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Did the writers care about the ranks of their characters?
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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Even after all these years, I'm not convinced that they did.
I'll note upfront that I know his provisional rank insignia was that of Lt. Commander, and I know that it's common practice to refer to a Lt. Commander as simply "commander". Data, Worf, and Tuvok were regularly referred to as simply "Commander". I fully understand this. But the thing is that these other officers were introduced, or introduced themselves, in formal situations by their full rank on more than one occasion. When the plot called for their personnel files to appear on screen, their full ranks were displayed with their name as "Lt. Commander".
Chakotay was never, not even once, referred to out loud or in text as "Lieutenant Commander".
From a Doylist perspective, I'm of the mind that the writers intended for Chakotay to be a full Commander, the same rank as Riker or early-DS9 Sisko, but the costume department goofed and it was simply never corrected — because on the screens of the era, it didn't really matter because who's gonna look that closely at the guy's neck?
A possible Watsonian explanation is that while he was granted the rank of Lt. Commander provisionally (the rank he held prior to his resignation from Starfleet as well as the rank held by Janeway's original XO), he was also given the rank of Acting Commander... as a courtesy, maybe? Or maybe Starfleet regulations prevented Janeway from granting any provisional ranks higher than Lt. Commander because that's the rank her XO held. Compare this situation to Wesley Crusher, who was granted the rank of Acting Ensign but never wore a rank insignia because Starfleet never gave him one. So Janeway could formally grant Chakotay the rank (and the accompanying rank insignia) of Lieutenant Commander in the field, then found a loophole somewhere in the regulations that allowed him to introduce himself formally as Commander.
This is an excellent analysis. And you are totally right about Chakotay: he is never ever referred to as "Lieutenant Commander". I like your Watsonian explanation! That's a really interesting take.
Of course, this is also the show that was bizarrely inconsistent with Tuvok's rank. Interestingly, between Kes, Neelix, the Doctor, and Seven, I think VGR may have had the most rankless characters of any series up to that point. I suppose DS9 could be tied, since VGR only had three rankless characters at once, as did DS9 (Quark, Odo, Jake).
But yeah -- I wonder if this reflects a larger trend. ENT definitely leaned on simplified ranks as well -- instead of the TNG-era 7-rank scale, we only ever see four on ENT: Captain, Commander, Lieutenant, and Ensign. (It's not clear to me that the costume department even designed a "hollow pip" for the ENT uniforms.) Under that analysis, we see a gradual trend toward de-emphasizing rank, from DS9 to VGR to ENT to DSC to PIC & PRO (though not LDS).
Maybe I was a weird kid but I was keenly aware of the pips on the uniforms after the point in TNG where they vaguely explain how the rank insignia pips work. It was never for any particular reason except to know another “thing” about my favorite characters.
That’s not to say that you’re wrong, maybe that’s what they told themselves when they didn’t change it! But if so they definitely underestimated some fans, lol
The commissioned officer pips were easy to see and read, but I had a very hard time telling what the provisional officer pip bar things they gave the Maquis crew members had on them. They were much more low contrast and the insignia was smaller.
That’s a good point, I mainly paid attention to the officer pips