Did the Starship Children Policy Change?

[Tom]

This may be more of general trek type of question but it revolves mostly around TNG.

After the Ent-D crashed in Generations we have not really seen any more familys on starships. I'm guessing that the borg attacks and the Dominon War changed Starfleets mind about risking the lives of children on starships or was is more of a Galaxy Class ship type of thing?

 

[Titus Andronicus]

I don't know if they've said anything on screen or in the books about it, but I'd guess that in the 2370s, with the spate of conflicts Starfleet had to fight (the Klingon War, the Borg invasion of 2373, the Dominion War, the Shinzon crisis), children were probably either not allowed on ships, or most officers simply concluded the risks were too great.

After all, don't forget that, before the Odyssey was destroyed, the families on that ship were unloaded on DS9. I imagine that in the 2370s, many officers just asked their families to live on stations or on colonial worlds, if not on their own homeworld.

 

[Christopher]

Although it wasn't ultimately used that way on the show, the Galaxy class was designed for long-term deep-space exploration lasting for up to 15 years away from port. Having families along was the only way such a mission would be viable, since you couldn't convince many civilian scientists -- or even Starfleet officers -- to leave their families for over a decade.

With the emergence of the Borg threat and then the Dominion War, Starfleet shifted emphasis toward more defense- and combat-oriented vessels. With that shift in mission priorities, there wasn't the same incentive to include families.

 

[Red Ranger]

Peeps:

I tend to agree that the increasing number of threats -- and civilian casualties, too -- prompted Starfleet to rethink that policy. After all, we know at least one other Galaxy-class ship was destroyed with all hands while on active duty, the Yamato, and most likely, the families on that ship died, too. Also, Sisko's ship, the Saratoga, had civilians who escaped after the massacre at Wolf 359, and others who died, like his wife, Jennifer.

I do wish we'd at least heard of some Galaxy-class ships whose mission was primarily exploration and kept going deeper into unexplored space. I wonder, too, while the Sovereign-class ships I think are smaller than the Galaxy-class vessels, if they, too, could be configured for long exploratory missions.

Red Ranger

 

[Timo]

Certainly the Saratoga was as different from a Galaxy as starships get. It doesn't seem, then, that ship design and configuration, intended mission, and the policy on families aboard would be closely related issues.

We don't exactly observe a great number of starships in the post-TNG era. We see perhaps half a dozen starship interiors overall: the Defiant doesn't usually carry civilians, and the Voyager had none on her inaugural mission, but the first Prometheus (from "Second Sight") did have at least one pair of civilians in prominence. The second Prometheus was just doing test flights, and extremely little was seen of the Bellerophon or the Challenger or the Honshu, or the future Rhode Island. The Dauntless was unmanned, and a fake to boot. And that's about it.

It's quite possible that the families-aboard policy continued unchanged through the 2360s, 2370s and the flashforwards. It is even possible the E-E had families aboard; since our heroes continue to be swinging singles or are inbreeding, the movies focused on them won't show much of the "family side". The one time we might have seen civilians would have been in the evacuation scenes of ST:FC, but it wouldn't be all that likely for civilians to evacuate from the same lifeboat station as Captain Picard - and we saw no other lifeboat stations.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[nx1701g]

I'm not entirely certain but I remember a novel focusing on Picard aboard the Enterprise-E where he specifically mentions Starfleet decided not to permit children onboard Starships any longer. I know it's not canon but I think it was in one of the Q books from the 90s.

 

[JayTheTrekkie]

Don't forget that not all starships had families...some do, some don't.

 

[Saga]

i would say that this policy was changed or suspended given the Dominion War. one would think that after the war was over that Starfleet would want to rebuild the devestated worlds and get back to exploration. i'd say they would once again allow children onboard. i mean lets say you're on a ship with your wife and have a kid. can Starfleet order that your kid be sent to Earth or whatever planet? i think it was just that when the Enterprise D was built they encouraged children and families.

 

[superstring01]

Did the Starship Children Policy Change?

Let us hope. Having children on a ship--even one of science--is a ridiculous concept.

~String

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Indeed. Were I the writers, conciously writing plots where the Enterprise has to plung into the Neutral Zone or try desperatley to stop a Borg invasion, the idea of Starfleet telling a ship with all those civilian families onboard to go risk their lives would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Case in point: USS Saratoga. If Sisko's family was back home as opposed to on the Saratoga, Jennifer would still be alive.

 

[Timo]

Or then assimilated. If Data and friends had failed to penetrate into the Collective through Locutus, a starship would have been a far safer place for children than Earth.

