Mandatory Starfleet service

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Can you imagine any event that would lead Starfleet to require mandatory Starfleet service from the youth of member worlds - say, 5 years and then you can remain or go do what you want?

Alternately, would a Federation member world enact mandatory Starfleet service for its own young people, in the hopes of correcting social problems, rebuilding their population (benefits of Starfleet education, physical training, mental discipline) etc?

 

[Tallguy]

Well, only the ones that want to vote.

 

[BillJ]

It wouldn't be off base to think that some sort of service would be required in times of need. We know from "The Siege of AR-558" that it is no longer quit when you want in Starfleet.

 

[Relayer1]

Can you imagine any event that would lead Starfleet to require mandatory Starfleet service from the youth of member worlds - say, 5 years and then you can remain or go do what you want?

Alternately, would a Federation member world enact mandatory Starfleet service for its own young people, in the hopes of correcting social problems, rebuilding their population (benefits of Starfleet education, physical training, mental discipline) etc?

Sounds a bit like fascism to me.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Always a reservist if you, a former member, are capable of serving, yes. They've never portrayed people who were never Starfleet members as ever being conscripted, though, right?

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think the only circumstances that might warrant mandatory Starfleet service is if the Federation becomes embroiled in a very longtime war or massive disaster in which both the officer and enlisted corps are seriously depleted or stretched too thin. Otherwise, I think each Federation member world maintains its own individual civil service with Starfleet being above them all, IMO. Push comes to shove, those individual member world agencies might enact some kind of mandatory service long before Starfleet ever will perhaps. In a major Federation-wide catastrophe, some worlds may even say "screw this" and leave...

 

[herofhyrule]

I think conscription would probably go against the Federation's principles.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Barely anyone gets into starfleet.

Federation population is well on the magnitude of 500 billion (150 members would make that 3.3 billion per member)

At most at the height of the dominion war there were less than 10k ships (2nd and 5th fleets combined were in the 600 range, and there were upto 10 fleets). Say 100 people per ship and you're talking 1 million starfleet personnel.

That's a 500,000 : 1 ratio of people to Starfleet.

Assuming an average 30 years in service that means 16,000 entrants per year.

This is backed up by "Coming of age", where cadets with Wesley's background and qualifications struggled to get in to a limited number of spaces, backed up by everyone seemingly going to Academy in San Francisco.

Maybe it's an order of magnitude higher, but that's still a 50,000:1 ratio.

Conscription is not required, demand for places outstrips need for personnel by orders of magnitude.

 

[Tallguy]

Sounds a bit like fascism to me.

Not that I'm in favor of conscription but there have been many non-fascist states that have had it.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

In a true Utopia, nothing should be mandatory.

 

[BillJ]

In a true Utopia, nothing should be mandatory.

Nothing and everything being mandatory is the only true path to Utopia.

 

[Tallguy]

In a true Utopia, nothing should be mandatory.

That would be no place. Would you like to know More?

 

[Victoria]

Paul Stamets and his research were "co-opted" by Star Fleet and he makes it plain that he's not happy about it. He doesn't have the choice of leaving until the war ends.

Sounds like conscription by another name, to me.

 

[Kor]

Barely anyone gets into starfleet.

Federation population is well on the magnitude of 500 billion (150 members would make that 3.3 billion per member)

At most at the height of the dominion war there were less than 10k ships (2nd and 5th fleets combined were in the 600 range, and there were upto 10 fleets). Say 100 people per ship and you're talking 1 million starfleet personnel.

That's a 500,000 : 1 ratio of people to Starfleet.

Assuming an average 30 years in service that means 16,000 entrants per year.

This is backed up by "Coming of age", where cadets with Wesley's background and qualifications struggled to get in to a limited number of spaces, backed up by everyone seemingly going to Academy in San Francisco.

Maybe it's an order of magnitude higher, but that's still a 50,000:1 ratio.

Conscription is not required, demand for places outstrips need for personnel by orders of magnitude.

