Is Starfleet a Military? - Part 1 

Charvale j

Very well said!

In Star Trek lore, the United States as a whole didn't exist as a nation when Starfleet was organized.

My description of SF wasn’t meant to be literal, but if you look at these organizations you can see elements of all these organizations In starfleet.

@@mikesumpter90 Oh! Silly me, my overly literal mind seriously thought you were talking about the lore. I agree totally with what you said then, then.

Idazmi7 which makes no sense. TOS & early TNG seem to have very little knowledge of the United States, etc.. but get further into TNG and suddenly they know ALLL about it.. and have holodeck simulations taking place in the USA and other parts of the world pre ST. Go to ST ENT, and they know quite a bit of the United States. The ST universe is very inconsistent with its pre-warp era. It bounces between vague knowledge of the USA to suddenly knowing the USA, the various states, and cities. The problem is producers change from tv series to tv series and the show becomes inconsistent. This became particularly problematic after Gene died. Gene seemed to deliberately keep pre-warp earth vague as to not conflict with present day Earth/history. Although somethings had to change, date wise, for TNG and beyond because the 1990s happened with no Eugenics war nor WW3

But NOAA and Health Dept do not carry guns or weapons! But can serve as Naval Officers in time of war! They have Navy Rank and Uniforms only difference is insignia on there buttons and offcourse ribbons and awards are different but they also get Veterans Affairs benefits just like the Armed forces!

Usually it's Picard saying that they're just explorers: the rest of Starfleet understands their true purpose and existence as a military organization.

+RedShirt047 _"Personally I've maintained that Starfleet is something of a paramilitary force."_ "Paramilitary" effectively means "unofficial military". The Mauqis are a Paramilitary, the Starfleet is official. _"They act like a military when needed, but have duties not related to what we associate with a military force."_ The U.S. Navy and Air Force are exactly like that: they both assist various scientific initiatives. Remember that both Gene Roddenberry and Matt Jefferies served in the military. _"Sort of like a gendarmerie mixed with NASA and a research university"_ Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan shows a clear separation between the Starfleet and the Federation's dedicated research initiatives, like the Genesis Project at Regula One. And while Starfleet has elements of a gendarmerie, they are far too influential abroad to be treated as a gendarmerie de facto.

If you want to get technical, paramilitary is a blanket term for any organization that isn't a military but can take up those duties like a gendarmerie, national police, auxiliary military forces like the National Guard, and irregular forces. I was initially going to say quasi-military but that's apparently not an accepted term. "The U.S. Navy and Air Force are exactly like that: they both assist various scientific initiatives. Remember that both Gene Roddenberry and Matt Jefferies served in the military." I am aware of all three of those, however I was referring primarily to the exploration aspect of Starfleet and the larger degree of scientific focus. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan shows a clear separation between the Starfleet and the Federation's dedicated research initiatives, like the Genesis Project at Regula One. And while Starfleet has elements of a gendarmerie, they are far too influential abroad to be treated as a gendarmerie de facto." Fair point. In that case I usually assume that it was a case of having multiple research organizations for those that want an option divorced of the Fleet. And while this isn't quite the same, this does remind me of a discussion I had on the Templin Institute Discord about the militarization of Starfleet's ships. With some arguing that Starfleet should maintain a fleet of pure military ships while I argue that the multi-role ships are more than sufficient (and outright better than pure military) with the _Akira_ class representing the maximum amount of militarization needed (although not necessarily fleet wide).

