TALKING POINTS: OTHER ISSUES

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Stardates    Uniforms   Quadrants   Starship Registries

Wolf 359  Lieutenant Commander Data

If there is one enduring myth in the Star Trek Universe (and there are many), it is how the hell do stardates work? They are difficult to grasp as they seem to exhibit properties that have perpetually conflicted with each other over the years. It is generally believed that an Earth year is represented with reasonable accuracy by 1000 stardate units, after all this is what elapses over the course of one production season (from approximately the Fall, or Autumn through to the following summer). This is fine, but there are several references that contradict this, and obviously the most confusing of those is that it does not in any fashion tie in with the stardates from the TOS era. If 1000 units equal a year, then the first stardate could only have been logged in around the early 2320's. Like the warp scale between eras, it may have been changed or adapted. But without getting the calculator out and scrambling our minds too much, I think it's just safe to say that stardates do not correspond to Gregorian time keeping and perhaps shouldn't be taken too seriously. Perhaps it would be a lot easier to fathom, if, at the birth of the Federation they could have adopted this fixed dating system of 1000 units per annum and kept to it, meaning that the current dates logged in the DS9/Voyager era to be in the region of 215000. But then would one suppose that inconsistencies would occur when you take into account space-time dilation due to warp travel and galactic spin...:)

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During the original Star Trek movies (2 through 6) we see officers wearing a consistent uniform, ie black boots and trousers, burgundy wrap-around top with white collar. This attire seems to have been the standard duty uniform of Starfleet officers for quite a long time, although we see a few variations of this theme. In ‘TAPESTRY’ we can see that more or less the same uniform was in use in the early to mid 24th century (Picard’s Q induced jaunt back to his reckless youth). And in ‘FAMILY’ we see a holographic recording of Jack Crusher, seen by Wes aged 18. Jack is wearing the same uniform. This was made just after Wesley’s birth, allowing us to ascertain that it was in general use around 2349 (some 18 years before ‘FAMILY’). So we know that this uniform was decommissioned between this holographic recording and Jack Crusher’s death. For in ‘VIOLATIONS’ we see a flashback of Crusher and Picard at the morgue to identify Jack’s body. They were at that point wearing the more modern uniform we see in the show’s first season, as they also were in Picard’s Stargazer dream sequence in ‘THE BATTLE’. Seeing as Wesley was 5 when Jack died, we can determine that the new uniform was commissioned between 2349 and 2354. So the old burgundy uniform reigned from at least the early 2280's (‘The Wrath Of Khan’) to the mid 24th century, some 60-70 years.

There seems to be is a great inconsistency in the regularity of uniform commissioning and usage. Since ‘ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT’ the uniform has changed several times. It became a lot fuller and less tight for the third season, also gaining a collar. Further on, a belt was added, the zipper was then at the back. Captain Picard sometimes wore (from the 5th season on) additional accessories to this theme, such as a jacket with padded shoulders, and grey top beneath. Then came the introduction of a jump-suit, or boilersuit which was mainly all black with command colours indicated across the shoulders, this also included a new grey under garment. Also, this addition to DS9 doesn’t seem to be used ubiquitous throughout the ranks of Starfleet. Other visiting personnel sometimes wear the older uniform, such as Captain Keogh in ‘THE JEM’HADAR’, and Thomas Riker in ‘DEFIANT’. And in ‘Generations’ half the crew wore the old uniform and the other half the new one. Riker wore the new one in ‘Generations’, yet in ‘DEATHWISH’ on ‘Voyager’ two years later, he is back to wearing the old one again, complete with the old Combadge design. In DS9's 'THE VISITOR' we see the future sequence of Captain Nog visiting a middle aged Jake at his home. Nog is wearing the old TNG style uniform. This whole situation seems to be a bit of shambles of continuity.

In the eighth movie, ‘Star Trek: First Contact’, we see yet another new uniform. Being mainly all black with a kind of corrugated grey effect upon the shoulders. So we have one widely used uniform for about 65 years, and then the first season uniform lasts from the 2350’s to the third season of TNG, around 2365. From that time on to the early 2370’s, and ‘First Contact’, we see the uniform change persistently, 4 or 5 times with all the variations thereof –so for a period lasting a couple of decades we see an unrealistic number of changes to uniform when you take into account how long the burgundy one endured. The creators certainly like to keep the costume department busy.

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There have been times on Voyager that alien races, who reside in this far away side of the galaxy refer to the ‘Delta Quadrant’, possibly though after hearing the Voyager crew use the term, particularly in the early seasons. But why have they adopted the phrase ‘Delta Quadrant’? –Delta being the fourth of four designations. Surely they would have their own method of segmenting the galaxy, and if they did, why use Starfleet’s? Whatever Quadrant (or equivalent thereof) one hails from, it would make sense to designate one’s own as being the first, ie ‘Alpha Quadrant’ or ‘Quadrant 1’, and then continue in a systematic fashion for the remainder of the galaxy. Yet in the Delta Quadrant, several races have used our fourth designation in regard to their area of space.

