When in the tailor, I noticed that there is a definite lack of the enlisted ranks for uniform options. Currently, you just have the one rank to signify Chief Petty Officer, made famous in the shows by Chief O'Brien. However, there would be other enlisted ranks in the structure of Starfleet, the Klingon Defense Force, and Romulan Militia.
Could we have a more diversified rank structure for our vital noncoms for their uniforms?
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Rayzee
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torgaddon101
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Not so sure about that. I think I remember enlisted crew from Star Trek VI (Crewman Dax), as well as others where the names and episodes/movies aren't coming to mind.
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Romulan Militia? That's only one branch of the RRF, which stands for Romulan Republic Forces. The player, it seems, is assumed to be in the New Romulan Star Navy, which is another branch of the RRF. There's also a Ground Army and the Tal'Diann as other branches of the RRF.
But there are no enlisted ranks in the game for players or BOffs apart from Chief Petty Officer (and I'm not sure why that was included, since the Fed player starts as an Ensign, iirc).
I do remember a Cardassian Militia, but it's debated among fans whether that's a continuity goof, or if it relates to the Cardassian Guard the way the MACO's do to Starfleet.
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Republic Militia (not Romulan Militia) is mentioned in STO. Commander Tal'mera works for "Militia Intelligence." She sits in a chair on Drozana Station and gives missions. But conflating the Militia with the entire RRF, in "Starfleet, the Klingon Defense Force, and Romulan Militia," when we have the well-attested "RRF" for our characters, is something I couldn't let pass. Yes, there is a Militia. No, it's not the entirety of the RRF. So if you're going to talk about "Starfleet" and "the Klingon Defense Force," then you should be talking about "the Romulan Republic Forces," not the "Romulan Militia," all the more because "Romulan Militia" is an ambiguous term which might apply to a branch of the RSE military as well as a branch of the RRF, hence we (RRF players) generally use the clarification "New" in reference to "Romulan" and "Romulus" in names like "New Romulan Star Navy" and "New Romulan Republic" (which was, prior to the rediscovery of Vastam/Dewa-III/ch'Mol'Rihan, simply the "Romulan Republic").
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No, several Romulan missions prior to Spectres, and then the Spectres mission itself.
Lege: Riov Tal'Mera
afaik, you only interact with her as an RRF player.
The trick I've been using in the Foundry (which I've seen in use occasionally by Cryptic NPCs) is to use the enlisted color pattern and the officer rank insignia, as follows:
Unfortunately you kind have to headcanon the command master chief, fleet/force master chief, and Master Chief Petty Officer of Starfleet variations.
An example:
Behold, Chief Hospital Corpsman Anoeza Watkins. Starfleet Medical colors applied to science enlisted uniform (from ThomasTheCat's guide), with lieutenant commander collar insignia.
Yeoman Janice Rand, Crewman First Class Simon Tarses, Chief Petty Officer (ret.) Sergey Rozhenko, and Crewman Tal Celes, among others, would like to have a word with you.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
The Ensign rank still exists in the tailor. But they've renamed it "Cadet" on the character/bridge officer status window. Which is kind of silly, in my opinion.
I am for this. I've always found it odd at the lack of NCO's and the overabundance of Commissioned Officers.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10052253
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Starfleet isn't a military it's a research and colonisation organisation, it keeps a hierarchy in the same way other civilian organisations do (police for instance, though they specifically don't use military ranks). The lack of enlisted personal is because they don't need them, the security officers for instance are mostly crewmen or ensigns. Engineers etc. are generally Lts of various forms, I assume it works the same way as today where a medical doctor can join the military as a captain or major (lieutenant or lieutenant commander).
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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True. But crewmen also came in different classes (3rd, 2nd, 1st) just as petty officers came in different seniorities. But usually that wasn't mentioned in dialogue, I think it is all based on singular mentionings of those ranks and quite a few of them are derived from earth starfleet (ENT).
