Enterprise Revisited (Discussion)

[Transwarp]

9) What do XOs in later years - Riker and Chakotay in particular, 'cause Kira seemed to have actual duties - actually do besides sit on the bridge and argue occasionally with the captain when they don't have departments of their own?

Here you go, straight out of chapter 16 of the Naval Orientation Manual:

As the next ranking line officer aboard ship, the executive officer serves as the aide or “executive” to the commanding officer. As such, the XO is the direct representative of the commanding officer in maintaining the general efficiency of the ship. With the assistance of the heads of departments, the XO arranges and coordinates all ship’s work, drills, exercises, personnel organization, and the policing and inspection of the ship. The XO investigates matters affecting the discipline and conduct of the crew and makes recommendations concerning these matters to the commanding officer. The XO usually approves or disapproves liberty lists and leave requests. When the crew reports that the ship is cleared for action, the XO inspects it and receives readiness reports from the various department heads. After confirming the ship’s readiness, the XO then reports to the commanding officer that the ship is ready for action. If the captain is disabled, the immediate superior in command of the ship (squadron or group commander) designates the XO as the acting CO until a permanent commanding officer can be assigned. For this reason, the XO’s battle station, determined by the captain, is located some distance from the captain’s—a safety measure to prevent disablement of both officers at the same time. After each battle, the executive officer makes a detailed report to the commanding officer.

The bold emphasis was mine...

[Transwarp]

Everyone always seems to be off-shift together for movie nights and such, so there must be the equivalent of a "second string" bridge crew to sub for the main crew, don't you think? How does it work on real ships? I'm sure things don't shut down at night.

I was an electrician's mate on a real ship, and this is how it worked: During regular duty hours (the normal work day, approximately 0800 to 1700), everybody worked. There was a formation in the morning for muster and inspection, and the plan of the day for each section was read. I was in E-Division (Electrical Division) in Engineering Department. Most of my work day was consumed with routine maintenance and troubleshooting of the ship's electrical and power distribution systems. In the evening, (when it was my turn) I would run the 16 mm movie projector on the mess deck. For some reason, running movie projectors was the responsibility of the electricians.

In addition to the normal workday, everyone was assigned to a watch section. My watch station was the ship's service switchboard, the main power distribution switchboard for the ship. We had four 300 KiloWatt diesel generators, of which two were normally running at any given time. I would insure voltage and frequency were constant, and make sure the load was balanced on all generators. I would bring generators up and down as needed. I would take periodic readings of the system and record them in a log, and I would make periodic reports to Main Control (in the main engine room).

A standard watch is four hours, which is about the longest you would want to put someone who has to remain alert, although there is a two hour watch (known as a dog-watch) that kicks in if there are six watch sections. This keeps the same section from having the mid-watch every night (mid-watch is from 0000 to 0400). The 1600 to 2000 watch is usually 'dogged', or split into two: 1600 to 1800 and 1800 to 2000.

I remember my dismay when they took the senior electrician (an EM1, or E-6) and had him stand watches in main control. This took the switchboard watch from five sections to four sections, and the main control watch from five sections to six sections. Hardly seemed fair!

I actually got to stand underway bridge watches for a couple of months (some kind of cross-training program, although the deck-apes never stood watches in engineering...) It was interesting. I got to steer the ship (a 10,000 Ton Salvage ship), but every hour they rotated us to keep us alert (helm to lookout to helm to lookout).

If you have the mid-watch you get to sleep an hour past reveille, but you still work the next day.

So there is no night shift. After hours, your time is your own unless you're on watch. The critical systems and positions that have to be manned twenty-four hours a day have a watch-stander assigned to them. Everything else is handled during the work day.

In port, the crew is divided into duty sections, (usually three or four), and after work, liberty call is announced for all but the one duty section who will stay on board and manage things that night. There are different (and fewer) watches in port than underway. You usually have an OOD (officer of the deck) and a petty officer of the watch manning the quarterdeck. There is also one or more sounding and security watches, roaming the ship looking for fires or flooding.

Hope this helps.

[Kotik]

Lots of questions there ma'am, here be lots of answers

Random thoughts that came to me while betaing part one of "Broken Bow":
1) Why does Travis doubt their need for weaponry? As a Boomer, you'd think he'd have first-hand experience of space pirates and, as such, would know how important they are to a ship. Even if it's not carrying an expensive payload at warp 2 on a regular route.