+RedShirt047 _"If you want to get technical, paramilitary is a blanket term for any organization that isn't a military but can take up those duties like a gendarmerie, national police, auxiliary military forces like the National Guard, and irregular forces."_ No, it's not. From the Oxford English Dictionary: *A paramilitary is a semi-militarized force whose organizational structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not included as part of a state's formal armed forces.* Starfleet _is_ the Federations's formal armed forces, so they are a military. _"I am aware of all three of those, however I was referring primarily to the exploration aspect of Starfleet and the larger degree of scientific focus."_ The U.S. Navy and Air Force do the same thing. Exploration is no longer needed due to global satellites, but before that nearly all exploration initiatives were military. _"Fair point. In that case I usually assume that it was a case of having multiple research organizations for those that want an option divorced of the Fleet."_ That is NOT why the major science projects aren't headed by Starfleet: especially not the Genesis Project, which was top-secret state initiative that could be very easily weaponized. The Starfleet _supports_ scientific initiatives, but they are the Federation's *_armed forces_* not an organization primiarily devoted to research. As such, Starfleet defended and assisted the development of Genesis with the U.S.S. Reliant. _"And while this isn't quite the same, this does remind me of a discussion I had on the Templin Institute Discord about the militarization of Starfleet's ships. With some arguing that Starfleet should maintain a fleet of pure military ships while I argue that the multi-role ships are more than sufficient (and outright better than pure military) with the Akira class representing the maximum amount of militarization needed (although not necessarily fleet wide)."_ You do realize that most Starfleet ships are extremely "militarized" right? With the Galaxy class as the only major exception? We can see that being directly commented on in TNG by the Captain of an Excelsior class ship. Also, even that "exception" carries *_275_* warp-speed capable photon torpedoes with antimatter warheads.

Fair enough. "You do realize that most Starfleet ships are extremely "militarized" right? With the Galaxy class as the only major exception? We can see that being directly commented on in TNG by the Captain of an Excelsior class ship. Also, even that "exception" carries 275 warp-speed capable photon torpedoes with antimatter warheads." Oh I know, but try convincing other people that not everything has to be as militarized as the _Defiant_ or the _Prometheus_ classes or that Starfleet even needs to maintain fleets of those types of ships. I was arguing that ships like the refitted _Lakota_ are the far more effective investment that have the punch without sacrificing the science.

+RedShirt047 _"Oh I know, but try convincing other people that not everything has to be as militarized as the Defiant or the Prometheus classes or that Starfleet even needs to maintain fleets of those types of ships. I was arguing that ships like the refitted Lakota are the far more effective investment that have the punch without sacrificing the science."_ The Lakota isn't any _less_ militarized that the Defiant or Promethius. not one bit.

_"Gene Roddenberry said star fleet isn’t military."_ Actually, Gene Roddenberry said, verbatim: *"Although the Enterprise is a military vessel, it's organization is only semi-military. The "enlisted men" category does not exist. Star Trek goes on the assumption that every man and woman aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise is the equivalent of a qualified astronaut, and therefore an officer."* - From _The Making of Star Trek,_ page 209. And Kirk said: "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat." Starfleet, according to Roddenberry, is a straight up military. _"Example: when the Borg attacked earth, many smaller craft came to fight the borg cube. I took that as earth’s “Air Force” (local defense) vs the “big naval ships” in Starfleet."_ Those were confirmed to be drone ships launched from Mars.

@@Idazmi7 They definitely retconned the whole "no enlisted men" thing later on, though. Which honestly works better anyway, as the command structure makes little sense without non-coms. And there can definitely be other sorting hats besides Starfleet Academy itself for finding the best and brightest to serve on your ships. As for what Dutton said about Fed. planets maintaining their own forces, that _could_ be the case (certainly Star Trek Online ran with that idea in a big way), but there's no on-screen evidence of it. Star Fleet Battles sort of went half-and-half on the idea, with Starfleet farming out outdated vessels to be maintained by individual planets as "national guard" units.

@@SirBroadsword That's actually pretty stupid. Anyone serving in Starfleet who is trained to be a qualified astronaut (ergo: to serve on a Starship instead of somewhere else) would be an officer _by default_ as a result of their training, so there shouldn't be non-coms on the Starships. That, and Starfleet definitely has training programs in various countries on hundreds of Federation planets: they don't lack for manpower. It's stated in TOS that the Starfleet is a combined force, incorporating all militaries, and it's directly shown in DS9 that the Federation absorbs all planetary militaries into Starfleet.

