Titan series: In your face Diverse???

[Masiral]

Star Trek: Titan may seem "in your face" about its diversity, because its diversity is part of the premise. It is literally a series about diversity, about how very different people get along. Saying that TTN is too "in your face" about its diversity is like saying that the original Star Trek is too "in your face" about being set aboard a space ship exploring the galaxy.

Meanwhile, I'm kind of tired of all these predictable posts whining about how it's not "practical" for species from mildly different environments to live together in a sealed metal can in the vacuum of space. This argument is predicated on the idea that there is a "default setting" for Starfleet officers, that there is a "normal" and a "deviation," and that anything that "deviates" from what is "normal" is therefore inconvenient and shouldn't be mixed in with what is "normal." Except, of course, there isn't a such thing as normal, there is no default setting, and things that differ from your mental prejudices about what is "normal" are not automatically impractical Because Reasons.

I'm not arguing that there is a "default setting" for Starfleet. However, there is a default setting for humans, and another one for Selkies, and another one for Elaysians, etc. Isn't it logical for them to serve on ships as close to their default settings as possible, so they can serve without the constant use of oxygen packs or water suits or anti-grav exoskeletons? I am not saying that they cannot serve on the same ship. But wouldn't it be easier for them if they served in an environment as close as possible to their own default setting?

 

[Nathan]

I agree with Hartzilla that a portion of Star Trek was about social commentary and allegory, not the whole thing and it also about comedy, space adventures, and etc.
(Hart, I paraphrased your above comment above)

And yes, Chris, the Titan line can be about social commentary/allegory, but it can ALSO be comical, adventures, Tom Clancy-esque. If / When / or did you write/written a Titan book with heavy emphasis on social commentary -- cool beans. But the whole line isn't that way.

Perhaps it me, but it seems you have to be right on EVERYTHING and yes, there may be more that one right answer. Not trying to flame you, but it seems you come off as the authority on everything and if someone disagrees with you, he or she is a dumb@$$. (I think at one point you accuse me in post #7 "openly ignoring the facts" -- thanks!)

Anyway, try not to be so rigid. I see what you are trying to say. I guess with you being a professional writer, I thought you would be more eloquent in your posts.

And yeah, I still think Titan is still "In Your Face Diverse", but I'll still read the line and I'll still love, hate, or love to hate the books. You just seem to make the debate so personal -- again just some constructive criticism since you post on here a lot and I only post intermittently.

I think Claudia in one of her posts (#42) mentioned that you shouldn't let the discussion slide into an underhanded personal level, so it just isn't me.

 

[Christopher]

It sounds like it would be awful to have stay in an environment suit most of the time in order to live among a species with an incompatible environment.

Here's an article about the work of a scuba diving instructor. Apparently it's pretty typical for instructors in the busy season to work 6 or 7 days a week and go on 2 or 3 dives a day which are each a few hours long. So they're spending a sizeable portion of their lives wearing environmental gear in order to operate in an incompatible environment. And evidently it's not that awful, because there's no great shortage of scuba instructors.

People are adaptable. They can get used to all sorts of things.

I'm not arguing that there is a "default setting" for Starfleet. However, there is a default setting for humans, and another one for Selkies, and another one for Elaysians, etc. Isn't it logical for them to serve on ships as close to their default settings as possible, so they can serve without the constant use of oxygen packs or water suits or anti-grav exoskeletons? I am not saying that they cannot serve on the same ship. But wouldn't it be easier for them if they served in an environment as close as possible to their own default setting?

If that were what they wanted, the best option would just be to stay on their home planets. A spaceship is a device for existing far outside your default environment. Because the people who build them and travel on them want to face the challenge of going beyond the comfortable and familiar.

 

[MarsWeeps]

Just because you "can" do something, doesn't mean that you have to. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the better ones.

Which is a very, very ugly argument when you're using it as an excuse for not making the effort to associate outside your own kind.

Except that I'm not making that argument. I never said people should not make an effort to associate outside their own kind. I envisioned a "mini-fleet" sent off to the unknown to explore together. I think a ship of water breathing aliens alongside the Titan would be a more practical approach than 2 ships with 1/2 air breathers and 1/2 water breathers. Of course, nothing says that you can't have a few of them on each others ships, but for support purposes, individual ships based on the needs of that particular race would make more sense, to me at least.

