“Commanders were expected to go on to be Captains” Looking at you, Will Riker.

Job of Ensigns in security: Die to show situation is serious.

"Ensigns were on the job training for three years" *Harry Kim intensifies*

Starfleet command structure is kind of a weird hybrid between military hierarchy and corporate management ladder.

There is a precedent for multiple officers with the rank of Captain in navies. An aircraft carrier will be commanded by a Captain, the executive officer is often a Captain, the commander of the embarked air wing will be a Captain, the chief engineer may be a Captain, and if serving as a flagship there’s likely to be a Captain or two on the Admiral’s staff.

I really hope you do a video about enlisted personnel because other than Miles O'Brien I know virtually nothing about them.

Honestly, almost everything described here matches the real-world Navy nearly 100%. The ranks are nearly directly lifted, the disposition of duties is almost identical, the progression from operations to administration and political involvement is spot-on. Yeah, Starfleet isn't a military organization in cannon, but its framing is about 95% identical to the real world military progression. Source: career Air Force, brother career Navy. The annual football game is hilarious.

You could write a book on the title Commodore alone. In the Age of Sail, Commodore was a temporary title granted to the most senior Captain of an ad-hoc flotilla. Sometime in the mid to late 1800s, the British Royal Navy made Commodore the naval equivalent of the One Star Brigadier General. The US Navy has had a complicated relationship with British naval traditions. They used the term Commodore, with the same British definition during WWII, Then dropped the rank entirely; brought it in the early 80s, changed it from Commodore to Commodore-Admiral, and now Rear Admiral(lower half) ...

Having multiple persons with the rank of Captain serving on the same ship has precedent in real world navies. On US Navy aircraft carriers for example, there are usually several officers with the rank of captain, the Commanding Officer of the ship is always one, the Executive Officer, the Reactor Officer and the Chief Engineer often are, and there may be others aboard as well, not to mention Captains in the Air Wing and on the embarked Admiral's staff. Also, in general, the Starfleet rank structure and chain of command actually is fairly close to that of the real world US Navy. The ranks of Commander & Captain in the US Navy haven't been directly tied to holding a command for well over a century.

“Ensigns were on the job training for three years” Well... that explains the death rate for Security ensigns under Kirk.

Please do a follow-up video for the crewmen ranks. It's is sorely needed.

A lot of people don’t know is that when the Original Series came out in the ‘60s, all astronauts in the US were officers either in the Air Force, Navy, or Marines as they were pilots or aviators. Thus, most of the members on the original Enterprise crew were also officers; the naval ranks were used because it was a star fleet, although Starfleet didn’t show up as an organization until the second season.

Ahh, Space Navy. As a Boatswain Mate myself, I was particularly fond of Enterprise, since they made that ship look as much like a submarine in space as they could.

Duty of a Cardassian Glinn - cleaning out a room after 3 men suffered explosive decompression...

I've often felt Commodore was a perfectly fine, under-used rank in the TNG/DS9 era Trek. Commanding a fleet or task force, but not quite an Admiral. In the novelizations, Sisko talks about being in something of a Commodore position during the war under Admiral Ross, even though his official rank was still Captain. Picard would likewise have been a Commodore during the blockade of Romulan boarder during the Klingon civil war. Technically, Picard should really have been an Admiral, or at least a Commodore for the entire run of the series, since he was in command of the "flag ship", which are typically commanded by flag officers, and he would have been called upon to command full fleets or battle groups when needed.

Starfleet seems to follow the practice of the assigned job providing authority and the rank being primarily for denoting experience level.

Note about Medical Doctors : Unlike most officer posts that only take 4 years of education to get commissioned, MDs and DOs require a minimum of 8 years plus residency, so it is very common that they don't go through OCS and are promoted immediately to O-3 to have a pay comparable to civilian physicians. Marine Corps band, is another one that works this way. No boot camp and everyone has the rank of E-6 staff sergeant to have a decent pay vs performing at a well known orchestra.

I haven't watched ST: TNG for three decades now but I do recall an episode wherein Counselor Troi became the top officer of the enterprise after the three highest officials were out of the ship. The funny thing is that she didn't know how high her rank was until someone told her about it. Come to think about it, Troi always sits beside Picard in the show.

