Why the Resistance to Starfleet as a Military?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ ANY large ship like that would need a brig, wouldn't it? I mean, what if one of the *passengers* started trouble?

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

My personal opinion is that Starfleet is a military organisation, but one that has - for various political reasons, possibly including the tensions between founder members (strengthened by Enterprise but present as far back as TOS (especially Journey to Babel) - been chartered as a scientific, diplomatic organisation first, and a defense force second.

Two of the reasons that I believe that it is a military are:

- a) As mentioned up thread, Starfleet has it's own judicial system which has always been referred to as a courts-martial (and the personnel associated with it as JAG or Judge Advocate General) which is a term that is exclusive to a military organization.

- b) The use of military uniform, ranks and formalities. I am a member of the St John Ambulance UK, an organization that wears a military-esque uniform, uses military insignia, marches with active duty military forces (alongside/behind the British Legion) but is not a military as it performs no military function and with only two exceptions (Sergeant and Commander, Corporals are no longer appointed in the UK) does not use military ranks or courtesies (Divisional Officer & Superintendent are used in place of Lieutenant & Captain at Unit level (OF1-OF3); County Staff Officer in place of Captains to Colonels at County level (OF3-OF6), and Commander is used more in the "Commander-in-Chief" sense (as the Commander is rarely a member of St John), also officers and sergeants are roles not ranks, and a member should be refered in normal usage (eg Divisional Sergeant John Smith would be "John", "John Smith" (if there are more than one John), or "Mr Smith" if that is his personal preference, never "Sergeant" or "Sergeant Smith".)

Likewise, salutes are not normally used (except by Officers while on parade), and "sir"/"ma'am" is only used for senior members where preference is indicated. For instance, I call our County Commissioner (the 2-in-C in the County, wears "Colonel" insignia) by his first name, as do most of our members, and have also done so with the Chief Commissioner of the UK (who was once our Asst Commissioner - Youth), who wore "General" insignia, and I was an ordinary member at the time (currently a Probationary Sergeant).

Shamrock Holmes.

 

[Sci]

That may have been true when ENT started in 2151, but by the time of "Demons"/"Terra Prime," I think it's clear that the UESF had established itself as an essential organ of the UE government. I mean, they literally saved the Earth from its first existential threat. That's huge.

There is, of course, the flip side of this, that information eventually comes to light that the reason the Xindi attacked in the first place is because they believed Earth had something to do with the destruction of their future homeworld. The universe is already a weird enough place without time-traveling skinheads setting people up all the time, and in light of the whole Terra Prime issue a portion of the general public might decide to buffer itself from further participation on the interplanetary stage.

The terms of their joining the Federation would probably reflect both points of view. They wouldn't want to get rid of Starfleet, but they wouldn't want to be responsible if something went wrong either (as they nearly were in "Shockwave").

I don't think so. It seems far more likely to me that if both the xenophobia we saw in "Demons"/"Terra Prime" and a desire for greater "internationalism" were at play after the Earth-Romulan War, it's more likely that they'd want to restrict things to the Coalition of Planets rather than a fully-fledged Federation.

Seems to me that the course of the war must have turned public opinion in favor of greater interstellar involvement and multilateralism. We're looking at the founding of the Federation being the result of the end of that kind of xenophobia, not the product of it.

Interestingly:
In "Divergence"/"Affliction," Archer threatens Reed with a court-martial. I wonder if this means that UESF became a legal military after saving Earth from the Xindi?

If it did, it wasn't after the Xindi. Remember Archer's conversation with Hernandez in Home, where Archer recommends a MACO for her tactical officer and she tells him straight faced "I'm not sure how I'd feel about a military officer on the bridge." Hernandez seems to think this is cynical, DESPITE having read Archer's mission logs.

"Home" is set some time prior to 17 May 2154 (when "Borderland," the next episode, is set). "Affliction"/"Divergence" is set in December 2154. That's plenty of time for things to have changed.

Because they didn't want to ABOLISH it, they just wanted to abdicate any political responsibility for maintaining it. Starfleet would cease to be a United Earth organization but would still be headquartered on Earth anyway.

That still seems utterly implausible to me -- the UESF has clearly been responsible for far too many advances for Earth for the idea that they'd want to toss it away to make any sense.

But setting that issue aside, I'm not convinced that it would remain legally the same organization upon such a transfer of ownership.

Meanwhile, other Federation races also get to avoid the (it seems to them) problematic arrangement of having their space forces placed at the disposal of alien interests while laughing under their breath at how stupid the humans are for agreeing to such a daft arrangement.

Which would be fine if we were talking about the creation of a confederation, but this is a federation we're talking about. It says so on the label.

I'm not saying your scenario is impossible -- it's not. But to me, it seems both implausible (it seems to contradict the very ideas of unity, fairness, and trust the Federation is supposed to have been based upon), and lacking in evidence. And it's all there to support the idea that the UESF and the Federation Starfleet are the same organization, when there's really no reason to make any such supposition just because they have similar names. The word "Navy," after all, doesn't mean that the Massachusetts State Navy and the United States Navy are the same organization.

Apart from the reasons mentioned above--certain political paranoia among member nations not wanting to accidentally create their own jailer--there's the fact that raising a whole starfleet from scratch would be incredibly expensive and time consuming. Federalizing an existing organization saved them the trouble of having to CREATE anything at all, they could simply build on what was already there and expand on it with the greater funding resources of the Federation government.

