You have seen the Cardassians, right? The warrior thugs the Klingons more or less turned into, right? And that the Romulans would rather hole up behind the neutral zone than fight a war themselves most of the time.
Starfleet is a Space Navy (military fleet)
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You have seen the Cardassians, right? The warrior thugs the Klingons more or less turned into, right? And that the Romulans would rather hole up behind the neutral zone than fight a war themselves most of the time.
It is just more of the "humanity is so great and wonderful" non-sense that started with TNG. Humanity was the last out to the cosmos and is so great that highly advanced civilizations want to be like them, they leap to the top of the mountain of an interstellar alliance and none of their adversaries can hang with them even though the humans don't have a military.
Given enough time, they would've had a 25th century show where the Borg were worshiping humans as well.
It is stuff like that where they sucked much of the "suspension of disbelief" out of the franchise.
Rant over...
At the end of the day, Starfleet does everything the modern military does. I guess whether or not that makes them military is up to personal interpretation. I don't get it, but everyone's mileage obviously varies.
That was never actually in dispute. The problem is basically that "lawful combatant force" and "military" are not identical terms. As you yourself pointed out, there are categories of "lawful combatant" that fall OUTSIDE the definition of a traditional state-sanctioned professional military. In the current state of geopolitical affairs, these are all small militias (e.g. the Kurdish Peshermga), mercenaries, terrorist groups and resistance fighters.
The Star Trek universe has such a dramatically different landscape because of the heightened importance of technology and electronic warfare. It's ALOT easier for a small, unregulated force to sneak up on a larger army and tie it's shoelaces together with some kind of technical trickery. Deflector shields, sensor technology and exotic gadgets you can buy on the black market give twelve year old orphans like Kira Nerys the ability to bring down starships, demolish small cities, sabotage power plants; the Maquis are capable of launching precision attacks from light years away and can even manufacture weapons of mass destruction using shit they find on ordinary shipping routes.
So in the end, it seems that state-sanctioned professional militaries are actually at a huge disadvantage in the Star Trek universe and is actually something used with under-developed races that can't achieve the kind of adaptability they really need to hold their own in a serious confrontation. This is, IMO, one of the reasons the Dominion was such a troublesome foe: they can field a traditional military force of ENORMOUS size, but it's also backed by the trickery and cleverness of both the Founders and the Vorta; by the time the Jem'hadar actually show up on your doorstep itching for a fight, they've ALREADY beaten you.
It's accurate enough as is. As I pointed out earlier, and you clearly agree, the Braslota War Games aren't actually a military exercise; it isn't a test of their combat proficiency or their tactical skill, it's a test of their ability to SCIENCE their way out of impossible situations.
So when Riker is saying that their combat skills are a "minor province in the makeup of a starship captain," his work on the Hathaway -- and the tactics they employed -- effectively PROVED that. Even the unexpected arrival of the Ferengi vessel was handled more by trickery and cleverness than actual combat ability.
Those abilities, more than any others, are crucial to Starfleet's success. A traditional military organization can either out-fight its enemies, or it can't; it either has superior firepower, or it's outmatched. Starfleet can't afford to rely on traditional military solutions because they're going places where they can NEVER guarantee strategic superiority and have to be clever enough to adapt to any potential situation within the space of two commercial breaks or less. They're what we'd call "warrior scientists." They might shoot you, they might punch you, but usually they'll just SCIENCE you to death.
Definitely yes.
Well if you're going to invoke headcanon, I'd say that the spinoff Starfleet (TNG+) isn't a military organization but the TOS version most likely is. I'd even go so far as to say that the "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline is actually the true successor to TOS Starfleet and that everything we see in TNG+ is an alternate universe created by the Nexus. I've felt for a long time now that TOS and TNG don't really fit well together and probably shouldn't be part of the same continuity, and the very deliberate shift to "quasi military at best" is one of those incongruities. But that's headcanon, I have no real evidence to back that up.
Of course the reboot films muddy the waters a bit, but they're more derived from ENT than TOS so it actually makes sense to me.
In the context of canon, this makes a certain amount of sense, but it doesn't really fit with the non-military nature of Earth Starfleet. You could say they "went hard" during the mid 23rd century but I kind of doubt they made a full conversion to "military" status only to de-convert just a few decades later.
