Sure, the ensign could back the ship away and raise shields on her own authority. Of course, she'd be a Chief Petty Officer by the next morning and not allowed anywhere near the bridge. I was a Private First Class (PFC) in the US Army in 2002/3 in Afghanistan and I never once said "You know what, let's just go ahead and fire on those people over there." Why? It's called chain of command. Sure, firing on those people over there may have made sense. Those people over there might have deserved being fired upon. But I wouldn't have made a call like that on my own. Now, if my Platoon Sergeant had said, "Fire on those people over there," I'd have lit them up like it was the Fourth of July. It's called waiting for orders. It's the difference between getting a medal and getting court martialed. An Ensign on the bridge of a ship where most everybody else outranks you is pretty much like being a private. You don't say anything except "Yes Sir" and you do what you're told. You let people in a higher pay grade do the thinking for you. But rank structures have never been properly portrayed in Star Trek, which is why a lot of Trekkies know nothing of rank structures. Trek writing often has ranks portrayed more like board members in a big company than a real military.
Someone on that other forum mentioned Harry Kim on Voyager, clearly not realizing that Harry Kim was a special case. He was an Ensign but his
position was chief of operations. He may have had a lower rank but his position technically put him in the upper echelons of the command structure of the ship. Making a judgment call as an Ensign in the position of chief of operations is a lot different than making a judgment call as an Ensign at the conn station. It is possible in a proper rank structure to not outrank someone but to out position them, kind of like how Chief O'Brien on DS9 could order officers around. He out positioned them, even though he was a Senior Chief Petty Officer. (an enlisted rank)
Yes, consoles explode, sometimes for no apparent reason, on Star Trek. It adds drama.
I agree with you, Warbird in an atomosphere =
It couldn't work, the ship is too massive. Even if it could enter the atmosphere, there's no way the cloaking device could hide a ship that large working in an atmosphere. Atmospheric turbulence, air and dust displacement and things of that nature would be a hundred times worse than they were on the Klingon BoP in Star Trek IV, which was bad enough when it was moving. Nobody could miss something that big moving through an atmosphere.
