The OP seems convinced that a willingness to defend oneself and one's allies from attack necessarily means that one is "militaristic". Which of course means that every human society ever, even the ones we like to think of as being all sweetness and light, were in fact "militaristic".
Olivia, kiddo, we're dealing in a universe that includes the Klingon Empire. If the Federation didn't have a space navy to defend their members, pretty soon there wouldn't be a Federation. And somehow I don't think feeling all morally superior is going to be a lot of help when the Klingons need slave labor to build another of those humongous palaces they seem so fond of...
Speaking as a lifelong Trek fan, Starfleet is a military service, but they're not a martial organization -- that's where the confusion comes in -- and they happen to have carried on many traditions from the U.S. military, including a portion of their jargon.
It's not an easy thing for some fans, especially ones from martial cultures like the U.S., to wrap their heads around the idea that the concept of the military has changed drastically in the intervening centuries, having shifted their military-based disciplines from conflict to exploration. Remember, this is essentially an alien culture that Gene set out to depict, with extremely different values from what are harbored today.
As an example of it being a non-martial culture, Starfleet doesn't build warships, with the sole exception being The Pimp-Hand--er, the Defiant class, and subsequent designs, like the Sovereign, abandoned the warship concept, going back to an exploration vessel with beefed-up weaponry.
Needless to say, I'm only addressing the show canon, and not STO -- Starfleet is definitely a culture of genocidal war-mongers in this game, with a full spectrum of warships at their disposal. Heck, they even salute for some strange reason, something never seen in the show.
Speaking as a lifelong Trek fan, Starfleet is a military service, but they're not a martial organization -- that's where the confusion comes in -- and they happen to have carried on many traditions from the U.S. military, including a portion of their jargon.
It's not an easy thing for some fans, especially ones from martial cultures like the U.S., to wrap their heads around the idea that the concept of the military has changed drastically in the intervening centuries, having shifted their military-based disciplines from conflict to exploration. This is essentially an alien culture that Gene set out to depict.
As an example of it being a non-martial culture, Starfleet doesn't build warships, with the sole exception being The Pimp-Hand--er, the Defiant class, and subsequent designs, like the Sovereign, abandoned the warship concept, going back to an exploration vessel with beefed-up weaponry.
Needless to say, I'm only addressing the show canon, and not STO -- Starfleet is definitely a culture of genocidal war-mongers in this game, with a full spectrum of warships at their disposal.
Interesting you should mention the Defiant actually - a ship built to defend against a specific threat. A ship that was most certainly not a 'common-knowledge' class.
Dialogue from 'The Search' part one:
Commander Sisko: Officially, it's classified as an escort vessel. Unofficially, the Defiant's a warship - nothing more, nothing less.
Major Kira: I thought Starfleet didn't believe in warships.
Commander Sisko: Desperate times breed desperate measures, Major.
Again, it is clear from this dialogue that Starfleet did NOT routinely build ships intended for combat and nothing else.
The other fun thing - even though it was inofficially a warship. Starfleet used it to experiment with a new communication technology for the wormhole, to create an aritificla wormhole, and explore a subspace compression anomaly. (These are just 3 I remember.) So even as military focused as it it was, it was still good enough for the task of exploration. (And at least one of these things happened during the Dominion War!)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I was actually disappointed when they started building more Defiants, I liked the idea that the prototype was a unique aberration, sort of an exclamation point in Starfleet's Borg-panic, before they regained their senses.
I was actually disappointed when they started building more Defiants, I liked the idea that the prototype was a unique aberration, sort of an exclamation point in Starfleet's Borg-panic, before they regained their senses.
I suspect they started building more for the Dominion War, which was its own level of panic moment, I think.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Speaking as a lifelong Trek fan, Starfleet is a military service, but they're not a martial organization -- that's where the confusion comes in -- and they happen to have carried on many traditions from the U.S. military, including a portion of their jargon.
It's not an easy thing for some fans, especially ones from martial cultures like the U.S., to wrap their heads around the idea that the concept of the military has changed drastically in the intervening centuries, having shifted their military-based disciplines from conflict to exploration. Remember, this is essentially an alien culture that Gene set out to depict, with extremely different values from what are harbored today.
As an example of it being a non-martial culture, Starfleet doesn't build warships, with the sole exception being The Pimp-Hand--er, the Defiant class, and subsequent designs, like the Sovereign, abandoned the warship concept, going back to an exploration vessel with beefed-up weaponry.
