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Starfleet Enlisted Personnel
Sep. 11th, 2019 18:32So I have headcanons about Starfleet’s enlisted force. But this post is also going to include a lot of explanations for people who may be confused about the differences between officers and enlisted and how it all works. This is gonna be a long post and I am very sorry but I really felt the need to write this.
First off, I know some people say that Gene Roddenberry wanted Starfleet to be completely made up of commissioned officers with no enlisted ranks, but I couldn’t seem to find a source for that. (If you have a source, you’re welcome to provide me with one). Also like…. yeomen are enlisted and they were in TOS so like??? Even if that was his original intention, it seems to have been abandoned pretty early on. Besides that, enlisted personnel are referenced in the other series as well, including, most famously, Chief O’Brien. So. Anyway clearly there are enlisted members of Starfleet, they just don’t play a big role in the shows (other than O’Brien). Which means lots of room for headcanons!! So here we go.
Okay, so like. I have a lot of first-hand experience and knowledge about how ranks in the military work and Starfleet is the Federation’s acting military* and their ranks are based on the United States Navy so I’m gonna try to explain Navy ranks as I go, so just bear with me. (Also it should be noted that a lot of my experience with the military is with the Air Force and my Navy knowledge is mostly second-hand so I’m not like an Expert™️.) (Also also we’re not gonna get into warrant officers because warrant officers confuse me and there doesn’t seem to be any mention of them in the shows or on Memory Alpha.)
Okay so the first thing you need to know about military ranks is that officers ALWAYS outrank enlisted. Even a brand new officer fresh out of the academy outranks an enlisted member with 20 years experience. It’s just The Way That It Is. Now, a good officer will defer to the experienced enlisted and listen to their advice/allow them to take the lead, but the officer still calls the shots. Also there is this thing in the military called a “paygrade” which… probably doesn’t apply in Starfleet since they don’t get paid, but I’m going to reference them here since it makes it easier to see who outranks who and what-not.
So the enlisted paygrades are E-1 through E-9 and the officer paygrades are O-1 through O-10 (E for enlisted, O for officer). Each paygrade corresponds with a rank and each branch of the military has the same paygrades (albeit with different corresponding ranks) so as to make it easy to figure out who outranks who when interacting with other branches (again, usually not relevant in Starfleet since there are no other branches but it helps when they work with other organizations like the Bajoran Militia). So like, a chief petty officer in the Navy and a master sergeant in the Air Force are both E-7s, so they’re the same rank and get paid the same. But a captain in the Navy is an O-6 and a captain in the Air Force is an O-3 so a Navy captain outranks an Air Force captain and gets paid more, if that makes sense. The Bajoran Militia’s ranks bore a lot of similarity to the US Army and Marines, so if we’re going to use that as a reference, Major Kira was an O-4. Sisko was an O-5 as a commander and an O-6 as a captain, so he outranked her. Anyway the Navy ranks/paygrades are as follows:
Enlisted
E-1 Seaman Recruit
E-2 Seaman Apprentice
E-3 Seaman
E-4 Petty Officer 3rd Class
E-5 Petty Officer 2nd Class
E-6 Petty Officer 1st Class
E-7 Chief Petty Officer
E-8 Senior Chief Petty Officer
E-9 Master Chief Petty Officer
Officers
O-1 Ensign
O-2 Lieutenant Junior Grade
O-3 Lieutenant
O-4 Lieutenant Commander
O-5 Commander
O-6 Captain
O-7 Rear Admiral Lower Half
O-8 Rear Admiral Upper Half (or just Rear Admiral)
O-9 Vice Admiral
O-10 Admiral
There’s also one higher than that known as Fleet Admiral, but that only gets awarded in wartime when necessary and hasn’t been awarded since WWII (at least in the Navy, idk about the other branches equivalents). Also O-7 through O-10 are all addressed as “Admiral” so not everyone who gets called Admiral on Star Trek is an O-10. Also in Starfleet “Seaman” is replaced with “Crewman”. So E-1 through E-3 in Starfleet would be Crewman Recruit, Crewman Apprentice, and Crewman, respectively.
Also, the enlisted are split up into 3 tiers: junior enlisted (E-1 to E-3), non-commisioned officers/NCOs (E-4 to E-6), and senior non-commisioned officers/senior NCOs/SNCOs (E-7 to E-9). Chief O’Brien is an E-8 (Senior Chief Petty Officer) which means he’s a SNCO and therefore high enough ranking to run a department even though he’s not a commissioned officer.
Now on to the headcanons!
So, considering we don’t see much of them in the shows, my main headcanon is there aren’t many enlisted on starships. I think most of them are posted on starbases/space stations or at Starfleet Command doing clerical work and what-not for the admirals. I think only a few enlisted get assigned to starships and they make up the majority of the security with a handful in engineering. And back when they used to have yeoman obviously some of those were assigned to starships too.
Another reason I don’t think we see many of them is that the shows focus heavily on the captains and their senior staff who are all officers. So something I’d like to see is a Star Trek show from the perspective of the enlisted, particularly the junior enlisted. What are their duties? What are all the unseen tasks they do that are critical to running a starship/space station? What are their thoughts on the officers, particularly the captain? What about the SNCOs? I NEED IT.
One of my headcanons is also that the ratio of officers to enlisted is different in Starfleet than in the current US military. I think the enlisted still outnumber the officers but by far less than they do now.
Also it should be noted that Chief O’Brien’s general attitude/grumpiness/exasperation is an Enlisted Mood™️. Enlisted people are just Like That.
Anyway this turned out way longer than I expected it to but feel free to add your thoughts!!
