Didn't Kirk tell somebody, "We're a combined service"??
Is Starfleet Military?
- Thread starter Prometheus59650
- Start date
Same deal with police and firefighters. Is the Surgeon General required to muster the troops? This is the same "logic" used when folks try to say "Ah, but it's Starfleet." as though it were some kind of trump card.
Fishing ships have fleets. And Captains. It’s all a bit circular.
Of course the logical thing would be to point out these are all based on the military to some extent, but that only leaves us with Starfleet being based on the military. Which it is, and no one would argue with that. But ‘based on’ is not ‘is’ as in ‘based on characters created by Gene Roddenberry’ who famously based stuff on the military, including at one point helping people bas the LAPD on one, but also made sure Starfleet wasn’t one. XD
The Surgeon General is not the agent of the state charged with national defense and does not have the right to try their employees in special courts for violations of special law that only apply to their employees and then imprison them in special prisons only for employees so convicted.
Indeed. At some point in time this dicussion seems to boil down to "If Starfleet is a military it can't do all these other things." Which strikes me as disingenuous, at best, and missing the point at work. Starfleet is a military and exploratory agency. Both things are true.
Also, there's clearly a cultural bias in play here. Star Trek is a United States series by-and-large enjoyed by US fans; it's hardly surprising that concepts are viewed through a military lens. Even their everyday terminology is skewed towards the martial (e.g., a "war on drugs" or "the war on poverty"). The late comedian George Carlin had a brilliant skit on this very subject.
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I mean, sure, but Roddenberry himself is the one who deliberately modeled Starfleet on the U.S. Navy and on colonialist military propaganda like the Horatio Hornblower stories when he first created the show. So if fans interpret it through that lens, that's not just because of American culture -- it's because of deliberate creative choices he made in 1964-1965.
Not really. Starfleet is depicted as doing mostly the same kinds of missions in TNG as in TOS.
No, you keep trying not to say they are... you *did* say that waging war is the purpose of a (any) military... and so we are back... if the purpose of a military is waging war, and that is (among other things) what Starfleet does, then it is a military. Again, how much militarying does an armed forced have to do to *be* a military?
An apple is mainly food... but I can still beat you to death with one, so it can also be a weapon, if only while I am using it that way. So, if nothing else, when Starfleet is engaged in war, or battle, they are being both military and A military force.
Historically, inumerable expeditionary forces were military... because a military explorer can do anything a civil one can do, and is trained in combat... civil explorers *might* be, but if you were going to run into the Hirojan, who would you want, a civil botanist, or an "army" one, who is fully combat trained?
If General McDonalds could order Sue or any other subordinate to open fire on you with an automatic weapon, or drop an atomic bomb on you, I bet you'd think it was military then... because it's not one thing, it's all of it.
Ronald cannot put Sue in the brig for an offense, bring charges against her (the charges being different, as military criminal law is different than civilian criminal law) and have her court martialed... where her trial is presided ONLY by McDonalds personnel, without a jury (there *can* be a similar group composed only of that service branch members, and they have diffrent rights and responsibilities from a civilian jury) and then have her thrown into a McDonald's jail... I'd certainly call that a military, even if they serve fries with that.
Except a SAK is actually still, today, a military knife: designed, owned and manufactured under control of the Swiss Army, and it is part of their field kits.
It is NOT a combat knife, not every military knife is.
Meanwhile, back to a small but very salient point: court martial (aka "military"... like, martial arts), which is both the criminal proceedings undertaken by a military against one of it's service personnel, and the place where those proceedings take place. This is an exclusively military term, as it is entirely a military process. Civil laws do not apply. Civil punishment does not apply.
All that to say... every Starfleet member who commits a crime is tried by Starfleet via court martial. Kinda puts a bow on the whole thing.
Why are you guys so opposed to Starfleet being perceived as military/a military?
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That's how I've always viewed them: officially an armed military force, but also, in a universe where armed military force is mostly lateral (mostly, as portrayed, we're not seeing Starfleet in open warfare, where a ship might be in daily firefights etc) AND The Federation and Earth are depicted as being generally pacifistic and non-aggressive... so, how do you keep your military usefulin peacetime? Put them to work doing other stuff.
Why that's such a problem for some is beyond me.
On the bias point: I am not from the US, though I live here now. And the US has both biases: pro and anti military, about equally by population... in fact the US has many conflicting values and biases.
I have interacted extensively with non-US and US armed forces, and by every measure and in every conceibable way, Starfleet is a military force, and also, there's nothing wrong with that.
People aren't calling Starfleet military/a military because that's what they want it to be: we simply see uniformed people with guns for what they are: soldiers.
There's no inherent judgement there.
What I am seeing is such a strong bias against stigma of the term "military" that people are building cotton candy castles to stop the evidence raining on them.
That's why I hesitate to call Starfleet a military.Wikipedia said:
It's like calling Will Riker a jazz trombonist. I mean, it's absolutely true, but it's not his primary function so it's a bit misleading.
Let me know when Willy T. drops everything else to go play trombone.
So, the fact that Riker is a jazz trombonist is not true because it's not what he does all the time? So when he *is* doing it, he's still not a jazz trombonist ( "a person who plays jazz trombone")... he is... a bald chicken? A fish with legs?
All piano players are pianists, even if they not all professionals.
Soldiers don't spend all day every day waging war, even in a war zone. You know how many wells soldiers dug in Afghanistan? Schools built? Hospitals (some of which were staffed almost totally by army personell), roads, bidges, etc.
And, in Starfleet's case, it *is* their primary responsibility (or rather, one of them), as in: if there's military action needed, it is Starfleet's duty, on behalf of Earth and/or the Federation, to be the force that takes that action.
It is not their SOLE duty.
If Starfleet is not a military, why are they the only one's who go to war on behalf of Earth? Where then, IS the military?
If Starfleet were not Earth's "Space Military," then there would *be* one. Go to war with Klingons, The Dominion, Borg, Romulans, etc... with what, merchant marines? I don't think so.
How many times have Starfleet's fleets been mobilizwd to defend earth, or federation space? Everytime, that's how many.
The biggest practical argument against them being a military force is how bad they are at it, but that happens with armed forces: some suck.
Number of times Riker's dropped everything else to play trombone: they couldn't even get him to stop at his friend's funeral.
Number of times Riker's dropped everything else to go to war: Possibly never. Was the Enterprise even in the Dominion War?
Number of times Riker's dropped everything else to go to war: Possibly never. Was the Enterprise even in the Dominion War?
The Enterpise is not THE ENTIRETY of Starfleet. It is their flagship. Possibly their fastest and most powerful, but also the one that's meant to be a beacon and a representative of humanity in space.
You don't throw them into constant firefights unless you're pressed. You need it in case of diplomacy or other stuff.
The closests we've gotten to see extended service of a ship/crew in wartime is DIS, which was, again, special, being a military research vessel developing tech to win the war... and yet still, was also very much a military operation.
Early TNG at best, eventually Picard even states leading men in battle as one of his accomplishments.
Indeed.
I would love to hear the answer this question. I would let go of Starfleet us a military if this had an answer.
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