To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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Yeah. Helm and Navigation are normally separate positions on Starfleet ships, though the two roles CAN merge together, I guess.
You know how in the original series there are always two guys sitting in front of Captain Kirk between him and the viewscreen? One is the helmsman (usually Sulu) and one is navigator (usually Chekov, once he showed up).
That distinction broke down in the TNG era, but frankly that's because all clear delineations of responsibility on the bridge started falling apart. You had a "first officer" who appeared to have no other job, making him theoretically redundant unless the captain needed to send him somewhere to act as a proxy. You had the omnicompetent Data who served to monitor ship operations, serve as science officer, and so on. LaForge, Troi, and Crusher had clearly defined jobs as part of the command team, but not on the bridge. About the only clearly defined and specialized position on the ship was that of the tactical officer- Yar and then Worf.
TOS had a somewhat more realistic situation in that every main character on the bridge had a fairly well defined job, and did that job specifically. Spock, as the science officer, monitored sensors during combat. He was also first officer, but that seemed to be a function of his seniority and stature with the captain rather than being a job description of "be the spare captain," which was often what Riker wound up doing. And the others had specific jobs too. Uhura stuck to communications. Sulu and Chekov, or whoever was keeping their seats warm that week, handled helm and navigation (and often, by extension, things we later class as 'tactical').
...
The way I figure it, "helmsman" is a job title that goes to someone who's good at piloting the ship. They don't have to be good at anything else, as long as they can do that. Whoever's flying the ship has to concentrate absolutely on the actual task of not slamming the ship into things, too.
"Navigation," by contrast, is a very different specialization. Navigators are almost never focused on short-term problems. And navigation is often going to be its own small department, requiring the efforts of multiple people to collect and synthesize a variety of important information about the surrounding space and the movements of the ship.
I for one would be hesitant to give one person the job of actually flying the ship and the job of navigation on the same ship... unless that person was Data, basically.
Of course, if the Fiiral actually have enough multitasking ability to make use of all those extra limbs, maybe they have the ability to fly a ship and plot a course at the same time. That would actually be rather badass if true.
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I imagine part of it is that by TNG, starships are in general so much larger that the duties of First Officer reach the point that it needs a specialised position. Aren't they basically acting as a go-between for the more junior crew and the captain? I recall something along those lines in the episode Lower Decks, and referenced elsewhere.
I don't know how it maps to real life, but in most military sci-fi stories, the first officer or executive officer or XO or whatever they are called in the story are the filter between the captain and everything else. Basically their job is to only let important things through the captain and to handle as much as possible of the minor tasks, internal diplomacy and paper work.
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Fair enough- that's a major part of the role of an executive officer in real life. Starfleet doesn't clearly distinguish between a first officer and an XO, so having someone like Riker to do the job makes sense.
But that's a reason to have a dedicated first officer on the command team. It doesn't explain what the first officer does on the bridge. "Liaison to the junior officers" isn't a job that is best done in the same room as the captain where the active control of the ship is going on.
I mean, Dr. McCoy is clearly a member of the Enterprise command team under Kirk, Crusher's on the command team under Picard, but neither of them is likely to be on the bridge during a crisis unless their specific expertise is required to provide medical treatment or advice on the bridge itself. Because aside from providing treatment/advice on the bridge, they cannot do their job effectively from the bridge- they need to be down in sickbay where the medical equipment and the patients are. Likewise, Scotty and Geordi are usually in main engineering during a crisis, precisely because that's where they do the most good.
The first officer is a job that, in and of itself, is not useful to the ship during a crisis. If the first officer wears another "hat" (such as that of science officer or sensor operator) then that can work, of course... But Riker has no such clearly defined job. He's not running Ops or Tactical or sensors or communications at times like that.
The question isn't "why is he on the ship," because he clearly has several useful functions, including the role of executive officer and the role of leading away teams. The question is "why is he on the bridge?"
So he can get more screen time. It's a terrible reason but that is almost certainly the true one. In practice it would make far more sense for Riker to be on the battle bridge. That way if something goes wrong and the main bridge, along with the captain, is disabled/destroyed he can fulfill the "replacement captain" part of being a first officer and assume command. Just like what you have happen with the Endurance in Devas and Asuras.
I am quite stuck in the TNG mindset and always picture those as Ops and Conn when mentally laying out bridges in my head.
It actually seems more natural to me to have a navigator-helmsman rather than them (apparently) also handling tactical.
