bridge positions mystery

[King Class Scout]

there's something I've been thinking about since I reread my old "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise", and I was wondering if you guys would like to debate the idea with me.

We know that in TNG several bridge positions were conglomerated, nd between TMP and TNG, the 'communications" position was eliminated completely. 

the debate, here, is what positions TNG staff and TOS staff would occupy on each other's bridges.
here's the rub.  Weapons (Sulu's main job) and basic communications (Uhura's job) were conglomerated into tactical (worf's bridge position).  the security chief in TOS/TMP doesn't have a bridge prescence.  there's also a question of the ops position.  what would data be doing outside of the science position?

[captain_obvious]

Assisting with nav I guess?  But sulu was the helmsman as well, and in by the time TMP rolled around, weapons was spun off into a seperate station.
  I would guess that sulus main job was helm control until the ship enters combat, when he takes weapons control and another person somewhere takes helm control for a while..  But then, why do that? Why not just have a separate bloke flying all the time?

I just accept it at face value and write it off as "a wee bit loopy"

[Vortex]

Wasn't Chekov Chief of Security in the movies? He was the tactical officer in the battle against the Reliant. He reported when Spock's quarters had been broken in too. But he didn't know that firing a phaser on full would set of the ships alarms. No wonder no one else chose him to be first officer. xD

[King Class Scout]

canon is flip-floppy and wibbly-wobbly concerning checkov (old Whovian as well as an old trekkie) and the TMP era.  most books, however, put everybody at reaching Admiral at some point.

I went over a couple spec sheets the other day while browsing around floor plans.  the only refrence I've seen so far puts almost ALL of Sulu's controlls as weapon ones

[captain_obvious]

But iirc, there were a lot of lines where sulu is told to make course changes and I definitely recall a few instances where Sulu remarks "she's sluggish, sir".

It was in TMP where Chekov was chief of security.  He took that job back for the start of ST3 though.  He also did a little bit of work at the comm station too.  Chekov was definitely the tac officer as well during TMP.
Talk about wibbly wobbly stationy wationy!

[hobbs]

This is what i assumed:

during TOS and sometimes in TMP and beyond Sulu was at HELM and controlled the ships flight and weapons because (like we do in bc) its easier to fly a ship into position and fire weapons rather than co-ordinating an attack with one flying and one shooting. the NAV station (next to sulu) was involved with course plotting etc...

By TMP era new training and technology allowed for the co-ordinated style of combat using seperate weapons officer though helm could still control weapons if need be (think sulu did in the nebula in TWOK)

as of TNG i think the helm and nav stations were combined and then the weapons station became Tactical. Opps was created to carry out limited science duties and control and allocation of ships systems and resources. also as stated in TNG the consoles were unique in that they could be reconfigured to control any function or combined functions. (i think there was limited ability to carry out reconfiguration of controls in TMP era because NAV station ]savic's] in TWOK was used to take control of Reliant's shields)

[King Class Scout]

that's carried over in the novels as well.  apparently, Sulu would make tuner versions of D-7's  to play against in flight sims.  read any Diane duane novel, and sulu could make the connieprise dance (much to mr. Scott's panic!).  he even flew the ship dorsal first breifly while dodging romulans.

basic coms were incorporated into tactical, but not, apparently, any nav at all.

[ACES_HIGH]

Nav is much more computerized in TNG, what's left can be handled by Conn and the scientists down in Stellar Cartography.

Likewise, I think most of the Communications officer's jobs are automated, so Tactical can pick up the rest of their duties.

I think on the original Enterprise, Chekov and Sulu pretty much split the job of actually steering the ship, like pilot and co-pilot, just like they apparently split the weapons controls.  The helm and nav functions were combined in TNG, with Tactical spinning off to it's own station and merging with comms.

Ops seems to take the majority of the science duties, with the Science stations at the back being more or less auxiliary, but that might just be because they have Data to handle all of it.

[Nighthawk]

Helm: steers the ship. Powers thrusters and engines to imprint acceleration to either side, and counters that acceleration when the ship is on course. Also engages warp drive and checks for nearby celestial bodies.

Navigator: plots courses between points in the space, keeps track of known celestial bodies, and keeps track of the ships's position relative to the frame of reference.... namely, the galaxy, or the nearest planetary system. Is responsible for calculating how much time the trip will take through a given course, around a given obstacle and at a given speed.

Weapons: keeps track of the ordnance on board... from small arms to war munitions such as torpedoes or phaser batteries. Is responsible of maintaining and keeping the weapons and weapon systems operational.

Tactical: is responsible of employing a given weapon or a given tactic in combat. Sometimes overrules the input from Helm or Navigation if the ship is to be secured or employed as a weapon in its entirety. Is responsible for planning battle maneuvers and deploying personnel prior to the battle, and assessing the situation of the battle operation during the engagement.

Science: operates the major sensor systems on board, provides input about possible threats and space anomalies, and is responsible of providing major input to Helm, Nav and Tac regarding future maneuvers.

