Actually that's not too far removed from "Academy: Collision Course" by Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens...
Would a series of Star Trek soldier/pilot novels work?
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Actually that's not too far removed from "Academy: Collision Course" by Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens...
^ Haven't gotten around to reading that one yet. My time for leisure reading is somewhat limited these days.... 
To those posters who think that Starfleet should not built dedicated combat vessels in addition to dedicated exploration vessels, and who think that the Federation should not have a standing military....
Why, exactly? The fact that you possess a military does not mean that you are inherently going to use it and does not necessarily mean that your foreign policy is going to be militaristic and expansionist. You can have a standing military to act as a legitimate self-defense force; the notion that there's some sort of conflict between making sure that you have a strong defense while still seeking peaceful relations with other societies seems very counter-intuitive. The military, after all, in a healthy and functional liberal democracy -- which the Federation seems to be -- does not make policy, but merely obeys the commands of the civilian government. "Theirs is not to reason why/Theirs is but to do or die" and all that.
Why, exactly? The fact that you possess a military does not mean that you are inherently going to use it and does not necessarily mean that your foreign policy is going to be militaristic and expansionist. You can have a standing military to act as a legitimate self-defense force; the notion that there's some sort of conflict between making sure that you have a strong defense while still seeking peaceful relations with other societies seems very counter-intuitive. The military, after all, in a healthy and functional liberal democracy -- which the Federation seems to be -- does not make policy, but merely obeys the commands of the civilian government. "Theirs is not to reason why/Theirs is but to do or die" and all that.
First, "Starfleet is not a military organization. Its purpose is exploration." Jean-Luc Picard.
Second, it depends on the era of Trek you're talking about. I think there's an evolution from Archer to Kirk to Picard and it's perfectly fine, in those earlier eras, to have a military aspect that slowly gets integrated and ultimately phased out by the time you get to TNG. In fact, that could be the arc of a series of novels or novellas. WHY doesn't Star Fleet have dedicated battle ships and personnel?
That's still a LOT of battle tales that can be told inside the Rodenberry framework without spitting on the Great Bird's intent.
"I'm a soldier, not a diplomat." - James T. Kirk.
Picard might say that, but Starfleet behaves like and performs all of the same functions as a military. And the idea that there's some conflict between being dedicated to defense and to exploration seems odd to me. Starfleet does both -- and it conducts some diplomacy to boot. Rather like the militaries of the various powers in the past, where the navy would conduct missions of exploration and diplomacy in addition to defense.
I don't think Gene Roddenberry's intent is clear and consistent.
That's the nature of TV. Lots of cooks, muddy vision.
The broad strokes, certainly by Picard's time, indicate that we're absolutely not dealing with a martial organization. No way, no how. Characters are constantly telling aliens that so they don't misunderstand.
Kirk may think of himself as a soldier and there are certainly episodes of TOS and TNG involving battle scenarios (war games, whatever) and, of course, DS9's Dominion War, but that doesn't mean the overall ethos of Starfleet is martial or even has a significant martial component.
Archer's time and Kirk's are where you would find dedicated warships and not so much even in Kirk's TOS period. Like it or not, Star Trek was not designed to be a show about warriors doing warrior things (yeah, conflicts come up but battle is generally the choice of last resort even for Kirk) so any tales focusing exclusively on warfare have to be done with that larger context in mind.
That said, I STILL would love to do that one cool MACO story I have in my head. And it kind of needs to be a MACO story. I don't know if it would work in a non-trek universe.
When Starfleet officers go on trial, it's called a court-martial. When Jaresh-Inyo let Starfleet take over, it was called martial law. When Admiral Leyton tried to overthrow the Federation government and put the UFP under Starfleet control, Sisko referred to it as "military rule," and Leyton did not disagree.
Starfleet has commissioned and non-commissioned officers. It has a uniform code of justice. It has formal ranks and a chain of command. It has regulations. It is the institution that defends the state in times of war. It functions just like a military, and is consistently described in military terms throughout the shows.
