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Kosinski - rank pins and combadge mystery

RapidNadion

RapidNadion

Commander
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First off, I did a search for Kosinski (TNG - "Where No One Has Gone Before") just now and it was my first exposure to the knowledge that the actor (Stanley Kamel) died last year. RIP. Glad he had a few threads here at the BBS devoted to him at the time.

I wanted to ask if anyone had any high res captures or speculative fan art depicting his rank insignia. In some shots it looks like a bisected black/silver square, and in others it looks like a series of stripes. We never see that insignia again, as I recall.

Also, was there ever any behind-the-scenes explanation for why Kosinski didn't have a combadge for the entire episode?
 
When I first watched this episode, I couldn't figure out why his uniform looked so different. Finally, when I realized he was missing his comm badge, I couldn't believe how much that badge completed the uniforms. Without it, they look so unfinished.
 
One might say that it's a trademark of absentminded geniuses that they dress in less than immaculate fashion and care. For all we know, a missing commbadge would be the equivalent of leaving your uniform buttons open or using a civilian baseball cap with the dress blues.

As for real-world explanations, one wonders if TPTB still didn't harbor some ideas about giving a differently shaped badge for each different starship - much as had been attempted (unsuccessfully) in TOS. Since Kosinski came from a "guest starship", he'd need an all-new badge. And then nobody managed to come up with one in time, but the memo about Kosinski not wearing the E-D badge was read and followed anyway.

Sure, some badges of the E-D style had already been spotted on the Tsiolkovski crew, but never up close.

Timo Saloniemi
 
^ Well, but if Starfleet could decide to move to a single badge in between TOS and the movies, why couldn't they later decide to move back to ship-specific badges between the movies and TNG? After all, they did seem to change uniforms quite often.

Also remember that after TMP, Roddenberry had no control over the films. And in TMP, while we didn't see the badges of anyone serving on board another starship, the crew of Epsilon IX did have different badges than the Enterprise crew:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmphd/tmphd0096.jpg

So it seems that in the one movie Roddenberry produced, they kept the idea of unique badges. Maybe it was changed in TWOK against how Roddenberry wanted it, and he planned to change it back for TNG.
 
Did they refer to him by rank at any point?

Also, didn't O'Brien end up with some type of square emblem to denote him being a chief PO? Or was it chief warrant officer?
 
Ar-Pharazon said:
Did they refer to him by rank at any point?

Also, didn't O'Brien end up with some type of square emblem to denote him being a chief PO? Or was it chief warrant officer?
Click to expand...

O'Brien was a Lieutenant at the beginning of the second season with two solid pips; in the fourth season he was referred to as a CPO but still had two pips; in the sixth season they gave him one hollow pip to represent the Chief rank; then he transferred to DS9 and had one hollow pip for awhile before they gave him a stylized pin with stripes. I don't remember whether he had a hollow or solid pip in "All Good Things" (he was an unnamed Ensign in "Encounter at Farpoint").
 
Kosinski was called "Mister" on all occasions. He considered Lieutenant Commander Argyle "Sir", so supposedly he doesn't rank the Chief Engineer - but in theory, he could be anything from Lieutenant down to Ensign, which is where "Mister" would probably cease to be a proper form of address. Of course, for all we know he could be a civilian specialist.

O'Brien wore single or double bright pips in TNG, suggesting the respective ranks of Ensign and Lieutenant, but this was never confirmed in dialogue. There's an ambiguous bit in "Where Silence Has Lease" where Riker addresses one of two people as "Lieutenant" - either O'Brien or Worf. It's impossible to tell from the context which one he's speaking to, but Worf is a guaranteed Lieutenant so that might be the best way to go.

Writers always thought O'Brien was some sort of a noncom, even if the collar pips didn't bear this out. In "Family", he's established as a Chief Petty Officer of some sort, and this is maintained in "Realm of Fear" where Lt(jg) Barclay outranks him; elsehwere in TNG, his rank or rate is not mentioned and is not a plot point.

The two bright pips change to a single dark/hollow one for O'Brien's last season in TNG, and that stays on his collar until replaced in mid-DS9 by a collar plate that features three chevrons and two stars. Since corresponding USN plates have a rocker next to the chevrons to mark another step up the ladder, one might say that one of the Starfleet stars fills this function and O'Brien thus remains a "one-star" Chief Petty Officer, in other words a Senior CPO. This also jibes with "Playing God" where O'Brien says his dad proudly calls him "my son, the Senior Chief, Specialist".

In retrospect, we could always declare O'Brien's single early TNG bright pip a dark one. It was retconned that way in "All Good Things...", after all. Possibly his second bright pip (only seen in a couple of mid-TNG eps) might be considered a dark one, too, and then declared a temporary promotion? Such things aren't completely unknown, even if rare, in the real world.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Timo said:
There's an ambiguous bit in "Where Silence Has Lease" where Riker addresses one of two people as "Lieutenant" - either O'Brien or Worf.
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure O'Brien is called Lieutenant by Picard in another episode, but it's been awhile since I've watched TNG.

Timo said:
Possibly his second bright pip (only seen in a couple of mid-TNG eps)
Click to expand...

It was hardly a couple of episodes; he appears in most of seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5 and is wearing two solid pips for all of those.
 
