Civvies on Fed ships. Why?

[Ghost Rider]

Gentlemen, I have the answer. In the Trek timeline, the Eugenics wars were fought in the late 20th century.

Somehow, perhaps through superior numbers, the stupid people must have won.

Good answer...sigh apparently though for brief period in the 23rd they had something resembling brains

And by the 24th all traces were squashed.

[Tsyroc]

on this note can anyone tell me why the Navy doesn't let the crews of CVN's and Nuclear submarines alow the crew to take thier wives and families on the unreasonable 6-month tour of duty?

Welll, their spouses and family members wouldn't let them pick up chicks in all the foreign ports they visit.

My dad rode my last ship the USS Abraham Lincoln(CVN-72) from Hawaii and even he got bored by the last day. The coolness of all the military hardware and touring the ship was wearing off by the 5th day.

Right when I got out of the Navy the ship was being converted so a significant portion of it's crew could be female. This meant making the berthing areas even tighter by adding more walls for privacy.

So I'd like to propose that the first step towards converting the US Navy into Starfleet style is by making the berthing areas and officer's state rooms co-ed.


My ship was also involved in evacuating a ton of civilians from the Phillipines when Mt. Penatubo erupted. There were so many people onboard that there was a lot of hotracking (ie once you were out of your rack someone else was sleeping in it). People's pets were kept in a penned up area in one of the hangar bays.

[Enlightenment]

Hmmmmmmmm, perhaps because the show's writers haven't served a day of military service and wished to insert their liberal ideals into how they envisioned a military service should be run...

It must be so nice to live in such a simplistic world that everything that goes wrong can be blamed on an amorphous cloud of 'liberals.'


The civilians on ships brainbug was Roddenberry's idea. As you don't appear to realize, Roddenberry flew 89 missions for the USAAC/USAAF during WWII and was ultimately awarded the distinguished flying cross. While his idea for putting civilians on warships was undeniably stupid it cannot be attributed to a lack of military service.

[SPOOFE]

It must be so nice to live in such a simplistic world that everything that goes wrong can be blamed on an amorphous cloud of 'liberals.'

He blamed nothing on "liberals". He blamed it on "liberal ideas". You'll note that there's a difference. Wanting to change things - in this case, changing the standards of military service - is a "liberal idea", just the same way as a desire to maintain the status quo is a "conservative idea".

While his idea for putting civilians on warships was undeniably stupid it cannot be attributed to a lack of military service.

He didn't attribute it to a lack of military service. He attributed it to a dislike of military service. Or, rather, the way our military is set up.

[Ironwolf]

The main reason for saucer seperation is so that the crew can be evacuated to the saucer when in battle, in doing this the Battle section becomes more deadly because the profile is reduced, and the saucer is reported to cover an extra 4 phaser strips.

I fail to see how this would be advantageous when the battle section is the only of the two sections that has warp drive, and the added benefit of the power from the warp core. Especially since it probably wouldn't be a good idea to separate the ship in a combat situation. You wouldn't be able to maneuver; only motion permitted would be forward until the separation was complete. But if for some reason this was done, and the battle section was destroyed, how would the saucer section get away? On impulse???

I think the only version of the UFP that got it right was in “Yesterdays Enterprise” when the bulk of the room on the E-D was used for troop transport or evacuation.

Just to throw this in, a typical cruise for a current US Navy warship is 6 months, with at least 2 months of prep before that and that is in piece time. However, during a wartime situation, it is not uncommon for a battle group (Carrier and it’s escort) to stay out for far longer than that. I’ve seen boats stay out as long as 11-12 months at a time. I believe the Kennedy just got back from a 9-month deployment to the Med.

[Enlightenment]

He didn't attribute it to a lack of military service.

Read what he wrote. "because the show's writers haven't served a day of military service"

[jegs2]

Hmmmmmmmm, perhaps because the show's writers haven't served a day of military service and wished to insert their liberal ideals into how they envisioned a military service should be run...

It must be so nice to live in such a simplistic world that everything that goes wrong can be blamed on an amorphous cloud of 'liberals.'
The civilians on ships brainbug was Roddenberry's idea. As you don't appear to realize, Roddenberry flew 89 missions for the USAAC/USAAF during WWII and was ultimately awarded the distinguished flying cross. While his idea for putting civilians on warships was undeniably stupid it cannot be attributed to a lack of military service.

