"But they only fight when they have to" - yeah, that's what militaries in the current times do too - no one is at war 24/7, throughout hundreds of years, yet they are still militaries.
Eh? A military is an organisation that exists to defend a political entity. If it's got some free time it may keep its hand in by doing some light exploring or whathaveyou on the side. Starfleet is an organisation that exists solely as a exploration and research fleet that happens to do some defence work on account of having lots of ships with big guns and a slight desire not to see their homes invaded.
And the "civil population" means either people who haven't had any military training or have passed it, but are currently not in service. Again, members of Starfleet are seen to be constantly in service.
Yeah, to Starfleet. Not to a military, hence civilian. I'm not sure why you needed that spelt out for you.
But whatever, you seem to lack a basic comprehension in order to have a proper conversation with you.
Well so far you've managed to completely mis define a word then completely fail to provide anything put post hoc reasoning to fit your presuposed conclusion so I can see why you'd be having trouble talking to other humans.
In fact, it's once explicitly said that Starfleet are NOT civilians. There's this TNG episode where Worf's foster brother, a non-commissioned officer in Starfleet, resigns because the Prime Directive doesn't apply to civilians, therefore he can provide aid to Alien of the Week without consequences after Picard decided it was his day to be a strict constructionist d**khead.
In this case it obviously refers to non-starfleet. Or are we going to have to go over how any organisation will happily call people outside of it civilians? Police, legal, my lab, supermarkets and so on.
On one side you have mountains of evidence that support the argument that Starfleet is the Federation's military.
You have the literal words of the people within the organisation tell you they aren't a military but they're all lying because you want space marines.
They're literal quotes. The Federation literally disbanded their military. Starfleet is literally a humanitarian and peacekeeping armada. Their role is literally as explorers.
I think I believe the actual characters over you.
In that movie David explicitly refers to Starfleet as 'the military'.
You mean the guy bitter at his dad and about to have his research stolen by people he believed were going to weaponise it? Gee, I wonder why he said that.
The Defiant is a warship, i think that solves the whole conundrum, doesn't it?
No. Because that's Sisko's term for what is classed as an escort. It's basic but it's still not properly designed for combat. If anything it's a testbed for guns and an engine.
I agree with you and believe this is one of the best answers I have come across. Only thing I would add - and where IMO most people get confused - is that the primary function of Starfleet is scientific development and exploration, whereas the primary function of a modern military is security and defense. The key difference is the interests of the state or government each supports. The goals of the Federation are much different than those of some nations throughout Earth history.
"Military" may not be the best word to describe Starfleet. Can they be an armed military force? Of course - when they need to. Under normal circumstances, they are not a "military" in the conventional sense.
And that's the crux of it.
People claiming it's a military because it has a defensive role are correct in their own way. De facto vs de jure.
People who claim it's a military for any other reason are just gagging for space marines in all their fiction and will come up with any amount of calling actual characters liers or presupposing and stretching scenarios just to get them.
Watch DS9 S3E1 min 6 "unofficially it's a warship not more not less..." the rest of the dialogue is also fitting.
'Warship' isn't a ship class or type. It's Sisko's opinion on his own design. I'm not going to disregard his opinion or claim he's lying and I was going to include it earlier when I said the Dreadnought Class was the sole Federation warship.
However it's officially an escort which means the Federation has obviously got an official use for it, which is to escort cargo or colony ships in hazardous territory. Sure, it's more likely to be involved in combat than, say, the Intrepid, but probably no more likely than the Constitution.
When the Federation turned Starfleet into its defence force in the Dominion War it's not like we saw all these 'warships' on the front lines. We see the Valliant which is relegated to shipping cadets around and two unnamed Defiants in 'Endgame' hanging around Earth with nothing to do. The rest of the time we only saw the titular Defiant so it's either not very good and Starfleet didn't want any more (unlikely after seeing what the Defiant and the Defiant-A do) or it's happily bobbing around in the war escorting grain to Vulcan.
It's very difficult to see the Dreadnought doing anything else but war. It is the size of a Galaxy Class (with slightly less volume thanks to the shorter and hollow saucer) but most of its secondary hull looks like weapons (those enormous turret balls), fighters (the hangar spans the length of the hull), and engines (I assume that being fast enough to overtake the Konni requires a warp core bigger than the laser assemblage the Konni has). There' not much room there for anything else.
Starfleet has frigates. The USS New Orleans is one. It still doesn't make a military that they use certain designations, because even though they do so it stands the written word that they simply aren't. They do these things, but they aren't.
The American Police call their cars 'cruisers'. Several nations have cars designated 'interceptors'.
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
On one side you have mountains of evidence that support the argument that Starfleet is the Federation's military. On the other you have mere words stating that Starfleet is not the military and suggesting it is somehow better without that label, a notion i personally find offensive to anyone who has or will serve in an IRL military. There's literally nothing outside of dialog that you can point to to support your claim, and there's even dialog that supports Starfleet being military in TWoK, a movie universally agreed to be one of the best Trek movies ever made. In that movie David explicitly refers to Starfleet as 'the military'.
I have identified the problem Because of your personal (hurt) feelings you decide to write your own headcanon. Which is fine, but it's yours. Officially it's written differently. Because it's not real. It's written fiction. It doesn't bow to your whims just because you served.
I'd like to generally honestly ask: Is it the feeling of someone stepping on your toes the reason for more people in this argument to argue the way they do?
And I'm a scion of a US Navy family going back four generations. My great-grandfather served in World War II, and my father was on a destroyer in the Persian Gulf when the Iranians and Iraqis were shooting at each other.
My argument is simply this: The hard evidence doesn't fit the statements of the characters. You don't send NASA, which is indisputably a non-military agency (even though many of its employees, especially astronauts, are and have been current or former service personnel), to fight a world war (equivalent: the Dominion War), you send a military. That bugs me. It makes me want to investigate why that might be the case.
It's also fodder for writing: e.g. as I referred to before, what might a Starfleet officer who isn't Earther bourgeoisie like Picard have to say about it? We already have Prime!Kirk (a farm boy from Iowa) saying explicitly, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in TOS: "Errand of Mercy".
And for actual fan fiction, I'm currently writing a story with @patrickngo wherein one of my characters, a Bajoran (namely Rear Admiral Kanril Eleya), lays out exactly why she thinks of herself as a soldier first and foremost (and why she feels insulted by the sentiment that she shouldn't think of herself that way).
Actually what really solves it is that the Defiant is OFFICIALLY designated an "escort vessel", apparently because "frigate" or "corvette" or "light destroyer" (any of which describes its design role better than merely "warship") are too militaristic. This goes back to my notion that it's just a political distinction insisted on by upper class Earthers.
Starfleet has frigates. The USS New Orleans is one.
It still doesn't make a military that they use certain designations, because even though they do so it stands the written word that they simply aren't. They do these things, but they aren't.
