Crews Dominated By One Race

brian334

In the TOS era and before, it was common for crews of a starship to be almost exclusively one race or another, with very few, if any, crew members which are not of that ship's dominant race. Thus, you would have a human-crewed Constellation and a Vulcan-crewed Intrepid, as opposed to the TNG era mixed race crews.

The idea I wish to present here is that AoY captains should have a very high percentage chance to recruit from their own race with a vastly reduced percentage of opportunities to take on crew of other races. Thus, an Andorian captain should have little trouble fielding an all-Andorian roster, but have limited opportunities to recruit Tellarites, Vulcans, or humans. Outside of the 'Big Four' races the opportunities to recruit should be low, but higher than that for acquiring a Big Four BOff which is not of the captain's own race. This would reflect what we saw on screen.

I will attempt to do this manually. When I create my Tellarite Engineer captain for AoY, I will seek out Tellarite BOffs, or even trade them from my existing officer candidate pools.

angrytarg

I already do this just for fun. Two starfleet characters have a diverse crew, one is all Tellarite. My Klingon has all Klingons, my Garidian (Kdf rom) all Garidian (rom) and my Deferi same deal. I try to even have my Doff cards fit the theme, which is hard for non default races like my aliengen Deferi as there are only two Deferi doffs in the game, both unique

dracounguis

Had the idea for a whole Pakled crew, but then my meds kicked in...

kylethetrue

I see no reason why they should add such a thing to game mechanics. You can currently already easily segregate your ship's crew.

rattler2

Actually I think in the 23rd Century, Starfleet was predominantly portrayed as predominantly consisting of humans. There are very few Vulcans at that time.

Only time I heard of an all Vulcan crew was the USS T'Kumbra in DS9.

nikephorus

@dracounguis that would be one dumb ship. :-D

edrogen

nikephorus wrote: »

@dracounguis that would be one dumb ship. :-D

could the crew make the ship go?

gradii

Race segregated crews sounds -very- un star trek to me.

angrytarg

gradii wrote: »

Race segregated crews sounds -very- un star trek to me.

It went away with TMP, but during TOS it seemed common. That of course has real life reasons, but what we make of it in-universe is that there actually were Human, Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite crews doing their thing but all using the same ships (Starfleet already existed, after all).

rattler2 wrote: »

Actually I think in the 23rd Century, Starfleet was predominantly portrayed as predominantly consisting of humans. There are very few Vulcans at that time.

Only time I heard of an all Vulcan crew was the USS T'Kumbra in DS9.

As the OP listed, the USS Intrepid was an all-Vulcan Constitution class, seen in TOS.​​

mirrorchaos

gradii wrote: »

Race segregated crews sounds -very- un star trek to me.

thing is, starship captains can have the pick of any crew member in starfleet they consider the best, if the crew member happen to be human is besides the point. if there were a fairer mix, any one of those aliens and humans would get picked because they have the skills and talent to prove it. it is not a racial thing about starfleet, its just that so many humans sign up for the dream that starfleet provides that the majority of ship crews in starfleet are predominantly humans.

gradii

mirrorchaos wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

Race segregated crews sounds -very- un star trek to me.

thing is, starship captains can have the pick of any crew member in starfleet they consider the best, if the crew member happen to be human is besides the point. if there were a fairer mix, any one of those aliens and humans would get picked because they have the skills and talent to prove it. it is not a racial thing about starfleet, its just that so many humans sign up for the dream that starfleet provides that the majority of ship crews in starfleet are predominantly humans.

Well I agree with that, I mean intentional segregation. I'm not a fan of artificial diversity.

centaurianalpha

rattler2 wrote: »

Actually I think in the 23rd Century, Starfleet was predominantly portrayed as predominantly consisting of humans. There are very few Vulcans at that time.

Only time I heard of an all Vulcan crew was the USS T'Kumbra in DS9.

I recall an episode of "Enterprise" where Archer's ship discovered a Vulcan ship with a dead crew; I forget the details, but the Vulcans were either driven mad by some environmental hazard, or trapped in their situation by a failure of the logical mindset to get "out of the box" for the correct solution...

Personally, I am also building homogenous crews with matching DOff rosters.

brian334

gradii wrote: »

Race segregated crews sounds -very- un star trek to me.

And yet it is canon.

One simple explanation would be life support requirements. Vulcans like it hot, and Andorians like it cold, with humans enjoying temperatures somewhere between these extremes. A Vulcan on an Andorian ship would be most uncomfortable, for example. Spock, a half-human, in several cases displayed discomfort with the temperature settings on the Enterprise.

