It made sense for Janeway not to promote him: there was nowhere to promote him to. Kim should have been promoted very quickly after they got back to Earth, though.
@@valhar2000 Not really. We see that by Picard’s time, Helm was a Lt JG’s billet. He’s far too junior to have that job, so a brevet promotion (which we *did* see Janeway do, btw) or reassignment was in order.
Add to that the shenanigans of a university/scientific foundation board, and you get: Starfleet. Part science collab, part military, part political power player.
Seems like they used military ranks as the foundation of structure, corporates as the driver of structure and science as the tools of structure. Philosophy morality etc seems to come from post apocalyptic (They did nuke themselves) plus it seems to be part of the human identity in general. I think I get what their trying to make.
@@harrisonfnord5871 ...and part of mad 😁 Sorry, while reading your comment, I've suddenly rememberd Terry Prattchet's description of the fiercy creature that ist the Quetzovercoatl: half man, half chicken, half jaguar, half serpent, half scorpion and half mad.
It's a loosey-goosey adaptation, or rather a riff on American Naval Officer heirarchy; at least as far as commissioned officers are concerned. NCO and Warrant ranks are a different (and frankly butchered) beast altogether; amalgamating chain structures intersectionary to several American military branches.
There is a precedent for multiple officers with the rank of Captain in navies. An aircraft carrier will be commanded by a Captain, the executive officer is often a Captain, the commander of the embarked air wing will be a Captain, the chief engineer may be a Captain, and if serving as a flagship there’s likely to be a Captain or two on the Admiral’s staff.
Those are captains in different divisions, mind, and ultimately subordinate to the ship's commander. The movie-era ship of captains was incredibly silly.
Regarding the commander of the air wing, aren't those air force ranks? If so, an air force captain is not the same rank as a naval captain. A naval captain = air force colonel, while a air force captain = naval lieutenant
@@MaxRawhide no. the Navy pilots and the US Marine pilots who make up the air wing of a carrier use the same insignia but each branches naming structure. A Marine Captain is the same as a Naval Lieutenant. Insignia is the Double bar.
@@talideon Actually the Captains on the Admiral's staff are not part of the Carrier's crew and not subordinate to the ship's commander, in fact the ship's commander answers to the Admiral aboard. The Air Wing has a somewhat strange relationship to the carrier's captain as they both answer to him and are separate commands.
Lore is super sparse when it comes to enlisted ranks. The ranks are probably Crewman, Petty Officer, Chief Petty Officer, Senior Chief Petty Offier, Master Chief Petty Officer. All that was said was that their academy was 6 months long. Beside that I don't think there were that many discussions. I wouldn't doubt that, like astronauts coming out of the Air Force, the majority of ship crews were required to be made up almost entirely of officers. While part of the 32nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, the ships we were transported in had tiny amounts of officers. Pretty much you had the Captain, the XO, the head of each department, and that's it. The rest of the positions were from the enlisted ranks. Yeoman, navigation, radar operators, nurses, gun operators, all of them enlisted
As a US Navy vet I find Star Trek's ranks rather top heavy and vague. My ship had 300ish crew and 24 or so officers, and if any of the officers tried to touch machinery more complicated than a coffee maker the nearest Chief Petty Officer would chew their ass all the way out the door. In a respectful manner of course...
@@CheezyDee in large corporations the unions forced sharp separations of duties so that being hands-on for non union people gets you in trouble. Perhaps non union places allowed people to work together and help out when it seemed right. I had a mental image where soldiers in the field recognized Death does not care about your rank. So soldiers needed to work together.
You could write a book on the title Commodore alone. In the Age of Sail, Commodore was a temporary title granted to the most senior Captain of an ad-hoc flotilla. Sometime in the mid to late 1800s, the British Royal Navy made Commodore the naval equivalent of the One Star Brigadier General. The US Navy has had a complicated relationship with British naval traditions. They used the term Commodore, with the same British definition during WWII, Then dropped the rank entirely; brought it in the early 80s, changed it from Commodore to Commodore-Admiral, and now Rear Admiral(lower half) ...
During WWII there was also two ranks of Commodore in the Royal Navy with Commodore Second class using the thick Distinction Lace on shoulder strap and a Commodore First Class with an Admiral's shoulder strap showing an anchor and two small stars and no crossed sword and baton
In Bagdad, during OIF, there was a US Navy outfit commanded by a Captain (equivalent to a US Army "full-bird" Colonel) and when he was addressed directly or referred to informally, his title was Commodore. It was explained to me that this was because he didn't command a ship at sea... In true Army tradition, I saluted, called him "Sir!" and kept moving.
@@jacobbaughman748 The USN still uses the title of Commodore but it's no longer a rank, it's a billet. Commodore is the title of an O6 Captain that's in charge of a group ships, typically a squadron but can be just a task force of 2 or more ships.
@@Riceball01 okay, I can see that. The unit this guy commanded was called a Composite Squadron, but I couldn't tell you how many people were in it. Typically, in the Army, an O-6 commands between 3-5 thousand soldiers. Or, as many as 8 thousand.
@@jacobbaughman748 In the Navy, O-6 Captains are typically given command of larger ships, definitely aircraft carriers, possibly amphibious assault ships, cruisers, and I think SSBNs. Of course, they can be in command of a squadron of ships which would equal to several hundred men and women. But I think that overall, a Navy Captain is in command of fewer people, on average, than an Army or Marine Colonel who are usually regimental commanders at that rank.
Honestly, almost everything described here matches the real-world Navy nearly 100%. The ranks are nearly directly lifted, the disposition of duties is almost identical, the progression from operations to administration and political involvement is spot-on. Yeah, Starfleet isn't a military organization in cannon, but its framing is about 95% identical to the real world military progression. Source: career Air Force, brother career Navy. The annual football game is hilarious.
While the ranks are near identical I wouldn't say the progressions and duties were.I'm a 11 year veteran of the US Navy. As an example Operations Officers are a bigger deal in the real world than portrayed in Star Trek. There's no way a boot ensign fresh out the academy would report to a ship to be the Operations Officer.