Yeah, actually it kinda does. Per Sisko, one of the primary minds behind the construction of USS Defiant (ergo the most authoritative source we have), Starfleet deliberately refused to recognize her as being a "warship", favoring the euphemistic "escort vessel", even though the ship's sole design purpose was to be a front-line combatant ship in a full-scale war with the Borg. That suggests a certain characterization of Starfleet Command: the Earthers that dominate Starfleet's upper echelon don't want to think of themselves as being "military". Everything else is similar extrapolation from the long-established backstory of the franchise. It's not canon fact, but it makes more sense than mutually contradictory statements by individual characters.
Fun fact: Roddenberry, for his part, liked to insist that Starfleet was actually something like the Coast Guard. Guess what: the Coasties are still a military branch (though currently under the Department of Homeland Security rather than the Department of Defense), and in World War II they contributed heavily to the Normandy landings.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
There is a point to be made about the JSDF analogy: It is a self defence force. That's not a distinction the Japanese dreamt up - it's one the Americans dreamt up so the Japanese could have a military without having a "military". The distinction is that the JSDF is constitutionally prohibited from anything which could be construed as offensive action, which is why recent moves to allow them to operate outside Japan (including the construction of an Aircraft Carrier) have triggered a constitutional crisis. It's a cop-out by the international community - Ireland has the same thing: the Irish Defence Force doesn't leave Ireland.
Given that I've personally met Japanese personnel operating outside Japan? It's a matter of semantics and public image.
In fact, it's once explicitly said that Starfleet are NOT civilians. There's this TNG episode where Worf's foster brother, a non-commissioned officer in Starfleet, resigns because the Prime Directive doesn't apply to civilians, therefore he can provide aid to Alien of the Week without consequences after Picard decided it was his day to be a strict constructionist d**khead.
This is correct. However, that doesn't mean Starfleet is designated as "military". Emergency service personnel are also non-civilians and can even be combatants. A service with a special status that serves as the latter if need be is really not hard to imagine.
On one side you have mountains of evidence that support the argument that Starfleet is the Federation's military. On the other you have mere words stating that Starfleet is not the military and suggesting it is somehow better without that label, a notion i personally find offensive to anyone who has or will serve in an IRL military. There's literally nothing outside of dialog that you can point to to support your claim, and there's even dialog that supports Starfleet being military in TWoK, a movie universally agreed to be one of the best Trek movies ever made. In that movie David explicitly refers to Starfleet as 'the military'.
There's a weird semantic distinction to be drawn between being "the" military and "a" military. "A" military has combat type stuff as their primary function. "The" military is whatever organization does that stuff. Like I said, it's a weird distinction to draw. Real-world, they're usually the same thing.
> @starswordc said: > My argument is simply this: The hard evidence doesn't fit the statements of the characters. You don't send NASA, which is indisputably a non-military agency (even though many of its employees, especially astronauts, are and have been current or former service personnel), to fight a world war (equivalent: the Dominion War), you send a military. That bugs me. It makes me want to investigate why that might be the case.
It's pretty simple: The UFP disbanded individual militaries (MACO et al) in favour of a new kind of interplanetary organization tasked with *everything* there is to do in space. They got the resources and personnel to conduct research, exploration, policing and defence. It is not just NASA but a evolution that absorbed military personnel and functions, yet exists in a different spirit. Ex astris, scientia.
@starswordc said: > It's also fodder for writing: e.g. as I referred to before, what might a Starfleet officer who isn't Earther bourgeoisie like Picard have to say about it? We already have Prime!Kirk (a farm boy from Iowa) saying explicitly, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in TOS: "Errand of Mercy".
At this point you (and others) have to make up their mind. Does dialogue count or not? If you disregard Picard, Marcus and Scotty because they say something you don't like, why is what Kirk says to be taken as hard evidence? I adress that since of course all dialogue counts and I set aside the writing didn't yet find a consistent line back then: While the first mentioned directly characterize Starfleet, Kirk speaks about himself: Here, "Soldier not a diplomat" refers to him being uncomfortable in the diplomatic role and he'd rather just follow orders. The same Kirk in the movie says later they are not the military. He talks about the US' in the 80s, but also describes Starfleet as a joined service not joined military service, indicating the complex folding of different organizations into one new one.
> starswordc wrote: » > Citation needed.
TNG conspiracy. The New Orleans class USS Kyushu is referred to as frigate. Star Trek Beyond also references frigates in Okudagrams (or it's equivalent xD).
@starswordc wrote: the Earthers that dominate Starfleet's upper echelon don't want to think of themselves as being "military". Everything else is similar extrapolation from the long-established backstory of the franchise. It's not canon fact, but it makes more sense than mutually contradictory statements by individual characters.
This is wild speculation though. You have literally no indication what Starfleet's 'upper echeleon' looks like. Glimpses we get are very diverse in the movies and the UFP presidency never belonged to a human as far as I know. I can't see the 'earthers' dictating their narrative onto over 100 worlds just to discredit all dialogue proof for one side (while keeping the other intact).
> @patrickngo said: > the whole debate reflects this to a certain extent. for example, if your postal service is also enforcing the law, does that make them a police? well in a practical sense, yes, but in a strictly 'definition' sense, that vehicle with the 120mm cannon and eight inches of composite armor is just a delivery truck. > > Functionally, Starfleet serves the role of a military, this role dictates certain things, like a specialized internal set of laws and regulations, a fairly strict chain of command social structure, uniforms, specific training and lots of heavy weapons. > > but technically, the Tank isn't a Tank, it's a delivery truck, because technically the mailman's not a de jure soldier. (and it doesn't matter how many confirmed kills he's got completing his 'rounds'.)
In principle I agree, the postal service is a deliberate ad absurdum though. There is no RL equivalent to SF, but look at the post WW2 BGS, Germany's border protection (which doesn't exist any more due to police reforms). It was a police, although used military grade equipment and were combatants in a defence scenario. Still police, not military, managed by civilian ministries. The tank was a tank, but driving it (or using a frigate) doesn't make the service nature change.
@patrickngo wrote: > in a sense what you guys are debating, is bureaucratic cognitive dissonance. the service is used LIKE a military, it serves a Military role, it's the ONLY service serving a military role, but for whatever reason, the politicians don't want to admit to it being a Military organization, so they apply 'euphemisms' like 'Escort vessel' instead of warship, and insist in the propaganda that Starfleet is a "peacekeeping armada" instead of a Navy.
Or if you do not apply deception to everything and everyone it's maybe just as they say. It's the future, things change.
^ 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
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
> @shadowfang240 said: > no, dialogue does not count, because again Gil Grissom: I don't trust people, they tend to lie. Evidence never lies. > > > > > there is a reason eyewitness testimony is not admissible as evidence in a court of law in absence of actual PHYSICAL evidence
So you mute every movie you watch? How do you even know what is going on when characters stand in front of each other and move their jaws? That must be very confusing.
