Why the Resistance to Starfleet as a Military?

[YARN]

I just realized, the whole concept of children on the ship puts a spin on it too, doesn't it .

In the age of the fighting sail "powder monkeys" and midshipmen were also children.

Moreover, the children increasingly disappear as the seasons go by. How many kids did we see on the Enterprise E?

 

[YARN]

I think it falls in whether Starfleet is a totally new concept we misunderstand from our 21 century point of view, or are the characters in utter denial because they consider the military a backwards concept or something.

The latter. The characters are in denial because the writers in denial. Much like when America was in denial, when we maintained with a straight face that all our wars were "just wars."

Objecting that Starfleet is not a military is like an exotic dancer objecting to being called a stripper.

Roddenberry wanted a pristine utopia, but the demands of drama deny this as a possibility. There is a reason why fairy tales end with "and they lived happily ever after" - drama is when things aren't perfect. Not surprisingly, our heroes continually find reasons to get into fist fights and fire their phasers in the name of peaceful exploration.

 

[Sci]

PICARD: Starfleet is not a military organization. Our purpose is exploration.

It's that one explicit statement- made by a main character -a Starfleet captain- where he is saying Starfleet isn't the military, it's an exploration force!

So ignore it. Ignore the line. It's an irrational line from a bad episode and it has been contradicted numerous times before and after.

There's no reason to keep it. None whatsoever. Toss it into the garbage, along with "James R. Kirk," Data being from the "class of '84," and the Enterprise NCC-1701 being a "United Earth starship."

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

PICARD: Starfleet is not a military organization. Our purpose is exploration.

It's that one explicit statement- made by a main character -a Starfleet captain- where he is saying Starfleet isn't the military, it's an exploration force!

So ignore it. Ignore the line. It's an irrational line from a bad episode and it has been contradicted numerous times before and after.

There's no reason to keep it. None whatsoever.

Unless one likes it, in which case there's every reason. None of this is real, after all.

 

[T'Girl]

So ignore it.
There's no reason to keep it. None whatsoever.

That's taking things a bit too far. While I don't think Picard's statement made sense in the face of the body of evidence contradicting it, to simply redact it from existence smacks of retcon. Like it or not what came out of Picard's mouth is canon, and it has to be fitted into the Star Trek whole somehow. My belief that Picard was voicing a personal opinion not based upon a realistic appraisal of Starfleet's true state is one possible explanation.

Much like when America was in denial, when we maintained with a straight face that all our wars were "just wars."

But they all were/are.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Joining the Federation means a partial surrender of sovereignty, doesn't it? Wouldn't direct control of ones interplanetary space agencies be part of the deal?

As has already been pointed out, Federation member worlds are allowed to keep a certain portion of their militaries to serve purely local matters. So when Bajor, for instance, joined the Federation, the Bajoran Militia didn't simply vanish. Its members were offered positions in Starfleet, but those who chose to remain as they were, could do so.

Dude... wouldn't that mean EARTH Starfleet is still around in the 23rd/24th centuries, then?

Almost makes me wonder if the Enterprise wasn't actually an Earth starship that was transferred to Federation control during TOS. Middle of first season perhaps...

 

[Anwar]

It's fully possible that the Earth Starfleet does still exist to some extent, or maybe as a sign of goodwill they allowed it to be dissolved and absorbed entirely into the new Federation Starfleet.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Because the charter is still in effect, period. The UESF Charter would have to be nullified

I admit I could be wrong about this, but as far as I know, military organizations are not actually defined by a charter. In the U.S. (or so I'm told over the weekend) it's defined by statutory laws that spell out the organization's legal roles and responsibilities; these could COLLECTIVELY be called a charter, but are not AFAIK part of any specific legal document. As far as legal status, the exact nature of the charter comes into question when discussing a distinct organization such as a political party or a corporation, and here only insofar as the charter defines the organization's internal relationship, who is responsible for what and who (if anything) the organization ultimately responds to.

That being said, I think you're dismissing without cause the fact that the Starfleet charter could simply be amended without actually disbanding the organization. I am told that private companies actually do this fairly regularly when adding/removing board members or acquiring large parts of other companies. Political organizations tend to be a bit slower on this regard, but I don't think that would apply to Starfleet.