Love to see the NCO ranks. Never understood that in Star Trek.

There are often times in the military where a person has to assume the duties of a rank above the one they actually hold. For example, a squad leader is usually a sergeant, but a corporal might often have to fill the role instead. Or a first lieutenant might have to assume command of a company if a captain isn't available

I think so many captains aboard a vessel was originally a matter of being a training ship, and then unusual diplomatic duties used as an excuse to keep the popular mutineers contained after that.

The refit constitution class enterprise was being used as a training vessel so having multiple captains from each division kirk(command) spock(science) and scotty(operations) to allow for in the field command level reviews without having to dock at appropriately staffed starbases

In the United States Navy, which the officer rank structure is based, did, at one time, have the rank of Commodore, and was the entry into the flag ranks. The rank of Commodore was abandoned in favor of the rank of Rear Admiral Lower Half (one star), and Rear Admiral Upper Half (two stars). There has not been a Fleet Admiral appointed in the Navy since World War II. Even the current Chief of Naval Operations is only a full Admiral at four stars.

Gotta say, much respect for the research time and diagram drawing you put in!

I think the concept of Starfleet, not being a military organization was added post TNG. In the TOS episode Tomorrow Is Yesterday, Captain Christopher asks Kirk how many Enterprise type ships does the navy have. And Kirk responds, we are a combined service.

Good thing Voyager kept everything making sense. Ensign Harry Kim giving duty orders to lieutenants. Janeway promoted from Captain to Vice Admiral skipping rear admiral and commodore.

When mentioning entering the Admiralty to oversee Starfleet Medical at 10:15 that would have been a perfect place to show a picture of Admiral McCoy from the pilot episode of the Next Generation series.

And now in the 25th century of STO, everyone and their brother in both Starfleet and the Romulan Republic is a Fleet Admiral now, and the Klingon Empire is stuffed to bursting with Dahar Masters. :P

Starfleet, as well as the ranking system, is based on the the US Navy. It's actually not unusual for their to be multiple Captains on ships. I served on the Eisenhower, an aircraft carrier with about 5000 sailors. The Commanding Officer was obviously a Captain, but so was the XO. There was a Captain at the head of medical, and a few other departments. As well as the head of the some of the many airwings we had on board. So the Enterprise having multiple Captains serving onboard is well within believability.

it matches the US navy pretty closely. role of the fleet is pretty similar as well. EDIT: to put things into perspective there is positional authority, in which a duty requires certain authorities (such as Petty Officer of the Watch in which you may need to order an officer) and you gain those authorities while carrying out those duties. this makes the navy rather flexible in who to put where. during the Vietnam War the army was tasked with handling the rivers, but they were too rigid with how they did things, especially with rank. this meant that they failed pretty hard at doing that. the navy took over and did very well as they had enlisted handling things that officers typically did. experience at running the patrol boats was very eclectic as a little of everything was needed, and the traditional experience of running a ship didn't apply. that being said they needed the same authority that commanding officers needed, and so enlisted with more experience of doing things at a deck plate level did better than officers if they were given the authority of officers. when outside the role of the patrol boats they were just enlisted and thus couldn't mess up the overall operations of the fleet. they didn't need to know the full breadth of the systems such as logistics, as they just needed to know the part that dealt with the boats. this made them unable to transition over to the fleet well enough, but the greater need for knowing more than just one area meant that officers didn't transition to the boats very well either. take the scene in Band of Brothers in which the leader got promoted and was held back from running out and doing the job, this is opposite of what the boats need (as they don't have the manpower to have someone sitting on the side lines). on top of that the 'defense is only part of the job' is pretty much the Navy throughout all of history. they were ones that explored the world, and handled diplomacy (or ferried diplomats if it was important enough). today they are critical to mapping the oceans and keeping water borne commerce going. they also have and still work with scientists in researching things that need to be done in international waters. they handle policing actions in international waters, though carefully as they are not a police force and have a lot of rules to worry about to ensure they don't overstep their jurisdiction. there isn't much that Starfleet does that the US Navy hasn't been responsible for in the past or is currently responsible for (not to say they are or were solely responsible).

