Female Captains poll

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by BrentMc, May 30, 2012.

?

Do you want to see more female captains in Star Trek Novels?

  1. Yes. Beam me up!

    27 vote(s)
    71.1%
  2. No. I am a sexist pig

    11 vote(s)
    28.9%
  1. BrentMc

    BrentMc Commander Red Shirt

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    I would like to see more female captains at the center of Star Trek novels. I really like Ezri Dax as captain of the Aventine. Who else wants to see more female captains?
     
  2. zarkon

    zarkon Captain Captain

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    Ahahaha, that's quite the loaded poll.

    Don't really care whether it's a he, a she, a s/he or an it, as long as they're interesting, which rules out Ezri as far as I'm concerned. Of recent ones, I really liked Captain Farkas in Children of the Storm.

    guess that counts as a yes.
     
  3. BrentMc

    BrentMc Commander Red Shirt

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    The poll options are of course meant to be a joke. I will have to read Children of the storm. Thanks for the tip.
     
  4. Defcon

    Defcon Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That's pretty much what I meant to post.
     
  5. zarkon

    zarkon Captain Captain

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    Just as long as you're aware she doesn't feature hugely in it(part of a nine ship fleet so unavoidable), but the fleet commander(Afsarah Eden) is also a woman. And it's a fantastic book.

    Would have loved her to be "fleet captain" instead though, would have been a cool TOS callback.
     
  6. Mage

    Mage Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    There's definatly been a good share of female captains, both human and alien, in TrekLit.

    Vanguard had two, DS9 had captain Kira, and the female captain of the Gryphon (perhaps more that I'm forgetting). Voyager had Eden as Voyager's captain first, then as Fleet Captain. And there have been so much more in other parts.
     
  7. Gotham Central

    Gotham Central Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well with the exception of New Frontier and Vanguard, all of the trek books have been led by established characters. So really what you're asking is which established female character could serve as the center of her own series?

    Uhura
    Troi
    Crusher-Picard
    Dax (already captain of the Aventine)
    Kira (Lead character in the DS9 Relaunch)
    Torres
    Seven of Nine

    Of those, the only character that I could see as a potential lead is Beverly Crusher-Picard as the captain of a medical ship. That would not be entirely out of order given what we saw in "All Good Things..." and it would be a new/unique series since we've never had a trek lit series that focused exclusively on Medicine. Given what has happened post Destiny, a book series about the USS Pasteur as a roving hospital could actually be interesting. Plus, if Pocket decides to embrace the Countdown comics then Jean Luc will be due for retirement from Starfleet at some point to become an Ambassador. That would open up the possibility for Beverly to leave the Enterprise and assume command of her own ship. The only thing I would not want is for them to break up the Picards.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2012
  8. BrentMc

    BrentMc Commander Red Shirt

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    It could be someone entirely new.
     
  9. BrentMc

    BrentMc Commander Red Shirt

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    There have been many female captains, but how many stories have they led? It seems to me to be relatively few. Voyager and Janeway is an obvious exception. There are many Voyager books.

    I wouldn't mind an new ship with a female Captain even if it didn't have established characters.
     
  10. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Count me in the sexist pig camp.

    Seriously, I don't care as long as the character is well written.
     
  11. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    We've actually gotten quite a few female captains in Trek Lit, so I don't know if we need more, but I wouldn't be against new ones popping up.
     
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I refer the reader to the words of Greg Rucka:

    So do we want to see "female captains," or do we want to see captains who are well-drawn characters with distinctive and varying traits, including different genders?
     
  13. Kertrats47

    Kertrats47 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    To heck with that, I want to see the first cogenitor captain! They've been held back long enough!

    In all seriousness though, I strongly agree with what Christopher just posted. I want to see interesting, distinctive characters with a multitude of traits, not just "hey, it's a woman captain, how progressive!" or "wow, a person who is a Native North American, let's focus on only that!"
     
  14. BrentMc

    BrentMc Commander Red Shirt

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    I am not saying that we should have more female captains to balance it out or be progressive. I am way beyond that. I think you guys may be confused because the options on the poll were meant to be a joke.

    Strong characters are very important to me. I am not saying go write a story with a female captain to be politically correct or anything like that. I'm just saying I welcome any new stories featuring a female captain. I would love to see more of Ezri Dax and the Aventine. I enjoyed reading Erica Hernandez in Destiny, I would love to read a story of her and the Columbia before the crash. It was also nice to read about Rachel Garret in the Lost Era series.
     
  15. Shon T'Hara

    Shon T'Hara Commander Red Shirt

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    Ideally Trek should strive for a 50/50 split. Unfortunately the TV shows and movies never got there -- in TOS they weren't even allowed in command, and even with Next Gen era shows, the Janeways and Scotts were outnumbered by the dudes. Treklit is doing a much better job, though I haven't been keeping track to see how close to parity it is.

    What about Saavik? She's already been established as a captain in the Vulcan's Soul series, and given the Vulcan/Romulan lifespan, she has plenty of time for adventures.

    On a side note, everyone should check out the anime Bodacious Space Pirates (based upon the novel Miniskirt Space Pirates -- yes, really). The two main characters are basically female versions of Kirk and Spock.

    [​IMG]
     
  16. BrentMc

    BrentMc Commander Red Shirt

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    I agree completely. This is exactly what I want, but if a new, exciting well-drawn female captain were to come along in a new book I would welcome it. The options in the poll were just me being silly.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Well, no -- the last episode of TOS seemed to claim (or at least had a paranoid schizophrenic character claim) that women couldn't be captains, but that same episode also contained some continuity errors (like saying General Order 4 was the death penalty rather than GO 7) and was just generally pretty stupid. I don't think its claims can be considered binding on the entire series, especially since the Enterprise had a female first officer in the original pilot and she did command the ship for most of the episode while Pike was held captive.
     
  18. BrentMc

    BrentMc Commander Red Shirt

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    While I welcome more stories with female captains, I don't feel like Star Trek should aim for a quota to be politically correct.
     
  19. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I want to see Guinan and Leeta given the chance to be captains.
     
  20. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    And I agree, it would be silly to do it by the numbers and make sure there was one female captain for every male captain. That's making the same mistake Rucka so eloquently shot down, defining characters by their gender above all else. Just create characters, make them different from each other in a variety of ways, and don't reduce them to single traits or simplistic formulae.