#It's probably wrong to use that tag but then again I feel like that will be the only that they'll meet up lol

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

STAR TREK DIALOGUE ANALYSIS OVERVIEW

oh boy so i mentioned this project awhile back and after a long hiatus i'm finally done! (the irony that i wrote this and then took a second equally long hiatus but the point stands.)

i went through transcripts for TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise (thanks to chakoteya.net for those!) and calculated how many lines each main character has in each episode (and season & show as a whole), calculated means, looked at who had a lot of high & low line count episodes, made some graphs, and did some analysis on gender and race.

you can find my whole process & results on a spreadsheet here (it's a little messy. i'm sorry. if someone pays me i'll make it look nice and actually learn how to make good graphs in Google Sheets.) and i'll walk through some Big Results & reactions on this post here under a cut. just so this doesn't get too long, i'll breakdown each show, post my gender & race analysis, and a big list of every character with how much of a focus they get on separate posts. they'll all be tagged as "star trek dialogue analysis".

but first just a disclaimer – i do have professional experience doing data analysis but this is by no means a professional analysis and i'm sure there are plenty of mistakes because this was initially a small personal project that snowballed a little bit. if there are any Major Things you see that are wrong (i.e. i copy and pasted a totally wrong value somewhere) please reach out and i'll correct it if i can. also if anyone wants to use this data for anything, feel free but tag me because i'm curious!

see also: gender analysis // race analysis // tos breakdown // tng breakdown // ds9 breakdown // voyager breakdown // enterprise breakdown // who's the most/least used character?

all of the following graphs measure mean (average) lines of dialogue per episode, averaging all seasons (that they were a main character) together. please refer to the spreadsheet for more detailed information about exact numbers.

unsurprising results... this is the one Star Trek show that really never aspired to be an ensemble show. i was actually surprised by how few lines Spock and McCoy have in comparison to Kirk

also unsurprising that the two characters of color have the fewest lines per episodes in the 60s

Kirk had BY FAR the most lines of dialogue per episode out of all characters i've measured (115.20)

again unsurprising that Picard has more lines by such a wide margin

honestly fairly surprised by how few lines Data had (I thought he'd beat Riker by a decent margin) and was very surprised at how few lines Troi consistently has across the season. like i knew it wasn't many but dang... only 18 lines per episode on average.

and here we can see that ds9 really embraces being an ensemble show with everyone (sans Sisko, Ezri, & Jake) having around the same number of lines on average, probably the most equal overall of any Star Trek show.

Sisko obviously has the most lines as the lead and Jake the fewest because of irl work restrictions (and less kid-centric stories).

i was surprised with how many lines Ezri had but then again her entire character was compressed into a single season so it seems fair. (interestingly, Ezri has the most lines out of anyone in s7 (996), even beating Sisko (874))

despite having the most lines in DS9, Sisko has by far the least out of any main character/Captain of the shows i've measured.

Janeway has the highest average line count out of any 90s character and third highest of any character i measured (69.51)

and again, with the exception of Janeway, we see that Voyager tends to be more ensemble focused than TNG which surprised me a bit given how later seasons are often criticized for ignoring a lot of characters but i think the very ensemble heavy early seasons balance things out.

the characters also generally seem to have more lines on average than either TNG or DS9.

and oof... yeah Voyager was it for the ensemble style show

Archer has the second highest average line count (86.68) for the whole study after Kirk (115.20)

apparently the inception of Enterprise was to recreate the TOS style triumvirate and for better or worse they certainly did.

some overall fun stats –

there are 162,455 total lines of dialogue spoken by the main cast from TOS to Enterprise

somehow there's only a ten line difference between the amount of dialogue spoken in TNG (43,148) and DS9 (43,158)

the 5 characters with the most dialogue per episode in Berman era Trek: Archer (86.68), Janeway (69.51), Picard (69.37), Sisko (50.72), & Tucker (46.03). notably only one woman and one character of color (more on this in a gender & race analysis post)

not including kids, the 5 characters with the least dialogue in Berman era Trek are: Mayweather (13.39), Sato (15.99), Troi (18.11), Kes (18.18), & Neelix (19.68). notably including three women and two characters of color (again, more on this in a different post)

the character who has the most dialogue in a single length episode is Quark with 189 lines in Who Mourns For Morn?