I would suspect that space-boomers aren't boarded and robbed blind at every corner, else nobody would take up that job, so I suspect that even piracy exists (Nausicaans, Orions, what-have-you) Travis' experience with it seems to be not very extensive, hence he doesn't expect a need for weapons.

2) In light of "Observer Effect," how does Hoshi manage to get back into Starfleet?

I think she mentions, that she was allowed back in, because Starfleet needed her linguistic skills, so she was allowed back, despite her disciplinary problems. (Is it just me or does anyone else have probs imagining that petite chick breaking someones arm. On the other hand, T'Pol isn't a bodybuilder either, but she kung-fu'ed the raw Kahless out of a Klingon in "Marauders" )

3) If there are so many things in orbit about Earth (such as Yosemitie-3 from "Zero Hour"), why is the spacedock the only thing we ever see?

Because building models to put them on screen costs money

4) If humans are planing on going into space, why haven't the brass and the pertinent starship captains flipped through the Vulcan database to apprise themselves of the big players in the region - Andorians, Tellarites, Klingons - at least enough to know them by sight? Though, admittedly, the Klingons are a little farther afeild than the humans are likely to go at first (The Delphic Expanse not withstanding), why don't Archer and Trip know what Andorians look like and who they are if they're such big enemies of the Vulcans, their pals for the last century?

Because the pre-Kir'Shara Vulcans don't volounteer any information, even if their life depends on it. Remember, they only gave away the star charts after blackmailing Starfleet into taking T'Pol with them. It is an oversight by the ENT producers. I would suspect that Earth has some basic information about some species, if nothing else, they'd have info from the space boomers. Travis knows the exact layout of the mammal features of the women on Draylax, so one can only guess, that they'd have info on other species as well. Why Archer & Co. weren't given such info is a question that can only be answered by TPTB.

5) How does anyone expect the Enterprise go through the Badlands to Kronos and get back in 8 days? And why does no one warn them about the Orions this go around - they would be a good reason to wait until you have weapons up and running in my book.

See #4. Considering the time - I don't know. I guess they just made up a number. Considering how (relatively) near Vulcan is, the journey to Qo'noS should take a helluva lot longer than eight days, but since I want to keep all on-screen situations intact, I'll have to go with it.

6) If Enterprise is a vessel of exploration, why was there no science officer picked out beforehand. Did something happen to the one they originally pick out, or was s/he pushed into a secondary role to make room for T'Pol, becoming Chief Astrophysicist or something instead of fullblown Science Officer?

Good question, unfortunately I haven't go a definitive answer yet.

7) Who is in charge when the senior staff is out? Hoshi's in charge in "Terra Prime," but there's at leat 2 other Lts on the ship that we know about other than Malcolm. So is the Chain of Command bridge staff, then everyone else in order of rank? Or something like that? And does Chief Engineer count as bridge staff (as I think somone suggested it doesn't based off VOY, which may be different since it's 2x this Enterprise's size)? And, if not, I'm going to have to call my ex-Army father, explain ENT to him, and get his idea of Chain of Command... which could be painful.

Maybe one of the people with naval/military experience (Transwarp, Silverbullet, Rigil Kent) can shed some light.

How many officers are on the ship anyway, and what's the usual ratio on modern ships of officers to crewmen?

If memory-alpha is anything to go by there's quite a number of ensigns and Lieutenants on Enterprise (especially Engineering), maybe it'd be a worthwile effort, if we assembled a list of known crewmember, certainly would make life easier for story writers.

9) What do XOs in later years - Riker and Chakotay in particular, 'cause Kira seemed to have actual duties - actually do besides sit on the bridge and argue occasionally with the captain when they don't have departments of their own? And the paperwork excuse really can't work for VOY, 'cause who honestly does meaningless paperwork when they're busy trying to cross 70,000 light years and are at least 60 years from contact with Starfleet Command?

I always imagined the XO as the one, who actually runs the ship. The skipper is busy being Airlock!Archer and playing 'ze big boss' all day, while the XO does the actual work - juggling duty-roster, doing performance reviews, boinking the chief engineer - that sort of stuff.

10) What happens to the no-frat rule between ENT and TNG? Or TOS for that matter?

It gets abandoned, obviously. I dealt with in in my story "Words". NX-01 was humanities first deep space mission, so while the no-frat rules might make sense for warp 2 boats dawdling around in the solar system - they're becoming ridiculous for missions that last years. The occasional visit to Risa isn't enough to... um... release tension

11) I know Alelou's explination, but why Porthos? And, while I can see a cat like Spot from TNG working in space, a dog seems more difficult....