Would it really be any less expensive to do that than simply establishing an independent Federation Starfleet and then having the Member States' space forces -- the United Earth Starfleet, the Andorian Imperial Guard, the Vulcan Space Service, etc. -- transfer ownership of a certain percentage of vessels and bases to the Federation Starfleet, and giving FSF commissions to a certain percentage of the space forces' personnel?

Anyway, that question is moot, because they clearly DIDN'T raise a Starfleet by themselves.

Says who? There's no canonical evidence one way or the other. Well, other than that the Federation Starfleet Academy was founded in 2161, the same year as the Federation.

Whether Fed SF is a new organization or the adopted ESF, they obviously used the existing infrastructure that was already in place from the old organization anyway. They could have used the Vulcan space service, or the Andorian Royal Guard, or any number of much older and more advanced space forces in the universe, but they chose San Francisco and the United Earth Starfleet instead.

To be fair, this is unestablished terrain. It's equally possible that Andorian Imperial Guard Headquarters was transferred to the Federation Starfleet and became, say, Sector 003 Command. I've often mused that the early Federation might have divided its space up into separate military commands, the equivalent of the U.S.'s Unified Combatant Commands, with the Member States donating their space services' HQs to be the HQs for those commands and then moving to smaller buildings to continue their local operations. But, I'll certainly concede that this is unknown territory.

But even in that "other" sense, charters don't establish an organization's EXISTENCE.

Sure they do. The United Nations did not exist until its charter was ratified by the requisite number of states, for instance.

Interestingly, Earth Starfleet doesn't seem to have that authority. They're authorized to engage in espionage to the point of breaking interstellar law and/or treaties, but even sent against the Xindi their mission was primarily to FIND the Xindi and figure out what the hell they were on about (and then only because Archer had clued Starfleet in to the fact that some time traveling weirdness was afoot).

Oh, c'mon. They equipped the NX-01 with all sorts of new weapons before the Xindi mission, and they stuck the MACOs aboard. It's pretty obvious that they were expected to try to neutralize any threats to Earth they encountered, even if it wasn't explicitly stated onscreen.

Linear warp drives, phasers, photon torpedoes, transporters (apparently), linguicode translators, security forcefields, widespread use of navigational deflectors. And though not exactly an example of "technology," it's clear that Earth-based design conventions continue to dominate even in the Federation Starfleet.

I don't think that's clear at all. It's clear that there's some visual continuity between, say, the NX-01's and Constitution-class's warp nacelles, but for all we know, the transporter might have been based on an Andorian design, the phasers may have been of Tellarite design, the Vulcans may have been the ones who finally figured out how to do photon torpedoes, etc.

Indeed it could, though again, the organization the charter applies to has to exist before the charter is assigned. That's the significance of referencing a Constitution: a government of sorts must exist to ratify it in the first place. You can't just write a constitution and then announce "We've got a document now, so we'd better get some guys together and start governing shit."

Oh? Says who? The United States government did not exist prior to the ratification of the Constitution. (The Confederation that existed under the Articles was a separate institution entirely, and could hardly qualify as a government -- it didn't even have the power to levy taxes!)

Of course, the United States WAS the United States under the Articles of Confederation and didn't become a brand new country when the Constitution was written;

That's a matter of debate, actually. Snopes presents a very strong argument that the union created under the Articles of Confederation was not a sovereign state in the way the modern United States is, but that it was, rather, a separate legal entity -- more a European Union-style alliance of 13 separate sovereign states that ceased to exist upon the ratification of the Constitution and establishment of the current United States.

For the same reason the founding worlds of the Federation would have ratified the Articles of the Federation -- because the war taught them that they needed one-another and needed to trust one-another. There's nothing irrational about ratifying the Articles of Confederation during the Revolutionary War.

Except that they still built provisions into the Articles that severely limited Federal power

It didn't just "severely limit Federal power." It didn't create federal power. You're projecting a modern conception -- that the states were not the sovereign countries but the U.S. was -- onto their behavior. In reality, the Declaration of Independence was the simultaneous declaration of independence for thirteen separate sovereign states, not just one. When someone said, "My country," back then, they meant Massachusetts or Virginia or Pennsylvania or what-have-you, not America.

It would be the equivalent of, say, Ukraine and Georgia simultaneously declaring independence from the Soviet Union, and then, later, creating an alliance, and then, later, replacing that alliance with a new sovereign state that encompasses both of them out of pure necessity.

And that's the point here about the UFP. The colonies declared independence and became sovereign, independent states -- each one their own country. Then they formed an alliance under the Articles of Confederation. Then, when it became clear to them that they could not function in the larger world as independent states in confederation with other independent states, they gradually agreed to give up their independence and create a new federal state to unify them all -- the United States of America.

The whole point of the Federation, on the other hand, is that they would by definition have not needed to go through those steps. They had already been independent worlds for centuries, and they would already have had an alliance amongst themselves in the form of the Coalition of Planets. Thus, there would have been no need for a second middle step in creating the Federation.

Don't be silly. Politicians always behave rationally.

You're right. Slight hyperbole. I should have said, "Usually behave rationally." Which they do. Know why? Because they form their policies to please their constituents and thereby stay in office. That's rational, once you understand their fundamental premises.