Gene Roddenberry was part of us army Air corps. Star Trek Ranks were designed to imitate military. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Gene_Roddenberry
@@joekerr3638 true but just because he had dirt and air military experience doesn’t mean he fully appreciated how military hierarchy (specifically naval military hierarchy) works
@@kengaroo67 technically the original Harry Kim died when voyager entered that nebula that “twinned” The ship and was he was sucked out into space, body unrecovered anf Thr copy allowed to assume the originals life. Same thing with Naomi Wildman.
@@kengaroo67 Harry Kim has a copy of him assume his life in one form or another on 3 separate occasions in voyager if I recall. Edit: 5 times if you count time travel (episodes specific to him), each one ends up with a dead Harry Kim too. Also if you count all his near deaths your pushing it into the teens. Come to think of it he is something of a Kenny. Heck in one episode they straight up kill him.
Poor Harry... I don’t think I’ve pitied a fictional character more. Never appreciated, had a criminal promoted over him, demoted and promoted again. What ever nasty messed up thing that happed happened to him. Well at least he makes captain eventually... I think? No all of those were alternate timelines or dreams or something... Never mind. 🥺
Having multiple persons with the rank of Captain serving on the same ship has precedent in real world navies. On US Navy aircraft carriers for example, there are usually several officers with the rank of captain, the Commanding Officer of the ship is always one, the Executive Officer, the Reactor Officer and the Chief Engineer often are, and there may be others aboard as well, not to mention Captains in the Air Wing and on the embarked Admiral's staff. Also, in general, the Starfleet rank structure and chain of command actually is fairly close to that of the real world US Navy. The ranks of Commander & Captain in the US Navy haven't been directly tied to holding a command for well over a century.
I've often felt Commodore was a perfectly fine, under-used rank in the TNG/DS9 era Trek. Commanding a fleet or task force, but not quite an Admiral. In the novelizations, Sisko talks about being in something of a Commodore position during the war under Admiral Ross, even though his official rank was still Captain. Picard would likewise have been a Commodore during the blockade of Romulan boarder during the Klingon civil war. Technically, Picard should really have been an Admiral, or at least a Commodore for the entire run of the series, since he was in command of the "flag ship", which are typically commanded by flag officers, and he would have been called upon to command full fleets or battle groups when needed.
You might be interested to know that in the USN, a Captain given command of a squadron of ships is often informally referred to as the Commodore, though there is no such official rank in the USN anymore (it being called Rear Admiral (Lower Half).
Except that when they refer to the enterprise as being the “flag ship” they use it the term in a more of a ceremonial manner than as a practical one. It’s just been a tradition that every lead class of ship since the constitution class (one that class has been successfully established) it gets a ship named (or renamed ) Enterprise AFTER the previous incarnation has left service in one way or another.
Ahh, Space Navy. As a Boatswain Mate myself, I was particularly fond of Enterprise, since they made that ship look as much like a submarine in space as they could.
A lot of people don’t know is that when the Original Series came out in the ‘60s, all astronauts in the US were officers either in the Air Force, Navy, or Marines as they were pilots or aviators. Thus, most of the members on the original Enterprise crew were also officers; the naval ranks were used because it was a star fleet, although Starfleet didn’t show up as an organization until the second season.
It's based on a naval structure. Officers went to starlets officer training program. Crewmen are those who just enlist and are trained for the specific role they chose.
Crewman which I assume is the lowest non officer rank and Chief Petty officer are the only ones I know of but I assume that means there is at least one Petty officer rank.
There are often times in the military where a person has to assume the duties of a rank above the one they actually hold. For example, a squad leader is usually a sergeant, but a corporal might often have to fill the role instead. Or a first lieutenant might have to assume command of a company if a captain isn't available
I haven't watched ST: TNG for three decades now but I do recall an episode wherein Counselor Troi became the top officer of the enterprise after the three highest officials were out of the ship. The funny thing is that she didn't know how high her rank was until someone told her about it. Come to think about it, Troi always sits beside Picard in the show.
I remember the episode where Dr. Crusher actually countermanded Captain Picard - which was her right as the CMO - and held command of the Enterprise until the problem was solved. I think the EMH did that to CPT Janeway once also. I don't think Dr. Bashir was confident enough in his position as CMO of DS9 to dare countermand CPT Sisko if the need arose.
They were all aboard the ship, but cut off from the bridge. It is up for debate as to who was more terrified in response to O'Brien mentioning her rank, Ro or Troi. It was season 5, episode 5. The episode title is Disaster, which describes both the situation that put Troi in command & having Troi in command. "I wore a uniform ONE TIME... FOUR YEARS AGO & someone who isn't even normally on the bridge, but is RIGHT NOW just had to remember from the 1 other time he was on the bridge!!!"
I think so many captains aboard a vessel was originally a matter of being a training ship, and then unusual diplomatic duties used as an excuse to keep the popular mutineers contained after that.
It may also have to do with neither Scott nor Spock being interested in taking command of their own ship, but somehow couldn't escape a promotion to captain after serving in the fleet for so many years. Mr. Scott was too much of an engineer and Mr. Spock too much of a scientist to leave their positions.
@@henriblakeley5185 Unfortunately I have 'Covid brain' at the moment so can't give precise examples. However In real Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DSN, VOY and to a certain extent Enterprise), you can be a high rank but your rank only works to show you are a specialist, it doesn't mean others of a lower rank have to obey you if they know more than you do about a situation. It's more a 'leadership by expertise' thing. Of course, there are variations depending on the needs of the story
Note about Medical Doctors : Unlike most officer posts that only take 4 years of education to get commissioned, MDs and DOs require a minimum of 8 years plus residency, so it is very common that they don't go through OCS and are promoted immediately to O-3 to have a pay comparable to civilian physicians. Marine Corps band, is another one that works this way. No boot camp and everyone has the rank of E-6 staff sergeant to have a decent pay vs performing at a well known orchestra.
In the United States Navy, which the officer rank structure is based, did, at one time, have the rank of Commodore, and was the entry into the flag ranks. The rank of Commodore was abandoned in favor of the rank of Rear Admiral Lower Half (one star), and Rear Admiral Upper Half (two stars). There has not been a Fleet Admiral appointed in the Navy since World War II. Even the current Chief of Naval Operations is only a full Admiral at four stars.
