Star Trek (Dis): The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry

[Robovski]

There have been a few cases where we've seen the Enterprise can be run with a crew of less than ten people ("By Any Other Name . . ." comes to mind, where some aliens decide that all crewmembers outside of Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty are non-essential).

WITH the modifications they made, mind you. Plus the rest of them and their super-duper Andromedan selves.

...Hoping someday future Trek will follow up on the Kelvans.

Star Trek III the Enterprise is run by 5 people thanks to Scotty and a lot of automation.

[TrueMetis]

How long could they run it like that though? Given that it actual isn't capable of being run by just 5 people (it breaks down during combat because the system isn't able to handle the stress) I would bet money that a lot of tasks were being ignored.

If Starfleet ships are truly so capable that they can actually run with only a handful of people and the other 90%+ people on the ship aren't actually needed then why are there so many areas where they skimp out on crew? Doctors, nurses, and security officers come to mind. Switch out of a few of the pointless crewman and separate tactical and chief of security into different positions. Keep a complement of people trained for planetary exploration on board instead of just throwing together a group of your highest officers, many of whom have absolutely no business doing that sort of thing.

[Robovski]

In fact in the original series there are completely automated spacecraft with not one person on board. These are often blown up by a rogue AI controlled Enterprise or something run amok. Admittedly they are just haulers, but that same AI determines it barely needs a crew at all for Starfleet operations.

[Fianna]

Currently, space flight is a very complicated endeavor because it's all occurring within our planet's (or at least our solar system's) gravity well, so constant adjustments need to be made to compensate for the effects of gravity. Once you're away from the gravitational pull of any celestial bodies, though, space travel's really just a question of pointing yourself in the right direction, turning the engines on, and waiting till you get there.

[Linkara]

Indeed. A cargo-hauler probably doesn't need anything too complicated in it - just systems to maintain the engines going in one direction or another, course corrections, and when to stop moving. It doesn't need a library computer, life support, recreational areas, maintenance (at least in terms of maintenance that occurs when people are living in a space), artificial gravity, or various other systems. Another thing to compare it to would be manmade satellites today that stay in orbit for years at a time. Sure, physics is what keeps them up there, but they obviously don't need someone space-walking to repair them up there.

[Durandal_1707]

There have been a few cases where we've seen the Enterprise can be run with a crew of less than ten people ("By Any Other Name . . ." comes to mind, where some aliens decide that all crewmembers outside of Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty are non-essential).

WITH the modifications they made, mind you. Plus the rest of them and their super-duper Andromedan selves.

...Hoping someday future Trek will follow up on the Kelvans.

Star Trek III the Enterprise is run by 5 people thanks to Scotty and a lot of automation.

But it's so bare-bones in that configuration that it can't even fight off a single Kia of Prey.

As for the Kelvans, I always hoped that they'd eventually show up in Enterprise, given that the 29th century is when they'd be due to show up given the original timeline, and that's where Daniels was from (and since "Cold Front" introduced ambiguity in who was really the good guys/bad guys in the TCW arc). What a twist that would have been if Daniels had turned out to be a form-changed Kelvan the whole time, and Future Guy had turned out to be someone from Starfleet just trying to keep him from futzing up our timeline.

[Madner Kami]

But it's so bare-bones in that configuration that it can't even fight off a single Kia of Prey.

Remember: Enterprise was about to be put out of her misery by the beginning of the movie, due to the damage sustained in the battle against Khan and the systems jury-rigged by Scotty in record time were not improvised to handle battle-tasks, which is ultimately the cause of her fast demise as the automated systems fail to raise the shields during the strain of battle. Thus a combination of battle-damage and inadequate automation is what kills her, not automation itself.

[Deledrius]

...Hoping someday future Trek will follow up on the Kelvans.

Or we could go back to the well for more Klingons!

Seriously though, I agree. You have an entire other galaxy, a race unlike anything from ours, and so much hinted at but left unexplored. There's a lot you could do there, and not require any previous knowledge (or worry about maintaining continuity with hundreds of hours of material).

[Durandal_1707]

Does anyone not agree? The first half of "By Any Other Name" made a bigger impression on my young self than anything else the original series ever did. The fact that they just turned around and went for comedy hijinks in the second half is one of the biggest missed opportunities in the franchise, to my mind, and revisiting that concept to do it right would be fantastic.

Also: Chuck really needs to review that episode. Someone who's not broke should request it! Hint hint!

[excalibur]

I find it kinda stupid that the chief of security, having seen first hand what Ripper could do...decided that she could take him on with a big gun when clearly a bunch of Klingons couldn't.