How many people aboard Enterprise ncc-1701

[Timo]

Agreed that it varied a bit - we get many precise figures that are a tad above or below 430. No doubt when twenty security officers and ten scientists rotated off the ship, Kirk sometimes got eighteen security guys, four scientists and ten engineers in return, and so forth.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

I would think the exact number is mission specific, also depending on recent deaths and crew rotation/configurations at a starbase.

 

[USS Jack Riley]

Could the 300 number that Valeris cites in STIV be related to all that equipment aboard related to "gaseous anomalies" that Uhura suggests as a way to track Chang's BoP? They removed some crew to make room for the equipment. Just a thought.

 

[Wingsley]

I would like to suggest that, while exact numbers of starship compliments could vary from time to time, there's also the possibility that just because a vessel is listed in a specific ship-class doesn't mean that it has roughly the same compliment as every other ship in that same class.

IIRC, Greg Jein uncovered some stuff from "Court Martial" for a 1973 article in T-Netgative, that seemed to vaguely suggest the starships of a given class may be divided by further categorizations. So could it be that not all Connies have virtually the same compliment? Could some crew rosters differ depending on assignment/mission profile?

 

[blssdwlf]

Sure. The Enterprise is proof that crew size can vary significantly. Under Pike's command, she had about 206 crew. Kirk's was 430. It is even possible that in WNMHGB Kirk's ship could still have been 200 crew for their probe out of the galaxy.

 

[Timo]

Under Pike's command, she had about 206 crew.

Or at least Pike felt he was "responsible" for that number. Perhaps he didn't care all that much about the remaining 225?

Remember her unease with women. Perhaps this is an example of his misogyny, him thinking he's responsible for the weaker half of his crew while the other half takes care of itself.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Albertese]

Umm, I'm sure that was meant tongue-in-cheek, but I should point out that he felt responsible for the crew who died on Rigel, one of which was his yeoman, who seems to have been a man given that Pike was so upset about the replacement yeoman (Colt) having been a girl.

--Alex

 

[tighr]

IIRC, Greg Jein uncovered some stuff from "Court Martial" for a 1973 article in T-Netgative, that seemed to vaguely suggest the starships of a given class may be divided by further categorizations. So could it be that not all Connies have virtually the same compliment? Could some crew rosters differ depending on assignment/mission profile?

I don't know how many "further categorizations" there could really be, but a good example of that would be the difference between the original Enterprise and the Refit. Same basic ship, different configurations.

 

[Robert Comsol]

"So could it be that not all Connies have virtually the same compliment? Could some crew rosters differ depending on assignment/mission profile?"

"All these people" are needed for other, very practical reasons. The Enterprise occasionally will leave a small group of people behind on some planet, for a variety of reasons. ... It dictates a crew complement large enough to withstand those temporary losses of personnel and still continue normal operations. (Making of Star Trek, part II, chapter 3)

Bob

P.S. Connies? Are you talking about the class the movie Enterprise is a member of or the original Enterprise Class the TV Enterprise belongs to?

 

[Albertese]

...

P.S. Connies? Are you talking about the class the movie Enterprise is a member of or the original Enterprise Class the TV Enterprise belongs to?

Both. "Connie" is a nick-name for any Constitution-class starship. it is a term often used for many years by the fan community, I'm surprised you've never seen it before.

Also, the Enterprise-E, Sovereign-class starship is sometimes called a "Sovvie" though, maybe not as often.

Personally, I use "Connie" to refer to the TOS version and "Connie-refit" to talk about the movie version.

--Alex

 

[T'Girl]

Under Pike's command, she had about 206 crew.

Or at least Pike felt he was "responsible" for that number. Perhaps he didn't care all that much about the remaining 225?

I don't know if someone already brought up this possibility.

Captain Pike's crew count might have been much higher originally, but in addition to the people he lost recently on Rigil, Pike could have been losing groups of people in a series of event right from the start of that particular cruise. Pike's "world weariness" wasn't from responsibility in general and the loss of a handful of his crew, but from personally experiencing the loss of half of his crew over the last several months.

