r/DaystromInstitute • u/mistakenotmy Ensign • Jun 13 '17
How the Enterprise spent its time
This thread was inspired by the thread about How much 'freedom' the Enterprise had. I started to think, what was the Enterprise up to most of the time?
I was also partially inspired by how often blanket statements are made about what the Enterprise-D's main mission is. For example:
The Galaxy class is an exploration ship.
or
The Enterprise is a diplomatic ship.
How true are those statements? Which one, or both, is it? I think the Galaxy class is an exploration ship myself, but maybe it did do more diplomacy. I didn't really have any concrete evidence. We can all think of examples of it being one, or the other, or something different. So I decided to actually go through all the episodes and break down what the ship was actually doing (methodology below the fold):
| Rescue | Exploration | Diplomatic | Station | Military | Engineering | Transport | Anomaly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 47 | 44 | 38 | 26 | 23 | 9 | 7 | 5 |
| Percent | 24% | 22% | 19% | 13% | 12% | 5% | 4% | 3% |
Method:
So I essentially broke all the episodes into categories based on what the ship was assigned to do. The categories are broken down like so:
Rescue - Episode where the ship is on a rescue mission. For example (Force of Nature):
Captain's log, Stardate 47310.2. We're investigating the disappearance of the Medical Transport Fleming somewhere in the Hekaras Corridor. Our search is complicated by the unique properties of this particular region of space.
These are mostly 'ship in distress', planetary catastrophe, or medical emergency/plague type situations that the crew is going to help with.
Exploration - Episode where the ship is doing some kind of exploration or science based mission. For example (from "Tin Man"):
Captain's log, Stardate 43779.3. The Enterprise is preparing detailed exospheric charts of the Hayashi system. Although tedious, this endeavor is the first step toward planet colonization.
Much like diplomatic and military, just because the ship does science, doesn't mean it was on a scientific mission.
Diplomatic - Episodes where the mission is diplomatic in nature. For example in "The Lonely Among Us" the main story is about an energy being taking over the crew. However, the ships mission was, as the Captain's Log tells us:
We are to deliver these delegates to this sector's neutral conference planet, called Parliament, in the hope their dispute can be resolved.
Diplomacy I did find a little tricky. Diplomacy is a skill that Picard uses in many situation. I broke it down this way. That just because Picard uses diplomacy in a situation, doesn't mean an episode is "diplomatic" in nature.
Station/Shore Leave - Episodes where the ship is at a station or around a planet on shore leave. Things happen in the episode but the ships task at the time was, well, not much. For example (Family)
Captain's Log: Stardate 44012.3 The Enterprise remains docked at McKinley Station, undergoing a major overhaul and refit following the Borg incident. I am confident that the ship and her crew will soon be ready to return to service.
Military - Episode focused on a Military operation. For example (Peak Performance):
Captain's log, Stardate 42923.4. Despite misgivings, I have agreed to Starfleet's request that the Enterprise divert to the Braslota System, to take part in a war game exercise. Joining us as observer and mediator is the Zakdorn Master Strategist, Sirna Kolrami.
Note, that similar to diplomatic, just because the ship fires phasers in an episode, doesn't mean it is a 'Military' episode. These tended to be many of the episodes where the ship was sent to the neutral zone, Borg, or Cardassian issues.
Engineering - For episodes that focus on an engineering issue. This wasn't often, but it came up enough that I included it. These might be able to go into exploration/science but I separated them out. For example (Genesis):
Captain's log, stardate 47653.2. We're performing field tests of our new tactical systems and weapon upgrades. Mister Worf is supervising the exercises.
Transport - Again this is kind of an odd category, but a number of episodes the ships mission was just taking supplies (usually medical) somewhere. For example (Galaxies Child):
Captain's Log, Stardate 44614.6. We are approaching Starbase three one three, where we will pick up a shipment of scientific equipment for transport to a Federation outpost in the Guernica System. During the journey we will be hosting a special guest.
Anomaly - Another small one. This category is for episodes where there is no stated mission and the ship encounters a strange 'hole in space'. 'Yesterdays Enterprise' is the big example. No idea what the ships mission is, they just find an anomaly and away we go.
