A more Military Star Trek

[Prince Charon]

One of the complaints leveled against Star Trek is that Star Fleet personnel <a href='http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MildlyMilitary' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>don't act like they're in the military</a> (WARNING: TVTropes link), or outright claim they aren't, even though Star Fleet is the Federation's de facto Defense Force.

So, take an episode or movie, and describe how the crew would have behaved, and the consequences of same, if Star Fleet were accurately depicted as the USAF <a href='http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlekt6mtovm4vne' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>IN SPACE!</a> (WARNING: TVTropes link), the USN IN SPACE, or some other RL military service IN SPACE (e.g., the RAF motto means 'Through Adversity to the Stars', so that works well, and the Russian Federation already has dedicated military <a href='https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Russian_Space_Forces' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Space Forces</a>). Please specify the service, and the era you're taking their behavior from, as the 1940s USN, for example, handled things differently than the 1990s USN did. Maybe just use that service as it was when the episode was broadcast, or the movie came out. Hopefully, someone will feel inspired enough to get some fics out of it.

You could also do Starfleet as an international Combined Task Force, with the odd-but-not-implausible factor of crews from several nations on the same base or vessel, which I think is a fairly accurate simulation of what Starfleet could have been. It just would have required greater variety in the uniforms, though I think they'd have wanted to have standardized rank and MOS insignia.

Since I think someone will ask, and it should be addressed, you have two options for the 'families on starships' thing in TNG:

First, it never happened, because its a bloody stupid thing to do.

Second, it was a political decision that practically everyone in Starfleet thinks is a bloody stupid thing to do, but it happened, and they have to deal with the consequences. Either way, Wesley Crusher isn't going to be a bridge officer, or an officer at all, before he's eighteen, and probably not before he's twenty, unless you have a burning desire to show Starfleet as an Age of Sail Navy IN SPACE (in which case, he may get flogged for some of his more foolish decisions). You can fudge his age if you really want him to be an Ensign/Cornet/2Lt./whatever in Season 1. There are RL people who graduated college at sixteen, though I'm not sure how many chose to attend a military Academy after finishing civilian college (AFAIK, he'll still have to be a legal adult, not a bloody fourteen-year-old, though).

There's a related thread on <a href='http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=199250' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Spacebattles.com</a>.

 

[daniel_gudman]

Why?

I mean, would Star Fleet be more effective if they were a more militant entity? How are you measuring that effectiveness?

Star Fleet might accomplish some functions that we, today, assign to the military, but they also do things we consider things outside the purview of the military--like exploration, observational and theoretical science (beyond arms development), etc.

As for the family thing...

If the Klingons ever built like ten thousand warp-capable, cloaking-device-equipped planet-cracking bombs, and obliterated every stationary human population center that exists, making every ship a population incubator suddenly seems reasonable.

Be really careful with this whole space-war thing. It's deadly as fuck. Especially when we're dealing with Jon's Law: "Any interesting space-drive is a potential weapon of mass destruction."

Star Trek and Star Wars are exactly the same: the technology is too deadly for space warfare to occur without significant social pressures against rational weaponization.

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I mean, would Star Fleet be more effective if they were a more militant entity? How are you measuring that effectiveness?

Star Fleet might accomplish some functions that we, today, assign to the military, but they also do things we consider things outside the purview of the military--like exploration, observational and theoretical science (beyond arms development), etc.

There's a historical precedent for explorers and scientists to be heavily tied in with military expansion. Just think about James Cook and his 'voyage of discoveries' that he proceeded with as a member of the Royal Navy and Charles Darwin went on his five year journey on a Royal Navy vessel also. The Manhattan Project was heavily conducted under military watch. It doesn't make sense for Starfleet's military arm to be as relaxed and inefficient as it is. Enterprise is saved more by plot armour and Wesley Crusher than any form of logical military defence.

 

[daniel_gudman]

I guess I'm not just seeing where a more militant Star Fleet would be a good thing.

I mean, there are situations where Star Fleet being more of a military would have led to quicker resolutions for some situations, but...

Picard was at his best seeking diplomatic solutions. Star Fleet isn't a military; they're not supposed to be a military.

Also, we can't have the discussion of "what makes technical sense". Logistics... maybe we could argue about logistics. But Star Trek simply doesn't have the scientific depth for any sort of scientific discussion to happen.

