Commodore Stocker adressing Kirk as "Sir"

[Mres_was_framed!]

Okay.

In any event, the merchant service abides to Federation/Starfleet laws. If just a "citizen" of the Federation, then now every single person in the Federation is under that law and the complicated determinations that come with it. If Kirk and Picard barely get it right (or do they?), then how can one expect every person to do it. The only way to control exploration and merchant activities in space with planets following Federation law, is for all space travel to be directly run (probably like the SS ships; does SS stand for Service Ship...hmm.) and/or licensed (like with Cyrano Jones and planetary work like Robert Crater) by Starfleet. I'm slowly building a theory of Starfleet operations...

I getting the suggestion here that a registered civilian vessel might be registered with "S.S." and no "NCC" (maybe "NAR" if we go by TNG references), whereas a true Starfleet ship would be registered with "U.S.S." and "NCC." The USS vessels apparently have some kind of jurisdiction over the others if we go by the "Mudd's Women" example.

Following this through to Merrick, he might have a rank, but not a Starfleet rank, in the merchant service. Thank rank could be Captain or anything else appropriate.

Starfleet as a "combined service" starts to make more sense in this context. Various jobs like exploring, patrolling, and defending are combined in this single service (with blue, green and red shirts respectively), while the Merchant Marine and/or independent scouts conduct most of what we would call economic business and prospecting, mining, trade and so on.

To push this line of thinking further to answer another question, then the show could could call a "starship," anything that explores, patrols, or defends for Starfleet," while the others are called only "spaceships."

 

[dupersuper]

Okay.

In any event, the merchant service abides to Federation/Starfleet laws. If just a "citizen" of the Federation, then now every single person in the Federation is under that law and the complicated determinations that come with it. If Kirk and Picard barely get it right (or do they?), then how can one expect every person to do it. The only way to control exploration and merchant activities in space with planets following Federation law, is for all space travel to be directly run (probably like the SS ships; does SS stand for Service Ship...hmm.) and/or licensed (like with Cyrano Jones and planetary work like Robert Crater) by Starfleet. I'm slowly building a theory of Starfleet operations...

Wasn't there a line in Angel One (sorry to veer off into TNG for a moment) about the civilian crew there wasn't bound by the prime directive?

 

[Timo]

And another where Starfleet was explicitly forbidden, by the prime directive, from interfering in the interference of these civilians!

Data: " The Odin was not a starship, which means her crew is not bound by the Prime Directive. If he and the others wish to stay here, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it."

Data: "Excuse me, Commander, but removing any of these people against their will would be a violation of several Starfleet regulations, not the least of which would be the Prime Directive."

A general or special case? We can't tell, just as we generally can't tell the specifics of a PD debate in a Trek adventure. We never hear the whole story, but the heroes are trained in this very thing and will take into account all variables without commenting on them.

Timo Saloniemi