Spock's Promotion

[MAGolding]

When was Spock promoted from Lieutenant Commander to full Commander? Does any know of any evidence beside the evidence I give below?

In the court martial in "Court Martial", Spock is called to testify:

(Spock hands over his data chip, sits down and puts his hand on the lie detector.)
COMPUTER: Spock, serial number S179-276SP. Service rank, Lieutenant Commander. Position, First officer, science officer. Current assignment, USS Enterprise. Commendations, Vulcanian Scientific Legion of Honour. Awards of valour. Twice decorated by Starfleet command.

"Court Martial" was the 15th episode produced and the 20th episode broadcast (2 February 1967) and has stardate 2947.3.

And in "The Menagerie part 1":

CAPTAINS LOG: Captain's log, stardate 3012.4. Despite our best efforts to disengage computers, the Enterprise is still locked on a heading for the mysterious planet Talos Four. Meanwhile, as required by Starfleet General Orders, a preliminary hearing on Lieutenant Commander Spock is being convened. And in all the years of my service, this is the most painful moment I've ever faced.

"The Menagerie Part 1" was the 16th episode produced and the 11th broadcast (17 November 1966), and has stardate 3012.4.

And in "Tomorrow is Yesterday":

KIRK: Captain Christopher, this is my First Officer, Lieutenant Commander Spock.

"Tomorrow is Yesterday" was the 22nd episode produced and the 19th episode broadcast (26 January 1967), and has stardate 3113.2.

But in the second season episode "Amok Time":

VULCAN: USS Enterprise from Vulcan Space Central. Permission granted. And from all of Vulcan, welcome. Is Commander Spock with you?

"Amok time" was the 35th episode produced and the 30th episode broadcast (15 September 1967) and had stardate 3372.7.

In Journey to Babel":

KIRK: Captain James Kirk.
SAREK: captain.
KIRK: My First Officer, Commander Spock.

"Journey to Babel" was the 45th episode produced and the 39th episode broadcast (17 November 1967) and has stardate 3842.3.

"The Immunity Syndrome":

[now in "Shuttlecraft"]
SPOCK: Personal log, Commander Spock, USS Enterprise. I have noted the passage of the Enterprise on its way to whatever awaits it. If this record should survive me, I wish it known that I bequeath my highest commendation and testimonial to the captain, officers, and crew of the Enterprise. The finest starship in the fleet.

KIRK: (also making a log entry) We have arrived at the chromosome body in the nucleus of the organism. If we should fail in our attempt to destroy it, or be unable to free ourselves, I wish to record my recommendations for the following personnel, that they receive special citation. Lieutenant Commander Leonard McCoy, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, officers Chekov, Kyle, Uhura, and my highest commendation for Commander Spock, Science Officer, who gave his life in the performance of his duty.

"The Immunity Syndrome" was the 49th episode produced and the 47th episode broadcast (19 January 1968) and has stardate 4307.1.

This indicates that Spock has been promoted to commander, otherwise Kirk would have described him as as "Lieutenant Commander" like he did McCoy and Scott. And Spock would have used his accurate rank in making a final log for posterity.

I remember that The Making of Star Trek, Stephen E. Whitfield, 1968, says that Spock was promoted from lieutenant commander to commander during the first season, though I was unable to find the statement in a quick search of the chapter on Spock.

As far as I know, Spock always wore the insignia of a full commander, even in episode where he was described as lieutenant commander. This may have been because he was the first officer of the Enterprise. Or maybe Spock had a field promotion to commander while still officially a lieutenant commander, and his rank of full commander was later made official and permanent.

So does anyone have any evidence that might narrow down when Spock was promoted.to commander, or is the evidence I gathered all the available evidence?

 

[Timo]

Difficult to think what sort of evidence could even theoretically exist. Spock's exact rank certainly isn't mentioned in dialogue beyond your quotes.