Exactly but he technically is a Rear Admiral Upper half, two stars. Anything above that is what is called a temporary rank or rank of position. What that means is if the current CNO retires which he will at the end of his current posting, and he does not petition congress to allow him to retire with admiral rank he will automatically retire at rear admiral upper half. Its complicated and all that but when a vice admiral is removed from position due to any number of things he will revert back to 2 star. Pretty much its the posting that holds the rank and the person in that posting is allowed to use that rank while they hold that position.
Same with the Royal Navy as regards Admirals of the Fleet (the equivalent of Fleet Admiral in the USN). Since the end of the cold war, officers haven't been promoted to the rank, and only two officers still remain on the Navy List holding this rank (and one of them is the King). The professional head of the RN-the First Sea Lord; is, like his US equivalent, 'only' an Admiral.
Good thing Voyager kept everything making sense. Ensign Harry Kim giving duty orders to lieutenants. Janeway promoted from Captain to Vice Admiral skipping rear admiral and commodore.
Commodore was not used by her time, and everyone got a two rank promotion. Tuvok would be a captain if he wanted it, Harry would be a Lt.Commander etc. There is no point in making Janeway a rear admiral, she has no need to be the head of a small project or starbase. She gets a desk
To be fair, it's common in the US Navy (probably other navies as well) for someone who is lower rank but more knowledgeable about a given issue to tell someone who is higher rank how to go about finding a solution. As an example, I'm an IT3 in the Navy. If I know more about fixing a computer than an LT, then I can tell the LT how to fix the problem.
@@neopolitangaming1362 not sure if they still use warrant officers, but that basically what they do. still non-commissioned, but far more experienced than the ensign or lieutenant fresh from the academy.
I think the concept of Starfleet, not being a military organization was added post TNG. In the TOS episode Tomorrow Is Yesterday, Captain Christopher asks Kirk how many Enterprise type ships does the navy have. And Kirk responds, we are a combined service.
The refit constitution class enterprise was being used as a training vessel so having multiple captains from each division kirk(command) spock(science) and scotty(operations) to allow for in the field command level reviews without having to dock at appropriately staffed starbases
Not the case, Kirk was an Admiral and Spock was the captain of the Enterprise. When Kirk was busted to Captain, Spock still was a captain as his first officer. Scotty became an Captain when he went to the Excelsior and retained that rank when he came back.
And now in the 25th century of STO, everyone and their brother in both Starfleet and the Romulan Republic is a Fleet Admiral now, and the Klingon Empire is stuffed to bursting with Dahar Masters. :P
I do get the need for levels in game but I don’t think your game level should be tied to your character’s rank in story. Most likely Hale would be a captain for good ten years or more before advancing.
When mentioning entering the Admiralty to oversee Starfleet Medical at 10:15 that would have been a perfect place to show a picture of Admiral McCoy from the pilot episode of the Next Generation series.
Starfleet, as well as the ranking system, is based on the the US Navy. It's actually not unusual for their to be multiple Captains on ships. I served on the Eisenhower, an aircraft carrier with about 5000 sailors. The Commanding Officer was obviously a Captain, but so was the XO. There was a Captain at the head of medical, and a few other departments. As well as the head of the some of the many airwings we had on board. So the Enterprise having multiple Captains serving onboard is well within believability.
@@whirledpeaz5758 bite, like it sucked to be there? Yeah it did lol, but it had its good moments. I was there from 2012-15. Our douchebag CMC secured the E-4 and below smoke pit for 2 weeks mid deployment once. Those were dark times.... 😂😂
IIRC, Spock was the official Captain of the Enterprise in WOK. Kirk was simply observing the training cruise. When an actual crisis developed, and one which personally involved Kirk, Spock consented to his superior officer assuming command. This would have been assumed to have been temporary. STV kinda messed that plan up I suppose.
it matches the US navy pretty closely. role of the fleet is pretty similar as well. EDIT: to put things into perspective there is positional authority, in which a duty requires certain authorities (such as Petty Officer of the Watch in which you may need to order an officer) and you gain those authorities while carrying out those duties. this makes the navy rather flexible in who to put where. during the Vietnam War the army was tasked with handling the rivers, but they were too rigid with how they did things, especially with rank. this meant that they failed pretty hard at doing that. the navy took over and did very well as they had enlisted handling things that officers typically did. experience at running the patrol boats was very eclectic as a little of everything was needed, and the traditional experience of running a ship didn't apply. that being said they needed the same authority that commanding officers needed, and so enlisted with more experience of doing things at a deck plate level did better than officers if they were given the authority of officers. when outside the role of the patrol boats they were just enlisted and thus couldn't mess up the overall operations of the fleet. they didn't need to know the full breadth of the systems such as logistics, as they just needed to know the part that dealt with the boats. this made them unable to transition over to the fleet well enough, but the greater need for knowing more than just one area meant that officers didn't transition to the boats very well either. take the scene in Band of Brothers in which the leader got promoted and was held back from running out and doing the job, this is opposite of what the boats need (as they don't have the manpower to have someone sitting on the side lines). on top of that the 'defense is only part of the job' is pretty much the Navy throughout all of history. they were ones that explored the world, and handled diplomacy (or ferried diplomats if it was important enough). today they are critical to mapping the oceans and keeping water borne commerce going. they also have and still work with scientists in researching things that need to be done in international waters. they handle policing actions in international waters, though carefully as they are not a police force and have a lot of rules to worry about to ensure they don't overstep their jurisdiction. there isn't much that Starfleet does that the US Navy hasn't been responsible for in the past or is currently responsible for (not to say they are or were solely responsible).
Klingon ranking was basically equivalent to the Federation but replaced the Navy rank names with Army ones, with Generals at the top of the command structure.
Basically they are almost all technically Ensigns. They got automatically promoted after surviving their superior officers which happens every three weeks on average. Honor and Death in Battle - you know?
Always thought the Klingon ranks(more like positions) were something like this: Chancellor Vice-Chancellor General Group Commander [acting] Commander 1st Adjutant(1st officer of the ship/2nd in command) 2nd Adjutant(weapons officer) 3rd Adjutant(engineering officer) Master Warrior(acting section leaders) Senior Warrior Warrior
A suggestion: It might be interesting to look at the ranking systems for other Trek civilizations (for instance, Gul and Legate for the Cardassians, etc.).
