do you like the MACO's

[Timo]

Sure the MACO force aboard the ship had a second in command. And third, and fourth, and so on. It just conveniently so happened that Reed outranked all those down the line, so there no longer was opposition to him fulfilling all his leadership desires.

When Hayes dies, he rants about a Corporal McKenzie. But his force included unseen Sergeants as well, and even if there was no Captain or Lieutenant in the mix, one of the Sergeants would have taken over. (Hayes probably had other things in mind when praising McKenzie - perhaps he had slighted the poor woman previously and wanted to make professional amends?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Delta Vega]

I wondered about that
Practically his dying words, a recommendation that McKenzie takes over his unit
But after that, no McKenzie

 

[Gabriel]

Sure the MACO force aboard the ship had a second in command. And third, and fourth, and so on. It just conveniently so happened that Reed outranked all those down the line, so there no longer was opposition to him fulfilling all his leadership desires.

When Hayes dies, he rants about a Corporal McKenzie. But his force included unseen Sergeants as well, and even if there was no Captain or Lieutenant in the mix, one of the Sergeants would have taken over. (Hayes probably had other things in mind when praising McKenzie - perhaps he had slighted the poor woman previously and wanted to make professional amends?)

Timo Saloniemi

I mean that’s good Theory but other than a sergeant or two I don’t see any other officers any time. Remember this is probably just a platoon or something and in a platoon there only one officer most of the time. Which I find weird because fortune is only committing to buy either a first or second Lieutenant although I guess since this was a serious situation they felt a major commanding was warrant. I don’t know maybe he was just saying for reed to use McKenzie as a liaison not the fact that she was in command. Although non-canon book show that she was promoted to Master Sergeant and took command a year or 2 before the new major came. but again they’re not Canon. I know how people here feel about non-canon. Either they like or they don’t.

 

[Timo]

I wondered about that
Practically his dying words, a recommendation that McKenzie takes over his unit
But after that, no McKenzie

Hayes doesn't actually say that McKenzie ought to take over, though. She "knows the team", so Reed should "rely on her", is all.

FWIW, in current Specialforcespeak, a "team" is a group of a dozen or so, and the equivalent of a platoon in that a company is made of half a dozen teams. Hayes could well be considered to lead a company of MACOs here, with about 30 distinct people usually deployed in teams of six. Perhaps Hayes wanted McKenzie to become the leader of the team in which she had been a mere member until then - possibly a promotion to Sergeant was due, but Hayes had failed to write the appropriate letter of recommendation and worried about that in his final moments.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mysterion]

Well I don’t know I just because I think United federation of planets marine corps sounds better. Why no t give them some independence. Also the navy back in the day tried having two top dogs Kinda like your suggesting, it didn’t work out so well.

Agreed. UFMC would be better. "Starfleet Marines" would be like calling the present-day USMC the "US Navy Marines" - go to Parris Island and see how it goes over with the first gunnery sergeant you run into.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Well I don’t know I just because I think United federation of planets marine corps sounds better. Why no t give them some independence.

Because Starfleet is a combined service. (Kirk said so in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday".)

 

[Gabriel]

Because Starfleet is a combined service. (Kirk said so in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday".)

Oh yeah And Starfleet never wrong in how it operates. Why do you think the federation has been on the brink of invasion so often they find it weak. So maybe not having a define ground force is not a good idea.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Well, Starfleet does have ground troops. We heard about them a lot on DS9. And since Starfleet has fought other major wars, they must have had them then as well.

What they are called, however, is up for debate. Hell, maybe they're not "called" anything at all - just "Starfleet" like the rest of them. They would have to have unique uniform colors (and of course ground-based ranks like General, Colonel, Major, etc.) but they would still just be called "Starfleet".

 

[Gabriel]

Well, Starfleet does have ground troops. We heard about them a lot on DS9. And since Starfleet has fought other major wars, they must have had them then as well.

What they are called, however, is up for debate. Hell, maybe they're not "called" anything at all - just "Starfleet" like the rest of them. They would have to have unique uniform colors (and of course ground-based ranks like General, Colonel, Major, etc.) but they would still just be called "Starfleet".

