i say yes but unlike the ent-D when i separate the saucer it's for tactical reasons so instead of the civilian crew going to the saucer they go to the star drive as it has a better survive ability rate

Not to mention the fact that the Saucer Section might need about 500 years to get to the nearest habitable system on impulse drive.

Colonists might be the only real civilians on the ship, and they are categorized as passengers.

IRL on Navy ships Chef is a rating called Culinary Specialist (Bartender could fall under this in STO). Counselors exist as the rate Navy Counselor (in the Star Trek Universe Counselor Troi was a Starfleet Officer so they are not civilians) Religious Program Specialist rating also exist IRL, they aid Navy Chaplains who would fall under Counselor or Adviser in STO, Musician is a navy rate that I guess would be equivalent to Entertainer in STO.

We have Diplomats and Advisers who are some kind of Federation Officials. While Civilians they would be expected to be part of a ship's company.

Traders, well if you watch any old Navy movie there is always the crewman who can get anything. So they may or not be actual civilians.

I imagine there is some kind of Civilian Auxiliary to Starfleet. The US Coast Guard has such a unit (basically Civilians who wear the uniform but are not normally armed), another similar group would be the US Merchant Marine. Or they are private contractors of some sort.

I guess a better question would be (borrowing a bit of naval slang) "are there non-useful bodies aboard ships?" So far in STO all the DOFFs do something related to running the ship, and thus could be considered part of the crew.

I know there are some civilians between my doffs, but for some reason i feel more comfortable assuming that most of my unnamed crew are just spare redshirts performing whatever tasks are needed in wartime

Actually other than colonists, the 'civilians' are Star Fleet 'Civil Corps,' so they are not really civilians per se.

Most of the civilians on the Enterprise-D fell into the same category. The real question is families - the Enterprise D was the only ship with people's kids running around under normal circumstances. The Enterprise E didn't show any, and Voyager only had the ones they picked up or were born on board. Crew who had families left them behind, a story point that was occasionally mentioned but mostly ignored despite how many cheap, low effect budget episodes it could make (it could have spared us Threshold!). DS9 had kids, but was a fully featured civilian trade and travel hub, and Jake very rarely went on the Defiant or a runabout, and usually only on missions expected to have no risk.


The writers decided later in TNG that they were sort of over the whole families on starships thing. The USS Yamato pretty well covered the problem with that. A lot of spouses and children died on that ship, and there's something very different about losing a civilian crewman who knew what they were signing on for when he wanted to study Xenowhatchamcallit on a starship, and losing his wife and son who were just there to be with him at the same time.

"Starfleet is not a military," never held water when your ship of peace is so powerfully armed that its mere existence is taken as a threat, sometimes even by your allies. There are very often civilians on military ships serving important roles in the ship's operation, but nobody has their family with them taking up space and resources.

I suspect that it may have once made sense to carry families along for multi-year exploration.

However, once the galaxy proved to be hostile, ships were lost, and there were hostile starships encountered, the legal department would have nixed the idea.

Imagine the liabilities and lawsuits!

I would think in the current game erra civilians can have less armed Civilian ships and not live on Galaxy classes. I remember an old old P.C game that had "Cruise" ships and was armed with only a few phaser strips for defence but it was there for civilians.

I have a Science Alt. that commands a D'kyr. He is on a Deep space exploration assignment. The ship and its crew are part of a jointed venture between the Vulcan Science Directorate and Star Fleet Special Services. The Entire crew is made up of civilians. Except for a dozen or so technicians, and a few members of the Senior staff.