Uhura: Engineer, not linguist

[Mudd]

Yes, it is. TOS arbitrarily made officers of everyone except the occasional throwaway walk-on. Uhura's job on the show can be mapped to that of the radio officer on a naval vessel, as could most jobs on the ship. The American Navy was the direct model and inspiration for the Enterprise.

I agree, but I would add that Roddenberry's pitch and his script for the pilot was more closely aligned with Hornblower's Royal Navy.

Kind of that, too, but really all of this was filtered through the sensibility of 1940s pulp magazine space opera - where starships were so often naval vessels in space - by way of a little movie called Forbidden Planet.

Uhura should've been the navigator, up front and center on the show.

Well, the movies are fixing the misplaced emphasis.

 

[mos6507]

As for languages and linguistics, the universal translator rendered that skill obsolete.

We've got calculators that you could say makes math obsolete, and yet we still have mathematicians.

The whole idea of Trek was that people in the future would be highly educated. It would make sense for Uhura to have a well rounded set of skills related to communication (as a field of academic study) rather than just knowing how to push buttons.

Picard can quote from Shakespeare even though he could, presumably look stuff up from the ship's computer. In the 23rd century, people learn things for the sake of learning and don't just lean on technology as a crutch.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

[/I]

Uhura should've been the navigator, up front and center on the show.

Well, the movies are fixing the misplaced emphasis.

Which is why I love them, among other reasons. About time she was the lead female character!

 

[Pauln6]

[/I]

Uhura should've been the navigator, up front and center on the show.

Well, the movies are fixing the misplaced emphasis.

Which is why I love them, among other reasons. About time she was the lead female character!

Fan dancing aside (because it seemed like a superfluous way to distract guards not because I think older women should not perform fan dances), at least STV gave Uhura more to do. The novelisations do give her things to do that get dropped from the movies for reasons of pacing. It's a real shame that her contribution to the stealing of the Enterprise in STIII was largely dropped, presumably so the pay-off is the ship streaking away rather than her asking for asylum at the Vulcan embassy.

It always seemed to me that Uhura was almost as smart as Scotty but rarely had the chance to show off. It's a shame that her one-liners were largely dropped after the early episodes as well. Her STIII scene is still genius. I wish we'd seen that side of her more often.

I do like Saldana's Uhura but she is missing a bit of that Uhura sharp wit and they seem to be trying to shoe-horn her in just to give her more air time. I'm fine with her being a linguist and a technician - so use her as a linguist and a technician. She doesn't also need to be an expert combatant beamed down in place of a security team (but then neither does Spock for that matter). I've always thought that Uhura, who is fluent in Romulan and a computer expert should have part of the landing party on the Narada because she had the right skills for that job but in a buddy movie the guys had to bond without interference from any chick.

Obviously, writers make choices for dramatic effect and this is why Uhura's cryptogrpahy role ended up being with Spock in TOS but I don't have to approve!

 

[Timo]

We've got calculators that you could say makes math obsolete, and yet we still have mathematicians.

...But we don't have to put mathematicians in direct command of artillery regiments - whereas back in the World Wars, this was not just a good idea, but sometimes key to survival of a nation!

Automation means a single genius can apply his or her wits across a continent or, in Star Trek, across a galaxy, without needing to be present physically or mentally. There can be genius and skill behind Uhura's work performance. But thanks to automation, that genius and skill need not be Uhura's own.

Picard can quote from Shakespeare

Which isn't a sign of him being highly educated, but rather of him being idle enough to have time for a useless hobby or sixteen. Now that is a realistic prediction for future intellect...

Sure, TOS Uhura is allowed an intellectual hobby, too. But why should that be linguistics? On one hand, it won't help her in her day job; on the other hand, a Starfleet that employs people based on their hobbies is something of a dystopia.

As for the new take on Uhura, well, she has every right to be a completely new person, down to the very genes. She is supposed to be younger than Jim Kirk, after all. Only Spock, McCoy and Scotty would be expected to be the same people in biological terms, and they can take on new hobbies, skills or wives if need be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

Anyone born up to nine months after Kirk on the OU can be expected to be the same person, even genetically. As far as the NU, that's debatable. OU Kirk was born in Iowa, NU Kirk in space. NU Kirk is up to two months older (born premature) than OU Kirk. That makes the cutoff seven months at most. Unless birthdates from the OU become common knowledge, we'll just never know for sure.