Rather than climbing the ranks, I'll just wait for something like the Dominion War or Time of Month NERO to show up, that way you get promoted a lot just for not being dead.
Fleet captain is separate of commodore. It's explained in both TOS and voyager. Fleet captain is only used when the flag officer is killed or absent. The captain of the ship with the most tactical abilities becomes Fleet captain until a new flag officer arrives or they are promoted to commodore.
Yes and no because starfleet did use it as a means of like, your gonna be promoted into the admiralty but because you haven't finished serving your time as captain so we are going to put you here. So pike and Sisco( although you never see Sisco put the fifth pip on his collar).
Picard was a fleet captain several times leading groups of ships. In thinking about the Romulan trying to get the klingons into a civil war. And Technically Jainway was for like a second when the discoverd the Equinox.
@@magickquill6724 I actually think Picard was always a fleet captain. StarfIeet just never had much in the ways of fleet and flotilla movement during the 24th century. It was discussed in "Chain of Command" as his experience, and impressive ship, would have made him in charge of any assaults by Starfleet. It also sounded like Picard, Jellico and Gul Madred all made statements suggesting that Picard was aware of sector movements in case something happened and he needed to respond.
When was a Fleet Captain mentioned in VOY? I racked my brain for awhile trying to figure out what a Fleet Captain's responsibilities are compared to a commodore.
Amazing how they operated with so few " crewmen ". Seems to be a really top heavy operation. I have never seen any commissioned officer doing manual labor in my 21 years in Marines.
I suspect a long of "grunt work" is accomplished through automation. The closest we get to seeing a ratio that looks more like today's military is in Star Trek VI.
@@mpsmith47304 I feel like with space travel, it would be a lot more important that you could trust your crew as well, and the stricter criteria for any rank would likely try to ensure that. As the shows have explored, even one small error can cause a live threatening disaster, and while that's true with many current operations, I'd imagine the risks are much higher in space.
There are provisional ranks too with their own insignia. There is also the Fleet Captain rank with 5 pips that is below Commodore and above Captain. There are also other departments within Starfleet with their own rank structures. Such as Deputy Director Sloan from Internal Affairs who had 4 pips with a bar underneath the pips (though he was really from Section 31).
From what I have been told, the higher ranks in STO are more of an "honorary" rank, that allows you to take charge in situations that require it. Otherwise you're still basically just a Captain.
@@gaboversta2.423 a friend of mine who has been in contact with the devs says that as a Federation character in STO, you're basically Fleet Admiral Quinn's favourite protege, and as such end up with special command privileges.
@@BlueSatoshi modification table of organisation and equipment. It’s a military thing, the short version is they’re assigned there on the org chart, even though the regulations may specify a Commander or Lt. should have that post. For example, a Squadron Commander is expected to be a Colonel, but because of manpower reasons a LtCol is assigned to it.
@@Marin3r101 Agreed. I've never seen two captains serving on the same vessel in the ST universe. The rank allocation on the ships is far different fron real life military org charts.
As I recall, there was the rank of Ensign, Junior Grade, with the insignia of a single black dot, as well as Commodore, with the insignia of five gold dots, during the “Next Generation” era.
@@RaWeir2On a Galaxy Class ship with 3 sickbays and no EMH, her duties may mostly have been administrative, but would have been the only person to treat the Captain. She likely was chief surgeon and coroner, though there were other doctors on board and she would not need to be present for every surgery. A lot of duties may have been delegated as officers were promoted, so she would be able to juggle her duties as needed in order to fill in a bridge officer shift.
Would appreciate it if you did a vid on all the non-comissioned ranks and where in the hierarchy they fit; because in DS9 Ensign Nog clearly takes orders from Chief O'Brien on the Defiant which contrasts your statements that Cheif Petty Officers were subordinate... yes he was named as Head of Engineering, but he was not given Lt. Cmdr. Ranks like Geordi, B'Ellana, Scotty, Etc.
That is a matter of position as a department head overriding rank. Nog was astonished when he found out that he would be recognized as Captain if he and enlisted like O'Brien were the only ones left on the Bridge of the Defiant. Senior NCOs make sure that junior officers have the guidance when the manuals are not on point.
@@CaptainFrost32 Except that that would never happen...simply put Chief O'Brien would never be a department head, not as Enlisted anyway and only maybe as a Warrant Officer (There are five Warrant officer ranks in the US military, WO and CW2 - CW5) i.e. Chief Warrant Officer O'Brien. In the UK warrant officers are part of the enlisted ranks but in the US they are their own officer rank between the enlisted ranks and commissioned officer ranks.
Star Trek seems far more merit-based with assignments than modern militaries. So while it's true that Nog would have the authority to give O'Brien orders (O'Brien even makes that remark in the show), it's also true that Nog would be trained to not do that unless some bigger-picture situation demanded it. O'Brien was head of his department, and everyone in that department, including officers, were expected to follow his orders, because his authority came from officers higher up than the ones in that department. However, if something happened and one of O'Brien's officers suddenly had command authority outside that department, then O'Brien would take orders from them. In short, authority derived from whoever put someone in their position. Some admiral put O'Brien there, so ignoring O'Brien's orders is basically ignoring that admiral's intent.
@@Mortlupo and most of the ranks O’Brien is said to have would be medium warrant ranks, evidently Starfleet just called them all noncoms much like how you mentioned the British system regards it
@@PaulGuy Not how it works in any military or para-military. Your authority comes from both your rank and your position in the chain of command. Warrant officers, most likely what Chief O'Brian is instead of a Chief Petty Officer (E-7), neither of which would commissioned officers (Ensign and up) assigned to their "Department", they would be in fact assigned to the Ensign's department.
There's nothing all that strange about multiple people of the same rank serving under someone of the same rank. Positional hierarchy always trumps actual rank in matters related to said position. This is why a Lt. Cmdr. CMO aboard a ship can order its captain to stand down and report to the medical facilities for treatment if they judge it necessary. In the same way, even a fleet admiral's authority is not absolute. The ship's designated Captain always holds supreme authority over it in matters of life and death, even if there's a Fleet Admiral aboard.
Yup. The Fleet Admiral directs the action. The Captain is responsible for performing that action and making sure their ship and crew make it through that action as safely as possible.
