It occurs to me suddenly that a story about the crew of a Federation tug would be kind of interesting.
This raises a question...what kind of ships are the lowest performing officers assigned to? It's almost like tugs would just be utility ships operated by an engineering crew out of a starbase or planetary installation.
It also kinda reminds me of some parts of fanfiction I wrote. someone who liked to research uninteresting stars that were charted only once by old ship with 3-4 number registries, without a naming lineage, with crew who as best retired as captains that never had commendations, buildings or installations names after them.
Not ships, but bases. Like subspace relays that have a two-person crew. Or the first Star Fleet base the Prodigy kids ran across, which was crewed by a single Denobulan.
(Which must have been torture, given that Denobulans have even tighter social bonds than humans.)
The one subspace relay crew we see (TNG: Aquiel) is clearly not considered the best of Star Fleet.
There are a lot of little things like this that could be explored. I've also thought about a new federation supported colony on a new planet.
Come on, it was right there...
Star truck?