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Star Trek: Academy

I don't recall ever hearing about any other one in any episode or film except the one in San Francisco.

I don't recall ever hearing about Spocks Sister or Starships with Jump-Drives in any episode or film. Yet, here we are. :P

Having branch campuses on other planets is nothing canon of course. It's just something that makes sense to me. We saw very large fleets in DS9. I'd think that Starfleet has roughly 2000-3000 Ships in Service at that time + Starbases/Outposts, etc. Even if they are mostly staffed by noncoms (60-70 Percent?), they would still need a lot of officers. The (Earth-)Academy is not that big. Even with underground facilities, I think they can house maybe 4000 students per year with, let's say, 600~ graduates each year? I don't think that's enough.
 
Whilst the idea of an Academy series is interesting they're going to have to give it some serious thought and work, since cadets won't be off on starships for years saving the galaxy but on Earth studying and training, so the main focus of the series will be the characters, their tales and dynamics, which could just descend into teeny angst drama.
^^^^^^ This. Next idea, please...
 
I don't think it's canonical that the Republic was a Connie.

According to "TOS only" logic then the Republic must be a Connie as it is refered to as a "United (Federation of Planets?) Starship" a term otherwise used only for "Starship-class" vessels (which were retroactively IDed as "Constitution-class". This was potentially the logic used by Okuda when he ID'd the Republic as one of the Enterprise's sister ships.
 
According to "TOS only" logic then the Republic must be a Connie as it is refered to as a "United (Federation of Planets?) Starship" a term otherwise used only for "Starship-class" vessels (which were retroactively IDed as "Constitution-class". This was potentially the logic used by Okuda when he ID'd the Republic as one of the Enterprise's sister ships.
Meh. The movies and spin-off series were thankfully less anal and referred to myriad classes as starships. There's literally no reason to expect that any future series will call only Connies "starships" and other classes... something else. Much less DISCO, which has already committed the apparently unforgivable sin of calling Shenzhou a starship, and lots of other ships too. Good for DISCO.
 
Starfleet Academy's average starting age might be 21 plus in human years, since any adult can join.
I like the idea of different campus around the Federation, unless the whole of San Francisco is controlled by Starfleet, cos the city is too damn small.
 
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Except every reference we have to the Academy bar one (NuKirk maybe) suggests that SA is primarily an undergraduate program that you join at 18-19 at the latest (Worf appears to have fast-tracked in three years (16-19), Wesley also applied at 16, Picard applied at 17)
 
Except every reference we have to the Academy bar one (NuKirk maybe) suggests that SA is primarily an undergraduate program that you join at 18-19 at the latest (Worf appears to have fast-tracked in three years (16-19), Wesley also applied at 16, Picard applied at 17)
Sure in RL most students start undergraduate programmes at 18 or so but consider this is the future where humans live longer and non humans (who might age differently), are free to join. Using Starfleet as a second career choice might be a popular option for humans who don't work for money.
It is implied Prime McCoy and Crusher joined as adults, they might represent a significant minority. NuMcCoy, Uhura and Sulu were young adults in their mid twenties, early thirties (McCoy) when they graduated in 2258.
 
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Beverly Crusher was ~28 when she joined Starfleet 'active service' interning under Dalen Quaice, given that medical school takes at least six years, there's not much scope for a 'previous career' there.

Prime!McCoy's first known off-world mission (almost certainly for Starfleet) was when he was 24 (by contrast Kelvin!McCoy didn't join Starfleet until about 4 years later) which again is consistent him joining Starfleet after graduating UMiss.

Information on Uhura and Sulu is limited at best, the only datapoint for Uhura (from the Chronology) would suggest that she was in her mid 20s during TOS s1 and as young as 16 during the Riverside Bar scene (although it's probably desirable to push that to 29-30 during TOS and 21 at the Riverside Bar. No sourced on Sulu at all.
 
So already in-canon we have ages that vary wildly for Academy students. So on this show they can make it a teen-drama, twenty-something drama, or something in between.
 
There's probably some equivalent of an OCTS as well as the Academy for the younger members. The engineers apparently go somewhere else.
 
You got to remember that Starfleet Academy is for people who want to serve in Starfleet. Even though it's tons bigger and spread further than any fighting/exploring force we have now, there are tons of civilians doing in a civilian setting what Fleeters do in a Fleet setting, all over the place.

So there's a lot more professionals trained elsewhere initially who decide to join Starfleet and learn the things they weren't taught in their civilian/other military school.
 
I think it's extremely short sighted to assume there aren't a wealth of story opportunities with this format...if done well.

It would also be practical from a budget perspective as a fill-in while the more expensive headlining DSC is on hiatus.
 
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