Starfleet enlisted ranks and insignia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also: Starfleet ranks and insignia

Enlisted ranks and insignia are held and worn by non-commissioned Starfleet officers and crewmen in the fictional Star Trek universe. In The Making of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry is quoted as stating that within Starfleet, there are no enlisted ranks because all personnel aboard a starship are trained astronauts and thus have the education required of officers. However, several characters appearing as early as the Star Trek pilots, such as the captain's yeoman, bear enlisted titles and positions. Since then, enlisted ranks have appeared in all Star Trek incarnations, with varying degrees of consistency.

Contents 1 Enlisted insignia 1.1 Star Trek: Enterprise 1.2 Star Trek 1.3 Star Trek: The Motion Picture 1.4 The Original Series-era films 1.5 Star Trek: The Next Generation 1.6 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1.7 Star Trek: Voyager 2 Rates 3 References

[edit] Enlisted insignia

[edit] Star Trek: Enterprise

Rank	Insignia
Crewman 1st Class	[1]
Crewman 2nd Class/ Crewman	[1]
Crewman 3rd Class/ Recruit	[2]

Within the time frame of Star Trek: Enterprise, enlisted personnel are often seen and addressed by such titles as "Chief" and "Crewman". Prior to the release of the Season 1 DVDs, enlisted insignia were too small to see clearly, but the DVD's picture quality makes it possible to clearly see the insignia. Examination of the DVDs reveals enlisted rank denoted by a small Starfleet arrowhead symbol with varying numbers of straight lines directly to its left. "Crewman first class" is the highest rank worn by an on-screen character.^{[citation needed]}

Additional dialogue from Star Trek Enterprise indicates that the enlisted ranks of the Earth Starfleet extend upwards from the crewman grades to encompass petty officer and chief petty officer ranks.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Star Trek

With one exception, no enlisted person in Star Trek appears wearing any sort of distinctive enlisted insignia. The exception is a communications "chief", seen briefly in the unaired pilot, wearing a unique rank stripe.^[3]

Most TOS enlisted crewmembers are referred to by "rate titles" (e.g. yeoman, medical technician, security guard). There are, however a few instances when an actual enlisted rank is mentioned, such as when Captain James T. Kirk cites several enlisted crew members for commendations and refers to them as "Technicians First and Second Class".^[4]

[edit] Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Master Chief Petty Officer	Senior Chief Petty Officer	Chief Petty Officer	Petty Officer 1st Class	Petty Officer 2nd Class	Petty Officer 3rd Class	Crewman 1st Class	Crewman 2nd Class/ Crewman	Crewman 3rd Class/ Recruit
unknown	unknown	[5]	[5]	[5]	[5]	No Insignia[5]	No Insignia[5]	No Insignia[5]

Enlisted personnel make a brief appearance in Star Trek: The Motion Picture with a few extras addressed as "Chief", "Petty Officer", or "Crewman". The characters wear a simple insignia: a pattern of coloured triangles displayed on shoulder tabs. The one confirmed chief petty officer in the TOS-era films, Janice Rand, wears a hollow gold square centred on a shoulder strap. Ordinary crewmen wear no rank insignia.

[edit] The Original Series-era films

Master Chief Petty Officer	Senior Chief Petty Officer	Chief Petty Officer	Petty Officer 1st Class	Petty Officer 2nd Class	Petty Officer 3rd Class	Crewman 1st Class	Crewman 2nd Class/ Crewman	Crewman 3rd Class/ Recruit
[6]	[7]	[8]					No Insignia[9]	No Insignia[9]

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan introduces new uniforms and insignia. The "space cadet jumper" worn by Starfleet cadets in The Wrath of Khan is a uniform worn exclusively by enlisted personnel in the subsequent Original Series-era films; the only difference between cadets' and enlistees' wear of the uniform is the cadets' use of red turtlenecks underneath while the enlisted personnel of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock wear dark blue and black undershirts.

Star Trek III reveals a pattern of insignia that enlisted personnel wear on a variety of coloured shoulder tabs, while regular crewmen wear bare black shoulder tabs. An alternate "shoulder tab theory" suggests that such tabs indicate an enlisted crewman's department rather than rank. Under this system, a gold tab indicates an engineer, grey tabs are for operations personnel, and a blue tab denotes membership in the science department. If this system is accepted, enlisted personnel in the feature films would have no rank insignia, much like their Original Series counterparts. The non-canon Star Trek Encyclopedia attempts to explain this by providing rank insignia pins for crewmen and petty officers. However, these pins are considered apocryphal since the feature film enlisted uniforms do not display rank pin insignia^[10]. The Star Trek Encyclopedia and the similarly non-canon "Starfleet Dynamics" technical manual indicate that subsequent to Star Trek II, chief petty officers wear officer uniform jackets without gold trim and with shoulder pins similar to the officer versions^[10].