^ 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
> @angrytarg said: > So you mute every movie you watch? How do you even know what is going on when characters stand in front of each other and move their jaws? That must be very confusing.
Nice strawman. He's saying the exact same thing I am: Picard's and KT!Scotty's opinion doesn't match the evidence.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
And before you go and parrot that in Beyond it's revealed MACO was disbanded after the Federation formed, let's be clear: the MACOs needed a UESPA (I.e. Civilian) starship to get to where the war [i]was[/i]. If the military's going to rely on Starfleet to operate in an interstellar theatre anyway, why not just transfer those roles to Starfleet entirely. That is [i]exactly[/i] what happened. When MACO disbanded, Krell (and presumably every other MACO) was transferred to Starfleet. That Starfleet was too peace-like for Krell (who was in any case unstable by the time he said that) doesn't change the fact that Earth (and the Federation) felt perfectly happy to fold MACO's defence role [i]into Starfleet[/i].
And inversely, if you're going to accept the word of Picard and a version of Scotty from another universe, why dismiss out of hand the words of Kirk from the original series? He referred to "the service" in the tones of someone who's had military service, he called himself a "soldier", he performed in all matters as if part of a military service (including treating people with respect when outright insubordination would have been called for, especially with Undersecretary Baris who wasn't even his superior in any meaningful sense)...
Some of those arguing against the idea of Starfleet being a military seem to have an awfully weird idea of what a "military" does. Yes, military forces fight wars (the Dominion War ring a bell? Cardassian War? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?), but they also carry out missions of exploration and scientific inquiry (the US Naval personnel stationed in Antarctica aren't there to try to seize power over the glaciers), and they don't go out looking for wars to fight. (Sometimes the civilians who run governments do, especially when those civilians have no military experience, but the folks who actually have to fight in the wars don't particularly enjoy doing it.) Military personnel of various nations here on Earth are often the first to spring into action when disaster relief is required, in large part because they've already got the organization and infrastructure to do so. (Famously, the carrier USS Enterprise, CVN-65, used her excess reactor power to supply parts of Mauritius with electricity while carrying out disaster-relief efforts.)
> @jonsills said: > (...), in large part because they've already got the organization and infrastructure to do so. (Famously, the carrier USS Enterprise, CVN-65, used her excess reactor power to supply parts of Mauritius with electricity while carrying out disaster-relief efforts.)
Ding ding ding. You solved the thread. No navy ship is build for the purpose of conducting humanitarian or scientific missions, their main purpose is to partake in battles. But they can do other task, because of structure, organization and equipment. Starfleet ships are build for exploration of space, which requires state of the art defensive tech, efficient structure and trained personnel. They can partake in battles because of that, but it's not their main function.
It's not that hard.
^ 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
You might be interested to note that of the many, many research vessels operated or built by the US Navy, the only ones that carry any armament at all (much less things like multiple phaser banks and photon torpedo launchers) are former combat vessels that were repurposed to research. (Almost as if a ship can do more than one thing! How amazing!)
> @jonsills said: > There have been many purpose-built research craft for the US Navy; here are two of the most recent. > > You might be interested to note that of the many, many research vessels operated or built by the US Navy, the only ones that carry any armament at all (much less things like multiple phaser banks and photon torpedo launchers) are former combat vessels that were repurposed to research. (Almost as if a ship can do more than one thing! How amazing!)
But a US navy vessel does not venture into unknown waters and meets literal sea monsters. Star Trek is not real, the ships encounter powerful space beimgs, gods and hostile aliens, that's why they have weapons. This doesn't happen on earth in the real world. It's like you all don't know what a TV show is...
^ 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
And before you go and parrot that in Beyond it's revealed MACO was disbanded after the Federation formed, let's be clear: the MACOs needed a UESPA (I.e. Civilian) starship to get to where the war was. If the military's going to rely on Starfleet to operate in an interstellar theatre anyway, why not just transfer those roles to Starfleet entirely. That is exactly what happened. When MACO disbanded, Krell (and presumably every other MACO) was transferred to Starfleet. That Starfleet was too peace-like for Krell (who was in any case unstable by the time he said that) doesn't change the fact that Earth (and the Federation) felt perfectly happy to fold MACO's defence role into Starfleet.
Insert obligatory joke about how "Marine" stands for "My TRIBBLE$ Rides in Navy Equipment".
You might be interested to note that of the many, many research vessels operated or built by the US Navy, the only ones that carry any armament at all (much less things like multiple phaser banks and photon torpedo launchers) are former combat vessels that were repurposed to research. (Almost as if a ship can do more than one thing! How amazing!)
But a US navy vessel does not venture into unknown waters and meets literal sea monsters. Star Trek is not real, the ships encounter powerful space beimgs, gods and hostile aliens, that's why they have weapons. This doesn't happen on earth in the real world. It's like you all don't know what a TV show is...
You forget that nowadays sonar, aircraft, satellites, and simply the passage of time have allowed us to map the oceans quite thoroughly. Before somewhere around the late 19th century, naval vessels DID venture into unknown or at least poorly charted waters, frequently (not for nothing are North Carolina's barrier islands called the Graveyard of the Atlantic), and many crew members certainly believed they could encounter sea monsters. Star Trek often romanticizes the Age of Sail: Nick Meyer's movies in particular drew heavily on Horatio Hornblower by C.S. Forester, and there's that holodeck scenario the Enterprise-D crew used when they promoted Worf to lieutenant commander in Generations.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
And before you go and parrot that in Beyond it's revealed MACO was disbanded after the Federation formed, let's be clear: the MACOs needed a UESPA (I.e. Civilian) starship to get to where the war was. If the military's going to rely on Starfleet to operate in an interstellar theatre anyway, why not just transfer those roles to Starfleet entirely. That is exactly what happened. When MACO disbanded, Krell (and presumably every other MACO) was transferred to Starfleet. That Starfleet was too peace-like for Krell (who was in any case unstable by the time he said that) doesn't change the fact that Earth (and the Federation) felt perfectly happy to fold MACO's defence role into Starfleet.
Insert obligatory joke about how "Marine" stands for "My TRIBBLE$ Rides in Navy Equipment".
Yes, but the NX-01 crew (and Admiral Forrest) make a big deal in the MACOs' first appearance about how the MACO are military and Starfleet is civilian. The difference between the two at the time of ENT couldn't be any more clear cut.
