# In ST TNG, is the USS Enterprise the ship where careers go to die? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403 "2011-06-05T16:55:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/281 "2012-07-09T04:15:06Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Well seriously, what would you expect him to say on 1960’s television? “Sock it to me?” ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/282 "2012-07-09T07:52:15Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Well seriously, what would you expect him to say on 1960’s television? “What does a god need with a starship?” ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/283 "2012-07-09T11:17:51Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Well seriously, what would you expect him to say on 1960’s television? “Where is Aphrodite?” ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/284 "2012-07-09T11:40:11Z")
The fact Troi was a bridge officer has bugged me too, even her position on the bridge next to the captain’s chair! Not to mention her clothing, until 7of9 she was the only one wearing a skin tight bodysuit. My fanwank is that counselor is a “cover” of sorts to explain her being on the ship, if she really was a counselor she wouldn’t be sitting next to the captain. Her true job is as an empath(although she is pretty shitty at it) to help psychically read those the Enterprise deals with. Imagine what an empath could do for your nation in international negotiations, wow! Even if you refuse to view it cynically, it helps to cut through cultural misunderstandings and such if you know what the stranger is feeling and thinking. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/285 "2012-07-09T13:18:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > “Sock it to me?” Stop quoting Richard Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/286 "2012-07-09T13:34:30Z")
> [@grude](#): > > My fanwank is that counselor is a “cover” of sorts to explain her being on the ship, if she really was a counselor she wouldn’t be sitting next to the captain. Her true job is as an empath(although she is pretty shitty at it) to help psychically read those the Enterprise deals with. Imagine what an empath could do for your nation in international negotiations, wow! Even if you refuse to view it cynically, it helps to cut through cultural misunderstandings and such if you know what the stranger is feeling and thinking. That could have been interesting, if they’d presented it like that instead of like this: **Alien:** How dare you trespass upon our space! We shall destroy your ship and display its ruined hull as a warning to others!! **Troi:** I sense hostility. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/287 "2012-07-09T19:46:44Z")
> [@grude](#): > > My fanwank is that counselor is a “cover” of sorts to explain her being on the ship, if she really was a counselor she wouldn’t be sitting next to the captain. Her true job is as an empath(although she is pretty shitty at it) to help psychically read those the Enterprise deals with. Imagine what an empath could do for your nation in international negotiations, wow! Even if you refuse to view it cynically, it helps to cut through cultural misunderstandings and such if you know what the stranger is feeling and thinking. That’s not a fanwank, that’s canon. Her role on the bridge was to be an advisor to the Captain on the emotions and intent of whomever they encountered. It’s just the scriptwriters sucked at it. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/288 "2012-07-09T20:53:27Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Really, if you make Ensign the lowest rank in the military, you will fundamentally end up with the exact same system, just with the Privates getting to wear gold bars while they spend their time answering the phones or mopping the hallways. They might get paid better, or be required to have a college degree, but they will still get stuck with all the low-experience hole-digging jobs that privates were doing otherwise, and the minimum level of experience-based competence will simply be bumped up to a higher rank than it was before. Or, by historical analogy (and personal experience), in an organization full of Colonels, the Major makes the coffee. Always. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/289 "2012-07-09T21:28:06Z")
Captain Darling, would you bring me my tea? ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/290 "2012-07-09T21:48:56Z")
Blackadder could take Troi’s place. Picard: “Is it intelligent? Is it dangerous?” Blackadder: “I’m sensing it’s a giant git with bad breath, hemorrhoids the size of Uranus, and a plan so cunning even it doesn’t fully understand it.” Space Baldrick: “I have a cunning plan…” Worf: “Captain! We must destroy it!” Picard: “Make it so. Anyone one for a spot of tea? Number One Darling, would you be so kind?” ---
**Author:** ![dunebat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@dunebat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dunebat)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/291 "2013-02-23T06:42:33Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Your example does not relate directly to the turning down promotion issue. These aren’t the same things. It’s completely plausible to have a military in which a test for command requires you to send an individual to his death and also allows you to turn down an offered promotion. You’re letting your personal values and experience lead you to unnecessary assumptions. There are all kinds of lines that can be drawn in different places without sacrificing plausibility. Pardon the juvenile nature of what I am doing, but I stumbled upon this thread while searching for something else _Trek_-related, and the insightful and often hilarious responses to the original question kept me reading. I had not decided to actually register for an account at this forum until I read _this_ particular response, and I felt the need to reply in kind. I realize I’m responding to a _two-year old_ response on an old thread… but the response irked me enough to say something on the matter. Acsenray, you mention how you feel others are, and I paraphrase, “letting [their] personal values and experience lead [them] to unnecessary assumptions”. My response would first be to question what _you_, individually, define as “unnecessary assumptions”. My second response: _of course_ the others on this board are allowing their personal values and experiences to guide their thoughts and answers. _So are you_, whether you acknowledge that or not. _All human beings do it._ That’s part and parcel of _being human_. For our own survival, we are meant to learn _from personal experience_. When we do learn by osmosis, it’s through _someone else’s experiences_ that we relate to for whatever reason, thereby making those experiences as personal _to us_ as experiences we have been through ourselves. To expect _anything else_ of any human being would be to expect them _not_ to be human. You know who else allows their personal experience to guide them? _Fiction writers._ The old writers’ adage goes, _“Write what you know.”