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Yet another artan42 "Starfleet is/isn't a military" tangent
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in Ten Forward
This discussion was created from comments split from: Um. Is Cryptic refusing to use certain main characters if they can't get the actor to do VO?.
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Which makes absolutely no sense, since he's a career enlisted man and damn proud of it. The head of the Corps of Engineers would be an officer.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Doesn't matter. Maintenance chief of a space station is a completely different job and skillset from operational head of an entire department of Starfleet: the one is akin to being an industrial shop foreman, the other is the CEO of the major corporation that owns the shop, employs a workforce of millions and has an operating budget bigger than the GDP of entire countries. It certainly helps to know the skills of the guys at the pointy end, but it's not an enlisted man's skillset or billet, it's a billet that rightly belongs to a 4-star admiral. (I wouldn't be complaining about that if he'd taken a commission, I'd just be complaining that it seemed OOC for O'Brien in particular.)
It would've made perfect sense for O'Brien to have been made Master Chief Petty Officer of Starfleet, but making him head of SCE is flatly stupid. But then so is most of what Cryptic wrote for Starfleet's organization in STO, especially the rank system.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
> somtaawkhar wrote: »
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> starswordc wrote: »
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> Which makes absolutely no sense, since he's a career enlisted man and damn proud of it. The head of the Corps of Engineers would be an officer.
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> https://sto.gamepedia.com/Path_to_2409 Two Starfleet advancements of note: Lieutenant Commander Naomi Wildman was appointed as second officer of the U.S.S. Hathaway, and Miles O'Brien was named head of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, the first time a non-commissioned officer had held that position.
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> "This isn't about rank, it's about talent," said outgoing SCE chief Captain Sonya Gomez. "Miles is the quintessential engineer, and his talent for making the impossible possible makes him the ideal person for this job."
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> Doesn't matter. Maintenance chief of a space station is a completely different job and skillset from operational head of an entire department of Starfleet: the one is akin to being an industrial shop foreman, the other is the CEO of the major corporation that owns the shop, employs a workforce of millions and has an operating budget bigger than the GDP of entire countries. It certainly helps to know the skills of the guys at the pointy end, but it's not an enlisted man's skillset or billet, it's a billet that rightly belongs to a 4-star admiral. (I wouldn't be complaining about that if he'd taken a commission, I'd just be complaining that it seemed OOC for O'Brien in particular.)
>
> It would've made perfect sense for O'Brien to have been made Master Chief Petty Officer of Starfleet, but making him head of SCE is flatly stupid. But then so is most of what Cryptic wrote for Starfleet's organization in STO, especially the rank system.
Welcome to the whole idea of "but Starfleet isn't a military!"
Which I do not subscribe to. It was high forms of lunacy to make Chief O'Brien head of SCE. Maybe the Master Chief of the branch, but not the actual head. Utter bullocks.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
*looks around quickly for artan42*
But see, that isn't even a military versus civilian question, it's a rank-and-file worker versus upper management question, is my point. The two jobs take almost completely different skillsets. (There's a reason they often hire former generals and admirals to run companies IRL: they have experience at running large, complex organizations and operations with a lot of resources [money] on the line.)
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Starfleet is not the US military. Starfleet NCOs can and do things that don't happen in militaries. You can also get promoted from cadet to captain an a few days.
Hey! I'd already started replying. Let me copy and paste.
Starfleet is not the US military. Starfleet NCOs can and do things that don't happen in militaries. You can also get promoted from cadet to captain an a few days. You can also be one of the most competent officers on ship and not get promoted in seven years.
Considering O'Brien is simultaneously a lieutenant and 'not an officer' and wears the rank of a lieutenant, a generic NCO, and a specific petty officer (dunno which type, Americans have far too many PO ranks) any arguments about what he can or can't do based on the US military is utterly meaningless weather you think Starfleet is a military or not (it's not BTW
He spent about 4 years as a high level manager in the Engineering department on a flagship then seven years as effectively a site manager for a frontline Starbase (an alien on at that) and naturally moved on to become CEO of an engineering academy/company. What shiny things he has on his neck are meaningless because he's been assigned the position due to extensive experience in management
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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> starswordc wrote: »
>
> somtaawkhar wrote: »
>
> starswordc wrote: »
>
> Which makes absolutely no sense, since he's a career enlisted man and damn proud of it. The head of the Corps of Engineers would be an officer.
>
>
>
> https://sto.gamepedia.com/Path_to_2409 Two Starfleet advancements of note: Lieutenant Commander Naomi Wildman was appointed as second officer of the U.S.S. Hathaway, and Miles O'Brien was named head of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, the first time a non-commissioned officer had held that position.