By TNG, by what I've checked on Memory Alpha it's have changed to Flight Controller, or informally conn. Based on the show and the TNG tech manual, they've split off tactical, and ops probably has a slice of the old Navigator pie as well. In addition to that I would suspect part of the reason Navigator got rolled into helm is that computers took over a lot of the duties you'd need a dedicated navigator for. With the workload decreased from these factors it was alright to combine the two, probably sometime before or after TUC. Aside from losing some TOS flavor I don't see particularly why this is a problem; maybe the XO does most of the large-picture plotting now to give them something to do?*
Given they're avian-descended [or avian tileset in Stellaris, anyways] it would make sense if the extra limbs AND some evolutionary-ingrained understanding of 3D navigation help them be really good Flight Controllers/Helmspeople/Navigators/What have you.
*Fun fact: when I was making my bridge-crew focused Fate Core game I found it almost impossible to figure out what anyone who took the XO position would actually do. Ops was a similar problem, but that's because I didn't think my players were particularly interested in playing Timetable Simulator 2414. Part of it is, as you note, Data kinda muddies the water on TNG by taking Ops and Science Officer roles, and Riker does -- stuff. Eventually I decided that like in TOS the XO would pull double-duty as a department head.
On DS9 things seemed a little clearer, although I don't remember if they had a dedicated Ops officer on the Defiant. I think that was sort-of what Kira did whenever she was onboard as XO, if she wasn't doing tactical-stuff?
On DS9 Itself of course they didn't have need of a navigator OR a helmsperson, except very briefly.
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First officers have another important function as well; leading away teams.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
See, I've always handled the XO as being the person who is something of a jack-of-all-trades support (akin to the role of the Bard in D&D), and is able to assist anyone with anything, or replace them if they're injured or otherwise indisposed. If the Captain's focus gives a bonus to general ship tasks, then the XO's focus gives a bonus to specific officer actions -- including the Captain's actions, which explains why Riker was kept on the bridge or sent on away teams, as it's where his character would provide the most benefit.
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One good reason to have Riker on the bridge was to have someone who was competent in all bridge positions able to move to any spot and be useful. Worf is punching Borg Drones? Riker on tactical. Data went evil again? Riker on Ops. Ensign Re'dShirt dead from exploding console? Riker flys the ship, on a console that somehow works again. Riker could go to any position and either take over, assist the person there or just look at the information and give Picard other options.
AKuz
Been Better
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And then Sheari spent time as what? XO, Tactical, Security Chief, Marine commander, Lies (Intelligence) Officer, Lies (Diplomatic) Officer, and Acting Captain?
And for a while all of those at once! > : P
And I'm pretty certain she's done some other stuff too. Suffice it to say, she found ways to keep busy.
That's basically what we ended up doing in the end. If you're sitting at tactical you're generally doing tactical things but our XO can do, well...
...all this!
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Yeah, Chekov's canny like that, and he's seen a lot of shit happen on or near the bridge, so he did send T'Mela down to battle bridge before the battle.
Thing is, I could buy Riker being on the bridge with Picard if he had a job.
Spock was Kirk's first officer, after all, but he pulled his weight on the bridge by operating sensors and providing the 'science officer' role. Picard has Data to do that, Worf to handle the weapons and so on...
I can work with that.I am quite stuck in the TNG mindset and always picture those as Ops and Conn when mentally laying out bridges in my head.
It depends on the exact division of responsibilities, honestly. It's mostly just that they often had Sulu/Chekov/whoever calling out "tactical" information like range to target, weapons status, and so on. There wasn't a separate weapons officer on the TOS-era Enterprise bridge.It actually seems more natural to me to have a navigator-helmsman rather than them (apparently) also handling tactical.
Extremely valuable mission- but not one that explains what you're doing on the bridge, since that is like the least 'away' place on the ship.
See, plotwise that makes sense.
But in terms of real naval procedures, senior officers are too important to be left standing around in case they have something to do when you need a spare. It'd be the other way around- the senior officers normally man their posts in a crisis, with less trained juniors on standby duty.
Eddie Leslie:
"Or just filling in a spot the head honcho isn't normally around for. I spent a LOT of time manning that engineering console just to the left of the bridge door, yaknow. Old Scotty wasn't around there very often."
I'd have to rewatch a lot more TNG to be really paying attention, but based on some other watching I would not be surprised if he's frequently coordinating damage control teams, coordinating with engineering, and the like.
