Why no crew rotation? 70+ years, no problem!

[Meredith]

You know we found out later in the series that they had hibernation type pods and in the TNG episode "The Neutral Zone" we had a episode where they were using 20th century tech to freeze people and sickbay was able to defrost with no issues. So why are they so darned worried about dying of old age on the way home?

Simple solution: Divide the crew up into 10 groups, place 9/10ths of the crew in stasis pods and every year pull one group out of stasis and put the current crew back into stasis.

Or

you have 140+ crew members ok, so you put half into stasis and every two day you pull one person out of stasis and put one back into stasis. When the ship is running just fine you put more people in stasis and run on a skeleton crew, when the ship goes to yellow alert you pull more people out of stasis. When you need to be on red alert you pull most everyone out of stasis and deal with the emergency.

Advantages:

Stasis pods probably take less energy to run than replicating food for the crew members that are active. Plus you can turn off the power in all the extra crew quarters or use them for storage or hydroponics etc... You save on a crapton of energy there already. No extra people using the holodeck using power. You save age related wear and tear on the crew, you won't be needing to make the ship into a generational ship, instead you can take all of the able bodied poor souls you stranded in the Delta Quadrant back home and you only burned away 10years of their lives instead of them having to retire to Florida once Voyager finally makes it home.



So why not stick half the crew or more in the freezer if they aren't really needed instead of having them grow old and using resources?

 

[Kio]

Nice idea for a larger crew, but a crew of 140 was already pretty small. IIRC, they lost too many people in the first couple episodes. In The 37's, Janeway let the crew members choose whether or not to stay on the earth-like planet or continue traveling on Voyager. She and Chakotay talked about what they would do if too many chose to stay. I think Chakotay said that with fewer than 70 people there was no way to run Voyager and even then it was pretty doubtful that would be enough.

So maybe they could have put half the crew in stasis. But that would still mean 35 years of dull flying for everyone. What about creating more holograms to run the ship? Apparently, all you have to do is install a holo-emitter in a room and holograms can function there. It's a bit risky, but then there would always be people awake to keep an eye on things.

BTW, love the title of this thread.

 

[RoJoHen]

They should've kidnapped a bunch of Ocampa and made them breed and do all the work. But that probably wouldn't have been very "Starfleet" of them.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, no Trek "suspended animation" method has been shown to be completely reliable or capable of keeping the occupants alive for seven decades.

Khan's cryosleep method killed about 15% of his team in two centuries, and even the reviving of the leader himself was touch and go with 23rd century medtech. The corpsicles in "The Neutral Zone" were dead to begin with, but still, something like 70% of them were lost in three centuries, and Crusher said she had great difficulty reviving the corpses (due to the freezing method, not due to the things that had killed them / were the reason for freezing them in the first place).

There's apparently some sort of a time-stopping or time-slowing stasis field in use for storing cadavers in DS9 and probably the other shows as well - it completely immobilized Odo in "Invasive Procedures". But we have no evidence that this would be safe for storing live specimen for seven decades. The stasis system in VOY "One" seems related to this one, involving no cryonics but somehow slowing down the radiation damage in the body, thus probably slowing down time itself in some manner. Again, the procedure doesn't come with any sort of a warrant for 70 years, and indeed was used with great hesistancy in the episode.

And transporter stasis gave 50% casualties in TNG "Relics". It just doesn't seem likely that they could "freeze" half the crew for half the voyage. The question goes, can part of the crew be "frozen" for relatively short periods of time, then "thawed" again, "refrozen" and so forth, again and again and again, without ill effects? Probably not, with any of the known methods.

And "The 37s" seems to be pretty definite on the issue of running the ship on automation. It just won't work, not if the slightest thing goes wrong.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mrs Paris]

well they were only in the delta quadrant for less than 1/10th of the time they thought they would be there. It's possible that the true long-term reality of a 70+ year journey hadn't fully sunk in yet. When they started, I think Janeway was always under the assumption that they would find a shortcut home, she never actualy thought that they would be facing a lifetime journey.

 

[Stag]

If you are going to put some of the crew in stasis, make sure the redshirts are on quick thaw...

 

[Gotham Central]

I'm sorry, but the line in "the 37's" was complete BS on Chakotay's part. The vast majority of the crew on those ships are not involved in the day to day operations of the ship. The Constitution Class Enterprise managed to function effectively while being run by 5 guys in STIII (3 of which were not involved in tasks critical to the ships operations)...and that was inthe 23rd century. In the 24th century, the Enterprise D managed to function perfectly with just 2 people on board ("1101001"). Even Voyager depicted the ship as being capable of functioning FOR A YEAR with less than 10 people on board while under constant attack. Speaking of which there was an Episode where 7 of 9 and the Doctor were the only people running the ship for atleast a month. All of that is in keeping with the idea that Federation Starships are largely automatic. The reason that the Enterprise D looked the way it did internally was because it was supposed to depict a ship that needed very little maintenance and instrumentation to run.

