If you discount flash-forwards, it looks like Geordi started as Lt JG, was made a full Lt when he became chief engineer, and within a year, Lt Commander, the end. At least according to Memory Alpha.
EDIT: oh, I see the distinction you're making.
By the way, MA has an entry in Unnamed Humans (23rd Century) for Geordi's great-grandfather on the basis of Scotty's line, "I was driving starships when your great-grandfather was in diapers". Not quite at the level of TARDIS Wiki having full pages on things like Twine, but close.
Edited by TParadox on Nov 15th 2018 at 2:55:41 PM
Fresh-eyed movie blog
...Worf never actually made full commander during the series. In Beta canon he doesn't get the promotion until 2380 when he takes over as XO on the Enterprise.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
It would have also allowed Kira to stay in command of day to day operations benefiting her S7 rank while Sisko was focused on both the war and Bajor, making his choice to go to Cardassia more meaning full.
Only in Beta Canon does she ever get her appropriate rank when Bajor officially joins the Federation and ranks are 1 to 1 transferred. She is the only one to really turn down a promotion anywhere in beta canon as well, turning down both offers of an Admiral promotion and command of 'a shiny new cruiser' as she puts it to stay on DS 9 in STO.
Edited by Memers on Nov 16th 2018 at 5:36:05 AM
This is all assuming the ranks and responsibilities are perfectly aligned with specifically US ranks and military structure. After all the senior officers of any given crew seemed to be made up of people of all ranks, we have ensigns sitting in on strategy meetings simply because they are registered bridge crew. On occasion we would get a random Colonel or Commodore. And it was also shown that Commanders often function as the de facto ranking officer of a ship or station (Sisko for DS 9 and Defiant, Picard for Stargazer), and given Kira's commission would imply that it was viewed as the equivalent of the Bajoran Colonel. After all the Bajorans didn't have a significant fleet, mostly smaller fighters and converted freighters, no big cruisers like the Enterprise.
Regarding Worf, I was mistaken, the change to command red made me assume it was a promotion. And that comes with a different issue that there didn't appear to be a big distinction between officers and enlisted personnel. There were a couple nods towards the underlings but other than O'Brien there wasn't a lot of representation on what their advancement opportunities could be.
The Colonel rank such as STVI's 'Colonel West' have been implied to be part of the 'Starfleet Marines' that Gene wanted to introduce in TOS but never had the opportunity to do. The Marines were the ones that were supposed to conduct Operation Retrieve to get Kirk and Bones off Rura Penthe but are never mentioned by name in the movie, only on the PADD with the plan the president tosses on the desk.
Said Starfleet Marines concept became the MACO in ENT as well.
A militaristic element of Star Trek that disco didnt use... shocking.
Edited by Memers on Nov 16th 2018 at 8:28:55 AM
I thought Worf was made a full Commander when he was posted to Deep Space Nine, but apparently not. It did seem to come very quickly after finally making Lt Cmd.
When they nailed down O'Brien's rank, he was a CPO, and I think he couldn't have been promoted any further without a commission, which the writers didn't want because he's the Working Stiff, and O'Brien didn't want because he just likes getting his hands on tech.
Fresh-eyed movie blog
The MACO's were refreshing in that they represented a completely different command-line than just the one Starfleet used. The Jurisdiction Friction made for some of the best stuff in ENT third season. In truth, Starfleet is only Mildly Military in the sense that they were not very compartmentalized. They were otherwise pretty well structured and respected the chain of command. At most they would mention hosting a specific scientific research team or escorting a specific ambassador, but generally everyone was meant to take on just about any responsibility that might arise. The captain deals with first contact scenarios, chief of security handles internal security, ship combat and deployment, the XO handles discipline, personnel schedule and relaying commands.
Some of that is intentional, the vastness of space means that everyone had to be ready to do anything. They could end up spending six months running sensor scans of a nebula, and the marine detachment would have nothing to do.
In the Trek reboot movie we see the Enterprise under construction on the surface of Earth. But in the The Journey Home we see a bunch of ships in dry-dock in orbit. But then again, Starfleet's main shipyards are on Utopia Planitia,
which is on the surface of Mars. So, when you build a starship, do you do it on the ground or in space? Do you start on the ground, then move it to space later on?
Edited by WillKeaton on Nov 19th 2018 at 12:05:12 PM
From beta canon we see that it’s really all of the above. There are ship yards on planets and in space.
In alpha canon though all we have ever seen is space construction in the prime universe. The only Federation starship designed for atmospheric entry was Voyager in Prime timeline, the Konnie does it in 2 movies.
Edited by Memers on Nov 19th 2018 at 11:56:09 AM
Is the Konnie a fan name given the Klingon ship they used in movies 3 and 4?
I think I've seen "Connie" used as a nickname for "Constitution Class". Perhaps "Konnie" is "Kelvin timeline Connie"?
