Did having children and families onboard make sense?
- Thread starter JoeZhang
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I love the description of the D as a university town.We could easily agree that it wasn't just the writers who changed their minds, it was Starfleet. Somebody must have taken Q's warning seriously after "Farpoint"...
Historically, the reason why there haven't been women and children aboard fighting vessels has largely been threefold:
1) Not enough resources aboard to support extraneous personnel
2) Not enough physical strength in females and children to use them as a labor force
3) Denying women from the men makes them more warlike and/or disciplined
Mind you, children were extensively employed as labor aboard naval vessels whenever possible: running errands that didn't require high physical strength, mainly. And fighting forces in the past regularly dragged their families with them, or founded new families wherever they were stationed.
The third item in the list hasn't featured in the deliberations all that often or strongly, as it could be argued that the men would fight all the better if they had their families to protect. The rather contradictory arguments about the denying of sex and closeness on aggression and discipline are probably best ignored, as they are too heavily loaded with unfounded assumptions and the ballast of tradition.
In the near future, one would see #2 disappear as a rationale, because effective fighting (or exploration, or whatever) can be conducted by disciplined six-year-olds, 45 kg women, or wheelchair-bound centenarians. One might see the return of an ages-old rationale #4:
4) Females are more valuable for breeding than males - or, more exactly, the loss of a female hurts repopulation efforts more than the loss of a male
This didn't matter in the age of naval fighting, really, because the communities back then were not short of people, and extensive use (and loss) of women in combat roles wouldn't have been alarming. But the rationale is coming back in fashion because of a somewhat misdirected appreciation of human life. When formerly humans were the most expendable part of a fighting force, today they are among the most valuable. It's just that, strangely enough, female humans are found more valuable than male ones - not for reasons of evolutionary logic any more, but out of rather arbitrary Victorian tradition.
Tradition must weigh heavily on Starfleet, too. One wonders if the presence of families aboard starships isn't part of a future culture of discouraging fighting by emphasizing the danger and cost. That is, instead of safety belts, future vehicles will have six-inch bayonets in front of the driver. And future armies will wear their children as their flak jackets, to discourage the use of bullets as the means of defeating the enemy.
Timo Saloniemi
Historically, the reason why there haven't been women and children aboard fighting vessels has largely been threefold:
1) Not enough resources aboard to support extraneous personnel
2) Not enough physical strength in females and children to use them as a labor force
3) Denying women from the men makes them more warlike and/or disciplined
Mind you, children were extensively employed as labor aboard naval vessels whenever possible: running errands that didn't require high physical strength, mainly. And fighting forces in the past regularly dragged their families with them, or founded new families wherever they were stationed.
The third item in the list hasn't featured in the deliberations all that often or strongly, as it could be argued that the men would fight all the better if they had their families to protect. The rather contradictory arguments about the denying of sex and closeness on aggression and discipline are probably best ignored, as they are too heavily loaded with unfounded assumptions and the ballast of tradition.
In the near future, one would see #2 disappear as a rationale, because effective fighting (or exploration, or whatever) can be conducted by disciplined six-year-olds, 45 kg women, or wheelchair-bound centenarians. One might see the return of an ages-old rationale #4:
4) Females are more valuable for breeding than males - or, more exactly, the loss of a female hurts repopulation efforts more than the loss of a male
This didn't matter in the age of naval fighting, really, because the communities back then were not short of people, and extensive use (and loss) of women in combat roles wouldn't have been alarming. But the rationale is coming back in fashion because of a somewhat misdirected appreciation of human life. When formerly humans were the most expendable part of a fighting force, today they are among the most valuable. It's just that, strangely enough, female humans are found more valuable than male ones - not for reasons of evolutionary logic any more, but out of rather arbitrary Victorian tradition.
Tradition must weigh heavily on Starfleet, too. One wonders if the presence of families aboard starships isn't part of a future culture of discouraging fighting by emphasizing the danger and cost. That is, instead of safety belts, future vehicles will have six-inch bayonets in front of the driver. And future armies will wear their children as their flak jackets, to discourage the use of bullets as the means of defeating the enemy.
Timo Saloniemi
I completely agree with Chirstopher. The original concept had a lot of potential for good stories that were wasted. Hell, even looking at some of Andrew Probert's concept sketches for various sections of the ship makes you wonder about the story possibilities. The only time we really got to see a hint of what scientific resources the ship had was when we saw astrometrics in Generations. Given Picard's interest in archeology it would have been interesting to see that played up a little more.
