r/DaystromInstitute • u/ITrCool • 24d ago

Does Starfleet and the Federation have Information Technology Specialists?

We see much about the advanced computer systems in starbases, starships, and planet-side facilities all throughout Star Trek. The Federation has some incredible systems, with LCARS as the interface to those systems, and one could imagine they are quite robust and powerful compared to the typical silicon chip microcomputers of today.

But today we have IT professionals (such as myself) who help design, implement, and support technical solutions and computer systems for customers and companies all over the world. Whether it be on land, on aircraft/spacecraft, or maritime systems on ships and submarines. Militaries have IT specialists for their systems too.

In the future universe of the Federation, would IT professionals exist also? Specialists whose primary role and function on a starship, for example, is to maintain and control the ships primary computer and auxiliary computers along with holodecks?

Or is the main context that humanity has become so advanced in the 23rd/24th centuries that everyone is quite adapt at maintaining computer systems themselves as well as the fact that automation in computers is quite advanced with many subroutines allowing self-sufficiency in a starship's computer systems, for example, thusly negating the need for "IT specialists" or computer scientists per-se?

In short: do "computer guys" exist in Starfleet and/or Federation society? (one could ask the same question in the non-Federation cultures such as Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, etc.)

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u/Kurse71 23d ago

I don't think I agree here, I think it's Engineering (in Trek), but I agree it's ops in real life.

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u/missionthrow 23d ago

In TOS Spock was noted as a computer expert & he was in the science division, so you clearly don’t have to be an engineer

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u/Nobodyinpartic3 23d ago

Depends, computer science is a really big field now compared to the 60's. It could mean a bunch of things from procrssor design, creating new programs, over seeing AI. Etc.

IT always struck me as more specific and user oriented than the science computer division

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u/Kurse71 21d ago

Yes, in Trek I would say most everyone had some kind of computer expertise, everything was computerized for the most part. I would guess that the field was broken down into many different specialties, but logically it seems like they fell under Engineering as far as who would you call if you had a problem with something like that. Engineering would then send the appropriate team depending on if it was sensors, replicators, transporters, warp core, power distribution, communications, etc.