VOY:Spirit Folk or "PaddyWorld"

[Admiral X]

Except for the children, all the civilians on board seem to have jobs, though. I guess if you think of something like a Galaxy class in terms of an air base, there are plenty of civilian workers on an air base, and of course families live there as well. I'm not disagreeing that it is silly to have civilians on what is essentially a military vessel (even if the writers and plenty of fans seem to be in denial about that), just that I could kind of see it given a certain mentality, like say viewing the ships more along the lines of mobile bases, not to mention the silly de-emphasis on the military aspects of Starfleet that was written into the show for TNG.

[Beastro]

You're missing my point, either intentionally or not. Civilians traveled on ships for colonial and trade reasons for hundreds of years, with freighters, trade ships, etc. being lost all the time. In the past century, this became unacceptable and rightfully so, but was also easily detectable, because of the advancing of technology. A freighter's voyage from one location to another should take days at the most. A couple hundred years ago? Their journeys took months, if not almost a year to complete.

Now, imagine the same thing in Trek-verse. A ship might be taking weeks, if not months, to get where they're going. They disappear. Starfleet investigates, but turns up nothing, or finds out that alien influence was involved(a giant probe, alien mind influence, or in the case of the Yamato, an alien computer virus from a culture thousands of years ahead of the Federation). The UFP is not the masters of the galaxy, but people dipping their toe into the water, and hoping not to get bitten, and becoming better at doing so.

The problem with that line of thinking is that the world of Star Trek is in no way rough around the edges as one would expect if it was trying to fully emulate the Age of Sail (which was one of the major inspirations for TOS) and pre-20th Century realities.

Instead we have "modern times only only more advanced" and it leaves one expecting that people would act like they would today in such circumstances, especially when it feels like any Star Fleet ship could pop back home whenever they like, and that outside of FTL communications they may be the only Federation ship around even if they tried to travel back home for months and are deployed for potentially years on end. In the case of Nelson's best friend and successor, Collingwood, he didn't see his family for years, was in poor health and constantly sent messages back home begging to be relieved so he could spend his last years with his family. In the end he died on the boat ride back home after being relieved of his command in 1810 after succeeding Nelson in 1805 and last seeing England and his family in 1803, spending almsot his entire time onboard his flagship with only short trips to shore.

To put it another way, how'd people feel if USS Cole had been hit and non-contractor civilians like family had been killed, not simply from the public, but from the military itself asking if this is really a wise thing to be doing, risking such lives when they can stay home.

I really do wish they'd made the scale of Trek distances greater than it was. Have it be that a trip like is shown in an average Trek series is a major deployment, leaving civilization as the crew knows it behind but I feel that would only work on a show with aesthetics of Firefly, not the cut and dried, immaculate way Starfleet and their warships are decked out in and makes you feel Earth is just a weeks trip away the way home is for a modern sailor (not including submariners).

Even if they were of the "Death means nothing to me"-kind of philosophy, that would still be stupid on many levels. First, civilians drain resources of the ship for little to no benefit. The ship needs not just provide food and resting-space, but also facilities to keep the occupied all the time. This unneccarily bloats the ship in physical dimensions, increases the strain on the power supply and thus lowering the endurance of the ship, which is doubly stupid for a long range exploration vessel that is supposed to operate independant of any supplies for a long time. Also, all that space reserved for civilian use, is space you can not use for mission critical equipment either, which further increases the size of the ship, as the necessary facilities absolutely need to be put onto that ship in addition to the civilian facilities.

A big problem is all the extra space they take up when it could be used to slim down and make their warships more rugged. In a classic naval warfare sense, it's more area to cover with armour.

And for people to resort to "But Starfleet isn't a military and their ships aren't warships!" is BS. Whether they intend them to be or not, Starfleet ships go into situations only warships do and it's why the organization is built like one.

Hell, one can't even dismiss that their ships don't need armour because of shield technology when a hallmark of the series is how easily the shield deplete or are somehow disabled almost on a episodical basis.

and the only times we hear of the Federation getting creamed is, when ground battles happen. See O'Brian, see that abducted child mentioned above. Come to think of it, have a look at any man-to-man combat situation displayed. Starfleet sucks beyond belief, when it comes to ground combat, despite all their technology, which they barely ever use to their advantage in such situations.

Almost as if throwing all military missions into one monolithic organization is a terrible idea and there's a reason why branches of the military exist, and why branches of branches exist, as the USAF has learned in the past decade effectively reviving and restoring Strategic Air Command to its old position despite trying their best not to admit it, since it was Tac Air that took over the Air Force and killed SAC in the first place.

[Karha of Honor]

I think it might be significant that when Rodenberry decided families were along for the trip that he was also in that we-don't-fear-death, we-don't-mourn phase. Crusher in "Neutral Zone" seemed to expect a hard time trying to convey to Picard what fear of death is.

It wasn't necessarily Starfleet being stupid. It may have just been having different values than we do.

I just mentally pictured Trek trying to make cannibalism look cool and enlightened in an episode...

[Madner Kami]

A big problem is all the extra space they take up when it could be used to slim down and make their warships more rugged. In a classic naval warfare sense, it's more area to cover with armour.

