Ranked: Star Trek Engineers

Star Trek's "alien races", like the famous horror monsters of American imagination (Frankenstein, Dracula, the wolfman, zombies, etc.) tend to be ciphers for archetypes . . . specifically in this case, archetypal societies: so you have the Vulcans, the cerebral, enlightened society ruled by intellect; the Klingons, the tragic Shakespearean warrior society; the Ferengi, the embodiment of the most base of bourgeois capitalist instincts*; the Cardassians, who are the military industrial complex raised to ordering principle; the Bajorans, who are essentially space Irish; etc. . . . The exception, of course, are earthling humans themselves, who generally are defined by the arc of the series. So: in the original ST, humans are explorers/adventurers, in TNG they are diplomats. Enterprise, which predates the original in the timeline, splits the difference between explorer and diplomat. DS9 and Voyager are less clear: DS9 more from an intentional ambiguity and complexity built in to the series, Voyager more from lack of vision.

If there is any coherent view of humans seen through the eyes of other alien races, it is probably the recurring theme from DS9 that the Federation produces elite engineers ("I'm willing to bet that you've brought one of those famed Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators" Keevan the Vorta, DS9 episode "Rocks and Shoals"). Humans in Starfleet are not typically marked by intellect, warrior skills, advanced technology, or any extraordinary physical attributes. The one trait that Star Trek writers have consistently allowed Earthlings is a general knack for problem solving, which, on DS9, is explicitly tied to the Starfleet Engineering Corps.

So, without further ado, Star Trek engineers, ranked:

6. Torres (Voyager)
5. Tucker (Enterprise)
4.  Scott (original)
3.  Scott (reboot)
2.  O'Brien (DS9 & TNG)
1.  La Forge (TNG)

A few notes:

• Scotty obviously set the tone for Star Trek engineers right from the jump as a cracker jack applied scientist who could do anything. He didn't really dabble in theory, but he knew all the theory he needed to get done what needed to be done. Scotty in the reboot gets the slightest of nods because there is the intimation that he did dabble in theory, as evidenced by the equation that the elder Spock showed him that he would write in the future to enable beaming between ships at warp speed. I think you would have a legit argument for either Scott, O'Brien, or La Forge as the top engineer.
• O'Brien also seems more versed in abstract theory than other Star Trek engineers, as evidenced by the fact that he and Jadzia Dax were able to move Deep Space 9 out of Bajor's orbit and closer to the wormhole.
• Of all the engineers, it is perhaps Geordi La Forge who demonstrates the widest grasp of theory. That spells badass in my book.
• While Voyager got around to getting a female engineer, B'Elanna Torres wasn't often important to the story as an engineer. It is unfortunate that the only female engineer is almost incidentally an engineer.
• Colm Meany is a really good actor.

That's it for this one!

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*  Has anybody ever mentioned how casually anti-capitalist Star Trek can be? Beyond the Ferengi, who never appear without being stooges (at least on some level), there is common reference to the humans of Star Trek living in a post-capitalist culture, with the implicit claim that moving beyond capitalism was an evolutionary step. It seems to me that this vision of a society evolved beyond capitalism is a foundational subtext of virtually the entire franchise.