 

[T'Girl]

Which would be fine if we were talking about the creation of a confederation, but this is a federation we're talking about. It says so on the label.

Yes, and North Korea is a Democratic Republic, it says so on the label. A political organization can refer to itself by any term(s) it wishes, simply because the Federation refers to itself by that term does not mean it is in fact one.

Would it really be any less expensive to do that than simply establishing an independent Federation Starfleet and then ...

While I'm not sure this is the way it happen, there would be obvious cost advantages to transferring an intact organization from say Earth, over to the federation. Not just ships and bases, but also intact maintenance organizations, training schools and associated bureaucracies. All you would have to do is change the insignia and provide your people with some instruction. Your people would be "all up." The disorganization of creating a brand new Starfleet would be avoided. Fully integration of the Federation's multiple member's military contributions into a single whole could come later, if at all.

Plus, if the new Federation faced a on going external (or internal) threat, the reduction in military readiness could be a potential fatal mistake.

the Federation Starfleet Academy was founded in 2161, the same year as the Federation.

While suggestive of a direct connection owing the common year of founding, Starfleet academy (founded in 2161) very well could have originated as a United Earth Starfleet service academy and only later begun a association with the Federation. Or it could have train personnel for both Starfleets . American military academies train officers from multiple countries, not just America's officers.

---------------------

From the Declaration of Independence:" We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress ..." The USA came into existence on July 4, 1776, while there were organizational changes in the governing body in June of 1788, the USA as a nation had existed for nearly 12 years. The government isn't the country. There are many aspects to the Federation that have nothing to do with the structure of the council, Starfleet most likely operates quite nicely on a day to day basis without any interaction with that political body, or the temporary politician who sit on it.

When someone said, "My country," back then, they meant Massachusetts or Virginia or Pennsylvania or what-have-you, not America.

And to many people in this land that still is the case, perhaps increasingly so these days.

 

[Sci]

Just time for one quick note...

From the Declaration of Independence:" We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress ..."

No. The exact quotation is, "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress..." The capitalization is important, because one must understand that in 18th Century English, the standard practice was to capitalize all nouns, proper or not. That they did not capitalize "united" is telling -- it means that they were the representatives of 13 states (sovereign states, as in, countries) who were united in their common decision to rebel against the Kingdom of Great Britain, and that the idea that these states were one country was not yet a driving force.

Indeed, that is why the Articles of Confederation first established that the name of that confederacy would be "the United States of America." Because the Declaration did not actually establish it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Seems to me that the course of the war must have turned public opinion in favor of greater interstellar involvement and multilateralism. We're looking at the founding of the Federation being the result of the end of that kind of xenophobia, not the product of it.

Never said anything about Xenophobia. To a certain point it's clear that humans both accept and embrace aliens on a PERSONAL level, but seem collectively weary to open up to them on a POLITICAL level. It is thus that Earth must obviously have a very strict immigration code to keep fast-talking cretins like Quark or maladjusted refugees like Ro Laren from moving in and dragging down the neighborhood. That was my point about it being a very enlightened gated community: they like aliens just fine, and they're willing to do business with them under any number of circumstances, but only as long as there are no obligations or permanent attachments.

In which case, Starfleet is still an Earth organization, but it operates on behalf of Earth through the Federation Council. This political buffer would be pretty important if humans wanted to include aliens from all over the Federation and beyond in Starfleet but didn't want to grant them Earth citizenship as part of the deal.

"Home" is set some time prior to 17 May 2154 (when "Borderland," the next episode, is set). "Affliction"/"Divergence" is set in December 2154. That's plenty of time for things to have changed.

You go from "I'm not comfortable with a military officer on the bridge" to "I'm a military officer" in just eight months? That would be one HELL of a change.

The simpler explanation is that "courts-martial" is a military term that has become watered down and generalized over the years to apply to a bunch of things that it never ordinarily would have. Sort of like "enemy combatant" is now being applied to people who, in any other time in history, would have been called "criminal suspects."

That still seems utterly implausible to me -- the UESF has clearly been responsible for far too many advances for Earth for the idea that they'd want to toss it away to make any sense.

To be sure, they've been responsible for advances FOR SPACE EXPLORATION. It is not clear what if any benefit Starfleet actually provided Earth technologically, other than weapons technology and their timely resolution of the Xindi crisis. It's very possible--and indeed, very likely--that most of those technologies were actually obtained in trade by the Cargo Service and then forwarded to Starfleet in turn. Starfleet certainly didn't get those technologies from the Vulcans, but other aliens along the Terran trade routes might not have any compunctions about trading, say, dilithium crystals and krelide power cells for a couple hundred gallons of rainbow sherbert.

But setting that issue aside, I'm not convinced that it would remain legally the same organization upon such a transfer of ownership.

Legality only defines an organization when that organization is established by precedent. Starfleet is not, therefore transfer of ownership--if you could even call it that--is irrelevant.

I'm not saying your scenario is impossible -- it's not. But to me, it seems both implausible (it seems to contradict the very ideas of unity, fairness, and trust the Federation is supposed to have been based upon), and lacking in evidence.

The Federation was BASED on trust, that doesn't mean it always enjoyed that trust. It did not--and COULD not--have formed overnight, nor could it have existed as a perfect union from the moment of its inception. The universe just doesn't work that way.