Then again, it's entirely possible that they were only pressed into Federation service RECENTLY in in terms of TOS, since in much of the first season they refer are referred to as "Earth vessel" or "Earth service" and so on.
Which 1) doesn't actually make them a military organization and 2) isn't something you actually know for a fact.
Yes. As I've already mentioned, MANY civilizations in the Trek universe do not have or need one. The Edo, for example, are protected by an orbiting "God thing" and therefore have no military capabilities whatsoever. The civilization on Aldea had a planetary cloaking device and the "custodian" defense system that could be operated at the touch of a button, both of which were more than adequate to fend off a galaxy class starship. There's also the Minosian civilization, whose Echo-Papa 607 was essentially a Military in a Box and proved so effective that the damn thing wiped out the entire population of the planet; the earlier and less effective EP-600 model probably rendered military forces obsolete on a couple dozen worlds before the 607 put the minosians out of business. But they apparently never sold one of those devices to the people on Gamelon Four in "Final Mission" whose ambassador says "We are a peaceful planet! We have no ability to defend ourselves!"
Even the strangely aggressive Vulcan Space Program in the 22nd century was never described as a military organization, but they still managed to joust with the Andorians on a regular basis despite this.
I don't suppose its occurred to you that the future of warfare might lead us to a place where state-sanctioned militaries aren't actually the best organizations equipped to fight wars? The Cardassians might actually be an anachronism like that; in modern terms, it would be like a company of marines invading some country and being met at the beach by a squad of knights.
Those "weekend warriors" spend all their time tooling around with ultra-high technology gear whose most innocent malfunctions produce twelve-dimensional space folds that cause half the crew to swap genders and age backwards. If you piss off Starfleet, you'll be lucky if they only SHOOT you; if you get them REALLY angry, they'll hack your computer core, suck the antimatter from your engines, reverse the polarity of your septic system and then pump some kind of modulated ultrasonic pulse through your audio system that causes your entire crew to jizz their collective pants... and THEN they shoot you.
Fighting with Starfleet must be the most fucking irritating experience in the universe. You go into every battle knowing you have every conceivable tactical advantage -- your ships are bigger, more powerful and better armed, your crew is better trained, you're definitely more blood thirsty and more willing to kill to prove a point. Then you meet these little peace-loving weenies in orbit, you lock your weapons... and suddenly their lead ship does something fancy with its main deflector, and next thing you know your phasers are shooting question marks, your photon torpedoes are detonating against the inside of your own deflector shields, there's powdered sugar coming out of the warp drive and your tactical display is covered with Klingon porn. And while you're dealing with all this shit that has inexplicably gone wrong, that puny little "exploration ship" that couldn't hang in a fight with you for thirty seconds sidles up next to your flagship and blows out the starboard power coupling with a phaser blast and some smiling little prick wearing a red jogging suit is ordering you to surrender.
I'm amazed you can even say that with a straight face after "Rascals"
That's what the technobable is for. *the more you know*
Definately yes between 2373 and 2375. And at other times as needeed.
Otherwise, I would have say "yes", but with qualifers (they're not civilian, and informally army=military, so they can still be a space-centric naval force, this may mean they are paramilitary)
Otherwise, I would have say "yes", but with qualifers (they're not civilian, and informally army=military, so they can still be a space-centric naval force, this may mean they are paramilitary)
Unclear. We do not know for a fact if Starfleet was ever classified as a military by the Federation.
It seems logical that they would be at least during the protracted conflict with the Klingons in the 23rd century, and fulfilling the task of a military during the Dominion War as Starfleet's usual methods of dealing with threats wasn't working against the Dominion.
It is possible that prior to the Organian Peace Treaty, that Starfleet had been drafted into being the military to fight the Klingons. They were at war officially for a few days before the Organians stopped it. After that Starfleet seems to not be a military as much anymore. However by the 2280s (the maroon uniforms) there appears to be a very much heightened and tense Cold War with the Klingons going on again, so Starfleet might again have been drafted into being the Federation military to directly counter the Klingon Empire. This lasts directly to the Khitomer Peace Treaty and the end of the Cold War with the Klingons. The remains of this phase of Starfleet lasts until at least the 2340s and perhaps the early 2350s when Starfleet slowly phases out the maroon uniforms for what we see in the 2360s based shows.
