If Starfleet wasn't a military then they would look exactly like all the little dedicated science ships they occasionally came across from time to time and usually had to rescue.
Why the Resistance to Starfleet as a Military?
- Thread starter Vincent Law
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Your question includes "evidence" for Starfleet both being and not being military. On the one hand, they're the military coming in to rescue civilian scientists. On the other, they look exactly like them.
Not really, no. I'm pointing out that the show had exactly the kind of civilian exploratory and scientific research organizations that Starfleet would be if it were not a military because you mentioned that the idea was intriguing. But Starfleet was a military, as seen by its many other roles which fit the same kind of roles that the military does and historically has for centuries. If Starfleet was not a military then it would never deal with any kind of military issues except perhaps to ask for military assistance or to alert the military of a possible threat. In other words it would have been a different show. It could certainly be interesting, after all, other science fiction, like Planetes didn't follow members of a military, just a rag-tag group of civilians who cleaned up space junk for a living, and it was a pretty interesting show.
I said that I thought Starfleet was post-military, not non-military. I see it as a "combined" service - if you'll forgive the word. Roddenberry called ranks like "commander" job titles, but the society that chose them chose to use traditional military lingo in naming the jobs. Maybe Starfleet is a "representative military", like ours is a representative democracy. The basic obliterating of planets can be done by remote automation - no one needs to go fight. This is an old sci-fi idea no different that the idea of basic vacuuming being done by a 23rd century Roomba. So those in Starfleet are basically civilian scientists, engineers, diplomats, etc. But given that these "civilians" no different than you or me are on the frontier, they need to be able to take up arms in times of need. Instead of warrior statesmen, we have warrior scientists. And since they can't just be Steve Urkel with a gun, they need to know and practice military codes and tactics - ergo the lingo and training.
I'm making this all up on the fly here, but it's interesting to me. I'm trying to think of a more "synergistic" society. We're specializing more and more in the real world but I find that fraught with danger and maybe ultimately unnatural. In the future I think there'll be plenty of specialization, but maybe also more shared responsibility for other aspects of society. I mean, take it to the nth degree and who needs a military when you can pay mercenaries like Blackwater fight wars for you? So in the future, if things are better and more efficient, to optimize the expression of individuals' natural talents, maybe soldiers and civilians won't be as formerly distinguishable.
I'm making this all up on the fly here, but it's interesting to me. I'm trying to think of a more "synergistic" society. We're specializing more and more in the real world but I find that fraught with danger and maybe ultimately unnatural. In the future I think there'll be plenty of specialization, but maybe also more shared responsibility for other aspects of society. I mean, take it to the nth degree and who needs a military when you can pay mercenaries like Blackwater fight wars for you? So in the future, if things are better and more efficient, to optimize the expression of individuals' natural talents, maybe soldiers and civilians won't be as formerly distinguishable.
Or we could just say Starfleet is a multipurpose service and leave it at that, but then we'd never get this thread to 30 pages...
^Indeed, rather like the Canadian Armed Forces, which combines all of its formerly separate military branches.
Hahaha...no.
Since your chess club hasn't been deployed to Iraq, and doesn't carry out the ceremonial and day to day military functions of whatever nation it's affiliated with...
I was attempting sarcasm directed at people who think that fulfilling some miltary-type duties automatically makes something a Military.
My fail.
Hahaha...no.
Since your chess club hasn't been deployed to Iraq, and doesn't carry out the ceremonial and day to day military functions of whatever nation it's affiliated with...
I was attempting sarcasm directed at people who think that fulfilling some miltary-type duties automatically makes something a Military.
My fail.
I think the issue here is that we don't see Starfleet fulfilling some 'military-type' duties... the shows have shown Starfleet fulfilling all 'military-type' duties for the Federation. We've never seen any other organization fulfilling any military roles for the Federation.
EDIT: Watching The Drumhead this morning I noticed a reference to the 'uniform code of justice'... on Google I can only find this associated with the military.
