The Mission Length

[Green Shirt]

I think the original concept called for the E-D to be on a ten-year mission. Such a long-term mission justified the inclusion of the crew's family, supposedly. Why they didn't want to send singles, I don't know.

Didn't want to send singles? Everybody on the ship was married, even the children?

Wow, didn't know that. Guess that was part of Roddenberry's "Enlightened Future Utopia".

 

[Pavonis]

Of course, by "singles", I meant a crew consisting only of unattached adults without children. No spouses, no offspring. Was that really unclear? Or was that your attempt at making a very little joke?

 

[Trekker4747]

I recall reading in the BTS information that the E-D was intended to be a generational ship.

This idea is kind-of silly and would seem to contradict almost everything we know and understand about Starfleet and their chain of command, how promotions work, how assignments are given out and how command of starships is treated.

 

[nx1701g]

^ True, but I do recall reading it. I think it was in Captain's Logs.

The proposed Enterprise-J from Enterprise was intended to be a generational ship too (at least according to the designer).

 

[Green Shirt]

Of course, by "singles", I meant a crew consisting only of unattached adults without children. No spouses, no offspring. Was that really unclear? Or was that your attempt at making a very little joke?

Yes, your wording that was that unclear. And I took advantage of it to make my "very little joke". Did you mean any spouses or offspring at all, or any spouses or offspring accompanying the crew on the ship?

Is today's armed forces made up of only "singles", as you call them? If so, I'd doubt that any country today, or space service in the future, could scrape together enough bodies to fill up a tin can, let alone a starship.

Say what you mean with clarity, and you'll be better understood.

 

[Lord Garth]

I read in the Starlog Magazine Star Trek: The Next Generation #1 from 1987 that the mission was intended to last 15 years.

In a bit of accidental continuity, if you take the Enterprise-E as a replacement ship for the Enterprise-D, then by Star Trek: Nemesis, the crew's mission really did last 15 years.

 

[Mojochi]

The Titan novel Orion's Hounds has Riker musing about how he's fifteen years late to explore this section of the galaxy and there was supposed to be a long-term exploratory mission for the Enterprise-D, but that the ship got called back further and further into the heart of the Federation (Check on the SS I-can't-spell-it, the plague on Styris IV, the Ferengi's theft of the power converter, etc) and the original mission was scrubbed.

That's sort of how I see it. Somehow, I suspect that Starfleet's original mission for the ship was either honorary, or scrubbed, because it fell in conflict with its existence as the flagship of the fleet. It would seem that diplomatic escorts, faction mediations, crisis aide, and general inter-Federation events & concerns were the primary uses of the ship, in addition to the standard ship mission of responding to destress

I prefer to think that the mission was never officially scrubbed, since even in season seven, the ENT-D crew are still charged with things like cultural exchanges with new lifeforms, like in Liasons, & Federation membership requests, like in Attached. Granted, this is hardly exploration of unknown new lifeforms & civilizations, but it still seems consistent with earlier seasons

Pen Pals, Transfigurations, Where Slience Has Lease, The Royale, & even Justice, seem to be in standing with the idea that they were still occassionally left to exploration, charting, or scientific survey

Darmok, First Contact, The Hunted, & Lonely Among Us, were indications that they served as contact to newly discovered civilizations, & membership applicants

It seems that that though it may have been otherwise initially, their mission to explore the unknown was only applicable, as it's mainly in concert with the fact that it's all of Starfleet's primary mission, & therefore conditional to the majority of ships in the fleet, at one time or another

 

[Therin of Andor]

I think the original concept called for the E-D to be on a ten-year mission. Such a long-term mission justified the inclusion of the crew's family, supposedly.

The mission was open-ended, yes. Pre-publicity before the premiere of "Encounter at Farpoint" didn't specify a term but Farpoint Station was the end of the charted part of the galaxy - and the Enterprise-D, at least until stopped by Q, wasn't expected back any time soon. The writers' bible also specified that we'd be unlikely to see any aliens we already knew from TOS, except for the odd Vulcan (and late addition, Worf). The ship wasn't supposed to be back in familiar space for a long time.

Probably, longterm missions had to wait until a new Farpoint Station was built. And Enterprise-D never got back to its initial mission brief.

As for starships being "too dangerous" for families, how many planets and space stations did we see attacked and destroyed during the various ST series and movies?

Is anywhere "safe"?

In the 24th century, why should choosing to have a partner and offspring deny you the right to be an explorer or a pioneer? (Didn't family groups once accompany wagon trains across the USA, surviving - and sometimes not surviving - attacks by angry native inhabitants of the strange new world?)

 

[caisson2delta]

I don't recall it (the mission length) being definitively stated in the series, how long it would be. However, in the extras at the end of the season one disc, an interview with Berman stated the mission was supposed to last for 30 years. Not cannon, but I guess that was their original intent. I am also not sure when that interview was done, it may have been well into the series when this was filmed.

 

[Timo]

Probably, longterm missions had to wait until a new Farpoint Station was built. And Enterprise-D never got back to its initial mission brief.

One might also argue that Starfleet got cold feet after hearing about the Q. This powerful entity/realm had not made an appearance before - but chose to do so when Starfleet was launching a new exploration effort beyond previously established limits. It might not be far-fetched to think that somebody high up in Starfleet or the Federation chose to respect Q's warnings and threats, even if the bulk of Starfleet personnel did not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

Yes, it's not crazy that some of the brass thought they were in over their heads.

A few months later the Romulans had re-emerged, with rumours of an unknown threat out that way, the Ferengi were making a nuisance of themselves, and the Federation had been infiltrated by malevolent parasites.

Time to reassess the security of the Federation as it was rather than try and expand beyond their current limits perhaps.