In the TOS era, 'quadrant' was a loosely used term, there seemed to be no distinction between 'quadrant' and 'sector', although today their definitions are established and secure. One significant gaff was Kirk's line to Spock in The Wrath of Khan, saying "we're the only ship in the quadrant". By TNG definitions, this would mean that there were no other Starfleet vessels in the entire Alpha Quadrant! So it was acknowledged during The Next Generation that part of Federation bled over into the Beta Quadrant, hence tidying things up by presenting the possibility that Kirk was indicating that no other fleet vessel currently occupied the Beta Quadrant -the location of Space Station Regula One.

Today though we have an established system of Quadrants -Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. Of the principal powers presiding, the Alpha Quadrant contains the Federation, Ferengi Alliance, the Breen, and Cardassian Union, the Beta Quadrant is home to the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire (the remainder of the quadrant is largely unexplored). The Gamma Quadrant contains the Dominion, and Delta has as its chief residents the Borg, Hirogen, Kazon amongst others.

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There are many unanswered questions when it come to registries, and they're notoriously difficult to analyse....

The main idea with registries in fandom is that they're sequential and heavily orientated toward the chronological passage of time, ie, registries at the turn of the twenty fourth century start with 10xxx, and by the 2460's they were 70xxx. This doesn't really tie in with TOS registries, or with the previous (22nd) century of fleet vessels before that. So either Starfleet have built 70 odd thousand ships since UFP formed, or like with stardates and the warp scale, the meanings of what the registry denotes has also changed over time.

In my opinion, NCC is an old naval acronym standing for Naval Construction Contract, Starfleet leaning heavily towards naval systems in many respects, such as the naming of ships, various traditions and customs, not to mention rank and command designations (whether it's a coincidence that USS -United StarShip was a take on the old United States Ship is unknown) and it probably isn't ;) But what the actual registry number refers to is uncertain. I came up with the theory that the numbers are partly linked to a chronological system of ship numbering... It goes something like this:

After the commissioning of Excelsior Class, there seems to be a massive and sudden increase in registry increments. For with the prototype Excelsior having a code of NX - 2000, there seemed to be a sudden jump to the NCC 11000 region within a period of just a few decades. This can be explained by possibly two different forces at work. Firstly a radical and new registry technique being implemented at the turn of the century, whereby previously unlisted ships such as Cargo Carriers, Runabouts, Executive Shuttles, Tankers and other Utility ships being suddenly integrated into the Fleet registry makeup. This I think is quite possible. The second possibility is a general increase of Starship construction, mainly in number of ships, but also in generally increased number of new classes for various fleet applications, for this was in essence the Klingon Cold war, and the need for greater defensive and stability was an important issue. So this increased turnaround at the Fleet Yards is another possible answer. Thirdly, one has to take the omni-directional expansion of the Federation into account. With newer, faster starships, and increased numbers of Federation member worlds it takes a larger taskforce of vessels to patrol, defend and provision such a growing territory.

So basically it's about the number of ships. A). Registries are largely sequential. B). Starfleet has many registered ships on its books - from starships down to Freighters and Runabouts. It's that simple. It may even incorporate alien ships into its fleet - that is the ships of new alien races that join the Federation. For instance, if the Bajorans entered the Federations, some of it's military defense forces would be incorporated into the 'Federation Fleet'. So, being assigned a registered number, this too would boost the ever expanding figures for registries.

The one thing that is difficult to explain is this new replacement USS Defiant. As you'd be able to tell from the fleet listings, there's been many vessels with duplicate names over the years. But this time it's different, for the first time I'm aware of (except in the case of Enterprises 1 and 2, and the two Miranda Class variants both named Saratoga), there's a duplicate name for a vessel in the same class. It is most unorthodox to commission a vessel whose predecessor was of the same class. But this isn't the end of the story, this new Defiant has the same registry number as the first Defiant! This is insane and impossible I tell you! I know the reason though was so they could use stock battle footage of the previous Defiant in the DS9 finale. But this is such a rip off, and an insult to the fans. 'WHAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND' contained some of the same FX as were first used in 'THE SACRIFICE OF ANGELS' from the 6th season. I personally was mortified, being the series finale and all...

To read more of my comments and theories on how registries work, see the Starship Registries discussion

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One really detested line to come from The Next Generation was by Commander Shelby in 'The Best Of Both Worlds', regarding that loss of 39 ships at the battle of Wolf 359 against the Borg, and that as a result it would take a year to rebuild the fleet. The length of time stated is not the problem here, but what definitely is, is the number of ships -39 seemingly constituting 'a fleet'. Even in 1990 when I first saw this episode I thought that 39 would have to be only a small proportion of Starfleet's vessels, and this was duly supported by how many ships took part in the Dominion war. I have speculated (as can be seen on the Definitions page in the Utopia Planitia section) that Starfleet might operate a figure of anywhere between 3000 to 5000 ships. I believe it is an adequate estimation to say that the overall tally lies within these two figures.

