Why so few people come from the colonies...?

[Deimos Anomaly]

Pretty much every named character of any notability, in both TV trek and the movies, comes from the homeworld of their species.

Any human will come from Earth. Any Klingon will come from Qo'noS. Any Vulcan will come from Vulcan. Any Cardassian will come from Cardassia. And so on.

By the TNG-DS9 era in the late 24th century, humans have been a star-faring species for over 300 years.

Look at how fast North America was opened up with European settlement... By the time of TNG/DS9, the older human colony worlds, like Vega Colony, Alpha Centauri etc. should already boast human populations of hundreds of millions, if not billions. There should be humans out there who have never set foot on Earth, but all we ever get are people born and bred on Earth.

It's silly.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Tasha Yar came from the Turkana IV colony. Both the original Enterprise and the Enterprise-D visited many Federation/Earth colonies and the people who lived there. For all we know, a few billion Humans live off-world by the 24th-Century (with Earth's population perhaps the same if not slightly smaller than it is today).

Worf was born on Qo'noS, but he and his family eventually relocated to Khitomer and made that Klingon colony their home. The Enterprise-C came to the rescue of Klingons at the Narendra III colony as well.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's no more silly as every Starfleet officer being a graduate of Starfleet Academy. It's just one of those things, is all. In order to get the attention of the common viewer, recognizable names have to be used. Therefore Earth Vulcan, Qo'nos are used since they have more recognition factor among the audience than Alpha Centauri, P'Jem, or Mempa VI. The closest you get is a compromise like with Tuvok, born on the Vulcanis Lunar colony but raised on Vulcan.

Worf was born on Qo'noS, but he and his family eventually relocated to Khitomer and made that Klingon colony their home.

Actually, Worf and his parents were visiting Khitomer at the time of the massacre and had left Kurn behind on Qo'nos. However, the Rozhenkos were living on the colony world Gault when the adopted Worf, though they eventually moved to Earth.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Worf was born on Qo'noS, but he and his family eventually relocated to Khitomer and made that Klingon colony their home.

Actually, Worf and his parents were visiting Khitomer at the time of the massacre and had left Kurn behind on Qo'nos.

It was a bit more than a visit. Mogh went with his wife and Worf to Khitomer to find out who was conspiring with the Romulans. I think they spent about a year there.

 

[The Wormhole]

Worf was born on Qo'noS, but he and his family eventually relocated to Khitomer and made that Klingon colony their home.

Actually, Worf and his parents were visiting Khitomer at the time of the massacre and had left Kurn behind on Qo'nos.

It was a bit more than a visit. Mogh went with his wife and Worf to Khitomer to find out who was conspiring with the Romulans. I think they spent about a year there.

Still, the fact they left their other son on Qo'nos implied they intended to return.

 

[Third Nacelle]

Beverly Crusher was from Luna. Data was from the Omicron Theta colony. Ezri Dax was from New Sydney. Worf was raised on Gault. Neelix was from Rinax. Chakotay was from some colony in the DMZ. Seven of Nine was born on Tendara.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Actually, Worf and his parents were visiting Khitomer at the time of the massacre and had left Kurn behind on Qo'nos.

It was a bit more than a visit. Mogh went with his wife and Worf to Khitomer to find out who was conspiring with the Romulans. I think they spent about a year there.

Still, the fact they left their other son on Qo'nos implied they intended to return.

But in the meantime, it was their residence.

 

[R. Star]

To the OP.. I think most main characters are from the main homeworld simply because if you're a human from Alpha Centauri they think the audience is too stupid to realize they're not an alien.

 

[T'Girl]

Tuvok was born on a colony too.

By the time of TNG etc, for Humans the interstellar colonization process is only a couple of centuries old, so while tens of millions (even hundreds of millions) of Humans are "from the colonies," the average Humans is still from Earth.

 

[Vanyel]

I thought the Cylons destroyed the colonies? hehehehehe

Ok, maybe that only made me laugh.

