#mod!response

Post is written and queued! Thank you for the wonderful question. Be forewarned, however, that Tarsus IV has not been addressed in the AOS universe, and so all facts presented are only strictly canon in TOS. 

I wasn't sure what you were referring to at first. For those equally as confused, the anon is referring to this bridge crew member.

Now, the only information available on this character is stuff directly from the actor who played him, so I would take the canon value of what was said with a grain of salt. 

0718 is a cybernetically augmented human, as opposed to Khan, who is a genetically augmented human. This is an important difference to note, as I have to assume that the anti-genetic augmentation attitude is still firmly in tact in the AOS world. 

Beyond that, there isn't any information on them that I can find. 0718 is a human with cybernetic additions that allow him to interface completely with the ship's computer. Any questions beyond that would certainly be interesting ones to explore, as there are many ways to interpret them. 

It is possible, but I will always warn against thinking of time normally in space. What is a late hour for one planet could be mid-afternoon for another. So if you are running missions on a specific spot on a planet, or are meeting with people from a planet on a different time schedule, you might need a full crew. 

I’ll use real astronauts from our current day as an example. Ask any astronaut what the hardest thing about space travel is and they’ll tell you its the complete lack of sleep cycle, as they have to conform to the people on the surface they are working with. Who are all across the world. Meaning they could be dealing with seven different people in seven different time zones, all wanting to be talking to them at noon, and now the astronauts have worked a 28 hour day. 

Thank you for the compliment! And good question.

I believe starships work on 3 shifts per day (assumed 8 hours because lets be really, no one wants to get messy with other-houred days and Starfleet is still Earth-Human Dominated) : Alpha, which runs 8am-4pm, Beta, running 4pm-12am, and Gamma, 12am-8am. 

Generally, we see the primary Bridge crew all on the bridge together. I personally have always run off of the assumption that they are the Alpha shift crew, as that is kind of the nicest time slot.  There are then alternate crews for the other shifts. An alternate pilot would come in and replace Sulu, someone from the science department would replace Spock at the science station, Uhura would have a replacement come in from communication, and so on. Even Kirk would have a relief, someone else from the command department. Alternatively, Spock could be Kirk’s replacement, working a double shift.  Then those replacements would be replaced in turn by the Gamma shift bridge crew.

Who is on those crews would be chosen by the different respective department heads. So, Spock would set up a work schedule for science people, Uhura would assign different com officers to relieve her, etc. Kirk would handle the general stations - navigation, telemetry, piloting - as far as who was working when.

I hope that answers your question. Uh, take it with a grain of salt, as I haven’t done a ton of research on that aspect of ship life, but it seems the most logical solution. Though there might in fact be more than 3 shifts, maybe four, and perhaps Starfleet ships don’t run on 24 hour days. If anyone does know for sure, please let me know and point me in the direction of where I can find the information!

Edit to Add:

I’m not sure how I would go about finding this answer either without some background. So thanks for the good question I wouldn't have even thought about!

There are five or six primary bridge positions we typically worry about on the bridge (six depending on which series you are looking at; Security wasn’t a bridge position until The Next Generation).

C A P T I A N 

Fairly straight forward, I think. He is the ultimate boss of the ship, in charge of what happens, where they go (to an extent), and is the primary face for communications with other ships. He is responsible for the ship.

P I L O T

Again, fairly simple here as well. He gets to drive the ship! (Assuming he disengages the external inertial dampeners first) He works in close collaboration with Navigation; a pilot has to know where he’s going, after all.

N A V I G A T I O N

Figures out how to get the ship where it’s going. Plots courses and is generally responsible for knowing where the ship is. Might sound simple, but those warp space equations are not easy, and nor is making sure your not going to run into a planet. 

S C I E N C E 

They are in charge of the science of space! Even just traveling through space, there is a lot to be learn, a lot of data to be captured. Not to mention when they are at an object of interest; lots of scans to be run. 

C O M M U N I C A T I O N S 

Communications has two aspects to it: internal and external. There are internal communications within the ship that they are concerned with: the intraship message system, check ins with the different decks and departments when ship wide orders need confirmation from them. 

There’s also the external communications: sending out transmissions, processing incoming signals, scanning near space for messages, handling hails and vidmessages on the bridge.