So to theorise how this line can be justified I submit the following premise: During the Dominion war, various task forces were sub divided into 'fleets', - 'fifth fleet', 'sixth fleet', and so forth. It's possible that the 40 ships participating in the Wolf 359 incident (the single survivor being the Endeavour) were part of a specific squadron only, or fleet, possibly the 'First Fleet' being stationed close to Earth in case of such incursions. It would make sense for Starfleet to have a task force that patrol Earth's surrounding systems as a defence measure, so, on the event of an attack that threatens Earth, like the Borg incident they can group together to intercept and confront the enemy before Earth's system is compromised.

When one examines past Starfleet failures, such as the V'Ger and 'Whale Probe' crises of the 23rd century, one will see in each instance that there seemed to be very little Starship support to deal with such overwhelming threats close to home. Being centre stage to the Federation one would think they'd have a great deal of defensive measures in place - hopefully more so than that feeble array of small fighters that emerged from Jovian orbit to intercept the Borg Cube in 'The Best of Both Worlds'! So I think it's highly sensible for them to employ a specialised unit of Starships, perhaps mostly made up of older vessels, but well armed, and with skeleton crews but with the means to supply full compliments to make up the numbers at short notice. Such crews could reside or operate from outposts and scrambling stations in and round the Sol area, and can be called upon in an emergency to man these specially deployed interception forces. Such reasoning regarding the use of these older vessels, used only in extreme situations may explain why most of the ships known destroyed at Wolf 359 were in some respects lesser known classes with older designations such as Cheyenne, Rigel, Challenger, Springfield, Freedom, Apollo, Niagara, etc. So, if such a First Fleet or 'Home Fleet' exists, Shelby may have been referring to this fleet when describing the loss of 39 vessels and that it would take a year to 'get (this fleet) back up'. It may also explain her familiarity with the ships of this First Fleet, as she seemed to be able to easily identify them from a mass of burning debris from the Enterprise viewscreen as they cruised through the battlefield aftermath. All this is a possibility anyway, but it's just my theory...

Out of the 40 participating ships, here's a table of the 14 known to have been lost in the battle.

All of these ships and their classes can be found in the Utopia Planitia Fleet listings...

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A quick point about Data. I've read and heard many times over the years that one major flaw with Trek, and with Data -one of the most popular of all characters is that he cannot use contractions for some inexplicable reason. One would think with such a technological marvel as a positronic brain that can perform so many billions of operations per second, saying the word "can't" for instance would be no problem at all. But, he can't.......

I have formulated a theory as to why Data cannot use these common verbal contractions, for this does seem to be a point of considerable contention amongst Trekkers.

It was stated in the episode ‘DATALORE’ that Data was less perfect than Lore. Lore after all could use contractions, and a full range of emotions to boot. So if Data is less perfect, Soong programmed a less human version with a view of making him obviously cybernetic, because the colonists chief complaint was Lore’s superiority –they preferred one that was clearly android, ie less 'perfect'. Lore could speak as a human could, so in contrast, Data was deliberately constructed in such a way as to make him appear to operate in an obviously less than Human fashion; without contractions. So with this simple vocal ability suppressed, or even just not part of Data’s actual programming, and without emotion, he is an obvious android, and hence unable to say ‘can’t’, or ‘shouldn’t’, for he was purposely not programmed to do so.

Although his systems are heuristic by nature, one would presume he would not be able to deviate too specifically from the original Soong programme, unless his software was rebooted and modified somehow.

The other major point of contention with Data were the events of the episode 'THE MEASURE OF A MAN'. (This can also be found on the Nitpick page).

In this episode, Commander Maddox comes aboard the Enterprise with the intention of having Data disassembled for study of his positronic brain. What ensues is a bit of a farce really, encompassing the question of 'is Data an individual person with individual rights', or is he property? Don't get me wrong, it's a brilliant episode, one of Trek's finest, but the very notion of is Data a person is really quite an absurd question to have to bring up at this stage in his career....

It has to be true that Data had his rights established when he first became a Federation citizen and joined Starfleet (whether his actual android sentience had been determined or not). Surely their acceptance of his membership as a citizen, and subsequent enlisting would automatically guarantee his fundamental rights of freedom, protection, individuality and choice. These should be basic conditions of a Federation that supposedly boasts a charter of benevolence and philanthropy. Maddox himself was the chief proponent of denying him entry on the grounds that he wasn't sentient, the fact that he failed indicates Data was obviously accepted as a Starfleet officer, and one would also think granted with all the rights and privileges that come with the role. So from the outset Data should have been guaranteed the identical rights as any other citizen of the United Federation of Planets, or employee of Starfleet –hence not simply being hardware or property. And if so, these issues and questions shouldn’t have arisen whether he’s a synthetic lifeform or organic. His sentience would have to have been established if he were to become a actual Starfleet Officer with all the sometimes crucial decisions and responsibilities that come with such potentially precarious positions. Having or not having a soul should perhaps have been a debate for another time, he certainly shouldn’t have been put through a trial! All legal contingencies should have been covered from the start, and most definitely for something as rudimentary as rights and equality. (But I suppose if that had been so we wouldn’t have had a show …an outstanding one at that).

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