IIRC, Spock was the official Captain of the Enterprise in WOK. Kirk was simply observing the training cruise. When an actual crisis developed, and one which personally involved Kirk, Spock consented to his superior officer assuming command. This would have been assumed to have been temporary. STV kinda messed that plan up I suppose.

The difference between rank and title of captain allows for lower ranks to be assigned as “captain” of a smaller or less important ship or command.

Certifiably Ingame content == lore videos I never knew I would consider essential

At least the TOS Movies had distinct uniforms between Officers and Enlisted.

Sisko's dad was a chef AND a Fleet admiral. Impressive!

A suggestion: It might be interesting to look at the ranking systems for other Trek civilizations (for instance, Gul and Legate for the Cardassians, etc.).

i think ranking in the kilngon empire would be interesting

Rather than climbing the ranks, I'll just wait for something like the Dominion War or Time of Month NERO to show up, that way you get promoted a lot just for not being dead.

Once again, great explanation , I love the para military ranks in Star Trek

Amazing how they operated with so few " crewmen ". Seems to be a really top heavy operation. I have never seen any commissioned officer doing manual labor in my 21 years in Marines.

You can have more than one Captain on a vessels they're all MTOE'd to their position and are subservient to the captain of ship.

Fleet captain is separate of commodore. It's explained in both TOS and voyager. Fleet captain is only used when the flag officer is killed or absent. The captain of the ship with the most tactical abilities becomes Fleet captain until a new flag officer arrives or they are promoted to commodore.

You missed one. Deputy director was a senior position in Starfleet's Department of Internal Affairs. Luther Sloan (of Section 31) claimed to hold this position while he posed as an agent of Internal Affairs in 2374. Sloan wore a Starfleet uniform with a modified captain's rank insignia during his subterfuge. (DS9: "Inquisition") The insignia consisted of the four pips of a captain centered over a single gold bar.

Would love to see more about the Non-commissioned staff of starfleet. Always found them more interesting.

I was expecting the ending 'goodbye' to be replaced with a 'dismissed' or 'as you were' :)

Typically Commanders were assigned the role over over seeing Starbases or outposts, while if they serve on a starship it was under a Captain. It appears that Captain Sisko was unusual in starfleet. As normally once promoted he would of been given a ship command instead of a station command. He might have special circumstances like the fact defiant is stationed there and he is the Emissary making him hard if not impossible to replace as the ranking officer.

There are provisional ranks too with their own insignia. There is also the Fleet Captain rank with 5 pips that is below Commodore and above Captain. There are also other departments within Starfleet with their own rank structures. Such as Deputy Director Sloan from Internal Affairs who had 4 pips with a bar underneath the pips (though he was really from Section 31).

The rank structure closely mirrors modern blue-water navies. Depending on the size of the ship, the CO & XO can vary a fair bit, as can the ranks of department heads.

There's nothing all that strange about multiple people of the same rank serving under someone of the same rank. Positional hierarchy always trumps actual rank in matters related to said position. This is why a Lt. Cmdr. CMO aboard a ship can order its captain to stand down and report to the medical facilities for treatment if they judge it necessary. In the same way, even a fleet admiral's authority is not absolute. The ship's designated Captain always holds supreme authority over it in matters of life and death, even if there's a Fleet Admiral aboard.

Well this sent me down a rabbit hole when I wondered what Beverleys rank was

"Or occasionally a similarly accepted Federation institution" -- We got something in TOS about Dr. McCoy having attended medical school (that is, some university medical doctoral degree) before joining Starfleet. I _think_ we got that on the show rather than in novels. Maybe with the Prof. Dr. Crater and Nancy Crater / Man Trap / Salt Vampire episode? But whether he then had some Starfleet Academy traiining, or how he got in, I'm not sure was stated, yet there he was. -- Spock apparently attended the Vulcan Science Academy and Starfleet Academy, or else he went into Starfleet Academy rather than the Vulcan Science Academy. -- So even back then, there could be some overlap or exceptions, with whatever Starfleet training added on. -- In our present-day military, usually NCO's get college training before or during service, thus their higher rans and position, and then there can be Officer Candidate Training School programs, as I understand it, if an NCO is recommended to become a Commissioned Officer. There are a few universities with military cadet training programs which, once a cadet graduates, can become a commissioned officer in a given branch of service, besides their national government's military academies. Then the astronaut and cosmonaut training programs are for military or civilian people, special training, not yet a commonly accepted or even offered major of study for a university degree. Airline and other pilots typically attend a junior or community college program for a degree. So the Strfleet system is probably an outgrowth of that into the fictional future.

