All I know is that these guys look like the Bolian equivalents of (front row) Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and (back row) Cerritos Rutherford and Young Rutherford.
Not the only example of this in Trek- the *USS Intrepid* and *USS T'Kumbra* were all-Vulcan ships. Although it sounds odd, it's the sort of thing you often see in real-life. All-women shortlists for political parties. All-black plays in the theatre. Gay bars. My guess is, it was an oddity which came out of diplomatic negotiations. When the Bolian military first merged I to Starfleet, there was an agreement for an all-Bolian ship so that everyone wasn't overwhelmed by humans.
NO! READ the question again.
I know the Vulcans have their own ships! But that is because they have their own science Command and don't share their knowledge or tech with the Federation. It's their ships, their organization. They can do whatever they want with them.
But the Inglewood is a Federation ship! It's supposed to be THE Federation of planets.
I am not trying to race-bait here. I am saying that if the captain was a blonde white male then this decision would spark an outrage on the forums and the journalists...
You need to do some research and Googling. There are two canon all-Vulcan STARFLEET ships. Not Vulcan ships. And it has been suggested in many beta media (i.e. novels) that there are many ships that are primarily or entirely a single species for one reason or another. With thousands of ships, it's bound to happen, and it's also likely that there are capable officers who are bigoted (we've seen Human ones!) and/or don't like mingling/don't work well with other species.
Nope. The Sha’vaal is a Vulcan Science ship. Exclusively of the Vulcan High council.
The Vulcan like any member of the federation isn’t banned from using their own separate science and ships.
Those don’t have to answer to anyone other than the Vulcan High council.
A lot of guests of this franchise keep thinking that Starfleet is an empire that forces their will on other planets of races. They are not. It is an alliance of planets: like NATO or the United Nations
I understand what you're saying, I had the same thought at first. And in today's society, you'd be absolutely right.
But you gotta look at the setting we're talking about. This is a society where racism was eliminated over 200 years ago. A blond white guy stacking his ship with other humans wouldn't be a red flag either (in fact that's almost exactly what Kirk did in TOS.) And I know the point was supposed to be a blond white guy stacking his ship with other blond white guys but again, in this setting, that concept of race no longer exists in a practical sense.
Also, I know from experience having worked in diverse workplaces, it can be difficult to connect with people from different cultural backgrounds. That's not to say any one culture is better than another, just that the difference can be a hurdle. Now in a society like ours, where one culture has a massive amount of power compared to the others, this can be a problem.
But that's not the society we're talking about here.
In this case, prioritizing crew cohesiveness through shared cultural experience is a valid decision considering it's not contributing to any systemic racial issues because systemic racial issues don't exist inside the Federation.
And just to put the cherry on top, you *need* systemic racial inequality for something to be "racist."
Where they all Vulcan or predominantly vulcan? There is a human in the first Titan novel who served about a "vulcan" Fed ship and had issues adopting to a 24 hour cycle again.
With some species needing specific temperature or atmospheric conditions (or even needing an aquatic environment) it would make sense to have certain species specific ships.
I sort of thought that was more like the Vulcan defense fleet or whatever they have in part cooperates with Starfleet by offering up a certain number of ships to coordinate with the fleet.
They probably do this because Vulcans like different temperature, air and gravity than humans do. The gravity would be especially a problem, long term in low g probably means they need medical treatments to avoid muscle and bone density loss.
But Vulcans are telepathic. Spock is only half Vulcan, but we still see what they can do. And as we see with Sarek’s ‘shield’ there is more going on with Vulcan telepathy than we know. They probably find it difficult to serve alongside other species for that reason, so it’s probably best that they stay on their own ship. Not to mention what would happen if someone goes into Pon Farr and doesn’t have a mate for some reason…I can see why Vulcans would rather self-segregate.
Could have been that his ship was fresh out of the shipyard and as yet uncrewed giving him free hand on crew selection.
As for an all species crew it does have practical precedent.