I also feel the need to point out that in most nations other than the US marines are Navy. The Royal Marines (plus Commandoes) are part of the Royal Navy, which is the norm in most countries. The US are basically the only nation I know of which gives the marines a separate branch. And there's a reason for that: it adds an unnecessary seam in what should be a seamless relationship between 'My *ss' and 'Navy Equipment'. With both marines and seamen taking their orders in the same Chain of Command, and from the same Board of the Admiralty, you avoid the difficulties of, say, needing dedicated air squadrons for marine ground elements, because the aircraft carrier can delegate its naval squadrons to the same job seamlessly. I don't know how the US makes that relationship work (or why the separation even exists) but it seems like it just adds an extra chain of command when it isn't necessary.
Since I brought up Horatio Hornblower, I'll throw in another one: the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian. It's an awful lot like TNG in several ways. British officers were expected to be cultured, as is Picard. Captain Jack Sp--Aubrey* and Dr. Stephen Maturin play the violin and cello respectively (although not nearly as well in the novels as in the film adaptation), and Maturin is a passionate naturalist in addition to being a very knowledgeable doctor (by 1800s standards).
I also feel the need to point out that in most nations other than the US marines are Navy. The Royal Marines (plus Commandoes) are part of the Royal Navy, which is the norm in most countries. The US are basically the only nation I know of which gives the marines a separate branch. And there's a reason for that: it adds an unnecessary seam in what should be a seamless relationship between 'My *ss' and 'Navy Equipment'. With both marines and seamen taking their orders in the same Chain of Command, and from the same Board of the Admiralty, you avoid the difficulties of, say, needing dedicated air squadrons for marine ground elements, because the aircraft carrier can delegate its naval squadrons to the same job seamlessly. I don't know how the US makes that relationship work (or why the separation even exists) but it seems like it just adds an extra chain of command when it isn't necessary.
The division isn't actually as clear as that: the USMC is still part of the Department of the Navy (part of the Department of Defense), and Navy corpsmen fill the role of field medics for Marine units. But you are definitely right that it is unusual not only for Marines (it's always capitalized in the US) to be used in land wars but for them to also operate fixed-wing aircraft. (I think how it went was, the US military was reorganized under President Truman in 1947, and the Army Air Force became its own branch, the modern USAF, but the Navy and Marines kept their airpower for whatever reason. @jonsills and @patrickngo probably know more about that than I do.)
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Since I brought up Horatio Hornblower, I'll throw in another one: the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian. It's an awful lot like TNG in several ways. British officers were expected to be cultured, as is Picard. Captain Jack Sp--Aubrey* and Dr. Stephen Maturin play the violin and cello respectively (although not nearly as well in the novels as in the film adaptation), and Maturin is a passionate naturalist in addition to being a very knowledgeable doctor (by 1800s standards).
I also feel the need to point out that in most nations other than the US marines are Navy. The Royal Marines (plus Commandoes) are part of the Royal Navy, which is the norm in most countries. The US are basically the only nation I know of which gives the marines a separate branch. And there's a reason for that: it adds an unnecessary seam in what should be a seamless relationship between 'My *ss' and 'Navy Equipment'. With both marines and seamen taking their orders in the same Chain of Command, and from the same Board of the Admiralty, you avoid the difficulties of, say, needing dedicated air squadrons for marine ground elements, because the aircraft carrier can delegate its naval squadrons to the same job seamlessly. I don't know how the US makes that relationship work (or why the separation even exists) but it seems like it just adds an extra chain of command when it isn't necessary.
The division isn't actually as clear as that: the USMC is still part of the Department of the Navy (part of the Department of Defense), and Navy corpsmen fill the role of field medics for Marine units. But you are definitely right that it is unusual not only for Marines (it's always capitalized in the US) to be used in land wars but for them to also operate fixed-wing aircraft. (I think how it went was, the US military was reorganized under President Truman in 1947, and the Army Air Force became its own branch, the modern USAF, but the Navy and Marines kept their airpower for whatever reason. @jonsills and @patrickngo probably know more about that than I do.)
I left it uncapitalised because I was referring to marine infantry in general, and not any one military force (I would capitalise if I was referring specifically to the Royal Marines or USMC personnel. You wouldn't necessarily capitalise 'soldier' for example.
My point was really that it doesn't stand to reason that MACO would be the Marines to Starfleet's Navy, since that separation of branches is unique to the US in our world, even if Starfleet wasn't specifically a civilian agency at the time MACO was in existence.
However, my first reaction to your post was laughter: it reminds me of an RN Submarine Arm joke I heard once (at the Surface Fleet's expense. There're two kinds of warship: submarines and targets.
However, my first reaction to your post was laughter: it reminds me of an RN Submarine Arm joke I heard once (at the Surface Fleet's expense. There're two kinds of warship: submarines and targets.
Yeah, I find interservice rivalries incredibly funny most of the time. There's more where that came from, here's a few of the cleaner ones:
Never Again Volunteer Yourself
Ain't Ready for Marines Yet
Uncle Sam's Misguided Children
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
However, my first reaction to your post was laughter: it reminds me of an RN Submarine Arm joke I heard once (at the Surface Fleet's expense. There're two kinds of warship: submarines and targets.
Yeah, I find interservice rivalries incredibly funny most of the time. There's more where that came from, here's a few of the cleaner ones:
Remember that we're dealing with people 300 - 400 years from now. How they define a "military" may be different from how we define a military. It could be broader, or it could be narrower. Similarly (but not quite the same), the duties of an organization labeled as a military may also be broader or narrower.
And remember what others have already mentioned, that some of the people in this time period may be biased in how they think about what a military is and whether they themselves are military.
Regardless of how they define the term in 2409, Starfleet undeniably provides almost all military force for the Federation, so my interpenetration would be that they are a military, but that they are not just a military, or that they are a military and the responsibilities of a military in that time period have expanded beyond what we're used to.
I think I like that second explanation better, because it shows a continuation of the evolution in military history we've already seen, from the military as an exclusively violent force, to one that's also responsible for exploration, to one that doesn't have new ground to explore but still pushes research, to one that also serves as front-line disaster response, to the 24th century where the Federation's military has taken on so many additional duties that the majority of its work is completely unrelated to combat.
The kicker for me is that if the Federation needs to fight something, they don't call the Federation Navy. They call Starfleet.
Remember that we're dealing with people 300 - 400 years from now. How they define a "military" may be different from how we define a military. It could be broader, or it could be narrower. Similarly (but not quite the same), the duties of an organization labeled as a military may also be broader or narrower.
How we define a military now is certainly different from 400 years ago. The role of the military is defined by its current society so exploration might have been more important for a military 400 years ago than its role in foreign relations now.
You don't send NASA, which is indisputably a non-military agency (even though many of its employees, especially astronauts, are and have been current or former service personnel), to fight a world war (equivalent: the Dominion War), you send a military. That bugs me. It makes me want to investigate why that might be the case.
You send them because the Federation literally has no other option. They disbanded their military upon foundation. Starfleet is all they have.
We already have Prime!Kirk (a farm boy from Iowa) saying explicitly, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in TOS: "Errand of Mercy".
