posted
I figured if I can get an answer to this anywhere, the collective think tank of this forum might do the trick.
What would one call the division on a starship that would maintain and pilot small craft such as fighters, shuttles, scouts, etc? This is all related to my Elani site and Shik and I can't think of what it would be called. It's hard to find a modern day parallel as most of the crew of a carrier is dedicated to maintenance of planes.
Any thoughts?
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
For the record, I threw out "attack group" & "flight line"..."Deck division" was a possible. And Topher came up with "small craft logistics."
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posted
I'm not 100% sure if that's a good idea. For one thing, it goes against tradition, and Trek is heavy on tradition. For another, you lose a perfectly good way to explain what division all those starship helmsmen come from.
What I mean is, the setup could be like this:
Flight Operations: A division of redshirts (ENT/TOS: goldshirts) who dedicate their lives to the piloting of ships both large and small. A typical career path for aspiring command officers, as typified by the hot shot pilots Sulu and Riker. Explains nicely why the heroic command officers so often pilot their own shuttles - that's their speciality. I mean, whenever we get a chauffeur who isn't an actual bridge officer, he's a redshirt. Wesley for Picard in "Samaritan Snare" and "Final Mission", that Pietro guy for Troi in "Skin of Evil"... Umm, and that's pretty much it. Oh, and LaForge for Picard in the backstory of how the captain chose him for helming the E-D, although we didn't see LaForge's shirt color.
Shuttlebay Operations: A sub-division of Ship's Services that is charged with keeping everything within the shuttlebay up and running. This includes the ship's integral auxiliaries, any visiting small craft, and possible combat craft deployed aboard. It also includes the shuttle refueling systems, munitions elevators, atmosphere-holding forcefields and other shuttlebay hardware. These people are yellowshirts (ENT/TOS: redshirts), and their piloting skills are limited to the usual Shuttle Autopilot Activation 101, plus whatever optional courses they may have taken.
This way, you could assign the very natural-sounding "Flight Operations" to what amounts to flight operations, even though the title is already reserved (by TNG TM references et al.) for the people who helm the big ships. And your pilots would not be "lowly" mechanics, but top officers, possibly even bridge officers - which is what we have to accept in the shows and movies.
If you want to have a bunch of people who are dedicated to flying "fighterplanes", you can go two ways: a big ship like the E-D would surely have a big enough pool of redshirt ensigns and lieutenants in the Flight Ops division that a number of them could specialize for fighter ops. Their team would not be a division per se, but something like the Tactical Wing.
Alternately, you can treat fighter deployments aboard starships as a rare occasion, which it indeed seems to be. The specialist combat pilots could be assigned to the ship as a separate detachment from Starfleet, and not directly integrated to the ship's hierarchy at all. You'd simply have a Tactical Liaison Officer in the Flight Ops division, charged with interfacing with the top flyboy aboard.
posted
Timo's proposal has the advantage of fitting in with the few glimpses of the shuttlebay control room we see, staffed with a pair of folks in yellow.
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posted
And in further proof, LaForge wore red while helming the Victory, as we see in the flashbacks of TNG "Identity Crisis"... That was apparently between the shuttle pilot stint and the E-D job, so even less room for a shirt change there.
posted
Well, it was like I said, this is for my Elani site, so it wouldn't have to fit in with what we've seen in the shows. However, Flight/Shuttlebay Ops seems like a good division title...
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: And in further proof, LaForge wore red while helming the Victory, as we see in the flashbacks of TNG "Identity Crisis"... That was apparently between the shuttle pilot stint and the E-D job, so even less room for a shirt change there.
Timo Saloniemi
You might even consider that Geordie seams to be destined to Captain the Challenger as further proof to your theory...on the other hand he might become a author.
Also, both Picard and Jameson seam to have had experience piloting a Starship earlier in their respective careers.
Of course it should be noted that Captains don't always start off as pilots. Remember that Sisko was originally more interested in starship design than Command and that Janeway worked her way up the ranks as a Science officer, as did Spock. Scotty is a bit of a grey area, he held the rank of captian but I don't think he ever commanded a ship of his own...but I diverge.
posted
It would seem as though captains can come from all sorts of backgrounds. We know medical track officers can become captains, as witnessed by "Descent", "Thine Own Self", and AGT. Sisko seemed to come from an engineering background, and Picard from a piloting background. If want to consider him, it seems as though Archer comes from an engineering background as well.
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posted
To get back to Topher's question, I think that Timo's suggestion of "Flight Operations" might fit the bill best.
If this were a TNG-era type of situation, in Starfleet, and involving a dedicated carrier-type vessel (rather than the usual generic shuttle complement on any starship), I'd probably group the fighter wing in with Flight Ops... or maybe Tactical, if we're talking about combat fighters. Actually, if this were primarily for the combat role, perhaps grouping the fighters as a subdivision of the Tactical Department would make more sense -- especially during a battle situation.
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posted
Everyone keeps referring back to Starfleet!
This division is on every Elani ship. Well, those with hangar facilities, anyways. If it helps, other divisions on an Elani ship are: command, operations, security, sciences, medical, cadets (some ships), and special services.
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