Thanks for the breakdown of Starfleet ranks and responsibilities.

There’s very few fleet admirals STO: ummmm well

Bracing for a joke about how its an Admiral’s duty to be pure evil.

The informality you described is quite similar to the US military. Within reason, a person can achieve a billet even if their rank and experience doesn't support it, the goal being that the person rises to the challenge and gets promoted. You can also see many Captains working within the same command even though you'll only have one CO. Rank structures don't really have complexity on paper, but the means by which a person is promoted can vary, the fastest being by attending leadership schools and volunteering for special duties. Star Fleet operates in very much the same way I've seen the military operate.

As I recall, there was the rank of Ensign, Junior Grade, with the insignia of a single black dot, as well as Commodore, with the insignia of five gold dots, during the “Next Generation” era.

Would appreciate it if you did a vid on all the non-comissioned ranks and where in the hierarchy they fit; because in DS9 Ensign Nog clearly takes orders from Chief O'Brien on the Defiant which contrasts your statements that Cheif Petty Officers were subordinate... yes he was named as Head of Engineering, but he was not given Lt. Cmdr. Ranks like Geordi, B'Ellana, Scotty, Etc.

STO: Everyone is a Fleet Admiral, or equivalent.

Ranks on actual naval vessels : I'm going to use more internation ranks vs. the ones used in the US. Each rank in most navies have 3 levels of Lieutenant and 3 levels of Captain. So a Frigate Captain is closer to an O-5 vs a Corvette Captain being closer to O-4 Commander. Similarly, since the LT is the XO of each ship, a Frigate LT is closer to an O-3 LT vs the Corvette LT being an O-2 This also goes with section heads. Usually each section has only one officer commanding each section plus their CPO as enlistend liason to the rest of the department. A Corvette will have the equivalent of Ensigns while a Frigate and above will have an LT JG leading it. So if we used proper ranks to the crew of the Enterprise, you would have O-6 Captain plus O-5 First Officer O-4 LTCMDR in key positions such as the section heads that form the bridge crew. These would be different than depicted. Worf wouldn't be the chief of security since he is the weapons officer and chief tactician. Engineering would definitely have an O-4 as its head 3-4 LTs leading certain sections within Engineering. O-3 LT leading most sections outside of engineering, Some O-2s might lead some sections as well. But O-1s, in the Flag ship? Unlikely. Navigation, the helm, most nurses, and pretty much everyone else would be enlisted. In Sickbay you would have the Chief Medical Officer handling the leadership duties plus admin, probably a few O-4 or O-3 as physician's assitants, head nurses, and other medical roles in each of the three sickbays (since they have over 1000 on board, which means pediatricians, psychiatrists, etc). No ship's counselor and if there was one, it would likely be a whole civilian team.

Having served in the US Army, I can say that ranks are a determination of authority to maintain a line of command when needed. Other than that, someone's job description may give them authority over other individuals who may outrank them. A company's Executive Officer (XO) may be a 2nd Lieutenant (2LT) who may have authority over a Platoon Leader who is a 1st Lieutenant (1LT).

I always assumed Starfleet made an exception with the crew of the Enterprise-A, due to the reverence Kirk and co. had. Either that, or it saw the ship as an early retirement home.

I just realized Sisko’s dad played by Brock Peters also played the Admiral in Star Trek 4

