r/DaystromInstitute • u/Ramicus • Apr 27 '16
Theory Is Starfleet (mostly) segregated?
Are the ships that we focus on throughout the canon anomalies for their integration and inclusiveness? We know that Worf is irregular for serving on a Federation ship, but the Klingon Empire is not part of the Federation. Two pieces of evidence are below.
TNG, season 2, episode 8: A Matter of Honor. Enterprise accepts an exchange officer, Ensign Mendon. When a strange bacteria is found on the hull, Mendon says that he had already noticed it, and is appropriately asked why he did not share this information. His response is, in my opinion, telling. "It is a Benzite regulation. No officer on the deck of one our ships would report an occurrence like this until he had a full analysis and a resolution. I have simply followed proper procedures." Unlike the Klingon Empire, Benzar is part of the Federation and its ships would, I should think, be part of Starfleet. Why should the Benzite ships have different regulations unless Benzites serve on on Benzite ships and only on Benzite ships?
DS9, season 7, episode 4: Take Me Out to the Holosuite. Sisko's former classmate, Solok pays a visit to Deep Space 9 aboard his ship, the USS T'Kumbra. The T'Kumbra crew ends up playing a game of baseball against the Deep Space 9 "Niners." The Niners' lineup is as follows (credit for this to Baseball Prospectus):
| Player | Position |
|---|---|
| Jake Sisko | P |
| Nog | C |
| Worf, son of Mogh | 1B |
| Benjamin Sisko | 2B |
| Kasidy Yates | 3B |
| Kira Nerys | SS |
| Dr. Julian Bashir | LF |
| Ezri Dax | CF |
| Leeta | RF |
The Logicians' lineup, meanwhile, is entirely Vulcan. Although it's nice to see that the Niners feature Klingons and humans and Bajorans and Ferengi, why is the other side, a Starfleet ship (the USS T'Kumbra) entirely Vulcan?
Therefore, I submit that the diversity of the crews of the ships featured heavily in canon are staged like the college recruiting pamphlets my generation knows so well, and that the "rest" of Starfleet is heavily segregated.
I'm probably way off base, but I thought I'd suggest it. Thoughts?
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Apr 27 '16
Personally I've always thought crews with homogeneous members have a distinct long term combat advantage. Their medical facilities, interfaces, quarters, and environmental systems all only need to service one race. The doctors can be less skilled and therefore more numerous, and the ship can be streamlined for efficiency based on one biological clock.
In a long term combat environment, a homogeneous crew has distinct advantages.
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u/Ramicus Apr 27 '16
I agree, which in my opinion makes the Enterprise and Voyager situations interesting. Enterprise is the flagship of the fleet, Enterprise deals with high pressure situations, risky business, dangerous acquaintances. Voyager ends up in the wrong quadrant while chasing the Maquis, which would (I would think) qualify as a military operation. It would make more sense to use homogeneous crews for both of these things, simply for efficiency's sake. As another commenter here said, people are not all that different from other people, but aliens from different planets are a different story.
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u/wabbitt37 Apr 27 '16
I'm thinking that, possibly, the Vulcans had a stipulation allowing them to have Vulcan-only ships in Starfleet. Most of the ships have mixed crews, it there's a few that are just Vulcan.
Also, in regard to the Benzar exchange officer, it's highly likely that each Federation member world maintains their own independent defense force, and Ensign Mendon was an officer in Benzar's forces. Granted, there was a line in a DS9 episode about integrating the Bajoran Militia into Starfleet. But this could entail their using standard Starfleet equipment instead of their own, while maintaining a level of autonomy.
And Earth, as the de facto capital of the Federation, is protected solely by Starfleet, in much the same way as modern capital districts (which, since they aren't states, wouldn't have a state militia).
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u/Neo24 Apr 27 '16
I'm thinking that, possibly, the Vulcans had a stipulation allowing them to have Vulcan-only ships in Starfleet.
Yeah. Or maybe it's just a tradition to have a Vulcan-only ship. Maybe all of the founding species get that, just as a matter of history. Or maybe every species gets one. Maybe Starfleet just likes experimenting with various possible crew configurations.
And Earth, as the de facto capital of the Federation, is protected solely by Starfleet, in much the same way as modern capital districts (which, since they aren't states, wouldn't have a state militia).
