Hair splitting but fair enough.
Especially since Kirk calls himself a soldier. But, post Dominion War that might be less popular thing to say.
It is hair splitting, both on my end and in-universe.
It's hard to really describe what i'm going for here. I'm setting it up that Starfleet pushed to have this force, but there was alot of political pushback to it. Eventually they were able to get it, but it's still politically unpopular.
So Starfleet didn't want to come in and name it something super overt military because they were already on thin ice with it. Once we are *IN* the service... we can be a bit more free to name stuff. The moratorium on "Not USMC IN SPACE" is more a stylistic choice... I don't think something that was created by the Federation 200 years in the future would just say "This should definitely be just like the US Marine Corps. circa 2023." It can even be like, largely inspired by the USMC as in-universe here, Earth's MACO's were used as a general template, and i've retconned MACO to stand for "Marine Command". However, I don't want to just use "MACO", because they still exist as part of the Earth Defense Force.
Rather, they used a basic concept of militaries to base a Starfleet subordinate combat-focused force from.
Does that make more sense? I want it be tipped MORE towards "Starfleet" than "USMC".
Starfleet Strategic Defense Force.
This is much closer. I was thinking of something like this.
My issue with the nomenclature here is that I want to pare it down to suggesting this is a "Ground" and "Air" arm of Starfleet. I feel like "Defense Force" suggests that it's a more all encompassing force.
The role of this service is, quite frankly, a Marine Corps. I'm REALLY trying to say "Marine Corps" in a more Star Treky sounding way.
For some more background on the grander scheme, i've established that when the Federation as chartered, the question of the military was a hugely debated issue that resulted in a compromise. Some wanted a united, integrated fighting force directly under Federation command, others wanted to retain their own military and have the Federation more as an alliance. They got alittle of both.
Starfleet became transferred command to the Federation and became an integrated, Federal force of the UFP. As part of the compromise, it's mission parameters officials stayed much the same as it did under United Earth... science and exploration. Under the Federation, a caveat was made to allow Starfleet to partake in "Peacekeeping", anti-piracy, law enforcement, border patrol, etc. Basically somewhere between the UN Peacekeeping Forces and a Coast Guard.
The OTHER organization, completely un-connected to Starfleet, tentatively named "The Federation Defense Council" is quite literally "Space NATO". The bulk of any war fighting on the ground (and originally, theoretically, in space but that changes as time goes on) would be done under the Defense Council, and composed of units coordinated from individual member worlds militaries.
A few years after the creation of the Federation, Starfleet argued that it needed more capability beyond just their starships. They initially attempted to simply expand the Security/Tactical Division within Starfleet, but both the politicians and Starfleet itself weren't super fond of it. So a deal was struck to allow Starfleet to have a limited force specifically trained for combat roles, organized in the vein of Marines from Earth, utilizing largely MACO's to from the initial force.
Starfleet didn't want to push their luck and go too hard on it so they went with some more public relations-friendly nomenclature, as well as just some general organizational changes based on input from various sources. They wanted the new service to be combat trained and specialized and more militarized than Starfleet, but they also wanted to ensure that the two services could seamlessly work together.
(out of universe, it's a stylistic choice. I want it to be military but like, a Star Trek-friendly military.)
