Ensign Crew Quarters on Voyager?

[tighr]

In the TNG episode "Lower Decks", its made quite clear that one of the motivations for the ensigns to get promoted to Lt. JG was so they didn't have to share quarters anymore. Yet on Voyager, it appeared that Ensigns (namely, Kim) got private quarters. In "Twisted", Kes rattles off the locations of several crewmen who seem to have their own quarters as well.

Especially since Intrepid-class ships had a standard crew compliment of 140, and after "Caretaker" adding the Maquis bumped Voyager up to 152. You'd think someone somewhere was going to be forced to double-bunk!

Also, since it appears most of the Maquis were given crewman rank, I would imagine they were being treated as enlisted (other than Torres and Chakotay, who both attended the academy). That makes Voyager have the most on-screen enlisted personnel of any of the ST series.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They took on 204 Klingon hitch hikers in Prophecy and earlier dozens of those teeps from that episode where B'Elanna was dreaming about genocide.

Maybe it's because Voyager would have a more round robin transient crew? You can't have that many floaters moving on and off Voyager quickly and easily if they have to be worried about bunk mates with sticky fingers and desperate alone time hobbies.

Besides, you get rid of the families, like they did in the alternate universe from Yesterdays Enterprise and the Enterprise D can hold a further 6000 soldiers for ready deployment, not counting the crew and whatever standard garrison they need to feel safe.

 

[antiquityscion]

Voyager was a little longer than the Constitution class, but was much thicker, had more square footage, and had a crew of only 150, compared to a Constitution class, which was a crew of 450. So it really is a question of why would they NOT have rooms to themselves.

 

[Timo]

It's also a question of whether the ship was designed for a crew of 141, or merely happened to sail out with 141 in "Caretaker". (Or, for all we know, 143 or more, because Stadi might not have been counting Tom as crew under any circumstances, and might further only have been referring to crew that had already embarked and thus not including Kim and possible others.)

On a random note, Kirk's ship already appeared to have single staterooms for Ensigns, at least for Ensign Garrovick in "Obsession". As for "Lower Decks", it's just Sam Lavelle who indicates a promotion would gain him a room of his own, in a humorous context. For all we know, the four had specifically requested joint bunking.

Promotion to Lieutenant for Sam might perhaps not be necessary for allowing him to have a room of his own - but Sam could be saying that if promoted to that rank, he would be prohibited from bunking with Ensigns and thus would get his social excuse for leaving the remaining trio. All in a humorous context, of course.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

I love it that we can nitpick the number by suggesting that Tom didn't qualify as crew, or that Tuvok wasn't counted because he was off ship when Voyager left earth or that Janeway herself might not count as crew since crew is just a tool she uses to function her will, and Janeway would never think of herself as a tool.

Furthermore did the Doctor count as crew since he is a bloody distinct presence even if he didn't have any heart or soul? For realz he didn't when they first left Earth but after enough shared tragedy, there were enough bleeding hearts on that rickety little barge in it's half witted crew to insist a rattification of that light bulbs existence and value... Unless they were self obsessed assholes?

Photons Be Free anyone?

 

[MacLeod]

In the TNG episode "Lower Decks", its made quite clear that one of the motivations for the ensigns to get promoted to Lt. JG was so they didn't have to share quarters anymore. Yet on Voyager, it appeared that Ensigns (namely, Kim) got private quarters. In "Twisted", Kes rattles off the locations of several crewmen who seem to have their own quarters as well.

Especially since Intrepid-class ships had a standard crew compliment of 140, and after "Caretaker" adding the Maquis bumped Voyager up to 152. You'd think someone somewhere was going to be forced to double-bunk!

Also, since it appears most of the Maquis were given crewman rank, I would imagine they were being treated as enlisted (other than Torres and Chakotay, who both attended the academy). That makes Voyager have the most on-screen enlisted personnel of any of the ST series.

Well if Kim was Operations Chief, own quarters might have come with position rather than rank.

 

[tighr]

Voyager was a little longer than the Constitution class, but was much thicker, had more square footage, and had a crew of only 150, compared to a Constitution class, which was a crew of 450. So it really is a question of why would they NOT have rooms to themselves.

Well, in "Flashback" we see that they crammed the ensigns into crew quarters like sardines aboard the Excelsior, and in ST: TUC we similarly see enlisted personnel in bunks during a ship-wide announcement when they're looking for crewmen Burke and Samno. In ST: TWOK we see what looks like a hundred engineers in main engineering, so perhaps ships from the 22nd century required more raw manpower due to less automation than ships from the 23rd century (a reasonable assumption, especially considering main engineering aboard Voyager and Enterprise-D being much smaller than the refit Enterprise).

I think the best excuse would be that Kim was Chief of Operations, but then I just watched "Meld" last night, and Ensign Suder was a Maquis who was permanently confined to quarters, something they probably couldn't do if he had a roommate.

 

[The_Baroness]

No, but Suder may have been moved into single-quarters after he went all murdery.

That, or he murderized was his room-mate so he could get the top bunk.

Was it in Good Shephered was saw crewmen sharing a room?

