I haven't. Still one of my favorite shows of all time. The AI (Uraei/Control) that created it decided to get rid of Thirty-One, opting instead and use a much lighter hand to achieve its long-term goals. Thirty-One is indeed dead in the Litverse, post-2386. Small spec ops units are commanded by Captains and Majors. For example, you can't even enter selection for MARSOC until you're at least a Captain, on the commissioned side, or a Coproral on the enlisted side.
I've wondered recently if a better default term for the Starfleet "ground forces" might be Pioneers rather than Marines. As pioneer has the dual meaning of combat soldier skilled in "no-war" tasks but also links them also being explorers and trailblazers. Assualt Pioneer (from Wikipedia): an infantry soldier who is responsible for: The construction of tools for infantry soldiers to cross natural and man-made obstacles as well as breaching of enemy fortifications; Supervising the construction of field defensive works such as bunkers, support weapon firing positions, etc.,; The use of demolitions, land mines and booby traps, as well as their clearance; and Performing of all other normal infantry duties as the situation requires Pioneer (from Wikipedia): The word "pioneer" originates with the Middle French pionnier (originally, a foot soldier, or soldier involved in digging trenches), from the same root as peon or pawn.[1] In the English language, the term independently evolved a sense of being an innovator or trailblazer.[1] As early as 1664, Englishman John Evelyn used the term with a self-effacing "workman" meaning when he wrote in his treatise on planting, Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees: "I speak now in relation to the Royal Society, not my self, who am but a Servant of it only and a Pioneer in the Works".[2]
I do wonder what it is that MACOs do most of the time, what their intended purpose is. While they seem to receive off Earth training, what is it that they do with it, who are they intended to "assault?" They're not a standard fixture on starships. Despite what is said, MACO's would make sense if there were still military actions taking place on Earth and other world in our star system. They'd come in handy for suppressing independence minded colonists. Are they in fact under Earth-gov, or were they on loan from a single country's well heeled military to starfleet? In a conversation between Sato and Reed, in reference to the MACO's they were called "the best," suggesting that they're not the only organization of their kind. They're never really gone ... as long as we remember them.
I've always assumed that the MACOs as a whole are (the elite of ) a refined and improved annalogue of the UN Peacekeepers (temporary secondment international forces) or perhaps the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps/Eurocorps (joint permenant international forces).
Okay, so who do they fight? Humans. Aliens. Terrorists. Protesters. The Martian Independence Movement. The Alpha Centauri Colonies Rebel Alliance.
Enterprise tried to claim the MACOs had never seen any combat prior to the Xindi thing. Indeed, Lt. Reed's argument for Starfleet in the Starfleet VS MACOs spat between he and Major Hayes was that he and his security team had two years worth of actual combat experience against aliens while the MACOs have only done training in simulators on Earth. The novels ignored this and had them providing security and defense for colonies where they have indeed faced pirate, aliens and alien pirates in combat.
While technically Reed's argument is canon I would argue that it fails the "smell test" as Archer counters that their "tactics and technology are two, three years beyond Starfleet's" so at worst they have had the luxury of taking in reports (probably from many sources, rather than just NX-01) and spending the time to 'wargame' far more tactics and countermeasures than Reed's Armory team could possibly have the time or expertise to do 'on the fly' Also, given that Enterprise takes place during the period were 'post-scarcity' hasn't really bedded in yet, I would argue that establishing an entire service that only trains in simulators and is never deployed 'in anger' would be totally pointless and a political non-starter. Therefore, logically the MACOs must have been intended to be used for something (even if for whatever reason they hadn't been to that point) and colony and convoy defense, search and rescue and security would seem to be a reasonable intended use for them.
A hypothesis. The MACO were a relatively new creation, composed of trained volunteers from various existing militaries. The Royal Navy still existed, so other military's do too. Major Hayes, based on the actor's age, was in his late forties. If the MACO had only existed a half dozen years. Hayes went though a military academy after high school, received a officer's commission in his early twenties, and served in a nation's military (let's say Canada's) until his early forties. Then as a captain retired, and entered the MACO, as a captain. By ENT's third season he was a major. So while the MACO strictly speaking haven't seen combat, the personal could have combat experience prior to entering the MACO. Hayes. 2105 Born in the Dominion of Canada 2133 (age 18) enters the Royal Military College of Canada 2137 (age 22) commission as a Second Lieutenant, Unified Canadian Armed Forces. Serve in land and space forces including a tour aboard a Canadian starship. 2147 (age 42) retires from Canadian military as a Captain 2047 (age 42) joins newly created MACO as a Captain 2149 (age 44) promoted to Major 2153 (age 48) command of special detachment, assigned to NX-01
Hayes was definitely American, he attended Westpoint. Indeed, it seems more likely to me that the MACOs are actually part of the US military. Their personnel attend American military academies, the have bases in the US cities like Atlanta, and the only two MACOs played by non-American actors have backstories which do firmly establish them to be American.
