Chekhov is definitely very junior, but seen as a very promising ensign by Kirk, Spock and Scotty. ISTR that writer's guide (presumably season three, but maybe David Gerrold's book) suggested that they were basically competing to encourage him to follow their route: command, science, engineering...
Scotty as second officer
- Thread starter Lance
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There's some psych mental error we make when we judge people by their inherited facial expressions (all the people with resting-B-face can weigh in now).
If I think of the name I'll weigh in. For now I'll call it the LCDR Lumpy McLumpkins Facial Attribution Error.
Is someone here questioning Scotty's role in the command chain??? Scotty has been seen numerous times sitting in the command chair when Kirk and Spock were on a planet, and it would be obvious where the command chain lies when the self destruct protocols are addressed. Only the voices and authorizations from those 3 individuals can the ship blow up.
They only went twice in TOS. We know Scotty was on board in Amok Time, because Spock was going to turn over command to him.I always found it strange that Scotty was nowhere in sight every time the Enterprise went to Vulcan!
JB
Same thing happened in Journey to Babel.
I almost felt chastised there. And rightly so—I mean the chastisement, not my feelings. As a matter of fact, I very nearly deleted that line. It was harsher than I intended.
I think what made Commander Lumpy—forgive me, I mean the navigator—stand out is his ineffable ordinariness, if you know what I mean. There really isn’t anything remarkable about him, not negatively, at least. And that’s what sets his apart from the stars and the featured players: he is nondescript.
To put it another way, it’s striking how awkward the stand-ins looked compared to the main cast. Just scroll through the pictures of unnamed TOS Enterprise personnel over at Memory Alpha to see what I mean.
From the shrugging cadets in “The Cage” to Mr. Lemlie in the third season, these background artists could easily fit in almost episodes of Dragnet. Few of them have any sort of a military bearing or even exhibit a sense of purpose.
The Enterprise is apparently crewed by very ordinary and quite unimposing refugees from the local unemployment office.
As I said, I felt almost chastised. Almost.
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I wasn't really trying to. It's a real thing. What features with that navigator are more "ordinary" than Shatner's or McCoy's, say? (And I'm not saying you're wrong!) I like unpacking or digging into things like this. There is something that says "not special" about him, from his appearance, but what?
Slightly off-topic there's at least once where there's a bald guy in a gold shirt. As a fellow bald guy, I love that.
Slightly off-topic there's at least once where there's a bald guy in a gold shirt. As a fellow bald guy, I love that.
I am not convinced there was a Second officer. Spock did the XO job so proficiently that it would not be needed. Plus Kirk had his own style of whom to assign the big chair to, when he and Spock were away,which might not be there and.
Well the occasions we saw the Self-Destruct activated
TOS - Kirk (Commanding Officer), Spock (Science Officer), Scotty(Chief Engineer)
TSFS - Kirk (Commanding Officer), Scotty (Chief Engineer), Chekov (Acting Science Officer)
Now for me, it would make sense for the three most senior officers available to be the ones who set the self-destruct sequence.
Of course it would be needed. Somebody has to take command if the Captain and XO are not available. That person is, by definition, the second officer.
No the second officer is a position, not absolutely the order of command. It seems Captain's discression as to who has command.
Sigh! This is an original series thread and you're giving an example from the movies??? Wow.
The point is they never identified as CO, First Officer and Second Officer.
To be honest I can't see Chekov above Sulu command wise not considering that Sulu has commanded the Enterprise in Kirk's absence before while Chekov hasn't!
JB
JB
*Nods*
Though FWIW, the Navigator(s) usually outrank the helmsmen historically (as the NAV would be an officer whereas the helmsman was a rating).
Though FWIW, the Navigator(s) usually outrank the helmsmen historically (as the NAV would be an officer whereas the helmsman was a rating).
But what if he lost his brain? Who would take over then???
Except for when the First Officer is under the influence of alien spores and refuses to do his duty, shanghais the ship to take his former Commanding Officer to a forbidden planet, is being court martialed, is temporarily blinded, is lost in the 1930s along with the Captain and Chief Medical Officer, is incapacitated due to the alien plants on a new planet they were exploring, is shot by a flintlock, is aging at a greatly accelerated rate, is captured by Space Romans or Space Nazis, is donating blood to save his father during emergency surgery, is participating in a subterfuge to romance a female Romulan commander, is stranded in a planet's ice age along with the CMO, or has his brain stolen.
Maybe the job of second officer is rotating based on who is not needed in their primary role for the mission at hand. And also, if Spock is needed chiefly for his science or Vulcan expertise in a mission, first officer duties not pertinent to his needed tasks are assigned to one whose specialty it is.
So if second officer is a full-time job, what would their day-to-day duties be?
Generally something in the Operations field most likely, given that known Second Officers include Engineer Tucker, Engineer Scott, Operations Manager Data, Security Chief/Tactical Officer Tuvok, however not necessarily as Science Officers Spock and Dax were initially Second Officer (though Dax dropped down to Third or even Fourth after Eddington and Worf's arrival), and Science Officer Airiam also appears to Second Officer with a dual ops/science role.
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