It often strikes me that, when watching trek, most of the (human) crew seems rather young. The highest ranking officers might be slightly older, but otherwise most of the crew seems to be 25-35, with of course the rare exception. But I would expect a starfleet career to span a significant part of someone's life. So, where are all the older people on starships? A few explanations I could think of:
1. Thanks to better healthcare, people look younger than they are. So they look 30 but may be 50 in fact.
2. "Chasing around the galaxy is for the young". People move on to shore duty when they get slightly older. This could be true for the higher echelons (indeed admirals usually look a lot older), but there must be a lot of people without such a "high" career, as I would think only a few people would get to the really elevated ranks in any type of reasonable organisation. So I would expect a lot of commissioned officers, looking around 40-45 without a captain's rank or higher, but I rarely see them.
Even in eps featuring starfleet headquarters, or any other starfleet facility, most of the personnel there seems rather young. So, where do all the others go ? Do they get disgruntled with starfleet for not getting the career they dreamed of , and resign ? Or would the 'standard' starfleet commission have a fixed duration (say, 20 years), and is it only the people with potential/very important skills whom they offer an extension ?
3. We are not often seeing average vessels of starfleet. As Enterprise is an 'elite' vessel, you would expect the best of the best there, people who are thought to make it to senior ranks far earlier than average. Then again, I would think that their premises would imply that 'voyager' and DS9 are 'more average', and they seem to have a crew just as young.
These are the options I could think of. Any thoughts on this ?
1. Thanks to better healthcare, people look younger than they are. So they look 30 but may be 50 in fact.
2. "Chasing around the galaxy is for the young". People move on to shore duty when they get slightly older. This could be true for the higher echelons (indeed admirals usually look a lot older), but there must be a lot of people without such a "high" career, as I would think only a few people would get to the really elevated ranks in any type of reasonable organisation. So I would expect a lot of commissioned officers, looking around 40-45 without a captain's rank or higher, but I rarely see them.
Even in eps featuring starfleet headquarters, or any other starfleet facility, most of the personnel there seems rather young. So, where do all the others go ? Do they get disgruntled with starfleet for not getting the career they dreamed of , and resign ? Or would the 'standard' starfleet commission have a fixed duration (say, 20 years), and is it only the people with potential/very important skills whom they offer an extension ?
3. We are not often seeing average vessels of starfleet. As Enterprise is an 'elite' vessel, you would expect the best of the best there, people who are thought to make it to senior ranks far earlier than average. Then again, I would think that their premises would imply that 'voyager' and DS9 are 'more average', and they seem to have a crew just as young.
These are the options I could think of. Any thoughts on this ?
