The Cetaceans (whales) would be Starfleet officers, members of the crew.
Not "pets."
Science division and the Dominion war.
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Not "pets."
But then why the hell was Alexander so excited about seeing the whales? That must get annoying for the whales, having to deal with a kid watching them work.
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They love the attention.
No way! That would just be borderline wrong! lol That would also mean a bunch of strangers would go around gawking at them while they work, assuming they're not in some zoo.
But the reference sounds a lot like a Space Sea World to me.
Ok, now this would mean that a dolphin or whale, signed up for Starfleet, took an entrance exam, studied, took the Koburu matashi whatever, and became an officer aboard the Enterprise.
That's the problem-- it feels so wrong to claim a creature that doesn't look humanoid cannot be intelligent (it really does), and yet the idea of Cetacean Ops sounds just as wrong.
Cetaceans, are born and live in the oceans their entire lives--when did someone discover they wanted to join Starfleet and become Ops officers?
And what do people do in Ops anyway? Is it another science station?
But the reference sounds a lot like a Space Sea World to me.
Ok, now this would mean that a dolphin or whale, signed up for Starfleet, took an entrance exam, studied, took the Koburu matashi whatever, and became an officer aboard the Enterprise.
That's the problem-- it feels so wrong to claim a creature that doesn't look humanoid cannot be intelligent (it really does), and yet the idea of Cetacean Ops sounds just as wrong.
Cetaceans, are born and live in the oceans their entire lives--when did someone discover they wanted to join Starfleet and become Ops officers?
And what do people do in Ops anyway? Is it another science station?
Well the dolphins did thank us for all the fish.
And maybe that Whale Probe allows whales and dolphins to navigate through space.
Well, for all we know there could also be whale calves who get all excited about watching the humans. Turnabout is fair play, or so it is said.
Which is why initially Picard didn't want Wesley on the Bridge.
Cetacean Operations doesn't sound like working area of the ship?
Yes, exactly.
Hmmm, perhaps Starfleet encounter one of the Cetaceans starships in the course of exploration. We know from the the example of the Xindi that a Cetacean species can have starships. There are multiple Humanoid species, why not multiple "whale' star fairing species, from hundreds of worlds.
I believe in one of Diane Duane novels, it's stated that they make for uniquely skilled navigators.
Look at it this way, using Earth as a example, the majority of the surface of a typical class M world is water.The Cetacean crewmembers would be assigned to investigate the oceans and waterways of interesting worlds. They would beam into the waters of these worlds, interact with the aquatic lifeform they found there.
Just as there were during TOS, Human mostly and Vulcan mostly starships, by the 24th century there are Cetacean mostly starships in the fleet as well. In addition to Cetaceans serving on Humanoid mostly starship. Likely there were some Humanoids stationed aboard the Cetacean ships too.
The corridors would be three quarters water with a gaseous atmosphere near the ceiling. Or the fluid would posses a higher concentration of oxygen (or other gas) than our water does.
Just imagine the Starfleet Academy class photo, a bunch of humanoid cadets standing in front of an aquarium, which houses a wahle flanked by two dolphins.
Also, the existence of cetacean ops on the Enterprise would have helped had Star Trek ever done a crossover with Seaquest...
It's generally the department that oversees and coordinates the various other departments and/or systems aboard a starship or a starbase.
After the unfortunate incident with the alien probe in Star Trek IV all Federation starships were equipped with a Cetacean "Ops" to monitor whale(and similar creatures) songs so that those aliens would never bother Earth again.
Source?
Yeah, that sounds like a really good explanation, but without a direct source, it hard to accept it as an official one.
But it would explain the reference.
Really, if they had some more direct statements about them, it would be easier to accept the idea.
I mean, think of all the times they had to abandon ship or evacuate the crew, I've never heard any concern or mention of dolphins or whales. It's like they just left them on aboard.
Ok, I was starting to think it was another station that I couldn't really tell what they were doing exactly.
I think Dax and Data were probably the same type of officer, except Data wore a gold uniform.
It certainly does, but with a reference to Alexander wanting to go "look" at them seems to take away from the idea.
Where would they get a space big enough for comfort for them. The biggest area I've seen on the Enterprise is shuttle bay, and even that doesn't seem big enough to humanely house whales and dolphins that want freedom to move around.
I don't know about that one...some trained whales have been known to attack people out of the blue after being put on display after awhile.
So what about a whale that's being watched like a painting?
But it would explain the reference.
Really, if they had some more direct statements about them, it would be easier to accept the idea.
