Is Starfleet a military organization?

starfleet can basicly order their personnel to die - sounds very much like a military to me and i never heard of cops doing that - to achieve something at all costs is in no way a civilian modus operandi

 

Exactly. I think this part gets missed through most of this discussion. Starfleet is the only Federation agency tasked with defending the Federation in a time of war.

 

You have been charged and convicted of putting too much tuna on six inch tuna subs. This court has no other choice than to sentence you to death, and take back your Subway hat.

 

See, then the point made (they're armed and phasers aren't drills) doesn't matter.

now we're really just repeating the same points over and over again

 

Of course it matters. Other things also matter, for fuck's sake.

 

This is even funnier if you imagine it being delivered by the shadowy tribunal that convicted Michael Burnham.

 

This thread really is a lesson in being able to tolerate ambiguity and not have a black and white answer.

 

As are literally most discussions.

Not by itself being decisive on the one hand and not mattering at all on the other are two entirely different things.

 

[close thread]

 

This has been fascinating and educational, but yeah, maybe it's time to close this thread. What say thee, @1001001 ?

 

But they usually did them as one-offs, not as an on-going part of a regular ship's duties. Like Cook's or Vancouver's expeditions...

 

Okey-dokey!

 

There were some big expeditions that were one-offs, and then there were regular vessels that were assigned to hydrography or surveying duty for a time. To what degree, I'm not sure it matters; it was a military organization that performed those functions. And at any rate we've only seen a tiny fraction of Starfleet vessels' assignments for comparison.

 

Some navies, the Australians for instance, still maintain dedicated hydrographic vessels or at least they did until their latest building program that amalmagated the functions of border cutter, hydrographic vessel and minehunter into the Arafura class multi-role patrol vessel (slightly smaller than the old USCG Hamilton/Sectary-class WHECs).

 

Yeah.

Just a bit ago, I posted this is in the "What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?" thread:

Starfleet is a uniformed service with both military and non-military mandates. It's a military, and it's not a military. It's also a floor wax and a dessert topping.​

Just setting aside the floor wax vs dessert topping question for a moment, if we can, I honestly think the rest of that is the way to square the circle (accomplish the impossible and satisfy all corners in the debate). It explains why Picard and Kolrami had that debate in "Peak Performance," if you're willing to interpret Picard's remarks as an indication of the primary function of Starfleet as he understood it to be.

It means that Starfleet is technically a military (which means "technically" is a redundant word there), but it also means that many (if not most or even all) of its primary functions are in no way, shape, or form military in nature. That would include exploration and first contact. The distinction that existed as far back as TOS between the way the Federation and the Klingons operated was real. The Federation did not go to Eminiar VII to establish a puppet government. They went there to establish the rights for a port in order to secure the safety of interstellar travel in the area of their star cluster. (Kirk extended a helping hand to help them out of the dreadful trap of their own making, but that's another story/debate/argument.)

It means that Starfleet policy is about getting along with its neighbors. But Starfleet is a military, so you'd better not mess with the Federation, because they can kick some serious fucking ass. And they love root beer.

 

And they are all out of root beer.

 

Let's look at it this way, in the Japanese Maritime Defense Force, they are not allowed to have aircraft carriers per their own constitution but if you look at the Hyuga Class helicopter destroyer and Izumo class multipurpose destroyers, they are carriers. The Izumos are going to be refitted to accept the F-35B, in fact the design was allowed to do so. According to non-Japanese military observers, those two classes are classified as carriers.

Real world navies operate in the non-military sphere as well. First responders to natural disasters are military related. We have anti-piracy patrols and in the majority of the world's navies, hydrography are the domain of the military. It wasn't until the last century that the major explorers of the world's oceans went from naval vessels to civilian vessels.

 

Oh no, this is an issue we're tackling.