Enterprise has a crew of 1000 souls. 1000 / 365, means that on average 2 - 3 people share a birthday.
Plugging this into a birthday calculator, there’s a very high chance at least 7 people share a birthday on the Enterprise. Not only that, but there should only be 24 days in the year when Ten Forward isn’t occupied with a birthday party.
So given that birthday collisions are plentiful, and that birthdays are constantly happening, and that Ten Forward is the only bar in the whole damn ship… my question is: Why does Riker get to celebrate his alone with full fanfare?
Edit: Birthday Math (^you asked for it^)
- The probability that anyone has a birthday on any given day is 1/365 and can be modeled with a Binomial distribution (Yes/No).
Y ~ Binomial(n=1000, p=1/365)
- When the number of samples is large (ship of 1000 people) and the probability is small, you can model repeated Binomial distributions using a Poisson distribution (independently occurring random events at regular intervals kinda) with a mean of 1000/365.
Y ~ Poisson(μ = 2.74)
- The probability mass function (area under the curve) gives you the probability of a value against that distribution, and for Poisson is PMF(Poisson) = e-μ*(μk / k!)
P(Y = K) = PMF(μ, k)(for K exact events, e.g. 10 birthdays)
- So to calculate the probability of 10 birthdays in a year, you do: 365 * e-2.74*(2.7410 / 10!) = 0.155 days (i.e. zero)
The following python snippet gives you these outcomes:
Code
import math
def poisson_pmf(mean, k):
return(math.exp(-mean)*mean**k/math.factorial(k))
def num_days_with_birthdays(num_people, num_birthdays):
return(round(365*poisson_pmf(num_people/365, num_birthdays)))
print("\n".join([
f"{num_days_with_birthdays(1000,x):2d} days with {x:2d} birthdays"
for x in range(0,11)
]))
## For a ship of 1000 people in a 365 day/year cycle
24 days with 0 birthdays
65 days with 1 birthdays
88 days with 2 birthdays
81 days with 3 birthdays
55 days with 4 birthdays
30 days with 5 birthdays
14 days with 6 birthdays
5 days with 7 birthdays
2 days with 8 birthdays
1 days with 9 birthdays
0 days with 10 birthdays
Edit2: In retrospect, Riker could have been one of those 65 people
Edit3: But even then! You don’t necessarily do your birthday on the exact day, but wait until the Friday or Saturday night to celebrate it, which would definitely have collisions. So Riker’s either super special, or an inconsiderate prick. There, solved it
Don’t forget, not everyone on the ship is from earth which means their birthdays might not be celebrated every 365 days (or at all, is it’s not part of their culture).
I would love to come from a planet with 100 days in a year. I’d be like “sorry guys, I’m not at work tomorrow, it’s the second of my three birthdays! I’m 106.”
I would have, but they kept kicking me off the set!
Keep in mind the entire crew doesn’t celebrate everyone’s birthday, and even if they did, they’d probably do the soulless corpo thing and do birthdays once a month.
In any case, its also important to note that ten forward isn’t the only crew lounge.
Second Officers personal log, supplemental. This is the one thousand five hundred fiftieth day since the Enterprise was commissioned. Besides the arrival of Ambassador T’Pel, other events occurring today include four birthdays, two personnel transfers, a celebration of the Hindu Festival of Lights, two chess tournaments, one secondary school play, and four promotions. Overall, an ordinary day.
S4E11, “Data’s Day”
I just realized I’d hate living on a starship
You don’t have to attend all that shit
… why two chess tournaments? How many competitive chess players would warrant a 2nd tournament on the same day?
If I don’t attend it they’ll send me to counseling.
Kids and adults? Vulcans and other? Hopefully they’re not still doing men’s and women’s chess, but I can see some ways to make two tournaments on the same day reasonable
The other chess tournament is Data vs the ship’s computer.
But they told me that everyone becomes a couple in the Navy!
You’re allowed to bring your cat
But you might have to live a career of carrying pads that could have been emailed
But so many people all together gives me the heeby jeebies. And their germ-riddled children….
Don’t worry the germs are magically screened out by the transporter beam unless the plot demands a story relevant sickness to manifest.
AFAIK the ‘official’ blueprints list some 40+ restaurants, bars, and other similar amenities on board. There is also things like the arboretum and holodecks.
For all we know, that’s just a holodeck simulation of Ten Forward.
Not everyone makes a big public spectacle of their birthday. It’s more suspect that the cultural norms remained so similar.
So given that birthday collisions are plentiful, and that birthdays are constantly happening, and that Ten Forward is the only bar in the whole damn ship…
Obvious answer: it’s the main characters’ favourite bar, but it’s not the only bar on the ship.
I wanna see the sleazy bar where only the lowest of decks and drunkest of drunks go.
The best would likely not be on the Enterprise, but rather, Starbase 80.
Supposedly there are 16 holodecks on a Galaxy class ship. Why have your party at a bar when you can have it be anything you want?
Because the bar might serve real alcohol and make the pain go away?
(Just imagine attending Barclay’s holodeck bday bash….)
All the cool kids hang out in 10 Rear with the lower decks crew and the Klingon cover bands
Federation ships mostly observe an Earth cycle of hours, and probably a year too. But birthdays are tied to a person’s home planet, and it’s unlikely most of them are around 365 days. So the frequency is probably skewed depending on who is serving on the ship at the time. Or if they even have such a celebration.
It also skews both ways. If a star date is roughly one Earth day, then an alien might have their “birthday” last three days, or only a third of a day. When do they celebrate?
Also fun to think about is that most starships generally have three shifts and the concept of night. But that’s all based on an Earth day. Humans have a circadian rhythm that matches a 24 hour day. But what if you need 16 hours of sleep as an alien? What if working 4 hours feels like 16 hours?
Then again, most of the world measures their time in “years since Jesus, but a bit off” and the Roman “12 months and weird amount of days each month”, besides a lot of different calendars existing. At least in official terms. So, the Federation and adjacent cultures might as well stick to the official calendaring anyways.
Part of Federational Imperialism, I guess.
That’s such a good point
I only want a piece if it’s cellular peptide flavored
With mint frosting
Why does Riker get to celebrate his alone with full fanfare?
- everyone on the ship probably lives on a 3 shift schedule, that changes the calculations significantly.
- not everyone is a party person and feel the need to have their birthday accompanied by jazz quartet
- lower decks probably do their celebrations in utility closet 7
- using the phrase “something something” is lame, you can do better
I’ve updated the main post text to include birthday math and distributions
Maybe everyone else does, too. The party probably doesn’t last all day.
Well, there’s always the holodeck.
Let me pitch you on this:
It’s a children birthday party on the Enterprise. Ten Forward is a bar and obviously out as a location so they go to the holodeck. A dozen or more children and their parents crammed into the Star Trek equivalent of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza simulation.
And then the safety protocols fail.
Five Nights at Flotter’s.
Why does Riker get to celebrate his alone with full fanfare?
Rank has it’s privileges.
A birthday party doesn’t take all day. And there are other cool spaces one mayuse to celebrate, gardens, various sporting facilities, and not to mention the holodeck.
