posted
Minor spoiler for the upcoming "Nemesis" feature.
By now, we're pretty much expecting to see a cameo from the newly-promoted Admiral Janeway. One notable question of this is - what KIND of admiral will she be? Odds are she'll be a Vice (three-pip) Admiral, like the vast majority of Admirals we've seen.
However, this brings up the question of HOW one gets promoted to the Admiralty, and where you start off in the rank structure. If Starfleet is anything like the US military, then there would probably be only so many Admiral positions available at any one time, replaced only by retirement, death, or extenuating circumstances (ie. war). So I put this question to the more savvy of us here: How does one get promoted to the Admiralty, and where do you start off? I mean, can you get promoted immediately, or do you start off as a lower-half Rear Admiral, and continue to work your way up?
I'm confused with exactly how this works - and moreover, I'm wondering how Janeway can/will get promoted to the Admiralty after only seven years of command, when plenty of other Captains seem to spend much longer at various duties (Kirk aside, of course).
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
media hero, politically savvy move by command. We've been through this. Janeway has all of her 'right place in the right time' points scored because of that little tour of the DQ. And since most admirals are insane, deluded or just plain irrational, she should fit right in. Only now she'll be sending half a fleet into a burning nebula to look for coffee or to save some baby that might not exist, instead of just risking one ship.
And comparing her to Picard, Kirk or Sisko doesnt apply really, when you consider everyone's career moves at its own pace. Kirk was kicked upstairs as a PR move, much like Kathy, and hated it. Jean-Luc refused, and I'm thinking that along the way he's also pissed of TPTB, what with his not-killing the Borg in 'I, Borg' that Nechayev chewed him out for, the whole disobeying orders in FC and Insurrection, and worst of all, he missed the Admiral's Banquet. Sisko pretty much neglected his career. He didnt want to stay in Starfleet at first, and only spent a few years as captain.
Basically she got Admiral because everyone who is smart passed it up, as they couldnt stand to be a cross-eyed, desk bound pencil pusher. But like I said, Kathy should be right at home.
If Chuckles stays in the fleet, I cant imagine he would be allowed to get a command (what with the whole turncoat thing) so he's probably looking at a desk job.. as Kathy's chief of staff. I could pretty much imagine it being business as usual, him being Kathy's yes-man all day long just like on Voyager. Seven would be there too, with her man, and Kathy would always chew her out for not being human, and every other week her implants would go crazy and make her try to kill everyone, or travel in time, or create more borg, or try and fix borg she created before. So basically it would be just like the Voyager series except theyd be standing around not going anywhere.. oh wait.. Voyager never really went anywhere either.. itd be EXACTLY like the show..
[ March 12, 2002, 19:49: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
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EdipisReks
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posted
i can just imagine it "hey, all the qualified people told us to fuck off when we offered them the admiralty, so let's go get janeway! she's too stupid to refuse!"
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
we have a more omniscient perspective too.. the review boards didnt have to sit and watch her every mission for seven years.. they just read logs and readouts and stuff.. they have no clue how insipid she is.. but we do.
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posted
*wonders what this has to do with Starships & Technology...*
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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Well, this is *supposed* to deal with rank structures and how the Starfleet Admiralty is organized, with an eye on how Janeway got promoted into it. Still sorta looking for an answer to that.
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
well there have been very few cases of us ever finding out what ANY admirals specific job was, so it probably wont be that easy to figure out. im not sure why so many admirals skip grades, straight up to three pip versions etc..
a one pip flag officer would be a commodore, which has been phased out of the current navy, and the TNG fleet as well. so i theorize that, short of administrative one-pippers, probably most captains go straight to two-pip (rear admiral). the only problem is those pins were rare or something and arent seen very often. lame... i think this is what kirk was defined as in TMP/TWOK. then three pips would be vice. since weve never seen a promotion from captain to vice-admiral, i hope that isnt what they pull here.
as for janeways job, thats beyond me. what was she supposed to be doing in the alternate future version anyway? she just joyrides around in the batmobile shuttle. probably just as useless in this version
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posted
Three pips has been confirmed to be Vice Admiral in the TNG universe. (It has also been confirmed to be Fleet Admiral, but that's another issue!) The other variants of flag rank have not been specifically identified - nobody has uttered the words "Rear Admiral" in Trek yet, for example.