And Roddenberry's TOS had ship crews that somewhat resembled a military outfit. TNG and clones were the liberalized versions of which I spoke. If Roddenberry produced TNG and clones (I don't know if he did or not), then he either became too indoctrinated by Hollywood or was castrated. Furthermore, if you've read other posts of mine, you'll find that I generally do not blame liberals on anything.

[Patrick Degan]

And Roddenberry's TOS had ship crews that somewhat resembled a military outfit. TNG and clones were the liberalized versions of which I spoke. If Roddenberry produced TNG and clones (I don't know if he did or not), then he either became too indoctrinated by Hollywood or was castrated.

Gene Roddenberry was creator of Star Trek: The Next Generation but filled the role of Executive Producer —which means he acted more as consultant and was the person the producers had to rubber-stamp everything with. As he got progressively ill between 1988-92, he was handing off more and more of his responsibilities to Rick Berman. He apparently passed some preliminary approval on ideas for Deep Space Nine before his death but was gone by the time production got going. And, of course, he was dead by the time Voyager was thought of as the latest mechanism to milk the Star Trek cash cow.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Most Federation ships - at least at the beginning of TNG - shouldn't be looked at as military ships (even though they were foolishly used in that regard by the Federation). They were more analogous to the vessels in the 1600s that carried immigrants to the "New World"... ships that were capable of defense, and were "exploring", but really sucked ass compared to a dedicated warship.

I think I'll agree with this theory. 1600s is the early sea exploration era, when an ocean-going vessels tend to function as jack-of-all-trades ships (i.e. passenger liner **with** cannons, or such).

OTOH, Star Trek is about early space exploration. Probably GR had 17th century-style ships in mind when he created Trek ships?

[Stormbringer]

Most Federation ships - at least at the beginning of TNG - shouldn't be looked at as military ships (even though they were foolishly used in that regard by the Federation). They were more analogous to the vessels in the 1600s that carried immigrants to the "New World"... ships that were capable of defense, and were "exploring", but really sucked ass compared to a dedicated warship.

I think I'll agree with this theory. 1600s is the early sea exploration era, when an ocean-going vessels tend to function as jack-of-all-trades ships (i.e. passenger liner **with** cannons, or such).

OTOH, Star Trek is about early space exploration. Probably GR had 17th century-style ships in mind when he created Trek ships?

I think that the 1500 to early 1600's is probably the closest analogy to the TNG era.

Later 1600's to early 1800's is probably closer to TOS.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Most Federation ships - at least at the beginning of TNG - shouldn't be looked at as military ships (even though they were foolishly used in that regard by the Federation). They were more analogous to the vessels in the 1600s that carried immigrants to the "New World"... ships that were capable of defense, and were "exploring", but really sucked ass compared to a dedicated warship.

I think I'll agree with this theory. 1600s is the early sea exploration era, when an ocean-going vessels tend to function as jack-of-all-trades ships (i.e. passenger liner **with** cannons, or such).

OTOH, Star Trek is about early space exploration. Probably GR had 17th century-style ships in mind when he created Trek ships?

I think that the 1500 to early 1600's is probably the closest analogy to the TNG era.

Later 1600's to early 1800's is probably closer to TOS.

Uh, maybe there's a difference between 1500's era and Trek era: Feddies don't have merchantmen since they're commies

[oberon]

From my exp on the Wisconsin, I'd have to add that having civilians on your ship would actually be detrimental to your morale. The get in the way, and ahving your loved ones on board would be an insane amount of stress and distraction. Sailors, or whatever you want to call them, are workers, and they're there for a reason, and having civilians on board gets tiresome. I know bec we had yard workers onboard for sea trials, and all we wanted to do was get it together and blow shit up. Who the hell would want to take your family with you if you were sent to some overseas patrol? If the yard workers' presence was bad, having your brothers and sisters and moms and dads along would be worse. And crewmen are not gg to enjoy having to take alternate routes to the shower in a towel just to acommodate some women--it's just a bad idea, on so many levels. Tsyroc, what you say?

[Stormbringer]

I think that the 1500 to early 1600's is probably the closest analogy to the TNG era.

Later 1600's to early 1800's is probably closer to TOS.

Uh, maybe there's a difference between 1500's era and Trek era: Feddies don't have merchantmen since they're commies

Not exactly. Starfleet seems to fufill most the vital services merchantmen provided. And the rest by federation owned merchantmen.

