Star Trek: The Next Generation : Science and communications officers

Science and communications officers

On TOS Spock was the science and Uhura the communications officers. Who filled those roles in TNG?

Re: Science and communications officers

Data and Worf, perhaps? Geordi?

RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time. RIP Matt Roberts. You were great.

Re: Science and communications officers

But there were no official science and comm officers, right?

Re: Science and communications officers

No, there wasn't.

RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time. RIP Matt Roberts. You were great.

Re: Science and communications officers

Data was chief since officer and chief operations officer (he was an android). As for comm officer - I don't know. Perhaps both Data & Word filled that spot?

Re: Science and communications officers

It seems that those two positions are so important that they would be permanent positions.

Re: Science and communications officers

Comms was folded in under tactical.

Data is effectively the science officer. He was originally supposed to wear science blue, but similarly to how Stewart looked great in Red vs Gold, Spiner's metallic gold makeup looked great in the gold, so they switched the outfit.

Nominally, he's in charge of organizing shipboard activities, scheduling sensor time, handling away teams, coordinating maintenance, and miscellaneous ongoing activities, rather than being a scientific specialist.

I guess that means everyone reports to him and then he transfers that to the commanding officer on duty.

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Re: Science and communications officers

The Enterprise D had many science officers assigned (astrometrics, stellar cartography, geology, etc), but no assigned chief science officer on a bridge station. Data largely fulfilled this role as one of his secondary duties. When he wasn't manning the Ops station, he would frequently spend time at the science station trying to solve the "problem of the week". And since he was an android, he could handle multiple jobs at once. The science officer on Deep Space Nine was Jadzia Dax, and Voyager's science officer was likely killed along with the first officer, conn officer, and chief medical officer on its maiden voyage. Seven of Nine basically fulfilled the duties of the science officer when she came aboard.

As far as communications go, in the 24th century era there was no longer a "communications officer". That job has been consolidated under "tactical". Worf handled communications on the Enterprise D. Similarly, the "helm" and "navigator" positions no longer exist in the next generation; both have been consolidated under "conn".

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Re: Science and communications officers

Word...

Re: Science and communications officers

I noticed that too. Word, Word, Word. Is Worf really that hard to spell?

RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time. RIP Matt Roberts. You were great.

Re: Science and communications officers


I noticed that too. Word, Word, Word. Is Worf really that hard to spell?
Not to me. But the autocorrect on my iPhone doesn't recognize "Worf" evidently. Sue me!

This artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPvcgejKpw

Re: Science and communications officers

Captain, we will have to bring a class action suit against you and APPLE for it.

Re: Science and communications officers

rewrite it.

Whenever I have to describe how the people at my school pronounce library I have to rewrite it.

cause they say libary.

Oh God. Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more.

Re: Science and communications officers

Communication officers are a thing of the past when the mid to late 24th century shows up. A communications line can be opened by anyone from the chief of security, chief operations officer, chief helm officer, etc.

Riker opened a communications channel in the movie First Contact when Picard wanted to announce he was taking command of the fleet so he could tell them to direct their weapons fire on the weakest part of the Borg cube.


As for science officers, there's enough scientific technobabble from the chief operations officer (Data and Harry Kim) to the chief engineer (Torres, LaForge, O'Brien) where they use science to help solve problems. They can have all sorts of science officers on starships and starbases, but I feel by the time of the TNG/DS9/VOY era that science officers shouldn't be senior officers anymore since engineers and operation officers can act like science officers when trying to solve problems, especially operation officers.

Despite the fact Jadzia Dax was chief science officer on DS9, she was honestly a waste of space that didn't really do that much of anything. They should have made her the chief operations officer on the station.


Re: Science and communications officers

Proofread, my friend.

RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time. RIP Matt Roberts. You were great.
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