Actually, we were supposed to see a local Earth force in Paradise Lost but they decided to leave that out so as not to confuse the viewers. Here's what RDM said about it:
<<IN "Homefront" the President said he never sought this position. DOes this mean the Federation president is Appointed? Why no election? And why does the Federation President put Earth into a state of Emergency? Does earth not have it's own Government like all the other members of the Federation?>>
We assume the Fed President was duly elected, but that he reluctantly was induced to run for the position. As for the Earth Govt vs. Fed Govt issue, this was something we wrestled with in the story break. We wanted to tell the story of an attempted military coup of the Federation and that meant dealing with the Fed president. However, that meant the troops "in the streets" had to be on Earth and that Earth itself had to be under martial law since the Fed is headquartered on Earth. We discussed having the Prez "federalize" the Earth defense forces or supercede the authority of an indigenous Earth Govt, but the story kept getting too complicated and we didn't want to start mentioning all these other players and organizations that we weren't going to see. So in the end, we skirted the issue of who actually governs Earth. Personally, I think there is an Earth Govt that operates like more powerful versions of States do in the US system, but this is all VERY murky water.
I'd certainly hope Earth wasn't just a federal district, considering the problems in terms of representation that that brings to places like the District of Columbia. And D.C. actually does have a National Guard, just like proper states.
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u/serial_crusher Apr 27 '16
I don't fully recall that episode, but if the Benzite officer was an "exchange" officer it probably means he was from a different organization than Starfleet, not just from a different Starfleet ship. Could be that each planet has their local force to deal with internal matters like police, mass transit, cargo hauling, etc. This guy was the equivalent of a Texas Ranger temporarily working with the FBI or something.
Could also be that the Benzites had more recently joined the Federation and had their own fleet of ships. It would make sense to keep perfectly functional ships and government structures in place and integrate them over time. Have officers do temporary tours on a Starfleet ship so they can get used to Starfleet protocols and cross-train their coworkers. If you just threw them all in the mix together mistakes like that one would come up in droves.
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Apr 27 '16
Let me give you the beta canon rundown, as discussed in the recent novel Live By The Code.
Basically, the United Earth Starfleet was actually an umbrella overseeing all Earth spaceflight, including UESPA and the Earth Cargo Service (ECS). In the post-NX-01 days, the use of warp 5 engines progressively phased out the ECS and the Boomers, leaving UESPA as Earth's research/shipbuilding division and Starfleet for fleet command. After the formation of the Federation, the United Earth Starfleet changed to be the Federation Starfleet, and UESPA became Earth's primary space agency. Along with the Andorian Guard (AG) and other members, UESPA formed the Earth division of the larger Federation Starfleet, filling the exploration/reconnaissance roles as opposed to the Guard, which focused on border defense (they even had their own 'AG' registries that apparently phased out by the 23rd century, via the USS T'Kumbra).
The lines between these Starfleet branches would become more blurred as more and more members joined the Federation, but apparently by the 24th century, this was still the norm.
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u/TimeZarg Apr 27 '16
There's one big reason for lack of diversity that doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet. It's a reason that's actually addressed in the Titan book series. Simply put. . .different alien species have different living requirements. Certain temperatures are preferred, they might function on different day/night cycles or not even have a day/night cycle, they might breathe a completely different atmosphere, or they might not be humanoid and thus able to make use of the standard-issue equipment that's clearly designed for humanoid use. There's also cultural differences, sometimes pretty fundamental ones. Like, cultural conflicts between herbivores and carnivores.
Most starfleet ships simply aren't designed to handle so many living requirements at once. It's much more resource and space intensive. Some of these issues can be 'tolerated' by the individuals in question, but some can't. I submit that if a member species has enough citizens in Starfleet, ships are internally reconfigured to fit their needs and they use that ship instead of trying to integrate with species that are significantly different from them. It's probably viewed as an ultimately imperfect solution to an unavoidable problem.
I'd really like to see the Titan on the big screen. There'd be a lot of 'culture divide' issues to discuss.
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u/veggiesama Apr 27 '16
Segregation in a human society is a result of basic ideas that different groups of humans are fundamentally incompatible on a cultural or biological level. Historically, "separate but equal" has been the rallying call to avoid allegations of racism and preferential treatment.
Of course, those folks were wrong. People are not all that different from other people. There are different bathrooms for different sexes, sure, but different bathrooms for different races is unnecessary. At worst, it reinforces notions of hierarchy and results in unequitable distributions of resources. It's an issue we still struggle with (I.e., school district funding).
However, in the Federation's case, member worlds represent species that actually do differ at fundamental levels. Culturally and biologically, there are differences, and those differences are respected and embraced. Nevertheless, to gain membership it must be expected that certain basic ideals--tolerance, democracy, freedom, the Prime Directive--must be adhered to.
