Well, yes, whether Starfleet is a military or not is one of the greatest arguments in fandom with contradictory canonical evidence supporting both sides of the argument throughout the franchise. Lower Decks even made a joke on the matter.
Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread
- Thread starter NewHeavensNewEarth
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Yes, because War Heroes have never been shown dealing with the trauma of their military experiences - if you're not perfect, you CAN'T be a War Hero...oh, wait...
It also provides fruit smoothies for a job well done.
And a massage.
The special kind.
I think the best way to look at Starfleet is it's just a big NGO within the Federation which also happens to do a lot of defensive work. I say this because it really does seem to be a separate but related organization to the UFP. It predates the Federation, after all (which is why it exists in ENT), and we know other Federation powers like the Vulcans maintain their own training academies and fleets.
This also gets around the question of why 90%+ of Starfleet officers we see are human. The Federation itself is not that human dominated, but Starfleet is, because Starfleet Academy is on Earth.
I think also their might just literally be more humans in the Federation than other aliens. Not only are humans still on Earth but they have spread across the Galaxy through colonies and those living on ships and also in alien cultures. While I am sure other aliens in the Federation have their share of colonies as well I am thinking they must not be in the numbers that humans have them.
Humans want to explore. Few other races have demonstrated that.
True - really only the Vulcans showed any interest in expanding their knowledge other than humans. The other founding and follow-on members of the Federation seemed more focused in preserving their own interests, particularly the Andorians and Tellarites.
As Discovery showed, even when Earth withdrew from the Federation it was still humanity that led Starfleet.
I'd add the Denobulans to that list of species who wanted to share their knowledge with other worlds, but yeah, seems a lot of the early members of the Federation were pretty sheltered and territorial when it came to actual claimed space and their technology and intelligence findings.
Western Humans are nosy bastards
But that is what exploration is all about. Can't learn about the Galaxy just kicking back on Earth and using ones ships to guard the space borders. You got to go out their and see what is out their.
Starfleet is a military in the same way that humans are animals.
I agree but they also do see themselves as not being military since several characters have claimed it isn't a military. I think they just look at the military aspects of Starfleet as a secondary function to the exploring part.
That does seem to be a popular Go To in this Argument, but it makes absolutely no sense at all. If defense really were "secondary" or even if Starfleet personnel considered it so, then whenever the Federation is attacked we'd have situations where Starfleet would go "No, not dealing with that today. Today we're exploring. We'll deal with the Borg invasion if there's time later on."
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