*I know Starfleet is not a military organization and their primary mission is exploration and discovery, but they are the Federation’s defense force and - when necessary - fight wars. So they act as the Federation’s military in that respect. Just like, in a defensive rather than offensive capacity.
First off, I know some people say that Gene Roddenberry wanted Starfleet to be completely made up of commissioned officers with no enlisted ranks, but I couldn’t seem to find a source for that. (If you have a source, you’re welcome to provide me with one). Also like…. yeomen are enlisted and they were in TOS so like??? Even if that was his original intention, it seems to have been abandoned pretty early on. Besides that, enlisted personnel are referenced in the other series as well, including, most famously, Chief O’Brien. So. Anyway clearly there are enlisted members of Starfleet, they just don’t play a big role in the shows (other than O’Brien). Which means lots of room for headcanons!! So here we go.
Okay, so like. I have a lot of first-hand experience and knowledge about how ranks in the military work and Starfleet is the Federation’s acting military* and their ranks are based on the United States Navy so I’m gonna try to explain Navy ranks as I go, so just bear with me. (Also it should be noted that a lot of my experience with the military is with the Air Force and my Navy knowledge is mostly second-hand so I’m not like an Expert™️.) (Also also we’re not gonna get into warrant officers because warrant officers confuse me and there doesn’t seem to be any mention of them in the shows or on Memory Alpha.)
Okay so the first thing you need to know about military ranks is that officers ALWAYS outrank enlisted. Even a brand new officer fresh out of the academy outranks an enlisted member with 20 years experience. It’s just The Way That It Is. Now, a good officer will defer to the experienced enlisted and listen to their advice/allow them to take the lead, but the officer still calls the shots. Also there is this thing in the military called a “paygrade” which… probably doesn’t apply in Starfleet since they don’t get paid, but I’m going to reference them here since it makes it easier to see who outranks who and what-not.
So the enlisted paygrades are E-1 through E-9 and the officer paygrades are O-1 through O-10 (E for enlisted, O for officer). Each paygrade corresponds with a rank and each branch of the military has the same paygrades (albeit with different corresponding ranks) so as to make it easy to figure out who outranks who when interacting with other branches (again, usually not relevant in Starfleet since there are no other branches but it helps when they work with other organizations like the Bajoran Militia). So like, a chief petty officer in the Navy and a master sergeant in the Air Force are both E-7s, so they’re the same rank and get paid the same. But a captain in the Navy is an O-6 and a captain in the Air Force is an O-3 so a Navy captain outranks an Air Force captain and gets paid more, if that makes sense. The Bajoran Militia’s ranks bore a lot of similarity to the US Army and Marines, so if we’re going to use that as a reference, Major Kira was an O-4. Sisko was an O-5 as a commander and an O-6 as a captain, so he outranked her. Anyway the Navy ranks/paygrades are as follows:
Enlisted
E-1 Seaman Recruit
E-2 Seaman Apprentice
E-3 Seaman
E-4 Petty Officer 3rd Class
E-5 Petty Officer 2nd Class
E-6 Petty Officer 1st Class
E-7 Chief Petty Officer
E-8 Senior Chief Petty Officer
E-9 Master Chief Petty Officer
Officers
O-1 Ensign
O-2 Lieutenant Junior Grade
O-3 Lieutenant
O-4 Lieutenant Commander
O-5 Commander
O-6 Captain
O-7 Rear Admiral Lower Half
O-8 Rear Admiral Upper Half (or just Rear Admiral)
O-9 Vice Admiral
O-10 Admiral
There’s also one higher than that known as Fleet Admiral, but that only gets awarded in wartime when necessary and hasn’t been awarded since WWII (at least in the Navy, idk about the other branches equivalents). Also O-7 through O-10 are all addressed as “Admiral” so not everyone who gets called Admiral on Star Trek is an O-10. Also in Starfleet “Seaman” is replaced with “Crewman”. So E-1 through E-3 in Starfleet would be Crewman Recruit, Crewman Apprentice, and Crewman, respectively.
Also, the enlisted are split up into 3 tiers: junior enlisted (E-1 to E-3), non-commisioned officers/NCOs (E-4 to E-6), and senior non-commisioned officers/senior NCOs/SNCOs (E-7 to E-9). Chief O’Brien is an E-8 (Senior Chief Petty Officer) which means he’s a SNCO and therefore high enough ranking to run a department even though he’s not a commissioned officer.
Now on to the headcanons!
So, considering we don’t see much of them in the shows, my main headcanon is there aren’t many enlisted on starships. I think most of them are posted on starbases/space stations or at Starfleet Command doing clerical work and what-not for the admirals. I think only a few enlisted get assigned to starships and they make up the majority of the security with a handful in engineering. And back when they used to have yeoman obviously some of those were assigned to starships too.
Another reason I don’t think we see many of them is that the shows focus heavily on the captains and their senior staff who are all officers. So something I’d like to see is a Star Trek show from the perspective of the enlisted, particularly the junior enlisted. What are their duties? What are all the unseen tasks they do that are critical to running a starship/space station? What are their thoughts on the officers, particularly the captain? What about the SNCOs? I NEED IT.
One of my headcanons is also that the ratio of officers to enlisted is different in Starfleet than in the current US military. I think the enlisted still outnumber the officers but by far less than they do now.
Also it should be noted that Chief O’Brien’s general attitude/grumpiness/exasperation is an Enlisted Mood™️. Enlisted people are just Like That.
Anyway this turned out way longer than I expected it to but feel free to add your thoughts!!
*I know Starfleet is not a military organization and their primary mission is exploration and discovery, but they are the Federation’s defense force and - when necessary - fight wars. So they act as the Federation’s military in that respect. Just like, in a defensive rather than offensive capacity.