Damned if I know. Archer is obviously a dog person.

12) How many people are in Starfleet at this time? How many ships? How many Admirals?

That's a question our resident military afficionados can probably answer. How many admirals does it take to make Starfleet sufficiently incompetent and inflexible?

13) How many Vulcans in the compound?

Many? No idea. But I think at least a hundred would make sense, considering they need medical staff, embassy staff, Priests, scientists who prod and poke humans and other earth pets, cute ex-spys - the lot.

14) What other aliens are on Earth besides Vulcans and Denobulans? Certainly not Andorians or Tellarites....

Since Vulcans are the only 'ally' at the time of "Broken Bow", I think except some members of the IME and the lot of pointy-eared nuisances in Sausalito, there're not too many aliens on Earth at the time.

15) How come no randomly exploring aliens (besides Vulcans) ever run across Earth and chose to make contact when it's so obivously post-warp?

Beats me, but I would suspect not too many races are as curious as humans. Most races will probably be quite content with just scanning the hell out of earth, before continuing with the next planet.

Cheers

[aadarshinah]

Just some devil's advocating

2) In light of "Observer Effect," how does Hoshi manage to get back into Starfleet?

I think she mentions, that she was allowed back in, because Starfleet needed her linguistic skills, so she was allowed back, despite her disciplinary problems. (Is it just me or does anyone else have probs imagining that petite chick breaking someones arm. On the other hand, T'Pol isn't a bodybuilder either, but she kung-fu'ed the raw Kahless out of a Klingon in "Marauders" )

Seems to me that breaking a superior officer's arm is a pretty big disiplinary offence, which, as Hoshi mentions, is a bad-conduct discharge. It says she was let back on probation - which may be why she's still an ensign in season 4 - but there can't be only one linguist in all of Starfleet with a keen ear; there's bound to be one with a better record and, honestly, do you want a probationary officer with space issues on your flagship?

6) If Enterprise is a vessel of exploration, why was there no science officer picked out beforehand. Did something happen to the one they originally pick out, or was s/he pushed into a secondary role to make room for T'Pol, becoming Chief Astrophysicist or something instead of fullblown Science Officer?

Good question, unfortunately I haven't go a definitive answer yet.

General reasons: Retirement (though why you'd choose a retiring officer to head up your deepspace ship, idk, but maybe they found something more interesting in the civilian sector), the ever-popular pregnancy excuse, change of heart, illness, demotion, death-by-random-accident.... ooh, or incarseration. Not seen the last one before. Can we have Enterprise's would-be SO in jail? Please?

I'll think of some more annoying questions later....

[WarpGirl]

Just some devil's advocating

2) In light of "Observer Effect," how does Hoshi manage to get back into Starfleet?

Seems to me that breaking a superior officer's arm is a pretty big disiplinary offence, which, as Hoshi mentions, is a bad-conduct discharge. It says she was let back on probation - which may be why she's still an ensign in season 4 - but there can't be only one linguist in all of Starfleet with a keen ear; there's bound to be one with a better record and, honestly, do you want a probationary officer with space issues on your flagship?

I don't think it was an issue of not having people who were good at languages, but more like there wasn't anyone else that could learn and communicate with a language like Klingon in a matter of days. That IS something that you would bend the rules for on your flagship, since the universal translator is a baby. During the Xindi mission (about 10 months) Hoshi learned all of the primary Xindi languages and most of the dialects. Some people speculate she is a telepath, I just say she's super smart and responds to telepathy. In any case SF at this point is hunting for the VERY best, so the rules would get bent a little more. That and it doesn't consider itself a real military in the begining (I KNOW they're WRONG) and that doesn't start to kick in until after the Xindi conflict.

[Alelou]

Given my own druthers, I'd pretend that whole conversation was just a fever-induced hallucination on Trip's part, because it was JUST TOTALLY FREAKIN' OOC.

[WarpGirl]

Well she would have been a teenager at the time... What teen isn't a little OOC????????? She was 22 in Broken Bow barely a grown up even if technically an adult.

[Alelou]

You call that a little OOC?

[WarpGirl]

I call teenagers people who are all over the map. Given Hoshi's isolated upbringing and the fact that her family relationships don't seem to be close, I don't find it odd that when she left home and was in Starfleet training that she'd go through a stage of rebellion. Especially if she was in a crowd of young people breaking the rules. The poker game was illegal. So no I don't find it a glaring case of OOC. Please hasn't every teenager done something so stupid that when they grow up they say "Well that is a product of my idiot years." I don't see a problem, given that she was YOUNG!