I think in TNG the only visual clou was that crewmen wore the old "season one" uniform while the senior officers were already wearing the healthier TNG uniform
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I don't know about the crewman ranks (I don't remember it being mentioned) but I don't think O'Brien was ever referred to as any sort of Petty Officer, just as Chief which could be a reference to him being Transporter Chief, then Chief of Operations or Chief being an actual rank in Starfleet.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Give them simpler jumpsuits and/or change the color scheme a bit. Then use standard rank pins with a different color option. Just because they are not titled enlisted rank does not mean you don't have all the tools necessary.
And you can always just not use any rank insignia for the toilet scrubber on deck 28.
remember what the lowest crewmen in TOS looked like?
That's the thing with a lot of the Trek "rank" system - for enlisted types, the "standard" was to refer to them by their title/position, not their rank.
And, instead of making/sewing patches onto the uniforms, they elected to go with a "no visible standard" for the enlisted.
Quick read of O'Brien's Mem Alpha page shown that he finally got the "official" rank in the Chief Petty Officer range (Semi-officially Senior Chief Petty Officer) during the latter parts of TNG / DS9 - when they "wanted to explore a different side of Starfleet"...
It doesn't help that "semi-canon" / "once was fully canon" items such as the Franz Joseph Tech Manual indicated that a large portion of the crews on the various starships were "enlisted" types...
That page has lots of speculation. Here's a couple of random musings from what little I remember of the service:
1. They wonder how a (presumably then) "regular" Petty Officer could be department head on a ship. In that same window of time, Benjamin Maxwell (Captain of said ship) probably wasn't an "O-6 Captain", many times on smaller ships they'll put O-4s or O-5s "in command", and since the top end of the rank structure is "smaller" the lower ranks would be "smaller" as well...
2. While any "Officer" rank technically is higher than even the most senior "enlisted" rank, many a smart junior officer knows to respect the highly experienced enlisted people. And, as the speculation on the page so indicates, said officers that were "under" O'Brien's command were there to assist with a given task, it could be a case of "not pulling rank - leaving the tenured person in charge to get the job done" and/or "following the Captain's orders to obey the enlisted guy"...
Here's a random thought for you - how did the Voyager crew manage to get their hands on the Maquis "provisional rank pins" so quickly? What if they took the "standard enlisted rank pins" and replicate them in a golden color instead of, say, silver? And because Miles O'Brien was a "highly decorated" senior enlisted, he was allowed to wear the "honorary" single hollow pip of a Warrant Officer (also to reflect the fact that he was possibly "field promoted" to full officer ranks at least once in his career)...
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Yeah, Gene Roddenberry had some pretty bizarre and unworkable ideas. In this case part of the problem is, he was a decorated WWII Army Air Corps vet, and thus despite the Navy metaphors used in script, he seems to have thought of starships as aircraft. And the US Air Force (which the Army Air Corps was turned into when they reorganized the US military in 1947) is very unique among the five branches in that the officers are normally the only ones in combat (because for some bizarre reason they think you need a four-year degree to fly fixed-wing aircraft). Had he actually served in the Navy, he might instead have thought of starships as ships, which typically have a small group of officers (5-10% of total crew) and a large number of enlisted.
It's a simple fact of practical reality that one single service academy, no matter how good their training program, cannot possibly churn out enough bodies fast enough to fill an organization that requires hundreds of people per starship, never mind on-base support roles and bureaucracy. The thing Roddenberry forgot about the space program with his "fully qualified astronauts" remark was that the space program only ever required a small number of astronauts: a Mercury capsule was a one-man job, Gemini had two, Apollo went to the moon with three, and even the space shuttles topped out at seven. For every super-qualified guy in a spacesuit, there were a few thousand people on the ground, and not all of them had or needed a four-year degree, let alone a doctorate.
And you don't need a medical degree to serve in a hospital or sickbay, either. Doctors do, nurses do, but Crewman Simon Tarses from TNG: "The Drumhead" was specifically stated to have gotten enlisted training as a medical technician, which likely means his job in sickbay is cleaning and maintaining Dr. Crusher's equipment. You don't need a four-year degree to sterilize an operating room or change fuses in a ventilator. And then there's the ever-popular Yeoman Janice Rand. In the US Navy, a yeoman is an enlisted rating whose job is dealing with administrative paperwork (which oddly enough fits with TOS' casual '60s sexism: Rand's basically a secretary). And somebody's gotta clean the place, swab the decks. Do you really think a custodian needs full Academy training? No, he just needs to know where to run in case of a hull breach.