 

[Tsukino_kage]

I posted this to Spacebattles, and I thought I'd post it here too:

With all this discussion about making the Federation more military, I just have to ask: why?

Star Trek was supposed to be a subversion of the old futuristic stories made at the time about how humans are driven to space in the future by some sort of evil that happened to Earth. There was no invasion, the Earth is not destroyed or a polluted wasteland, there's no civil war. Instead, this is about humans reaching for the stars to explore.

Because they were curious.

That's why making Starfleet overtly military would not work. Certainly, they need to be ready for a fight as the Borg and the Dominion and even earlier with the Klingons and the Romulans showed, but this was also supposed to be a show about showing the better side of humanity, rather than an apocalyptic future where humans are bastards. If I want more of that I can get my fix from WH40K or BSG2003. For my military "Fuck Yeah!" needs, there's Stargate, and even B5 delivers on this scale, though it's got it's obvious Trek influences.

Frankly, it works better this way. It makes Trek unique from the other Scifi franchises. Even Star Wars, being somewhat more optimistic seems geared towards creating conflict to bring about Science Fantasy Epics. We need at least ONE major franchise that tries to be optimistic. That's also why most of the continuation novels are discontinuity to me (and apparently even to the primary canon, which consists of the TV shows and movies, not counting the cartoon) since they seem to be trying for "Epic" in all their depiction of bloodshed, and in so doing fail horribly at what Trek is at it's core.

And just what is that "core"?

"To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life, and new civilizations. To boldly go, where no one (man) has gone before."

 

[FanboyimusPrime]

Uh Tsukino Kage the cartoon is canon again. Though might have been more or less to increase DVD sales of the TAS boxset.

As for a more military Star Trek...yeah I'd want a bit more competent operation of Star Fleet then we got at times but that's about it on that regard.

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I guess I'm not just seeing where a more militant Star Fleet would be a good thing.

Having a more structured and effective military and being militant aren't mutually exlusive.

The reason I don't particularly like Star Trek is because, instead of sending in Marines and a science team specifically trained for unknown-planetary excursions, they send in the Captain, the Chief Medical officer.... people who shouldn't be leaving the ship. I'm not saying that starfleet has to go in guns blazing at any sign of danger but it just doesn't make sense to be as lax and unprepared as they appear to be, especially in a galaxy full of 'anomalies' and conflicts that starfleet seem to find themselves in the middle of.

People can be scientific and diplomatic while also being prepared and disciplined.

 

[daniel_gudman]

The decision to send down the bridge crew was made by Roddenberry for dramatic reasons. He actually considered having an "away team" and a "bridge team", but rejected that because he didn't think it would be an effective vehicle for his story-telling.

I mean, it's okay to be critical of a series while remaining context-blind, but at some point it becomes naive.

 

[Moshulel]

People can be scientific and diplomatic while also being prepared and disciplined.

Who would you like in a first contact mission?

Captain Michael Jankowski or Captain Picard?

They're both a product of their respective cultures.

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

The decision to send down the bridge crew was made by Roddenberry for dramatic reasons. He actually considered having an "away team" and a "bridge team", but rejected that because he didn't think it would be an effective vehicle for his story-telling.

I mean, it's okay to be critical of a series while remaining context-blind, but at some point it becomes naive.

That sort of 'adventure a day' tv series might need a central cast who pretty much perform every needed function with gusto but fanfiction is definitely a different matter; we can actually be realistic.


Also: I had to google 'Captain Michael Jankowski' because I thought he was a random Star Trek captain but found out you meant someone from Babylon 5; a different programme that we're not talking about.

 

[Oni_kawaii]

People can be scientific and diplomatic while also being prepared and disciplined.

Who would you like in a first contact mission?

Captain Michael Jankowski or Captain Picard?

They're both a product of their respective cultures.

Split the difference and call in Capt. Matthew Gideon

 

[Tsukino_kage]

Actually, in TNG, it's canon that the first officer should lead away missions, since they need someone senior enough in charge but not to endanger the captain, but you're right about the away teams, since they should have other people than the most senior officers for that.

 

[Chuckg]

Who would you like in a first contact mission?

Captain Michael Jankowski or Captain Picard?

They're both a product of their respective cultures.

Flaw in the logic re: 'product of their culture'. Even all Starfleet captains aren't as diplomatic as Picard.