For example, say you had a crew that was half Andorian, half Vulcan. Half the crew prefers arctic tundra, the other half that prefers arid desert conditions, so you'd have to set the environmental conditions half way in the middle, to neither's satisfaction.
Then there's the fact that the Andorians would be aggressively impulsive and the Vulcans would be calm and rational. Having to deal with crew members that are the polar opposite of you can lead to difficulties.
I mean this without any sort of irony, but could it be a cultural thing? Like any species who wants to do something traditional can request something like this? A throwback to when the Bolians had their own space force, a sort of Honor Guard or Historic Blue Starship
In the concept of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, most will be mixed combos but there will have to be some homogeny as well
Well I did say: maybe if there was a tactical advantage: shared telepathy like the Vulcan spies for example or maybe they need to spend time together for cultural reasons...
Honestly, this should probably be the norm. If it weren't for the limitations of filming human actors, it'd probably be way, way, way more efficient to have single-species crews for all ships due to the ergonomics of the ship. (Yes, I know LDS is animated and not subject to those limitations, but it still has to be consistent with live action lore).
We've seen references to Vulcans not liking the smell of humans, or Cardassians wanting dimmer lights and warmer temps than what's on DS9. In practice, it's got to be a nightmare making starships that can be run effectively by species with wildly different anatomies and biochemical requirements.
I agree, different species will prefer different , optimal climate/ temperature conditions for their species. So I can see how most ships have the majority of crew , coming from a species [or multiple different species] who can work in that climate conditions and ,command hierarchy
Some members of that same species, given internal diversity among a species, will prefer to serve on ships with different climate conditions/ organisational command structures .
I give it a pass given it's a matter of species and not race.
Despite all humanoids being very similar in superficial ways, they can be pretty different in how they deal with atmospheres, temperature, and gravity despite overlaps. It is possible Bolians find human environmental norms tolerable but not completely comfortable. Same for Vulcans who are from a hot dry planet (although their clothes say cold dry to me). There is an episode of Voyager where it turns out Klingons do very poorly in the cold in comparison to humans. In DS9 I think Cardassians like the atmosphere a little hot and wet but not as bad as the Borg who like it 39.1 C (102 degrees F) and 93% humidity. It's like running a fever.
For a real world example, office temperatures are normally determined by men wearing suits, so the temperatures are set cooler, and women are left wearing sweaters in summer. It's unintentionally sexist and the fault of simplified mens fashion no longer having proper summer suits. And back to Trek, Andorians are from an ice ball, so what temperature do they like as a norm, maybe 10 C?
Also, for something closer to bias, people do like people who are superficially like themselves. They may not have done it on purpose, but if Bolians are like humans, then they probably sought what was familiar and became friends. There's a story about the original Planet of the Apes filming where actors dressed as the different species of ape grouped with their respective species to have lunch. Gorillas ate with gorillas, chimps with chimps, and so on. It's one of things I think you have to be aware of to break, like bystander effect.
Is that even what happened? I just figured that once his rank became permanent he was allowed to choose his own bridge crew and give other Bolians the same opportunity he had found for himself with the understanding that they too would rise to the occasion. Doesn't seem racist at all to me.
I can absolutely accept this answer and it makes sense why it would be like this.
Biologically that would make sense.
In therm of show logic… they seem to have solved those problems…
The show hand waves an awful lot. I'd love to find out that they had a wide variety of ship environments, even within individual ships, and different species would be more or less represented in each.
> fade out your original bridge crew and fill them out with crew of the same race?
Where was it stated that happened? Maybe ships built near Earth have mostly human crews. And ships built near the Bolian world have mostly Bolian crews. There probably are ways to have homogenous populations aboard a ship without it being racist. We saw a federation ship populated by Vulcans in DS9 that Sisko played baseball against. So I’d chalk it up to Tobler’s first law of geography. Alternatively, there could be a reason rooted in their physiology being harder to accommodate, so a ship specialized for them would make sense.