No, not semantics. Legal status. You are confusing an organization's property (ships and bases) with the organization itself.

I don't think I am, since the organization ITSELF can change hands without becoming a new organization. For example, if Congress passed the "Big Operational Novelty Enabling Hungry Elephants Access to Dallas (BONEHEAD) Act which placed the entire Air Force under the direct authority of the Mayor of Dallas, it would still be the same Air Force, just with a few links sliced off the chain of command (or added to it, depending on the details). That's because the Air Force is defined by statutory law, not by any distinct charter, and Congress can arbitrarily reassign the Air Force's organization and structure in either small or enormous ways without officially disbanding it.

You made the case that Earth Starfleet isn't a military organization; that's fine, and it makes sense, since we know that unlike the Air Force or the Navy it is largely defined by an internal charter. The thing is, without having READ that charter, we do not know whether it was simply amended such that the CnC of Starfleet now answers to the president of the Federation instead of United Earth (interestingly, the President of the Federation is NOT the Commander in Chief of Starfleet). We don't actually know enough about the Federation government to determine whether that would even be necessary; we know that the writers of Paradise Lost intended to include the United Earth Government as major players in the story, but that element was dropped for simplicity.

In a nutshell: you're assuming way too much in claiming the two organizations CAN'T be the same. They easily could be, it simply depends on how the charter defines its chain of command, assuming it even bothers to do anything of the kind.

Then they would necessarily have to found a new organization so as not to be accused of marginalizing someone else's space forces in favor of Earth's.

What makes you think they didn't? I happen to think this was exactly what they had in mind with the decision: a dozen alien races that don't trust each other and aren't comfortable letting any one of them operate with the legal backing of the entire Federation... why not hand that authority over to what is still--even in the 2160s--the least threatening race in the entire Federation? If Journey to Babel (and for that matter Babel One) is any indication, Starfleet is basically the Designated Driver of the entire quadrant; even the KLINGONS turn to Starfleet when nobody else can be trusted.

The problem with your analogy is that while all NATO members (save France for a long while) have placed a portion of their militaries under NATO administration, at the end of the day, none of them actually answer to NATO...

I never said they did. Again, NATO would be analogous to the Coalition, not the Federation. But it can be said that mutual cooperation as members of NATO and as allies in the Cold War helped lay the groundwork for the diplomatic and political moves that eventually created the European Union.

The evidence is in the very nature of how governments function.

Again, the devil's in the details. The United States government defines its armed forces by legal statutes; the United Earth government (evidently) does not. Any comparison you can draw to a modern day military becomes meaningless whenever a character refers to "The Starfleet Charter" instead of "The Federation Starfleet Act" or something.

And it has occurred to me in the past--and on reflection seems more likely now--that Earth Starfleet may really be a private organization operating under Federation Charter (sort of like the American Red Cross, which operates under Congressional Charter). In which case, the difference between Earth Starfleet and the Federation Starfleet may merely be a matter of the latter issuing a Federation charter to the former's space program.

 

[Sci]

Because the charter is still in effect, period. The UESF Charter would have to be nullified

I admit I could be wrong about this, but as far as I know, military organizations are not actually defined by a charter. In the U.S. (or so I'm told over the weekend) it's defined by statutory laws that spell out the organization's legal roles and responsibilities; these could COLLECTIVELY be called a charter, but are not AFAIK part of any specific legal document.

That may be, but ENT's "Affliction"/"Divergence" established the existence of the United Earth Starfleet Charter, outlining the UESF's responsibilities and capacities. So at least in this regard, we know what piece of legislation authorizes the existence of the UESF -- we have canonical evidence of a divergence from U.S. law.

That being said, I think you're dismissing without cause the fact that the Starfleet charter could simply be amended without actually disbanding the organization. I am told that private companies actually do this fairly regularly when adding/removing board members or acquiring large parts of other companies. Political organizations tend to be a bit slower on this regard, but I don't think that would apply to Starfleet.

I, on the other hand, can't imagine that it would be so simple as that. You'd have to fundamentally re-write United Earth law, since, amongst other things, you'd be taking away its major agency. And then there's the problem that United Earth would retain the capacity to change the UESF Charter again as it likes, since it would remain the issuer of that charter and thus the determiner of who the UESF works for. Why would the Federation give United Earth that much control over one of its most essential organizations?

