Why Starfleet changes uniform styles so bloody often
- Thread starter Mr. Laser Beam
- Start date
I guess we'll agree to disagree.
I can't agree with you on that. If it was the UFP, I can see StarFleet or whatever form of Integrated Service as the best possible career for many reasons.
It depends on what you value personally. Alot of these things are incredibly "Subjective".
What's "Best" is based on what you value.
Do you want to live a dreary life of a dentist in a small town.
Some folks want the quiet life.
Do you want to be adventuring on board a StarShip and potentially going into battle?
Some people want a life of adventure and travel.
There are many ways to have that life beyond the military.
Sure, that's up to you, but the military isn't such a bad thing to join.
Sure -- for yourself as an individual, that's fine. Every person, as you say, is going to have a subjective opinion about what career is best for themselves.
I'm objecting to the idea that a democratic society would promote military service as the best possible career for everyone, as the supreme way to achieve status. There's nothing wrong with you as an individual deciding a career in the military is what's best for you; there's something deeply wrong with society proclaiming that a career in the military is what's best for everyone. The former lies the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek; the latter lies the United Citizen Federation from Verhoeven's Starship Troopers.
All societies try to promote their military. They need young able bodied people to operate within them.
That being said, the UFP didn't say it's the only career path, it's one of the options.
And there's no requirement for service just to become a UFP citizen.
You can become a UFP citizen without ever having to serve in StarFleet.
Your citizenship status doesn't change once you're done with StarFleet.
It's no different for people who were Ex-StarFleet and are now retired vs normal citizens.
Of course Starfleet isn't a military. It's an armed uniform service with rank structure, martial discipline and the responsibility of defending the Federation and fighting its wars.
Glad that's finally cleared up.
This is what happens due to Gene's TM vision....
Starfleet is, by all accounts, a military, with a very prolific scientific branch. There's nothing wrong with that: the USN does a lot of science, too, even with dedicated vessels, but the main focus, of course, is defense, policing, deterrence by existing, logistics, transport, and colonial support. FASA gets some praise because at least they recognized that Starfleet is basically the USN in space, but then TNG kept trying to hammer the 'we're not a military, totes, guys!' and even more Gene Vision TM stuff.
Starfleet is, by all accounts, a military, with a very prolific scientific branch. There's nothing wrong with that: the USN does a lot of science, too, even with dedicated vessels, but the main focus, of course, is defense, policing, deterrence by existing, logistics, transport, and colonial support. FASA gets some praise because at least they recognized that Starfleet is basically the USN in space, but then TNG kept trying to hammer the 'we're not a military, totes, guys!' and even more Gene Vision TM stuff.
And that's why I say it's 1/2 Military | 1/2 Exploratory/Scientific discovery branch.
I don't try to "Sugar Coat" things or bamboozle the viewers or in universe folks.
In my first four years in the US Army we went through three versions of fatigues/BDU's, 2 different class-B uniforms, nd two different class-A uniforms.
I assume that we will never need to speak of this again.
More on topic, and random musing, I wonder if uniforms are also updated to reflect new additions to the Federation and Starfleet, allowing for more variation as species joined.
It is the military, they don’t drop engaging the Cardassians to go look at stellar phenomenon. They do drop everything when there’s a war to fight.
Good of explanation as any.
I know, that's what's expected.
But for general "Classification" purposes to the public.
Why would an open democracy lie to the public about what Starfleet is?
I wouldn't, ergo my labeling as to it's overall mission scopes.
This of course means that Starfleet is hindered more by the civilian command than anything else.
A recent fan-recap of the Cardassian War ended on youtube, well, recently, and they bundle all the fanon and beta canon stuff to try to showcase the Cardassian War in a sort of documentary, and the overall feel is that the Civilians don't want to see Starfleet as a military; and thus hinder any conflict by trying to maintain it as some 'border dispute' and little more.
That's usually true of reality as well.
Even that's a sloppy way of wording things since back in the day when exploration of Earth was a thing, it was handled by the military. Even in modern times, the military is still involved with exploration, with man NASA personnel and even directors being active duty military officers, not to mention the wreck of the Titanic was discovered on a military-funded expedition. If it weren't for all this "Starfleet isn't a military" nonsense that got started primarily because of very immature behavior on Roddenberry's part in the 1980s, everyone would be thinking of Starfleet as a military anyway, as indeed they did during TOS.
Two very recently published Disco novels actually have a field day on this matter. In The Enterprise War Pike gets into an argument with a Starfleet Admiral about whether Starfleet is a military, with the Admiral insisting it isn't and Pike accusing him of being a propagandist and listing all the ways Starfleet is in fact a military. Or the novel Die Standing, in which Emperor Georgiou is constantly commenting on all the hypocrisy she witnesses the Federation involved in, with emphasis on the fact they try to claim their Starfleet isn't a military.
Personally it always amuses me that the Orion Syndicate actually admits they are a crime syndicate. Meaning in the Star Trek universe we have criminals who are honest about being criminals, but a military who is in denial about being a military.
The "no military" thing reflects the attitudes of the public towards the military in the 1970s/1980s. Remember, this was pre-Desert Storm with all its yellow ribbons and Viet Nam still cast a long shadow. M*A*S*H ran for eleven seasons on that anti-military message. Movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon didn't exactly extol any military positives. And then there was Ollie North, poster boy for Iran-contra, who couldn't recall anything about his job.