Needless to say, I'm only addressing the show canon, and not STO -- Starfleet is definitely a culture of genocidal war-mongers in this game, with a full spectrum of warships at their disposal. Heck, they even salute for some strange reason, something never seen in the show.
Nothing bothers me more than seeing the security NPC's on Spacedock salute me as I pass by them. Nobody ever did that in the show. Even the characters that were the most stringent when it came to protocol - such as Jellico, when he briefly took command of the Enterprise - didn't demand it of their subordinates, so why does it happen in the game?
As for the rest of your comment, I'm in complete agreement. It's a different world than ours, and while it it based on our culture, it's culture has evolved to change the terminology that we use today, much like we've done ourselves with the words and customs that came before our current era.
@reyan01@mustrumridcully0 For the Defiant, the DS9 TM fills the gap. Canonically we knew it was a anti-borg prototype but got mothballed and clearly and didn't shine in that intented role later on. The TM states that Defiant class ships were then repurposed to be mobile defense platforms, to improve a starbases mobile defense over runabouts. To me it makes sense, in my headcanon I imagine larger outposts ans starbases have one or two "native" Defiant classes for medium-ranged interception. The ship really does not say "long range" no matter how you spin it
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
This is not about headcanon, it's about common sense. Aside from the delusional comments of a few overly idealistic Starfleet Officers, please give me one shred of evidence that even suggests Starfleet might not be a military.
None is required as the source material says it. What you have to do now, "connecting the dots" is to from there. The conclusion that can be drawn from canon is that Starfleet is a non-military combined service unifying a broad array of duties under the roof of a explorative space service with a paramilitary structure that continues ancient naval traditions and uses certain terms associated with them but also in a different context.
Star Trek is fiction. Starfleet is fictional. It does not fit with real-life definitions, if you have to ignore exposition given in the work in question to make it fit your definition than you are in the wrong. That's not meant rude, it's a fact. This is the same with technology used in Star Trek. When they say you devolve into a lizard breaching the threshold of a certain speed than this is true for the world of Star Trek. It defying anything we know about real life science is irrelevant.
Yeah, this. In fiction, words have no meanings. Someone says something, and that makes it so, despite all of the evidence provided in the same material to the contrary. It's easy to understand, just disengage that part of your brain that associates words with what they actually mean.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
Prior to the start of the dominion war the only vessel that had any effect on the dominion was the defiant. The galaxy, galor , dederix all fell.
Ive allways taken star fleet to be a multi role scienctific organisation.
If you go back to the founding of the federation i doubt the andorians would have accapted patrols if they were noy adapt at combat. Likewise i doubt the vulcan cancel would have accapted a heavly armed warship conducting first contacts.
So sfc (mainly due to Archer and the nx-01) showed a them happy medium. Exploration style multirole vessels capable of both scientific and millitary roles. Crews that are trained for war as well as peace. When to fire and when to not
All this endless arguing over the definition of the word 'military' is illogical. It's as if no one ever taught some people that arguments of definition are not foundational, but merely labeling.
When Gene Roddenberry, Jean-Luc Picard, and JJ Starfleet personnel, exclaim that Starfleet is not a 'military' organization, they are referring to the MAJOR differences between the Federation's Starfleet and, say, for example, the United States Navy.
1) Starfleet evolves into an organization under direct civilian control (in principle by TNG in Prime, but not in practice; by TOS era in Kelvin timeline due to Kirk stopping the Admiral Marcus/Section 31 coup, hence the Kelvin timeline depicts a far more progressive reality).
2) Starfleet's primary stated purposes are scientific research and policing only, totally unlike a modern military.
3) The Federation has no permanent standing military force, but only organizes as such when Federation territory is invaded or as preemptive action against foreign aggression.
While these functions have much in common with present military organizations, it's clearly not a perfect analogue. So, the point Roddenberry and the other writers of Star Trek are making is that the Starfleet of the future has about as much in common with modern military forces as modern military forces have with, say, 17th century samurai. Thus, for 23rd century citizens, the word 'military' describes a primitive organization dedicated entirely to violent aggression, and they draw a distinction between such a force and a primarily scientific & policing organization, exactly as modern people draw a distinction between the samurai code and the primarily self-defensive policies of the modern U.S. military.
The goals are different, the functions are different, the control is different, though they sometimes overlap. The Federation is an enlightened republic that chooses not to maintain a standing military in times of peace, nor does it form a separate military service during times of war, but maintains civilian and scientific control over the use of all constructive and destructive technologies at all times.
