# Staffing rotas on Star Trek star-ships **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** star-trek-paramount\ **Created:** [December 12, 2022, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425 "2022-12-12T23:05:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/21 "2022-12-13T01:04:14Z")
Truly the 24th (or whatever) Century were (will be?) more enlightened times. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/22 "2022-12-13T01:09:22Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > What episode had Scotty referred to as captain of engineering? > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Some of the later movies; not sure which one (probably V or VI) but he is referred to as “Captain of Engineering” rather than “Chief Engineer”. Of course, this is an artifact of not being able to promote up and out of the role as would happen in a normal military organization, resulting in the named bridge crew having nothing lower than a full commander. > > Stranger He was promoted to Captain in _STIII: The Search For Spock._ He was assigned to the U.S.S. Excelsior while Starfleet was investigating the incident with Khan. That’s how he was able to cripple the Excelsior so that Kirk could take the Enterprise to the Genesis planet. In the TNG episode _Relics_, he remained a captain, although retired. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/23 "2022-12-13T01:12:30Z")
The basic rules are just the same for ocean-going vessels. But you don‘t call them all captains; you have the Captain, the First Mate or First Officer, and the Second Mate or Second Officer. However, I don’t know of any play, movie, or TV show that treats it all realistically; it just makes for better storytelling to have all the interesting events happen during the Captain’s watch. I believe TNG made Data the Second Officer, and gave him an episode. _Babylon 5_ had a Second Officer, for the record, but he never appeared. Good, tight stories always trump cluttered realism. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/24 "2022-12-13T01:13:16Z")
Right, that’s him holding the rank of “Captain”. That’s realistic; promotion through the ranks will happen to any competent officer who stays in the service long enough, no matter what their specialty. The part that doesn’t match real-world militaries is the title “Captain of Engineering”. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/25 "2022-12-13T01:13:26Z")
Engineering officers on submarines can advance to command of vessels, though. [https://www.csp.navy.mil/northcarolina/CO/](https://www.csp.navy.mil/northcarolina/CO/) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/26 "2022-12-13T01:20:54Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > IIRC engineer corps officers are not eligible to command ships in the US Navy. Not on subs - on subs every officer except for supply officers can become a CO. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/27 "2022-12-13T02:53:04Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Not on subs - on subs every officer except for supply officers can become a CO. Maybe @Monty is thinking of the UK Navy? There at least used to be a strict division between engineering officers and command officers on British subs. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/28 "2022-12-13T03:00:07Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Am I right that on a submarine, there wouldn’t be a regular group of people who always had the midwatch shift, but rather you’d try to mix things up so that crewperson A got a chance to work with crewperson B sometimes and crewperson C other times? My engineering watch section got assigned the midwatch for a month straight while the “day” sections trained for their [ORSE exam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_Reactor_Safeguard_Examination), which meant we had to get up for all of their drills. On the upside, this gave us time to figure out how to take over the world. We never actually did because: 1. We didn’t know where to get ahold of a speedboat. 2. We didn’t actually have any demands (other than not having to stand midwatch anymore). ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/29 "2022-12-13T03:01:50Z")
Nope. I was thinking of the US Navy. I’ve very little knowledge of how submarines work. @iiandyiiii Why are supply officers left out? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/30 "2022-12-13T03:06:20Z")
It’s having the plan thats the important thing. Thanks for the info. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/31 "2022-12-13T03:11:46Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Engineering officers on submarines can advance to command of vessels, though. > > [https://www.csp.navy.mil/northcarolina/CO/](https://www.csp.navy.mil/northcarolina/CO/) So we may be, quite understandably and doubtless unknowingly, conflating two things. Not all officers (in the US Navy, at least) holding leadership positions in engineering are “Engineering Duty Officers” or (as another distinct category) Limited Duty Officers in Engineering. The Chief Engineer on an operational submarine will almost certainly be an Unrestricted Line Officer, same as the Navigator and the Weapons Officer. \*Smaller conventional ships (Cruiser and smaller) tend to follow the same model, but are even faster and looser with roles. It’s not uncommon within the conventional navy to find someone who has had a leadership role in engineering on one ship and a non-engineering job on another ship. With particularly junior officers (the Ensigns) they might even change jobs on the same ship during the same tour. Anyway, almost all the officers on a submarine are nuclear trained submarine officers of the unrestricted line, with the exception of the supply