He's deffos the head honcho about all sorts of crew matters -- this technicality was what allowed Picard to get involved with that science officer -- but incredibly effective personnel management does usually make for riveting weekly television, and also doesn't typically show up as a skill in battle.
Honestly though I draw inspiration from how BSG handled the XO as well, because Tigh always seemed to have something to [drunkenly] do.Interestingly, watching the Yesterday's Enterprise battle, the Captain seems to have some strategic Navigation duties. However, Riker was pulling double-duty as a tactical officer in that one so I suspect that would normally be an XO thing. Also: Alternate Timeline.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
I was specifically answering to the question of how to handle it in an RPG. TNG-era Starfleet doesn't give a rat's ass about proper "naval" procedures, they're a fantastic example of institutional decay in that regard. Well, that and the fact that in the 1960s you could rely on a vast proportion of your cast and crew and writing staff having prior military experience, while Roddenberry went out of his way to avoid that in TNG for ideological reasons.
Night
Widow Null
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- Hoff
TNG's take on the duties of the XO was actually pretty much accurate and TOS's wasn't. He has to be ready to step up to command the ship or take over some kind of faltering function at any moment, which is why they're on the bridge so they're fully informed and why they don't have a clearly defined role there. The XO's purpose isn't merely to be the captain's backup, they're the captain's warlord, acting as their replacement in any task when the captain is too busy commanding the ship to be doing something else. If the engine is in pieces and the captain needs warp power, the XO gets sent down to engineering to ride herd on it all. If there's a fire somewhere and it was caused by enemy fire, away the XO to direct damage-control while the captain fights the ship. And so on.
The person most likely to be in Bat Two (the Battle Bridge to us) is someone whose rank is equal to most department heads and who is qualified to command a watch, but whose specialty isn't particularly critical for a ship in combat; navigation or operations or the like.
The person most likely to be in Bat Two (the Battle Bridge to us) is someone whose rank is equal to most department heads and who is qualified to command a watch, but whose specialty isn't particularly critical for a ship in combat; navigation or operations or the like.
Realistically Riker's duty station during an alert would have been on the battle bridge with a back up bridge crew, ready to take command should something happen to the main bridge. The doylist explanation for why TNG didn't do that is simply becase that would have relegated RIker's character to rarely being seen. What the Watsonian reason could be I have no idea. Perhaps something like; because a starship is such a fantastically powerful machine regulations require two command officers on the bridge at all times as a check on each other. Except this is clearly not true in several episodes...
Maybe back in the pre TOS era this was a regulation, but by TNG it is no longer in force, and it has just become convention that the XO's duty station is on the bridge.
Though Data is second officer, so may it could still be true. Are there ever any episodes where in the normal running of the ship where only one of Picard, Riker, or Data are on the bridge?
The Executive Officer on any reasonably large ship (basically everything we have direct control over) should definately NOT dual hat as a department head or bridge role. Their job of organising the department heads and insepcting the running of the ship, whilst also handling most of the adminstrative workload, is a vital one and would occupy all of their time.
Realistically the XO being on the bridge to fulfill this role is a terrible idea, the most likely reason for the Captain to be incapacitated is due to damage to the bridge, which in that case would probably also incapacitate the XO. the Communciation and data display technology available today, let alone in the space future would allow the XO to remain abreast of what is happneing to the ship from the battle bridge.
For our purposes however I think the narrative positioning of the XO on the bridge is far better than squirreling them away somewhere. It evokes the age of sail type feeling where it would be quite common for the both the Captain and his first lieutenant to be standing side by side in action.
We can just handwave the reasoning like so many other things in star trek.
Maybe back in the pre TOS era this was a regulation, but by TNG it is no longer in force, and it has just become convention that the XO's duty station is on the bridge.
Though Data is second officer, so may it could still be true. Are there ever any episodes where in the normal running of the ship where only one of Picard, Riker, or Data are on the bridge?
The Executive Officer on any reasonably large ship (basically everything we have direct control over) should definately NOT dual hat as a department head or bridge role. Their job of organising the department heads and insepcting the running of the ship, whilst also handling most of the adminstrative workload, is a vital one and would occupy all of their time.
Realistically the XO being on the bridge to fulfill this role is a terrible idea, the most likely reason for the Captain to be incapacitated is due to damage to the bridge, which in that case would probably also incapacitate the XO. the Communciation and data display technology available today, let alone in the space future would allow the XO to remain abreast of what is happneing to the ship from the battle bridge.
