In defense of children on starships

[hyzmarca]

The reason the Galaxy class's saucer separated from the body was to avoid putting civilians in harms way. When going into combat, separation would allow them to leave all the civilians safe and sound. The only problem was that the special effects were a bit expensive, and the feature become less prominent as time went on. There were many times when it could have been used but it wasn't.

The Prometheus' seperations system, being substantially faster, actually increases the viability of this strategum, as well as it's use of seperate warp drives for all of it's sections.

If the Galaxy was designed with a fast automated seperation system similar to the Prometheus, and a seperate warp drive for the saucer, there would have been little problem leaving the civilians behind in most cases. It would have been a simple matter to keep both bridges staffed, so that the saucer could seperate and leave whenever things got hairy.

 

[Sci]

The reason the Galaxy class's saucer separated from the body was to avoid putting civilians in harms way. When going into combat, separation would allow them to leave all the civilians safe and sound. The only problem was that the special effects were a bit expensive, and the feature become less prominent as time went on. There were many times when it could have been used but it wasn't.

The Prometheus' seperations system, being substantially faster, actually increases the viability of this strategum, as well as it's use of seperate warp drives for all of it's sections.

If the Galaxy was designed with a fast automated seperation system similar to the Prometheus, and a seperate warp drive for the saucer, there would have been little problem leaving the civilians behind in most cases. It would have been a simple matter to keep both bridges staffed, so that the saucer could seperate and leave whenever things got hairy.

And then how do you defend the saucer if the battle section is defeated? The children would still be in mortal danger.

 

[M.Robison]

Reading this thread, it brings to mind the lines spoken in ST:Generations, by Kirk and Scotty after Chekov introduces Demora Sulu to Kirk

Kirk: You know Scotty... it amazes me
Scotty: And what would that be sir?
Kirk: Sulu, when did he find time for a family?
Scotty: It's like you always said, if somethings important enough, you make the time.

In the TNG era starfleet chose to allow families on board ships, I dont know if I would be able to concentrate fully in a dangerous situation knowing my family was on board. Picard never was comfortable around children. I can think of multiple episodes through out TNG where many people tried to have relationships.

They never worked for many reasons, then later as DS9 was running to the end of seasons 6 and 7, I was surprised that the relationship between Odo and Kira played out like it did in the end. I almost expected the writers to keep them together in the end, but instead Odo goes back to the link.

Still there are many viewpoints from you guys here that poses many questions...

 

[Pegaritaville]

When the Odyssey went into the Gamma Quadrant on the rescue mission, it did leave it's 'non-essential' personnel on Deep Space 9. Is this standard prodecure when the nature of the mission is likely to be dangerous, or was this a one off kind of thing?

There were times when that just wasn't an option though.

The Last Outpost - Enterprise is severely damaged by an ancient weapon while chasing Ferengi who raided a Federation outpost.
When the Bough Breaks - the children of the Enterprise are kidnapped.
The Arsenal of Freedom - Enterprise is almost destroyed by automated weapons.
Contagion - Enterprise warps into the Neutral Zone after the destruction of the Yamato.
QWho - the Enterprise is flung into the path of a Borg Cube.
The Survivors - The Enterprise is attacked by a Husnock Battlecruiser in Federation Space.
Booby Trap - Enterprise's crew are exposed to radiation and nearly killed in an asteroid field.
The Defector - Enterprise goes into the Neutral Zone and is surrounded after taking aboard a Romulan Defector.
The Wounded - after the Phoenix and in Cardassian Space.
Night Terrors - radiation nearly causes the crew to go insane.
In Theory - Enterprise enters a nebula with null space that causes crewmen to phase out of existence.
Disaster - Enterprise strikes a Quantum Filament and is nearly destroyed.
Generations - the Enterprise is attacked by Klingons and essentially destroyed.

Those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I'm sure that there are more.

Which is why, despite the ability to separate the saucer section, it was foolish to have families aboard a Starfleet ship. It's one thing to take your family into space and settle on another planet, but it's another thing to take your family aboard a ship that you know will probably face dangerous situations time and again.

Even if the families are aware of (and accept) the dangers, I have to wonder how it affects the crew members with families aboard. It's all well and good to say that the ship comes first, but millions of years of instinct is tough to overcome: I'd guess that a crew member is going to think about family first when the shit hits the fan. They may still attempt to do their duty (and maybe perform it adequately), but I don't see them being able to focus completely if their loved ones are aboard.

 

[Freakness]

plus, you know, just in case you run out of photon torpedoes or something...

 

[Myasishchev]

When the Odyssey went into the Gamma Quadrant on the rescue mission, it did leave it's 'non-essential' personnel on Deep Space 9. Is this standard prodecure when the nature of the mission is likely to be dangerous, or was this a one off kind of thing?

The big question is, did the compromises in design required for "non-essential personnel" help lead to its destruction?

What compromises? The E-D in the Klingon War-alternate universe Yesterday's Enterprise is identical to the prime universe E-D. The Galaxy class was built at least as much for war as exploration.

