How likely do you think it is that some of the nameless supposedly Human officers on Kirk's Enterprise were in fact members of alien races that only appeared very Human outwardly?
Human or not?
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
- Start date
Given the propensity that the TOS crew ran across "humanoid" life forms that for all intents and purposes were identical to humans (save for their costuming), I think there's a 100% chance of that being the case.
Last edited:
I think unlikely only because I think we have to assume they are human unless we are told otherwise, and we are never told otherwise.
There are special cases where human-looking aliens are out of the question unless specified - Betazoids can't have been part of Kirk's crew since the heroes were so worried about telepathy when encountering it, say.
Apart from those, I guess many of Kirk's crew could have been nonhumans. After all, there's nothing in the show to indicate that there would not have been nonhumans besides Spock aboard. If a space disease or the like strikes the crew and Spock is the odd man out, affected worse or less, this is stated to be specific to his Vulcan heritage; we can easily assume the Backgroudian heritage of Crewman Nowan would not have protected him and therefore warrants no mention.
Timo Saloniemi
Apart from those, I guess many of Kirk's crew could have been nonhumans. After all, there's nothing in the show to indicate that there would not have been nonhumans besides Spock aboard. If a space disease or the like strikes the crew and Spock is the odd man out, affected worse or less, this is stated to be specific to his Vulcan heritage; we can easily assume the Backgroudian heritage of Crewman Nowan would not have protected him and therefore warrants no mention.
Timo Saloniemi
You'd be surprised how often I look in the mirror and have a similar thought process:
"Can that really be human?"
On the other hand it's established throughout the franchise that a great many species either happen to look very similar to humans or are descended from humans who have been at some stage been transplanted by elder species for whatever balmy reason.
So, overuse of Occam's Razor aside, I'm happy to role with "very possibly"
"Can that really be human?"
On the other hand it's established throughout the franchise that a great many species either happen to look very similar to humans or are descended from humans who have been at some stage been transplanted by elder species for whatever balmy reason.
So, overuse of Occam's Razor aside, I'm happy to role with "very possibly"
Sure. At the same time, they do say somewhere, in Making Of probably, that starship crews are made up mostly of one species to make working together easier, whatever one may think of a policy like that... A few human-looking non-humans can still be there, since Spock is.
They were all Corellian. 
While it's certainly possible that some of the humanoid crew on Kirk's Enterprise were actually aliens, I still tend to believe that they were really human. TOS seemed to generally imply that Spock was pretty much the only alien on the ship. While I can recall several instances of Kirk saying that he had 430 crewmen on board the ship, I don't remember any time where Kirk or McCoy said they had crewmen from 14 different worlds, or something like that. So I'm inclined to think they didn't.
I suppose that some of them could be humans from off-world Earth colonies like Alpha Centauri, though.
While it's certainly possible that some of the humanoid crew on Kirk's Enterprise were actually aliens, I still tend to believe that they were really human. TOS seemed to generally imply that Spock was pretty much the only alien on the ship. While I can recall several instances of Kirk saying that he had 430 crewmen on board the ship, I don't remember any time where Kirk or McCoy said they had crewmen from 14 different worlds, or something like that. So I'm inclined to think they didn't.
I suppose that some of them could be humans from off-world Earth colonies like Alpha Centauri, though.
Mirror Spock had a Vulcan guard. Wonder whether he was on the prime Enterprise as well (seeing as most of the crew had counterparts there)
Almost certainly.
As that was a different universe and some of the crew personnel was different (Mirror-Marlena had obviously been with Mirror-Kirk for a while, while Prime-Marlena just transferred aboard "last week"), I would guess that the Mirror-Enterprise had more Vulcans than "our" Enterprise did. Heck, maybe they had a higher crew complement than 430, since they had a need for things like personal guards & such that the regular Enterprise didn't have.
Besides, if the Enterprise had any other Vulcans aboard, I would think it would've at least been mentioned in one of the other 78 episodes, and McCoy would have been more familiar with treating them. (In my head canon, McCoy brought Dr. M'Benga aboard after the trouble he had treating Vulcans in "Journey to Babel.")
I would say not as it was never addressed in the series. The only alien member mentioned seemed to be Spock unless you are referring to Mr.Norman, but he was an android and strangely enough believed to be a human crewman!
JB
JB
I think that was just in WNMHGB and the person expressing the most concern is Spock!
JTB mentions there are other Vulcans on board. Crew or Sarek's entourage is not specified.
I don't recall McCoy having any problems with treating Vulcans in JTB. The problem was finding enough of Sarek's blood type. And then filtering out the human elements in Spock's blood. Oh and being under attack at the time of the operation .
Poor, Bones. He gets Doc blocked by Spock and Sarek in that scene.
ETA: Chapel mentions having Vulcan blood and plasma on board. I assume this would be for Vulcan crewmembers.
Last edited:
It makes a whole lot of sense, IMO. When we are re-introduced to Kirk's Enterprise in TMP, which takes place only a couple of years later in story-time, there are aliens all over the place in the rec-dec scene. Not to mention Ilia and Ensign Forehead on the bridge who both had speaking roles.
It makes a whole lot of sense to me that aliens were all over the place, but just never seen (or not obvious). Although they did make reference once to Intrepid being crewed entirely by Vulcans, I find it doubtful that they could have pulled off such a successful multi-species integration on the Enterprise within only a couple of years.
It makes a whole lot of sense to me that aliens were all over the place, but just never seen (or not obvious). Although they did make reference once to Intrepid being crewed entirely by Vulcans, I find it doubtful that they could have pulled off such a successful multi-species integration on the Enterprise within only a couple of years.
I've always assumed that they were part of Sarek's entourage. They were ferrying over a hundred passengers in that episode.
IMO, having other Vulcan crew members aboard the Enterprise during the 5YM seriously dilutes Spock's character, as it makes him no longer unique. TOS Spock should always be the type of person who's all alone in a crowd. (This is the same reason I dislike the idea of Spock having a Vulcan half-brother who embraces emotion.)
On the other hand, D.C. Fontana had lots of Vulcan crew members aboard Pike's Enterprise in her novel Vulcan's Glory, so maybe in her mind there were other Vulcans aboard the Enterprise during TOS. Might be an interesting question to ask her some time.
These other Vulcans may have been serving in departments that had little need to head down on away teams, in roles such as mathematicians, chemists, ship's systems technicians. We would never see it, and Kirk would have little reason to interact with them, being as they didn't leave the ship often, but they'd face the same I-don't-understand-you thing on a smaller scale among their immediate co-workers.
I would have liked to have seen Spock commiserating with full Vulcan crew members from other departments.
I would have liked to have seen Spock commiserating with full Vulcan crew members from other departments.
The guy who played Mirror Spock's Vulcan guard also appeared as one of Sarek's aides in "Journey to Babel". He has a different haircut in both and doesn't speak in either show or even have a name, but just for the hell of it I like to pretend that he's two different versions of the same Vulcan.
Edit: I just looked him up. His name is Russ Peek.
Last edited:
Similar threads
