At the climax, Picard ordered the Enterprise to be taken out of the asteroid. Worf responds "Aye sir" and then appears responsible for keeping track of their progress. Why him? If anyone, the helm officer should have executed the order and perhaps operations should have monitored progress if not Riker.
asked Aug 22 at 1:18
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2 Answers
The original script is a bit clearer about what's happening.
Normally Riker would be the one to relay the captain's orders to his underlings, but he's busy fussing around with the science panel and relaying orders to engineering about the cloak. That means that Worf, at his tactical station, is temporarily next in command.
In the script, Picard gives a direct order to the conn officer. This conflicts with how he normally gives orders (e.g. through Riker), so the director seems to have added an additional line to show that Worf is acting as the relay to the crew, and also to set up the fact that he is going to share information from his tactical screen.
RIKER: The cloak appears to be functioning normally. The ship's matter/energy phasing rate should be sufficient to pass through the asteroid.
PICARD: (to Conn) Take us out. Maneuvering thrusters only.
The Conn Officer works and on the Viewscreen, one of the rock walls gets CLOSER.
WORF: We will reach the rock face in... five seconds.
As to why it is Worf that says "Aye" when the order is given, there's no obvious in-universe explanation, other than that he is indicating that he is acting as the relay.
From an out-of-universe perspective it is because there are only really four people acting in this scene, plus some non-speaking extras
36 INT. MAIN BRIDGE
Riker is at the aft Engineering station. Picard, Pressman, and Worf look on.
Adding additional voices means that you have to explain who they are and why they are talking (and also pay them a residual fee for acting in the episode).
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"As to why it is Worf that says "Aye" when the order is given," - it's a common military procedure to explicitly confirm orders. This avoids misunderstandings of the "I thought I gave you order X?" - "sorry, didn't hear you over the gunshots" kind.– TomCommented Aug 22 at 11:53
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4@Tom - One of the great mysteries of Star Trek is how people know who Picard is speaking to. At times he strictly adheres to military discipline and passes orders up and down the chain of command. At other times he just randomly assigns tasks to officers who are within his eyeline and they magically know that they should do it.– ValorumCommented Aug 22 at 12:23
The Enterprise used a prototype for a Federation cloaking device. This would be a part of a ship's defensive/offensive arsenal, and therefore under the control of the Chief of Security, Worf.
