Is it bad luck to be related to a Starfleet captain?

Dead relatives are all over Trek, but for captains it seems to be a prerequisite.

Janeway's dad died on the younger side, as did Archer's.

Sisko's wife was killed by the Borg.

Picard's brother and nephew died in a literal fire (in the 24th Century?)!

And Kirk....being related to him is the kiss of death. His pornstache-sporting brother died. His pregnant wife and unborn kid died, in that one racist episode. In the Kelvin timeline, his father died right after he (Jim) was born. No wonder Dr. Marcus tried to hide David, she probably knew about the curse! Sadly David and Kirk were reunited, so David snuffed it in the next movie. (Even though there was a magical resurrection planet right there.)

Michael Burnham's mom turned up alive, but I believe Papa Burnham is still toast.

Saru's family of course are Kelp-burgers.

Mirror-Lorca probably killed his own parents or something.

Pike's relatives are fortunate he found angst in another way before any of them could get whacked.

Carol Freemen may be the only series lead so far who hasn't lost any close relatives prematurely. Even then, I wouldn't be surprised if we learn that her father was done in by a Salt Vampire or something.

Thoughts?

 

Well, Ben Sisko's dad and son are both still standing.

Nonetheless, you have a point.

EDIT: Not just Starfleet, though. Worf's biological parents are dead, plus he has buried a lover and a spouse. Riker's mom is dead. So is Geordi's. Data's mom was secretly replaced by an android, and his father was murdered by his brother. Deanna lost a father and a sister. Beverly's parents died, she was raised by her grandma. Wes lost his dad, and God only knows how many people Tasha lost. Guinan had her planet destroyed, and Ro's dad was murdered before her eyes. No one on that show escaped family tragedy.

 

They suffer from being protagonists. The only known treatment is cancellation.

 

Spock probably qualifies as a Captain, too. Father died of a rare Vulcan mental disease, Mother died of old age (non-Kelvin timeline), Brother died wrestling with a god, and Sister is MIA. No dead children (that we know of).

 

The death of Picard's relatives still annoys me the most. They were only killed so that Picard could have some angst that...apart from that one Nexus scene...didn't really come up all that much.

 

Well, he's main cast in SNW, and there's definitely some hot and heavy between him and T'Pring. So, Retcon Alert.

I guess since they were only in one episode, they were regarded as disposable plot devices instead of meaningful characters. But still, you're right. It was a crappy thing to do.

Kind of reminds me of Schwarzenegger in "Last Action Hero"... "yeah, let's push his son off a building. Gives you nightmares fir the rest of your life. But you're fictional, so who cares?"

 

Perhaps a captain with many live, well-adjusted, happy, close family members doesn't make for good drama unless they get in peril often. And makes for too-frequent recurring guest stars and confusion trying to remember the captain's family tree.

 

It's not just the captains. In addition to the already listed examples...


McCoy: turned off his father's life support only to find out a cure for his condition was found just months later.

Scotty: nephew killed in attack by Khan.

Kira: father killed by Cardassians, mother basically sold to Dukat as a sex slave.

Chakotay: father killed defending his colony.

Neelix: entire family killed by Metreon Cascade.

Seven: parents assimilated by the Borg along with her. (Though honestly, her parents were terrible to begin with, bringing a child along on their quest to find Borg. They had it coming, but young Annika was innocent.)

Torres: father left at a young age, mother died during series.

Mayweather: father died, not by old age.

Tucker: sister killed by Xindi probe. Also, baby created from his and T'Pol's dna died.

 

Spock was exposed to the Genesis planet as it was still in a "growth" period, thus the process to his body as seen in TSFS moved forward. David's corpse was not on the planet long enough to ever benefit from the Genesis effect, as it was destroyed--along with the world--not long after he was murdered.

 

Besides, David suffered from the same problem that Picard's brother and nephew did: being a plot device instead of a meaningful character.

If they had been the latter, David would have been regenerated by the Genesis wave. Picard, meanwhile, would have flown Enterprise back to Earth, used the "fly around the sun" trick to warp back a few days, and shown up at Chateau Picard with a fire extinguisher.

