Star Trek, where the heck are the Indians, Africans and Chinese?

Cafe Society
1

Even before the Federation as seen in Enterprise the show Earth is ruled by a one world government, we don’t get much background on how this works in reality. People seem very laid back about nationality and national pride, every named crew member seems to be American except for one British guy. Pretty much all of the limited on Earth action takes place in the USA.

By the time of TOS nationality and national pride have strangely surged back to forefront among Earthers, crew members proudly talk about their nation of origin and flaunt their nationality despite nations not existing in a very long time.
The crew is more diverse than Enterprise though.

So why are large parts of the Earth with very large populations not represented?
One theory I have heard(I forget where) is that WW3 and the Eugenics Wars hit certain parts of Earth harder than others. In Space Seed from TOS Khan is stated to have ruled 25% of the Earth from the Middle East to Asia during his time in power.

I’ve only seen the shows and movies, does the background media ever talk about this?

2

According to wikipeida, Hoshi was born in Japan and Travis was born in space. So of five humans in the main cast, only two were born in the US.

3

I knew Travis was born in space but assumed Hoshi was from the USA due to her accent :slight_smile: Its easy to miss that Uhura is from Africa because of the actresses accent too.

Of the captains seen on screen only one is not from the USA(Picard). Archer, Kirk, Sisco, and Janeway are all from the USA!

And yes I know the real world reasons for this so you do not need to remind me of where the show is filmed :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Geordi is from Africa to, apparently in the future people from France will have a British accent and people from Africa will have an American accent. But then, people from Vulcan have American accents to, so I guess Africa isn’t that surprising.

FWIW, I actually think they did a decent job of giving the various crews an international feel. It was still American-centric, but the writers of each series at least made an effort to remember they were supposed to be in a post-nationalistic future.

5

Geordi’s African, born in Mogadishu. (The nation may be the same one Uhura was born in - but it’s hard to tell, because they used different names (The United States of Africa and The African Confederation), but given Geordi’s birth in Mogadishu, and Uhura’s speaking Swahili, chances are the two nations at least overlapped in geography.)

Of the Asian characters, Keiko O’Brien was also Japanese born. (Harry Kim and Hikaru Sulu are both American Born - South Carolina for Harry, California for Sulu.)

No major characters come from the subcontinent - though it’s likely the Bashirs ultimately come from there (or possibly the Sudan), but by the time Julian was born, they were living in England. Though neither aspect was ever laid out except in creator’s comments, that I know of. (He is known to be descended from one Singh el Bashir.)

Australia gets the shaft, though…can’t think of a single Aussie character.

6

Hmm it never bugged me that the aliens have US accents, I assumed either they had learned American English or the universal translator was doing it.

Accents and places of birth/“nationalities” not matching up makes a lot of sense if Earth no longer has borders or nations, you’d expect quite a bit of movement.

I agree BTW and oddly enough TOS seems to do the best job.

7

TOS had a Dr. M’Benga. Based on the name, he’s quite likely from Africa.

8

Khan was Indian, wasn’t he? Khan Noonan Singh? And wasn’t Data’s creator related to him somehow?

9

Khan wasn’t a crew member though, Data was created by Noonien Soong and both were played by Brent Spiner. We see a great grandfather of Soong on Enterprise who was also played by Spiner, he was obsessed with the augments of which Khan was one. No connection to India is ever revealed in show.

10

Disagree. (All of the following numbers are from my own memory, occasionally using Memory Alpha to confirm a name.)

TOS:
5 Human characters, all Earth-Born:
Kirk - American
McCoy - American
Sulu - American
Uhura - African (Adjective chosen by analogy to American, since both nations are ‘USA’, where the ‘A’ is the continent.)
Chekov - Russian
1 Alien: Spock.
Core cast of 6, 3 American, each of the others from different nations, one of whom is non-human.

TNG:
3 Earth-Born human characters:
Picard - French
Riker - American
LaForge - African Confederate
2 Aliens:
Worf - Klingon, born on a colony world, raised on Earth, in St Petersburg, Russia
Data - Android, built on Omicron Theta
2 known non-Earth-Born humans:
Yar - Tarkanian
Dr Crusher - From Luna
2 humans of unknown birth:
Dr Pulaski
Wesley Crusher
Core cast of 9, 2 American, 2 of unknown extraction, 5 others from 5 different nations/worlds.

