Enlisted Ranks on Discovery

[Tenacity]

I take for granted that the principal characters will be primarily commissioned officers ranked from Ensign and up. But should Discovery have aboard the full range of modern day ranks? Enlisted personnel right out of basic, junior petty officers, senior petty officers, ensign, lieutenant (jg), etc..

And should the rank names reflect modern naval enlist ranks (rates), or should TPTB be inventive and create new "futuristic" rank names?

 

[TheSubCommander]

It would be more real world if a full spectrum of ranks were depicted. Lower enlisted don't necessarily need to be a focus of the show, but they should be acknowledged and depicted. If an enlisted character were a primary character, it should be a CPO in the same way Obrien was depicted. Besides, the world needs plasma and exhaust manifold scrubbers, too.

As for rank titles, they should keep the rank structure the same. It keeps it simple and consistent. Non-military uniformed services (IE NOAA Corps, PHSCC) also use military/naval rank structures, at least for officers, so there is no reason Starfleet couldn't.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It'll probably go like this:

• admiral
• commodore
• captain
• commander
• lieutenant commander
• lieutenant
• lieutenant (junior grade)
• ensign

And then a bunch of folks with no rank insignia that will be referred to as either chief or crewman. I think the only way that would change is if the new series makes it a point for enlisted personnel to have their own rank insignia, although it'd probably be easier on the wardrobe budget to have most of the Starfleet extras to have none or "stock" officer costumes.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

"Star Trek: Discovery" needs a Master Chief petty officer of the Navy.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I think they should have enlisted personnel, but I'd favour mostly avoiding using the term petty officer and making more about them being single/similiar subject specialists - i.e. Janice Rand was refered as Yeoman Rand (YMN 2nd Class or 1st Class Rand would be have been preferable in address the first time) rather than Petty Officer Rand, and O'Brien and his peers were mostly "Transporter Chief" rather than "Chief Petty Officer". Rather than say the approach with Enrique Muniz who is refered to as "Crewman" when given that at least one ep suggested he was O'Brien's 2-i-C he should have been - similar to Rand - at least a Engineering Technician 2nd Class and possibly as much as an ET Chief.

Does that make sense?

 

[The Wormhole]

O'Brien and his peers were mostly "Transporter Chief" rather than "Chief Petty Officer".

Even though Sergey Rozhenko identified him as a "Chief Petty Officer"?

 

[Tim Thomason]

Even though Sergey Rozhenko identified him as a "Chief Petty Officer"?

The key word here is "mostly". Exceptions exist. O'Brien is much later referred to as a Senior Chief Specialist.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

The key word here is "mostly". Exceptions exist. O'Brien is much later referred to as a Senior Chief Specialist.

Agreed.

In fact, while it's not entirely in line with current military terminology, I'd prefer Specialist or Technician (depending on role, a security guard or pilot would typically be "Specialist", an Engineer would be "Technician") as the generic title rather than Crewman or Petty Officer (not the same thing in the USN/CG, but IFAICT probably the same thing in SF (In the RW, Commonwealth sailors are mostly "strikers" or better by qualification (E3) with LH filling the JNCO slot and PO & CPO doing the work of LPOs, CPOs and SCPOs)).

 

[Lance Charger]

Where do you get "As Gene wanted it"? Gene invented Yeoman Rand.

Some of the most interesting episodes of DS9 revolved around the crewmen and how cool enlisted engineers were, like the episode after Work switched to red and OBrien had to coach him on how to command his engineering teams in tough situations. No Rom? No OBrien? Come on!

There's an episode when Nog goes off to the academy and OBrien cracks a joke about having to call Nog, "sir".

 

[The Wormhole]

Some of the most interesting episodes of DS9 revolved around the crewmen and how cool enlisted engineers were, like the episode after Work switched to red and OBrien had to coach him on how to command his engineering teams in tough situations.

That was the only episode to deal with the situation.

There's an episode when Nog goes off to the academy and OBrien cracks a joke about having to call Nog, "sir".

And yet, DS9 regularly messed that bit up by having Lieutenant's under O'Brien's command. Starfleet must have some interesting set up if an Ensign outranks a CPO, but a Lieutenant, who outranks Ensign is outranked by a CPO.

 

[Lance Charger]

There was an episode where Bashir had to exercise his rank over OBrien when Bashir wanted to help the JemHadar break their white addiction and how their disagreement affected their bromance and ultimately let the viewer decide who was right. All of the episodes with Rom as an enlisted engineer were neat, especially the episode where he was trying to fit in with the different shift crews. The episode where Nog lost his leg with the enlisted grunts who were stuck defending that comm array was neat, too and it was a cool plot device for Sisko to deposit his Captain self on the planet to force the Federation to bring in reinforcements to replace the enlisted grunts defending the comm array.

I don't recall a specific episode of DS9 where OBrien issues an order directly to an enlisted officer. Every time he asks a commissioned officer for assistance with a task, he actually asked and he phrased it as a request. OBrien is still a noncommissioned officer with command responsibilities, but even in the real world, the O-2 will often defer to the judgment of the E-7 even though the O-2 ultimately has final authority and decision making responsibility. The Warrant Officer flying the helicopter decides where the helicopter lands, not the LT in the back.