At this point you (and others) have to make up their mind. Does dialogue count or not? If you disregard Picard, Marcus and Scotty because they say something you don't like, why is what Kirk says to be taken as hard evidence?
It's clear Kirk is creating himself a dichotomy there. Soldier or diplomat. He picks the former. But regardless of that it's simply a character's opinion of himself. Similar to how O'Brina refers to himself as an engineer primerally. It doesn't speak of the organisation itself.
'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
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
All have to be ignored and their speakers dismissed because they explicitly refer to the organisation. Kirks comment can be allowed to stand because it tangentially supports their presupposition.
Gil Grissom: I don't trust people, they tend to lie. Evidence never lies.
there is a reason eyewitness testimony is not admissible as evidence in a court of law in absence of actual PHYSICAL evidence
Except you're confusing fiction with real life (which is better than the other way around, though not by much).
Dialogue is as much a presentation of the fiction as any other evidence because the fiction only exists through what is shown and written. Both carry exactly the same amount of weight as each other when depicting fiction.
And before you go and parrot that in Beyond it's revealed MACO was disbanded after the Federation formed, let's be clear: the MACOs needed a UESPA (I.e. Civilian) starship to get to where the war was. If the military's going to rely on Starfleet to operate in an interstellar theatre anyway, why not just transfer those roles to Starfleet entirely. That is exactly what happened. When MACO disbanded, Krell (and presumably every other MACO) was transferred to Starfleet. That Starfleet was too peace-like for Krell (who was in any case unstable by the time he said that) doesn't change the fact that Earth (and the Federation) felt perfectly happy to fold MACO's defence role into Starfleet.
The Franklin is stated to be a MACO ship. And nobody said Starfleet didn't have the defence of the Federation role. The claim is that they're not a military because of the very reason you mentioned. The military was disbanded.
And inversely, if you're going to accept the word of Picard and a version of Scotty from another universe
What Scotty from another universe? Scotty in Beyond is from a different timeline speaking of the organisation that was founded in the Prime Timeline. The KT wasn't created until 2233.
why dismiss out of hand the words of Kirk from the original series?
Several reasons.
He's speaking of himself not Starfleet.
TOS contains lots of concepts of concepts now discarded.
Beyond is the latest example of Trek material (excluding DSC that makes little comment either way) and is therefore a more accurate indication of the writers views of the show than TOS was.
Scotty is talking directly about why a former MACO (an actual military force) might have a little bit of a grudge with Starfleet.
He referred to "the service" in the tones of someone who's had military service, he called himself a "soldier", he performed in all matters as if part of a military service (including treating people with respect when outright insubordination would have been called for, especially with Undersecretary Baris who wasn't even his superior in any meaningful sense)...
All of that says nothing about anything except Kirk's own personality. Unless Reg Barclay also acts in the same way a characters bearing isn't an indication of anything except an exploration of that character.
Some of those arguing against the idea of Starfleet being a military seem to have an awfully weird idea of what a "military" does. Yes, military forces fight wars (the Dominion War ring a bell? Cardassian War? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?), but they also carry out missions of exploration and scientific inquiry (the US Naval personnel stationed in Antarctica aren't there to try to seize power over the glaciers), and they don't go out looking for wars to fight. (Sometimes the civilians who run governments do, especially when those civilians have no military experience, but the folks who actually have to fight in the wars don't particularly enjoy doing it.) Military personnel of various nations here on Earth are often the first to spring into action when disaster relief is required, in large part because they've already got the organization and infrastructure to do so. (Famously, the carrier USS Enterprise, CVN-65, used her excess reactor power to supply parts of Mauritius with electricity while carrying out disaster-relief efforts.)
This is explained ad nauseum. A military performs those other functions because they have the capability to. They have the manpower, equipment, can use the research for their own purposes, and quite lot of free time. So they do other stuff on the side.
Starfleet can perform defensive functions for the Federation because it has the manpower, ships, fleet sizes (sometimes), and equipment, and mostly because they have a burning desire for their hom to not be assimilated whilst they're out studying space mushrooms.
Yes, but the NX-01 crew (and Admiral Forrest) make a big deal in the MACOs' first appearance about how the MACO are military and Starfleet is civilian. The difference between the two at the time of ENT couldn't be any more clear cut.
What episode is that from? I'm not disagreeing, I just seem to remember ENT being more ambiguous than TNG about Earth Starfleet being a military or not.
I also feel the need to point out that in most nations other than the US marines are Navy. The Royal Marines (plus Commandoes) are part of the Royal Navy, which is the norm in most countries. The US are basically the only nation I know of which gives the marines a separate branch. And there's a reason for that: it adds an unnecessary seam in what should be a seamless relationship between 'My *ss' and 'Navy Equipment'. With both marines and seamen taking their orders in the same Chain of Command, and from the same Board of the Admiralty, you avoid the difficulties of, say, needing dedicated air squadrons for marine ground elements, because the aircraft carrier can delegate its naval squadrons to the same job seamlessly. I don't know how the US makes that relationship work (or why the separation even exists) but it seems like it just adds an extra chain of command when it isn't necessary.
I think in any nation where the military is based off of the British one (i.e. most of the Commonwealth except Canada) the three branches all have their own forces for all three theatres (So the Navy has the Marines and the Fleet Air Arm and there's the RAF Regiments and Army Air Corps).
Remember that we're dealing with people 300 - 400 years from now. How they define a "military" may be different from how we define a military. It could be broader, or it could be narrower. Similarly (but not quite the same), the duties of an organization labeled as a military may also be broader or narrower.
That's the point. Starfleet clearly provides the defence of the Federation that, what is currently defined as, a military would however it's also clear that the definition of military in the future does not include Starfleet.
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
Remember that we're dealing with people 300 - 400 years from now. How they define a "military" may be different from how we define a military. It could be broader, or it could be narrower. Similarly (but not quite the same), the duties of an organization labeled as a military may also be broader or narrower.
That's the point. Starfleet clearly provides the defence of the Federation that, what is currently defined as, a military would however it's also clear that the definition of military in the future does not include Starfleet.
In which case, this whole debate boils down to whether you want to use their definition or our definition. Given that we're discussing this with 21st century humans and not 24th century humans, it probably makes more sense to use our definition.
Context is overrated anyway. And far too complicated.
^ 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
Remember that we're dealing with people 300 - 400 years from now. How they define a "military" may be different from how we define a military. It could be broader, or it could be narrower. Similarly (but not quite the same), the duties of an organization labeled as a military may also be broader or narrower.
That's the point. Starfleet clearly provides the defence of the Federation that, what is currently defined as, a military would however it's also clear that the definition of military in the future does not include Starfleet.
In which case, this whole debate boils down to whether you want to use their definition or our definition. Given that we're discussing this with 21st century humans and not 24th century humans, it probably makes more sense to use our definition.
