The Borg first appeared in TNG: "Q Who?" but in an earlier episode of TNG: "The Measure of a Man" Starfleet already has JAG officers and court-martial. Therefore, Starfleet is a military organization at all times.
I don't know why you think repeating a point somehow makes it more valid, just like highlighting every instance of the word "military" in transcripts or the fact they wore historic naval uniforms in a holodeck play doesn't really do anything.
What happened to your "paramilitary" argument that you were so sure about in another thread?
Nothing. "Paramilitary" describes a non-military organisation with a military structure which is what Starfleet is.
The terms JAG and court-martial are military exclusive. Unless they change into different meanings, you don't have an argument because Star Trek is being shown in the present and uses the language of the present. A dictionary is called a reference book for a reason.
It's also a fictional play describing the rules of said universe to us and a repeated point - not a one-off goof - is that it isn't a military organization. Since every single one of your points is adressed by simply reading the thread all over I don't know what I could write at this point.
^ 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
I am also confused about why it would be bad if Starfleet was a military...
That's not relevant to anything.
^ 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
In Kirk's time it seemed more militaristic, but by the time of Picard it was more about exploration.
Then during Sisko's time, it went back to being more militaristic due to the circumstances of the BORG and Dominion.
I've always thought of Star Fleet as more of a "National Guard" type of thing, used mostly for guarding the boarders and policing the Federation with a bunch of exploration thrown in, but which can become a fighting military force if need be.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I am also confused about why it would be bad if Starfleet was a military...
That's not relevant to anything.
It's in fact quite relevant. If you don't think Starfleet being a military is bad, why go to such lengths, twisting semantics and denying the actual actions of the characters in favor of one line spoken in one episode by a man whose grasp of cultural values is so imperialistic he wouldn't let a kid they'd rescued listen to the music he liked in his own quarters, to deny the plain fact that it is one?
Real-world military forces also maintain craft whose purpose is entirely peaceful. For instance, there's the USAF's X-37B unmanned orbiter, a device which (like the Ent-D herself) could be used as a weapon, but whose apparent purpose is not warlike in the least. Or the large number of cargo aircraft maintained by that same service - in what sane sense could a C-17 Globemaster be regarded as a "warship"? (Yes, yes, it can carry a couple of tanks - or, more commonly, thousands of tons of food and humanitarian supplies.)
The Coast Guard (and if you want to tell them they're not a military service, go ahead - but let me know first, I want to sell tickets) has an entire fleet of aircraft, both fixed- and rotary-wing, devoted to the cause of search-and-rescue, which is about as peaceful as a military mission gets.
As for missions of exploration, there isn't a lot of that left on this planet (although the US Navy is actively involved in ocean-floor exploration and supply of McMurdo Station in Antarctica), but the Apollo missions, constructed by NASA (an arm of the US government), were flown and operated by US military forces. The only reason they weren't flown under the auspices of the USAF was the Outer Space Treaty of 1968.
Starfleet is merely the extension of these ideas into deep space. "Military" doesn't necessarily mean "war machine", as those of us who are veterans have tried several times to point out...
Okay, Val, you want to play semantic games, swapping freely between "this is what was said, this is what was seen" and "it's just a show". That's fine.
Does anyone want to seriously explain to me why it would be bad for Starfleet to be a military organization?
Okay, Val, you want to play semantic games, swapping freely between "this is what was said, this is what was seen" and "it's just a show". That's fine.
Does anyone want to seriously explain to me why it would be bad for Starfleet to be a military organization?
Nothing that I can think off.
Either way, you have a administrative structure used to observe, collate, analyze data. And then the bureaucracy moves it's own resources to react to this data in the most positive manner for the bureaucratic entity and it's stakeholders. Whether they use a militaristic, para-militaristic or civilian methods doesn't really matter. The actions are taken and the results are seeked. The rest are nothing more than the trappings of presentation.
AT least, that is how it is for me. And why I haven't really said anything in this long thread.
I haven't read much of this thread, but I will give my two cents. I think Star Fleet is a military organization because their supposed "exploration ships" are armed with "defensive" weapons that allow said ships to stand toe to toe with the best ships their neighboring aliens have to offer. In TNG for example that Galaxy class starship was more than a match for the Klingon Vorcha and Romulan Deridex both of which are warships in their respective navies. If Star fleet was truly a non military organization. Their ships would be unarmed, or poorly armed. They would not participate in armed conflicts (like the Dominion War) and they wouldn't have the military rank system in place.
I see Starfleet as a multi role organisation, in times of conflict it's a military organisation but in times of peace, it's a exploration,internal policing and peacekeeping organisation. Starfleet also is the diplomatic arm if the situation requires
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
@jonsills This has nothing to do with good or bad. You want to have a value discussion because you feel people in the military are underappreciated. For a social discussion this would be a point and a lot of other public service jobs could join in. But in this case for this discussion it's not about that. In fact real life has nothing to do with it.
