Iām not talking about stuff like OāBrienās hollow rank pip, Iām talking about stuff like āWhy make Chakotay a lt. commander rather than a full commander?ā
It seems like there was at least some forethought put into who has what rank, but itās not clear to me how much thought, nor how much meaning was supposed to be baked in to those decisions.
For example, Dr Crusher was a full commander from Day 1, matched only by Riker on the main cast. Was that supposed to signify the authority afforded to the CMO? Was it supposed to be blatant enough for the audience to āgetā it?
One of the most prominent examples is Sisko starting his series as a commander. Again ā was that supposed to signify that he was more junior, a younger officer?
Behind the scenes, I wonder if we can trace a waxing and waning military influence in the writers room over the years. I know Roddenberry served, and I think some of the early TNG writers did as well. But I feel like that became less common in later series? (But I donāt know for sure.)
I think itās striking that rank is significantly downplayed on DSC, except for Burnham and potentially Saru.
We see this bear out in Miles Oābrien. He enlisted in starfleet rather than attending the academy. He climbed the ranks (mostly in backstory) and by the time we meet him in TNG heās a chief petty officer, non-commissioned but officer nonetheless. When he accepts the promotion/transfer to DS9 he achieves the rank of senior chief petty officer.
Its hard to say for sure that the rest of the show is inaccurate (or otherwise) in this regard because the shows mainly focus on bridge officers. Many characters receive offscreen promotions throughout the shows and you have to pay close attention to their uniforms and rank insignia to catch it. But also, you have to bear in mind how narrow a view we get of any crew outside of like Voyager.
For example, the Enterprise-D, as a Galaxy-class starship, can have a crew complement of anywhere from 1,000 to 6,000, and TNG as a show overwhelmingly focuses on just 7 of them. ābestā case thatās a view of about a half a percent of them, so it would be easy to draw nonsensical conclusions if you overly extrapolate from that small percentage. Maybe a lot of crewmen do actually retire after just a few years, itās hard to say for sure since there is basically no evidence either way.
Basically everyone in the commissioned officer corps (ensign and above) attended the academy first in order to receive the officer commission. You would not go to officer academy in real life if you did not intend to dedicate your main career to being a military officer, and likewise, people who attend starfleet academy generally intend to dedicate their careers to starfleet. Every depiction of the Enterprise is that it is the federation flagship and so we can consider a station there as being highly sought after and likewise regarded, it represents a high potential for being a crowning point on anyoneās career, so it kinda makes sense that the core officers might be reluctant to trade in for an inferior assignment, even if it meant a bigger promotion. Another aspect of this is loyalty: most of the officers depicted across all of the shows are supposed to be stand-out talents among the federation, with solid leadership skills that clearly foster loyalty. Loyalty that can create a reluctance for too much change. We see this reflected in Rikerās long resistance to getting promoted off the Enterprise to Captain. He doesnāt want to, partly out of loyalty to Picard, but also partly out of loyalty to the officers that report to him, and by extension the rest of the crew, and partly out of the chance that his potential new command is simply not as cool as being the first officer of the Enterprise.
Voyager has different circumstances, of course: the crew complement is much smaller, and they are stranded, but Rick Berman also decided that field promotions would be unlikely in their circumstances since they have no real way to gain more crew
Important to note that even among the enlisted ranks, the NCO corps begins just one rank above crewman. Similar to real life military there are only 3 ranks of non-officers
IIRC Roddenberryās idea was that everyone in Starfleet was a commissioned officer, but later writers overrode that.
One of the things that was good in the way OāBrien was written is that he was clearly a senior and respected member of the command structure. But that did not mean he had the positional authority to disobey a commissioned officerās orders should he disagree with them. Something that came out inā¦ errā¦ I think it might have been āHippocratic Oathā, where even though OāBrien had more years of military experience, and Starfleet experience, he still had to obey Bashirās orders (who might still have been a Lieutenant Junior Grade at the time?).