Starship vs. Starbase: limits of personification

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

JANEWAY: Voyager's done too much for us.
TUVOK: Curious. I have never understood the human compulsion to emotionally bond with inanimate objects. This vessel has done nothing. It is an assemblage of bulkheads, conduits, tritanium. Nothing more.
JANEWAY: Oh, you're wrong. It's much more than that. This ship has been our home. It's kept us together. It's been part of our family. As illogical as this might sound, I feel as close to Voyager as I do to any other member of my crew. It's carried us, Tuvok - even nurtured us. And right now, it needs one of us.

Whether you're talking TOS, TNG or VOY, every one of those captains had a speech (or many speeches) about their ships, giving them personification and gender in a personal way. Deep Space Nine, by contrast, seemed to have much more limited personification throughout the series.

There were exceptions, without a doubt, especially when O'Brien was wrestling with all the malfunctions that were going on around the station, but it says a lot that when the Defiant came into the picture, that ship seemed to take on a deeper personification almost right away.

In modern terms, it seems more likely to personify a Navy ship rather than the base it launched from. Even though the DS9 runabouts served the purpose of being able to take the action elsewhere, was there a lack of connection with the station that also led the writers to introduce the Defiant? Even though the Defiant was new, it was also 100% Starfleet - not something inherited/taken over from someone else like the Cardassians, so building a bond was not difficult.

To me, that's part of the appeal of DS9: the long-term process of building the bond, rather than instantly showing off the state-of-the-art tricks in the 1st episode to impress you. Of all the ST series from the '90s and early 2000s, I think DS9 will be remembered as the most daring, the most different, and the most dynamic overall.

 

[Lance]

On a side note, one thing that Deep Space 9 shares with the original USS Enterprise is that both are places with history before the first time we see them. Many Star Trek ships are presented to us as brand new, the latest technology, but particularly as *new* ships with no past to them, 1701-D and 1701-E and Defiant and Voyager and NX-01 are all ships without a significant life before we saw them, whereas the TOS-1701 was like 20 something years into her service by the first episode, which meant there was scope there to explore that past, and DS9 even moreso, literally had a past life with a very different purpose before our adventures with her began, and that makes it both a richer more realistic environment than most of the starships we see, but also one that in-universe maybe takes longer for our characters to attach to?

 

[ALF]

In modern terms, it seems more likely to personify a Navy ship rather than the base it launched from. Even though the DS9 runabouts served the purpose of being able to take the action elsewhere, was there a lack of connection with the station that also led the writers to introduce the Defiant? Even though the Defiant was new, it was also 100% Starfleet - not something inherited/taken over from someone else like the Cardassians, so building a bond was not difficult.

Part of the mystique and the timing of the introduction of the Defiant I believe was in part due to the passing of Gene Roddenbery, who insisted against the Federation's aggressive, warlike posturing and declared that 'Starfleet wouldn't have warships'. Gene passed in 1991 and we first see the Defiant on screen in 1994.

The Defiant is designed to function as a heavy escort. The writers embraced the ship as a 'vehicle' to write the best stories and take excitement into the Gamma quadrant in a way that oversized shuttles couldn't. As the series moved into its final half, the Defiant epitomizes the best part of DS9, it was wholly believable the crew rallies around the ship as is it were a new character, especially as the Dominion war draws to a close.

The runabouts felt disposable, too. They exploded and crashed fairly frequently.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

A station is, well, stationary. It's easy to personify a machine that travels the universe at brilliant speeds. That literally carries you to the stars and back home again. It's not so easy to do with a machine that never really goes anywhere and really doesn't do anything other than background stuff that people naturally take for granted. There's a reason people typically personify ships, cars, planes, bikes, etc, and typically don't personify homes, offices, schools, parks and so on.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

There's a reason people typically personify ships, cars, planes, bikes, etc, and typically don't personify homes, offices, schools, parks and so on.

