Where is the Diversity of Starship Crews?

I like to point out the most diverse starship crews in Star Trek are the Borg cubes. You realize that Starfleet starship lack much in diverse crews for they are mostly human. The Klingons, Romulans, have empires and their crews lack any diversity at all. If they are all empires which means many other alien races live within their empire so their starship should reflect this. The Federation is made up of numerous worlds but Starfleet Starships reflect it, poorly. Again, where is the Diversity of Starship crews?

I could understand the Klingons having some of their starships crewed by alien races but captain and officers being Klingons and the same for Romulans, Cardassians, and other totalitarians races manning their ships in this fashion. You know like 19th century colonial powers did in their armies. The Federation should have diverse crews milling about their starships reflecting their progressive values.

Now, where is the diversity of the war fleets of the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and other empires. When the Federation goes to war or into battle you only see Starfleet vessels but where are the Vulcans, Andorians, and the other Federation worlds star fleets. The same goes for the Klingons, Romulans and other empires fleets are homogenous not reflecting their diverse empires. Even the Dominion only has a homogenous war star fleet too and we know they have the Hunters in their domain.

Where is the diversity in Star Trek space?

 

Budget constraints.

 

Is the Borg really considered Diverse?
1) Everybody is forcibly assimilated against their will.
2) You lack 'free will' as a drone, the "Borg Queen" is the only exception
3) Your knowledge is literally raped from your mind and used for the interest of the "Borg Collective" against anybody who may oppose the Borg Collective
4) You're a literal assimilated Drone, sent to do tasks that are deemed by the greater conciousness. No Free Will what so ever. No individuality, No Creativity.

 

Aliens are just people in costumes. It's more important that Trek reflect human diversity.

 

Yes, but crews should reflect how dynamic the Federation is instead of how humans rules the Federation. The other spacefaring empires crews should reflect their empire diverse species. Maybe give us a Vulcan star fleet going into battle...

On the TV screen they have diverse crews or drones...

I do not know this is the issue because the federation has the economy of everything...

 

Star Trek did Klingon racial diversity once in 2017 and the fandom is still sore over it

Seriously tho, I loved the idea from old novels or fanfic (it all blurs together after all these years, I just know I read it) that the Klingons sat safe and sound in the "head" of a Klingon ship while the slave crew toiled in the radioactive engineering section.

 

FASA…for one Klingon citizens served on L-24s

 

Onscreen material has suggested that various Federation worlds--like Vulcan--still have ships of their own. In comparison, Starfleet is almost like a foreign legion, but its roots and traditions are unquestionably Earth-centric. Humans do comprise the bulk of Starfleet personnel, IMO, but only because so much of Starfleet is centered around Earth. That doesn't mean that there aren't Starfleet ships where Human crewmembers are few or perhaps even non-existent, but you're probably more likely to find those operating farther out from Earth's sphere of influence. There might be the USS I'Erfin in the Canopus Reach where you can count the number of Humans onboard with one hand maybe...

 

I love Diane Duane's 80's novel version of Trek, where the Enterprise was the flagship of the human branch of Starfleet and elsewhere in the galaxy there were miles-long ships crewed by elephant-sized nonhumanoids.

We could actually depict that kinda stuff on-screen nowadays.

 

Nah. Focus on people.

 

There's no reason why they can't feature more non-humans in prominent crew roles but to feature too many of them I think would suspend disbelief. You have to remember that every new alien race comes with its own culture. They have to create that. Otherwise, it's just window dressing. Let's look at Betazoids, for example. What do we really know about their culture? Not too much.

 

Maybe we need new Betazoid characters to help expand the depth of said culture?

 

NCC-1701 operated under UESPA. It makes sense it had primarily a human crew. There were primary Vulcan ships also. It makes sense there were likewise ships that had other species-specific crews. Different species have different needs.

 

DS9 actually had the most diverse, Starfleet wise.

There were humans, a Klingon, and a Trill in the senior staff. We hear of multiple other races like Ensign Vilix Pran (spelling is likely off) who were 'budding' during the show at least twice. We see Vulcans, Nog, Bolians.

Regarding Starfleet starships, that is one thing in DISCO's favor... we see a variety of aliens serving.

 

Budget constraints is the real world issue.

 

A large number of alien species simply look identical to Humans in Star Trek including: (list stolen from Ex Astris Scientia)-

Magna Romans, Aldeans, Angel Ones, Angosians, Ardanans, Argelians, Atlec & Straleb, Ba'ku, Beta III people, Capellans, Bandi, Dinaali, Dosi, Ekosians & Zeons, Elasians, Eminiarians & Vendikar, People of Vaal, Gideons, Halkans, Kalandans, Kataan, Kwejian, Ligonians, Lumerians, Minosians, The Onlies, Mordanites, Nyrians, Kohms & Yangs, Polaric Energy Planet, Ramatis III people, Risians, Edo, Rutians, Sarpeidon, Morg & Eymorg, Iotans, Sikarians, Takarians, Tarellians, Teplans, Torothan, Tyreen, Ventaxians, Vori, Wadi, Yaderan, Yonandan

Then of course, you have all the Earth colonies from the last several hundred years

Then you have the fact that our 'Hero' ships are all human controlled so it makes sense their ships are setup for their comfort. No doubt the Federation and Starfleet celebrates diversity and inclusivity and bends over backwards to accomodate, but their are still biological concerns. Alien races most comfortable with human level diurnal cycles, radiation levels, pressure, temperature, light, gravity, oxygen-nitrogen mix, height levels etc. will gravitate towards these ships, obviously.
Alien races most comfortable with conditions at 60 degrees C, 2.5 g's with doorframes at least 3 meters high and require thick clouds of flourine gas to breathe, will likely gravitate towards ships that accomodate that. Those ships may or may not have human sounding designations, and can largely even be the same ship classes we are used to, but their internal configuration may be wildly different.

 

They only come out when the budget allows. Otherwise, they're just off camera.

 

Star Trek is a TV show produced in the 20th and 21st centuries, and as such is very much under the budget constraints of a TV show and thus can not really show a diverse crew of all sorts of aliens. We have seen in situations where budget is not as much as an issue, such as the movies, animated shows, novels and comics, we do see Starfleet crews with a bit more of an alien presence. Indeed, even the current live action shows have shown more alien characters.

So ,yes, "budget constraints" is very much the reason. Maybe it doesn't work as an in-universe reason, but as King Daniel notes above, in-universe we just have to assume the aliens are there, we just aren't seeing them.

 

Just dialogue helps this, like when Bashir talks to Sisko about Vilix'pran's budding. Sometimes you don't have to show it.

 

Trek really does need to up its game in regard to species diversity. Lower Decks is getting pretty good with having more different aliens in the crew, which is something they can easily get away with given the fact its animated (Prodigy goes one better and doesn't have any humans, finally putting an end to the homo sapien blight on the Milky Way).

Given that humans of the Trek future is one giant melting pot its only through a wide array of different alien races that you can dig down into telling stories about current social issues, so a rich tapestry of aliens and fewer humans in the crews would definitely make for far more interesting interpersonal relationships and opportunities for character development.