[SPOOFE]

Read what he wrote. "because the show's writers haven't served a day of military service"

Only if YOU finish reading what he wrote: "and wished to insert their liberal ideals into how they envisioned a military service should be run..."

Then read what YOU wrote: "The civilians on ships brainbug was Roddenberry's idea."

End result: If you were trying to counter the notion that the ST writers were to blame, then why'd you bring up Roddenberry? Last I checked, he was a single entity.

Conclusion: Your silly little nitpick is baseless.

[Stormbringer]

Read what he wrote. "because the show's writers haven't served a day of military service"

Only if YOU finish reading what he wrote: "and wished to insert their liberal ideals into how they envisioned a military service should be run..."

Then read what YOU wrote: "The civilians on ships brainbug was Roddenberry's idea."

End result: If you were trying to counter the notion that the ST writers were to blame, then why'd you bring up Roddenberry? Last I checked, he was a single entity.

Conclusion: Your silly little nitpick is baseless.

And Rodenberry served time in the Army Air Corp. On board a B-24 if recall correctly. He even got some sort of medal.

And then he turned into a PC hippy idiot.

[Tsyroc]

From my exp on the Wisconsin, I'd have to add that having civilians on your ship would actually be detrimental to your morale. The get in the way, and ahving your loved ones on board would be an insane amount of stress and distraction. Sailors, or whatever you want to call them, are workers, and they're there for a reason, and having civilians on board gets tiresome. I know bec we had yard workers onboard for sea trials, and all we wanted to do was get it together and blow shit up. Who the hell would want to take your family with you if you were sent to some overseas patrol? If the yard workers' presence was bad, having your brothers and sisters and moms and dads along would be worse. And crewmen are not gg to enjoy having to take alternate routes to the shower in a towel just to acommodate some women--it's just a bad idea, on so many levels. Tsyroc, what you say?

I'd have to agree. Plus imagine what it would be like if some of your shipmates had their families onboard and you didn't. Unless people in the Navy get a whole lot more mature I don't picture good things happening. It's not going to go over well if one guy gets to bang his wife every night and razzes the non-married guy about it all the time. That also doesn't take into consideration people cheating.

On my last command in my division of <25 one guy was banging another guys wife. She ended up divorcing her husband and she eventually married the other guy. Luckilly her ex had left the Navy and moved out of state at the time but crap like that happens all the time.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has served on ship with a male & female crew. I know when I was in school for the Navy there was a ton of screwing around going on.

[SPOOFE]

And Rodenberry served time in the Army Air Corp. On board a B-24 if recall correctly. He even got some sort of medal.

Hence my comment, it's not about a LACK of military experience, it's just a DISLIKE of it. If Roddenberry deliberately set out to make his Federation seem namby-pamby in the future, it's because he thought that current military regulations and design either wouldn't, shouldn't, or just plain won't continue to function as they do now.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

I think that the 1500 to early 1600's is probably the closest analogy to the TNG era.

Later 1600's to early 1800's is probably closer to TOS.

Uh, maybe there's a difference between 1500's era and Trek era: Feddies don't have merchantmen since they're commies

Not exactly. Starfleet seems to fufill most the vital services merchantmen provided. And the rest by federation owned merchantmen.

Oooppsss... what I mean is privately owned merchantmen.

[Jawawithagun]

Basically it's probably the idea that you have the ships on their exploration missions for years at a time without returning to their home port. (Just remember how slow they are)
And as Starfleet is semi-"civilian" on paper and to provide their employees with a happy family life they put their spouses on the ship too.
Imagine how messy a divorce onboard the Enterprise could get...

[greenmm]

Basically it's probably the idea that you have the ships on their exploration missions for years at a time without returning to their home port. (Just remember how slow they are)
And as Starfleet is semi-"civilian" on paper and to provide their employees with a happy family life they put their spouses on the ship too.
Imagine how messy a divorce onboard the Enterprise could get...

But what about the TOS era, where you didn't have families aboard the front-line ships? Starfleet's mandate back then was also to explore the unknown portions of the galaxy -- which was a lot larger in Kirk's era. In fact, we even see Kirk perform a marriage on board the ship... but unlike Keiko and O'Brien's marriage, it was between 2 crewmembers, not a civilian to a Starfleet crewmember.

So, what was different about the TNG era that was different then the TOS era?

