Well on TNG their was those times Picard let a teenager who wasn't even in Starfleet pilot the ship.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
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Well on TNG their was those times Picard let a teenager who wasn't even in Starfleet pilot the ship.
That's why they put families on board the ships, so when the ship gets destroyed in combat, you can take out whole family lines.Well on TNG their was those times Picard let a teenager who wasn't even in Starfleet pilot the ship.
And let's send a bunch of ships with families on board to fight the Borg. What could possibly go wrong?
It's not all that different from families living on a military base.
The risk of an attack is not great, but it IS greater than zero.
The Military Base is usually not mobile, or traveling into the unexplored frontiers.
Usually they are stationary, near a major populace center, has a complex defensive Onion/Network to protect the Nation State / Planet that it resides on or around.
While a StarShip is Mobile, going into the unexplored & unknown frontiers where you can encounter all sorts of dangers / surprises.
They also might deal with dangers they have never encountered and has a higher probability of perishing or disappearing vs being stationary near your Home State / Planet / Base.
There are some obvious trade offs between the two.
StarShip life is usually for when you're younger, don't have commitments to raise children in a safe / stable environments.
Whilte StarBase life would be easier on families since everybody would be in a common, well protected & regulated environment.
Plenty of IRL kids are military brats who grew up moving from one US Military Base to another.
So they know what it's like living in the town surrounding the base and going to school there.
Not all Starships have families on them. "Voyager" didn't have any. I think families on ships might be reserved for those ships assigned to long-term missions. "Voyager" was suppose to just go on one mission and return to base. Go capture the missing Marquis.
It's quite different. Military bases with families are not in combat zones. Plus, we've seen in real where civilians are evacuated if trouble is expected. Those Starfleet saucers suffered from separation anxiety. Yes, I understand real world production constraints were the real reason for lack of separation.
Besides, we're talking about ships, not bases. Families are not living on navy ships. Navy ships are at sea where they can become involved in a combat situation at any moment.
Lastly, I think the initial concept was that the Galaxy Class was a special situation. Families were stationed on board because of the unique nature and role these ships played. Families on these ships were the exception, not the rule. That unique idea was forgotten or abandoned. Did we see families on other starships prior to DS9's "Emissary"?
In universe? Starfleet believed it's own propaganda that it wasn't a dirty military. Families were casualties and sacrificed on the altar of politics, propaganda, and hubris.
Voyager did not have families because the tragedy of Wolf 359 woke Starfleet up to the reality that families on starships were a bad idea. Did we see any families on starships in the latter portion of the TNG era or up to the modern era?
Funny thing about putting families on starships: They didn't change the job of those starships even a bit. "We need to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone." "Right. Send the Enterprise." "Isn't that dangerous?" "But we ALWAYS send the Enterprise. Oh, we also have an experimental warp drive that we want to try out. I have just the ship in mind."
Voyager did not have families because Roddenberry had been dead for four years.
The last reference to families being aboard starships was DS9 Homefront. It's the justification Sisko have the Federation President for why families of Starfleet officers should also be screened to see if they're shapeshifters.
Sisko was given command of Earth Security at thst time, so Sisko's statement about Starfleet officers and their families being tested was for Earth, not starships. That's why he needed authority from the Federation President to do it: Earth isn't a Starfleet base. "The average citizen won't even notice the difference," was Sisko clearly defining this as an action on the planet.
I messed up a bit, it was actually a conversation between Sisko and his father after the policy was put into place, but it the point is, they do establish families are still on starships. Per the transcript:
Emphasis mine.
You could be living on a colony minding your own business with the wife and kids, and BAM! the whole thing gets vacu-sucked by a crystalline entity.
The conceit about families existed in part because forming a family unit otherwise, when mom or dad's away for years, would be simply impossible. For a Starfleet officer serving aboard a starship on an extended duration mission to have a functional family at all, they'd have to be aboard the ship.
Not to mention, the argument against families aboard ship because it's too dangerous feeds into the argument that Starfleet is a miliary, not that I think Starfleet isn't a military.
But if a ship is going out to explore the galaxy and won't be back for five, ten, maybe 20 years, why not bring the whole family, if they'll come. They didn't really do that, but my impression when TNG started was that that was the implied premise.
The conceit about families existed in part because forming a family unit otherwise, when mom or dad's away for years, would be simply impossible. For a Starfleet officer serving aboard a starship on an extended duration mission to have a functional family at all, they'd have to be aboard the ship.
Not to mention, the argument against families aboard ship because it's too dangerous feeds into the argument that Starfleet is a miliary, not that I think Starfleet isn't a military.
But if a ship is going out to explore the galaxy and won't be back for five, ten, maybe 20 years, why not bring the whole family, if they'll come. They didn't really do that, but my impression when TNG started was that that was the implied premise.
Unique situation due to the fact Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant. The point is, Voyager was not intended to carry families or children, indeed when Samantha Wildman informed Janeway she was pregnant, she was worried and made it clear right away she was impregnated before Voyager was stranded.
As for Tom and B'Elanna, given their child was born at the literal moment Voyager arrived in the Sol system, that's kind of a non-issue.
Honestly, 'Flashback" has SO many discrepancies with what Star Trek VI clearly shows us (saying Kirk and McCoy went to Rura Penthe three days after the explosion of Praxis instead of the two months the movie says, Janice Rand suddenly being a commander, Lt. Valtine dying when he's shown to be alive & well at the end of STVI) that I just chalk the whole thing up to extremely faulty memories on the part of Tuvok due to the mind virus the episode never properly explains.Or, a great cover story for an extended spy mission!
No, seriously, in VOY "Flashback", we learn that Excelsior getting damaged in a fight with the Klingons was logged as an encounter with a "gaseous anomaly." Being on a survey mission was the excuse offered to Kang to be in the nebula outside of Federation space.
It makes me wonder whether all of the other events logged as involving gaseous anomalies were legit.
Okay, my mistake. I thought you were talking about the meeting with Jaresh-Inyo. Then yes, I do believe that is the last time we get a reference to families on starships.
I don't think having kids aboard a starship is a good idea. First, that places them in automatic danger from any number of things. (And not even from an attack. There's all sorts of subspace anomalies, accidental hull breaches, potential life support failures, and a host of other dangerous stuff that come with just living on a starship.) Second, we don't know if the kids get a say in agreeing to go live on starships. And even if they agree, are they really fully made aware of the potential hazards?
And third, what about the psychological effects of surviving starship life. Here's some examples of what I mean:
1. "The Naked Now" - pretty much the entire crew was infected. How were the kids when this happened?
2. "Conundrum" - entire crew is made amnesiac with no knowledge of who they are or who everyone else is. The adults were already having some issues with this... imagine what the kids are going through.
3. 'Genesis" - the entire crew devolves. What were the kids going through during that time and when they got back to normal, how did it affect them?
While a colony can be attacked, there are far fewer things that can simply wipe everyone out than a starship just traveling through space.
Agreed. That situation was entirely unique. Though if the journey was going to start taking decades, this would have needed to be addressed.
The Tom & B'Elanna situation brings up an interesting point. As some pointed out, some of these ships were going out for 5+ year missions, with no way of getting back home early. Even if you didn't start the mission with any families, it's entirely possible for a couple to fall in love, get married, and have kids all within the mission duration.
I'm talking about the younger kids.Well, Wesley was trying out his new repulsor beam in engineering!
(I'm sure the other teenagers aboard were doing similar things Wesley did. Or just what the adults were doing.)
Throwing temper tantrums, running around the ship hugging everyone, drawing all over the walls of their quarters, eating a mountain of food, filling a room with bubbles....
Amen.
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