Why is there resistance to the idea of Starfleet being military?

[Crazy Eddie]

That line was horse shit and you know it. What else was Janeway supposed to say?

"We're alone in an uncharted part of the galaxy. We have already made some friends here, and some enemies. We have no idea of the dangers we're going to face, but one thing is clear. Both crews are going to have to work together if we're to survive. That's why Commander Chakotay and I have agreed that this should be one crew. A Starfleet crew. And as a Stafleet crew, we will operate as one unit, one team, one family, to defend our ship and our shipmates against those who would harm us, and to aid our new friends in time of need. But our primary goal is clear. Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy five years to reach the Federation, but I'm not willing to settle for that. There's another entity like the Caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster. We'll be looking for her, and we'll be looking for wormholes, spatial rifts, or new technologies to help us. Somewhere along this journey, we'll find a way back. Mister Paris, set a course for home."​

Spot the difference if you can.

So everything Starfleet has, is built for combat?

Hell yes. How many times have we seen Doctor Crusher convert a hypospray into a melee weapon?

You know the most dangerous place to pick a fight with a Starfleet officer? In a science lab.

 

[GabyBee]

That line was horse shit and you know it.

Such horseshit that literally every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation began with that phrase?

 

[BillJ]

Such horseshit that literally every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation began with that phrase?

Space... the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
Its five year/ongoing mission to explore strange new worlds.
To seek out new life, and new civilizations.
To boldly go where no man/one has gone before.

Did I miss anything? Nowhere does it mention that the Enterprise mission is the same mission for the entirety of Starfleet.

There's obviously a lot more to the Starfleet charter than a motto. One that includes empowering individuals to kill on the Federation's behalf in its defense.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Picard saw Troi as an adviser and treated her accordingly...

But Troi isn't just an "advisor," she's a commissioned officer with a rank of Lieutenant. It's not like she's on the ship earning a consultant fee.

The rest tells me Picard and Riker were running a really lax ship that someone who wasn't even commanding a Galaxy-class knew what improvements needed to be made.

They weren't even "improvements" though. Even Data makes it clear that none of the modifications are consistent with the Enterprise' basic design, which Jelico cannot possibly be as familiar with as Geordi and Riker.

The fact that Jelico doesn't command a galaxy class ship of his own tells us all we need to know. Starfleet as a whole doesn't feel his command style and priorities are actually a good match for such an incredibly powerful vessel, which is why they give it to somebody like Picard. Nechayev -- arguably one of the most hawkish Starfleet Admirals in recent memory -- is basically pulling a fast one: reassign the Captain (to a mission he is in no way qualified for and is way too old to even attempt) and replace him with her good friend Edward who keeps getting passed over for Galaxy-class assignments because the rest of the Admiralty doesn't think he has any business commanding an exploration vessel.

None of it points to Starfleet not being the military.

Edward Jelico does.
He's a military-style guy, plain and simple. And everyone on the Enterprise hates him for it. That should tell you something.

And hell, Jelico's changes weren't even that extreme. Imagine the cognitive dissonance if someone like K.T. Lasky or Bill Adama took command. By the time they were finished, it wouldn't even be recognizable as a Starfleet crew.

 

[fireproof78]

Such horseshit that literally every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation began with that phrase?

Since it's the Enterprise's mission, I don't think we can sum up the whole of Starfleet's mission as such. Starfleet clearly wears multiple hats.

 

[GabyBee]

It's also in the Starfleet Charter according to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Did I miss anything? Nowhere does it mention that the Enterprise mission is the same mission for the entirety of Starfleet.

It's basically the reason Starfleet was created:

COCHRANE [on screen] On this site, a powerful engine will be built. An engine that will someday help us travel a hundred times faster than we can today. (as the officers take their bridge stations) Imagine it. Thousands of inhabited planets at our fingertips. And we'll be able to explore those strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations. This engine will let us go boldly where no man has gone before. ​

There's obviously a lot more to the Starfleet charter than a motto. One that includes empowering individuals to kill on the Federation's behalf in its defense.

Indeed. Much like police officers are empowered to kill individuals pretty much any time they get scared enough. And yet police officers are not part of the military either.

 

[BillJ]

They weren't even "improvements" though. Even Data makes it clear that none of the modifications are consistent with the Enterprise' basic design, which Jelico cannot possibly be as familiar with as Geordi and Riker.

That's an, uh, interesting reading of events. Data says exactly one console wasn't designed for a certain configuration.

DATA: Sir, the transfer interface was not designed for that configuration. It will take seven hours to make those changes.

And it can't be that big of a deal if it only takes seven hours to reconfigure.

The fact that Jelico doesn't command a galaxy class ship of his own tells us all we need to know. Starfleet as a whole doesn't feel his command style and priorities are actually a good match for such an incredibly powerful vessel, which is why they give it to somebody like Picard. Nechayev -- arguably one of the most hawkish Starfleet Admirals in recent memory -- is basically pulling a fast one: reassign the Captain (to a mission he is in no way qualified for and is way too old to even attempt) and replace him with her good friend Edward who keeps getting passed over for Galaxy-class assignments because the rest of the Admiralty doesn't think he has any business commanding an exploration vessel.