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As already pointed out 24 pages ago, the Uniform Code of Justice applies to ANY uniformed service, military or otherwise. Apparently this also includes NOAA and AFAIK includes the CIA and NASA.
It would combine more than just military divisions. That's just one aspect of Starfleet, IMO.
Starfleet probably handles some things that would normally be handed by civilian agencies in our time, but as a jack-of-all-trades service, it would fall under its overall mission parameters too just like its purely defensive endeavors...
Yeah, I would expect they would include dedicated geological and meteorological services as well, considering the wide varieties of land and weather on alien worlds (explored or otherwise). We can also assume from Tin Man that it includes something akin to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for operating unmanned probes.
Another issue is non-Starfleet operators. Member worlds might have some say in their involvement as to whether or not they want to add their resources to Starfleet or operate independently. The Vulcan space service may be loosely affiliated with Starfleet to varrying degrees. The Benzites have their own fleet (evidently) and the Andorians are so rarely seen in TNG it's almost a given that they either kept their own fleet or stopped going into space at all. The Bajoran Militia might have to make a similar decision at some point, deciding whether to subjugate their command structure to Starfleet or keep the militia in charge of Bajor's defense as an independent body. In the absence of Ben Sisko after the Dominion War, I expect they would probably do the latter.
Starfleet also seems to take on a law enforcement role as well, given their actions in "Mudd's Women" and "Wolf in the Fold" though I do not as clearly remember the latter.
"Scientists have always been the pawns of the military." - David Marcus
David says this in response to the Reliant (a SF ship) taking over the Genesis project allegedly under the orders of Admiral Kirk (a SF officer). David is actively calling SF a military and no one corrects him.
SF ships have phasers and torpedos and the ability to destroy other ships and take lives. A pure scientific exploratory agency would not be armed. At all. In war time it is SF that fights, no other organization. They are the military. Now, they may not be purely tactical like a modern military; there seems to be an equal emphasis on exploration/scientific endeavors and tactical defense.
There are several references to science ships which do not appear to be part of starfleet, implying that purely scientific endeavors are undertaken by a different agency. While SF does exploring, its primary purpose is defense, like a military. Also, SF seems to be the official space police as well.
David says this in response to the Reliant (a SF ship) taking over the Genesis project allegedly under the orders of Admiral Kirk (a SF officer). David is actively calling SF a military and no one corrects him.
SF ships have phasers and torpedos and the ability to destroy other ships and take lives. A pure scientific exploratory agency would not be armed. At all. In war time it is SF that fights, no other organization. They are the military. Now, they may not be purely tactical like a modern military; there seems to be an equal emphasis on exploration/scientific endeavors and tactical defense.
There are several references to science ships which do not appear to be part of starfleet, implying that purely scientific endeavors are undertaken by a different agency. While SF does exploring, its primary purpose is defense, like a military. Also, SF seems to be the official space police as well.
I would imagine that routine domestic civil operations also is part of Starfleet's mission too. In some parts of the Galaxy, Starfleet officers may be the only representatives of the Federation government out there with distant member worlds and outposts, so they would have to act accordingly. A starship captain might have to act as a cop, a lawyer, and a judge depending on the situation...
^That is not all that unlike how the military explorers in the age of sail operated.
I've never really considered Columbus (for example) a military explorer, but rather, just an explorer.
I've always assumed that was the model for Starfleet in TOS (right down to the oft-mentioned "Horatio Hornblower in space" angle) where (with, admittedly, a few story-necessitated lapses) the Enterprise was way out on the frontier, out of timely communication with Command, and with the captain consequently having broad discretionary powers. Granted, the analogy doesn't hold up quite so well in the later shows where Starfleet Command could usually be reached with just a quick phone call and other Starfleet ships were often only a few hours away.
Starfleet also would seem to be the Department of Mining. They appear to have been very interested in mining and resource exploration though-out the first few series.
Acquisition of natural resources might have been a important aspect of the Starfleet mandate.
At the time of his voyage to the Americas, Columbus held a royal commission as a Spanish admiral.
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