Indeed. In fact, Enterprise was the only series that was where the ship was dedicated solely to exploring, and even then they abandoned that in the third season where they got reassigned on a military mission.
Why is there resistance to the idea of Starfleet being military?
- Thread starter The Wormhole
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I guess the bottom line is that the military wasn't all that they do.
Neither do any real world militaries. The US Navy, as one example, engages in a variety of missions, including humanitarian and relief efforts.
Well, given the nature of their job, it would be important for a Starfleet crew to know basic self-defense, for personal and ship combat (and in all out war, yes, of course they'd need to pitch in).
However, here's the thing; if Starfleet was a military, why would Picard object (or at least consider objecting) to the war games exercise on the grounds that that's not what Starfleet does?
Expand beyond Picard, why would Starfleet have military war games if Starfleet wasn't a military?
It clearly is part of "what Starfleet does" or the whole situation would never have come up. The OS Enterprise was involved in "war games" exercises, and so is the E-D, but in TNG they "object" to it. But, they go ahead and do it anyway, because, what, they're going to refuse Starfleet Command? The whole thing is bizarre.
One thing that seems pretty clear about a "non-military" idea of Starfleet is that no one on the production in a position to do anything about it cared enough about it to reinforce that concept in the series. So within TNG they contradict it as they carry out obviously military missions and operations and within ten years the Starfleet in a spinoff series is fighting a full-on shooting war.
So to me a more interesting question is why was Picard spouting a line of such obvious BS?
When the Klingons call, and they want a war, who you're gonna call? Ghostbusters!
(Forget calling Starfleet since they are NOT military)
(Forget calling Starfleet since they are NOT military)
Under very limited circumstances civilians can be tried in military courts, but they are military courts.
Did this "someone" offer an example of a civilian court-martial that had nothing to do with the military?
And that difference would be?
You can hardly look at Starfleet and credible call them a group of rag-tag partisans can you?
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And where are the love instructors in VOY, DS9 and TNG? Gene wanted those as well
Why did he not insist that the Federation Defense force take part in the exercises? That's cos the Federation Defense/Armed Services is called 'Starfleet'.
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Ever heard of the Navy, Armed forces and Air force?
Who are built from the ground up to do nothing but fight and kill using weapons.
Starfleet is a scientific and humanitrian organisation.
Show me one advanced science lab in a battleship, or astrometric studies, or advanced studies of say cancer research, medicine, cosmology, cybernetics.
I'll wait here until you post one.
Not quite what you were after, but here you go.
A few points from it:
Code 6100 - Chemistry Division
Code 6900 - Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering
Code 7100 - Acoustics Division
Code 7300 - Oceanography Division
Code 7400 - Marine Geosciences Division
Code 7500 - Marine Meteorology Division
Code 7600 - Space Science Division
They don't put that stuff on a battleship because the battleship isn't designed for anything except battle. Hence the (outdated) term battleship. But the Navy, who according to you is built "from the ground up to do nothing but fight and kill using weapons" does tons of research in multiple different sciences. The same goes for most of the other services.
And if they did join forces with an organization like NASA, and if they did build deep space vehicles, and if those vehicles were heavily armed and armored (as every single one in Star Trek is; even Crusher's medical frigate had weapons and shields), you would hope that they'd have some military forces onboard, too. Else that would just be incredibly irresponsible given the weapons of mass destruction they have at their command. It'd be like giving Doctors Without Borders tactical nukes "for defensive purposes, of course."
So just water and water chemicals. Not space, medicine, genetics, engineering of all forms, etc
Starfleet crams more than any universities worth of science into every ship, then a few weapons on top. Not a city destroyer that happens to analyse things around it to help it kill better.
Starfleet crams more than any universities worth of science into every ship, then a few weapons on top. Not a city destroyer that happens to analyse things around it to help it kill better.
So who were those ground troopers we saw in Ar-558? They were highly qualified scientists who also happened to like to fight it out in trenches? Official sources call Reese a 'Starfleet Solider' - who but the military has soldiers?
I just think the idea that Starfleet isn't military (which does more science)that we currently do) an odd one...
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A military race like the Andorians would not join a 'we have no military' Federation. Still want someone to tell me who else fought the Romulans, Klingons, Dominion and other enemies of the Federation? The SAS? The Federation foreign legion?
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