u/DamnDams

I never fully wrapped my head around how Starfleet handles the division between officers and enlisted personnel. I get that everyone that attends the academy becomes an officer on a different track than the enlisted personnel, but it always seemed to be a strange fit with the post-scarcity society. Picard famously summarized one of the fundamental principles of the Star Trek universe as "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives." Yet rank is shown to come with a variety of privileges throughout the series, such as larger quarters and private meals in addition to the honor of such positions. What is the ratio of officers to enlisted? Seems that you would need many enlisted to each officer, but in this universe of abundance and prosperity, who are all these people choosing not to attend the Academy and become enlisted? And wait a second, aren't even the characters in Lower Decks ensigns? If they are in bunks due to being lower deck ensigns, where in the world are the enlisted?

There also seems to be an inconsistency in the series about exactly how fast you can advance in rank and what ranks can achieve what responsibility. JJ's Star Trek is the biggest outlier, where a whole class of academy graduates is basically thrust into senior leadership. Conversely, you have officers depicted elsewhere as going their entire career without a command or stalling out mid-career. I get that it is performance-based and some will advance faster than others.