Why? You there are good reasons why the us and other countries have separate branches of the military, I just don’t know them. So if they are just called starfleet then just don’t have the ground ranks. Just use normal starfleet ranks.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

It makes sense that Starfleet, as a "combined service" would have ground forces of a sort, if only for enhanced manpower in "military operations other than war" (including but not limited to disaster relief, enhanced security augmentation, evacuations and recovery operations, but also tactical strikes and raids).

The MACOs as depicted on Enterprise appear to be a dedicated special operations or special operations capable unit that is part of a larger whole (either a UE force or possibly a US one based on the insignia and training sites). In modern teams, this would place them inline with either military Special Response Teams (Military SWAT), USMC FAST, or even the SEALs. I think there are excellent reasons why personnel with those skillsets would exist within Starfleet at all times (The 90-day deployable intel/security unit in The Siege of AR558 would seem to be a good candidate for this).

On the other hand, I think that convential "big army" forces (intended for prolonged months to years of combat operations) would have been limited to reserve status similar to the US National Guards and mostly operate under the local planetary authorities but with the option to be "federalised" during wartime.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

M.A.C.O.

The guys and gals you call when you can't risk red shirts mucking something up. Do love that Reed and Hayes both had extra large egoes and attempted to out macho one another.

 

[Gabriel]

M.A.C.O.

The guys and gals you call when you can't risk red shirts mucking something up. Do love that Reed and Hayes both had extra large egoes and attempted to out macho one another.

Yeah I found that very interesting. And kind of funny when captain archer dress them down

 

[Timo]

They would have to have unique uniform colors (and of course ground-based ranks like General, Colonel, Major, etc.) but they would still just be called "Starfleet".

I don't quite see the need for either of those things. Why special uniform colors? Starfleet does just fine with the three colors that don't tell engineers apart from guards or astromycologists from surgeons. What need would there exist for a special color for artillerymen or airborne infantry?

And why ground-based ranks? Starfleet does just fine without giving its pilots air-based ranks. And we see in "Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "Siege of AR-558" that Starfleet's de facto ground troops, with the special uniforms (but with perfectly regular colors), go by navy ranks: we see an Ensign in the former, and hear of the latter having been commanded by a Commander whose boss was a Captain.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I don't quite see the need for either of those things. Why special uniform colors? Starfleet does just fine with the three colors that don't tell engineers apart from guards or astromycologists from surgeons. What need would there exist for a special color for artillerymen or airborne infantry?

The thing I've always found oddest, esp during the TOS/DSC era is that armory personnel (technicians) are grouped with "command" (mostly specialist/operators) whereas security guards (specialists) are part of engineering (technicians). Now there is limited logic to the former (they are both "warfare") but the later doesn't make sense at all. The TMP idea of grouping security with services in a different colour makes much more sense. The need for differentation between medical and science is less significant, but I certainly support them having different badges even if the uniform colour is the same (fore instance, McCoy should wear sciences with a medical insignia because he's a researcher, a security team medic would wear a services shirt with a medical insignia.

And why ground-based ranks? Starfleet does just fine without giving its pilots air-based ranks. And we see in "Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "Siege of AR-558" that Starfleet's de facto ground troops, with the special uniforms (but with perfectly regular colors), go by navy ranks: we see an Ensign in the former, and hear of the latter having been commanded by a Commander whose boss was a Captain.

IMO it makes sense for Starfleet's rapid response ground contingent to use Starfleet ranks (essentially a mix of MAAs, EOD, SO/SB and Seebees with MST (CG marine sci techs) and HM/HSs as needed), as they need to be able to integrate in a ship's crew and operate alongside them.

On the other hand, any "big army" wartime deployments are likely to draw from personnel of Member World's security forces (ala US National Guard) and these would not necessarily use Starfleet ranks (The Sol system's Terresterial Defense Division presumably does because they are mostly co-located with regular Starfleet). For instance, Pacifica Defense uses commandant as a rank not a title, it's not clear what it corresponds to, but it's certainly a senior rank (in the RW, commandant is usually used in place of major so roughly LCDR), and the Bajoran Militia use non-naval ranks, though in a slightly different configuration that the modern US military.