"Hello!" ~Rick 2021

Quick discussion on why some individuals have specific jobs that don't correspond to the rank. Each military organization has a "table of organization" which lays out the entire chain of command of the entire organization. Each position on that table is known as a "billet". A fancy word for "specific job". Outside that organization there is something known as "B-billets" filling out specialized jobs that can't be lumped into the main TOO. Recruit training, recruiters, Embassy guards, special operations, etc. For extremely specialized training open to a variety of ranks, the leadership roles are based on time in that billet vs. pay grade. A great example of this is in the US Marine Corps Recruit Training regiments. Drill instructor is a B-billet open to Corporals to Gunnery Sergeants (E-4 - E-7). Each platoon in each training company has three drill instructors : the "drill hat" which is the lowest position and guy that does the most work. He is the main mean one of the three and handles the early instruction in close order drill. The next guy up handles stuff like ethics, knowledge, and other key duties that are important. The head drill instructor is usually in his third year and beside doing what the other two do when they have to rest, he is the main person responsible for the entire platoon, including the conduct of the drill instructors. In my training platoon we had a Gunnery Sergeant as the drill hat because he was only on his second training cycle, a sergeant above him, and a Staff Sergeant as head drill instrucor. That meant that an E-5 had authority over an E-7 because of seniority in the billet. Drill instructors come from everywhere. Some are infantrymen, others are admin clerks. But once they earn the right to wear the hat, that is their main responsibility. Above them you have the training company First Sergeant, usually taken up by a drill instructor on his last training cycle, so despite the name being that of an E-8, there are E-5s doing that job. Company commanders are usually Captains and handle the Officer command role, reporting to the Battalion commander, usually a Major or Lt. Colonel, who reports to the Brigadier General in command of the Training Regiment. Another example within the TOO are positions in an infantry batallion. Ideally each Battalion is commanded by a Lt. Colonel as commander, Major as XO, plus the Sergeant Major as chief enlisted advisor, has 3 Companies + a Headquarters company, each commanded by a Captain with a 1stLt as XO & a First Sergeant, each company has 3 platoons commanded by a 2ndLt or 1stLt and a Staff Sergeant, each platoon has 3 squads who are commanded by a Sergeant, and each squad has three fire teams, each commanded by a Corporal. I've served as squad leader as an E-3 Lance Corporal, during a point in time I was also the platoon sergeant as a Corporal despite a sergeant being squad lead of one of the other squads. So it all depends on the organization itself. When I moved over to special operations I had a 1stLt as a scout sniper under my command, despite me only being a Sergeant at that point. While in school we had instructors of all ranks. So anything outside the TOO, when specialized enough, time in billet will be the order of the day as far as who holds leadership positions regardless of the actual pay grade. An Admiral serving as lecturer in an Academy setting isn't that uncommon since they are under the Academy's TOO, not the fleet.

The discovery rank insignias are so tiny, don't like them at all

And yet Harry Kim stayed as an Ensign for all of Voyager’s time in the Delta Quadrant

I once heard this from a friend in the navy... It didn't matter if you were an officer or an enlisted guy... The Chief Petty Officer, or Senior Chief Petty Officer, depending on who was onboard at the time of shove off, was literally the equal to a Commander on a ship, but was career enlisted rather than a collegiate officer. Many were classed as Noncommissioned Officers. Even if you were a lieutenant, if the Chief gave an order, you still followed for good reason. He had more experience in the field than you did, and he by chain of command, still outranked you. Same goes for Sergeant Majors and Master Sergeants. It was also wise to never piss off a top enlisted guy even if you were an officer, because many had direct lines to the top brass and were deeply respected by such, and they could make your life a living hell. In essence, Miles O'Brian was literally under Captain Sisko directly in Chain of Command.

Your initial proper pronunciation of “lieutenant” was refreshing. Too bad you didn’t keep it up. 😀😛

One thing, I'm guessing there's 1000s of Star Fleet academies in the Federation right. Cause San Francisco can't be the only one to service the whole earth+ other planets

I do 'love' how subtle the distinction between ensign and commodore is on some of the rank insignia systems.

First off. Rick: Great video. Really well done. Second: Commodore was used during the TOS era to somewhat reflect real life (at the time) Naval commodore rank equivalent and then was transitioned to Rear Admiral (Lower Half) in TNG to reflect the US Naval transition to discard Commodore to a flag officer of the lowest rank. Third: Kirk demoted himself (via orders of Admiral Nogura) to the rank of Captain, which in turn, demoted Decker to Commander (XO), and was reflected (as far as I remember) in their uniform displayed rank. Fourth: I would absolutely love to see a video made to show what the enlisted ranks (which I was one of) to break down their rights and responsibilities. As always Rick, you make fantastic videos that brighten my day up. Thank you very much, Sir.

