They can write on the floor whatever it likes, it is what it does that matters.
Is Starfleet Military?
- Thread starter Prometheus59650
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I am, as ever, some what optimistic. No matter what they got up to in episode one of DSC.
Picard names leading men in battle as one of his accomplishments, in fact it is the first one he named over first contact and diplomatic missions.
It's both. It's Military and Exploratory. A combined service. Ergo a military and...
Because it is a generally accepted principle of law, and has been for at least the last hundred years or so that military operations are conducted by agencies that are chartered under the law of their originating country as military (or very occasionally law enforcement, but with the exception of Japan, which is only "not a military" in the sense that it doesn't start wars any more), whereas science (with a few small exceptions, which are typically under military control) and exploration aren't subject to the same level of restrictions as to who can do what.
Things changed after WWIII. Or, at the very least, after Gene was asked back for TNG.
Well, one thing that didn't change was the Enterprise being a vessel designed for military purposes. In fact I'd argue that the basic spaceframe was more overtly military than the original (though perhaps roughly equivalent to the refit in that regard).
Was it the nursery that gave it away? Or the Arboretum?
(Regardless of whether Starfleet is military that does other things, or thing that does military things, I am not sure ‘military’ really springs to mind all that quickly when thinking about the Ent D specifically.)
If anything that was one of the early problems with TNG. It's a ship with families on an exploratory mission... That is still requested and required to go patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone! Well, they DID try to get away from almost all of the things we've been talking (and talking and talking and talking) about on this thread. For about six and a half minutes.
Army bases have nurseries, the starship is a moving army base in space
Those are more army bases back ‘home’ though, or at least in friendly states. I do t think bases in Iraq or Afghanistan would have them, and if Starfleet is a military then those Starships are essentially front line. Star Trek just doesn’t play as military SF, like say SG1 does — it’s not even Military Space Opera by the time of TNG for sure. (The movies are, but that’s almost a different conversation, and one Gene himself didn’t like) It’s a very different flavour. (In much the same way Farscape starts as Space Opera, like Trek, but then’re into weird/metaphysical but really the whole thing is Romance SF by the end.)
Even Voyager is more Swiss Family Robinson than it is The Odyysey.
There’s nothing wrong with either, but many an episode of Trek has hinged on not-a-military, and the wholesale conversion into a military in something like Yesterdays Enterprise or the late seasons of DS9 only work with that to contrast.
To put it another way — when there’s colour on the shirt, it’s not, but when the uniform gets more uniform, they are.
No, it was the two absolutely huge and obvious phaser arrays. The most obvious features of the ship other than the basic "makes it go" parts.
Incongruity between dialog and costuming in Star Trek? Tell me it ain't so!!!!
The idea that it was a "nickname" is kinda dumb, but it's at least conceivable that it's the title of his current position commanding a regiment/brigade-sized military formation as part of Operation Retrieve.
Ranking down like that is somewhat contrary to American policy, but does occasionally happen in Royal Navy service.
Ranking down like that is somewhat contrary to American policy, but does occasionally happen in Royal Navy service.
I think we have to stop understanding Starfleet as equivalent to modern militaries.
Star Trek is basically "Hornblower in space". And if memory serves me, Age of Sail warships did often have families on board (at least, captain and senior officers would sometimes take their families with them), and they definitely had prepubescent kids running around handling ammunition and similar. And they also did exploration, scientific missions and so on when they could (and if you watch Master and Commander, they have an actual biologist on board).
So to say that Starfleet is not military just because it doesn't feel like modern military is simply wrong. Even those not-a-military things you ( @jaime ) mention used to be purview of military at various points of time, and thus do not negate the idea of Starfleet being a military.
Starfleet flies around in warships. It has court martial. And when war breaks out, it drops everything else to fight and defend the Federation (science missions being treated as basically holidays for the crew to maintain morale).
It is a military.
They’re very decorative though, very integrated. I think it’s a side effect of how the things work that make them… sort of large. I don’t think they stand out that much personally.
I think pre-TNG Trek, particularly the movies, are more hornblower in space. I think TNG and post TNG are a reaction to that — with Roddenberry even having it in the show Bible that they are not a military. The difference between Meyer/Bennet Trek and Roddenberry/Berman Trek is quite large.
Basically, whilst SF (and behind the scenes, Trek) is *based* on a Navy, it is something else.
Age of Sail is obviously a keystone for a lot of it, but look at Rikers little speech in Generations where he underlines some of the differences.
We also have ENT with the most obviously non-military SF seen in Trek, based strongly on NASA — which then goes very military post 9/11 in our real world. Even then, the Maco are seperate to Starfleet.
There is perhaps no straight answer.
Even during the TNG - which was by far the most "pacifistic" series set in the original universe - I never got the impression of "Starfleet isn't a military". Sure, Rodenberry got quite pacifistic in early TNG, but "Peak Performance" shows that only a few idealistic captains actually held to that. And Starfleet still did all the military stuff such as patrolling the borders and so on.
Well, if you want to be pedantic about it, the exact wording in the TNG Bible is that Starfleet is "less of a military" than it was in TOS. Granted, the show later interpreted that as meaning "not a military" anyway.
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