Freshmen Cadet Uniforms

[spyone]

When Nog get promoted to Ensign (probably rushed due to the Dominion War) he is wearing the new black & grey uniform with operation gold underneath.

According to the Encyclopedia, Nog recieved a "Battlefield Commission" in 2374, during the Dominion War. IIRC, he was essentially trapped on the station when war broke out, and quickly demonstrated his value. That would be when he switched uniforms.
Since Nog entered the Academy in 2372, I think we can safely say that even after the switch to grey jumpsuits, Sophomores all wore red. In fact, the only cadets we've seen in yellow were all graduating seniors.
I suspect they got their branch colors at the start of their Senior Year, not at the end (just before the Cadet Cruise). But that is just a guess, because I think that "feels right".


I think it is insulting to Starfleet to compare a Starfleet career to working in fast food, but that is a field I know something about (like 15% of the American workforce, my first job was at a chain fast food place).
In that place, there were a lot of different jobs, and you needed to be trained on each of them (Since the training aid was the Station Operations Checklist, training became being SOC'd). Each day when you came in, you might get assigned to any of the jobs you had been SOC'd on; yesterday you worked grill, today you do fries, and tomorrow you'll work register. And while it may have been 3 months since you worked the chicken fryer, if you have been SOC'd on it you might get assigned there.

Now, Starfleet is a little more rigid than that, as they don't rearrange people every day. But I see it as basicly like that: if you have been trained on the CONN, you may find yourself reassigned as a CONN officer.
The US Military's MOS system tends to be more rigid; if your MOS is truck driver,you will either get duty as a truck driver or doing basic tasks (like sweeping) that we assigne to anybody. Even if you know a lot about vehicle mechanics, you won't get assigned as a Vehicle Mechanic without being retrained as a Vehicle Mechanic MOS, at which point we stoip giving you work as a Truck Driver.

For instance, once Worf had made Chief Tactical Officer, he was chosen over any junior OPs officers to become the new head of OPs and take Data's chair on the bridge when Data was presumed dead ("The Most Toys"). This was not presented as being a big deal, but rather the natural and expected order of things.

I guess I am resistant to the MOS analogy because, as I understand it, changing one's MOS is difficult, and represents spending a lot of time getting retrained. It seems in Starfleet, changing one's assigned position may be as simple as asking your immediate superior, and may happen as abruptly as an announcement during your duty shift.
It's changing between branches that seems to be a big deal.

[JALU3]

I think the big difference is in training. Remember . . . Starfleet has a very extensive network . . . with almost all information available on the network . . . almost instantanously, provided that you are authorize to access said information.

With this information, there should be training material available as well. In present day, there are Field Manuals for almost every MOS out there. unfortunatly a lot of these have been discontinued (for the more technical jobs) and are no longer updated, and have not been scanned to be preserved except for in buildings and warehouses and such. But let us say . . . that every MOS or Rating (and rating specialty) has a FM.

In present day, all you can do is read it. If there isn't sufficient time for someone who has that MOS to give you on the job training, administar test, etc. then tough . . . all you can do is read it. And thus you will never have a full understanding of the MOS.

However, this is the future. And OK, so they don't go all Neo and download things right to your brain (which I am sure they could, but can you imagine if the Borg took advantage of that access port through a covert program), but that doesn't mean that they can't use the technology available to them for use in training. And behold, the Holodeck. There you can have artificial, reactive, trainers provide you all the training you need to learn the new MOS. They can teach you on the book knowledge, guide you through your on the job training, give test . . . and upon completion . . . through verification from the Branch School . . . provide you with the authorization to add the MOS to your Service Record (whether it becomes your Primary MOS is up to PERSCOM (Love or hate them, those bastards control your service life) (I wonder why there haven't been more players who haven't attempted to buddy up to those guys behind the desk more often (So you wanted to be posted to Risa? Thanks for helping me with that critical shipment earlier. No problem!)).

Or, like in the DS9 continuation novels, there maybe a way to sink up multiple holodecks to be able to joint confrence during certain parts of the training, in order to facilitate group learning. But that is truly something additional, and would not be necessary.

Therefore . . . you can give an Ensign or a anyone else an authorization key to access a certain training program . . . say from an Administration Officer . . . and let them go at their own pace, or at a pace subscribed by your immediate command.

[black campbellq]

Similar incident in one on our eps: guy was in a mother-huge firefight and dialed his phaser all the way up. I bothered to glance at setting 16's effect...about a half click of rock, according to the chart (IIRC). Well, if you aren't talking rock, that's a whole lot of energy into a structure (a building in this case.) He not only takes out the building, but the buildings beside and nearly himself in the shockwave.

[tonyg]

Similar incident in one on our eps: guy was in a mother-huge firefight and dialed his phaser all the way up. I bothered to glance at setting 16's effect...about a half click of rock, according to the chart (IIRC). Well, if you aren't talking rock, that's a whole lot of energy into a structure (a building in this case.) He not only takes out the building, but the buildings beside and nearly himself in the shockwave.

Has a similar (and somewhat justified) overskill situation like this pop up. The away team was down on a planet when the local equavalent to a T-Rex popped up and decided to dine al fresco. Since we were running ICON, the phaser stun settings were not very effective (the dino's resistance was higher than the stun damage).

One player "dialed up" the phaser to setting 12 or so,and zapped the thing at close range. While the damage wasn't enough to drop the T-Rex, as the points went, the fact that it could displace 50 cubic meter (50 tons) of rock was more than enough to make the T-Rex's head explode.