FEDERATION MARINES (Canon + Concept Erosion)
James Ward
>
> > If it's a matter of terminology, why not call them what they've been called
> > for YEARS now:
> >
> > Security.
>
> It's not the same thing. Security officers are just that: security
> officers. They serve on board starships or bases as security guards.
> They are not ground troops in war. You wouldn't, for example, take
> some night watchman at a high-rise building and send him to the front
> lines in Kosovo, would you?
If I knew he had 4 years of extensive combat training from starfleet
acadmey, what would be the problem?
It takes about 4 days to teach someone how to guard a door at the most,
that security officers are trained for 4 years implies they are trained
to do a hell of a lot more than just guard doors.
--
buckysan
annapuma and unapumma in 98
44% of people think there is intelligent life besides earth
44% of people think there is intelligent life in washington DC
James Ward
>
> > If I knew he had 4 years of extensive combat training from starfleet
> > acadmey
>
> completely different things.
What do you think they train for *4* years doing? Why are you
assuming that they never train for ground duties( note security
officers are what the famous red shirts were, they were assumed
to be able to handle ground duties) during those *4* years?
You are right, it takes about *one* *week* to teach you everything
you need to know about starship( assuming similar to navy ships)
security during peace time. That they spend *FOUR* *years* training
to be in security all but proves they have to be trained in much
more than just ship board door guarding. And the show has shown that
security officers are trained in ground combat before.
-
Darth Scooter
news:37838249...@eos.ncsu.edu...
> Brian Barjenbruch wrote:
> >
> > > If it's a matter of terminology, why not call them what they've been
called
> > > for YEARS now:
> > >
> > > Security.
> >
> > It's not the same thing. Security officers are just that: security
> > officers. They serve on board starships or bases as security guards.
> > They are not ground troops in war. You wouldn't, for example, take
> > some night watchman at a high-rise building and send him to the front
> > lines in Kosovo, would you?
>
The four years at the Academy would not be spent on combat training or any
other specialized training. It's spent on the fundamentals (math,
navigation, languages, history, etc.) and on other various specialized
subject material that prepares cadets to become well rounded Starfleet
officers. When a cadet graduates from the Academy they are not trained in a
specific vocation as NCOs (i.e., Chief O'Brien) and other enlisted personnel
might be. While they might undergo a few months or years specialized
training prior to assuming certain posts, most Starfleet officers would
rotate between various posts on a regular basis. For instance, Worf, the
quisessential "security officer", started off as a navigator/helmsman moved
to security and then to strategic command before becoming a liason/diplomat.
Dr. Crusher and Troi (both of whom trained extensively for specialized posts
during and after the Academy) also trained for command positions.
>
> It takes about 4 days to teach someone how to guard a door at the most,
> that security officers are trained for 4 years implies they are trained
> to do a hell of a lot more than just guard doors.
>
Daniel J. Ellis
--
Dan Ellis
"By Golly, Jim, I'm begining to think I can cure a rainy day"
(Said in a scarily optimistic moment)
Brian Barjenbruch wrote in message <070719991234059136%bri...@home.com>...
>> If I knew he had 4 years of extensive combat training from starfleet
>> acadmey
>
>Ground combat, in wartime, and starship security, in peacetime, are two
>completely different things.
>
>--
>"Its origin and purpose...still a total mystery."
> - Dr. Heywood Floyd, "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Stjepan Pejic
>
> > Yeah, but don't US Marines (to site an example) do both?
>
> at least most, US Navy ships carry a garrison or two of Marines, don't
> they? The difference here is, Navy ships openly use Marines as their
> security force. Starfleet ships apparently don't--the Federation
> Marines seem to be operating more or less on their own leaving
> 'normal' security operations to ship's security. As to why they'd do
> this, I have no idea.
Probably because their jobs are totally different. Ship security
has to deal with diplomatic relations, species-specific quarters,
first contact situations and negotiation. They may also be cross
trained for tasks like damage control. Starfleet "marines" would
have different training. They would be little use on ships
execpt in times of boarding, which is not very common and would
probably not make a big difference anyway.
> Probably if this was all happening for real, all
> Starfleet vessels *would* use Fed. Marines as security. In fact, some
> captains might choose to do just that...
Adding "marines" to ships durring times like the Dominion War would
only increase the number of dead.
Stjepan Pejic
Justin T. Broderick
>
> All, or at least most, US Navy ships carry a garrison or two of Marines,
> don't they?
No. Carriers and cruisers (and formerly battleships) used to have
Marine Detachments, but within the last couple of years this has been
discontinued. Destroyers and smaller vessels have never carried marine
detachments. Now the only navy vessels that regularly embark Marines are
those concerned with amphibious warfare.
--JTB
Stjepan Pejic
> Maybe if you're using them as security, true. But if you've got a
> carrier, such as an Akira-class ship, full of Peregrine fighters (Alex
> Jaeger, who designed this class, has gone on record as saying it's a
> carrier), I'd wager that a few of these would be piloted by Fed
> Marines.
I think you are taking this "marine" thing way too far. Just
because Starfleet employes ship-borne soldiers does not make them
anything like "marine" soldiers in 20th century Earth and certainly
not like the US Marine Corps, which I think is unique among modern
nations in having its own fixed-wing air force.
Peregrine fighters almost certainly have their piolts drawn from
the ranks of shuttle pilots, of which there are tens if not
hundreds of thousands in the Federation.
Stjepan Pejic
JTKirk
>
>I think you are taking this "marine" thing way too far. Just
>because Starfleet employes ship-borne soldiers does not make them
>anything like "marine" soldiers in 20th century Earth and certainly
>not like the US Marine Corps, which I think is unique among modern
>nations in having its own fixed-wing air force.
>
Maybe not like the US Marines, but like the original idea of
Naval Infantry... They're definitely NOT "security" only!
>Peregrine fighters almost certainly have their piolts drawn from
>the ranks of shuttle pilots, of which there are tens if not
>hundreds of thousands in the Federation.
>
Let's better hope not! I mean, have you realized how often those
pilots crash their shuttles? ;-)
--
__________ ____---____ Marco Antonio Checa Funcke
\_________D /-/---_----' mailto:mch...@li.urp.edu.pe,
_H__/_/ jtk...@usa.net,JTK...@HoTMaiL.com
'-_____|( http://www.GeoCities.com/Hollywood/2645
remove the "no_me_j." in front of the address when replying
Stjepan Pejic
> > I think you are taking this "marine" thing way too far.
>
So little of Starfleet is based on the American political
structure - why should Starfleet's entire military ground force
be based on a small portion of the US military, which was designed
and has evolved to fill a very different role? The very idea
that there are competing branches fulfilling the same roles is
against everything we have seen about Starfleet, which has
always been shown as a monolithic organization.
> > Just
> > because Starfleet employes ship-borne soldiers does not make them
> > anything like "marine" soldiers
>
> It doesn't make them *not* like them, either.
This is an "argument from ignorance". The lack of evidence does
not provide support for your positive claim. It would be like
this argument taking place:
me: Slone wears black, so he must be a goth.
you: That he wears black does not mean he is a goth.
me: It doesn't rule it out, either! I win, baby!
Stjepan Pejic
JTKirk
>> So little of Starfleet is based on the American political
>> structure
>
>Starfleet is largely based on the US Navy. Seems simple enough to me.
>
And besides, what has the "political structure' to do with the
military structure, anyway? Or are you implying that in the US
(and maybe in other countries) politicians are the real power
behind the military?
>> why should Starfleet's entire military ground force
>> be based on a small portion of the US military, which was designed
>> and has evolved to fill a very different role?
>
>You've got to base the ground troops on *something*. The simple facts
>are these: Starfleet is, when you get right down to it, a navy. That
>means it operates ships, starbases, that type of thing. Navies do not
>have, and are not, ground troops. That's not what a navy is *for*.
>Unless you're suggesting that Starfleet has a division of something
>equivalent to Navy SEALs, which I suppose is equally possible.
>
And the Marines (or whatever they are called) aren't part of the
ship's crew. strictly speaking. They go aboard the ship just because
humans cannot breath in the void of space! ;-) No, really, they
must have a means of transportation. And their duties are NOT
"security": they are carried only when there is the intention
to drop them on some planet to do the fighting (because simply
bombing the planet from orbit isn't always the solution, you
know) or when there is the possibility of needing to board and
capture an enemy vessel. As I said, that's the original idea
behind the concept of naval infantry. Whatever they are called,
we may not know, but we know they DO exist, and we choose to
refer to them by the term "Marines" just as a convention.
>But I still have a hard time being convinced of the absolute necessity
>of not having Marines of any kind in Starfleet. What's so wrong with
>Marines, anyway? What do you have against them? Got something to
>hide, do you? Ever consider how much of your freedom was secured by
>Marines living, fighting, and dying? This isn't Starship Troopers, you
>know. They don't hammer it into our brains every DS9 episode. Either
>Trek's Marines are part of Starfleet--call them Starfleet Marines--in
>which case this definitely does fit in with the 'combined service' idea
>of Starfleet. Or they are a separate organization, the Federation
>Marines. Either way, I see no reason not to have this. Now that DS9
>is over, it's not like we're going to hear much about them one way or
>another...
>
Maybe the new series they are planning won't be "Starfleet Academy"
but "Starfleet Marines"... ;-)
>> The very idea
>> that there are competing branches fulfilling the same roles is
>> against everything we have seen about Starfleet, which has
>> always been shown as a monolithic organization.
>
>Has it? How so? One line of dialogue in TOS' "Tomorrow is Yesterday"
>but very little beyond that. Besides, who's to say that (assuming they
>are separate organizations) Starfleet and the Fed. Marines must
>compete? They don't fulfill the same functions. There is no
>competition.
"competing branches fulfilling the same roles"... No, definitley
that's not the case. What we have seen so far on ST (I mean, the
main characters) are strictly the "fleet". They have ships,
shipyards, and bases. Their duty is to patrol on their ships,
ferry VIPs from here to there, and keep the ship working. The
"Marines" are the ones we've seen a couple of times doing
ground combat. No, better said, planetary operations, since the
"shipdudes" may on ocassion have landed somewhere and ended
up in a fight...
There may be even an equivalent of an air force... remember
those tiny craft sent to intercept the Borg in "Best of Both
Worlds"? (don't remember if part I or II). I think they were
refered by a particular name. And as I already commented, I
doubt the fighters we've seen during the Dominion War are
piloted by shuttle pilots, based on the crash ratio of the
shuttlecraft... they need really skilled pilots for those
fighters! (shuttle pilots would be cannon-fodder) Unfortunately,
we haven't seen any, so that is pure speculation. But the point
is, each branch would be performing a specific task that does
NOT get itno the other branches' area... So I would refer to
them as "complementary branches fulfilling particular roles".
wing...@penn.com
In article <3787EE...@yahoo.com>, Stjepan Pejic <spe...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Brian Barjenbruch wrote:
>> > I think you are taking this "marine" thing way too far.
>>
>> And I think you're not taking it far enough.
>
> So little of Starfleet is based on the American political
> structure - why should Starfleet's entire military ground force
> be based on a small portion of the US military, which was designed
> and has evolved to fill a very different role? The very idea
> that there are competing branches fulfilling the same roles is
> against everything we have seen about Starfleet, which has
> always been shown as a monolithic organization.
===================================================================
I'm not sure what is meant by Starfleet being shown as a monolithic
organization, but let me try to clear some things up here about how this
thread came into being, and how it has grown:
(1: There are some canonical inferences that the Federation/Starfleet
employs ground-based personnel (no more or less militaristic than the Fleet
itself) whose mission and organization COMPLEMENT both Starfleet spacial
operations and planetary concerns (planetary-based combat in wartime;
planetary-based long term exploration, colonization assistance, and disaster
relief in peacetime).
(2: The evolution of STAR TREK, particularly the "it's a jungle out there"
ideal that arose from the TNG episode "Q Who" on, fits this notion of
Federation/Starfleet Marines like a glove.
(3: What is wrong with assuming that Federation/Starfleet Marines are
basically built around the same fundamental philosophy, regulations and
tactics as their starship-based brothers, just adapted for ground-based
needs? (Use of army/marine ranks and operations instead of naval ones, such
as Corporal, Sergeant, Major instead of Crewman, Yeoman, Commander...)
(4: Why does the notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines imply to people a
gun-toting, agressive fighting-only force that could only be derived from
the United States Marine Corps of today? The "Marines" term is useful to
show a mobile, Federation Starfleet-sponsored operation which the
starship(s) can transport from star system to star system and "drop off" to
take over with the Federation's business once the starship(s) leave, whether
during war or peace?
(5: So the first Starship Enterprise did not have any Marine detachment
on-board. (That we ever saw identified as such.) Maybe the Marines weren't
operational then, or maybe a deep-space explorer starship would carry few if
any Marines.
JTKirk
>> There may be even an equivalent of an air force... remember
>> those tiny craft sent to intercept the Borg in "Best of Both
>> Worlds"? (don't remember if part I or II). I think they were
>> refered by a particular name.
>
>Those were unmanned drone probes.
>
Well, that would explain their size and virtually suicidal approach
to the cube...
>> And as I already commented, I
>> doubt the fighters we've seen during the Dominion War are
>> piloted by shuttle pilots, based on the crash ratio of the
>> shuttlecraft... they need really skilled pilots for those
>> fighters!
>
>I would imagine that many of these fighters would be piloted by
>Federation Marines or Starfleet naval aviators.
...who would have been trained in dogfighting tactics, at the very
least. Not just the "truck drivers" that shuttle pilots seem to be.
Though come to think of it, the aerobatic maneuvers performed
by Nova Squadron also require skill... oh, wait, it's true:
they collisioned when trying to do that.
