If you had the opportunity to work and live aboard the Starship Enterprise, would you go?

In a nanosecond.

To see something off this earth.

Wifey get sea sick now and then.

Absolutely! I remember watching all of the moon shots and space shuttle launches and thinking, “I want to go!” I’ve been to the Kennedy Space Center twice and want to go back.

Would I bring my family? Probably just my husband because I’m not sure I could travel with the rest of them! And knowing him, he would be hanging out in the engine room trying to see how the starship worked. I would be checking out the view at every window I could find.

@JLeslie – Have you decided? Would you go?

Nop

Do I get Halideck privilages?

nuqjatlh?
yIDoghQo’

Probably I would spend most of my time in Sick Bay or the Brig… But I would like to explore the Enterprise first… especially the restricted areas first… Which would explain my being in the Brig often…

NO…..I’m addicted to certain creature comforts, none of which I would find on the Enterprise. Plus, I never liked any of the people on the Enterprise. Except I now like William Shatner very much, but did not then.

Yes, but I’d be disappointed if it was The Next Generation. ;-)

Yeah! And of course I’d bring my family!!

@plethora You just go to the holo-deck and find your fill of creature comforts!

Absolutely, what a fabulous opportunity. I would love it. I could go and investigate different cultures and places.

Do I have to wear red?

Remember @JLeslie only a Trekkie at heart would give you a great question point here.

To answer your question, yes. In my view, human life is too short not to go exploring out there.

@tedd Oh Lord…not just red….red SPANDEX. I’m rethinking my answer…

Oh I love red, but spandex? Nobody should wear spandex….

I wouldn’t be able to hack it. It looks like the crew was required to have an extensive working knowledge of the ship’s operation…much like the knowledge sailers must have to qualify to become permanently stationed aboard submarines.

Not only are your required to master your job, but damn near everyone else’s too.

And stand watches…and run drills.

It’s no joke. It’s why I never qualified for submarines. There’s no way I would qualify for the Enterprise. And after my submarine tour…I’m sure I wouldn’t want to.

@SABOTEUR Where you been? No, just the officers need to know that. I’d be…a….12th grade teacher on board the Star Ship Enterprise. They don’t have 12th grade teachers on submarines, do they? The Enterprise is a city unto itself.

It makes me a little nervous to be honest. I don’t think I would go if it was the first voyage. I would need to feel secure that it is safe, and I would want to know when I come back, maybe a two year committment. Not sure what job I want? I look really good in red, so I am fine with that, or even blue. Yellow is terrible though.

@Dutchess_III You’d be a 12th grade teacher who’d know how to put out a fire, fly a shuttlecraft and disarm a Klingon. The Enterprise is Starfleet elite. You’d best believe you be required to do more than teach if the situation called for it.

What we see is the sanitized version of life aboard a starship. I doubt whether the “reality” would be as pleasant as they present in the various series.

@SABOTEUR Kind of like Israel, everyone is part of the military when attacked.

Where is Zen anyway? He is the captain?

@SABOTEUR Come on…we’re talking about a work of fiction.

@Dutchess_III we can do anything. We can handle Klingons. We will manage to fly the ship if we have to. It will be fine. We are women, we can multi-task!

Fiction?

@Dutchess_III True indeed. Then why answer the question if you aren’t willing to suspend disbelief and treat the situation as something that might really be done? So if this is something that we could possibly do, it stands to reason the government will not send civilians into space without some working knowledge of how to survive and/or assist Starfleet crewmembers if required.

@SABOTEUR Ok..well, then. I would be a 12th grade teacher who could put out a fire (piece of cake), fly a shuttlecraft (yes, I could, if trained) and disarm a Klingon (yes I could if younger….do they let older people on board?)

@Dutchess_III you could also teach those children, appease and educate the parents, carry out first aid, entertain the troops and run adult education classes on a whole range of things, counsel people, placate those with big egos, break up silly fights. The list is endless. I am sure you can add to it. Teachers (and I mean specifically school teachers) have to be so multi-skilled and resilient, the Starship Enterprise will probably be a cake walk!

@Dutchess_III Who knows? The only old people I see in Star Trek are guest stars.

Which one????? Doesn’t matter, hell yeah!!!

Well, @Bellatrix! I just love you!

The Star Trek Enterprise has a population of….well, I can’t find the population. But it numbers in the hundreds, if not a thousand + AND they’ve been out there for years and years and they have children….it’s a city. So it stands to reason they have old people as part of their civilization. Right?

I was going to ask which Enterprise, but then I realized my answer is no whichever one it is. Those ships get shot at a lot, yo!

BUT….they’re badder than bad! They always win! Even without cloaking devices!

@Dutchess_III But chance are I’d just end up a red shirt, or a minor character that they build just enough of a connection to that it’s tragic when I die. Nah, unless I’m one of the senior crew, it’s not worth it.