That is another, uh, interesting reading of events. Nechayev could've simply reassigned Picard, just like she threatened to do in "Journey's End".

Edward Jelico does.
He's a military-style guy, plain and simple. And everyone on the Enterprise hates him for it. That should tell you something.

They hated to have their routine upended. Most humans do.

 

[BillJ]

It's also in the Starfleet Charter according to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Yeah, I mentioned the motto.

 

[The Wormhole]

Jeager in The Squire of Gothos.

Jaeger's obviously a science officer, and he does claim to be a scientist instead of a "military man" but I see no indication that he's a research scientist, unless you're going to make the claim that Spock, Jadzia Dax, Samantha Wildman, T'Pol, basically anyone else in Star Trek who were identified as science officers were in fact research scientists.

And before anyone jumps up and down about Jaeger claiming not to be a military man, I would like to point out that context matters. Given in the scene Trelane is pestering him about strategies and tactics, all he's doing is pointing out his specialty is in science as opposed to combat and tactics. Not a claim that Starfleet isn't military, and I doubt that was the intent of the episode's writer.

it seemed lie a vast majority of the field officers were scientist. Picard, Geordi, Data, Crusher just about everyone.

Picard was only a science officer in the alternate timeline in Tapestry. Indeed, the very same episode shows he graduated the Academy straight into the Command department, and we know from numerous references in TNG he was a career pilot to. Geordi was also a pilot with engineering background, remember it was an incident where Picard made a causal reference to a shuttle's maintenance which led to Geordi spending an entire night disassembling the shuttle to figure out what was wrong that led to him being noticed by Picard. Data wears gold suggesting he has an engineering background. Dr. Crusher is a medical officer.

Chain of Command-- A fleet of Cardassian ships are caught hiding in a Nebulae. They probably want to invade the nearby system. Captain Jerico wants to confront them. The crew acts really reluctant, suggesting they might be there for scientific research. Crusher seems annoyed that she has to get Sickbay ready in case of casualties.

That scene made it look like a crew of scientists that signed up for organization that sometimes have to do some military service, but they really hate the idea of doing anything militarily related.

To be honest, Chain of Command makes the entire TNG crew look like a bunch of whiners. At the very least, Dr. Crusher's annoyance over getting sickbay ready for casualties is absolutely wrong. Let's not even look at this as a military or not military argument for a moment. A starship on active duty in either unexplored space or the border of a hostile species should have sickbay ready for casualties 24/7 simply because you never know when shit is going to go down, especially a ship with a crew of over 1000, there's plenty of potential for a tragic accident to happen even under routine situations, like in Cause and Effect when Geordi got dizzy and nearly fell down the entire warp core chamber. If making sure sickbay is ready for casualties is such an inconvenience for Crusher, she really should be re-thinking her career.

Besides, considering the same storyline shows Starfleet special ops missions, I'm interested how that somehow fits with the "not a military" line of thinking.

 

[BillJ]

"To boldly go where no one has gone before, and kill anything that gets in the way".

 

[GabyBee]

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[Crazy Eddie]

That's an, uh, interesting reading of events. Data says exactly one console wasn't designed for a certain configuration.

The main phaser arrays, the secondary generators, and the main deflector pathways are all contained in a single console?

No wonder their consoles are always exploding...

And it can't be that big of a deal if it only takes seven hours to reconfigure.

It takes seven hours to install a new HVAC air conditioner if you have a big enough team. Less, if you have an entire engineering department.

It doesn't take seven hours to reconfigure a keyboard interface. This is Data we're talking about; it was the controls that were the problem he could reconfigure them in seven minutes.

That is another, uh, interesting reading of events. Nechayev could've simply reassigned Picard, just like she threatened to do in "Journey's End".

And then HER superiors would have simply overruled her. She's been pissed at Picard ever since the thing with Hugh and has been threatening to fire him ever since. I doubt, however, that she actually has the capacity to make that happen, so reassigning him to a black op where he is very likely to get killed (as even Jelico points out) is about as close as she can get to making that happen.

It's a dick move made by a militarist in a non-militaristic organization.

Still absent from your objection is any explanation as to why Picard and Beverly crusher were the best people Nechayev could find for that infiltration mission when literally anyone else on the Enterprise would have been a better fit for that job. Hell, Data and Worf had already proven their abilities in that regard during the Borg incident; if she didn't think Riker was experienced enough to fit the Cardassians, she should have sent HIM too. But sending Picard... THAT is purely a bullshit excuse to get him off the bridge for a while, and he knows he can't refuse without causing an incident.

They hated to have their routine upended. Most humans do.

Correction: most humans unaccustomed to military discipline. It's not as if the Enterprise was the only ship they had ever served on, after all.

 

[Ithekro]

They are also terrifying military men and women, going around in vessels that can destroy the habitable surface of a planet. Get back to me when we start giving NOAA nukes.