In point of fact we already have plenty of evidence of severe discord between Federation members in Journey to Babel. You may wish to ignore this, but we got to see some of the background of Corridan during Enterprise, and the fact that this troublesome little planet was still a bone of contention a hundred years later tells us that the Federation members were STILL harboring some of their old rivalries even a century after the fact. How fresh would those rivalries have been at the signing ceremony for the Articles of Federation?

And it's all there to support the idea that the UESF and the Federation Starfleet are the same organization

No, it's merely to answer YOUR supposition that other federation members would never allow a single race to have its space service federalized at their collective expense. To reiterate: a major reason why they WOULD is because of their mutual suspicion of one another even as Federation members, and having Earth Starfleet function on behalf of the Federation would seem like a safe bet since Earth had never openly antagonized any of them (or at least, had always antagonized all of them equally).

Would it really be any less expensive to do that than simply establishing an independent Federation Starfleet and then having the Member States' space forces -- the United Earth Starfleet, the Andorian Imperial Guard, the Vulcan Space Service, etc. -- transfer ownership of a certain percentage of vessels and bases to the Federation Starfleet, and giving FSF commissions to a certain percentage of the space forces' personnel?

No. For the simple reason that you would also have to rearrange command organizations and infrastructure for all of those other organizations to make them subordinate to Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco; and that's just the organizational angle. Compatability issues between human-built space craft and computers are already a headache for designers... now try developing datalink protocols that will be compatible with five different SPECIES, some of whom were actually at war with each other just a couple of years earlier. And don't even get me started on the logistics aspects; so all the Earth starships are using verterium cortenide in the warp coils, but the Andorians use monosilicate verterium, the vulcans use isometric neutronium and the tellarites use a solution of molten trilithium and powdered sugar.

Are you going to outfit Earth shipyards to be able to service all four of those different engine types? Or Andoria's? Or Vulcan's? Or are you eventually going to use Federation law requiring Andorians to build ships to (formerly) Earth Starfleet specifications so that all fleets can use the same parts built by the same assembly lines for commonality? In the latter case, now you've got a problem: the Andorians have done it their way for over a hundred years, the Tellarites and Vulcans for even longer. Why should they mothball their entire fleet and adopt alien designs? Why should they HAVE to, just so that the space fleet they are now required to build is now placed at the disposal of an interplanetary government they don't completely control?

They wouldn't do that, especially in the Federation's infancy. And based on what we've seen from Starfleet, it's obvious that they didn't.

Sure they do. The United Nations did not exist until its charter was ratified by the requisite number of states, for instance.

Unless the U.N. Charter materialized out of thin air on a pair of stone tablets, this is self-contradictory. The United Nations was created by a collection of countries working on concert, coordinating with each other to establish the powers and responsibilities of the new organization. Insofar as the drafting of a charter requires a certain amount of organization to begin with, the U.N. came to exist the moment its founding nations got together and decided to create it.

The charter is what gave the U.N. legal authority. Without the charter the U.N. could (and did) exist as a pool of diplomats communicating with each other in a series of well-intentioned but otherwise totally irrelevant overtures. As it stands this isn't completely different from what the U.N. is now, except that the U.N. theoretically wields a certain amount of power through the agreement of its member nations to respect that power.

Oh, c'mon. They equipped the NX-01 with all sorts of new weapons before the Xindi mission, and they stuck the MACOs aboard. It's pretty obvious that they were expected to try to neutralize any threats to Earth they encountered, even if it wasn't explicitly stated onscreen.

Enterprise' mission WAS explicitly stated on screen. Fighting a war against the Xindi wasn't part of it, nor was Enterprise given a concrete military objective. They WERE directed to find and neutralize the Xindi superweapon, for sure, but it was directly implied at every point that Archer's mission was to CONTACT the Xindi and try to find a way to dissuade them from using the weapon in the first place.

I don't think that's clear at all. It's clear that there's some visual continuity between, say, the NX-01's and Constitution-class's warp nacelles

And the saucer module, and the overall ship configuration, and the weapons and sensors involved, and communications technology. Neither Vulcan nor Andorian designs appear to have anything in common with Starfleet's 23rd century designs, and a somewhat tenuous resemblance to 24th century vessels.

for all we know, the transporter might have been based on an Andorian design

It wasn't.

the phasers may have been of Tellarite design

Phase weapons were introduced before Starfleet had any extensive dealings with the Tellarites; the weapons on NX-01 were described as "prototypes."

the Vulcans may have been the ones who finally figured out how to do photon torpedoes, etc.

No, it was the Klingons. The design was apparently borrowed from one of their computers when Enterprise boarded their ship in "sleeping dogs."

Oh? Says who?

Says the British Government in 1783, which formally recognized--BY NAME--the independent thirteen colonies as "The United States of America." Six years, mind you, before the Constitution was ratified, at a time when the United States was still being governed by the Articles of Confederation.

Charters do not establish organizations, only authorities.

The Confederation that existed under the Articles was a separate institution entirely, and could hardly qualify as a government -- it didn't even have the power to levy taxes!

The British Government disagrees with you. And incidentally, so does every historian in the western world.

The whole point of the Federation, on the other hand, is that they would by definition have not needed to go through those steps. They had already been independent worlds for centuries, and they would already have had an alliance amongst themselves in the form of the Coalition of Planets. Thus, there would have been no need for a second middle step in creating the Federation.