[edit] Star Trek: The Next Generation

Master Chief Petty Officer	Senior Chief Petty Officer	Chief Petty Officer	Petty Officer 1st Class	Petty Officer 2nd Class	Petty Officer 3rd Class	Crewman 1st Class	Crewman 2nd Class/ Crewman	Crewman 3rd Class/ Recruit
unknown	unknown	Rank exists[11]	unknown	unknown	unknown	No Insignia[12]	unknown	unknown

Apart from occasional dialogue addressing an extra as "Crewman", no set of enlisted ranks or insignia was established in the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, although one was provided in the non-canon Star Trek: Next Generation Officer's Manual, a roleplaying manual published by by FASA. (This manual suggested that enlisted personnel and warrant officers wore sleeve insignia in lieu of the collar insignia worn by officers.)

By the third season, Miles O'Brien had been developed into the first recurring enlisted character since Janice Rand in The Original Series. O'Brien is often addressed as "Chief" but wears the insignia of a lieutenant. (Him being referred to as a lieutenant in "Contagion" is generally considered a script error.^{[citation needed]}) In the episode "Family", Sergey Rozhenko identifies O'Brien as an enlisted crewman, and his dialogue even suggests that Starfleet enlisted personnel, like their real world counterparts, prefer not to be called "sir" (a title reserved for officers) because they "work for a living."^[11] Jean-Luc Picard's conversation with Crewman Simon Tarses is the first emphatic dialogue establishing a Starfleet enlisted training program outside of Starfleet Academy. Tarses states that he never wanted to attend Starfleet Academy because he wanted a quick space assignment, not years of study.^[12]

From the start of season 6 of TNG, O'Brien's rank insignia changed from two gold pips to one hollow pip. He wore two gold pips in the DS9 pilot "Emissary", and then a hollow gold pip again from the second episode "Past Prologue".^[13]

[edit] Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Master Chief Petty Officer	Senior Chief Petty Officer	Chief Petty Officer	Petty Officer 1st Class	Petty Officer 2nd Class	Petty Officer 3rd Class	Crewman 1st Class	Crewman 2nd Class/ Crewman	Crewman 3rd Class/ Recruit
unknown	[14]	unknown	[15]	unknown	unknown	unknown	unknown	unknown

The ambiguity over Miles O'Brien's rank came with the character to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. At the series' beginning, O'Brien wears a single collar pip and is referred to variously as "Chief of Operations" and "Chief". Some non-canon Star Trek novels indicate his character is a warrant officer^{[citation needed]} while the pilot's similarly non-canon novelization refers to O'Brien by the never-before-heard-of rank of "ensign junior grade".^[16] O'Brien's dialogue at several points in the series makes clear that he is not an officer, such as when he cites having to attend formal occasions as a reason he never became an officer.^[17] and tells another enlisted crewman not to call him sir because he's "not an officer"^[18]. A Jem'Hadar is the first to identify O'Brien with an irrefutable enlisted rank: senior chief petty officer, and O'Brien in the fourth season wears a new insignia to reflect that rank.^[19]

[edit] Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager does not address the question of enlisted ranks, nor are there any new enlisted insignia. Several minor and extra characters, members of the crew that were originally part of the Maquis, are addressed as "crewman," due to the fact that they are not Starfleet officers.

[edit] Rates

Starfleet enlisted ranks do not take into account enlisted rates. In modern navies, "rates" are titles that enlisted personnel hold, depending upon their career field, and by which they are typically addressed. For example, a petty officer second class who holds the rate of yeoman is referred to as "Yeoman Second Class".

The concept of Starfleet enlisted rates is generally unexplored and there are few references to enlisted rates in either the films or television series. The non-canon and unofficial fan-produced book Starfleet Dynamics is the only publication that gives a complete list of possible Starfleet enlisted rates.^[20] The following is a list of the only confirmed Starfleet enlisted rates that have been mentioned in dialogue

Enlisted Rate	Episodes	Characters
Communications Technician	TOS: "The Cage"	Chief Garrison
Engineer's Mate	TOS: "That Which Survives"	Crewman Watson
Medical Technician	Numerous TOS and TNG episodes	Crewman Simon Tarses et al.
Security Guard	Numerous TOS episodes	Mr. Leslie et al.
Security Specialist	DS9: "Valiant"	Dorian Collins
Sensor Analyst	Voy: "Good Shepherd"	Tal Celes
Specialist (Weapons)	TOS: "Balance of Terror"	Tomlinson
Transporter Technician	Numerous TOS, TNG, and DS9 episodes	Miles O'Brien et al.
Yeoman	Numerous TOS episodes	Yeoman Colt, Yeoman Rand, et al.

Starfleet ranks and insignia
Flag Officers:	Fleet admiral	Admiral	Vice admiral	Rear admiral	Commodore
Officers:	Fleet captain	Captain	Commander	Lieutenant commander	Lieutenant	Lieutenant junior grade	Ensign
Other:	Enlisted	Officer cadets

[edit] References