 

[drt]

Untrue. She is also a senior officer i.e. a lieutenant. TOS is a bit top heavy on lieutenants admittedly...

Yes, it is. TOS arbitrarily made officers of everyone except the occasional throwaway walk-on. Uhura's job on the show can be mapped to that of the radio officer on a naval vessel, as could most jobs on the ship. The American Navy was the direct model and inspiration for the Enterprise.

Not quite - they made lieutenants of all the scientists, who are probably not part of the chain of command, about half the helmsmen and navigators, and the senior engineers. So yeah, top heavy but there were a lot of more junior officers and crew. TOS certainly featured more non-coms than any other Trek franchise.

I do agree that her post is based on radio officer (rather than telephonist as many joke). It's refreshing to watch the Last Ship and reflect how Trek would feel more 'real' if they had stuck a bit more to the naval feel with a sci fi spin when assessing crew roles.

What I find odder is that the NuTrek comic is repeating the mistake. Keenser, who is treated like a talented skivvy is actually a lieutenant rather than say a grease monkey petty officer like Tyrol in BSG. Zahra, who was originally a yeoman (most likely a petty officer although tricky to tell in TOS) is now a security lieutenant. I think it probably springs from various writers not having a clear idea of just how many officers and crew there should be and not imagining the cumulative effect of slapdash writing.

Well, to be fair to the writers, it wasn't entirely clear sometimes if there actually were enlisted personnel during the original show. Sure there was the occasional "crewman" plus all the yeomen - but those were always younger people, I don't recall ever seeing any senior enlisted personnel, and "chief" seemed to be more of a job title than rank. Most of the Treknical pubs of the 70s seemed to believe that "crewman" simply equalled ensign - and it's arguable that TNG contuinued that until they hamhandedly converted Lieutenant O'Brien to a CPO. Only in the movies was there ever a clear enlisted crew structure.

However, to explain the officer heavy crew that we saw in the show, it's possible in the original series after progressing through the junior enlisted ranks of crewman/yeoman, instead of becoming a petty officer, promotion was to a lieutenant.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

There is a common "myth" throughout fandom, reinforced by some portrayals in the novels, that Uhura is principally a linguist. Never, though, is she shown to have a proclivity for languages. She knows English and her native tongue of Swahili (much like Chekov knows Russian), but she doesn't seem to know Klingon (TUC) or any other language. Nor does she try to help out when linguistics would be useful in deciphering alien communications (TVH). Linguistics is a science, but she instead wears the red uniform of Engineering and Support Services (and, yes, she wore a gold Command uniform in "The Corbomite Maneuver").

As she is portrayed in TOS (and the films), I'd argue, she is a talented engineer who specializes mainly in communications systems but also knows a number of other systems, like the navigation console ("Balance of Terror") and science station ("The Galileo Seven," "Whom Gods Destroy"). For example, she was the one who identified the energy pulsations in "Spock's Brain" that led the crew to the correct planet. And she took command in TAS ("Bem," "The Lorelei Signal"), fitting that she was once in the Command division. Later, in TSFS, she took a post manning a transporter room, something she must have been qualified to do (even if Starfleet basically just let her volunteer to do whatever she wanted). Also Uhura was one of only 20 officers chosen by M-5 to operate the ship during its war games ("The Ultimate Computer").

Probably the best example is "Who Mourns for Adonais?", where she rewires the entire communications system to break through the Apollo's interference. Spock actually praises her work to wire a bypass circuit, and he even says that he can think of "no one better equipped" to do this engineering feat. She also did engineering work on the communication console in "This Side of Paradise."

The 1967 Writers' Guide for Star Trek's second season described her as: "Communications officer Uhura was born in the United States of Africa. Quick and intelligent, she is a highly efficient officer and expert in all ships' systems related to communications." Nothing about linguistics or languages.

