Crew Numbers

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by Tom, Jan 13, 2009.

  1. Tom

    Tom Vice Admiral Admiral

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    So I have been re-watching Voyager again from the begining and have got up to to season 4. A few things regarding the crew I have wondered about.

    - How many Maquis were there to start? 50?

    - How could that many Maquis be on Chakotay's little ship, is it a TARDIS?

    - Seem's like there were much more Maquis to leave the show via betrayels or 'redshirt' death vs acually Starfleet members.

    - At the beginning of season 2 (The 37's), it was stated that there was 152 members of the crew (not including Seska since she left in season 1) At the end of season 3 it was mentioned in 2 episodes the there was 148 people on Voyager. So in 2 seasons we lost only 4 people? I can think of at least 7 off the top of my head that died:

    - Crewmember Bendara (Maquis) that died in sickbay in 'Alliance'
    - Lon Suter (Basics pt2) (Maquis)
    - Crewmember Darwin that Suter killed (Meld) (Starfleet)
    - Jonas (Investigations) (Maquis)
    - Hogan (Basics pt2) (Maquis)
    - Unknown Blue shirt ensign eaten by dinosaur in 'Basics Pt2' (Starfleet)
    - Ensign Kapplin killed in 'Unity' (Starfleet)

    I believe there were about 2 or 3 more in there somewhere, I have to look again at the episodes. Still did Voyager possibly take on more crew some where in Season 2 and 3? Don't even mention the Equinox crew since that was much later on.

    We know they could replace Photon Torpedoes and Shuttle Craft, but crewmembers too, wow! :)
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2009
  2. JNG

    JNG Chief of Staff, Starfleet Command Rear Admiral

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    I don't see anything especially strange at all about the ship taking on new crew members. It happened with some main cast and recurring characters, and surely could happen offscreen. I am sure the novel and fanfic writers are made more comfortable by the added crew/passengers and accompanying suggestion that plenty of interesting events take place offscreen, even if this was never the intention of the series creators (though it could have been so).

    Of course, many of the times the number of crew was quoted could have been approximations, blurring the issue somewhat. But overall it does seem as if they have picked up new crew members.

    Running the numbers, it does start to seem as if there could have been as many as 50 people on board Chakotay's Maquis vessel. The ship could hold them, but only in very cramped conditions. I don't believe its regular crew complement is that large; perhaps the Maquis ship was shuttling some members from one Badlands outpost to another, or something like that. They didn't all seem to know exactly what they were doing in space or to follow Chakotay's orders especially well, so this might reinforce the idea that they were just being shuttled on the ship.
     
  3. USS Fardell

    USS Fardell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    It seems possible that Voyager would be picking up people on the way if they had something to offer. (Like Neelix and Kes did)
     
  4. Tom

    Tom Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well later on it became the Borg and Equonix reject shuttle.

    Oops, i did forget a new addition in season 2, Naomi Wildman. I wonder if anyone else had a child in season 2 or 3.
     
  5. jongredic

    jongredic Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I think there was definitely some secret cloning experiment going on on the lower decks.

    I was trying to keep count how many people were on the ship using the season 3 references of 148. I think up to the beginning of season 5 I'd got the number of crewmen to about 130ish. Suddenly season 5 starts making mention of the magic 150 again, and I think even once goes as far as to say that it's a roughly even split between men and women.

    Dark Frontier revises the figure to a definite 143, and as I recall, there aren't too many redshirt deaths for the rest of season 5, nor season 6 from what I remember - aside from a couple of offscreen deaths in Equinox, which are more than made up for by the addition of Equinox's crew. But the crew number does get revised to 150 quite often.

    I don't know how other people do approximations, but I wouldn't really think 150 is an accurate enough number to describe 143 (or less) people.

    I think there's a site that tries to keep track of the crew, those mentioned by name (which are mostly human names), those mentioned in text and from appearances of actual extras, and the figure is nowhere near 150, but much much higher. So they've obviously got some special kind of replicator somewhere ;)


    EDIT - I just found this thread on another forum. One of the posters tries to do a season by season crew tally, but makes use of miraculous resurrections to keep the crew numbers up :p Followed by a list of named crewmen from the Voyager companion.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2009
  6. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, 150 could be the way to round your crew numbers if the other alternatives you are thinking of are 100 and 200, respectively. A bit coarse, but the figure was usually meant to be coarse when the 150 thing was quoted.

    When sprouting her propaganda, Janeway could be thinking in terms of "my ship doesn't have 1,000 crew like some in Starfleet, but it does have about 150", not in terms of micromanaging every pair of nostrils. And it would be more questionable to round down than to round up even if she micromanaged down to the second digit - it just won't do to "kill" your crew that way. ;)

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  7. 2 of 10

    2 of 10 Captain Captain

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    When was Lyndsay Ballard killed, I recall that Harry stated that they were attacked by an Hirogen hunting party, which would have put her death in season in season 4. In Ashes to Ashes (season 6) Janeway mentions that Ensine Ballard had been killed years earlier.
     
  8. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I saw a very detailed website once, which listed all the details they could come by, and there were 90ish crewmen who were named and nearly 30 crewmen who had died or decided to leave Voyager.

    Lots of details are out their if you can find them.
     
  9. jongredic

    jongredic Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Between Hunters and Prey if I'm not mistaken.