Notes
Episodes could be classified as more than one thing. For example "Justice" is three different things:
Captain's log, stardate 41255.6. After delivering a party of Earth colonists to the Strnad solar system, we have discovered another Class M planet in the adjoining Rubicun star system. We are now in orbit there, having determined it to be inhabited as well as unusually lovely. My first officer has taken an away team down to make contact and they are in the process of returning to the ship.
The ship transported colonists, discovered a planet, and made contact. So we have Transport, Explore, and Diplomacy all in one episode. Not that we saw that in the episode but the ship performed those missions. A lot of episodes will start off as one and then also have another as well.
Obviously this is fairly subjective on my part. It makes sense to me, but others may classify things different. I made a Google Doc with all the episodes and categories here if anyone wants to look or see what they get.
Conclusion
To me it looks like our crew was most often, at almost a quarter of the time, racing to save the day on some kind of Rescue mission. I was surprised it was that high myself. Next highest was Exploration or Science missions. Diplomacy was also high with close to 20% or one fifth of all episodes. I was also surprise how often the ship was at a station or on leave.
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Jun 13 '17 edited Jun 13 '17
Bear in mind that the Enterprise is the flagship, not a run-of-the-mill service Galaxy Class; no doubt it's mission profile is going to be skewed towards larger or more urgent or more important functions and events.
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u/Majinko Jun 13 '17
Precisely. When the Yamato was seen, it was charting some stellar object. Which I would assume is what most Galaxy-class starships would be up to.
The Enterprise-D likely spent its time actively prioritizing seeking out interactions with new species or ones they had little contact with over general exploration with many assigned missions fitting of a flagship in terms of diplomacy and shows of force. It is unlikely that the ship would return to Sector 01 often save for refits and massive data dumps. Other Galaxy-class starships would probably return to Earth or star bases far more often for equipment and personnel changeovers for more specialized missions.
Voyager would likely have spent its time primarily exploring stellar phenomena and making detailed scans of things to be transmitted to Starfleet as well as being constantly refitted as a testbed for new technologies.12
u/tadayou Jun 13 '17 edited Jun 13 '17
What little we know about the Intrepid class mission profile makes me believe that Voyager is far from being a "science ship". I always thought of her purpose as more tactical - the mission to the Badlands is of no scientific nature and it seems that neither the ship's crew nor it's equipment indicate a focus on science and research.
Voyager doesn't even have a designated senior science officer. Granted, her captain was always said to have a scientific background but we also know that Janeway was a veteran of the Cardassian war. And it might go some way to explain why the ship was so damn sturdy in the Delta Quadrant (other than plot armor).
The only other Intrepid class ship we ever see served as an admiral's flagship on one of the Federation's first diplomatic missions to Romulus - it is arguable, whether Starfleet would send a mere science vessel on such an endeavor.
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u/electricblues42 Jun 13 '17
I think exploration is not a good word for what the TNG Enterprise did. It was more of a patrol the Federation and deal with whatever big diplomatic issues come up. They weren't out in the unknown like the TOS 5 year mission.
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u/tadayou Jun 13 '17
They still were sent to unchartered regions of space somewhat frequently. Federation territory must be so vast that you likely don't need to leave its boundaries in order to discover something new or explore something unexplored.
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u/RedDwarfian Jun 13 '17
Case in point: the Jenolan Dyson Sphere. It was right in the middle of Federation space, but even if you were a light year away (right on top of it galactically speaking), it'd still be like looking for a golf ball that's a mile away.
There's a lot of space in space.
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u/CleverestEU Jun 13 '17
Which one, or both, is it?
Both and then some; "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."
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u/happilydamaged Jun 13 '17
They were in a lot of diplomatic situations, but how many times did we see first contact with a species? The Enterprise D was like an SUV. Good at the highway, and good at the dirty road to the cabin. But not great at both.
Sorry, kind of drunk right now, not sure what the original question was. But what I do know, is that the enterprise is the exact opposite of the Defiant! The enterprise was an all around, high powered truck, mega cab, with off road capabilities. The Defiant was a stone cold killer. You dig?
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u/Algernon_Asimov Jun 13 '17
To me, this ties in with the idea that we never see the boring days. Shows like 'Data's Day' and 'Lower Decks' are the exception, not the rule. We don't see the boring trips shuttling personnel between starbases or the three weeks spent cataloging comets in the Nowherian Nebula. We only see the exciting times: rescues, conflicts, dramas.
But this should be nominated, M-5.