Operations: distributes the resources of a ship evenly throughout the mission, making sure every station has the resources they require for the time span they require, and provides input to Command about the available tools to be used in a given situation. Sometimes works with Engineering and Science to modify specific systems to fit the mission at hand. Can also be in charge of isolated fleet operations, depending on the class of ship (fighter launchings, crew shifts, shuttle ops, transport routes, etc)

Medical: is responsible for keeping the crew healthy and provide inmediate assistance to casualties during combat. Also responsible for operating specific Science systems that might be available during a given mission.

Engineering: keeps the ship in one piece, basically. Is responsible of providing power to the various systems and maintaining the primary power plant and backup systems. Also responsible for deploying damage control teams in battle and assisting any ship or station in distress.

Communications: is the voice and ears of a ship. The comm officer is responsible of recieving and transmitting information between the native ship and any other contacts in the area. Can also track vessels through the presence of comm activity, and can help Command to better plan an operation by providing input about the resources available within whatever range the ship can operate.

Command: responsible of the manpower factor. Executive Officers handle the interactions between crewmembers on a given ship and mission. Sometimes they might be asked to distribute foreign crews to work alongside native crews, according to their capabilites, which they must assess. Captains or Commanders are responsible for responding to orders from Admiralty and Fleet Command, and must decide which available resources to employ from the input given by the other departments.


....I guess that sums it up...
(been playing Artemis lately... man, command is a pain... XD)

[King Class Scout]

I think Aces gave the best sum up of the changes.  it's kinda the same problem with data that there was with spock...dual duties.

some bits were never really made clear, and I probably wasn't paying all that much attention...I was 14 when TNG came out.

[Nighthawk]

Data is an android, so you might want to have him control as much as he can, because he can and he's reliable
he can make a good science officer, but he's best suited as an operations officer, because it takes a lot of processing off the main computer, which can be used for other purposes, such as calculating warp field compensations.

in TOS, Spock was the main scientist because he had a great sense of curiosity, not because he was a decorated scientist. Scotty did most of the operations management when he was on the bridge, mostly because the ship was "his own little baby" than because of him being an expert engineer

if you keep digging into the inner workings of character development, sooner or later you'll hit a major plot hole regarding an actual fact (such as, why have any crew at all if you have such a bigass computer and general technology?... even Dr Crusher does ask that question once... or, why have a transporter chief when pretty much anyone can bypass the site-to-site command from almost anywhere?)

[hobbs]

as high as computer control goes you still need a human to over see... im sure even in the 24th centry onwards no member of starfleet (other than idiot admirals) would be happy to explore the universe with a computer running everything... even on the shows its shown that the computerisation as it is can be problematic. and the transporter chief (i assume) is an expert in transporter operations and engineering, just like you have specific experts in science and engineering (berkley is called an 'systems engineer' and is thought to be an expert in holotechnology)

[Vortex]

The Ultimate Computer from series 2 of TOS answers why you need people and not rely on computers.

[King Class Scout]

not just M-5, but Nomad,the Doomsday device, V'ger, the probe and the Borg (pre-nerf) drive home the point time and again there must be some form of biological controll.  Other Genres, like the terminator franchise and the Matrix franchise reitterate the idea, which is a common one through sci-fi: let an AI get smart enough, and it will throw all biological elements that created it away and eliminate everything but itself.  I think soong realized this, and had the point drilled home on him with Lore.

basically, the crew is there to provide a human backup system.

I think at the time TOS was made "scientist" and "engineer" were mutually exclusive terms.

[Nighthawk]

and the transporter chief (i assume) is an expert in transporter operations and engineering

my point being "what the hell is he doing about people overriding his control so easily?", not "anyone can operate a transporter"
if the system can be worked by the operator and by anyone who's not the operator, then why have the operator at all? just automate the system and relocate the operator elsewhere (which seems to apply to navigation in TNG)
it would stand to reason that if you have a transporter that requires callibration, you might want to apply some security or protocol over it, so that it won't be tampered with.
Wesley knows his way around the Ent-D well enough to hack the transporter once, and with plenty of planning, but how come Thomas Riker knows the systems of the Defiant even after O'Brien's additions to it?
it's the freaking brand-new stealth cruiser of the federation with a freaking romulan cloaking system on board! you might expect some layers of paper above it XD

like I said: there will always be some plot holes among specific things if you get to them through the fact of how those things are done... it's not the writer's fault, they just write the action, not the physics of it... that goes to the production crew; and they just make the physics, they don't care about the writing

the thing with Data is that he's always seeking to become more human... if he was just an android he may actually behave like a borg... that's why the crew trusts him on operating the ship... and thats why and how Shinzon sneaks B4 in, and how Data works the counter to that,... and h-- well, you get the picture.

the different changes on the bridge crew obey to the simple principle of human evolution and technological evolution.... 60 years ago, you needed three stations to target your weapons... 100 years ago, you needed three people to actually load a weapon... 300 years ago, you needed 1000 people with 1000 weapons to even set a battle, otherwise it was considered a minor skirmish... things change...

[hobbs]

agreed lol