Ship's Counselor slot at Department Heads?

captainrc1

I know that this is probably a rather ridiculous question... but does anyone think that there should be a Ship's Counselor slot in the Department Heads?

baddmoonrizin

No.

jslyn

There are Counselor DOff missions. So, I guess that it would make sense. Ought to add the other Department Head missions in that can normally on be performed on the bridge while they are at it.

spiritborn

Isn't the counseling department a subsection of the medical department anyway (as in it's the mental health subsection). Honestly any doff missions the ship's counselor would give can easily be given by XO or CMO depending on their nature and you don't need a separate "counselor" slot in the UI. It doesn't really make that much sense both from an out-of-universe PoV and from an in-universe one.

rattler2

spiritborn wrote: »

Isn't the counseling department a subsection of the medical department anyway (as in it's the mental health subsection). Honestly any doff missions the ship's counselor would give can easily be given by XO or CMO depending on their nature and you don't need a separate "counselor" slot in the UI. It doesn't really make that much sense both from an out-of-universe PoV and from an in-universe one.

I'd have to agree. Those DOff assignments would just be filed under Medical anyways. And not every ship had a Counselor either.

phoenixc

If you go by the behind-the-scenes stuff (and some stray in-show stuff here-and-there), the ship's councilor(s) are in the gray area between the Medical (the mental health aspect) and the Command (presumably as a sort of intentions analyst in tactical and diplomatic encounters) departments, though traditionally they seem to be more medical (and before the official Counsellor position they usually showed Medical department personnel filling the role, like Dr. Phillip Boyce in The Cage.

The Command part is supposedly why in TNG Troy has a bridge seat in the command row, and later on they essentially had Guinan filling in for her on the mental health side, while Troy sat bridge watches, using the "bartender as ersatz councilor" convention that started in novels and fanfic based on Boyce's comment about bartenders and doctors.

While it would be nice to have a way to define a boff as a councilor that the program understands (along with some other roleplaying flags), it is probably not worth the effort to put the requisite entry in the database (database changes are almost always a major pain in the posterior, and from the glimpses of the database screens that occasionally show up in Ten Forward and whatnot STO uses a rather old and not-particularly-user-friendly one). Even if they did, it would require a lot of other scattered changes to make use of that entry in stuff like the department head screen of the doffing system.

spiritborn

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

If you go by the behind-the-scenes stuff (and some stray in-show stuff here-and-there), the ship's councilor(s) are in the gray area between the Medical (the mental health aspect) and the Command (presumably as a sort of intentions analyst in tactical and diplomatic encounters) departments, though traditionally they seem to be more medical (and before the official Counsellor position they usually showed Medical department personnel filling the role, like Dr. Phillip Boyce in The Cage.

Troy and Ezri Dax wore the blue uniform (when Troy wore the standard uniform), I can't currently remember if was the medical or science shade that was used (those were pretty close to behind with in the TNG uniforms) so that suggests the intention was "medical with command duties".

rattler2

I don't think TNG had the blue/teal difference between science and medical.




I think we only started to see the teal variant with the DS9/Voyager uniforms and later the First Contact style. Although we apparently did see a teal in TNG. By Lower Decks and later it seems they did away with the Teal, and even brought back the White from Discovery.

spiritborn

We didn't see unambiguous science officers that often in TNG though, it was mostly Data filling in that role if it was needed and with Troy she could be in medical so having the same uniform color as Crusher doesn't say much.

inferiority

It strikes me that the position of a Ship's Counsellor would come under the 'Medical' department and would therefore be subordinate to the Chief Medical Officer. I know this implies that Crusher was Troi's boss, and whilst we rarely saw them interact in a professional manner, it was clear to me that they both knew each other was perfectly competent in what they did and just let each other 'get on with it'.

spiritborn

inferiority wrote: »

It strikes me that the position of a Ship's Counsellor would come under the 'Medical' department and would therefore be subordinate to the Chief Medical Officer. I know this implies that Crusher was Troi's boss, and whilst we rarely saw them interact in a professional manner, it was clear to me that they both knew each other was perfectly competent in what they did and just let each other 'get on with it'.

Not mention that either of the women didn't have the kind of personality what would cause authority issues among them, thus really wasn't any friction that would cause this hierarchy to manifest on screen.

rattler2

And they were also both full Commanders by rank I believe.

spiritborn

rattler2 wrote: »

And they were also both full Commanders by rank I believe.

Troy started as Lt. Commander and got promoted to full Commander during TNG after she took the bridge officer's test.

saurializard

No! Therapy is for the weak! Alongside HR and OSHA!

annemarie30

nope, it falls under Medical. that being said, there is no reason a Councillor (Psychiatrist/psychologist) could not be CMO. CMO is an administrative position, not a medical one.

Unknown

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rattler2

valoreah wrote: »

Not a ridiculous question at all. I agree with others that the ships counselor would fall under the medical department head. Was there ever any mention of Troi reporting to Dr. Crusher on TNG?

No, but I do believe they worked together on more than one occasion.

inferiority

saurializard wrote: »

Therapy is for the weak!

...and the weak shall Perish!

spiritborn

rattler2 wrote: »

valoreah wrote: »

Not a ridiculous question at all. I agree with others that the ships counselor would fall under the medical department head. Was there ever any mention of Troi reporting to Dr. Crusher on TNG?

No, but I do believe they worked together on more than one occasion.

We people reporting to Riker quite rarely too even though he's technically everyone's boss (well everyone's but the CO (aka Picard)) it seems something TNG just didn't depict that often.