The CMO can only override the captain in matters of health. They can't just walk onto the bridge and declare captaincy.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
248 points (99.2% liked)
TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name
6982 readers
725 users here now
/c/TenForward: Your home-away-from-home for all things Star Trek!
Re-route power to the shields, emit a tachyon pulse through the deflector, and post all the nonsense you want. Within reason of course.
~ 1. No bigotry. This is a Star Trek community. Remember that diversity and coexistence are Star Trek values. Any post/comments that are racist, anti-LGBT, or generally "othering" of a group will result in removal/ban.
~ 2. Keep it civil. Disagreements will happen both on lore and preferences. That's okay! Just don't let it make you forget that the person you are talking to is also a person.
~ 3. Use spoiler tags.
Use spoiler tags in comments, and NSFW checkbox for posts.
This applies to any episodes that have dropped within 3 months prior of your posting. After that it's free game.
~ 4. Keep it Trek related. This one is kind of a gimme but keep as on topic as possible.
~ 5. Keep posts to a limit. We all love Star Trek stuff but 3-4 posts in an hour is plenty enough.
~ 6. Try to not repost. Mistakes happen, we get it! But try to not repost anything from within the past 1-2 months.
~ 7. No General AI Art. Posts of simple AI art do not 'inspire jamaharon'
~ 8. No Political Upheaval. Political commentary is allowed, but please keep discussions civil. Read here for our community's expectations.
Fun will now commence.
Sister Communities:
Want your community to be added to the sidebar? Just ask one of our mods!
Creator Resources:
Looking for a Star Trek screencap? (TrekCore)
Looking for the right Star Trek typeface/font for your meme? (Thank you @kellyaster for putting this together!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The CMO could just declare all of the senior officers as medically unfit for duty or whatever, and the chain of command would then render the CMO as effectively the captain. Of course, the CMO would be expected to justify that action in their medical log once the emergency has passed.
If the captain believed the CMO was illegitimately declaring officers medically unfit I’m highly skeptical such a ploy would work just because it seems possible on paper
What we are describing here is effectively mutiny, just with an officially sanctioned way to justify it with a paper trail after the dust has settled. And like with any mutiny, it all comes down to the collective strength of the mutineers. If the captain understood that the CMO was just staging a mutiny, and the majority of officers onboard were behind the CMO for whatever reason, there is not really anything the captain can do about it in the moment.
Well now we’re talking about a mutiny and I don’t see why the officers would side with a CMO committing mutiny, if anything they’d almost certainly side with the captain. We would need an elaborate plot to substantiate the CMO successfully rallying star fleet officers to commit a mutiny.
The captain can simply relieve the CMO for cause, promote another medical officer, and that would be that.
I mean that "the CMO illegitimately declaring officers medically unfit" is, in all reality, just mutiny if the end goal is to take command. And like any mutiny, the success of that ploy depends on enough of the crew choosing to back the ploy.
The captain can simply relieve the CMO for cause, promote another medical officer, and that would be that.
At that point, it still comes down to who the crew sides with. If they think the "real" CMO is in the right, then they will not recognize the "new" CMO as legitimate, and back up the "real" CMO's decision to relieve the captain of duty. If they instead believe that the "real" CMO is not in the right, they will recognize the authority of the "new" CMO and not consider the captain to be relieved of duty.
Lets be real here, Mutiny is like a 200-level course at the Academy
Well now we’re talking about a mutiny and I don’t see why the officers would side with a CMO committing mutiny, if anything they’d almost certainly side with the captain.
i don't think you understand what mutiny is. it is a situation where the mutineers do not side with the captain 😂 and it can happen for like infinite number of reasons.
Sure, but the point is that not all of the officers are necessarily mutineers themselves.
yes, that is true for absolute majority of officers in absolute majority of crews, both real and imaginary.
the mutiny happens when there is enough mutineers to take control. if there is not enough of them, then there is no mutiny.
Just also quote the part where I said we’d need an elaborate plot to have the CMO create a mutiny that officers go along with. Then there wouldn’t be any confusion
not really much elaboration needed. you just need the crew to be pissed at the captain, that is quite a simple plot. mutinies have happened in the past, they are not a science fiction.
Sure except this is Star Fleet, which is science fiction, so we have every reason to assume that a mutiny would only occur for good reason, like when Kirk was possessed. An evil CMO trying to illegitimately seize power would indeed require an elaborate plot.
The word "mutiny" just means that an insurrection took place; it does not imply success or failure. A 1-person mutiny is still a mutiny, even if the odds of success are minimal.
Both this and the opposite example where the CMO declares the captain unfit but the rest of the crew are still loyal and follow the captain as i I believe actually happened to Janeway.
I also think that any bridge officier ranks above CMO to become captain in an emergency situation. So they would need to discharge all bridge officers and trust that they will all comply in order to become captain themselves.
If the captain is medically unfit for duty, the captain gets no say. Checkmate, Jim.
Nope. It's portrayed often as a unilateral move but without being seconded they cannot remove anyone. In the case of the captain you need key crew to second and for that matter any member of key crew can declare anyone else medically unfit and it works the same way.
You can’t just declare captaincy.
Civilian < Cadet < Ensign < Lieutenant < Captain < CMO < CMO banging the Captain
< CMO asking persistently enough until they can become Acting Captain and hijack the ship.
Q: am I a joke to you?
Usually, yes.
Oh, mon capitaine…!
Noncoporial entity decked by Sisko says what?
snaps into a Moopsy
... ... Yes...
This comment is to recognize all the forgotten Crewmen, Chief Petty Officer and all the other, never mentioned (at least onscreen) enlisted and NCO ranks.
So many pieces of media get it... not "wrong" I guess, because maybe they just don't have those ranks or whatever, but come on, let's not pretend that Lieutenant anybody is fixing a goddamn thing
Got to have someone to get eaten on the away missions
not true sometimes they provide vital conduits for faulty eps relays
And what about Admirals? They're always sticking their stars and bars into stuff when they aren't needed.
admiral, "its nice to lord over starfleet subjects, and my own agenda."
“Those people created a perfect society that made them move past the need to be fucking to reproduce. They’re spitting in God’s face, Jim, blow it up. Blow it all up.” - Chief Medical Officer Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy
And so they did, because fuck The Prime Directive.