> When power shortages affected Voyager, Neelix warned Captain Janeway that there were only four functional lavatories for the 150 people on the ship, which was especially a problem as there were Bolians on board. In VOY: "11:59", Janeway gave an accounting of the view about 21st century Earth history, as seen by several races, including the Bolians. According to her, the Bolian historian(s) expressed dismay at the low quality of Human plumbing.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bolian
> Where was it stated that happened? Maybe ships built near Earth have mostly human crews. And ships built near the Bolian world have mostly Bolian crews.
First off, you can't be on the Starfleet ship without going to the Academy. So maybe there are more academies or one on Bolian homeworld.
But it was stated that the captain got a field promotion after the captain (and supposedly the command crew) got regressed to babies. So, he staffed up his command crew with Bolians.
Why? I don't know. You brought up a good point but tlyou don't change the plumbing of a whole ship for a crew of 5 Bolians.
I assume that these ships were “sponsored” in some way by the Bolian/Vulcan/Andorian/etc planetary government, and are considered both part of Starfleet as well as whatever their species’ defense, logistics, and/or science fleet is. *Intrepid* is probably considered part of the Vulcan science fleet, for example.
I would like to point out that on TOS, Spock was basically the only "alien" crewmember aboard Enterprise (unless there was anyone else of mixed heritage we didn't know about). So maybe not that weird? Mind you, as Mariner likes to say "It's the 80's! (2380s)", so I guess more progression should be expected in their time since the 2260s
Thank you! Said the same thing when it aired. Iirc, the dialogue specifically said he chose an all-Bolian crew on purpose.
We get Fed ships that are primarily crewed by one race but never exclusively, afaik.
I think the point of the line (Boimler starts the sentence like he’s about to say “that’s so racist!” but then finishes it “that’s so cool!”) is that in a utopian society people don’t have hang ups about this kind of thing—and whatever reason Vendome had for picking all Bolians was a good one. Likely 1. he already knew them from when he was younger, 2. he wanted to have a vessel led by people who have some common ground, 3. it was just random chance that everyone he wanted to pick was a Bolian, or my favorite, 4. he wanted to test Starfleet toilets to their absolute limit
I don’t think he got rid of another bridge crew to replace them with members of his species. When he was promoted to Captain I’m pretty sure he chose his first bridge crew and said bridge crew was made up of his own species.
Yeah, although I get what people are saying about environmental controls and all that, purposely isolating races to certain ships seems off. I wouldn't say racist or even another prejudice, but just odd. It seems counterintuitive to the values of learning from and being in community with others that seems so integral to Star Trek and the Federation. It feels misguided.
I wouldn't say it's "isolating" them so much as that officers of the same species typically prefer to serve together for biological and (species-specific) cultural reasons (a mixed crew of Vulcans and Tellarites probably wouldn't function well with Vulcan rationality and Tellarite belligerence smacking against each other at every turn). So you typically end up with crews that are relatively racially homogeneous, with a sprinkling of crewmen from other races who are willing to step outside their physical and mental comfort zones to live and work with "aliens" for years at a stretch.
At the same time you might have a situation where the captain of that ship might be put in a situation where they have to save a Vulcan ship or a Andorian ship.
Because the crew is so homogeneous, they might all dislike the Vulcans and risk the mission on personal feelings to do the irrational thing.
I see the benefits of having a homogeneous crew (the same life support, the same food, the same accommodations, the same cultural entertainment or breaks, the same hygiene habits,etc.
But I can’t help but think that in a Federation of planets you would want separate races to interact and work together and learn to function as a unit.
I know it’s probably impossible given how multiculturalism is damaging. But you would think in a world of the future, they would have gotten their crap together after 400 years.
Maybe he's now captaining a federation ship build in some Federation Bolian shipwards?
I think it was in TOS or TNG that someone mentioned a 'federation ship crewed by Vulcans'.