However, I'm not familiar with any direct promotions to Vice Admiral rank. All the flag officers we have seen have had flag rank from their very first appearance, save for James T. Kirk. And there were at the very least 2.5 years (and possibly several more, since all the characters seemed to have aged a lot between TOS/TAS and TMP) during which we didn't see Kirk. He could have spent quite some time in "one-pip" rank, be it Commodore or something else.
I'm sort of looking forward to seeing the first onscreen one-pip Admiral in "Nemesis". Many people in the Trek business may be clueless, and the costuming department may not be on its most alert and vigilant mode in the tenth (!) Trek movie - but "Nemesis" has some pretty detail-minded people working for it. I think Logan is in a unique position to comment on minor details and actually be *heard*...
posted
Re: "Fleet Admirals" - I'm of the opinion that whenever we hear the rank, it's either a) referring to an Admiral that's in charge of an actual fleet; or b) the rank bestowed upon an Admiral in charge of a given conflict with a threat force, sortof in accordance with the contemporary idea that the position of Fleet Admiral exists only during times of war. Wither way, it's more of a position than a rank.
The only Fleet Admiral that comes to mind is F.A. Shanthi from "Redemption II"... I think that her rank can fit into the above options by it being elements of HER fleet that Picard wanted to usurp for his tachyon grid gamble; or that she was in charge of any potential Starfleet involvement in the Klingon civil war, and thus be the person to pester about doing something.
posted
Completely agreed with Mark. There have been some other Fleet Admirals - Nechayev carried that title when appearing in "The Maquis", so perhaps it was her fleet that was dealing with the UFP/Cardassia border at the time? That whachamacaller Brackett was also referred to as Fleet Admiral, again with three pips.
I suppose Ross could have been the Fleet Admiral of the 9th Fleet, too, even though that was never stated. The other two fleet leaders we saw, Adms Sitak and who-remembers-what from "Favor the Bold", were two-pippers. Had either of them been referred to as Fleet Admiral, we'd have good solid proof that it's a position instead of a rank...
quote:Originally posted by Timo: I suppose Ross could have been the Fleet Admiral of the 9th Fleet
I though Martok was head desk-jockey for the 9th Fleet? IIRC he had a go at Sisko for the amount of paperwork he would have to do, after Benny recommended him for the job.
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posted
Then again, Martok wasn't a Starfleet officer. So Ross could have retained formal command, being a bureaucratic figurehead or something like that.
He could just as well have been the sector commander or something, though. Three pips and a constant presence would still mean he was some sort of a local head honcho.
Perhaps the endless hordes of TNG admirals are best explained as local sector commanders, so that Picard would talk with the one whose sector he was currently trespassing. The ones Sisko spoke with would have to be explained differently, though, since Sisko never really left the Bajoran sector (or whatever its Starfleet name). Perhaps we saw a succession of sector commanders, of whom Ross was the last and longest-standing. Or perhaps each of Sisko's little problems was burdened on a different office of Starfleet. Sometimes the hot potatoes would end on the Intelligence desk, sometimes on Security or Defence or Diplomatic Relations or the Office of Barely Believable Monthly Reports or what have you - and each would have a different admiral in command.
posted
I really wish one of you could explain this to me. This is so obviously a General Trek topic, yet it's here in Tech. Sure, I used to put it down to nerd streetcred, but that was idiocy on my part - it's quite plain to me now you don't have any streetcred. So why are you geekish types so terrified of posting anywhere but Starships & Technology?
posted
For me, it's a usenet thing: Trek out there is divided into "current" and "technology" (as well as into series-specific subgroups), and rank and uniform musings like this certainly don't qualify as "current", so they are "technology".
I forward the motion that a similar thing be done here, since in practice it has already happened - let's retain the VOY-specific and ENT-specific pages, but divide the leftovers clearly into "soft Trek" and "hard Trek". "Soft Trek" would discuss Trek as a TV show where nothing has to make sense as long as it's good drama, and "hard Trek" would consider Trek a self-contained universe where everything just plain *has* to make sense even if the price is extreme and terminal geekiness of all participants.
Otherwise, the "soft" and "hard" Trekkies will simply be stepping on each other's toes. The easy stock response to anything discussed in the Starships&Tech forum currently is "why do you care about such stupid details?", and that takes all the fun out of being a geek.
Alternately, introduce a new category in addition to "General" and "Ship&Tech", and dub it "Assorted Details of the Trek Universe" or something, so that the reader knows this will be geek-centered even if it isn't about ships or feinbergers...
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