Age of the Federation....

[Avro Arrow]

Honestly, if I'd been in charge of Enterprise, I would've had the ship answer to UESPA instead of Starfleet.

I really wish they had done this. I didn't really care for the fact that they used the same organization name both pre- and post-Federation. Although obviously the Earth Starfleet and the Federation Starfleet have to be different animals... at the very least, as you point out, UE Starfleet was decidedly non-military, whereas UPF Starfleet was very much a military (Picard's opinion notwithstanding).

I actually like the justification upthread that "starfleet" can perhaps be considered a generic descriptive term, such as "navy", and that's why multiple organizations use it. Either that, or both the founders of UE Starfleet and UFP Starfleet were huge Star Wars fans...

 

[Longinus]

Keep in mind, though, that the United Earth Starfleet presented in ENT was not actually the UE's military arm at all.

Well, I don't remember any mention of there being any other sort of starship based fighting force at Earth's disposal. Starfleet was all they had.

 

[Christopher]

I actually like the justification upthread that "starfleet" can perhaps be considered a generic descriptive term, such as "navy", and that's why multiple organizations use it. Either that, or both the founders of UE Starfleet and UFP Starfleet were huge Star Wars fans...

The term existed well before either Star Trek or Star Wars. Heck, the first "Star Fleet" was Zheng He's Ming Dynasty trading fleet in the early 1400s. In science fiction, the use of the term for a space fleet antedates 1939 (and it's surprising how many non-Trek references that page cites from after 1966). ST and SW both just popularized pre-existing SF concepts rather than really innovating anything.

Well, I don't remember any mention of there being any other sort of starship based fighting force at Earth's disposal. Starfleet was all they had.

Yeah, but it very clearly was portrayed as non-combat-oriented, at least where NX-01's overall crew was concerned (Reed and his security people being the exceptions). And really, who would they have fought? The Vulcans had kept them from expanding very far or developing fast enough warp engines to make interstellar journeys in less than months or years. They'd only made a few alien contacts and had mostly trade relationships with them. Most of the work of policing the spaceways in this part of the galaxy fell to the Vulcan High Command at the time. At most, Starfleet would've been along the lines of the Coast Guard -- more just patrolling local waters and doing police or rescue work than getting involved in serious conflict. Mostly they would've been there to protect Earth colonies or Earth Cargo Services freighters (Space Boomers) against piracy or the like. It wasn't until they developed the Warp 5 engine and started making new contacts in unexplored space that they began getting into more fights.

 

[diankra]

No, the hypothetical Vulcan posited in the 19th century was between the Sun and Mercury, not Mercury and Venus. (That's what "cis-Mercurian" means -- inside Mercury's orbit.) And my point is that it isn't that odd that both franchises would use the name, because it was once well-known as the name of a hypothetical undiscovered planet and was used in a fair amount of SF before Star Trek monopolized it in people's minds.

As a throw in, the script directions for Power include references to 'the Plutovian night', suggesting that it was originally set on Pluto before rewrites... and within our solar system either way.

 

[Christopher]

As a throw in, the script directions for Power include references to 'the Plutovian night', suggesting that it was originally set on Pluto before rewrites... and within our solar system either way.

"Plutovian?" I wonder why they thought that was the word, rather than Plutonian. Maybe by a misguided analogy with "Jovian?"

 

[Kemaiku]

^That or a station located somewhere in the Neptune - Pluto portion of the system ("Pluto-Jovian Region" if they wanted to name it that).

 

[Christopher]

^That or a station located somewhere in the Neptune - Pluto portion of the system ("Pluto-Jovian Region" if they wanted to name it that).

But "Jovian" means "pertaining to Jupiter" (after Jove, an alternate name for the Roman god Jupiter). The term for Neptune would be Neptunian. True, gas giants are sometimes called Jovians as a generic category, but it would be too vague to use the generic term to refer to a specific example -- and these days, Uranus and Neptune are considered to be a separate category of giant planet from Jupiter and Saturn anyway, more "ice giant" than gas giant.

Also, the Vulcan colony in "The Power of the Daleks" was clearly on a planet, not a space station. The Second Doctor didn't visit any space stations until months later in "The Faceless Ones," and then again a year after that in "The Wheel in Space" -- and maybe again nearly a year later in "The Space Pirates," if you count the small beacon platforms as stations.

By the way, the term "gas giant" was coined in the 1950s by James Blish, the same author who first proposed 40 Eridani as the primary star of Spock's home planet Vulcan. That was in a bit of dialogue he added to his adaptation of "Tomorrow is Yesterday," where Captain Christopher assumed that Vulcan was the cis-Mercurian planet and Kirk corrected him, explaining that Spock's planet was "The Vulcan" and that it orbited 40 Eri.

