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I'm surprised people don't avoid the Enterprise like a plague. Sure, all the interesting stuff happens to it, but it seems like half of its crew dies all the time, and why would you want to bring your family aboard it?!!!

which Enterprise are you refering to?

The NX-01 managed to maintain a zero body count throughout the first two years of its mission, and even managed to do fairly well for the third when you consider the fact that they were sent, alone, into an unknown and dangerous area of space populated by at least one species known to be extremely hostile to humans. Of course, the later ships to carry that name didn't fare so well.

obviously, serving aboard the enterprise and surviving is a fast track to promotion. sure it's a high risk ship, but getting through in one piece seems to be a good way to get a career booster shot for a majority of people.

I think one question posed to cadets when they enter and leave Starfleet Academy is if they have a death wish. Those who answer yes are posted on the Enterprise.

The same argument could be made for the Executor. Officers were in danger of being summarily executed but it was the fast track to promotion so people took that risk in order to race up the promotion track. Same with the Enterprise, it is the flagship of the Federation (don't think it had that status in TOS) and only something like the top 2% get a shot at serving on her so its not like it was an assignment that many people had the choice to get.

I just wish once we'd see a starship that was held in ill regard in Starfleet. Everytime another ship is mentioned its alwaysinvariably followed by "She's a good ship." Maybe once Picard can shake his head and mutter "Better to be assigned to a garbage scow." Honestly there have to be crappy starships with shitty captains serving out there.

Trytostaydead wrote:I'm surprised people don't avoid the Enterprise like a plague. Sure, all the interesting stuff happens to it, but it seems like half of its crew dies all the time, and why would you want to bring your family aboard it?!!!

Probably because the Starfleet Equivelent of BuPers (Honorverse Referance) sticks them there, wether they like it or not.

If not that, it could be a good place to get a Premotion.

I thought that most of the situations that the Enterprise faced in TOS were not unique to it and that similar things happened to other ships in the fleet.

On a side note, i always like the emphasis TOS always placed on how dedicated and basically uber a person had to be in order to Captain a Starship. It gave it some gravitas.

Trytostaydead wrote:I'm surprised people don't avoid the Enterprise like a plague. Sure, all the interesting stuff happens to it, but it seems like half of its crew dies all the time, and why would you want to bring your family aboard it?!!!

Whenever someone dies in Star Trek, it is almost invariably followed later in the episode by someone else saying, "They knew the risks" or something like that. Unless the person who died was a redshirt. So risk is obviously an accepted part of being in Starfleet. There's no reason to assume that being on the Enterprise was any less risky than being on another galaxy class vessel -- it might even be safer, given that you have Picard around.

If you don't want to die, stay in a department other than security, engineering and command, and you'll do fine I think lol.

Brian

Oh one more thing about the promotions... O'Brien probably managed to get the reference of Captain Picard, and all he could manage was being posted to some shithole far away from Federation space? On a "cardy" space station, near "cardy" space, so he could relive his trauma from the war? I guess he was the "Chief Engineer" because there wasn't any officer around fulfilling the job, but was that the best O'Brien could do?

Brian

he did make it to Chief Engineer on a massive space station. Quite a step up from being a lowly Transporter Chief, wouldn't you say?

brianeyci wrote:Oh one more thing about the promotions... O'Brien probably managed to get the reference of Captain Picard, and all he could manage was being posted to some shithole far away from Federation space? On a "cardy" space station, near "cardy" space, so he could relive his trauma from the war? I guess he was the "Chief Engineer" because there wasn't any officer around fulfilling the job, but was that the best O'Brien could do?

Brian

afaik o'brien was never a comissioned officer. for a non com chief engineer would likely be a major position. Given that chief engineers on most federation starships are commissioned officers.

O'Brien was indeed a commisioned officer when he first appeared in TNG. IIRC he started out as a Lt., then appeared as a Lt. JG, then as a pipless transporter guy, then got "promoted" to being an enlisted chief engineer of an cardy space station. (chalk up another one to Treks by and large horrid internal consistancy ) Oddly enough he was enlisted and had OFFICERS under his command there from my reccolection

Stravo wrote:I just wish once we'd see a starship that was held in ill regard in Starfleet. Everytime another ship is mentioned its alwaysinvariably followed by "She's a good ship." Maybe once Picard can shake his head and mutter "Better to be assigned to a garbage scow." Honestly there have to be crappy starships with shitty captains serving out there.

Started a fanfic once based on that. The USS Eternal Vigilance, whose sister ship, the Price Of Freedom got toasted a hundred years earlier. She was a Daedelus that got hauled out of the boneyards after the second Cube attack. Never got past the first chapter, but it was full of quick gags based on how bad the ship and the crew were.

'I don't see shield controls at the tactical station. Are they in engineering?'
'No.'
'Battle bridge? Command?' Pause. 'If we don't have shields, I'm gonna toss you out the goddamn airlock.'

'This is Chief Engineer Anderson. He swears at duct tape as a means of fixing things.' 'You mean swears by, right?' 'No..' In the distance there's someone screaming obscenities at the Warp Core.

The Enterprise is obviously one of the few mechanisms of natural selection left in Federation space, where the weak and stupid are winnowed out of the gene pool —although by Picard's time it seems to have reduced to a puddle.

I was under the impression that among the humans of Starfleet the captains of the Enterprises(Kurk, Picard) seemed to have near-demigod reputations. Wouldn't this be a major reason people might want to go into service on the Enterprise- to serve under these guys?

Patrick Degan wrote:The Enterprise is obviously one of the few mechanisms of natural selection left in Federation space, where the weak and stupid are winnowed out of the gene pool —although by Picard's time it seems to have reduced to a puddle.

No, they've just refined the process to such an extent that they don't need to seek out new life and new forms of bug eyed monster to eat redshirts. Why go and find what a warp core breach can do in the comfort of your own home?