HELP: Departmental Duties

[Constance Lafayette]

While every ship, department head, and Captain will have their own view on who is responsible for what, the following are the generally accepted roles of each department:

Flight Control
Chief: Typically on the bridge piloting the ship.
Other Duties: Navigation/astrometrics, stellar cartography, piloting shuttle crafts
Secondary: Many flight control officers are skilled at the maintenance and repairs of flight systems. In this way they can sometimes help the engineering staff.

Security/Tactical
Chief: Manning the tactical station on the bridge which controls the ship's weapons
Other Duties: Providing safety for the rest of the crew, managing the brig, ensuring order, guarding vital areas (like the weapon's locker), repelling borders, and launching (not setting or adjusting) probes and other space-born objects.
Secondary: If no operations officer on the bridge is present, they help manage communications and/or the tractor beam.
Operations
Chief: The "ops" station on the bridge monitors and sends communications and works the tractor beam.
Other Duties: Transporter, maintains the cargobay, is in control of the ship's computer systems, manages supplies (quartermaster), provides administrative support to other officers (rules, laws, paperwork, schedules), adjusts/manages probes, sometimes acts as yeoman (personal assistant to Captains).
Secondary: If there is no science officer on the bridge, the ops officer manages the scanning equipment. They can also aid in power-transfers and the like.
Engineering
Chief: The chief engineer is in main engineering overseeing the maintenance and repair of the ship.
Other Duties: Maintenance, repair, power management, upgrading technology, deciphering alien technology
Secondary: Engineers can often take over some duties from Ops officers if none are present, particularly: transporters, tractor beam, and ship's computers.
Medical
Chief: The Chief Medical Officer is often in sickbay, treating patients or advising on data sent to them.
Other Duties: Saving lives and treating injuries. Doctors and nurses, medical researchers, and psychologists.
Secondary: A lot of doctors are cross-trained in scientific disciplines.

Science
Chief: The Chief Science Officer is often on the bridge running scans and evaluating threats from a scientific perspective, and advising the captain on the best course of action.
Other Duties: Each science officer has their own area of expertise. No two are exactly the same. All have a level of training in the physical sciences and a high level of education and are vital in addressing environmental problems, aiding in contact with new species, etc.
Secondary: As each has their area of expertise, many know far more about the theory and practice of a specific field. A warp theorist, for example, could help engineering with the warp coils or a cartographer would be able to help with astrometrics.

(OOC Post restored due to server outage - Tess t'Lhoell 07/22/2020)