Chief Science Officer

The Chief Science Officer, or CSO, is an Exploratory Division Officer held position aboard the SEV Torch, charged with maintaining efficiency within the Research and Exploration departments. They are responsible for authorizing and monitoring the activities/experiments of the vessel's Scientists and Explorers, ensuring that sufficient discoveries, progress, and potential profit is derived from their personnel.

As an officer aboard the TGLV Intrepid and a fellow member of the Command Department, the Chief Science Officer answers directly to the Commanding Officer. However, respect to a superior officer such as the Executive Officer is highly suggested.

The Role
As is the case for most Head of Staff roles, the Chief Science Officer is largely an administrator rather than an executive. Their job is to ensure that the Research department has the resources, personnel, expertise, and coordination to operate smoothly. They can issue priority research projects to their scientists to focus on whatever they feel is important at the time, and the Senior Researcher is generally responsible for seeing that such projects are completed in a timely fashion.

The Chief Science Officer is aboard to serve as the connection between Research/Exploration affairs and the Command team, as such they are first and foremost the primary coordinator of their respective departments rather than an being personally active within the laboratories/experiments. Responsible with the requisitioning of supplies outside of Supply Department control and ensuring compliance with Terran Government regulations regarding the active experiments aboard. In basis, they are concerned with the administration and documentation of their departmental affairs. Responsibility for implementation of their desired scientific-pursuits or explorative goals are to be handled by the Senior Researcher.

While their primary role is always to act as administration, the Chief Science Officer is also assumed to be at least functional in most of the various fields of Research. This is important not so much for them doing the work themselves in emergencies, as might be the case with the Chief Engineer or Chief Medical Officer, but rather for making sure that they know what to do if an experiment goes wrong. If Xenobiology suffers a containment failure and a hostile xenobiological is spreading throughout the department, or an anomaly accidentally opens a portal to Hell, it's the Chief Science Officer's job to know how to stop it and to get it done before anything truly dire comes to pass.

Regarding Exploration, the Chief Science Officer should be brought into the discussion regarding away-destination selection(s), along with the Squad Leader aboard if present. These two individuals are considered the most experienced regarding making decisions such as these. Nevertheless, the Commanding Officer may entirely overrule their opinions and have the TGLV Intrepid maneuvered to a location of their choice. Upon the request or requirement of scientist/xenoarcheologist presence during away-missions, the Chief Science Officer is the deciding individual as to what personnel will be dispatched to assist their Pathfinder for the given assignment.