Stjepan Pejic
>
> > So little of Starfleet is based on the American political
> > structure
>
Only in terms of ranks and a few non-functional traditions. There
are a number of aspects of Starfleet that are based on other
historical navies (like parts of its mission). Some parts, like
ship and equipment design and procurement, would only fit with
a communist nation's navy, if any navy on earth.
> > why should Starfleet's entire military ground force
> > be based on a small portion of the US military, which was designed
> > and has evolved to fill a very different role?
>
> You've got to base the ground troops on *something*.
No, the nature of fiction means you can make things up. Besides,
the US Marines are not some constant part of the human condition
but something that was made up as well. For much of human naval
history, soldiers on ships were either land troops placed on ship
or the sailors themselves leaving the ship and going on to land.
Even after the idea of marine troops was created, the US Marines
were further shaped by the needs of adventures in Central America
and the Philipines into a mobile, self sufficient force. It is
unique in the world in terms of its size, equipment, air assets,
naval assets and ability. It is too connected to the needs,
assets and history of one nation on earth to be useful as a basis
for any space based force.
If I would base it on a current US military organisation, I would
base it on the Army Airborne. The idea of a light, mobile force
locating and fixing the enemy for a powerful force to strike is
a basic element of warfare, and especially apt in the Trek universe.
I would see them like Airborne troops in Vietnam: coming in to a
location by helecopter (hoppers and transport) with little supplies,
locating and fixing the enemy, calling in the hammer (air and
artilery in Vietnam, phasers from space in Trek) to kill them, and
then being taken away.
> The simple facts
> are these: Starfleet is, when you get right down to it, a navy. That
> means it operates ships, starbases, that type of thing. Navies do not
> have, and are not, ground troops. That's not what a navy is *for*.
> Unless you're suggesting that Starfleet has a division of something
> equivalent to Navy SEALs, which I suppose is equally possible.
No, I am saying that there are naval aspects to the Federation, but
that Starfleet is not just a navy. Navies do not study gasious
anomalies, they do not teach 3rd graders on their ships, they do
not ferry diplomats, or a hundred other things Starfleet does.
Starfleet has ground troop which are not seperate from the rest of
Starfleet any more than ship security is seperate from ship
engineering.
> But I still have a hard time being convinced of the absolute necessity
> of not having Marines of any kind in Starfleet. What's so wrong with
> Marines, anyway? What do you have against them?
Why in the world do you think that I hate Marines just because I
do not agree with you? Please go to this web site to learn about
the "ad hominem" fallacy and other fallicious arguments:
http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/welcome.htm
> > The very idea
> > that there are competing branches fulfilling the same roles is
> > against everything we have seen about Starfleet, which has
> > always been shown as a monolithic organization.
>
> Has it? How so? One line of dialogue in TOS' "Tomorrow is Yesterday"
> but very little beyond that.
Starfleet does not buy ships from different companies. Ships are
not designed by different bureaus. There are single organizations
in Starfleet where there would be many in the US (like the single
Starfleet Intelligence versus the more than half-dozen such
organizations in the US). The single unified command structure.
I could go on.
> Besides, who's to say that (assuming they
> are separate organizations) Starfleet and the Fed. Marines must
> compete?
You did, because you said that some pilots would be marine pilots.
Stjepan Pejic
James Ward
>
> > So little of Starfleet is based on the American political
> > structure
>
> Starfleet is largely based on the US Navy. Seems simple enough to me.
Starfleet is based off of British Royal naval traditions, the
simliarity to the US Naval traditions comes as because the US
navy borrowed alot of the British naval traditions due to the
US being a British colony for so long.
There is express comments that the Kirk character is modeled off
of Horatio Hornblower from Roddenberry even if there is any
question of this.
>
> > why should Starfleet's entire military ground force
> > be based on a small portion of the US military, which was designed
> > and has evolved to fill a very different role?
>
> You've got to base the ground troops on *something*. The simple facts
> are these: Starfleet is, when you get right down to it, a navy. That
> means it operates ships, starbases, that type of thing. Navies do not
> have, and are not, ground troops. That's not what a navy is *for*.
> Unless you're suggesting that Starfleet has a division of something
> equivalent to Navy SEALs, which I suppose is equally possible.
You seem to forget one major detail, Starfleet is the *single*
military arm of the Federation. Imagine for the moment that if
you were the merge the Army and Navy together, what would it
look like? Add to this, the stipulation that the Army is required
to use Naval ships to get places and this combined force will
look a lot like the Naval side most of the time. And if you think
this is not the case, go ask *any* air force officer why their
ranks are the same as the Army( hint the Air Force started as
part of the army and just lifted most of its traditions when
it formally split as a seperate force)
A Navy is only a restrictive term if you assume there are
other branches of the military to restrict against. Just
like how the Army was able to completely encompass what would
be the Air Force for around 30 to 40 years depending on how
you count things, a navy can encompass ground units if they
ground units are extremely minor compared to the overall
dailly activies of the navy with no problems.
>
> But I still have a hard time being convinced of the absolute necessity
> of not having Marines of any kind in Starfleet. What's so wrong with
> Marines, anyway? What do you have against them?
Just what is gained by making a *seperate* military force from the
over all Starfleet? NOTHING. Secutiry officers( in all or at least
small specialized divisions) can not be trained to handle any ground
duties in addition to their normal duties is just silly.
And there is implications from the show that Starfleet is the
*single* military arm of the Federation, adding anykind of formal
marine force( I do accept that some sections of Starfleet security
probably do carry out the duties that marines do under the banner
of security) would contradict that.
> Got something to
> hide, do you? Ever consider how much of your freedom was secured by
> Marines living, fighting, and dying? This isn't Starship Troopers, you
> know. They don't hammer it into our brains every DS9 episode. Either
> Trek's Marines are part of Starfleet--call them Starfleet Marines--in
> which case this definitely does fit in with the 'combined service' idea
> of Starfleet. Or they are a separate organization, the Federation
> Marines. Either way, I see no reason not to have this. Now that DS9
> is over, it's not like we're going to hear much about them one way or
> another...
There is nor a single reason that Starfleet security can not handle
any of the reason you want to force a marine core into existance to
handle. Logically even a basic security officer would have been trained
in ground duties( evidenced by thefact that starship security is sent
to planets to defend the ships officers), but at worst case the
Security division could have specially trained units to do this.
And the existance of a formal marine core would contradict the
combined service aspect of Starfleet, that or you do not understand
the relationship of the US marines to the US navy. The navy does
not command the marines in any direct way.
>
> > The very idea
> > that there are competing branches fulfilling the same roles is
> > against everything we have seen about Starfleet, which has
> > always been shown as a monolithic organization.
>
> Has it? How so? One line of dialogue in TOS' "Tomorrow is Yesterday"
> but very little beyond that. Besides, who's to say that (assuming they
> are separate organizations) Starfleet and the Fed. Marines must
> compete? They don't fulfill the same functions. There is no
> competition.
They would be in competition with Starfleet security which has as
it role the exact same role that any marine core would have.
James Ward
>
> (5: So the first Starship Enterprise did not have any Marine detachment
> on-board. (That we ever saw identified as such.) Maybe the Marines weren't
> operational then, or maybe a deep-space explorer starship would carry few if
> any Marines.
Actually no single ship or station we have ever seen or heard referenced
in now nearly 500 epsidoes of ST has ever made mention of any marine
detachment stationed on it. Not even DS9 and the Defiant during the
height of the Dominion war while it was on the front line of the
war.
James Ward
>
> "competing branches fulfilling the same roles"... No, definitley
> that's not the case. What we have seen so far on ST (I mean, the
> main characters) are strictly the "fleet". They have ships,
> shipyards, and bases. Their duty is to patrol on their ships,
> ferry VIPs from here to there, and keep the ship working. The
> "Marines" are the ones we've seen a couple of times doing
> ground combat. No, better said, planetary operations, since the
> "shipdudes" may on ocassion have landed somewhere and ended
> up in a fight...
"the Seige of AR588" contradicts this, as it clearly shows that
Sisco( who by your reasoning is a shipdude) is able to take
command from the ground troops( something a visiting naval captain
is not able to do with US marines in general) and is also clearly
trained in ground combat. Now if a strictly "fleet" officer is
trained in ground duties, why is a seperate group needed to
do what the "fleet" officers already know how to do?
wing...@penn.com
In article <110719992224159000%bri...@home.com>, Brian Barjenbruch
<bri...@home.com> wrote:
>> (4: Why does the notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines imply to people a
>> gun-toting, agressive fighting-only force that could only be derived from
>> the United States Marine Corps of today?
>
> In what way are the US Marines a "gun-toting, aggressive fighting-only
> force"? I'm sure you didn't mean to suggest that they were...because
> not only aren't they that, but the Federation Marines don't have to be,
> either.
Good point. I was responding to the inferences some other posters were
making in that vein.
>> (5: So the first Starship Enterprise did not have any Marine detachment
>> on-board. (That we ever saw identified as such.)
>
> Gene Roddenberry once said that the original Enterprise did have a
> Marine detachment on board.
Very interesting. When/where did he say this?
James Zuelow
has been said already-
--
> "the Seige of AR588" contradicts this, as it clearly shows that
> Sisco( who by your reasoning is a shipdude) is able to take
> command from the ground troops( something a visiting naval captain
> is not able to do with US marines in general) and is also clearly
> trained in ground combat.
This is not true. A Marine Colonel cannot _generally_ take command of a
naval vessel, but that is because he isn't qualified for the job (unless
he's an aviator, he also cannot take command of an aircraft). He isn't a
Line Officer with a Surface Warfare qualification. HOWEVER, a naval Line
Officer can (and they have on various occaisions) command Marines in combat
if he/she is the senior officer present. Usually they wouldn't, but there
is no "Ground Warfare" qualification (do not confuse qualifications with
occupational specialties). _Normally_ a landing force is commanded by the
senior Marine, but there are situations where this isn't true. And
_normally_ that Marine reports to a naval officer, commanding the operation
as a whole. If you look at landings by US Marines before WWI almost all of
them were commanded by a Navy officer who was on the ground with the
Marines. And of course when you move up the chain of command, the branch
of service of a commanding officer isn't as important as his/her staff -
the first NATO commander in Bosnia was a US Navy Admiral (Admiral Smith,
who somewhat confusingly took over from the British UN commander, General
Smith). However we're talking Starfleet here.
Now if a strictly "fleet" officer is
> trained in ground duties, why is a seperate group needed to
> do what the "fleet" officers already know how to do?
>
Remember that Sisko is a major character, and will therefore be in the
majority of the show for that reason alone. The show isn't about the
ground troops used against the Dominion, so we haven't really met any of
their officers.
Just because Sisko has some talent for ground combat doesn't mean he has a
lot of experience in it. Remember how easily he walked into the Maquis
ambush at the end of 'The Maquis Part I'? Starfleet probably has a
"landing party" qualification for command officers that includes small unit
tactics in the event the landing party gets into trouble. From what we see
on the show(s), this happens every so often and it would be a very prudent
thing for Starfleet to consider. This qualification would include tactics
for very small landing parties of two or three up to perhaps a dozen
security personnel. Not all landing party personnel would require the
qualification, but the senior member should. One would also assume that
every Starfleet officer is qualified with a hand phaser, so has been taught
some basics of how not to get killed when people are shooting at you.
However I remember Tasha Yar practicing with her phaser on the holodeck -
shooting at colored balls of light. So don't take the phaser qualification
training too far.
In the event that you need a larger force, your senior security officers
should have the relevant training to command larger bodies of
troops/crewmen. However this training is probably limited to small unit
actions of platoon to company size. (I doubt that the security branch takes
up more than 5% of a starship crew even in wartime, severely limiting a
landing force's size. The Enterprise D could probably manage a company at
most, if you included non-security personnel like Worf and the apparently
ex-soldier O'Brien. Meaning training for larger operations would probably
be wasted for security officers.) Remember we're talking combat here - non
combat search or other operations (i.e. placing a large number of
force-field generators in a short period of time) can be handled by any
competent Starfleet officer.
However ground combat is a full time job once you get past the basics.
IMHO unless Starfleet is using the 19th century philosophy of naval
officers commanding all landing parties, I doubt Sisko would willingly take
active command of a company or battalion of ground troops engaged in
combat. Assuming an organization similar to 20th century Earth, we're
talking about a hundred men or more for a company. Instead, he would just
delegate to the senior ground officer (or non-com) and provide very general
orders ("Lieutenant, we have to take out their shield generator. This is
how I want to do it"). If the Lieutenant came back and said "Captain, your
attack plan needs to be changed because..." I have no doubt he would bow to
expert opinion. He probably wouldn't try to tell the Lieutenant how to
place his heavy weapons or which platoon should take which job.
>
> --
> buckysan
>
Cheers,
James
JTKirk
>JTKirk wrote:
>>
>
>
>
>> "competing branches fulfilling the same roles"... No, definitley
>> that's not the case. What we have seen so far on ST (I mean, the
>> main characters) are strictly the "fleet". They have ships,
>> shipyards, and bases. Their duty is to patrol on their ships,
>> ferry VIPs from here to there, and keep the ship working. The
>> "Marines" are the ones we've seen a couple of times doing
>> ground combat. No, better said, planetary operations, since the
>> "shipdudes" may on ocassion have landed somewhere and ended
>> up in a fight...
>
>"the Seige of AR588" contradicts this, as it clearly shows that
>Sisco( who by your reasoning is a shipdude) is able to take
>command from the ground troops( something a visiting naval captain
>is not able to do with US marines in general) and is also clearly
>trained in ground combat. Now if a strictly "fleet" officer is
>trained in ground duties, why is a seperate group needed to
>do what the "fleet" officers already know how to do?
I've specifically said that the term "marines" is used only for
convenience. We don't know what they're called, or whether or
not they are part of Starfleet. I never said they were the
equivalent of US Marines. Maybe the US Marines won't accept
orders from higher-ranking officers from a different military
branch, but that's not necessarily the case in other countries
and doesn't need to be the case in ST.
