But it's not, of course. It's a setting. Like the lagoon on Gilligan and the Brady house.
You're over-simplifying it. I know plenty of people who were heartbroken when the Enterprise was destroyed in ST3, myself included. In-universe characters also treat it as much more than a mode of transportation. I don't know where the dividing line between "character" and "critical inanimate object" lies - if there is such a thing - but plenty of professional writers have considered the Enterprise - and similar constructs in other stories/universes to be characters from a story-telling perspective. This stands out as more obvious in written form (think of Star Trek novels) than on television, but it's no less true.
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