Redshirt historians?

[Christopher]

Yeah, you're right.. I was thinking that archaeologists play better at that role, but it's undeniable that archaeologists are both historians and scientists.

Well, not exactly. Like I said, historians (from the Latin for story or narrative) concentrate on documents or accounts of the past, while archaeologists focus on artifacts and other physical evidence of the past. There's some overlap, of course, which is why people tend to think of them as interchangeable, but they're distinct specialties.

Nevertheless, historians have other important roles such as being able to inform events that happened between known planets that could explain their sour attitude towards each other or their possible hostility towards you. They hold the ancient record books to past activities of civilizations that might prove relevant.

Definitely.

 

[Timo]

I know that the episode of the starfleet meeting Khan for the first time showed relevance towards the role of the historian as McGiver was able to give some insight on Khan's old ship.

The use of a professional historian also created a welcome bit of, umm, I might say "blurring" in the episode. Our heroes might have been completely ignorant of Khan at first (the "incomplete records" schtick), but eventually they would have to find out. How would that happen? Through Spock sitting down and going through that magical library of his? That would be a somewhat sharp transition, and the plot could feel very contrived depending on the exact timepoint where Spock decides to do this (i.e. "Why didn't he do it sooner?").

Now enter McGivers, who's nominally on the side of the heroes - but is well motivated not to reveal all of her knowledge to them. Suddenly, the revelation of Khan's identity gets intriguingly blurred along the timeline of the episode. Even down to the smaller scale, with McGivers' shocking "I know who you are" line that quickly turns out not to be the revelation point after all.

Trek could make more use of specialists like that. Some whodunnit mysteries unfold gradually through the efforts of laymen (or fundamentally layman-like crime specialists) - but a scientific(tional) mystery could unfold with the same grace through the efforts of specialists, while still leaving the audience enjoyably speculating "Oh, now that we were told this, perhaps we next find out that!" just like in whodunnits. It's so much more satisfactory than the single "Science Guy" giving all the answers on a platter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Atticus]

Like I said, historians (from the Latin for story or narrative)

The word "history" is originally from the Greek historia (from which the Latin, of course, was derived) which meant "knowledge acquired from inquiry" - Herodotus's Histories, the first such "historical" text we have (albeit one which has more myth than facts in it!) should really be called Inquiries...

 

[Jose Tyler]

Perhaps in McGivers case, rather than a hardcore social scientist/historian, she is more of a database/document retrieval/archivist type historian. I would think by 2266, with the histories of so many worlds floating around, theyre would be blue shirt "boots on the ground" research historians and red shirt database/information finding historians. McGivers may have been the ship's expert on using pre-LCARS XP Google History Software to look for historical trends or patterns (like the spread of neural parasites and space madness from system to system or documenting when somebody took a shower with their clothes on). And if her duties including maintaing the pre-LCARS XP Google History Software database and fixing problems with the servers when entities like Redjac get into them, she may have more of systems engineering background.

 

[Timo]

...Of course, as often speculated before, we may have misunderstood the whole idea of the uniform colors. Perhaps they are utterly unrelated to "departments"?

It might simply be that Gold (TNG Maroon, STXI Blue) identifies the officers and crew with the highest clearance for something, probably command ("unrestricted line officers"), whereas Red (TNG Mustard, STXI ????) indicates reduced clearance and Blue (STXI ????) stands for "near-civilians", staff officers who only toil on their field of speciality and do not take part in the military side of Starfleet operations or the chain of command.

The TOS movie era would be set up differently, apparently. But that's for a different sub-forum to discuss...

Of course, in such a setup, it would be even more curious why Kirk doesn't know LtCmdr Mulhall. If she were a blueskirt staff specialist who rarely leaves her laboratory or study, this would be understandable - Kirk would not have more reason to know a LtCmdr blueshirt astrobiologist than he would a Crewman 2nd Class blueshirt astrobiologist. But if Mulhall has a role in the chain of command, then by precedent she should not only be superior to all blueshirts, but also to all red- and goldshirts below LtCmdr rank, and Kirk would definitely have to be aware of her.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

Given how many times the Enterprise ended up on a gangster planet or a Roman planet or a Nazi planet or an American Indian planet, you'd think that being the ship's historian would be a full-time job!

The really puzzling part is why Marla never took part in any of the time-travel missions . . . .

Well, she was probably kept very busy below decks during "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", and by the time of "City On the Edge of Forever", she was already on Ceti Alpha V.