We could argue chain of command issues and see when Spock starts trumping Scotty, though. If the Scot is the senior to the Lieutenant Commander rank, then he should have dibs for executive decisions over Spock until the Vulcan's invisible promotion to full Commander happens.

In "Enemy Within", Spock does consider himself mere Second Officer, FWIW. But frustratingly, him being the XO is directly associated with him being a mere LCdr in "Court Martial", so there goes that whole line of investigation...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[valkyrie013]

Spock was billited as the 1st officer, so however many people outrank him, he was still it. Scotty took over the rigns only when Kirk and spock were out. Like Crusher or Deanna in TNG, Scotty probably took the command training course to be a bridge officer, but is billeted as the chief engineer.. Sulu was only a Lieutenant but did take command ocasionaly, but usually did so from the helm station. Wonder who was the Beta and Gamma shift command officers on the Tos enterprise?

 

[Phaser Two]

When was Spock promoted from Lieutenant Commander to full Commander? Does any know of any evidence beside the evidence I give below?
. . .
So does anyone have any evidence that might narrow down when Spock was promoted.to commander, or is the evidence I gathered all the available evidence?

I believe you got everything from the show - well done! - but there are others who are really familiar with canon source material like the writers' guide(s) and such who may know much more than I do about when the promotion took place.

I have always assumed, in-universe, that Spock received a brevet promotion to commander upon becoming Kirk's first officer, and for some reason in Starfleet that means that you wear the rank insignia of a full commander but are referred to as a lieutenant commander. That doesn't seem to make much sense, but perhaps Starfleet differed from the United States and other Western militaries in this regard. Later, at some point during S1 or perhaps after S1, Spock became a full commander, not just a brevet CDR, so everything matched up for the duration.

Out of universe, I have always imagined that there was either a costuming error or a mistake by the writers of those "lieutenant commander" episodes that you mentioned. In either case, no one was going to restitch all of Nimoy's tunics.

(By the way, before anyone notes that this was a natural rinky-dink error by an overworked and underbudgeted production team, that may have been the case, but this sort of thing can happen to any television show, and indeed TV and film often struggle with military ranks and insignia. We don't have to go too far for an example of this, because a similar rank error also happened relatively early in Voyager's run with Tuvok and (IIRC) Paris.)

For the first 10-15 episodes of Voyager, the producers had Tuvok wearing the two full, one dark rank pips of an LCDR, and Paris wearing the two full pips of an LT. However, at the outset of the show Tuvok was supposed to be an LT and Paris, after his field promotion by Janeway, was supposed to be an LTJG (one full pip, one dark pip). If I'm remembering right, there's a first season episode of VOY ("Cathexis," maybe?) in which Tuvok's and Paris' rank insignia change from scene to scene and back again, so someone caught the mistake during the episode's filming, but they shot the scenes out of order. After that, Tuvok was an LT and Paris was an LTJG until - confusingly enough - each of their ranks changed again, with Tuvok earning the promotion to LCDR (for real this time) and Paris being demoted to Ensign, then later promoted back to LTJG.)

@Harvey may know a lot more about Spock's rank.

 

[FormerLurker]

Both The Making Of Star Trek and The World Of Star Trek state that Spock was promoted behind the scenes between season One and season Two. There is no onscreen canon source beyond the dialog quotes that I know of.

 

[johnnybear]

Maybe it's like in the Police force, a Detective Sergeant has passed his exams to become an Inspector but has to wait until that position is available to him, like another officer leaving the post or until his Captain believes he is truly ready to become an Inspector!
JB

 

[J.T.B.]

As far as I know, Spock always wore the insignia of a full commander, even in episode where he was described as lieutenant commander. This may have been because he was the first officer of the Enterprise. Or maybe Spock had a field promotion to commander while still officially a lieutenant commander, and his rank of full commander was later made official and permanent.