From what I remember from the early Titan novels, I got the same "hit-over-the-head with diversity" impression that others have mentioned. Maybe it's just the way it was written. Here's my impression:

Riker: We're still short a chief engineer.
First Officer: Lt. Jackson is a perfect candidate, he has the experience and the drive needed for this mission.
Riker: Does he have two heads?
First Officer: Sir?
Riker: I asked you if he has two heads!
First Officer: Uh...No sir...but...
Riker: This ship is about Diversity, Mister! You find me a two headed chief engineer or we don't leave Spacedock!

Ok, maybe that was an exaggeration but that's the feeling I remember when reading the first novel or so. I think the same story could have been told with the same crew without the "Hey, look at us...we are diverse!!" approach.

Anyway, that's all I'll say on the matter. I see everyone is passionate about their opinions and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Nathan]

Chris says, "If that were what they wanted, the best option would just be to stay on their home planets. A spaceship is a device for existing far outside your default environment. Because the people who build them and travel on them want to face the challenge of going beyond the comfortable and familiar. "

Guess you would want to stay planet side since you post in your blog how you don't like travelling in the rain and prefer the comfortable and familiar! LOL

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Star Trek has always been about social commentary and allegory, so why should this be any different?

No a portion of Star Trek was about social commentary and allegory, not the whole thing. It was also about comedy, space adventures, and ect.

And Titan is a portion of the Trek publishing line, so why shouldn't it choose to be about social commentary? This objection makes no damn sense whatsoever. You're using "it was only a portion" to claim that it's somehow wrong for any Trek novel to embrace it. The point is, it's included and permissible, and I did it and I'm damn well proud of it.

Did I say they shouldn't imbrace social comentry or have a very diverse crew.

All I meant by pointing out that Star Trek was many things is that one shouldn't try to play the Star Trek is x card that some fans usually use just to complain about how a Star Trek prodoucton becuase it wasn't x.

Plus I actually like the Titan crew beng diverse I just think its annoying when someone in trek feels the need to point to something that was pretty much ignored under suspension of disbelief and decide that its instead some major thing that must be addressed and then do so in what feels an awful lot like a fix fic.

Especially since it takes something that might be somewhay minor and blow it out proportion to unbelievable levels. Much like Trip Tucker's annoying death being reconted into a galaxy spaning conspiracy to cover up him being a secret major player in galactic history.

Now while I admit the whole Star Trek not showing many aliens in Starfleet (likely due to budget not moral failings) being because Starfleet is unconsciously racist as hell (yeah that kind of is what it feels like the explaination is) isn't on that level it is irksome that its basically calling attention to a limit of the shows and making a bigger deal about than it probably would be probably ignore/retcont it the moment they got pased this limitation.

Aka why it seems the amount of alien looking aliens tends to increases when ever Star Trek gets more money along with designs improvements and special effects improvements and alien make up changes/improvements.

And the big reason this is bothersome is it makes me wonder where it ends. I mean are we due for a trilogy explaining the changes in Worf's ridges over the years, or a book covering the shrinking of Starfleet vessles from 2233-2254?

Or hell a book about how Janeway was supposed to do her necessary save the universe thing in the original timeline like Eternal Tide says she did despite said event being in the Delta Quadrant while Endgame's map in Astrometrics clearly showing Voyager and the Borg Transwarp hub being at the Delta/Beta border meaning Voyager would be in the Beta Qudrant at the time in question.

Not to mention that it seems the later novels have treated the federaton as one big happy familiy with many people having spouses and inlaws from different races from themsleves, so Starfleet not being ver diverse at the same time dispite being part of said open and tolerant federtion kind of seems kind of odd.

It's easy to lie with statistics if you don't apply them properly, true, but that's exactly what you're doing -- misunderstanding how statistics work and using your own ignorance as a basis for twisting them to mean whatever you want them to mean.

Says the guy trying to aply statistics just by counting "humans" in Star Trek episodes and saying this means Starfleet is human dominated despite A) this being a tiny portion of every crew of every Starfleet starship, space station, and planetary instillation within and around an orgnaizaion of 150 member planets, uncounted colonies, space stations and starships over an 8000 lightyear distance and likely beyond and B) assuming there all atually human based on looking at them despite the number of alien races that look astonishingly like humans.

