Spoilers So, Would You Join Starfleet in the Kelvin Universe?

Some people say that Trek works better on television, yet I say you work with what you have. There shouldn't be an excuse for bad storytelling. However, current big-screen Trek has really (imo) given us a universe that is seemingly very dangerous and dark...things only hinted at in TOS episodes like The Doomsday Machine or certain ENT episodes - I mention ENT since it is referenced in the 3rd film - where said ship of the title gets shot at and we see CGI people flowing out to space.

PineKirk's ship seems to have a four-year break in between being shot up and losing a lot of lives. Even the initial film had eager cadets pretty much wiped out by Nero; the Enterprise was saved because Sulu didn't start the ship quick enough.

With Captain Edison, we get a familiar captain who sees things out on the frontier that makes him a changed man (e.g. like Captain Tracy, or Commodore Decker from the aforementioned Doomsday episode, Captain Ransom from the Voyager episode Equinox, Admiral Marcus from the previous STID, and possibly non-Trek examples like Malcolm McDowall's Admiral Tolwyn from Wing Commander III and IV -- getting very nerdy here -- even the Brando character from Apocalypse Now).

Idris Elba really sells the Captain who has given up on rescue by Starfleet, but still wants to survive. I felt his pain, but I still wanted him to get his comeuppance; he killed so many people that included Jaylah's family and those of the Enterprise crew....and possibly other's that have passed by the nebula.

Because we see this in a feature film (i.e. more of a budget and scope than a television episode) more carnage and danger can be shown. I personally wonder what draws individuals in the Kelvin Timeline to join Starfleet; it's dangerous. Even it's worn on PineKirk; albeit, he seems more mature and more like a leader and 'human' (e.g. I like how he stumbles with the First Contact. We've seen commanders like Picard speak as if they had a prepared script for each new being they'd come; PineKirk seems more natural in Beyond).

It doesn't matter if you're a redshirt, yellowshirt, blueshirt....if the you-know-what hits the fan....you have to be in the right place at the right time or quick with options.

 

I'd join, if only because I could captain the flagship of the Federation by age 27, and become a Vice Admiral after barely squeaking by 30.

 

Of course! And when I'm off duty I'll occupy myself by posting on message boards and complaining about how the Prime universe is better

 

Starfleet in the Kelvinverse... you kind of have to set a lot of drawbacks aside to think you'd want to join it. Through the first couple of films it's an organization that does things like concentrating its entire fleet strength in one system for no apparent reason, promoting raw Cadets to Captain (and then demoting when this doesn't work out and then re-promoting them), apparently has no sensor or defense network for Earth or any means of responding to the Enterprise getting shot down by a Starfleet ship in full view of the whole planet and so on. It's really more like an Absurdly Powerful Student's Council from an anime than anything else.

So it's not exactly super-appealing on those scores... but of course you're not meant to be thinking about any of that. The "real" question is, do you get to have awesome Indiana Jones-type adventures and fly mighty ships from the depths of the sea into the farthest reaches of space? Do you get to hang with super-geniuses who look like models and maybe overhear Karl Urban being excellently curmudgeonly if you're in the right place at the right time? Do you maybe get to Beat Death or just zap between star systems with "transwarp beaming" if you wander into the correct script? All good.

Still. That's suspending a sh*t-ton of disbelief. Beyond is the first of these movies where Starfleet doesn't behave in any particularly self-evidently silly way, and would I join that Starfleet? Maybe. Yeah, probably. But admittedly I don't have a super-concrete reason for saying that.

 

Yeppers! Where do I sign up?

 

Yes! I would

 

I'd love to live in Trek's world, but join Starfleet? Nah.

 

I wouldn't join Starfleet in any universe.

 

Sure, why not?

 

The original Star Trek had multiple episodes where the off-screen death toll had to be in the hundreds of millions or billions. Nothing different about the Abramsverse there.

In The Wrath of Khan, we watched multiple people get turned into human torches and vaporized by phaser fire. Seems like getting blown into space would be the more peaceful way to go.

 

I want to raise a family, so no. No.

 

Sure. Fewer meetings, more spacejumping... Why not?

 

Off the top of my head, TOS had red shirts:

• Get their faces removed, leaving them to suffocate
• Get turned into mineral cubes, which are then crushed.

• Eaten by a doomsday machine
• Eaten by vampires
• Eaten by gas vampires
• Eaten by Gorn
• Eaten by giant amoeba
• Ripped to pieces by were cats
• Gutted by an alien ghost
• Crushed by rocks
• Crushed by Ruk
• Tortured to death by the agony booth
• Tortured to death with the neural neutraliser
• Tortured to death in a pressure chamber
• Tortured to death by Zetarians
• Burned to death by Horta
• Burned to death in disintegration chambers
• Turned into lizards. (TOS totally did it first)
• Die of painful space disease by the hearse loads

Screw the prime Trek verse and its horrifying maze of cruel and unusual death. Give me the Nuverses increased chances of getting blown out into space, shot to death, or falling off high ledges any day!

 

I would, get myself a nice blue shirt and work in a lab somewhere in the saucer out of the way.

 

Why wouldn't I join? I can be an officer in 4 years and Captain of my own ship in 8! If I'm really lucky I can Captain. The flagship in 3 years...

 

Looking at the crew roster for the USS Franklin at the end of Beyond, I asked myself: "Was it a requirement that you be 'hot' in order to be on the crew?"

Of course, the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise crew is good-looking, including some of the background extras, or crew that have bit parts.

 

Well, when you put it that way....

As to the OP's question, yes I would join.

 

I'd wear command gold in any universe, even if command gold happens to be really green.

 

Plus you got Neural Parasites, jumped up space probes. Giant Space Amoebas and Doomsday Machines wiping out entire planets and Solar Systems.
McCoy was right. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence