I was thinking about this the other day and thought I'd ask: What if two crewmembers had a child? We know that the 1701-D is meant to house families, but Kirk's Enterprise is more militaristic, and meant only to house those crew that were needed for the mission. However, at the beginning of "Balance of Terror" Kirk is presiding over a civil union between two crewmembers. Now assuming that the male had not died (I believe he is killed right, its been a while since I have seen this episode), and he impregnates his wife, what becomes of the child? Are these two crewmembers assigned positions at a Starbase? Do they remain on board the Enterprise through the duration of its five year mission and convert their small quarters to house a child, or even a family?
Crewmember Children on the Enterprise?
- Thread starter Brannigan
- Start date
Although it was never discussed onscreen it's mentioned in TMoST that crew members are expected to practice some form of birth control. And if a woman were found to be pregnant then she could rotate to a starbase for the duration of her pregnancy. I'd assume after that she has choices to make.
With kirk aboard I hope all the female crew used some birth control !!! Lol
Why do you refer to the wedding ceremony as a "civil union"?
It took place in the chapel, and there is no reason whatsoever to say that Angela and Robert weren't intending to be MARRIED.
She even said, "I'm gonna marry you, mister, battle or phaser weapons notwithstanding."
Regarding birth control on starships, here's the complete quote from TMOST:
Interesting that no mention is made of a male birth-control pill or injection. In the 1960s, that was too wild an idea even for science fiction!
Interesting that no mention is made of a male birth-control pill or injection. In the 1960s, that was too wild an idea even for science fiction!
And we're talking about a TV show from the 1960s. The very concept of “civil unions” didn't even exist until the late 1980s.Why do you refer to the wedding ceremony as a “civil union”?
Correct me if I'm wrong but Star Trek has never (non-ambiguously) shown a civil union. People are single, casually co-habitat or are married. Again, no civil unions. Even after the late 1980's.
And we're talking about a TV show from the 1960s. The very concept of “civil unions” didn't even exist until the late 1980s.Why do you refer to the wedding ceremony as a “civil union”?
Hey guys, maybe I'm nuts here, but I believe my husband and I had a civil union, and we married in 1982 and they had been around for quite a long time. We called it a civil ceremony in those days because the marriage was performed by a civil authority and not a minister of any religion (in our case, a justice of the peace). In the case at hand, the starship captain would be the civil authority just like supposedly maritime ship captains had the authority to marry people. I imagine the term civil union came into use for gay marriages because these were marriages that were going to take place before civil authorities because religious authorities were refusing to do the ceremonies.
As far as the birth control, I always assumed that far in the future, there would be something simple and semipermanent a woman could do, and then simply and easily have undone.
Problem there is than a male's reproductive system is fairly simple while a female's is complex. The complex system offers multiple avenues to interfere. In the future something that temporarily constricts the plumbing (vas deferens or epididymis) is a maybe, but outside of that the only other possibilities are barriers and (reversible?) sterilization.
It shouldn't be chemically difficult to simply kill all the sperm when they exit - they are on the verge of dying anyway, so a bit of suitable poison in the general penile area (far enough down the tract that it doesn't seep into the testicles themselves) might do the trick easily and efficiently enough. One could then have a normal, physically unhindered ejaculation that stands no chance of impregnating anybody.
I'm far from convinced that Kirk's ship wasn't designed for children. For his first televised mission, Kirk was about to leave the galaxy - a trip that would later be established as standing no chance of reaching any interesting targets until several years, decades, perhaps centuries, into the mission. It's quite possible that one of Starfleet's youngest skippers was given this mission because he had the best chances of surviving its considerable length - and that his crew was expected to spend physically and mentally acceptable decades aboard. Family amenities might be part of that setup, then.
We did see young people in civvies aboard Pike's ship already - people who didn't even seem to recognize Pike, let alone acknowledge him in a traditional military fashion. And Kirk often took civilian passengers of various kinds aboard his ship. Facilities for accommodating them did seem to exist; facilities and personnel for accommodating young children shouldn't be an impossibly complicated addition.
The bit about only married women being allowed to carry sounds a bit out of place in Trek. Because the subject would never be allowed to arise in TOS, we don't have to pretend that 2260s people would have the same hang-ups about it as the 1960s ones, since evidence does not and cannot exist either way. And ENT would seem to establish that the world didn't get stuck in 1960s thinking, but proceeded through our late 20th and early 21st century morals before reaching the TOS era. So it would take extra effort to think that the 2260s suddenly went uptight again, against the flow.