 

[Timo]

If the putative member armies had their own systems, wouldn't it then be natural for Starfleet to insist on its own familiar naval one when forcing those to conform, rather than to introduce some completely separate naming scheme?

Not that there'd be much reason to believe in member world armies - according to DS9, Starfleet just stomps on those and grinds.

As for the uniform colors, I don't see them corresponding to lines of work at all. If you do Sciences, you can wear whatever you like, as evidenced by all those TOS scientistesses - or Spock, say. But if you wear Gold in the 24th century, you can't Command, as per the Eddington-Sisko banter. It's just a three-tier system of some sort, Line/Restricted/Staff or whatever, with the blueshirts lacking in clearance the most. Until they swap shirts, that is, and little seems to stop anybody from doing so.

Or then the three colors stand for the three shifts, and only alerts and other adventures have the colors mixing, but our observer bias utterly hides that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gabriel]

I don't quite see the need for either of those things. Why special uniform colors? Starfleet does just fine with the three colors that don't tell engineers apart from guards or astromycologists from surgeons. What need would there exist for a special color for artillerymen or airborne infantry?

And why ground-based ranks? Starfleet does just fine without giving its pilots air-based ranks. And we see in "Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "Siege of AR-558" that Starfleet's de facto ground troops, with the special uniforms (but with perfectly regular colors), go by navy ranks: we see an Ensign in the former, and hear of the latter having been commanded by a Commander whose boss was a Captain.

Timo Saloniemi

Right and starfleet is so great at defending the federation. Just because we see it doesn’t make it smart considering everybody finds the federation weak. And probably the only reason why the ground forces used naval ranks is because the writers and producers were too lazy to make army style ranks. Or that they just didn’t care. Also. They could not have been ground forces. I mean starfleet probably doesn’t have them. They just pick some unlucky people to preform those duties

 

[Timo]

This would not be changed by giving these people different rank names or differently color-coded uniforms, now would it?

Timoi Saloniemi

 

[Gabriel]

This would not be changed by giving these people different rank names or differently color-coded uniforms, now would it?

Timoi Saloniemi

Psychological. I mean by giving them army styled ranks and different colors they will feel that they are a important part of the federation and not feel like some losers that are stuck on some rock because they probably couldn’t hack it on ships. Tradition is another reason. I know that’s not really a reason but hey starfleet does follow some traditions. Also one question by not making a difference (I’m not just meaning ranks) don’t that mean they can transfer just about anybody to ground forces, even if they are not good at ground warfare. But then again this isn’t my my debate so I will just let you and laser beam Duke it out. It will be interesting to see your debate

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

There's also the issue that the Federation tends to be relatively 'soft touch' as far as the 'internal politics' of member worlds. The most I could see them enforcing rank wise on member worlds would be changing any specifically conflicting ranks.

For instance, Starfleet senior lieutenants are "O3", whereas senior army lieutenants are usually "O2", with captains as "O3" to Starfleet's "O6". The Bajoran militia canonically runs from Ensign to (Second) Lieutenant, (First) Lieutenant to Major to Colonel (2-3 grades, title unknown) to General and Overgeneral. Although the last could be a title rather than a discrete rank.

 

[Gabriel]

The Bajoran militia canonically runs from Ensign to (Second) Lieutenant, (First) Lieutenant to Major to Colonel (2-3 grades, title unknown) to General and Overgeneral. Although the last could be a title rather than a discrete rank.

Yeah I found it weird that there is no LT colonel. I mean without LTC Sisko and Kira are the same rank during season 7. But that doesn’t matter since Sisko is senior. And in non-canon (yes I know it’s non-canon but it’s good.) when Kira becomes commander of DS9, before bajor joins the federation, her XO is a commander not a LCDR if she was just a LTC. And in non-canon there is a captain rank between 1st lt and major