The Galileo....why Seven crewmembers?
- Thread starter MarsWeeps
- Start date
This is all made-up bullshit on my part, but for the sake of trying to create in-universe explanations:
Spock was in command and science officer.
Scotty was there in case something fritzed out while they were in the quasar.
McCoy jumped in to monitor crew reactions to certain radiations emitted in the zone.
Mears was mission record keeper.
Latimer was co-pilot as he needed some mandated flight time.
Boma was in the sciences and had specialized knowledge of quasar and quasar-like formations.
Gaetano wanted to change career tracks and get into sciences and this was part of his "credit gathering."
Spock was in command and science officer.
Scotty was there in case something fritzed out while they were in the quasar.
McCoy jumped in to monitor crew reactions to certain radiations emitted in the zone.
Mears was mission record keeper.
Latimer was co-pilot as he needed some mandated flight time.
Boma was in the sciences and had specialized knowledge of quasar and quasar-like formations.
Gaetano wanted to change career tracks and get into sciences and this was part of his "credit gathering."
^ Works for me.
It wasn't considered a highly dangerous mission. They were aware of interference with sensors, but there wasn't an expectation that guidance and control systems could be affected. And so... you have a large shuttle craft, and several people who need a little "away mission" time on their records. Remember, you need to keep the crew skills "fresh". In the US military, it's customary to do this kind of thing, bringing more people than you need merely for the experience, refreshing what they know or expanding it.
I would add that Spock probably needed the flight time on a mission like this because McCoy said this was his first command, implying he was in charge of doing something here that he had not done before. Whether it was serving as the CO of the expedition or piloting a shuttle mission or whatever else is not clear.
^ This.
Also consider the "all hands" pep talks Kirk occasionally gives over the PA system. That's the Starfleet/UFP mentality. Why send a shuttlecraft full of people on a mission that could conceivably be done by launching probes? Because the mission crew needs the flight time and they're probably going to come back aboard to a Christmas turkey dinner in their honor for a job well done and getting their credentials bumped up a notch.
A probe would be obvious, but that is a problem not only for TOS but all the shows that followed. The series leads are all safe for the season and whole series more often than not and are the main casts of the episodes' plots. What are all the rest of the people on the ship for? Fodder for the problem of the episode. A lot of situations on all the francises would have been easily solved or approached quite differently in a realistic world. TV needs drama, not robots.
Drama with some common sense would also work. As mentioned previously, they could have made the story where the Galileo was returning from a planetary mission or a starbase where it made sense to have those seven people aboard, and have them swing by (and get lost) on its way back to the Enterprise.
The way it appeared in the episode, Galileo was lost within 10 seconds of it being launched (at least that's how it appeared on screen.) Why not send a probe to do a preliminary check of the system and make sure it's safe before sending seven people out on a joyride?
A waste of screen time, sure, I agree with your idea, but it is a waste of screen time and likely to lose ratings from the producers perspective. They need to keep the audience and advertisers happy. Folks want to see Spock and co. so they got right on into the drama.
I'm not sure I'm getting what those who have a problem with this episode are advocating. Do we really not want to see Nimoy, Kelley and Doohan in this episode, substituting some minor (possibly even one-off) characters instead? Or, alternatively, do we want to gin up some kind of B-plot so we can periodically switch back to watching the main characters doing something or other on the ship between scenes of the main story?
Either way seems like a deadly dull way to make a dramatic TV episode to me.
Either way seems like a deadly dull way to make a dramatic TV episode to me.
No, I think people are looking at the crew of the Galileo mission and its equipment and just scratching their heads and saying, "Gee, why did they do that?"
It actually makes perfect sense for them to do that in the TOS framework, even with an "expect the unexpected" motto. See my last post.
It actually makes perfect sense for them to do that in the TOS framework, even with an "expect the unexpected" motto. See my last post.
No, it's just that we've had 45+ years to analyze the episodes and nit-pick the writing. Believe it or not, it's out of love for the show, nothing negative.
^ Ah, now I see where you guys are coming from! Thanks for the clarification. I was reading the tenor of the thread wrong. (I think I've been spending too much time cruising those "New Trek vs. Old Trek" threads. 
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Which, honestly, could have been covered in a single line of dialog or Kirk's log. "As preliminary probe results show the danger of a manned probe to be minimal, we are sending a shuttlecraft for a more comprehensive scan."
I'm willing to believe that happened before the episode started. ;-)
Good question - and one that has actually been ignored so far!
Were they studying the mini-quasar itself? That sort of research would certainly appear to call for probes and remote studies - it involves odd radiation phenomena in inhospitable space where a human observer would be significantly inconvenienced and wouldn't be able to add anything much to the studies being done by the instruments. Even if it could be argued that a sensor suite aboard the shuttle would add to the observations done by the sensor suite aboard the ship, "clocking in flight hours" would be the only good rationale for sending even two people to accompany that shuttle, let alone seven.
However, from the very start, it appears clear that the phenomenon hides four star systems. And we eventually find out that at least one features a perfectly habitable Class M planet. Now, studying Class M planets is right down the alley of landing parties in shuttlecraft. And a team of seven to study an entire world hidden from the long ranger sensors of a passing starship? Of course it needs to be as diverse as possible - featuring a medical specialist, an engineering specialist, two specialists on other fields we learn little about, and then the obligatory mini-quasar specialist.
So, while Kirk and the Enterprise studied the Murasaki phenomenon itself, the team of experts would take a dive into the phenomenon and use their expertise to choose one planet worth a closer look. As there would not be time for more at this juncture, the choosing process would be at least as important as the studies themselves, hence perhaps justifying sending the very top specialists rather than their underlings.
Timo Saloniemi
Well The Seven Samurai, on which Magnificent Seven was based, came out in 1954.
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