[Alelou]

I don't agree. I've taught quite a few teens and young adults in my day, and IMO they seem to be pretty much who they are. They may yet mature, yes, learn some impulse control and social skills, become less self-absorbed, gain in self-confidence, become less dependent on their friends or family -- but their essential personality generally is what it is. And to me what Hoshi described in that scene does not match in any way, shape or form with what we are shown of Hoshi in the rest of the series.

[WarpGirl]

I don't agree. I've taught quite a few teens and young adults in my day, and IMO they seem to be pretty much who they are. They may yet mature, yes, learn some impulse control and social skills, become less self-absorbed, gain in self-confidence, become less dependent on their friends or family -- but their essential personality generally is what it is. And to me what Hoshi described in that scene does not match in any way, shape or form with what we are shown of Hoshi in the rest of the series.

I admit I am one of those people who never changed, I'm pretty much the same as I was at 7.

HOWEVER, I know just as many kids who go through hoops trying to figure out who the heck they are, and what the heck they want to be. Hoshi was isolated as a child, and I think its pretty obvious that she has always tried to connect with others. Hence her job, she's smart enough to do just about anything. So going to SF training trying to connect to people, to be accepted as part of a group... That's very in character for her. Maybe she just wanted to cut loose for once, not be the prestine, sweet, shy Hoshi who is so very good all the time. In traning she had an opportunity to experiment and rebel... Again what kid doesn't? That isn't a personality transplant.

[Kotik]

I'm with Alelou here. I think it was more down to fever than anything else, because :

• Until late in season 1, Hoshi was afraid of her own shadow. She wouldn't be like that if she would have been a bone-breaker beforehand.
• She isn't the type who initiates a fight
• She doesn't strike me as someone, who would participate in illegal gambling in the first place.

[WarpGirl]

You also have to consider that she's perfectly confident on Earth, she attempts to tell Archer "No you get me in three weeks, I've got students."

Space is big, and dangerous, and scary, with all this tech stuff that's new.

And when push comes to shove she's not above blowing things up!

If I remember right she doesn't say what the guy did when he broke up the poker game. Maybe he strong-armed her, maybe he got fresh. Despite being "sweet Hoshi" she's not the type to let anyone just jerk her around. There is a difference.

As to being involved in the first place, well it is a good way to get some money or the 22nd century equivilent... If she had friends who wanted to use her expertice in body language to fleece other students, I could see it. And who knows maybe she had some drinks that night that could explain it too.

[Alelou]

Yeah ... so you're feeling a little isolated. Maybe you'll hang out with some people you shouldn't, maybe you'll drink too much, maybe you'll sleep around. Maybe you'll PLAY a little illegal poker, just to hang out with the gang (and maybe because you're brilliant at it).

But set it up and run it? For profit? And break someone's arm for trying to break it up? That's someone who is operating by a completely different set of moral rules and motivations than we've ever seen from Hoshi. That's a Soprano, not a Sato. If, by the time she makes it into the academy, she is that dominated by venal self-interest and a willingness to exploit the weaknesses of others, she wouldn't have joined it in the first place -- and probably wouldn't have made it past the psych profile. Besides, she'd probably choose to be a quartermaster instead of a linguist, because the former could make a much tidier profit doing quiet black market deals in the background. She'd be one of those scumbags you have to try to run your war around because they're so busy skimming off the top.

[WarpGirl]

Dear God why do her motivations have to be self interested and immoral? OK let me put it this way... Have you ever been institutionalized? Hospital, camp, military school, prison... IDK Pick one. Here's the thing you get bored. You're stuck to one schedual, up at a cetain time, activities at a certain time, rules, rules, rules.

Now Hoshi isolated and used to following all these rules from her own childhood, gets thrust into this group of other people where most likely she's the youngest, these people who are probably more laid back and like to have fun. And Hoshi wanting to make friends finds a group that likes her, and they like to break rules. They like to party, and they like to gamble, something that due to Hoshi's genius would be a natural at. Other people also like to party, and gamble, and generally have a good time, even though they want to be in this "institution" they get bored. All that hard work, and danger, why not blow off steam.

So Hoshi and her "crowd" come up with a plan to give everyone some R&R and make a few bucks. Vegas does it all the time. Nothing malicious about it.

Again we don't know what happened with the man that broke it up. Like I said he might have tried something after he broke it up and she didn't want to tell Trip the whole thing. After all the point was to cheer him up.