Seems a bit off to me. After all, Starfleet proper might be "military" per se, but it's certainly an "armed service".
Brainstorm - Starfleet Marines (alittle different)
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Seems a bit off to me. After all, Starfleet proper might be "military" per se, but it's certainly an "armed service".
Something along this lines could work. I think i'm pretty solidly stuck on the standardized/streamlined "6 and 6" rank structure. 6 enlisted, 6 officer.
I was originally trying to avoid overlap in rank titles between Starfleet and "Marines" but... realistically it's not particularly necessary? "Specialist" could work as a replacement for "Private".
Been looking at Space Force ranks and I kind of like the nomenclature a bit more. It's more pedantry but I also kind of didn't like "Sergeant Major", only because it breaks the chain of x Sergeant. I feel like there are too many "Sergeants". So.. maybe...
So maybe... Specialist - Senior Specialist - Corporal - Sergeant - Master Sergeant - Chief Master Sergeant.
Recruit, Trainee, and Cadet will remain as solely training titles. Just for flavor, in either service officer's start as Cadets. Starfleet enlisted are "Trainee" and "Marine" enlisted are "Recruit".
Starfleet's "Basic Training" I would imagine is much different than modern-day, really focused more on classroom learning than physical things. I'm sure there's some, but probably not the focus. A "Marine" "Recruit" is going through like, a good old fashioned Boot Camp.
I suppose "Starine" could be a nickname.
There would be a lot of military surplus kit left over after The Dominion War. Beat up, outdated, worn it may be, but ships, weaponry and any number of other useful surplus items.
It wouldn't be hard to imagine that an underfunded "best swept under the carpet" organisation would have it's own engineering and refurbishment outfit cannibalising and repurposing Starfleet's unwanted equipment.
Plentiful, effectively free and very much under the radar.
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Seems like a good start, though don't let the pedantic tendencies override what these ranks are originally meant to do which is call out what these people's jobs are within the hierarchy. The origin of these names might be unfamiliar to many but each originated out of a tradition on Earth to fill a specific need in a military structure. So, if you're struggling with nomenclature go back to what is the job of the rank and work with it from there.
As an aside, if you think there are too many sergeants don't go in to the US Armed Services, save for the Navy
Starfleet Ground Forces, with Grounders as a nickname?
Though, I like Rangers and they could utilize some traditions as well from Earth and other organizations.
The problem is, that they don't like Lance Corporal or Private either and you pretty much have to have at least couple of Sergeant or Corporal ranks even if you're only going to have six ranks rather than the US nine (The British Army has two Corporal, two Sergeant as ranks and two more levels of sergeant derived billets).
That would work for a public-facing though clearly subordinate unit similar to NAVSOC (SEALs, DEVGRU) or the British Royal Marines.
IMO, Rangers would be a dedicated sub-unit or role within the organisation rather than the organisation as a whole (Jeri Taylor had the Starfleet Rangers as a technical intel and commando unit under Starfleet Intelligence, probably not dissimilar from Fletcher's Starfleet Special Forces under Security).
Yeah. I'm throwing stuff out there to see what sticks.
I LIKE both of those, but I think they would be both like, smaller units within the organization. I don't think the whole thing would be "Starfleet Rangers".
I'm starting to like "Starfleet [insert word/phrase] Force/Service". It's just... the middle of the sandwich now i'm having issues with.
[QUOTE="Relayer1, post: 14702096, member: 29060"
It wouldn't be hard to imagine that an underfunded "best swept under the carpet" organisation would have it's own engineering and refurbishment outfit cannibalising and repurposing Starfleet's unwanted equipment.[/QUOTE]
To add some clarity, it's not a secret by any means. It's just not a particularly well-funded organization due to many in the Federation feeling they don't need it and it actively goes against Starfleet's mission. Starfleet Command knows they need it, so they do what they can, but even then Starfleet proper is the golden child all around so it gets the shiniest stuff.
The MAIN reasoning behind this is that I specifically don't want this "Marine Corps" to be like, something crazy that just doesn't fit in Star Trek, with like super-power armored troops running around massacring things. I want this to be a light reboot, a world where normal Starfleet officers are still useful in a fight compared to these specifically trained soldiers. I don't want them to have some tech that's like 100 years beyond Starfleet has because... something something military.
They're just more utilitarian and work well with what they have. They still get cool stuff, they still have their own engineers and all that. I was thinking specifically that the TR-116 came from their development... have a nascent idea about a whole line of ballistic weapons with a "BR" designation, super creatively "Ballistic Rifle". When they crammed a transporter in it, they called it "Transporter Rifle".
The reboot should be light enough that you could almost squeeze what we are doing here into Prime Trek and not cause too many problems. Like if you saw it on screen, you would more think "weird we haven't seen that before", rather than "This makes no sense."