Starfleet is just a diplomatic organization with many powerful weapons at its disposal. Imagine being in a Nebula class ship conference room and seeing the torpedo launcher array at the back of the ship towering over everyone. That is just a friendly diplomatic reminder of take my carrot or I will give you the baseball bat really hard. Make your choice now!

Tell a Senior Chief an Ensign outranks him and you will get a chuckle. Tell an Ensign he outranks a Senior Chief and you will hear a nervous laugh

In naval history, there was the rank of Post Captain... to distinguish between a Captain who had a temporary command of a ship and one who was permanently posted to a ship. And Commodore was used to describe a Captain who was, for whatever reason, on another Captain's ship... as there can be only one Captain. I always assumed this is why Decker was referred to as Commodore in "The Doomsday Machine".

- "I'm curious to see how much this ties up against a real world command structure".... Became interested in this a number of years ago. I kept finding my answers demonstrated in the phrase "art imitates life".

IMO the Rank pins used in ST II-VI, 2280-2360s, were the best. I thought the magnificent maroon uniforms were the best and the pins were a nice complement to them.

Almost like the writers didn't care about rank, and just winged it for most of the history of Star Trek.

Rick, THANK YOU for saying 'lieutenant' correctly!

You did very well. I served 6 years in the Navy, as an enlisted sailor, but am very familiar to the officer side of the ranking system as I had to interact with many. A couple small notes, much like how Lieutenants, it is the same with Read Admirals, which are broken down into Lower and Upper halves, and in this case, the lower is replaced by the Commodore, which is not too inaccurate. However, the rank of Commodore is usually more akin to an appointment, like a department head. For example, I was on a destroyer, so our Commodore was actually a Captain, since destroyers are commanded by Commanders, but Commodores are usually Read Admiral Lower Halfs. It is also no uncommon for multiple officers of command level to be stationed on the same ship. Back to my destroyer for example, we had a Commander for both CO and XO. And I have heard that on larger ships it is not uncommon for there to be a full on Captain for CO, XO and even department heads. You mentioned how some officers train protégés, this is less common these days, but not impossible. There is the position of Adjutant, which is basically the right hand man, or woman, of an officer. All in all, masterfully done. I would love to see a video on Enlisted Ranks in Star Fleet, and maybe if they anything equivalent to Warrant Officers. In the real military they are higher ranked than every enlisted person, yet lower than the newest Ensign.

I was literally thinking about this

I just realized you've been saying "lieutenant" throughout the video, despite the Britishness. I thought you guys pronounced it "leftenant" over there, don't you?

Great video! Loved the way you laid out the graphics to compare eras. Looking forward to the next video on NCO ranks!

Nice informative video and you even avoided some common mistake. Still, a few nitpicks: 1) Fleet Captain. This was in the sailing days an official rank and Starfleet also on occasion had this rank. In the 2260's Christopher Pike held this rank when he had his accident. We didn't see his rank insignia, but based on the captain's rank it likely would've been three solid braids. Likewise, according to the ST Encyclopedie when designing the ranking insignia for TNG, they planned to use five pips for a Fleet Captain. (And there's the weird ranking bar from Sloan.) 2) Commodore. Again, according to the ST: Encyclopedia, an official, licensed source, in the TNG era the rank of Commodore was changed into a one-pip admiral 3) Blue uniforms (medical, sciences) do have ranks, but they're not part of the command structure -- at least, this is how it is in current day military (my father used to be a chaplain and a Lt.Cmmdr, but in operational situations he had to take commands from an ensign). They are treated with the respect of their rank, but in a day-to-day operations they do not have any authority. The same likely applies to ST, since Crusher is a full commander, but Lt.Cmmdr. Data as second in command outranks her: when Picard is presumed dead and Riker kidnapped, it's Data who's in command of the Enterprise (despite Crusher having a higher rank). 4)In real life, rank indicate how many people you have under your command. Star Trek screws this up, especially in Voyager, since the Chief Engineer on a Galaxy class starship (with 800-1000 Starfleet crew) has about the same number of people under his command as the captain of an Intrepid class ship (crew of 150). Thus technically speaking, the captain of an Interpid class starship should be a Lt.Cmmdr. DS9 did this right: Sisko commanded about the same crew as RIker, but when the Defiant was added and DS9 upgraded, he got a bigger crew and was made Captain.

