Sub-Commander T'Pol.

[bajorangirl]

I'm fairly new to Enterprise. I finished the series on Netflix a couple of months ago and I'm now re-watching for any bits I might have missed (I always do that with a series). But I'm confused by T'Pol's status on the ship. I was under the impression that T'Pol was there to serve as the ships science officer and Vulcan representative, so why is it she automatically takes the part of first officer? It is something that really annoyed me when first watching. I presumed Trip would have been Captain Archer's 'Number One'. I never liked T'Pol at the start anyway but I did warm to her as the series went on and I can see why the writers would have wanted a female alien as first officer, something a bit different to the other ST series.

I just wondered did she go on to the ship as first officer? Is Sub-Commmander a higher rank than Commander? Surely on an Earth ship run by Starfleet a Vulcan shouldn't have has any jurisdiction.
I can't seem to get my head round it

 

[Yanks]

She was placed on NX-01 because the Vulcans convinced Star Fleet that a Vulcan presence was needed. It makes sense that she is Archer's #1 so her influence is direct and she doesn't have to deal with another inexperienced Star Fleet officer to do that.

 

[Jedman67]

Originally T'Pol was attached to Enterprise as an "observer"; when Archer went to the Death Star at the end of Ep. 1 he gave temporary command of the ship to her, as a political maneuver.
At the episodes conclusion, he gave her a permanent spot in his command as the liaison to the Vulcan High Council; making her his effective XO.

 

[Long Syntax]

Originally T'Pol was attached to Enterprise as an "observer"; when Archer went to the Death Star at the end of Ep. 1 he gave temporary command of the ship to her, as a political maneuver.
At the episodes conclusion, he gave her a permanent spot in his command as the liaison to the Vulcan High Council; making her his effective XO.

Actually, as I recall, the pilot established the pecking order right up front. When Archer is injured in a shootout against the Suliban she assumes command.

My apologizes if I remember incorrectly.

 

[Jedman67]

@Long Syntax: could be, it's been some time since i've watched it.

 

[bajorangirl]

Ahh OK. I thought she decided her self that she would be the First Officer. The whole situation has confused me from the start.

 

[Long Syntax]

Ahh OK. I thought she decided her self that she would be the First Officer. The whole situation has confused me from the start.

That's what's cool about these boards, you can ask and you're surrounded by people that might know

 

[The Wormhole]

The matter is covered during the decon rubdown scene, so it's understandable if anyone skipped past it:

TUCKER: Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you just kind of an observer on this mission? I don't remember anyone telling me you were a member of Starfleet.
T'POL: My Vulcan rank supersedes yours.
TUCKER: Apples and oranges. This is an Earth vessel. You're in no position to take command.
T'POL: As soon as we're through here, I'll contact Ambassador Soval. He'll speak to your superiors and I'm certain they'll support my authority in this situation.
TUCKER: You must really be proud of yourself. You can put an end to this mission while the Captain's still unconscious in Sickbay. You won't even have to look him in the eye.

It is odd that a Vulcan subcommander outranks a Starfleet commander, the two ranks should be equal. Still, in situations where you have two officers of equal rank, command usually falls to the one with seniority, which in this case is clearly T'Pol. And clearly command authority does fall to her after Archer, since Trip backs down when she threatens to get Starfleet Command involved.

The fact that they're on an Earth ship doesn't make a difference, in the real world when you have military officers in exchange programs where they spend time with another nation's military, they are accorded the same status their rank entitles them, and can serve in positions within a ship or base's chain of command while in the exchange. Likewise, in WWII Eisenhower had direct command over troops and officers from the militaries of other Allied nations.

For other Trek examples, Martok had the authority to issue orders to Starfleet ships that were part of his fleet in the Dominion War, and Worf, a Starfleet officer served as Martok's XO and eventually even briefly commanded his own BoP.

What is kind of odd is that T'Pol kept her position as XO during season three, as she had resigned from the Vulcan High Command and wouldn't receive a Starfleet commission until season 4. At this point, she has no actual rank and is, for all intents and purposes a civilian. Obviously the fact she is qualified and experienced is good enough for Archer and the crew, and even Starfleet had no objections since they go ahead and giver her a commission and command of the ship in the alternate timeline in Twilight.

 

[Yanks]

I don't think we know for sure whether sub-commander out ranks star fleet's commander or not. Bit it is clear she has positional authority as second in command.

 

[Jedman67]

Archer gave her a field commission or a field position (civilian rank but military authority, which is very unusual in modern day militaries; aka Daniel Jackson) I don't want to remember enough of S3 to care.
Starfleet would not have to honor Archer's field commission in S4 but it would have been a very uncomfortable situation.
THIS THREAD talks about T'pol's rank; Memory Alpha proclaims Sub-Commander as equal in rank to a Starfleet Captain; however the ships captain is always the CO even if someone else is on board with higher rank or seniority.

 

[The Wormhole]

^^Actually the Memory Alpha article you linked says Subcommander is below a Starfleet Captain but above a Starfleet Commander. Seems a bit unnecessarily complex, given the Vulcan/Romulan rank of Commander is equivalent to a Starfleet Captain, Subcommander should be equal to a Starfleet Commander.