That said, I think it's okay for spouses or random adult civilians to choose life aboard a starship, but it's heinous for adults to force their children, who can form no such consent, into such a dangerous lifestyle. It's grossly negligent and rather monstrous.

Then again, as a devil's advocate I've argued the other side before--perhaps armed and shielded starships are much safer than planets in the event of, say, a surprise attack by cloaked Romulan warbirds.

 

[Trilliam]

Well, people in history have previously expected children to comprehend and behave as "little adults," so why not a backslide in the 24th century? It could be that 24th century children are more well-educated to the point where they might all appear to be wunderkinds, even if they really aren't. I didn't say I agreed or that it made sense.

Not since about the 1400s.

Go grab a developmental psychology test book, then come back

 

[Timo]

Of course, "developmental psychology" is currently undergoing the same thing anatomy and physiology did a couple of hundred years ago - that is, finding out that everything we have believed in is misleading superstition, and desperately searching for more meaningful alternatives by applying something akin to the scientific method.

Perhaps we're just dead wrong and the 24th century folks are right?

Really, it's not as if there has ever been a good controlled experiment on whether children grow up more wholesome in a daycare center or as camp followers to a field army. It used to be that kids were of the latter sort for the most part, and they still came up more or less all right. Controlled testing today is banned on ethical grounds, yet perfectly nice kids do emerge from the most horrific conditions, while complete failures of human beings emerge from well-cushioned environments.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Star Wolf]

I still say if you were able to calculate the numbers of dead children after say Vulcan ceased to exist then living aboard the Enterprise may just be a safer environment for children.

 

[Sci]

I still say if you were able to calculate the numbers of dead children after say Vulcan ceased to exist then living aboard the Enterprise may just be a safer environment for children.

Considering how incredibly rare it is that an inhabited planet is directly attacked from orbit, let alone destroyed, (due to the efforts of starships, I might add) vs how incredibly common it is for starships to be destroyed, I really don't think that that's the least bit accurate an assessment.

 

[Star Wolf]

I still say if you were able to calculate the numbers of dead children after say Vulcan ceased to exist then living aboard the Enterprise may just be a safer environment for children.

Considering how incredibly rare it is that an inhabited planet is directly attacked from orbit, let alone destroyed, (due to the efforts of starships, I might add) vs how incredibly common it is for starships to be destroyed, I really don't think that that's the least bit accurate an assessment.

Aside from the war when presumbly Enterprise offloaded her children even if she wasn't in the combat zone do we know that we lose starships at a greater rate then airliners flying over the Atlantic Ocean?

 

[Sci]

I still say if you were able to calculate the numbers of dead children after say Vulcan ceased to exist then living aboard the Enterprise may just be a safer environment for children.

Considering how incredibly rare it is that an inhabited planet is directly attacked from orbit, let alone destroyed, (due to the efforts of starships, I might add) vs how incredibly common it is for starships to be destroyed, I really don't think that that's the least bit accurate an assessment.

Aside from the war when presumbly Enterprise offloaded her children even if she wasn't in the combat zone do we know that we lose starships at a greater rate then airliners flying over the Atlantic Ocean?

We have no way of comparing the two because we don't have adequate statistics for how often starships are blown up. But we do know that we see starships being blown up a lot more than we see planets being blown up. And we certainly see starships being placed in danger of imminent destruction very often.

ETA:

And I don't think we can disregard wartime, considering how often the Federation either finds itself embroiled in a war with its neighbors or under threat thereof.

 

[Anticitizen]

If I were captain of a Galaxy-class vessel when the Dominion or Borg invaded, it would be pretty horrifying to have to obey a Starfleet order to head directly into the fray at maximum warp without a chance to unload the kiddies, given one's rather slim chance of survival. I guess you could load them up in escape pods, shuttlecraft, and the Captain's Yacht however and hope a rescue ship can come by.

 

[Sci]

If I were captain of a Galaxy-class vessel when the Dominion or Borg invaded, it would be pretty horrifying to have to obey a Starfleet order to head directly into the fray at maximum warp without a chance to unload the kiddies, given one's rather slim chance of survival. I guess you could load them up in escape pods, shuttlecraft, and the Captain's Yacht however and hope a rescue ship can come by.

Exactly. Children should not be aboard a starship.

 

[Star Wolf]

Considering how incredibly rare it is that an inhabited planet is directly attacked from orbit, let alone destroyed, (due to the efforts of starships, I might add) vs how incredibly common it is for starships to be destroyed, I really don't think that that's the least bit accurate an assessment.

Aside from the war when presumbly Enterprise offloaded her children even if she wasn't in the combat zone do we know that we lose starships at a greater rate then airliners flying over the Atlantic Ocean?

We have no way of comparing the two because we don't have adequate statistics for how often starships are blown up. But we do know that we see starships being blown up a lot more than we see planets being blown up. And we certainly see starships being placed in danger of imminent destruction very often.