DS9:
4 Earth-born humans:
Ben Sisko - American
Miles O’Brien - Irish
Keiko O’Brien - Japanese
Julian Bashir - Not conclusively known, but likely English
7 or 8 Aliens:
Jadzia Dax/Ezri Dax - Trill
Odo - Changeling
Kira - Bajoran
Quark - Ferengi
Nog - Ferengi
Rom - Ferengi
Worf - see above.
1 human of unknown extraction:
Jake Sisko (circumstances suggest he was space-born).
Core cast of 11 or 12, depending how you count the Daxes, 3 Ferengi, 1 or 2 Trill, one of unknown birth, each other major character from a different nation/world.

Voyager:
3 Earth-Born humans:
Janeway - American
Kim - American
Tom Paris - Not entirely sure, but I think American
7 Aliens (including hybrids):
Tuvok - Vulcan
Kes - Okampa
Neelix - Talaxian
Ceska - Cardassian, masquerading as Bajoran
Torres - Human-Klingon hybrid, born on Kessik IV
7 of 9 - Borg, born Human on Tendara colony
Naomi Wildman - Human/Ktarian hybrid, born aboard Voyager
1 non-Earth-Born human:
Chakotay - Native American, born on an unnamed colony.
Core cast of 11 3 American, each of the 8 others from a different nation/world.

Enterprise:
4 Earth-Born humans:
Archer - American
Tucker - American
Sato - Japanese
Reed - English
2 aliens:
T’Pol - Vulcan
Phlox - Denobulan
1 known non-Earth-Born human:
Mayweather - born and raised on a freighter.
1 character of unknown extraction:
Hayes.
Core cast of 8, 2 American, 1 unknown, each of the other 5 from a different background.

Ignoring the aliens, the counts go:
TOS: 5 humans: 3 American, 2 other.
TNG: 7 humans: 2 unknown, 5 from different backgrounds.
DS9: 5 humans: 1 unknown, 4 from different backgrounds.
Voy: 4 humans (5 if you count 7): 3 American, 1 (2) other.
Ent: 6 humans: 2 American, 1 unknown, 3 other.

Multiculturalism rating (to the extent that the fairly generic humans can count as such), in descending order:

Overall: DS9, TNG, Ent, Voy, TOS.
Human-only: TNG, DS9, Ent, TOS/Voy (tie, or TOS slightly edging out Voy, depending on count).
Human/Alien ratio: DS9, Voy, TNG, Ent, TOS.

These core casts didn’t have those numbers all at once (Save TOS, once Chekov is added), due to cast changes. I considered including Nurse Chapel and Yoeman Rand for TOS, but ultimately decided they were both glorified guests.

I’m going to get a rep for ridiculously analytical Star Trek posts, aren’t I?

11

I was excluding non-human crew members in my analysis of diversity, I was going only by human crew members. And you forgot Scotty come on! :smiley:
And I assumed Sulu was Japanese based on Takei’s accent doh!

12

Ach, aye…so I did. :smack: So, that makes TOS a core cast of 7, 3 American, 4 other. A slightly better ratio, and enough to pull it ahead of Voyager on the Human Only list, even if you count Seven. (Still dead last on the Overall count, but not quite as dismal, and ending up even worse on the human/alien ratio.)

And, nope, Sulu’s Californian, just like Takei (though from San Francisco, rather than LA).

13

Well, there’s Nensi Chandra, a member of the board adjudicating James Kirk in the TOS episode “Court Martial”, whose rank (presumably) was equal or higher than Kirk’s.

TOS was far more casually multicultural than the whitebread TNG.

14

This was the excuse myself and my fellow Trekkie pals came up with! :smiley:

Well I was impressed! applauds

15

As it happens, I have a New Punjabi Sikh captain of my Starfleet vessel in the TOS-era roleplaying game I run, and her first officer is a man from Peru…!

16

Well, Australia didn’t get around to joining the United Earth Government untill almost a century after everyon else did.

I thought Riker was Canadian.

17

I thought Riker was born in Alaska

18

We’ll split the difference, Riker can be Canadian, but the beard was American. :wink:

19

Miles and Keiko were also in ST:TNG.

20

Where are you getting this information? According to his statements on TNG and DS9, Wolf was raised by his human adoptive parents not on Earth but on the colony world Gault. The family eventually moved to Earth, but the precise location was never specified to my knowledge. Worf does claim that his family went camping in the Ural mountains, and seems to have an unusual fondness for Minsk, so an Eastern European home seems plausible, but AFAIK there’s no reason to think that it was St. Petersburg specifically.