Should Children Be Allowed On Starships?

by Simon Plumbe

Ever since Star Trek: The Next Generation first aired, fans everywhere have been debating the issue of whether or not children should be on board starships, and whether it really is a safe environment for families.

The first time that we really saw this concept introduced was in Star Trek: The Next Generation when we saw families on board the Enterprise, most notably with Wesley Crusher although there were a number of other families as well. It might have seemed like a logical move with ships out on deep space exploration missions for years at a time and that crewmembers would be more relaxed and more productive if they weren't kept apart from their families for so long, but things aren't that simple.

That is all well and good, but what about the problems associated with Starfleet officers taking their children with them on their latest posting? It could be argued that any parents taking their children with them are basically putting their careers above their family's needs. The dangers of space exploration should never be underestimated, yet this is what many officers seem to do. Enterprise crewmembers faced danger on almost every mission that put the ship in jeopardy, and on a number of occasions, there were direct threats to the children themselves and they were put at unnecessary risk.

Early on in TNG's first season, we saw Wesley facing execution just because he didn't understand the laws on an alien planet. As a result of treaing on a few flowers, he faced death in "Justice". While to many fans, the demise of Wesley would have been considered to be a good thing, he should have never been in the position for it to happen in the first place. Equally, in "When The Bough Breaks", a group of children from the Enterprise were kidnapped. Despite the good intentions of their kidnappers, there was never a need for the opportunity to have been presented at all.

Then we came onto "Q Who?" when the Enterprise first encountered the Borg. During the initial attack, 18 lives were lost in an instant - it was never clarified just what the make-up of these casualties was, but there could have been children amongst these, and if not, quite likely that there would have been children affected through the loss of one or more parents.

In fact, later in the Enterprise's brief history in "The Bonding", Jeremy Aster was left orphaned when his mother was killed on an Away Mission, and there have been countless other situations where children's lives have been put on the line unnecessarily. It is all well and good to say that ships can separate their saucer sections, but not all starships have this capability.

Even so, this does not make any difference to the real dangers of space exploration - during the encounter with the Borg at Wolf 359, the Enterprise attacked the Borg and actually used the saucer section as a separate ship to attack with. One or two shots from the Borg Cube would have killed all of the children on board in one go. And later before the Borg were defeated, even the option of ramming the Borg ship was considered.

Finally, there have been other instances where children have suffered because their parents didn't want to leave them behind. The most notable is Annika Hansen. Taken by her parents on a fact-finding mission about the Borg, her parents were assimilated, followed by Annika herself, and it was only 18 years later when she was rescued by the USS Voyager that she started to regain her humanity.

To be honest, I would say that any Starfleet officers who want to start a family should seriously consider taking up a safer posting either on Earth or at an outpost or station. It's a lot safer than deep space exploration and if anything happened to their children, it is an error of judgement that they could never put right.