From the Federation's POV, it would be much simpler to create its own separate Starfleet and to ask the existing Member State space forces/space organizations to transfer ownership of some of their ships to the FSF and to grant FSF commissions to some of their personnel.

No, not semantics. Legal status. You are confusing an organization's property (ships and bases) with the organization itself.

I don't think I am,

In the bit I quoted, you were, since you were arguing that if the FSF is made up of the same ships as the UESF, it's the same organization even if it was raised separately under a distinct legal document by the Federation government rather than the UE government. You were, in essence, arguing that it's the same organization if it happens to own the same property.

since the organization ITSELF can change hands without becoming a new organization. For example, if Congress passed the "Big Operational Novelty Enabling Hungry Elephants Access to Dallas (BONEHEAD) Act which placed the entire Air Force under the direct authority of the Mayor of Dallas, it would still be the same Air Force, just with a few links sliced off the chain of command (or added to it, depending on the details). That's because the Air Force is defined by statutory law, not by any distinct charter, and Congress can arbitrarily reassign the Air Force's organization and structure in either small or enormous ways without officially disbanding it.

Well, first off, it would be a better comparison to say that the legislation would place the U.S. Air Force under the authority of the United Nations Secretary-General rather than the Mayor of the City of Dallas.

But the problem with that comparison is, even there, it's still going to be the United States Air Force, not the United Nations Air Force. It's just the U.S. Air Force obeying the UN Secretary-General because of U.S. statute. If the statute changes to go back to the United States President being their c-in-c, the U.S. Air Force would go back to how they operate today. The United Nations would have no control over it.

(interestingly, the President of the Federation is NOT the Commander in Chief of Starfleet).

That's not strictly true. While it's true that there's a Starfleet officer who receives the title of "c-in-c" and is apparently in overall operational command of the Federation Starfleet, the DS9 episode "Paradise Lost" had Sisko explicitly referring to the Federation President as being Starfleet Admiral Leyton's "commander-in-chief."

This doesn't present any real problems, though. A military chain of command can include multiple commanders-in-chief, because being a CINC doesn't automatically refer to having command of the entire military, just a specific group. For instance, the Combatant Commanders of the U.S.'s Unified Combatant Commands (UCCs) used to be known as the commanders-in-chief of their UCCs. So you'd have the President of the United States serving as CINC of the United States Armed Forces, and you'd have a flag officer serving as CINC, U.S. Central Command, etc.

It was only in 2002 that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld re-designated the UCC CINCs as Combatant Commanders, in order to preserve the term "commander-in-chief" for the President for propaganda purposes.

So the fact that there's a CINC of Starfleet, yet that CINC takes orders from the Federation President in the same movie in which he is established (ST6), and that the Federation President is referred to as the CINC (DS9's "Paradise Lost") doesn't present a problem. We can simply assume that "Bill" in ST6 (named William Smilie in the novelization) is the CINC of the Federation Starfleet, and that the Federation President remains CINC of all Federation Armed Forces (including, for instance, the Federation Naval Patrol, whose existence was established in VOY's "Thirty Days").

In a nutshell: you're assuming way too much in claiming the two organizations CAN'T be the same.

I'm looking at historical precedent. It is irrational for the Federation to rely on a Member State to continue to allow it operational control over one of its Member States's space forces, and in real history, new navies have always been chartered when states have united to form a new state. The Massachusetts State Navy is not the same organization as the United States Navy; the Scottish Royal Navy is not the same organization as the British Royal Navy.

Then they would necessarily have to found a new organization so as not to be accused of marginalizing someone else's space forces in favor of Earth's.

What makes you think they didn't?

Because it's the United Federation of Planets, not the United Earth Hegemony.

I happen to think this was exactly what they had in mind with the decision: a dozen alien races

Four alien races. ENT's "Zero Hour" explicitly established that the Federation was founded by Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites. The novels have interpreted that to mean that the founding worlds were Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, and Alpha Centauri (with Alpha Centauri being a former United Earth colony which achieved independence prior to the founding of the Federation).

that don't trust each other and aren't comfortable letting any one of them operate with the legal backing of the entire Federation... why not hand that authority over to what is still--even in the 2160s--the least threatening race in the entire Federation?