ETA:

And I don't think we can disregard wartime, considering how often the Federation either finds itself embroiled in a war with its neighbors or under threat thereof.

Not even counting the near misses that Earth encountered we have seen at least 5 planets, eaten, blown up over taking by a big lightning bolt etc. Any one planet should shift the numbers so it is always be safer for the children to be where they can warp away then to be stuck dirtside.

 

[Sci]

Aside from the war when presumbly Enterprise offloaded her children even if she wasn't in the combat zone do we know that we lose starships at a greater rate then airliners flying over the Atlantic Ocean?

We have no way of comparing the two because we don't have adequate statistics for how often starships are blown up. But we do know that we see starships being blown up a lot more than we see planets being blown up. And we certainly see starships being placed in danger of imminent destruction very often.

ETA:

And I don't think we can disregard wartime, considering how often the Federation either finds itself embroiled in a war with its neighbors or under threat thereof.

Not even counting the near misses that Earth encountered we have seen at least 5 planets, eaten, blown up over taking by a big lightning bolt etc. Any one planet should shift the numbers so it is always be safer for the children to be where they can warp away then to be stuck dirtside.

Yes, Earth has been in danger of being blown up, but A) it's never actually happened, and B ) it's still quite a bit more rare for a planet to be threatened or destroyed than for a starship to be threatened or destroyed.

No one's arguing that there's a genuinely safe place. But the notion that starships are safer just because they have warp is fallacious; a casual review of the evidence shows us that starships are threatened with destruction or actually destroyed many, many times more often than planets.

 

[Timo]

...Then again, it only takes one planet-busting hit to create the sort of carnage that thousands upon thousands of destroyed starships equate with.

It's probably a political issue for our heroes. Today, we insist on letting women do combat in the name of equality, even though hard mathematics would tell us that a given population stands to lose more men than women before its self-sustenance is threatened. That's partially because we don't need to care about self-sustenance any more: we don't fight as tiny village units which will perish if the female population is decimated. But it's also a political choice based on emotional arguments. (One might conversely argue that men shouldn't do war because women are better at operating technology under stress, and technology wins wars now. But the time for that emotion or policy has not yet come.)

In the Trek future, equality may absolutely require allowing children to participate in combat and other risky ventures. There'd be little or no need to protect the offspring more than the parents from the logistical point of view; if the "women must survive" argument is outdated, doubly so is the "this generation of kids must survive" one, since we can have more litters than in the ancient times, or perhaps boost the surviving ones through cloning and other such technologies.

Whether there's a need to protect children psychologically... Well, if they are to grow up to be good star adventures, shouldn't they start young? At some point, they do have to learn about the risks of wearing a red shirt. And in a paradisial UFP, recruiting for fighting dying in space may be too difficult if the only pool of recruits available is from the well-cushioned core planet environments.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

Whether there's a need to protect children psychologically... Well, if they are to grow up to be good star adventures, shouldn't they start young? At some point, they do have to learn about the risks of wearing a red shirt. And in a paradisial UFP, recruiting for fighting dying in space may be too difficult if the only pool of recruits available is from the well-cushioned core planet environments.

Timo Saloniemi

Again: Children do not have the legal capacity to make decisions about their own safety. Ergo, it is the responsibility of their adult caretakers to keep them safe until they have reached the age of majority and acquire the legal capacity to make such decisions for themselves. Ergo, adult caregivers have a responsibility not to place children aboard a starship.

 

[Star Wolf]

I remember the first Star Trek game I played in 1979. It was all about allocating shield versus phaser power and counting torpedos you have left. Just saying that if we over emphasize the Navy role over the diplomatic and scientific role then Enterprise becomes a battleship and not a science ship with your chief negotiator aboard. The mobile city known as Enterprise is always safer then a relatively stationary dirt ball. And when it is not safer it is only because dramatically the heroes couldn't take time to leave the saucer in the rear, where that saucer is still safer then the dirt it orbits.

 

[Timo]

But conversely, the parents could be argued to have the right to choose risk when the child cannot choose independently either way. After all, the requirement to choose safety is based on the idea that safety trumps risk - but that idea may not hold in the TNG environment. Safety could be seen as more harmful to the child than risk.

The current formulations of human rights include a number of things that can be described both as rights and as freedoms, one being formulated as right to security of person and alternately as freedom from fear. But all freedoms and rights of an individual are necessarily limitations on corresponding freedoms and rights of other people - or sometimes even of the individual him- or herself. Freedom from poverty may mean years of child slave labor in a disciplinary-tutorial institution - and the parents happily welcome this thing, aka schooling, because it's good for the child in the end. Similarly, freedom from risk of death may well involve mandatory risk of dying in the form of military service. Often, there's no element of choice even for the adult individual. The parents' choice on their child need not be unconstrained, either, and an education on the matter of mortal danger may well serve the child well in the specific environment of the TNG society.

Timo Saloniemi