You think a group of planetwide civilizations who have been independent and sovereign for thousands of years are going to give up their sovereignty and form a massive Federal state in the span of less than a decade? The colonies were only independent for SEVEN YEARS, and even under the Constitution continued to enjoy a huge measure of autonomy until the conclusion of the Civil War. The U.S. Government has been making a slow evolution from a collection of sovereign colonies to a unified nation for nearly two centuries, and this in a country whose founding colonies are mainly populated by the same cultural/ethnic group.

But you expect that a collection of alien worlds--some of whom were actually at war with each other less than a decade earlier--would be able to go through that very same process in less than a decade? Have you really thought that idea through, Sci?

Don't be silly. Politicians always behave rationally.

You're right. Slight hyperbole. I should have said, "Usually behave rationally." Which they do. Know why? Because they form their policies to please their constituents and thereby stay in office. That's rational, once you understand their fundamental premises.

On a certain level this is true.

So now ask yourself, regardless of how the average Terran feels about the Federation and aliens, how did the ANDORIAN public feel? Or the Vulcans? Or the Tellarites? Or the Bolians? How would the Andorians, a self-described "warlike" race that has clashed with the Vulcans for a generation, feel about their entire military being placed at the disposal of a government that includes Vulcan as a governing voice?

Hell, how would the people of the United States feel about the Pentagon being taken over by the United Nations? Are you going to explain to them "It's okay, they're taking over the British and the French and the Russian and everyone else's mllitaries too..." do you really think that's going to matter? And in the end, when some self-interested politician realizes that public opinion is strongly against the idea, is he going to go along with it because it's the rational thing to do, or is he going to tell the U.N. "I move that instead of taking over everyone else's military, the U.N. should incorporate into its armed forces only the Army and Navy of Luxemborg." Russia would probably second the motion, the rest of the larger U.N. nations would outvote the smaller ones who can't afford large militaries and that would be it. (You of all people know that it is for this very reason that the U.N. peacekeepers do not and will not exist as a formidable fighting force; nobody wants to create something more powerful than themselves, unless THEY control it. And we're all the same species, on the same little planet; imagine five alien species that have virtually nothing in common trying to come to a similar disposition in less than six years).

Of course, a hundred years later, Luxemborg has become a global superpower on the backs of enormous U.N. defense grants and the Pentagon is now a t-shirt museum. Oh the irony.

 

[Sci]

Only time for one comment tonight, very quickly:

Says the British Government in 1783, which formally recognized--BY NAME--the independent thirteen colonies as "The United States of America." Six years, mind you, before the Constitution was ratified, at a time when the United States was still being governed by the Articles of Confederation.

You are, I take it, referring to the Treaty of Paris? Section 1 of which states:

"His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

My bold.

He doesn't acknowledge the United States to be a free, sovereign, and independent state. He acknowledges each of the states, separately and uniquely, as such.

 

[neozeks]

Never said anything about Xenophobia. To a certain point it's clear that humans both accept and embrace aliens on a PERSONAL level, but seem collectively weary to open up to them on a POLITICAL level. It is thus that Earth must obviously have a very strict immigration code to keep fast-talking cretins like Quark or maladjusted refugees like Ro Laren from moving in and dragging down the neighborhood.

Are we talking about 22nd century humans or later? I don't think all this is clear or obvious at all and given how rarely we've seen Earth, I don't see how it could be.

To be sure, they've been responsible for advances FOR SPACE EXPLORATION. It is not clear what if any benefit Starfleet actually provided Earth technologically, other than weapons technology and their timely resolution of the Xindi crisis.

I'd say that last one is a MASSIVE benefit. Saving the planet and all.

The Federation was BASED on trust, that doesn't mean it always enjoyed that trust. It did not--and COULD not--have formed overnight, nor could it have existed as a perfect union from the moment of its inception. The universe just doesn't work that way.

Now this I do agree with. I would say that despite it's name, the Federation was indeed a very loose alliance/union/confederation at the start and posibly well into the 23rd century. But slowly with time, and certainly by the 24th century, it turned into a full-fledged federation (although with some relicts from it's confederation days). I think this is the most realistic process, one for which we have historical and even present evidence with the evolution of the USA and the EU. How this affects Starfleet, I'll get to in a minute.

To reiterate: a major reason why they WOULD is because of their mutual suspicion of one another even as Federation members, and having Earth Starfleet function on behalf of the Federation would seem like a safe bet since Earth had never openly antagonized any of them (or at least, had always antagonized all of them equally).

But how can they sure that will hold for the future? If they are so suspicious, wouldn't they also suspect humans would use such a setup to benefit themselves at the detriment of other members? OTOH, frankly, I don't think human themselves would be fine with placing their space force under alien command, without the others doing the same. Just like I don't think Luxembourg would be fine in your example. The other members can outvote Earth in the Councill, can they not?

Are you going to outfit Earth shipyards to be able to service all four of those different engine types? Or Andoria's? Or Vulcan's? Or are you eventually going to use Federation law requiring Andorians to build ships to (formerly) Earth Starfleet specifications so that all fleets can use the same parts built by the same assembly lines for commonality?

How about all the members combining their technical knowledge to define common Federation specifications that use the best of all their various technologies, regardless of who invented what? In a way, isn't that what the Federation is all about?