Every character who wore two full stripes (Spock, Finney, Giotto) was called a lieutenant commander. McCoy and Scotty wore 1½ stripes and were also referred to as lieutenant commanders. I can't come up with a reasonable way to reconcile all of that, they were just behind-scenes mistakes. As far as I am concerned, Spock was always a full commander despite the dialog, and Finney and Giotto were always lieutenant commanders despite the stripes.

 

[Henoch]

I checked TrekCore: Except for WNMHGB, Spock always worn two sold stripes, never 11/2 stripes, even as far back to production number 3 episode, The Corbomite Maneuver. Maybe the stripes denote "position" of First Officer, and not "rank". If it denotes positions, then other discrepancies may be explained, like Lt. Masters with no stripes. She has rank of Lt., but she is new/junior in her Science department. Department heads have 11/2 stripes, and Section heads have one stripe, etc.

 

[Push The Button]

For a show that was created, produced, and written by so many people with actual military experience, it is strange how the details of ranks and ratings were so often overlooked or in error.

 

[J.T.B.]

Maybe the stripes denote "position" of First Officer, and not "rank". If it denotes positions, then other discrepancies may be explained, like Lt. Masters with no stripes. She has rank of Lt., but she is new/junior in her Science department. Department heads have 11/2 stripes, and Section heads have one stripe, etc.

That still wouldn't account for Finney and Giotto, though.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

In my head canon, Mitchell was 1st officer in WNMHGB and not Spock. Spock helped Kirk get through the incident with his calm, emotionless point of view and save the ship from Mitchell. Kirk valued Spock's contribution during a crisis situation. (I also believe that the Kobiyashi Maru test is administered during Command School which Spock did not enroll and that's why he never took the test. I'm writing off the 1st Abrams movie as alternate timeline where actions and events evolved differently from the Prime universe.) It's my opinion that Kirk pushed hard for Spock to be promoted to 1st officer and met with some resistance from Starfleet about a person from a pacifistic-driven race who hadn't attended Command School being promoted to a full-time 1st officer. Spock held a brevet rank of Commander and was allowed to wear the 2 full stripes but he was still technically a lieutenant commander until he proved himself in the eyes of Starfleet Command. (Later on, we hear of the Intrepid, which is actually manned by Vulcans in "The Immunity Syndrome," that is destroyed when the Vulcans can't resolve the problem that faced them. Maybe Starfleet's concern was not completely groundless?) The fact that Kirk believed in Spock and pushed so hard to get him promoted also makes Spock's "betrayal" when he hijacks the Enterprise in "The Menagerie" a lot more personal and bittersweet to Kirk. I believe that this point of view for Kirk of Spock's "mutiny" was laying forgotten in the back of Kirk's head and it is what fueled the aging Kirk's lashing out at Spock again in "The Deadly Years" after Spock holds the hearing that relieves Kirk of command.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Maybe he never got a promotion. Maybe all of the episodes in which Spock was a lieutenant commander took place in a different universe from the ones in which he was a full commander.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The Star Trek Chronology by the Okudas has Spock's promotion occurring between "Court Martial" and "The Menagerie," as reflected by your first two episodes cited. I think that's as good a place as any to have it. In my own ST Chronology, that happens to fall right at the beginning of the 5YM's third year, which seems as logical a time as any for promotions and reassignments.

I wasn't aware that Spock was also called a Lieutenant Commander in "Tomorrow is Yesterday," though. I wonder if the Odukas missed that as well.

BTW, @KeepOnTrekking, I really like your backstory. It fits nicely with what we see onscreen.

 

[Timo]

Every character who wore two full stripes (Spock, Finney, Giotto) was called a lieutenant commander. McCoy and Scotty wore 1½ stripes and were also referred to as lieutenant commanders. I can't come up with a reasonable way to reconcile all of that, they were just behind-scenes mistakes. As far as I am concerned, Spock was always a full commander despite the dialog, and Finney and Giotto were always lieutenant commanders despite the stripes.

The simple (!) way to interpret that is to say that Starfleet has two ranks of Lieutenant Commander, the Lower and the Upper. Both can be called Lieutenant Commander in formal occasions, and both can be shortened to Commander in normal speech, but one has the |: braid and other has the || braid.

