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Children

socially undemanding noncombatant playful emotionally backgrounded dependent traditional collectively clustered fearful concerned socially normative developmentally-typical unresponsive to atypical social cues anonymous fearful/avoidant (toward Lal) vulnerable compliant inadvertently exclusionary socially formative passive attentive communal
The children are a diffuse and largely anonymous collective of civilian youngsters who populate the USS Enterprise-D and, later, the pre-warp world of Barkon IV. Aboard the starship, they function as a normative social cohort—developmentally typical, playful, and socially undemanding—against which exceptional beings such as the Bringloidi evacuees or the android child Lal are measured. Their presence anchors the ship's civilian life, clustering in schoolrooms under teachers like Keiko O'Brien during crises, their communal fear and vulnerability highlighting the stakes of Starfleet dangers for non-combatants. In earlier years, a shuttlebus massacre turns these children into a political fulcrum, their collective tragedy shaping institutional conflict. On Barkon IV, a specific group of village students attends lessons under the elder Talur in the town square, learning classical elements in an agrarian society, passive and compliant in a traditional educational setting. Across their appearances, the children remain largely faceless, serving as social mirrors and emotional catalysts rather than individualized characters—an enduring baseline of ordinary humanity within extraordinary circumstances.
11 appearances
Peer socialization / civilian community
Also known as: group of toddlers, toddlers, young children, ship's children, shipboard children, students, shipboard toddlers, the real kids, the children, toddlers (teacher's office), schoolchildren, younger pupils, shuttlebus victims, several N.D. Children, Talur's students, several other children, younger children, sixty children, pair of children, the toddlers, evacuee children, N.D. Children, the other children, Children, victim children, a group of toddlers, village children

Children's Journey

A timeline through the narrative

20 moments

Affiliation

Across the Seasons

How this character reads at season scale

Season 2 · planet

A cohort of normal civilian children residing aboard the USS Enterprise, serving as the peer group and social baseline for newly arrived Bringloidi youngsters. They are not genetically engineered and represent the typical human child population of the ship, used to enforce educational and social norms.