Now, true, that would only hold for new/refit vessels. But:

a) given how often we've seen Starfleet ships serviced in alien ports and integrating alien technology, I doubt dealing with different designs would present such a challenge, at least not as just an intermediary step, before the new ships start coming around
b) nothing demands that the Federation Starfleet had to be formed overnight. Here's how I see it all evolving:

At the very start, the FSF was just a small-ish experiment in integration. Every species transfered a few of the most suitable ships and a portion of it's personnel. Starfleet Academy was formed to train these people to work together. Combined engineering teams under the FSF umbrella started devising common technical specifications and norms and using those to design new ships to be built for the new fledgling force. Other parts of the new Starfleet started work on common communications, medical, etc. protocols. Experience from the Romulan War, where the various space forces had to work closely, provided the foundation to build on. Humans provided most input, thanks to their general neutrality but also because I have a theory that United Earth actually came out of the war in a similar position to the USA after WW2 - their forces hugely increased, their allies' forces diminished. And also because humans were technologically the most backwards species, so integration skills were the most valuable thing they could provide to the new force. This new force served only under the Federation Councill's command.

Meanwhile, the old member militaries (including UESF) stayed mostly intact and under the final command of their respective governments - but also connected through a NATO-like combined structure (of which the new FSF was also a part, I suppose). This 'NATO', in conjuction with FSF and using and adopting it's efforts, also started working on promoting inter-operability and standardization.

Over time, following the general federalization of UFP, as the trust started building, a common identity emerged and the benefits of a joint force became obvious, the integrated FSF part of the equation started growing and the 'NATO' part diminishing. More and more new ships were built for FSF. The old member militaries slowly shrank, transfering most of their missions to FSF. Eventually, as the UFP became a true federal state, the FSF became it's unified military, with member forces becoming local 'National Guards'.

Yeah, I guess it's complicated, but that's how I'd do it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

He doesn't acknowledge the United States to be a free, sovereign, and independent state. He acknowledges each of the states, separately and uniquely, as such.

You yourself raised the point about punctuation being important... did you not notice that the "United States" is capitalized in the treaty?

Furthermore, even the United States continues to refer to itself in the plural form until the Civil War, always "These United States," never "The United States." Indeed, for the most part it was referred to not as a country, but as a Union.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

To reiterate: a major reason why they WOULD is because of their mutual suspicion of one another even as Federation members, and having Earth Starfleet function on behalf of the Federation would seem like a safe bet since Earth had never openly antagonized any of them (or at least, had always antagonized all of them equally).

But how can they sure that will hold for the future? If they are so suspicious, wouldn't they also suspect humans would use such a setup to benefit themselves at the detriment of other members? OTOH, frankly, I don't think human themselves would be fine with placing their space force under alien command, without the others doing the same. Just like I don't think Luxembourg would be fine in your example. The other members can outvote Earth in the Councill, can they not?

The thing is, Starfleet is not Earth's military in the 22nd century, the MACOs are. Starfleet is a highly prestigious space service with a very glorious reputation, but having Starfleet under Federal control is not like having its Army Navy and Air Force under U.N. control. It would, in fact, be a bit like the U.S. government trying to privatize NASA. Stoked as we are about how awesome the Shuttle is and how we managed to land on the moon some years ago, there are even some at NASA who thought this would be a good idea.

Not saying it wouldn't be without controversy, but it would be considerably less controversial for Earth, to whom Starfleet is not as important as it would be if it was their main space-based military organization.

Are you going to outfit Earth shipyards to be able to service all four of those different engine types? Or Andoria's? Or Vulcan's? Or are you eventually going to use Federation law requiring Andorians to build ships to (formerly) Earth Starfleet specifications so that all fleets can use the same parts built by the same assembly lines for commonality?

How about all the members combining their technical knowledge to define common Federation specifications that use the best of all their various technologies, regardless of who invented what? In a way, isn't that what the Federation is all about?

Sure, but again, that would take a great deal of time. On the order of DECADES, in fact, assuming everyone made a genuine effort to do so, and in the early days of the Federation it's doubtful everyone would.

At the very start, the FSF was just a small-ish experiment in integration. Every species transfered a few of the most suitable ships and a portion of it's personnel. Starfleet Academy was formed to train these people to work together. Combined engineering teams under the FSF umbrella started devising common technical specifications and norms and using those to design new ships to be built for the new fledgling force. Other parts of the new Starfleet started work on common communications, medical, etc. protocols. Experience from the Romulan War, where the various space forces had to work closely, provided the foundation to build on. Humans provided most input, thanks to their general neutrality but also because I have a theory that United Earth actually came out of the war in a similar position to the USA after WW2 - their forces hugely increased, their allies' forces diminished. And also because humans were technologically the most backwards species, so integration skills were the most valuable thing they could provide to the new force. This new force served only under the Federation Councill's command.

For the most part this makes sense, except I could see Earth Starfleet--now under Federation control--being the one performing these experiments. It wouldn't have been a military organization even then and would still have been the exploratory/research arm of the Federation, at a time when no other Federation world actually HAD a dedicated exploration arm with Starfleet's MO (i.e. a very well organized civilian agency that, despite not actually being part of any military command, manages to be well armed and fairly effective in dangerous situations).