The thing with Wesley was specifically to get into Starfleet Academy to become a commissioned officer. The whole process for noncom/enlisted personnel would be different. TNG "The Drumhead" talks about a separate Academy program for enlisted personnel. And we have DS9 "Starship Down," with O'Brien pointing out that the engineers there didn't go to the Academy at all. There are probably a lot of technician/specialist/grunt roles in Starfleet that don't have such stringent entry requirements like The Academy. I also wonder if Starfleet and the Federation have anything along the lines of ROTC/JROTC.

But even for enlisted personnel, one can imagine that there might still be a lot more entrants than available roles. Perhaps they could become reservists, and subject to activation clause similar to people who thought they left Starfleet, like McCoy in TMP. And in the rare event of some catastrophic galactic event that wipes out huge chunks of Starfleet and there aren't enough reservists or new volunteers, there might be some kind of framework that would have regular citizens conscripted into Starfleet to fill necessary roles.

And it should be pointed out that conscientious objection should be taken into account with all of this, as a matter of basic human rights. Or should we say "sapient being rights" in a multi-species context.

Kor

 

[Tallguy]

 

[David cgc]

Paul Stamets and his research were "co-opted" by Star Fleet and he makes it plain that he's not happy about it. He doesn't have the choice of leaving until the war ends.

Sounds like conscription by another name, to me.

In the backstory comic (not canon, I know) Stamets' research was being explored by Starfleet, and they gave Stamets and his collaborator a sweetheart deal to develop it. Stamets wasn't happy about Starfleet jumping all over it, but his collaborator took the deal, and he ultimately decided that he'd rather be inside the proverbial tent pissing out, as it were. Even after nearly a year working with him, Lorca still had to butter Stamets up to get him to agree to the mission to take on the Sarcophagus. Granted, Stamets was also the only entity in the known universe that could operate the DASH drive, but even before that I think his service was voluntary and Lorca/Starfleet were trying to keep him happy. It's not like they would've shot him if he tried to straight-up quit. Well, Lorca might've, but that's a special case.

 

[Sci]

In a truly existential crisis, I could imagine the Federation instituting a draft for able-bodied adults. I cannot imagine that happening in any circumstances beyond absolute necessity.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I guess if you're the lone expert, you have almost a responsibility to at the very least train those who will eventually replace you.

And if there's random draft lotteries, the population of the Federation is so big and the spaces so relatively few (though could be expanded in an emergency) that the odds of any on person being called up are low, unless their area of specialty is in high demand with low supply.

 

[Paul Weaver]

A fascist state wouldn't need conscription. People would be falling over themselves to sign up.

Meanwhile countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland have conscription and are hardly

And we have DS9 "Starship Down," with O'Brien pointing out that the engineers there didn't go to the Academy at all. There are probably a lot of technician/specialist/grunt roles in Starfleet that don't have such stringent entry requirements like The Academy

All which would fit in that 1:500,000 ratio -- meaning officers are even lower than that level!

Paul Stamets and his research were "co-opted" by Star Fleet and he makes it plain that he's not happy about it. He doesn't have the choice of leaving until the war ends.

Sounds like conscription by another name, to me.

He was told the only way to continue his research was to work for Starfleet. There's no suggestion that he couldn't have simply sat on Earth tending his gardens, but if he wanted to play with equipment that could destroy planets in the blink of an eye, he'd have to play ball with starfleet.

Turing wasn't conscripted. Neither was Oppenheimer. Neither was Marcus in TWOK, but that didn't stop David being grumpy about them being civilians apparently at Starfleet's call. Anyone funded by government has to -- they could have gone to Stardust City (or perhaps Nimbus III), although I'm sure that the Federation would be concerned with that, just as the US would be concerned if it's nuclear scientists decided to go and work on their own in Nigeria.

If you want access to planet destroying equipment (and the energys Stamets and Marcus were playing with could easilly wipe out billions of lives), there's going to be oversight and control.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Not even the Dominion War pushed Starfleet to introduce a draft. I don't know what would.