Single species crews on Federation starships
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^ Wow, thats a great question!
I'm no expert, but from what i remember, ships usually did carry mostly one species for crew. Of course there were the exchange programs like Riker participated in with the Klingons.
But i havent seen a DS9 in ages (or Enterprise) so maybe those shows had ships with multi-species crews.
I'm no expert, but from what i remember, ships usually did carry mostly one species for crew. Of course there were the exchange programs like Riker participated in with the Klingons.
But i havent seen a DS9 in ages (or Enterprise) so maybe those shows had ships with multi-species crews.
I read a fannon explanation one time that said that Starfleet had found that totally integrated crews tended to have too differences to work together effectively, and so tended to crew its ships with a majority of one race and small minorities of others.
It just so happens that most people who join Starfleet are humans.
It just so happens that most people who join Starfleet are humans.
^That fanon explanation is almost a justification for prejudice. I can see it having some practical use if, say, you have a race of methane-breathers. It would be tough to integrate oxygen-breathers with them. Maybe the single-race ship like Intrepid is a special dispensation to one of the founding members of the Federation, Vulcan. This could mean there are probably Starfleet ships with an all-Andorian crew, or an all-Tellarite crew. I much prefer an integrated Starfleet, however. -- RR
Wel, on DS9, Solok was a captain of T'Kumbra, which had all-Vulcan crew. But OTOH, USS Saratoga (at the time of the battle of Wolf 359) had a Vulcan captain (played by J.G.Hertzler in "Emissary"), a human first officer (Ben Sisko), a Bolian tactical officer, and the rest of the bridge crew seemed human. So it seems that most ships have a mixed crew, but there are some single-species ships.
The TOS-era Intrepid and the T'Kumbra from DS9 had all-Vulcan crews. The original NCC-1701 apparently had an all-human crew (except for the half-Vulcan Spock).
TOS seemed to give the impression that Starfleet consists solely of single-species ships, with the all-human ships being in the clear majority.
Ships became more and more "integrated" after that... starting with Arex and M'Ress on TAS, Ilia, Saavik or Valeris during the movie era, and finally the multi-species crews which were common during the 24th century.
Only the T'Kumbra contradicted this evolution and seemed like a step back to the 23rd century modus operandi.
TOS seemed to give the impression that Starfleet consists solely of single-species ships, with the all-human ships being in the clear majority.
Ships became more and more "integrated" after that... starting with Arex and M'Ress on TAS, Ilia, Saavik or Valeris during the movie era, and finally the multi-species crews which were common during the 24th century.
Only the T'Kumbra contradicted this evolution and seemed like a step back to the 23rd century modus operandi.
Completely non-canon, but the Fasa role-playng game from the 80s mentioned the "blue-fleet", which consisted of Starfleet ships manned by Andorians.
I always liked this idea. Racist? Perhaps. But it could conceivably cut down on cultural mis-understandings. But then again, it didn't work for the Jim Crow laws.
Just out of interest, what is it you find unfortunate about gender portrayals in modern Star Trek? As you talked about "women (being) equal" I take it you disapproved of the way in which female characters were presented? This is a genuine friendly query, I just like clarification because words like "equal" are far too often thown about in misleading and inappropriate ways.It's okay saying you want men and women to be treated and presented the same (which I assume is what you mean by "equal"), but how are they to be treated? "Equal" gives us no clues as to what exactly it is you want! Since you mentioned only women, may I guess that you find the way men are presented fine and so think women should be treated exactly like that? That is, any changes mean simply reforming the female presentation to fit the male one? What is it about the way male characters are presented that you find so appealing in contrast to presentations of the female characters?
As gender is a very big issue for me, there have been plenty of times- throughout the franchise, every series- when certain implications about sex and gender have... irritated me. Caused the corner of my mouth to twitch, shall we say (relating to both sexes, I'd like to add, and you can't really draw clean distinctions anyway. What has negative implications for one sex can easily be interpreted by other people as an affront to the other sex, or to both. It's all a matter of perception, and the issue is thus incredibly complex). However, no matter how we perceive things, those of us who are critical of certain aspects of society, particularly in regards to something as big as perceptions of gender, will always find TV (which as you say simply reflects society at the time) failing in some regards. It is always going to be the case.
Indeed, given my rather complex and unconventional views on gender, I have never seen a single TV show that I was happy with in regards to this issue. So, yes, I too dislike aspects of the way women are still presented in Trek. I also dislike aspects of the way men are presented. And I dislike aspects of how both sexes are portrayed across our culture, indeed our planetary civilization. What about Trek makes it so much worse or why should it be different?
Again, these are all genuine, friendly queries. As I say, there's a good chance I'll agree with many of your complaints, but I don't think simplistic terms like "equal" tell us much!
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I think we need to see past canon of Star Trek and realize the limitations of TV & movie production. Aliens cost production companies a lot. Either actors have to be in makeup for hours or you have to pay for expensive CGI. That is the reason humans are the majority of crews in the Star Trek shows and movies . It's both easy and cheap to have humans as your main crew.
Just out of interest, what is it you find unfortunate about gender portrayals in modern Star Trek? As you talked about "women (being) equal" I take it you disapproved of the way in which female characters were presented? This is a genuine friendly query, I just like clarification because words like "equal" are far too often thown about in misleading and inappropriate ways.
