Voyager's Crew Complement

by Jan Herfort and Bernd Schneider

Casualty ListCrew Count Development Number of People and NamesRelated Issues

 

The original crew complement of Voyager is 141, as stated by Lieutenant Stadi. Several of the crew die when the ship is pulled into the Delta Quadrant in the pilot episode "Caretaker", and an unknown number of Maquis join the ship on its long journey back to the Alpha Quadrant. Several more members of the combined crew die, especially in the first three seasons, whereas no one joins the crew during this time.

In some later episodes we are given explicit figures for the current crew count, but these don't seem to correspond with the death toll among the crew. In a few cases the stated crew complement even goes up although it should be down by at least the number of deaths that we could witness on screen or that were mentioned.

In the following we will investigate the question how many people died during Voyager's seven-year journey, we will outline the development of the crew count over time and we will try to find out whether the number of seen crew members is sufficiently low and whether it matches the number of known names. We will also have a look at some related, more specific questions.

 

Casualty List

In order to assess the development of Voyager's crew complement it is important to compile a list of casualties among Voyager's crew. A complete list of casualties or an exact figure is not available though. But based on the deaths that were seen or mentioned on screen and on an excerpt from a list of casualties that Seven views in "Imperfection" we can nail down a lower limit for the casualties.

Assumptions

List of crew members that die on screen or are mentioned to have died

Color Rank and name Position Sex and race Image Cause of Death Episode
  Lieutenant Commander Cavit First officer Male human Killed when Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant
  • "We've managed to find a replacement for the transporter chief, but we still need an astrogation plotter, a chief engineer, medical support personnel." (Janeway in "Parallax")
  • "We lost over a dozen crew members." (Kim in "Nightingale")
"Caretaker"
  Lieutenant Stadi Conn officer Female Betazoid
  Unnamed lieutenant commander Chief medical officer Male human
  Unnamed crew member Nurse Female Vulcan
  Unnamed crew member Unknown Male human
  >8 crew members (13 according to our chronology) Chief engineer, transporter chief, astrogation plotter, and possibly more ("Parallax") Unknown
  Lieutenant Peter Durst Security officer Male human Murdered by Vidiian scientist Sulan "Faces"
  2 crew members Unknown Unknown Killed in Kazon attack "Alliances" (retroactively)
  Crewman Kurt Bendera Engineer (ex-Maquis) Male human Killed in Kazon attack "Alliances"
  Crewman Frank Darwin Engineer Male human Killed by Lon Suder "Meld"
  Crewman Michael Jonas Engineer (ex-Maquis) Male human Killed by plasma stream "Investigations"
  Ensign Bennet Shuttle pilot Male human Killed in shuttle crash "Innocence"
  Unnamed crew member Unknown Unknown Killed in bomb explosion as Tierna commits suicide "Basics I"
  Unnamed crew member Bridge officer Female human Killed by invading Kazon
  Ensign Hogan Engineer (ex-Maquis) Male human Killed by Hanonian land eel "Basics II"
  Unnamed crew member Unknown Male human
  Crewman Lon Suder Inactive (ex-Maquis) Male Betazoid Killed during the retaking of Voyager
  Unnamed crew member Unknown Male human Killed by invading Swarm species "The Swarm"
  Ensign Martin Transporter operator Male human Killed by Tieran while in possession of Kes "Warlord"
  Ensign Marie Kaplan Shuttle pilot Female human Killed by former Borg drones "Unity"
  Ensign Ahni Jetal Shuttle pilot Female human Killed by unidentified alien species "Latent Image" (retroactively from season 5)
  Unnamed Crewman Unknown Female human Murdered by Srivani scientists "Scientific Method"
  Ensign Lyndsay Ballard Engineer Female human Killed by the Hirogen; later revived by the Kobali "Ashes to Ashes" (retroactively from season 6)
  Unnamed crew member Unknown Unknown Killed by the Hirogen "The Killing Game"
  3 crew members Unknown Unknown Killed in Kyrian attack "Living Witness"
  Unnamed ensign Unknown Male human Killed by subnucleonic radiation "One"
  3 crew members Unknown Unknown Killed by nucleogenic lifeforms "Equinox"
  Lieutenant Joe Carey Assistant chief engineer Male human Killed by the Uxali Verin "Friendship One"

Observations in the list of seen or mentioned deaths

Casualty list in "Imperfection"

Seven of Nine views a list of casualties in "Imperfection". We don't see the whole list but we can make out the following names (in this order):

Observations in the casualty list 

 

Crew Count Development

We now attempt to outline a development of the crew complement over time that takes into account as much evidence as possible: the known deaths and departures, the new arrivals, crew sizes mentioned on screen and other facts.