Hmh? I thought the TNG cadet pips were reuses of the long TOS movie sleeve pips that might or might not have indicated service years, or decorations, or other such things? Not squarish things like Kosinski's little collar piece.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s1/1x06/wherenoone014.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s5/5x19/thefirstduty086.jpg

Admittedly, it would be an interesting idea if Kosinski were a cadet Wunderkind of some sort... Or not really a Wunderkind, more like a mature specialist who had recently enrolled in the Academy after concluding lots of studies in his own field of specialization.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I always worked under the assumption he was some type of civilian specialist. He never refers to Riker by rank: "Come along, Riker" is one of his lines. I also don't remember him referring to Argyle by rank, ther only one he does refer to by rank is Picard.

Edit: He is referred to as a Starfleet propulsion expert in Picard's log at the beginning of the episode.
 
Indeed: "Starfleet expert on propulsion" and "expert on Starfleet propulsion" would be two different things, but perhaps both would be expressed by "Starfleet propulsion expert"?

The thing is, Starfleet would have very little need for "warrant officers" or other such civilian helpers who get a "play rank" so that they can interact with the military and lift military pay. It seems that Starfleet's own officers are highly trained academicians all (or nearly all), and they choose to dedicate themselves to a military career instead of just doing contract work for a defined or undefined period of time. If somebody warrants a, well, warrant, then he or she must be really special...

On the other hand, civilian geniuses seem to do work for Starfleet without having to play costume games: e.g. Daystrom never integrated into the Fleet organization, even if he wore Starfleet-looking coveralls (over a nonstandard shirt) for the mission in "The Ultimate Computer". Kosinski's assistant is in civvies, too. All the stranger, then, that Kosinski would wear a uniform.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Timo said:
Indeed: "Starfleet expert on propulsion" and "expert on Starfleet propulsion" would be two different things, but perhaps both would be expressed by "Starfleet propulsion expert"?

The thing is, Starfleet would have very little need for "warrant officers" or other such civilian helpers who get a "play rank" so that they can interact with the military and lift military pay. It seems that Starfleet's own officers are highly trained academicians all (or nearly all), and they choose to dedicate themselves to a military career instead of just doing contract work for a defined or undefined period of time. If somebody warrants a, well, warrant, then he or she must be really special...

On the other hand, civilian geniuses seem to do work for Starfleet without having to play costume games: e.g. Daystrom never integrated into the Fleet organization, even if he wore Starfleet-looking coveralls (over a nonstandard shirt) for the mission in "The Ultimate Computer". Kosinski's assistant is in civvies, too. All the stranger, then, that Kosinski would wear a uniform.

Timo Saloniemi
Click to expand...

All true. But we only have the 'Starfleet propulsion expert' tag from the log and the fact that he is wearing a variant of a Starfleet uniform to go on.
 
It may also have been a jumpsuit supplied to him by the Fearless. The Navy, I believe, sometimes offers civilian contractors or "riders" on subs their own poopysuit for on-board use (though I could be wrong on that). And there's precedent for Starfleet doing this kind of thing too - we saw Khan issued an engineering tunic by Kirk & Co. in "Space Seed." I always found that somewhat improper, particularly with all the noise made by later Starfleet officers about "what it means to wear this uniform," etc.
 
we saw Khan issued an engineering tunic by Kirk & Co. in "Space Seed."
Click to expand...

Charlie Evans and John Christopher also got uniforms despite the former being an utter civilian and the latter an officer from a different service. Heck, Christopher even got rank braid appropriate for his USAF Captain rank (that is, the single braid of Starfleet Lieutenant).

Perhaps Kosinski wasn't quite civilian, but not Starfleet, either - so he got to wear the uniform and a rank pin matching his rank in the non-Starfleet service he came from. But this time, the pin was shaped slightly differently from standard Starfleet ones to denote the difference - just like the Maquis rank pins were.

Kosinski's pin looks like a square plate with a bit of dark towards the centerline of his body and a brighter area towards the shoulder. Analogous to Lieutenant (junior grade)?

Timo Saloniemi
 
As I recall, Kosinski had some kind of squarish "pip" on his uniform. I got the impression he wasn't an officer, but a civilian engineer. It's weird he'd wear an incomplete version of a Starfleet uniform, so perhaps he was a retired Starfleet officer who was allowed to wear a uniform but not his old rank, due to some odd regulation. Or he had some kind of "in-between" status, and the squarish pip indicated that. Like Kyle Riker, he may have been some kind of civilian consultant. It certainly would've been more in keeping with his arrogance if, like Scotty, he was a captain of engineering, or even a full commander. Wonder what happened to Kosinski once it was discovered he wasn't the one really responsbile for some of the engine improvements he made, as it seemed it was more the Traveler's doing? -- RR
 
I imagine him to be a warrant officer--someone who works as a civilian, but has been called upon to consult for Starfleet because of his expertise, and was therefore granted a warrant rank while on assignment. Works for me. :)
 
I like it. Much better than the incongruously busy pip they gave O'Brien on DS9. The lack of communicator bothers me too for aesthetic reasons - the occasional admiral went un-communicatored as well. ...I figured it was just that they didn't need a "phone" when they're permanently stationed at a starbase, unlike on a starship where they 1) occasionally have away missions and 2) need to show the insignia to new peoples as well.
 
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