Starfleet is a Space Navy (military fleet)

[Crazy Eddie]

And yet, the very idea of a peace treaty with the Klingons made many of Starfleet's top brass think "oh, there's no need for Starfleet anymore, is there?"

Well, it inspired a couple a hawkish bag of dicks to make a sarcastic remark about "mothballing the Starfleet" and also inspired Admiral Cartwright to go on a racist tirade.

But as I've explained with ever waning patience a thousand times on this board, the decomissioning of SHIPS was never even presented as an option. Hawkish sarcasm is hawkish.

 

[CorporalClegg]

It's sort of like how they say the Federation isn't a currency-based economy within a non-scarcity society even though they're always running out of shit and "paying" for stuff.

Or how humans are "better" and "above petty disagreements" even though Starfleet and the Federation is full of assholes and douchebags.

It all comes from the same well of pretentious Kool-Aid bullshit.

 

[Baxten]

And Starfleet's claim is believable, seeing how they know the nature of their own organization.

Mark Twain, on the other hand, only learned of Starfleet's existence five minutes ago. What the fuck does HE know?

Still doesn't change the point. Others made similar claims in the past, while operating "gunboats" for colonial conquest. Starfleet ships are heavily armed.

Yes, because the CARDASSIAN CIVILIANS killing people in the DMZ are, by definition, engaging in paramilitary action. This may be just as true of the Maquis (he doesn't say as much, but it could be).

None of which tells us anything about the nature of Starfleet, whom the Cardassians still never refer to as the "Federation Military" despite having multiple opportunities to do so.

Read carefully:

GUL EVEK: The fact that my ship was attacked suggests that your efforts have met with limited success. They came at us with photon torpedoes and type eight phasers. Tell me, Captain, how do you suppose that a group of civilians [Maquis] acquired such weaponry?
PICARD: I can assure you it was not through official channels.
GUL EVEK: So you don't think the fact that some of the Maquis are former Starfleet officers has anything to do with it?
PICARD: Starfleet does not condone the Maquis' actions in the Demilitarised Zone any more than your government would condone the paramilitary actions of Cardassian civilians.​

Picard is comparing the Maquis' actions to paramilitary actions and does not condone them. Starfleet has JAG and court-martial, which paramilitaries do not have. Not to mention numerous military references in the original post.

Of course not. They're paramilitaries.

Not with JAG and court-martial: that makes Starfleet a military by definition.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I never understood the insistence on calling it one, or the passionate reaction by people who insist that it is.

I can't speak for me, but I just don't like it from a creative standpoint. The [character's ]instance that it isn't always feels insincere and inconstant and only there when the need to maintain the pretense arises. It comes from beyond the fourth wall.

If Starfleet and the characters really self-identify as not being a military then, hey, who am I to argue? Except they only seem to do so when it suits the creative agenda. The rest of the time, the characters act as though they're okay with Starfleet being a military.

 

[Baxten]

... in the United States in the 21st century.

The Federation is the not the United States.


It is in Stafleet.

Not only in the United States.

Star Trek is being shown in the present and uses the language of the present to communicate with the audience. No one can guarantee that the terms JAG and court-martial will change in the future. Since Star Trek failed to come up with new original terms, it has to respect the current definition. Poorly written fiction cannot redefine the language.

But as I've explained with ever waning patience a thousand times on this board, the decomissioning of SHIPS was never even presented as an option. Hawkish sarcasm is hawkish.

Read carefully, again:

MILITARY AIDE: Bill, are we talking about mothballing the Starfleet? [This was in addition to Spock's preceding statement]
C in C: I'm sure that our exploration and scientific programs would be unaffected, Captain, but...​

 

[GabyBee]

I've never bought the "If it quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck..." line of reasoning. In fact, I find it to be a quite lazy way to interpret the world. "If it quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, then of course it's a duck... Or maybe a goose. Or perhaps a platypus."

Just because something at times "acts like" something we have in 21st contemporary Western society doesn't mean that it is automatically identifiable as that thing. Star Trek is set hundreds of years in the future. Go back in time an equivalent number of years, and the entire notion of what comprised a military was completely different. Just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean that it is under any obligation to do so. It's science fiction for a reason.

I've seen the notion of the Federation's economy being devoid of currency brought up as another relic of the "Kool Aid" philosophy Gene Roddenberry championed. I have a degree in economics. Believe me, I've tried to rationalize how such an economy might function, and it makes my brain hurt. But that doesn't mean that I discard it as an element of Star Trek's universe. They say they don't require currency in the Federation numerous times, and it is reinforced across just about every series and film. It doesn't have to make 100% sense for me to enjoy it. It's a fictional universe. I accept what the people living in that universe say about it, because they are the ones living in it, not me.

It's kind of like trying to argue with Don Quixote about whether or not those things up on the hill are windmills, or if they are - as he believes them to be - giants. Yeah, we all know that they're windmills. But Don Quixote says that they are not, and therein lies the story.

 

[Prax]

It's a large carnivorous transport mechanism used by the Fremen of Arakis.

