star trek - What is Starfleet protocol for disposing of an unclaimed body?

In the ST:TNG episode "Heart of Glory", an Enterprise away team rescues three Klingons from a battle-damaged, derelict freighter. One of the Klingons soon dies from his injuries, prompting the two other Klingons and Worf to howl heaven-ward in the Klingon Death Ritual.

This exchange then happens:

Crusher: "Is there any special arrangement you'd like for the body?"

Klingon: "It is only an empty shell now. Please treat it as such."

Crusher nods in agreement and understanding

What would she do with the body?

Answer

For the record we do see a graveyard in TNG's Sub-Rosa, and in DS9's "The Ship" we see Sisko order a funeral detail. However in space burial in the ground is clearly not an option. ST burials in space seem to be based loosely on the Navy's tradition of burials at sea. As Richard mentioned, the space burials we see all involve a body being placed in a torpedo casing, draped with a flag, and launched into space. A few examples:

TOS movies: Spock's funeral (try not to cry) (HT: Richard)

TNG: Ira Graves' funeral (HT to Richard)

Voyager: Lyndsay Ballard died and was 'buried in space' as we find out after the fact.

Voyager: We see this happen at Janeway's funeral in Coda (even though it's not real of course).

DS9: We see Muniz's body in a torpedo casing, although it's not clear what will happen to it - it's possible it will be turned over to his family for burial elsewhere.

Now I have to respectfully disagree here with Richard. Given Crusher's Federation-bred respect for all beings there's no way she's just vaporize the body or even transport it into pure energy, even if the Klingons didn't care. Even if there was no funeral service, I feel like she would still have put the body in a casing and had it beamed into space to be buried there.

Comments

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

Blog

Search This Blog