If you could rank the ranks, what would your top ten ranks be?

5k views in 4 hours.. We are some NERDS!. AND I LOVE IT!

Thank you for the fascinating explanation of Starfleet ranks... 👍

The rank structure of Starfleet feels it once was very militaristic, but became more a show of: Ambition, Experience, and luck of fortune(Like field promotion, or assuming command when the lead officer is wounded/killed), more then anything else. It does give a quick impression of what kind of work you would be doing on your duty, the higher you are, the more you deal with people/politics in a way, and less with the day to day routine. The chain of command exists, but it's a bit more nebulous when it comes to same rank people. There is no strict: "you are .1 rank above me, so you always lead" or "You are the older of the rank so you lead" kind of situation, it's just how was designated to be in command on that particular position.

STO has so many "admirals" that I would like to know how you explain it.

Entire crew: keep getting de javu about the number 3. Rank insignia for commander is two braided loops: BIG OOF

As a former member of the U.S. Navy, Starfleet's Command structure is pretty consistent. Thus includes the fact that on large ship such as a aircraft carrier, there may be two or more people who carry the rank of Captain. This does not mean that there is more than one Commanding Officer. The reason has to do with specialized education and training. Medical officer holding a M.D. begin their military careers as a lieutenant in the Navy, two pay grades about many other officers.

There are a lot of differences between the way Star Fleet does things and how the actual military does things when it comes to rank. So the first thing to know is that there is something called Line Officers and Staff Officers. Line are generally any officer that can take command of a ship. Staff are specialist officers like Doctors, Lawyers and Chaplains who will never take command of a ship. If Capt Picard was incapacitated Riker, Data and Worf could take command if they were the next in line. Crusher would never take command. The other thing to think about is your job as an officer on a ship will be determined by the size of the ship. If the Commanding Officer was a Commander then most of the department heads will be Lieutenant Commander and below. On a ship the size of an aircraft carrier with a Captain ranked Commanding Officer most of the department heads will be Commanders. My last ship was a minesweeper and as an E-6 I was the assistant Navigator. On a side note the first ship I served on was an aircraft carrier and the CO, XO, OPS and CAG were all Captain ranked. Also you won't have specialist officers like Scotty was an engineer and probably was an engineer on all of his ships. Your first ship you may be the training officer your next the weapons officer and then after that Executive officer and then commanding officer. The US Navy will bounce officers around so they'll learn a wide range of jobs before becoming a commanding officer.

STO ranking is so broken from this... every ship commander is an Admiral.

I’m still upset that Captain Janeway never promoted Ensign Harry Kim in all their years on Voyager. Sigh. Stay well out there everybody, and Jesus Christ be with you friends.😊

You could easily change "Star Fleet" for "US Navy" and it all fits... As a submariner, I can atest that LTs are department head, LCDRs are executive officers, CDRs are commanding officers, Rear-Admiral Lower Half (Commodore) general head up squadrons of submarines, Rear-Admiral Upper Half (Rear Admiral) oversee the squadrons, Vice Admirals are in charge of fleets (Pacific, Atlantic, etc), and Admirals command the fleets which we call Forces.

I believe that Starfleet has a superfluous amount of commissioned officers. So much so that commissioned officers would do such mundane jobs as helmsman, radio operator, equipment maintenance, etc; jobs that would normally be done by low-ranking enlisted men.

Star Trek Rank and Duties: Redshirt, or not redshirt.

well if you'd just shower more you wouldn't have to worry about being rank

"director" is "commodore" for land/shore operations or operations that span all aspects, "commodore" being a Warrant Captain. The starfleet system is simplified for writing and story purposes with the finer deliniations only being brought out for story purposes.

My dad had the rank of warrant officer in the New Zealand airforce. Which is basicly as high as a non commissioned officer can get. Though he was eventually in charge of base security and discipline. So it didn't really matter that the junior commissioned officers technically out ranked him. They soon learned they had to respect him, because he could still order them to white wash stones, or any other menial task if he felt they're lacking in the discipline befitting their rank.

*Britishness slips through AHA!!! So your british, i suspected it the whole time!!!