Scotty and his military comment

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by Charles Phipps, Jun 24, 2013.

  1. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Indeed.

    Picard: "Starfleet is not a military organization."
    Belz: "I disagree!"
    Gardner: "I'm surprised Archer requested military officers to the Enterprise..."
    Belz: "Starfleet IS the military, stupid!"
    Scotty: "This is clearly a military mission! Is that what we are now?"
    Belz: "You were always a military! What are you talking about?"

    You don't agree with what Starfleet says about itself, so why would I expect you to believe me? :vulcan:
     
  2. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Then again, TWOK and TUC are much better movies. IMH0.

    (Hey, it had to be said!)

    I'm not sure we should be taking our cues from TMP. Lord knows the later movies didn't! :)
     
  3. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

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    TMP was a better movie, to be sure, but TWOK and TUC were much more entertaining.:techman:
     
  4. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Not convinced TMP is the better film (good intentions only go so far), but I'm glad we can agree on the entertainment value of the TWOK and TUC!
     
  5. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I had to think about this because the NOAA links really stuck in my eye here.

    As I said before, the singular reason you wouldn't send NOAA into combat is because their ships have no weapons. When you add weapons to those ships, the difference between NOAA and Starfleet vanishes altogether.

    But it's more than that. The similarities are so jarring that you almost wonder if "NOAA with weapons" is what the producers had in mind all along.

    What really jumped at me was this:
    This same passage could just as easily refer to a Starfleet vessel:

    NOAA vessels devote a huge amount of their internal space to large specialized laboratories. Their sensors are optimized for mapping the sea floor, analysis of oceanographic phenomenon and examination of living creatures encountered in their voyages. Their auxiliary craft are highly versatile and they have a wide variety of scientific probes. Their officers corps is a Federal Uniformed Service with a navy-style rank structure and has no enlisted ranks. (Hint Hint!). As a uniformed service they are technically equivalent to the Coast Guard or the Navy such that providing them with defensive armaments would technically be legal under the Geneva Conventions. Moreover, NOAA has been known to name several of its vessels after famous exploration ships and/or famous explorers (e.g. the MV Neil Armstrong).

    Their STATED goal is exploration and scientific research, which -- like Starfleet -- their ships spend most of their time doing. This is also very much UNLIKE the U.S. Navy, who -- with the singular exception of NR-1 -- hasn't conducted a purely scientific expedition since 1957 and whose exploration activities have since been reduced to a support role for NASA.


    When it comes down to, in the end, is that NOAA would be almost IDENTICAL to Starfleet if their ships were armed. I strongly believe that if Earth's oceans possessed an abundance of pirates, giant squads, homicidal mermaids, Lovecraftian sea monsters and sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads, NOAA vessels probably WOULD be armed. This, finally, explains why NX-01 completely neglected to install or test any of its main armaments until they were already well into their mission: The RV Atlantis wouldn't need them either unless they thought raids by genetically engineered terrorists were going to be a routine hazard.
     
  6. Solariabsg25

    Solariabsg25 Commodore Commodore

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    The fact is, whichever side of the fence you are on, Starfleet does not have a equivalent to any modern military. It's mission purview is so outside of any Earth-bound experience, it makes any direct comparison impossible.

    It has been referred to ON SCREEN as both a military organization AND non military. Most of the military evidence comes from the TOS era, like Kirk specifically claiming he's a soldier, them using military courts-martial etc, a science-vs-military argument in TWOK. Roddenberry's original pitch included the reference to Horatio Hornblower, stories of a military officer on a military vessel. How much of that was his real intent, or just flim-flam to try to sell the series to TV execs who wanted an action show, I doubt we will ever know.

    What is plain is that his statments then changed, and everyone tried to conform to the new "not-military" directive.

    The argument does seem to just be going around and around in circles, and IMHO it will never lead to a true consensus as all we can do is state the "it is" and "it isn't" statements, both of which are just as valid as the other.

    Starfleet is therefore either a military organization, who due to the nature of a space service, spend most of their time in an exploratory and/or scientific role.

    Or an exploratory/scientific organisation, who due to the nature of a space service, are also responsible to undertake the responsibilities of the military arm of The Federation.
     
  7. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    You know, two can play the cherry-picking game, as you've well seen in this thread, so why do you still insist on playing it ?

    I'll offer once more TUC as a counter-example: as soon as the Klingon peace prospect is brought up, someone mentioned they might mothball Starfleet. I wonder why they'd say that, right ?
     
  8. shapeshifter

    shapeshifter Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I agree. It is BOTH depending on, like other Trek related conflicts, the demands of the story being told at the time.

    Isn't this why TOS isn't consistent within itself, it placed the needs of the story over continuity?
     
  9. M'Sharak

    M'Sharak Definitely Herbert. Maybe. Moderator

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    Sounds familiar, that does.
     