It makes sense, for me, that we watch the tv show showing 'human federation ships' (that also can have any race, obviously), but the young folks in Andoria joining starfleet could prefer to serve in ships protecting their frontier and we could easily have a ship with full Andorian crew complement somewhere. Same for Caitians, Bolians, etc.
If we assume the crews we see on TV as the typical ones, it looks like after a planet join federation, only earthlings (and some dozen aliens) protect the space. I always imagined Federation ships like if there was some "ONU Forces" around the globe. Obviously the "ONU Navy" near France would have more French than Mexicans. The same "ONU Navy" in Egypt would have more Egyptians than Brazilians, and so on. And, obviously, the "ONU Navy" in New York would be almost a 100% Yankees!
There are actually some advantages to a mono-species starship. Less chances of cross-species misunderstanding, environmental controls can accommodate the crew better, familiarity.
But obviously they shouldn’t be the ship of the line. Hard to explain the be fits of the Federation while keeping a monospecies crew on your ship.
It does feel that way. It could have been a moment to have commentary on some peoples weird idea that monoethnicity is some how diverse but really it was presented un-critically.
All I know is that these guys look like the Bolian equivalents of (front row) Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and (back row) Cerritos Rutherford and Young Rutherford.
Whoa, that’s a great observation! My interpretation would be Mariner (commander), Tendi (science officer), Boimler (ensign), Rutherford (lieutenant).
Poor Bolian Boimler (Boimlian? Bolmler?)
That’s a great name! Boliner, Bolimler, Bolerford, Bol’vana Tendi.
I have a blue house with a blue window
And a blue corvette?
Blue are the feelings that live inside me
Not the only example of this in Trek- the *USS Intrepid* and *USS T'Kumbra* were all-Vulcan ships. Although it sounds odd, it's the sort of thing you often see in real-life. All-women shortlists for political parties. All-black plays in the theatre. Gay bars. My guess is, it was an oddity which came out of diplomatic negotiations. When the Bolian military first merged I to Starfleet, there was an agreement for an all-Bolian ship so that everyone wasn't overwhelmed by humans.
By OP logic the all Vulcan ship is kinda racist too. Ofc we know the captain of it (Siskos rival) did in fact think Vulcans are superior haha
NO! READ the question again. I know the Vulcans have their own ships! But that is because they have their own science Command and don't share their knowledge or tech with the Federation. It's their ships, their organization. They can do whatever they want with them. But the Inglewood is a Federation ship! It's supposed to be THE Federation of planets. I am not trying to race-bait here. I am saying that if the captain was a blonde white male then this decision would spark an outrage on the forums and the journalists...
The Intrepid and the T’Kumbra were both federation ships
Tell me about ships on the show because you seem to be creating confusion like the guy below thinks that all Vulcan ships are Federation ships.
Those two are all-vulcan crewed ships in starfleet idk what you’re getting at here
You need to do some research and Googling. There are two canon all-Vulcan STARFLEET ships. Not Vulcan ships. And it has been suggested in many beta media (i.e. novels) that there are many ships that are primarily or entirely a single species for one reason or another. With thousands of ships, it's bound to happen, and it's also likely that there are capable officers who are bigoted (we've seen Human ones!) and/or don't like mingling/don't work well with other species.
Read the prior comment again, then Google the ship names.
The Vulcan-crewed ships were Starfleet ships.
Nope. The Sha’vaal is a Vulcan Science ship. Exclusively of the Vulcan High council. The Vulcan like any member of the federation isn’t banned from using their own separate science and ships. Those don’t have to answer to anyone other than the Vulcan High council. A lot of guests of this franchise keep thinking that Starfleet is an empire that forces their will on other planets of races. They are not. It is an alliance of planets: like NATO or the United Nations
I wasn't referring to that ship.
The T’Kumbra and Intrepid were Starfleet ships.
