It's a guy in protective gear.
I know, everyone in Star Trek should do everything, no matter how potentially dangerous, in pajamas. By having this character use protective gear, Abrams is raping my childhood.
The Robo-cop
- Thread starter Crewman47
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It's a guy in protective gear.
I know, everyone in Star Trek should do everything, no matter how potentially dangerous, in pajamas. By having this character use protective gear, Abrams is raping my childhood.
Why would it be much more efficient to hire a human? We are talking the 23rd century here, aliens are all over Earth. Maybe one decided to join the police force.
Presumably because he is a local. Federation citizens can live where they want to.
Anyway...the cop doesn't walk like a robot, doesn't really talk like one either, it's just the facemask that would tend to indicate otherwise. I mean, why would a human need that on Earth? I'd venture a guess that the air in rural Iowa is not that hard to breathe.
Or, that hover bike is potentially fast enough that it's necessary for him to wear a breathing mask.
It's always necessary to have civilian police officers. Police are necessary for more than just catching criminals.
Having a quasi-military organisation like Starfleet as a police force is dangerous.
Why? Regardless of what sort of badge that police officer wears, he's bowing to the same government as Starfleet, and enforcing the same laws. Why couldn't Starfleet have some of its folks do community patrol, while others do starship combat, and yet others do accounting, and yet others cook and serve handmade VIP meals for those occasions that warrant the illogical effort?
It's only dangerous to have the military do the policing if the military does it with armored cars and assassination drones, and enforces a different set of laws than a civilian police force would. Otherwise, there is no difference.
Timo Saloniemi
In Starfleet's case, I would not be so worried, but from a modern day perspective, people do not want to see troops on the streets, tanks on every street corner.
OTOH, if this particular biker cop wore a US Army badge as part of his gear, that wouldn't really turn him into a more sinister figure, now would it? So a Starfleet badge probably wouldn't hurt, either.
I wonder about the badge thing. It's nice to have the cop's serial number right on his face: he's anonymous (in addition to being protected from the elements, which is probably the main reason for the mask), but he's still fully accountable. But the organization he represents seems to hide in the shadows...
Timo Saloniemi
I wonder about the badge thing. It's nice to have the cop's serial number right on his face: he's anonymous (in addition to being protected from the elements, which is probably the main reason for the mask), but he's still fully accountable. But the organization he represents seems to hide in the shadows...
Timo Saloniemi
Hunh? What makes you believe that a police force operated by a military organization would require armored fighting vehicles and troops dressed for combat?
Municipal police forces have SWAT gear and armored vehicles but you don't see this hardware rolled out for things like traffic control or most public safety duties.
It is Starfleet, not highway patrol. I'm sure that Starfleet personnel have better things to do than write speeding tickets.
Oh, and it obviously is a guy with a mask.
As said, they already cook meals, scrub plasma conduits, monitor subspace transmissions, and operate transporter commuting stations. Why would law enforcement be "beneath" them?
The same sort of people would be interested in recruiting for the two jobs, I'd think: those with a fascination with wielding authority for the good of the society, even when this would mostly entail doing menial work.
Timo Saloniemi
Starfleet is a space navy, they do stuff in space. You don't see US navy personnel writing traffic tickets either. I'd go so far and say that there is "Earth Army" separate of Starfleet as well.
But we have never seen one. Indeed, we have seen people in Starfleet uniforms perform policing studies in ST3, and in VOY "Non Sequitur" - but we have never seen any non-Starfleet personnel perform policing duties there. Nor have we seen a separate organization defend Earth's surface, but we have seen Starfleet do so, in DS9 "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost".
Starfleet is, as per Kirk's words, a "combined service". What it combines remains open to debate. If we had one in the US today, would it merge Army, Navy and Air Force, the way the Canadians briefly merged theirs? Or would it also encompass the Coast Guard, the Texas Rangers, the assorted paramilitary forces of organizations such as Department of Forestry, and run the police departments, the fire departments and the waste management systems of the cities? We don't know for sure.
Really, it would never mean sending a starship captain to defuse a drunken riot in the local pub. Many a nation (diverse ones, such as Russia/USSR and Italy or France) operates its police forces under the Department of Defense, under the classic "militia" or "gendarmerie" titles. These people are trained police officers, not trained infantrymen, just like starship engineers are trained differently from starship helmsmen or science officers or medics.
Timo Saloniemi
Starfleet is, as per Kirk's words, a "combined service". What it combines remains open to debate. If we had one in the US today, would it merge Army, Navy and Air Force, the way the Canadians briefly merged theirs? Or would it also encompass the Coast Guard, the Texas Rangers, the assorted paramilitary forces of organizations such as Department of Forestry, and run the police departments, the fire departments and the waste management systems of the cities? We don't know for sure.
Really, it would never mean sending a starship captain to defuse a drunken riot in the local pub. Many a nation (diverse ones, such as Russia/USSR and Italy or France) operates its police forces under the Department of Defense, under the classic "militia" or "gendarmerie" titles. These people are trained police officers, not trained infantrymen, just like starship engineers are trained differently from starship helmsmen or science officers or medics.
Timo Saloniemi
It seems that although there are many examples of alien police forces on Trek their function on Federation ships, facilities is always carried out by Starfleet Security personnel.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Police
On the other hand, those are usually specially Starfleet ships and facilities.
Maybe we are going to now
TOS never once said that crime was eliminated on Earth -- they did say some other social ill's had been eliminated, but they never said crime was eliminated.
TNG had often implied that there was little or no crime in Earth's perfect utopian society, but that was TNG, not TOS.
Complete elimination of all crime would be possible only in Borg society.
Indubitably.
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