 

[The Wormhole]

"Ordering a Lieutenant" is a bit of an exaggeration. It was the episode Dramatis Personae in the first season where we see a Lieutenant talk about being under orders from Chief O'Brien, though given that's an episode where everyone was acting out of character it's perhaps a bad example.

 

[JRoss]

O'Brien and his peers were mostly "Transporter Chief" rather than "Chief Petty Officer".

Transporter chief was his job, chief petty officer was his rank. Different things.

The key word here is "mostly". Exceptions exist. O'Brien is much later referred to as a Senior Chief Specialist.

Specialist is a very low rank, while O'Brien was very senior. My guess is that they wanted to convey that he knew what he was doing. They could have made him a warrant officer, which is above enlisted by t below commissioned. Warrant officers receive intensive training and have the right to argue against orders from officers who don't know what they're talking about, such as a doctor telling an engineer to do something that would result in breakage.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Transporter chief was his job, chief petty officer was his rank. Different things.



Specialist is a very low rank, while O'Brien was very senior. My guess is that they wanted to convey that he knew what he was doing. They could have made him a warrant officer, which is above enlisted by t below commissioned. Warrant officers receive intensive training and have the right to argue against orders from officers who don't know what they're talking about, such as a doctor telling an engineer to do something that would result in breakage.

The US Army rank of Specialist is a low rank (it ranks with Corporal (E4) in pay, but is not an NCO, so less authority, similar to USN E-3 "striker" or RN Able Seaman on the technical side).

The assumption however re SF usage is that "Specialist" or "Technican" is being used as shorthand for holders of ratings (E4 to E6) ie Engineering Technician or Logistics Specialist. Whether they are NCOs is not clear (it could be that Starfleet appoints NCOs from CPO/Chf Spl upwards).

 

[Sgt_G]

In the US Navy, Petty Officers could be referred to as either "Petty Officer Williams" or by their rating (job title), such as "Yeoman Rand" or "Boatswain Miller", or by the two-letter abbreviation "I.S. Baker" (IS = Intelligence Specialist).

And I double-checked this with my wife, a retired Yeoman Second Class.

 

[jaime]

O'Brien is also Chief of Operations on Ds9 is he not? So high in the command structure of the station, which supersedes the pins on the neck...otherwise every Captain could pull rank on Sisko for two years.

Granted, he always get job titles with chief in, just to keep that going.

 

[Lance Charger]

Exactly. His position on a ship would be an officer as Chief Engineer, which might even be 3rd in command (at least, pre TNG). Since they're on a space station, obviously Starfleet is willing to delegate the equivalent of Chief Engineer (Chief of Operations) to a senior NCO.

OBrien is at the top of a chain of command that consists of only enlisted crewman and he reports directly to the CO (or XO). He is still a noncommissioned officer, but all of the other commissioned officers are outside of his chain of command except for Sisko or maybe Kira.

Dax outranks OBrien, but it would be inappropriate for Dax to directly give an order to OBrien unless they were on an Away mission and he was placed under her command for that mission. Otherwise, he is the senior Operations officer and it is appropriate for him to say, "Lt Dax, will you help me with this specific task that is directly under my mandate as Operations Chief."

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

After the Great Revolution, all personal military ranks will be abolished as will all the privileges of the old decadent commissioned officers. Every Starfleet Worker and Starfleet Peasant will be equal in Our Great Bolshevik Federation.

Or at least that's what our starship Political Commissar tells us.

 

[jaime]

Exactly. His position on a ship would be an officer as Chief Engineer, which might even be 3rd in command (at least, pre TNG). Since they're on a space station, obviously Starfleet is willing to delegate the equivalent of Chief Engineer (Chief of Operations) to a senior NCO.

OBrien is at the top of a chain of command that consists of only enlisted crewman and he reports directly to the CO (or XO). He is still a noncommissioned officer, but all of the other commissioned officers are outside of his chain of command except for Sisko or maybe Kira.

Dax outranks OBrien, but it would be inappropriate for Dax to directly give an order to OBrien unless they were on an Away mission and he was placed under her command for that mission. Otherwise, he is the senior Operations officer and it is appropriate for him to say, "Lt Dax, will you help me with this specific task that is directly under my mandate as Operations Chief."

Which is why Bashir could only pull rank away from the station, and after they were separated from the runabout possibly.

 

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

After the Great Revolution, all personal military ranks will be abolished as will all the privileges of the old decadent commissioned officers. Every Starfleet Worker and Starfleet Peasant will be equal in Our Great Bolshevik Federation.

Or at least that's what our starship Political Commissar tells us.

That was actually what happened in the Red (Soviet) Army. The old NCO ranks just became something you awarded to some enlisted men after they had served for a while.

We used to have the same unified rank system in Sweden between 1972-2008. I myself became a Sergeant after completing my compulsory military service. After 1972 all old Sergeants, Petty Officers, Warrant Officers etc. became officers (usually Lieutenants).