Not necessarily. There's this tendency to assume that Gamma Quadrant = Dominion space, but that's just not true. Nobody from the Alpha Quadrant even began hearing hints of the Dominion's existence until a year after they began exploring the GQ, and they didn't actually encounter the Dominion directly until nearly two years had elapsed. And then, when ships did travel to Dominion space from the wormhole, it was shown as something that took time and occurred because a ship was specifically setting course there. There's no question that Dominion space is some distance from the wormhole and that there's plenty of the Gamma Quadrant they don't control.
Besides, even if the Enterprise had run into the Jem'Hadar, they would've done better than the Odyssey, because main characters always survive things that are quickly fatal to guest stars.
I was thinking more of the "guest starship (or captain) of the week syndrome." Guest ships or captains equivalent to the hero ship or captain are generally there either to get killed or to go rogue and have to be brought down by the heroes.
Besides, even if the Enterprise had run into the Jem'Hadar, they would've done better than the Odyssey, because main characters always survive things that are quickly fatal to guest stars.
The funny thing is, Capt. Keogh was Capt. Picard in all but name... An older soft-spoken gentleman who didn't want to involve and thus endanger any outsiders, preferred a defensive battle and stood his ground, had a crew that was quick to explore all technobabble options (beating Dax to it), and knew when to leave a fight. Too bad the Jem'Hadar had other ideas.
Even his ship didn't have the usual glass jaw: it took exceptional destructive power to blow her to bits. I wonder what sort of underhanded trick the writers could have used to save Keogh's life if he happened to be the big star of another Trek show, without being completely implausible about it...?
Timo Saloniemi
I think to an extent the presence of families, especially children, could have been an attempt by Roddenberry to show a different human outlook in the 24th century, one of self-education and improvement above all else. The endurance of the potentially sizable risk of being out in the great unknown for the benefit of those experiences that come with that over staying on Earth or some other stable, fortified world because it's "safer".
Less of that Helen Lovejoy "Won't someone think of the children" 21st century paranoid mentality and more of that 24th century human beings-trying-to-enrich-themselves as best they can philosophy. Danger or no danger.
Less of that Helen Lovejoy "Won't someone think of the children" 21st century paranoid mentality and more of that 24th century human beings-trying-to-enrich-themselves as best they can philosophy. Danger or no danger.
It never really made sense to me. I mean, yeah, I can see the point they were trying to put across, but, eh, it just seemed stupid whenever there was a scene involving the kids aboard the ship.
Not just cavalry. Throughout the 19th century, both rank & file and officers would bring wives along to war. Most of the time they'd be left at a base of operations somewhere in the theatre, but having them near the frontline wasn't unknown. Of course, sometimes the "wives" were simply acquired from the camp followers or the local populace, but regular "legit" wives were also there.
Exactly.
Plus by Picards time Starfleet didn't fear the Klingons or the Romulans. No alien species within the Alpha Quaderant was a threat to the Federation, so they didn't see any danger in having families onboard the Enterprise.
It was Q that showed Starfleet how stupid & arrogant that type of thinking was by introducing us to the Borg. He reminded us that not everybody in the galaxy is peaceful or responds to diplomacy.
But families have never been on military ships at sea. The cavalry example works for DS9 - a space station. It doesn't work for ships of the line. Horatio Hornblower left his wife at home!!
Timo said:
Besides, even if the Enterprise had run into the Jem'Hadar, they would've done better than the Odyssey, because main characters always survive things that are quickly fatal to guest stars.
The funny thing is, Capt. Keogh was Capt. Picard in all but name... An older soft-spoken gentleman who didn't want to involve and thus endanger any outsiders, preferred a defensive battle and stood his ground, had a crew that was quick to explore all technobabble options (beating Dax to it), and knew when to leave a fight. Too bad the Jem'Hadar had other ideas.
Even his ship didn't have the usual glass jaw: it took exceptional destructive power to blow her to bits. I wonder what sort of underhanded trick the writers could have used to save Keogh's life if he happened to be the big star of another Trek show, without being completely implausible about it...?
Timo Saloniemi
Arrrgh! I had a nice well written post, then my cat jumped up on my lap and closed my browser. Not only is she trying to kill me, but now she's keeping me from posting.
Anyway, I'll reconstruct my post as best I can.
Didn't the Enterprise D have Runabouts by this point? Even if she didn't it doesn't exclude the possibility that other Galaxy class ships did. So let's say the Odyssey had Runabouts (Insert your Airplane! joke here). Her Runabout(s) could also have been deployed along with DS9's. One of them could have rammed the Dominion ship before it hit the Odyssey.
Christopher said:
Not necessarily. There's this tendency to assume that Gamma Quadrant = Dominion space, but that's just not true. Nobody from the Alpha Quadrant even began hearing hints of the Dominion's existence until a year after they began exploring the GQ, and they didn't actually encounter the Dominion directly until nearly two years had elapsed. And then, when ships did travel to Dominion space from the wormhole, it was shown as something that took time and occurred because a ship was specifically setting course there. There's no question that Dominion space is some distance from the wormhole and that there's plenty of the Gamma Quadrant they don't control.