_ When Gene Roddenberry crafted the _Star Trek_ universe, he allowed his _personal experience_ as a former member of the U.S. Army Air Corps (changed to the “U.S. Army Air Forces” in 1941) during World War II to guide not only how he wrote Starfleet, but to guide his ideas on what he wanted Starfleet to be like. How could he know what his ideal “quasi-military” organization would be like if he had _zero_ experience in how an _actual_ military worked? He served in the Army Air Forces, learned how a military during wartime conducted its business (as well as gaining an understandable distaste for war itself; this _was_ World War II, after all), then began fantasizing about what an ideal military-like organization would be like during peacetime. _All writers do this._ We learn about something, and it leads us to _speculate_ upon what we have already learned via _personal experience_. Generally speaking, we dream of the unknown based on what we already know or have seen/done (although in some specific cases, a case for genetic memory could be made, but that’s an entirely different kettle of _gagh_). For example, I have been learning much of Hebrew, Judaism and the ancient Levant lately. What I have learned makes me dream of going to Israel. I would not have that dream had I not first _experienced_ learning of Judaism and the ancient Levant. I am quite certain that what I experience in modern Israel when I go someday will make me dream of having been there in ancient times (specifically during the eras I study primarily, the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age II, but I digress). These dreams of _what I want to do_ and _where I want to go_ come from my _personal experiences_ of what I have already done and where I have already been. Humans learn through personal experience, and we _dream_ of what could be based on our experiences of what is or what has been. To demand that we do otherwise would be to rob humans of their very humanity. Don’t harshing on other posters for what you perceive as their lack of whatever you deem “objectivity” to be simply because they are doing what humans do by drawing upon personal experiences to make intelligent, well thought-out and often humorous arguments. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/292 "2013-02-23T08:00:20Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > That’s not a fanwank, that’s canon. Her role on the bridge was to be an advisor to the Captain on the emotions and intent of whomever they encountered. It’s just the scriptwriters sucked at it. Anyone else ever wonder what the “range” of Betazoid telepathy is? I mean Deanna was only half-Betazoid and her supposed empathetic abilities worked on individuals hundreds or thousands of kilometers away and seperated by 2 starship hulls, the vacum of space, and usually 2 sets of shields. When you think the indea of her as a Federation political commissar, with the Federation as it’s portrayed in TNG, is way creepier than anything in the Mirror Universe. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/293 "2013-02-23T10:25:57Z")
> [@MyFactCheckBounced](#): > > Now, if I remember the “explanations” I’ve heard, Trek characters from other planets all speak English because they have universal translators on ship and built into their com badge thingies. Not necessarily. In complete accordance with Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planet Development—mentioned in the episode you refer to, “Bread and Circuses”—many aliens actually did speak English, without benefit of translation. At the beginning of that episode, in fact, Spock specifically points out that the Roman world is “Highly parallel; the language here is English!” Whether you buy this explanation or not depends entirely on how much you’re willing to temporarily suspend your disbelief, or to consider current theories on the “infinite worlds, infinite possibilities” concept. FWIW, James Blish also suggested in his adaptations of the TOS episodes that some aliens spoke (or at least understood) “Basic,” which was a kind of dumbed-down version of English proposed for international use after WWII. It seems to have caught on in a lot of countries, at least in concept, and was apparently carried out into the Galaxy as well. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/294 "2013-02-23T10:51:30Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > You said they ‘go back and forth’ on religion. They do no such thing. There’s an episode of _Voyager_ in which Janeway is castigated for believing only in the things that science can prove and, one would assume, has her eyes opened to the possibility that _maybe_ there are “more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”\* One thing that grated on me intensely was the difference in the character’s attitudes toward religion in TOS and TNG. Kirk and crew were much more tolerant and respectful of other people’s beliefs, whether they agreed with them or not; there was even a ship’s chapel set aside for those who wished to use it. Picard and crew were often openly hostile to them, while gushingly embracing a lot of other things that were just plain silly (e.g., a culture where one man needs three interpreters to express his thoughts: “What a beautiful form of communication!”). Roddenberry wanted “human engineers” like Troi on board to help people deal with their problems, rather than anything resembling a chaplain, because he thought humans would by that time be “more mature.”\*\* **HA!** It always seemed to me that in this respect, the 23rd century was a lot more “mature” than the 24th. \*By which Shakespeare meant “in _one’s_ philosophy.” Thanks, Cecil! \*\*It probably didn’t hurt that Troi had a spectacular rack, either. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/295 "2013-02-23T11:01:00Z")
**EDIT:** The _characters’_ attitudes (plural). ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/296 "2013-02-23T11:17:24Z")
Returning to this thread after a long while but one wonders if there wasn’t a concerted effort by the Federation to have at least one Betazoid or half Betazoid on each ship as a “counselor”. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/297 "2013-02-23T11:36:31Z")
Was not Ezri Dax a counselor? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/298 "2013-02-23T12:16:44Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Was not Ezri Dax a counselor? Not a very good one, she tended to get under your skin. _flees_ ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/299 "2013-02-23T12:56:20Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Not a very good one, she tended to get under your skin. > > _flees_ Look she was very pretty. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2013, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403/300 "2013-02-23T18:05:19Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Was not Ezri Dax a counselor? Yes, but she wasn’t stationed in Ops. Maybe Troi being a bridge officer was an experimental thing Starfleet was trying out, like stationing families on ships. Speaking of Ezri Dax; am I the only one who thought having the new Dax host be female was a _huge_ mistake on the writers part? Just imagine Worf’s reaction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-st-tng-is-the-uss-enterprise-the-ship-where-careers-go-to-die/584403.md?page=16)