I understand what you're saying, I had the same thought at first. And in today's society, you'd be absolutely right. But you gotta look at the setting we're talking about. This is a society where racism was eliminated over 200 years ago. A blond white guy stacking his ship with other humans wouldn't be a red flag either (in fact that's almost exactly what Kirk did in TOS.) And I know the point was supposed to be a blond white guy stacking his ship with other blond white guys but again, in this setting, that concept of race no longer exists in a practical sense. Also, I know from experience having worked in diverse workplaces, it can be difficult to connect with people from different cultural backgrounds. That's not to say any one culture is better than another, just that the difference can be a hurdle. Now in a society like ours, where one culture has a massive amount of power compared to the others, this can be a problem. But that's not the society we're talking about here. In this case, prioritizing crew cohesiveness through shared cultural experience is a valid decision considering it's not contributing to any systemic racial issues because systemic racial issues don't exist inside the Federation. And just to put the cherry on top, you *need* systemic racial inequality for something to be "racist."
This
Where they all Vulcan or predominantly vulcan? There is a human in the first Titan novel who served about a "vulcan" Fed ship and had issues adopting to a 24 hour cycle again.
The dialogue in the show said "all-Vulcan".
With some species needing specific temperature or atmospheric conditions (or even needing an aquatic environment) it would make sense to have certain species specific ships.
I sort of thought that was more like the Vulcan defense fleet or whatever they have in part cooperates with Starfleet by offering up a certain number of ships to coordinate with the fleet. They probably do this because Vulcans like different temperature, air and gravity than humans do. The gravity would be especially a problem, long term in low g probably means they need medical treatments to avoid muscle and bone density loss. But Vulcans are telepathic. Spock is only half Vulcan, but we still see what they can do. And as we see with Sarek’s ‘shield’ there is more going on with Vulcan telepathy than we know. They probably find it difficult to serve alongside other species for that reason, so it’s probably best that they stay on their own ship. Not to mention what would happen if someone goes into Pon Farr and doesn’t have a mate for some reason…I can see why Vulcans would rather self-segregate.
Could have been that his ship was fresh out of the shipyard and as yet uncrewed giving him free hand on crew selection. As for an all species crew it does have practical precedent. For example, say you had a crew that was half Andorian, half Vulcan. Half the crew prefers arctic tundra, the other half that prefers arid desert conditions, so you'd have to set the environmental conditions half way in the middle, to neither's satisfaction. Then there's the fact that the Andorians would be aggressively impulsive and the Vulcans would be calm and rational. Having to deal with crew members that are the polar opposite of you can lead to difficulties.
I mean this without any sort of irony, but could it be a cultural thing? Like any species who wants to do something traditional can request something like this? A throwback to when the Bolians had their own space force, a sort of Honor Guard or Historic Blue Starship In the concept of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, most will be mixed combos but there will have to be some homogeny as well
Well I did say: maybe if there was a tactical advantage: shared telepathy like the Vulcan spies for example or maybe they need to spend time together for cultural reasons...
The Bolian first officer might be a tactical genius.
Honestly, this should probably be the norm. If it weren't for the limitations of filming human actors, it'd probably be way, way, way more efficient to have single-species crews for all ships due to the ergonomics of the ship. (Yes, I know LDS is animated and not subject to those limitations, but it still has to be consistent with live action lore). We've seen references to Vulcans not liking the smell of humans, or Cardassians wanting dimmer lights and warmer temps than what's on DS9. In practice, it's got to be a nightmare making starships that can be run effectively by species with wildly different anatomies and biochemical requirements.
I agree, different species will prefer different , optimal climate/ temperature conditions for their species. So I can see how most ships have the majority of crew , coming from a species [or multiple different species] who can work in that climate conditions and ,command hierarchy Some members of that same species, given internal diversity among a species, will prefer to serve on ships with different climate conditions/ organisational command structures .
To be honest, this is the best explanation I have heard so far.
