How Does Starfleet Justify an All-Vulcan Crew?

[USS Triumphant]

Where is it established that Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet? His notoriety could come from simply having a high ranking Ambassador marry an Earth woman and having a son. Next add in that said son (Spock) elects not to follow in the steps of his well known father to join the human centric Starfleet.

This is pure media and tabloid fodder or the 23rd century equivalent on Vulcan.

I have edited my previous post to remove that clause, since after a bit of searching, I have determined that you are correct: despite the idea's prevalence in fan discussion, especially in the 1970s, there is no canonical proof for the idea that Spock was the first Vulcan to sign up for Starfleet.

The absence of that clause doesn't seem to change the primary point about Pon Farr that I was making, anyway.

 

[Ethros]

I just figured a lot of Vulcans (maybe younger ones) found it difficult to be around "highly emotional" species, esp when on a crew of say 300 there could be you and maybe three other Vulcans. So they find it easier to just be around each other

 

[Timo]

This conversation borders on the absurd. Why would an all-X crew need to be "justified"? Is a bunch of racists going to complain if no justification is published on a big board in front of the San Francisco HQ?

As for swapping whole crews after missions, the simulator dialogue in ST2 might suggest this is exactly what Starfleet does, at least with the longer deep space exploration missions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Commishsleer]

Didn't they say the Intrepid was given to an all-Vulcan crew by Starfleet to honour Vulcan for something or another?

 

[Timo]

In the novel Strangers from the Sky, the existence of that strange starship is due to human gunboat diplomacy: humans are fed up with Vulcans staying out of fights, so they force them to equip and crew at least one starship - which then ends up performing utterly pacifist missions and never firing her guns. (Perhaps that's why the Space Amoeba had such an easy time with her?)

I haven't heard of another novel story, let alone a canon one, about that ship, though.

Somehow, I doubt Vulcan would ever build a ship named "intrepid", as the very concept of trepidity should be quite alien to them. This sort of suggests that the ship was from Starfleet, named by humans or Andorians or other emotional folks, and thus probably was operated under Starfleet authority. But even that is not certain about the vessel. Odds are, though, that she was one of the ships listed on that "Court Martial" chart that had Starfleet-style registries but no names. Probably.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vandervecken]

The ship was destroyed and some reason Spock had this Jedi feeling of Vulcan's being dead.

You mean Obi-Wan had this Vulcan feeling of billions being dead.

 

[Xerxes1979]

Perhaps an all Vulcan crew could operate in full telepathic mode without infringing on the rights of other species. Or the Intrepid was in a region of space were this telepathy would be useful for diplomacy.

 

[BK613]

Somehow, I doubt Vulcan would ever build a ship named "intrepid", as the very concept of trepidity should be quite alien to them. i

Perhaps a rough translation of an unpronounceable Vulcan name? "Without fear." A cultural appeal to control the basis of many a negative emotion.

***
On the topic of the OP, environmental considerations is what I'll always considered the justification; look, for example, at how Vulcan's heat and thin atmosphere affected Kirk in Amok Time. Imagine if you were human and had to live in that 24/7. Or if you were Vulcan, and had to put up with the chilly, thick air of Earth.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

One could argue that Starfleet tends to pair species together who have similar habitat requirements. So Vulcans would tend to be paired not with humans, but with species whose planet's atmosphere is similar to Vulcan.

And it would follow from that there exist ships where most of the corridors are completely flooded with water like the Xindi Aquatic ships.

 

[T'Girl]

Perhaps a rough translation of an unpronounceable Vulcan name?

In ENT and DS9 we saw Vulcan ships with Vulcan names, there was no effort to translate their names into English.

 

[BigJake]

The episode, as it turns out, seems to make it pretty clear that the USS Intrepid was a Starfleet vessel and was working for Earth. So I don't think my theory of the vessel having been "donated" to the Vulcan space service works after all. Maybe some sort of special recruitment or outreach or cultural exchange program could be used to explain it.

 

[Ethros]

Well the one is DS9 was the USS T'Kumbra, fairly obviously a Vulcan name/word


Oh and there was the USS Hera from TNG too that no one's mentioned yet. Though captained by La Forge's mother, it was said to have a crew of 300; mostly Vulcans
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Hera

 

[Nerys Myk]

The episode, as it turns out, seems to make it pretty clear that the USS Intrepid was a Starfleet vessel and was working for Earth. So I don't think my theory of the vessel having been "donated" to the Vulcan space service works after all. Maybe some sort of special recruitment or outreach or cultural exchange program could be used to explain it.