 

[Timo]

I see it the other way around: if Vulcan ranks really corresponded to Starfleet ones, the word for T'Pol's rank ought to be translated as "Commander" and not "Subcommander". That the translation differs from "Commander" means the rank somehow does, too.

There is one obvious anchor point in rank systems: the most common rank for starship CO could be called "Captain" in all the systems for convenience. Ranks below that then might or might not be equated with the usual RN/USN English titles, depending mostly on how many there were. If there are five officer ranks below Captain, then everything falls in place easily enough and deserves a direct translation to the classic RN/USN titles. With four or six, it's still doable. If there are, say, a dozen, then no way. If there are just two or three, then again better to go with either untranslated alien names for the ranks, or then something the UT picks at random from appropriate bits of Earth history.

That Gul or DaiMon don't get translated into Captain makes good sense in context: DaiMon no doubt is something of a mix between military CO and corporate CEO, while Gul carries political implications. It's not as if Legate would be any closer to any USN role, either, but might well match certain interpretations of the old Roman concept.

What Vulcan ranks do we know about besides Captain and Subcommander? Most of the stuff Memory Alpha lists may refer to organizations other than the Vulcan Space Navy thing. But if Sublieutenant is a further Vulcan naval rank, we might argue that Vulcan has more officer levels below starship skipper than Starfleet does, and the extra ones are fitted in between with the help of the "Sub". That Subcommander would be above Starfleet Commander rather than below would then be justified by assuming that Romulan ranks follow the Vulcan pattern, and that Commander is their choice for starship skipper. But that shifting of the anchor point already steps outside the justification for having USN style translations in the first place...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

We really don't know how many ranks the Vulcan space service had. So it is entirely possible that their Subcommander really did outrank a Starfleet Commander.

Until we are given the exact Vulcan rank structure (which is unlikely to ever occur), it's impossible to say which rank is equivalent to what.

it is clear she has positional authority as second in command.

That's the easiest explanation. T'Pol outranked Trip simply because she was the XO and he wasn't. Didn't really matter what actual ranks they had.

It's the same reasoning which dictated that Malcolm - a Lieutenant - outranked Major Hayes. Normally a Major outranks any Lieutenant, but since Reed was the chief of security, that makes him senior to any MACO (regardless of actual rank).

 

[Timo]

Until we are given the exact Vulcan rank structure (which is unlikely to ever occur), it's impossible to say which rank is equivalent to what.

And even that wouldn't help, because it might just be that Vulcans would have totally arbitrarily decided that their Apprentice Sub-Deckswiper 3rd Grade is equivalent to Starfleet Grand Admiral, and there'd be nothing Starfleet could do about that.

That's the easiest explanation. T'Pol outranked Trip simply because she was the XO and he wasn't. Didn't really matter what actual ranks they had.

Archer would have hell to pay when returning to home anyway - by refusing to return from the Klaag taxi mission, he's essentially AWOL with Starfleet's blessing but Vulcan High Command's loud cursing. So it doesn't matter much whether he follows procedure and formalities during the first two years. And all the better if he errs on the side of making the Vulcans happy as clams.

It's the same reasoning which dictated that Malcolm - a Lieutenant - outranked Major Hayes. Normally a Major outranks any Lieutenant, but since Reed was the chief of security, that makes him senior to any MACO (regardless of actual rank).

It probably doesn't make him qualified to command any MACO, though, without specific further arrangements - which Reed and Hayes agree upon quickly enough.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

There don't appear to be mid-ranks in the Earth Starfleet (Lt. Commander, Lt. jg for example). So perhaps the Vulcans consider an Earth commander like Tucker to be what would later be considered a Lt. Commander in the Federation Starfleet.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There don't appear to be mid-ranks in the Earth Starfleet (Lt. Commander, Lt. jg for example).

Or we just never happened to see anyone with those ranks. Doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

[Timo]

It's a bit difficult to see why Starfleet would go to the trouble of making a rank disappear. But if we do assume something funny happened to the Lt Commander rank at this juncture, we could say that it only fully recovered in the 2280s or so, for the TOS movie rank scheme - and that there were still issues during TOS, where both Lt Commander and Commander wear the same rank braid in "Court Martial" and Lt Cdr appears to wear Lieutenant braid in "Where No Man".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Some counties do not have those ranks because the organizations are not large enough to warrant having them. The US Navy did not have Lt. Commanders at all until the Civil War , and what is now Lt. Jg was called Master with seemingly no rank for Ensign. Same with there being no American Admirals until the Civil War either, while the Royal Navy had them for a long time prior.

US officers Ranks in 1852: Master, Lieutenant, Commander, and Captain.

 

[Timo]

It's tempting to think that the early UESF would have been small enough to omit a few ranks - much more tempting than thinking that the UFP Starfleet at any point would have dropped any of the "classic" ranks for any length of time, because the full set appears often enough. But admittedly we don't have any data on the full set existing in the early years of the UFP Starfleet yet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Well, if the fleet is still relatively small, they don't need as many ranks to fill in positions. 13 starships that warrant a captain or even commodore might start to change that if there are more and more ships being constructed.

In Archer's time there certainly was no need for that many ranks, with one or two starships and maybe a few dozen slower ships or similar size in Starfleet. How they managed to have so may Vice Admirals is unclear.