Another observation: if Mariner’s buddy has the rank of captain, that means she herself must have been fucking around for 15-20 years already, none of this “I need time to find my niche” nonsense she fobbed off on her pal. And we do not know what Starfleet policy is, but it figures someone must be pulling some strings to even keep her in the service.
Her mother and father? Both high ranking officers in Starfleet.
And Star Trek (2009) showed us that a Starfleet officer can go from Cadet to Captain in a day if they are in the right place at the right time.
I just gotta say, thanks for bringing this show up. I didn’t know about it until I saw this thread a few days ago, signed up for CBS, and absolutely love it! Haven’t laughed this hard in ages. Certainly not in 2020.
Yes - and with the big hair, too! Loved that.
Don’t let a CPO hear you say that these days - technically, they’re senior noncommissioned officers: Chief petty officer - Wikipedia
There have been lieutenants junior grade on both TOS and DIS. Here’s the first one to actually appear onscreen: Joe Tormolen | Memory Alpha | Fandom. Although it doesn’t show in that picture, his rank insignia was a single intermittent line of gold sleeve braid: Lieutenant junior grade | Memory Alpha | Fandom
Watch out! It’s a homicidal Clippy!: Office Assistant - Wikipedia
No. I think it’s just to give things more of a bunkhouse feel; much easier for the characters to interact than if they all have their own quarters.
It’s a real thing, at any rate:
and they repeatedly state or imply that their ship is old and cramped.
Technically they are both. Noncommissioned officers are enlisted. Not all enlisted are noncommissioned officers. From your link with my bold.
I know the Navy gives its senior NCOs more privileges than the other services and treats them like officers in a lot of respects, but the fact of the matter is that they have neither a commission nor a warrant. They sign an enlistment contract (and have an “E” pay grade) like the rest of us peons - they’re enlisted.
More to the point, IIRC, it’s explicitly established in dialogue in DS9 that Chief O’Brien is enlisted, not an officer like the other Starfleet main characters.
There was a LtJG on TNG too. Jean-Luc Picard.
Oh, yes, and quite a few others since. But gdave was talking about TOS-era in particular.
As has been noted, that’s not true. There were various “crewman” throughout the series, clearly not Officers. And there were various mean walking around the ship, in “worker bee” attire.
I think this was a mistake, corrected by Roddenberry. I remember twice, once on a star base, and once by Decker on the Constitution there were “non Star Trek” patches. (There may have been more.) But Roddenberry stated that was not to be the case and it stopped.
I can’t track down the original quote, so maybe it’s apocryphal, but it’s commonly mentioned in online discussion of Star Trek’s rank structure that Roddenberry himself publicly stated that everyone on the Enterprise was an officer. There’s certainly no dialogue that I’m aware of that firmly establishes the existence of any enlisted ranks in TOS.
There are “crewman” characters, but there’s no particular indication if that’s an enlisted rank, or just a generic term of address. There are, IIRC, two “Yeoman” characters, but, again, it’s unclear if that’s an enlisted rank/rating. From dialogue, it always seemed to me that it was a position, not a rank, a personal assistant to the Captain.
As to uniforms, sure, there are “worker bees” in utility uniforms, but there’s absolutely no indication that those are enlisted uniforms. In the contemporary military, both officers and enlisted wear a variety of specialized uniforms for special duties. In fact, as pointed out upthread, ensigns in TOS have “slicksleeves”, without any rank insignia. If the “slicksleeves” we see in the background include enlisted personnel, it seems odd that they have no rank insignia at all.
This post makes an attempt to rectify the various insignia seen in TOS, and includes the memo indicating the error in one episode. Still, we’re left with the fact that TOS did, in fact, show Starfleet personnel wearing a number of different insignia, while in every other series, Starfleet personnel all wore the same insignia.
Also, you’re taking Roddenberry’s extracurricular statements as canon over-riding what we actually see on screen in this case, but disregarding Roddenberry’s extracurricular statements on whether Starfleet had enlisted ranks.
At the end of the day, though, as I believe both I and others have said, we’re spending a lot more time and effort discussing this than the writers, producers, directors, and costume designers ever did. I think that this issue is just one that the creators just never paid much attention to. In some episodes, Starfleet clearly has enlisted ranks. In other episodes, it doesn’t.
Roddenberry’s overall vision was awesome but his command of the facts was often oddly self-contradictory. Sometimes his understanding of his own creation was amazingly precise, and someone he was weird and stubborn and would say one thing and then another.