Scanning the transcript, I only see references to Starfleet, not Earth.

As for swapping whole crews after missions, the simulator dialogue in ST2 might suggest this is exactly what Starfleet does, at least with the longer deep space exploration missions.

It's an odd line, that only seems to exist to set up Kirk's response.

 

[Warped9]

I don't understand all the elaborate rationalizations. What's wrong with GR's initial notion?---Starfleet assigns predominantly one species to given ships. It certainly makes an effort for Starfleet to be more representative of the Federation.

 

[Lance]

Well the TOS Enterprise had an all human crew except for Spock. In TAS we saw Arex and Mress so maybe that can be retconned to TOS.

Yeah, I gotta be honest and say I never assumed the TOS ship was "all human", even though we only saw one alien. I think in an ideal world they'd have had more aliens, but the make-up cost too much to do in with any regularity and unless a story really called for it then doing it with background extras was probably pointless and costly as well. I don't see any reason why they couldn't have cast one of Kirk's Yeoman-of-the-week as visibly non-human, of course...

It was the Intrepid, and yes it was always a bit odd. My general sense is that Starfleet in TOS is basically Earth's space service (the primary strength of the Federation in the same way that the US Navy is the primary strength of NATO), and that the ship was for some reason loaned to Vulcan's (smaller) space service which crewed it. But that's completely ex recto.

"Ex recto"... I like it!

I've always justified it as being that the Intrepid was on a specialized mission... I mean, surely there must be space missions where Vulcans are simply more physically suited than humans? Quite why they'd send them on a Constitution Class ship rather than a Vulcan vessel I can't quite fathom, given we know that Vulcan vessels exist.

 

[mlk]

I've never understood this given that the Federation seems to be a melting-pot of several different species and that Vulcan culture emphasizes infinite diversity in infinite combinations. How does Starfleet justify having vessels with only Vulcan crewmembers? Would an all-human crew be allowed?

I guess humans are the "white" people of the galaxy.

When non humans want to preserve their culture and country it's good, when humans want to do it it's racism.

Sorta like Japanese/ asian/african people and European/white people.

 

[Timo]

In ENT and DS9 we saw Vulcan ships with Vulcan names, there was no effort to translate their names into English.

So perhaps no translation takes place in "Immunity Syndrome" and "Court Martial", either? After all, we never see the name in writing. The respected Vulcan logician N'Trepod might be amused about the coincidence in pronunciation, although of course she would never admit to that...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

N'Trepod

Like that.

 

[BK613]

In ENT and DS9 we saw Vulcan ships with Vulcan names, there was no effort to translate their names into English.

So perhaps no translation takes place in "Immunity Syndrome" and "Court Martial", either? After all, we never see the name in writing. The respected Vulcan logician N'Trepod might be amused about the coincidence in pronunciation, although of course she would never admit to that...

Timo Saloniemi

Nice!
Still, (pursuing my somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment further) the Vulcan "names" we are shown are English-alphabet equivalents, presumably based on how the names are pronounced. And we know, from Journey to Babel and This Side of Paradise, that the sounds in some Vulcan names make them difficult or impossible to render with human vocal cords. So how then would our heroes deal with a Vulcan ship (or city or planet) so labeled? Translation into English might be one way...

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't understand all the elaborate rationalizations. What's wrong with GR's initial notion?---Starfleet assigns predominantly one species to given ships. It certainly makes an effort for Starfleet to be more representative of the Federation.

What's wrong is that if starships are segregated it would contradict all other progressive precedents established in the show.

Also it logistically runs into problems, as you would run into issues like the ship really just needs one really good stellar cartographer but the nearest Andorian stellar cartographer is on a special mission a thousand light years away.

For me it would make sense for aliens to be grouped by preferred habitat, but not just by race. Warm climate species with warm climate species, cold climate species with cold climate species, low gravity species with low gravity species, etc. Also there might be issues where one species releases something that another species is allergic too and those species would be kept apart.

I guess humans are the "white" people of the galaxy.

When non humans want to preserve their culture and country it's good, when humans want to do it it's racism.

Sorta like Japanese/ asian/african people and European/white people.

That is a very silly thing to say, considering white culture is mass marketed all across the globe, preserved immaculately in every North American and European museum, taught almost exclusively in schools, and treated interchangeably with the term 'Fine art'.

Somehow I don't think European/white people need any help preserving their culture.