For our purposes however I think the narrative positioning of the XO on the bridge is far better than squirreling them away somewhere. It evokes the age of sail type feeling where it would be quite common for the both the Captain and his first lieutenant to be standing side by side in action.
We can just handwave the reasoning like so many other things in star trek.
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Night, I'll bear your comments in mind from here out...
So it's just plain not going to make sense to have such a highly experienced and versatile person standing around to serve as backup. This isn't something militaries do because they're warlike, it's something they do for the same reasons they have rank structures and so on... and Starfleet DOES replicate those functions, because it needs them regardless of whether it plans around combat.
It's true and it certainly shows in a lot of ways- but as a guy trying to make sense of things, I like to bear in mind what i know about real navies. Not because of TNG-era Starfleet being like a real navy, but because it's under some of the same pressures. Highly experienced senior officers with the qualifications to make XO of a starship are a lot harder to come by than lieutenants with enough cross-training to man a bridge station in a crisis. Think about all the people like Barclay, who could probably do a competent job at manning a bridge console in an emergency but who would never, ever make a good XO.
So it's just plain not going to make sense to have such a highly experienced and versatile person standing around to serve as backup. This isn't something militaries do because they're warlike, it's something they do for the same reasons they have rank structures and so on... and Starfleet DOES replicate those functions, because it needs them regardless of whether it plans around combat.
Night
Widow Null
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- Hoff
However it's exactly where they would have been during the Second World War, and while the XO's GQ station is usually on the Bridge rather than Combat in the modern USN, that's only on surface combatants (and not strictly speaking demanded by regulation, only encouraged; it would not be uncommon for them to be splitting their time between the two, while on submarines they share Conn so the captain can take a quick trip back to Sonar if they need to). One of their major functions is to be the Captain's extra brain, and they need to be available quickly if not immediately for consultation. (And because they may argue with captain, doing it over the phone isn't really welcome.)
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Normally true, though given that Starfleet is made up of geniuses anyway I suspect you'll occasionally get a "extra genius in specific area" first officer who does do a dual hat role anyway. Like Spock being Science Officer.
Oh look, an article on Captain Kirk, Zapp Brannigan, and how we deliberately and poisonously misremember our most foundational shared myths – the ones we don't value enough to devote real critical attention to, outside of a few marginalized fandom niches. About the way pop-culture heterosexuality relentlessly stomps on and cheapens and flattens het romance – and what that means not just for fiction, but for us and how we operate in the world.
Also I found out that Kirk is from Riverside Iowa which is basically a bedroom community for people at the University of Iowa, site of Van Allen Hall, and probably a UESPA/Starfleet affiliated facility because they've had their sticky fingers on every science mission since Explorer 1.
Also I found out that Kirk is from Riverside Iowa which is basically a bedroom community for people at the University of Iowa, site of Van Allen Hall, and probably a UESPA/Starfleet affiliated facility because they've had their sticky fingers on every science mission since Explorer 1.
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- Patriarchova
She has some very valid points in that article, but she's completely off-base on others.
In particular, while its true that Kirk often weaponized his sexuality in a way that's normally the province of female characters, and that its often ambiguous whether or not he actually had sex with this episode's hot alien chick, it is nonetheless the case that TOS was written in such a way that Kirk ends up seducing another woman for some reason or another each week.
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- Infraspace
I... wasn't aware that they were different things.
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- Australia
A First Officer should:
Act as the gateway between Captain and crew - representative of the former, advocate of the latter
Be in a position to learn from the Captain and be mentored for a potential Captaincy of their own
Perform the grunt work of inspections
Smooth over problems among the heads of department
Shoulder as much of the Administrative burden of the ship as possible
Lead away teams and stand in for the Captain during moments of danger
Be prepared to take command in the event of a Captain's incapacity
Be a watch officer
Know their Captain's mind better than the Betazoid Counsellor does!
Rather than having a specific station, they are both the student of and the force multiplier to their Captain.
Act as the gateway between Captain and crew - representative of the former, advocate of the latter
Be in a position to learn from the Captain and be mentored for a potential Captaincy of their own
Perform the grunt work of inspections
Smooth over problems among the heads of department
Shoulder as much of the Administrative burden of the ship as possible
Lead away teams and stand in for the Captain during moments of danger
Be prepared to take command in the event of a Captain's incapacity
Be a watch officer
Know their Captain's mind better than the Betazoid Counsellor does!
Rather than having a specific station, they are both the student of and the force multiplier to their Captain.