Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Going back to the ranks and lack of enlisted the life of an ensign should be horrible. Lots of toilet scrubbing and mopping and turning screws.
The Soviet military was very much like that not because of a lack of enlisted men, but because seargents who are the backbone of the military in the Soviet model are just conscripts with better training becoming insta sarges. So usually the Lt in the Soviet military did the work of the enlisted men, and the enlisted men did menial tasks like holding screwdrivers or mopping floors.
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I think in the utopian Trek that Roddenberry kept trying to bring back into the fold every now and then, the idea of the lower decks wage slave coal shovelers are long gone. Scarcity has been wiped out. Money no-longer exists.
People explore the universe because they have a passion for it and robots and technology (Voyager Holodoc prototypes were all turned into waste disposal units) have taken care of those menial tasks.
Yes, not everybody gets to be part of the elite bridge crew, some people are just lower level scientists like Lt. Picard from Tapestry, but they are still not enlisted potato peelers.