"Crewmen" the real miracle workers

[Mav]

After watching what must be some random ST episode from one of the several series for what seems like the hundreth time (not that I really mind!) it occured to me that "crewmen" are the real stars of the show.

 

Sure, every show focuses around the Senior Staff, aka the Captain the First Officer and usually one main other one (ever notice TNG was all Picard/Riker/Data or ENT was all Archer/Tpol/Trip?) but the cremen of a Federation starship are the laborers. These are the guys who have to crawl into plasma burning jeffries tubes to save the warp core or something else. No I don't mean the often amusing "red shirts" of TOS infamy just your average crewman going about their every day job.

 

Then I realized, despite all the times I wished I could experience what it would be like to be ya know, in the 24th century serving aboard Galaxy class starship (my personal favorite), that it would suck. Think about it, not everyone shoots up the ranks as fast as Riker did. Not everyone gets pretty big promotions, I mean Geordi goes from piloting the ship to Chief Engineer ;o But you see my point, the average Starfleet officer often spends quite a bit of time in certain ranks.

 

Poor Harry was an Ensign for over 8 years (I say eight cause 7 seasons plus the year or so he was out of the Academy before assignment on Voyager) while Tom got a field commission as Lt. got busted down to Ensign then later repromoted!

 

And think of all the poor S.O.B's who are old and still only Lt's. You know the ones I'm talking about, you see them often in background shots in TNG/Voyager/DS9. Usually someone in either Science of Medicine (blue uniform) with usually what appears to be no more than two Pips. The tale tale sign is they are old and have gray hair (humans usually). Sure maybe they don't want to climb the ladder and are happy doing what they do. Still I think some of them would be open to the idea of ya know, going up a rank before they die.

 

I know it was worse in TOS when random people would just, die. Hell remember early season one TOS? Like the first 4 or 5 episodes there was a rotating helmsman every episode, either the guy died or left or something. But in later series, like TNG where the crew is like 800+ people.

 

Plus ya know, Ensigns in the TNG era had to share quarters. You'd think they could like, cut back on the passenger manifest some but noooooo.

 

I rewatched some DS9 not long ago and all the times Sisko got angry and stuff at reading the K.I.A lists of officers, it was somewhat sad. Most of those people, hell almost all, were typical crewmen. I know, every crewman contributes in his or her or their own way, this like almost all group oriented things work. But it's almost like being lost in a crowd ya know. While I enjoyed TNG and DS9, part of me can identify with Enterprise and Voyager a little more in this aspect cause there are only a hundred or so on either ship at any given time compared to almost a thousand by TNG's era.

 

I do know crewmen are pretty much like NCO's for the most degree, but I tend to generalize them with the basic ranks of Ensign and Lt. I'd be willing to bet if you looked at majority of Starfleet personal who hold a rank/NCO/crewman title of some kind the average rank of most of them would be Ensign or Lt. Then figure in how many of them would go on to move past that rank and it really starts to sink in that these poor people aren't just TOS fodder for mind sucking aliens or meat eating plants but background filler for most things. Filler as in, just people needed for a ship to run, not actual scene backgrounds of a tv show.

 

At least the Red Shirts had a purpose they knew was probably coming, something that'd kill or maim them all so they could take the brunt of it to save a Senior Officer or alert them to such things. Least then you have some closure ya know. Who wants to grind it out as an Ensign or Lt, managing waste reclimation or replicator maintenance for 30 years without promotion? That'd have to suck.

[Tenebrae]

What about O'Brian? He was going to be an NCO for his career and get bossed around by the likes of Nog. They should have called him Master Chief that would have been AWESOME.

[Chiggy]

O'Brian was indeed a master craftsman when it came to the transporter, not a bad pilot and for gods sakes he fixed a massive alien space station almost by himself yet Starfleet dont give him a commission? Another case of Science Fiction I`m afraid.

 

Bring O'Brian back to the Enterprise yo film makers..........lets him do a bit of dis and dat, tinkering with de tri-corders bejeepers!

[Tenebrae]

To be fair, it's not exactly uncommon for people to be NCO for a long time.

 

It's also not inevitable that everyone will climb the ranks, after all, it's a pyramid. The reason they focus on officers is because they're the ones making the tough calls, going off and doing the cool stuff.

