Starfleet, ranks, and officer tracks are fucking hilarious funtimes in trying to make them make any goddamn fucking sense. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Basically, I figure it like this: Uhura's more senior, but not command track, which would be why she wouldn't be readily in the line of command; Chekov and Sulu both are. (For that matter, Spock is not actually command track; he's science. It's presumably why he never took the Kobayashi Maru in Prime. We're just going with him getting promoted to First Officer by Pike due to sheer competence and he grumbled Vulcanly and gritted his teeth.)
Chekov got handed the conn when Sulu was off the ship with Kirk space-diving. Kirk gave Sulu orders prior to them beaming over to the Narada, regarding taking advantage of any tactical advantage and firing on it even. Which leaves one to assume, Sulu had command of the ship while Spock and Kirk were over on the Narada.
But -- god. Who even knows. Starfleet is a fucking mess in terms of command structure. Scotty being a late and unexpected addition to the crew would not be in the normal command structure, anyway. (Interestingly, as an aside, I hear book canon claims that Scotty fucked his Kobayashi Maru in such a way as to get his ass redirected to Engineering which is where he *wanted* to be; he was originally command track.)
But, yeah. Uhura definitely isn't given the conn in the movie itself, though. But I don't think Uhura's less senior, like I said, just not command track.
no subject
Basically, I figure it like this: Uhura's more senior, but not command track, which would be why she wouldn't be readily in the line of command; Chekov and Sulu both are. (For that matter, Spock is not actually command track; he's science. It's presumably why he never took the Kobayashi Maru in Prime. We're just going with him getting promoted to First Officer by Pike due to sheer competence and he grumbled Vulcanly and gritted his teeth.)
Chekov got handed the conn when Sulu was off the ship with Kirk space-diving. Kirk gave Sulu orders prior to them beaming over to the Narada, regarding taking advantage of any tactical advantage and firing on it even. Which leaves one to assume, Sulu had command of the ship while Spock and Kirk were over on the Narada.
But -- god. Who even knows. Starfleet is a fucking mess in terms of command structure. Scotty being a late and unexpected addition to the crew would not be in the normal command structure, anyway. (Interestingly, as an aside, I hear book canon claims that Scotty fucked his Kobayashi Maru in such a way as to get his ass redirected to Engineering which is where he *wanted* to be; he was originally command track.)
But, yeah. Uhura definitely isn't given the conn in the movie itself, though. But I don't think Uhura's less senior, like I said, just not command track.
ETA: YES PLEASE on the Paris/Kim/Torres recs. <3.