In this setup, there would not be even a theoretical chance of contradiction: every time a || gets called Commander, it's exactly right, and every time a |: gets called that, it's again correct (just as ITRW) - but this time the same holds true for getting called Lieutenant Commander.

The braid is screwy in any case, as it does not conform to the simple pattern of classic Royal Navy braid minus one solid stripe - the Captain wears half a braid too little. Although then there is this mysterious Fleet Captain, who might wear full three solid stripes or ||| and who in that Pike flashforward appears to have five pips on the shoulders where the usual pip schemes attribute just four pips to regular Captain.

If instead we go with the idea that Spock got a half-assed promotion for whatever reason, then I gather everything has already been spelled out upthread. He got the braid and the practical authority out in the field (perhaps in the aftermath of the "WNMHGB" losses), but Starfleet records were slow to follow. Might well happen to Giotto, too - a promotion in the field is sorta inevitable for the Boss of Redshirts!

As for Finney, he, too, might have gotten a field promotion that would only get solidified in the episode featuring him, just like Spock's. Or then he stole a full Commander's shirt to wear in his hideout, as taking an extra shirt of his own from his closet or from his fabricator quota would look like a suspicious activity for a dead man to perform.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

The simple (!) way to interpret that is to say that Starfleet has two ranks of Lieutenant Commander, the Lower and the Upper. Both can be called Lieutenant Commander in formal occasions, and both can be shortened to Commander in normal speech, but one has the |: braid and other has the || braid.

But that's not the case. Spock's rank and McCoy's rank as entered into the record in "Court Martial" are identical: "lieutenant commander."

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Every character who wore two full stripes (Spock, Finney, Giotto) was called a lieutenant commander. McCoy and Scotty wore 1½ stripes and were also referred to as lieutenant commanders. I can't come up with a reasonable way to reconcile all of that, they were just behind-scenes mistakes. As far as I am concerned, Spock was always a full commander despite the dialog, and Finney and Giotto were always lieutenant commanders despite the stripes.

I was gonna ask about the sleeve stripes. Did they ever change re: Spock?

Also, Data was AFAIK always a Lt. Cdr. but was referred to as "Commander Data" at times.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I was gonna ask about the sleeve stripes. Did they ever change re: Spock?

Nope.

Also, Data was AFAIK always a Lt. Cdr. but was referred to as "Commander Data" at times.

That's an acceptable shorthand for "Lieutenant Commander."

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Nope.

That's an acceptable shorthand for "Lieutenant Commander."

Exactly, but Spock being called Commander in S2 didn't necessarily mean he was promoted, and the lack of change on his rank stripes would back that up.

Of course TOS wasn't as anal about that sort of thing as later shows (leaving out Tuvok's see-sawing ranks).

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Well, if you're introducing a Lieutenant Commander to someone like an alien dignitary, you'd use their full rank. If you're just addressing them to their face on the ship, you'd likely just say "Commander" instead. Since Spock was fairly consistently referred to as "Commander" after a certain point, I'd say it's very likely that he got promoted.

 

[Timo]

But that's not the case. Spock's rank and McCoy's rank as entered into the record in "Court Martial" are identical: "lieutenant commander."

Yes, and that's the idea: that both of them hold the rank of LCdr, but McCoy at |: is a Lower and Spock at || an Upper Lieutenant Commander.

Whether the rank of full Commander exists in this model at all is then arbitrarily decided. If it does, then it's the one held by young Captain Kirk, with |:| on his sleeve. A more senior Captain might then be of Captain rank, with the so far unseen ||| braid and thus preserving what there is left of the Royal Navy Minus One scheme.

That's the "simple" model. The "complex" one involves Spock's official status as full Commander dragging behind his braid and authority during the early first season, for reason X, and probably works much better overall. The thing is, both work within the datapoints given.

Timo Saloniemi