 

[Timo]

Well, in "Flashback" we see that they crammed the ensigns into crew quarters

Might have been a somewhat temporary arrangement, considering they also forced them to sleep in full uniforms there! (Or then Tuvok's screwy memory was getting this bit wrong, too.)

The good Voyager never seemed to have a proper Chief Science Officer or even much in the way of science staff. Of course, none of that would be needed for a three-hour Maquis hunt. Perhaps the ship on a properly crewed and equipped exploration mission would have carried a crew more like 350 - just like Kirk performed an exploration mission with 430 people on a ship that Pike had managed to sail on a different mission with just over 200 people.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lets consider automation and miniaturization. Voyager needed less people to run a much much more powerful, yet much much smaller engine than on Kirks Enterprise. Say maybe half of the Enterprise was engine, but only a 1/4 of Voyager was Engine even though they're roughly the same size.

Voyagers missions so close to so many member worlds (short range tactical missions?), so close to important people inside the Federation, in all odds that ship, that classification of ship, would have been used to ferry small groups of dignitaries and specialists from point a to point b who wouldn't want to be stored like pigs in kennels between jobs.

If Voyager no longer had to be ready to be a Taxi service, that would free up a lot of staterooms which usually the hoi poloi of the Ensign trash and lowerly crewmen wouldn't be allowed near, and honestly, the shoe boxes with three story Bunks the crew were upposed to slum in had been abondoned after a couple hours in the DQ when Janeway had to accept that she shouldn't be so Bly about her command if there wasn't interested in having a mutiny on Voyager.

 

[Mytran]

There's the windows to consider as well. Voyager has a lot of them, which in the 24th century usually means personal quarters (of differing sizes). Even allowing for a few of them to be lounges, there's around 140 cabins on the outer wall of the ship alone!

Or maybe they're not windows at all? Just additional sensor arrays? Is there any on-screen evidence that they have rooms and people behind them?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Federation builds ships of peace in peace time which have to be able to be quickly converted into ships of war in wartime...

You say "windows" but I say "gunports".

that's why galaxy Class Starships pretended they wanted civilians/families on board so that they'd have room for ground pounders if they needed them, if everything turned to shit.

 

[tighr]

The good Voyager never seemed to have a proper Chief Science Officer or even much in the way of science staff.

The funny thing about Enterprise-D is that even though we saw plenty of science background actors, there were very few part of the main cast, or even the recurring cast. A ship that big oughta have quite a few Lt. Cmdrs running around, yet we rarely see any of those department heads in the staff meetings!

The only science officer I can remember was Lt. Cmdr Darren, the girl Picard dates for a while. Never saw her predecessor or successor in Stellar Cartography. There were a few Chief Engineers in season 1, but they never attended staff meetings.

But I guess Lt. Cmdr is a discussion for a different thread!

 

[Timo]

...Unless we discuss their accommodation standards. Voyager had quite a few people of that rank, including the XO, although apparently there was a lot of culling in the pilot episode. Perhaps Harry Kim inherited the quarters of Lieutenant Commander Ziegler of "Imperfection" fame after this Chief Operations Officer died in "Caretaker"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

The Federation builds ships of peace in peace time which have to be able to be quickly converted into ships of war in wartime...

You say "windows" but I say "gunports".

that's why galaxy Class Starships pretended they wanted civilians/families on board so that they'd have room for ground pounders if they needed them, if everything turned to shit.

Makes sense to me!
Why else would they have all those points of weakness in the hull?

 

[Timo]

What? Everybody knows that transparent aluminum is 78% stronger than the non-transparent hull material!

...Except against visual lasers, of course.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Worf turned his nose up to Lasers in Suddenly Human.

Seriously.

I love that line.

"Sir. they're targeting us with... lasers"

Such contempt.

Something about lasers not being powerful enough to breach their navigation shields. You know, the thing they have to keep dust off the hull?

 

[Gary7]

Even in "Lower Decks", the focus was on commissioned crew. What about non-commissioned crew? I suspect they all shared quarters to some degree, except for senior NCO's. Unfortunately, we never get a clear picture of where things stand regarding crew accommodations... so, we can speculate until the Borg are completely destroyed and it won't accomplish much.

 

[T'Girl]

I love that line.

"Sir. they're targeting us with... lasers"

That line always comes to mind during Star Trek verse Star Wars discussions.

I imagine the Death Star firing it's big planet busting mega-laser at the Enterprise Dee, hitting her square on the shields, and Worf mildly reporting; "Sir. they're targeting us with... lasers"

 

[tighr]

Even in "Lower Decks", the focus was on commissioned crew. What about non-commissioned crew? I suspect they all shared quarters to some degree, except for senior NCO's. Unfortunately, we never get a clear picture of where things stand regarding crew accommodations... so, we can speculate until the Borg are completely destroyed and it won't accomplish much.

The existence of enlisted personnel was always handled very badly on the show. Apparantly Roddenberry envisioned a Starfleet where EVERYONE went to the academy, and thus was an officer, with no enlisted personnel. This explains why it wasn't always clear what rank some background character's had.

But there should have been a sizable enlisted population on the ship, vastly outnumbering the officers aboard. The movies seemed to get this right, especially scenes in engineering.