So excuse me for questioning how accuracy of a process that is largely based on assumption of a fictional universe that can be changed at the whim of the owners of it.

Not to mention one that if applied to real life like say watching abunch of shows set in the US would basically be used to say the vast majority of Americans look like televsion and movie stars.

Again which is based on assuming things based on a small sample size.

Again you prove you don't understand statistics. It's not about the size of the sample, it's about the representativeness of the sample, whether it's biased in a particular direction or more randomly drawn from the whole population. You're positing an extreme sampling bias while offering no justification for why that would be the case.

Okay here is some reasons its probably biased

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ba'ku

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deltan

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gideon

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Iotian

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Elasian

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/El-Aurian

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Capellan

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Argelian

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Betazoid

Basically just becuase they LOOK human doesn't necessariliy mean they ARE human. Kind of makes your sample questionable if you can't even say for certain they aren't a nonhuman species.

Assuming the money fairy comes by to give them money of more masks and face appliances.

As I said, they were able to spend the money almost every week on DS9 to populate Quark's and the Promenade with alien faces. So there's no reason a typical TNG or Voyager episode, with a comparable budget, couldn't have done the same.

For that matter, TNG and VGR often did episodes where most of the guest characters were Klingons or Romulans or Hirogen or what-have-you. It wouldn't have killed their budget to pick out two or three Starfleet extras in a crowd scene and put Bajoran noses or Trill spots or Vulcan ears on them.

Who knows maybe they though it was too much effort for some extras maybe they had to choose between more diverse new aliens and more diverse starfleet personale.

I do know whatever reaon probably wasn't becuase they were lazy or whatever other moral failing you might want to assign to the guys making Star Trek episodes.

 

[Christopher]

I envisioned a "mini-fleet" sent off to the unknown to explore together. I think a ship of water breathing aliens alongside the Titan would be a more practical approach than 2 ships with 1/2 air breathers and 1/2 water breathers. Of course, nothing says that you can't have a few of them on each others ships, but for support purposes, individual ships based on the needs of that particular race would make more sense, to me at least.

Bu there's only one water-breather aboard, so I don't know what you're objecting to in that case.

Presumably Starfleet assigns crew based on their qualifications and performance and on the needs of each ship for personnel with particular qualifications or skills. Environmental needs, as I've said, would be relatively easy to accommodate for a civilization as advanced as the Federation, so it wouldn't have to get in the way of assigning personnel based on skill and experience. To paraphrase David Gerrold, terms like "water-breather" or "low-gravity dweller" or "large crustacean" describe the members of the crew, but do not define them. Their species is not the sole or primary factor determining where they're assigned; their ability, experience, and personal attributes are, just as they are for everyone. It would be less than ideal to assign personnel to different ships based exclusively on physiological or environmental factors, because that wouldn't necessarily give you the best mix of skills and personalities on each ship. If you have the technology to overcome those environmental differences, then it lets you assign crew more flexibly and more on the basis of merit. If the best possible candidate for the ship's flight controller happens to be a water-breather, then the ship would have to settle for second-best if they were unwilling or unable to accommodate a water-breather. By the same token, if the best candidate for, say, chief engineer on a ship designed with an aquatic environment were a human being, that ship would have to settle for second-best if it weren't able to accommodate air-breathers. And, again, we have the technology to make that viable for hours at a time even today; there's no reason it wouldn't be substantially easier in the 24th century.

 

[Sci]

Star Trek: Titan may seem "in your face" about its diversity, because its diversity is part of the premise. It is literally a series about diversity, about how very different people get along. Saying that TTN is too "in your face" about its diversity is like saying that the original Star Trek is too "in your face" about being set aboard a space ship exploring the galaxy.

Meanwhile, I'm kind of tired of all these predictable posts whining about how it's not "practical" for species from mildly different environments to live together in a sealed metal can in the vacuum of space. This argument is predicated on the idea that there is a "default setting" for Starfleet officers, that there is a "normal" and a "deviation," and that anything that "deviates" from what is "normal" is therefore inconvenient and shouldn't be mixed in with what is "normal." Except, of course, there isn't a such thing as normal, there is no default setting, and things that differ from your mental prejudices about what is "normal" are not automatically impractical Because Reasons.

