Is the Planetary Union in "Orville" a military?

Yeah, why would anyone assume otherwise?

 

Active duty, reserves, guard, and vets add up to about 23.8 million. Almost 9.6 percent of the adult population.

Then figure in their families, and actually quite a number of people in America are familiar with the military.

 

And yet an alarmingly high percentage of Americans sloppily say "the Army" when referencing either the entire military or one of the other three branches.

 

Admit it--everyone knew it was going to happen.

Anyone who doesn't believe this should go read the Terminal Lance comic series.

 

/thread again but I chuckled at the idea that this would end the discussion

 

Has Orville actually established a name for the military fleet that the Planetary Union operates? Or do they just call it something like "the fleet" without an actual name?

 

I have another theory in that it's not just a military but one that hasn't had to fight a major war in a very long time which is something that even Starfleet can't say because they had to fight in many wars over the years. That's why even though, as others have explained a casual attitude is normal for solders, you also don't seem to see the more hardened types as well.

Jason

 

No, the organization hasn't been referred to as anything other than "the Fleet" with the exceptions of the times it's been called "the military."

 

Or maybe they're a bunch of casual fuckups because this is a comedy by Seth McFarlane and not a serious exploration of a futuristic military, and no theories are required.

 

True enough, but neither is Starfleet.

Those writers were never interested in the structure or rationales of their Space Navy. It was a convenient and familiar idea, already plowed by hundreds if not thousands of pulp sf stories and used explicitly in a number of such TV series and movies.

As they generated more and more material and needed to fill in details needed for particular stories they simply mapped them from convenient facts about modern American military organizations, movie cliches about the U.S. Navy, and contradicted that stuff wherever it was inconvenient to their plots.

The Reset-Of-The-Week format of 1960s TV drama meant that the ramifications of the characters continually improvising and defying the chain of command never had to be dealt with.

Finally, GR started styling himself as a kind of hippy sage and decided to pronounce that the whole thing wasn't really a military force after all, because fighting and stuff was seriously uncool.

 

The most famous American example, The Flying Tigers going to fight in China. While Worf may not have had a Section 31 operator placing him in the war the actual Army and Navy Departments were not placing pilots in China either. His resignation did not come when a Borg cube was on its way to sector 001 or during the Dominion War.

People resigning to avoid being deployed only really became a problem in say 1968 or 2005 when services were stop losing soldiers. At other times if you resigned, then you resigned.

 

Somehow I don't think it's like that.

I've never seen the show either, and I admit SMC's involvement did make me skittish. But everything I've actually heard suggests that it's equal parts drama and comedy. (Perhaps even a bit more of the former.) And that it's definitely NOT Family Guy in space.

 

I've seen every episode. The comedy doesn't fit with the drama very well, because it's definitely crass Family Guy comedy shoved into an episode of TNG. The show would be stronger with less of the comedy. At any rate, a serious military show this is emphatically not.

 

Is someone calling it a serious military show? O_o

I think the drama and the comedy fit just fine together and work well, especially with the character moments. I loathe Family Guy for all its worth so the fact that the humor is (generally) inoffensive to mildly offensive is ok.

Also, the military tells jokes too. Ever been with a group of American Marines before? I think I learned more new and creative ways to swear and be offensive there than any film.

 

This.

 

My different theory is that the Orville is a low level second class ship which goes a long way toward explaining the lax attitude aboard, and that the "real" planetary union military ships (the big cruisers we saw) are probably more military.

 

A "McHale's Navy" type of situation? I got to admit I think that is very possible as well. I think a lack of war though might also helped created that kind of situation as well. I also wonder how long the Planetary Union has been around. Do they have a Federation or is it more like "Enterprise" in that it's just Starfleet right now and other alien governments are still more on their own.

Jason

 

That's not a theory, the Orville is a mid-level cruiser, as established in dialogue.

I thought the Planetary Union is more or less a Federation analogue? And we see many other species are allowed to serve in their fleet, a Moclan and Xeleyan are on Orville's senior staff and we see any number of aliens on the crew.

 

I wonder how big though the Federation analogy goes. Is it hundreds of planets or just a handful. How much impact does each world have on the service? Is it like the United Nations were ever country still has it's own self interest or is it really part of one big government and alien civilizations are more like states in the United States.

Jason

 

Yeah, this thread should really be titled either "Is the Union Fleet a military?" or "Does the Planetary Union have a military?".