Maybe they had remained drafted as Starfleet's military for the conflict with the Cardassians until the 2350s when Starfleet finally got enough of an upper hand to bring the Cardassians to the negotiation table for a decade or more, the conflict going low key and Starfleet returned to "normal". The problem is, that we are not presented with many facts and certainly not shown much in-between the early 2290s and the early 2360s, and our view from the 2260s to 2290s is very limited. We have next to nothing between the 2160s to 2260s to go on anyway. Some data points from TOS mainly and The Cage. So our knowledge of things is limited to what we are presented with and what we are shown. As seen above a lot of what I'm typing has qualifiers like "might" and "possibly" in it. This is because we do not have enough information to state facts. We simply do not know if the Federation ever really had a military, nor if Starfleet was ever that military based on what we are told that Starfleet is not the military.
Earth, for example, has planetary defense systems and some solar system defense systems. Those might not even be part of Starfleet. Such defenses would probably be able to deal with known threats to the planet such as the Klingons. V'Ger deactivated them on arrival and the Borg adapted to them easily. The Klingons never attacked Earth during their long hostiles with the Federation and were amazed that the Breen dared to do so near the end of the Dominion War. The damage to Earth seen appears to be relatively minor given that the damage was repaired within a few years, rather than devastating the planet or wiping out cities. No. The Breen look like they took several scattered pot shots at the San Francisco Bay Area and either fled or were taken out by the defense systems plus whatever Starfleet ships were nearby. The new Cardassian planetary defensive structures seemed more the capable of dealing with large numbers of starships, and it took Starfleet to Science/Engineer the problem to remove it.
It seems logical that they would be at least during the protracted conflict with the Klingons in the 23rd century, and fulfilling the task of a military during the Dominion War as Starfleet's usual methods of dealing with threats wasn't working against the Dominion.
It is possible that prior to the Organian Peace Treaty, that Starfleet had been drafted into being the military to fight the Klingons. They were at war officially for a few days before the Organians stopped it. After that Starfleet seems to not be a military as much anymore. However by the 2280s (the maroon uniforms) there appears to be a very much heightened and tense Cold War with the Klingons going on again, so Starfleet might again have been drafted into being the Federation military to directly counter the Klingon Empire. This lasts directly to the Khitomer Peace Treaty and the end of the Cold War with the Klingons. The remains of this phase of Starfleet lasts until at least the 2340s and perhaps the early 2350s when Starfleet slowly phases out the maroon uniforms for what we see in the 2360s based shows.
Maybe they had remained drafted as Starfleet's military for the conflict with the Cardassians until the 2350s when Starfleet finally got enough of an upper hand to bring the Cardassians to the negotiation table for a decade or more, the conflict going low key and Starfleet returned to "normal". The problem is, that we are not presented with many facts and certainly not shown much in-between the early 2290s and the early 2360s, and our view from the 2260s to 2290s is very limited. We have next to nothing between the 2160s to 2260s to go on anyway. Some data points from TOS mainly and The Cage. So our knowledge of things is limited to what we are presented with and what we are shown. As seen above a lot of what I'm typing has qualifiers like "might" and "possibly" in it. This is because we do not have enough information to state facts. We simply do not know if the Federation ever really had a military, nor if Starfleet was ever that military based on what we are told that Starfleet is not the military.
Earth, for example, has planetary defense systems and some solar system defense systems. Those might not even be part of Starfleet. Such defenses would probably be able to deal with known threats to the planet such as the Klingons. V'Ger deactivated them on arrival and the Borg adapted to them easily. The Klingons never attacked Earth during their long hostiles with the Federation and were amazed that the Breen dared to do so near the end of the Dominion War. The damage to Earth seen appears to be relatively minor given that the damage was repaired within a few years, rather than devastating the planet or wiping out cities. No. The Breen look like they took several scattered pot shots at the San Francisco Bay Area and either fled or were taken out by the defense systems plus whatever Starfleet ships were nearby. The new Cardassian planetary defensive structures seemed more the capable of dealing with large numbers of starships, and it took Starfleet to Science/Engineer the problem to remove it.
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Yes definitely, or maybe Royal Naval Reserve. But I always wondered if he was using an active-duty naval officer post as a cover in YOLT.
Fleming and his colleagues in WW2 were Special Branch, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, which was basically the branch for civilians with scientific, technical and academic qualifications brought into the navy for the war. They did all kinds of important work but weren't what you normally think of as naval officers, a lot of them wouldn't know port from starboard.
Given the Borg timeline and yesterday's enterprise its clear that the federation can be defeated militarily. Whether by superior numbers and tech-Borg Universe-Parallels, or perhaps simply superior fighting ships, crew and so on-Yesterday's Enterprise its clear that yes the Federation can lose.
The dominion would have prevailed if not for the prophets intervention and in the novels the Borg were just about to destroy Earth before the Caeliar intervened and absorbed the Borg into their gestalt.
So its clear the federation can be beaten in a military sense.
Also if any god-beings-Q, Organians, Prophets, happen to feel like it they can most certainly destroy the federation as well.
The federation isn't immune to infiltration and dismemberment either-by changeling infiltration, romulan intrigue or Species 8472 antics it can be overtaken from the inside not to mention divisions within Federation society itself-the admiralty and section 31, various planets like Andor and Vulcan who if they wanted to could probably secede and cause the whole system to fall apart.
If the Borg carried out there subtle assimilation program in Dark Frontier which I was believe was elucidated by some of the post-Voyager novels, or Species 8472 invaded after the Dominion War the federation would have crumbled.
So to say the Federation is either invulnerable or invincible is a mistake in my opinion unless of course you believe cosmic destiny-a la Q or the Braxton's time police will ensure its survival.
Yes.
There certainly were civilians aboard the Enterprise in TNG and DS9, so i certainly think that Starfleet including civilians among the crew (similar to Stargate) is quite reasonable.
But for the govt to have armed ships makes those ships either law enforcement or military.
You do understand that this line of reasoning doesn't fit because it's apples and oranges, don't you? A war on a social condition is not a valid comparison to a war on a species, nation or empire. Metaphoric soldiers are not equal to literal soldiers.
As I said, I yield your point on paramilitary. You just need to realize you're not gaining any traction for your point of view by lobbing comparisons that simply do not apply. That's like the above response to my statement that NASA, the ESA or NOAA aren't going to fight invaders from space. We all knew what I meant - that said invaders were going to be sentient, sapient, intelligent, dominate beings from another civilization that came here in conquest like we see in various movies. Regardless of what we all knew I meant (and please, don't anyone say you didn't know as that is just your desire to perpetuate an argument and not a discussion), someone (maybe it was Eddie, I don't recall) went of on some tangent about microbes or alien viruses or noncomporeal whatchamacalits simply to create a logical fallacy (ambiguity).
Ah, but this is the Internet...
There are civilian tech reps on all US aircraft carriers at sea and some other big warships. Carriers also usually have a few civilian Navy Department employees for education programs and NCIS.
And I almost wonder if the Y.E. alternate timeline got as bad as it did BECAUSE Starfleet set aside its techy ways and went full military. If anything, trying to beat the klingons at their own game is unlikely to be a winning strategy.
They CAN, sure. But Starfleet still has to find a way to stop them. That, too, would seem to be beyond the purview of a traditional military (normally you'd send ghost busters, exorcists or paranormalists for that; Starfleet apparently has a whole course on "diplomatic engagement with vengeful gods" at the academy).
I never said it was invulnerable. I said that Starfleet is the kind of organization that reliably wins all its battles even against people who have every conceivable tactical advantage. They never out-fight their enemies, they just out-think them. Their two most challenging foes -- the Dominion and the Borg -- were as dangerous as they were because they were actually SMARTER than Starfleet; the Borg, because their collective mind is able to concentrate the intelligence of thousands of people into a single hivemind, and the Dominion, because the Founders are smart as hell and the Vorta are tricky bastards.
OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE
I have yet to see the same amount of evidence to the contrary as the original post in this thread. I even included the most used counterarguments and showed their fallacy. Anyone is free to compile a similar extensive list but no one has done it, so far. Claims that it exists do not count.
