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We know not all ships hold civilians so unless you know some of those did hold them it doesnt count towards the debate.

Threats don't count either. I've had customers threaten to me yet I am still here typing.

Ah, thanks for that Seafort.

We know not all ships hold civilians so unless you know some of those did hold them it doesnt count towards the debate.

We do? From where?
And the point still stands that space travel is hazourdous.

Teaos wrote:We know not all ships hold civilians so unless you know some of those did hold them it doesnt count towards the debate.

The point is that many ships have been lost, damaged or threatened. Whether or not those particular ships carried civilians is irrelevent - it has been clearly demonstrated that these dangers exist and occur frequently. Your assertion that the risk of travelling on a starship is very low has therefore been disproved.

Threats don't count either. I've had customers threaten to me yet I am still here typing.

I'm not talking about some random alien saying "go away or else" - I'm talking about the ship being in imminent danger of being destroyed or depopulated and a solution being found at the last minute. Relying on such last-minute solutions as SOPs is stupid. There's also the fact that the E-D was destroyed at least four times during the series, only for the destruction to be undone by some means. Letting the ship be destroyed and hoping that a random time loop would undo it does not strike me as a particularly reliable safety precaution.

I think people must remember that it is the civilian's choice whether they wish to live on a starship. You can't say it's too dangerous, who are we to say whether something is too dangerous for someone if they have willingly made that choice. The only possible arguement against it is that it is somehow they make the ship less functional due to distractions, but I'd disagree with that utterly.

I'm not talking about some random alien saying "go away or else" - I'm talking about the ship being in imminent danger of being destroyed or depopulated and a solution being found at the last minute. Relying on such last-minute solutions as SOPs is stupid. There's also the fact that the E-D was destroyed at least four times during the series, only for the destruction to be undone by some means. Letting the ship be destroyed and hoping that a random time loop would undo it does not strike me as a particularly reliable safety precaution.

Time travel or the like really shouldnt be counted since they fall under the multi universes with every posibility.

Thorin wrote:I think people must remember that it is the civilian's choice whether they wish to live on a starship. You can't say it's too dangerous, who are we to say whether something is too dangerous for someone if they have willingly made that choice. The only possible arguement against it is that it is somehow they make the ship less functional due to distractions, but I'd disagree with that utterly.

That's the whole point - they do reduce the ship's effectiveness.

1) They take up vast areas of the ship that could be better filled with power generators, sensors, weapons, etc

2) They have no effect on the running of the ship other than a possible slight improvement in crew morale, and therefore efficiency.

3) When an alert status in declared, crew members must be assigned to making sure the civilians go into their cabins and stay there, to prevent them getting in the way, rather than being assigned to actually helping solve the crisis.

4) In emergency situations, crew members with familly aboard will naturally be distracted from their duties by a desire to ensure the safety of their famillies in particular rather than that of the ship in general.

Captain Seafort wrote:

Thorin wrote:I think people must remember that it is the civilian's choice whether they wish to live on a starship. You can't say it's too dangerous, who are we to say whether something is too dangerous for someone if they have willingly made that choice. The only possible arguement against it is that it is somehow they make the ship less functional due to distractions, but I'd disagree with that utterly.

That's the whole point - they do reduce the ship's effectiveness.

1) They take up vast areas of the ship that could be better filled with power generators, sensors, weapons, etc

2) They have no effect on the running of the ship other than a possible slight improvement in crew morale, and therefore efficiency.

3) When an alert status in declared, crew members must be assigned to making sure the civilians go into their cabins and stay there, to prevent them getting in the way, rather than being assigned to actually helping solve the crisis.

4) In emergency situations, crew members with familly aboard will naturally be distracted from their duties by a desire to ensure the safety of their famillies in particular rather than that of the ship in general.

1) I'd hardly say vast at all. There are more officers than civilians onboard the galaxy (from what we can tell), and all of those civilians live with an officer anyway, so those quarters would be there regardless.

2) I think slight is a lot more than slight in increasing moral

3) I'll concede this

4) I disagree utterly. You can't help your family more than being at your station.

1) They take up vast areas of the ship that could be better filled with power generators, sensors, weapons, etc

2) They have no effect on the running of the ship other than a possible slight improvement in crew morale, and therefore efficiency.

3) When an alert status in declared, crew members must be assigned to making sure the civilians go into their cabins and stay there, to prevent them getting in the way, rather than being assigned to actually helping solve the crisis.

4) In emergency situations, crew members with familly aboard will naturally be distracted from their duties by a desire to ensure the safety of their famillies in particular rather than that of the ship in general.

1)Build a bigger ship if you want it to be more powerful. Federation ships are plenty powerful at the moment. If they wanted more power they could easily do it.