No, no. You’re in charge of placing explosives on the outside of the Klingon warships, @incendiary_dan. And you will always succeed. Because…we…at Fluther…are writing the script!

Not for me. I’m not a warrior and I’m not a risk junky. At least, not a physical risk junky.

@Dutchess_III Nah, I think @incendiary_dan might work in nutrition, helping to feed the various life forms aboard and the VIP’s who visit. Or, teach history maybe?

Under which captain?

@Rarebear Zen.

@Rarebear You’re in charge of the medical team. That is unless you want a career change?

Ah…Zen likes Picard. I like Kirk. But that’s cool.
(But my favorite captain is Janeway)

Nah, those klingons tend to get stuck up your arse!

@Rarebear Zen is Kirk sometimes. Good God, maybe he is a changling?

I hate Star Trek.

@zen Stop it. LOL.

It’s actually a very good question. When I was little, like most boys I think, I wanted to be an astronaut – never thinking about what it really entailed, the studies – the danger – the loneliness.

The space ship would be, in a way, like a submarine – in that it is completely enclosed, self-sustaining – and there’s no landing for long periods of time. We call them ships – but they have the solitude and claustrophobic qualities one would find on a submarine, or working deep below the earth in a mine. Not very appealing. I think I might have found this to be too intimidating, once, but not anymore – as I no longer fear death and little things like claustrophobia as I once did.

The mythical Enterprise aside – would I be interested in such a venture and adventure today? Would I take my family with me? I think I would say yes, to both. Another question I would have to ask myself is whether I would still be interested if my family were not willing to come.

I have to give that some more thought.

@zen Actually, you bring up a point that crossed my mind that I failed to address. I never was very enamoured with the idea of space travel. I always was interested in astronomy in a basic way. The Enterprise interests me because of the teamwork, the science, the community of people.

Assuming it’s the one from one of the more recent series, there’s very little that could cause me to refuse spending a year sometime visiting such a ship & going on Trekian adventures! Most especially if Picard or Data would make guest appearances at minimum. And same as @JLeslie regarding the interesting interpersonal dynamics and the cool (if fictional) people – it’d be a less-than-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn/study, even if purely from a sociological perspective!

Replicators, transporter beams, holodecks, comunication better in many ways than cell phones! Even if the people & adventures somehow left something to be desired, it’d still be awesome to enjoy/explore those ‘mundane’ aspects of life in the Federation.

@incendiary_dan Seeing as this advanced technology & crazy adventuring is hypothetical, hypothetically someone could let you help with something more conventional in exchange for safety. And there is super-advanced medicine, &, from a hypothetical & weirdly philosophical perspective, a screen-writer/situationally-de-jure-‘god’ must somehow be in on letting you do this… so hopefully they wouldn’t be a total ass & use disliking your taste in music or socks as an excuse to redshirt you. But, despite that, if you’re of a people-observing, psychological or fiction-writing bent, imagine the material you’d get if Guinan would let you help out safetly bartending so she can enjoy time off!

In terms of self-defense, if I had the opportunity, I’d totally make friends with an android (except maybe Lore, but who couldn’t help but observe an artificial psyche of that oddness & complexity… especially at a safe distance?), just for the sake of it. They’re cool, so much stronger than Klingons & probably much easier to make friends with! And dude, if you did as much as you could in this universe or were about to die anyhow, you’d at least go out epicly… or even have a chance for epic experiences and being saved from otherwise certain death in this universe with fictional advanced (universal & free) medicine!

Dude, if Fluther is writing it in a hypothetical universe, can we have an alternate-dimension Kate Hepburn being a sorta Jane-wayish captain, even if just for a guest appearance!?! I’d probably squeal about that happening for years, possibly risking friendship with my enthusiasm over that happening, if it were only possible!

Gadzooks, it would be hard because it is intriguing to think of the people one could meet and the places one could see. What would be suspect to me is trying to go out there saying ”I am just an explored wanting to get to know you” yet I come armed with photon torpedoes, phasers, and who knows what. I can imagine if extraterrestrials ever came here armed what we would think. We certainly would not trust them and would try to get the low down on them as quick as possible. If you go out armed you expect trouble. When the Klingons, the Jem’Hadar, the Borg or whoever comes around if they are quick on the draw or successful in an ambush how would my family be safe when the Enterprise is getting hammered and there are hull breeches everywhere? What if my kids where in the class rime and the route to the safe place, wherever that was, is vaporized by a disrupter or something and they have no way to get there? Then what? It would be nice to go, but I would be afraid I would run into de facto Earthlings.

@Hypocrisy_Central And you’d risk Borg children! D: Who might try to assimilate you!! *cue cheesy sci-fi-horror tune *

@dialectical1 Guess I will have to say “C’mon Borg me baby….uh huh, uh huh…”

Yes, if I could take my family with me.