As for Sisko and Co., they may have basic face-to-face combat
training, but it certainly isn't their duty. THAT was clearly
stated in the episode, they only stayed because the reinforcements
for the "marines" or whatever they're called hadn't arrived yet
and they felt it was a moral obligation to stay and help them...
It's also clear that they're not Just Your Average Security Guy
(or TOS Redshirts), since they wear their own uniform... and
I don't think the reason for a different model was camouflage
in this particular case.
James Ward
>
> > "the Seige of AR588" contradicts this, as it clearly shows that
> > Sisco( who by your reasoning is a shipdude) is able to take
> > command from the ground troops( something a visiting naval captain
> > is not able to do with US marines in general) and is also clearly
> > trained in ground combat.
>
> This is not true. A Marine Colonel cannot _generally_ take command of a
> naval vessel, but that is because he isn't qualified for the job (unless
> he's an aviator, he also cannot take command of an aircraft). He isn't a
> Line Officer with a Surface Warfare qualification. HOWEVER, a naval Line
> Officer can (and they have on various occaisions) command Marines in combat
> if he/she is the senior officer present. Usually they wouldn't, but there
> is no "Ground Warfare" qualification (do not confuse qualifications with
> occupational specialties). _Normally_ a landing force is commanded by the
> senior Marine, but there are situations where this isn't true. And
> _normally_ that Marine reports to a naval officer, commanding the operation
> as a whole. If you look at landings by US Marines before WWI almost all of
> them were commanded by a Navy officer who was on the ground with the
> Marines. And of course when you move up the chain of command, the branch
> of service of a commanding officer isn't as important as his/her staff -
> the first NATO commander in Bosnia was a US Navy Admiral (Admiral Smith,
> who somewhat confusingly took over from the British UN commander, General
> Smith). However we're talking Starfleet here.
Marines on a naval ship take orders from that ships commanders because
that was part of their stationing orders on the ship. A naval commander
from a *different* ship from the one their stationed on can not in normal
circumstances take over their command on their own authrority. Note in
the above I did say a "visiting" naval captain.
>
> Now if a strictly "fleet" officer is
> > trained in ground duties, why is a seperate group needed to
> > do what the "fleet" officers already know how to do?
> >
> Remember that Sisko is a major character, and will therefore be in the
> majority of the show for that reason alone. The show isn't about the
> ground troops used against the Dominion, so we haven't really met any of
> their officers.
Which in and of itself strongly suggests they don't exist seeing as
episodes like "Seige of AR588" and the final retaking of Cardasia
should have been done by any seperate ground force that might exist.
Even the stroming of the Cardasian command center was done by
"shipdudes" and not this postulated "marine" ground force. The
show either does not want them to exist as a seperate force or
is going way out of its way to not have them do what should be
their job if they exist. Or is not the point of Marines to
secure ground assests ( ie planets in ST) for the navy?
> Just because Sisko has some talent for ground combat doesn't mean he has a
> lot of experience in it.
Oddly enough we know for a fact that straight fleet "shipdude"
Miles O'Brian has done extensive ground combat in several battles
from the TNG episode "the Wounded". Or is Miles supposed to be
an ex-marine in this line of reasoning?
> Remember how easily he walked into the Maquis
> ambush at the end of 'The Maquis Part I'?
Care to guess how many highly qualified US marines walked into
ambushes in Vietnam? Hint, no amount of training can keep
you from walking into an ambush, espiecally when it is being
set up by an old *friend*.
> However I remember Tasha Yar practicing with her phaser on the holodeck -
> shooting at colored balls of light. So don't take the phaser qualification
> training too far.
Actually that was established to be a "phaser range" similiar to a
current day gun shooting range in a few other episodes. We see both
Picard and Riker playing a game of target practice there in a later
episode. Even Guinan has took a turn in it. You can never have
to much practice aiming at moving targets.
>
> In the event that you need a larger force, your senior security officers
> should have the relevant training to command larger bodies of
> troops/crewmen.
Exactly, *SECURITY* officers by definition would have the training
that people are tring to say requires a seperate marine division.
Or do people really think it takes more than about a week to explain
all of ship board security issues? They simply amount to figuring
out who can override whose orders and not letting the wrong people
into a room.
> However this training is probably limited to small unit
> actions of platoon to company size. (I doubt that the security branch takes
> up more than 5% of a starship crew even in wartime, severely limiting a
> landing force's size.
Seeing as all of the crew has combat training, the size of the security
force is not an issue. They would just take command of the mission and
go ahead.
> The Enterprise D could probably manage a company at
> most, if you included non-security personnel like Worf and the apparently
> ex-soldier O'Brien.
Nothing that O'Brien has ever said says he is an ex-solider, unless
you start with the postulate that a Federation "army" exists to begin
with. When O'Brien talks about being in combat he is refering something
that happened while he was in Starfleet. Or at least that is what is
said in "the Wounded".
> Meaning training for larger operations would probably
> be wasted for security officers.) Remember we're talking combat here - non
> combat search or other operations (i.e. placing a large number of
> force-field generators in a short period of time) can be handled by any
> competent Starfleet officer.
Gee, are we forgeting that each ship works alone and might get
stuck in combat with ground forces here?
> orders ("Lieutenant, we have to take out their shield generator. This is
> how I want to do it"). If the Lieutenant came back and said "Captain, your
> attack plan needs to be changed because..." I have no doubt he would bow to
> expert opinion. He probably wouldn't try to tell the Lieutenant how to
> place his heavy weapons or which platoon should take which job.
There is a problem with that and "AR 588", since the ground forces
there did not like Sisco's plans and yet Sisco took over anyway.
wing...@penn.com
In article <378A62A4...@eos.ncsu.edu>, James Ward
<jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
> wing...@penn.com wrote:
>>
>
>
>> (5: So the first Starship Enterprise did not have any Marine detachment
>> on-board. (That we ever saw identified as such.) Maybe the Marines weren't
>> operational then, or maybe a deep-space explorer starship would carry few if
>> any Marines.
>
> Actually no single ship or station we have ever seen or heard referenced
> in now nearly 500 epsidoes of ST has ever made mention of any marine
> detachment stationed on it. Not even DS9 and the Defiant during the
> height of the Dominion war while it was on the front line of the
> war.
============================================================
This whole discussion about marines has taken some interesting, long turns.
:-)
The discussion started as one thread, "FEDERATION MARINES (How canonical are
they?)" and spawned offshoot discussions. This must be the third or fourth
sub-thread.
Didn't we have this discussion about how canonical the notion of Starfleet
Marines are/are not a couple of sub-threads ago?
So some people agree and others disagree. When I asked the question
originally, folks cited the appearance of Colonel West in STAR TREK VI- THE
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY as canonical inference there has to be some kind of
Starfleet Marines-like operation at work, at least after the time of Kirk's
original command of the Enterprise, if not throughout all of STAR TREK.
The common themes of opposition in this thread appear to be (1: the
Federation would not create a "seperate" agency whose work would compete
with Starfleet's ship/base operations, and (2: the notion of marines strikes
some folks as being too war-like for STAR TREK, particularly since the idea
strikes them as being derived from marines of the U.S. and the U.K. of
today.
I would like to point a couple of things out about the origins of this
sub-thread, and how we got from my original question to "here."
There is room for disagreement on the notion of Starfleet Marines, and
whether or not the term "Marines" itself is strictly canon in STAR TREK. But
this canon argument can only be taken so far. Clearly, Colonel West was not
a "shipdude," though he was clearly a Federation-commissioned officer. Other
posters swear there are at least canonical inferences of some marines or
marine-like operations in "The Siege of AR-558" and "Nor the battle to the
strong...".
Below is a copy of an old post (which reveals just how long this discussion
has been going on) in which some of this was discussed:
------------------------------------------------------
From: "Yosef Seigel" <ybse...@startrekmail.com>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups:
alt.tv.star-trek.ds9,alt.startrek,alt.binaries.startrek,rec.arts.startrek.te
ch,alt.tv.star-trek.next-gen,alt.tv.star-trek.tos
Date: Tue, Jun 15, 1999, 10:58 PM
Subject: Re: FEDERATION MARINES (How canonical are they?)
<wing...@penn.com> wrote in message
news:5HD93.442$hh4...@newsfeed.slurp.net...
> How authentically STAR TREK is the notion of Federation Marines?
>
> I've found repeated references to them in non-canonical resources, but I
> can't place a specific canon reference to them.
Starfleet Marines are fully canon, they first appeared in the Deep Space
Nine episode "Nor the battle to the strong..." they wear green patches on
their uniforms instead of Security yellow, and hold military ranks like
major or colonel rather then naval ones.
--------------------------------------------------------
These canonical excerpts seem to suggest some kind of extension of the
Federation Starfleet beyond the naval orthodoxy of "shipdudes". Hence, the
notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines.
OBJECTIONS TO THE MARINE CONCEPT
OBJECTION 1: The Federation would not create a "seperate" agency which would
compete with Starfleet.
MY CONCERN: Why do we assume that Federation/Starfleet Marines would be
separate, much less in competition? If anything, Marines would be under the
same Starfleet Command as the fleets would be, except marine substructure
would be more geared for carrying on the Federation's business "on the
ground" once the starships have dropped the marines off.
OBJECTION 2: The notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines has too much to do
with the United States Marine Corps, the British Royal Marines and leftover
Cold War militarism of today, which have no place in STAR TREK.
MY CONCERN: I can understand the anxieties of some fans to this, especially
given to how far STAR TREK has strayed from the Corbomite Axiom during the
Berman years. But the word "Marines" does not imply all the things that are
inferred by those who dispute the concept, any more than the notion of a
Starfleet implies an organization closely paralleling the military navies of
today. It only seems logical that a Federation/Starfleet Marine corps would
be only as militaristic as Starfleet's un-navy.
OBJECTION 3: We have never seen any Marine detachments in STAR TREK, so
therefore there must not be.
MY CONCERN: Who says marines would have to be organized as we would
recognize them in today's armed forces? Again, we seem to be looking upon
the concept as being too Americanistic or militarisitic, by comparing it to
images of today's post-Cold War era military operations. I'm not sold on the
argument that "marines" means all the things some folks seem to insist it
does.
James Zuelow
--
Change Alaskan to Alaska to reply
James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote in message
news:378B7D3E...@eos.ncsu.edu...
> Marines on a naval ship take orders from that ships commanders because
> that was part of their stationing orders on the ship. A naval commander
> from a *different* ship from the one their stationed on can not in normal
> circumstances take over their command on their own authrority. Note in
> the above I did say a "visiting" naval captain.
>
I wasn't discussing the chain of command on ship. I was discussing the
chain of command on the ground. This isn't really relevant anyway, it just
caught my attention. Visiting officers can take over a ship in combat if
something is seriously wrong - say all of the original senior officers are
incapacitated. (A Navy Captain who refused to take command in that
situation would likely be court martialed afterwards for dereliction of
duty. "I was just visiting" probably wouldn't be a good defense.)
> >
> > Now if a strictly "fleet" officer is
> > > trained in ground duties, why is a seperate group needed to
> > > do what the "fleet" officers already know how to do?
> > >
> > Remember that Sisko is a major character, and will therefore be in the
> > majority of the show for that reason alone. The show isn't about the
> > ground troops used against the Dominion, so we haven't really met any
of
> > their officers.
>
> Which in and of itself strongly suggests they don't exist seeing as
> episodes like "Seige of AR588" and the final retaking of Cardasia
> should have been done by any seperate ground force that might exist.
>
"Combined Operations" - more than one service. Most Marine operations, and
certainly all Marine landings are combined ops.
> Even the stroming of the Cardasian command center was done by
> "shipdudes" and not this postulated "marine" ground force. The
> show either does not want them to exist as a seperate force or
> is going way out of its way to not have them do what should be
> their job if they exist. Or is not the point of Marines to
> secure ground assests ( ie planets in ST) for the navy?
They may have been busy elsewhere dealing with big huge Cardassian
anti-grav tanks that refused to surrender. And the scriptwriters may have
felt that it was more exiting to have the cast of DS9 in on the final
assault instead of walking through the smoking ruins after the battle.
Doesn't mean it has to make sense. You also didn't see crewmembers of the
other ships in the fleet on screen, but they were there.
>
> > Just because Sisko has some talent for ground combat doesn't mean he
has a
> > lot of experience in it.
>
> Oddly enough we know for a fact that straight fleet "shipdude"
> Miles O'Brian has done extensive ground combat in several battles
> from the TNG episode "the Wounded". Or is Miles supposed to be
> an ex-marine in this line of reasoning?
>
I was under the impression that he stated that he had transferred to
shipboard duty after being a soldier. I don't have "The Wounded" on tape
and it has been a while.
> Actually that was established to be a "phaser range" similiar to a
> current day gun shooting range in a few other episodes. We see both
> Picard and Riker playing a game of target practice there in a later
> episode. Even Guinan has took a turn in it. You can never have
> to much practice aiming at moving targets.
While shooting at targets is good practice (and the US Marine Corps takes
target range scores very seriously when considering promotions) it isn't
exactly tactical training. It teaches you how to hit what you are shooting
at, not perform squad rushes.
> Exactly, *SECURITY* officers by definition would have the training
> that people are tring to say requires a seperate marine division.
> Or do people really think it takes more than about a week to explain
> all of ship board security issues? They simply amount to figuring
> out who can override whose orders and not letting the wrong people
> into a room.
>
I can go either way on the Security or Marine issue. See my previous post
on how a Marine Corps wouldn't fit with Roddenberry's concept of Starfleet
and the Federation. However you were discussing line (command) officers.