I say this only because Earth Starfleet is clearly NOT a military organization and because--once again--the other world's space forces did not make much of a visible contribution to Starfleet until about the 24th century. The Federation may not have intended to supplant members' militaries altogether (given the realities of space travel they wouldn't really have a need to) but would need to create a "forward deployed" force that could scout the far reaches of space well beyond Federation territory for possible threats, prospective new members, natural resources, etc. An organization primarily oriented around exploration would fit that role much better than one oriented around defense, and Starfleet would have emphasized the latter role only once the sum of Federation members saw Federation space expand WELL beyond their borders and, no longer needing a home fleet, began to transfer the burden of their respective defense budgets onto Starfleet.

So I'm sort of agreeing with your scenario, with the only difference that Earth Starfleet would have operated under Federal control the entire time, pretty much as-is, but that its importance as a defensive organization probably grew over time and then only by accident, much as it did in ENT.

 

[Sci]

He doesn't acknowledge the United States to be a free, sovereign, and independent state. He acknowledges each of the states, separately and uniquely, as such.

You yourself raised the point about punctuation being important...

No, I said that capitalization was important.

did you not notice that the "United States" is capitalized in the treaty?

I did, and this was because by this point, the Articles of Confederation had been drafted and the states were allied in a confederation called "the United States of America." That does not mean that that confederation was itself a sovereign state -- in fact, the treaty explicitly lists each member of the confederation as a sovereign state in their own right, with each one's sovereignty recognized separately.

 

[neozeks]

The thing is, Starfleet is not Earth's military in the 22nd century, the MACOs are.

That may be true for the first two seasons of ENT but it's highly debatable for the other two, especially the last season. Even if it's not legally a military, I think it can be succesfully argued that it's clear Starfleet is the de facto space military of United Earth by that point. Whenever we've seen an Earth ship doing combat it was a Starfleet ship. Whenever a military crisis happened, Starfleet was the only one involved. Then there's this bit from the Augment arc:

MALIK: When the High Council hears that humans have decimated their colony, they'll launch a counterstrike. The Klingons will keep Starfleet busy for years.

If MACOs were where the real space military might of Earth was, wouldn't they get mentioned here?

It would, in fact, be a bit like the U.S. government trying to privatize NASA.

I think it would be more like the US giving NASA over to the UN. Tough chance of that happening.

Sure, but again, that would take a great deal of time. On the order of DECADES, in fact, assuming everyone made a genuine effort to do so, and in the early days of the Federation it's doubtful everyone would.

It could take a decade or two to start giving full results, yeah. But that seems like a reasonable time period to me.

the other world's space forces did not make much of a visible contribution to Starfleet until about the 24th century.

Well, we can only talk about TOS here and we've rarely seen Starfleet outside Enterprise in it. Even then, we have that Vulcan-manned Starfleet ship (Intrepid, was it?).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

[

MALIK: When the High Council hears that humans have decimated their colony, they'll launch a counterstrike. The Klingons will keep Starfleet busy for years.

If MACOs were where the real space military might of Earth was, wouldn't they get mentioned here?

Well, the MACOS are not a fleet, obviously. They'd have to rely on Starfleet to get them to where they're going. Whoever has the ships is the space military, and that's Starfleet.

 

[Paradon]

I'm a fan Gene Rodenberry's idea that humans can learn to solve problems without senseless brutalities and stand united.... But let's be honest, I think that's kindda delusional in a different way they way he portrays it on Star Trek. That's kindda like not believing there is no evil in the world.... If we just stick to our guns and behave like normal human beings, everything is going to be alright in the end. So we go on and act like we're perfect people and that life is perfect when we want it to be. But in reality sometimes some things that happen in life doesn't always turn out as we planned. Thus, sometimes we do things we aren't proud of as a nation (because we are only humans) and then trying to pretend like it's not happening is not going to fix the problems. And still trying to think we are not capable of doing morally questionable acts is only going to make you feel like garbage, and thus, also making things worse. just like how the Hindu wiped the Budhhists in Idia centuries ago because they refused to fight back, and they weren't perfect people either.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The thing is, Starfleet is not Earth's military in the 22nd century, the MACOs are.

That may be true for the first two seasons of ENT but it's highly debatable for the other two, especially the last season. Even if it's not legally a military, I think it can be succesfully argued that it's clear Starfleet is the de facto space military of United Earth by that point. Whenever we've seen an Earth ship doing combat it was a Starfleet ship.

Incorrect. BOTH times we saw Earth cargo ships in ENT they were engaged in combat against alien pirates. Not that we should expect otherwise, because during the 22nd century there were really only two kinds of people in any position to fight with aliens: the crew of NX-01, and the Earth Cargo Service.

The out of universe reason, of course, is that the show is about a Starfleet ship, so why in the hell would we expect to see a non-Starfleet ship fighting the bad guys? It's sort of like how John McClain always ends up in these crazy high-flying gunbattles while the local SWAT team is mysteriously unreachable.

Whenever a military crisis happened, Starfleet was the only one involved. Then there's this bit from the Augment arc:

MALIK: When the High Council hears that humans have decimated their colony, they'll launch a counterstrike. The Klingons will keep Starfleet busy for years.

If MACOs were where the real space military might of Earth was, wouldn't they get mentioned here?

Because the MACOS weren't the ones chasing him.

And anyway, Malik seems to be executing a bit of villain logic here, since Starfleet's deep space presence consists of two starships and a couple of relay satellites. It's not like he's got the entire fleet breathing down his neck.

the other world's space forces did not make much of a visible contribution to Starfleet until about the 24th century.

