GURPS Star Trek - Canon Vulcans

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

It does raise the point though that Starfleet must have an uncommon problem with logistics with all those alien races. It reminds me of the John Company which could not give tobacco to Sikhs, or drink to Muslims and had to change the drill to avoid biting cartridges with proscribed grease. Maybe that's why there are so many humans aboard who speak English...

Yeah, that's always been one of the inherent contradictions in the ST setting, from the very beginning: it doesn't really make sense for significantly different species to serve in the same environment. Only very closely similar ones, like Vulcans and Humans, can reasonably be expected to do so at all (both breathe nitroxy, prefer the same basic temperature ranges and air pressures and so forth, their native gravity is close enough), and even then there are issues.

ST sometimes wanted to use alien species as proxies for different race/ethnicities, which only works if you are willfully not noticing the issue.

In actual practice, even with closely similar species, you'd probably tend to see human ships, Vulcan ships, Andorian ships, etc. At best.