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Do every ship have one commander and 2-3 lieutenant commanders?

And I am going by canon.

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  • wendysue53wendysue53 Member Posts: 1,569 Arc User
    no.
  • baddmoonrizinbaddmoonrizin Member Posts: 11,441 Community Moderator
    Are you asking about what is typically the rank structure aboard ship? Or are you asking about how players RP their crews?

    Well, according to an old Star Trek TNG Officer's Manual, a typical starship chain of command was so:

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  • artan42artan42 Member Posts: 10,450 Bug Hunter
    No. The Enterprise A had about three captains and I don't think any commanders, the E had about four commanders. The Defiant started off with no captain but two commanders (Major being the equivalent of).

    Starfleet ranks are more or less just milestone achievements as you get more experience, they don't have set command structures beyond the highest ranked individual on the ship is usually the captain (though not necessarily in rank) and the first and second officers are ranked below them.

    Hence why you can have petty officers as department heads, admirals as ships captains, or a senior staff made up of mainly commanders.
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  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,016 Arc User
    As @artan42 pointed out, Starfleet rank structure only briefly shares designations with real world ranks, so never try to rationalize anything in Trek with "In the navy..." xD

    Canonically, anyone from ensign to commander can belong to the senior staff and be a department head based on qualification. The rank mostly seems to be based on the kind of special training and additional qualifications you collect along the way, as well as seniority. To become a commander one has to be of a certain seniority and had to take a (presumably difficult) command exam but there is no limit how many commanders there are. In TNG, Riker, Crusher and Troi (last season) all held the rank of commander, so all of them were fit to take command of the ship. Data was still a lieutenant commander, but second officer never the less. Either a ltc already has some command training or it was simply data being data and not really needing any form of training to perform better than anyone else anyway. Worf was a lietenant but head of security regardless and in VOY, poor harry kim being the ships chief of operations was never promoted beyond ensign. Bashir was chief mefical but not a commander either.
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