Would enterprise have been better if it had a military consultant

[TEH BABA]

Was thinking if enterprise would have been better had it had a military consultant or some amateur naval junkies. Seems to have helped bsg and stargate and wing commander games to some extent. Would enterprise have been a better show with people of that background?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Depends on how much the writers would listen. Advisors don't usually have veto powers.

 

[zenophite]

Well unfortunately the people running star trek have always had this weird "it is but it really isn't" sort of schizoid thing when it came to starfleet. I think I even recall a line of dialogue from archer about starfleet not needing military aboard or something like that (referring to the MACOs who should have been aboard from the get-go in the real world anyway).

So as former military myself I really don't see what an advisor could add to the show unless they had a completely different take on the show from the beginning - one where the advisors help could've actually been used.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Well unfortunately the people running star trek have always had this weird "it is but it really isn't" sort of schizoid thing when it came to starfleet. I think I even recall a line of dialogue from archer about starfleet not needing military aboard or something like that (referring to the MACOs who should have been aboard from the get-go in the real world anyway).

That would have made a lot more sense if it had been written as an Army vs. Navy sort of thing.

 

[Gepard]

So as former military myself I really don't see what an adviser could add to the show unless they had a completely different take on the show from the beginning - one where the adviser's help could've actually been used.

For one, we could have avoided the whole "Reed Alert" thing.

 

[zenophite]

^^

 

[Odon]

Plus they might have avoided the terrible consequences of the new 'redshirt' uniform for security personnel. That's what happens when you haven't fought a war for centuries, you tend to forget all about cameoflage.

 

[Mr. Fergy]

Not sure. Archer did have MACO aboard and worked just fine.

Now if we can just get past a Starfleet LT outranking a Major? (Real military Major=LT. Commander)

 

[zenophite]

a big problem was that the people in Enterprise were really more of the same sort of semi-perfect pod people that characterize TNG era trek except with a little bit rougher around the edges but not much. I was hoping that they would have had humans make more blunders and not be the preachy initiators of interspecies cooperation that leads to the federation that they turned out to be. That really should have been more the vulcans' thing than humans.

Archer should have been more of a rumble-tumble type guy perhaps a little more like no-nonsense captain Gideon of b5:Crusade. The sort of guy that a young kirk would want to emulate but never feel like he could live up to. Bakula is good at sensitive likeable guys, but not a bad-ass.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Not sure. Archer did have MACO aboard and worked just fine.

Now if we can just get past a Starfleet LT outranking a Major? (Real military Major=LT. Commander)

Does Reed's position as Armory Officer and Security Chief give him more authority than Hayes who's position was MACO commander?

 

[zenophite]

Not sure. Archer did have MACO aboard and worked just fine.

Now if we can just get past a Starfleet LT outranking a Major? (Real military Major=LT. Commander)

Does Reed's position as Armory Officer and Security Chief give him more authority than Hayes who's position was MACO commander?

there are certain military positions that can supercede rank. For example a military police officer even of a lower rank can essentially tell a commissioned officer what to do in particular situations. I don't recall enough about season 3 to comment on the realism of the interaction though.

 

[Captain X]

Not sure. Archer did have MACO aboard and worked just fine.

Now if we can just get past a Starfleet LT outranking a Major? (Real military Major=LT. Commander)

Does Reed's position as Armory Officer and Security Chief give him more authority than Hayes who's position was MACO commander?

Apparently, as they did it in the show. I've heard of examples like this happening in the military, but from what I understood, they were all temporary arrangements.

Another odd thing about the MACOs was that they were lead by a single senior officer, and there were no junior officers. That, and when Hayes croaked, he apparently forgot about all the NCOs he had (Kemper to name one, off the top of my head) and told Reed to depend on some corporal.

 

[zenophite]

Another odd thing about the MACOs was that they were lead by a single senior officer, and there were no junior officers. That, and when Hayes croaked, he apparently forgot about all the NCOs he had (Kemper to name one, off the top of my head) and told Reed to depend on some corporal.

Well it seemed to me at the time that the writers got their education about the military from watching Aliens and 'trekifying' the colonial marines.

 

[Captain X]

Except Aliens was actually more accurate, at least as far as having a groupd of Jar-ines that size anyway - 1 LT, 1 NCO, some corporals, and a bunch of privates. With that show, it just didn't make much sense to have that whole big ship and only that many Marines, or to have a couple corporals acting as pilots (since most of the current branches use commissioned or warrent officers), but I digress.

 

[Pensive]

The whole Lt-outranking-Major thing was explained in the MACO book Last Full Measure as being a temporary arrangement for the Xindi mission.

 

[Captain X]

Yeah, well they also had a corporal in charge of a mission in that book, so it's pretty much the same, well, crap as usual.

 

[number6]

Star Trek isn't about the military. It is about exploration.

It's a shame that military people who are fans have to constantly criticise the show for not being consistant with modern military minutea, but the show simply isn't written for them nor should it be.

 

[DonIago]

There's also the fact that we can't exactly knock military definitions/practices that occur in a future that hasn't happened yet except in comparison to our own...which is obviously questionable.

 

[number6]

There's also the fact that we can't exactly knock military definitions/practices that occur in a future that hasn't happened yet except in comparison to our own...which is obviously questionable.

Taking the latter part of your comment out of the equation, you've really hit it on the head. We don't know what the military will be like 100+ years from not. Even GR felt that people wouldn't be standing on ceremony on a starship. He didn't want people saluting all the time or saying "sir, yes sir" every five seconds. That's not what he wanted the show to be about, and he was absolutely right.

 

[zenophite]

No it's not really a complaint about the minutiae of military protocol. I could honestly care less either way. It's more about treks lack of consistency in its portrayal of starfleet. Sometimes starfleet is portrayed as very militaristic while at others times starfleet captains deniy its status as military altogether. In some episodes starfleet is portrayed more like a corps of scientists while in others the combat stuff is emphasized. Star Trek in general just seems to do alot of handwaving in regards to the details of how the federation and starfleet actually works.