2)I think we disapgree on how much they improve moral and efficency. Also there is the fact that for the long duration mission you limit the crew you can assign if you can only take ones with out a family.

3) You have to remember there are three shifts on a ship. During battle there are only so many jobs to do so a lot of people would be doing nothing since the other shifts have it handled.

4) Thorin said it. These are trained individuals who know the best way to help is to do there job.

Thorin wrote: 1) I'd hardly say vast at all. There are more officers than civilians onboard the galaxy (from what we can tell), and all of those civilians live with an officer anyway, so those quarters would be there regardless.

Part of this is the poor design of the Galaxy class, with its five-star quarters and wide corridors. On top of this the civilian areas of the ship feature wider corridors than usual, several more open areas (larger than main engineering), gardens, nurseries, schools, etc - that adds up to a lot of space.

The morale issue is one we could (and have) argue for days over without reaching a conclusion, so it'd be best if we agreed to disagree on that.

4) I disagree utterly. You can't help your family more than being at your station.

Logically, no. But what are the chances of someone thinking logically when they consider their families to be in danger. The best example of this is "Emissary" - when the Saratoga was ordered to abandon ship Sisko's response was not to report to his evac station but to go looking for his familly. While this was a natural and understandable response, it meant that in the chaos of the evacuation no-one knew where the ship's acting-CO was, and only the tactical officer's finding Sisko and forcing him to an escape pod saved his and Jake's lives.

I feel like this has been going in huge circles, but thank you Seafort for providing us the best example:

when the Saratoga was ordered to abandon ship Sisko's response was not to report to his evac station but to go looking for his familly...

Now, if that was a member of the senior staff, how is Joe-wet-behind-the-ears-Ensign going to react?

Teaos wrote: 1)Build a bigger ship if you want it to be more powerful. Federation ships are plenty powerful at the moment. If they wanted more power they could easily do it.

We don't know if their engineering expertese is up to building bigger ships - the Galaxy is the most massive ship they've built, and all subsequent designs have been significantly smaller. It may be that the ship was bigger than they could safely build, hence all the problems. Regardless, if an horrendously inefficient design isn't powerful enough, the solution is to improve the ship's efficiency, not build an even bigger horrendously inefficient design. Look at the Defiant for example - even on it's first mission, before the Federation had solved problem of the Jem'Hadar weapons passing straight through their shields, it proved far more effective against the Jem'Hadar than the Odessy did.

3) You have to remember there are three shifts on a ship. During battle there are only so many jobs to do so a lot of people would be doing nothing since the other shifts have it handled.

Each shift can operate the ship effectively under cruising conditions, but during alerts they would be assigned either as back-ups in their primary role, or in secondary roles as medics, damage control, security, etc. You can't afford to have them shepading civilians around when there are more important things to do.

4) Thorin said it. These are trained individuals who know the best way to help is to do there job.

See my point above regarding Sisko.

It hardly adds up to a lot of space, relative to the whole ship. For civilians alone, it might be 1% - that being schools. All these gardens, holodecks, wider corridors, are there for officers too, not just civilians.

And yes, there may be situations where someone goes to look for their family - but that would, even illogically, only be at times where they are in absolute immediate danger of destruction, where you're probably abandoning ship anyway and remaining at your station isn't required, though the only problem really occurs when senior officers have family on board - which none of the E-D's did.

So junior officers, and enlisted crew, never have anything important to do?

Why wouldn't the civilians be able to return to their quarters by themselves? And having designated areas that civilians aren't supposed to go will keep the average person out of trouble. I'm sure the civilians go though some sort of basic training or drills for what to do during red alerts. Going to 'safe' areas like their quarters, Ten-forward, the school, ect.

Thorin wrote:It hardly adds up to a lot of space, relative to the whole ship. For civilians alone, it might be 1% - that being schools. All these gardens, holodecks, wider corridors, are there for officers too, not just civilians.

Do you see all this on a modern warship? Making the crew more comfortable is one thing but this ridiculous.

And yes, there may be situations where someone goes to look for their family - but that would, even illogically, only be at times where they are in absolute immediate danger of destruction, where you're probably abandoning ship anyway and remaining at your station isn't required, though the only problem really occurs when senior officers have family on board - which none of the E-D's did.

Not just abandon-ship, but during emergencies. Take "New Ground" - the Enterprise suffered slight damage passing through the wave. Alexander was caught in the damaged section. The result - Worf was (understandably) shuffling around as though he was about to wet himself until Picard ordered him and Riker off the bridge on a rescue mission. Can you imagine what would have happened if it had been in a battle? Worf's distraction could have resulted in the ship's destruction. [/url]