"Or occasionally a similarly accepted Federation institution" -- We got something in TOS about Dr. McCoy having attended medical school (that is, some university medical doctoral degree) before joining Starfleet. I _think_ we got that on the show rather than in novels. Maybe with the Prof. Dr. Crater and Nancy Crater / Man Trap / Salt Vampire episode? But whether he then had some Starfleet Academy traiining, or how he got in, I'm not sure was stated, yet there he was. -- Spock apparently attended the Vulcan Science Academy and Starfleet Academy, or else he went into Starfleet Academy rather than the Vulcan Science Academy. -- So even back then, there could be some overlap or exceptions, with whatever Starfleet training added on. -- In our present-day military, usually NCO's get college training before or during service, thus their higher rans and position, and then there can be Officer Candidate Training School programs, as I understand it, if an NCO is recommended to become a Commissioned Officer. There are a few universities with military cadet training programs which, once a cadet graduates, can become a commissioned officer in a given branch of service, besides their national government's military academies. Then the astronaut and cosmonaut training programs are for military or civilian people, special training, not yet a commonly accepted or even offered major of study for a university degree. Airline and other pilots typically attend a junior or community college program for a degree. So the Strfleet system is probably an outgrowth of that into the fictional future.
Although never explicitly mentioned, I assume Starfleet Academy has a shortened course for already credentialed individuals similar to OCS. Also, I assume there there a program for enlisted personnel, and likely specialty schools and graduate programs. I've always assumed, for example, that Saavik had already graduated and been commissioned (she is a LtJG in STII) and was attending a graduate Command school.
The rank structure closely mirrors modern blue-water navies. Depending on the size of the ship, the CO & XO can vary a fair bit, as can the ranks of department heads.
Typically Commanders were assigned the role over over seeing Starbases or outposts, while if they serve on a starship it was under a Captain. It appears that Captain Sisko was unusual in starfleet. As normally once promoted he would of been given a ship command instead of a station command. He might have special circumstances like the fact defiant is stationed there and he is the Emissary making him hard if not impossible to replace as the ranking officer.
He had a very small staff at the beginning of the series, as the station wasn't considered a choice assignment and had limited operational duties. Essentially just to oversee getting Bajor back on its feet and ultimately into Federation membership. But that changed right off the bat with the wormhole discovery and relocation of DS9 to serve as an incoming ship repair facility and trading station for the Gamma quadrant. So right there he doubled his staff. Then the staff ballooned a lot more when the Defiant was stationed as it would require a full time ready crew to be based on the station itself, not to mention far more extra security personnel to aid against a new Dominion threat. Increasing staff would warrant a higher pay grade.
The informality you described is quite similar to the US military. Within reason, a person can achieve a billet even if their rank and experience doesn't support it, the goal being that the person rises to the challenge and gets promoted. You can also see many Captains working within the same command even though you'll only have one CO. Rank structures don't really have complexity on paper, but the means by which a person is promoted can vary, the fastest being by attending leadership schools and volunteering for special duties. Star Fleet operates in very much the same way I've seen the military operate.
@Glen Young I agree with ya mostly but i do think Harry gets more respect than you're letting on. He's always shown as an integral part of any problem solving the crew has to do, until 7 of 9 was introduced that is.
@Glen Young Yeah i can definitely agree with all that. Personally i think the biggest sin was making him so bad romantically lol. They gave him the Geordie La Forge problem and i always wished they let my man Harry get a little something. I think from a writer's standpoint, Tom was a good pilot and they thought it was just cool to have a cool pilot doing a bunch of cool stuff, and unfortunately Harry got the short end of the stick. Wish it had been different, you know, i got many gripes with Voyager but damn do i love it.
You missed one. Deputy director was a senior position in Starfleet's Department of Internal Affairs. Luther Sloan (of Section 31) claimed to hold this position while he posed as an agent of Internal Affairs in 2374. Sloan wore a Starfleet uniform with a modified captain's rank insignia during his subterfuge. (DS9: "Inquisition") The insignia consisted of the four pips of a captain centered over a single gold bar.
Having served in the US Army, I can say that ranks are a determination of authority to maintain a line of command when needed. Other than that, someone's job description may give them authority over other individuals who may outrank them. A company's Executive Officer (XO) may be a 2nd Lieutenant (2LT) who may have authority over a Platoon Leader who is a 1st Lieutenant (1LT).
First off. Rick: Great video. Really well done. Second: Commodore was used during the TOS era to somewhat reflect real life (at the time) Naval commodore rank equivalent and then was transitioned to Rear Admiral (Lower Half) in TNG to reflect the US Naval transition to discard Commodore to a flag officer of the lowest rank. Third: Kirk demoted himself (via orders of Admiral Nogura) to the rank of Captain, which in turn, demoted Decker to Commander (XO), and was reflected (as far as I remember) in their uniform displayed rank. Fourth: I would absolutely love to see a video made to show what the enlisted ranks (which I was one of) to break down their rights and responsibilities. As always Rick, you make fantastic videos that brighten my day up. Thank you very much, Sir.
@@richardm3023 Arguments and statement has its time and place. People tend keep things relevant to the topics at hand to keep the discussion focused on one thing at a time. Yes, Discovery has the worse ranking insignia in Star Trek because its design was too small for other member of Star fleet to see especially those who need glasses, yes, apparently many of starfleet officers prefer to keep their eyes and uses glasses over artificial or bionic or any robotic eye implants but more importantly it is also hard for the audience to see and recognize which is which because we still had to count the dots even if can see it. In a show with ranks and hundreds of supporting cast with minimum screen time, people have to be able see their ranks since they will not remember their names, their face, and their role beyond the main and major supporting characters who appears almost in every episode (But even then people can still forget about their ranks). One of the main reason was in our world, army ranks insignia is big and placed where it is easy to see. On top of that they also had names on their chest along with their rank so soldiers can see who is their superior officer or who is reporting to them right when they meet each other.
@@aldyhabibie9717 wow! You really do have a lot to say. And yet you are just making noise. I don't even bother reading long winded preaching posts like that. You have wasted your time.
Starfleet is just a diplomatic organization with many powerful weapons at its disposal. Imagine being in a Nebula class ship conference room and seeing the torpedo launcher array at the back of the ship towering over everyone. That is just a friendly diplomatic reminder of take my carrot or I will give you the baseball bat really hard. Make your choice now!