(Pike)... My only yeoman and two others dead, seven injured ... it seems to me the condition of our own crew takes precedent ...

So the Enterprise was going to pass by the (possible) survivors of a crashed Earth ship to replace 3 dead and 7 injured?

(Pike) ... we're going to stop first at the Vega Colony and replace anybody who needs hospitalization and also ...

Pike cut himself off at that point. Pike was speaking of replacing the 7 injured? Or was Pike placing a priority behind the Enterprise reaching the Vega colony because it might be his first chance to replace a large number of dead, and also many more injured than just the 7 from Rigil.

(Pike) ... I'm tired of being responsible for two hundred and three lives. I'm tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't, and who's going on the landing party and who doesn't, and who lives and who dies. Boy, I've had it, Phil.

Does the "who lives and who dies" comment stem solely from the 3 deaths? All life is precious, but starship duty is depicted as dangerous, would Pike get this despondent from "just" 3 deaths, to the point of considering quitting?

Or was his despondency from losing half his crew?

 

[Albertese]

^^^

THAT'S interesting. I had never thought of that.

--Alex

 

[Robert Comsol]

This discussion just made me rethink what Captain Pike meant when he mentioned being tired to be responsible for "203 lives" (while I presume he includes the good doctor in his statement, it would also think he assumes responsibility for himself).

As the first ship of the new starship design, I can't imagine the other members of the UFP are just sitting still while the USS Enterprise is put to space with an exclusive homo sapiens club, so I guess the statement suggests various alien species serving on that vessel, too, and not just "men" or human "people".

As for the crew complement (compared to Kirk's Enterprise) I always thought that Pike's Enterprise still had many bulky technology on board before Starfleet engineers like Dr. Lawrence Marvick, the designer of Kirk's Enterprise (42 years old at the time of "Is There in Truth No Beauty?") freed up space to allow more living quarters and boost the crew complement to 430.

According to The Making of Star Trek the Enterprise is already 40 years old by the time of TOS. According to Admiral Morrow the Enterprise is 20 years old by the time of Star Trek III.
Considering the Pike Enterprise sustained heavy damage when Kirk and crew encountered the cosmic barrier in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" I never felt a quick repair job would have been sufficient to fix the damages, so I presume that Kirk got a new Enterprise Class vessel (Marvick design) which was probably intended to become USS Yorktown (indeed Kirk's ship was originally intended to be Yorktown before they changed the name to Enterprise).

Bob

 

[Timo]

Might well be - but that would mean history would record the existence of an additional starship named Enterprise. And we get quite a few dialogue references to the number of starships named Enterprise, and there's never room for an additional one that Pike would have flown.

If anything, we would prefer there to have been fewer Enterprises than Kirk's, Harriman's, Garrett's and Picard's, so that these dialogue references could accommodate Archer's starship, too. But at least there we can say that Archer was a foreigner who did not serve in the UFP Starfleet and that his ship belonged to a foreign power, even though she indeed was a starship of the specified name. (Which incidentally means that there could have been plenty of starships of that name before NX-01, too, if the stories one day so require.)

I guess the statement suggests various alien species serving on that vessel, too, and not just "men" or human "people"

Semantically, I guess Pike isn't really concerned that he is responsible for these people (the way they comb their hair, they way they do their jobs), but specifically that he is responsible for these people's lives - whether they die or not. The dramatic choice of words would be dictated by that already.

Anyway, if he's only concerned about lives, he's excluding all those sapient computers so faithfully serving aboard his ship!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

I can't imagine the other members of the UFP are just sitting still while the USS Enterprise is put to space with an exclusive homo sapiens club, so I guess the statement suggests various alien species serving on that vessel

There's conjecture that Number One is not a Human. Spock, of course, is Vulcan. Spock's assistant (seen briefly) has a interesting shiny skin appearance and could be of a different Federation species than the Humans aboard. So with the Humans, that makes four species just on the ship's bridge.