1. Klingons were allies.

Major change right there. The Klingons had the most appearances of any regular bad guys TOS. In fact, the Feds and Klingons nearly go to war over the planet Organia... and even after the Organians enforce a peace treaty on the Klingons and Federation, the situation is fairly similar to the 50's and 60's Cold War between the Soviet Union and NATO.

Fast forward to TNG, though, and the Klingons have now become allied with the Federation. Taking away your #1 rival of long standing can make things a little safer; making your former arch-enemy your close friend makes the danger level drop drastically.

2. Romulans were unseen.

Not quite as powerful or as spotlighted as the Klingons, the Romulans were just as dangerous to the Feds, if not more so. The last major war Earth had fought was against the Romulans, which left them as the boogeyman to scare children with as well as a strategic threat for the Admiralty to worry about. Throw in their cloaking device technology, their shared racial heritage with Vulcans, and their apparant capacity to be even more devious and calculating in combat than Klingons, and they were a major worry for the Federation and Starfleet.

Fast forward to TNG again. The Romulans haven't been seen or heard from for a few decades -- IIRC, not since they attacked the Klingon colony on Khitomer. Apparantly, either the civilians controlling Starfleet or the Admiralty itself had decided that the Romulans weren't that big of a threat anymore, particularly with the Klingons on our side. Of course, the Romulans chose to announce to Picard and Co. that "they're baaaaack", thus giving Starfleet another headache to worry about.

3. Complacency.

In TOS, the galaxy was a very scary place. Very little of it was actually known or charted, let alone explored very well. Heck, how many times do we find Kirk and Co. stopping by a previously charted world, only to find some nasty surprise waiting there for them? Not to mention all the worlds that had never been visited before, or the alien races never before encountered. In fact, despite the few aliens in the Federation that we see, you get the impression from TOS that "First Contact" situations and meeting new alien species is still something that's uncommon in Starfleet's experience.

In TNG, though, that's no longer true. Sure, they meet a lot of new alien species. But Picard and Co. are very blase about it: "Oh, look, we found another alien species we haven't met before. Guess we'd better ask them to join the Federation, huh?" Perhaps because so many species have joined the Federation, meeting new species has lost its luster, and become just another part of the daily routine of being in Starfleet. More importantly, it seems like they expect these new species to fall into one of 3 categories:

a) friendly, and want to join the Federation
b) have no interest in joining the Federation
c) aren't advanced enough to qualify for joining the Federation

Apparantly, they've forgotten the 4th category:

d) unfriendly, and will either attack the Federation or tell them to get lost and not come back ever.

The whole point of the unknown is that you don't know what to expect. So it doesn't matter if the Alpha Quadrant is mostly explored already; that doesn't mean the rest of the Quadrant, or that the other 3 quadrants, are necessarily going to be safe to explore. It doesn't mean that the species living in the unknown areas will be just as friendly as those races that have been in the Federation for years. Heck, you can't count on the people in the next city over being as nice as the city you live in, let alone the people on the next planet you discover.

4. Lack of common sense.

TOS didn't really show us too many missions where they investigated strange spacial or scientific phenomena. They were normally too busy finding new species or fighting their enemies.

In TNG, though, we see them doing a lot of scientific missions: studying stellar phenomena, investigating gas clouds and star clusters, etc. Sometimes they even bump into these phenomena accidentally, like that cosmic superstring.

Apparantly, though, the Admiralty and the Federation thinks that engaging in scientific exploration and study of stellar phenomena is like performing high school and college chemistry experiments -- i.e. perfectly safe, bring the family along. Nothing could be further from the truth. The scientific studies we see the E-D and other ships perform are more akin to vulcanologists exploring active volcanoes, or deep sea explorers diving down in DSV's. Sure, precautions are taken to ensure that the explorers and scientists are as safe as humanly possible... but they can't guarantee they'll be 100% safe. Things can go wrong, equipment can break down, unforeseen events can occur, mistakes can be made, injuries can occur, a whole host of situations can happen that will endanger the lives of those highly trained individuals. Imagine what it would be like, though, if those explorers and scientists had to worry about spouses and children not merely being at the base camp or on board the ship, but actually walking the volcano rim or being in that DSV 3 miles underwater. Should something go wrong, those civilians won't know what to do. At best, they'll have to be shepherded and watched over, thus risking everyone's lives. At worst, the civvies will panic and create a bunch of chaos, not only requiring extra work on the explorers' parts but also interfering with their efforts to resolve the situation.

