Uhura: Engineer, not linguist
- Thread starter SonicRanger
- Start date
That's one of the reasons I dislike the very colorful uniforms. It kinda encourages casting mainly/only people who look good in red into engineering and people who look good in gold into command (I leave out sciences here, because nobody looks good in that ugly bright blue)
The later series were not much better in that reagard, as soon as Troi was put into the bright cyan TNG science uniform they made her hair that ugly light reddish brown , Data was changed from science officer to comm because the cyan clashed with the golden skinpaint and in DS9 and Voy there is an oddly large number of blonde women in sciences because it works well with the darker teal that had become the division colour.
C
C57D
Guest
From a "why keep a dog and bark yourself" point of view, Uhura has the Universal Translator and so, does not need to be a linguist.
Hoshi does not and so needs to be.
I have always assumed that Uhura was a gifted Subspace Radio technical expert, from both the perspective of construction and repair and also that of using and finding correct channels, overcoming jamming, codes and cryptology etc etc.
To my mind, her not being a linguist takes nothing away from her talent, nor her position.
Hoshi does not and so needs to be.
I have always assumed that Uhura was a gifted Subspace Radio technical expert, from both the perspective of construction and repair and also that of using and finding correct channels, overcoming jamming, codes and cryptology etc etc.
To my mind, her not being a linguist takes nothing away from her talent, nor her position.
I can still see it being useful for emergency situations (the UT failing or simply not being available). It's always better to know how to do things without machines in case said machines break.
OTOH, since Federation space alone surely includes several hundreds of thousands of languages even being a language genius would only help in a ridiculously small number of cases. We know very little about the languages in Trek and whether some sort (or multiple) trade languages have developed prior to the UT.
Very true. I think the problem was that the skill and finesse that would realistically be needed to do Uhura's job was never adequately explained or shown so people would be forgiven to think that she really was just a phone operator.
Didn't she go into intelligence in the movies? That would indicate that her job did indeed include those tasks.
Agreed. My problem with the scene in TUC has always been that Klingon and Romulan, specifically, are the languages of powerful long-term adversaries of the Federation, so not having *someone* on the Enterprise who can speak and understand those languages spoken seems like it would be both unwise and unlikely. I get that for film reasons they didn't want to suddenly jar things by introducing Lt. So-and-so from Linguistics or Intel or whatever, plus they were more interested in the supposed humor in that scene - but if they didn't want to introduce a new character then they should have gone ahead and had Uhura speak it competently, and worked "humor" into the scene some other way. (Like having the other crew on the bridge looking at her in startled surprise and maybe making some comments afterward when she starts chewing the outpost officer out in loud, aggressive, and guttural Klingon.
)
No. That was a creation of the novels.
Agreed. My problem with the scene in TUC has always been that Klingon and Romulan, specifically, are the languages of powerful long-term adversaries of the Federation, so not having *someone* on the Enterprise who can speak and understand those languages spoken seems like it would be both unwise and unlikely. I get that for film reasons they didn't want to suddenly jar things by introducing Lt. So-and-so from Linguistics or Intel or whatever, plus they were more interested in the supposed humor in that scene - but if they didn't want to introduce a new character then they should have gone ahead and had Uhura speak it competently, and worked "humor" into the scene some other way. (Like having the other crew on the bridge looking at her in startled surprise and maybe making some comments afterward when she starts chewing the outpost officer out in loud, aggressive, and guttural Klingon.
I think that would have been much funnier than what we actually got.
Mr. Spock would not have commented on Uhura's competence and ability if it wasn't true. I'm satisfied she's a highly skilled officer.
I think the "phone operator" in space was a NN dissatisfaction with her day player part ala George not wanting to be the "bus driver" in space.
Also, maybe the uniform colors are like college majors, many people have a minor, sometimes more than one, a person could be majoring in command track but still be a science officer or something else, right?
Scotty obviously had command skills but he was mainly concerned with engineering.
Let's say Lt. Masters was the best qualified to run that dilithium crystal room but she is a scientist. That really doesn't sound like a reach to me.
Uhura may have decided to leave the command track and concentrate more on her engineering duties, that doesn't mean she unlearned her previous command skills.
C
C57D
Guest
Fully agree that a working knowledge of the main alien languages would be very useful, for both Commu and Iteligence roles.
But (and also) it is hard to see how useful a gifted linguist would be anyway. As presumably each alien language would be constructed in a wholly different way than ours.
And, totally agree that it is a shame that Uhura's skill was never really demonstrated on screen. In the FASA RPG the Commu officer is skilled in both the user and tech sides of Subspace Radio, but also computer tech, languages, alien race culture and history and co-ordination of the damage control parties. Nowhere near canon, I agree, but imho an interesting way to describe the position, and one that (maybe) Uhura would have benefitted from, if it had been shown on screen?
Yes, the ship has a huge, manned communincations bay which filters signals for the comms officer. She doesn't just sit there waiting for a call. She likely carried out some of the functions of the Ops officer from TNG. In TMP we did see her co-ordinating repair teams from the bridge. I agree that damage control co-ordination would have been part of her remit.
Especially since they had the Universal Translator.
C
C57D
Guest
Totally.
In the (again not canon) FASA Enterprise plans, Deck3 has a dedicated Commu center, which would certainly manage the ship "switchboard" and field lesser calls for the bridge officer.
And I like your observation that this frees up time for the bridge Commu officer to be more Ops in their role. I have always assumed that the Yeoman's were part of the Commu Dept. also, and their role seems to be the administrative operation of the ship. Maybe it went beyond admin and more towards the whole running of shipboard operations?
Very interesting!!
Ah okay, then discard that part please,
Spock and McCoy rocked their blue tunics.
The TOS uniforms rocked.
Yeah, even TNG had that "problem"; it may be just a rumor but supposedly the reason red was chosen as the new command color was that Patrick Stewart looked better in it than in gold.
Or, they could have said that by TNG, humanity was "so enlightened" or whatever that they let each member of the crew express their appearance however they wished except for rank pips and a comm badge (and if they had used the "Future Imperfect" badge, they could have even combined the two). Then they could have let everyone wear whatever color made them look best.
But the idea of a crew completely filled with people dressed like Season 1 Troi and Wesley and Riker's off-duty clothes kinda makes me want to hurl. So, then again, NO.
Similar threads
