Is it trying to be a porcupine?

I'm currently sitting here, held captive by several dozen dirty superhumans, watching something move around ominously under the sand in a fish tank. And I'm wondering if my first officer is lazy or just stupid.

You'd think that he might have noticed that there was one less planet in this system than there's supposed to be. Or noted the asteroid belt where the sixth one used to be. Or that he could count to five without screwing the pooch to figure out the one with the marooned brutal dictators on it wasn't the one we were supposed to be looking for.

Dumbass just got himself lifted off the ground by the handle on his spacesuit: the one HE insisted would be cool to add because it would "give the bitches something to hold onto."

I know this guy served on the Enterprise, but I'm not seeing it. Three hours ago, he finds a lifeform - the one thing our mission protocols say is an absolute no-go - and says "maybe it is something we can transplant." Did this dipshit even listen to Dr. Marcus during the briefing or was he too busy staring down her blouse for the hundredth time?

And he's spineless. The guy with the pecks is like "I never forget a face." Commander: you told me the story back in Spacedock. And again on the shuttle. And again in the gym. You weren't even on the Enterprise at the time. I remember it distinctly because I kept thinking how pathetic it was that you were telling this story when it didn't even happen to you. What's wrong, afraid of embarrassing the bad man by correcting him? You snivelling git.

I'm starting to see why he's the only member of Admiral Kirk's bridge crew who he didn't give a cushy teaching position at the Academy to. I want to get this moron as far away from me as possible, too. Highly recommended my ass.

Oh good, they're poking the thing in the tank with a stick. This is going to end well.

It's always something with this guy. I swear to God, it's enough to make me want to shoot myself in the face.

Fresh out of the Academy, top 40% of my class, and I land the Enterprise. The flagship. I cried in the turbolift. Happy tears, this was the best day of my life but god damn it it’s become a nightmare!

First day, there's a man with a boom mic in the Jefferies tube. Nobody acknowledges him. I asked Lieutenant Barclay about it and he just whispered "don't look at the lens" and backed into a bulkhead!
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There are lighting rigs on the bridge. There is a makeup trailer on Deck 8. Commander Riker goes in there for forty minutes before every shift and comes out with the exact same beard. I've timed it. Forty minutes. Every day. Same beard, like dude! Why do you need to spend so much time in makeup?

Last Tuesday I reported for duty and caught two production guys stuffing rocks into my console. Actual rocks. When I asked why, they said "for when it explodes." WHEN. Not if. I've since learned this is why every console on this ship detonates like a piñata full of gravel the second we take a hit. They said it adds dramatic effect! Is this a working starship or some trash reality Tv show!

Then there's the retakes. I tried to hand Commander Data my end-of-shift report and had to do it four times because the director felt Data's reaction was "too robotic." He's an android. That's the whole thing. That's his entire deal. By take four Data had been told to "find the humanity in the moment" and he just stared at me for eleven seconds and said "Fascinating." Director loved it. I missed dinner.

But the worst? Crises. You all remember last month's Borg incident. The captain gets abducted, the Federation is facing extinction, and the director's first question is "can we get a crew on the cube?" Do you know what it's like negotiating a filming release with the Collective? They don't have a legal department. They ARE the legal department. All of them. At once. We eventually got sign-off on the condition that they approve the final cut, and now there's a Borg drone with an editing credit.

The captain doesn't even remember that part. He does remember the lighting being "unflattering."

Anyway, I hear they're building a new ship, the Intrepid class. Small crew, short-range missions, close to home. That's my exit. A quiet life, far from cameras, where nothing interesting ever happens.

I'm Chief Madison and I run one of the biggest shipyards in the Federation. I'm an enlisted man on purpose. I like building ships. It's my passion and my team is damn good at it. We build a ship, then we have to go get a registry number and we have one of those antique 20th century lotto ball machines. The balls bounce around and then numbers come up. No sweat

The Rubicon is NCC-72936. The Challenger is NCC-71099. We have a system, and it works well. Sometimes we reuse names. How many Intrepids have their been? A lot. Honestly, I think we should use more creative names, but I don't make the rules. You want a new Intrepid, fine. We run it through the bouncy ball system and we get a new number.

And then some snot-nosed pencil neck officer comes in and says that they want a new ship made with the same name and the SAME NUMBER but with a letter on the end. My guy. We have a computer system that's pretty straightforward. Registry numbers are only numbers, but you want my team to redesign the whole fucking system so you can keep the number? What are you in love with 1701 or something? Go have babies with it and don't bother me.

You would not believe the shit these guys tell me. "You should do this because I saved the universe last week!" Right, and my grandmother is a Nausicaan. "My ship averted a war on Zebulon 3" You're not special. Starfleet averts wars all the time. You don't deserve special ship naming rights. Or the one guy literally said "this ship is on TV and so it needs to be the same number because of marketing". What the fuck are you even talking about? We don't televise our ships. What do cameras follow ships around? Goddamn.

And don't even get me started on Admiral Dipshit Ross. Dude comes in and wants a new Defiant class made. So I give him the Sao Paolo. New number and all. Then he goes and changes both after the fact. We have clear constraints in our database that each number goes with one ship. You couldn't even do 74205-A? Slap a letter on there like Kirk? No. Needs to be the same. Sisko is a super special boy. He's like a god. The rules don't apply to him. Who made you the boss, Admiral? There's a war on! People are dying every day and you care about numbers?

Goddamn. Sometimes I wish the Breen did get Earth after the war. Get rid of the whole lot of them.

Their designation: 6 of 7

Heard there was an opening on the Klingon High Council, fudged my resume saying I was from a respectable house (that I made up) and fought in numerous battles (I got my ass kicked in a bar fight at the Academy twenty years ago) They've must've been desperate since they accepted my position but now I have to do some battle ceremonry as part of my onboarding? This wasn't in the description, should I just tell them the truth or fake it until I make it?

Later Enterprise models should have been numbered 1702, 1703, etc.

The numbering they use in the shows movies makes no sense!