doing-this-week-because-the-writers-haven’t-figured-it-out-yet.) Mostly her job seems to be to put in danger so that Kirk can save her. Seriously, in 3 out of the first four episodes, she has a near-redshirt experience. In the other episode, she hadn’t been written into the show yet when they produced it.
I can’t believe no one’s caught this yet … it came to me just now as I was trying to get to sleep … but the episode I was thinking of wasn’t “Court Martial,” it was Part One of “The Menagerie.” D’oh! :smack:
In one of his books, David Gerrold claims Uhura was fourth in command and cites Dorothy Fontana as his source. She apparently made this claim at a convention some time after the series went out of production. During the run of TOS, Sulu (Helmsman and Weapons Officer) assumed command when Kirk, Spock, and Scotty were not around (e.g., in “Errand of Mercy”). I would never have bought Uhura as a fourth in command as she was far too junior an officer with too narrow an area of responsibility.
Apparently they account for many of the technicians on board. In TNG, it’s made clear that the medical corpsman accused of treason/espionage in “The Drumhead” was not a commissioned officer and had not attended the Academy.
The red shirts I believe were all ensigns, but Kirk’s Enterprise had a lot of guys wandering around in sort of pajama-like get ups who were addressed only as “crewman.” Perhaps they were the enlisted guys.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary (Fourth Edition), a yeoman is “A petty officer performing chiefly clerical duties in the U.S. Navy.”
Now that I think about it, Nichelle Nichols did complain in an interview (again, I believe, with David Gerrold) that in the early drafts of one episode, Uhura was supposed to take command of the* Enterprise*, but this was changed in later rewrites specifically because she was a woman. Her reaction was, IIRC, “I pitched a bitch!”
I kind of suspect that it’s simply a matter of having somebody in the Captain’s chair who has sufficient rank to give orders that will be obeyed. I don’t recall seeing too many full Commanders on the TNG Enterprise - just Riker and Crusher. With Crusher in command, I suspect that her primary task was to trust the other bridge personnel to know how to do their jobs properly, and let them do it. She simply had to be the one to give the orders and take responsibility for the results.
Anecdotal evidence for psychologists not being qualified to prescribe medicine: my former roommate was a psychologist (though long non-practicing) and put all sorts of stock in homeopathic and herbal remedies. At least for his own medical/psychological/emotional issues (my amateur diagnosis of the guy was that he was a flaming hypochondriac). If he had any actual knowledge of medicine I’m fairly certain he’d have seen the homeopathic/herbal “remedies” for the woo the were.
I can’t say for certain, but the worst I could say about Barclay was that he suffered from some degree of Asperger’s Syndrome. Barclay was basically a very socially-awkward guy who was lacking in self-confidence. He was professionally competent at his job, but turned into a basket case when he was forced into social interaction.
O’Brien was the culmination of that scene between LaForge and Scotty. LaForge wasn’t interested in being a Scotty-esque “miracle worker”, but he was willing to experiment and take big risks to accomplish what was needed. O’Brien took that further, wanting to just do his job quietly and keep things running. I agree that he was probably a better engineer than LaForge. He wanted to keep things from ever getting to that “emergency” state.
Which is exactly what the captains job is anyway. Or a large part of it. Btw, AFAIK Trois tests were so she could get a promotion to Commander. Maybe the rule is that for promotion above a certain rank you need to be Command qualified. And Beverly does get her own ship eventually.
Well, I got the impression that there was more to it than mere rank. It had to do with being allowed to actually command a starship. As has been already pointed out, Data was 3rd in the chain of command (Captain > XO > COO), despite being only a Lt. Commander. Data, despite having the same rank as Troi, outranked her as far as command of the Enterprise was concerned. “Rank” and “Command” were two different things. There were probably full Commanders in the Astrophysics and Botany departments, though we never saw them. But despite being Commanders by rank, they were in no way qualified to command the ship itself. They wore blue or “mustard” uniforms. To get into a red uniform, you had to qualify for “Command”. And that’s why Troi went through those tests. She wanted to qualify for “Command”. It wasn’t about promotion in rank, it was about being qualified. It was secondary that it came with a promotion in rank.
Like the “real” navy, Starfleet promotions are largely based on seniority/time of service. So Troi would likely have made full Commander before long, but the promotion still wouldn’t have qualified her for “Command”. She had to undergo the tests.
(pardon if my logic seems to wander above - I’m posting while enjoying some fine beer)
^
Actually, now that I think of it, many militaries (not navies) do have medical battalions, commanded by doctors, who are usually Lt Cols (equivalent to commander) and who typically have to undergo the same command qualification as the fighting arms colleges do. StarFleet has medical ships, commanded by Doctors. My own theory is that for a track like medical officers, who are expected to serve out in the field with (eventual) independent units, they are expected to at least e command qualified if they expect to advance past a certain rank.
In the case of Yeoman Colt, it was a pRetty officer. Female urges, too? Rowr! Lock me up on Talos IV with HER in my cage!