A transfer or reassignment was where an individual was moved from one position, department, or assignment to another, by either order or request, sometimes as part of a punishment or reward, which often took the form of a promotion or demotion.
New transfers were often instructed to meet with their orientation liaison. (LD: "Second Contact")
During the early 2380s, for an officer to be transferred to Starbase 80 was among the worst penalties available for non-criminal infractions – one some commanders considered needlessly cruel and were unwilling to resort to. (LD: "Reflections")
Notable transfers[]
In 2266, Lieutenant Kevin Riley was assigned to the communications section of the USS Enterprise, having previously come up from the engineering decks. Shortly thereafter, when Captain James T. Kirk believed that an actor which had been brought aboard the ship was, in actuality, Kodos the Executioner, who had murdered Riley's family twenty years previously, he had Riley transferred back down to engineering in an attempt to keep Riley out of harm's way. When issuing the order to Spock, the first officer noted that Riley was "[..] a fine young officer. He's bound to consider this transfer a disciplinary action." (TOS: "The Conscience of the King")
In his career, prior to 2365, Jean-Luc Picard had been transferred "dozens of times", each of which was preceded by what he called "the practice of the feast before the transfer." (TNG: "A Matter Of Honor")
In 2380, after taking credit for inadvertently saving the USS Cerritos from the Drookmani, Ensign Fletcher was commended by Commander Jack Ransom, who stated, "Fletcher demonstrated the sort of selfless heroism that Starfleet's all about. It's that heroism that earned him a promotion and a transfer to the Titan!" (LD: "Terminal Provocations")
Later that year, Commander Andy Billups chastised Lieutenant Cody for being "out of line", after Cody brought up Shaxs' resurrection in front of Shaxs and the entire engineering staff, and consequently ordered Cody to "report to your supervisor for immediate reassignment." (LD: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris")