If someone makes a claim, I expect them to be able to prove it. YMMV.
Starfleet is a Space Navy (military fleet)
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If someone makes a claim, I expect them to be able to prove it. YMMV.
Dude, Starfleet operates NOTHING AT ALL like the modern U.S. military.
Do I need to go down the list again? There are MANY fictional space forces that bear a close resemblance to the U.S. (and other) militaries, but I'll only name the ones that are closer to that depiction than Starfleet
The Martial Congressional Republic Navy
The United Nations Navy
The UN Spacy
The Terran Confederation Navy
The Kilrathi Navy (lol)
The Systems Alliance Navy
The Turian Heirarchy (not sure this counts since their entire society is a stratocracy and the Turians are basically an entire species of Marines)
The Colonial Marines (when they're not on a bug hunt)
The Colonial Fleet (TOS and NuBSG both)
The Earth Federal Forces until they turned into a bunch of pussies just prior to "Gundam F91"
Dutchy of Zeon Space Forces
The AEUG (not actually even a military organization!)
The Titans (also not a military organization)
The Outer Planets Alliance Navy (yes, even the fucking OPA! Especially under Marco Inaros)
The Grand Army of the Republic
The Imperial Navy
Neo Zeon (and/or the Delaz Fleet)
The Earth Defense Force
Organization of the Zodiak
Cerberus (Jesus Christ, they're not even a real military!)
The Terran Empire Space Force
The Rebel Alliance
The MACOs.
Starfleet was at its most "navy like" in the first season of TOS and then sharply turned the corner shortly before Season 2. The opportunity to present itself as a full on regular military organization has long since passed, and we now have exemplars all over the genre that have shown us what they MIGHT have looked like.
It's a missed opportunity, IMO: the sharp discipline and focussed attitude from "Balance of Terror" and "Corbomite Maneuver" were two things I thought we could have used more of in the spinoff series. But it is what it is...
Rodenberry and his writers were the ones who decided Starfleet wasn't a military organization.
Actually, the first time that "Starfleet isn't a military" is uttered, Roddenberry was no longer involved in the day-to-day operation of TNG. "Peak Performance" was written by David Kemper.
None of the old guard was with the show.
And yet it was Rodenberry who attempted to remind Harve Bennet and Nicholas Meyers that Starfleet WASN'T a military organization...
I'm also thinking this is exactly what Rodenberry had in mind when he came up with the "space pajama" uniforms of TMP...
^ That look "military" to you? Just sayin.
^ That look "military" to you? Just sayin.
It looks like the 1970's.
Now pull a picture from TWOK and ask if they look like peaceful explorers? Or from Deep Space Nine with Sisko carrying a phaser rifle or from First Contact.
So does this:
Except that one of them looks like military officers (even though James Bond definitely isn't) while the other looks like a slumber party.
Don't get me wrong, TMP is one of my favorite Trek movies. But I'm WELL AWARE of the fact that the uniform change between TMP and TWOK was because Harve Bennet wanted a more military look for Starfleet than Rodenberry would have tolerated.
This is one of the reasons I'm thinking this is an ideological thing: you seem perfectly fine with Rodenberry depicting Starfleet as a military organization, but opposed to him when he changed his mind. What else am I supposed to conclude but "Starfleet as the military" is more important to you than "Rodenberry as showrunner?" And why, for that matter, is Stafleet BEING a military so important that you need to reject dialog that clearly says it isn't?
What is important to me is the evidence on the screen.
The evidence is Jean Luc Picard and Montgommery Scott saying "Starfleet is not a military organization." If evidence is important to you, then that's a pretty clear data point.
"What is Starfleet, then?" is a separate question. The evidence gives us MANY clues to what it is. If you interpret ALL the evidence combined, then it's a paramilitary exploration fleet. If, on the other hand, you ignore certain evidence because it disagrees with your worldview, it can be anything you want it to be. Baxten, for example, thinks that the Federation is actually an imperialist/expansionist power playing out a version of manifest destiny and only PRETENDS to be benevolent because it keeps the savages from rebelling against them (Eddington makes the same accusation, but far more convincingly). I could explain all the reasons why that's inaccurate, but he'll just focus exclusively on the evidence that supports his ideals and ignore everything else.
So you want me to IGNORE the statement that "Starfleet is not a military organization?" I see no reason to do that. Those statements are evidence too, and taken as part of the whole, they paint a different picture than the one you seem to prefer.
I see no reason than to treat it as anything other than a character's personal opinion. You have more instances of characters calling themselves "soldiers" and mentioning military functions than you do characters stating that Starfleet isn't the military.
Why are those characters wrong, yet Picard and Scott are right? Starfleet has a military structure, military traditions, unimaginable firepower at their disposal, military justice system. They are explorers and scientists as well. That doesn't preclude them from being the military. The British Navy did a fair share of exploring in the 16th, 17th and 18th century, that didn't mean they weren't military.
James Bond holds the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy, where he served before working for M.I.6. (In the original Fleming novels, which started in the early '50s, he'd served during WWII.)
I shouldn't need to actually. How many words have changed their definitions in the last 300 - 400 years? How many words have changed their definitions to the general public over the course of the 20th century because of fictional media presentations? How many new words that did not have actual meanings have entered the lexicon in the past century due to television and movies and are used today even though their actual meaning should not be what people use them for? How many words have been twisted or invented due to political correctness or political convenience? How long before fictional media or political spectrum can change the definitions of legal terms like JAG and court-martial to mean something that is not quite what it is today? 100 years? 200 years? 300 years? Give authors and civilization enough time and the meaning of JAG will be "some TV show from the 21st century" and then some Starfleet officer will think that series looked cool, lets use that as the name for our own in-house investigations.
It is fiction and there are dozens if not millions of ways to spin the history of linguistics in fiction until you can arrive at a point where the definition of JAG and court-martial are not long what they are today.
Things change in language. Things change in law. Things change in what defines a military. What was a military in the one millennium might not even be considered a military to another millennium outside of historical context.
If Starfleet does not consider itself to be a military, than it isn't a military. Despite whatever our terms and definitions maybe, the 23rd or 24th century definitions have somehow changed to the point where Starfleet is not considered a military. It may be one to our 21st century definitions, but it is not to their definitions. Why is this the case? We do not know. It just is. And we are presented with the case that would should just accept it as fact. Yet people question it (repeatedly). Starfleet is Starfleet. Starfleet defines itself as not being a military, therefore it is not a military.
But what is the military than? Not Starfleet.
What is the Federation's military? No data. There is no defined Federation military. They make due with Starfleet because even without it being defined as a military, is seen able to defend the Federation for over 200 years.
What does that make Starfleet than? It makes it Starfleet. That is all we are meant to understand. It is its own definition. It is not a military but turns out to be the best defense for the Federation in most recorded instances. We just have to accept that, because that is what we are given by the fictional television shows and movies. That is what it is and what we are meant to accept.
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"Starfleet is not a military organization" is not the kind of thing one could interpret as a "personal opinion."
It would be like Scotty saying "The Enterprise is not a submarine" and you insisting that he's wrong because the Enterprise went under water that one time.
I'm confused why I keep having to repeat this: Being a soldier does not require membership in the military. Either metaphorically or literally, and there are examples of BOTH in history.
They're not wrong. As I've said before, no one has EVER claimed that Starfleet was a military organization. They've confirmed that Starfleet does what other militaries do. This is not a contradiction at all.
It's simple logic, Bill. You hear someone say "Alan turing is not a woman." Then you realize that Alan Turing had sex with a man. Those two datapoints tell you something very important about Alan Turing.
The only reason to call the first witness a liar, of course, is ideology: "I don't WANT Alan Turing to be a homosexual, so I'll say that he wasn't"
Doesn't require them to be either. Thus there is no contradiction when (AT LEAST) two different people state "Starfleet is not a military organization."
But we're the ones watching. If it fits our definition of "military", then it is one to us. Until they tell us why they no longer consider themselves a "military".
Maybe "military" means peaceful organization in the 24th century. Then I'd agree that Starfleet is not the military!
Isn't MI6 an intelligence agency, though? My assumption was that he had to transfer FROM the navy to intelligence service, but I could be wrong.
Sure it can mean more than one thing, but in pretty much every dictionary I've seen this is the very first definition...
When someone says, "I'm a soldier" and are in a combat situation, pretty much everyone is going to think that person belongs to the military. Especially when that person carries a rank like "Captain" or "Commander" or "Lieutenant".
And yet that same person says "The organization I work for is not a military organization."
Well, a soldier who doesn't work for the military is called "paramilitary."
The term "paramilitary" may disturb you, but it's the most accurate.
When did Picard claim he was a soldier? Or Scott? Kirk claims he is a soldier, Sisko claims he is leading soldiers, Worf calls personnel "troops". At some point, the word games no longer work. They may have tried to honor Roddenberry. But Star Trek is action-adventure about an organization that is hard to call anything other than a military. Starfleet is the defense arm of the Federation (everything else gets dropped when the Federation is threatened). Military is defined as the armed forces of a country.
I guess word games are fun, trying to piece together disparate pieces of stuff that happened hundreds of years ago to defend a couple of poor lines of dialogue that flies in the face of pretty much every other bit of the franchise.
MI6 is the foreign intelligence agency of the British government, yes. It stands for "Military Intelligence, Section 6".
But we're the ones watching. If it fits our definition of "military", then it is one to us. Until they tell us why they no longer consider themselves a "military".
Maybe "military" means peaceful organization in the 24th century. Then I'd agree that Starfleet is not the military!
We are presented with it as a fact we are meant to accept. How we try to understand it is up to us, but we are expected to accept the fact that Starfleet is not a military. However we try to spin it still does not change the fact. If the only way some people can manage is to redefine what a military is for the 24th century, so be it. The fact stand that Starfleet is not a military. This is what we are meant to accept. How we define that is up to us, as long as the fact remains a fact.
Too many instances of people calling themselves "soldier" and the use of military terminology and bad ass starships meant to blow up enemies for me to see it as anything other than that. Unless someone wants to argue that Starfleet isn't the defense arm of the Federation.
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