Sisko taking his family into battle
- Thread starter GulBahana
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Great question, Star Fleet thought they were prepared for the Borg but like First Contact there's a sign of hubris.
Just no...
That is from "The Best of Both Worlds I". There was no hubris. There was fear.
I just assumed they all got the call late and didn't have time to drop Jennifer and Jake off. The Enterprise didn't dump their civilians, and they had at least a couple of day's grace. If you're going to live on a Starship, you probably accept there's a possibility you won't be as safe as if you lived on Earth.
Star Trek: Generations was a good example with the windows smashing on civilians when the saucer crashed on the planet.
[/quote]If you're going to live on a Starship, you probably accept there's a possibility you won't be as safe as if you lived on Earth.[/quote]
In this specific case, it's exactly the opposite: Earth is going to be assimilated, while the Saratoga can flee. Or if she cannot, then she can at least be blown up so that Jennifer and Jake will be killed rather than assimilated.
Timo Saloniemi
In this specific case, it's exactly the opposite: Earth is going to be assimilated, while the Saratoga can flee. Or if she cannot, then she can at least be blown up so that Jennifer and Jake will be killed rather than assimilated.
Timo Saloniemi
Families on board starships seemed to be unique to the Galaxy Class, except for this one incident. I figure that Jennifer was a civilian scientist working on board, and Jake was with them since they were both there. Remember that mirror-Jennifer was a scientist, so it's possible the regular one was as well.
How could we tell that there weren't families aboard every other starship, when we never really saw into any other starship?
There are two Starfleet hero ships in the spinoffs where civilian family members are an explicit exception, and few in number: the Defiant (an occasional ride for Jake or Kasidy) and the Voyager ("adopted family"). There are two where civilians are the norm or go without comment: the Enterprise-D and the Saratoga. There's one movie ship where we don't see families: the E-E. But no families are seen on the E-D in her one movie appearance, either. And nobody says there would not be families aboard those ships.
Apart from those, is there a 24th century ship where we would actually learn there are no civilians aboard? Our heroes meet several starships, but board few of them - and if they do, they only ever visit one set and interact with the top brass. Well, two sets with the DS9 Prometheus, but there the very person in charge was a civilian!
Timo Saloniemi
There are two Starfleet hero ships in the spinoffs where civilian family members are an explicit exception, and few in number: the Defiant (an occasional ride for Jake or Kasidy) and the Voyager ("adopted family"). There are two where civilians are the norm or go without comment: the Enterprise-D and the Saratoga. There's one movie ship where we don't see families: the E-E. But no families are seen on the E-D in her one movie appearance, either. And nobody says there would not be families aboard those ships.
Apart from those, is there a 24th century ship where we would actually learn there are no civilians aboard? Our heroes meet several starships, but board few of them - and if they do, they only ever visit one set and interact with the top brass. Well, two sets with the DS9 Prometheus, but there the very person in charge was a civilian!
Timo Saloniemi
There are other civilians, and children seen in the Saratoga's escape pod. Plus it was a civilian woman Sisko stopped in the corridor to ask where Jennifer was.
In EaF, Picard seemed chagrined that there were families on board the Enterprise. I interpreted it to mean that he had never had to deal with civilian families on board before, despite his long career as an officer and captain. It is possible that the Stargazer was an exception in that it had no families, or that it was a Starfleet-wide policy implemented between the loss of the Stargazer and the loss of the Enterprise. The design of the Galaxy class appeared to be conducive to families whereas the other ships were not.
D'oh! Sorry about a brain fart.
That's certainly valid, and no doubt also what the writer intended. It's just that the other possibility is that Picard was worried about this personal weakness of his every time he got a new ship to command.
Yet the only big difference appeared to be the saucer separation ability - and that one saw little or no use in the protection of the families anyway. The Saratoga could not separate, yet had families; the assorted starbases couldn't even move yet had families/civilians anyway.
Timo Saloniemi
I wonder whether it's possible that Saratoga wasn't intended to find itself in combat situations, and consequently, while not exactly "designed" for families, they were permitted.
Then the Borg came along, and since the Saratoga had weapons and the threat was immediate and severe, they were added to the fleet.
Then the Borg came along, and since the Saratoga had weapons and the threat was immediate and severe, they were added to the fleet.
Stargazer was a relatively old design, so may have lacked quarters for families OR been on short-term assignments that meant officers got home leave more frequently.
Alternatively, the E-D might just have been so much bigger that Picard couldn't escape the family thing... Stargazer might have had 1-3 families aboard that Picard was able to mentally ignore or delegate dealing with to his XO.
I hated those scenes. It's the future -- are you telling me by then they don't have glass that doesn't shatter into peices when it falls on you? That was so stupid. Look at what cars have had for I think at least a decade -- laminated windows (sorry, I don't know how long it's been used without looking into it), where it the glass gets punctured of ruptured because of body distress, the whole thing doesn't break into pieces all over the place. If I took a windowpane from today, the size of one of the peices that fell on and smashed to pieces on people in Generations, and let it fall on you from the same height in the same manner, what it's going to do is hurt your fucking head and break into a few big chunks, if at all. And don't get me started about the Bridge dome breaking open.
If you notice, by the next movie the Enterprise-E now has the magic force field Windows, instead of glass. Likely resulting in a huge saving on "waste disposal units". Picard could just wander down to deck 12 and pee on whatever planet he wished.
As for the family on the Saratoga? It was likely dependent on how long the ship was expected to operate in deep space. The deep space explorations ships like the Galaxy's were meant to stay out for years. So yeah family accommodations would be desired. A small ship like the Defiant has limited internal facilities (they're still awaiting Starfleets response to their attempt at requisitioning a Ping Pong table) and would be operating from a home base or port outside of time of war. It would rarely be gone more than a few weeks. A mid range ship like Voyager would probably depend on the ships specific assigned duty and fleet assignment. An exploration tasked ship might carry family. But Voyager when we first see it is more tasked for patrol, response and policing. She was probably mainly running inside Federation space or up against the borders on fairly known patrol arcs. She most likely returned to a home port once or twice a year.
I vaguely recall some WoK era book or sourcebook indicating that the Miranda's were intended for up to 3 year missions, instead of the Constitutions 5. Which would make sense to have some families on board. Also the families being on board may not have been a routine thing. They may simply have been in transit. Say the Saratoga was changing its home port? You would have seen some families move with it. The key point was the Saratoga was not intending to go into combat that day. She was doing some routine task deep within the heart of the Federation, fairly close to Earth when the Borg showed up. The opening scenes in Emissary would appear to be fairly early on during Wolf 359. Well prior to the full armada showing up and being devastated.
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