Well as soon as the NOAA need to stop a threatening island sized rock or iceberg from running into someplace they are researching, they'll probably get some.

 

[fireproof78]

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[The Old Mixer]

And hell, Jelico's changes weren't even that extreme. Imagine the cognitive dissonance if someone like [...] Bill Adama took command. By the time they were finished, it wouldn't even be recognizable as a Starfleet crew.

"Riker, get off that synthehol crap--I'm not used to having a sober XO."

 

[Prax]

Picard can be pretty naive at times, like his final meeting with Nechayev. This is from memory and may or may not be paraphrased:

Nechayev: "Why just last week we caught the Cardassians shipping weapons to their colonists in the demilitarized zone"
Picard: "Now Gul Evek assured me that they have discontinued that practice."
Nechayev: "Hmph...How comforting..."


BTW, does anyone know a good browser to view this site on? I either use the stock Chrome browser or stock Android browser and they both lag unbelievably bad. It wasn't quite as awful on my old phone, but it was never good, and now it's just terrible.

 

[suarezguy]

To be honest, Chain of Command makes the entire TNG crew look like a bunch of whiners. At the very least, Dr. Crusher's annoyance over getting sickbay ready for casualties is absolutely wrong. Let's not even look at this as a military or not military argument for a moment. A starshipborder of a hostile species should have sickbay ready for casualties 24/7 simply because you never know when shit is going to go down, especially a ship with a crew of over 1000, there's plenty of potential for a tragic accident to happen even under routine situations, like in Cause and Effect when Geordi got dizzy and nearly fell down the entire warp core chamber. If making sure sickbay is ready for casualties is such an inconvenience for Crusher, she really should be re-thinking her career.

Well she probably was unused to there being mass casualties but I thought the meaning of the line was not complaining about the work per se but that Jellico, from being too aggressive, would cause or contribute to there being casualties which didn't have to occur.

 

[suarezguy]

- Extremely lax martial discipline
We've seen all the hero captains (with the exception of Archer) given direct orders and on occasion raise their voice to emphasize their authority. There's a well established military chain of command in place.

The number of times a character directly disobeys orders and policies vastly outweighs the number of times they go to the brig for doing so.

And you know (or should) that we see more fighing, battles and wars, than we do exploration.

I don't think so, we may see a lot of conflict situations where fighting is a potential situation but they rarely turn to fighting.

In all honesty the majority of the hero ships are built to fight, they have specialized systems just for that purpose.

All the bridges of the hero ships had a individual (or more than one) who had weapons controls right in front of them.

Yeah, they're easily capable of fighting and built in part to be able to do so.

Keep coming back to, given that the Federation frequently fights battles and war

Why do you think it happens frequently? I believe we've heard of three conflicts during a 70-year period.

 

[Nightdiamond]

400 years after he was governor of Georgia? Geez, that guy gets around.

My bad. I meant commander Bruce Maddox Lol.

Picard was only a science officer in the alternate timeline in Tapestry. Indeed, the very same episode shows he graduated the Academy straight into the Command department, and we know from numerous references in TNG he was a career pilot to. Geordi was also a pilot with engineering background, remember it was an incident where Picard made a causal reference to a shuttle's maintenance which led to Geordi spending an entire night disassembling the shuttle to figure out what was wrong that led to him being noticed by Picard. Data wears gold suggesting he has an engineering background. Dr. Crusher is a medical officer..

What I noticed that even the straight command officers have a strong scientific background, like Picard being an archaeologist, or having expertise with some type of special radiation. This is a bad generalization, but at times Starfleet looked like mainly like an organization of pacifist scientists who only wanted to explore the galaxy or practice science.

To be honest, Chain of Command makes the entire TNG crew look like a bunch of whiners. At the very least, Dr. Crusher's annoyance over getting sickbay ready for casualties is absolutely wrong. Let's not even look at this as a military or not military argument for a moment. A starship on active duty in either unexplored space or the border of a hostile species should have sickbay ready for casualties 24/7 simply because you never know when shit is going to go down, especially a ship with a crew of over 1000, there's plenty of potential for a tragic accident to happen even under routine situations, like in Cause and Effect when Geordi got dizzy and nearly fell down the entire warp core chamber. If making sure sickbay is ready for casualties is such an inconvenience for Crusher, she really should be re-thinking her career.

Well she probably was unused to there being mass casualties but I thought the meaning of the line was not complaining about the work per se but that Jellico, from being too aggressive, would cause or contribute to there being casualties which didn't have to occur.

I don't think they intended it to look that way, but that is how the episode came off. The crew didn't look like military professionals. I know they were supposed to question things, but to the extent they did, seemed too naïve IMO. Suggesting that the Cardassian fleet was stationed inside a nebulae for scientific research?

You can understand Beverly's position, and understand not wanting to deal with things like horrible injuries and causalities. Who would? But, if the Cardassians invaded, that's exactly what she and other CMOs would be seeing in triple digits probably.

The audience knows who they're dealing with, (torture, massacres, genocide) so all the reluctance just seemed naïve--even Jellico rolled his eyes at their suggestions and reluctance lol.