Starfleet And Non-Humanoid Species

[Sanehouse]

The Federation seems to have one advantage over the Romulan Star Empire, and probably even the Klingon Empire as well. The Romulans and Klingons have conquered many worlds, but we have yet to see either power incorporate conquered citizens into their military forces. The Federation, however, consists of hundreds of worlds, any of which can have its citizens serving in Starfleet. Logic would dictate that the Federation would quite outnumber the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire... unless they're like tribbles.

Discussion split from here - [SG]

[Coalition]

The Federation seems to have one advantage over the Romulan Star Empire, and probably even the Klingon Empire as well. The Romulans and Klingons have conquered many worlds, but we have yet to see either power incorporate conquered citizens into their military forces. The Federation, however, consists of hundreds of worlds, any of which can have its citizens serving in Starfleet. Logic would dictate that the Federation would quite outnumber the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire... unless they're like tribbles.

The problem occurs when you try to integrate all the different cultures into Starfleet. Some races might have trouble seeing certain colors, others might have different associations with other colors, allergies, physical needs, etc. A single-species crew solves a lot of those problems.

What I would see the Federation doing is using the fractional improvements by the various races in their territory and combining them in new ways. This can also apply to the races in their territory. If on member of a race is an outcast for their thoughts, they can find another race that thinks similarly, and work with them for a while. This would have been a good way to have the Enterprise series go, where two races trade older tech to Earth, and Earth combines them in a new way.

[Tyyr]

The Federation seems to have one advantage over the Romulan Star Empire, and probably even the Klingon Empire as well. The Romulans and Klingons have conquered many worlds, but we have yet to see either power incorporate conquered citizens into their military forces. The Federation, however, consists of hundreds of worlds, any of which can have its citizens serving in Starfleet. Logic would dictate that the Federation would quite outnumber the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire... unless they're like tribbles.

Yeah, that's not an advantage. Aside from having no real idea about how any of the races breed or any of the races in the Federation view war there's also the simple fact that 95%+ of Starfleet we've seen is still just human.

Finally, it doesn't take much in the way of numbers to crew a starship. Similar numbers to modern warships and sometimes significantly less. Earth alone could provide the crews for 10,000 starships and never even miss them. There's no evidence at all of the volume of starships present to make people start to look around nervously and wonder if they've got enough bodies.

[Sionnach Glic]

Finally, it doesn't take much in the way of numbers to crew a starship. Similar numbers to modern warships and sometimes significantly less. Earth alone could provide the crews for 10,000 starships and never even miss them. There's no evidence at all of the volume of starships present to make people start to look around nervously and wonder if they've got enough bodies.

That's an excellent point. It could be that Starfleet simply draws the vast majority of its manpower from races very similar to humans, preventing problems of having to cater for other races. Given how long it would take to build even a small ship, there's never really going to be any worries about running out of crews.

Personally I like to imagine that other races contribute to Starfleet by operating patrol ships and monitors in their own systems and colonies, freeing the bulk of Starfleet from having to pull guard duty around planets that may be inhospitable to them.

[lcpl seilicki]

How hard would it be to modify a starship for a species that comes from a very light gravity planet, breathes argon, and drinks mercury? It seems to me that it wouldn't be that hard.

[Sionnach Glic]

Well, simply modifying the gravity to a lower setting, flooding the ship with argon instead of oxygen and telling all the replicators how to make delicious mercury smoothies wouldn't be too hard. But what effect would such modifications have on the ship itself? Would flooding the ship with argon have a bad effect on the computers, wires, and other delicate bits of equipment? Would lessening the gravity cause problems with mechanical components? Would the lifts still function properly in a low-gravity environment?

There's also the problem that such a species in highly unlikely to look like a human. What if they're quadrupedal sphere-shaped creatures with tentacles instead of arms? What if they can't speak or hear, communicating instead through chemical and visual signals? For such a race you'd need to completely re-build the ship's computers and the method in which they input/output information and orders. And you'd also need to replace all chairs with something more suited to their physiology, along with redesigning the living quarters and amenities. That's a lot of effort to go through for a race which may only consist of a billion members, are limited to one system and only have enough recruits to man a half-dozen vessels.

Then there's also the question of what if they're four metres tall. Or one metre tall.

[shran]

Quite difficult. Guest quarters need to be made in order for other species needing different accomodations, as well as a facility for both the guest and the mercury-drinkers to get enviromental suits. The atmosphere needs reworking, different settings are needed.
As for the lower gravity, inertial dampeners may need adjustment.
A lower gravity may result in a different appearance and/or dimensions, thus neccessitating different corridor and room dimensions.
All of the wiring needs even more isolation, due to mercury being a metal, thus conducting electricity.
Water tanks and food storage need different designs to cope with lesser than Earth gravity as well as to contain water.

Basically what Rochey said. It may in fact be a better idea to let the species design their own ships, or to dispatch individual crew members.
Quite a lot of technology would need reworknig, but because said species is already capable of warp and spacetravel, a lot of these problems would already be solved, if the species would e allowed to field its own designs. Afterwards the Star fleet technology may be adapted to fit in.

[lcpl seilicki]

The real question in my mind isn't about ship building/modification but how do send these people through SF academy

@ shran would those modified indigenous ships be SF ships with a ncc prefix or (insert species here) ships?

[Sionnach Glic]

Probably NCC. They'd be under Starfleet control, but most likely constructed and operated by the aliens themselves and kept near to said aliens' own territory.

[Mark]

Well, we've seen mono-species ships in Trek before, so if you had argon breathers, likely they'd all be serving on the same ship. Merging races is great to an extent.

And I would imagine that they're own base technology would be used to modify the ship for their use. If you had aliens like those things from Independance Day for example, they would have to already have basic tech to break warp just to allow Federation membership. Thus they could likely build their own chairs, computer consoles, and so forth. Starfleet would just upgrade the critical components, unless they were using organic tech or something. Then, I don't know.

And finally, we've seen that there is more than one Starfleet Acadamy campus in the Federation. I'm sure there are campuses staggered on those worlds. If they had to have an instructer in a sealed deck for life support, he could still teach via holo projection.

Point is, there are ways.

[McAvoy]

Hell just build them a suit that supplied whatever needs they need to survive in our environment.

Of course this is assuming that these argon breathers are unique among their own species to join Starfleet.

I have always held a view that if a race for example the Vulcans prior to becoming members of the Federation had their own fleet that they get to keep their own fleet for homeworld and colony protection. It sort of fits if you think about it. Starfleet ships are mostly manned by humans (that we have seen). Maybe their is competition between Starfleet and each of the homeworld's own Starfleet.

Also we have seen at least twice Starfleet ships manned by entirely Vulcan crews. Vulcans being a founding member of the UFP may have given them certain advantages over let's say UFP Member #121.

[Sionnach Glic]

Topic temporarily locked for splitting.

[Sionnach Glic]

Service resumed.

[Mark]

Well, to be fair, in a fleet of 10,000 or so ships, we only actually SEE a dozen or so. For all we know, mono-species ships could be common. In TOS there was some dialog inferring that the Intrepid, being an all Vulcan ship was uncommon.

But by DS9, it didn't seem that unusual. Nobody really seemed surprised by the concept, and it makes a hell of a lot of sense. Species that are basically compatable shouldn't be a big deal, but prohibiting species from serving because they aren't physically compatable with humans doesn't seem likely. Your turning away able body people.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

And maybe there's Horta miners in the SCE making sure they never run out of pergium again. Or vacuum-resistant species in the drydocks working on ships.

It's not just about the starships, after all.