Timo Saloniemi
I'm far from convinced that Kirk's ship wasn't designed for children. For his first televised mission, Kirk was about to leave the galaxy - a trip that would later be established as standing no chance of reaching any interesting targets until several years, decades, perhaps centuries, into the mission. It's quite possible that one of Starfleet's youngest skippers was given this mission because he had the best chances of surviving its considerable length - and that his crew was expected to spend physically and mentally acceptable decades aboard. Family amenities might be part of that setup, then.
We did see young people in civvies aboard Pike's ship already - people who didn't even seem to recognize Pike, let alone acknowledge him in a traditional military fashion. And Kirk often took civilian passengers of various kinds aboard his ship. Facilities for accommodating them did seem to exist; facilities and personnel for accommodating young children shouldn't be an impossibly complicated addition.
The bit about only married women being allowed to carry sounds a bit out of place in Trek. Because the subject would never be allowed to arise in TOS, we don't have to pretend that 2260s people would have the same hang-ups about it as the 1960s ones, since evidence does not and cannot exist either way. And ENT would seem to establish that the world didn't get stuck in 1960s thinking, but proceeded through our late 20th and early 21st century morals before reaching the TOS era. So it would take extra effort to think that the 2260s suddenly went uptight again, against the flow.
Timo Saloniemi
OK, FIRST since it seems a lot of people are getting hung up on my choice to use the words "civil union" (why? is this a negative term I'm not aware of?) I used that term because of its neutrality. If they were getting married then they were getting married, it just didn't seem like an overly religious affair anyway.
Secondly, thanks for the insight from TMoST book. It seems that the writers thought of these things, but didn't show them for obvious reasons. However it also seems like a sexist notion (understandable given the show's time period of the 60's) that the woman would either get a medical discharge or have to be transferred to a starbase. A medical discharge makes it sound like a negative thing to have children.
Secondly, thanks for the insight from TMoST book. It seems that the writers thought of these things, but didn't show them for obvious reasons. However it also seems like a sexist notion (understandable given the show's time period of the 60's) that the woman would either get a medical discharge or have to be transferred to a starbase. A medical discharge makes it sound like a negative thing to have children.
I think it highly unlikely the intent was to spend years beyond the galactic rim since there was really no where to go. Even the Magellanic Clouds or the Sagittarius Dwarf (if it was even known of in the 1960s) would have been a lengthy trip. I suspect it's more likely they wanted to just survey what could be seen or found from just outside the edge and then returned to report.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
Perhaps looking for the galactic equivalent of the heliopause/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopause#Heliopause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopause#Heliopause
Yes. I was talking about civil unions in the real world, not Star Trek.
Maybe we're arguing semantics. There's civil marriage, as distinct from a marriage performed by religious authorities. Civil unions, on the other hand, are a recent concept that was first given official recognition in Denmark in 1989.
Civil Union -- Wikipedia
In the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the Enterprise was about to venture beyond the galactic rim* to find out what happened to the S.S. Valiant, which had disappeared 200 years earlier. There was no intent of an extended mission beyond our own galaxy. Such a mission would be quite beyond the capacity of a TOS-era starship.
EDIT: Or, what Warped9 said.
Well, of course, when Trek TOS was made, no one could have predicted the changes in social and sexual mores that would occur in the next few decades: the increasing acceptance of relationships not blessed by church or state, the loss of the stigma associated with unmarried women having babies, the acceptance of gay relationships and so on. It's like pretending there were female starship captains in the TOS era, even though we never saw any.
*As David Gerrold remarked in The World of Star Trek, the idea of a definable “edge” to the galaxy is like “trying to bisect a sneeze.”
I don't think anyone sees “civil union” as a negative term -- just an anachronism. For the 1960s when the show was made, that is -- not necessarily in-universe.
Getting pregnant most definitely is a negative thing for active-duty military personnel, who have to be available to do their jobs whenever and wherever they're called to do them.
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I was referring to your quote, since I had made more or less the same comment:
Sorry for any confusion.
No, Kirk's log entry makes it clear that the Enterprise was already on a mission to probe outside the galaxy when they found the Valiant's recorder and were suprised that the Valiant how gotten out that far.
Either way, the idea was to see what it's like to go outside the galaxy, not to see how long it takes to get to Andromeda. Just poke their noses outside, take a look around, and head back.
Would you really want a kid asking "Are we there yet?" all the way to Andromeda?
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