I'm not arguing that there is a "default setting" for Starfleet. However, there is a default setting for humans, and another one for Selkies, and another one for Elaysians, etc. Isn't it logical for them to serve on ships as close to their default settings as possible, so they can serve without the constant use of oxygen packs or water suits or anti-grav exoskeletons?

That is only logical if your goal is to minimize the amount of effort needed for crew members to interact.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to encourage crew members from very different species to interact, then it is logical to design a ship that facilities the ability of diverse species to interact.

Starfleet has decided that the benefits of integrating people from very different backgrounds, who have very different biologies, justify the expense needed to facilitate their integration into a single crew. That's really all there is to it: The goal is for them to integrate, not to minimize the effort necessary for them to interact.

Meanwhile -- Jesus Christ, the debate has devolved into side tangents like "statistics are unreliable" now? Validly-used statistics are the only reliable evidence when you're talking about mass data points!

This thread has devolved into people bitching for the sake of bitching.

 

[Christopher]

That is only logical if your goal is to minimize the amount of effort needed for crew members to interact.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to encourage crew members from very different species to interact, then it is logical to design a ship that facilities the ability of diverse species to interact.

Starfleet has decided that the benefits of integrating people from very different backgrounds, who have very different biologies, justify the expense needed to facilitate their integration into a single crew. That's really all there is to it: The goal is for them to integrate, not to minimize the effort necessary for them to interact.

Right. Starfleet is not about avoiding effort. It's about making any necessary effort to increase interaction between different species and civilizations. They've devoted 200 years, enormous resources, thousands of ships, and many, many lives to the goal of interaction with aliens on other worlds, so why would they be reluctant to make an effort to interact with fellow members of Starfleet?

 

[Sci]

That is only logical if your goal is to minimize the amount of effort needed for crew members to interact.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to encourage crew members from very different species to interact, then it is logical to design a ship that facilities the ability of diverse species to interact.

Starfleet has decided that the benefits of integrating people from very different backgrounds, who have very different biologies, justify the expense needed to facilitate their integration into a single crew. That's really all there is to it: The goal is for them to integrate, not to minimize the effort necessary for them to interact.

Right. Starfleet is not about avoiding effort. It's about making any necessary effort to increase interaction between different species and civilizations. They've devoted 200 years, enormous resources, thousands of ships, and many, many lives to the goal of interaction with aliens on other worlds, so why would they be reluctant to make an effort to interact with fellow members of Starfleet?

Exactly. After all, the Federation is an entire civilization built on the idea of working very, very hard to integrate entirely different species across the vastness of space into a single society. The Federation is all about the idea of union, of bringing together those who are different. It's the basis of their entire culture.

 

[Christopher]

^And that's part of the idea behind the Luna class: That the ships Starfleet sends out to represent the Federation to new civilizations should be microcosms of the Federation itself.

 

[T'Bonz]

Chris says, "If that were what they wanted, the best option would just be to stay on their home planets. A spaceship is a device for existing far outside your default environment. Because the people who build them and travel on them want to face the challenge of going beyond the comfortable and familiar. "

Guess you would want to stay planet side since you post in your blog how you don't like travelling in the rain and prefer the comfortable and familiar! LOL

How about not getting personal?

I'm filling in while the local mod is on vacation and I'm not averse to warning people who feel the need to take a discussion personal.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

For that matter, TNG and VGR often did episodes where most of the guest characters were Klingons or Romulans or Hirogen or what-have-you. It wouldn't have killed their budget to pick out two or three Starfleet extras in a crowd scene and put Bajoran noses or Trill spots or Vulcan ears on them.

Oddly enough, there's the occasional episode where they do indeed make an effort on that front. DS9's "The Ship", for instance, where a relatively small group of Starfleet officers includes not only a Benzite but also a Tiburonian, a race making its first appearance in non-TOS Trek, and with an updated design. In other words, they went out of their way to create a new racial makeup to apply to a character who has no lines and who is barely seen. Bizarre but welcome, and it makes me wonder just who decided that this time they were going to do something different than "Humans, plus the Token Bolian".

 

[Nathan]

T'Bonz, I wasn't trying to make a personal attack against Chris, but just trying to show it probably more practical to have a single group of Humans, mermaids, dinos, in one ship -- out of practicallity -- (just repeating my argument from previous posts).

At any rate, I re-read my post and I suppose I did come off a little snarky and for that I apologize.

