O’Brien is a “chief,” Jonas and Cutler hold the rank of “Crewman,” and I think those are the only enlisted personnel who have lines and appear in more than one episode. Starfleet seems ridiculously officer heavy.
Is the enlisted/officer distinction different in Starfleet from traditional armed forces? And where are all the warrant officers?
Correct. Cadet is what you’d become instantly when you go to Starfleet Academy, but an ensign is what you’d come out of there as. So you have to earn the rank of ensign, but you just get the rank of cadet without testing. (Well entrance exams aside.)
Weeeelll, yes and no.
Have you watched the new show from the “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific” creators, called “Masters of the Air”?
In that, you don’t see many people below the rank of a lieutenant, because everyone of a light crew would be an officer.
Like you say, if you go through Starfleet Academy, you’ll become a cadet, meaning an officer in training.
When I was doing my conscription, aside from the conscripts, there wasn’t really that many non-commissioned officers, because at that point, pretty much everyone who worked for the military had to have gone through cadet training and thus would be an officer.
And I was in the army, not the navy or the airforce, where it would be even less likely to see non-commissioned ranks.
I looked up O’Brien’s back story, and it says he served as a tactical officer on the USS Rutledge during the Cardassian War. I think that would explain him being having an enlisted rank; he enlisted, and through battlefield conditions was promoted to serve as the tactical officer, and given a promotion. But you need to go through Starfleet Academy to be an officer, so he has a non-commissioned officer’s rank.
Much like it would go in real life.
Then after the war he probably wasn’t required to go to the Academy, even if it was offered to him. Seems like the type who wouldn’t see the need to go, even if had offered some benefits or possible advancement in ranks.
An NCO through and through, O’Brien, just like me.
So I assume there’s the rare person who joins Starfleet without going through the academy, on merit or something, and gets an enlisted rank.
Although all this reasoning of their system does make it seem weird Picard so easily makes Wesley an “acting ensign”.
I remember mariner having a throwaway line in an LD episode about the Tech Services Academy being a way to join without having to go through the academy (the one where they’re stuck in the recruitment booth). Perhaps that would be the NCO route?
Sounds about right. Like a way for that to be a thing, but being way less common to go through that way, and probably most people who graduate from there perhaps go to certain planets / institutions that we’ve not seen much of.
There used to be two different levels of “schools” in the Finnish military as well, iirc, and the other one was a bit shorter and easier and often meant more as supporting training for the non-commissioned officers who stayed to work at the military after their conscription. You could only stay for a few years or so before you had to go to the Army Academy (Maasotakoulu), or apply to become a cadet in the The Finnish National Defence University (Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu).
The latter being far more common.