Back away from this one I beg you! (or start a new thread, go on, knock yourselves out)
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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Back away from this one I beg you! (or start a new thread, go on, knock yourselves out)
Starfleet vessels are the military (security / defense / offense) branch of the Federation. As established--for a reason--in TOS, Stafleet ships are not research ships that just so happened to have a weapons system. They have partrolled areas, engaged in battles, defended the Federation borders (and those of parties of interest) and as Kirk pointed out in "By Any Other Name""
"The Federation has handled foreign invasions before."
..and "Errand of Mercy":
"I'm a soldier, not a diplomat."
ST established Starfleet as a military body that also explores. Its not Bill Nye in Space with Pepper Spray. Handling foreign invasions is not the job of the kind of mythical Starfleet myth pushed with the development of TNG. You need crews and technology capable of warfare and train for it, which we learn in "The Ultimate Computer" when Commodore Wesley enlists the 1701 into war games (to test the M-5).
No organization would be "created to sever a non-military" mission if one of their functions allows General Order 24, described by Kirk (in "A Taste of Armageddon") as:
"You heard me give General Order Twenty Four. That means in two hours the Enterprise will destroy Eminiar Seven."
That's not some decision (or the kind of ship designed to execute it) made after months or years of hand-wringing in some U.N. council-like setting. It was a common power consciously granted to Starfleet ships, which is as much a lethal power (obviously implying mass destruction of a civilization) as the Death Star. There's no part of any of the quotes that renders Starfleet into a "non-military" organization.
No, which is why they put weapons on some of their ships, but as an afterthought. Like a Naval research vessel that has a three-inch mounted deck gun and a small arms locker. Yes, it can fight in a pinch, but only a small fraction of its operational capacity is devoted to combat. A Naval destroyer of similar size would have multiple guns of various calibers, plus armor, rockets, torpedoes, depth charges, and ECM, and a crew trained to operate them. 100 percent of its operational capacity would be devoted to combat.
That is a military ship, and the only ship Starfleet ever produced meeting that criteria was the Defiant class, which it started, quickly set aside, and had to rapidly re-mobilize when the Dominion came knocking. That is not what a military organization would have done.
Given that it used Starfleet weapons and personnel in the Dominion war, it doesn't have one. The closest thing we've seen are the MACO's, and even they are vastly better equipped than their counterparts... look at "Fortunate Son". A group of Nausicans were standing in a cluster and destroying their hapless adversaries. One well-tossed WW2 era hand grenade would have painted the bulkheads with them. The MACO's were a combat unit, and they had grenades.
I have just created a thread for this topic at a mod's unofficial request, so this can make its way there under "General Trek Discussion' so, I'll be brief and not respond to this topic here anymore. We can take it up in the general thread or not.
Weapons on the NX-01 were not an afterthought.
It does. Starfleet.
Starfleet was immediately mobilized for the Klingon war in "Errand of Mercy"
Star Trek VI:
SPOCK: The dismantling of our space stations and starbases along the Neutral Zone, an end to almost seventy years of unremitting hostility, which the Klingons can no longer afford.\
MILITARY AIDE: Bill, are we talking about mothballing the Starfleet?
C-IN-C: Well, I'm sure that our exploration and scientific programs would be unaffected, Captain, but...
What's left? The military. Even if you couch it as a "Defense" program, it serves the same function.
Weapons on the NX-01 were not an afterthought.
It does. Starfleet.
Starfleet was immediately mobilized for the Klingon war in "Errand of Mercy"
Star Trek VI:
SPOCK: The dismantling of our space stations and starbases along the Neutral Zone, an end to almost seventy years of unremitting hostility, which the Klingons can no longer afford.\
MILITARY AIDE: Bill, are we talking about mothballing the Starfleet?
C-IN-C: Well, I'm sure that our exploration and scientific programs would be unaffected, Captain, but...
What's left? The military. Even if you couch it as a "Defense" program, it serves the same function.
I will honor our moderator's request and not reply further on the "military" subject.
Agreed. When I saw "Generations" in the theater, the place shook with laughter when Data sent Beverly into the drink.
Anyway, pushing Dr. Crusher into the drink was no different than pushing a friend into the pool after you all just got done laughing at your other friend being pushed into the pool, and start a chain reaction, except since it's the holodeck, no one's clothes get ruined, you can dry out in an instant, and you won't smack your head on the side or bottom of the pool (however, the holodeck characters might try and kill you). Data probably reflected on that after putting the chip in, and said "I don't care what they say, Mr. Tricorder, that was funny as" using his new vocabulary of colorful metaphors.