Starfleet is not much different than the British/Danish/Dutch/French EAST/West INDIAN COMPANY
For the Brits/Dutch/Danes/French they were great explorers, adventurers and champions for civilsation ( western )
For the natives they were conquers, destroyers of worlds, bringer of death, diseases and slavery.
It is the ultimate space expansionism-military-industrial complex
yes ofcourse it has good features like "we go help poor aliens" "fight for humanity" "prime directives"
but how often we see it played out...
in TOS some crazy fed captain made nazism to help aliens
and the other time crazy fed captain help space commies masscring space white-indians ( I really dont know how to say it ... )
...
well just you know Starfleet is pretty nasty
edit*
Somehow everyone forget about Ghandi, the one who defeat the most powerfull empire without any violence
You never see that in Star Trek... always win with a lot of pew pew and blowing up somestuffs
just pure fetish for militarism, at best a closet version of military fetish ( oh I am the good guy I must defend myself) . LOL that is even more pathetic
I am a klingon and I like pew pew
come out of the closet, mr federation
Starfleet is not much different than the British/Danish/Dutch/French EAST/West INDIAN COMPANY
For the Brits/Dutch/Danes/French they were great explorers, adventurers and champions for civilsation ( western )
For the natives they were conquers, destroyers of worlds, bringer of death, diseases and slavery.
It is the ultimated space expansionism-military-industrial complex
yes ofcourse it has good features like "we go help poor aliens" "fight for humanity" "prime directives"
but how often we see it played out...
in TOS some crazy fed captain made nazism to help aliens
and the other time crazy fed captain help space commies masscring space white-indians ( I really dont know how to say it ... )
...
well just you know Starfleet is pretty nasty
I just have to straight it out....
firstly it was not starfleet captain who wanted to "help" those poor people by turning them into TRIBBLE - I'm not even sure if he was anyhow starfleet staff member - it was federation scientist that was sent there to observe the culture as a scientific research - starfleet captain was involved to clean that mess
the second ep you are refeering to was indeed starfleet capatin - crazed by quite a decent time spent on the alien planet and lost of all the crew to weird disease
and he wasn't that much "helping in massacre" he was usinvg advanced weaponry to ensure his survival
and the "masacrated" party was no "white-indians" these were "Yanks" and if ou payed attention to episode itself - or even how it ended - these were pretty much descendants of paralely developped united states [Yankees] that got lil bit to ofar in a war against "comms" [communists]
Why not just accept that hundreds of years into the future an organisation composed of hundreds of (literally) alien cultures flying ships across the galaxy might not be directly comparable to anything we have today. Starfleet, and the Federation, is utterly sui generis and the inherited nature of societies with radically different histories and values than each other and our own. It has a vast array of roles unique to the environmental and cultural challenges it faces.
On a side note, the OP should consider a youtube channel. Will be in good company there.
The issue isn't so much is Star Fleet a military organization, but is Star Trek a badly written fantasy world? I'm totally fine with humanity having reached a point where we rarely take up arms against ourselves and that Star Fleet imagines itself a exploration and humanitarian force which just coincidentally carries enough firepower to subdue entire worlds on a single ship. Where the semi-peaceful "root beer" conquest of the galaxy is predominantly a clash between humans with such a GIGANTIC tech-advantage over all others that they can claim to be lily-white moralists.
The problem is the inherent inconsistency in the setting itself - the galaxy is ALSO filled with powers that quite frankly don't buy in to the Federation's garbage and have the technological proficiency to not only say 'no', but to take the fight back to the Federation. And at that point the setting's internal consistency breaks down, because these moralizing missionaries become the Federation's one and only line of defense and they are HORIFICALLY ill-prepared for the job. The Great Bird's vision of a better and more evolved humanity starts to ring untrue, because exactly NO ONE in the history of history puts all their eggs in the missionary basket without seeing to their own defense at all.
I'd love to be able to see Starfleet as the purely nicy-nice group that the exposition text says they are.... just as soon as they show me who does the boring, dirty, pedestrian work of safeguarding Federation lives from external threats. Because frankly I'm a little tired of Star Trek spiting on a life of military service as something we need to evolve out of.
Are you guys seriously trying to convince me that Leftenant Commendant Datum would for real serve in a military organization as a recognized sentient being instead of just being weaponized?