Given all that on screen evidence, Chuckels claim rings a bit hollow.

 

[backstept]

the show would have been really boring if everyone was in stasis the whole time, but from a logical and practical point of view they really should have done it

 

[kimc]

The problem is how to choose? I mean, would you personally volunteer to put your life on hold for 30 years? Could you order someone to do that?

 

[Finn]

I'm sorry, but the line in "the 37's" was complete BS on Chakotay's part. The vast majority of the crew on those ships are not involved in the day to day operations of the ship. The Constitution Class Enterprise managed to function effectively while being run by 5 guys in STIII (3 of which were not involved in tasks critical to the ships operations)...and that was inthe 23rd century. In the 24th century, the Enterprise D managed to function perfectly with just 2 people on board ("1101001"). Even Voyager depicted the ship as being capable of functioning FOR A YEAR with less than 10 people on board while under constant attack. Speaking of which there was an Episode where 7 of 9 and the Doctor were the only people running the ship for atleast a month. All of that is in keeping with the idea that Federation Starships are largely automatic. The reason that the Enterprise D looked the way it did internally was because it was supposed to depict a ship that needed very little maintenance and instrumentation to run.

Given all that on screen evidence, Chuckels claim rings a bit hollow.

The first two you mentioned only took place briefly, and the nebula trip was only a month in a straight line without encountering planets, hostile aliens and anomalies. That's very different from leaving the ship on automation for years travelling through unknown space that one couldn't plan ahead of.

 

[RoJoHen]

I have a feeling they had things like power to worry about. Hell, they couldn't even use the replicators all the time in the beginning.

 

[Mr. Fergy]

This is a really, good, idea. I think it would have worked, but then we wouldn't have 7 years of "fun" would we?

 

[LeadHead]

I'm sorry, but the line in "the 37's" was complete BS on Chakotay's part. The vast majority of the crew on those ships are not involved in the day to day operations of the ship. The Constitution Class Enterprise managed to function effectively while being run by 5 guys in STIII (3 of which were not involved in tasks critical to the ships operations)...and that was inthe 23rd century. In the 24th century, the Enterprise D managed to function perfectly with just 2 people on board ("1101001"). Even Voyager depicted the ship as being capable of functioning FOR A YEAR with less than 10 people on board while under constant attack. Speaking of which there was an Episode where 7 of 9 and the Doctor were the only people running the ship for atleast a month. All of that is in keeping with the idea that Federation Starships are largely automatic. The reason that the Enterprise D looked the way it did internally was because it was supposed to depict a ship that needed very little maintenance and instrumentation to run.

Given all that on screen evidence, Chuckels claim rings a bit hollow.

Gotta disagree with you on that.
In Star Trek III, they did run the enterprise with just 5 people and they overloaded the automation system as soon as they fired the torpedoes, leaving them completely open to attack.

in 1101001 The ship had just undergone some repairs, meaning it was in prime condition, making it far easier to control then if it were a normal day. Not to mention that all Picard had to do was turn the ship around and take them back to starbase 74. As you could see in the episode that was hardly taxing on him or the ship. As he just in very laid back fashion set the course and took the Enterprise back.

In Year of Hell, they couldn't use most of the systems on the ship due to the damage, they were limited to flying, scanning, Hailing and shooting the few Photon torpedoes they had left.

In One, Seven still had to make the course corrections, do the maintenence and once the ship started to take heavy damage from the nebula, she couldn't kep up with it. Power was failing, she had to shut down life support to make it out. If they had passed through with a full crew, they would have been able to keep up with the damage and made it out much more easily.

As for the Enterprise D needing such little manpower, Geordi stated in "Coming of Age" that even when the ship was just sitting there in orbit of a planet and not going anywhere, his post needed to be manned. Obviously the automation couldn't sufficently substitue for a hand on the controls. Otherwise every episde where the ship was orbiting a planet, the helmsman would have had the day off.

 

[Helmgirlie]

Would have been a good idea, but they were explorers. Janeway wouldn't have wanted it, even if they had the oportunity.

 

[Timo]

Dittos on several previous sentiments.

The vast majority of the crew on those ships are not involved in the day to day operations of the ship.

But that's the point: day to day operations aren't of interest here, the ability to sustain the ship through years upon years of travel is. That doesn't hinge on "day to day operations" - that hinges on maintenance, repair, overhaul. That hinges on replenishment, which is far from a day-to-day operation in the Delta Quadrant. That hinges on being prepared for the unexpected.

A Monkee and two trainees can obviously run a starship... to her ruination. Similarly, a single eight-year-old could run an aircraft carrier today, were the ship properly prepped for him or her. And yes, a pirate and a swordsmith's apprentice could run a brig across the Caribbean if the Royal Navy rigged it for them. But it takes a crew to keep the ship going.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mrs Paris]

with their track record of encountering hostle alines, if anyone ever found out that half of the crew was in long term stasis, Voyage would have been easy pickings