Star Trek and Fraternisation

[watervole]

Star Trek military is loosely based on the US Navy, but there are some major differences.

It's interesting to speculate as to why.

A conversation with a friend sparked off a few thoughts.

The original Star Trek series aired in 1966. I'd wondered (given the lack of fraternisation restrictions in Trek compared with newer shows like Stargate) whether Trek predated women in the US Navy.

Murray did some searching on the US Navy's website, and found a lot of information here:

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq48-1.htm

It appears that women were first recruited in 1908 as nurses, then more were recruited for clerical jobs in 1917, just before the USA entered WWI. They were, however, kept ashore. It was only in 1979 that women were posted aboard ship, and then on ships that would not be in combat. Such postings did not take place until 1994.

Which seems to back up my premise. Women on board ships came long after Classic Trek (so all credit to Gene Rodenberry).

We know relationships were allows in Classic Trek as there's a marriage between two crew members in one episode. (and indeed, with a mixed crew on a five-year mission it really could not be any other way). The more important consideration is relationships between people of different ranks, specifically officers and enlisted men. (And doubly so if they're in the same line of command)

I think being a Stargate fan made me especially aware of the line of command issue. The ongoing 'almost romance' between Carter and O'Neill was frozen for season after season for this reason (and also, because the network knows that UST sells better...).

So, where does this specifically relate to Trek?

Kirk for example, in the Classic series, was wise enough never to have relationships (canonically) with members of his crew. A wise decision and one the US Navy would probably have approved. It's very hard to avoid the appearance of favouritism, it's probably bad for morale and it may well affect the decision as to who to send into a dangerous situation.

See the US Navy on their fraternisation policy. Note that it isn't just sexual relationships that are prohibited, activities like lending money also constitute fraternisation between officers and enlisted man.

So, Kirk is in the clear.  He may still be James 'T for tomcat' Kirk, but he only shags women outside his crew.  He might have gotten away with a relationship with a bridge officer as they're officers, but probably not a very good idea in practise as they're direct line of command.

However, my big issue with the movieis Spock/Uhura.  This is probably a viable relationship when they're both serving on Enterprise, but was totally wrong at Starfleet Academy. The US Navy list of prohibited relationships specifically includes instructor/student, and it's very clear that their relationship was ongoing when she was still a student.  And it's also clear that the relationship did impact on their actions - which is precisely why such relationships are forbidden.  Initially Spock does not assign her to Enterprise in order to avoid the appearance of favouritism - when her standing in the class should have sent her there.  Then, equally badly, Uhura uses their relationship to change Spock's inital decision.

It's a lovely romance, and I actually quite like the relationship between them, but I am very very surprised that Spock, who would be totally familiar with both the regulations and the ethics of such a relationship, would ever have allowed it to happen.
 

Comments

[gaspodex.livejournal.com]

People are flawed - Spock in particular has issues.

This is enough to cover it for. Plus of course we have no idea what sort of regulations exist. Given the current losening of regs in our armed forces there's no reason not to expect the same 300 years hence.

[titti]

In TOS, Kirk tells Spock that there are no regulations about him (Spock) dating a fellow crewman, however, that always felt so very wrong to me. Spock is the First Officer, everyone is in his line of command. He and the captain shouldn't be dating, anyone in there, end of story.

I remember in SG1, the Air Force threatened to pull out their support when the romance storyline came to light, because it would have been a court martial offense and they would not approve it.

I just put Spock/Uhura down as one of those JJ insanity, like the fact that children are running the enterprise.

[megamole.livejournal.com]

Link to US Navy, she b0rked.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Oddly we were watching the 'wedding' episode (Balance of Terror?) the other day and concluded (both from the fact that the Captain of a starship has the authority to conduct marriages, and from the series premise) that Roddenberry owed more to British seafaring practice (and 18C exploratory voyages) than uS miitary naval practice. The presence of women on board British Naval vessels (as wives, family and 'girlfriends' if not as serving officers - and the wives frequently served as nursing and cooking staff) was common throughout British seafaring history.

