- #1
Strato Incendus
- 149
- 16
A common criticism of the newer Star Trek shows is the lack of military decorum among Starfleet officers. From open insubordination and constantly questioning orders of superiors, to actually mocking superiors, attacking them personally (sometimes even physically), to oversharing of personal problems with colleagues who barely know each other yet (where the crew from Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, or Voyager would have been a lot more stoic).
On the one hand, I’m trying to go “back to the roots” with my sci-fi story set on a generation ship. Meaning, the setting should feel closer to 90s Star Trek in spirit, even though the technology (including the design of the ship) is completely different.
On the other hand, one of the inherent problems of a generation ship, in contrast to a professional military like Starfleet, is the fact the crew are at heart civilians. They can’t be selected for their ability to adhere to military discipline; it is questionable whether the crew of a generation ship would think of themselves as a military unit to begin with, or a civil society. And if they regard themselves as an offshoot of the military, that would essentially mean anyone born on the ship would be born into a military dictatorship (in this case: a dictator ship
). Because the only way to counteract the problem that not everyone is born to be a military officer, if we conclude that everyone on the ship would have to be, would be to raise the children in a Sparta-like military culture (=nurture instead of nature).
This is already a crucial question even for the initial crew, who aren’t born on the ship, but selected for their qualifications.
Yet, due to the number of different kinds of specialised expertise such a ship is going to need, it’s unlikely that all of them can be trained astronauts. There will also be farmers, factory workers, physicians, teachers and other social workers etc. Even though being a trained astronaut seems like a self-evident requirement, by today’s standards, we’re already noticing a shift — with (wealthy) civilians going into space as tourists.
And even in Star Trek, where there is a professional institution like Starfleet, not everyone who ever boards a spaceship as a passenger knows how to walk around in a spacesuit. In fact, even Starfleet officers rarely seem to have to do so. In case of my ship, the ability to do spacewalks wouldn’t be that helpful to begin with, since spacewalking on a ship that is coasting at 10 to 12.5% light speed would be out of the question anyway (Source: PBS Space Time). Among others, due to the radiation exposure.
The mere size of the population from which the people could be picked is also a problem. The highest number of astronauts NASA has ever had was 149. But neither could NASA afford to put them all on a generation ship, nor is it likely that all of them will want to. And we’d need a starting crew of on average at least 500 people, going by the studies I have seen (the most optimistic estimate was 98 people, but that‘s basically without any margin of safety in case some people die early over the course of the mission).
For these reasons, for picking the crew of a generation ship, we might be looking at a similar situation to the movie Armageddon, where, rather than training astronauts how to drill, they train a bunch of drillers in a crash course to become astronauts — even though that looks like the much harder thing to do. I read Samantha Cristoforetti’s biography on Wikipedia, and apparently, she managed to complete basic astronaut training within a year (until 2010, after having been selected for the programme in 2009). However, that was building on her prior experience as a pilot in the Italian air force.
The selection of the first crew for my generation ship happens over the course of 2373; the ship then stays in orbit of Earth for one test year, 2374, before departing on January 1st 2375. Since I already planned with that test year, I could easily make that basic training part of it. However, in reality, even in a future where space tourism, and thus civilians in space, are more common, you’d still expect people to go through that basic training first, years before they go on their first trip to space.
And this is where human biology might throw a wrench into the plans for the generation ship. Cristoforetti had her children in 2016 (at age 39) and 2021 (at age 44), right before the became commander of the ISS. That’s comparatively late. If a generation ship relies on every couple replacing themselves, in terms of numbers (i.e. everyone having two children, give or take a few more, but generally assuming extremely low infant mortality), then it would be quite a gamble to have all the crew members undergo that much training first, and then have their children at basically the last possible opportunity.
In short: How professional would you expect the crew of a generation ship to be? Both the first crew and the later generations born on board the ship? Or conversely, what type of behaviour among the crew and how they interact with each other would disrupt your suspension of disbelief?