officer and… maybe the weapons officer on an SSBN? Honestly, that I don’t know. Point being, the biography you have linked for appears to be an unrestricted line submarine officer who has predominantly filled roles in engineering, but not the type of officer who could _only_ fills roles in engineering. \*On larger ships, such as amphibs and aircraft carriers, you are much more likely to find specialists. So for instance the Chief Engineer (who is _not_ in charge of the reactors) on a Nimitz-class CVN may be some form of Engineering Duty Officer or Limited Duty Officer who _only_ works in engineering. Now, if you really want your head to explode, the person who is actually in charge of the reactors (the Reactor Officer) will be a Commander or Captain by rank who most recently performed the _job_ of Captain on a smaller ship. But evidently, Star Fleet does things differently. Or… maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the reason we see Scotty always in engineering is the same reason we see him as always on the Enterprise: the writers didn’t want to write him off and replace him with someone else as would tend to happen in the real world every few years, so him staying forever in engineering was incidental to him being bound interminably to _Enterprise_ (brief interludes in other assignments notwithstanding). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/32 "2022-12-13T03:16:32Z")
So is the Chief Engineer actually an engineer, or is he just a guy who’s in charge of engineers? ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/33 "2022-12-13T03:20:23Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > maybe the weapons officer on an SSBN? Honestly, that I don’t know. At least sometimes, yes. Both WEPS that I served under were prior-enlisted and not nuclear propulsion trained. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/34 "2022-12-13T03:22:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > So is the Chief Engineer actually an engineer, or is he just a guy who’s in charge of engineers? On a submarine, the Chief Engineer will have been through nuclear propulsion training, which the Navy claimed was equivalent to a Masters in nuclear engineering. OTOH, some of my classmates at Nuke school had been history and English majors at the Naval Academy. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/35 "2022-12-13T03:22:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > So is the Chief Engineer actually an engineer, or is he just a guy who’s in charge of engineers? On a surface ship? Maybe. On a submarine? Yes. That is, all submarine officers except the supply officer (and maybe the weapons officer on an SSBN—thanks @abcdefghij) might fairly be called “engineers” in that they will all have gone through the year-long nuclear propulsion training pipeline. Oh, and they all (all the nuke school grads officers, I mean) have to qualify as Nuclear Engineer Officers by the end of their first tour. On a surface ship, however… well, on a bigger ship they actually will tend to be an engineer. On something like a cruiser or a destroyer, they will have had less formal training and—once upon a time, but not so anymore thank god—it might once have even been their very first tour in engineering. This was a thing the Navy would do 15 or more years ago, or so I’ve heard: since all Surface Warfare Officers (the generalist surface ship equivalent to a submarine officer, but with a lot less training) are required to qualify as Engineering Officer of the Watch to qualify for command at sea, there was a time when the surface Navy applied its “sink or swim” mentality to the role of Chief Engineer. Part of the motivation may also have been spite and to avoid the “hookups for f##k ups” problem. Because Chief Engineer is a tough job, you know? If there is a way to avoid it by simply not qualifying EOOW, well… Anyway, I never had that problem. I was a surface nuke and did my share of time in… well, not engineering, but reactor department. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/36 "2022-12-13T03:32:35Z")
Thanks for all this. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/37 "2022-12-13T03:56:04Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > @iiandyiiii Why are supply officers left out? I’m not @iiandyiiii and I don’t definitively know, but probably because Supply Corps is its own distinct arm of the Navy. At least when I was in, Supply Officers tended to move between sub and surface and sea and shore more than Unrestricted Line Officers. SuppOs would get qualified as Diving Officer of the Watch, but not Officer of the Deck or Engineering Officer of the Watch. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/38 "2022-12-13T19:45:48Z")
I would think they would run watches like Horatio Hornblower and Nimitz did. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/39 "2022-12-13T21:27:17Z")
As for the OP, it was right in the first episode, The Corbormite Maneuver that they mentioned watches. Remember: MCCOY: Practically end of watch. BAILEY: What, are you all out of your minds? End of watch? It’s the end of everything. TOS would have watch changes, but it was “background” rather than a plot point. TNG must have watch changes, or otherwise how would the poor helpless red shirt (literally!) navigator get his brain fried by Nagilum instead of Westly, who was sitting there mere moments before. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425/40 "2022-12-13T22:46:27Z")
_The Corbomite Maneuver_ was the tenth episode, aired on November 10, 1966. The first aired episode was _The Man Trap_ on September 8, 1966. Oh, and it’s **Wesley** , not **Westly**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/staffing-rotas-on-star-trek-star-ships/976425.md?page=3)