[ardentpoop]

you know wincestiel threesome would’ve fixed cas btw. the only thing that could’ve done it.

[ganondoodle]

i often really do feel like an .. unwanted part of the fandom, i dont draw beautiful landscapes, i have unpopular but strong opinions im constantly annoying about and rarely change, dont like/dont draw the pretty young popular twinks and hot gurls to fanboi over nor do i turn characters into one, the opposite moreso, draw only one ship no ones heard of really, got little energy to interact with the few people that are nice to me and send me asks so it probably looks like im ignoring everyone and unfortunately but still rarely get so stressed i get overwhelmed and emotional about pehaps seemingly minor things and spiral almost into a breakdown feeling super embarrassed about it afterwards but the damage is already done and i look like a freak or agressive weirdo

[mementomarx]

New ship dropped along with a couple of doodle requests with Meta Knight.

[mars-ipan]

experiencing any level of joint pain for longer than a day or two has only reinforced my belief that ppl with chronic pain are actually the strongest motherfuckers on the goddamn planet

[melancholic-pigeon]

@vaspider @mistresskabooms @nerdykeppie I'm the one who's being weird? Me? really? You are absolutely sure you're not the asshole in this situation? You're ABSOLUTELY SURE this was a justified response to my polite confusion?

Wow. I really misread you.

[scn-thedog]

i'm literally passing down now like forr eal i'm sos sleep y but . let me tell you. i think about this specific vibe of tvtwist so often. they're not at each other's throats but they're like .. still suepr toxic just casually. like tv goes to whine about lock being gone because he is working to twisty (she has no friends totalk to) and he's like "if you don't shut up i might actually kill you" .like i actually think so much about them just hanging out AND IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE TO CANON THEY NEVER HANG OUT. if they actually did twisty would lose all interest for tv (she is such a massive loser it'll give them second hand embarassment) like oj my god she makes him look like less of a weirdo freak. thats it

[obeymeow]

nightbringer lesson 14 FUCKED ME UP in several ways but primarily I've spent the last 48 hours making myself sad over the solomon backstory we got. specifically I have, for no reason, latched onto that one chapter in the Kids event where baby solomon cried because he felt so guilty over being responsible for that spell. and that just feels a touch more depressing in context

[milfbrainrot]

i feel like i type so much more than is reasonable when i do talk to people but i also don't get to socialize a ton so i just have soooo many words in me and if i'm like, tired or short on time, it is so much harder to restrain to the already-pushing-it point i can sometimes manage ;-;

[arrietty-rune]

Sometimes i feel useless and annoying

[altruistic-meme]

do i dare write the post looking at and trying to explain Queen Kristina's behavior? probably. i swear im trying to be less annoying about it but also like. i do what I want.

[valodia]

Real thing somebody said IRL today "the christmas tree in itself is from pagan culture so it doesnt count as religious"

[kalashtars]

[medicinemane]

Never think that I've stopped talking about Ukraine or that I've forgotten

I follow things every day, every day hoping for some kind of miracle that means the fighting is over, russia will leave every inch of Ukrainian soil, no more bombings... but... I know it's probably some time off... I'm not stupid, I just hope people can stop dying

I follow it every day, hear all the horrible news, keep up to date with things like the Kursk counteroffensive where Ukraine has taken a great deal of russian territory (which shows russia has no red lines)

I just don't share most of what I see on here because I don't want people to get fatigued... there's so many horrible things going on in the world, I don't want to burn people out

I'd rather someone be active and able to do a little than having to just turn off and disengage with everything to avoid losing it

All I ask is that you support Ukraine, they're just trying to exist. Just trying to live normal lives. I just hope you can support the "no civilians deserve to be bombed" platform, and say they don't deserve to be bombed by russia

If you've ever got any questions, it's not like I'm an expert, it's not like I'm living it, but I do follow things every day and it often seems like I know stuff other westerners haven't hear about... so ask away

Anyway, just never think that just cause it's been a bit since I mentioned Ukraine that they're not still on my mind

You hear less for your sake, but I keep coming back every day, and even I don't remotely see the true scale and horror of it, only snippets of... photos, videos, stories people share online

[arlathen]

the brainrot has gotten deep enough that i now have professors solavellan modern au on the mind again.

[skywalker-swift]

omg i completely forgot about a friend's birthday who i am not really even close too anymore and kinda don't really like, and you know what, that feels like healing in a way