I assume that the great “let’s have families aboard” experiment ended with the launch of the Sovereign class ships. I assume that families were relegated to starbases and colonies in the starship’s patrol sector.
The destruction of the Odyssey by the Dominion should have given Starfleet a clue.
That was certainly implied in later iterations of ST.
I also prefer the term “watch” to “shift,” due to its nautical heritage, and encourage the players in my ST:TOS-era USS Yorktown role-playing game to use it.
On a ship as large as the Enterprises, you could have everyone on each deck on the same schedule, and have dimming of the corridors appropriate for each deck.
There’s no point to the dimming of the lights except for TV Drama.
You want bright lights for those people actually on duty so as not to fuck over their circadian rhythm.
You also want to see the damn Klingon boarding party. 
When TNG was in the planning stages saucer separations were originally intended to be standard operating procedure whenever the ship was in danger or had a more military mission. The special effects proved to be too expensive so it only used a few times over the series.
Which makes perfect sense :rolleyes:
“Um, hostile vessels, could you hold off while we send this completely vulnerable chunk of our ship containing children and non-combatants out of harms way?”
This idiocy is not limited to the 23rd century!
When my husband was stationed in Germany, the dependents had to participate in an exercise called “NEO.” That stands for “Noncombatant Evacuation Order.”
You REALLY are not gonna believe this!
The military would supposedly take possession of all POVs (privately-owned vehicles) and load them up with dependents, and they would travel in a huge convoy to a military air base or even a civilian airport, where chartered planes would take the dependents back to the United States.
Uh-huh.
And the Bad Guys would keep their dirty hands and armaments completely OFF the family members. No blowing up the convoy, no shooting down the chartered planes.
Yeah.
:rolleyes:
~VOW
On impulse power, no less. Assuming they did manage to get away unscathed, they’d be dead long before they ever reached a Star Base unless they managed to rendezvous with another friendly vessel.
Stupid idea piled on stupid idea, piled on stupid idea!
Don’t soldiers, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and yes, even merchant sailors also stand watches? 
:dubious: :rolleyes:
Not only that, they were a complete waste of valuable storytelling time, and the whole procedure just looked ridiculous. Whenever they tried to redock after an “emergency,” I was reminded of the “parasite fighter” concept, which also turned out to be a miserable failure:
Roll eyes yourself. None of those are Starfleet, which is a fictional mix of ideas. And Starfleet is not EXACTLY analogous to any current military branch. Besides, I was simply relating what I remember hearing.
:rolleyes: indeed
In TNG, Starfleet was hardly analogous to ANY military branch.
Let’s face it: The best thing about that series was Marina Sirtis’s incredible rack! 
I thought Crusher was pretty hot, too. (NOT Wesley!)
K’Ehleyr had nice legs. For a half Klingon.
.
terentii (and other Trek Dopers), go here for more Trek fun (transporters again). We could make some of the same posts we did the last time this came up.
On TNG, Lt. Selar is the one I always wanted to spend a few hours on the holodeck with!
Been there, done that! 
Some military guys would be getting killed, fighting a delaying action for the families to get away.
I believe that was discounted by Gene Roddenberry wanting her to have four of them.
Or two, if you are counting “racks”.
That’s not really much to rate a TV show on.
Buy a dirty magazine.
For the most part a stupid idea, yes. There were a few times when it would have made sense for the saucer section to be separated, like a charge into the Romulan Neutral Zone. Just drop off the saucer near a starbase, then head in.