Actually, Council members tend to have a wee bit more power and authority over a ship's captain than a "counselor."
And that's what comes of me not checking spellings before posting.
Going back to the 'command crew' though, the real questions you need to think about are:
'How big is the ship?' - The bigger the ship, the more things it has and the more it needs.
'How big is the bridge?' - The bridge is the main nerve centre of a ship, most people will have at least one station per section/department here, more on larger ships, less on smaller.
'How big is the crew?' - Obviously the bigger the crew, the more people you have to play with. A small ship with a large crew is going to be stuck for space, while a large one with a small crew will rattle. Likewise, more people equates to more departments and longer chain of command.
'How many departments are there?' - You need at least a Command, Engineering and Maintenance, but most ships carry Sensors/Electronics, Gunnery, Medical and Security as well. All ships will have a cargo handling group, which may be under maintenance or seperate. Security might cover marines, or be replaced by them, or be as well as them. Likewise Science could be in with Medical or seperate to them. You also need Flight section for anything that carries strikes (smaller craft, particularly combat ones).
'Is the ship a civilian vessel or a military one?' - Civilians have a different chain of command to military, and will likely not need some things that the military use.
'Are there any departments outside the normal chain of command?' - Commonly you will see marines that aren't involved in ship security and flight personnel here, but it could also include temporary assignments like science or diplomatic staff.
For one of my own ships, I would have the captain, executive officer, third officer, science officer, chief medical officer, commander air group, marine commander, tactical officer and communications officer at least in most big meetings. Of course, my ships are military ships, and they tend to get into trouble fairly often, but those would be the main people to sort problems aboard ship, then you would have the task force commander and the ship captains meeting above that and intra-departmental metings below.
