Starfleet or jail
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
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Depending on the crime, perhaps. Some crimes, however, cannot so easily be forgiven regardless of a species perceived ‘evolved’ level of enlightenment, sensibility and open mindedness. Such extreme crimes committed by an individual would probably result in permanent ineligibility for Starfleet service, as well as some form of extensive exclusion from every day civilian life.
Hopefully, one would think that society in the 24th century would have evolved *beyond* the capacity to commit such extreme and heinous crimes, therefore negating the need of having to forgive them.
That goes without saying. Kelvin Kirk was a classic example of your petty criminal who just needed some direction.
Prevention and cure...both are ideal.
Seems more likely they'd wind up in something less prestigious, though. A local space militia, maybe.
I can't imagine a supposedly benevolent and utopian society using conscription as an alternative to incarceration.
What we see of prisons, like the one in New Zealand, they seem mostly comfortable if spartan. That a lot more effort is put into rehabilitation, education and therapy.
If I got myself into a jam, and my choices were a prison cell and a bit of hard labour, or being forced into a redshirt and sent into space, I know which option I'd choose.
What we see of prisons, like the one in New Zealand, they seem mostly comfortable if spartan. That a lot more effort is put into rehabilitation, education and therapy.
If I got myself into a jam, and my choices were a prison cell and a bit of hard labour, or being forced into a redshirt and sent into space, I know which option I'd choose.
Not everyone in Starfleet went to the Academy. Not everyone in Starfleet is an officer.
DS9 Starship Down
O'BRIEN: With all due respect, I think you're riding the men a bit hard. You have to understand, they're out of their element. They're not bridge officers, they haven't been to Starfleet Academy. They're engineers. They're used to being given a problem to solve, then going out and figuring out how to do it.
So why not have a choice of jail or Starfleet noncom?
You think prison or a penal colony is a better option than serving on a starship or station?
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Does it count as conscription if either of the two choices are equally humane, or if there are other program options, such as remedial education?
This is a thinly disguised ploy to remake Police Academy but with Mahoney being forced to attend Starfleet Academy, and I claim my five bucks.
But Tom Paris wasn't just any offender. He was a Starfleet graduate and he was convicted for a crime he committed while he was in Starfleet Service. So he would be put in the equivalent of a military prison, not a normal prison, and therefore the route back to Starfleet may have been more logical as well than for any random offender that never had anything to do with Starfleet.
One thing I wondered about during DS9 was whether the Federation would employ conscription during a crisis like the Dominion War. Would the Federation ever draft its citizens into Starfleet?
There’s a line by Senator Vreenak in “In The Pale Moonlight,” where he tells Sisko that Starfleet is suffering from a “manpower shortage,” which is a terrifying notion. An interstellar-government, spanning over 8,000 light-years and possibly trillions of citizens can’t field enough forces for the threat they’re facing.
There’s both progressive arguments for conscription (e.g., a term of mandatory service invests people in participating in the policies of their government and might make military action less likely if people know what it entails and might involve them or someone they know) and against it (Robert Heinlein, of “Starship Troopers” fame, is on record as calling conscription “slavery”) but I’ve wondered whether it would fit with Federation ideals to force people to fight.
There’s a line by Senator Vreenak in “In The Pale Moonlight,” where he tells Sisko that Starfleet is suffering from a “manpower shortage,” which is a terrifying notion. An interstellar-government, spanning over 8,000 light-years and possibly trillions of citizens can’t field enough forces for the threat they’re facing.
There’s both progressive arguments for conscription (e.g., a term of mandatory service invests people in participating in the policies of their government and might make military action less likely if people know what it entails and might involve them or someone they know) and against it (Robert Heinlein, of “Starship Troopers” fame, is on record as calling conscription “slavery”) but I’ve wondered whether it would fit with Federation ideals to force people to fight.
It could have been a bottleneck in the processing or training of new recruits, other than the number of potential recruits available. Especially true of officers, which might explain why Nog's last two years were spent in the field as an ensign.
That or maybe the recruiters were still trying to recruit explorers and scientists, while turning away people who just wanted to fight the Dominion.
For Starfleet, doubtful. But the planetary militaries of member worlds might have allowances for a draft, in extremis.
Well, McCoy apparently was in TMP. He had been in active service before of course, though, so no telling whether a random citizen could be drafted or not.
Yeah, re-instatement of a particular individual in a crisis as requested by a specific admiral is a lot different from general conscription of new random people.
Merchant Marine.
I've always assumed that the "reserve activation cause" was something similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Ready_Reserve and McCoy's comments about being "drafted" was mostly his typical exaggeration and overdramatics.
As far as the question of "mustangs", this was specifically confirmed as possible in the late 23rd Century in the case of Janice Rand who appeared initially as a "yeoman" (implicitly an enlisted crewman/specialist/petty officer) and per dialogue took "three years to make Ensign" from an undefined later date.
As far as the question of "mustangs", this was specifically confirmed as possible in the late 23rd Century in the case of Janice Rand who appeared initially as a "yeoman" (implicitly an enlisted crewman/specialist/petty officer) and per dialogue took "three years to make Ensign" from an undefined later date.
That's quite likely, yes. And yes, it's a lot different from a general draft.
Even so, it shows that at least involuntary re-activation is apparently possible in Starfleet.
There's the example of Voyager, where Janeway incorporated people the Federation likely saw as criminals into her crew because there was a pressing need. If there was a need for more people, or a criminal had a desired ability, yes Starfleet would take them.
There's also the consideration of what crime was broken, if the crime was a jailable misdemeanor.
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