33
Did the writers care about the ranks of their characters?
(startrek.website)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
33 points (100.0% liked)
Daystrom Institute
3444 readers
4 users here now
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.
Rules
1. Explain your reasoning
All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.
2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.
This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.
3. Be diplomatic.
Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.
4. Assume good faith.
Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”
5. Tag spoilers.
Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.
6. Stay on-topic.
Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.
Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I remember an interview with Garrett Wang who talked about a conversation with Rick Berman where he asked him whether Kim would ever be promoted to Lieutenant. Berman pretty much shot him down, saying that someone has to be an ensign.
And I think that's pretty much all the thought that went into it: have characters with a variety of ranks. Possibly to help the audience distinguish them better ("Join me in my ready room, [Rank]"). Although admittedly that didn't work in the second half of TNG when pretty much everyone (except Worf) was addressed as "Commander" because by season 3(?) everyone was at least a Lieutenant Commander.
With Sisko I think they wanted to distinguish him from the other two Captains Kirk and Picard, and since he commanded "only" a space station that was an in-universe excuse to make Sisko a commander.
Yeah I think that, aside from adding a bit of navy-esque flair to the shows, it also helps distinguish who is “in charge”, and frames the way orders are issued and followed in a way that readily makes sense to the audience
with Sisko it’s specifically because, until they discover the wormhole, DS9 is considered a backwater post.
Typically, base commanders are at least captain rank. Sometimes bases are commanded by lower ranks, and there can be different reasons but in this case: it’s remote and considered a less important “backwater” post compared to other bases. His eventual promotion to Captain belatedly corrects for how important the station became, as a trade/transit hub and as a strategic asset, after the wormhole discovery
I always thought it would've been a fun twist if Harry got a promotion once Tom got demoted in Thirty Days.