Prior to the start of the dominion war the only vessel that had any effect on the dominion was the defiant. The galaxy, galor , dederix all fell.
Not true. The Defiant got it's backside handed to it in it's first engagement vs the Jem'Hadar (The Search) and the crew was captured.
The only Galaxy class ship that engaged the Jem'Hadar prior to the start of the Dominion war was the Odyssey, which fell to a suicide run that would have destroyed ANY - I repeat ANY - ship.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it took only 3 (1) Dominion bugships to take down the Odyssey, but the Defiant stood it's ground against at least 3 Bugships, tearing one to parts and an extra *hole in the others, mainly because it was caught with its pants... I mean... shields down while under cloak?
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Starfleet is first and foremost a military force. Thanks to ENT, we know the Federation was formed first and foremost as a military alliance against a more dangerous threat. And Starfleet was the product of that.
Starfleet is the organization that fights the Federations wars, skirmishes. It is the organization that bears the full brunt of losses in conflict. There is no other organization in the Federation that does that. There is no organization even mentioned in the TV shows and movies that does that for the Federation.
It is Starfleet.
And ONLY Starfleet.
The flip side to that is it gets tasked with more duties that totally exceed today's IRL military organizations.
But make no mistake, the strength of Starfleet is the deterrence that defends the Federation. It's not pretty words. It's military force because throughout the Federation's history, it has repeatedly called on Starfleet to exert that military force.
Capt Picard scoffed at the idea of relying on military power, violence, but he got to command a powerful vessel such as a Galaxy-class and later a freakin' Sovereign-class.
It's pretty easy to take a softer approach with outside powers when you have in your command the mightiest warships (and that's exactly what they are) that Starfleet fields. It's pretty easy to be more diplomatic, showing smiles, trading kind words, but never hiding the fact that outside representatives will be shown Starfleet's power and technology.
just as soon as they show me who does the boring, dirty, pedestrian work of safeguarding Federation lives from external threats.
Section 31
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
Starfleet is first and foremost a military force. Thanks to ENT, we know the Federation was formed first and foremost as a military alliance against a more dangerous threat. And Starfleet was the product of that.
Starfleet is the organization that fights the Federations wars, skirmishes. It is the organization that bears the full brunt of losses in conflict. There is no other organization in the Federation that does that. There is no organization even mentioned in the TV shows and movies that does that for the Federation.
It is Starfleet.
And ONLY Starfleet.
The flip side to that is it gets tasked with more duties that totally exceed today's IRL military organizations.
But make no mistake, the strength of Starfleet is the deterrence that defends the Federation. It's not pretty words. It's military force because throughout the Federation's history, it has repeatedly called on Starfleet to exert that military force.
Capt Picard scoffed at the idea of relying on military power, violence, but he got to command a powerful vessel such as a Galaxy-class and later a freakin' Sovereign-class.
It's pretty easy to take a softer approach with outside powers when you have in your command the mightiest warships (and that's exactly what they are) that Starfleet fields. It's pretty easy to be more diplomatic, showing smiles, trading kind words, but never hiding the fact that outside representatives will be shown Starfleet's power and technology.
Yep, nailed it.
The Federation is not a Military Organization, Starfleet is. You might not like it, but arguing otherwise is like arguing against the color of the sky.
The Federation is not a Military Organization, Starfleet is.
Except that annoying little thing called "canon" proves you wrong...
Obviously, expert knowledge overrides canon...
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
The Federation is not a Military Organization, Starfleet is.
Except that annoying little thing called "canon" proves you wrong...
Obviously, expert knowledge overrides canon...
When common sense and logic both point to a few lines of dialogue being incorrect, then clearly the characters in question were wrong when they said them. It's canon that those words were said, but there is nothing else in canon to back them up, and mountains of evidence that Starfleet is, in fact, the Federation's military.
And this is why canon bible thumpers are so much fun - they'd rather the setting be chained to every shooting error, budgetary constraint, and nonsensical bit of writing than for the setting to be even vaguely internally consistent.
Riker at the launch of Titan - "I'm so glad we're getting back to being explorers."
143 billion Federation dead in his rearview mirror - "We'd have kind of liked for our protectors to have been maybe a little better as soldiers..."
When common sense and logic both point to a few lines of dialogue being incorrect, then clearly the characters in question were wrong when they said them. It's canon that those words were said, but there is nothing else in canon to back them up, and mountains of evidence that Starfleet is, in fact, the Federation's military.
