posted
If memory serves, there was a line near the beginning of David Gerrold's novelization of "Encounter at Farpoint" which said something along the line of the E-D's operational crew being roughly the same as that of the TOS E, i.e. about 400. There was a roughly equal number of scientists and specialists, and about 200 dependents.
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posted
I can see the Galaxy's minimum operational crew being 400, but not for any real duration.
The partial builds seen in the Dominion War might have used those figures but for every 10 crewmen you'd need a couple of support staff at least.
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posted
The Intrepid has a hair under three times the volume of the TOS Constitution Class, compared to the Galaxy's 27.6 times that volume.
The Galaxy Class has 9.3 times the volume of the Intrepid Class. Subtracting the Galaxy's nacelles (which are especially large compared to the Intrepid's itty-bitty nacelles), the difference drops to 8.4 times.
Given an Intrepid crew complement of 150, we could wonder why the Galaxy doesn't have a crew of 1,260. Alternately, we could take the 1,012 persons aboard the Enterprise-D, assume that perhaps 70% are crew, and then wonder why the Intrepid has more than 84 crewmen.
Personally, I'd imagine that the Galaxy has more automation and more unused or mission-specific space (such as was noted by Troi in "Liaisons"[TNG] regarding the unfinished deck eight), and with the latter removed the complement/volume ratio would fall closer to the Intrepid baseline.
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posted
One could also wonder whether there is such a thing as a complement/volume ratio. Perhaps the number of people needed to operate a starship is pretty much fixed, and independent of ship size - X people to man the power systems, Y to handle a fixed selection of C3I tasks, so forth. The only variable tied to volume would be the number of janitors needed.
posted
Riker: "The ship cleans itself." -"Up the Long Ladder"[TNG2]
Having the exact same number of people wouldn't make much sense on ships of different size. Just in raw man-hours, the increased length of plasma conduits or number of replicators or all the other things that need maintenance on the bigger ship would overwhelm the smaller crew of the smaller ship.
That said, though, there doesn't seem to be a linear complement/volume ratio. Just looking at the 50 people on the Defiant in addition to the Galaxy/Intrepid issue shows that.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Well, that's close enough -- 120/1.6=75. Which pictures were you looking at, Topher? When I checked out Bernd's pictures, I didn't see that many...
As for the Galaxy-class ships, I think it's obvious that a bunch of the people there could be considered "crew" yet are still specialists. After all, Keiko O'Brien was working in the arboretum, for example. I'm sure that every adult civilian aboard the ship would've had some sort of job or another. And as for the kids, somehow I doubt there'd have been more than fifty or sixty of them, even on a ship that size.
Recalling what I've seen of the Enterprise-D's blueprints, there is a HECKUVA lot of empty space on that ship -- the main shuttlebay, the multiple cargo bays, the holodecks, the cetacean tanks, not to mention the extra-large deuterium tank. I think that there's definitely an oversize factor working in favor of the E-D having a smaller crew proportional to total internal volume.
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There are 7 along each side of the saucer just inboard of the phaser strips (14). Inboard of the sixth one back on each side is another (16). And there are 4 directly behind the bridge (20).
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posted
I'd've probably gotten the right number of pods counted if I'd had the time and money to buy the Federation Models kit, too... Oh well.
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posted
It's a Starcraft kit! Federation models just sells it. Get it right, damn you all!
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-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
Haw! The Equinox has twenty. Guess that solves it rather conclusively - and continues to prove Rick's the go-to guy when it comes to putting lots of forethought into his designs. Go Team Sternbach! Though it'd still be annoying that anyone in the secondary hull would have to clamber up several decks to get to the escape pods...
As for kids on the Enterprise-D, the season one episode "When the Bough Breaks" kidnapped "all the children, with Wesley at 14 being the oldest - this was ten kids tops, I believe. Later episodes suggest that the kid complement increased to a dozen or so ("Hero Worship", "Rascals" et. al.) but tended to fluctuate depending on the plot. Seeing as how kids could leave the nest as early as fourteen to Starfleet Academy and presumably other pursuits, it stands to reason that the number of actual children on the massive GCSes were probably a minimum.
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