Topic: Science Personnel and Ranks on Fed ships

[Commander La'ra]

Czar, as I've come to realize, this is HOW Andy has fun.

[Scottish Andy]

You want to say, "Fire the Futon Torpedoes and make the ship go that way!", then I'll buy it.

That line is coming in my 'Star Trek: IKEA' parody. 

You could have been in the US Navy. Attention to detail, and all.

I'll take that as a compliment. 

Andy, I don't know if you've seen this...

I haven't, but that's hilarious. I love it!

Czar, as I've come to realize, this is HOW Andy has fun.

Took you bloody long enough - especially after repeated tellings! And, here's what I posted on another forum.

As an aside: I love figuring this stuff out. It gives me great joy. It is also why my story production is so slooow...

And...

I know this really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I just like to figure out this stuff. We're basically arguing "which captain is better?" Everyone has their own preferences, but we each try to convince the other of our respective viewpoints. Think of this as, if nothing else, an exercise of our debating and communications skills. Are we making our points? Are we communicating our perspective clearly enough, or are we relying too much on out own unexplained assumptions that are not supported by facts? Etc., etc.

Besides, this is important - to us. Well, to me, at least.    I'm a ship nut first and foremost, probably more so than Ady. I got into telling stories from playing a game where I got to fly Star Trek ships. Don't tell me it isn't important - just because it isn't important to you. It's what I do, and I derive great pleasure from arguing and deciding such trivia. People even more ship-nut that I am put together the blueprints the Intrepid Team and the other fan films use for their sets.
Oh, and just so as you know, since this is text and bereft of tone of voice, I'm not offended, angry or anything like it. Just stating a fact. 

[Governor Ronjar]

Futons away, Keptin! Direct hit!!

--guv

[Tus-XC]

So since our convo on MSN, i've been thinking about this a bit.  First off it would be hard to have a true rank pyramid, with more enlisted than officer if you don't have contractors. Since you've removed tha possibility in our convo this is what I've come up with a possible solution.

First off let me begine with a break down

---	---	Department Head (O-5)	---	---
---	DCO (O-4)	<______|______>	DO (O-4)	---
|__>		STAFF (11 people, 8 permanent (thoug will probably assigned to a section for duty) 3 Division Chiefs, 1 Enlsited E-8)

Division (showing 1 division)

---	---	Division Chief (O-4)	---	---
---	DCO (O-3)	<______|______>	DO (O-3)	---
|__>		STAFF (4 permanent (also assigned to a section for duty), X Section Chiefs, 1 Enlsited E-7)

Section (1 shown)

---	---	Section Chief (O-3)	---	---
|__>		STAFF (35, 2 O-3, 4 O-2, 8 O-1, 20 Enlisted technicians,)

And now the explanation.

Fito start, forgive the termonlogy, I'm sorta quessing at that, the idear is sound imho.  Not everyone assigned to the department will be working as a scientist, there is always an administrative side of things that is rarely recognized.  I've tried to show that in here as best as i can.    Basically I've broken this down into 3 tiers, the first being the department.  This is mostly administrative, and isn't very large.  I put the department head as an O-5, though it woudl be possible to have an O-6 (just not a common occurance).  From there I think the staff is basically explanatory.  I basically split it into 3 divisions, Life sicences, Physics, and Astrometics...  I'm sure you all can think of somemore large and broad areas to cover.  However, this i think covred most of the stuff I would expect on a ship.  I don't think I have to to go much into what the division level does, its much like the department level, just a bit more closer to the action.

The last level is the section, here there is only a section chief, but no real staff like the other two division.  the numbers I gave are rough guesses, and i would imagine that in most cases the actual size would vary depending on availability and need.  I have more enlisted in this section because they will be the ones running and maintaining the equipment.  while the Officer will be quite a bit more hands on, there will be still alot of work that needs to be done, most of which will only require a technical background and training to accomplish.  I figure about 50% of their stuff will be rather routine, so it would make sense then to have an enlisted staff to help with the work load.    Now my rough estimates put this at 140 officers and 164 enlisted for this department, this is about 2-3 sections per division, with 3 divisions, and some extra manpower thrown into the mix. 

Granted this is very rough, but I think it is a good start. 

[Scottish Andy]

Excellent Rob! Many thanks for this breakdown. It shows officer-enlisted numbers almost at parity, at nearly a 1:1 ratio. This is pretty much what I expected. And yo are right about modern bureaucracies, the breed "admin staff" like nobody's business. As a new ship CO and having sway over who actually comes along on my mission, I'm having the officers double as Admin staff. In this way, they have all their Admin tasks  to perform when on duty even if there is no actual science work to do. This way, numbers are kept down and Larry's idle Science Dept model is held at bay. (I won't say it doesn't happen).