It's a fictional TV series. Canon trumps common sense.
As I said, the only thing that is canon is that those words were said. Their accuracy is not established in canon.
Comments
Olivia, kiddo, we're dealing in a universe that includes the Klingon Empire. If the Federation didn't have a space navy to defend their members, pretty soon there wouldn't be a Federation. And somehow I don't think feeling all morally superior is going to be a lot of help when the Klingons need slave labor to build another of those humongous palaces they seem so fond of...
Navy beans yo!
It's not an easy thing for some fans, especially ones from martial cultures like the U.S., to wrap their heads around the idea that the concept of the military has changed drastically in the intervening centuries, having shifted their military-based disciplines from conflict to exploration. Remember, this is essentially an alien culture that Gene set out to depict, with extremely different values from what are harbored today.
As an example of it being a non-martial culture, Starfleet doesn't build warships, with the sole exception being The Pimp-Hand--er, the Defiant class, and subsequent designs, like the Sovereign, abandoned the warship concept, going back to an exploration vessel with beefed-up weaponry.
Needless to say, I'm only addressing the show canon, and not STO -- Starfleet is definitely a culture of genocidal war-mongers in this game, with a full spectrum of warships at their disposal. Heck, they even salute for some strange reason, something never seen in the show.
The other fun thing - even though it was inofficially a warship. Starfleet used it to experiment with a new communication technology for the wormhole, to create an aritificla wormhole, and explore a subspace compression anomaly. (These are just 3 I remember.) So even as military focused as it it was, it was still good enough for the task of exploration. (And at least one of these things happened during the Dominion War!)
Nothing bothers me more than seeing the security NPC's on Spacedock salute me as I pass by them. Nobody ever did that in the show. Even the characters that were the most stringent when it came to protocol - such as Jellico, when he briefly took command of the Enterprise - didn't demand it of their subordinates, so why does it happen in the game?
As for the rest of your comment, I'm in complete agreement. It's a different world than ours, and while it it based on our culture, it's culture has evolved to change the terminology that we use today, much like we've done ourselves with the words and customs that came before our current era.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Yeah, this. In fiction, words have no meanings. Someone says something, and that makes it so, despite all of the evidence provided in the same material to the contrary. It's easy to understand, just disengage that part of your brain that associates words with what they actually mean.
Ive allways taken star fleet to be a multi role scienctific organisation.
If you go back to the founding of the federation i doubt the andorians would have accapted patrols if they were noy adapt at combat. Likewise i doubt the vulcan cancel would have accapted a heavly armed warship conducting first contacts.
So sfc (mainly due to Archer and the nx-01) showed a them happy medium. Exploration style multirole vessels capable of both scientific and millitary roles. Crews that are trained for war as well as peace. When to fire and when to not
When Gene Roddenberry, Jean-Luc Picard, and JJ Starfleet personnel, exclaim that Starfleet is not a 'military' organization, they are referring to the MAJOR differences between the Federation's Starfleet and, say, for example, the United States Navy.
1) Starfleet evolves into an organization under direct civilian control (in principle by TNG in Prime, but not in practice; by TOS era in Kelvin timeline due to Kirk stopping the Admiral Marcus/Section 31 coup, hence the Kelvin timeline depicts a far more progressive reality).
2) Starfleet's primary stated purposes are scientific research and policing only, totally unlike a modern military.
3) The Federation has no permanent standing military force, but only organizes as such when Federation territory is invaded or as preemptive action against foreign aggression.
While these functions have much in common with present military organizations, it's clearly not a perfect analogue. So, the point Roddenberry and the other writers of Star Trek are making is that the Starfleet of the future has about as much in common with modern military forces as modern military forces have with, say, 17th century samurai. Thus, for 23rd century citizens, the word 'military' describes a primitive organization dedicated entirely to violent aggression, and they draw a distinction between such a force and a primarily scientific & policing organization, exactly as modern people draw a distinction between the samurai code and the primarily self-defensive policies of the modern U.S. military.
The goals are different, the functions are different, the control is different, though they sometimes overlap. The Federation is an enlightened republic that chooses not to maintain a standing military in times of peace, nor does it form a separate military service during times of war, but maintains civilian and scientific control over the use of all constructive and destructive technologies at all times.
For the Brits/Dutch/Danes/French they were great explorers, adventurers and champions for civilsation ( western )
For the natives they were conquers, destroyers of worlds, bringer of death, diseases and slavery.
