Why is there resistance to the idea of Starfleet being military?

[Crazy Eddie]

Meanwhile Starfleet is building a new fleet to combat the Borg. And after this incident Picard fights the Borg a few more times.

By which point the new fleet they were building suddenly doesn't seem like such a great idea and Defiant ends up in mothballs until the Odyssey blows up.

And Picard would not conduct battle drills or war games if there was no threat?! AT ALL? Why?

Because Starfleet is not a military organization. Its purpose is exploration.

Besides, combat readiness isn't something Picard would normally take a specific interest in. That is -- quite literally -- Worf's department. In this sense, having the crew brush up on their battlefield skills in the face of the Borg threat is like the staff at a hotel taking a mandatory course on first aid medicine right before the World Parkour Enthusiast Club comes to town for a convention. That doesn't mean your hotel is a hospital, it just means your boss wants to be extra prepared.

Starfleet does that stuff all the time.

Yes. "Peak Performance" was one of those times.

Maybe so. After all, he worships at the feet of Prime Directive. He looks down on "primitive" cultures, and he gives PR speeches about the Federation's great utopia.

About Voyager. This is going in circles, so I have rewound the thread for you...

Waste of time. I wasn't responding to any of those points, only the suggestion that voyager was "built for combat." As you yourself concede, it's a deep space exploration vessel, which for Starfleet implies combat capability as a given but HARDLY its primary function.

 

[Ithekro]

The question is, is it possible for Romulus to get reinforcements to Vulcan after the trick is discovered? There is still the area of space between the Neutral Zone and Vulcan to cross and the Federation would be on high alert after such a blatant act of war by Romulus. Though given the era of the Earth-Romulan War, that border cannot be all that far away from Vulcan or Earth since it has to be within reach of the relatively primitive Earth warp ships of the 22nd century, where Warp 5 was the top end until probably late in the war when the warp 6 ships would have been around (if the new warp 7 hotness was coming out just after the birth of the Federation).

 

[Dilandu]

The question is, is it possible for Romulus to get reinforcements to Vulcan after the trick is discovered? There is still the area of space between the Neutral Zone and Vulcan to cross and the Federation would be on high alert after such a blatant act of war by Romulus. Though given the era of the Earth-Romulan War, that border cannot be all that far away from Vulcan or Earth since it has to be within reach of the relatively primitive Earth warp ships of the 22nd century, where Warp 5 was the top end until probably late in the war when the warp 6 ships would have been around (if the new warp 7 hotness was coming out just after the birth of the Federation).

Well, I think that Romulan cloack of this time was good enough to make long-range detection & intercept not very likely. Especially if we are talking about a lot of cloacked ships, moving in disperced formation across literally hundreds of lightyears. Before the Federation would be able to scramble enough ships to smultaneously block Vulkan & secure the border, the Romulans have a good window of opportunity, during which the Starfleet wouldn't be unable to do both.

 

[Nyotarules]

We just have to conclude in the Star Trek universe space is far too small, Even Nero made it all the way to Vulcan from Kronos with not a Federation defence in sight. After that The Federation Council should sack Starfleet, perhaps Marcus was right after all. (Apart from starting a mad war with the Klingons)

 

[Crazy Eddie]

We just have to conclude in the Star Trek universe space is far too small, Even Nero made it all the way to Vulcan from Kronos with not a Federation defence in sight. After that The Federation Council should sack Starfleet, perhaps Marcus was right after all. (Apart from starting a mad war with the Klingons)

Many a time i have mused with this exact debate playing out among Starfleet policymakers. You might have something called the "Archer Doctrine" and its proponents who believe that early/distant contact and conflict deescalation is the key defensive strategy, with Starfleet prioritizing a larger number of smaller starships to make initial contact. They might be opposed by, say, the Rittenhouse Doctrine that calls for the construction of massive multi-purpose exploration vessels that mostly explore JUST beyond the defense perimeter until/unless a distant threat is identified.

USS Vengenace would be the embodiment of the latter strategy. Most of the time it patrols along the border, but in the event of a flare-up it sprints to the threatened area and obliterates everything in sight. TOS Enterprise would be the former strategy: they solve problems before they start by seeking out potential troublemakers while they're still far enough away that you can take your time, play it safe, and seek a peaceful resolution.

Marcus would have interpretted the first idea as a militarization, since it would mean Starfleet would put most of its exploration missions on the back burner and focus on sector defense and patrol. Slowly expanding the border with this activity would also require a more traditionally military role; Starfleet would be annexing planets one at a time as the Federation grows, rather than planet-hopping to the far reaches and finding one a thousand light years from anywhere only to say "Hey! This place is awesome! Let's colonize it!"