The 1977 Writers'/Directors' Guide for Star Trek: Phase II goes even further: "Uhura was born in the African Confederacy. Quick and intelligent, she is a highly efficient officer. Her understanding of the ship's computer systems is second only to the Vulcan Science Officer, and expert in all ships systems relating to communications."

Uhura appears to be a talented engineer, not a linguist, even though interpretations of her character tend to favor the latter. Presumably this has to do with wanting to see her as "more" than "just" a future telephone operator. But clearly she was more than a secretary, although she's an engineer and communications systems specialist, not a linguist, given her portrayal onscreen.

Interesting, and i'm pleased you did not exclude TAS as part of Uhura's official history.

It's funny: for all of the "progressive" behavior some fans love to claim ownership of (in general life, as well as other fanbases), they stuck Uhura with an additional skill that was not necessary for her character (universal translator, anyone?) while ignoring the engineering or command skills actually put into action on TOS/TAS.

Did they skip over her other on-screen skills just to keep her in some communications box?

 

[mos6507]

[/I]

Uhura should've been the navigator, up front and center on the show.

Well, the movies are fixing the misplaced emphasis.

Which is why I love them, among other reasons. About time she was the lead female character!

Uhura has more emphasis. Whether she's more professional is a matter of debate considering her public melodramas with Spock and the associated conflict of interest that comes from effectively dating your boss.

 

[mos6507]

We've got calculators that you could say makes math obsolete, and yet we still have mathematicians.

...But we don't have to put mathematicians in direct command of artillery regiments - whereas back in the World Wars, this was not just a good idea, but sometimes key to survival of a nation!

You're trying to impose 20th century art-of-war logic to a 23rd century utopia. This is the Gene Roddenberry who thought it was a good idea to put entire families on ships. How many families were on WWII battleships? Trek wanted to be somewhat different. It also carried over a lot of Jetsons Elroy like ideas that in the future everyone will just be smarter and more cultured, even though it's a "push-button" society. The leisure that not having to work for money anymore freed people up to expand their knowledge of many things.

This is a big reason why Trek resonated with geeks. Because it projected the idea that being smart was an intrinsic virtue.

thanks to automation, that genius and skill need not be Uhura's own.

The Ultimate Computer is all you need to know about how the Trek Universe wanted to draw the line on "automation".

Sure, TOS Uhura is allowed an intellectual hobby, too. But why should that be linguistics? On one hand, it won't help her in her day job; on the other hand, a Starfleet that employs people based on their hobbies is something of a dystopia.

To be more specific, she doesn't have to study "linguistics" per se, but I would expect her to have a conversational grasp of Klingon in particular, since that's a culture they had to deal with on a regular basis.

But if they had any intention of giving her something to do besides open and close hailing frequencies, having her understand the nature of language in dealing with the aliens of the week would have been useful. She could have helped solve Darmok kinds of situations. It was a missed opportunity.

 

[telerites]

I never that of her linguist but I did not read the books. I started watching the series when I was around 10 or so back in the early 70s. I had/have a lot of respect for the character and the knowledge and leadership I felt Uhura had. Credit Ms. Nicholas for much of that and I'm glad MLK convinced her to remain on the show.

With that said, I wouldn't doubt if an episode hadbeen written to show linguist skills she would losses them. I guess what I am saying we don't know for sure that she couldn't also be a linguist in addition to the skills she reflected in the final televised version.

 

[TheSubCommander]

I never ever thought Uhura was a linguist, and it is news to me anyone thought that she was. I always believed her to be a communications officer, and if there were a real world equivalent, it would be something along the lines of this: http://www.naval-acad.bg/En/comunic-vms.html

Books aside, I think people who may have thought Uhura was a linguist must believe that Hoshi from Enterprise was a direct analogue to Uhura, which wouldn't be completely accurate. There was no indication Uhura was a linguist specializing in languages beyond English and Swahili, in TOS or the movies. Besides, TUC should dispel any idea Uhura was a linguist.

 

[Pauln6]

I suppose the perspective I come at this from is that of a dungeons and dragons player. It's a game that is based on the ensemble. Everybody has a certain level of proficiency but some classes are much better at doing certain things.

