Starfleet Enlisted Basic Training

[Dingo]

I know in the canon series they go on and on about where Starfleet Academy is. But where would the Enlisted personnel for Starfleet train at? In a fanfiction of mine I intend to tackle it. I'm thinking maybe somewhere in San Francisco or San Diego in California as well for logistical reasons.

Also, how long do you think it lasts and what basic skills would it probably emphasize? I assume obvious starship living and survival skills would be taught and enlistees would be separated into units based on their field of work after graduation from Basic. Any thoughts?

 

[captcalhoun]

why California? there's a whole planet to choose from. My fan-fic featured Spec Ops officers being trained at the old SAS barracks at Hereford, England.

hell, you could even have them training at a facility off-Earth...

 

[The_Beef]

I believe there was a reference in Enterprise to Earth's Starfleet doing survival training in Australia. Seems like a reasonable location: plenty of space and grueling terrain to toughen the trainees.

 

[The Badger]

Given the size of the Federation, and the (presumed) fact that there will be a LOT more enlisted than officers, I think it most likely that there will be numerous facilities through out the UFP. Whilst a single Academy for officers may be practical, I can't imagine it makes much sense to cart tens of thousands of new recruits to one location just to learn the essentials.

 

[GMac]

There'd likely be more than one different location on Earth for starters - perhaps in Europe or the Far East/Australia in addition to one somewhere in North America. Cape Canaveral would be one possibility, assuming there's still some sort of space facility there in the 24th century....

GM

 

[The Wormhole]

Enlisted training probably also takes place in San Francisco. After all, in The Drumhead, Simon Tarses said he would observe the cadets going through their exercises when he was going through his training.

 

[Dingo]

Thanks for the inputs, guys, I think I might go with the multiple locations on Earth idea. One in San Francisco, obviously, and another in Australia. The US Army Basic Training posts are dependent on a soldier's military specialty (i.e. Infantry soldiers train at Ft. Benning for Basic and AIT (Advanced Individual Training)). Perhaps the Enlisted Security Force Basic Training is in Australia?

 

[Mysterion]

With transporters being so common, the whole planet Earth would be of practical use.

Jungle traiing in southeast Asia, cold weather training in Antarctica, desert training in Australia, etc. Probably off to Luna for training in a vacuum, and Spacedock for zero-G training.

 

[Timo]

And no doubt exercises elsewhere in the Sol system, for cheap zero gee (although they could do that on Earth's surface as well, with their gravity manipulation technology) and so forth.

On the other hand, our foremost enlisted character O'Brien has made references to things he learned back at the Academy. Since he supposedly didn't actually attend the officer training curriculum at the Academy, we might need to interpret these references as indicating that O'Brien trained at the Academy grounds. And it's quite possible that officer and enlisted training does involve the same facilities to some degree - at least some of the ceremonial halls at San Francisco if nothing else.

Indeed, one might think that all Starfleet training would be extensively dispersed across the Federation, since modern tech should allow for that. But it isn't: all the officers we meet seem to have studied at San Francisco. Perhaps this is done for an esprit de corps reason: the officers will be more unified in comradeship and political view if all of them are trained at the same location.

Whether enlisted folks would receive the same consideration is unknown. In theory, Starfleet could easily have a million-student campus for that purpose (some of today's universities have easily over a million students), and might in fact own or operate most of the (former?) city of San Francisco as such a campus.

Timo Saloniemi