 

[Nyotarules]

^Would make a good novel. Probably done already, ever read the Dreadnought novel. Its another 'Starfleet Admiral goes bad' plot.
I would rename the Rittenhouse Doctrine the Shran Doctrine

Spoiler

they seem to be at loggerheads already in the novelverse. [/spoiler/]

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^Would make a good novel. Probably done already, ever read the Dreadnought novel. Its another 'Starfleet Admiral goes bad' plot.
I would rename the Rittenhouse Doctrine the Shran Doctrine

Spoiler

they seem to be at loggerheads already in the novelverse. [/spoiler/]

Well I picked "Rittenhouse" as a reference to "Dreadnought!" anyway. The existence of USS Vengeance suggests that Admiral Rittenhouse had a slightly different career evolution in the Kelvinverse, probably with Alex Marcus as a protoge. The larger design for the Enterprise in the Kelinverse would be a consequence of Rittenhouse's ideas getting traction alot earlier in his career owing to the loss of an important high-value ship. That would mean the Constitution class was designed, not as a medium-sized deep space explorer, but as a giant-sized heavy explorer that spent most of its time closer to Sol.

That would also explain why nobody had done a five-year mission yet before STID. The older mid-sized starships weren't up to the task and the newer ships that would have replaced them never materialized. NuEnterprise might not actually be optimized for that mission, but the Science Doves of Starfleet manage to convince the powers that be that a five-year expedition is important enough to retrofit one of those big Connies and go for broke.

 

[Ithekro]

Which might be why they built a redesigned Constitution style ship at Starbase Yorktown only five or so years after the commissioning of the USS Enterprise.

 

[suarezguy]

But it doesn't matter whether some individual somewhere comes up with a definition of "military" that Starfleet happens to fit. It's a matter of whether or not Starfleet fits THE FEDERATION'S definition of what a military is.

In part, it's also significant that I believe in all the 24th century shows the enemies don't refer to the ships, aside from Defiant-class, as warships or battleships.

I think, this question is pretty far from petty. Basically, it's the question of thought patterns; how should the members of Starfleet (mainly captains) think? More as scientists and explorers, or as soldiers and defenders? How willingly should the Starfleet captains use the force, or threat of force to do things?

Yeah, I have to think that the insistence that Starfleet is the military is in large part an attempt to imply that Picard and his crew were bad officers.

This would probably go round and round until some iteration of ST canon would finally establish the existence of a Federation military forces, separate from Starfleet.

Well there explicitly have been planetary defensive forces that seemed to be exclusively about defense (for Vulcan, for Mars, although in the latter case possibly unmanned), that could be enough without the whole organization having to have a military.

 

[Dilandu]

Yeah, I have to think that the insistence that Starfleet is the military is in large part an attempt to imply that Picard and his crew were bad officers.

Well, they are bad MILITARY officers - but, frankly, the "Galaxy"-class ships could not be considered warships under any circumstances. They have civilians - literally hundreds of civilians! - onboard. Simply speaking, any sane commander would never order such ship into battle, and the logical course of action for Picard was to immediately run away from any possible military danger & call battleships for help.

This could be partly remedied if saucer separarion was used more often, but the writers clearly didn't like it.

Well there explicitly have been planetary defensive forces that seemed to be exclusively about defense (for Vulcan, for Mars, although in the latter case possibly unmanned), that could be enough without the whole organization having to have a military.

The planetary defense forces means little; space warfare is all about mobility. To have a strong planetary defenses but weak fleet is a guaranteed way to defeat - like for island nation, which population centers are distributed across the large archipelago, to invest not in navy and air forces, but in army and coastal defenses. Each island is individually hard to take, but since the enemy could easily cut the islands from each other, this means nothing.

 

[fireproof78]

Given the TNG era view on death and service, taking civilians in to a combat or military situation may not be as frowned upon as it is in contemporary ages.

 

[GabyBee]

This could be partly remedied if saucer separarion was used more often, but the writers clearly didn't like it.

If I recall correctly, I believe the producers were the ones who routinely axed saucer separation elements in scripts because it would have been too expensive/time consuming for the show to justify at the time.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

*sings*

There will be no more isolation
In the Saucer Separation

@Dilandu: Perhaps not all Galaxy-class ships had civilians onboard. Indeed, most of them that we see in the Dominion War (such as the Galaxy itself) surely didn't.