The troika fits within this rules set up to a point (leadership/action awesomeness v intellect/scientific logic v emotion/healer) but the supporting cast does not. If you had one character (Spock) who was great at knowledge skills, great at fighting, great at shooting, great at tactics, great at engineering, great at computers, great at linguistics etc then the other players would get hacked off that there was nothing they could do that Spock could not do as well or better. A jack of all trades should be master of none, not master of all. You even have Spock becoming an engineer in TMP and TWoK.

IMO this is why Janice didn't have any staying power as a character - her one defining trait was that she was a woman and it didn't help her any more than it did Tasha Yar. It might have been this that actually helped save Uhura from being replaced by say Lt Palmer. Because Janice was 'the woman', Uhura was able to be 'the black character' and after Janice left, Uhura was never really required to become 'the woman' (one could argue that this role was filled by guest stars and occasionally Chapel), which is why her character fares better when viewed with a modern eye.

The original characters are at the mercy of the 60s era narrative where (allegedly) supporting characters' lines and plot elements were passed to Kirk or Spock to make them seem cooler. All the characters should have been given more opportunities to show off broader skill sets (e.g. Yeoman Mears literally does nothing in the Galileo 7 - why were those particular people chosen for an astrophysics mission anyway?). I'm grateful that Uhura still stands out as efficient, intelligent, and competent, and displays technical and leadership qualities that were clearly there but rarely tested (except in TAS when every man on the ship was incapacitated).

I love CotEoF because Uhura is placed in charge of a security detail and because Kirk tells her that if he and Spock fail, it will be up to them to try again. I would love to see how she would have coped with that mission.

In NuTrek, Uhura has indeed become 'the woman'. She is essentially an amalgam of Uhura and Janice but with the love interest element transferred from Kirk to Spock. I personally would still like to see Janice make an appearance but thankfully we are at least at a time when 'the woman' can be as diverse, talented, and interesting as the men, even if she is outnumbered.

The linguist thing can be thrown in here and there but IMO the focus for Uhura should be her leadership skills and technical proficiency. Oh yeah, and she's a woman.

 

[Warped9]

No, it wasn't necesary for Uhura to be a linguistics specialist in terms of being an expert with languages although her knowing at least a couple of alien languages (like at least Klingon) would have been a nice touch particularly in TUC.

Her displaying an expertise in decoding and cryptography would have been a very nice thing to see as part of her skill set.

 

[BillJ]

I always saw Uhura as an engineer, not a linguist. I don't see being an engineer as somehow being a knock against her.

 

[Ithekro]

I just assumed that whatever odd languages she knew got wiped by Nomad, and they just never had the time, nor perhaps the computer cards, to have her relearn them all. Especially all the various Romulan and Klingon dialects.

Plus there is the thing about if you don't use your knowledge, you eventually lose it. By TUC Uhura might not have used any of her Klingon for years or decades, even if she did still have it.

 

[SonicRanger]

Besides, TUC should dispel any idea Uhura was a linguist.

What happens, though, is that those fans who consider her a linguist then slam this scene (or the whole movie) as being (a) character assassination and/or (b) poorly written for "ignoring" that Uhura "should have" known Klingonese.

 

[Warped9]

Besides, TUC should dispel any idea Uhura was a linguist.

What happens, though, is that those fans who consider her a linguist then slam this scene (or the whole movie) as being (a) character assassination and/or (b) poorly written for "ignoring" that Uhura "should have" known Klingonese.

It's more of a badly missed opportunity just so they could have a scene of comedy that wasn't at all funny. So, yeah, it's also a slight of the character still getting so little respect even in the TOS crew's final adventure.

It's a real shame that her contribution to the stealing of the Enterprise in STIII was largely dropped, presumably so the pay-off is the ship streaking away rather than her asking for asylum at the Vulcan embassy.

Agreed.

 

[BillJ]

What happens, though, is that those fans who consider her a linguist then slam this scene (or the whole movie) as being (a) character assassination and/or (b) poorly written for "ignoring" that Uhura "should have" known Klingonese.

That always did irritate me.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I believe she was listed as fourth officer. Normally she'd be in line to take command after Kirk, Spock, Scott, and Sulu. If I remember correctly.

Now look what you did, you just made Lt. DeSalle cry....