Agreed. When I saw "Generations" in the theater, the place shook with laughter when Data sent Beverly into the drink.
The Defiant was designed and built to fight the Borg... long before the Dominion was ever even mentioned. She was almost certainly going to destroy Jem'Hadar ships more easily than any other Starfleet ship, including a Galaxy class ship.
Please continue this topic in this thread
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/is-starfleet-military.312882/#post-14343025
I find this whole convention of calling a ship a "she" is ridiculous.
Blame the patriarchy
For somebody who isn't an English native speaker it just sounds weird and really dated too.
In the days of the Soviet Union, the Russian navy referred to its ships with the male pronoun. I don't know if they still do that, though.
Definitely 19th century. Meyer has said that he was going for a "Hornblower in space" look, and also he directed Robert Fletcher to make the uniforms look like something out of "The Prisoner of Zenda."
Kor
My post had nothing to do with the 'is Starfleet a military' question, and I'm not getting into that discussion. I was responding to an incorrect assessment that the Defiant's fighting capabilities only happened because Starfleet studied what happened to the Odyssey. Because dialogue from Sisko in "THE SEARCH, PART I" was clear that she was built long before that attack occured.
They need to re-make Star Trek: Insurrection. Keep the title but change everything else. Given what's going on in Current Events, it would be a very different movie now.
You want controversial? Here's controversial on two fronts!
You want controversial? Here's controversial on two fronts!
So, I don’t think they should have plunged straight into TNG movies the moment the show ended.
Heck, I’d have been up for a couple more TOS films (people used to think the cast had gotten “too old” back then, but William Shatner was actually two decades younger than Patrick Stewart is now). That said, it’s probably better to quit while you’re ahead and TUC was a great closing act.
Maybe the TNG movies would have worked better if we’d had a little time to miss the characters—and, more crucially, for the studio to have found actual movie producers/screenwriters/directors instead of just elevating the by-then burned out TV team. While FC is a decent, enjoyable romp, on the whole I find those four movies incredibly disappointing and such a missed opportunity. How I wish they’d been able to do something interesting with them and maybe had some kind of arc connecting them, ala the Genesis thread.
Heck, I’d have been up for a couple more TOS films (people used to think the cast had gotten “too old” back then, but William Shatner was actually two decades younger than Patrick Stewart is now). That said, it’s probably better to quit while you’re ahead and TUC was a great closing act.
Maybe the TNG movies would have worked better if we’d had a little time to miss the characters—and, more crucially, for the studio to have found actual movie producers/screenwriters/directors instead of just elevating the by-then burned out TV team. While FC is a decent, enjoyable romp, on the whole I find those four movies incredibly disappointing and such a missed opportunity. How I wish they’d been able to do something interesting with them and maybe had some kind of arc connecting them, ala the Genesis thread.
I for one agree - plus they could have used the "Jean-Luc Picard is back" campaign in the late 90s instead of the late 2010s
The problem was the perception of TNG as a property; it was assumed--incorrectly--that TNG was such a "hit" that its future had to be in film, following what TOS had achieved. TNG--when it ended never reached anything near the cultural height of TOS (a problem that has not been resolves to this day), the latter becoming one of the few, genuine 20th century pop culture phenomenons which grew in success and public awareness / attachment after its production run. Few can say (with a straight face) that the public was hungry for TNG movies, or were even able to name most of its characters or episode plots, yet all involved in TNG going to the movies ignored that, and what did the movie-going public get: the first film, which proved TNG was a weak property because it needed a hollow, "pass the torch" story / mining the immense popularity of Shatner's Kirk just to get going.
First Contact was supposed to "get it right", only it used the most (arguably) overused adversaries in ST history (even at the time of its release), with an embarrassing attempt to turn Picard (of all characters) into an action hero. Insurrection: New Agey BS, and to be honest was most in line with the flavor and heart of TNG. Then, there was the shameless TWOK rip-off in the form of Nemesis, leaving audiences with a truth they were well aware of: if TNG cannot create a story unique to the world it created, steal ideas from a chapter of the superior version of ST.
Next to no one wonders why the TNG films do not have a great legacy.
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