Moreover, despite the canonical inconsistencies, Memory Alpha: Depicting Klingons has people behind Star Trek explicitly telling you that the Federation and Starfleet tensions and conflict with Klingons was meant to portray the following, from at least 1966 to 1991 (25 years):
Gene Coon primarily modeled the Klingons, metaphorically, on contemporary Russians, making the standoff between the species and the Federation representative of that between the Russians and the Americans during the then-ongoing Cold War. (Star Trek: The Original Series 365, p. 139) [. . .] The Klingon Empire was also a metaphor for Communist China and its allies in the Vietnam War, namely North Vietnam and North Korea. (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One) David A. McIntee explained, "There is some suggestion that the Klingons represent a Cold Warrior's view of China in the 1960s – swarthy, brutally repressive." (Star Trek Magazine issue 153, p. 66) Dave Rossi agreed, "In many ways, the Klingons were born out of our fear, as Americans, of [...] the Communists." ("Errand of Mercy" Starfleet Access, TOS Season 1 Blu-ray)
[. . .]
"A Private Little War" continued the analogous use of the Klingons. In that outing, they were meant to represent the Communist foes of the United States specifically during the Vietnam War, which was being controversially fought at that time. (Star Trek: The Original Series 365, p. 222) The species was metaphorically used, in this way, since the very first story outline for "A Private Little War" was submitted. [. . .] Gene Roddenberry was interested in increasing the degree to which the Klingons allegorically resembled North Vietnam, politically. [. . .] Coon thereafter stressed to Ingalls the importance of the Klingons being defeated by Starfleet. . . . (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two)
[. . .]
[Leonard Nimoy] gave much consideration to how the Klingons were similar to the Communists. Influenced by the contemporaneous crumbling of both the Soviet Union (which included Russia) and its border which was the Berlin Wall, Nimoy chose to represent the Klingons as encountering analogous circumstances. "Realizing that over the 25 year history of Star Trek, the Klingons have been the constant foe of the Federation, much like the Russians and Communists were to democracy, I wondered how we could translate these contemporary world affairs into an adventure with the Klingons," stated Nimoy. "I thought it was an ideal way for us to have our closure too, because the Klingons for us have always been the Communist Block, the Evil Empire. It just made sense to do that story." (The Making of the Trek Films, UK 3rd ed., p. 100)
Once he conceived the Klingon-centric story idea for Star Trek VI, Leonard Nimoy told Frank Mancuso the concept. "I came back to Mancuso and said, 'Okay, here's my idea. The Klingons have this terrible problem. Their economy is screwed up just like the Russians. We've always used the Klingons as our analogy for the Communist Bloc. . . .'" (Star Trek Movie Memories, hardback ed., p. 278)
[. . .]
"A Private Little War" continued the analogous use of the Klingons. In that outing, they were meant to represent the Communist foes of the United States specifically during the Vietnam War, which was being controversially fought at that time. (Star Trek: The Original Series 365, p. 222) The species was metaphorically used, in this way, since the very first story outline for "A Private Little War" was submitted. [. . .] Gene Roddenberry was interested in increasing the degree to which the Klingons allegorically resembled North Vietnam, politically. [. . .] Coon thereafter stressed to Ingalls the importance of the Klingons being defeated by Starfleet. . . . (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two)
[. . .]
[Leonard Nimoy] gave much consideration to how the Klingons were similar to the Communists. Influenced by the contemporaneous crumbling of both the Soviet Union (which included Russia) and its border which was the Berlin Wall, Nimoy chose to represent the Klingons as encountering analogous circumstances. "Realizing that over the 25 year history of Star Trek, the Klingons have been the constant foe of the Federation, much like the Russians and Communists were to democracy, I wondered how we could translate these contemporary world affairs into an adventure with the Klingons," stated Nimoy. "I thought it was an ideal way for us to have our closure too, because the Klingons for us have always been the Communist Block, the Evil Empire. It just made sense to do that story." (The Making of the Trek Films, UK 3rd ed., p. 100)
Once he conceived the Klingon-centric story idea for Star Trek VI, Leonard Nimoy told Frank Mancuso the concept. "I came back to Mancuso and said, 'Okay, here's my idea. The Klingons have this terrible problem. Their economy is screwed up just like the Russians. We've always used the Klingons as our analogy for the Communist Bloc. . . .'" (Star Trek Movie Memories, hardback ed., p. 278)
As is historically known, the tensions from the West included the U.S. military and NATO, a military alliance created solely against the USSR. And just like the real-world issue of disbanding NATO after the dissolution of the USSR, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country brought up the issue of "mothballing Starfleet", as if its sole purpose for existence was to fight Klingons. This proves that Starfleet has been an allusion to NATO, a military alliance, for at least twenty-five years since Star Trek was aired on television.