In naval history, there was the rank of Post Captain... to distinguish between a Captain who had a temporary command of a ship and one who was permanently posted to a ship. And Commodore was used to describe a Captain who was, for whatever reason, on another Captain's ship... as there can be only one Captain. I always assumed this is why Decker was referred to as Commodore in "The Doomsday Machine".
A Commodore in the day of sail in the Royal Navy was usually a Captain assigned to command a small group of ships that didn't warrant the higher pay that Admirals got. As such, it was a (usually temporary) rank rather than position, although since 1993 it's been a permanent rank in the Royal Navy. Re. Matt Decker, he did have the sleeve lace of a Starfleet commodore, so we can surmise that he did actually have that as a rank.
@@jonathanwebster7091 Interesting. I don't doubt that that is true... naval traditions and procedures of that time seem wildly intricate and complex to me, and varying a lot from navy to navy.
Yeah, linking rank to level was probably not a great idea in hindsight. Although there is one nice touch. Once you're an Admiral in levels, you get the 'Admiralty' system. Ships are given to you (generally ones you've had yourself) to assign to do stuff. Like an admiral would. So you can, say, send your old starships out to investigate anomalies and so forth. The weird part is that you have full access to UFP, KDF, Romulan, and Ferengi assignments ...
yeah it is kinda insane, but ive kinda given up on it, despite the inaccuracy of having thousands of fleet admirals...ya know cause that makes sense, the servers the game runs on is subpar at best, and i can't recall a time when something wasent bugged in the game, maybe the console versions are better, but on PC anymore it is a total waste of time. and many of the newest missions they spit out at you are nothing but massive time gates, you kill a group of 5 ships then drifts around for 2 mins waiting for the next group to kill, it has become a snooze fest
Ranks on actual naval vessels : I'm going to use more internation ranks vs. the ones used in the US. Each rank in most navies have 3 levels of Lieutenant and 3 levels of Captain. So a Frigate Captain is closer to an O-5 vs a Corvette Captain being closer to O-4 Commander. Similarly, since the LT is the XO of each ship, a Frigate LT is closer to an O-3 LT vs the Corvette LT being an O-2 This also goes with section heads. Usually each section has only one officer commanding each section plus their CPO as enlistend liason to the rest of the department. A Corvette will have the equivalent of Ensigns while a Frigate and above will have an LT JG leading it. So if we used proper ranks to the crew of the Enterprise, you would have O-6 Captain plus O-5 First Officer O-4 LTCMDR in key positions such as the section heads that form the bridge crew. These would be different than depicted. Worf wouldn't be the chief of security since he is the weapons officer and chief tactician. Engineering would definitely have an O-4 as its head 3-4 LTs leading certain sections within Engineering. O-3 LT leading most sections outside of engineering, Some O-2s might lead some sections as well. But O-1s, in the Flag ship? Unlikely. Navigation, the helm, most nurses, and pretty much everyone else would be enlisted. In Sickbay you would have the Chief Medical Officer handling the leadership duties plus admin, probably a few O-4 or O-3 as physician's assitants, head nurses, and other medical roles in each of the three sickbays (since they have over 1000 on board, which means pediatricians, psychiatrists, etc). No ship's counselor and if there was one, it would likely be a whole civilian team.
- "I'm curious to see how much this ties up against a real world command structure".... Became interested in this a number of years ago. I kept finding my answers demonstrated in the phrase "art imitates life".
One thing, I'm guessing there's 1000s of Star Fleet academies in the Federation right. Cause San Francisco can't be the only one to service the whole earth+ other planets
I would guess they operated mike the US does, you can go to the service academy or you can go to another university's Reserve Officer Training Course (ROTC) program, Officer Candidate School (OCS), or the very rare direct commission option.
@@nemo99nemo83 plus the Trill Science, uh, Institute? Academy? The one Jadzia Dax got all her degrees in. She has some dialogue about some time in the academy but it might just be one year.
Probably a bunch of different tiers involved. I'm sure there's a huge amount of officers required for ground based assignments. They'd never really see any kind of work in space other than being transported around. That's probably not as prestigious as being assigned to an exploratory starship.
I just realized you've been saying "lieutenant" throughout the video, despite the Britishness. I thought you guys pronounced it "leftenant" over there, don't you?
I noticed this too, I think the American pronunciation was deliberately chosen to minimise confusion since it's the pronunciation used in the show. People who aren't familiar with military ranks might have been mistaken that they are two different ranks rather than different ways of pronouncing lieutenant.
Unless you are in a the nuke course those are the ensigns that even chiefs say yah he outranks me reason there are three subsections in the nukelear reactor department officer's have to know all three like its there specialty enlisted dont
Nice informative video and you even avoided some common mistake. Still, a few nitpicks: 1) Fleet Captain. This was in the sailing days an official rank and Starfleet also on occasion had this rank. In the 2260's Christopher Pike held this rank when he had his accident. We didn't see his rank insignia, but based on the captain's rank it likely would've been three solid braids. Likewise, according to the ST Encyclopedie when designing the ranking insignia for TNG, they planned to use five pips for a Fleet Captain. (And there's the weird ranking bar from Sloan.) 2) Commodore. Again, according to the ST: Encyclopedia, an official, licensed source, in the TNG era the rank of Commodore was changed into a one-pip admiral 3) Blue uniforms (medical, sciences) do have ranks, but they're not part of the command structure -- at least, this is how it is in current day military (my father used to be a chaplain and a Lt.Cmmdr, but in operational situations he had to take commands from an ensign). They are treated with the respect of their rank, but in a day-to-day operations they do not have any authority. The same likely applies to ST, since Crusher is a full commander, but Lt.Cmmdr. Data as second in command outranks her: when Picard is presumed dead and Riker kidnapped, it's Data who's in command of the Enterprise (despite Crusher having a higher rank). 4)In real life, rank indicate how many people you have under your command. Star Trek screws this up, especially in Voyager, since the Chief Engineer on a Galaxy class starship (with 800-1000 Starfleet crew) has about the same number of people under his command as the captain of an Intrepid class ship (crew of 150). Thus technically speaking, the captain of an Interpid class starship should be a Lt.Cmmdr. DS9 did this right: Sisko commanded about the same crew as RIker, but when the Defiant was added and DS9 upgraded, he got a bigger crew and was made Captain.