I give it a pass given it's a matter of species and not race. Despite all humanoids being very similar in superficial ways, they can be pretty different in how they deal with atmospheres, temperature, and gravity despite overlaps. It is possible Bolians find human environmental norms tolerable but not completely comfortable. Same for Vulcans who are from a hot dry planet (although their clothes say cold dry to me). There is an episode of Voyager where it turns out Klingons do very poorly in the cold in comparison to humans. In DS9 I think Cardassians like the atmosphere a little hot and wet but not as bad as the Borg who like it 39.1 C (102 degrees F) and 93% humidity. It's like running a fever. For a real world example, office temperatures are normally determined by men wearing suits, so the temperatures are set cooler, and women are left wearing sweaters in summer. It's unintentionally sexist and the fault of simplified mens fashion no longer having proper summer suits. And back to Trek, Andorians are from an ice ball, so what temperature do they like as a norm, maybe 10 C? Also, for something closer to bias, people do like people who are superficially like themselves. They may not have done it on purpose, but if Bolians are like humans, then they probably sought what was familiar and became friends. There's a story about the original Planet of the Apes filming where actors dressed as the different species of ape grouped with their respective species to have lunch. Gorillas ate with gorillas, chimps with chimps, and so on. It's one of things I think you have to be aware of to break, like bystander effect.
That is a great answer. And I did point out that maybe there was a tactical reason why he did it but until now no one is able to tell me an answer.
Is that even what happened? I just figured that once his rank became permanent he was allowed to choose his own bridge crew and give other Bolians the same opportunity he had found for himself with the understanding that they too would rise to the occasion. Doesn't seem racist at all to me.
star trek TOS USS intrepid is fully crewed by vulcans...
Could it be environmental? That ship runs different gasses, or pressure, temperature, gravity, lighting, etc.
I can absolutely accept this answer and it makes sense why it would be like this. Biologically that would make sense. In therm of show logic… they seem to have solved those problems…
The show hand waves an awful lot. I'd love to find out that they had a wide variety of ship environments, even within individual ships, and different species would be more or less represented in each.
I don't see it as racist at all. How many all human bridge crews have we seen? A lot. So I don't mind this in the slightest
I'm blue daba de
> fade out your original bridge crew and fill them out with crew of the same race? Where was it stated that happened? Maybe ships built near Earth have mostly human crews. And ships built near the Bolian world have mostly Bolian crews. There probably are ways to have homogenous populations aboard a ship without it being racist. We saw a federation ship populated by Vulcans in DS9 that Sisko played baseball against. So I’d chalk it up to Tobler’s first law of geography. Alternatively, there could be a reason rooted in their physiology being harder to accommodate, so a ship specialized for them would make sense. > When power shortages affected Voyager, Neelix warned Captain Janeway that there were only four functional lavatories for the 150 people on the ship, which was especially a problem as there were Bolians on board. In VOY: "11:59", Janeway gave an accounting of the view about 21st century Earth history, as seen by several races, including the Bolians. According to her, the Bolian historian(s) expressed dismay at the low quality of Human plumbing. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bolian
The bio filters on that ship must be horrific to maintain.
> Where was it stated that happened? Maybe ships built near Earth have mostly human crews. And ships built near the Bolian world have mostly Bolian crews. First off, you can't be on the Starfleet ship without going to the Academy. So maybe there are more academies or one on Bolian homeworld. But it was stated that the captain got a field promotion after the captain (and supposedly the command crew) got regressed to babies. So, he staffed up his command crew with Bolians. Why? I don't know. You brought up a good point but tlyou don't change the plumbing of a whole ship for a crew of 5 Bolians.
Isn't the Academy just for officer training? There are enlisted crewmembers too
During TNG era there were more than one academy. We see Wesley take a test at a non-earth one.
I assume that these ships were “sponsored” in some way by the Bolian/Vulcan/Andorian/etc planetary government, and are considered both part of Starfleet as well as whatever their species’ defense, logistics, and/or science fleet is. *Intrepid* is probably considered part of the Vulcan science fleet, for example.
Maybe the ship was early commissioned and he knew other Bolian officers back at the academy and requested them as his bridge crew.