Besides, even if the Enterprise had run into the Jem'Hadar, they would've done better than the Odyssey, because main characters always survive things that are quickly fatal to guest stars.
It was, however, strongly implied, that the Dominion watched that area of space closely. It may have been under Dominion influence if not a part of the Dominion.
Well, yes, once the Dominion became aware of the increasing influx of ships from the AQ, they apparently increased their own military presence in the vicinity of the wormhole.
But let's keep in mind that this is a fictional universe, shaped by the needs of storytelling. If, as I suggested, TNG had sent the Enterprise to the Gamma Quadrant for its last two seasons, then the storytelling needs of TNG might've limited whatever DS9 wanted to do with the Dominion. Or at least shaped it differently. Instead of having DS9's second season culminate with an episode where a Galaxy-class starship was destroyed by the Jem-Hadar, there could've been a crossover arc of sorts that developed the Dominion idea in a different way.
Of course, since TNG ended at about the time the Dominion made their full-on debut, it might not have made much difference to the storytelling at all.
But let's keep in mind that this is a fictional universe, shaped by the needs of storytelling. If, as I suggested, TNG had sent the Enterprise to the Gamma Quadrant for its last two seasons, then the storytelling needs of TNG might've limited whatever DS9 wanted to do with the Dominion. Or at least shaped it differently. Instead of having DS9's second season culminate with an episode where a Galaxy-class starship was destroyed by the Jem-Hadar, there could've been a crossover arc of sorts that developed the Dominion idea in a different way.
Of course, since TNG ended at about the time the Dominion made their full-on debut, it might not have made much difference to the storytelling at all.
As suggested, this has been a primarily logistical limitation. Even though really jam-packed (and because of it!), the old fighting vessels just couldn't have accommodated the number of people involved in functional family units. Officers might have taken their wives with them aboard the later, more luxurious vessels, but the resulting inequality would have caused giant discipline problems.
Ships of today wouldn't face actual logistical problems if some people aboard formed family units, as long as they didn't have any kids. The biggest ships of the Trek future wouldn't have a major problem even if a crew member decided he'd like to take his hometown with him. Starfleet might even consider that a prudent move in order to avoid homesickness...
The big lady has probably always had a greater variety of onboard auxiliaries than we were shown. But she has never used them for combat, apart from special forces insertion and extraction missions. Today's naval vessels don't deploy their Zodiacs when going to battle, either; incoming suicide boats are best intercepted with shipboard automatic guns rahter than with one's own boats.
I'm not sure a runabout or some other type of fightercraft would have been able to do much against the Jem'Hadar ramming attack. Note how the attacking ship moves so swiftly that the runabout trying to intercept it actually misses with its phaser beam - a never before seen event in 24th century Trek history! If a phaser beam, with a standard hit rate of 100%, can't catch that bug, what hope would there be of positioning a runabout on the bug's flightpath?
Not enough to do anything about the Alpha presence, though - not until "In Purgatory's Shadow" anyway. The Alpha comm relay stayed there untouched; reports of Alpha ships arriving in Gamma never seemed to reach Dominion ears in time, either. One would think there were massive problems with distances and logistics to keep the Dominion from being more prominently in control of the Gamma end. Which was very good for drama in the end...
And it would have been a nightmare to manage. It wouldn't just be a matter of having to match TNG scripts with DS9 scripts for consistency (something that was only done twice or thrice during the entire runs of the shows - or with DS9/VOY when those two ran concurrently). Worse still, both shows would actually have to preplan these things, at least one season's worth ahead, whereas neither of them actually did much preplanning as matters stand.
Timo Saloniemi
It's true the Runabouts often missed the Dominion ships in the battle with the Odyssey, but it looked like they were able to keep pace with them.
The Dominion was proving a point to the Federation by ramming the Odyssey. That point could have been further proven if the Dominion ships kept out running the Runabouts.
Captain Keogh agreed that he might need more fire power to rescue Sisko, determine Dominion intentions and strengths, then get out of there. He had O'Brien refit the Runabouts just for that. It would have made sense that if the Odyssey had Runabouts they could have been deployed as well, if for nothing else than a show of force.
Admittedly it was the Dominion who made the more convincing display of force.
It is possible that one or more of the Odyssey's Runabouts would have stayed close to her once she dropped her shields and lost communications. Perhaps close enough to collide with the Dominion ship, if weapons fire didn't turn them away (it most likely wouldn't have turned them away).
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