Talk:Executive Officer

From Memory-Zeta

In my personal opinion, although the positions of “Executive Officer” and “First Officer” are mutually exclusive (meaning that both cannot be present at the same time) and the titles are often used interchangeably, there is an important distinction between the two.

An “Executive Officer” is a stand-alone position. Examples include:
• Will Riker on USS Enterprise-D
• Chakotay on USS Voyager

In addition to the duties of the above, a “First Officer” also heads one the ship’s departments. Examples include:
• Spock on USS Enterprise (since he was also Kirk’s Chief Science Officer)
• Tucker and then T'Pol on Enterprise (since they were Chief Engineer and Science Officer, respectively)

As such, a “First Officer” will usually continue to wear his branch-color uniform, but does have the option of switching to command-red if he so desires:

Branch	Example O5’s Uniform
Astronautics (includes all pilots)
Engineering & Development
Intelligence (including Temporal Investigations)
JAG & Diplomatic
Medical & Counseling
Operations & Strategy
Science & Research
Tactics & Security
U.F.M.C. (Marine Corps)
Civilians / Provisional

Regardless of whether a ship has a stand-alone “Executive Officer” or a dual-role “First Officer”, the next-in-line is always also a department head and is termed “Second Officer”. Examples include:
• Scotty on USS Enterprise (Chief Engineer)
• Data on USS Enterprise-D (Chief Operations Officer)
• Tuvok on USS Voyager (Chief Tactical Officer)

As I said, in my personal opinion...

I get what you're saying, but I think for our purposes this entry reads ok. Memory Alpha says a First Officer was also referred to as an Executive Officer. Also our entry says that an Executive officer are most commonly referred to as the ships first officer, which could mean not always. On a simulation the CO and XO make up the command team, and in this respect I would say the XO is the First Officer.

I guess its one of those "You say potatoes, I say potartoes." kind of situations. Both descriptions have there merits.

-Steve