Vulcan Ship/Bases
- Thread starter Photon
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Why not? Given how many ships there are with an overwhelmingly human majority for its crew, why couldn't there be ships with a Vulcan majority?
Besides, the existence of Starfleet ships with all Vulcan crews was established back in TOS. Don't blame DS9 for following TOS's precedent.
Are those colonies part of the Federation because Earth is part of the Federation or does the Federation have no jurisdiction over them?
Never said.
My headcanon is Fed ships are largely one species due to life support considerations, so a Vulcan ship would be hotter, drier and a lower oxygen content atmosphere.
Yeah, it's not clear if it's an opt-in or opt-out arrangement, and probably contradicted in the episodes anyway.
Turkana IV implied that Earth Colonies necessarily weren't part of the Federation
I admit, I also thought it a little un-federation to have an all Vulcan Starfleet ship. Honestly I ignore it as something happens in canon.
I assumed it was majority Vulcan, like the Enterprise is majority human,
The USS T'kumbra was stated as having an all Vulcan crew. Captain Solok was basically a vulcan supremacist who did not have a high opinion of other species, with particular contempt for Humans in general. It kinds begs the question why a jerk like Solok would have even bothered joining Starfleet and not the Vulcan Expeditionary Group
During the Dominion War they might have been folded in some times.
Or, Solok had become more Vulcan Supremacist over his tour of duty with Starfleet due to frustration with other species.
Solok met Sisko met at the academy and Solok was already demonstrating a speciest attitude even then. It's what caused Solok and Sisko to have a bitter, lifelong rivalry.
It kind of makes sense to me that because different species have different environmental needs/preferences, that having ships with whole crews of the same species could make sense. Spock has been known to complain that the Enterprise is too cold for him. On a ship full of Vulcans, they can set the thermostat for a temperature comfortable for Vulcans.
Yeah, no need to wear environmental suits while shipboard, or dial the thermostat and humidifier up and down constantly throughout the day.
Vulcans seem to have that anyway so maybe the experience only reinforced it, rather than allowing more diverse experiences.
The T'Kumbra isn't the first - TOS's The Immunity Syndrome established that the USS Intrepid was crewed wholly by Vulcans as well. So there is some precedent.
I do figure that some of it is a case of causing the least strain on the vessel's life support systems to have a crew primarily of the same species, meaning the same needs, but not just does the idea seem anti-Starfleet, it even seems at odds with the idea of IDIC - where's that "infinite diversity" if you only have people of the same species? We see often that the perspective of different species in a given crew can often be valuable, so it's intentionally denying yourself a resource.
Still, Solok at least is justifiable in only bringing aboard Vulcans, given his attitudes that honestly sound like they come from the Enterprise-era Vulcans of being dismissive of humans. And, as Captain Janeway once said, logic can be used to justify almost anything, that is its power and its flaw. You can make a logical argument that Vulcans, being physically stronger and more emotionally restrained, have an advantage in hazardous situations that humans. It's still a racist argument, but it has a logic to it.
If anything, I think the addition of the Enterprise Vulcan arc better explains Solok - attitudes like the ones that had taken over Vulcan mainstream society don't just vanish, so Solok follows that older belief and interpretation of Surak's teachings. Probably kept him out of the Vulcan Exploratory Service, and so he turned his attention to Starfleet, with the idea of proving that his beliefs are 'better' than humans.
I do figure that some of it is a case of causing the least strain on the vessel's life support systems to have a crew primarily of the same species, meaning the same needs, but not just does the idea seem anti-Starfleet, it even seems at odds with the idea of IDIC - where's that "infinite diversity" if you only have people of the same species? We see often that the perspective of different species in a given crew can often be valuable, so it's intentionally denying yourself a resource.
Still, Solok at least is justifiable in only bringing aboard Vulcans, given his attitudes that honestly sound like they come from the Enterprise-era Vulcans of being dismissive of humans. And, as Captain Janeway once said, logic can be used to justify almost anything, that is its power and its flaw. You can make a logical argument that Vulcans, being physically stronger and more emotionally restrained, have an advantage in hazardous situations that humans. It's still a racist argument, but it has a logic to it.
If anything, I think the addition of the Enterprise Vulcan arc better explains Solok - attitudes like the ones that had taken over Vulcan mainstream society don't just vanish, so Solok follows that older belief and interpretation of Surak's teachings. Probably kept him out of the Vulcan Exploratory Service, and so he turned his attention to Starfleet, with the idea of proving that his beliefs are 'better' than humans.
Interestingly enough that attitude was reported in TNG's the Gambit too.
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