WRT #4, I think they couldn’t get away from having The Captain, but note her original XO and Chakotay are Lt Cmdr not full Cmdr. I think that was meant to reflect the ship’s size. See also chief engineer at Lt JG instead of Lt Cmdr, and other such positions. But yes, they are too wedded to always having a captain.
@@kaitlyn__L Well, there were ship commanders in Trek who weren't captain's rank: in DS9 Sisko commanded the Defiant for almost an entire year as a commander, while in TNG when Picard was thought to be dead Riker was in command of the Enterprise still as a Commander, while at another occassion Riker and Data each took command of a ship and retained their normal rank. With TNG that could be due to circumstances, but not DS9. I think VGR was already plagued by something that's currently an issue: fear that a female lead character isn't perceived as strong enough and over compensating to prevent this. Janeway was a woman and perhaps they were afraid that if she wasn't a Captain then she would come across as weak or less than Picard or Kirk, the white male captains. They made her a Captain simply so she would come across as equel to them. (Never mind the black dude.) Perhaps they were right, maybe not. Then again, the Equinox is even smaller and that was also commanded by a Captain's rank. Maybe they just didn't realise/remember that you don't have to be a Captain's rank to command a ship, not even in ST.
@@MaxRawhide all of those other ones are side ships, not main character ships, and that’s part of the IRL production decisions. I do agree that if they were to be 100% internally consistent it should’ve been different. But production considerations so often overrule world-building in TV, and consequently Trek. By the time it came to the Equinox, we know Berman didn’t care, Piller et al had left, so it could have been forgetfulness. Or it could have been a dramatic/narrative decision so they can have them fighting over rank, and simply made a necessity by that earlier production decision.
IMO the Rank pins used in ST II-VI, 2280-2360s, were the best. I thought the magnificent maroon uniforms were the best and the pins were a nice complement to them.
I always assumed Starfleet made an exception with the crew of the Enterprise-A, due to the reverence Kirk and co. had. Either that, or it saw the ship as an early retirement home.
Early retirement home more likely. Since the Enterprise was no longer the flagship of the fleet anymore. Kirk got to stay in command mostly because he would have made a terrible desk jocky and because the plot demanded it.
And in the case of the Enterprise, Spock became a Captain when Kirk became an Admiral. When Kirk was give command of the Enterprise 1NCC-1701-A, Spock still retained his rank of Captain as his EX. Scotty became a Captain after taking charges of the Excellor Transwarp Project as a "Captain of Engineering" which would be a "shore" position with Starship Construction. He like Spock retained his rank when he became the Chief Engineer of the ship again.
I once heard this from a friend in the navy... It didn't matter if you were an officer or an enlisted guy... The Chief Petty Officer, or Senior Chief Petty Officer, depending on who was onboard at the time of shove off, was literally the equal to a Commander on a ship, but was career enlisted rather than a collegiate officer. Many were classed as Noncommissioned Officers. Even if you were a lieutenant, if the Chief gave an order, you still followed for good reason. He had more experience in the field than you did, and he by chain of command, still outranked you. Same goes for Sergeant Majors and Master Sergeants. It was also wise to never piss off a top enlisted guy even if you were an officer, because many had direct lines to the top brass and were deeply respected by such, and they could make your life a living hell. In essence, Miles O'Brian was literally under Captain Sisko directly in Chain of Command.
Quick discussion on why some individuals have specific jobs that don't correspond to the rank. Each military organization has a "table of organization" which lays out the entire chain of command of the entire organization. Each position on that table is known as a "billet". A fancy word for "specific job". Outside that organization there is something known as "B-billets" filling out specialized jobs that can't be lumped into the main TOO. Recruit training, recruiters, Embassy guards, special operations, etc. For extremely specialized training open to a variety of ranks, the leadership roles are based on time in that billet vs. pay grade. A great example of this is in the US Marine Corps Recruit Training regiments. Drill instructor is a B-billet open to Corporals to Gunnery Sergeants (E-4 - E-7). Each platoon in each training company has three drill instructors : the "drill hat" which is the lowest position and guy that does the most work. He is the main mean one of the three and handles the early instruction in close order drill. The next guy up handles stuff like ethics, knowledge, and other key duties that are important. The head drill instructor is usually in his third year and beside doing what the other two do when they have to rest, he is the main person responsible for the entire platoon, including the conduct of the drill instructors. In my training platoon we had a Gunnery Sergeant as the drill hat because he was only on his second training cycle, a sergeant above him, and a Staff Sergeant as head drill instrucor. That meant that an E-5 had authority over an E-7 because of seniority in the billet. Drill instructors come from everywhere. Some are infantrymen, others are admin clerks. But once they earn the right to wear the hat, that is their main responsibility. Above them you have the training company First Sergeant, usually taken up by a drill instructor on his last training cycle, so despite the name being that of an E-8, there are E-5s doing that job. Company commanders are usually Captains and handle the Officer command role, reporting to the Battalion commander, usually a Major or Lt. Colonel, who reports to the Brigadier General in command of the Training Regiment. Another example within the TOO are positions in an infantry batallion. Ideally each Battalion is commanded by a Lt. Colonel as commander, Major as XO, plus the Sergeant Major as chief enlisted advisor, has 3 Companies + a Headquarters company, each commanded by a Captain with a 1stLt as XO & a First Sergeant, each company has 3 platoons commanded by a 2ndLt or 1stLt and a Staff Sergeant, each platoon has 3 squads who are commanded by a Sergeant, and each squad has three fire teams, each commanded by a Corporal. I've served as squad leader as an E-3 Lance Corporal, during a point in time I was also the platoon sergeant as a Corporal despite a sergeant being squad lead of one of the other squads. So it all depends on the organization itself. When I moved over to special operations I had a 1stLt as a scout sniper under my command, despite me only being a Sergeant at that point. While in school we had instructors of all ranks. So anything outside the TOO, when specialized enough, time in billet will be the order of the day as far as who holds leadership positions regardless of the actual pay grade. An Admiral serving as lecturer in an Academy setting isn't that uncommon since they are under the Academy's TOO, not the fleet.