 

[alchemist]

Another one was Ann Mulhall. You can understand why McGyvers might have studied history and been assigned to that role while her main assignment was supervising a part of engineering. However, Mulhall was obviously a Phd equivalent and a Lt-commander to boot. One would have thought that astrobiology was a key role in the science department on a deep space mission yet she appears to be primarily posted to engineering and has quite a bit of knowledge about robotics. I wonder if the script was changed and she was originally planned to be something a bit more technical?

Dugan's final draft of "Return to Tomorrow" was quite different from the draft that was finally filmed. With respect to Anne Mulhall, she was a biologist and was selected by Kirk to be a member of the landing party. Kirk chose a biologist because Sargon, who identified himself in the teaser as the ruler of the Lempal civilization, gave the impression that he was a two billion year old creature and that his species needed help. Mulhall fully expected to beam down to Arret to find a biological life form (or a species) that was dying. Later in Dugan's draft, she volunteered to host Thalassa (for expedience, really) and she possessed no knowledge of robotics.

IMHO, the final filmed episode is, overall, tighter and more dramatic than what Dugan conceived and wrote.

 

[Wil has a posse]

Until now, I'd always had trouble imagining McGivers as simply a historian with no other responsibilities, but this thread has given me food for thought. We already know that other departments conduct experiments on Federation starships independent of the current mission--best illustrated with Nella Daren's stellar science experiment to predict a star system's configuration in TNG "Lessons". (Granted that's TNG, but I highly doubt Starfleet didn't have any experiments going on prior to then--after all, the Enterprise had, what, 14 science labs?)

Who's to say the ship wasn't essentially a university in space? At least, for the science staff. There were an awful lot of people studying things that wouldn't have a direct bearing on many missions. (What's an archaeologist going to contribute to a mission cataloging gaseous anomalies?)

If we assume that McGivers knew the history of worlds other than Earth--a safe assumption, IMHO--it becomes easy for me to envision her performing research or working on a thesis. Maybe she was in the middle of a paper comparing the developments on Miri's planet to other worlds when they stumbled upon the Botany Bay...

That's easier for me to swallow than the notion of her being a "records officer" or some other menial task most of the time, while her specialty (the result of years of education) isn't called upon except in the rarest of circumstances.

 

[Dorothy_Zbornak]

These oddities didn't end with TOS - there was a geologist in "Pen Pals" who wore gold in TNG.

And let's not forget the "20th Century Historian" Whalen from "The Big Good-bye".

...cos nobody's more essential on a potentially decades-long mission of exploration into the great unknown than a historian specializing in 400 years ago...

 

[Wil has a posse]

And let's not forget the "20th Century Historian" Whalen from "The Big Good-bye".

...cos nobody's more essential on a potentially decades-long mission of exploration into the great unknown than a historian specializing in 400 years ago...

Imagine how bad the guy who specialized in 19th Century history felt when he found out Whalen got to go to the holodeck with the captain.

 

[Christopher]

...cos nobody's more essential on a potentially decades-long mission of exploration into the great unknown than a historian specializing in 400 years ago...

Don't rule it out so quickly. The value of studying history isn't just to know what happened in the past, it's to understand what the past can teach us about the present. What happens if they come across a world where two superpowers with weapons of mass destruction are clashing over different political and economic ideologies? Or a world where an ambitious dictator has stirred up his nation's resentments and racial hatreds to rise to power and begun a war of conquest and genocide? Or a world where a great trading empire's historical rule over a vast, populous nation is being challenged by a nonviolent independence movement and the empire is struggling to work out a viable exit strategy even as its administrators on the ground cling to power? (Like the British Raj in India, in case it isn't clear.) An expert in 20th-century history could offer some valuable insights into the dynamics of such a situation, how such crises might be resolved or how they might grow worse. Those who fail to learn from history, etc. etc.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^

 

[Scrambo]

I always assumed that 'starfleet changed what departments came under what service frequently' because some person wanted a promotion (as usually occurs in most places) and this may explain why uhura was in gold to start with and later changed to red or why certain personnel are seen in one colour working in a section that is predominatly associated with another colour. (sorry if spelling bad but i have 4hrs left of a 12hr night shift left..tired - thats my excuse ;p)

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

They're redshirts because they routinely fall victim to the dreaded bookworm. They're like sandworms, only they pop out of books like those old pop-up dinosaur books. Wham! One dead historian. The library can be a most dangerous place, be it 20th century or 23rd century.

 

[Pauln6]

They're redshirts because they routinely fall victim to the dreaded bookworm. They're like sandworms, only they pop out of books like those old pop-up dinosaur books. Wham! One dead historian. The library can be a most dangerous place, be it 20th century or 23rd century.

Yeah - they should wear more togas.

 

[Keith1701]

I think the division thingy was not so important then. The actors just got the colour, which suited them the best. And they could have two assignments, as was said.

This could be the correct answer.