Assumptions

List of crew members over time

Season Episode Stardate Crew Changes Name(s) Mentioned Comments
Dead Gone New
1 "Caretaker" 48315.6

141

18   40 18 dead; Maquis, Tuvok, Paris, Kes, Neelix join 141 "We lost over a dozen crew members." (Kim in "Nightingale"). Assumption: 141 original crew as stated by Stadi -18 dead +36 Maquis +Tuvok +Paris +Kes +Neelix. The Maquis crew is based on the statements in "Repression" (see below). In "Shattered", on the other hand, Janeway says the ship started off with a crew of 153. It seems possible that 12 additional people (already including Paris) were aboard during the mission in the Badlands, and as many as 153-19+39=173 at the end of "Caretaker". But it would be hard to reconcile with later, much lower numbers.
"State of Flux" 48658.2

163

  1   Seska defects   Seska is still listed as "defected" at this point. She will die in "Basics II".
"Faces" 48784.2

162

1     Durst is murdered    
2 "The 37's" 48975.1

161

        152 Janeway claims there are 152 men and women on the ship. She may have mixed it up with 162 (perhaps including the Doctor). At this point it is still possible that more crew members died or left in the first season than seen or mentioned on screen. But if this were so, it would be a total mystery why the crew would shtrink by far less than the definite deaths: 152-14+Naomi=139, crew in mid-season 3: 148.
"Cold Fire" unknown

161

        150 Kes says there are 150 people aboard. This may be rounded off.
"Alliances" 49337.4

161

3     Bendera killed +2 in previous Kazon attacks    
"Meld" unknown

158

1     Darwin is murdered    
"Investigations" 49485.2

157

1     Jonas is killed    
"Deadlock" 49548.7

156

    1 Naomi Wildman is born    
"Innocence" 49578.2

157

1     Bennet dies in shuttle crash    
"Basics I" unknown

156

2     Unidentified deaths    
3 "Basics II" 50032.7

154

3     Hogan, Suder +1 killed    
"The Swarm" 50252.3

151

1     Unidentified death    
"Warlord" 50348.1

150

1     Martin is killed    
"Blood Fever" 50537.2

149

        73 male Vorik says there are 73 male crew members, which is incredible as a clear majority seen on screen is male.
"Unity" 50614.2

149

1     Mary Kaplan is killed    
"Distant Origin" unknown

148

        148 The Voth scan Voyager and detect 148 lifeforms (without EMH).
"Displaced" 50912.4

148

        148 148 lifeforms are transferred to the habitat (without EMH).
"Latent Image" (retroactively from season 5) 50979

148

1     Ahni Jetal is killed    
4 "Scorpion II" 51003.7

147

    1 Seven joins crew    
"The Gift" unknown

148

  1   Kes leaves    
"Scientific Method" 51244.3

147

1     Unidentified death    
"Ashes to Ashes" (retroactively from season 6) 51563

146

1     Lyndsay Ballard is killed and revived by aliens   At this time Ballard is presumed dead. Even after her temporary return to Voyager she continues to be listed as KIA, as seen in "Imperfection".
"The Killing Game" 51715.2

145

1     Unidentified death   Another crewman was about to die when the Doctor was deactivated in "The Killing Game II". We assume that he survived nonetheless, and that no one else was killed despite the ongoing cruelties.
"Living Witness" unknown

144

      3 dead   This only happens in a historical reconstruction. It is the supposedly correct one but still not completely reliable.
"One" 51929.3

144

1     Unidentified death    
5 "In the Flesh" 52136.4

143

        127 Janeway has the Doctor examine the whole crew for possible Species 8472 infiltrators. The next scene shows how the Doctor scans Chakotay, while several crew members are waiting in sickbay. The Doctor confirms that Tuvok (not seen) is a true Vulcan and says, "Two down, 125 to go." This would give us a crew of just 127. Well, perhaps that number doesn't include 16 people of whom recent medical data is already available?
"Timeless" unknown