[Czar Mohab]

Tus- I'm assuming that "section" is just a further break down of the division. WAY back in boot camp, our division of 90 or so recruits was split 50/50(ish... sometimes we'd get one more, sometimes we'd lose a few) into Port Watch and Starboard Watch Sections. Outside of marching drills and the like, this really served no purpose. I didn't serve on any surface ship, where divisions could easily number 100+, but after the boot, there was no sections.

I'm not sure if the numerical breakdown is a "secret" or not, so I won't get into the actual numbers, but on the good ol' 727, after the CO and XO came the department heads, Nav (navigator), Weps (weapons officer), Eng (engineer), and Chop (supply). Division Officers (Div-O's) were next, usually one officer for each division (there were occasions where we had more officers than divisions, and other occasions where we had less, and some just never got a Div-O).

On the enlisted side, it started with the COB (Chief of the Boat, read: Command Master Chief), next the department master chiefs (not always E9's), and not always chiefs), then division chiefs (Could be E6-E8), then LPO's (Leading Petty Officers, usually a 1st class, but could be 2nd) and then finally the rest of the divisions. Some smaller divisions wouldn't have an LCPO (div. chief) and would report to (through the LPO) to the next closest divisions' chief.

One thing that sticks out is Doc. A one man power division. He was his own LPO, Chief and Div-O. Also usually one of the "cooler" guys on board.

There is a very important thing to note: In the surface fleet, it is an entirely different ball game. Such as two or more divisions of the same type, each with its own div-o, but reporting to yet another officer before reaching the DH. I don't know the full story behind how they ran their show.

For this science vessel, I wouldn't stray too high into the O5-O6 land for DH's. Our DH's were usually only O4's. Even our XO was. (Keeping out of the Movies (Captains Kirk, Spock, Sulu (Pre-Excel, IIRC), and Scott come right to mind...), ST did a good job keeping the officer hierarchy in check. Just remember that O4=Lieutenant Commander. Data, LaForge, older Worf, younger Scott, younger Spock, et al, were all LCDR's, and DH's.

If you need further help, you know how to find me (Email/PM/MSN/Yahoo... should be in profile page).

Czar "Under the Sea..." Mohab, who is only trying to help.

[Scottish Andy]

Thanks for the additional data Czar, it is much appreciated!

Don't worry about my senior ranks being top-heavy. The captain of my ship is a Commander, and he has 230 crew. About half the Dept heads are Lt. Cdrs (including Science), and divisions or sub-department heads (Planetary Sciences, Astrosciences, Social Sciences, Physics, Chemistry, etc.) will be the senior lieutenants. All other science officers will be Lt. JG or Ens.

For my actual science department breakdown on the Aeolus I decided on:

1x Department Head
- Lieutenant Commander
- Computer Science Division Chief (Computer Scientist)

6x Division Chief
- Lieutenant
- Social Sciences Division Chief (Sociologist, senior Lt., is Asst. Dept. Head)
- Astro Sciences Division Chief (Astrophysicist)
- Planetary Sciences Division Chief (Geologist)
- Physics Division Chief (High Energy (Particle) Physicist)
- Chemistry Division Chief (Physical Chemist)
- Life Sciences Division Chief (Biologist)

17x Junior Science Officer
- Lieutenant JG & Ensign
Computer Sciences
- Mathematician
Social Sciences
- Anthropology & Archaeology
- Economist
- Political Scientist
Astrosciences
- Astronomer
- Physical Cosmologist
- Stellar Cartographer
Planetary Sciences
- Climatologist & Environmental Scientist
- Mineralogist
- Oceanographer
Physics
- Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physicist
- Quantum Physicist
Chemistry
- Biochemist
Life Sciences
- Botanist
- Geneticist
- Microbiologist & Virologist
- Zoologist

9x Lab Researcher - E4 to E7
12x Lab Technician - E1 to E3

Total staff: 45


If you have any suggestions for speciality changes please let me hear them. Bear in mind this is a scout ship on a mission designed to detect, catalogue, and explain encountered phenomena in uncharted space, as well as actually charting that uncharted space, and perform preliminary investigations so that follow-up crews have an accurate base to work from for their in-depth studies.  Also, that Linguistics and Cryptography specialists will be in the Communications Dept. and some of the Life Sciences people will actually be in the Medical Dept., and so are not covered here.