Star Fleet has an intel section and one might assume that major fleet commands have their own sub-section. A starship probably has one or more officers cross-trained in intel and they handle the stuff as an extra duty.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 11:16 am: Edit

Rat's, I was wrong... ah well.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 07:30 pm: Edit

Of course, if the ship is more-or-less permanantly assigned to intel duties, it might have specialist officers aboard. Otherwise I agree with SVC, comm and/or ops officers would probably handle the intel duties.

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 04:10 pm: Edit

I always more or less assumed that intel was one of the XO's duties for some reason. BTW, what are a Fed XO's duties in SFU?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 05:23 pm: Edit

Whatever the captain says. Generally speaking, in combat, the captain is in charge of the ship, the weapons officer of the weapons, the XO of damage control, and the engineer of the engines.

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 06:03 pm: Edit

So in other words, the XO basically gets to do the papaerwork that the CO dosen't wanna do? At least, that's one why I read that. If I'm wrong, just smack me into the booth. How common would it be for the XO to also be a department head, like Spock was the XO and head of the Science department on the Enterprise.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 06:25 pm: Edit

On a US Navy ship large enough to have a name, never. I'd assume the same for Star Fleet.

Someone might "wear two hats" in unusual circumstances. For example, the Science Officer got eaten on that last world they visited, and his replacement hasn't arrived yet.

(burb)

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 09, 2005 - 02:03 am: Edit

I would say Spock wore two hats because Kirk knew he not only could take the pressure but also thrived on it...which is something I suspect Vulcans love but would never admit to.

Besides being a department cheif keeps him busy and then he's barely got time to grow a goaty let alone plot the take over of the vessel.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 09, 2005 - 02:10 am: Edit

I think the X.O. is "captain" whilst the Captain is asleep.
He should in theory be asleep when the captain is awake ( or atleast doing one of his rest-rotations ). That is; he is not "on duty".
The duty he therefore has when fighting breaks out ( assuming not on his watch ) is the duty of all off-duty personnel when fighting breaks out...since they can not sleep they might as well HELP.

In combat therefore the X.O. helps by taking whatever battle-station the captain feels needs an extra guiding hand.

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Saturday, April 09, 2005 - 10:24 am: Edit

Well, I seem to remember from NJROTC in high school that a USN XO does take over when the CO is off-duty, but during the night shift, there's generally a duty officer who takes command of the ship while the CO/XO are sleeping. When GQ is sounded, the entire crew is required to take battlestations, whether they're on duty, off duty, or sleeping, that includes the ship's senior officers.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, April 09, 2005 - 12:00 pm: Edit

Michael, wrong. When the captain of the ship is not on the bridge, then the ship is under the command of the Command Duty Officer, who is the senior officer on watch, on the bridge.

You'll have noticed that when the captain DOES arrive on the bridge, whoever is sitting in the center chair immediately gets up? That is the CDO.

Sometimes it is the XO, but only because the XO is on watch at the time and is the CDO at that time.

By John Rudd (Johnrudd) on Sunday, April 17, 2005 - 02:13 pm: Edit

The XO's main job (outside of the watch duties that everyone has) is to keep the CO from being bogged down in minutia and paperwork. So the XO does all of the administrative stuff, while the CO thinks about things like what the larger set of goals he wants the crew to accomplish might be, how he wants to train the crew so that they're ready to handle different situations, etc. All of the things the commanding officer needs to think about when they're not bothered by paperwork.

As for XO being department head ... on small ships (especially on patrol ships, like the patrol hydrofoils; so probably on PF's in SFB), the XO becomes the Navigator. I don't recall if that covers ships as large as Frigates or not. It certainly is not the case on ships as large as destroyers or larger.

As for "Intel", it depends on what you mean. Is there someone on board who is basically an Intelligence Operative? (like the eyes of the CIA or DIA while the ship is out on patrol?) Not unless the ship is an intelligence oriented ship (which is most comparable to the scouts in SFB). Or unless you're talking about the internal security services that you might find on a Soviet ship or a Klingon ship ... but that's different.

Otherwise, there is an officer on board whose job is to be responsible for all sensitive intelligence assets on the ship (any code material, any sensitive messages, etc.). That person is under the Operations department, and it may or may not be separated from Communications, based on the size of the ship. This is more of a person whose job is to manage the classified materials than someone who is there to gather and report information to Fleet Intelligence. Nor is it someone whose job is to do intelligence analysis.