I feel obliged at this time to point out that, technically, the Fremen are not a military organization

Thank you, sir

Of course it is. 90% of their operations are geared towards scientific research and exploration, and 90% of their time in the field is of a scientific nature.

Are you sure about that?

 

[The Wormhole]

The simple truth of the matter is that Starfleet of TOS was a military. TOS is more or less, the US Navy in space. Roddenberry himself even got after other writers regarding military accuracy. TMP downplayed Starfleet's military side mostly because the military wasn't very popular in the US of the 1970s because of Vietnam, and then Roddenberry outright said Starfleet wasn't a military during production of TWOK so he could discredit Harve Bennett and Nick Meyer. Curiously enough, Starfleet is described as a military in a Roddenberry-written script from TNG season one, despite the fact that at this point he pretty much considered military a dirty word, but then came Picard's line in Peak Performance and since then no one wants to call Starfleet a military because it would violate "Gene's vision." Despite the fact that fandom disregards the "no money" stuff because "that doesn't make sense." Roddenberry also said humans don't practice religion anymore in the 24th century, and the show itself ignored that even while Roddenberry was still living.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Still doesn't change the point. Others made similar claims in the past

And their claims were lies.

Starfleet's aren't.

Picard is comparing the Maquis' actions to paramilitary actions and does not condone them.

Still don't see what this changes, since Picard never compares the Maquis to Starfleet.

Starfleet has JAG and court-martial, which paramilitaries do not have.

Except when they do.

Not with JAG and court-martial: that makes Starfleet a military by definition.

Well, no, it's a paramilitary that has its own JAG and the ability to conduct a courts martial.

 

[GabyBee]

Starfleet is described as a military in a Roddenberry-written script from TNG season one

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I can't speak for me, but I just don't like it from a creative standpoint. The [character's ]instance that it isn't always feels insincere and inconstant and only there when the need to maintain the pretense arises. It comes from beyond the fourth wall.

If Starfleet and the characters really self-identify as not being a military then, hey, who am I to argue? Except they only seem to do so when it suits the creative agenda. The rest of the time, the characters act as though they're okay with Starfleet being a military.

That's because it's a paramilitary. They know they have a combat role, it's just that the combat role isn't their primary function.

 

[Baxten]

If Klingons, according to Memory Alpha: Depicting Klingons, were, conceptually, based on "space communists" against "US democracy" (LOL!), what does that make Starfleet if not an allusion to the US military or, alternatively, NATO in space? Moreover, such depiction of Klingons was confirmed by the people who worked on Star Trek.

If anything, this tells us that Star Trek is propaganda, and the "non-military" lines are meant to downplay Starfleet's militarism and ulterior motives to the unsuspecting audience.

"Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just" ~ U.S. national anthem.

I don't know of any conquerors who didn't think that their cause was "just".

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Are you sure about that?

Yes.

The simple truth of the matter is that Starfleet of TOS was a military.

And then they retconned it. So now it's not.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Who says the Federation has to have a military?

Because any state without the means to defend itself, will cease to exist.

 

[GabyBee]

Because any state without the means to defend itself, will cease to exist.

Costa Rica.

 

[The Wormhole]

From Hide and Q:

PICARD: You interfered with our Farpoint mission. You threatened to convict us as ignorant savages, if, while dealing with a powerful and complex life forms, we made the slightest mistake, and when that didn't happen
Q: The Q became interested in you. Does no one here understand your incredible good fortune? Seized my vessel. These are the complaints of a closed mind too accustomed to military privileges.

This episode was written by Roddenberry himself.

 

[GabyBee]

Yes, Q mocking Picard is a good standard for how to define Starfleet and its mission...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Costa Rica.

Only because its enemies haven't decided to attack it (yet). Once they do, Costa Rica will wish it had a military. Because who - or what - else, will defend it?

 

[GabyBee]

Regardless, we're not talking about 21st Century Earth. We're talking about a fictional universe hundreds of years in the future. Just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it is under any obligation to do so.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If Klingons, according to Memory Alpha: Depicting Klingons, were, conceptually, based on "space communists" against "US democracy" (LOL!), what does that make Starfleet if not an allusion to the US military or, alternatively, NATO in space?

It makes it Starfleet. Why would you assume otherwise?

Put it this way: Quark is basically a Space Jew... so what exactly does that make Odo? A Space Catholic? A space neonazi?

Space pope?

If anything, this tells us that Star Trek is propaganda, and the "non-military" lines are meant to downplay Starfleet's militarism and ulterior motives to the unsuspecting audience.

That or the Federation is legally barred from maintaining a standing military and instead farms out that duty to various other agencies that can be deputized in time of need. You could call that "propaganda" but it has certain advantages in terms of diplomacy. The biggest of which is that nobody can actually declare war on you when one of your ships trespasses on their territory for scientific research purposes. "Calm down, dude, that's not an invasion. Starfleet isn't our military, they're our scientists!"

"Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just" ~ U.S. national anthem.

The Federation, which is not the United States, doesn't have a national anthem.

I don't know of any conquerors who didn't think that their cause was "just".

Have you tried asking literally any German who was still alive after 1946?