 

[Kemaiku]

Alright, a random assortment of ships and a station that they operate from that spans the outer half of the solar system, harrassing Jupiter Station and the Saturn/Neptune remote stations.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I never cared for there being an Earth Starfleet before the Federation. Why would an interstellar alliance adopt the name of an Earth agency for its unified military arm?

Probably for the same reason they adopted Earth as their capital, English as their primary language and most of their personnel being human.

Man, maybe Gorkon's daughter had a point in STIV. The Federation is a "Homo Sapiens Only" Club.

 

[Christopher]

Alright, a random assortment of ships and a station that they operate from that spans the outer half of the solar system, harrassing Jupiter Station and the Saturn/Neptune remote stations.

Huh? What are you even referring to at this point? I thought we were talking about Doctor Who: "The Power of the Daleks," which, as I said, was set on a planetary colony that was called Vulcan in the episode but may have been intended to be Pluto in the original script.

 

[diankra]

Huh? What are you even referring to at this point? I thought we were talking about Doctor Who: "The Power of the Daleks," which, as I said, was set on a planetary colony that was called Vulcan in the episode but may have been intended to be Pluto in the original script.

A David Whitaker script at that... all resemblance to actual science post1935ish entirely coincidental.

 

[Timo]

Starfleet personnel are UESPA personnel.

A baseless statement. Starfleet personnel in all the episodes are Starfleet personnel, nothing more, nothing less.

That EUSPA existed then shows that United Earth government existed in some form that early.

...Not even that much. Earth isn't united today, yet organizations named "United Earth Thisorthat" abound. Heck, even a quick googling reveals three organizations specifically named "United Earth"!

For all we know, UESPA was a purely commercial, purely US organization akin to SpaceX. And remained so through the centuries, even if the definition of "commercial" gradually evolved a bit.

UESPA had its own military, the Starfleet.

...Just like NASA today has its own mililtary?

The whole concept is so absurd that it's not worth pondering at all. Many weapons designing and manufacturing corporations today vitally depend on warfare, and basically have governments in their back pockets to conduct the warfare for them, yet even they don't pretend to "own" or "command" the USN or the USAF or anything like that. Nor do they have their own militias, mercenary fleets or other terrorist organizations.

Yeah, but it very clearly was portrayed as non-combat-oriented, at least where NX-01's overall crew was concerned (Reed and his security people being the exceptions).

But the point of the show is that our heroes are the exceptions. They are the first of their kind, in an organization that predates them by decades. What did that organization do before it gained its first-ever exploration vessel - play peacegames?

Not so, as our very first exposure to Starfleet vessels other than Archers shows them in combat, using armaments superior to what Archer originally was provided with, and defeating a Klingon warship.

And really, who would they have fought?

The same threats the civilian Earthlings did, for starters. Not with any great success if their best combat vessels puttered along at warp 3.14159 or whatnot, of course. But you have to start somewhere.

At most, Starfleet would've been along the lines of the Coast Guard -- more just patrolling local waters and doing police or rescue work than getting involved in serious conflict.

And that's what most navies in history, and presently, do. That, plus their morning prayers that this state of affairs would continue.

Even if UESF desperately wanted to be tangled up in a war, this might have been difficult to arrange. It does not follow that UESF would not have been a space combat force either primarily or exclusively.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

 

[Timo]

...Yup, solid proof that UESPA was under Starfleet command.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

And yet, three prominent stars. Is that meant to be the ECS, but they're not important enough to be written on the patch itself?

 

[Christopher]

And yet, three prominent stars. Is that meant to be the ECS, but they're not important enough to be written on the patch itself?

I don't think the patch is saying that it represents Starfleet Command and UESPA as separate entities. I think it's saying it represents "Starfleet Command, United Earth Space Probe Agency." In other words, that SFC is a division of UESPA.

 

[Kemaiku]

It's got bottom billing.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's got bottom billing.

It needs a better agent.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, last billing is often considered to be second only to top billing in credits (at least when there's an "And" or "With" before it). It's a quirk of human memory that we remember the first and last items in a list most clearly, so those are the two prestige positions.

 

[MacLeod]

Actually, last billing is often considered to be second only to top billing in credits (at least when there's an "And" or "With" before it). It's a quirk of human memory that we remember the first and last items in a list most clearly, so those are the two prestige positions.

Youu see examples of that in shows like later seasons of SG-1 when Shanks returned and in SGA where in S2 you had both With And used. Also used in B5 where Jurasik and Katsulas at the end of the credits they swapped positions each season.