Additionally, further evidence proves that Star Trek did not move on from its propaganda or, has shifted it against Russia, even after the Cold War has ended. I hate to repeat it but some people seem to pretend that it doesn't exist.
Memory Alpha: Rurik the Damned
Rurik the Damned was a great Klingon warrior, who conquered the Zora Fel and liberated Vrax. A monumental statue of him stands in the Hall of Warriors on Ty'Gokor. (DS9: "Apocalypse Rising")
Encyclopedia Britannica: Rurik Dynasty
Rurik Dynasty, princes of Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy who, according to tradition, were descendants of the Varangian prince Rurik, who had been invited by the people of Novgorod to rule that city (c. 862); the Rurik princes maintained their control over Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy until 1598.
This particular episode (DS9: "Apocalypse Rising") has aired five years (1996) after the end of the Cold War (1991). Moreover, Rurik has nothing to do with communism. It's medieval Russia time period. Additionally, if you conduct research, you'll find that it's a well-known figure in Russian history (learned in school), and it's a specific spelling for how it is pronounced in Russia. Most likely, majority of people in Russia would easily pick up on it.
Memory Alpha: Depicting Klingons
The Klingons of ENT: "Sleeping Dogs" were based on the crew of the Russian submarine Kursk.
The episode has aired eleven years (2002) after the end of the Cold War. Again, it is post-USSR and has nothing to do with communism, yet the allusion to Russia is still there.
Here is an excerpt from how one review describes it:
The Klingons come off here as stupid ingrates and clueless thugs, which — I don't know — might be the point. I'm honestly not sure what the point is.
The real incident was a real tragedy but the episode, which is based on it, portrayed Klingons as "stupid ingrates and clueless thugs". I wonder how American viewers would react if the episode were based on the sunken USS Scorpion (SSN-589) submarine instead. Anyone care to take a guess?
As you can see, it's still US and NATO propaganda, only this time Klingons are used to represent non-communist Russia.
THE IDEA
The idea behind the original post was to show that even if we take the original Star Trek series, which were created on Roddenberry's watch and had to be approved by him, Starfleet is still shown to be a military organization. And the original Star Trek Writers/Directors Guide confirms it by calling the USS Enterprise a military vessel (page 27).
If we take post-Roddenberry's control, we have canonical dialogue from characters like David Marcus referring to Starfleet as a military. Then there is Captain Sisko calling Starfleet's control of Earth a military rule, and so on. Rick Berman "notes that veterans feel Sisko is 'the most believable' as a military commander of the Star Trek captains".
In other words, if anyone starts using "Roddenberry's original intent" as an argument, we can see what that intent really was for ourselves because he approved Starfleet being a military in the original Star Trek.
STARFLEET IS NOT PARAMILITARY! (once again)
TNG: "Preemptive Strike"
GUL EVEK: The fact that my ship was attacked suggests that your efforts have met with limited success. They came at us with photon torpedoes and type eight phasers. Tell me, Captain, how do you suppose that a group of civilians acquired such weaponry?
PICARD: I can assure you it was not through official channels.
GUL EVEK: So you don't think the fact that some of the Maquis are former Starfleet officers has anything to do with it?
PICARD: Starfleet does not condone the Maquis' actions in the Demilitarised Zone any more than your government would condone the paramilitary actions of Cardassian civilians.
GUL EVEK: We have taken measures to deal with our colonists who have armed themselves.
PICARD: I can assure you it was not through official channels.
GUL EVEK: So you don't think the fact that some of the Maquis are former Starfleet officers has anything to do with it?
PICARD: Starfleet does not condone the Maquis' actions in the Demilitarised Zone any more than your government would condone the paramilitary actions of Cardassian civilians.
GUL EVEK: We have taken measures to deal with our colonists who have armed themselves.
While, according to some, not all, definitions, paramilitaries aren't always civilians, in many, if not most, cases they are. Moreover, it is clear that the writer equates paramilitary to civilians and an unofficial status. We know that Starfleet is not civilian and that it is an official organization. In fact, in the above example, it is clear that Picard draws a parallel between the Maquis and the Cardassian paramilitary, while drawing another parallel between Starfleet and the Cardassian military.
