Why is the Doc considered O’Brien’s senior officer?
Yeah, it’s an officer vs enlisted thing. In modern militaries, no matter how high ranking an enlisted man is, he’s still considered lower-ranking than any officer, and Lieutenant junior grade (Bashir’s rank) is an officer rank, albeit a low one (it’s one step up from Ensign, the lowest. Bashir’s a j.g. instead of an Ensign because of all the extra education he got in medical school. The US Navy operates on similar principles.)
I honestly forget that most people don’t know this, but even people who actually served in the military (Gene Roddenberry himself, for example!) didn’t always get it right. For example, I get mad every time I watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture, because Kirk busts Captain Decker down a rank and then assumes command of the Enterprise as its captain.
But he’s an admiral. Admirals command whole groups of ships, because they’re in command of captains. All he would’ve had to do is tell Decker “I’m putting my flag* on this ship for now, Will; if you don’t like it, you can suck it” and that would’ve been fine.
But then Roddenberry was in the Air Force, not the Navy, so hey.
* = Admirals are called “flag officers” because when one is on a ship, they used to — I think in most navies they actually still do — hang a special flag off the ship saying an admiral was there. The fancier the flag, the higher-ranking the admiral.
chequerootlurks