It is the ultimate space expansionism-military-industrial complex
yes ofcourse it has good features like "we go help poor aliens" "fight for humanity" "prime directives"
but how often we see it played out...
in TOS some crazy fed captain made nazism to help aliens
and the other time crazy fed captain help space commies masscring space white-indians ( I really dont know how to say it ... )
...
well just you know Starfleet is pretty nasty
edit*
Somehow everyone forget about Ghandi, the one who defeat the most powerfull empire without any violence
You never see that in Star Trek... always win with a lot of pew pew and blowing up somestuffs
just pure fetish for militarism, at best a closet version of military fetish ( oh I am the good guy I must defend myself) . LOL that is even more pathetic
I am a klingon and I like pew pew
come out of the closet, mr federation
I just have to straight it out....
firstly it was not starfleet captain who wanted to "help" those poor people by turning them into TRIBBLE - I'm not even sure if he was anyhow starfleet staff member - it was federation scientist that was sent there to observe the culture as a scientific research - starfleet captain was involved to clean that mess
the second ep you are refeering to was indeed starfleet capatin - crazed by quite a decent time spent on the alien planet and lost of all the crew to weird disease
and he wasn't that much "helping in massacre" he was usinvg advanced weaponry to ensure his survival
and the "masacrated" party was no "white-indians" these were "Yanks" and if ou payed attention to episode itself - or even how it ended - these were pretty much descendants of paralely developped united states [Yankees] that got lil bit to ofar in a war against "comms" [communists]
On a side note, the OP should consider a youtube channel. Will be in good company there.
The problem is the inherent inconsistency in the setting itself - the galaxy is ALSO filled with powers that quite frankly don't buy in to the Federation's garbage and have the technological proficiency to not only say 'no', but to take the fight back to the Federation. And at that point the setting's internal consistency breaks down, because these moralizing missionaries become the Federation's one and only line of defense and they are HORIFICALLY ill-prepared for the job. The Great Bird's vision of a better and more evolved humanity starts to ring untrue, because exactly NO ONE in the history of history puts all their eggs in the missionary basket without seeing to their own defense at all.
I'd love to be able to see Starfleet as the purely nicy-nice group that the exposition text says they are.... just as soon as they show me who does the boring, dirty, pedestrian work of safeguarding Federation lives from external threats. Because frankly I'm a little tired of Star Trek spiting on a life of military service as something we need to evolve out of.
#navybeansaretruth
Correct me if I am wrong, but it took only 3 (1) Dominion bugships to take down the Odyssey, but the Defiant stood it's ground against at least 3 Bugships, tearing one to parts and an extra *hole in the others, mainly because it was caught with its pants... I mean... shields down while under cloak?
Starfleet is the organization that fights the Federations wars, skirmishes. It is the organization that bears the full brunt of losses in conflict. There is no other organization in the Federation that does that. There is no organization even mentioned in the TV shows and movies that does that for the Federation.
It is Starfleet.
And ONLY Starfleet.
The flip side to that is it gets tasked with more duties that totally exceed today's IRL military organizations.
But make no mistake, the strength of Starfleet is the deterrence that defends the Federation. It's not pretty words. It's military force because throughout the Federation's history, it has repeatedly called on Starfleet to exert that military force.
Capt Picard scoffed at the idea of relying on military power, violence, but he got to command a powerful vessel such as a Galaxy-class and later a freakin' Sovereign-class.
It's pretty easy to take a softer approach with outside powers when you have in your command the mightiest warships (and that's exactly what they are) that Starfleet fields. It's pretty easy to be more diplomatic, showing smiles, trading kind words, but never hiding the fact that outside representatives will be shown Starfleet's power and technology.
Section 31
Yep, nailed it.
The Federation is not a Military Organization, Starfleet is. You might not like it, but arguing otherwise is like arguing against the color of the sky.
Obviously, expert knowledge overrides canon...
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
When common sense and logic both point to a few lines of dialogue being incorrect, then clearly the characters in question were wrong when they said them. It's canon that those words were said, but there is nothing else in canon to back them up, and mountains of evidence that Starfleet is, in fact, the Federation's military.
Riker at the launch of Titan - "I'm so glad we're getting back to being explorers."
143 billion Federation dead in his rearview mirror - "We'd have kind of liked for our protectors to have been maybe a little better as soldiers..."
As I said, the only thing that is canon is that those words were said. Their accuracy is not established in canon.