Why Star Trek is Unrealistic

Star Trek is fiction. I realize that. I can accept all the crazy science fiction lingo, technology, alien species, etc. but I find it hard to get over the fact that, in the future, the military has lost its mind. Star Trek’s portrayal of Starfleet makes me wonder how they would ever function in a real-world scenario. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the original Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: Voyager, or Enterprise. At any given period in the Star Trek timeline they practice some pretty crappy military protocols. What do I mean by that?

In the real military a ship’s Captain would be the last person to go on an “away mission” or “landing party” and surely wouldn’t be the guy to volunteer to test an antidote on himself nor would he be the first man in while clearing or exploring a building (as if he’d even be on that mission in the first place). I’m afraid that those who’ve never had experience with the military would assume that it’s commonplace for an officer to be in such scenarios while the enlisted men sit back and flip switches at the operations center or something.

That is totally not how it works. Officers aren’t as dispensable as the enlisted and unless an IED (improvised explosive device) blows up the convoy or an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) shoots down a helicopter or something, you’re not likely to hear of an officer being killed or seriously wounded. The more likely scenario is that the officers are the ones flipping switches on the bridge. Meanwhile a party of enlisted men, mostly the lower ranking types with some NCOs (Non-commissioned Officers) in leadership positions thrown in and one low ranking officer in charge of the whole thing, are the ones carrying out the away mission. This makes sense because, should something go wrong, all the high ranking officers are still alive and well and capable of making those all-so-important command decisions.

So, Captain Kirk beaming down to lead an away mission along with his first officer, senior medical officer, chief engineer, and chief communications officer is not a likely real-world scenario even if we someday manage to invent warp drive and discover other inhabited planets. But I realize this works theatrically because no one really wants to see a show that consists almost entirely of redshirts getting all the action every episode while Captain Kirk sits on the bridge and signs paperwork.

In the Star Trek universe it’s taken for granted that Captain Picard will serve on the bridge of the Enterprise for all eternity or as long as he damn well pleases. If they try to promote him, transfer him, early retire him, etc. he just has to say “No thanks, I like it here” and Starfleet Command just says “ok” and leaves him alone. That is absurd. In the military you’re lucky if you serve at the same duty station for a few years in a row. They move you where they want you and deploy you whenever they want to and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it (unless you happen to be an extremely high ranking officer that knows the right folks). Serving on the same ship for the entirety of your career is tantamount to career suicide. You want to get promoted? Great! You served your time, did some good soldierly stuff, and didn’t make any major mistakes so we’ll just transfer you to this other ship because they need a [insert rank or duty position here] over there.

There are a variety of reasons that there needs to be some turnover in a crew. Sure, you may love each other to death but how is anyone else supposed to get the opportunity to serve on that ship if your crew refuses to leave? Following a particularly long or dangerous mission (deployment) they would ordinarily take that time to move some people around. After all, some people go away for additional training opportunities, some get promotions and therefore transfers, some retire or quit…you get my point. All those poor guys sitting at desk jobs at Starfleet headquarters or that solitary research lab on that distant moon all need to be rotated through Starship duty at some point too. But, because we as viewers like to see the same group of people interacting throughout the entire run of the show we are falsely told that officers can get promoted and just stay right where they are…for years and years.

In the Star Trek universe whenever someone is seriously injured, whether they be an officer or crewmember, they are healed by the all-knowing doctor and told to take a vacation, a few days off, or just do light duty for a while. Then they go back to work at the same job and it’s all good. The problem with that is that a Starship like the Enterprise goes out on possibly dangerous missions all the time and many times there’s no telling when they’ll be back on Earth or even at a Star-base. In that type of scenario seriously wounded personnel would be transferred out as soon as the opportunity arose. They’d likely have to undergo some sort of extensive procedure and long-term recovery no matter how far advanced the medicine is. After all, many combat injuries aren’t just physical but psychological as well. Yes, I realize the Enterprise D had Counselor Troi. Are you really expecting me to believe that one psychologist can attend to the needs of over a 1,000 crewmembers particularly following a combat situation where there were likely several injuries? I’m not buying it.

Captain Picard being assimilated by the Borg is a case in point. Even after he had been returned to his human self there’s no way Starfleet would have allowed him to continue commanding. It would be off to some facility back in San Francisco where he could recover, be analyzed, and maybe do some light desk work to make him still feel semi-important. Sad, I know, but much more likely. But, who wants to see an episode like that?

There are many more problems I could point out about Starfleet. I realize in reading back over this though that reality would make crappy television. It wouldn’t make for good viewing if, just when you get emotionally invested in a character, he gets promoted and/or transferred to some other ship. Nor would we want to see a cast of redshirts because let’s face it, viewers are snobs who prefer watching Captains and Commanders knocking down doors and shooting up the place. And, no one wants to see a serious injury ruin a guy’s career or send it off in an entirely new direction. So, bring on the willing suspension of disbelief. It sounds like the better alternative.