Discussion
I love Star Trek, but when watching Generations the other night I thought, how the hell does Star Fleet function of the crew of the Enterprise was essentially static for 9 seasons? None of the key officers were promoted or moved to new billets where they would grow and develop and eventually become captains or some such.
How is this a system for developing your officers?
It's not like they were out of contact or never in port, they just never promoted anyone.
@ariaflame @alan except in the military, where they move you around regularly to meet staffing needs.
Assumedly somewhere a captain retires and they need someone like Riker to take the helm, then Data becomes a first officer, and so on.
@andy
If Starfleet gives officers more agency than the contemporary military, then it's just another difference the show makes about society moving toward a utopic path a few hundred years in the future.
I also agree with the comment that the Enterprise is special. Starfleet needs it to function at its peak rather than regularly dispersing its crew to staff the rest of their ships, which seem to generally carry out more mundane missions. Those posted to the Enterprise would know that.
@andy the people they *do* end up promoting into admiralty tend to become unmanageable renegades & sometimes maniacs.
@andy Ryker repeatedly turned down his own command, didn't he? I expect a lot of the crew would be similar - they wanted to be on the Enterprise, not on their own ship patrolling a peaceful 'n boring part of space.
Starfleet is…odd about that.
The Enterprise-D was like that, the Cerritos was like that, Sisko was a captain but commanded entire fleets, and they freaking *demoted* Kirk because he started sabotaging his own career after they promoted him out of the chair and they were like “okay okay FINE you can have your damn ship back jeez.”
@andy
Over the 7 seasons of TNG (Generations holds no space in my brain) LaForge was promoted twice, Worf and Troi once, and Dr. Crusher was "promoted" to head of Starfleet Medical but returned to the Enterprise. I imagine that the crew felt they were making the biggest impact on the Starfleet flagship, so they didn't seek to leave for other posts.
Same as in real life, lots of people with jobs they like and good leadership don't jump ship (pun intended), while the opposite is also true.