Starfleet or the star fleet?

[MAGolding]

Then there's "Tomorrow is Yesterday" where both Starfleet and UESPA make an appearance. The former is the party Kirk wants to contact, but he claims to the 20th century barbarian that UESPA is "our authority". Difficult to see what the writers were thinking there - one of the organizations being subjugate to another? Kirk lying about UESPA? Starfleet being in charge of navigation hazards (the reason Kirk wants to contact them) and UESPA in charge of space probing (as per the name)?

Timo Saloniemi

"Tomorrow is Yesterday":

KIRK: This is the Captain. Damage control parties on all decks, check in. All departments tie in with the record computer. Report casualties and operational readiness to the First Officer. Kirk out. Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet Control. I want them alerted to the position of that black star that's in the area of Starbase 9.

CHRISTOPHER: Must have taken quite a lot to build a ship like this.
KIRK: There are only twelve like it in the fleet.
CHRISTOPHER: I see. Did the Navy
KIRK: We're a combined service, Captain. Our authority is the United Earth Space Probe Agency.

So Starfleet Control is some real organization Kirk ordered Uhura to contact.

I sort of assumed that if Kirk is being truthful with Christoper that the United Earth Space Probe Agency is the Earth based political agency that recruits Earth humans to serve in Starfleet and negotiates the terms and conditions and authorizes their service in Starfleet.

Could Kirk have been lying to Christopher?

In "Charlie X":

Captain's Log, star date 1535.8. UESPA headquarters notified of the mysterious loss of science probe vessel Antares.

This indicates that UESPA is as real in "Charlie X" as Starfleet Control is in "Tomorrow is Yesterday".

In "The Cage" some crewmen wear an emblem with an image of Earth, indicating membership in UESPA, and in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" a similar empblem is seen on a cup.

Therefore I deduce that up until the first season, and maybe later, the Enterprise crew were members of both the Earth UESPA and the Federation Starfleet, just as members of the National Guard in the USA are under both state and federal authority.

 

[Timo]

The modern novels go with Christopher Bennett's rationalization where UESPA is Earth's (sole) contribution to the joint Starfleet of the early Federation, while the Imperial Guard is the (sole) Andorian contribution etc. These also have different areas of responsibility, so that UESPA indeed probes around, while the Guard doesn't stoop to such and takes care of the straightforward fighting instead.

Some writers choose to tie this stuff to the variety of insignia in TOS, so that anybody wearing the arrowhead works for the UESPA part of Starfleet, while Matt Decker actually worked for the Imperial Guard part of said. Or at least the insignia indicate these classic areas of responsibility even if the original sub-organizations have been formally forgotten.

Whether any of that works well in the onscreen context is debatable. I have my reservations about the very concept: surely the Andorian space forces contain more than just their Imperial Guard (which sounds like an elite unit). And surely any division of labor would be futile if not in Bennett's early days yet (he has the various ships operate across short ranges and support each other) then certainly by the time of TOS and its spectrum of insignia (where a single starship has to do it all, most of the time).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

I wonder why they had not got all their socks in the drawer when they first put their bible together? I mean The Federation wasn't mentioned before Return of The Archons (unless you watch the show in a varying order) Starfleet much later too! Can't remember exactly when but it was in use for Errand of Mercy and A Taste of Armageddon!
JB

 

[Timo]

A lot of this would probably initially have been assumed to be a no-brainer: Kirk is from Earth and serves Earth's interests, and if his organization has a name, it's not one that would mean anything to these space aliens Kirk introduces himself to.

"Starfleet" isn't much of a name, either - more like a descriptive term, with the buzzword "star" added to the obvious "fleet" because, well, doh.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

I'd say it was Starfleet rather than Star Fleet but that's me I guess!
JB