Well, we can only talk about TOS here and we've rarely seen Starfleet outside Enterprise in it. Even then, we have that Vulcan-manned Starfleet ship (Intrepid, was it?).

Do Vulcans commonly give their ships names like "Intrepid?" If not, that would seem to be an Earth vessel manned by Vulcans for some specific mission.

 

[T'Girl]

It does seem strange that when other Vulcan ships appeared on the show they possessed Vulcan names, but not the Intrepid. Which on the surface would suggest that it wasn't a Vulcan ship regardless of it's crew composition. Saying that Starfleet and later the Enterprise's own crew were simply translating the Vulcan name into English seems unlikely.

If Vulcans have the word or concept "intrepid" in their language it would definitely be both spelt and pronounced differently.

 

[C.E. Evans]

^^^
Or that the Intrepid didn't always have an all-Vulcan crew during her years in service and wasn't meant to have one forever either...

 

[neozeks]

Incorrect. BOTH times we saw Earth cargo ships in ENT they were engaged in combat against alien pirates. Not that we should expect otherwise, because during the 22nd century there were really only two kinds of people in any position to fight with aliens: the crew of NX-01, and the Earth Cargo Service.

My bad, I should have said Earth government ships. Like the Starfleet ships figthing off the Klingons in The Expanse, the ones leading the rag-tag fleet in Twilight or Columbia fighting the Klingons in the Augment arc. Even if there are some MACO/space military ships around, of which we have no proof, it seems clear they are not of much use. Earth Starfleet has the fastest and most powerfull ships and the fighting always falls to it.

Because the MACOS weren't the ones chasing him.

Which shows Starfleet is more important to Earth's security than them. Though, of course, there was a MACO team onboard Enterprise.

It does seem strange that when other Vulcan ships appeared on the show they possessed Vulcan names, but not the Intrepid. Which on the surface would suggest that it wasn't a Vulcan ship regardless of it's crew composition. Saying that Starfleet and later the Enterprise's own crew were simply translating the Vulcan name into English seems unlikely.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Every other Vulcan ship name I can remember was a proper noun, a name, which of course wouldn't be translated. Surak, Seleya, arguably T'Kumbra (T' seems to often be a part of Vulcan names). It seems perfectly logical for a common noun to get translated. In fact, I bet the Enterprise (and every other Starfleet ship with a common noun for a name) has an official name in all of the different languages of the Federation, the English name is just the 'working' name because English is the Federation Standard.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Incorrect. BOTH times we saw Earth cargo ships in ENT they were engaged in combat against alien pirates. Not that we should expect otherwise, because during the 22nd century there were really only two kinds of people in any position to fight with aliens: the crew of NX-01, and the Earth Cargo Service.

My bad, I should have said Earth government ships. Like the Starfleet ships figthing off the Klingons in The Expanse, the ones leading the rag-tag fleet in Twilight or Columbia fighting the Klingons in the Augment arc.

And yet even in "The Expanse," this takes place several days before our first overt reference to Starfleet NOT being a military organization, later in that very same episode. And even after all the shit Archer had to go through with the Xindi, we STILL have Ericka's quote from "Home" the following season that continues to differentiate the two, this at a time when Enterprise has already been upgraded with double its original armament and Columbia was outfitted with that armament from the start. We seem to have come full circle again...



Let's review for a moment:

You, and several others, are hanging on a premise that consists entirely of "actions speak louder than words," in this case even when the actions CONTRADICT the words. The whole problem with this idea--and the point of contention in this entire thread--is the fact that actions also provide CONTEXT to words, and the same word in a different context can have an entirely different meaning. In the context of which Starfleet existed in the 22nd century, it was EXPLICITLY not a military. There's really no way around that other than handwaving, identified actions aside. So something about the nature of Starfleet's existence--historical and political context, in other words--generates a situation where Starfleet is seen doing things traditionally done by the military, and yet everyone seems to agree that Starfleet isn't the military.

Many of us have tried to figure out what that context is. Several possibilities have been suggested, including but not limited to:
- The definition of "military" has changed by the 22nd century
- The word "Starfleet" also doubles as a descriptive term with very specific political/legal implications, not unlike "military."
- Starfleet was quietly re-chartered as a military some arbitrary time after the last clear reference to their not being a military.
- Starfleet really IS the military, and Archer, Forest and Hernandez don't know what they're talking about.


This relates to LATER incarnations in Starfleet since, all our theories notwithstanding, the clear implication is that Earth Starfleet is, in some way or another, meant to be the progenitor of the FEDERATION Starfleet. You could easily make the point--conjecturally, at least--that Starfleet would qualify as a military under Federation law, and the fact that it's tasked with defensive operations of Federation worlds would be cited as precedent. The only problem with this is TREK precedent tells us that Starfleet could and did perform all of those same missions without being an actual military, which pretty negates the only logical reason to assume it is one to begin with.

Whatever Earth Starfleet was when they protected Earth from the Xindi, or the Fortunate from the Nausicans, or kicked fifty tons of Suliban ass in "Shockwave I and II," the Federation Starfleet is as well. What WAS Starfleet on those occasions? I don't know... do you?

 

[YARN]

Star Trek II

Upon learning that the Reliant is on her way to Bogart project Genesis.

David: "Scientists have always been pawns of the military."

Carol: "Starfleet has kept the peace for... for a hundred years. I cannot and will not subscribe to your interpretation of this event."