 

[Christopher]

Oddly enough, there's the occasional episode where they do indeed make an effort on that front. DS9's "The Ship", for instance, where a relatively small group of Starfleet officers includes not only a Benzite but also a Tiburonian, a race making its first appearance in non-TOS Trek, and with an updated design. In other words, they went out of their way to create a new racial makeup to apply to a character who has no lines and who is barely seen. Bizarre but welcome, and it makes me wonder just who decided that this time they were going to do something different than "Humans, plus the Token Bolian".

Yes, which is part of why it's so annoying that Voyager so frequently dropped the ball. Sure, they often managed to include alien characters as speaking parts, like Chell and Tal Celes, but any crowd of extras aboard ship was usually pure human.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

My general assumption is that across the fleet, humans make up only a small percent of active service personnel, with the likes of the Enterprise-D and Voyager being exceptions to that, after all there aren't that many humans in the galaxy and 150+ other races, each with populations in at least the millions, that would have thousands in Starfleet.

But that's just how I see things.

 

[Christopher]

My general assumption is that across the fleet, humans make up only a small percent of active service personnel, with the likes of the Enterprise-D and Voyager being exceptions to that, after all there aren't that many humans in the galaxy and 150+ other races, each with populations in at least the millions, that would have thousands in Starfleet.

Except that virtually every time we see another Starfleet captain or admiral, they're human. On Memory Alpha's list of Starfleet flag officers, here are all the definitely non-human ones:

T'Lara
Savar
Sitak
Unnamed Vulcan admiral (mentioned but not shown)

Plus the Federation Council scenes in The Voyage Home featured an Andorian admiral and commodore as well as a Caitian admiral and commodore.

But outside of TVH, every single flag officer we ever saw onscreen was either a human or, on a handful of occasions, a Vulcan. That's incredibly disquieting. (At least DS9 gave us an alien president, but where the hell were all the alien flag officers in Starfleet?)

The books have been a little better with flag officers. The novelization of "The Way of the Warrior" identified Admiral Hastur as a Rigellian. Admiral Akaar is Capellan, though that's just a very tall humanlike guy. There's the Trill Jas Abrik from the Bacco administration. I made Admiral Masc (from "The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned") a Denobulan in Over a Torrent Sea, and I've featured the Caitian Admiral R'Miia in The Buried Age and Admirals Shran of Andoria and Flar of Tellar in the Starfleet chiefs of staff in A Choice of Futures. There's the Alonis Admiral Mentir in a couple of David R. George III's books, a Tellarite Vice Admiral Bur'Gun in Cast No Shadow, an Andorian Admiral ch'Evram and a Pentamian Admiral Nyllis in Losing the Peace, and so on. But even in the books, the vast majority of Starfleet flag officers are human. I think we tend to fall into the habit of making flag officers human unless we catch ourselves, because it was such a pervasive pattern in the show.

 

[Paris]

^I remember a bolian admiral in the DS9 two-parter with Sisko on Earth working for Leyton. The guy from the academy that Sisko contacts about Red Squad. Odo was in the room for the conversation, but was out of eye sight.

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, that's one. I guess the flag officers page missed him because he's listed under "Academy commandant" in "Unnamed Starfleet Academy personnel." Still, dozens of humans, four Vulcans, and one Bolian? Not a good record.

 

[JD]

Chris, you can't equate not being "practical" to a fair attitude.


It isn't practical to have a ship full of mermaids in a suit, 2 ft Disney tall characters, dinosaurs, and people who prefer to live in zero G.

Yeah, it can be done but it isn't practical.

Whereas it a little more practical to have humans, Vulcans, andorians, and tellarites mix it up on a ship...yeah there are some environmental differences but not as much as the first example.



If a school bus route only has to pick up one kid in the morning that lives 10 miles outta town, and the school district sends a mini-van to get the kid instead of the 77 passenger bus...the school district isn't "Denying them that right" to ride in a 77 passenger bus, but being practical in getting the kid in a mini-bus to school.

Is it practical for buildings to add a ramp for people who can't use steps, or braille for the blind? Is it practical for them to allow someone who needs an assitance dog to bring it with them into the building, or to allow a deaf person to have an interpreter?
Wouldn't it be easier for people like them to just stay where stuff like that only go to places specially designed for people like them?