143

        151 150 who reportedly died in the crash plus Harry and Chakotay and minus the Doctor would give us 151. But the actual figure of casualties (141) may have been rounded up to 150.
"Bride of Chaotica!" unknown

143

        150 Neelix mentions "four functioning lavatories for a ship of 150 people", which is clearly a rounded figure.
"Gravity" 52438.9

143

        152 Tuvok mentions 152 people on Voyager. This neither correlates with earlier nor with later figures and has to be rated as an error. 
"Dark Frontier" 52619.2

143

        143 The Borg scan Voyager and detect 143 lifeforms (without EMH).
"Someone to Watch Over Me" 52647

143

        145 Neelix tells the ambassador the crew consists of 146 people. Minus the Doctor we'd still have 145 people. Perhaps he refers to a 1 year old crew manifest?
6 "Equinox" unknown

143

3   5 3 dead; Gilmore, Lessing +3 more from the Equinox join   Betazoid Jarot has to be among the casualties, because she won't be available any more in "Dragon's Teeth".
Between "Equinox II" & "Imperfection" (retroactively from season 7) unknown

145

1     Lang dies   Crewman Lang is alive at the end of "Equinox II". He dies somehow between "Equinox II" and "Imperfection" (where his name is on the casualty list), not seen in an episode.
"Collective" unknown

144

    4 Borg children come aboard   One infant girl was brought aboard too but never mentioned again. It appears she did not survive.
7 "Imperfection" 54058.6

148

  3   Mezoti, Azan, Rebi leave    
"Repression" 54090.4

145

        31 Maquis At a time when we know that the mutineers comprise nine former Maquis (including Tuvok as the attacker), Chakotay says: "There are still 23 of our former comrades who aren't with us yet." This is a reference to 31 Maquis on the ship (or 32 if we count in Tuvok). In addition, Chell says: "Ever since Voyager began sending data streams back home, Starfleet has known that almost a quarter of the crew is Maquis." That would refer to the transmission in "Message in a Bottle". "Almost a quarter" implies 30 Maquis (of 145) at the very least. This complies with the 31 remaining Maquis according to Chakotay. So Chell may have exaggerated a bit. He may be correct, however, in one regard. From "Message in a Bottle" to "Repression" the crew count remains almost constant, and none of the new casualties may be Maquis, so the statement still holds true for the time of "Repression". We know of at least 5 Maquis who died or left (Seska, Bendera, Jonas, Hogan, Suder). Perhaps one or two more are among the unnamed dead, but we have to keep the original number low. So there were 36 Maquis who joined the ship in "Caretaker".
"Lineage" 54452.6

145

        140 humans B'Elanna mentions 140 humans aboard the ship. There are considerably more than only five aliens on the ship, even in the unlikely case that B'Elanna counts Seven, Naomi and herself as human: Neelix, Tuvok, Vorik, Tabor, Tal, Icheb, Chell and Golwat are alive at the time of the episode, plus an unnamed Vulcan woman seen in "Repression" and Gerron (the latter never appears again but should still be alive). B'Elanna must have rounded up the number of human crew members.
"Workforce" 54584.3

145

        141 Seven says that Tuvok, B'Elanna and 136 more, obviously the abducted crew of Voyager, were acquired for work in the power plant on the same day. Plus Chakotay, Kim and Neelix, who are still free, we get a crew count of 141. The 136 likely don't include Naomi. It is well possible that three more crew members were abducted but started working elsewhere or on another day, or the brainwashing didn't work on them.
"Author, Author" 54732.3

145

        145 Neelix has 146 numbered chips for calling Earth in his hands. Although not everyone has friends or relatives on Earth, it appears that for the sake of fairness everyone, including the Doctor, received exactly one chip.
"Friendship One" 54775.4

145

1     Carey is killed    
"Homestead" 54868.6

144

  1   Neelix leaves    
"Endgame" 54973.4

143

    1 Miral Paris is born    

144
final

43
dead

6
gone

52
new

     

Annotations

 

Number of People and Names

Another possible problem of the series is that either too many different actors and extras may have appeared as crew members, or that too many names of crew members may have been mentioned.