Saying that Starfleet isn't a military is a bit like saying that a man who is hired by a city government to wear a uniform, patrol the streets, and enforce the law is not a police officer.
Of course it has to have a significant martial component. The Federation is constantly ending up embroiled in conflicts with its aggressive, expansionist neighbors. They've got the Romulans behind a Neutral Zone that neither side actually respects, they've got the politically unstable Klingon Empire which is constantly going back and forth on whether or not it wants to stay allied with the Federation on the other, they've got the Cardassian Union over on one side, they've got the Tzenkethi Coalition and the Breen Confederacy and the Gorn Hegemony and the Tholian Assembly. Going by the novels, in the century from 2280 to 2380, the Federation was embroiled in no less than four "cold wars" with the Klingons, Romulans, and Dominion, and was embroiled in no less than seven shooting wars with the Selelvians, Tholians, Dominion, Breen, Cardassians, Klingons, Tzenkethi, and Talarians.
They're surrounded! The idea that a peaceful liberal democracy could survive whilst surrounded by hostile, expansionist powers like that without a significant martial component is patently absurd.
And I've got no problem with that. In a healthy liberal democracy, the military itself would never want to resort to violence except as a last resort -- it's their rear ends on the line, after all, to say nothing of their belief in peace. But the notion that the Federation Starfleet is not a military and does not have a significant component that is dedicated to combat seems thoroughly irrational to me given the Federation's astropolitical situation.
if starfleet's not military then why - even in Picard's day - do they zip around the galaxy in starships with enough firepower to slag a planet on board? why, nearly every time they beam down, do they carry sidearms with enough firepower to level a city block?
IMHO, to have any kind of defence/exploration/offence entity, it needs to have a chain of command. Starfleet may not be a military in the strictest sense, but it is quasi-military, using a military-structured framework.
Archer was explorer, soldier and diplomat all the time. Earth fought a long war and became more of a military in the following century, leading Kirk to claim that he was a soldier, not a diplomat - and many TOS episodes had Kirk facing intractable enemies. During the next century, although cold and hot wars were fought, Starfleet evolved into a quasi-military defence force, primarily being explorers.
As for the possibly-excessive weaponry, it has always been used for defensive purposes, except when there is no other recourse. It is destroying Roddenberry's creation to think otherwise.
Archer was explorer, soldier and diplomat all the time. Earth fought a long war and became more of a military in the following century, leading Kirk to claim that he was a soldier, not a diplomat - and many TOS episodes had Kirk facing intractable enemies. During the next century, although cold and hot wars were fought, Starfleet evolved into a quasi-military defence force, primarily being explorers.
As for the possibly-excessive weaponry, it has always been used for defensive purposes, except when there is no other recourse. It is destroying Roddenberry's creation to think otherwise.
That would be an odd position to take, since we've seen a lot of a dedicated combat vessel: the Defiant, and her class. But! Defiant was constructed in response to an immediate threat, the Borg. There's also those smaller, fighter-like craft seen in some of the big battle scenes, but those have always struck me as the kind of craft that would be built as anti-Maquis vessels, designed to infiltrate the Badlands were size is a disadvantage. These vessels will no doubt remain in service as long as they can function; still, looking at the fleets were saw, most are just regular Starfleet vessels pressed into combat. Starfleet seems to take the very reasonable position that there's no cause to building combat vessels if there's no cause to use them.