Well any discussion of Starfleets role necessitates canonical information not what we want it to be. Thus we need to work out and use their definitions. Otherwise you're just forcing your own headcanon onto irrelevant situations.
Case in point was all that wittering about how Starfleet was somehow violating 21st century US military particulars despite it being explicitly not a military at all US based or otherwise.
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
The problem is you have multiple characters making somewhat contradicting statements (some say it's not military while others refer to it as "the service" and say they are/were soldiers). Then there's the fact that starfleet is the only means of defense for the entire federation, at least the only ever one shown or talked about, and of course star trek own shakey continuity (let's face it, they've made some continuity gaffs) your left with an argument that's as much about opinion as it about facts, at least in my opinion.
As for me, I've always believed that actions speak louder than words, and throughout the franchise we have seen Starfleet used as a military, albeit one who's primary mission is exploration and scientific discovery.
You might be interested to note that of the many, many research vessels operated or built by the US Navy, the only ones that carry any armament at all (much less things like multiple phaser banks and photon torpedo launchers) are former combat vessels that were repurposed to research. (Almost as if a ship can do more than one thing! How amazing!)
ALSO! Starfleet has multiple ship types with different functions in-universe. Guess which one is the biggest and most heavily armed? If you said "hospital ship" or "robot grain ship", you clearly didn't pay attention in those episodes.
Comments
Starfleet are not a military ergo they're civilians.
As a defence force. They're not a defence force unless necessary. Hence the calling.
Except it can. I broke it down into nice little points for you.
Eh? A military is an organisation that exists to defend a political entity. If it's got some free time it may keep its hand in by doing some light exploring or whathaveyou on the side. Starfleet is an organisation that exists solely as a exploration and research fleet that happens to do some defence work on account of having lots of ships with big guns and a slight desire not to see their homes invaded.
Yeah, to Starfleet. Not to a military, hence civilian. I'm not sure why you needed that spelt out for you.
Well so far you've managed to completely mis define a word then completely fail to provide anything put post hoc reasoning to fit your presuposed conclusion so I can see why you'd be having trouble talking to other humans.
In this case it obviously refers to non-starfleet. Or are we going to have to go over how any organisation will happily call people outside of it civilians? Police, legal, my lab, supermarkets and so on.
You have the literal words of the people within the organisation tell you they aren't a military but they're all lying because you want space marines.
They're literal quotes. The Federation literally disbanded their military. Starfleet is literally a humanitarian and peacekeeping armada. Their role is literally as explorers.
I think I believe the actual characters over you.
Words are not evidence now?
Can you read?
Utterly irrelevant to what it discusses. And it's certainly not universal. The Undiscovered Country was vastly superior.
You mean the guy bitter at his dad and about to have his research stolen by people he believed were going to weaponise it? Gee, I wonder why he said that.
No. Because that's Sisko's term for what is classed as an escort. It's basic but it's still not properly designed for combat. If anything it's a testbed for guns and an engine.
And that's the crux of it.
People claiming it's a military because it has a defensive role are correct in their own way. De facto vs de jure.
People who claim it's a military for any other reason are just gagging for space marines in all their fiction and will come up with any amount of calling actual characters liers or presupposing and stretching scenarios just to get them.
'Warship' isn't a ship class or type. It's Sisko's opinion on his own design. I'm not going to disregard his opinion or claim he's lying and I was going to include it earlier when I said the Dreadnought Class was the sole Federation warship.
However it's officially an escort which means the Federation has obviously got an official use for it, which is to escort cargo or colony ships in hazardous territory. Sure, it's more likely to be involved in combat than, say, the Intrepid, but probably no more likely than the Constitution.
When the Federation turned Starfleet into its defence force in the Dominion War it's not like we saw all these 'warships' on the front lines. We see the Valliant which is relegated to shipping cadets around and two unnamed Defiants in 'Endgame' hanging around Earth with nothing to do. The rest of the time we only saw the titular Defiant so it's either not very good and Starfleet didn't want any more (unlikely after seeing what the Defiant and the Defiant-A do) or it's happily bobbing around in the war escorting grain to Vulcan.
It's very difficult to see the Dreadnought doing anything else but war. It is the size of a Galaxy Class (with slightly less volume thanks to the shorter and hollow saucer) but most of its secondary hull looks like weapons (those enormous turret balls), fighters (the hangar spans the length of the hull), and engines (I assume that being fast enough to overtake the Konni requires a warp core bigger than the laser assemblage the Konni has). There' not much room there for anything else.
The American Police call their cars 'cruisers'. Several nations have cars designated 'interceptors'.
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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And I'm a scion of a US Navy family going back four generations. My great-grandfather served in World War II, and my father was on a destroyer in the Persian Gulf when the Iranians and Iraqis were shooting at each other.
My argument is simply this: The hard evidence doesn't fit the statements of the characters. You don't send NASA, which is indisputably a non-military agency (even though many of its employees, especially astronauts, are and have been current or former service personnel), to fight a world war (equivalent: the Dominion War), you send a military. That bugs me. It makes me want to investigate why that might be the case.
It's also fodder for writing: e.g. as I referred to before, what might a Starfleet officer who isn't Earther bourgeoisie like Picard have to say about it? We already have Prime!Kirk (a farm boy from Iowa) saying explicitly, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in TOS: "Errand of Mercy".
And for actual fan fiction, I'm currently writing a story with @patrickngo wherein one of my characters, a Bajoran (namely Rear Admiral Kanril Eleya), lays out exactly why she thinks of herself as a soldier first and foremost (and why she feels insulted by the sentiment that she shouldn't think of herself that way).
Citation needed.
Yeah, actually it kinda does. Per Sisko, one of the primary minds behind the construction of USS Defiant (ergo the most authoritative source we have), Starfleet deliberately refused to recognize her as being a "warship", favoring the euphemistic "escort vessel", even though the ship's sole design purpose was to be a front-line combatant ship in a full-scale war with the Borg. That suggests a certain characterization of Starfleet Command: the Earthers that dominate Starfleet's upper echelon don't want to think of themselves as being "military". Everything else is similar extrapolation from the long-established backstory of the franchise. It's not canon fact, but it makes more sense than mutually contradictory statements by individual characters.
Fun fact: Roddenberry, for his part, liked to insist that Starfleet was actually something like the Coast Guard. Guess what: the Coasties are still a military branch (though currently under the Department of Homeland Security rather than the Department of Defense), and in World War II they contributed heavily to the Normandy landings.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
My character Tsin'xing
> My argument is simply this: The hard evidence doesn't fit the statements of the characters. You don't send NASA, which is indisputably a non-military agency (even though many of its employees, especially astronauts, are and have been current or former service personnel), to fight a world war (equivalent: the Dominion War), you send a military. That bugs me. It makes me want to investigate why that might be the case.