The problem with that is the fact that the Federation is under no diplomatic sanction by any higher power to not have a military.

@@Idazmi7 Yes, but its own population seem to be mostly anti-militarist, so I think that they're using this approach because the idea of a full-fledged military would be hard to sell to the public.

@@podemosurss8316 No. The Federation was formed as a result of war.

@@Idazmi7You have a point, still specially devastating wars can have a quelling effect and so most people can end up becoming extremely anti-militaristic. This happened to most European countries after WW2 (and to Spain after Franco's dictatorship). And so, they end with euphemisms, such as renaming the Ministry of War into Ministry of Defense and the like. I think that Starfleet does just that (in fact, it's played for laughs in one of the episodes of Lower Decks, in which a former Starfleet officer now turned into an independent archeologist calls them "a pseudo-navy"): "We're the good guys. We don't have a military, we have an Exploration and Defense force. We don't have warships, we have Exploration cruisers (with enough weaponry to turn the surface of an entire planet into a dustland in a matter of minutes)..."

Yup. Never actually died: I just couldn't think of anything else important to say in the debate. Then I saw a knuckle-headed comment that reminded me that an awful lot of people manage to miss and/or gloss over the fact that Starfleet is a military organization, so here I am. I'll be uploading the second part of this soon.

No, it really doesn't. The Federation found that out when the Borg attacked.

i think they ve gone more military during the dominion war than after the borg attacked

They were already military in Kirk's day, 100 years before the Borg.

yes i know but they wre more focused on exploring when there were no wars and i have a question would you like to do marvel vs star trek

+julek pióro _"yes i know but they wre more focused on exploring when there were no wars"_ So are real militaries.

I think you're confusing Starfleet with the United Earth Space Probe Agency. Starfleet occasionally works with them, but they aren't the same organization.

i know but they do exploring alot and are on defensive for the most time + also are you gonna be doing star trek vs stargate in the future ?

I don't do requests.

ok

Starfleet including Vulcans, Andorians, Tellurites and other member races in starfleet ships like TNG, then it is NATO. In TOS, Spock was the obvious oddity in the command structure due to his half human situation, so Starfleet was the USNavy inside NATO. The USS Enterprise, etc... By season three they mention a Vulcan USS Constitution class starfleet ship...but they all died. It is likely the show was reworking to what Phase II and TMP would be.

Um can I just remind you that Filoni has contradicted both the EU and new Canon on multiple occassions and willingly admitted to it from the beginning

What does that have to do with Star Trek

Filoni has defected to the SJWs... He has failed us.

+Richard Ched It was expressly stated and shown in both TOS and DS9 that the Starfleet incorporates all planetary militias into itself. DS9 had an incident where the Federation almost became a benevolent military junta through an organized coup.

@@Idazmi7 Ironically that new Star Trek Fleet Command phone game did exactly what I described.

@@richardched6085 Ah, the one based on the Abrams universe?

@@Idazmi7 yeah.

@@Idazmi7 Admiral Leighton said that there would be "dissenters" should his plan come to fruition. Imagine a Rag-Tag Armada of outdated Starships engaging modern Starfleet design. Starfleet would most definitely win but not without more than 20% losses...

+Lethal Discharge Thanks. I'll keep your new username in mind.

I've basically retired from making videos like this. And videos in general. I would like to make more gaming related content as I have a decent PC now. But I just struggle to find the time.

+Lethal Discharge I hope you can find the time. Are you planning on doing game reviews or playthroughs?

Nothing too mainstream. I'm mostly a world of warships player. That's pretty much my only competitive thing that I may do compilation videos of. Other than that I might play older games like Borderlands 2 whenever I feel like it.

+Lethal Discharge I see. Good luck!

Exactly.