In summation, Starfleet has to listen to its civilian government -- which almost certainly will not only control what regulations are to be used, but also who the bigwigs in the Admiralty will be. And apparantly, by the time TNG's first episode aired, the Federation government has forgotten that, despite the part of our galaxy they've explored, exploration of the unknown is still a dangerous occupation, whether it's traveling to never-before-visited worlds or investigating that strange quasar that's been in the neighborhood for millenia. That, and apparantly the average Federation citizen has become more selfish, because they apparantly can't be separated from their Starfleet spouse for a few months or even a year, even though most had to probably go up to 5 years before even seeing them.

[oberon]

I would counter that it's selfishness that would make a crew not want their families aboard. It's just that in this case, their self-interests are the same as the ship's; they want not only to do their jobs, but also to survive, and your family is gg to be nothing but an obstacle. That's what leave is for.

[Admiral Piett]

Can someone please tell me why they put famalies on fed ships?

From "Encounter at Farpoint":
Picard: I'm not a family man, Riker, and yet starfleet has given me a ship with children on board.
Riker: Yes sir, and famalies...

Just why the f*ck do they put famalies and children on a ship that will be going into dangerous situations?????

One possible explanation is incresing the time that the ships pass on station.Essentially you turn the ships into the crewmembers homes.So you can have deployment cycles that current navies can only dream of,crew fatigue being the primary factor in limiting the ships endurance.The trade off of course are obvious,as it as already been said it would be a very bad idea for a navy.But since they pretend not to be a true navy...

[oberon]

One possible explanation is incresing the time that the ships pass on station.Essentially you turn the ships into the crewmembers homes.So you can have deployment cycles that current navies can only dream of,crew fatigue being the primary factor in limiting the ships endurance.The trade off of course are obvious,as it as already been said it would be a very bad idea for a navy.But since they pretend not to be a true navy...

I have to argue against this point. The stress of your family being with you, including the possibility of their demise, would be extremely fatiguing. And if the crew, many of whom (all, if you go by the visuals on ST) are in the best shape of their lives, get fatigued, then how is multiplying the number of people who get fatigued help? Big spaces, holodecks, and lofty speeches by the CO can only do so much to conceal the fact that it's a ship--a warship, with a command structure, power generation and factory activity, in a dangerous place, for prolonged times.

People who need to be by their families so bad generally don't join a company whose business is expedition. If they do, they don't stay in. Speaking of which, ST crewmembers who are honestly homesick could maybe be something interesting to watch! Plenty of acting opportunities there--robots don't get homesick, and I got sick of watching the robots on ST. Someone who is having a hard time performing because they miss home or ma or girl/boyfriend to the point of distraction could capture the attention of the viewer. Whether they cope or go crazy.

[Failed Glory]

I have to argue against this point....

I think he's trying to get at a change in point of view from warship to starship. The Federation is not at war. Enterprise-D does not seem to undergo regular military style missions (reconaissance, patrol (I do remember once, at least, though), etc...) very often.

The lifestyle or career US or British Naval man does not equal that of a SF officer. Different times, different mindsets.

And, yes, as has been pointed out far too often here, it does not make military or tactical sense. E-D is not a military vessel. SF is not solely a military branch of the Federation.

I do agree that it would make for better TV with a little less civilian lifestyle. But then you can still have B&B to fuck that up, too.

[Admiral Piett]

[I have to argue against this point. The stress of your family being with you, including the possibility of their demise, would be extremely fatiguing. And if the crew, many of whom (all, if you go by the visuals on ST) are in the best shape of their lives, get fatigued, then how is multiplying the number of people who get fatigued help? Big spaces, holodecks, and lofty speeches by the CO can only do so much to conceal the fact that it's a ship--a warship, with a command structure, power generation and factory activity, in a dangerous place, for prolonged times.

People who need to be by their families so bad generally don't join a company whose business is expedition. If they do, they don't stay in. Speaking of which, ST crewmembers who are honestly homesick could maybe be something interesting to watch! Plenty of acting opportunities there--robots don't get homesick, and I got sick of watching the robots on ST. Someone who is having a hard time performing because they miss home or ma or girl/boyfriend to the point of distraction could capture the attention of the viewer. Whether they cope or go crazy.

The mine was just an attempt to find a rational justification for an obviously flawed system.But since they pretend to be a non military organization it might made a bit of sense.Just little.Very little.