Then there are other considerations such as cultural conditioning, medical, and dietary requirements. Tellarites may enjoy mud-baths and communal sleeping arrangements, which may prove uncomfortable for humans which prefer sonic showers and solitary sleeping arrangements. Andorians might be prone to fights when proper protocols are not observed, creating difficulties for those who did not grow up threading the maze of Andorian Honor. Vulcans may not be able to deal with or treat emotional injuries sustained by the less than logical races.

One must also consider that as of the TOS era, there were huge issues between the various races which lingered from before the dawn of the Federation. Tellarites and Andorians were still at one anothers' throats in 'Journey To Babel' which only shows the Federation is not all one big happy family, but more like the UN where competing groups substitute diplomatic maneuver for open war.

The idea is to reflect what was seen on screen. Isn't that the mission statement of STO?

hevach

rattler2 wrote: »

Actually I think in the 23rd Century, Starfleet was predominantly portrayed as predominantly consisting of humans. There are very few Vulcans at that time.

Only time I heard of an all Vulcan crew was the USS T'Kumbra in DS9.

The USS Intrepid in the TOS episode The Immunity Syndrome was crewed entirely by Vulcans, and the USS Hera in TNG was mostly vulcans but did at least have a human captain.

Journey to Babel is open to some interpretation, but the implication seems to be that Andorians and Tellarites had a similar arrangement and basically didn't mix outside of diplomatic functions.

rattler2

centaurianalpha wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

Actually I think in the 23rd Century, Starfleet was predominantly portrayed as predominantly consisting of humans. There are very few Vulcans at that time.

Only time I heard of an all Vulcan crew was the USS T'Kumbra in DS9.

I recall an episode of "Enterprise" where Archer's ship discovered a Vulcan ship with a dead crew; I forget the details, but the Vulcans were either driven mad by some environmental hazard, or trapped in their situation by a failure of the logical mindset to get "out of the box" for the correct solution...

Personally, I am also building homogenous crews with matching DOff rosters.

That ship was also a VULCAN ship. Not Starfleet. Back in the 22nd Century it was still pretty much racial factions such as the Andorian Imperial Guard, Klingon Empire, Vulcan High Command, Starfleet...

hevach wrote: »

The USS Intrepid in the TOS episode The Immunity Syndrome was crewed entirely by Vulcans, and the USS Hera in TNG was mostly vulcans but did at least have a human captain.

Journey to Babel is open to some interpretation, but the implication seems to be that Andorians and Tellarites had a similar arrangement and basically didn't mix outside of diplomatic functions.

I admit the only one I could remember was the T'Kumbra. Probably because that was one of my favorite episodes of DS9. More lighthearted and I enjoy baseball. Also... Captain Solok was a prick. Baseball is more than just a game. To truely understand baseball... you gotta FEEL the game sort of thing.

tymersto

dracounguis wrote: »

Had the idea for a whole Pakled crew, but then my meds kicked in...

I rolled a character whose general away team are all Packled. It's a interesting experience. The actual Character is a Betazoid.

Thank you for the time...

brian334

The human bias you see on the shows is a result of our being human rather than a predominance of humanity over the other Federation species. Since we are human we follow the careers of our human heroes who are embedded in the human arm of Star Fleet. It is almost certain that the Tellarites and Andorians have equivalent heroic captains and crews upon which to base their serialized historical documents.

officerbatman81

The borg collective is leading the way in diversity. Yay them.

iconians

Yet Star Trek is filled to the brim with blatant racism and sexism, and it only took Gene Roddenberry kicking the bucket to dial down the sexist tones of TNG's early seasons, but the racist qualities the show had was a constant element and the characters in Starfleet themselves were shown to have enormous chips on their shoulders in terms of how to treat other people "equally".

I'm not sure what Star Trek some of you have been watching, but the Star Trek I remember has constantly had humanity judging the rest of the universe by humanity's cultural standards, even though humanity is among the youngest races when it comes to achieving warp capability, and therefore ill-placed to judge other alien races by their standards.

McCoy referring to Spock as "pointy-eared" and "green-blooded" might have been correct in etymology, but you can't say that he said those things endearingly. He called Spock that disparagingly, to increase the friction between McCoy's emotional approach to problem-solving and Spock's logical approach (with Kirk being somewhere in the middle, naturally).

