Do you think there should have been more stories focused on the families and civilians on the ship?

[Farscape One]

^So you're saying that even if the original premise had been upheld and the E-D had been on deep space assignment for a decade or so, you would still oppose having families on the ship in those circumstances?

Just making sure I understand where you're coming from.

Yes, because you are actively putting those children in mortal danger.

And someone mentioned that kids being raised on a planet without having their parents would lead to several possible psychological issues. Is that worse than...

1. Being kidnapped by aliens from an ozone depleted world who want to use you as their children? ("When The Bough Breaks")

2. Being blown up and reanimated repeatedly for weeks because of a time loop? ("Cause And Effect")

3. Being turned into a prehistoric version of whatever your dna has? ("Genesis")

4. Slowly going insane because you have not been able to sleep for weeks due to an alien telepathic distress call? ("Night Terrors")

5. Completely losing your memory, and having no idea who you are? ("Conundrum")

6. Have interphasic lifeforms eating you a bit at a time? ("Phantasms")

7. Watch everything around you suddenly turn into parts of an ancient, alien city? ("Masks")

8. Survive attacks from Romulans, Borg, Cardassians, Ferengi, and numerous other races? (various episodes)


Any one of those things can certainly lead to psychological issues with kids, but the Enterprise had ALL of those things happen to them, and more.

And never mind the fact you are going into unknown space, which has dangers you are not even aware of yet.

One of the jobs of being a parent is to protect them as best as possible. How is bringing them along into such a dangerous occupation protecting them?

 

[DonIago]

This is one of those situations where I wonder how typical the E-D's adventures are of Starfleet in general. Yes, the vessels we see run into a lot of issues, but there's probably also a lot of ships that don't find themselves in those kinds of situations, especially if we assume the E-D's adventures were ramped up specifically because it's the lead vessel of a TV series.

I'm not -really- trying to defend it, but if the ship had been gone for years at a time as was the intention, and if the in-universe designers of the vessel weren't really planning around the idea that the ship would be encountering anywhere near as many dangers as it ended up coming across, than things start to make a bit more sense. Not necessarily enough sense, but more sense.

 

[Skipper]

Yes, because you are actively putting those children in mortal danger.

And someone mentioned that kids being raised on a planet without having their parents would lead to several possible psychological issues. Is that worse than...

1. Being kidnapped by aliens from an ozone depleted world who want to use you as their children? ("When The Bough Breaks")

2. Being blown up and reanimated repeatedly for weeks because of a time loop? ("Cause And Effect")

3. Being turned into a prehistoric version of whatever your dna has? ("Genesis")

4. Slowly going insane because you have not been able to sleep for weeks due to an alien telepathic distress call? ("Night Terrors")

5. Completely losing your memory, and having no idea who you are? ("Conundrum")

6. Have interphasic lifeforms eating you a bit at a time? ("Phantasms")

7. Watch everything around you suddenly turn into parts of an ancient, alien city? ("Masks")

8. Survive attacks from Romulans, Borg, Cardassians, Ferengi, and numerous other races? (various episodes)


Any one of those things can certainly lead to psychological issues with kids, but the Enterprise had ALL of those things happen to them, and more.

And never mind the fact you are going into unknown space, which has dangers you are not even aware of yet.

One of the jobs of being a parent is to protect them as best as possible. How is bringing them along into such a dangerous occupation protecting them?

Humans are evolved, you know. Something like that.

... Yeah it doesn't make sense. I really believe that no one had the courage to say Roddenberry what stupid idea it was. Even Picard thought that

 

[Skipper]

Yes, because you are actively putting those children in mortal danger.

And someone mentioned that kids being raised on a planet without having their parents would lead to several possible psychological issues. Is that worse than...

1. Being kidnapped by aliens from an ozone depleted world who want to use you as their children? ("When The Bough Breaks")

2. Being blown up and reanimated repeatedly for weeks because of a time loop? ("Cause And Effect")

3. Being turned into a prehistoric version of whatever your dna has? ("Genesis")

4. Slowly going insane because you have not been able to sleep for weeks due to an alien telepathic distress call? ("Night Terrors")

5. Completely losing your memory, and having no idea who you are? ("Conundrum")

6. Have interphasic lifeforms eating you a bit at a time? ("Phantasms")

7. Watch everything around you suddenly turn into parts of an ancient, alien city? ("Masks")

8. Survive attacks from Romulans, Borg, Cardassians, Ferengi, and numerous other races? (various episodes)


Any one of those things can certainly lead to psychological issues with kids, but the Enterprise had ALL of those things happen to them, and more.

And never mind the fact you are going into unknown space, which has dangers you are not even aware of yet.

One of the jobs of being a parent is to protect them as best as possible. How is bringing them along into such a dangerous occupation protecting them?

Don't forget "The naked now", when the E-D turned in a giant flying orgy. I suppose that were some awkward moments after the crisis had passed...

 

[fireproof78]

... Yeah it doesn't make sense. I really believe that no one had the courage to say Roddenberry what stupid idea it was. Even Picard thought that

No one really told Roddenberry that, after TMP. Once he got in to TNG it became his viewpoint creation of how humanity would change and evolve to leave behind what were considered foibles and irrationalities of the 20th century.

The children and families on the Enterprise D is one of those ideas, because people would value exploration and the gaining of knowledge far more than that of the loss of life. "People don't mourn in the future" as Roddenberry famously told Piller after he purchased "The Bonding" from Moore. It was meant to show people growing past their base reactions, and more managed. Almost, more logical.

Of course, nowadays, that is not considered healthy. But that's the perspective that drives the idea of having children on the Enterprise D.

 

[Quantum21]

Well, originally the 1701-D was intended to be the fastest, most ass-kickingly powerful thing ever built, sent out on a twenty-year mission beyond the Federation, so it was supposed to be an acceptable risk. If things got hairy, they were either to leave the saucer somewhere safe before venturing in or run away and drop it off, which is why they included that functionality (which they used four times over the 1701-D's lifetime).

Unfortunately, in the planning stages, nobody took into account how saucer sep'ing pretty much kills the pacing of an episode, so they never did it, even though there were numerous episodes where it would have made sense. They probably should have just forgone the family thing entirely and simply had Wesley (whom I bet was the main reason Roddenberry wanted children on board) just be an engineering whiz-kid Academy midshipman.

Ass-kicking was not in the description. Roddenberry tried to make sure conflict was diffused in those first couple of years.