Here it’s probably important that the story of my first book ends in a rebellion (=from the commander’s perspective, a mutiny). So I need to show the rebellious potential in my main characters early in the story, as a setup — without making them look like troublemakers that lack basic respect for their superiors. Which is the impression I repeatedly get with the characters on the newer Star Trek shows (such as Strange New Worlds).
On the one hand, I’m trying to go “back to the roots” with my sci-fi story set on a generation ship. Meaning, the setting should feel closer to 90s Star Trek in spirit, even though the technology (including the design of the ship) is completely different.
On the other hand, one of the inherent problems of a generation ship, in contrast to a professional military like Starfleet, is the fact the crew are at heart civilians. They can’t be selected for their ability to adhere to military discipline; it is questionable whether the crew of a generation ship would think of themselves as a military unit to begin with, or a civil society. And if they regard themselves as an offshoot of the military, that would essentially mean anyone born on the ship would be born into a military dictatorship (in this case: a dictator ship
). Because the only way to counteract the problem that not everyone is born to be a military officer, if we conclude that everyone on the ship would have to be, would be to raise the children in a Sparta-like military culture (=nurture instead of nature).This is already a crucial question even for the initial crew, who aren’t born on the ship, but selected for their qualifications.
Yet, due to the number of different kinds of specialised expertise such a ship is going to need, it’s unlikely that all of them can be trained astronauts. There will also be farmers, factory workers, physicians, teachers and other social workers etc. Even though being a trained astronaut seems like a self-evident requirement, by today’s standards, we’re already noticing a shift — with (wealthy) civilians going into space as tourists.
And even in Star Trek, where there is a professional institution like Starfleet, not everyone who ever boards a spaceship as a passenger knows how to walk around in a spacesuit. In fact, even Starfleet officers rarely seem to have to do so. In case of my ship, the ability to do spacewalks wouldn’t be that helpful to begin with, since spacewalking on a ship that is coasting at 10 to 12.5% light speed would be out of the question anyway (Source: PBS Space Time). Among others, due to the radiation exposure.
The mere size of the population from which the people could be picked is also a problem. The highest number of astronauts NASA has ever had was 149. But neither could NASA afford to put them all on a generation ship, nor is it likely that all of them will want to. And we’d need a starting crew of on average at least 500 people, going by the studies I have seen (the most optimistic estimate was 98 people, but that‘s basically without any margin of safety in case some people die early over the course of the mission).
For these reasons, for picking the crew of a generation ship, we might be looking at a similar situation to the movie Armageddon, where, rather than training astronauts how to drill, they train a bunch of drillers in a crash course to become astronauts — even though that looks like the much harder thing to do. I read Samantha Cristoforetti’s biography on Wikipedia, and apparently, she managed to complete basic astronaut training within a year (until 2010, after having been selected for the programme in 2009). However, that was building on her prior experience as a pilot in the Italian air force.
The selection of the first crew for my generation ship happens over the course of 2373; the ship then stays in orbit of Earth for one test year, 2374, before departing on January 1st 2375. Since I already planned with that test year, I could easily make that basic training part of it. However, in reality, even in a future where space tourism, and thus civilians in space, are more common, you’d still expect people to go through that basic training first, years before they go on their first trip to space.
And this is where human biology might throw a wrench into the plans for the generation ship. Cristoforetti had her children in 2016 (at age 39) and 2021 (at age 44), right before the became commander of the ISS. That’s comparatively late. If a generation ship relies on every couple replacing themselves, in terms of numbers (i.e. everyone having two children, give or take a few more, but generally assuming extremely low infant mortality), then it would be quite a gamble to have all the crew members undergo that much training first, and then have their children at basically the last possible opportunity.
In short: How professional would you expect the crew of a generation ship to be? Both the first crew and the later generations born on board the ship? Or conversely, what type of behaviour among the crew and how they interact with each other would disrupt your suspension of disbelief?
Here it’s probably important that the story of my first book ends in a rebellion (=from the commander’s perspective, a mutiny). So I need to show the rebellious potential in my main characters early in the story, as a setup — without making them look like troublemakers that lack basic respect for their superiors. Which is the impression I repeatedly get with the characters on the newer Star Trek shows (such as Strange New Worlds).