On this point, however, there's never been any evidence of a standing army for the Federation. During the Dominion War, which would have been the best time to deploy such a force, who was actually doing the fighting? The regular, rank-and-file Starfleet officers. Here's a comparison to illustrate how I see it. The members of the Klingon Defence Force see themselves as warriors, first and foremost, then by their specializations - gunner, pilot, engineer, etc. These are the fashions in which they contribute to battle. Starfleet is the inverse: they are identified first and foremost by their specialization, and are all secondarily soldiers when the need arises (it seems all officers, even the medical personal, receive basic combat training). The closest we've ever come to seeing Starfleet personel who were first and foremost soldiers was the Siege of AR-..., and there's nothing to say that they weren't just regular (or even specialized in security) officers who had, as the episode stated, been stuck in combat too long. Indeed, the way the Defiant crew seamlessly reinforces their lines, and the speed with which Nog adopts their sensibilities, demonstrate to me that most officers have this secondary soldier role, which is adopted in times of need. The best real-world analogy I can think of (and I'm not an expert on the subject, so others can correct me) is the 'weekend warrior' phenomenon, where reservists have other, primary careers that can be set aside to go into soldier mode when the need for soldiers arises (or, you as know, when a war-mongerer seizes power).
Since we've been trading quotes, here's another:
"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty." --James Madison, 1787
Words whose applicability is just as relevant today as it was then, with the only difference being that the standing military and the overgrown executive is currently more a threat to liberty abroad than domestically. Madison specifically cites an overgrown executive (such as we currently have) as a pre-condition, but I think it illustrates that while all this stuff about militaries being functional in healthy democracies is fine in theory, at the practical level things are never so ideal. There's always going to be assholes with itchy trigger fingers, and we've yet to determine a way of preventing such bottomfeeders from succeeding in politics and putting themselves in a position of control.
I'm actually not opposed to having trained, armed forces available per se, but I have my own pre-conditions. First, of course, is to manage the size of such armies, to prevent the run-away, bloated militaries of nations like China and the United States. Second, such forces should be chartered with clear roles that prioritize peacekeeping and disaster relief as the function of the standing forces; they are not to be sent into combat proper unless in the defence of the nation against actual aggression (and not the petty posturing of dictators) or in defence of a allied party against such aggression. Bref, the standing army should not be of the mindset that it's purpose is to fight (and all the associated baggage of people trained to kill, a number of who come to actually crave such violence, the problems created by having idle warriors), but to defend.
And then there's the whole military-industrial thing, the business that has arisen from warfare. A large standing army spawns its own cottage industry providing weaponry, etc. But since people begin to question the need for all those expenses if there's no clear foe against which to use them, the standing army requires the constant creation of such opponents in order to keep the financial spigots flowing. It creates the situation were the standing army (and those who profit from it, who, given the sums we're talking about, always seem in a position to exert undue political influence) are inimical to peace. Finally, there's the fact that the large standing army is essentially a weapon pointed at one's neighbours (or whomever is the foe du jour), which can act as spoiler in those same international relations even when the complex isn't looking to sabotage things. Think of what Bush's latest missile defence wetdream has done with our relations with the Russians. Even though I'm sure those who genuinely believe such a thing is more than an excuse to hand out fat contracts for non-functional systems have zero intent of using it against the Russians, they are quite justifiably upset at the proliferation of arms on their doorstep. Standing armies are just the human component of that same phenomenon of distrusting military build-ups on the other side of the fence.
"...ain't got friend, but the undertaker..."
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Hmm, it was in Roddenberry's series (TOS) where they used the ship phasers to stun a whole block (?). Granted they only had the phasers on stun, but it still could have been lethal (lets say someone is going downstairs when he is hit, falls down the stairs and breaks his/her neck). It was pretty ruthless to do this and not really a defense measure, but rather a show of power.
As others have said, Starfleet is a military organization, Picard's dumbshit line in "Peak Performance" notwithstanding, and to say otherwise is to deny reality. If it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, flaps its wings like a duck, flies around in armed ships like a duck, has a rank structure and uniform code of conduct like a duck, and its own regulatory system like a duck, then it's a bloody duck.
It's a goose, I say! A goose!
I would say, Starfleet is a mixed organization. Part of it is military, I agree, but there are others. It is mainly because of this mix that the Starfleet military bird is still a duck but a different duck than the real life military one we know.
