YOUTUBE - Starship Down | Star Trek Fans First Time Watching DS9
Comments (9)
I'd like to make a correction, NCO and CO are the ranking system for the two tracks. The actual tracks are Enlisted and Officer. It's difficult to get a commission to become an officer, which is what Wesley had to go through. If you want to serve in Starfleet and not go through all the rigorous training to become an Officer, you can join as enlisted. The training cycle is a lot shorter. If you recall the TNG fourth season episode "The Drumhead" crewman Simon Tarses, the half-Romulan, stated to Picard he went to the Academy's training program for enlisted personnel.
The thing I always wonder with an episode like this (and it's about as nitpicky as I'll get) is this: in the first 10 minutes of the episode, on the runabout, we've already seen the entire A-list DS9 crew, right? Captain of the station PLUS his presumed Starfleet (Worf) and Bajoran (Kira) number one(s), his chief engineer, his chief medical officer, and his chief science officer. WHO IS LEFT BACK AT THE STATION IN A POSITION OF AUTHORITY? Of course the answer to this is that you have to work all the cast in-- it's the same reason that The Big Three in TOS went on all the away missions (in spite of the M5's landing party recommendations in THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER). It's never really explained in this or any of the other series why the starfleet protocol seems to be "don't delegate away missions to subordinates, but take as many high ranking officers and personnel along as you can, so that the ship or the station is being left in the hands of subordinates." It's one of the few "story holes" that I find completely implausible, and I'm not a stickler for canon or consistency in other ways. That's why I rate this a C, hahaha.
Eddington?
There are two levels to the starfleet academy, just like there is for the real world military, there is NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) and CO (Commissioned Officer). If you have pips you're commissioned, if you don't have pips, you're non-commissioned. To graduate from Starfleet Academy as a CO, requires 4 years. To graduate without a commissioned takes a year, maybe a year and a half.
I thought it was two years for NCOs, and they had to have some prior skills. In Starfleet, not real life.
Hi Balance of Terror, meet Disaster. Shame it didn't land well with you guys. Others probably explained it to death. Starfleet is quasi-military there's always been NCOs or enlisted crewman. Even since Kirk, every time he called for crewman, yeoman, Chief - they're all enlisted and didn't 'go to the Academy'. Trained of course, just didn't do the full Officer thing. In another episode you guys didn't like, Chief said he likes being enlisted rather than officer. So you're looking down on one of the best guys for not being an officer on the Enterprise. Amusingly you guys are on the Gene team. He envisioned the crews to be mainly Officers. Anyway kinda makes sense for Chief to have NCO team as any officer would outrank him. Despite his experience, he would always defer to even some Ensign noob from the academy - like he said about Nog if he really makes it. They already have to largely ignore token Starfleet security commanders so Odo can be the focus. Bashir. Starfleet Academy - Medical school. Study for the specialisation. Still don't see Worf's command of security as being a counterpoint. Chief said they're not bridge officers (on bridge this episode), but his background - he commanded security officers, who themselves may need to be hardasses. So the Chief's bunch of greasemonkeys are of a different sort.
That's why Chief has a temporary commission of Lieutenant. As the transporter chief on the flagship it didn't make sense for people under him to outrank him. The temporary commission ended when he took the job as chief engineer for DS9. He's commanding a mostly Bajoran work crew, so it's less of an issue. Although he is sometimes in the odd position of being lower ranked then people working under him, but he can give orders relative the engineering crew as it's head. And he's generally treated like an officer because he's earned the respect and Chief is the highest crew rank. Enlisted crew do have a two year traning course and it may also be at the academy but it';s separate from the officer course which is usually four years plus a sort of trial year for the first assignment. Enlisted ranks are complicated and can vary based on different factors as well as different sub degrees. One thing I was never clear on with rank- so there are Rear Admirals, Vice Admirals, full Admirals, and one Fleet Admiral who is the head of starfleet. However there is also Admiral 4th class, 3rd, class, and so on. I am not clear if that corresponds to Rear, Vice, etc. or if they are different degrees of full admirals because I think we have seen first class Admirals who are not the Fleet Admiral, so it might not be a rank exactly but a distinction that is sometimes applied to different crewman ranks. The rank of Commodore is a temporary one that can be given to anywhere from a Commander to Admiral where they are in charge of a fleet or the head of a Planetary grouping or something like that. There was also the unique position of "Fleet Commander" created as a unique thing to honor Captain Pike after the accident. Not sure if he was still a Captain when it happened.
The dialogue here is a tad inaccurate when it comes to O'Brien saying "engineers" don't go to Starfleet Academy. What they probably meant to say was that ENLISTED technicians don't go to Starfleet Academy... HOWEVER, in the TNG episode "The Drumhead" Medical Technician Tarsis expressly states that he attended "Starfleet Academy's program for enlisted personnel." So it's all vague and contradictory...
Lore drop 🤌