Edited by TParadox on Nov 19th 2018 at 2:08:56 PM
Fresh-eyed movie blog
The nickname for the Constitution class is ‘Connie’ so the Kelvin Constitution is the ‘Konnie’.
The Disco ship is the ‘Donnie’ as well :)
Edited by Memers on Nov 19th 2018 at 2:23:31 AM
Anyway all prime ships are not designed for atmospheric entry aside from Voyager, the D has a lot of trouble even getting to the atmospheric friction stage of the atmosphere in Arsenal Of Freedom.
The Kelvin Enterprise not only does it twice in the same movie it can go underwater, something the Delta Flyer had to be retrofitted for.
The Enterprise was only able to do it because Scotty is a miracle worker. His people were still working round the clock patching leaks however many days into the mission they were on.
Fresh-eyed movie blog
In Star Trek, the engines are powered by a matter.anti-matter reaction, right? But in an episode of the original series, Kirk is convinced that matter meeting anti-matter will destroy the entire universe. Had they not established how the engines worked yet? Also, what exactly are the dilitium crystals for?
Dilithium regulates the reaction so it can be harnessed constructively. It's vaguely like a nuclear reactor's control rods.
Matter meeting antimatter in an uncontrolled environment is a bad day if you're in the immediate area (photon torpedoes have an antimatter warhead), but unless Kirk is talking about the two universes intersecting without Lazarus's gateway mediating them, he's not at all grounded in reality.
Fresh-eyed movie blog
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That. The recurring importance of Dilithium is twofold: first because of it being a required component of most forms of FTL travel; and second because it cannot be replicated or synthesized by most species, making it one of the few naturally occurring substances to hold significant strategic value after the creation of the Replicator.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
I was under the impression that it could be replicated but that the energy required to do so is so immense that's it's actually more cost effective to just go mine it the old fashioned way.
Oh really when?
The Federation has at least some ability to re-crystalize damaged or expended dilithium, but at no point is it ever replicated or synthesized. That is, it could be recycled and reused with some degree of reliability, but as late as anything we saw in the contemporary timelines dilithium had to be mined from natural sources first.
I watched the first and fifth Star Trek films for the first time, which wasn't a good idea. But I thought The Final Frontier had several good character moments and was largely just too jokey, while The Motion Picture was phenomenally dull.
Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.
Deranged X-Mas Figure
The first Star Trek film wasn't horrible, but it suffered from an incredibly slow pace and some thin characterization. Haven't seen the fifth, nor do I want to.
If you watched TOS and though Shatner had a big ego, feel free to run away screaming from Star Trek V.
When I saw the director's cut of TMP, my impression was that it made the movie watchable, but when I bought the Blu-ray collection that has the theatrical cut, I was surprised to find that if I'm prepared for a slow, cerebral effects extravaganza, it's pretty okay. The theatrical is basically a rushed assembly cut with unfinished effects because they were so down to the wire that the first print was put in the canister wet and handed to a courier to take to the premiere, but it's not the worst thing ever.
Then I watched Final Frontier with a few whiskeys and it was a lot of fun. Perhaps even better character moments than Voyage Home. Still a whole bunch of bad ideas and cheap effects, but fun.
Fresh-eyed movie blog
It's been a while since I've seen either TMP or Final Frontier, so I can't completely comment on certain things as my attunement to production elements has become far more sophisticated. But in a general sense TMP is trying to wow the audience with the imagery and 2001-esque surrealism but, as mentioned, the theatrical release was more of a Rough Cut (which is so they can determine what they should remove ie "this shot doesn't need the whole five seconds of wormhole slow motion running across the bridge, trim it down to two") and instead was shipped to the premiere still wet. Final Frontier has a stronger story in principle featuring a wide cast of aliens and life on the edge of civilization, is reasonably paced and does try to give some good character moments across the board, it largely fails in the production aspects, uneven comedic tone and some questionable continuity and story decisions. I honestly never really got the "super-Kirk" complaints, as I said there is more character beats for everyone all around than most of the other movies and Kirk himself seems a lot more flustered than normal.
Well, I don't think an Admiral would be stationed on a joint-operated outpost in non-sovereign territory. Sisko was kept there primarily because of his status as the Emissary to the Bajorans. Promoting him to Admiral would, by definition, take him away from Bajor and the Bajor/Federation relations were on uneven ground for most of the series. The same principle semi-explains much of the discrepancy with the jobs of the main characters, the "frontier" setting meant most of the characters had become entrenched with the local environment (O'Brien personally rebuild DS 9, so taking him away would leave everyone at a disadvantage). Field Promotion is certainly possible, as Kira was even given a Starfleet commission late in the Dominion War, but it was probably more practical to just give them situation-specific responsibilities instead of a full promotion.
Funny enough, at least in terms of the official timeline (no flash forwards) Geordi had the most promotions in one series, while Worf went from Ensign to Lieutenant in TNG, Lt. Commander in Generations and then Commander in DS 9.