It's pretty simple: The UFP disbanded individual militaries (MACO et al) in favour of a new kind of interplanetary organization tasked with *everything* there is to do in space. They got the resources and personnel to conduct research, exploration, policing and defence. It is not just NASA but a evolution that absorbed military personnel and functions, yet exists in a different spirit. Ex astris, scientia.
@starswordc said:
> It's also fodder for writing: e.g. as I referred to before, what might a Starfleet officer who isn't Earther bourgeoisie like Picard have to say about it? We already have Prime!Kirk (a farm boy from Iowa) saying explicitly, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in TOS: "Errand of Mercy".
At this point you (and others) have to make up their mind. Does dialogue count or not? If you disregard Picard, Marcus and Scotty because they say something you don't like, why is what Kirk says to be taken as hard evidence? I adress that since of course all dialogue counts and I set aside the writing didn't yet find a consistent line back then: While the first mentioned directly characterize Starfleet, Kirk speaks about himself: Here, "Soldier not a diplomat" refers to him being uncomfortable in the diplomatic role and he'd rather just follow orders. The same Kirk in the movie says later they are not the military. He talks about the US' in the 80s, but also describes Starfleet as a joined service not joined military service, indicating the complex folding of different organizations into one new one.
> starswordc wrote: »
> Citation needed.
TNG conspiracy. The New Orleans class USS Kyushu is referred to as frigate. Star Trek Beyond also references frigates in Okudagrams (or it's equivalent xD).
@starswordc wrote:
the Earthers that dominate Starfleet's upper echelon don't want to think of themselves as being "military". Everything else is similar extrapolation from the long-established backstory of the franchise. It's not canon fact, but it makes more sense than mutually contradictory statements by individual characters.
This is wild speculation though. You have literally no indication what Starfleet's 'upper echeleon' looks like. Glimpses we get are very diverse in the movies and the UFP presidency never belonged to a human as far as I know. I can't see the 'earthers' dictating their narrative onto over 100 worlds just to discredit all dialogue proof for one side (while keeping the other intact).
> @patrickngo said:
> the whole debate reflects this to a certain extent. for example, if your postal service is also enforcing the law, does that make them a police? well in a practical sense, yes, but in a strictly 'definition' sense, that vehicle with the 120mm cannon and eight inches of composite armor is just a delivery truck.
>
> Functionally, Starfleet serves the role of a military, this role dictates certain things, like a specialized internal set of laws and regulations, a fairly strict chain of command social structure, uniforms, specific training and lots of heavy weapons.
>
> but technically, the Tank isn't a Tank, it's a delivery truck, because technically the mailman's not a de jure soldier. (and it doesn't matter how many confirmed kills he's got completing his 'rounds'.)
In principle I agree, the postal service is a deliberate ad absurdum though. There is no RL equivalent to SF, but look at the post WW2 BGS, Germany's border protection (which doesn't exist any more due to police reforms). It was a police, although used military grade equipment and were combatants in a defence scenario. Still police, not military, managed by civilian ministries. The tank was a tank, but driving it (or using a frigate) doesn't make the service nature change.
@patrickngo wrote:
> in a sense what you guys are debating, is bureaucratic cognitive dissonance. the service is used LIKE a military, it serves a Military role, it's the ONLY service serving a military role, but for whatever reason, the politicians don't want to admit to it being a Military organization, so they apply 'euphemisms' like 'Escort vessel' instead of warship, and insist in the propaganda that Starfleet is a "peacekeeping armada" instead of a Navy.
Or if you do not apply deception to everything and everyone it's maybe just as they say. It's the future, things change.
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there is a reason eyewitness testimony is not admissible as evidence in a court of law in absence of actual PHYSICAL evidence
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
> no, dialogue does not count, because again Gil Grissom: I don't trust people, they tend to lie. Evidence never lies.
>
>
>
>
> there is a reason eyewitness testimony is not admissible as evidence in a court of law in absence of actual PHYSICAL evidence
So you mute every movie you watch? How do you even know what is going on when characters stand in front of each other and move their jaws? That must be very confusing.
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> So you mute every movie you watch? How do you even know what is going on when characters stand in front of each other and move their jaws? That must be very confusing.
Nice strawman. He's saying the exact same thing I am: Picard's and KT!Scotty's opinion doesn't match the evidence.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Some of those arguing against the idea of Starfleet being a military seem to have an awfully weird idea of what a "military" does. Yes, military forces fight wars (the Dominion War ring a bell? Cardassian War? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?), but they also carry out missions of exploration and scientific inquiry (the US Naval personnel stationed in Antarctica aren't there to try to seize power over the glaciers), and they don't go out looking for wars to fight. (Sometimes the civilians who run governments do, especially when those civilians have no military experience, but the folks who actually have to fight in the wars don't particularly enjoy doing it.) Military personnel of various nations here on Earth are often the first to spring into action when disaster relief is required, in large part because they've already got the organization and infrastructure to do so. (Famously, the carrier USS Enterprise, CVN-65, used her excess reactor power to supply parts of Mauritius with electricity while carrying out disaster-relief efforts.)
> (...), in large part because they've already got the organization and infrastructure to do so. (Famously, the carrier USS Enterprise, CVN-65, used her excess reactor power to supply parts of Mauritius with electricity while carrying out disaster-relief efforts.)
Ding ding ding. You solved the thread. No navy ship is build for the purpose of conducting humanitarian or scientific missions, their main purpose is to partake in battles. But they can do other task, because of structure, organization and equipment. Starfleet ships are build for exploration of space, which requires state of the art defensive tech, efficient structure and trained personnel. They can partake in battles because of that, but it's not their main function.
It's not that hard.
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You might be interested to note that of the many, many research vessels operated or built by the US Navy, the only ones that carry any armament at all (much less things like multiple phaser banks and photon torpedo launchers) are former combat vessels that were repurposed to research. (Almost as if a ship can do more than one thing! How amazing!)
> There have been many purpose-built research craft for the US Navy; here are two of the most recent.
>
> You might be interested to note that of the many, many research vessels operated or built by the US Navy, the only ones that carry any armament at all (much less things like multiple phaser banks and photon torpedo launchers) are former combat vessels that were repurposed to research. (Almost as if a ship can do more than one thing! How amazing!)
But a US navy vessel does not venture into unknown waters and meets literal sea monsters. Star Trek is not real, the ships encounter powerful space beimgs, gods and hostile aliens, that's why they have weapons. This doesn't happen on earth in the real world. It's like you all don't know what a TV show is...
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Insert obligatory joke about how "Marine" stands for "My TRIBBLE$ Rides in Navy Equipment".