>
> "This isn't about rank, it's about talent," said outgoing SCE chief Captain Sonya Gomez. "Miles is the quintessential engineer, and his talent for making the impossible possible makes him the ideal person for this job."
>
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>
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> Doesn't matter. Maintenance chief of a space station is a completely different job and skillset from operational head of an entire department of Starfleet: the one is akin to being an industrial shop foreman, the other is the CEO of the major corporation that owns the shop, employs a workforce of millions and has an operating budget bigger than the GDP of entire countries. It certainly helps to know the skills of the guys at the pointy end, but it's not an enlisted man's skillset or billet, it's a billet that rightly belongs to a 4-star admiral. (I wouldn't be complaining about that if he'd taken a commission, I'd just be complaining that it seemed OOC for O'Brien in particular.)
>
> It would've made perfect sense for O'Brien to have been made Master Chief Petty Officer of Starfleet, but making him head of SCE is flatly stupid. But then so is most of what Cryptic wrote for Starfleet's organization in STO, especially the rank system.
>
>
>
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> Starfleet is not the US military. Starfleet NCOs can and do things that don't happen in militaries. You can also get promoted from cadet to captain an a few days.
> starswordc wrote: »
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> talonxv wrote: »
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> Welcome to the whole idea of "but Starfleet isn't a military!"
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> Which I do not subscribe to. It was high forms of lunacy to make Chief O'Brien head of SCE. Maybe the Master Chief of the branch, but not the actual head. Utter bullocks.
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> *looks around quickly for artan42*
>
> But see, that isn't even a military versus civilian question, it's a rank-and-file worker versus upper management question, is my point. The two jobs take almost completely different skillsets. (There's a reason they often hire former generals and admirals to run companies IRL: they have experience at running large, complex organizations and operations with a lot of resources [money] on the line.)
>
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> Hey! I'd already started replying. Let me copy and paste.
>
> Starfleet is not the US military. Starfleet NCOs can and do things that don't happen in militaries. You can also get promoted from cadet to captain an a few days. You can also be one of the most competent officers on ship and not get promoted in seven years.
>
> Considering O'Brien is simultaneously a lieutenant and 'not an officer' and wears the rank of a lieutenant, a generic NCO, and a specific petty officer (dunno which type, Americans have far too many PO ranks) any arguments about what he can or can't do based on the US military is utterly meaningless weather you think Starfleet is a military or not (it's not BTW
>
> He spent about 4 years as a high level manager in the Engineering department on a flagship then seven years as effectively a site manager for a frontline Starbase (an alien on at that) and naturally moved on to become CEO of an engineering academy/company. What shiny things he has on his neck are meaningless because he's been assigned the position due to extensive experience in management
This is the biggest load of horse dung you've said yet. Let me rip this apart.
Now don't get me wrong. O'Brien is a damn good engineer. But outside of chief of operations and being a transporter chief and a soldier, what other qualifications does O'Brien have?
Has he done a major planetary construction project that SCE does? To our knowledge: No.
Has he ever designed and or built a ship from the ground up? No. And you can't use Defiant, he just fixed what others created as a damn good field engineer does.
Has he ever personally run ANY Federation ship yard. Hell forget an entire yard, has he even personally run a dry dock? NO.
Has he lead any more people besides say a squad level detachment? No.
So what actual qualifications does O'Brien have to actually lead SCE.
The correct answer is ZERO. Now to be the senior enlisted of SCE, a right hand man, he's still a few qualifications short, but that's more where he should be.
Also the supposition that a cadet can go from that to Captain is one of the dumbest things and plot contrivances there is. It's like taking a cadet straight out of Annapolis handing him the keys to an Areligh Burke class DD and saying "she's all yours" which is asninie.
Quite frankly the Standard Federation tutorial is DUMB. And DSC by default. The origional tutorial I did when this game went F2P was better because you were already a line officer and took command when the senior staff was killed, much like the KDF tutorial we have now. And AoY. Though in AoY Captain got promoted and he got to hand pick his successor. And from what I remember of the AoY tutorial, you'd been apart of that ship's crew for a while.
So no your logic is flawed and your evidence is half***ed. But want further proof of why Cadets shouldn't be given command out of the gate?
Go rewatch DS9 episode Valiant. Perfect example of raw skill not tempered by experience. And how it got a Defiant class ship destroyer(which as needed on the front lines) and a badly needed crop of cadets needed graduated on the front lines.
Hell I'll go one step further. You say in Star Fleet you can go from cadet to Captain? Give cadet nog a ship then. Go ahead. Not tempered Captain Nog of Chimera. But Cadet Nog.
Nog himself would call you an idiot.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Should be fun because you're normally realllllly good at logical, well thought out arguments.
Has any character? No.
Has any character? No.
Has any character? No.
