Enterprise, Flagship

[RogueIce]

Sounds extremely dubious to me, seeing as carriers probably have a large handful of Captains, and the Commodore rank is essentially out of US Navy usage.

Well, the CO is a Captain, as is the XO (I believe). And then the CAG is too. There may be others, too (an Admiral's staff may have a Captain on it, I guess). I guess it's possible the Chaplain or head Doctor could be Captains as well (in theory at least), but they're not URL officers so they wouldn't be able to take command anyway.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Something I just thought about now, perhaps Picard's full rank was Fleet Captain (one of those not-quite-an-admiral, not-quite-a-captain ranks), afterall we do see him commanding fleets on at least two occassions (the blockade fleet assembled in "Redemption" and the Earth defence fleet in "First Contact").

The first example works, the second doesn't. In First Contact, Picard took command of the fleet in direct violation of a Starfleet order intended to keep him the hell away from the battle.

[RogueIce]

Speaking of First Contact and weird Starfleet protocol things, since I just watched the last hour of it...

Why, oh why is a friggin' Doctor able to authorize a ship's self destruct sequence??!! And why is this same doctor giving orders to the ship's security force?

And how is it a mere Lieutenant Commander can completely override the Captain's own self destruct orders, and alter the command codes or whatever to lock out a full Captain and the CO of the ship?!

[Stormbringer]

Speaking of First Contact and weird Starfleet protocol things, since I just watched the last hour of it...

Why, oh why is a friggin' Doctor able to authorize a ship's self destruct sequence??!! And why is this same doctor giving orders to the ship's security force?

Presumably because said Doctor held the next rank in the chain of command. There's no good reason for it but we do know that they'll put non-line personell in the chain of command (remember Troi's turn in the big chair?) simply because of rank.

And how is it a mere Lieutenant Commander can completely override the Captain's own self destruct orders, and alter the command codes or whatever to lock out a full Captain and the CO of the ship?!

Because start fleet apparently has computer security done by Microsoft.

[Rhoades]

Basically this can be summed by Voyager's "EQUINOX" whcih stated it was starfleet protocol that whne two or more ships mere together and their commanders were of equal rank then commands falls to the captain of the best equipped ship.

I'm just going to say that this is another piss-poor example of Starfleet protocol. Normally in the military, if two there were two people of equal rank than the one in who take command should be an earlier date of rank. If the dates are equal, then we look at time in service.

Basically, they look at the experience of the two officers, not who has shinier ship. It's seems definative that way, since someone can who has a better equipped ship. For example, if it's between a Galaxy-class and a Soveniur(sp?)-class, both in good condition. Then the Sov. gets badly damaged in combat or something, does the authority shift?

[Tsyroc]

Sounds extremely dubious to me, seeing as carriers probably have a large handful of Captains, and the Commodore rank is essentially out of US Navy usage.

Well, the CO is a Captain, as is the XO (I believe). And then the CAG is too. There may be others, too (an Admiral's staff may have a Captain on it, I guess). I guess it's possible the Chaplain or head Doctor could be Captains as well (in theory at least), but they're not URL officers so they wouldn't be able to take command anyway.

CO-yep, XO-most likely, Navigator - possibly, OpsO - Maybe, Cheng - possibly, CAG-yep. I've even had the case where the CDC-O was a captain and (as mentioned above) so was the head Chaplain.

There would be at least one and probably more captains as part of the Admirals staff. Some of the squadrons of the airwing might have captains as CO but usually they were Commanders.

As for Commadore, I've only heard it used in the Navy as a title (not a rank) for a senior captain in charge of a Destroyer Squadron or something like that. Ocassionaly a Rear Admiral Lower Half might have people call him Commadore ocassionally but I think the one instance I saw it was a personal thing and not official.

[Rogue 9]

The U.S. Navy has dispensed with the rank of Commodore, replacing it with Rear Admiral (lower half), as opposed to Rear Admiral (upper half). I read a few years ago that there was some grumbling about this in the Pentagon, but no changes are in the works that I know of (telling quote: "If 'Commodore' was good enough for David Farragut, it's good enough for these guys")

Which is ironic, since the U.S Navy in its beginning had no Admiral rank. Commodore was the highest naval grade. One commander who I forget the name of refused the (equivalent) position of CinC Navy unless the Navy would create the title of Admiral for him. The Navy refused. The whole thing had something to do with how the British Admiralty was set up, and how they didn't want that system or something. I'll fetch my history books and look it up.

[RogueIce]

Which is ironic, since the U.S Navy in its beginning had no Admiral rank. Commodore was the highest naval grade. One commander who I forget the name of refused the (equivalent) position of CinC Navy unless the Navy would create the title of Admiral for him.

I don't recall a story like that, but if I had to guess on anyone, it would be John Paul Jones, since he went to the Russian Navy.

Er, wait, was that before or after they created the US Navy after they abolished the Continental one that he went to Russia? Don't remember...

The Navy refused. The whole thing had something to do with how the British Admiralty was set up, and how they didn't want that system or something. I'll fetch my history books and look it up.

Sounds plausible I suppose.

And Rear Admiral (Lower Half) just sounds funny to me. It'd be nice if it were Commodore instead, but I guess I can see the reason behind it (since all the other flag officers are Admirals, I guess they decided one starts would as well, and they could leave Commodore as a "courtesy rank" type of thing to Captains who command small groups of ships).