A line officer today doesn't have the time to be a good ship captain AND a
good ground combat officer. In the Star Trek world, every line officer
seems to be a competent weapons/tactical officer, more than a basic
engineering officer, knows the specs of his ship inside and out, the
theoretical basis of all of his/her sensors and weapons and how they might
be field modified to meet the current situation, and is usually pretty up
to date on experimental Starfleet research. Not to mention the current
diplomatic situation in their area since Starfleet has a very large
diplomatic role. How much time would you say that leaves out for ground
combat operational training? Captain Sisko is the equivalent to a
Colonel - a battalion commander or XO for a regiment or brigade. Does he
retire to the holodeck for a month or two each year to conduct battalion
level combat exersizes? I doubt it. How is he supposed to stay current on
his ground combat skills?
If shipboard security only took a week to explain, it would not be a
department. It would be an assignment. (Riker to LaForge: "Geordi, I need
three people from your department with security qualification for next
month's rotation." LaForge to Riker: "Oh sure, I'll give you Barkely
before he drives us all batty and I think I've got two new Ensigns that
just finished security school."
> > However this training is probably limited to small unit
> > actions of platoon to company size. (I doubt that the security branch
takes
> > up more than 5% of a starship crew even in wartime, severely limiting a
> > landing force's size.
>
> Seeing as all of the crew has combat training, the size of the security
> force is not an issue. They would just take command of the mission and
> go ahead.
>
See my previous comment regarding target practice. All of the crew knows
how to use a hand phaser to be sure. Not all of the crew has combat
training. Similarly, the US Navy (and most others) requires their
personnel to "fam fire" (familiarization fire) with a rifle or pistol every
year. Or at least they used to. If they do good at it, they get a ribbon
to wear! That doesn't make a destroyer crew a good choice for front line
combat. A StarFleet crew would need a little more training in hand to hand
combat and hand weapons due to the risk of boarding parties beaming onto
the ship. But every time that I've seen boarders on a Starfleet ship, they
spend quite a bit of their time screaming for security to handle it once
the immediate emergency has been handled.
> Nothing that O'Brien has ever said says he is an ex-solider, unless
> you start with the postulate that a Federation "army" exists to begin
> with. When O'Brien talks about being in combat he is refering something
> that happened while he was in Starfleet. Or at least that is what is
> said in "the Wounded".
See previous re "The Wounded." I'll buy it from Amazon and check it out.
>
> > Meaning training for larger operations would probably
> > be wasted for security officers.) Remember we're talking combat here -
non
> > combat search or other operations (i.e. placing a large number of
> > force-field generators in a short period of time) can be handled by any
> > competent Starfleet officer.
>
> Gee, are we forgeting that each ship works alone and might get
> stuck in combat with ground forces here?
No, we're not. I don't see what you're getting at. The line officers
should not be engaging significant ground forces with their crew. They
could possibly mount small operations (such as "Too Short A Season") but
don't have the people to put up a good fight against an opposing force of
any size. Even making your assumption that all crewmembers are combat
trained, you would strip your ship crew to create the ground force.
> > orders ("Lieutenant, we have to take out their shield generator. This
is
> > how I want to do it"). If the Lieutenant came back and said "Captain,
your
> > attack plan needs to be changed because..." I have no doubt he would
bow to
> > expert opinion. He probably wouldn't try to tell the Lieutenant how to
> > place his heavy weapons or which platoon should take which job.
>
> There is a problem with that and "AR 588", since the ground forces
> there did not like Sisco's plans and yet Sisco took over anyway.
Sisco was placing individual heavy weapons, setting fields of fire,
choosing jobs for people, etc.? Or was he just assigning targets and
giving unpopular orders to people who would rather not make an assault at
all?
>
> --
> buckysan
>
Don't get too exited. I don't really have strong emotions regarding the
existence of Starfleet Marines one way or the other, which is why it may
seem that I argue both sides of the question. Basically I feel that
Starfleet definitely has a requirement for Marines, since the Federation
seems to be involved in a *lot* of wars involving naval campaigns.
However, Marines don't really seem to fit into the original concept, and
some dialog indicates that there wouldn't be any Marines. But then again,
we have dialog that specifically refers to Miles O'Brien as an officer too.
Other dialog specifically refers to the existence of "ground troops." So it
is a hazy argument at best. Complain to the script writers.
One thing I do disagree with very strongly is the idea that any Starfleet
officer is qualified to run a ground combat operation of company size or
larger. With all of the technical knowledge that they have to keep up on,
*they just don't have time* to worry about more than the very basics of
ground combat. The security people may have some additional training, but
their job is significantly different from the average ground pounder and
training would be very difficult to come by (especially when you consider
that holodecks were "new" when TNG started). Even in 20th century ground
forces you find that you have people with different jobs that are not
capable of replacing each other because of the training required. Don't
take an intel officer out to the field to command an artillery battalion.
He may know the specs of the guns, but he's not an artillery officer. Vice
versa is just as valid.
Cheers,
James
JTKirk
OK, let's call them "Starfleet Special Forces" (SFSF) for those
who don't like the term "marines". What is certain is that they
are not Security, since they have their own uniform design which
seemingly comes in the same three colors used by the "shipdudes"...
I'll rewatch the episodes tomorrow in order to build a more
solid base for what I'm trying to say: that the guys seen in
"Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "The Siege of AR-558" are NOT
Just Security and that maybe Colonel West from STVI:TUC belongs
to the same branch (or division) as they do, since they seem
to use non-naval ranks too.
James Ward
>
> > Which in and of itself strongly suggests they don't exist seeing as
> > episodes like "Seige of AR588" and the final retaking of Cardasia
> > should have been done by any seperate ground force that might exist.
> >
> "Combined Operations" - more than one service. Most Marine operations, and
> certainly all Marine landings are combined ops.
But not a *single* marine or even none ship officer is seen in
the retaking of Cardasia. How do you have combined operations
when only one group is doing the operation?
>
> > Even the stroming of the Cardasian command center was done by
> > "shipdudes" and not this postulated "marine" ground force. The
> > show either does not want them to exist as a seperate force or
> > is going way out of its way to not have them do what should be
> > their job if they exist. Or is not the point of Marines to
> > secure ground assests ( ie planets in ST) for the navy?
>
> They may have been busy elsewhere dealing with big huge Cardassian
> anti-grav tanks that refused to surrender. And the scriptwriters may have
> felt that it was more exiting to have the cast of DS9 in on the final
> assault instead of walking through the smoking ruins after the battle.
> Doesn't mean it has to make sense. You also didn't see crewmembers of the
> other ships in the fleet on screen, but they were there.
There is references to what the crews of the other ships are doing,
there is no references to anykind of specialized ground force
that a formal marine core would require.
> > Actually that was established to be a "phaser range" similiar to a
> > current day gun shooting range in a few other episodes. We see both
> > Picard and Riker playing a game of target practice there in a later
> > episode. Even Guinan has took a turn in it. You can never have
> > to much practice aiming at moving targets.
>
> While shooting at targets is good practice (and the US Marine Corps takes
> target range scores very seriously when considering promotions) it isn't
> exactly tactical training. It teaches you how to hit what you are shooting
> at, not perform squad rushes.
Who said anything about the target pratice teaching tactical stuff?
And you are right, the 4 years at Starfleet academy is where you learn
about tactical training.....
> combat operational training? Captain Sisko is the equivalent to a
> Colonel - a battalion commander or XO for a regiment or brigade. Does he
> retire to the holodeck for a month or two each year to conduct battalion
> level combat exersizes? I doubt it. How is he supposed to stay current on
> his ground combat skills?
There is canonical evidence that Starfleet reguarly conducts "war games".
They were expressly shown in TOS and TNG as the central plots of 2 episodes.
That appearently time is taken out of a *starships* schedule to take
part in war games, why is it so hard to beleive that the officers might
not make time to conduct training exercises in the holodeck. Note, we
know that Tori's commander rating test was done on the holodeck. And
why do you assume it would take a solid month at a time when you have
holodeck's to simulate the battles? And realize we have seen Bashir and
O'Brian simulate the battle of the almo several times, and seemingly they
can go through the entire battle in one evening even though the battle
covers a few weeks.
> If shipboard security only took a week to explain, it would not be a
> department. It would be an assignment. (Riker to LaForge: "Geordi, I need
> three people from your department with security qualification for next
> month's rotation." LaForge to Riker: "Oh sure, I'll give you Barkely
> before he drives us all batty and I think I've got two new Ensigns that
> just finished security school."
Exaclty, the very fact that security is its own division proves that it
does much more than guard doors on the ships( as that would only take
about a week to explain how to do).
> > Seeing as all of the crew has combat training, the size of the security
> > force is not an issue. They would just take command of the mission and
> > go ahead.
> >
> See my previous comment regarding target practice. All of the crew knows
> how to use a hand phaser to be sure. Not all of the crew has combat
> training.
Wrong, it has been said that any one that graduates from the academy has
had combat training. Perhaps not the all day for 20 years that the people
wanting to create a marine core for starfleet want to see, but they all have
had combat training to at least the equal of a normal basic training
course.
> combat. A StarFleet crew would need a little more training in hand to hand
> combat and hand weapons due to the risk of boarding parties beaming onto
> the ship. But every time that I've seen boarders on a Starfleet ship, they
> spend quite a bit of their time screaming for security to handle it once
> the immediate emergency has been handled.
Gee, what do you think Security's job on the ship is? YOu appearent seem
supprise that when a breach of security arrises they call on security to
deal with it?
And note as you yourself said the average crew seems more than able to
handle the immediate emergency when the ship is boarded.
> > Gee, are we forgeting that each ship works alone and might get
> > stuck in combat with ground forces here?
>
> No, we're not. I don't see what you're getting at. The line officers
> should not be engaging significant ground forces with their crew. They
> could possibly mount small operations (such as "Too Short A Season") but
> don't have the people to put up a good fight against an opposing force of
> any size. Even making your assumption that all crewmembers are combat
> trained, you would strip your ship crew to create the ground force.
The point is that each ship would *have* to be able to mount a ground
attack. That each ship would be expected to be able to handle such
(and we have seen it done at times, each time using the normal "shipdudes"
officers and security forces), would imply that what ever ground forces
the Federation has would be on the starships. That we see only shipdudes
even when ground fights occure strong implies that there is no seperate
ground force, only perhaps a specilized section of security to deal with
such.
And really, why is it so hard to beleive that a naval officer could know
both how to fight with ships and to fight on the ground? Remember this
is a world where 10 year olds are expected to study calculus. We are also
told that the academy only accepts the best and the brightest on top of
that.
The only arguement for a marine core that has ever made the slightest
sense is tring to say that no one can know how to fight with ships and
on the ground. The problem is that we have been shown that the captains
the shows have centered around can do both with at least competent level
of ability.
> > There is a problem with that and "AR 588", since the ground forces
> > there did not like Sisco's plans and yet Sisco took over anyway.
>
> Sisco was placing individual heavy weapons, setting fields of fire,
> choosing jobs for people, etc.? Or was he just assigning targets and
> giving unpopular orders to people who would rather not make an assault at
> all?
Sisco was telling people *where* take their positions.
> One thing I do disagree with very strongly is the idea that any Starfleet
> officer is qualified to run a ground combat operation of company size or
> larger. With all of the technical knowledge that they have to keep up on,
> *they just don't have time* to worry about more than the very basics of
> ground combat.
The shows have said otherwise about the captains we have seen followed.
And really if you accpet the best and brightest only deal with starfleet,
it is not that hard to beleive.
There really are people that can command ships and ground forces around
today, they just aren't that many of them. But assume 150 speices plus
who knows how many colonies, and you would have lots more of them once
you factor in an appearent overall imporvement in intelligence.
> The security people may have some additional training, but
> their job is significantly different from the average ground pounder and
> training would be very difficult to come by (especially when you consider
> that holodecks were "new" when TNG started).
New to ships. Either security is just door guarding or they do actually
train for something. We know that all of the officers know how to fight
so security training must involve something more.....
> Even in 20th century ground
> forces you find that you have people with different jobs that are not
> capable of replacing each other because of the training required. Don't
> take an intel officer out to the field to command an artillery battalion.
> He may know the specs of the guns, but he's not an artillery officer. Vice
> versa is just as valid.
No one has suggested taking intel people into the field, just that
security ( the division as a whole) do its job.
James Zuelow
check it, so you are probably angry.
Your Starfleet officers have 48 hours a day to get all of this stuff in
because they all study calculus at 10 years old. Since you edited out my
comment about not really being exited one way or another about Security or
Marines I have to assume that you're not really interested in discussing
the issue, but instead just want everyone to think like you.
I still say that if you want a professional ground force, you had better
train a ground force. Not a bunch of people doing two jobs. A security
officer who is specializing in ground warfare is perfectly acceptable to
me. If you're training an Ensign to be both an engineering officer AND a
ground force platoon commander you're going to get a mediocre engineering
officer AND a mediocre ground officer. The aliens with the professionals
will win every time. The fact that the Federation is fiction and the
scriptwriters are on their side is the only thing saving them. I know a
little bit about ground combat, and I've seen the difference between well
trained troops and amateurs. It takes a lot of effort to be good at combat
of any kind - which is why we have specialists today.
Cheers,
James.
JTKirk
>
>Wrong, it has been said that any one that graduates from the academy has
>had combat training. Perhaps not the all day for 20 years that the people
>wanting to create a marine core for starfleet want to see, but they all have
>had combat training to at least the equal of a normal basic training
>course.
>
It's still >basic< combat training.
>
>> combat. A StarFleet crew would need a little more training in hand to hand
>> combat and hand weapons due to the risk of boarding parties beaming onto
>> the ship. But every time that I've seen boarders on a Starfleet ship, they
>> spend quite a bit of their time screaming for security to handle it once
>> the immediate emergency has been handled.
>
>Gee, what do you think Security's job on the ship is? YOu appearent seem
>supprise that when a breach of security arrises they call on security to
>deal with it?
>
Of course that's Security's job... but:
Would you be willing to send policemen to a battlefield, without any
further training? Why the hell do you think here in Peru it was
the military that had to fight the terrorists, and not the cops?
