Overview of the Galaxy Class

[JirinPanthosa]

If you were a Starfleet officer with a TNG season 1 mindset, you wouldn't fear your or your family's death.

The Galaxy class was a social experiment so they could send ships on long term deep space assignments for years with a mixed group of Starfleet officers, civilians and families constituting a bubble community. Also the designers didn't know they were designing a ship that would be the subject of a television show so they didn't anticipate such frequent combat. They thought most time would be spent running scientific experiments, making diplomatic contact and charting star systems.

 

[Timo]

Had Picard and Data not reached a cybernetic understanding at the climax of "BoBW", the safest place for an Earthling family would have been aboard the E-D!

(Yes, even when counting Riker's suicidal tendencies. Better dead than grey.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lance]

The Galaxy class was a social experiment so they could send ships on long term deep space assignments for years with a mixed group of Starfleet officers, civilians and families constituting a bubble community. Also the designers didn't know they were designing a ship that would be the subject of a television show so they didn't anticipate such frequent combat. They thought most time would be spent running scientific experiments, making diplomatic contact and charting star systems.

I actually quite like this idea. That the Galaxy ship class was meant to be experimental with it's officers + civilian mix, and that could also account for why Starfleet opted out of it again later, for the Sovereign etc, in light of the Dominion war.

The only fly in the ointment is that DS9: "Emissary" establishes that other classes of ships had civilian family aboard too, unless it was a Starfleet wide experiment for a time, or else Ben Sisko's family were aboard the Saratoga in another capacity despite also being his family.

 

[Longinus]

The only fly in the ointment is that DS9: "Emissary" establishes that other classes of ships had civilian family aboard too, unless it was a Starfleet wide experiment for a time, or else Ben Sisko's family were aboard the Saratoga in another capacity despite also being his family.

That never made much sense.

 

[Timo]

Did we ever hear of starships that specifically didn't have families aboard? Even Pike hosted a random young couple in civvies in "The Cage". And that Picard was uncomfortable with children aboard the E-D doesn't mean he wouldn't also have been uncomfortable with children aboard the Stargazer previously. Heck, listening to that exchange in "Encounter at Farpoint", perhaps he chose Riker specifically because he knew of the Commander's good handling of all the kids running around DeSoto's ship?

Leaving families and assorted camp followers ashore may have been what made Kirk's five-year mission so exceptional...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lance]

^ True. And it's not uncommon for family to move around with military personnel parents, hence the reason why the phrase 'military brat' even exists.