Hi, in another thread I had a doubt, but maybe this is the best place to asnwer it We know that the Enterprise-D canonically has 1000 people on board regularly. But, according to you folks (or according to some some official source) a) how many of these are part of the actual crew and how many are family members? b) of the actual crew, how many are necessary for the regular operation of the ship and how many are scientists etc (i.e. people who are not responsible for the operation of the ship) c) what could be the absolutely minimum number of crew for the operation of the vessel? It has been repeatedly said that one person is enough to drive the Enterprise-D, but I assume only for an uneventful trip. I suppose there will be a minimum of staff for shifts, necessary repairs etc.
In addition to 1000 officers and crew, a Galaxy class can accommodate 200 visitors, and 15 000 for evacuation. Presumably, 250 officers and crew are on duty per shift, if shifts are 6 hours each, and double/triple shifts aren’t accounted for. Presumably, that means at minimum, 80 science division officers are on duty per shift. As well as 80 command division officers for ops and the conn. And at least 40 officers for engineering division, if the other 40 officers are the security division. And presumably, some of these officers and crew have children. Several classrooms, and they have a dozen students each, then no more than 84 children aboard. Now, if there are 84 children aboard and are included in 1000 crew, then really there are only 916 officers aboard. Meaning 229 officers on duty per 6 hour shift. Meaning 76 science division officers on duty per shift, 76 command division officers per shift, and at least 38 engineering officers and 38 security officers per shift. But, if children are included in 200 visitors instead of 1000 crew - which is possible, as personnel do transfer to other assignments - then that leaves 116 visitor spots, and does not affect the number of officers and crew on duty. For an example of a skeleton crew, "Descent, Part II" is a good example. At least 8 officers on board (the CMO as the commanding officer, 1 science division officer, 2 security division officers, 2 engineering officers, and 2 command division officers) while most of the crew is on the surface. Plus unseen civilian personnel (Guinan, Mott) and children remaining on board..
Why assume 6 hour shifts? 8 would make more sense so the three shifts cover a full 24-hour period (albeit with rest breaks so you might have been counting those - 2 hours is about right).
They didn't explicitly said in the Jellico episode the Enterprise had 3 shifts and the new Captain wanted a new one?
I remember reading somewhere when TNG first debuted that thanks to its more automated systems, the Enterprise-D could be run with a crew no larger than that of the original Enterprise, but carried way more scientists and mission specialists. Such personnel could be only assigned to the ship for a short period of time during surveys to specific planets, star systems, and astronomical phenomena, so their numbers could always be in flux.
I’ve always figured that’s four shift rotation meant that everyone would have two shifts on, two shifts off, instead of one and two. This would mean a larger number of people active in any given shift, resulting in more work done and more readiness for action even in times of standard operations . There would also be increased flexibility in terms of working extra or split shifts over 24 hours in case any tasks needed more crew. The trade off of course is that everyone would have less overall free time on most days, even if there could be a day or two a week where they may have to work only one shift in a day to make up for it. This could be deemed acceptable for a more military-minded Captain like Jellico. And if they ever implemented it on DS9, at least they had more hours in a day anyway so they would have more time overall to work with. Mark
"Say, this is a nice ship!" "I love the decor!" "This beige is so relaxing." "Have you seen the squash court? Top notch!" "The holodecks are self-cleaning! Very handy."
Spoiler: Various Duty Shift configuration Tables My preference is for: · 4x 6-Hr Shift Sections split amongst 7x Teams using a shifting schedule = 24 hr Work-Week per person. · NOTE: This is MY PREFERENCE, this allows for a better overall balance during work and for training / side jobs along with trading shifts as needed to make up or take away some extra work based on various situations. This allows for 24 hrs of work per week and 15 hrs of non primary work time dedicated to “training, learning side jobs, learning side skills, projects, etc”. · This allows for ~61.54% of your time dedicated to work & ~38.46% of your time dedicated to non primary work. · You get 3x Days of the week off to do “Other Training/Work/Rest” · Split the Teams/Shifts into RGB & CYMK = Red/Green/Blue & Cyan/Yellow/Magenta/Black · Allow the Officers who work there to flexibly schedule when they want to do their 4x 6-Hr shifts · The 24-hr work week on your primary job allows the most flexibility for the XO to change to other permuations that allow for 24-hr work weeks while maintaining Primary Job and / Other Job balance. Given how large StarFleet should be in terms of personnel #'s, you should have plenty of people to form 7x Shift Teams that rotate on a standard 4x 6-Hr Shift Section
Given that most people are only productive for about 3 hrs per day (roughly), you'd have better options to have 8x4 hr shift sections. That way, people only have to work for 4 hrs a day. Given the scale of automation in the 23rd and 24th century, there's no reason to force the crew to work for 6 or 8 hrs per day (and every day on top of this) unless there is an emergency and an actual need to be on duty for prolonged periods.
I remember a blog post talking about work in the future suggesting it was very likely that people on the Enterprise-D didn't work what we considered a full-time day, especially given how much time they had for hobbies.
Most of my 26-year USAF career was working rotating shifts, 8-hour shifts, Days/Swings/Mids. A typical rotation was four Days, two off, four Swings, two off, four Mids, two off, back to Days, etc, etc, etc. You need a minimum of five people to cover 24/7 ops with this kind of schedule, but that doesn't allow for leave and other time away (school), so you really need six or seven people.
Given how large StarFleet is supposed to be, with contributions to personnel from every UFP Member species and some from outside, the quantity of talent should easily fill all those shifts and beyond.
Do you remember that episode where Wesley, a supposed genius boy, had to pass an incredible difficult exam to enter in the Academy and failed? How that did even make sense?
This. There was an episode of VOY at the start of Season 5 (the Void I think) where there were no vissible stars in a radius of 2500 Ly's. One of the main problems I had with this episode was that the crew was portrayed as being asbolutely bored out of their skulls. I would have thought this would have been a great opportunity to showcase that the crew of VOY would have been occupied with different personal things such as R&D of new technologies and science, building stuff, creating new artistic works... and that they would have appreciated the 'reprieve' from weekly surges of 'action' and 'drama' that happened. Instead, we get this absolutely ridiculous portrayal that somehow not having any stars in the immediate vicinity for exploration would be a cause for boredom. The void in itself could have been extensively studied on how it was formed and could have created a mini story arc for exploration alongside the things I mentioned. I loved VOY, but the writers with each new season seemed to have progressively abandoned an 'enlightened' approach and different behaviors that beings living in the Federation would exhibit as a result of a different/better environment compared to what we have now.
I had the same issue with that episode of LDS calling a twelve-hour transit a "long-haul warp." It's a ship, not an airplane, "long trip" is relative. Twelve hours means most of the crew would either be asleep during their special day off or have been off-shift and doing their own thing anyway.
Pretty much. Plus, unlike an airplane, you're not confined to a sitting position for 12 hours. You can walk about the ship, go to the holodeck, do R&D with just the computer and devise a ridiculous amount of highly advanced new science and technology in that time frame (you know how fast I was able to find solutions to various issues from real life tech problems and devised new approaches and code with ChatGPT 3.5? Obscene amount of stuff in the space of just 4 hrs... and Trek has far more advanced computer systems, precision and extrapolation capabilities that NO ONE seems to be using).