Furthermore, Memory Alpha: Maquis agrees that it's the Maquis who are considered to be the Federation's paramilitary groups, not Starfleet:
The first open attack by the Maquis, as the Federation paramilitary groups came to be known, was against the Cardassian freighter Bok'Nor at outpost Deep Space 9.
In other words, most people have the same assessment of it.
Combined with the formality of JAG and courts-martial, Starfleet is a military organization at all times.
STILL SOUNDS LIKE VASSALS
And once they became part of Starfleet, their fleets were never seen again. Still sounds like vassals. All we see are human Starfleet vessels fighting wars on behalf of the Federation. So much for an "alliance".
Since a "literal soldier" is one defined as such by law, and Starfleet officers -- for whatever reason -- aren't, then he's still speaking metaphorically.
.. which isn't even the most likely scenario, and certainly isn't the most dangerous. You were trying to imply that an alien threat to Earth would NECESSARILY be a military threat. But this is unlikely to be true in reality, and is demonstrably untrue of the Federation: their planets are constantly being threatened by things they've never even heard of and aren't trained to cope with. Non-military threats that are nonetheless just as deadly. Since these ALL fall under the umbrella of "dangerous shit we have to deal with today", then Starfleet's skill set has to be very, VERY dynamic and flexible in order to cope with whatever they expect (or don't expect) to find.
The military is the wrong tool for that job. It's not that you can't attach a screwdriver, a hammer, a bolt cutter, a microscope, a syringe and a hot glue gun to an assault rifle... it's that an assault rifle is a tool for a very specific job, and is just one of MANY tools for this kind of organization.
So, Starfleet is a military in the Alternate timeline of Yesterday's Enterprise. We're in agreement. And Starfleet has been a military at some point between 2162 & 2378. I believe a couple people mentioned the war from late DS9.
In Yesterday's Enterprise, the 1701-C is brought out of its own time, and 22 years in the future. So, around 2345? Picard hasn't lost his old ship yet, and Garret is still the HWIC on the C.
Is Starfleet a military in 2345?
If not, why not?
Does the Federation have to be entrenched in a "World War" and Starfleet at a wartime posture for it to be considered a military?
Does Picard need to act tough, scowl more often, yell at his senior officers, and sport a shiny pistol belt for Starfleet to be a military?
EDIT: I saw it mentioned a few times how Guinan was so disturbed by timeline change. She isn't disturbed that "Starfleet is now a military" or whatever was said a few pages back. She's disturbed that history was changed, 50 Billion people had died, and the Federation was on the verge of ultimate collapse. A military organization can and does exist During peacetime, as well as war. It's not something created everytime a war breaks out.
There have been many good arguments made, for both sides, but I think the best points were in the first few pages of this thread, especially the OP.
Dear Mods,
If this thread continues to 500 posts, I hereby petition you great Arbiters of this military tribunal....uhh....I mean scientific debate....to declare a winner.
In Yesterday's Enterprise, the 1701-C is brought out of its own time, and 22 years in the future. So, around 2345? Picard hasn't lost his old ship yet, and Garret is still the HWIC on the C.
Is Starfleet a military in 2345?
If not, why not?
Does the Federation have to be entrenched in a "World War" and Starfleet at a wartime posture for it to be considered a military?
Does Picard need to act tough, scowl more often, yell at his senior officers, and sport a shiny pistol belt for Starfleet to be a military?
EDIT: I saw it mentioned a few times how Guinan was so disturbed by timeline change. She isn't disturbed that "Starfleet is now a military" or whatever was said a few pages back. She's disturbed that history was changed, 50 Billion people had died, and the Federation was on the verge of ultimate collapse. A military organization can and does exist During peacetime, as well as war. It's not something created everytime a war breaks out.
There have been many good arguments made, for both sides, but I think the best points were in the first few pages of this thread, especially the OP.
Dear Mods,
If this thread continues to 500 posts, I hereby petition you great Arbiters of this military tribunal....uhh....I mean scientific debate....to declare a winner.
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I just don't see "military" as some kind of dirty word. If they are carrying out all the functions of the modern US military (exploration, defense, R&D, humanitarian aid, fighting wars and others), I don't see the issue with them being defined as the Federation's military. They call themselves soldiers in various instances.
The military is a special kind of organization. I just couldn't see myself signing on for a job with a local corporation or police force under the idea that they could deny me my freedom and even my life for certain offenses.
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