 

[1001001]

*sings*

There will be no more isolation
In the Saucer Separation

 

[The Wormhole]

Well there explicitly have been planetary defensive forces that seemed to be exclusively about defense (for Vulcan, for Mars, although in the latter case possibly unmanned), that could be enough without the whole organization having to have a military.

I don't recall a Vulcan defense force mentioned. There is the V'Shar, which seems more like an intelligence agency to me.

This could be partly remedied if saucer separarion was used more often, but the writers clearly didn't like it.

It wasn't a case of the writers not liking it. It actually was a pain in the ass to separate and re-integrate the actual physical model used for filming. And by season 4 they switched to a smaller model that wasn't capable of separating.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The planetary defense forces means little; space warfare is all about mobility.

Space warfare is all about FIREPOWER. This was demonstrated clearly by the Xindi Superweapon, and 200 years later by DS9 and Chintoka. There's the Groumal with its modified "System-5" disruptor cannon, and the Aldeans with their "Custodian" defense system. Minos' EP-607 was so effective that it single handedly wiped out the entire population of the planet, destroyed one starship and nearly destroyed a second. There's the Paxans with their wormhole generator that can trap whole starships at incredible distance, and there's the automated weapon systems employed by "Val" that can grab whole starships and pull them out of orbit. The Cardassian Dreadnought is another good datapoint in that it proves the existence of interplanetary weapons other than starships, which is described as having enough firepower to "shatter a small moon." With the amount of difficulty Voyager had stopping just ONE of those things, weapons like the Dreadnought would basically make combat starships obsolete, UNLESS of course those kinds of missiles are basically trumped by superior planetary defenses being able to intercept them. Which actually makes sense: if the Cardassians can launch one drednought to attack the Maquis, they could probably launch ten of them to intercept an incoming invasion force, and probably have special counter-missiles in storage designed to shoot down other people's ISBMs.

IOW, immobilized or poorly-mobile weapons platforms manage to sucker punch larger and more powerful vessels all the time, just by concentrating larger amounts of firepower on them than the opposition can return. Meanwhile, the ability to out-maneuver an enemy is a useful defensive feature but doesn't provide much of an advantage in terms of offensive power. So firepower, not mobility, is the key to space combat in Star Trek.

To have a strong planetary defenses but weak fleet is a guaranteed way to defeat - like for island nation, which population centers are distributed across the large archipelago, to invest not in navy and air forces, but in army and coastal defenses. Each island is individually hard to take, but since the enemy could easily cut the islands from each other, this means nothing.

If your island nation is equipped with enough nuclear-tipped ICBMs to depopulate any country that might move against them, invading that island nation becomes rather more complicated, yes?

 

[Dilandu]

It wasn't a case of the writers not liking it. It actually was a pain in the ass to separate and re-integrate the actual physical model used for filming. And by season 4 they switched to a smaller model that wasn't capable of separating.

Strange; they could just use stock footage of separating process all time, without even modifying the background.

Indeed, most of them that we see in the Dominion War (such as the Galaxy itself) surely didn't.

Well, since they were mobilized for frontline duty, they probably left all civilians in ports. But I doubt they were good battleships. Unless their saucer sections were replaced or completely retro-fitted, they would still have an awful amount of useless living space.

 

[Ithekro]

Strange; they could just use stock footage of separating process all time, without even modifying the background..

For the separation sequence yes, but their probably wasn't enough passes of especially the saucer section to make it useful. The stardrive section passes were probably not all that many either even they only used the mode twice in the first season, and then again against the Borg for a high expense season opener

 

[cultcross]

We just have to conclude in the Star Trek universe space is far too small

Unless you're on Voyager, when it takes far longer to cross than it should.

Space is the size of plot, on TNG we have Romulans about to invade Vulcan while shortly afterwards, in Face of the Enemy, finding a trip to the nearest Federation outpost to drop off one cargo container in a single cloaked vessel too long and dangerous a journey to even consider.

 

[cultcross]

Because Starfleet is not a military organization. Its purpose is exploration.

Picard's attitude in Peak Performance is exaggerated somewhat for dramatic purposes but his meaning is clear, he doesn't see the need for military exercises except for the new Borg threat. His reaction indicates this isn't something done all the time at all, or he'd be used to it. This is a reaction to a newly identified major threat.
In fact, the period of the 24th century we saw was marked by emerging military threats - first the Borg, and then the Dominion. Prior to TNG it is implied that there had been a significant period of peace, following the Khitomer Accords. Of course, as time went on, more past conflicts started being namedropped, the Cardassian wars in particular, although it's never really established how large scale these were. My interpretation remains that, at the start of TNG, Starfleet had been a largely peacetime organisation for the service of most of the characters we see.