You forget that nowadays sonar, aircraft, satellites, and simply the passage of time have allowed us to map the oceans quite thoroughly. Before somewhere around the late 19th century, naval vessels DID venture into unknown or at least poorly charted waters, frequently (not for nothing are North Carolina's barrier islands called the Graveyard of the Atlantic), and many crew members certainly believed they could encounter sea monsters. Star Trek often romanticizes the Age of Sail: Nick Meyer's movies in particular drew heavily on Horatio Hornblower by C.S. Forester, and there's that holodeck scenario the Enterprise-D crew used when they promoted Worf to lieutenant commander in Generations.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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Yes, but the NX-01 crew (and Admiral Forrest) make a big deal in the MACOs' first appearance about how the MACO are military and Starfleet is civilian. The difference between the two at the time of ENT couldn't be any more clear cut.
I also feel the need to point out that in most nations other than the US marines are Navy. The Royal Marines (plus Commandoes) are part of the Royal Navy, which is the norm in most countries. The US are basically the only nation I know of which gives the marines a separate branch. And there's a reason for that: it adds an unnecessary seam in what should be a seamless relationship between 'My *ss' and 'Navy Equipment'. With both marines and seamen taking their orders in the same Chain of Command, and from the same Board of the Admiralty, you avoid the difficulties of, say, needing dedicated air squadrons for marine ground elements, because the aircraft carrier can delegate its naval squadrons to the same job seamlessly. I don't know how the US makes that relationship work (or why the separation even exists) but it seems like it just adds an extra chain of command when it isn't necessary.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
* SF Debris reference.
The division isn't actually as clear as that: the USMC is still part of the Department of the Navy (part of the Department of Defense), and Navy corpsmen fill the role of field medics for Marine units. But you are definitely right that it is unusual not only for Marines (it's always capitalized in the US) to be used in land wars but for them to also operate fixed-wing aircraft. (I think how it went was, the US military was reorganized under President Truman in 1947, and the Army Air Force became its own branch, the modern USAF, but the Navy and Marines kept their airpower for whatever reason. @jonsills and @patrickngo probably know more about that than I do.)
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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I left it uncapitalised because I was referring to marine infantry in general, and not any one military force (I would capitalise if I was referring specifically to the Royal Marines or USMC personnel. You wouldn't necessarily capitalise 'soldier' for example.
My point was really that it doesn't stand to reason that MACO would be the Marines to Starfleet's Navy, since that separation of branches is unique to the US in our world, even if Starfleet wasn't specifically a civilian agency at the time MACO was in existence.
However, my first reaction to your post was laughter: it reminds me of an RN Submarine Arm joke I heard once (at the Surface Fleet's expense. There're two kinds of warship: submarines and targets.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Yeah, I find interservice rivalries incredibly funny most of the time. There's more where that came from, here's a few of the cleaner ones:
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
And remember what others have already mentioned, that some of the people in this time period may be biased in how they think about what a military is and whether they themselves are military.
Regardless of how they define the term in 2409, Starfleet undeniably provides almost all military force for the Federation, so my interpenetration would be that they are a military, but that they are not just a military, or that they are a military and the responsibilities of a military in that time period have expanded beyond what we're used to.
I think I like that second explanation better, because it shows a continuation of the evolution in military history we've already seen, from the military as an exclusively violent force, to one that's also responsible for exploration, to one that doesn't have new ground to explore but still pushes research, to one that also serves as front-line disaster response, to the 24th century where the Federation's military has taken on so many additional duties that the majority of its work is completely unrelated to combat.
The kicker for me is that if the Federation needs to fight something, they don't call the Federation Navy. They call Starfleet.
How we define a military now is certainly different from 400 years ago. The role of the military is defined by its current society so exploration might have been more important for a military 400 years ago than its role in foreign relations now.
You send them because the Federation literally has no other option. They disbanded their military upon foundation. Starfleet is all they have.
This sounds like the motto of space marines to me.
It's clear Kirk is creating himself a dichotomy there. Soldier or diplomat. He picks the former. But regardless of that it's simply a character's opinion of himself. Similar to how O'Brina refers to himself as an engineer primerally. It doesn't speak of the organisation itself.
All have to be ignored and their speakers dismissed because they explicitly refer to the organisation. Kirks comment can be allowed to stand because it tangentially supports their presupposition.
Except you're confusing fiction with real life (which is better than the other way around, though not by much).
Dialogue is as much a presentation of the fiction as any other evidence because the fiction only exists through what is shown and written. Both carry exactly the same amount of weight as each other when depicting fiction.
The Franklin is stated to be a MACO ship. And nobody said Starfleet didn't have the defence of the Federation role. The claim is that they're not a military because of the very reason you mentioned. The military was disbanded.
What Scotty from another universe? Scotty in Beyond is from a different timeline speaking of the organisation that was founded in the Prime Timeline. The KT wasn't created until 2233.
Several reasons.
He's speaking of himself not Starfleet.
TOS contains lots of concepts of concepts now discarded.
Beyond is the latest example of Trek material (excluding DSC that makes little comment either way) and is therefore a more accurate indication of the writers views of the show than TOS was.
Scotty is talking directly about why a former MACO (an actual military force) might have a little bit of a grudge with Starfleet.
All of that says nothing about anything except Kirk's own personality. Unless Reg Barclay also acts in the same way a characters bearing isn't an indication of anything except an exploration of that character.
This is explained ad nauseum. A military performs those other functions because they have the capability to. They have the manpower, equipment, can use the research for their own purposes, and quite lot of free time. So they do other stuff on the side.
Starfleet can perform defensive functions for the Federation because it has the manpower, ships, fleet sizes (sometimes), and equipment, and mostly because they have a burning desire for their hom to not be assimilated whilst they're out studying space mushrooms.
What episode is that from? I'm not disagreeing, I just seem to remember ENT being more ambiguous than TNG about Earth Starfleet being a military or not.
I think in any nation where the military is based off of the British one (i.e. most of the Commonwealth except Canada) the three branches all have their own forces for all three theatres (So the Navy has the Marines and the Fleet Air Arm and there's the RAF Regiments and Army Air Corps).
That's the point. Starfleet clearly provides the defence of the Federation that, what is currently defined as, a military would however it's also clear that the definition of military in the future does not include Starfleet.
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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Well any discussion of Starfleets role necessitates canonical information not what we want it to be. Thus we need to work out and use their definitions. Otherwise you're just forcing your own headcanon onto irrelevant situations.
Case in point was all that wittering about how Starfleet was somehow violating 21st century US military particulars despite it being explicitly not a military at all US based or otherwise.
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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Then there's the fact that starfleet is the only means of defense for the entire federation, at least the only ever one shown or talked about, and of course star trek own shakey continuity (let's face it, they've made some continuity gaffs) your left with an argument that's as much about opinion as it about facts, at least in my opinion.
As for me, I've always believed that actions speak louder than words, and throughout the franchise we have seen Starfleet used as a military, albeit one who's primary mission is exploration and scientific discovery.
My character Tsin'xing