Idazmi7 @ " The Voyage of the Space Beagle.." *( You will immediately notice the similarities.)* ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-x5rg9hvG9Do.html

So... Alien?

Idazmi7 @ No...Like Star Trek.... *(re: Science/Military exploration starship.)* My Dad said Roddenberry got his "inspiration for Star Trek from this Pulp/sci-fi Fiction.... www.sfsignal.com/archives/2004/05/review_the_voyage_of_the_space_beagle_by_a_e_van_vogt/

Though I disagree with the reviewer on the last story. It's an excellent sci-fi book.*( the last story. The immense Galaxy being that could arrange planets..Killed whole worlds 🌎 by using hyper-space folds to bury the planets population under tons of debris...And teleporting armies of monsters....Which isn't bad for a 50-60's sci-fi book.)*

+The First Primaris Cato Sicarius _"Between the range of the Supremacy being less than 50 km and the acknowledgement that Star Wars shield do not protect from matter but only from energy a Star Trek ship would be able to destroy a Star Wars one with one well placed torpedo."_ So it took _The Last Jedi_ for people to accept what I've been saying for literally years now. And given Star Trek's canonical torpedo yields, it wouldn't even need to be "well placed" to destroy the target: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GVIwWNHZzxk.html Thanks for the video link: I get the feeling I'll be using it.

_"Although the Enterprise is a military vessel, it's organization is only semi-military. The "enlisted men" category does not exist. Star Trek goes on the assumption that every man and woman aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise is the equivalent of a qualified astronaut, and therefore an officer."_ - From The Making of Star Trek, page 209, published 1968. Gene didn't really control TNG: Rick Berman did. Also, I think you mean General Order 24, not General Order 12.

LOL.

I can't believe that guy said that photon torpedoes are "inaccurate" compared to other weapons, with his justification being that they are "torpedoes".

Don't gloat: Star Trek is effectively in the same boat, arguably worse.

Idazmi7 @ Not Really...See we got the upper hand...We can't always say that Star Trek has Many different faceted Timelines/Realities/Alternative Histories/ Eras/Dimensions...That's the Beauty of Star Trek...All these things can live side by side...Or, In some cases, cross-over...😛😎😁👽✨🌟💫👈👌✌

Idazmi7 @ Poor Waries! Not even Space Magic can help them..."Quick!!!! Someone send in the Clones !!! Ahhh, Look-out its Darth Rian Jonston !!! Eeeekkkkk!!! Quick jump into that Sarlacc pit with Bobba Fett before Rian forces all the Star Wars fans to milk a Male space walrus and drink its thick Moo-Juice !!!! Oh, the shame !!! End of a Fan base !!!"

@@Idazmi7 I've got two words for ya: Doctor Who. I actually kind of agree with bammm, but not for the same reason. Rather, what I've noticed is that Whovians were able to be knocked around and ignored for at least two decades and it never dulled their enthusiasm any, whereas TLJ brought any of all of Star Wars' momentum to a crashing halt instantaneously. Every bit of magic has drained out of that franchise and nobody cares about it anymore. So how does Who manage to withstand everything having gone to shit for so long before the modern series, while Star Wars has plopped out of the cultural consciousness like a taco shit? I, for one, think it comes down to quantity. Both Who and Trek have (canon) backlogs measured in real-time weeks. You can get through the OT in an evening and everything that's left after that is either garbage or non-canon. Whereas Trek and Who just keep going and going. It can effortlessly occupy so much more of your thoughts for so much longer, purely by dint of their being so much of it. So yeah, keep your chin up, Idazmi. If the Whovians can ride out dark times, so can we. : 3

@@SirBroadsword Doctor Who never had a huge moral basis or a backbone made of real science. Star Trek has both of these things, and they have both been broken.

You obviously don't know the actual lore. Earth is part of a Federation, and Starfleet is *_the Federation's_* distinguished combined military. If you have a reply, please watch the video *first,* then come to your conclusion.