Even in TMP, it was obvious that Kirk wanted a token vulcan as his chief science officer while Spock was out doing his vulcan kumbaya thing. For no other reason, than because he was a vulcan. It did not matter what qualifications his vulcan replacement for Spock would have -- for all we know he was just as average as any of us, and there might have been more qualified science officers out there. But Kirk wanted a vulcan. See? Sanctioned racism.

Throughout the Star Trek franchise we've constantly seen how humanity has never quite gotten out of their mindset that the universe revolves around them. The Ferengi are often looked down upon despite being the closest thing to humans there are in terms of personality and love of profit (which was the joke). Sisko was no stranger to racism, given his poor treatment of Captain Solok of the T'Kumbra, and while one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek of all time -- it really underscores how there's sanctioned racism vs. unsanctioned racism.

There's also a big difference between racism and racial insensitivity. Most people on screen weren't flat-out racists (seeing as one race superior than others, at least not in public), but many were racially insensitive to the species they came across. For every moment like Kirk refusing to kill the Gorn in "The Arena", we've seen three times as many moments where Starfleet has willingly and wantonly murdered other aliens when they could have easily been the bigger person and decided they weren't going to kill them and pursued a deeper understanding of their motivations.

So, yes. The crews of Star Trek are dominated by one race. That race is humanity. Everybody is fine with that because humanity in Star Trek is supposed to be the "shell" that we (as humans) are supposed to be able to live through, and relate to. Just like humanity, we judge easy, we judge often, and we are often racially insensitive without being aware of it because we typically have a sheltered life where we don't get to see a larger view of diversity. A Star Trek show that did would be very different than the one we know and love.

At least STO has been willing to address this (somewhat) with bringing more diversity to our ships, since there are no make-up budgets to worry about (when everything is CGI), and has even used the "human-dominated" Starfleet as one of many criticisms dished out by the KDF who recognize who controls things in Starfleet, and why Starfleet are hypocrits in their mission.​​

farmallm

Normally I try to mix up my crew. As that is just me. However a couple is more stronger in certain groups due to some reasons.

Now one ship of mine has all women. That is the Capt and Boffs. I just like the idea of girls going around kicking some serious butt. With AOY around the corner, I'm leaning toward a more human set up. Like the TOS.

iconians

darthmeow504 wrote: »

iconians wrote: »

Yet Star Trek is filled to the brim with blatant racism and sexism

I'm not sure what Star Trek some of you have been watching, but the Star Trek I remember has

...absolutely nothing the frak whatever to do with the Star Trek I watched growing up. Are you basing the sexism claim on the skimpy outfits? Because at the time sexy outfits on women and miniskirts in particular were a backlash against repressive patriarchal moral codes and were considered highly empowering for women to wear. Just because at this particular point in time American puritanical prudery has reasserted itself in feminist disguise doesn't mean you can judge the actions of past people by those standards. You might consider them sexist, but I can guarantee you they'd consider the current anti-sex climate to be exactly the sort of thing they fought a Sexual Revolution to be free of. You speak of judging other cultures by your own standards instead of theirs as a massive flaw, and manage to do exactly that. Congratulations, the irony is quite unintentionally hilarious.

It's not the skimpy outfits. It's stuff like the orion slave girls... or Captain Pike choosing between "Number One" and his younger Yeoman -- as if neither of them had a choice in the matter. Or it's things like this.

https://youtu.be/C9zEj4Xl5qQ

Or how Marla MacGivers willingly became a traitor to Starfleet and the Enterprise because of Kahn's masculine charms -- another bout of thinly veiled misogyny by Gene Roddenberry.

But maybe you're right, maybe they were just product of their times, so let's skip waaaay ahead to the late 1980's with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

If you really want to talk about skimpy outfits, we can talk about Deanna Troi's counselor's uniform. Something even Marina Sirtis wondered about considering her character was in Starfleet. Deanna Troi finally permanently got rid of the outfit after getting dressed down by Edward Jellico -- and even after Enterprise was returned to Picard's command, Deanna Troi kept the medical blue uniform for the rest of the show. I don't think it's coincidental this happened during the sixth season when the producers started distancing themselves from Roddenberry's "quirks" with the show.

But no, it's really not the outfits. It was a trend Roddenberry had with Star Trek. You can argue that each of my individual examples should be treated as isolated or were taken out of context. But given Gene Roddenberry was a womanizer, I take it for what it is. A contradictory, flawed man who imprinted those flaws on his creation that was intended to transcend those types of flaws.