 

I would argue David got more developed as a character than Robert and Rene Picard.

In TWOK, David was very much against Kirk, and attacked him in the tunnels. He later saw that he misunderstood Kirk and reached out to him, trying to comfort him after losing Spock and said he was proud to be his son.

In TSFS, he told Saavik that he used protomatter in the Genesis device, basically trying to cheat his way to success... pretty much what Kirk did when he took the Kobayashi Maru.


In "Family", all we got was Rene was a dreamer who looked toward the stars and Robert and Jean-Luc had a LOT of tension between them, though they did get to release some of that by the end of the episode.


Granted, David got more screen time than Rene and Robert combined, but he was still developed slightly more.


(Honestly, the biggest problem with GENERATIONS is that the other TNG films never follow up with Picard being the last of his family line. That was a HUGE missed opportunity, especially for an actor like Sir Patrick Stewart.)

 

Sarek was over 200. I don't believe it was said how Amanda passed away. Technically Michael is still alive, until probably sometimes in the 33rd Century unless they kill her off on Discovery.

 

It's the only time he seems to care, TBH. It's just a different facet of the same plot device.

 

This.
I have always thought of the fate of Robert and Rene as something that was in the film so that Soran could be a total bad ass when he says "Time is a fire in which we burn".
What that movie did to them was completely unnecessary and basically ruined the episode 'The Family'. Or could ruin if one wants to watch 'Generations', I stay away from it. I think 'Generations' is a complete waste of time so I don't think it that much.

 

And let's not forget how a young Jean-Luc

Spoiler: for "Picard" S2

inadvertently enables his mother's suicide.

 

Outside the scope of Trek universe, SF captains dying or having relatives who die is mainly for drama reasons... to give characters 'depth' and provide a background story.

In universe... I'd say it could be deemed as an occupational hazzard and a pure chance.

Exploration and colonization are riddled with unknowns. Sure, they have very advanced technology (which is almost never used the way it COULD be to help contribute towards people's survival and other things) but even if SF did everything 'right'... there's still a chance (however remote) that people could die in an accident (though Picard's family dying in a fire was utterly ridiculous in the scope of the universe and future the live in - make their 24th century deaths make more... sense in the scope of the time they live in).

 

Even so, out of the nine main TNG characters, plus Guinan and Ro... NO ONE escaped family tragedy? The 24th century is a dangerous place!

 

Its not that its dangerous per say... I'd say it has more to do with unexpected realities of living life.
Even with advanced technology you can minimize chances of death yes... but utterly stopping it? Much more difficult. We saw that several individuals were able to cheat death through various measures after all... its my thinking SF and UFP just don't go far enough to implement viable safety measures beyond basics - which can be done without impeding on anyone's personal sense of freedom, etc.

You can decrease the chances of dying to ridiculously small number... but we saw that accidents can happen with transporters, ships being attacked, kidnapped, destroyed, colonies attacked... etc.

Mind you in cases of colonies, and for the life of me, I don't understand why SF doesn't install planetary shields and orbital defenses as a precaution?
Sure, for some colonies that live their lives separately and don't want SF's involvement, lack of such precautions make sense, but on a larger scale? It just seems short sighted.

 

Well, consider...
PICARD: 1/2 parents dead*.
RIKER: 1/2 parents dead.
DATA: 2/2 parents dead.
WORF: 2/2 parents dead**.
GEORDI: 1/2 parents dead.
BEVERLY: 2/2 parents dead.
TROI: 1/2 parents dead.
WESLEY: 1/2 parents dead.

TOTAL: 11/16 parents dead.
Chances of dying prematurely if you are the parent of a TNG regular: 69%


*We will presume that Picard's father, though dead, was taken by old age.

**Biological parents.

 

To be fair, Geordi didn't lose his mom until the beginning of season 7, and she was a Starfleet captain.

But being born blind is pretty tragic, which makes his cheerful demeanor all the more reason to like him because he could very easily have been a jerk.