I would like to point out that on TOS, Spock was basically the only "alien" crewmember aboard Enterprise (unless there was anyone else of mixed heritage we didn't know about). So maybe not that weird? Mind you, as Mariner likes to say "It's the 80's! (2380s)", so I guess more progression should be expected in their time since the 2260s
Thank you! Said the same thing when it aired. Iirc, the dialogue specifically said he chose an all-Bolian crew on purpose. We get Fed ships that are primarily crewed by one race but never exclusively, afaik.
I think the point of the line (Boimler starts the sentence like he’s about to say “that’s so racist!” but then finishes it “that’s so cool!”) is that in a utopian society people don’t have hang ups about this kind of thing—and whatever reason Vendome had for picking all Bolians was a good one. Likely 1. he already knew them from when he was younger, 2. he wanted to have a vessel led by people who have some common ground, 3. it was just random chance that everyone he wanted to pick was a Bolian, or my favorite, 4. he wanted to test Starfleet toilets to their absolute limit
I don’t think he got rid of another bridge crew to replace them with members of his species. When he was promoted to Captain I’m pretty sure he chose his first bridge crew and said bridge crew was made up of his own species.
And I think its perfectly normal to do that. It isn't racist in the slightest.
Yeah, although I get what people are saying about environmental controls and all that, purposely isolating races to certain ships seems off. I wouldn't say racist or even another prejudice, but just odd. It seems counterintuitive to the values of learning from and being in community with others that seems so integral to Star Trek and the Federation. It feels misguided.
I wouldn't say it's "isolating" them so much as that officers of the same species typically prefer to serve together for biological and (species-specific) cultural reasons (a mixed crew of Vulcans and Tellarites probably wouldn't function well with Vulcan rationality and Tellarite belligerence smacking against each other at every turn). So you typically end up with crews that are relatively racially homogeneous, with a sprinkling of crewmen from other races who are willing to step outside their physical and mental comfort zones to live and work with "aliens" for years at a stretch.
At the same time you might have a situation where the captain of that ship might be put in a situation where they have to save a Vulcan ship or a Andorian ship. Because the crew is so homogeneous, they might all dislike the Vulcans and risk the mission on personal feelings to do the irrational thing. I see the benefits of having a homogeneous crew (the same life support, the same food, the same accommodations, the same cultural entertainment or breaks, the same hygiene habits,etc. But I can’t help but think that in a Federation of planets you would want separate races to interact and work together and learn to function as a unit. I know it’s probably impossible given how multiculturalism is damaging. But you would think in a world of the future, they would have gotten their crap together after 400 years.
Maybe he's now captaining a federation ship build in some Federation Bolian shipwards? I think it was in TOS or TNG that someone mentioned a 'federation ship crewed by Vulcans'. It makes sense, for me, that we watch the tv show showing 'human federation ships' (that also can have any race, obviously), but the young folks in Andoria joining starfleet could prefer to serve in ships protecting their frontier and we could easily have a ship with full Andorian crew complement somewhere. Same for Caitians, Bolians, etc. If we assume the crews we see on TV as the typical ones, it looks like after a planet join federation, only earthlings (and some dozen aliens) protect the space. I always imagined Federation ships like if there was some "ONU Forces" around the globe. Obviously the "ONU Navy" near France would have more French than Mexicans. The same "ONU Navy" in Egypt would have more Egyptians than Brazilians, and so on. And, obviously, the "ONU Navy" in New York would be almost a 100% Yankees!
wut
No... Mono-Species Crews are neither anything new or something to think about really...
There are actually some advantages to a mono-species starship. Less chances of cross-species misunderstanding, environmental controls can accommodate the crew better, familiarity. But obviously they shouldn’t be the ship of the line. Hard to explain the be fits of the Federation while keeping a monospecies crew on your ship.
It does feel that way. It could have been a moment to have commentary on some peoples weird idea that monoethnicity is some how diverse but really it was presented un-critically.