Because they were being slaughtered. They are trained to fight
common criminals, not guys with heavy weaponry and using guerrilla
tactics... Likewise, there's a limit for what Security can do.
(incidentally, the ones best suited for the job of fighting SL
were the Naval Infantry guys... since here there are no Marines
as a corps. And they are the ones in charge of the prisons for
the terrorists, too)
Timo S Saloniemi
>> There may be even an equivalent of an air force... remember
>> those tiny craft sent to intercept the Borg in "Best of Both
>> Worlds"? (don't remember if part I or II). I think they were
>> refered by a particular name.
>
Apparently also reused as the "waverider" in "New Ground" - so
possibly this is a popular Starfleet/Federation drone design in the
mid-24th century?
>> And as I already commented, I
>> doubt the fighters we've seen during the Dominion War are
>> piloted by shuttle pilots, based on the crash ratio of the
>> shuttlecraft... they need really skilled pilots for those
>> fighters!
Actually, it's the main characters who usually crash those shuttles.
Offhand, I can remember only one shuttle crash where a dedicated
shuttle pilot was to blame, namely one Ben Pietro in "Skin of
Evil", ferrying around Deanna Troi and making short work of
a type 7 shuttle.
>I would imagine that many of these fighters would be piloted by
>Federation Marines or Starfleet naval aviators.
I wonder if the starship shuttle pilots ever get to do any flying
at all... First the principal characters hog the shuttles, then
the Marines and flyboys...
Timo Saloniemi
James Ward
> >had combat training. Perhaps not the all day for 20 years that the people
> >wanting to create a marine core for starfleet want to see, but they all have
> >had combat training to at least the equal of a normal basic training
> >course.
> >
Which is more than enough if you assume that they have one person
in charge of them that has some ground training. That was how
the US army worked during WW2 and Korea you know, give them the
basics and put them under an already proven commander. There is
no need to train every one of them in all the details, the smart
ones will pick it up as they go on the job. You then promote
them.
> >
> >> combat. A StarFleet crew would need a little more training in hand to hand
> >> combat and hand weapons due to the risk of boarding parties beaming onto
> >> the ship. But every time that I've seen boarders on a Starfleet ship, they
> >> spend quite a bit of their time screaming for security to handle it once
> >> the immediate emergency has been handled.
> >
> >Gee, what do you think Security's job on the ship is? YOu appearent seem
> >supprise that when a breach of security arrises they call on security to
> >deal with it?
> >
> Of course that's Security's job... but:
> Would you be willing to send policemen to a battlefield, without any
> further training?
Security officers spend the same four years at the academy that the
rest of the officers do. Now since there does seem to be a position
of perment security officer and not all of them just pulling the
short straw, it stands to reason that they are trained in something
more than door guarding at the academy.
And if that policeman has had *four* years of military training,
I would not hesitate to send him onto a battlefield. Your example
is flawed since you want to keep forgeting that the security officers
are *trained*, not just some doorman off the street.
> Why the hell do you think here in Peru it was
> the military that had to fight the terrorists, and not the cops?
> Because they were being slaughtered. They are trained to fight
> common criminals, not guys with heavy weaponry and using guerrilla
Again, SF security spends *four* years at a military academy.
The ones that actually want to make the SF career as security
( and such has been stated to exist), surely do a little more
than *basic* combat training. The "long haul" security officer
is nothing like a basic cop off the street in terms of training,
if we assume that the academy does anything close to logically.
> tactics... Likewise, there's a limit for what Security can do.
Why do you assume that the Security officers have so little training?
At least the long haul ones would have more training than your
basic cop does.
James Ward
>
> > Again, SF security spends *four* years at a military academy.
>
That last only a few months, and most of that is training in
law and protcol for arresting people.
Guess what you are going to learn at a military academy if
you area is security? It is going to logically be a damn sight
more than just how to guard a door and who to say sir to.
James Ward
>
> OK, whatever. You are typing your response so fast you don't even spell
> check it, so you are probably angry.
Actually I was doing it on my lunch break and did not have time.
But I do find the attempts to force a marine core into Starfleet to
be silly for the most part since there is really no need for it.
That or you assume that the long term Security officers( we know
that some people *pick* to be in security for their entire career's)
in four years at the acadmey learn nothing more than door watching
and some hand to hand skills. Given that there is permenant security
posts, it is actually a waste to not train them in ground combat.
>
> Your Starfleet officers have 48 hours a day to get all of this stuff in
> because they all study calculus at 10 years old.
There is an episode of TNG ( can't remember the name, but some race
wanted to "buy" a few of the ships children because they could not
have any of their own), where it is actually stated that a 10 year
old kid is expected to be studying calculus. That is from the show,
not me. The grandious well rounded studies that it seems all of
the Starfleet people have is a well established canon fact, no
matter how weird it sounds. But if you think about the acceptance
test that Wesley had to take ( and did not pass the first time
even), just getting into the academy requires a very widely studies
person to begin with.
Why would the officers need more than 24 hours anyway? An 8 hour shift
plus 1 or 2 hours training/maintainance a day ( know for a fact that
many of them use the holodeck to keep current in their fields from many
episodes) to keep skills current leaves plenty of time. Just rotate
through the skills during an hour or so daily training time and there
is no problem.
And from DS9, it appears that Bashir and O'Brian can simulate week
long battles and campaigns in one evening. And note, neither one of
them strikes anyone as a ground pounder and yet they spend a lot
of time tring to find a way to win the battle of the Almo, an exercise
who sole purpose is to improve ground combat skills.
> Since you edited out my
> comment about not really being exited one way or another about Security or
> Marines I have to assume that you're not really interested in discussing
> the issue, but instead just want everyone to think like you.
I would like to see someone come up with a real reason for the existance
of a marine core other than to make Starfleet like the US navy. Consider
that marines do in the US navy and other navies, that is the exact jobs
( at least ship board) that we see security officers doing. If a marine
core exists, it seems to not be doing the main job that historicly
marine forces have done.
The few things that suggest a marine core might exist
1) Colonel west
Consider that we now have Colonel Kira on DS9, it is possible that
when planets join the Federation they keep their old ranks? Note that
Martok went form Captain to General as well. So is the Klingon space force
an army or a navy?
2) the 2 times we see ground forces, they were green patches
The Army Rangers were a slightly different uniform from the regular
Army, care to tell one of them they are not part of the Army to their
face sometime? Same is true of the Green Barrets. Actually all of the
major divisions of the Army were seperate *patches* to indicate their
division. I am fairly certain that something simliar is done in the
Navy. So could the patches just be to signfy that they passed their
ground combat training, instead of forceing a whole seperate military
force into existance?
3) A person can't know both naval and ground combat
This one is just baloney. There are people around today that can
command naval units and army units in combat. They are not very common
but they exist. And in any case, who said that the subsection of security
that deals with ground forces would ever be taking command of starships
during space combat?
>
> I still say that if you want a professional ground force, you had better
> train a ground force. Not a bunch of people doing two jobs. A security
> officer who is specializing in ground warfare is perfectly acceptable to
> me.
Then we actually agree on this anyway.
> If you're training an Ensign to be both an engineering officer AND a
> ground force platoon commander you're going to get a mediocre engineering
> officer AND a mediocre ground officer.
This actually does not have to follow, and given what Wesley had
to pass to get *into* the academy does not seem to be a general
restriction on the academy cadets. It is silly to suggest such
high IQs for the cadets, but it is what the show has clearly shown.
And ever watch a show called MASH? Their second base commander was
a line infantryman *and* a general sergon. Learning all of medicene is
much more complicated than learning all of engineering( unless you
include all of the theory, but that is not needed to fix the engines),
but it appears that in RL people were able to master both.
James Ward
>
> > The few things that suggest a marine core might exist
> > 1) Colonel west
> > Consider that we now have Colonel Kira on DS9, it is possible that
> > when planets join the Federation they keep their old ranks?
>
Umm, just how many of the races we have seen in ST that look human
we know are not? There are plently of them.
>
> Besides, in "Rapture" it was said that when planets (particularly
> Bajor) join the Federation, their military forces are absorbed into
> Starfleet.
DId they say they change the rank titles?
> When Bajor joins, Kira will no doubt be given a Starfleet
> commission, just like last time, only this one will be permanent. She
> could, I suppose, join the Federation Marines if she wanted to. Yes,
> I'm assuming they exist, so there. :)
Actualy you are postulating its existance against several things that
strongly suggest it does not exist, namely the odd fact that we have
never one seen or heard reference to them in all of ST.
>
> > Note that
> > Martok went form Captain to General as well.
>
> When did we see Martok as anything other than a General?
There is mention of his prior service in which he was
refered to as captain, and all other Klingon ship commanders
have been captains.
>
> > So is the Klingon space force
> > an army or a navy?
>
> We have seen officers called Commander, so it would seem that they have
> both. Same for the Romulans, who have generals (Redemption II) and
> admirals (Tin Man). Of course, in the Romulans' case, the generals
> could have been Tal Shiar officers, like the colonel in The Die Is
> Cast.
So the Romulans and the Klingons can combine them into one,
but you have problems accepting that the Federation can?
Now that makes a lot of sense.
Note BTW, if General Martok is an army commander, how come
he can so easily command Naval fleets as well?
> >
> > 2) the 2 times we see ground forces, they were green patches
>
> When have we seen these green patches?
People claim that in "Nor the Battle" and "AR588" that the ground
forces have somekind of patch on their uniforms.
>
> > The Army Rangers were a slightly different uniform from the regular
> > Army, care to tell one of them they are not part of the Army to their
> > face sometime? Same is true of the Green Barrets. Actually all of the
> > major divisions of the Army were seperate *patches* to indicate their
> > division. I am fairly certain that something simliar is done in the
> > Navy. So could the patches just be to signfy that they passed their
> > ground combat training, instead of forceing a whole seperate military
> > force into existance?
>
> There have been ground forces in Trek that wore completely different
> uniforms, not just green patches. This uniform is a black suit with a
> colored stripe across the middle. (Apparently the standard uniform for
> a Federation marine.) This was shown in "Nor the Battle to the Strong"
> and "Siege of AR-558."
Gee, or it could just be something like the Rangers and their
*odd* hats that look *nothing* like any of the hats worn by other
Army units.
Hell that black suit could be what passes for a field combat uniform
from WHAT little we know about it. Or maybe it is the normal uniform
for security when not assigned to ships?
Again, you postulate that the marines exist before you even begin.
wing...@penn.com
In article <378E561D...@eos.ncsu.edu>, James Ward
<jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
> I would like to see someone come up with a real reason for the existance
> of a marine core other than to make Starfleet like the US navy.
FWIW, that was not my intention when I started the original thread more than
a month ago.
>Consider
> that marines do in the US navy and other navies, that is the exact jobs
> ( at least ship board) that we see security officers doing. If a marine
> core exists, it seems to not be doing the main job that historicly
> marine forces have done.
The idea (as I saw it) is to have a ground-based counterpart to Starfleet's
"shipdudes" to carry on the Federation's business where the ships leave off.
> The few things that suggest a marine core might exist
> 1) Colonel west
> Consider that we now have Colonel Kira on DS9, it is possible that
> when planets join the Federation they keep their old ranks?
When Kira put on a Starfleet uniform, she was battlefield-commissioned as a
Commander. Unless she was a *Lieutenant-Colonel* in the Bajoran Militia, she
actually stepped down in rank.
>Note that
> Martok went form Captain to General as well. So is the Klingon space force
> an army or a navy?
Why not both?
> 2) the 2 times we see ground forces, they were green patches
> The Army Rangers were a slightly different uniform from the regular
> Army, care to tell one of them they are not part of the Army to their
> face sometime? Same is true of the Green Barrets. Actually all of the
> major divisions of the Army were seperate *patches* to indicate their
> division. I am fairly certain that something simliar is done in the
> Navy. So could the patches just be to signfy that they passed their
> ground combat training, instead of forceing a whole seperate military
> force into existance?
Why assume the Federation is "forcing a whole seperate military force into
existance"? If these are Starfleet Marines, the organization would fall
under Starfleet Command. The Marine commandant would answer to the Secretary
of Starfleet. I do not recall anyone putting forth the suggestion that
Starfleet Marines would be autonomous, let alone in competition, with
Starfleet's ships and starbases. As I put forth a few times already (I'm
beginning to think nobody reads my posts) the whole point of Marines would
be to complement the fleet's mission.
> 3) A person can't know both naval and ground combat
>
> This one is just baloney. There are people around today that can
> command naval units and army units in combat. They are not very common
> but they exist. And in any case, who said that the subsection of security
> that deals with ground forces would ever be taking command of starships
> during space combat?
>
>>
>> I still say that if you want a professional ground force, you had better
>> train a ground force. Not a bunch of people doing two jobs. A security
>> officer who is specializing in ground warfare is perfectly acceptable to
>> me.
>
> Then we actually agree on this anyway.
>
>> If you're training an Ensign to be both an engineering officer AND a
>> ground force platoon commander you're going to get a mediocre engineering
>> officer AND a mediocre ground officer.
>
> This actually does not have to follow, and given what Wesley had
> to pass to get *into* the academy does not seem to be a general
> restriction on the academy cadets. It is silly to suggest such
> high IQs for the cadets, but it is what the show has clearly shown.
>
> And ever watch a show called MASH? Their second base commander was
> a line infantryman *and* a general sergon. Learning all of medicene is
> much more complicated than learning all of engineering( unless you
> include all of the theory, but that is not needed to fix the engines),
> but it appears that in RL people were able to master both.
This last quotation assumes that Starfleet Marines exist only to serve
combat roles or to project purely military power. Instead, Starfleet Marines
could be as different from today's military as Starfleet's starships and
starbases are.
