Starfleet Marine Corps

[timmy84]

I've seen this argument several times and I say the same thing everytime. We have seen the Starfleet Marines. Its Starfleet Security. You know, the same people that were deployed in large numbers on Earth when Starfleet was preparing for a possible Dominion invasion.

Just saying.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ No, as I said, those are your standard security officers that we've already seen. Those are basically redshirts. That's all Starfleet Security is - they just put security officers on ships. Those are not true Marines.

[Skywalker]

Starfleet security officers are basically like MPs or masters-at-arms. They're not the same thing as marines.

For my part, I support the notion that the Federation has some sort of marine corps/"amphibious" infantry. It's just common sense.

[Longinus]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

---

^ No, as I said, those are your standard security officers that we've already seen. Those are basically redshirts. That's all Starfleet Security is - they just put security officers on ships. Those are not true Marines.

I cannot understand where this hardon for marines comes from.

Marines are soldiers on a ship. They fight. Starfleet security are dudes on a ship who fight. They fill the exact role marines would be used for.

[Skywalker]

"Fighting" isn't a security officer's primary duty. They're trained to be law enforcement officers above everything else. Marines' primary duty is to serve as naval infantry and amphibious assault troops. Those are two very different jobs that require very different types of training.

People don't have a "hardon for marines" (well, some do), it's just common sense for the Federation to utilize some sort of naval infantry. You can't just hand any old officer a rifle and tell him to go assault that heavily fortified position and expect them all to succeed, because most of them aren't trained to handle something like that.

[Longinus]

I am sure the sucurity personnel are trained for all sorts of combat situations. And it is quite possible that being idealistically pacifistic, the Federation doesn't want to have people with sole and explicit purpose of fighting. They do arm their ships with all sorts of superweapons too, but their main purpose is still exploration and not combat. Or at least that's what they like to say.

[Skywalker]

Starfleet's primary purpose is exploration, yes. That doesn't mean the Federation can't have another military service whose primary purpose is to garrison and defend Federation territory (though that would be more of an army task than a marine task) and, when necessary, invade and attack another nation's territory.

I'm all for idealism, I really am, but the Federation is surrounded mostly by other powers who don't share the same pacifist sensibility. Until that changes the Federation would be doing a disservice to itself and its citizens by not fielding a genuine military force and not just the ugly mishmash of disparate concepts that is Starfleet.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And Marines have many peacetime duties as well.

[R. Star]

Even in the most Utopian definition of Starfleet, one of their responsibilities is defense. They're they guys you send the distress calls to. There's no getting around that. Sure they explore and what not too, but they keep the Federation safe from the bad guys.

Security officers on ships... Honestly, these guys are glorified MPs or cops. They respond to a hostile situation and safeguard the assets be it the ship, colony or provide bodyguard service.

Now, if you're an organization like Starfleet that is tasked with defense of the Federation, you're going to have units of advanced assault troops. It's common sense. You can call them marines, or whatever, but unless they are utterly incompetent, they're gonna have them. Especially after the Dominion War.

[Spike730]

Well, I don't know how accurate this recreation of the Operation Retrieve chart is, but it mentions the Marine Corps.

[Timo]

You know, the same people that were deployed in large numbers on Earth when Starfleet was preparing for a possible Dominion invasion.

Except that in reality those troops were there only to prepare for an uprising of civilians when Leyton grabbed power.

Did the troops themselves know this? Did they wonder when they were deployed in riot gear only?

In different circumstances, would they have fought the Jem'Hadar in the battlefield, donning phaserproof coveralls? Or would somebody else have done it for them?

The existence of a special branch for ground combat is speculation only. But in the TNG context, it's also very weak speculation. Starfleet branches just plain aren't that "special": the very same guys who pilot giant starships may fly small craft like aces the next day, or plot ground maneuvers, or fix warp cores, or decipher a scientific enigma and break an alien lock.

Case very much in point, Miles O'Brien. A random guy from a random starship pressed to landing party duty (Setlik III backstory from "Paradise"), learns to fix transporters, next acts as Tactical Officer for the ship, then fights as a hardened infantryman in massive ground action (Setlik III backstory from "Empok Nor"), next seen at Engineering of another ship ("All Good Things..."), then pilots the battle section of the ship ("Encounter at Farpoint"), then does internal security ("Lonely Among Us") and transporter ops (rest of TNG), then manages an entire space station and flies runabouts in combat.

In this environment, it would be very difficult to argue with a straight face that the guys doing MP duties are not qualified to take the point in an infantry assault or a special ops raid, fly a hopper into battle, direct an artillery strike, or gut a Jem'Hadar with a pen knife ("What is a pen?" "Never mind, what is a knife?").

Sure, some will be better at it than others. Some will specialize in a thing or three. But an entire separate organization with separate ranks and leaders? Busted. Our only hope for a "dedicated" ground fighter unit, the AR-558 posse, was led by naval-ranked officers.

Shipboard infantry is a go. But in the TNG environment, it's indeed shipboard infantry, in the sense of the old naval infantry that consisted of ships' crews issued a sword or a rifle...

Timo Saloniemi

[Skywalker]

I think the difference here is that you're looking at this from an in-universe point of view and we're looking at it from a common sense point of view. Yes, pretty much every main character in every show was good at a lot of different things, but that was only because they were the stars, and that was the nature of the shows. O'Brien only did all of that different stuff (which would require so much cross-training as to nearly make it all pretty pointless) because the writers wanted to use a familiar character instead of creating a new character and paying another actor.

I can't speak for the others, but I'm not arguing that there is or might be a Federation naval infantry/marine corps based on possible canon, only that there should be one based on logic. I don't particularly care for the "canon is the only thing that matters" argument, either, because in the end it's all fictional. It's all just made-up. No one part of it is really more valid than the rest except in our own minds.

[Timo]

Why should logic demand that the ground fighters can't be the same as the military police? Until very recently, the Marines were the shipboard security of USN vessels.

If you think MPs are sissy and can't be manly Marines, just look at it from the opposite angle and send a few of your Marines to guard Picard's corridors. Clearly, it would be impossible to tell the difference.

What makes or breaks a plausible ground fighter in Star Trek? Stub on your chin? A particular haircut? You won't get anything more manly than a man in a red shirt no matter what. And the thing is, you don't need anything more than that. It was not just the fictional Horatio Hornblower but the real Horatio Nelson as well who did just fine with a man in a red shirt. Only Horatio Caine needs a big barrel, a cool holster and a muscular car to boost the otherwise lagging image.

Timo Saloniemi

[The Wormhole]

All the security on BSG was handled by Marines. Galactica's Master at Arms was a Marine herself. No one ever complained about that, so why is it so hard to accept that Starfleet's security could be Marines?

I personally don't think they are, sicne they don't have seperate rank structure and we've seen security officers eventually rise to command positions and indeed, engineers and security are interchangeable. Which wouldn't really make sense if they were seperate branches.

But, I also don't get this attitude that pops up in this discussion all the time of "Marines can't handle security, that makes no sense." Like I said, no one complained when BSG had Marines covering all shipboard security, and Ron Moore even claimed in a DVD commentary this is how it's done in the US Navy.

And on the Trek end of things, when the MACOs showed up on Enterprise, they pretty much took over the NX-01's security. Seriously, aside from Malcolm Reed we saw waht, three other Starfleet security officers after the MACOs showed up? And MACOs were even assigned to duites like guarding the brig.

[Longinus]

Exactly Wormhole, and that's why we can safely assume that Starfleet security officers can operate like marines even though not called marines.