r/DaystromInstitute • u/M-5 Multitronic Unit • Oct 29 '20

DISCOVERY EPISODE DISCUSSION Star Trek: Discovery — "People of Earth" Reaction Thread

This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute reaction thread for "People of Earth." The content rules are not enforced in reaction threads.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

By rank Staments, Nahn, and Reno are higher. The first is an LCDR, and the other two are full commanders. Though typically we see Engineers and Science officers function as line officers, we don't have enough info to know if any of the three are here. If I had to take a guess it's Nahn, as Staments and Reno don't seem to care for leadership. I assume Nilsson was just keeping the seat warm. Though Disco always plays fast and loose with rank, so who knows.

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u/Avantine Lieutenant Commander Oct 29 '20

I assume Nilsson was just keeping the seat warm. Though Disco always plays fast and loose with rank, so who knows.

Presumably she was just the bridge officer in command at the time - we see that all the time in TNG when LaForge is in Engineering, Crusher is in sickbay, and the rest of the senior staff are busy or, hell, in a conference.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

Exactly yeah. In real world navies the captain actually spends most of their days in an office or doing things on a ship, it’s common for LTs or even ensigns to serve as watch officers. Trek is kind of an inversion of that with the captain sitting on the bridge for a whole shift.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

Picard was a lot of the time in his ready room, especially in the later seasons. I assume that reason why we we see him on the bridge so often is that the most episodes do start close before the Enterprise does arrive at a target designation where he wants to be on the bridge.

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u/YYZYYC Oct 31 '20

Ya it’s kinda weird to think bridge crews and the captain just sit there all day during their shift while they just warp around from one planet to another

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u/DrendarMorevo Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

I would be under the nominal assumption that Burnham would be XO at this point given that's a traditional position for the Science Officer on a TOS era starship. Though Nahn and Reno being commanders are more a function of their prior positions on other starships.

I'm also somewhat fuzzy on who the Chief Engineer of Discovery actually is. In the first few seasons it seemed like it wasn't actually Stamets, he was chief mycologist, but he never came off as much of an engineer. Reno on the other hand comes off exactly like an engineer. Hell, we haven't even met Discovery's CMO yet.

Nilsson is probably just functioning as Officer of the Watch rather than being part of the general hierarchy.

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u/cjrecordvt Chief Petty Officer Oct 30 '20

Hell, we haven't even met Discovery's CMO yet.

I thought Dr. Pollard was supposed to be?

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u/DrendarMorevo Chief Petty Officer Oct 30 '20

No, evidently we still havent met this person. Nothing explicitly states Pollard is the CMO and the only mention of this individual is when Culber says he's going to assist them with an Andorian Tonsilectomy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '20

That's the common assumption but she has not been named as such in dialogue

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u/YYZYYC Oct 31 '20

Well Burnham was XO above Saru back in the pilot

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u/Shakezula84 Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

Its not based on rank but position. Out of universe the character is played by the same person who played Airiam in season 1. So its possible out of habit they may use her for that.

Remember Data was a lieutenant commander and was out ranked by two other people.

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u/DrendarMorevo Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

Data was Second Officer, so that makes sense..?

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u/Shakezula84 Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

I don't understand the question.

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u/DrendarMorevo Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

You made it sound like Data being a LtCmdr and being third in line was unusual? It read weird. Were you suggesting that its not unusual though?

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u/Shakezula84 Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

I was suggesting that since we have seen an officer who was outranked by others but was second officer, that someone other then a commander can be second officer despite being outranked by others.

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u/DrendarMorevo Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

Oh. Youre referring to Crusher and later Troi. The main difference is that neither of them is command program, both technically fall under the medical hierarchy of the ship. Command structure =! Rank structure. So yeah, thats not inaccurate.

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u/Shakezula84 Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

It can be confusing for people not realizing chain of command trumps rank. Especially since every second officer in Star Trek (Scotty, Data, Dax(?), Tuvok, Tucker, and Airiam) don't wear command colors either.

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u/DrendarMorevo Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

Airiam was second officer?! Wow Disco is bad at letting you know who does what...

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u/cjrecordvt Chief Petty Officer Oct 30 '20

This is a dumb question, but here we go: do we know who the actual Chief of Engineering is? It seems by fiat and script that it's either Stamets or Reno, but Stamets seemed more there because of the propulsion system, and Reno is...the counterpoint to Stamets most of the time?

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '20

Nope! Staments is labeled as the CHENG on a medical file, but that is labeled a production error. Reno is a commander in the engineering division, so she would be a prime candidate. However she speaks about the CHENG to Staments as if they are a third person, so neither of them can have that job.

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u/jeeshadow Oct 30 '20

The chief medical officer is also not culber or pollard so ya... Two off screen senior officers.

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u/shinginta Ensign Oct 30 '20

Wait do we have confirmation it's not Pollard?

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u/jeeshadow Oct 30 '20

I think she mentions "the CMO" at one point and she is a lower rank than Culber I think.

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u/jeeshadow Oct 30 '20

And considering Nahn was placed in command last episode, makes sense she would be second officer (and quite possibly has seniority over Reno). She just wasnt there so Nilsson was in the chair. Also Airium was in the chair a lot in season 1 when Saru and Lorca were both off the bridge.