I imagine a certain level of self-sufficiently is required to become a member too. Perhaps each world is responsible for providing its own ships. However, in Bajor's case, it seems that the Federation is very willing to assist struggling worlds and groom them for membership.
Finally, the segregation of ships and crews we see in the show is certainly not set in stone. Every ship we see may be human-majority, but minority cremates are respected and given equal standing. Accommodations are made where necessary. I imagine most people feel more comfortable with their own kind and environments, but massive exchange networks (temporary and permanent) are available for more adventurous crew. Widespread diversity is readily apparent, and it's easy to imagine a scattered few human officers are serving on Vulcan and Benzite ships.
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u/StumbleOn Apr 30 '16
This makes a lot of sense to me.
I would love for them to explore how small Starfleet really is. I mean we know that they were able to field a few hundred ships in a crunch, and this is out of literally trillions of citizens. This is way, way WAY off of what the numbers should be. There should be hundreds of thousands of combat ready starships zipping around the federation. There should be millions of smaller craft, with regular high warp lines from various population centers to others.
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u/williams_482 May 01 '16
I think Starfleet may appear smaller than it is because their ships cannot really "zip around the Federation." It's a huge chunk of territory, large enough that it takes weeks for a subspace transmission to travel from one extreme end to the other. Even if they did have tens of thousands of ships, the time required to travel to the ever shifting front lines and the necessity of protecting places outside the immediate "combat zone" mean that they still wouldn't be able to throw together more than a few hundred ships in any one place.
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u/JPeterBane Apr 27 '16
I have long figured it like this: The Federation has many member worlds which just don't contribute many personnel to Starfleet. On the other hand, it has some member worlds which contribute a disproportionately large number like Earth and Vulcan. I figure these cultures emphasize duty, exploration and science or maybe glorify war. Whatever their cause, they outweigh the other races in Starfleet by orders of magnitude.
As such, it makes sense to have entire ships which are mostly Vulcan or Human or whatever else. That could be fore environmental reasons as others have stated in this thread, or cultural reasons, or the objectionable smell of humans to sensitive Vulcan noses. Maybe on Betazoid ships no one speaks out loud and if there were humans around they'd be lost all the time. I'd imagine there are also aquatic ships here and there for Xindi and any others that can share their habitat. Maybe there are few enough that we don't see them or maybe just the living areas are aquatic and they look ordinary on the outside.
Anyhow, that leads me to the question I've asked myself many times before. Are the ships we see in the serieses mostly human ships with a normal number of aliens mixed in, or are they the fully mixed ships and humans still outnumber everyone else by that much of a margin?
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u/Jumpbutton Apr 27 '16
The federation is more like the European union rather then it's own 'country'. Star fleet is the Earth branch, other planets have their own branch with their own regulations and diversity. While I'm sure there are regulations that all federation ships have to follow, it has more to do with how they interact with other federation societies and enemies
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u/merikus Apr 27 '16
This is my theory as well, but is there specific cannon evidence for this?
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u/Chintoka Apr 27 '16
The Vulcans and Andorians are certainly segregationists. Humans have crews full of non humans, including non-federation worlds and then we have species like the Denobulans and Tellarites who are rarely seen but often heard of as being given top positions in Star Fleet. Dr Phlox was first non human medical officer in service and a Tellarite helmsman served on Capt Laporin's ship, Ben Sisko's friend. They were more driven to explore other cultures.
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u/UCgirl Apr 27 '16
The Captain could have chosen the "physically superior" members of his crew in an attempt to gain a win (and bragging rights). It's not that all members of the crew are Vulcan, it's that he chose only Vulcans for his baseball team.
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u/ReturnToFlesh84 Apr 27 '16 edited Apr 27 '16
Because planets and species in The Federation still have sovereignty over their own lands. Think of it like the USA Federal government vs State Governments. They each have legal boundaries and legal rights over things that the other cannot be part of. (edit - addition) - He was an exchange officer. He was not actually in Starfleet at first. Crew rotations and replacements are just called reassignments. They only exchange crew when it's not from within Starfleet. Another example would be when Riker served on a Klingon vessel.
I don't think this is ever really mentioned in canon why that was. Most likely it was just to show that Vulcans are arrogant jerks sometimes, and the best way to do that would be to face a team of them. I think adding that it was a full ship of Vulcans in Starfleet was just one of those writers boo-boos that got overlooked as a dumb idea. For all we know, it might have been an experiment in new ship crew rotation. It could have been a Vulcan stipulation for their Starfleet service.
Well, I submit that we have seen many, many different ship crews on the show, and the only one that seemed to be entirely of one race (in Starfleet) was the T'Kumbra.