Rodenberry has said Star Fleet wasn't military but has also said it was like the Coast Guard. I would point out that civilians by law cannot "COURT MARSHAL" anyone...the literal term Court Martial comes from Military Courts.
@@Mortlupo Kirk also tells the Organians he's "a soldier, not a diplomat" and when asked if the Enterprise is part of the Navy says "we're a combined service." in Tomorrow Is Yesterday.
Very true. Harry Kim was ensign, but referred to himself as a senior bridge officer on multiple occasions. Ensigns aren’t senior anything, they are lowest officer and their job is to learn to be an officer. Your not considered a senior officer until O4 at the minimum. That always drived me crazy.
@@curmudgeonextraordinaire1884 It's Voyager. The show that either hands out field promotions like crazy or forgets that those are a thing. Heck, they completely forgot they had a science officer.
"director" is "commodore" for land/shore operations or operations that span all aspects, "commodore" being a Warrant Captain. The starfleet system is simplified for writing and story purposes with the finer deliniations only being brought out for story purposes.
Because it's supposed to be "your" story, focused on your character...you're not supposed to notice thousands of other FA's flying around in all those other ships.
True, but they later implemented a system where your admiral could assign missions to ships that weren't your "PC ship." So you really are acting as an admiral, giving orders to multiple ships.
game ranking systems typically are quite broken... gotta keep rewarding players to make them feel good about their accomplishments or they walk away from the game. "good commander... you completed 3 missions... here is a promotion, now go play the next level"... I used to play a flight-shooter where I started as a private and finished as a general...
You did very well. I served 6 years in the Navy, as an enlisted sailor, but am very familiar to the officer side of the ranking system as I had to interact with many. A couple small notes, much like how Lieutenants, it is the same with Read Admirals, which are broken down into Lower and Upper halves, and in this case, the lower is replaced by the Commodore, which is not too inaccurate. However, the rank of Commodore is usually more akin to an appointment, like a department head. For example, I was on a destroyer, so our Commodore was actually a Captain, since destroyers are commanded by Commanders, but Commodores are usually Read Admiral Lower Halfs. It is also no uncommon for multiple officers of command level to be stationed on the same ship. Back to my destroyer for example, we had a Commander for both CO and XO. And I have heard that on larger ships it is not uncommon for there to be a full on Captain for CO, XO and even department heads. You mentioned how some officers train protégés, this is less common these days, but not impossible. There is the position of Adjutant, which is basically the right hand man, or woman, of an officer. All in all, masterfully done. I would love to see a video on Enlisted Ranks in Star Fleet, and maybe if they anything equivalent to Warrant Officers. In the real military they are higher ranked than every enlisted person, yet lower than the newest Ensign.
I was on a Carrier in the 80s. We had 5 Captain's onboard: CO, XO, Chief Engineer, Medical Officer, and Airwing Commander. Plus the rear admiral of the task force when Deployed. That's a lota Brass.
There are a lot of differences between the way Star Fleet does things and how the actual military does things when it comes to rank. So the first thing to know is that there is something called Line Officers and Staff Officers. Line are generally any officer that can take command of a ship. Staff are specialist officers like Doctors, Lawyers and Chaplains who will never take command of a ship. If Capt Picard was incapacitated Riker, Data and Worf could take command if they were the next in line. Crusher would never take command. The other thing to think about is your job as an officer on a ship will be determined by the size of the ship. If the Commanding Officer was a Commander then most of the department heads will be Lieutenant Commander and below. On a ship the size of an aircraft carrier with a Captain ranked Commanding Officer most of the department heads will be Commanders. My last ship was a minesweeper and as an E-6 I was the assistant Navigator. On a side note the first ship I served on was an aircraft carrier and the CO, XO, OPS and CAG were all Captain ranked. Also you won't have specialist officers like Scotty was an engineer and probably was an engineer on all of his ships. Your first ship you may be the training officer your next the weapons officer and then after that Executive officer and then commanding officer. The US Navy will bounce officers around so they'll learn a wide range of jobs before becoming a commanding officer.
As a former member of the U.S. Navy, Starfleet's Command structure is pretty consistent. Thus includes the fact that on large ship such as a aircraft carrier, there may be two or more people who carry the rank of Captain. This does not mean that there is more than one Commanding Officer. The reason has to do with specialized education and training. Medical officer holding a M.D. begin their military careers as a lieutenant in the Navy, two pay grades about many other officers.
I’m still upset that Captain Janeway never promoted Ensign Harry Kim in all their years on Voyager. Sigh. Stay well out there everybody, and Jesus Christ be with you friends.😊
There was a Fleet Captain rank mentioned in Star Trek The Original Series. Episode The Menagerie, Part 1. 1:40 into the episode. Kirk mentions that he met Christopher Pike “when he (Pike) was promoted to fleet captain”. The Star Trek Wikipedia contradicts this slightly and lists this as not a formal rank, just a change of duties for senior captains, but this might still be in alignment with Star Trek: First Contact when Picard takes command of the remaining fleet in the battle with the Borg. Presumably in the event a flag officer was killed or unavailable, the most senior Captain in a multiple ship engagement would take command and some rank type mechanism might be there to pre-designate those captains so the ship captains did not sit there wasting time arguing over seniority dates and who was technically in charge. Star Trek Voyager also hinted that something like this might be in the regulations, in an episode (Equinox) where Voyager runs into another starfleet vessel and it is discussed that regulations give command to “the Captain of the most tactically superior vessel”. The rank of commodore seems to have ended on Star Trek around the time that the US Navy renamed the rank of Commodore into Rear Admiral Lower Half (one star USN equivalent to a brigadier general), back in 1986.
The rank structure of Starfleet feels it once was very militaristic, but became more a show of: Ambition, Experience, and luck of fortune(Like field promotion, or assuming command when the lead officer is wounded/killed), more then anything else. It does give a quick impression of what kind of work you would be doing on your duty, the higher you are, the more you deal with people/politics in a way, and less with the day to day routine. The chain of command exists, but it's a bit more nebulous when it comes to same rank people. There is no strict: "you are .1 rank above me, so you always lead" or "You are the older of the rank so you lead" kind of situation, it's just how was designated to be in command on that particular position.