Because that would rather obviously weaken the entire Federation and inhibit its ability to protect all Member States from external threat. You're also forgetting that those worlds had just gone through a rather horrible war with Romulus together -- why would they be so unwilling to trust one-another after that? Far more probable that they'd all donate a portion of their space forces' ships to a new Federation Starfleet, with an integrated Federation Starfleet Command structure in which all of their races are represented and no one is marginalized.

The idea that they'd willingly subject themselves to an Earth hegemony is just silly. The Federation is founded on equality, not domination.

If Journey to Babel (and for that matter Babel One) is any indication, Starfleet is basically the Designated Driver of the entire quadrant;

Well, the Designated Driver for the Federation government, anyway. Which it could be even if it were the Federation's military, founded in 2161, with a completely integrated command structure including Earth, Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite, and Alpha Centauri ships and personnel on all levels; this isn't evidence of anything one way or the other.

The evidence is in the very nature of how governments function.

Again, the devil's in the details. The United States government defines its armed forces by legal statutes; the United Earth government (evidently) does not.

You have not presented any evidence of that.

Any comparison you can draw to a modern day military becomes meaningless whenever a character refers to "The Starfleet Charter" instead of "The Federation Starfleet Act" or something.

Is there some particular reason that, legally, a charter can't be the legal term for legislation that raises a military? I know it's not what the U.S. tends to do, but I don't think that the use of the term "charter" necessarily excludes the organization being chartered from being a legal military.

And you're still ignoring the numerous on-screen references to the Federation Starfleet as being a military.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

That may be, but ENT's "Affliction"/"Divergence" established the existence of the United Earth Starfleet Charter, outlining the UESF's responsibilities and capacities. So at least in this regard, we know what piece of legislation authorizes the existence of the UESF -- we have canonical evidence of a divergence from U.S. law.

It's never been said that the Starfleet Charter authorizes its EXISTENCE. In this context, a charter wouldn't actually do that; it would, instead, establish an organization's AUTHORITY and define the relationship between its command structure and the organization that charters it (United Earth or the Federation). Most organizations operating under Congressional charter actually existed before they were granted that charter, and some even have an entire existence OUTSIDE of it.

I, on the other hand, can't imagine that it would be so simple as that. You'd have to fundamentally re-write United Earth law, since, amongst other things, you'd be taking away its major agency.

Starfleet doesn't seem to be a major agency for United Earth. It is clearly less important to it ECONOMICALLY than the Cargo Service and less important militarily than the MACOs.

Here's a thought: we're often reminded by many Starfleet officers that "Earth is paradise!" All of us know, on some level, that this condition cannot exist and could not have been established without the systematic exclusion of people like Quark, Ro Laren, Harry Mudd, etc. Earth is essentially the ultimate gated community: politically and economically outgoing, but socially isolationist.

In which case, United Earth may have GIVEN Starfleet away and thus avoided having to take any real responsibility for activities outside the Sol sector. Humans who want to explore can still join Starfleet (and so can anyone else, for that matter) but they must do so as representatives of the entire Federation, not Earth).

Who knows... between the Borg threat and the Dominion attacks they might relocate Starfleet Headquarters too.

And then there's the problem that United Earth would retain the capacity to change the UESF Charter again as it likes, since it would remain the issuer of that charter and thus the determiner of who the UESF works for.

Not if they sign legislation that nullifies the existing charter or allows the Federation charter to supersede it. Remember, the legislature also has to pass a law officially joining the Federation; that same law could just as easily surrender existing charters for various organizations that the Federation has chartered for its own purposes.

Furthermore, two different organizations can use the SAME charter even when they pass ownership from one party to another. Connecticut, for example, ended up using its colonial charter as its original state constitution after it jointed the United States.

Why would the Federation give United Earth that much control over one of its most essential organizations?

Perhaps because Starfleet was United Earth's equivalent of NASA and was both more expensive and less useful than most Earthlings would have preferred?