And anyway they screw stuff up all the time. I am reminded of a thing I saw once where someone went to Roddenberry and said “Gene, what the hell is the difference between a defector and a shield?” And Roddenberry KNEW; he gave a ten-minute explanation, breakign down the difference. Deflectors are forward-facing, low level shields that push microscopic particles out of the way as the ship moves through space. Shields are an all-around, stronger field of energy that can block weapons fire.
But the dialogue confuses those terms ALL THE TIME. You just have to shrug and go along with it.
Let me be clear. I really don’t care much either way. I’m not one to get all riled up on these things.
Having said that, Kirk never called anyone that we know of as an Officer “crewman” in any episode or film over the entire series. He never called Sulu, or Scotty for example “crewman” at any point. Heck in the second scene of the first episode we meet Crewman Darnell and he’s referred to several times, and only by “crewman” or “Darnell.” I could give them a pass because it was the first episode. (Others seem to think that every minute must be treated as canon, yourself included judging from the insignia discussion.) In the Navy there are no Officer yeoman, they’re all Enlisted. Officers that perform yeoman like duties (aides or assistants) are call by their rank or title, i.e. “Lieutenant” or “EA.”
So as to your “have your cake and eat it too” comment you’re right. We are both taking the show as gospel on the one hand, and taking Roddenberry at his word on the other. We’re just picking opposite spots.
I’ll agree with your last comment, and I’ve made the same one numerous times. These writers worked scrips for a few weeks or a month, the actors shot the thing in 5-6 days and moved onto the next episode. Never in their wildest dreams did they think we’d be replaying these episodes for over 50 years, dissecting them word by word, frame by frame. It’s a testament to them that TOS holds together as well as it does, especially the third season when Roddenberry had effectively checked out.
Different show, I realize, but I remember hearing the late Robert Conrad taking about The Wild Wild West. A caller asked him about a scene in an episode and he went off on the guy (more than he should have I think). He said something along the lines of “I got the script at 7am, shot the scene at 11am and was drinking by 6pm. I never watched the show, and never thought about that scene again.”
Same.
Fair point.
That comment, honestly, does get me a little riled up. I don’t think “every minute must be treated as canon.” I’m not arguing for an absolute position on what’s canon and what’s not - in fact, I’m pointing out that the series is internally inconsistent. I thought I was having a friendly discussion of geeky minutiae. If I’m coming across as dogmatic, or as if I’m getting riled up over this, I sincerely apologize.
Which is fine, except that Starfleet only kinda-sorta follows contemporary USN usages. I’m definitely not arguing that Yeoman Rand and Yeoman Colt were definitely officers - just that it’s not entirely clear from the internal evidence if they were supposed to be enlisted or junior officers. For that matter, again, I don’t think the writers and producers were entirely clear themselves on what they thought Starfleet’s rank structure was.
I don’t actually think we are. Agreed that the U.S.S. Exeter distinctive insignia was a production error. But, as the post I linked to above goes into great detail on, there are five other badge insignia that appear in TOS, some in multiple episodes. Those could all be production errors, and maybe the “canon” is that Starfleet has always only used the “delta” for all of its personnel - but that’s a lot of production errors. Again, though, I think the ultimate answer is that the canon on this is just plain inconsistent.
100% agree.
ISTR an interview with production staff at the time ST:TMP came out, that the Enterprise’s five-year mission had been so successful that, upon her return, her arrowhead insignia was adopted Starfleet-wide to honor her crew’s remarkable accomplishments.
That’s my memory as well. But, on the other hand, we have the fact that the prequels like Enterprise and Star Trek: Discovery seem to show all Starfleet personnel with the arrowhead. We also have the production memo that is displayed in the post I linked to above. In that memo, producer Robert Justman writes:
I have checked the occurrences [of differing starship insignia] out with Mr. Roddenberry, who has reassured me that all Starship personnel wear the Starship emblem that we have established for our Enterprise Crew members to wear…should we have Starfleet personnel in any other episodes, please make certain that they wear the proper emblem.
On the gripping hand, we have the fact, explored in some detail in that same post, that five other emblems appear on Starfleet uniforms, some of them in multiple episodes.
So… 
Getting back on topic …
I thought today’s episode was easily the best one so far. You can’t go wrong with a classic “crew on trial story” and I loved the way the writers sent up every trope and cliche. Every character got some good laughs, Kurtwood Smith was hilarious as always and, of course, who doesn’t love to see John de Lancie as Q ?
Fave lines:
Romulan 1: “You know who I hate? Remans.”
Romulan 2: “Oh, they’re the worst.”
“OK, they’re done scanning! Oh god, they’re scanning again!”
“Today didn’t have to end in eels!”
Trial? What trial?