I mean, think of all the times they had to abandon ship or evacuate the crew, I've never heard any concern or mention of dolphins or whales. It's like they just left them on aboard.
Ok, I was starting to think it was another station that I couldn't really tell what they were doing exactly.
I think Dax and Data were probably the same type of officer, except Data wore a gold uniform.
It certainly does, but with a reference to Alexander wanting to go "look" at them seems to take away from the idea.
Where would they get a space big enough for comfort for them. The biggest area I've seen on the Enterprise is shuttle bay, and even that doesn't seem big enough to humanely house whales and dolphins that want freedom to move around.
I don't know about that one...some trained whales have been known to attack people out of the blue after being put on display after awhile.
So what about a whale that's being watched like a painting?
Or for that matter, Generations when the saucer section crashed. The interior got banged up pretty bad. There's no way the aquarium went undamaged. Though Picard did say in his log there were no casualties.
Data was originally meant to be the science officer, but since Brent Spiner looked better wearing a gold uniform than a blue one they had him wear gold and created the title "Ops officer." The only other known Ops officer in Star Trek is Harry Kim.
Chief of Operations, Miles O'Brien, Deep Space Nine
Not a "commissioned" officer, but also not an "other rank" in British terms
. However his title suggest that Chief Petty Officer O'Brien's primary duty on the Deep Space Nine station is similar to Commander Data's on Enterprise and Ensign Kim's on Voyager
What episode was this in? I can't recall Alexander saying this. There was a reference to "the dolphins", as LaForge steered a bothersome Ferengi away from the ambassador in "The Perfect Mate", though that could have referred to something temporary, because "the dolphins" was literally all he said. Perhaps they were transporting some dolphins.
Yep. My take on the Operations department on a Starfeet ship is that in addition to resource allocation and coordination, they seem to be computer experts, and are a "well-rounded" department that can sub as tactical or engineering officers pretty well in a pinch. Also, if Data is any indication, they are the ones primarily responsible for keeping a close eye on active sensors. Science officers will analyze readings more thoroughly once something interesting has been found, but the Ops officer is the one actually manning the active scanners. Of course, in the show, Data did both for the most part, but he is a main character, and TNG had no science officers as main characters. TV shows have their own set of out-of-universe considerations that sometimes don't sync well with what would make the most sense in-universe.
Yeah. While he is an enlisted man, in the context of the conversation above, he IS "an officer", as in, "Starfleet Officer."Not a "commissioned" officer, but also not an "other rank" in British terms
Here I would disagree. I think what The Wormhole was referring to was a starship operations officer, in the same vein as Data, which Kim was, but O'Brien really wasn't. It's not entirely clear why he's "Chief of Operations" on the station (maybe on a station as opposed to a ship, Operations is a catchall term for the technical/repair oriented departments?), but functionally, O'Brien is equivalent to LaForge and Torres, not Data and Kim.
On the cetaceans: I don't think "Cetacean Ops" has anything to do with the Operations department. The word "Ops" is being used in the more general sense there, i.e. "operations involving cetaceans". And I do think it's kind of a goofy idea, frankly. Have whales and dolphins been "uplifted", like in David Brin's novels, so that communication and understanding between they and humans can occur easily? How do they interact with Starfleet technology? What form do their navigational contributions take? Are they somehow transmitting information to the conn up on the bridge? Doesn't make much sense to me, and as pointed out, having massive aquariums capable of keeping such creatures not only alive, but comfortable (it can't be a cramped thing that allows them just enough room to swim back and forth, or they'd be miserable) makes a number of shipboard operations (most especially those during a crisis) exponentially more complicated.
Not a "commissioned" officer, but also not an "other rank" in British terms
O'Brien's job seemed more like chief engineer to me. That's certainly the role he filled when he was on the Defiant, and in plenty of other circumstances he was referred to as an engineer.
I thought there was such a referance in New Ground, but a quick glance through Memory Alpha states the only referances to Cetacean Ops on the show were Yesterday's Enterprise and The Perfect Mate. So perhaps I was wrong.
In my own mind, any whale who are Starfleet personal wouldn't be terrestrial whales. A dolphin's and orca's fore flippers contain all the bones of a Human hand, but they can't use them to manipulate their environment, as a Human can.
If there are technologically capable whales aboard the Enterprise, they are "alien" whales.
If it turns out that they're already sentient, and capable of dialogue with humans via (post-ST4) universal translator, there's no reason some of them mightn't have asked for "corrective surgery" centered on those bones, to give them manipulators. Weird to think of, but why not?