The "gathering" role might be a special group within the special sensors operators on a scout. Otherwise, that function is just a general matter of "we're back in port, lets send all of our recorded data and reported oddities up to the fleet for analysis". It's no one's specific job, but at the same time, it's everyone's job (in that everyone should report anything that seems like it might be interesting or unusual).

The analysis role doesn't tend to happen on the ships. An analyst might go out on a ship for a special mission/event, but really they tend to be back at a fleet base, or at the most at a listening post.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, April 17, 2005 - 05:36 pm: Edit

I can agree with most of that. But while most analysis tasks are normally done back at base, a CO is going to want to know what XXX means right now as it affects his decision-making. So even if only informally, there will be someone aboaard ship who can fill any job. They may not do it very well, or include all the details, but sometimes you just gotta know.

Two examples: in the days before world-wide weather forecasting, a ship's captain would have a good sense of the weather, or someone else would.

And from personal experience, the ships I was on didn't include a Photographer's Mate in the crew, but if a picure needed to be taken the CO would turn to me and tell me to get my camera; I was a Sonar Tech and also the official ship's photographer on two different ships -- because the job needed doing, and I knew how to do it.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, April 17, 2005 - 07:10 pm: Edit

I have written two stories now that extensively uses XO's on Klingons ships. Generally what I wrote matches up pretty well with what John Rudd posted.

It comes down to the fact that there are a large number of things that require top command decisions. So, the XO handles the general responsibility of keeping the ship in top readiness for whatever mission the Captain commands. So this allows the Captain to focus on missions and such, although he reviews everything the XO does. The relationship between XO and Captain varies a bit from captain to captain. It probably depends on the level of trust.

In battle I had the XO keeping track of the overall situation while the Captain focuses on executing a particular move. In other words the XO keeps the Captains back and reports anything that might need the Captains immediate attention. In this way they sort of become a Command team with the Captain in the lead.

This seems to me to be the optimum situation between Captain and XO during battle but the situation doubtless varies with some Captains ignoring the XO as much as they can. These Captains are probably less successful unless extraordinarily capable.

In my storys I had possitioned the XO with the Scanner Operator where he could keep survey of the overall situation and report important changes in the surounding areas. This is better that the scanner operator reporting every change. The experience of the XO helps him/her pick and choose what to report so as to interupt the captains focus less.

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Sunday, April 24, 2005 - 07:44 pm: Edit

SVC, do SFU Star Fleet commodores wear three thin stripes as shown in the SF Tech Manula, or do they have the one thick stripe as shown in TOS?

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, April 25, 2005 - 12:25 am: Edit

Neither one, Chris.

Two thick gold stripes with one blue star inbetween. GPD page 101, GPD4 page 132.

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Monday, April 25, 2005 - 01:27 am: Edit

Gary, thanks. So would Admirals have the two thick stripes and just keep adding blue stars? I really need to get PD, and I plan to one day, but right now getting the spare cash is a problem.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, April 25, 2005 - 09:32 am: Edit

They keep adding stars.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Monday, April 25, 2005 - 09:39 am: Edit

"My God--it's full of stars!"

"I know. They keep adding them."

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Monday, April 25, 2005 - 01:57 pm: Edit

SVC, thanks.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 11:49 am: Edit

OK, the list of who is doing what for GF is:

Myself: Fralli, Cygnans, Mintakans (and probably all of the other existing races no one else wants to do)

Mark Costello: Mynieini

Mike West: Rigellians

John Sickels: Vulcans, Orions, Mantorese

Matthew Francois: Deians

Bishop: Andorians. I'm not sure who this is, would you please speak up and ID yourself?

Nick Blank: FedX deckplans

Don Willett: article(s) TBA -- like what, Don?

Missing Fed Academy templates (already done)

Map update for worlds left off the list: 2215 Mantor, 2910 Mintaka, and Brecon TBD.

Keep in mind that GF has a release date of August, so everyone should be done with their assignments by the end of June.

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 12:16 pm: Edit

2215 doesn't work as the location of Mantor. It has to be at the junction of Klingon/Kzinti/Fed space.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 12:40 pm: Edit

OK. If it is in the Neutral Zone, then it has to be in one of three hexes: 1806 (which is between the Kzinti and Klingon BATS), 1906 (between the ZF BATS), or 1907 (KF BATS).

Pick one?

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 01:08 pm: Edit

Well, it is a Federation member by Y167, but like Cygnus it was under Kzinti domination in the early part of the century. Suggest 2005.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 01:41 pm: Edit

It's not in the neutral zone. It's not very far from Cygnus.