IMO if the intent was for them to be exclusively American, then I don't see any reason why they would have invented a new name for them rather than referring identifying as Force Recon or SEALs Therefore IMO it's more likely they are like Earth Starfleet, they more like the Ryanverse's RAINBOW, an international American-led military group that nonetheless recruits operators from other countries as needed.
I came up with what I think is a good name (and something I fully intend to make use of): Starfleet Expeditionary Corps. Sounds much more Federation-like than "Marine", and even fits in with the whole Starfleet Deep Space Exploratory Corps or Starfleet Scientific Corps kind of thing. Not to mention other species would have no idea it's a direct call-back to ancient military branches, if they didn't have an intimate knowledge of bygone eras of Earth military history. They would, of course, be the direct Federation successor to United Earth's MACO.
Not bad. Although at the risk of being nit-picky it should be the Expeditionary Corps unless you're deliberately using a different spelling.
Let's not confuse the MACO with the military. This would be like claiming that the Rangers are the US Army - and thus asking all sorts of wrong questions such as who defended the United States before 1942. Similarly to the Rangers case, something named "the MACO" may in fact have existed before the de facto founding of the MACO force we see, or then something by a completely different name may have served the purpose. But as opposed to the Rangers case, the name itself is telling: this is just a Command within the Military (apparently the Assault Command, which indeed might be a nice-to-have, little-used component of the whole), and a branch within that Command (apparently the Operations branch, which sounds nicely hands-on but suggests there's lots of the other sort of work in the Military). And it is only at this point that we get to the question of what role the men and women we see serves within the MACO. The lack of combat experience discussed above pertains specifically to (certain of?) the men and women in Hayes' team. They may have other merits that make them far more useful than combat veterans, just like e.g. the Crimean War might have gone much better for the British had they left their combat veterans and their outdated ideas home. (And that was against a known quantity; the Xindi would be quite a bit more alien than the Russians, as already evidenced by their opening moves.) Are they all Americans? At this point of the timeline, the concept of "American" might still exist; it doesn't appear to play any role in the later eras, save for Kirk more or less accidentally knowing a thing or two about 19th century United States and using the knowledge to extricate himself from an illusion that involved 19th century Americana in the first place only because Kirk had that knowledge. (Contrast that to the concept of "French", which certain characters still appear to embrace centuries later.) None of them appear to fight for their national flag, though. Heck, none even shout "Remember Disney World!" or otherwise consider themselves especially wronged by the Xindi among the peoples of Earth. Would the Military choose to send a "geographically compact" team to fight in this mission? The concept goes in and out and in and out of fashion in history so often that it might warrant an R rating. Perhaps somebody at some level of deciding wanted to make sure the mission wasn't compromised by the Singaporean shooting the Belgian in the back for that nasty incident in 2023 or whatever - the assumption being that this would have been self-admitted paranoia more than an actual practical concern, but with so much at stake, playing safe would be a good idea anyway. And then somebody else at some other level decided to risk interservices rivalry anyway. Good thing it only kept Phlox busy with dermal regeneration rather than the signing of death certificates. Timo Saloniemi
Well I did begin with "a hypothesis." There are recurring statements on this board that Star Trek is too American, and so I reinvented Hayes as a different nationality. I was aware that Hayes went to West Point, not that that automatically would make him American. Did we ever learn where he was born? Personally I don't recall anything directly that said that Starfleet of ENT wasn't a primarily American organization, modern day US Navy ships often include foreign naval officers. No, let's do exactly that. Sending a pre-existing team, who are all practiced in the same techniques and weapons makes more sense than assembling (in a short period of time) a group of select soldiers from "non-geographically compact" regions of the Earth. Soldier who would then require weeks or months of interaction to form into a cohesive unit.
Wouldn't this automatically make him American today? Regardless of where he was born, wouldn't citizenship be a major entry requirement? Then again, Nog attended Starfleet Academy. Did this mean he was a Federation citizen at that point? Did he remain a citizen of the Ferengi Alliance (assuming such a concept exists in that civilization)? Why? I mean, what advantage is there in doing such a silly thing? Why should a geographically diverse group be ad hoc? Why wouldn't they have had months or years of interaction, being part of this cohesive unit in the multinational force? Timo Saloniemi