A bartender.............on a warship!

Just rewatched "Yesterday's Enterprise" and couldn't help wondering why Guinan was there, except for the necessities of the plot of course. I mean, you might need a bar on such a ship for the troops to blow off steam but the bartender would most likely be a member of the crew and not a civilian. Your thoughts?

 

I dunno. The army has traditionally had cooks but they were soldiers who would put down their spatulas and pick up their weapons if need be. Recently the trend, with the US at least, has been to contract out such services. But that may be more about lining the pockets of contractors than any military consideration.

I still find it unlikely that a starship wouldn't utilize enlisted personnel to provide such services rather than have a civilian taking up space. Especially considering that the bar would most probably be closed during engagements.

 

Well, we know the time change happened a couple decades before the episode. We've seen Guinan come to know Picard in Time's Arrow, and she packs a considerable arsenal herself. It could be that, even though she's civilian, befriended Picard and/or proven her ability to handle a crisis well.

As for Ten-Forward's use, I imagine that, should the E-D suffer catastrophic damage or needs to act as a mobile hospital/relief center, that Ten-Forward can be used as additional space. Guinan could be a key member in managing that space for emergencies, working in conjunction with military staff for maximum efficiency. So in effect, she takes up her space, but is perhaps very, very good at managing space much greater than her own, which makes it a more-than-fair trade.

 

I had never thought of that. Maybe Guinan used her influence to get herself onboard, with her mysterious wisdom guiding her even if she herself didn't understand why she needed to be there. I'm not terribly worried about it, but it's an interesting point. I'll mostly just assume that Starfleet decided a good bartender was important for ship's morale.

 

Well, they had a fully functional barber shop/beauty parlor, so why not a fully functional bar and bartender?

 

She also sang, danced, and did stand-up comedy. She was like a one-being UFPO show.

 

IIRC, Yesterday's Enterprise didn't establish if the ship's barber shops were staffed by civilians or by military personnel (which is the case in modern military navies). This is unlike Guinan -- a civilian -- running a bar in a warship.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/enlistedjob1/a/sh.htm

 

I wonder which Picard she met in the past, in the Klingon War timeline? How would that work?

 

Guinan has lived so long, it's possible (albeit unlikely) that she actually has military experience of some kind.

 

Data's head pops up in the *weirdest* places...

Ahem, more mysterious though, is that Guinan "Prime" has said that Picard requested her to join, and that she knew Picard for a long time and that their relationship went beyond friendship and family (though it contradicts her saying that she only met Picard after boarding).

 

Ah, the need for speculation once again raises its ugly head. According to the letter of what we hear her say, they didn't meet face to face until she showed up on the Enterprise, yet they have known each other for years.

It's possible Guinan and Picard corresponded for many years before he asked her to join him aboard the Enterprise. She could have used any excuse to begin the correspondence, even saying she had heard about his exploits and wanted the straight deal directly from him. However their ongoing conversation in print might have gone, if they began sharing private details of their lives, the dialog between them becomes one "beyond friendship and family", as these details are ones they have not shared with others. It says a lot about Picard's trust of Guinan that he would ask her to come among his friends and co-workers, after sharing such intimacies with her.

Once again, this is all just non-canon speculation. But that's my take on it.

 

That's as valid as any other theory, I think. Maybe there's a Federatoin Craigslist that started it all...

Strictly Platonic
Misc Romance
Casual Encounters
Beyond Friendship and Family

 

To the above: Starfleet doesn't have to conform to 21st century military standards. Where does it say otherwise? And besides, it could be that Picard made it an exception in. Guinan's case, or that Starfleet does subcontracting with civilians. Regardless, this sort of criticism of Guinan being aboard a warship is silly, since there is very little in the way of a fully-developed backdrop in 'Yesterday's Enterprise'. A noveltization of the episode would have been nice, though...

 

Even warships have cooks, though with replicators, it's probably not needed. The Ten Forward in this is more like a messhall than a bar, and Guinan served field rations.

 

Silly or not, it just struck me as incongruous.

 

Why have a bar on a ship with 1000s of soldiers during a time when replicator use was restricted and tight? And while synthahol is said to have the intoxicating effects easily shrugged off it may just have been seen as not a good idea to have it on the ships during a time of war. (Where morale was hardly a thing to worry about.)

This is one aspect that's always bugged me in an otherwise fantastic episode. It just didn't make much sense for Guinan to be on the ship. Because it really hardly seemed like a type of situation where a civilian bartender was needed on a ship that, really, didn't "have a bar" as 10-Fwd seemed to be more of a mess/dining hall than the relaxed gathering place we see in the regular timeline.

I mean a counselor seemed like something that was vastly more needed given the stressful situations people were in and we're shown Troi is no longer on the ship. So... no Starfleet councilors on the warship but civilian bartenders?

The only "possible" solution is that Picard got special permission and consideration to have Guinan on the ship as "something" of a sense of civility and ease on the otherwise tense ship.

But here's a question... How did Guinan and Picard even meet in this timeline? While in the real-world it hasn't been written yet, in the show Guinan and Picard meet in the 19th century when Picard travels back in time to there from the future. Something not likely to happen given the ship's mission and that alt-Picard himself says the Federation is months away from surrendering/losing the war. So Picard never travels back to 19th century Earth, never meets Guinan in the past which means he and Guinan never meet, he never seeks her out to bring her onto the warship to relax things a bit and... oh dear I've gone cross-eyed.

 

Guinan was always a better counsellor than Troi, in my estimation. She was someone who could fulfill the roles of counsellor, morale officer, bartender/someone to organize food services and entertainment...

But yeah, it was weird that she was there in the first place.

 

Well, as I said in the Troi/Guinan/Counselor thread it's impossible to know "how good of a counselor" Troi was given that we didn't really see many of her sessions and what we DID see we didn't see much of. It's unfair to say Gunian was the better counselor. Guinan was a bartender, a woman with centuries of experience, sure, but still... a bartender.

Troi presumably spent years in school, as an intern, in a fellowship or whatever else to become a doctor or a professional counselor. There's a VAST difference between unloading your daily problems with a bartender in one sitting and spending an hour a week for months or even years in counseling speaking to a someone about your deepest problems and fears.

Hating on Troi of a counselor sort of goes with the idea many people have these days about dis-believing the hardships and realities of mental illness. It's not something you just talk-off with a friend one night at a bar. It takes REAL work and discussion, something Guinan unlikely had the time or real qualifications to do. Sure, she's may be a good listener and may have good advice but does she have the training and know-how to guide someone out of a serious depression? Battling anxiety? Battling any number of other mental disorders?

That was Troi's actual job and not something we really got to focus on since the show was a space-drama not a medical procedural about mental illness.