Star Trek is a play with an idea which it shows through exposition dialogue. In no less than five different installments of the franchise we have explicit dialogue having Starfleet members identifying themselves not as military personnel or saying the line "Starfleet is not a military organisation" straight. ENT, TNG, DS9, 09 and the recent Beyond. Add to that the vast background information behind the franchise that people with conflicting views wrote but still forms a kind of coherent picture.
"Military organisation" is not synonymous with "military function" here as they provide that. It is still not meant to be a military organisation. Starfleet's duties and them not being one are canonical and also do not exclude each other. Your persistence that they are are made from a out of universe point of view that also has to dismiss written and spoken exposition of a play. So it only works within your headcanon if you will.
That's the whole thing. I do not understand your desire to bring value and emotion into this completely unemotional discussion.
^ 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
Does anyone want to seriously explain to me why it would be bad for Starfleet to be a military organization?
Let me start by saying in my eyes it wouldn't and infact would be better off if it was a little more military. The ship and crew will carry the idiot ball instead of having set procedures for events that keep happening. Like two Klingons smuggling a weapon into the brig and using it to break out, reach engineering and threaten to destroy the whole ship? Worf was not even security chief when he handled that one for them.
But I am getting off track. Why do others think it would be bad? Utopia. The Federation and our future is supposed to be a utopia where all our material needs are met. We never grieve, and the thought of war and being warlike should make us sick.
And there is the sticking point. Military means war and to those that have not served. War should always be avoided as they serve no purpose but atrocity. All the world's sins end once you abolish war. And you do that by not having a military.
I have heard this theory a few times in my life and those speaking it swear all crime will end if we just abolish our armed forces.
So that is the root of why military is evil.
Why do many posters here insist that Starfleet is not military? Because their bible said so. And their faith demands they agree to this devotedly. No matter any contradictions. This is for all intents and purposes is a religious debate.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I haven't read much of this thread, but I will give my two cents. I think Star Fleet is a military organization because their supposed "exploration ships" are armed with "defensive" weapons that allow said ships to stand toe to toe with the best ships their neighboring aliens have to offer. In TNG for example that Galaxy class starship was more than a match for the Klingon Vorcha and Romulan Deridex both of which are warships in their respective navies. If Star fleet was truly a non military organization. Their ships would be unarmed, or poorly armed. They would not participate in armed conflicts (like the Dominion War) and they wouldn't have the military rank system in place.
The D'Deridex is more of a match for the Galaxy Class, the Klingon comparable is the Negh'Var, not the Vorcha, and would lose in a straight up fight against both.
@feiqa
That was the dumbest thing I've read on here yet. OP's posts included.
Seriously?
What the frak is wrong with Starfleet being a military organization, anyway? Why is this even a sticking point for some people?
I've been trying to get that cleared up for pages now, and nobody ever has an answer...
Nothing.
We have nothing against it being a Military organization. I don't think any of us would think anything of it if that is what it was written as from the beginning.
All we are communicating, is that the show says that it isn't.
That's it.
Sure, it functions very similar to modern day Militaries with some additional functions or emphasis added to currently existing ones. But that isn't what is being debated. In the Star Trek Universe, Starfleet does not view itself as a Military Organization.
In the Star Trek Universe, Starfleet does not view itself as a Military Organization.
When the first shows aired it was about a crew and a spaceship setting out into space, the great unknown. It was about an adventure, exploration and had nothing to do with war and combat. In those days, you could very well say, Starfleet is not a military organisation. The Star Trek world itself was an unknown world and nobody gave it an interest. More shows followed, more stories, hence more background of the Star Trek universe had to filled in.
The writers, as it seems to me, forget about a couple of things. One of these, what is the nature of Star Fleet exactly. If it isn't a military organisation, if it has no major role in the defense of the Star Trek universe, where is the military organisation. There isn't one, so Star Fleet is the military organisation of the UFP, no matter what is said about it in the episodes. Do realise actors want to express something in their lines which often falls back to their personal opinion on the role and the story they play.
Take a look at it, uniforms, a military command structure, ranks, they fight, are engaged in combat, not beside the real military, but always on their own or alongside allies.
Comments
I don't know why you think repeating a point somehow makes it more valid, just like highlighting every instance of the word "military" in transcripts or the fact they wore historic naval uniforms in a holodeck play doesn't really do anything.
Nothing. "Paramilitary" describes a non-military organisation with a military structure which is what Starfleet is.
It's also a fictional play describing the rules of said universe to us and a repeated point - not a one-off goof - is that it isn't a military organization. Since every single one of your points is adressed by simply reading the thread all over I don't know what I could write at this point.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I've been trying to get that cleared up for pages now, and nobody ever has an answer...