Oh gawd, don't even get started on why Starfleet ships are utter design-disasters when it comes to combat-capability. One only needs to look at the Defiant, a ship that throws punches in the weight-class of in-universe battleships, despite only being about the size of the TOS-era saucer-section, to realize how stupid it is to build just one Galaxy, when you could have about 10 Defiants for the same amount of material and half(!) the manpower (assuming Galaxys having a minimal crew of 1000).

[Dînadan]

Oh gawd, don't even get started on why Starfleet ships are utter design-disasters when it comes to combat-capability. One only needs to look at the Defiant, a ship that throws punches in the weight-class of in-universe battleships, despite only being about the size of the TOS-era saucer-section, to realize how stupid it is to build just one Galaxy, when you could have about 10 Defiants for the same amount of material and half(!) the manpower (assuming Galaxys having a minimal crew of 1000).

I think Galaxys probably have a far lower minimal crew than 1000 in terms of actual ship operations and combat capability; the reason they generally operated with crews over a thousand is because they have so many labs and so many working on sciencey/exploration/etc stuff, while Defiants having such low crew count is because they have no labs and everyone aboard is dedicated to keeping the ship running and operating it. Defiants are great for the necessary military operations Starfleet needs to undertake, but would probably a spectacular failure at the exploration side of things.

[Darth Wedgius]

It wasn't necessarily Starfleet being stupid. It may have just been having different values than we do.

Even if they were of the "Death means nothing to me"-kind of philosophy, that would still be stupid on many levels. First, civilians drain resources of the ship for little to no benefit.

Little or no benefit as we see it. To them, having the kids along may mean a lot more than their safety, or the few isowatts of power needed to keep their lights on.

They just can not hold a candle to Starfleet in terms of space warfare...

Same answer. When Picard was explaining to Doctor Guest-of-the-Week that it may be necessary to destroy the crystalline entity, but that it wasn't evil in eating people any more than a whale is evil due to eating plankton, I was firmly on the side of Doctor What's-her-Name. Blow it up real good! Yee ha!

When Picard said that the Enterprise's intervention was as much a threat to the Masterpiece Society as any stellar core fragment could have been, I wanted to grab him by the lapels and shake him while reasonable pointing out as loudly as I could that they may have doomed the society but they saved all the individuals, and that counts a lot more. For me.

When Picard stood by as the atmospheric renoberation ate Worf's human brother's adopted family and maybe their entire biosphere, I was ready to make him walk the plank.

Picard stated that a part-Romulan crewman was innocent because he "had tea with him." To me, that was every bit as stupid as anything I've heard Archer say.

Let me explain it to you in more concrete terms. We don't know what is intelligent or stupid, or rational or irrational, in someone's actions unless we know the values and goals involved. One of the tales of the round table involve a knight acting reprehensibly and being called out on it. The knight beat up the person criticizing him, and that took care of it. I don't just mean that it resolved the situation; I mean that was seen as an entirely reasonable approach to handling it by the people of the time. Greek heroes weren't necessarily anything like what we'd see as heroic. Everyone knows Japan did awful things in World War 2, but, for many Japanese, that doesn't really matter as long as they keep denying it. Irrational? Stupid? Not to them.

We may have an overpopulation problem. Certainly we in the first world put a fair strain on the environment. We in the U.S. may have a trade deficit and much of the world is hungry. The logical answer is obvious -- sell some of our babies to the third world for food. It's entirely logical, as it addresses three significant problems, and, if cooked properly, I think the other white meat shouldn't be too dangerous. But I think it's fairly unlikely to happen. And I'm going to ignore any comments about assuming Trump plans to do so.

[TGLS]

A big problem is all the extra space they take up when it could be used to slim down and make their warships more rugged. In a classic naval warfare sense, it's more area to cover with armour.

Hell, one can't even dismiss that their ships don't need armour because of shield technology when a hallmark of the series is how easily the shield deplete or are somehow disabled almost on a episodical basis.

Some thoughts on Armour in Star Trek:

Armour rarely appears in Trek. All of three ships are seen with armour, and the only one that isn't an anomoly of some sort is the Defiant-class. The Prometheus was a prototype, and Voyager's armour was from the future. The only alien ships that we see using armour are Borg Spheres. Given all this, I can only conclude that Armour in Star Trek is both a new technology for the Federation, and extremely expensive, if a power as strong as the Borg doesn't deploy it on every ship.

On the other hand, Star Trek doesn't subscribe to "eggshells armed with hammers", so there must be some kind of armour.

[Madner Kami]

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[Dînadan]

Some thoughts on Armour in Star Trek:

Armour rarely appears in Trek. All of three ships are seen with armour, and the only one that isn't an anomoly of some sort is the Defiant-class. The Prometheus was a prototype, and Voyager's armour was from the future. The only alien ships that we see using armour are Borg Spheres. Given all this, I can only conclude that Armour in Star Trek is both a new technology for the Federation, and extremely expensive, if a power as strong as the Borg doesn't deploy it on every ship.

You forgot about Enterprise; the NX-01 had armour considering they constantly go on about hull playing rather than shields...it’s just that they treated it exactly like shields defeating the purpose of trying to make it more primitive than TOS onwards.

[Darth Wedgius]

notsureifserious.jpg

Ah. That seems to fit a pattern I see in the news threads.

Well, I will not convince you, and I think you don't understand how to convince me. That's OK; it isn't really important.