Because they aren't morons. Why did commercial vessels in the East India Company days come complete with cannon and horribly beweaponed "merchant" sailors? Because they knew there could be trouble out there.
Warships are designed to kill things wholesale. That is their sole function. Soldiers, also, are trained to kill. Not to check out what's happening on on Deneb Six with this month's slime devil migration. Starships are designed to keep their exploring crews as safe as possible in an often dangerous universe. Killing is an option but it's option #3 even on the hand phasers.
As I said. It's an evolutionary process. A solid, truly military wing, makes perfect sense for Archer's period- Earth has been attacked, nearly destroyed. They've made enemies of both the Klingons and the Romulans, both of whom are aggressive martial cultures from top to bottom. Not to mention the strong xenophobic undercurrent in more than one of the planetary cultures of the time period. Including Earth.
It makes sense for, in the TOS era, Kirk and company, still in the COLD WAR phase of the Romulan conflict and forced by the Organians into detente with the Klingons, to have some dedicated martial tech as well as a more militaristic posture from many of its captains and admirals. Some of the latter would likely remember the shooting war and the former would ahve come through a Starfleet somewhat shaped by that war.
By Picard's time, however, those problems are solved. Klingons are a solid and often helpful ally. The Romulans are a problem but only in a covert, Cold War sense and there have been no truly meaningful physical conflicts with Cardassia.
I'll give you para military- the command structure, the unis etc. - but there's no way it's a true military org. Especially when its own officers keep SAYING they're not a military org. Is the Salvation Army a military organization? They have captains, majors and generals. Or they used to. Dunno how it actually works now. Trappings and command structure don't make a military. Just ask the Princess Cruise line.
The Starfleet ethos is "we're out here nosing around and we're not out to bug you but, if you start trouble with us, you'll be wicked sorry. And keep your paws off member planets. We're all just minding our own business so, again, don't make us hit you back."
The fact that the DS9 era Starfleet had to SCRAMBLE to get actual warships built in order to fight the war with the Dominion tells you everything you need to know about how the organization saw itself. They didn't have them ready because they didn't think of themselves as a martial culture or org. This is AFTER they nearly got destroyed by the Borg.
Maybe, post Dom War, you could make a case for building some warships but, again, I think it would be an uphill slog.
They're explorers. Tough, sometimes sonofabitch explorers, but explorers nonetheless.
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QFT
This is kinda getting off topic isn't it? I don't think a series of novels would work, maybe an eBook miniseries following a particular conflict maybe, but then there are possibilities for such a thing to work. I wouldn't have a problem with any of the current crop of writers having a go, but Mack is my top choice - because any story told would involve a lot of death. That said, DRGIII or Martin/Mangels would be interesting.
Who's writing the Romulan War trilogy anyways?
They can build all the combat vessels they like, but I prefer to read novels of the Starfleet ships that are used for exploration. It they have to use phasers, photon torpedoes, or other combat cleverness, then that's an aside to the main thrust of the exploratory mission I am reading.
I'm sorry, Geoff, but I think you're being deliberately obtuse about this. The Salvation Army is not an army because it merely uses the military trappings as a metaphor. It has no fucking weapons, and, most important, doesn't hold courts martial.
Please see reason on this before one of us has to beat it into you:
Only a military organization can hold a court martial. No other kind of organization can hold a court martial. It is implicit in the name. Police departments are paramilitary organizations; they do not get to hold courts martial.
If Starfleet were not a military organization, then its breaches of discipline would be punishable by either termination of employment or civilian charges, heard in a civilian court of law. But that's not the case.
Starfleet applies a code of military justice. It holds courts martial. It is empowered to defend the state with deadly force against external and internal threats. It has a hierarchical rank structure that is enforced through an entirely internal system of enforcement and justice.
Taken in concert, only one type of organization is permitted to wield all those powers at once, Geoff: A military organization.