 

[Nerys Myk]

To the OP.. I think most main characters are from the main homeworld simply because if you're a human from Alpha Centauri they think the audience is too stupid to realize they're not an alien.

They might be right. A lot of fans thought Zephram Cochrane was an Alpha Centaurian humanoid, even though McCoy states he is a human.

 

[Timo]

It could be a fairly clear-cut issue: in the terminally boring existence of the 24th century utopia, you get your kicks from going to the frontier - either to experience the hardships of colonization, or to seek death in Starfleet. You don't really have any motivation to do both.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Melakon]

^ I can imagine the recruiting pitches: "Ready to end it all? Become a security guard on a starship!"

 

[C.E. Evans]

To the OP.. I think most main characters are from the main homeworld simply because if you're a human from Alpha Centauri they think the audience is too stupid to realize they're not an alien.

They might be right. A lot of fans thought Zephram Cochrane was an Alpha Centaurian humanoid, even though McCoy states he is a human.

If we go with the idea that humans are a fairly common species throughout the Star Trek Universe and popped up eons ago on many worlds other than Earth, it does work. Terrans would specify humans from Earth (or of Earth ancestry), Alpha Centaurians would be humans who originated from Alpha Centauri, Ventaxians are humans who sprung up from Ventax II and so on.

 

[QCzar]

Also, the Earth-based colonization is not a great example since, even with the given of the US (which is a special case I think many would agree) the entire population of white Europeans living outside of Europe is still much smaller than Europe's as a whole (this is relative to Earth's population). This after they began colonizing outside of Europe almost 700 years ago, on one planet no less.

 

[Stoo]

Heh this is something that's occured to me in the past, just cos I'm used to playing space strategy games like Master of Orion where by the mid game your homeworld is usually just one of several high-population planets.

I never really followed in Trek if human colonies had extensive development, cities and and populations etc. Or were just like one small town.

 

[Timo]

The heroes deal with the far frontier, so they tend to encounter only very small colonies - typically, village-sized communities based on sustenance farming. When Sisko bombed a "Maquis world", his nemesis Eddington believed that "hundreds of thousands" would be displaced if Sisko continued his actions on other planets. The single world thus only had tens of thousands at most...

Basically, the only witnessed colony that appears to have been founded by more than just one shipment of daring frontiersmen is Deneva from TOS, an old freight hub past its prime. In "Operation: Annihilate!", the world had at least one large city with high-rise buildings, but interacted only minimally with the rest of the Federation (it going silent didn't raise eyebrows for a full year!), and only had "almost a million" people, of whom "more than 100,000" lived in the city we saw.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[QCzar]

I suspect it's like real life in that respect, if you switch planets/colonies for villages, towns and cities. A small number of planets with huge populations (Luna, Mars, Alpha Centauri, Turkana IV, et.al.), with the majority having only small settlements.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I can see most extraterrestrial colonies having small settlements but why aren't planets more mixed? Shouldn't betazed be about 50% betazoids, and the other 50% be randomly mixed up of all other Federation planets? Shoudn't tons of aliens have expatriated to Vulcan, or Bolias?

Shouldn't, by this point in the 24th century, planet of residence have less correlation with your species?

And shouldn't like 20% of the population be noid-mutts?

 

[T'Girl]

Also, the Earth-based colonization is not a great example since, even with the given of the US (which is a special case I think many would agree) the entire population of white Europeans living outside of Europe is still much smaller than Europe's as a whole (this is relative to Earth's population). This after they began colonizing outside of Europe almost 700 years ago, on one planet no less.

Setting aside the charming sub-category of "white Europeans," the combined population of the Americas and Australia exceeds Europe's by some 200 million people, to be sure there are original peoples there as well as immigrates from other areas of the world. Still there are more people of European descent living outside of Europe that inside.

... even with the given of the US (which is a special case I think many would agree)

Not sure that I grasp what you mean here, special case how?

***

Kirk: "We're on a thousand planets and spreading out."

From Kirk's conversation with Zefram Cochrane, the argument could be made that Kirk's use of "we're" in this case refers only to Humans.