I dislike the low level of subconscious sexism that pervades Trek. I dislike token female syndrome where we have a couple of high profile characters but most of the supporting cast and background characters are male. I dislike gender division where we see few female security guards but lots of doctors and nurses. I dislike the glass ceiling where senior members of the command structure are almost exclusively male. I question why we've never seen an all female command team or an all-female security team when we've seen dozens of all-male combinations.
NuTrek has a disadvantage in that most of the 60's cast was male. However, instead of making use of the female characters they did have, they actually went so far as to edit out characters that should have appeared! So we have no T'Pau, no Number One, and no Rand. I understand that with so many characters, something had to give but it is telling that what gave were the women.
Battlestar Galactica did a better job of using female characters than Trek. I bet if you total up the recuring male/female characters from the two franchises, BSG will have a much higher proportion of women in a wide variety of roles.
On the issue of alien crew, I agree that the make-up issue is probably the main reason why we don't see many aliens. It is possible to do it (see DS9 or Babylon 5) but I don't doubt that it is a time-consuming endeavour. B5 was quite ambitious but had real problems with actresses and prosthetics. Women's skin differs from men's and the glue gives some actresses real problems, which may limit their ability to find groovy looking alien chicks. No reason why they couldn't just use men I guess but directors seem to prefer all alien races, even reptilian ones, to have boobies.
I remember seeing an old Eddie Murphy film also featuring Robin Givens. Murphy went into an office block that was staffed entirely with black employees. Of course they were making the point that what is going on in the background IS significant. Many films will have a large number of white males in the background and that is just lazy. Classic example in NuTrek is the Vulcan science acadamy. There is only one woman on the board despite the fact that Vulcan is quite a matriarchal society. They had already decided that only Sarek would get any lines so why not make up the numbers on the board?
When you say BattleStar Galactica did a better job, are you saying the original, or NuBSG? I ask because the original was the real one, as in 'it's own concept', while on NuBSG, you can change every single name, including "BattleStar Galactica", and still have a good show that tells a compelling story, and in fact is in no way connected to the original. This is the only way it can really be a good or original concept, anyway.
Sorry. Rant over.
Sorry. Rant over.
While we as a culture seem to be generally moving towards a gender balance, there is no telling if in the future we won't move again to one that is male centric. TOS is very much that, a charactor in turnabout intruder states that there are no female captains! But of course she's insane.
I have no idea what you meant by that, but I think it should be 100% obvious to anyone with any familiarity with both shows that Pauln6 could only possibly have meant the new BSG, which indeed is a rare case of an SF show that had an approximately equal number of female and male characters, as well as an equal number of prominent female and male characters (not to mention that the females were actually playing an equally important role in the proceedings, held the same number of important positions of power, and, I would argue, were as complex and compelling as the male characters).
This hardly applies to the old BSG, does it.
I have no idea what you meant by that, but I think it should be 100% obvious to anyone with any familiarity with both shows that Pauln6 could only possibly have meant the new BSG, which indeed is a rare case of an SF show that had an approximately equal number of female and male characters, as well as an equal number of prominent female and male characters (not to mention that the females were actually playing an equally important role in the proceedings, held the same number of important positions of power, and, I would argue, were as complex and compelling as the male characters).
This hardly applies to the old BSG, does it.
Lol - yeah I meant NuBSG. Mind you, the original had the tart with a heart. I thought that NuBSG could have done wonders with that dirty socialator. It was a real shame they didn't reboot her.
They actually took the decision not to have any aliens in NuBSG because they wanted to keep the drama and allegories rooted in reality. Trek has always been a bit more out there. I'd like them to spend a bit more time and money with a more diverse crew. I won't be satisfied unless we get at least one andorian crewman or woman in the next Trek sequel. Blue is the new black baby.
"Ahh, Captain . . . we find yet another world where the canine order is the most evolved, and therefore with no successful space travel."
"Why is that, Mister Spock?"
"On a flight, an all-dog crew cannot keep from sticking their heads out the window, and they all die."
(That's what "The Far Side" comic strip explained once with reference to a Space Shuttle crew of dogs.)
"Why is that, Mister Spock?"
"On a flight, an all-dog crew cannot keep from sticking their heads out the window, and they all die."
(That's what "The Far Side" comic strip explained once with reference to a Space Shuttle crew of dogs.)
I have absolutely no issue with a sci fi genre that says women are not equal. I take issue with a genre where the lack of equality is incidental (Fifth Element was an outrageous example of this) or a genre that says women ARE equal and then fails to deliver due to slapdash writing and casting.
I'm really sorry to quibble, but, again, what do you mean by "equal"? You made good points above with your complaints about how female characters have been used in recent Trek. But why do you keep talking about "women being/not being equal"? It takes two to be equal. One sex alone cannot be made "equal". You seem to have men as some sort of unchanging ideal and are then saying the only way to achieve equality is to make women like that. Keep in mind gender is a complicated issue. There are many, many ways to achieve equality, using the word to signify one particular view of gender only is rather unwise. I for one think both goalposts need to be moved, not just the one, which seems to be what you're suggesting.
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