Timothy Collinson wrote:

> I've been watching some old (1990s) and and brand new episodic SF tv these last few weeks (which by the by makes for an interesting comparison).  I won't name names because I'm not interested in either dissing them or an argument about their relative merits but if you know either you'll probably recognize them.
>
> A couple of things came up which haven't quite rung true for me and both involve rank and/or protocol.  But it might just be my ignorance.

I'm not a "navy type" but I believe I do recognize the shows you're watching--I am an alumnus of the same specialized degree program at a particular university as one of the early "scientific advisors" on one of those shows--and I think the difficulty here is your assumption that the creators / writers are engaged in some sort of good faith effort to treat their "space service" personnel in ways that would make sense in the context of a contemporary (or, contemporary in the 1990s) naval or other military service.

It's simply not a reliable assumption. Unlike the creators of Traveller, few of the creators / writers of these shows have any actual experience in a "real world" military (though the original creator did, some three-quarters of a century ago now). If anything, their sense of "space service" protocols are mostly based on (what attention they've paid to) what's been portrayed in even ~earlier~ versions of the franchise.

In some sense, that shouldn't be a problem. It's actually a sort of conceit on our part to assume that a "space service" centuries in the future will have rank structures and protocols which closely mirror those of contemporary nautical forces (even putting aside the likely fact that near-future "space forces" will likely evolve from contemporary air forces rather than nautical forces).

So, in some ways, the way these sci-fi practices diverge from "real world" expectations can--and should--be interpreted as part of their science-fictional world building. It might have been better if they'd dispensed with the references to contemporary nautical force terminology entirely but the fact remains that there's no particular reason why we should expect a "nautical-seeming" space service to accurately reproduce practices from a contemporary nautical--or any other military--force.

Who is assigned as "executive officer" and which officer is given temporary command when the commander is away are driven by plot (and to some extent casting) needs, not contemporary, "real world" military protocol.

Cheers,

David
--
"She raised her head, to see a big man . . . in Space Force green, with the single star of a major on his shoulder, sitting down." - Martha Dane (H. Beam Piper), "Omnilingual"