The Oddest Jobs in StarFleet VI

Captain, first officer, chief of security, chief medical officer. These posts, and many more, are staples of every simming ship and installation. But what about the lesser known positions – the intelligence officers, diplomats, and nurses of the fleet? In this series, we’ll examine some of the less traditional posts and the characters and writers behind them.
Captain Steve McCall, Intelligence Officer, USS Discovery
I imagined that Rob’s portrayal of Captain McCall would be very different from Adam’s as Ensign Weston, and I was not disappointed. To begin, Rob told me a bit about positions available to captains returning to the group: “Returning Captains that keep their current character tend to sim with job titles such as Mission Specialist while others goes down the diplomatic route or even return to the departments that they simmed before being promoted to Captain.” However, as Steve McCall came up through the ranks as a security officer, the last option was not available to Rob, and so he looked into intelligence – although he notes that there are similarities in the two positions. Further, “I quite liked shows and films such as James Bond, 24 and Alias, and it has allowed me to work ideas from such shows into my writing in the UFOP but obviously with a Star Trek twist,” but with “less gadgets and without a huge ticking clock in the background.”
Even though an intelligence officer is an unusual position, it could be difficult to write it as a captain. “With the rank of Captain you probably have to be a little more careful with what you write to avoid stepping on the toes of the actual CO and XO. Given the number of years that we have all simmed together this has not proved to be a problem but it is always something worth having in mind when writing a sim.”
Despite Rob’s affection for James Bond and his ilk, “McCall is not simmed as Jack Bauer or James Bond, there are elements of that in the writing but … Capt. McCall is strictly the head of a unit of 30 Intelligence Officers…  The job for McCall is more about directing the officers and the administrative side of things rather than deep cover missions and dangerous away missions although as the ranking Intel officer present he is able to pull some strings and assign himself to away missions if there is a need.”
For more information on intelligence officers and the positions they have and can play, check out Rob’s in-depth article on the wiki.