OnToMars
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Member # 621
posted
I watched Friendship One with an eye towards the matter/antimatter thing and it never says the probe itself was m/am powered. Just that they got the knowledge of it. They also talk about antimatter radiation, so...
But as for Cochrane, I would say that if he had dilithium for his ship, then he got it from one of the outer planets; Saturn, Neptune, Uranus or even the Kuiper Belt. Remember that during the existence of the United States, we had ships like the Charbydis and the Botany Bay. Ares IV aside, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that there were manned expeditions to Saturn and the other outer planets. And the son of the guy from Yesterday is Tommorrow just occurred to me, as being the pilot of the first manned Saturn probe.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
posted
Of course the Friendship One was carrying antimatter. How else could the inhabitants of the planet get their hands on any? Antimatter production isn't a matter of stealing the Colonel's secret recipe and whipping some up in your kitchen on a rainy day. It takes power. Incredible amounts of power. But anyone with a basic knowledge of nuclear physics can do it provided they have the tools.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
"Is that antimatter I smell cooking" "Yes its Cochrane's secret recipe made with seven herbs and spices."
You make a good point Stingray. By Cochrane's time they could have stumbled across dilithium somewhere in our solar system. It may have been that most people thought dilithium was just some funky space crystal to make jewelry out of until and alcoholic inventor in Montana decided to shove a chunk into his warp drive.
-------------------- "Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It?s us. Only us." Rorschach
posted
I have pieced together the Starfleet rankings from all of the series', and whether or not it will stay in place in "Enterprise" is anyone's guess. Chief Admiral Rear Admiral Amdmiral? Vice Admiral Commodore Captain Commander (1st officer usually) Luitenant Commander (1st or 2nd officer usually) Luitenant Luitenant(Junior grade) Ensign Ensign (junior grade) Petty officers (crewmen, technicians, etc.) enlisted personnell (soldiers, marines, etc.) Cadets (SF Academy only)
-------------------- Fry- How will we get out of this? George Takei's head- Maybe we can use some kind of auto-destruct code like one-A, two-B, three-C... (Bender's head blows up) Bender- Now everybody knows! -Futurama's obligatory Star Trek episode
Registered: Aug 2001
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Since Star Trek's Starfleet it based on the ranking of the USN, the officer chain of command looks like this:
Fleet Admiral Admiral Vice-Admiral Rear-Admiral (UH) Rear-Admiral (LH) the rank of "Commodore" was replaced with the Rear-Admiral (LH) designation in the USN. Presumeably, the same thing happened in "Star Trek", with "Commodore" becoming more a term of command then rank Captain Commander Lt. Commander Lieutenant Lieutenant (jg) Ensign
posted
The nature and use of the flag ranks has had it fair share of issues during the run of the Trek universe. I'll leave that to someone more versed in that to respond to.
I really doubt that there is a rank of Ensign (Junior Grade). Ensign is traditionally the lowest of the commissioned naval ranks, so I doubt that Starfleet create this rank. Besides, the graduates of Starfleet Academy come out as either Ensigns or Lieutenant (Junior Grade)'s.
When it comes to the non-commissioned crew, things are pretty nebulous. We've had references to crewmen (Crewman Simon Tarses in "Drumhead") and petty officers (Petty Officer Sergei Rozhenko in "Family"). We've had Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien on DS9 (although isn't he really supposed to be Senior Chief or Master Chief Petty Officer?). The movies showed ranks for enlisted crewmen. Someone posted here pictures of the rate insignia for CPO, PO, and crewman.
But what about warrant officers? Do they exist or not in the Trek universe? We've likewise had no mention of them.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
posted
They might exist. I tend to read some of the role-playing game websites that are out there for Star Trek. Some of them are interesting reads. Anyway, almost all of those sites have a section on the rank/rate system of Starfleet. They vary a bit from site to site, but they all share the same basic structure. I can only assume that they've adopted the USN system to precisely what Starfleet uses.
This includes ranks from Fleet Admiral down to Ensign (sometimes Commodores are used in place of Rear Admiral of the Lower Half's and sometimes Commodores are used with Rear Admiral of the Lower Half's). It also includes the warrant ranks. Here, some site only two levels: Chief Warrant Officer and Warrant Officer. Others site three levels of WO and a CWO. Another one had a WO and three levels of CWO. Then it has the enlisted ranks from Master Chief Petty Officer of the Starfleet down to Crewman Recruit.
So, to summarize, I have no idea.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
quote:Rear-Admiral (LH) the rank of "Commodore" was replaced with the Rear-Admiral (LH) designation in the USN. Presumably, the same thing happened in "Star Trek", with "Commodore" becoming more a term of command then rank.
This is conjecture as we have never seen a one-star. People argue that Commodore's are gone because the Okuda's and various other PTB have said so. But it really doesn't mean crap until they actually canonize it in an episode (by that time TPTB may have changed).
I have always hoped that they would keep the rank of Commodore (used as a one-star as it was in TOS and at various times in the US Navy). If they don't use Commodore, I would hope that they come up with something a little better than the current Naval system. Rear Admiral Lower Half, who was the genius who came up with that. I would prefer that they come up with some new rank of their own (Sub Admiral, Under Admiral)rather than use RADM (LH).
Personally I don't feel that WO's are really needed in the Star Trek universe. Other than Okuda conjecture we don't really have any proof that they do. Of course if I don't mention Kominsky someone else will immediately chime in with it. But we really have no idea what his strange pip signified (though WO is a possibility).
-------------------- "Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It?s us. Only us." Rorschach
Anyway, I'm still somewhat fuzzy on the whole warrant officer deal. I understand that in today's realm of military service that they receive more training than enlisted but less than commissioned and at the end of the training they are given warrants. But, what do they do? How do they fit in? I'm not real strong on understanding the military establishment, so I may never really understand.
We've also seen some weird rank insignia in Trek. I don't remember what Kominsky wore, but I remember that Chief Engineer Argyle in the early episodes of TNG wore square pips instead of the circular. And when Sloan was posing as the Director of Internal Affairs he had four circular pips with a line underneath them. ::shrug::
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
posted
In the most recent encyclopedia, there are pictures of the Chief Warrant Officer's insignia pips for both standard TNG and Provisional Officers.
We saw a COLONEL West in TUC, although many have assumed he was with the Starfleet Marines. Is there any clarification of this? Do we have any real evidence for a Starfleet Marine Corps?
And just what is a Yeoman, anyhow? Is that an actual rank or what? Is it like a TOS-era ensign?
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
posted
To the best of my knowledge, a yeoman is a position and not a rank. From what I've gathered, the yeomans are the administrative assistants of the commanding officer and other senior staff members. Janice Rand was Kirk's yeoman in season one of The Original Series. After she left, other random women filled her spot. Think of it as a secretarial position. However, I have no idea about Yeomans Burke and Samno from The Undiscovered Country. They appeared to just be random low-level engineering crew members.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'll chalk the Warrant Officer reference in the Encyclopedia to a Drexler gaffe. Everybody's who's ever worn one of those insignia has been referred to as a Petty Officer or a Crewman.
Nothing remotely close to Starfleet Marines has ever been directly stated as existing, except Bennett had this fetish about making Starfleet into as miliaristic an organization as possible and stuck the Colonel West thing in to insinuate as such. DS9 always showed ground comabat as being conducted by standard-issue Starfleet types belonging to the usual departments and posessing the usual navyesque ranks.
Yeoman usually refers to a petty officer that serves as an officer's personal assistant or chiefly performs clerical duties. It's a position, not a rank.
[ August 12, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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