Total number of crew members that were seen or mentioned by name

Category Number Comments
Named and seen, original crew 74 All original crew members (Starfleet + Maquis) that are seen and called by their name, including a few whose face only appears on a display
Additional crew 11 +Naomi +Seven -Kes +5 Equinox crew +4 Borg children +Miral
Named but barely seen 8 Who could easily pass as another seen crew member
Explicitly mentioned in an episode but unseen ca. 60 Mentioned in dialogue or on the clearly legible casualty list in "Imperfection"
Listed only on the crew manifests in "Projections", "Non Sequitur", "Parturition", "The Killing Game", "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" >>100
Unnamed and seen >60 Any identifiable extras in Starfleet uniform

Total seen

142

Total clearly seen

>134

Total names

ca. 134

Annotations and analysis

 

Related Issues

Number of Vulcan crew members

The number of Vulcan crew members on Voyager is subject to vary, and this becomes a problem in a couple of episodes where this number would matter. In "Caretaker" we can see a Vulcan nurse in sickbay, but as already mentioned she is obviously killed when Voyager is pulled into the Delta Quadrant. We have Tuvok, of course, and Ensign Vorik as another series regular, who appears in eight episodes and survives until the end of season 7. So far, so good.

In "Flashback" Tuvok refers to "the other Vulcans on the ship", which implies that there must be at least one more Vulcan in addition to Vorik. But in "Blood Fever", when Vorik enters pon farr, it appears that the two are alone. At least, if a female Vulcan had been among the crew, it may have been considered at one point that she may "help" Vorik. In "Counterpoint" all telepaths have to hide from the Devore, and this concerns Vorik and Tuvok as the only ones of their race. However, in "Repression" there is suddenly a female Vulcan crew member in a red uniform that possibly can't have existed in the two previously mentioned episodes. It remains a mystery where she comes from. There is no good reason why she shouln't have been on board in "Counterpoint". Perhaps she isn't telepathic, perhaps she is actually Romulan, as unlikely as it seems?

Number of Maquis crew members

As already mentioned, the assumption that "almost a quarter of the crew is Maquis" would require 30+ Maquis at the very least among a crew of overall 146, and 35+ at the time of "Caretaker", if we account for the five Maquis who left or died until the fourth season. The more precise reference to 31 Maquis mutineers in "Repression" requires an original figure of at least 36, but only under the assumption that no Maquis died in addition to those explicitly shown or mentioned. Therefore we assume 36 Maquis at the end of "Caretaker" in our reconstructed crew development. We have no clue how many crew members died when the Maquis ship was pulled into the Delta Quadrant (Voyager lost over a dozen after all, 18 in our reconstruction), so in the absolutely best case all of them survived. So an original crew of 37 (36 +Tuvok) on Chakotay's ship seems to be the lower limit. On the other hand, Chakotay's ship is at most 60m long, with perhaps 3 decks, which appears too small for a permanent crew of 37. Perhaps they had additional personnel aboard because they were going to hijack a Cardassian freighter?

Lack of medical staff

It is obvious that the complete medical personnel of Voyager died when the ship was pulled into the Delta Quadrant in "Caretaker". Just after the first activation of the EMH, Paris mentions that the chief medical officer and the nurse were killed. In the following, Lieutenant Paris is assigned to assist the EMH because he studied biochemistry for two semesters ("Parallax"). It appears that no one among the crew is more qualified for the job, although biochemistry is not exactly the same as medicine. Perhaps the medical staff or the staff with medical training consisted of more than the CMO and one nurse, and they were all killed? Janeway speaks of "the entire medical staff" in "Parallax", which sounds like it could be more than two people. It is also clear that if the Maquis ship had a medic, he or she must have died before the end of "Caretaker".

 

See Also

Voyager Episodes index

Voyager Inconsistencies - including the famous shuttlecraft list

Redshirt Deaths in TOS - thorough chronological list of casualties, including "shirt color statistics"

 

Credits

Thanks to Robert Sharpe for compiling a chronology of Voyager's crew complement. Thanks to TrekCore for most of the screen caps and to Memory Alpha for crew information. Special thanks to Jörg Hillebrand for the caps of the Voyager crew manifests.

 


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