In the bit I quoted, you were, since you were arguing that if the FSF is made up of the same ships as the UESF

I never mentioned "same ships." I both said and implied that it is the same ORGANIZATION, meaning the same command structure, same internal documents, same buildings, same employees, same infrastructure, same assets, same debts, same patents. In point of fact it doesn't even seem that they DO use the same ships (I don't think the NX-class survived to serve as a Federation vessel) but they definitely use the same TECHNOLOGY, which again would have been the intellectual property of Earth Starfleet and would be transferred to a new organization only with some difficulty.

But the problem with that comparison is, even there, it's still going to be the United States Air Force, not the United Nations Air Force.

Exactly. Because the Air Force doesn't operate under a charter. It's sort of like how the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies becomes the American Red Cross when it's granted a congressional charter.

Did not the the red cross exist BEFORE it got a congressional charter? Would not the Red Cross continue to exist if the United States is absorbed into the Imperial Americana and grants a charter to the Imperial Red Cross?

I'm looking at historical precedent.

And the wrong ones at that. Look at the history of organizations chartered for specific purposes by world governments: you will find that in almost every case, those organizations existed BEFORE they were actually granted legal charter by those governments, and some were granted multiple charters at different times.

At NO time does a charter IN AND OF ITSELF establish the existence of an organization, nor does the abolition of that charter eliminate that organization.

And that's just going by EARTH precedents.

in real history, new navies have always been chartered when states have united to form a new state.

Yes, chartered from EXISTING organizations that banded together and formed new ones. That's what a charter is: a grant of authority to act in a specific scope in exchange for political backing and other forms of support.

Since, you cannot grant a charter to an organization that doesn't yet exist, the granting of a charter is not the CREATION of an organization, but the HIRING of one.

Because it's the United Federation of Planets, not the United Earth Hegemony.

Starfleet no longer works for United Earth; no problem.

Because that would rather obviously weaken the entire Federation

Yes, it would. Kinda like the Articles of Confederation very much weakened the United States.

Let's avoid a misunderstanding here: the original founders of the Federation INTENDED it to be weak. They wanted to be part of a larger union of nations but didn't want the Union bossing them around, dictating their internal affairs or compromising their external relations. Strong central government and a strong Starfleet would have come later, when the benefits of centralization begin to outweigh the benefits of independence (or, alternately, when they try to reclaim their independence and get their asses kicked in a civil war).

You're also forgetting that those worlds had just gone through a rather horrible war with Romulus together -- why would they be so unwilling to trust one-another after that?

Why did the colonies ratify the Articles of Confederation while STILL AT WAR with the British Empire?

To expect politicians to behave rationally is not logical.

The idea that they'd willingly subject themselves to an Earth hegemony is just silly.

Except that Earth never wanted hegemony, never bothered to establish it, and clearly (given their inexperience on the galactic stage) wouldn't know what to do with it if they had it.

Think of it like the Douglass Adams novels: the Ruler of the Entire Universe turns out to be a senile old man in a shack somewhere who doesn't believe in anything and answers every question with pedantic drivel; that's 23rd century Earth in a nutshell.

Again, the devil's in the details. The United States government defines its armed forces by legal statutes; the United Earth government (evidently) does not.

You have not presented any evidence of that.

If it does, then that organization is not Starfleet. Again, Starfleet operates under a charter, not a legislative act.

Is there some particular reason that, legally, a charter can't be the legal term for legislation that raises a military? I know it's not what the U.S. tends to do, but I don't think that the use of the term "charter" necessarily excludes the organization being chartered from being a legal military.

The way it has been historically used, you can only charter a PRE-EXISTING organization. You could, for example, charter a group of mercenaries to act as your nation's official armed forces, but very few countries do that because of the inherent limitations in political and financial control afforded by a charter.

And you're still ignoring the numerous on-screen references to the Federation Starfleet as being a military.

Only because we've been over this too many times before and I have no wish to repeat myself.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Now that I think about it, it's not surprising that earth's Starfleet expanded and became the main defender and military of the Federation.

It seems as if the other member worlds didn't care much for defense except maybe the Andorians.


It might be easy for them to just turn over defense to Starfleet (Federationalized )and let them handle it.

The Vulcans were described as pacifists (no warships), Betazed had obsolete planetary defenses during a time of war (and got invaded as a result).

And meanwhile, you have humans who themselves are loath to call their own defense organization a military.

I mean, Picard could have said "on a part time basis, at peace time our purpose is exploratation".