Or maybe this is another instance where the UK audience for a US show accepts stuff as normal practice which the uS regards as daring.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

This is a very interesting issue. I haven´t thought of TOS for many years - I mean I only read/cosummed the stories but never tried to look at TOS in a similar way. My last "serious" thoughts died some 15 years ago...

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

So, I don't think they were in a romantic relationship prior to the events of the film. Uhura kissing him and comforting him in the 'lift has genuine stakes and something at risk, for me, if she's taking their friendship and taking it to a new place. Not if it's only about revealing an established relationship to the audience.

Plus I don't think either of them would have entered into a relationship while he was her student. I don't think it's quite a power imbalance issue once she's a teaching assistant, but even then... I didn't actually take the "appearence of favourisim" scene to be a sign they were romantically involved. Just that they were very close and he was concerned that any appearence of impropriety would damage her career.

The closest thing I can find re: fraternisation was Archer and Hernandez, who kept their relationship a secret when he was her CO, and actually didn't actually continue it once they were of equal rank until after the Xindi. But it's hard pinning down regs, since the only times we see fraternisation it's eitehr characters of equal rank, or characters not in the same chain of command, and almost never captains ever.

(I had a post in my el jay (http://taraljc.livejournal.com/1330593.html), where people chimed in to help me fuill in canon gaps, after I first saw the film and was working on 'Ad Astra'.)

Star Trek and Fraternisation

[(Anonymous)]

I'm Murray, the friend Judith mentioned she was talking with about the above subject. As she said, I did a little research in terms of women serving with the US Navy, and its present policy on fraternisation. I agree with her about the Spock/Uhura relationship, as well as about the fact that Kirk is 'in the clear' because he 'only shags women outside his crew'. The problem, however, with Kirk only getting involved with attractive female humanoids on strange new worlds is that, due to the lack of cultural awareness, I can see him regularly causing international incidents, if not wars.

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

Hi! Sorry for hopping over but I always like to see with whom I am talking, and finding a few mutual fandoms, I dug a little bit deeper.

I just wanted to say how nice it is to read a positive entry about the new movies for a change. Of course I don't know if your opinion has changed after the second movie, but at a lot of fandom places there is a lot of hate regarding this new timeline and only original Star Trek is considered good Star Trek.

While I am really looking forward to the third next week. It will be actually the first where I will go to the cinema. If someone had told me this one year ago I wouldn't have believed it. Can you believe that I only started to get into Trek fandom one year ago? The new movies made me finally check out the old TOS series. I grew up in Eastern Germany where we didn't have that on our TV screens. I also wasn't much interested in sci-fi anyway, I was more into the Wild West and also Sherlock Holmes.

Then Stargate came along, which I only checked out as I wanted to see what MacGyver was doing these days and which was the first sci-fi series I fell in love with and my first fandom with conventions and fanfictions and everything else.

After it ended I was occupied for years with Torchwood and Doctor Who, and now I am finally exploring the Trek fandom and buying all the action figures I can find.

Somehow I also had managed so far not being aware of Karl Urban, I really only got to know him through these movies and fell in love with him as well.

I'm so lucky to be just in time for the 50th anniversary with all its lovely events! We had William Shatner and Karl Urban among many others here in Germany in May. And Vic Mignogna.

I already converted vjezkova, now I am wondering whether I can convert you as well? ;) Have you heard about "Star Trek Continues"? I have become a huge fan of this. They have rebuilt the original Enterprise studios and are filming "new" old episodes, just in the same way and style and after 5 minutes you don't care anymore that it's not the original actors, as it's all so well done. If you like, check it out here: http://www.startrekcontinues.com/episodes.html

Also nice and quite refreshing that you are showing your face - nice to meet you! Even before looking at your profile, I thought "She looks like an English lady" ;) Here's me - just because I can ;)

(http://s137.photobucket.com/user/DieAstra/media/Fedcon%202016/01%20Karl%20Urban%20600%20x%20401.jpg.html)