I would disagree on the "home" one. It's not typically personified with gender, but as a stand-alone symbol, it's very powerful with all the deepest levels of emotional attachment involved. So I guess the bigger question is whether DS9 came to feel like home. Bajor and Earth were always such constant looming factors, that any emotional angst about the station possibly being blown up seemed to be tied more to the ramifications for those 2 planets rather than the station itself. And that's not necessarily a horrible thing, it's just an interesting difference in how we personify things.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I don't find it surprising at all. There is an organizational unity represented by the ships in the other series. The crewmembers have, more or less, had shared experiences and have dedicated themselves to the principles of the organization. Consequently , a common identity is easily fostered.

DS9 is more like a town or city. People don't all belong to one organization, nor do organizations define how people interact. There's Starfleet, Bajoran Militia, perhaps a separate Bajoran engineering corps. There are shopkeepers, merchants and shippers. There are clerics and diplomats. There are residents and people passing through.

Rather than fostering identity, life on the station constantly emphasizes diversity. It is both an intermingling and clash of identities. It would prove difficult to personify the station, calling it "s/he."

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I would disagree on the "home" one. It's not typically personified with gender, but as a stand-alone symbol, it's very powerful with all the deepest levels of emotional attachment involved. So I guess the bigger question is whether DS9 came to feel like home. Bajor and Earth were always such constant looming factors, that any emotional angst about the station possibly being blown up seemed to be tied more to the ramifications for those 2 planets rather than the station itself. And that's not necessarily a horrible thing, it's just an interesting difference in how we personify things.

You seem to be confusing importance and symbolic power with personification. There are lots of things that are important, powerful symbols (including homes) without being personified or anthropomorphized. Most people don't talk about their homes in terms of 'he' or 'she', no matter how connected they feel to them. As a stationary environment that you live in, a home almost always remains an 'it'.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

You seem to be confusing importance and symbolic power with personification. There are lots of things that are important, powerful symbols (including homes) without being personified or anthropomorphized. Most people don't talk about their homes in terms of 'he' or 'she', no matter how connected they feel to them. As a stationary environment that you live in, a home almost always remains an 'it'.

Not at all. I would say it's a different kind of personification that takes on the role of nurturing, protecting, and more. Looking at my own house, I can say it has personality and quirks beyond simple appearance and presentation. Earth, as home, is sometimes given gender and other personifications, so whether or not something is stationary isn't the litmus test for personification.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Not at all. I would say it's a different kind of personification that takes on the role of nurturing, protecting, and more. Looking at my own house, I can say it has personality and quirks beyond simple appearance and presentation. Earth, as home, is sometimes given gender and other personifications, so whether or not something is stationary isn't the litmus test for personification.

I've never heard anyone anywhere describe their home as actively nurturing or protecting them in the way you describe. Protecting them from the elements, yes, but that's simply a factual statement just as easily made of an umbrella or a poncho or in a pinch, a briefcase.

I agree stationariness isn't the litmus test. I don't think there is a straightforward litmus test, but I would think the thing the comes the closest is the extent to which an object is seen as 'having agency'. I mention the stationary nature of homes and DS9 because it is typically very easy for humans to think of objects as having agency as long as they're actively doing things, like sailing (whether through water, air or space), even though the object isn't actually controlling any of it. It is typically far less common for them to make that sort of leap with objects that aren't visibly animate in any way. But there are some exceptions, like the planet Earth, which is seen as having agency because of it's immense size and complexity and because of our tendency to conflate 'Earth' and 'Nature' - the first thing being relatively inanimate (from a pre-scientific human pov), but the second being very, very animate and easy to personify.

 

[Lance]

I was about to make the observation that Sisko goes through a journey from the first episode, where he dislikes the assignment to DS9 and considers resigning Starfleet, to the finale where he wouldn't choose to live anywhere else. But then I remembered that in WYLB he doesn't talk of DS9, but of building a house on Bajor. So, again, it's the planet he thinks of as home. The station is simply a place to work.

Interesting discussion everyone.