But he went the whole mile and said 'we're simply not the military.

There was just a lot of weird pacifism particularly in the early TNG episodes.

In one episode a non Fed culture was conquered over 6 times because they didn't even believe in fighting back-they were intellectuals.

Have you ever seen those episodes where the crew is facing down an evil, hostile, stubborn enemy, and they're having a conference.

They're talking about the risks of fighting because of the possible casualties to both sides?

 

[Destructor]

There was just a lot of weird pacifism particularly in the early TNG episodes.

Oh, I know! And the optimism, as well- so strange!

 

[CoveTom]

Let's not forget that although Picard was a brilliant starship commander, he also had a propensity for being both pompous and full of crap.

 

[Anwar]

So, he's a human being then?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I really don't care what Picard said. He's only one man. He is not the entire command structure of Starfleet. I don't care if he says Starfleet isn't military - the overwhelming evidence says it is. He is outnumbered in that regard.

 

[YARN]

It's that one explicit statement- made by a main character -a Starfleet captain- where he is saying Starfleet isn't the military, it's an exploration force!

So ignore it. Ignore the line. It's an irrational line from a bad episode and it has been contradicted numerous times before and after.

There's no reason to keep it. None whatsoever.

Unless one likes it, in which case there's every reason. None of this is real, after all.

But if we're going to talk about it, we're going to share opinions and preferences, which means saying how we think it ought to be.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ How it OUGHT to be? That's a whole other question. Frankly I feel like the galaxy is a dangerous enough place that Starfleet OUGHT to be a purely military organization that lends its support to scientific organizations on a charter basis (this is how I usually handle it in fanfiction).

Exploration, IMO, is something better left to private individuals and/or companies looking after specific industrial and economic interests. That's why exploration of the moon stalled after Apollo: scientific research in and of itself just isn't that valuable to society, and we won't be going back there unless we're going there to find something alot more profitable (platinum for example, and possibly Helium-3). I would expect Starfleet's main roles would be, in order of importance: defense, rescue, reconnaissance, police, deep space exploration/mapping. They wouldn't be wandering around surveying protostar clusters unless somebody in the Vulcan Science Council applied for and received some sort of scientific grant from the Federation Council.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers? - Captain Picard

Poor Jean Luc!

 

[Kezersoze]

This thread is going in circles. Picard thinks of himself as an explorer because by in large he is. He can obviously fight when he has to, but that is not what he prefers to do or be thought of as. Did Janeway consider herself a soldier? And the strange thing is Starfleet policy pretty much reinforces this. I mean why don't the Feds (writers) just call all their starships "warships"? The Modern Navy wouldn't call a Supercarrier an "enhanced peacetime transportation and humanitarian vessel"! lol The first time I watched the DS9 episode "The Search" and they unveiled the Defiant for the first time I thought, "Now, why in the hell didn't the Feds build super powerful crap like this before!" . I'm probably not going anywhere with this, just ranting. I mean Starfleet unveiling The Defiant is like them finally saying, Ok where officially a military now, and we need f*&king firepower like one. The Romulans have their warbirds, Klingons have....basically all their ships, and the Feds will finally have their Akira's, Defiants, and Sovereigns.

 

[BillJ]

This thread is going in circles. Picard thinks of himself as an explorer because by in large he is. He can obviously fight when he has to, but that is not what he prefers to do or be thought of as. Did Janeway consider herself a soldier? And the strange thing is Starfleet policy pretty much reinforces this. I mean why don't the Feds (writers) just call all their starships "warships"? The Modern Navy wouldn't call a Supercarrier an "enhanced peacetime transportation and humanitarian vessel"! lol The first time I watched the DS9 episode "The Search" and they unveiled the Defiant for the first time I thought, "Now, why in the hell didn't the Feds build super powerful crap like this before!" . I'm probably not going anywhere with this, just ranting. I mean Starfleet unveiling The Defiant is like them finally saying, Ok where officially a military now, and we need f*&king firepower like one. The Romulans have their warbirds, Klingons have....basically all their ships, and the Feds will finally have their Akira's, Defiants, and Sovereigns.

But even then they classified the Defiant as an escort.

Starfleet is the Federations military arm. Like it or not.