I am willing to accept that Starfleet is military-plus --- i.e., that it is a military organization charged with other, more benign duties; I am willing to accept, based on canon evidence, that its leadership and officer corps are encouraged to embrace a less-martial ethos as their modus operandi; I am willing to accept that in times of peace, Starfleet is trained and equipped to pursue peaceful, scientific, and diplomatic missions on behalf of the Federation.
But do not try to tell me that it isn't a military organization. Because it clearly, inarguably, undeniably is a military organization, "one dumbshit line notwithstanding," as Keith has already pointed out.
That's simply asinine. Just because they elected at that time to build a different class of warship to face a more potent threat in no way supports the argument that they were not previously a military organization. That's like saying that because the U.S. Navy scrambled to build bigger, better battleships after Pearl Harbor in order to better dominate the Pacific theater, that they were not until that time a military organization.
No, they're military explorers, in much the same fashion as early seagoing explorers of the middle ages and Renaissance were military expeditions charged with supporting colonization, trade, and exploration (e.g., Columbus, Cortés, Pizarro).
So, its the weapons? And the internal legal system?
Hm
I still disagree. I think you guys are leaving out several crucial [within Trek-verse] facts.
1) It's the future. Modern definitions of what constitutes a martial organization need not apply, regardless of vestigial procedural and hierarchical trappings.
2) They themselves say, repeatedly, that they are not a military organization. I take them at their word. In doing so we are forced to attribute their obvious military pretensions to either tradition/habit or some other factor as yet undefined. Unless they're lying, which I've never thought them to be doing.
3) No modern military weapon or warship, plane, helicopter, grenade, bomb, knife or pistol has a stun setting. Soldiers don't stun. They kill. Occasionally they capture instead (costly and time consuming by comparison to just killing the enemy) but their weaponry is not designed to be defensive but offensive. The defensive aspect (various forms of armor essentially being the extent) is, very clearly, secondary.
By contrast, Starfleet's weapons have been shown, repeatedly, to be intended for defensive rather than offensive action. Therefore not warships or meant for martial purpose. Again, the progression from Archer, through Kirk to Picard fits my model perfectly. A butter knife can be used to kill but that doesn't make it a dagger.
My evolutionary model is by no means obtuse. It makes perfect sense that an organization founded by humans, during a period of extreme xenophobia and martial conflict, both internal and external, would BEGIN the way you say.
But, over the ensuing centuries, especially after incorporating the many many alien cultures and their representatives into the Federation, in addition to the erasure of xenophobia and increased peace and stability, that original human model would necessarily soften and, as far as I'm concerned, vanish, leaving behind only the habit of military hierarchy and the custom of a separate justice system.
This is a society without money, with the ability to spontaneously create matter and which includes, under an apparent democratic political structure, hereditary and theocratic rulers, not to mention hive and incorporeal minds and representatives thereof. They ain't us.
It is inconceivable that human/primate violence and hierarchical martial structures would be sufficiently binding or sufficiently non-threatening to the rest of the members of the Federation for Starfleet to maintain anything like a martial purpose.
They are HEAVILY ARMED explorers and occasional cops. When forced to it, their exploration vessels can be used as warships but they were not designed for that purpose. And their basic design proves this also. They have energetic shielding and NOTHING ELSE. Contrast that with the Klingon and Romulan vessels which, internally, have been clearly shown to have heavier, perhaps reinforced bulkheads and hulls. THESE vessels are designed for war. Their corridors are narrow, submarine-like, while Federations corridors are wide and expansive. And there are CHILDREN on Federation Starships as permanent residents (rather than passengers on their way to a colony). Civliians. You won't find one kid running around a nuclear sub or across the deck of an on-duty battleship. Never.
Starfleet vessels, until the Dominion War, are boats with guns. Not the same as warships.
I have never, in 30 odd years of watching Star Trek, thought I was watching the adventures of soldiers. Not until the MACOs showed up.
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