In fact, no other Starfleet captain I can recall had up to Picard's diplomatic skill levels or style. I mean, seriously, the guy should have been Ambassador Picard.

So yeah, bit of an unfair comparision.

Besides, we entirely have a show where military officers made diplomatic contact with alien cultures; SG-1. And they made it work. (And no, I don't mean Jack O'Neill, I mean General "The Awesome" Hammond. *g*)

'Military' does not equal 'unable to be diplomatic', especially if you're talking about special operations types or senior officers. Hell, try reading the biography of General Schwarzkopf sometime; while he was CENTCOM the dude was doing as much or more diplomacy across the Middle East than the State Department was, because it was necessary to his job, because keeping all the various members of the 'We Hate Saddam, Act 1' coalition focused on-task was like herding cats.(*) And then there's the foreign training missions. And the foreign liasion missions.

And the... short version, while I'm sure we can all remember from our own experience at least one stupid asshole wearing stars on his shoulders, in general senior military officers in the US today and suchlike places are are motivated to learn and practice the skills necessary to not making any new enemies for us while we're busy trying to bust the skulls of the ones we already got. Sure, they're not the State Department, but they don't have to be, anymore than Starfleet has to be. (We know the UFP has dedicated full-time diplomats for the high-level followup, after all; Sarek was one.)



(*) I'm going back this far not because I'm cherry picking my history but because any discussion of the current war on the Internet has the risk of just going right off the rails, and man, I'll just duck that shit if I can.

 

[Prince Charon]

I posted this to Spacebattles, and I thought I'd post it here too:

With all this discussion about making the Federation more military, I just have to ask: why?

1 - Because it might make an interesting story. What better reason is there to post something in the Ideas forum?

2 - Its fine for them not to act to military when they're not being a military force (though some on SB.com justifiably disagree with that), but they are also the Federation's de facto Defense Force, and when doing that job, they should be a military force, and act like it.

 

[Tsukino_kage]

Watch the entirety of the Dominion War on DS9, definitely military there. Including all the dishonorable actions one has to do to win.

 

[Prince Charon]

Watch the entirety of the Dominion War on DS9, definitely military there. Including all the dishonorable actions one has to do to win.

... and it made a good story, didn't it (although there were probably still parts where they fell into the Mildly Military or You Fail Basic Training Forever tropes)?

The thing is, the Dominion War arc isn't the only place where Starfleet should have acted like a military, its just one of the rare places where they should have that they more-or-less did.

 

[Prince Charon]

<a href='http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=198651' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>The SciFi Military Tropes/Peeves thread on Spacebattles</a> is relevant to this thread, here.

 

[Ordo]

If you are writing fanfiction, having an "Away Team" and a "Bridge Team" makes a certain amount of sense. It doesn't work as well for a weekly tv series for reasons already explained. As for Federation Marines, I would argue that Ship security *should* be trained to act as such whenever the situatiom calls for more agressive negotiations.

To be fair, Star Trek has worked very hard to ensure that they do not appear militaristic, and often the crew finds solutions to problems that are better than simply shooting them. I would agree that a review of security and away team procedures is in order, but I do not see the need to turn them into the equivalent o the Systems Alliance.

 

[rdde]

<a href='http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=198651' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>The SciFi Military Tropes/Peeves thread on Spacebattles</a> is relevant to this thread, here.

The most interesting thing I learned from that thread was that the current US Army structure was heavily influenced by a traitor who spied for the Spanish.

Back on topic, would it make sense for Starfleet to have two segments, the core being mostly explorers and a smaller and defensive military core? Or would the military core seriously chafe at being chained to their civilisation while the jockeys get to boldly go where no Fed has gone before?

 

[Ordo]

<a href='http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=198651' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>The SciFi Military Tropes/Peeves thread on Spacebattles</a> is relevant to this thread, here.

The most interesting thing I learned from that thread was that the current US Army structure was heavily influenced by a traitor who spied for the Spanish.

Back on topic, would it make sense for Starfleet to have two segments, the core being mostly explorers and a smaller and defensive military core? Or would the military core seriously chafe at being chained to their civilisation while the jockeys get to boldly go where no Fed has gone before?

Play Star Trek Online and roll with Escort class ships to get an idea of what a tacticle officer in command does.