Crew of the Enterprise-D

[DavidGutierrez]

Something has been bothering me for quite a while and it seems only logical to reach out to the community and see if anyone else has any conclusions.

Two things were repeatedly stated in TNG: The Galaxy-class was designed to hold families and civilian components of the crew, and the crew complement of the Enterprise was somewhere between 1012 and 1014. My question becomes this:

How many people on board the Enterprise were Starfleet personnel? Or, put another way, how many Starfleet personnel did it actually take to operate a Galaxy-class starship like the Enterprise?

I've scoured canon and non-canon resources like the TNG Tech Manual and Memory Alpha, but not a one of them has a good answer.

Thoughts?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

In other words: How many of the 1012 (1014) are crew *or* is it 1012 plus civilians?

Though, 1012 + civvies would seem a bit high.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always gone with a roughly 800+ actual crewmembers plus 200 passengers ratio myself.

 

[DavidGutierrez]

I've always gone with a roughly 800+ actual crewmembers plus 200 passengers ratio myself.

Why 800 : 200?

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always gone with a roughly 800+ actual crewmembers plus 200 passengers ratio myself.

Why 800 : 200?

800 being roughly twice the crew complement of the TOS Enterprise and 200 being the total number of spouses, children, and other civilians aboard the ship.

 

[Marten]

In Time Squared, the sister ship which I cant remember the name of is said to have been lost with "over a thousand people", and I believe that is supposed to include families. It should be the same for Enterprise.

The ratio of crewmen is more uncertain. In The Offspring, they visit the kindergarten, and a rough guess would put the total amount of children at about 50. If both parents are on board, and one is a crewmember, that is a hundred civilians. Most likely there some who only bring with their spouses/girlsfriends/boyfriends/etc, so say 100 more there. And then an even rougher guess on about 200 civilians on top of that (Ten forward always seem to be full of them), and we have about 600 crewmen left. Which still seems like alot for a ship that doesn't look to need that many people to be run. Of course, there could be a lot of work done that the audience don't see, for example the science departments.

 

[Shikarnov]

In other words: How many of the 1012 (1014) are crew *or* is it 1012 plus civilians?

Though, 1012 + civvies would seem a bit high.

You think? I always felt like a Galaxy class ship with only 1012 people would have a TON of empty space. With 42 decks, that's an average of 24 people per deck. And given the size of those decks, that's a lot of room to accommodate additional personnel.

 

[Alrik]

Tech Manual says that it does have a lot of empty space. The space can be used for various duties. When I get time, I'll try to find the specifics.

 

[C.E. Evans]

In other words: How many of the 1012 (1014) are crew *or* is it 1012 plus civilians?

Though, 1012 + civvies would seem a bit high.

You think? I always felt like a Galaxy class ship with only 1012 people would have a TON of empty space. With 42 decks, that's an average of 24 people per deck. And given the size of those decks, that's a lot of room to accommodate additional personnel.

I think the additional space is reserved for mission-related applications (such as new onboard facilities that might come about in the future as well as in the event the ship is required to transport a large number of people--either during a vacation mission or during a large transfer of personnel to a new colony or outpost.

 

[T'Girl]

If both parents are on board, and one is a crewmember, that is a hundred civilians

There are also unattached civilians aboard the Enterprise, like Keiko. Not married to Starfleet (at first) and with no children. I usually consider Keiko (and people like her) to be aboard as a civilian contractor of some sort.

The teachers in the school perhaps too.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

There are also unattached civilians aboard the Enterprise, like Keiko. Not married to Starfleet (at first) and with no children. I usually consider Keiko (and people like her) to be aboard as a civilian contractor of some sort.

The teachers in the school perhaps too.

That's always been my thoughts as well. I've always called them civilian contractors as well.

 

[DavidGutierrez]

It sounds like the conclusion we're coming to is that the Enterprise and Galaxy-class in general only need about 800 Starfleet personnel to operate them.

 

[danellis]

There's amble on-screen evidence that all the ship "needs" is one person to operate her. It's when things start need repairing that more people are required.

It wouldn't surprise me if the core "crew" of the ship was only two or three hundred: the remainder could be made up of a rotating cycle of mission specialists (both starfleet and non-starfleet) and their respective spouses and children.

Conversley the ship's "crew" could be 950 and the score or so of children and confirmed non-Starfleeters (was it ever categorically stated that Keiko was never Starfleet?) that we saw on screen was all there was on board. Admittedly given that we know at least Jennifer and Jake Sisko were on the Saratoga, a much smaller ship, this is quite unlikely.

dJE

 

[Alrik]

^
You make a pretty good point. I think there were probably more civilians on board than some might think. Besides all of the children and spouses, as T'Girl mentioned there are also the teachers. We also know that Guinan and Ben weren't Star Fleet, so I would imagine that most of, in not all of the Ten Forward staff were civilian.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It wouldn't surprise me if the core "crew" of the ship was only two or three hundred: the remainder could be made up of a rotating cycle of mission specialists (both starfleet and non-starfleet) and their respective spouses and children.

Oddly enough, in David Gerrold's novelization of "Encounter At Farpoint," he proprosed that the actual operational crew of the Enterprise-D was no larger than that of the original Enterprise. The old FASA TNG Officer Manual proposed that ships of the era carried more mission specialists and fewer operational personnel. While both books are non-canon, they do support your idea that much of the ship's actual crew consisted of mission specialists.

 

[SchwEnt]

Right. I was gonna say...
Are you strictly talking about the crew required to operate the ship itself, keep it functioning? Or are you also including crew needed to have the ship fulfill missions and operate as a starship?

All the security and medical and tactical and ordnance and science personnel can be dropped right off, they're not needed to operate the vessel. Correct?

But maybe the OP is referring to minimal ship complement to carry out Galaxy-class missions for Starfleet. That would be different.

 

[MacLeod]

I would say the crew compliment was around the 500 mark(No More than 600). Not that much more than a Constitution Class

500 Crew. Allowing 50 % To have a partner = 750. 50% with an average of 2 children = 1000

 

[tighr]

I would say that the crew compliment could be well under 400, given that there is 100 years of advancement in technology and automation between the TOS Enterprise and Enterprise-D. I would even go so far as to say that the civilan:crew ratio should be vastly tipped in the direction of the civilians.

As far as Jennifer Sisko, I though that she was a science division Lieutenant or something.

 

[Timo]

It sounds like the conclusion we're coming to is that the Enterprise and Galaxy-class in general only need about 800 Starfleet personnel to operate them.

In "Timescape", the USS Hera was lost with 800 hands. Backstage sources consider her Nebula class, thus identical in size to Galaxy, supporting the idea that no more than 800 people are needed - and many of those could be passengers, too. (Onscreen, we don't learn how big the Hera would have been, however.)

As far as Jennifer Sisko, I though that she was a science division Lieutenant or something.

We never saw her in uniform, so it's hard to tell. It's only in the novelization of "Emissary" that she is identified as a Starfleet officer.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS KG5]

How many people on board the Enterprise were Starfleet personnel?

I've always figured it varied drastically at any one time. The internal space of the Ent-D is truly vast, and there is no reason to believe she could not comfortably accommodate 25,000 people if necessary.

If the usual complement is more like 1000 or so (as suggested on-screen) then it could include big mission-specific detatchments, like extra security teams, scientists, politicians or diplomats, some of who would be Starfleet and some not.

Maybe 500-600 core Starfleet crew?