Travelling Community

[JirinPanthosa]

Voyager had some very well written episodes.

But really, they could have committed more to the premise of 'One ship, alone' and still been light and episodic. That wasn't an either-or there.

They could have been short on supplies, started feeling a little cabin fever, had random crewmen deciding to leave and settle down, made alliances, had more families, and so on, without sacrificing their principles. Heck, the show seemed like it was built for having dozens of small recurring roles, but they didn't even have as much as TNG, and they were a ship with a thousand people and people coming and going all the time.

I dunno, maybe leola root is a natural libido suppressant.

[MacLeod]

teacake wrote:

---

It gets discussed in Elogium.

CHAKOTAY: If it does take seventy five years, we're going to need a replacement crew in about half that time.
JANEWAY: Who'd have thought we'd be considering a generational ship when we were ordered on a three week mission.
CHAKOTAY: I know, but it's a problem we have to face now.
JANEWAY: What would that mean for the children? What kind of life would we be giving them aboard a starship, travelling through a potentially hostile part of space? And are we equipped to provide for their needs? Child care, educational facilities. We'd be building an entire community on board this ship. That's a massive commitment.
CHAKOTAY: Are you prepared to tell them they can't have children?
JANEWAY: I can't do that. And I've made it clear to Kes that it's her choice whether to have a child or not, but. There aren't any easy answers here. For any of us.

I think though that they've seen enough magic fixes, wormholes, the other Caretaker that they are still hoping for some kind of breakthrough. Once they established some communication with the Alpha quadrant that would have kept that hope alive as well. When did the E2 crew in ENT decide they needed to be a generational ship? Not in the first few years I'm sure.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Just because they had seen some magic fixes as you put it doesn't mean that they'll continue to find them.

[teacake]

Of course not. But deciding to breed is a huge step. Not just the relationship element, because if they did get home early it's something that's always going to be there but the practicality of at some point having a lot more people on the ship.

Kind of weird too to be a child conceived only so you could be trained to fly the ship home. If they were serious about this they would have to pretty much decide to go for it, pair up and start producing offspring. They couldn't leave it to random romances. A handful of children would not be enough. That's a pretty big social engineering choice for the ship to make and I'm not surprised they didn't start a few years in.

[Guy Gardener]

No one got pregnant in The Killing Game using authentic birth control from the 1940s if any.

Lets hope that they were patient enough to have 24th century abortions and didn't have to resort to the graphic intrusion I saw in American Horror Asylum Last month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Louise_Giraud

French Law, nothing to do with the Nazi Occupation, said that persons who preformed abortions were guillotined between the years 1939 and 1945. Either side of that, Abortionists were fined and received light jail time.

[teacake]

Huh, I didn't know about that.

As to the Killing Game, I think I've speculated before that B'Elanna's pregnancy was a holo-bump pressing into her stomach from the outside. Might have been useful if you were in a long role playing holo adventure and your character became pregnant.

[Guy Gardener]

The hollobump wasn't real, even though it was Roxannes real bump.

Half(? a 13rd?) the crew including Naomi were confined to quarters.

Everyone thought that they were their aliases and fucked and killed as if their aliases were real.

Their FRENCH aliases.

Janeway ran a brothel for frakks sake!

On the other holodeck?

Neelix was a Klingon General who just won a war.

From what we know about Klingon excess, at the victory party he would have fucked everyone with a pulse.

I suppose all the men he had sex with wouldn't have resulted in many pregnancies, but there were girls everywhere too.

[teacake]

Martok/Neelix slash would be GLORIOUS.

"KITCHEN RAT!! PREPARE TO BE BOARDED!!"

[R. Star]

teacake wrote:

---

Martok/Neelix slash would be GLORIOUS.

"KITCHEN RAT!! PREPARE TO BE BOARDED!!"

General Martok is dishonorably discharged from the Klingon Defense Force.

[Melakon]

If they had gone generational though, with about 150 crew aboard, would there be enough genetic diversity to avoid inbreeding? Was the male to female ratio ever specified?

[MacLeod]

teacake wrote:

---

Of course not. But deciding to breed is a huge step. Not just the relationship element, because if they did get home early it's something that's always going to be there but the practicality of at some point having a lot more people on the ship.

Kind of weird too to be a child conceived only so you could be trained to fly the ship home. If they were serious about this they would have to pretty much decide to go for it, pair up and start producing offspring. They couldn't leave it to random romances. A handful of children would not be enough. That's a pretty big social engineering choice for the ship to make and I'm not surprised they didn't start a few years in.

The operative word being IF, but you have to consider other factors.

Loss of crew members
How long before the oldest crew member would need replacing?
You would perhaps be talking 17 years before the first person would be able to be trained to take over from another crew.

[lurok]

It was a big mistake getting rid of the Borg baby.

[Guy Gardener]

Melakon wrote:

---

If they had gone generational though, with about 150 crew aboard, would there be enough genetic diversity to avoid inbreeding? Was the male to female ratio ever specified?

These people are not hillbillies, unless you mean that what if it was a longer trip than 70 years?

On a seventy year trip, maybe the great grand children were being born.

30 breeding couples safely produce 15 genetically similar groups of offspring, who safely produce 7 genetically similar groups of offspring, who safely produce 2 groups of genetically similar offspring who safey produce children who have to fuck their cousins.

4 generations, by my count, before these people get into trouble, which they would take 350 years to arrive at in the good old fashioned way.

If they allow cousin boffing from the beginning, it will prolong the point before obvious problems show up.

If they insist on key parties, and make sure that evey woman has as amny baby dadies as possible and not the same baby daddy twice then they might even be able to last perpetually.

Chakotay's estimation of needing crew replacements in 30 years is becuase he's lazy and wants to retire. In all honesty none of the human crew are going to start dying of old age for at least a century or a century and a half, using mcCoy as a yardstick.

[hux]

Breeding to produce crew replacements doesn't really make much sense as it's a bit clinical - but i think people hooking up and maybe the occasional child being a product of that would have been more realistic - people must have been screwing each other endlessly throughout the journey (we know Paris got his end away with at least one of the Delaney sisters) but why no reference to any of the other relationships going on....no kids, no marriages, no nothing.....i mean, sure there was Chakotay catching two crew members kissing in the turbo lift and it was given a passing mention in some of the early episodes but then................nothing!

we're just supposed to drop it cos hey, we did a couple of early episodes where we mentioned that it might happen so we're covered.....not good enough really (and not realistic for a community who believe their entire lives will spent on that travelling city ship)

[Guy Gardener]

How many men walked into the Doctors office in the first week asking for a vasectomy?

How many women walked into the doctors office in the first week asking the 24th century surgical magic off button equivalent that's way less "the end" than getting your tubes tied?

"I don't want to bring children into this world."

It's possible that no matter what preparations for a generational ship Janeway took, 3 quarters of the crew could have (temporarily) sterilized themselves for very good reasons.

[Melakon]

Guy Gardener wrote:

---

. . .3 quarters of the crew could have (temporarily) sterilized themselves for very good reasons.

Number 1 of which would be to prevent scores of Neelix, Juniors* from spreading across the galaxy.


* = Or Harry Kim, Juniors, whichever is more distasteful.