Yes. Both the entier Starfleet engineering team on DS9. The Bajoran engineering team on DS9. The Defient's engineering team. I.e. actual teams not squads. In fact it's next to impossible to see where you even came up with the concept O'Brien has never run anything larger than a squad.
I've already gone through them. Do you even read?
Well, no the correct answer is yes as you've not actually debunked any of them. Just asked if he fulfilled some arbitrary criteria you pulled out of your TRIBBLE.
And yet it's canon.
Again, meaningless, it's canon.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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> talonxv wrote: »
>
> This is the biggest load of horse dung you've said yet. Let me rip this apart.
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>
>
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> Should be fun because you're normally realllllly good at logical, well thought out arguments.
> talonxv wrote: »
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> Has he done a major planetary construction project that SCE does? To our knowledge: No.
>
>
>
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> Has any character? No.
> talonxv wrote: »
>
> Has he ever designed and or built a ship from the ground up? No. And you can't use Defiant, he just fixed what others created as a damn good field engineer does.
>
>
>
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> Has any character? No.
> talonxv wrote: »
>
> Has he ever personally run ANY Federation ship yard. Hell forget an entire yard, has he even personally run a dry dock? NO.
>
>
>
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> Has any character? No.
> talonxv wrote: »
>
> Has he lead any more people besides say a squad level detachment? No.
>
>
>
>
> Yes. Both the entier Starfleet engineering team on DS9. The Bajoran engineering team on DS9. The Defient's engineering team. I.e. actual teams not squads. In fact it's next to impossible to see where you even came up with the concept O'Brien has never run anything larger than a squad.
> talonxv wrote: »
>
> So what actual qualifications does O'Brien have to actually lead SCE.
>
>
>
>
> I've already gone through them. Do you even read?
> talonxv wrote: »
>
> The correct answer is ZERO. Now to be the senior enlisted of SCE, a right hand man, he's still a few qualifications short, but that's more where he should be.
>
>
>
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> Well, no the correct answer is yes as you've not actually debunked any of them. Just asked if he fulfilled some arbitrary criteria you pulled out of your ****.
> talonxv wrote: »
>
> Also the supposition that a cadet can go from that to Captain is one of the dumbest things and plot contrivances there is. It's like taking a cadet straight out of Annapolis handing him the keys to an Areligh Burke class DD and saying "she's all yours" which is asninie.
>
>
>
>
> And yet it's canon.
> talonxv wrote: »
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> *Snipped material that means talonxv has not seen 09.*
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> Again, meaningless, it's canon.
Has any character in any show. Yes. SISKO. Last assignment before DS9 Utopia Planetia Yards. So once again try again.
O'Brien is well versed in hardware and decently and has lead a section of what 50 people? So now he's suddenly qualified to lead hundreds of thousands?
Wow. I can't even begin to say how illogical and hysterically bad writing this is. Glad you're not in charge.
Oh and that's not random criteria btw. That's the mission profile of SCE. Some of which O'Brien had NEVER DONE. But somehow he's qualified to lead it? Wow. Just wow.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
I'd gladly put O'Brien in charge of a crew repairing (or even building from the keel out) a starship, or designing and deploying a remote space station, but he's no more qualified to run the entire SCE than I am.
As Starsword noted, this isn't even a question of military or nonmilitary - if he had the quals, brevetting him to whatever rank was required would be a matter of a moment's work for someone at Starfleet Command. It's a matter of his not having the skillset to do the job.
Also Sisko, because as @talonxv correctly pointed out, Sisko canonically ran a major starship R&D project as a mid-level officer. But he's unavailable to STO because he's busy being the Emissary and Avery Brooks apparently didn't want to come back to voice him (which I kind of approve of: what they did with the character in the novels I think cheapens his entire character arc).
Or the inclination: he had that "enlisted pride" thing going, noting the advantages of not having to get dressed up for a lot of formal functions the way the officers did. That's a big part of why I like him as a character: he's the average Joe blue-collar working man to contrast the glamorous highly educated officers.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Times someone said explicitly "Starfleet is a military organization" 0
The rest is people circlejerking about their affection for GI Joe
(I myself invest a great time in my fictional organizations and design of uniforms, structures and so on, be it Star Trek or XCOM or some other franchise I like. I don't criticize that, although my enthusiasm ceases for actual present-day militaries (I still have some affection for the armies of the imperial age). Still, both of the mentioned examples are paramilitary organizations by in-canon information)
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And Starfleet's explicitly and directly not a military.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Yes. As I've said before.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
And it was dumb in Star Trek 2009 when it was done. TOS Kirk graduated Starfleet Academy and served aboard the USS Farragut before commanding the USS Enterprise. At least the Federation Tutorial has to satisfy the needs of players and players want to be a Captain ASAP and not spend a few months or years as Cadet or Ensign. So if Cryptic wants to show the Starfleet Academy experience, then we have to do the idiotic Cadet to Captain promotion.
