How many people actually celebrate their birthday aboard the Enterprise?
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^*(μ^k^ / 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^*(2.74^10^ / 10!) = 0.155 days (i.e. zero)
The following python snippet gives you these outcomes: ::: spoiler 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)))
souls = 1000
print(*(f"{n:2d} days with {x:2d} birthdays"
for x in range(50)
if (n := num_days_with_birthdays(souls, x))),
sep="\n")
:::
## 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
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
72 replies
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?
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.
The ship can airlock you Data, I’d suggest letting them win.
Normal chess and tri-dimensional chess. The chess purists hold their tournament at the same time as a protest against the abomination.
If I don’t attend it they’ll send me to counseling.
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.
But they told me that everyone becomes a couple in the Navy!
Obvious answer: it's the main characters' favourite bar, but it's not the only bar on the ship.
All the cool kids hang out in 10 Rear with the lower decks crew and the Klingon cover bands
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….)
Don't they serve really low alcohol content drinks on the Enterprise? Been a minute since I watched TNG
it's all synthehol. It can get you drunk, but the effects can be instantly cured via a simple IV or through use of the teleporter.
Unless Gainan likes you. Then she lets you have the good stuff.
The famous Green Aldebron whiskey lol
Don’t tell Word. She only lets him have prune juice
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.
I'm watching through Enterprise for the first time and I just now understood Starbase 80's uniforms!
That's hilarious.
That has to be a storage room with a few tables and a hacked replicator.
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.
That's such a good point
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.
AFAIK the ‘official’ blueprints list some 40+ restaurants, bars, and other similar amenities on board. There is also things like the arboretum and holodecks.
I've updated the main post text to include birthday math and distributions
yet you acknowledged none of the pointers you were given. these 1000 birthdays don't spread over 365 days and ten forward. they spread over 365*3=1095 shifts and multiple establishments on the ship (bars, holodecks, private quarters). and just like that, your problem ceased to exist...
(Christ you're cheerful on a Friday....)
Aren't there still some strings being pulled for Riker's sake to occupy the most popular social square of the ship?
Maybe everyone else does, too. The party probably doesn't last all day.
Guys we forgot to take into account not everyone on the ship was born on earth. We have to figure out the average length of year for the average habitable planet in the federation. Also if they celebrate their birthdays based on when their birthday happens on their home planet then wouldn't traveling at warp greatly speed up the relative birth days per 365 Voyager year? No, actually I'm pretty sure Riker is just an attention seeking smarmy manslut.
Other people have great points, but also the crew work different shifts, so some birthday celebrations would happen while the main characters are sleeping.
Yeah, Id want my party when all the brass is sleeping. Fuck those losers, my party's gonna be lit.
Rank has it's privileges.
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.
For all we know, that's just a holodeck simulation of Ten Forward.
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.
There are likely a lot of crew on the D who don't want the hustle and bustle of Ten Forward, plus with how often it'd get close for a private affair.
Also, I'm sure there are plenty of crew who would rather spend their birthday in their quarters with a couple of friends relaxing and playing games having a smaller more intimate time
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.
Yeah, I'll be spending my birthday on the holodeck, with my harem. I blocked out a double reservation weeks ago.
I'm stealing one if Lt. Broccolis programs
I only want a piece if it’s cellular peptide flavored
With mint frosting
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."
Most of them were cloned anyway.
Not everyone makes a big public spectacle of their birthday. It's more suspect that the cultural norms remained so similar.
I'd also think that not every Ensign and Lt jg get a birthday party in Ten Forward.
While, yes it is likely the biggest and probably most popular social location on the ship, it often does get closed for diplomatic events, at least 1 music recital, and Data's poetry slam.
Wow, these calculations really take the cake
I bet there's a cluster of birthdays roughly nine months after Federation Day. 😉
Also, it is much more likely that the memo to reserve Ten Forward for Riker's birthday made it to Picard in a timely fashion as since one of his friends would be putting this together. As his friends are all Heads of Department, the memo chain is Originator -> XO (Riker) -> CO (Picard).
Cuz he's the boss, and everybody has to kiss the boss's ass.
Picard is the real boss, but everybody knows he'd get all pissy if they tried to throw him a birthday party. He's such a grump.
Ten Forward isn't the only lounge on the ship, just the main fancy one with the staffed bar. There are observation lounges and other, smaller lounges scattered all throughout the ship. Maybe it's just senior officers who get to have birthdays in the cool hangout spot, while others will just throw a party in whatever lounges are closest to their own quarters.
Are you doing regular math or birthday math? Bc there’s some weird equation for birthday math.
I've updated the main post text to include birthday math and distributions
At first glance I thought the trombone of Riker was one of the overly glittering admiral outfits of the early TNG.
That is... technically... accurate, because statistically only 60+ people on the ship have a birthday to themselves and the rest have birthday collisions.
I've updated the main post text to include birthday math and distributions
Most people probably celebrate on the holodeck
I would have, but they kept kicking me off the set!
Please estimate the maximum number of birthdays one day should have
For all we know they select the whole crew of a starship to share the same birthday. So the hangover and downtime is minimized. And only one of the officers gets a cake, as a token to the whole crew. And Riker just wins the lottery every damn time, curious.
I've updated the main post text to include birthday math and distributions