this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
91 points (88.9% liked)
Risa
6896 readers
100 users here now
Star Trek memes and shitposts
Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That's a totally insane explanation, though. Lots of people are on the ship at all times who aren't members of the crew, and that's before you even consider things like hostile boarding parties.
Most of the civilians present on the Enterprise fall into one of three categories:
A non-Starfleet staff member, relative, or passenger, who would already know and respect etiquette regarding ship's comms.
A non-hostile foreign diplomat, envoy, or similar passenger, who doesn't want to potentially cause a diplomatic incident by being rude.
I also recall lots of times where civilians used ship's comms for various purposes, but it was to contact the person directly attending to them, or a friend/relative, not the ship's captain. (It's been years since my last rewatch though so I could be wrong here...)
As for hostile parties, IIRC it's implied that the computer locks them out automatically, and in emergencies the captain can lock down the entire ship, which is how Data hijacked the Enterprise when he went rogue, and why it was such a big deal.