On a side note, since our AoD Captains follow Kelvin Kirk's lead by not graduating Starfleet Academy and becoming a Captain, doesn't that erase TOS Kirk's reputation of being the youngest Captain in Starfleet in the Prime Universe? At least with the original Federation tutorial and the AoY tutorial, it was never specified how long our Captains served aboard their ships.
So are "Spock's Brain", "Code of Honor", "Profit and Lace", "Threshold", and "A Night in Sickbay". Being canon doesn't make it good writing.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
EDIT: Corrected.
Hardly. I consider the question one of semantics and Earth-origin humans' preferences. Kelvin!Scotty doesn't think he's a soldier or serving in a military? Good for him. Prime!Kirk says he is; how is that a less valid opinion? What does Spock think? Would he find it logical that an organization empowered to prosecute wars on behalf of its government, and whose field representatives are empowered to glass inhabited worlds at a whim is not a military organization? Remember, he's a devotee of Surak's rationalist philosophies of "reality-truth". What does Worf think? He idolizes his warrior heritage, you can make a guess from that. What does Ro Laren think? Diplomacy and science didn't kick the Cardassians off her world, dogged armed resistance did. Hell, let's go further: what do the representatives of other governments think, the Klingon Defense Force, the Romulan Imperial Fleet, the Cardassian Guard? Do their opinions matter less than Picard's and Kelvin!Scotty's?
The preponderance of evidence says that Starfleet is a de facto military organization because of its design, capabilities, and functions, even if de jure it is not, the same way you can say someone is a de facto ruler of a country if the de jure ruler does whatever he says (see Hugh Despenser the Younger and King Edward II Plantagenet).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
And they serve the functions of a military not only in wartime, but in peacetime as well - readiness drills, exploration, and disaster relief.
Don't forget this is not about ideology. It's blatant obvious written out in-universe facts of a piece of fiction. In Star Trek, the Vulcans invented Velcro and T'pol's ancestor gave it to the humans. I don't say that isn't true in-universe because it never actially happened but it is stupid writing. Doesn't make it 'wrong' in Star Trek.
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Fine; I corrected my post. Explain how that erases Kirk's and David Marcus's statements that Starfleet is a military organization.
When opinions disagree, you go to hard evidence to determine the truth. It works for anthropogenic climate change, it works for this.
"It's just fiction, relax" is the argument one uses in these debates when they know they're losing. And writer intent and an empty sack are worth the sack. It's what's on the page and/or filmed that counts. You can say that the Kzinti in the one TAS episode were intended to be wearing gray, but canonically they're wearing hot pink.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
The statements aren't erased, but they aren't exposition dialogue. One is Kirk's characterisation on a personal level and the other might as well be a historic analogy of a scientist who lost his project to a authority. When the same happens two movies later a comparable comment is made and the same Kirk says "we're not the military". But even if we assume David is in a position to provide exposition of Starfleet's nature to us then we have this instance versus much more and later instances countering it.
The whole hard facts thing is curious. Climate change is a actual thing, Star Trek is fiction. Different rules apply. In real life, there is no exposition dialogue and voice overs telling us what is going on.
The Kzindi thing is a grey area really, as it depends how production errors are handled. To me Miles O'Brien doesn't doesn't become a lieutenant and gets demoted again and he isn't supposed to. But does he for you? To me, Klingons and Kzinti never wore purple in-universe because it was an error, but I calue the out-of-universe goof. Klingon Warbirds on the other hoof are the result of an error that got canonized through repeated dialogue, sadly.
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When a non-Captain commands a ship, it is usually temporarily or it is a smaller ship commanded by a Lieutenant Commander or Commander not a Lieutenant. A Lieutenant that skipped their graduation of the Academy wouldn't have been given command of such a ship without the appropriate field commission.
The more likely scenario is the AoD character would be congratulated on their fine service, sent back to the Academy, and given a better ship for their first official assignment while the Malachowski ship would be given to a more experienced Starfleet Officer not an extremely skilled, but inexperienced Starfleet Officer.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
You know... that's probably the best comparison really. If we look at the history of Starfleet, they never fought to expand territory during war. Even during the Dominion War, the main goal of Starfleet was to defend existing territory, and only advance if the opprotunity presented itself. The Federation has negotiated borders with its neighbors.
Being someone who likes GATE, I can see this being a good middle ground in this argument about Starfleet being or not being military.
This is how I tend to classify Starfleet as well: It's a Self Defence Force. That leaves enough ambiguity that characters like Picard can say (without looking idiotic) that Starfleet isn't a military, while acknowledging Starfleet's military role.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood