Flag Officers

[James Wright]

Do you think Starfleet is limited by law as to the number of Flag Officers?
I remember reading somewhere that the U.S. NAVY is allowed by law so many Flag Officers (216).

James

 

[EmperorTiberius]

I doubt it. There are flag officers in medical, engineering, etc, if there is room and need, they'll probably promote you.

 

[Sci]

Do you think Starfleet is limited by law as to the number of Flag Officers?
I remember reading somewhere that the U.S. NAVY is allowed by law so many Flag Officers (216).

James

Considering how much exponentially larger the Federation Starfleet must be than the United States Navy -- 155 Federation Member Worlds, plus who knows how many planets each one has as their own colonies, plus how many Federation colonies, plus 8,000 light-years of Federation space, plus borders with the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Breen, Gorn, Tholians, Tzenkethi, Ferengi, and Talarians, plus how many ships far beyond the reaches of local space on exploration missions....

There's probably not even rational to have a law to limit the number of admirals.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Do you think Starfleet is limited by law as to the number of Flag Officers?
I remember reading somewhere that the U.S. NAVY is allowed by law so many Flag Officers (216).

James

Considering how much exponentially larger the Federation Starfleet must be than the United States Navy -- 155 Federation Member Worlds, plus who knows how many planets each one has as their own colonies, plus how many Federation colonies, plus 8,000 light-years of Federation space, plus borders with the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Breen, Gorn, Tholians, Tzenkethi, Ferengi, and Talarians, plus how many ships far beyond the reaches of local space on exploration missions....

There's probably not even rational to have a law to limit the number of admirals.

Or rational admirals.

 

[USS KG5]

Do you think Starfleet is limited by law as to the number of Flag Officers?
I remember reading somewhere that the U.S. NAVY is allowed by law so many Flag Officers (216).

James

I'd be surprised if such limits exist.

Lets put it this way - if you see Federation population as around the trillion mark, then if as little as 0.1% of the population are in Starfleet (a far smaller proportion than the modern USA) then Starfleet has almost a billion officers and men.

If we worked up the proportions based on your figures then the US Navy with 331,000 officers and men is a tiny fraction of Starfleet's size and so we can expect Starfleet to have literally thousands of Admirals.

This does not tally exactly with the on-screen evidence from the Dominion War, where Starfleet seems to have at its peak strength around 15,000-20,000 starships, and presumably far fewer in peacetime. Even with an average crew of 500 (which is probably too big) then only 10 million officers and men would crew those ships - so it is unlikely even with a large marine division, a lot of administrative staff, people manning subspace relays etc and other staff that starfleet numbers more than 100-200 million officers and men.

Therefore it is quite the elite organisation, employing only 0.02% of the Federation's population!

 

[Drake]

Do you think Starfleet is limited by law as to the number of Flag Officers?
I remember reading somewhere that the U.S. NAVY is allowed by law so many Flag Officers (216).

James

I'd be surprised if such limits exist.

Lets put it this way - if you see Federation population as around the trillion mark, then if as little as 0.1% of the population are in Starfleet (a far smaller proportion than the modern USA) then Starfleet has almost a billion officers and men.

If we worked up the proportions based on your figures then the US Navy with 331,000 officers and men is a tiny fraction of Starfleet's size and so we can expect Starfleet to have literally thousands of Admirals.

This does not tally exactly with the on-screen evidence from the Dominion War, where Starfleet seems to have at its peak strength around 15,000-20,000 starships, and presumably far fewer in peacetime. Even with an average crew of 500 (which is probably too big) then only 10 million officers and men would crew those ships - so it is unlikely even with a large marine division, a lot of administrative staff, people manning subspace relays etc and other staff that starfleet numbers more than 100-200 million officers and men.

Therefore it is quite the elite organisation, employing only 0.02% of the Federation's population!

So, if by law the number of flag officers was limited to 0.1% of Starfleet's total personnel (just to pick a number out of the ether), there would be between 1 and 2 million flag officers. However, I do agree, by the standards of any historical military on Earth, Starfleet would be an incredibly huge organization and yet still be very much a small proportion of the total UFP population. As an aside, during WW II with a total population of around 131 million, the US total armed forces was 11 million (0.8 %). The mind boggles, or at least mine does.

 

[clint g]

If the US military is a model for Starfleet, then there probably is some sort of limit. It sort of defeats the purpose of an admiral if you have a tone of them running around all over the place. Its probably a percentage of the total number. I think in the US military, only 1 percent of officers are permited to become an admiral/general and 1 percent of enlisted can become Command Sergeant Majors, Chief Master Seargets, Command Master Chief Petty Officers, etc

EDIT: as a matter of fact, I think there is a limit to the total amount of people allowed to become officers, period. I'm not sure what that number is though.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The better question: Is there a limit to crazy, ultra-pompous admirals?

 

[Drake]

No, by Federation law, anyone demonstrating themselves to be insane and egotistical MUST be advanced to flag rank immediately. Those who are merely one or the other become captains.

 

[clint g]

No, by Federation law, anyone demonstrating themselves to be insane and egotistical MUST be advanced to flag rank immediately. Those who are merely one or the other become captains.

I guess that explains Janeway now doesnt it

 

[Drake]

Rut roh, the secret selection process is out of the bag.

 

[Red Ranger]

You know, I only just recently found out about the limits to the number of three-star and four-star officers in the U.S. armed forces. It might make sense in Starfleet to rotate one- and two-star admirals in and out of certain positions. This would prevent these officers from being bored stiff, and it would spread around the institutional memory and capabiliites of Starfleet's flag officers.

It would also explain how Janeway went from Captain to Vice Admiral -- she's a one-star Rear Admiral who was then appointed to a certain position. After her stint, she reverts back to one-star status. I'd also say that explains James T. Kirk's stint as chief of operations at Starfleet -- he was also likely at that time a permanent one-star Rear Admiral appointed to a higher position.

Likewise, in the TNG ep where Quinn wants to promote Picard to Admiral and put him in charge of Starfleet Academy, he would've been officially a one-star Rear Admiral, then receive an appointment as either Vice Admiral (three stars) or Admiral (four stars) in order to serve in that position.

Red Ranger

 

[Drake]

That's a fine old navy tradition, that I happen to like too. Along with temporary ranks, brevet ranks and such.

 

[USS KG5]

So, if by law the number of flag officers was limited to 0.1% of Starfleet's total personnel (just to pick a number out of the ether), there would be between 1 and 2 million flag officers. However, I do agree, by the standards of any historical military on Earth, Starfleet would be an incredibly huge organization and yet still be very much a small proportion of the total UFP population. As an aside, during WW II with a total population of around 131 million, the US total armed forces was 11 million (0.8 %). The mind boggles, or at least mine does.

To boggle your mind even more, the US military was od course all-male in combat roles, so they got as far as just over 8% of the population (not 0.8% surely?) largely just with men aged between 18-40.

Starfleet on the other hand has totally equal roles for both genders, and presumably many senior officers serve into their 60s and 70s on Earth, and God knows how long for races like the Vulcans!

As I said - even with a manpower of 200 million officers and men, Starfleet is an incredibly elite organisation. Even a billion man Starfleet (not supported really by what we see on TV, though perfectly plausible in the context of the role of the organisation) would employ only 0.1% of the population.

 

[Drake]

It was roughly 0.8% percent of the total US population at the time (men, women and children) unless my deplorable mathematical abilities have failed me again. The proportion to service eligible adults would have been higher of course. And yes, Starfleet would be enormous by comparison to any historical Earth military and yet still be a small proportion of the total population of the UFP. By our standards, the administrative and logistic tail needed to support Starfleet would blow one's mind and the size of Academy classes would be almost beyond our comprehension. As an earlier poster mentioned, you couldn't fit them all into the Presidio in San Francisco (which would have to be just one of many SFA campuses, albeit the most desirable for prestige reasons -- which brings a whole new meaning to distance learning). Even allowing for the increased span of control exerted by the various subcommands and their flag officers made possible by 24th century technology, they would still need a large number of them. All and all, I'm glad I only have to run one relatively moderate sized ship with a crew of 420 (on paper). I doubt I'd even qualify as a small cog in the vast machine.

 

[Timo]

11 million is 0.8 percent of 1.375 billion... The decimal point does need to move one notch.

Even if Starfleet is a vast organization, the Academy classes for command personnel seem manageably small, and our top-rank heroes seem to know other top-rank personnel relatively often (it seems four times out of five, they know the captain of a starship they randomly meet!).

So perhaps the organization isn't quite that big - or perhaps the starship officers are an elite within an elite, and actually are quite few in number. If there're 10,000 starships there, with an average of 100 officers per ship to be generous, that'd be one round million of them at service at any given time. How many would need to be trained each year to keep up the supply? One percent - 10,000? That'd fit nicely within one Academy - today's biggest universities have hundreds of thousands in attendance. And Starfleet probably has Presidio as its main center of studies, but could easily be running the whole San Francisco as its campus area. Have we ever heard of a citizen of San Francisco who wouldn't be of Starfleet, or of an industry serving Starfleet?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Drake]

I wouldn't know. I slept through the classes myself, which explains my atrocious math skills.

... still but the smallest cog in the vast engine of Starfleet and fortunately, as we have now proven, not a science officer.