Oh, and the Klingons use 'em too. Martok's family were "common soldiers" for fifteen generations before Martok managed to land himself a field commission over Kor's objections.
So, no matter what Roddenberry thought or wanted, Starfleet enlisted crew have been a fact of Star Trek from the very beginning. Get used to it.
(Not even touching the head-up-your-TRIBBLE$ "we're explorers, not soldiers" BS...)
At least when I have written enlisted personnel in my own stories, one of the main motivations for someone to enlist as opposed to becoming an officer, especially in a society where money for education is not an object, is wanting to spend their time doing practical work as opposed to dealing with red tape and bureaucracy. My Exocomp character, Specialist Blaze, would definitely love the old saying, "Don't call me 'sir'--I WORK for a living!!!"
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It's also the field of work. Despite some claims of the military afectionados the bulk of Starfleet personnel have the training to deal with any situation but are primarily scientists and engineers (Quote O'Brien: "I am NOT a soldier, I'm an engineer!". Geologists, Botanists, Social scientists, Astronomists, Warp Core Engineers - all those professions are highly valuable and required on a Starship dealing with the unknown and making first contact. Security officers (akin to police officers), technicians, assistants don't need the degree a professional scientist needs plus they simply might not want it, as you said. Just because everybody could get the education doesn't mean they have to take it. As a crewmen you are probably also on a more regular rotation while officers probably have more permanent assignments (They also are allowed to take their families while enlisted had no quarters of their own, though that might change if they happen to found a family, O'Brien doesn't count as he always had an officers' position).
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The Federation encompasses hundreds of worlds, of course then can get the man power. It's not Earth trying to fill the ships, it's the entire Federation.
I don't know about the US but here every hospital personal (except porters, cleaners, and secretaries) need to have Uni level education, that includes technicians.
That's not a medical job, that's an operations or engineering job.
Rand was also a communications officer and a transporter officer. Yomen can also be ranked officers such as a midshipman or sub-lieutenant.
So... crewman? I've already said they exist. I said there are a lot off officers, not they all are officers.
Oh, and the Klingons use 'em too. Martok's family were "common soldiers" for fifteen generations before Martok managed to land himself a field commission over Kor's objections.
Again, where did I say there were no enlisted personnel? I said the majority of low ranked personnel were ensigns or crewmen. The only question I had was whether 'Chief' was a rank or title. Turns out a Jem'Hadar referred to O'Brien as a PO, so that confirms their existence, still doesn't mean there are many of them in SF.
Aww, did you not know that you can get civilian organisations that act as militaries but aren't? See coastguard or police.
Just because it might seem stupid the Federation doesn't have a standing military (it is stupid) isn't an argument against it.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Why can't we wear those Ranks on our uniform. The Romulan ranks match those that we saw in the shows, so those are as canon as it gets, why can't we wear the on the uniform collar, why do we have to use those shoulder pads
We have also seen KDF rank insignia, different from those we have on our rank bar but we should have something that shows our rank.
Joke aside. The offspring of aerospace and the more traditional navy could probably do weird stuff sometimes...
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The U.S. Coast Guard is a military organization, fully under the D.O.D. and those who served in it are eligible for all the same veterans benefits all other veterans get.
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Close, but no cigar. You ARE absolutely right that those who serve in the Coast Guard get the same veterans' benefits that all other benefits get, and also that it is a military in structure and in acts. Your main point stands.
That said, it reports to the Department of Homeland Security. It can be transferred under the Department of the Navy whenever the President requires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard
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This is true, and anyone who says it isn't is undermining their own authority on the subject.
The Coast Guard reports to the DHS now. Prior to the creation of the DHS, it was in fact under the DoD. Who it reports to is irrelevant in the question of whether or not it is a branch of the military. It is a branch of the military.