The whole point of using the word "marines" should not be to suggest pure
militarism, but instead to indicate what would be (for lack of a better
term) an *amphibious arm* of Starfleet that carries on the Federation's
mission (whether peaceful or not, scientific or not, humanitarian or not)
"on-the-ground" after the starships have left the "marine" personnel there.
wing...@penn.com
In article <150719991953097721%bri...@home.com>, Brian Barjenbruch
<bri...@home.com> wrote:
>> > > 1) Colonel west
>> > > Consider that we now have Colonel Kira on DS9, it is possible that
>> > > when planets join the Federation they keep their old ranks?
>> >
>> > Colonel West was human.
>>
>> Umm, just how many of the races we have seen in ST that look human
>> we know are not? There are plently of them.
>
> "West" sure sounds like a human name to me...man, we are talking about
> some serious nit-picking here. Do you have to be told that every human
> character is in fact human, before you'll accept it? West looks human.
> He has a human name. Therefore, there is every reason to believe that
> he is human. You got a problem with that?
I would have to agree with Brian here. This kind of nit-picking resembles
something that Richard Arnold (the late Gene Roddenberry's manservant and
fired Paramount STAR TREK archivist) would do, like insisting that "NCC"
doesn't mean anything after fans assumed for years it stood for "Naval
Construction Contract." Arnold insisted in recent years that "NCC" meant
nothing, and in doing so, accomplished nothing.
>> > When Bajor joins, Kira will no doubt be given a Starfleet
>> > commission, just like last time, only this one will be permanent. She
>> > could, I suppose, join the Federation Marines if she wanted to. Yes,
>> > I'm assuming they exist, so there. :)
>>
>> Actualy you are postulating its existance against several things that
>> strongly suggest it does not exist, namely the odd fact that we have
>> never one seen or heard reference to them in all of ST.
>
> So what? My postulating that Federation Marines do exist, is no
> different (and no less permissible) than you postulating they don't. I
> may have little evidence that they are there, but you have even less
> evidence that they don't.
>
> Look, why are you people getting so upset at the possibility that
> Federation Marines *might* exist in the Trek universe? I admit,
> there's not a whole lot of evidence either way. But the possibility is
> there. At a moment's notice, the writers could devote an entire novel,
> episode, film, hell, even a frickin' *series*, to Federation Marines.
> Not that they should, but they can. What the hell is so repugnant
> about that? I admit, I like the idea that they should exist, and so my
> judgment is colored in favor of such an organization. But why is yours
> colored *against* it? What is it about Marines that disgusts you so
> much? Have you ever MET a real Marine? There's gotta be a reason why
> you hate them so much. If you want to believe that there are no
> Marines in the Federation, then go right the hell ahead. But don't
> throw a hissy fit every time somebody mentions them.
>
> As far as Trek goes: It's not like they're beating us over the head
> with it. The examples that I cite in favor of Federation Marines,
> haven't exactly been given a lot of screen time. Even "Siege of
> AR-558" mainly focused on the actual people, not their ranks or what
> organization they belonged to. If, in a future Trek film for example,
> we hear of a character on the Enterprise (or Voyager, or any other ship
> or starbase) who's a Fed. Marine, and this only gets a few lines of
> dialogue at most, are you going to leave the theater in disgust? It
> doesn't have to be Starship Troopers, you know. I bet you really hated
> that film...
This is a very well considered, well written argument. Insisting that some
form of Starfleet Marine Corps doesn't exist because a bunch of STAR TREK
characters didn't bother to gather in a Conference Room and waste five
minutes in the middle of a DEEP SPACE NINE episode taling about Marines does
not expressly rule out the existence of such. Chalk it up to "the absence of
evidence does not imply the evidence of absence."
JTKirk
>Brian Barjenbruch wrote:
>>
>> > Again, SF security spends *four* years at a military academy.
>>
>> Cops have an academy too...
>
>That last only a few months, and most of that is training in
>law and protcol for arresting people.
>
>Guess what you are going to learn at a military academy if
>you area is security? It is going to logically be a damn sight
>more than just how to guard a door and who to say sir to.
Do yourself a favor: go ask someone who attends a naval or militarya
academy what they do all those four years. It's basically like
attending college, though I admit the training will be tougher
than phys ed...
And AFTER the acdemy, they have to keep studying and attending
classes and having exams in order to get promoted... aside from
performing their duties.
JTKirk
>Brian Barjenbruch wrote:
>>
>> > The few things that suggest a marine core might exist
>> > 1) Colonel west
>> > Consider that we now have Colonel Kira on DS9, it is possible that
>> > when planets join the Federation they keep their old ranks?
>>
>> Colonel West was human.
>
>Umm, just how many of the races we have seen in ST that look human
>we know are not? There are plently of them.
>
>>
>> Besides, in "Rapture" it was said that when planets (particularly
>> Bajor) join the Federation, their military forces are absorbed into
>> Starfleet.
>
>DId they say they change the rank titles?
>
When Kira was given a Starfleet commission, she was given a
"Commander" rank and everybody refered to her by that rank,
instead of her Bajoran rank of "Colonel" (whether or not Colonel
really mena Lt.Colonel is another thing). It's a safe bet to
assume that's the case when planetary forces are "absorbed"
into Starfleet.
>> When Bajor joins, Kira will no doubt be given a Starfleet
>> commission, just like last time, only this one will be permanent. She
>> could, I suppose, join the Federation Marines if she wanted to. Yes,
>> I'm assuming they exist, so there. :)
>
>Actualy you are postulating its existance against several things that
>strongly suggest it does not exist, namely the odd fact that we have
>never one seen or heard reference to them in all of ST.
>
>>
>> > Note that
>> > Martok went form Captain to General as well.
>>
>> When did we see Martok as anything other than a General?
>
>There is mention of his prior service in which he was
>refered to as captain, and all other Klingon ship commanders
>have been captains.
>
First, remeber that "Captain" is a rank too in non-naval
military branches (not equivalent to Navy Captain, though).
And then, the Klingons have a "Klingon Defense Force" whose
structure needn't be exactly like an army or a navy...
>>
>> > So is the Klingon space force
>> > an army or a navy?
>>
>> We have seen officers called Commander, so it would seem that they have
>> both. Same for the Romulans, who have generals (Redemption II) and
>> admirals (Tin Man). Of course, in the Romulans' case, the generals
>> could have been Tal Shiar officers, like the colonel in The Die Is
>> Cast.
>
>So the Romulans and the Klingons can combine them into one,
>but you have problems accepting that the Federation can?
>Now that makes a lot of sense.
>
We aren't saying that - only that that part of Starfleet (or the
Federation, maybe) that carries on "ground-based large-scale
combat tasks" have their own uniforms and rank system. THAT's
canon. Calling them "Marines" is just looking for a short way
of referring to them, since we don't know what they're called.
>Note BTW, if General Martok is an army commander, how come
>he can so easily command Naval fleets as well?
>
See above.
>> >
>> > 2) the 2 times we see ground forces, they were green patches
>>
>> When have we seen these green patches?
>
>People claim that in "Nor the Battle" and "AR588" that the ground
>forces have somekind of patch on their uniforms.
>
They had a different uniform design. In at least two of the three
"division colors" used by Starfleet.
>>
>> > The Army Rangers were a slightly different uniform from the regular
>> > Army, care to tell one of them they are not part of the Army to their
>> > face sometime? Same is true of the Green Barrets. Actually all of the
>> > major divisions of the Army were seperate *patches* to indicate their
>> > division. I am fairly certain that something simliar is done in the
>> > Navy. So could the patches just be to signfy that they passed their
>> > ground combat training, instead of forceing a whole seperate military
>> > force into existance?
>>
>> There have been ground forces in Trek that wore completely different
>> uniforms, not just green patches. This uniform is a black suit with a
>> colored stripe across the middle. (Apparently the standard uniform for
>> a Federation marine.) This was shown in "Nor the Battle to the Strong"
>> and "Siege of AR-558."
>
>Gee, or it could just be something like the Rangers and their
>*odd* hats that look *nothing* like any of the hats worn by other
>Army units.
>
Then if they are like the Rangers, they are a special division
or unit, and they are NOT security. That's the only thing we've
been saying.
>Hell that black suit could be what passes for a field combat uniform
>from WHAT little we know about it. Or maybe it is the normal uniform
>for security when not assigned to ships?
>
That hypothesis would also be acceptable.
>Again, you postulate that the marines exist before you even begin.
--
JTKirk
>JTKirk wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:32:51 -0400, James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Wrong, it has been said that any one that graduates from the academy has
>> >had combat training. Perhaps not the all day for 20 years that the people
>> >wanting to create a marine core for starfleet want to see, but they all have
>> >had combat training to at least the equal of a normal basic training
>> >course.
>> >
>> It's still >basic< combat training.
>
>Which is more than enough if you assume that they have one person
>in charge of them that has some ground training. That was how
>the US army worked during WW2 and Korea you know, give them the
>basics and put them under an already proven commander. There is
>no need to train every one of them in all the details, the smart
>ones will pick it up as they go on the job. You then promote
>them.
>
Yes, that's a way to get good fighters by "survival of the fittest".
I think it may be admissible when a war is going on and you can't
wait for them having a longer training period, but under different
circumstances they would have to go through further training.
That's simply using recruits as cannon-fodder, you know.
>> >
>> >> combat. A StarFleet crew would need a little more training in hand to hand
>> >> combat and hand weapons due to the risk of boarding parties beaming onto
>> >> the ship. But every time that I've seen boarders on a Starfleet ship, they
>> >> spend quite a bit of their time screaming for security to handle it once
>> >> the immediate emergency has been handled.
>> >
>> >Gee, what do you think Security's job on the ship is? YOu appearent seem
>> >supprise that when a breach of security arrises they call on security to
>> >deal with it?
>> >
>> Of course that's Security's job... but:
>> Would you be willing to send policemen to a battlefield, without any
>> further training?
>
>Security officers spend the same four years at the academy that the
>rest of the officers do.
...and they have to attend the same courses the others do. Read
my other posting.
> Now since there does seem to be a position
>of perment security officer and not all of them just pulling the
>short straw, it stands to reason that they are trained in something
>more than door guarding at the academy.
>
I would think they get that training >after< the Academy.
>And if that policeman has had *four* years of military training,
>I would not hesitate to send him onto a battlefield. Your example
>is flawed since you want to keep forgeting that the security officers
>are *trained*, not just some doorman off the street.
>
Hah. I wish a policeman heard you calling him a "doorman".
>> Why the hell do you think here in Peru it was
>> the military that had to fight the terrorists, and not the cops?
>> Because they were being slaughtered. They are trained to fight
>> common criminals, not guys with heavy weaponry and using guerrilla
>
>Again, SF security spends *four* years at a military academy.
>The ones that actually want to make the SF career as security
>( and such has been stated to exist), surely do a little more
>than *basic* combat training. The "long haul" security officer
>is nothing like a basic cop off the street in terms of training,
>if we assume that the academy does anything close to logically.
>
>> tactics... Likewise, there's a limit for what Security can do.
>
>Why do you assume that the Security officers have so little training?
>At least the long haul ones would have more training than your
>basic cop does.
--
Andrew Reid
> Look, why are you people getting so upset at the possibility that
> Federation Marines *might* exist in the Trek universe? I admit,
> there's not a whole lot of evidence either way. But the possibility is
> there. At a moment's notice, the writers could devote an entire novel,
> episode, film, hell, even a frickin' *series*, to Federation Marines.
> Not that they should, but they can. What the hell is so repugnant
> about that? I admit, I like the idea that they should exist, and so my
> judgment is colored in favor of such an organization. But why is yours
> colored *against* it? What is it about Marines that disgusts you so
> much? Have you ever MET a real Marine? There's gotta be a reason why
> you hate them so much. If you want to believe that there are no
> Marines in the Federation, then go right the hell ahead. But don't
> throw a hissy fit every time somebody mentions them.
[Warning: The last few paragraphs have final-season DS9 spoilers.]
I believe I understand the problem, although the following
lengthy tirade is of course my opinion and my opinion only.
The difficulty centres on the "concept erosion" theme. The original
series was a utopian idealization of the future, where humans had
learned to deal with the darker side of their nature with the generous
assistance of a lot of cool technology. It was a relatively
shallow charicature of actual human nature, but it reconciled
the often-threatening nature of new technology with an absolutely
unshakeable belief in the essential goodness and fairness of
humanity. Gene Roddenberry originally pitched it to NBC as
"wagon train to the stars", and the utopian concept has a lot
in common with the western-themed TV shows of the time, like
"Bonanza", and "Rawhide" -- clean, decent, honourable folks
taming the wilderness/final-frontier through sheer strength
of character.
Even when potentially-violent conflicts arise in the old
Star Trek, our hero Captain Kirk tends to draw on his breadth
of experience and first-hand knowledge of the horror of war
to talk people out of it, and he has his own embarassed soul
searching to do when the Organians prevent the war he claimed
he didn't want. Spock can't do what Kirk does, because Spock
has no intuitive feel for things. Old-series Klingons are too
maniacally war-like and paranoid to trust anyone. Romulans are
duty-bound and unimaginative, and because of this, their
awesome technology (cloaking device, plasma torpedo) isn't up
to the task of advancing their interests.
Given the long life of the series, the erosion of this
concept is inevitable, because it's intrinsically shallow.
The relentless, unstoppable virtue of the Federation, with their
perfect balance of logic versus emotion, intelligence versus
technology, eventually has to run out of steam. The movies
added depth and colour to the Klingons, had an interestingly
unbalanced villain in Khan, and displayed their virtue through
environmentalism, and so were able to broaden the concept.
TNG took on raw capitalism, by attempting to contrast the
greed-crazed Ferengi with the virtuously balanced, but also
fabulously prosperous Federation, and later, also took on
relentless destruction/consumption with the Borg.