Or, from LeVar Burton himself when asked about why he was disappointed that Gene Roddenberry was "human"

I will go a bit into detail but no too much because, obviously, a lot of that I consider private. However, I will share this…Gene was a human being and full of contradictions. He was this great visionary, and yet he was a womanizer. All of the women all wore short skirts you know? He had somewhat sexist views. Star Trek was full of spiritual meaning and yet he was an agnostic. Those kinds of things.

But he was talking more about the skimpy outfits than I was. I was mentioning the disturbing number of times women were treated as weak, inferior, incompetent, or simply there for entertaining and serving men.

Pretty much textbook examples of sexism and misogyny.​​

angrytarg

darthmeow504 wrote: »

...absolutely nothing the frak whatever to do with the Star Trek I watched growing up. Are you basing the sexism claim on the skimpy outfits? Because at the time sexy outfits on women and miniskirts in particular were a backlash against repressive patriarchal moral codes and were considered highly empowering for women to wear. Just because at this particular point in time American puritanical prudery has reasserted itself in feminist disguise doesn't mean you can judge the actions of past people by those standards. You might consider them sexist, but I can guarantee you they'd consider the current anti-sex climate to be exactly the sort of thing they fought a Sexual Revolution to be free of. You speak of judging other cultures by your own standards instead of theirs as a massive flaw, and manage to do exactly that. Congratulations, the irony is quite unintentionally hilarious.

I'd like to chime in on this. @iconians already wrote a follow up, but I like to point out that Star Trek is full of open and "subtle" sexism which only slowly fades away with Roddenberry off the helm and gradually gets reintroduced with Braga having more to say. It is true that there are some empowering characters and some revolutionary concepts for their respective times, but those are exceptions and it has not much to do with the clothing as I can see that as a product of the time the show was made in, from mini skirts to tight catsuits.

I would however tone down on the racism because we look at a fictional universe here. All star Trek aliens have the "planet of the hats" trope and do not act like actual people but are for the most part expendable stickers not only acting all the same (every Vulcan follows logic, every Klingon is a warrior and loves opera (TNG) or a sly evil commie (TOS), every Bajoran is a devout religious nut, every Andorian is a blue Klingon...) but essentially they only exist to embody a single human aspect that is to be dealt with in that episode. Star Trek is by it's very nature naturally human centric as every alien is just a stand in for morality plays often ABOUT racism without ticking off the network's guardians who often were actual racists and wouldn't allow this kind of critical depiction. Excpetions to that rule are so rare and far between it doesn't really matter other than seeing some alien becoming more "human". So strictly speaking Star Trek isn't racist (that one TNG episode with the African patriarchial culture though...) but rather "speciesist" but towards fictional metaphors of the human condition.​​

tessaravejgan

brian334 wrote: »

In the TOS era and before, it was common for crews of a starship to be almost exclusively one race or another, with very few, if any, crew members which are not of that ship's dominant race. Thus, you would have a human-crewed Constellation and a Vulcan-crewed Intrepid, as opposed to the TNG era mixed race crews.

The idea I wish to present here is that AoY captains should have a very high percentage chance to recruit from their own race with a vastly reduced percentage of opportunities to take on crew of other races. Thus, an Andorian captain should have little trouble fielding an all-Andorian roster, but have limited opportunities to recruit Tellarites, Vulcans, or humans. Outside of the 'Big Four' races the opportunities to recruit should be low, but higher than that for acquiring a Big Four BOff which is not of the captain's own race. This would reflect what we saw on screen.

I will attempt to do this manually. When I create my Tellarite Engineer captain for AoY, I will seek out Tellarite BOffs, or even trade them from my existing officer candidate pools.

You know the only reason it was common is because they didn't have the money for the costumes. I really hate it when people suggest things that would limit my enjoyment. If you want an all human crew you can have it. No reason to limit the rest of as as well. What a pointless idea. In fact they should expand the boff roster to include even more species. Not to mention its impossible to find some decent romulan/reman crew. I know most of them got wiped out by the nova but common, there should be some around somwhere.

ltminns

Also for TOS, don't discount $$$. It costs money to make-up a non-human crewmember.

Characters on-screen can make all sorts of assertions about having one Vulcan on-board to go with the theme of keeping production costs down.

ltminns

Also, they were not clear about the Federation (UFP) until into the series. If you recall, both 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' and 'Charlie X' referred to their authority being UESPA (United Earth Space Probe Agency).

In the 'Corbomite Maneuver' after the Enterprise was caught in the Tractor Beam they were going to release that marker beacon to warn other 'Earth' ships.