 

Starship troopers (uh, the book, film and cgi show) are a good sci-fi example of following "the grunts".

[Vyperion]

O'Brian was indeed a master craftsman when it came to the transporter, not a bad pilot and for gods sakes he fixed a massive alien space station almost by himself yet Starfleet dont give him a commission? Another case of Science Fiction I`m afraid.

 

Bring O'Brian back to the Enterprise yo film makers..........lets him do a bit of dis and dat, tinkering with de tri-corders bejeepers!

Actually he relinquished his commission when he transferred over to DS9. Check Encounter at Farpoint and he's the LT.jr piloting the stardrive section when they meet Q. There was one DS9 episode where he explained how he wasn't interested in climbing the ranks and who can blame him when they don't get paid for it

 

Babylon 5 actually touched on this during season 4 or 5. Thye had a single episode from the persepctive of two techs and how they viewed the main characters.

[Tenebrae]

Season 5 - yeah, that was an interesting episode but still followed the generally poor trend of season 5.

 

To be honest, O'Brien's rank is more continuity error than anything. He starts out in the claret - but can't have been as he says he was never in the Academy.

[TetsuoShima]

Yeah, it's funny. Without those 200 techs to keep the ship running, Enterprise-E/D would have been destroyed on every encounter they ever had, so they do play an equally important role in the whole... But well, budget limitations and so... :D

[Tenebrae]

The most important role they play in the shows seems to be getting a good bit of exercise by walking around the corridors.

[HEAT84]

Correct me if I'm wrong but if Star Trek was real the senior officers would almost never go on away misions. The lower ranked crew members would be sent instead. But since the senior officers are the stars of the show, they go on the away missions.

[Tenebrae]

Yeah, pretty much. The only concession they made was keeping the captain on the ship in TNG... but that was pretty much only for TNG, the rest of the time it was usually the ol' "The away team will be myself, Mr. Spock, Doctor McCoy and ensign Red Shirt!"

 

I'm fairly sure the Navy doesn't go "Righto lads, let's send a landing party consisting of all the commanding officers."

 

That's probably because they haven't invented character shields though.

[HEAT84]

Starship troopers (uh' date=' the book, film and cgi show) are a good sci-fi example of following "the grunts".[/quote']

Speaking of Starship Troopers, the DS9 episode "Valiant" is on right now. :p

[Tenebrae]

That wasn't about grunts - it was noob academy.

 

They were basically just cadet brats who went mental.

[Mav]

a grunt episode would have been the DS9 episode where Sisko + gang are stuck on the planet and Nog get's his leg shot off. Like two of the Starfleet guys were scientists trying to decipher the Dominion communications array while the rest were just portrayed as cannon fodder grunts holding off wave after wave of Jem Ha'dar.

[Chiggy]

Time for me to be geeky at tell you that the episode of DS9 your talking about above is the Siege at AR 558!

[Tenebrae]

The Houdini things were cool... but also kind of lame.

 

Still that was a good episode, the opening arc of season 7 (bar the first couple of episodes) was great but then they just went OH, LET'S JUST GO TO THE HOLODECK!

 

But yes, that episode was a good episode of fodder... so was "The Ship" the one where they capture the Dominion vessel.

[Mav]

 

But yes, that episode was a good episode of fodder... so was "The Ship" the one where they capture the Dominion vessel.

 

Isn't that the one where it's crashed and O'Brien's engineering buddy Gomez (I think it was Gomez) takes a energy bolt and slowly dies? If so, great episode. Not so much that the guy was a red shirt, but they at least tried to put a more personal spin on it.

[Tenebrae]

It was the classic case of people being buds HAVING NEVER SEEN THEM BEFORE.

 

But yes, that was the episode. They don't really have many other fodder episodes. I mean, "red shirt" deaths aren't uncommon but they're usually "Oh, we lost another dozen crewmen - oh well, that's what things are like in the Delta Quadrant. Set course for home."

[Mav]

Kinda like the Borg killing what, 20 some odd crewmen in Q Who (TNG S2) yet over the next 6 years Picard kinda slowly lets go that it was Q's fault those crewmen are dead.