But I think by the later TNG, the concept was getting
stretched pretty thin. It had found a large audience, many
of them unfamiliar with the traditional take of the original series,
and there was, in any case, a dramatic need for additional
backstory, to add depth to the characters and make their
interactions intrinsically interesting. Seven seasons is a
long time for the same small group of characters to interact,
and there's the "soap-opera trap" to be avoided. So the
backstory gets explored, the characters acquire personal histories,
extra depth, psychic damage from the Cardassian war resulting
in grudges and bad feelings. As a result the series retains its
large audience by becoming significantly more interesting,
at the expense of the utopian conceptual integrity.
DS9 was intended from the start to be gritty, the whole
series was itself a sort of backstory, although human/Federation
virtue-through-balance was of course still present, at least
at first. But throughout the war arc, and by the end, it's clear
that in the DS9 universe, humans aren't better or worse than their
adversaries in any deep, powerful sense. The intent is to defeat
the Dominion, not by exploiting some unbalanced, inhuman
collectivist weakness and making it destroy itself, but through
brute force of arms, and whatever dirty tricks (tricking the Romulans
into joining, spreading disease among the Founders) can be managed.
Of course, the Founder's police state was intolerable to Damar, and
the Cardassian mutiny was crucial to the Federation war effort, but
that came across more as a stroke of luck in what was, fundamentally,
a military struggle for survival, possibly at the *expense* of
old-fashioned virtue, against an opponent whose presence or absence
of humanistic balance was irrelevant, and who had become merely
the enemy.
Don't get me wrong, the war arc and last season of DS9 were
excellent television, I like the characters and the action and
the cool spaceships just like everybody else. But I also think
it was the final nail in the coffin of the vision of the original
Star Trek, and that's worth noting, especially because of how the
Starfleet Marines (remember them?) fit in to the picture. Marines
of whatever form would be a dedicated combat arm of the Federation,
and they make a lot of sense in terms of backstory and depth -- any
real spacefaring civilization in the Trek universe ought to have such
a thing, if they have any brains at all. But admitting to their
existence feels like surrendering the nuanced, cleverly virtuous
human-ness of the old series, and dividing up human virtues among
different arms of the service. In the movies, of course, the war
enthusiasts were bad guys whose ambitions were thwarted, which,
although they came from within the Federation, nevertheless seemed to
redeem the situation. In DS9, the warriors were the good guys, and
tipping the balance in favour of problem-solving through combat is
what saved the day. In light of the original Trek concept, this feels
very, very wrong, and I think that's why people get upset about it.
I should probably emphasize that, in my opinion anyways, there
is nothing particularly sacred about the original Trek concept. It
was supposed to be an interesting vehicle for entertaining
storytelling, and there's nothing wrong with having the concept evolve
into another, different interesting vehicle for entertaining
storytelling. That's what makes for good television, after all.
Interestingly, I think "Voyager" probably hews much more closely to
the original can-do, balanced-virtues and technological humanism
concept than later TNG or DS9, and is correspondingly less popular.
It's possible that our cynical age has outgrown Roddenberry's
vision after all.
-- A.
James Ward
>
> This is a very well considered, well written argument. Insisting that some
> form of Starfleet Marine Corps doesn't exist because a bunch of STAR TREK
> characters didn't bother to gather in a Conference Room and waste five
> minutes in the middle of a DEEP SPACE NINE episode taling about Marines does
> not expressly rule out the existence of such. Chalk it up to "the absence of
> evidence does not imply the evidence of absence."
Were it just *one* or *two* episodes that clearly went out of their
way to not mention the words marine or army or even soliders, that
would make sense. But after nearly 500 hours of ST, we have yet to
*ever* hear mention of the words.
Actually "nor the Battle" and AR588 nailed the coffin shut on
the debate, as to write those two episodes and *NOT* mention the
words marine or army had to have required *intentional* planing
on the part of the writers. That two episodes that would have
been featureing the Federation marines ( if they existed) failed
to mention them, then followed by their not being mentioned
( note, a single throw away line would have taken about 2 seconds,
place it in the scene where Sisco is dividing the targets between
the fleet. YOu just add at the last that the ground troops/marines
would target their intial ground assault at such and such point)
during the assault on a ground target at the end of DS9 makes it
clear to anyone that the writers have *no* intention of *ever*
conjuring a marine core into existance for ST. Think about it,
could you write an episode that centered around a medical unit
and never once call them doctors? Let alone have two eipsodes
forget to ever call them doctors?
Before Nor the Battle and AR588, I actually assumed somekind of
marine core did exist and just never was relevant to the show.
But after those two episodes, followed by not even a single
2 second reference to them in the final assault of Cardassia
( the one thing that people keep saying you *need* a marine
core for mind you, is ground assaults) proves that they do not
exist are never to their logical job one or the other.
Jeffrey Alan Dane
>
> These canonical excerpts seem to suggest some kind of extension of the
> Federation Starfleet beyond the naval orthodoxy of "shipdudes". Hence, the
> notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines.
>
> OBJECTIONS TO THE MARINE CONCEPT
>
> OBJECTION 1: The Federation would not create a "seperate" agency which would
> compete with Starfleet.
>
> MY CONCERN: Why do we assume that Federation/Starfleet Marines would be
> separate, much less in competition? If anything, Marines would be under the
> same Starfleet Command as the fleets would be, except marine substructure
> would be more geared for carrying on the Federation's business "on the
> ground" once the starships have dropped the marines off.
>
One point that seems to be forgotten here: In the US, the Marines are a part
of the Navy. They must abide by the rules and regulations set by the Senior
Commander of the Navy just as he must follow the rules and regulations set
down by the Commander in Chief.
If you examine closely the duties and responsabilites of the Marines sent to
Cosovo, you will note they are basically acting as "Police Men" and not as
"Combat Soldiers" there for it would be something of an assumption that Star
Fleet Marines would follow something of the same kind of role.
Having spent time in the Navy myself, I can attest to the fact that not all
Naval Officers are trained in ground combat and still serve in those
capacities. Looking from a medical standpoint alone it proof enough, the
U.S. Marines have no medical support of their own, they utilize Navy Doctors
and Corpsman for that function.
>
> OBJECTION 2: The notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines has too much to do
> with the United States Marine Corps, the British Royal Marines and leftover
> Cold War militarism of today, which have no place in STAR TREK.
>
> MY CONCERN: I can understand the anxieties of some fans to this, especially
> given to how far STAR TREK has strayed from the Corbomite Axiom during the
> Berman years. But the word "Marines" does not imply all the things that are
> inferred by those who dispute the concept, any more than the notion of a
> Starfleet implies an organization closely paralleling the military navies of
> today. It only seems logical that a Federation/Starfleet Marine corps would
> be only as militaristic as Starfleet's un-navy.
>
The biggest problem with Star Trek of the past is that it visualized a
"Utopic Future" where everyone in the federation got a long with everyone
else. Unfortunatly I find this to be very hard to believe.
Also, even though they may be refered to as Marines doesn't mean they aren't
Star Fleet officers trained to operate in Star Ship Functioning. Even
though MOST Navy guys joke about how stupid Marines typically are, they do
have training that almost no Navy person could possibly fathom.
Who's to say that these militaristic concepts have no place within the Star
Trek universe? Star Fleet isn't exactly the "Happy Go Lucky" organization
everyone would seem to think. Why else would there have been a
Klingon/Romulan War, a Cardasian War, or even a Dominion War? If Star Fleet
were not a military Organization, then the Federation wouldn't exist as it
would have had no way of defending itself.
We apply labels to the different functioning that we see on television and
read in books. These labels are what we know as people living on earth
today. Who's to say weather those are the actual labels used by a "Star
Trek Future".
>
> OBJECTION 3: We have never seen any Marine detachments in STAR TREK, so
> therefore there must not be.
>
> MY CONCERN: Who says marines would have to be organized as we would
> recognize them in today's armed forces? Again, we seem to be looking upon
> the concept as being too Americanistic or militarisitic, by comparing it to
> images of today's post-Cold War era military operations. I'm not sold on the
> argument that "marines" means all the things some folks seem to insist it
> does.
My same point from above about labels and jobs - Though I do appreciate
peoples concerns about the why's and when's and so forth, but you all also
have to remember that we only have our own experiences to rely on. Just
because we have not actually seen something that looks like a Marine in a
uniform, we don't really know if they actually exist. However, we do have
inferences that they DO exist, i.e. "Its Colonel West".
One other point I need to make, Who's to say that they are actually Marines?
Why couldn't they be Army? They use the same rank structure. And believe
it or not the U.S. Army has more ships the the U.S. Navy. How else do they
get all that equipment to where it needs to go.
Jeffrey Alan Dane
In article <378CC9C3...@eos.ncsu.edu>, James Ward
<jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
> James Zuelow wrote:
>>
>
>> > Which in and of itself strongly suggests they don't exist seeing as
>> > episodes like "Seige of AR588" and the final retaking of Cardasia
>> > should have been done by any seperate ground force that might exist.
>> >
>> "Combined Operations" - more than one service. Most Marine operations, and
>> certainly all Marine landings are combined ops.
>
> But not a *single* marine or even none ship officer is seen in
> the retaking of Cardasia. How do you have combined operations
> when only one group is doing the operation?
Now that's an interesting headline - Star Fleet Task Force Violates Prime
Directive by Involving Itself In Cardasian Take Over Of Home Planet.
If you will recall, most of the people we saw on the ground during the
retaking of Cardasia were Cardasians. the only "Star Fleet" officer I
remember seeing on the planet was Kira, and she wasn't really Star Fleet.
Jeffrey Alan Dane
----------
In article <378E1231...@eos.ncsu.edu>, James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu>
wrote:
> JTKirk wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:32:51 -0400, James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Wrong, it has been said that any one that graduates from the academy has
>> >had combat training. Perhaps not the all day for 20 years that the people
>> >wanting to create a marine core for starfleet want to see, but they all have
>> >had combat training to at least the equal of a normal basic training
>> >course.
>> >
>> It's still >basic< combat training.
>
> Which is more than enough if you assume that they have one person
> in charge of them that has some ground training. That was how
> the US army worked during WW2 and Korea you know, give them the
> basics and put them under an already proven commander. There is
> no need to train every one of them in all the details, the smart
> ones will pick it up as they go on the job. You then promote
> them.
>
>> >
>> >> combat. A StarFleet crew would need a little more training in hand to
hand
>> >> combat and hand weapons due to the risk of boarding parties beaming onto
>> >> the ship. But every time that I've seen boarders on a Starfleet ship,
they
>> >> spend quite a bit of their time screaming for security to handle it once
>> >> the immediate emergency has been handled.
>> >
>> >Gee, what do you think Security's job on the ship is? YOu appearent seem
>> >supprise that when a breach of security arrises they call on security to
>> >deal with it?
>> >
>> Of course that's Security's job... but:
>> Would you be willing to send policemen to a battlefield, without any
>> further training?
>
> Security officers spend the same four years at the academy that the
> rest of the officers do. Now since there does seem to be a position
> of perment security officer and not all of them just pulling the
> short straw, it stands to reason that they are trained in something
> more than door guarding at the academy.
>
> And if that policeman has had *four* years of military training,
> I would not hesitate to send him onto a battlefield. Your example
> is flawed since you want to keep forgeting that the security officers
> are *trained*, not just some doorman off the street.
The Standard 4 years at Star Fleet Academy are all basic training, just like
a regular university. Once they finish this basic education, they move on
to specialized training in their particular field of experteese. Even in
today's Navy, everyone goes to Boot Camp (officer to college to get a
degree) before they move on to their specialized training. Only the a "deck
ape" (or Boatswains Mate) goes through a mini ship's working school called
"Aprenticeship Training" before they go to a ship and this usually only
lasts about two months. As a corpsman, I had to go to school for another 3
months for my basic corpsman duties, and then another 6 months for my
specialty training in Surgery.
Jeffrey Alan Dane
----------
In article <378F633C...@eos.ncsu.edu>, James Ward
<jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
> Before Nor the Battle and AR588, I actually assumed somekind of
> marine core did exist and just never was relevant to the show.
> But after those two episodes, followed by not even a single
> 2 second reference to them in the final assault of Cardassia
> ( the one thing that people keep saying you *need* a marine
> core for mind you, is ground assaults) proves that they do not
> exist are never to their logical job one or the other.
>
You obviously have no idea what the duties and responsibilities of a Ground
Force is. Just because they are called ground forces doesn't mean that they
only fight on the ground. The U.S. Marines fight on the ground, on the
water, and in the air. So saying that just because there was no reference
to any particular force attacking a ground target proves that they don't
exist is Poppy-Cock.
And just so I can be a little nit-picky: a CORE is the center of something:
An Apple, A personality, a power plant, a warp engine. You need to refer to
Marines as CORPS
Jeffrey Alan Dane
As a Hospital Corpsman I do have to admit that I did have basic Naval
Training, including the way a ship is tied to the pier, what the rank
structure is, and yes even how to guard a door. However, that training did
go quite a bit further.
I was also trained on how to treat minor and major injuries. Required to
learn how to wrap a bandage around what ever part of the body. How to
protect my patients in the event of hostile actions against either a ship or
a land based hospital. I am a sailor, but I am also more than a sailor, I
am a Hospital Corpsman.
While I must admit that I know very little about the Marine Corps training,
I do know that they too have to learn about Naval Rank Structure, how to tie
a knot, and how to guard a door. But they also go a lot further into their
specialized training. They learn how to fire larger weapons, how to subdue
a combative person, as well as all the other things a "ground pounder" would
know that a ships crewman wouldn't need.
Just because we've never SEEN them, doesn't mean they don't exist. You
can't see the AIR and you know it exists.