  10. throwback

    throwback Captain Captain

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    The Jewish sages who wrote the Talmud wrote that the Old Testament could be interpreted in four different ways. They were:
    * Peshat - simple, literal interpretation of the work
    * Remez - hints and allusions in the work
    * Drush - deeper meanings in the work
    * Sod - esoteric, mystical meanings in the work

    I feel that many discussions of Star Trek often work at the Peshat, Remez, and, occasionally, Drush levels. Rarely, I have seen people working at the Sod level.

    http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/...alid-methods-used-to-interpret-the-Torah.html
     
  11. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    That sounds about right.
     
  12. The Mighty Monkey of Mim

    The Mighty Monkey of Mim Commodore Commodore

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    Since WWII, Japan is constitutionally prohibited from having a military. They nonetheless have forces to fulfill necessary functions of a military, of course. But these forces are not legally a military, and they aren't called that. They're called the Self Defense Forces. I don't see why Starfleet can't appear and act as a military (and thus be understandably referred to as one by outsiders) and still at least technically not be one.
     
  13. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Which was a strawman, not a serious suggestion, considering Spock never said anything about the ships, only the neutral zone outposts.

    It's a bit like when someone suggests "I think we should pull out of Afghanistan" and somebody replies "You mean we should let the terrorists win?"
     
  14. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Which is a very good point, and is precedent for what we see in the Federation after all.

    As I said in another thread, given the reaction to the "Post Atomic Horror," United Earth probably has laws prohibiting the formation of a military force in space (in fact, we already HAVE laws like that, but World War III would have certainly reaffirmed the reasons for them). The same laws wouldn't prohibit the formation of a scientific research agency, and thus Earth Starfleet was created, modeled as a spaceborne version of NOAA. When the need arose for inter-system law enforcement actions, United Earth turned to the only agency with any warp-capable spacecraft and allowed them to arm those ships with weapons. When the Death Star Mini drew a smiley face on Florida, Earth again turned to the only agency with warp capable starships (and the only man who seemed to have only idea what the hell was going on), provided them with still BETTER weapons and sent them to deliver the Xindi a strongly worded letter.

    Starfleet grew into a paramilitary organization very VERY slowly, over a number of years and through a number of acts of pure convenience. It isn't so much that the Federation (or maybe just Earth) avoided making them a formal military organization, they simply never BOTHERED to, as Starfleet was able to do exactly what they needed it to without changing it from what it originally was in the first place.

    If Japan had an oceanographic research agency that was as well armed as the JSDF, they wouldn't need a military force of any kind.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2013
  15. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Except that what everyone seems to forget about Kirk's conversation with Captain Christopher is that Kirk's combined service comment was in response to Christopher asking if Kirk was part ogf the Navy, so Kirk seemed to be saying Starfleet was an organization that was more of combination of all the military branches.

    They never really went into whether Starfleet was a military or not in that episode.
     
  16. Ovation

    Ovation Admiral Admiral

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    Your interpretation is probably correct regarding the original episode's writer's intent. I just meant, rather than go one for hundreds of posts round and round in a circle, if we took Kirk's words literally, there is no real reason to argue. Starfleet is a multipurpose institution that includes military, diplomatic, exploratory and scientific duties. As it is a fictional institution, there is no need for it to be classified as more one of those things than the other a priori--the institution merely serves whatever function the story calls for.
     
  17. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    How would you know ? This is the only time we see that officer and they are discussing a very serious subject. You are, again, making stuff up.
     
  18. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    As I understand, Japan's defense force is just that, a defense force with no offensive capabilities. While Starfleet might not always go on the offensive, they do have offensive capabilities.

    Also, when someone in Japan's defense force finds themselves in legal trouble, the matter is dealt with in civilian court. Starfleet officers face court martial.
     
  19. Kevman7987

    Kevman7987 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Starfleet is both 100% a space military and 100% a space exploratory agency. It depends on what the situation is and what the narrative demands.

    It is both. And neither. Starfleet is its own beginning. Its own ending. A gateway to our own future, if we wish.
     
  20. Solariabsg25

    Solariabsg25 Commodore Commodore

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    From the script

    The lines clearly indicate that they feared dismantling Starfleet, yet leaving the exploratory and scientific branches open, a military viewpoint and reference. This possible threat to Starfleet was the reason for the conspiracy in the first place, so hardly a straw-man argument if Cartwright and other officers believed the threat was real enough to act against their own government.

    HOWEVER although this is more evidence to the military-side of the argument, this IS from TUC, which as you have pointed out, is under Meyers more "Starfleet is Military" outlook.

    I still stand by my assertion though, on-screen evidence supports both options equally, so both viewpoints are equally as valid.

    How can we, as fans, make a final assessment when even the characters (occasionally even the SAME character) have differing opinions ??