ship Organization

Now, in Dan's game ship organization was touched upon, so I ran a search her to see what has been written. Come to my surprise there was not a single compiled thread that went in depth on how a Starfleet vessel is organized. There are some general positions that we are familiar with that get focused time on screen; however rarely does the discussion get "down in the reeds" to the point where we get into the shipboard equivelents to fire team 1 of weapons squad, in third platoon of Charlie Company of 1st Battalion of the Gurka Regiment (or such).

That being said, perhaps we should look at the CO, XO, and all the "Chief" positions then work our way down to that crewman woes job it is to make sure the solid waste reclematiion system is functioning properly.

To what purpose?

I was looking through the CODA Starfleet Operations Manual, and the ICON TNG Corebook, and other than outlining leading positions and some specializations within certain sections, it does not go very in depth as to how a Starship is organized and how said organizations functions on a day to day basis. We can all extrapulate off what has been written, and what we have watched onscreen, but for say a Narration looking to fill out a ship's complement roster, and developing watch/duty schedules a detailed look at ship organization maybe useful.

Also from a background filling standpoint when taking into account Management and Organizational Studies and other fields into account, why is it that Earth's Starfleet decided on the organization it did, that was then seen on ENT? How did ship organization evolve between ENT, TOS, TMP, TNG, DS9, & VOY? Also, how do these compare to organizations of modern ships? Merchant Ships? Ships of different coastal policing organizations, or different navies for that matter?

I await your completion of this endeavour.

There is a list of how the Constitution Class crew was generally split between Command, Sciences and Engineering/Others in the original "Star Trek Blueprints". It of course doesn't go into specific details about what the "Engineering specialists" or "Lab technicians" do, but that would be a start.

First let us look at several examples. In the age of sail, it appears that the organization of a ship into certain sections had already been established. Over all was The Captain, underneath him the men were organized under the Lieutenants, Captain of Marines, Master, Purser, Surgeon, Gunner, Boatswains, Master at Arms, and Cook. Each had ordinary and able seamen underneath them.

In World War II, in the United States Navy, under the Captain and Executive Officer, the ship was organized into several departments, and depending on the size of the ship several divisions each assigned to specific tasks. The smaller the ship, the departments and divisions were merged and tasks assigned to be shared among the smaller number of officer's and crew. Since World War II, it appears that organization of ships have not changed significantly, with the numbers of departments and divisions under those departments decreasing with the smaller sizes of vessels.

• Philippines Example
• Royal Navy Frigate Example
• United States Merchant Marine Example
• US Navy Destroyer Example
• US Navy Carrier example

All this being said it appears that Star Trek's TNG ship organization, of there being a Captain, Executive Officer, and different Chief of X follow organizational evolution of the above. The Chief of X would be the Head of Department, listed in the Royal Navy Frigate example. As we have seen in scenes with Chief of Engineering, LTCMDR La Forge, he is surrounded by a certain number of officers. Usually three to four, and normally lieutenants. These maybe the officers in charge of the Divisions, each with assigned tasks and watches. I cannot recall other situations where, in the line of duty, other meetings have occurred intra-department.

All that being said, if a Starfleet ship is organized similar to that of a modern military ship (USCG cutter shares a ship organization that is a mix between a Navy ship & a merchant ship).

From a bottom up view of a ship organization, the crewman and non-leadership petty officers report to an immediate supervisor, usually a petty officer. This petty officer reports to the division's Lead Petty Officer and division Chief Petty Officer who then report to the Division Officer who then reports to the Department Head. The Department Head then reports to the Executive Officer who reports to the ship's Captain.

The size of the division will determine the rate/rank of the billet of the leadership positions.