Why would it be worse for civilians to risk their lives on the front lines than on the homefront, really? Even today, war isn't about front lines any more: your life expectancy in the foxholes may far exceed your life expectancy at home.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[I am not Spock]

I always thought GR's insistence that kids should be on the ENT-D was one of the silliest ideas he ever had for TNG.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

And I always thought that shipping a starship away from the core Federation planets WITHOUT the crew's families was one of the cruelest things Starfleet could do to its personnel.

Methinks that including families will probably remain an option for some ships depending on the mission. Voyager not having families is no surprise; it was not likely to be more than a few weeks out of a major port while she was tracking down the Maquis. Even Janeway said at one point that she didn't request a counselor because she didn't figure they needed one for such a short mission. Voyager's missions were variable and thus the crew (and arguably civilians) embarked on her would change frequently as well.

We probably have several categories of missions in Starfleet, which carry with them an according degree of independence and therefore allowance for civilians/families. The big Galaxy-class starships and other explorers are SUPPOSED to operate away from starbase for months or years at a time, thus including provisions for families makes sense at peacetime (Thomas RIker noted that the Ambassador-class USS Ghandi, to which he was supposed to be transferred, would allow families too). Meanwhile, ultility ships like Voyager have neither the room nor the mission parameters for extended operations, and thus have no room for families. However, I'm sure that deep space missions that Voyager might have run into in a few years had they not zipped home in "Endgame" (as mentioned in "Lifeline") would surely have families.

Mark

 

[BenRoethig]

My theory is that its a product of 60 of very peaceful times. Starfleet moved towards more city ships with long duration missions and less toward the mainly combat oriented designs of the past. When the federation met the borg and the dominion and was reminded that the galaxy was not a safe place. They were reminded that a vessel that could be going in to combat at any time was not the best place for the development of children.

 

[BenRoethig]

Or then assimilated. If Data and friends had failed to penetrate into the Collective through Locutus, a starship would have been a far safer place for children than Earth.

Why would it be worse for civilians to risk their lives on the front lines than on the homefront, really? Even today, war isn't about front lines any more: your life expectancy in the foxholes may far exceed your life expectancy at home.

Timo Saloniemi

Not so much, Riker was going to sacrifice the Enterprise in an attempt to destroy the cube as a last resort.

 

[Warp Coil]

Or then assimilated. If Data and friends had failed to penetrate into the Collective through Locutus, a starship would have been a far safer place for children than Earth.

Why would it be worse for civilians to risk their lives on the front lines than on the homefront, really? Even today, war isn't about front lines any more: your life expectancy in the foxholes may far exceed your life expectancy at home.

Timo Saloniemi

Not so much, Riker was going to sacrifice the Enterprise in an attempt to destroy the cube as a last resort.

Indeed. The Enterprise-D found itself in a number of situations where the civilians, families and children aboard could have been injured or killed. Despite the ship's original mission to explore strange new worlds, there was an awful lot of violence going on.

I suspect that once the Dominion War really became a reality, civilians and families were not permitted to live on starships (though there were probably a few special circumstances). If Starfleet were smart, they wouldn't have reversed the decision after the war had ended. Even science ships on long-term cruises of exploration may not have families on them nowadays. It's safer.

 

[Timo]

But again, is it? A starship at least has a finite chance of surviving a combat engagement with an overwhelming enemy, by running if everything else fails. A planet is helpless in that respect.

In the aftermath of the war, and the Borg attacks, the Federation might in fact insist on placing breeding couples and their already existing offspring on all starships, in the hopes that they could sidestep armageddon and keep mankind going.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Was there a mass human extinction I missed or something? Did I miss that particular memo?

 

[Timo]

Well, casualty figures in the trillions were bandied about in speculation, and millions were referred to directly. People dying aboard starships wouldn't explain even a fraction of that, considering that the casualty list that Sisko and pals kept reading in DS9 never gave more than a few dozen names per starship at most (thus suggesting that no ships were actually being lost, just damaged).

And the Borg certainly seemed to be aiming at a mass extinction. If Starfleet didn't know it before "Endgame", Janeway at that point would have been able to tell them. It was probably included in one of her earlier communications with Starfleet already, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Corran Horn]

Indeed. Were I the writers, conciously writing plots where the Enterprise has to plung into the Neutral Zone or try desperatley to stop a Borg invasion, the idea of Starfleet telling a ship with all those civilian families onboard to go risk their lives would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Case in point: USS Saratoga. If Sisko's family was back home as opposed to on the Saratoga, Jennifer would still be alive.

Which is why they should have separated the saucer a lot more often than they did.

I understand that the Galaxy-class (at least the Enterprise) didn't end up truly fulfilling the role for which it was designed, but isn't the level of threat that ships exploring the unknown face much greater than that of ships which mainly ferry around diplomats and secure shipping lanes?

If you're exploring the Delta Quadrant some flying spaghetti space monster can turn your whole crew (including the children) into kumkwats for all you know. Not much chance of that happening in known space.