But yes... to address the point of excess equipment, it's part of where they thrive. Starfleet just willy nilly develops everything, shotguns it out, and then it tends to filter down to the "Marines" who will take the best parts, reengineer some things, modify some of the tech and do their own thing with it. Whereas Starfleet tends to be hyperfocused on "must develop new tech all the time", the Marines are happy with the idea of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". If there's particular need to replace a phaser model, they don't.
I like to think that in the TNG-era, while Starfleet is using the "Dustbuster" phasers, the Marines are still using/producing the "Assault Phasers" from the Movie-era. I mean, realistically how long in the real world have we been using M1911's and M-16's and the like? They don't need new designs every two years.
Their spacecraft arm tends to get more neglect, because that's Starfleet's actual domain. They don't get full-out starships. They have small craft. Fighters, bombers, transports, etc. They have some of their own stuff, they also have a bunch of the mass-produced Starfleet stuff. It's where their engineers really shine, converting a bog standard Starfleet shuttlecraft into something more combat worthy.
I agree but trying to work with the presented idea.
Agreed.
I could see that as well.
That has never been a presentation of Marines I have seen in various fan communities. I don't understand this idea.
When I ran RPGs with Starfleet Marines (something I'm all in on) it was like an amplified security force. The equipment used was all Starfleet equipment, with stuff like Hazard Force equipment from the video game, with modified weapons for protracted ground operations. Portable shield emitters, and possibly active camouflage was perhaps the most high powered they got.
I appreciate the discussion but this jumped hard out to me because I don't know where the slaughter and massacring idea came from.
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Rangers, pathfinders, paras, SAS / SBS, sappers, armoured and mechanised infantry, even pilots / air support could be divisions of the service.
Also they should have at least some converted ships (Galaxy, Excelsior ?) as carriers and landing assault ships.
Quite.
I didn't mean secret, more "red headed step child" - known, but rather unappreciated.
There's also a big difference between being secret to the public (which it could be to extent, certainly not widely discussed) and secret to other members of Starfleet (which it almost certainly isn't).
I'd say simpler, more low-profile designs like the Miranda and Constellation traditionally, and maybe something like the Akira as the modern successor for "carriers" (though of dropship and orbital/atmo air-support, maybe runabouts, not space fighters), and maybe a militarized version of Raven-type civilian scout as your primary orbital/landing craft).
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I don't think the federation or starfleet would have a "Marine Corps" as in what it is right now in the US, you have 100 of thousands of them. I would think it would work out better as an analog of the "Seals" as in Starfleet does the most work out there in space, keeping the peace, etc. but occasionally there is a dust up on some planet, maybe a colony that would require some ground pounding that is in excess of what a standard star fleet member would be trained at, even tactical/security personnel.
So you would have a "Branch" of teams that may go under some type of official nomenclature of Tactical Operations or some other title, but would be informally called "Marines" by everybody. They have there own ships, which are more tactical oriented, with landing capability, with large hanger for support shuttles/aircraft and ground craft.
So your recruitment would be starfleet officers that would volunteer for the "Special Operations" command, but they could probably recruit straight into the Tac Ops. Since the federation is mostly peaceful, you might have recruitment problems, but there are probably a good amount of federation members that have been a bit belligerent in nature but have accepted peace, but would love the chance to knock some heads if the occasion arises.
Typical mission might be on some colony world, maybe like City A has a problem with local wildlife, say something like the Bugs from starship troopers.
So you would have a team of 5
Team leader, standard loadout
2 regular marines, standard loadout
1 Heavy gunner, heavy loadout
1 sniper/marksman, sniper loadout
OR 1 sensor man, carrying tricorder gear to watchout for enemys.
Standard loadout: 1 phaser 3, 1 phaser 2 as back up, spare power cells, grenades, sheild, standerd armored uniform
Heavy load out: 1 phaser 3 with a larger power pack , photon grenade launcher, other heavy weaponry
Sniperloadout: 1 phaser 3 with advanced sensors built into the weapon
Each team would walk if necessary, or have some sort of armored vehicle ( no tires, antigrav..)
Maybe a platoon of 4 teams, 20 people, some flyers in specialized shuttles for air cover or bombing
So you would have a "Branch" of teams that may go under some type of official nomenclature of Tactical Operations or some other title, but would be informally called "Marines" by everybody. They have there own ships, which are more tactical oriented, with landing capability, with large hanger for support shuttles/aircraft and ground craft.
So your recruitment would be starfleet officers that would volunteer for the "Special Operations" command, but they could probably recruit straight into the Tac Ops. Since the federation is mostly peaceful, you might have recruitment problems, but there are probably a good amount of federation members that have been a bit belligerent in nature but have accepted peace, but would love the chance to knock some heads if the occasion arises.
Typical mission might be on some colony world, maybe like City A has a problem with local wildlife, say something like the Bugs from starship troopers.
So you would have a team of 5
Team leader, standard loadout
2 regular marines, standard loadout
1 Heavy gunner, heavy loadout
1 sniper/marksman, sniper loadout
OR 1 sensor man, carrying tricorder gear to watchout for enemys.
Standard loadout: 1 phaser 3, 1 phaser 2 as back up, spare power cells, grenades, sheild, standerd armored uniform
Heavy load out: 1 phaser 3 with a larger power pack , photon grenade launcher, other heavy weaponry
Sniperloadout: 1 phaser 3 with advanced sensors built into the weapon
Each team would walk if necessary, or have some sort of armored vehicle ( no tires, antigrav..)
Maybe a platoon of 4 teams, 20 people, some flyers in specialized shuttles for air cover or bombing
Strategic Tactical Exfil-InfiL and Recon (STEL-R).
Man, coming up with the "L" in the acronym was hard until I realized you could just use an L in another part of a word.
Man, coming up with the "L" in the acronym was hard until I realized you could just use an L in another part of a word.
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Whilst I like the idea of repurposing such ancient designs, I don't see them as having the internal volume required. The similarly ancient Excelsior meets the criteria and obviously has the durable space frame required based upon the number still in service.
Galaxy ? I envisioned the engineering branch being 'gifted' three or four Dominion War era wrecks and rebuilding a carrier or two from them.
Kind of exactly the opposite of what i'm going for. I'm trying to make explicitly NOT "modern military in space".
I had thought about "Ground Forces" but it seems like it's really not that accurate?
Rangers are absolutely a thing I thing would be a unit within this, but not the whole thing.
The last part was more of an exagerration. Alot of stuff i've found over the years is... US Marine Corps in Space, and seems to rely heavily on how badass they are and basically unstoppable. I don't really want that.
100% what I intended, yes.
There are "Marines" in this service, I just don't want the service to be called "Marines". There are special forces... Rangers, whatever you want to name them, I absolutely intend them to have a limited selection of armored and mechanised units, and 100% absolutely there is an "air" element to it including fighters, bombers, air support, transports, etc.
I stopped short of that. I don't think I really want them to have full on starships. That's Starfleet's job. Comparing it to the US Marines, they don't have like... Marine aircraft carriers. I'm not opposed to Starfleet operating something like a carrier that this service supplies the pilots for.
If this service has anything the vein of a larger ship, we're probably looking at like a Miranda. I could see them having a limited number of mildly larger ships for some operations. I think in the TNG+ Era, a Miranda works nicely. Usually has a crew of around 30, if it were modified to remove all the sciencey stuff, you could shove more weapons/transport capacity. I think any larger vessels they have would be less combat focused, more logistics focused.
They would certainly be fielding something similar to Runabouts, or something closer to a La Sirena type.
If they need long haul transport, Starfleet would handle it. This services vessels would be intended for short hops/getting boots on the "ground"/air support. Space fighting capability would be mostly limited to fighters, and is probably generally avoided when possible, deferring to Starfleet to handle that.
Ah, got it. Yes, exactly what i'm going for.
In Prime Trek... yes probably.
In this Light Reboot... no.
There *IS* very much a military presence in this context. Member worlds retain their own armed forces, fleets, etc. In a wartime scenario, there is a NATO-like body that would command and organize the individual member world forces.
So in something like the Dominion War... you might have this service ("Marines") respond and be the first to fight, with a FederationNATO army moving in to reinforce them and take over.
The purpose of this branch is the give Starfleet direct access to specifically trained combat-ready personnel rather than having to rely on an outside power to get them troops, like NX-01 had to do with with the MACO's.
This is largely what i'm going for, but I would want them to have a bit more in capability of fighting a larger conflict for a time. These "Marines" wouldn't be the primary fighting force of the Federation, they're... acting as... Marines.
I did actually mention I think that in practice, alot of people would actually call the soldiers involved here "Marines" colloquially. It's just not the official name of the service.
Getting lost in the shuffle here, I do want to say thanks to everyone! Some great ideas coming through! Very much appreciated and by all means, continue to fire things out and even if I don't want to use a an idea in this context doesn't mean it's a bad idea! Keep 'em coming!
Specialist Emergency Hazardous Landing and Assistance Teams (SEHLATs)
Space Time Air Ground Sea (STAGS)
Maybe something like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_sealift_ships
Also the Delta Flyer and definitely the Argo-type (which is specifically designed to land a small mobility team).
One or two person cockpit fighters are a last resort Hail Mary in space combat terms IMO, too narrow in scope and too overtly military as manned platforms, though they could conceivably be repurposed drones.
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