I'd say the nature of Starfleet's mission, their priorities, and the ramifications of their actions.
Why is there resistance to the idea of Starfleet being military?
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I'd say the nature of Starfleet's mission, their priorities, and the ramifications of their actions.
Exploration would be severely curtailed, but the rest of the "normal" responsibilities of a starship would be similar.
I'd like specifics, but I especially don't understand "ramifications of their actions".
Thank you. I misremembered the line.
Kirk: We have our orders, Scotty!
Scott: That's what scares me. This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now?
OTOH, Balance of Terror, Errand of Mercy, and The Enterprise Incident were pretty clearly military operations as well.
Starfleet was and is as militaristic as the plot requires it to be.
+1 to this.
Which is also the case with most Western-style (internally apolitical/bi-partisan) militaries that don't directly or indirectly rule their respective countries.
Certainly the British military spends a good deal of it's time and resources on non-military roles (including most of the things that Starfleet does [direct diplomacy exempted]) and from what I can tell, the US and most Commonwealth militaries are similar by specific design.
This sounds more like Starfleet officers disliking being involved in overtly military, hostile actions that could bring about a war (STID and TEI were definatlely this, BoT and EoM somewhat less so) rather than the peaceful stuff they want to be doing.
You win the thread. You may drop the mic.
Is that an order?
Starfleet is not ONLY a military organization, it is other things, too. During times of war, it is dedicated to war. When there is a time to explore and check things out, it uses science. Sometimes they need to work things out between two or more galactic superpowers, there is diplomacy.
In Christopher L. Bennet's Star Trek: Enterprise: Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures, he states that MACO (the Earth military organization) has been combined with Starfleet.
In Christopher L. Bennet's Star Trek: Enterprise: Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures, he states that MACO (the Earth military organization) has been combined with Starfleet.
It was intentionally decided to only feature Starfleet and the Federation government in that story, feeling that including or mentioning the Earth government or Earth military or security services would unnecessarily confuse the audience.
I've always looked at Starfleet as a multipurpose service, which includes military action when called upon. But I've also looked at Starfleet's use of naval ranks, terminology, and the observations of some customs as being slightly superficial, done at times more out of tradition than anything else--and even then, loosely at times. The decision to use a naval-style organization system for Starfleet may have been done simply because it was the logical thing to do for a fleet of ships, but there are definite times when Starfleet doesn't do things exactly like today's navies, especially in regards to promotions, assignments, and other personnel-related issues.
Pretty much this point. Starfleet fills several roles, both military and non-military, just like militaries have done throughout history. There is nothing wrong with Starfleet being a military organization.
Wasn't his name Gene Roddenberry? Or was it Nick Meyer?
By that definition, even today's militaries are engaged in diplomatic when they are dealing with other nations and their ships.
Judging by the movies I've seen, it seems the primary job of the Japanese Self Defense Forces is protecting the homeland from giant monsters.
The personnel aspect seems to function much more like a corporation than a military.
Exactly. Which is why no one in Starfleet thought it odd for someone to go from a cadet one week to captain a little while later, or how psychologists and doctors can just take a test to take command of a ship's bridge--even in a combat situation. Starfleet observes many naval customs, but can also chuck them out a window when necessary and operate like a company, with people promoted to management positions based sometimes on who they know.
These seem to be answers to the question "Is Starfleet on a popular television series?"
I'd like to see the corporation where the kid in the mail room becomes the CEO and no one bats an eye. Hell, the FANS thought that was the dumbest thing they saw in 40 years of Star Trek.
I'd like to see the corporation where the kid in the mail room becomes the CEO and no one bats an eye. Hell, the FANS thought that was the dumbest thing they saw in 40 years of Star Trek.
Someone's got to do it.
I don't care if you're military or not, jumping from cadet directly to captain makes no sense at all.
As for ship's doctors and therapists being allowed command, I think that was a response to criticisms about TNG not having any women in positions of real authority. In response, we got Admiral Nechayev added as a recurring character and Dr. Crusher and Deanna Troi began taking command of the bridge.
I don't think it's dumb... but *only* because I assume that Starfleet and Section 31 in the Kelvin timeline (in my mind, the post-First-Contact timeline) had access to the information in Crewman Daniel's quarters. So there are people who *know* that Kirk needs to end up with that ship and crew for the security of the Federation and the galaxy in general - and maybe they aren't picky about how.
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