I am also confused about why it would be bad if Starfleet was a military...
That's not relevant to anything.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
In Kirk's time it seemed more militaristic, but by the time of Picard it was more about exploration.
Then during Sisko's time, it went back to being more militaristic due to the circumstances of the BORG and Dominion.
I've always thought of Star Fleet as more of a "National Guard" type of thing, used mostly for guarding the boarders and policing the Federation with a bunch of exploration thrown in, but which can become a fighting military force if need be.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
If you do think that it's bad, why exactly?
The Coast Guard (and if you want to tell them they're not a military service, go ahead - but let me know first, I want to sell tickets) has an entire fleet of aircraft, both fixed- and rotary-wing, devoted to the cause of search-and-rescue, which is about as peaceful as a military mission gets.
As for missions of exploration, there isn't a lot of that left on this planet (although the US Navy is actively involved in ocean-floor exploration and supply of McMurdo Station in Antarctica), but the Apollo missions, constructed by NASA (an arm of the US government), were flown and operated by US military forces. The only reason they weren't flown under the auspices of the USAF was the Outer Space Treaty of 1968.
Starfleet is merely the extension of these ideas into deep space. "Military" doesn't necessarily mean "war machine", as those of us who are veterans have tried several times to point out...
Does anyone want to seriously explain to me why it would be bad for Starfleet to be a military organization?
Nothing that I can think off.
Either way, you have a administrative structure used to observe, collate, analyze data. And then the bureaucracy moves it's own resources to react to this data in the most positive manner for the bureaucratic entity and it's stakeholders. Whether they use a militaristic, para-militaristic or civilian methods doesn't really matter. The actions are taken and the results are seeked. The rest are nothing more than the trappings of presentation.
AT least, that is how it is for me. And why I haven't really said anything in this long thread.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Star Trek is a play with an idea which it shows through exposition dialogue. In no less than five different installments of the franchise we have explicit dialogue having Starfleet members identifying themselves not as military personnel or saying the line "Starfleet is not a military organisation" straight. ENT, TNG, DS9, 09 and the recent Beyond. Add to that the vast background information behind the franchise that people with conflicting views wrote but still forms a kind of coherent picture.
"Military organisation" is not synonymous with "military function" here as they provide that. It is still not meant to be a military organisation. Starfleet's duties and them not being one are canonical and also do not exclude each other. Your persistence that they are are made from a out of universe point of view that also has to dismiss written and spoken exposition of a play. So it only works within your headcanon if you will.
That's the whole thing. I do not understand your desire to bring value and emotion into this completely unemotional discussion.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Let me start by saying in my eyes it wouldn't and infact would be better off if it was a little more military. The ship and crew will carry the idiot ball instead of having set procedures for events that keep happening. Like two Klingons smuggling a weapon into the brig and using it to break out, reach engineering and threaten to destroy the whole ship? Worf was not even security chief when he handled that one for them.
But I am getting off track. Why do others think it would be bad? Utopia. The Federation and our future is supposed to be a utopia where all our material needs are met. We never grieve, and the thought of war and being warlike should make us sick.
And there is the sticking point. Military means war and to those that have not served. War should always be avoided as they serve no purpose but atrocity. All the world's sins end once you abolish war. And you do that by not having a military.
I have heard this theory a few times in my life and those speaking it swear all crime will end if we just abolish our armed forces.
So that is the root of why military is evil.
Why do many posters here insist that Starfleet is not military? Because their bible said so. And their faith demands they agree to this devotedly. No matter any contradictions. This is for all intents and purposes is a religious debate.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
The D'Deridex is more of a match for the Galaxy Class, the Klingon comparable is the Negh'Var, not the Vorcha, and would lose in a straight up fight against both.
@feiqa
That was the dumbest thing I've read on here yet. OP's posts included.
Seriously?
Nothing.
We have nothing against it being a Military organization. I don't think any of us would think anything of it if that is what it was written as from the beginning.
All we are communicating, is that the show says that it isn't.
That's it.
Sure, it functions very similar to modern day Militaries with some additional functions or emphasis added to currently existing ones. But that isn't what is being debated. In the Star Trek Universe, Starfleet does not view itself as a Military Organization.
In the Star Trek Universe, Starfleet does not view itself as a Military Organization.
The writers, as it seems to me, forget about a couple of things. One of these, what is the nature of Star Fleet exactly. If it isn't a military organisation, if it has no major role in the defense of the Star Trek universe, where is the military organisation. There isn't one, so Star Fleet is the military organisation of the UFP, no matter what is said about it in the episodes. Do realise actors want to express something in their lines which often falls back to their personal opinion on the role and the story they play.
Take a look at it, uniforms, a military command structure, ranks, they fight, are engaged in combat, not beside the real military, but always on their own or alongside allies.