While I do not mean to imply that the games published by FASA should be
taken as Cannon, I also need to point out that they were licensed by
Paramount Pictures and they do contain a lot of "licensed" information about
the Star Trek Universe. Several of the books addressing various different
ships address that TROOPS are assigned to the ship. This implies that there
is some sort of ground combat force within the Federation. While these
books do not address that they are called Marines, there does exist within
the Federation some type of Ground Attack Capability. We as modern day
Earth Bound individuals have a basic need to label things for identification
purposes, and for this we label these ground forces as Marines. We could
just as easily label them as Army, but we all know that Marines are
typically grouped in with the Navy and since Star Ships are basically run
like Navy Ships, it is a reasonable assumption that these ground forces
would also be addressed as Marines.
Ray
through out Star Fleet. How come we dont have many charcaters who aren't
officers. Wwe need more Cheifs and Seamen 2nd classes. You know, the guys
who clean the plasma manifolds and the outside windows. The guys who vacume
the ships carpet and scrub the walls whan an admrial shows up.
Doug Devers
Ray <thewri...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7mr5fk$l57$1...@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net...
wonder that us enlisted folks get short shrift. I've been a ST fan for MANY
years, and I didn't really notice it so much, till a few years in the
military showed me who does the work, and who gets the credit for it. (Hey,
if you look at it that way, ST mirrors real life pretty well!)
Doug
"The measure of a man is what he does with power."
(Pittacus, 650-569 B.C.)
wing...@penn.com
In article <7mr5fk$l57$1...@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net>, "Ray"
<thewri...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Just wondering about Cheif Miles Obrien and his Non comissioned friend(s)
> through out Star Fleet. How come we dont have many charcaters who aren't
> officers. Wwe need more Cheifs and Seamen 2nd classes. You know, the guys
> who clean the plasma manifolds and the outside windows. The guys who vacume
> the ships carpet and scrub the walls whan an admrial shows up.
===================================================
Actually, there's been a protracted discussion on the existence of enlisted
rates in STAR TREK's Starfleet, cross-posted to several newsgroups
(including this one) for several weeks now. If you want to check out
DejaNews, you can find threads like "RANK IN STAR TREK" and "CHIEF MILES
OBRIEN" that cover this topic in volumes! It took a while for some folks to
accept it, but there is canonical "proof" that enlisted rates have been used
in STAR TREK, from the earliest days of the first show. The references were
confused in those early adventures, but the pattern has been firmly
established over the years.
From the reference to a C.P.O. on the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise in
the first making of "The Cage," to the appearance of Crewman Green in "The
Man Trap" to the untimely demise of "Watkins, John B. Engineer, Grade 4" at
the hands of Losira's holoform in "That Which Survives," enlisted personnel
had a telltale appearance in "Classic" TREK. Chief O'Brien's character was
much more confusing in the early years of STAR TREK - THE NEXT GENERATION.
At first he appeared to be a commissioned officer; it was not until the
fourth-year episode "Family," the follow-up to the Borg thriller "The Best
of Both Worlds, Part II", that the Chief was established as a bona fide
C.P.O.
STAR TREK - DEEP SPACE NINE firmly established O'Brien as a C.P.O.; possibly
a Senior C.P.O. or higher in later years. Look closely, and you'll see that
Mile's DS9 uniform even has C.P.O.'s chevrons on the collar, as opposed to
officers' pips. As for references to other enlisted rates, that has been
sporadic. The half-Human, half-Romulan character in the TNG fourth-year
political McCarthyism drama "The Drumhead" was identified as a "Crewman, 2nd
Class." Still, enlisteds do not get much exposure on TREKs seemingly
dominated by officers.
I do not believe they've ever shown an warrant officers in any TREK.
One fan put up a web-site on ranks/rates and insignia a couple of years ago:
http://sac.uky.edu/~jmosbo0/Mem_A/rankchart.htm
What do you think?
wing...@penn.com
In article <378CC9C3...@eos.ncsu.edu>, James Ward
<jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
> James Zuelow wrote:
>>
>
>> > Which in and of itself strongly suggests they don't exist seeing as
>> > episodes like "Seige of AR588" and the final retaking of Cardasia
>> > should have been done by any seperate ground force that might exist.
>> >
>> "Combined Operations" - more than one service. Most Marine operations, and
>> certainly all Marine landings are combined ops.
>
> But not a *single* marine or even none ship officer is seen in
> the retaking of Cardasia. How do you have combined operations
> when only one group is doing the operation?
===========================================================================
Um, excuse me for interrupting this sidebar, but nobody could "retake"
Cardassia Prime because the Founder and Weyoun ordered the Dominion-Breen
defenses so retracted around the homeworld that even the collected forces of
the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans and the newly defected
Cardassians could not hope to get past the Dominion-Breen fortifications and
retracted fleets without heavy losses in a long, protracted battle.
That's why Odo asked to transport himself (itself?) down to the planet's
surface to meld with the dying Founder in person. In an ironic way, Odo
retook Cardassia Prime with his own natural brand of, well, diplomatic
"linking."
So we never saw anybody really "retake" Cardassia Prime. The Founder
surrendered before a battle could be waged.
J./B. Moore
> trained in ground duties, why is a seperate group needed to
> do what the "fleet" officers already know how to do?
>
Maybe it's the same concept as a M.B.A. covering as temporary head of
the accounting department. M.B.A.'s have accounting knowledge and in a
pinch can make the big accounting policy decisions, but you would want
and need a C.P.A. to be there permanently because of their experience
and specialized expertise.
I assume that Sisko has basic knowledge of combat techniques that he
learned in the Academy and therefore can be assigned to temporarily
command a ground unit (he's the only one available in the sector, yadda
yadda), but it would be a waste of his specialized training and
experience to have him do it long-term. Didn't the episode say that
they would only have to hold the position until reinforcements arrived?
Julia Moore
a fan, not a "fan"
wing...@penn.com
considered points I've seen yet throughout any of these "MARINES" threads.
Very well done!
STAR TREK, to date, has not expressly embraced the idea of Starfleet
Marines. The idea hasn't been categorically ruled out, either. Nor do many
of the arguments against Marines made in this thread necessarily hold up,
becuase they are based on assumed notions of what Starfleet Marines would be
like, which cannot be accepted as a given.
We don't know what, exactly, that Colonel West and the troops seen in "Nor
the Battle" or "AR-558" actually were. They could be Starfleet Marines. They
could be Starfleet Special Forces. (SFSF???) They could be something else
entirely. But it seems logical that Starfleet employs some kind of
"amphibious" (for lack of a better, spacial-to-ground-like term) subsidiary
arm that is dedicated to "on the ground" work, and surely uses land-based
ranks, such as "Colonel West."
So what if they aren't expressly called Marines? That misses the whole point
that I started this sub-thread on anyway. It was about concerns regarding
the mixture of canon and concept erosion in STAR TREK's evolution.
----------
In article <7mqkeb$94l$1...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net>, "Jeffrey Alan Dane"
wing...@penn.com
In article <7mqnov$kn0$1...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net>, "Jeffrey Alan Dane"
<CDR_...@DONTSPAMME.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Now to add my own two cents into this discussion.
<SNIP>
> Just because we've never SEEN them, doesn't mean they don't exist. You
> can't see the AIR and you know it exists.
>
> While I do not mean to imply that the games published by FASA should be
> taken as Cannon, I also need to point out that they were licensed by
> Paramount Pictures and they do contain a lot of "licensed" information about
> the Star Trek Universe. Several of the books addressing various different
> ships address that TROOPS are assigned to the ship. This implies that there
> is some sort of ground combat force within the Federation. While these
> books do not address that they are called Marines, there does exist within
> the Federation some type of Ground Attack Capability. We as modern day
> Earth Bound individuals have a basic need to label things for identification
> purposes, and for this we label these ground forces as Marines. We could
> just as easily label them as Army, but we all know that Marines are
> typically grouped in with the Navy and since Star Ships are basically run
> like Navy Ships, it is a reasonable assumption that these ground forces
> would also be addressed as Marines.
=============================================================
Excellent points! You really are taking this thread somewhere, finally!
We do not know what kind of ground operations the United Federation of
Planets expressly employs. STAR TREK never really got that deep into that
aspect of planetary operations.
They could be called Federation/Starfleet Marines.
They could be called Starfleet Special Forces.
They could be called the Federation Planetary Guards for all we know.
No TREK story has ever really laid down the law here, and then forced
subsequent stories to follow its precedent. This is like driving in thick
fog. Slow down and take it easy. Don't jump to premature conclusions because
you can never be sure what's to come.
My whole point of putting forth the question in the original thread
"FEDERATION MARINES (How canonical are they?)" was not to get people to
establish all kinds of argumentative claims and counter-claims and dogmas
about what is or is not part of the STAR TREK universe that could be quickly
undone by some future TREK. That would be a waste of time, no matter who's
right or who's not. The point is, we do not know all the answers here.
Just for a moment, forget the word "marines". Here are some points to
consider:
(1: Let's revisit Colonel West, who appeared in STAR TREK VI - THE
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. He wore a Federation uniform, with a striking
resemblance to Starfleet. For sake of argument, let's call him a Starfleet
Colonel. How can that be if Starfleet is based, at least in part, on an "old
Earth naval tradition"? (Let's also establish that last quote as Gene
Roddeberry's original STAR TREK ideal for Starfleet.)
(2: Let's assume that the Federation forces seen in "Not the Battle" and
"AR-558" are not strictly so-called "shipdudes," that is not as purely based
in their operations on that same "old Earth naval tradition" as, say,
Starfleet personnel Ben Sisko works with on DS9 every day. Surely Starfleet,
as a vast interstellar, multi-purpose organization, does not employ all its
personnel in exactly the same way for all missions/operations. Are we really
assuming that it is absolutely not possible that some divisions of Starfleet
are not, in essence, directly part of the fleet itself? I would assume it is
indeed possible that some non-fleet, non-"shipdude" ground operations could
be part of the Federation Starfleet. Such arms of the Federation service
would compliment the fleets, while carrying on the Federation's business in
ways not so closely tied to "old Earth naval tradition".
(3: It is also logical to assume that ground-based Federation/Starfleet
operations would use land-based conventions as part of its structure. (Use
of terms like Officer of the Day, as opposed to Officer of the Deck, for
instance, or "Attention all troops!" as opposed to the equally militaristic
"Classic" TREK expression Kirk often used" "All hands... <blah, blah, blah>
...Captain out.") Why not also assume such ground operations would use
land-based ranks, such as, well, "Colonel West"? Major, Brigadier and
Sergeant would make more sense here than Lieutenant Commander, Commodore and
Petty Officer.
(4: Would it not also make sense that such a planetary-oriented arm of the
Federation/Starfleet would have amphibious (space-to-ground) capabilities?
Think about it.
-------------------------------------------
Hey, by all means refuse to call such an arm of the Federation/Starfleet
"marines" if it offends you that much. But I would challenge people who have
a problem with the notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines to come up with an
adequately descriptive alternative name. Starfleet Security doesn't fit what
I've put forth above. Anybody have some ideas?
KRISTY BURKHARDT
mentioned that starfleet has Marines. i know that a few episodes have
had people who could be marines but could still be security officiers.
i'm a lone time star trek fan and know of no references (canon)
references to them. please tell me where.
LTCmdr Renegade Michaels
Stjepan Pejic wrote:
>
> Brian Barjenbruch wrote:
> >
> > > Yeah, but don't US Marines (to site an example) do both?
> >
> > All, or
> > at least most, US Navy ships carry a garrison or two of Marines, don't
> > they? The difference here is, Navy ships openly use Marines as their
> > security force. Starfleet ships apparently don't--the Federation
> > Marines seem to be operating more or less on their own leaving
> > 'normal' security operations to ship's security. As to why they'd do
> > this, I have no idea.
>
> Probably because their jobs are totally different. Ship security
> has to deal with diplomatic relations, species-specific quarters,
> first contact situations and negotiation. They may also be cross
> trained for tasks like damage control. Starfleet "marines" would
> have different training. They would be little use on ships
> execpt in times of boarding, which is not very common and would
> probably not make a big difference anyway.
>
> > Probably if this was all happening for real, all
> > Starfleet vessels *would* use Fed. Marines as security. In fact, some
> > captains might choose to do just that...
>
> Adding "marines" to ships durring times like the Dominion War would
> only increase the number of dead.
>
> Stjepan Pejic
wing...@penn.com
In article <3792443E...@home.com>, KRISTY BURKHARDT
<katr...@home.com> wrote:
> i would like to know where in the whole sceme of it where it is
> mentioned that starfleet has Marines. i know that a few episodes have
> had people who could be marines but could still be security officiers.
> i'm a lone time star trek fan and know of no references (canon)
> references to them. please tell me where.
>
> LTCmdr Renegade Michaels
===========================================================
For more than a month now, people have been arguing about this very
question.
While it is not clear that there are "marines" per se, it does appear that
Federation Starfleet deploys ground-based personnel that are less
naval-oriented, and seen to use land ranks, like Colonel West in STAR TREK
VI.
wing...@penn.com
----------
In article <_fuk3.624$ed1....@news.flash.net>, "Ryan McReynolds"
<rmc...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> Comments below...
>
> --
>
> -=Ryan McReynolds=-
>
> <wing...@penn.com> wrote in message
> news:_jdk3.1696$s_2....@newsfeed.slurp.net...
>> Hey, by all means refuse to call such an arm of the Federation/Starfleet
>> "marines" if it offends you that much. But I would challenge people who
> have
>> a problem with the notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines to come up with
> an
>> adequately descriptive alternative name. Starfleet Security doesn't fit
> what
>> I've put forth above. Anybody have some ideas?
>
> I don't mind "Starfleet Special Forces," or "Starfleet Special Operations
> Division," or something of that nature. Colonel West's "delta shield"
> insignia do establish this branch as a division of Starfleet itself, rather
> than a separate organization. Maybe "Starfleet Planetary Operations
> Command" as a counterpart to the "Galaxy Exploration Command" we are
> accustomed to. Or, if we want them even more non-military sounding, they
> could be the "Planetary Development Command," working to terraform or
> colonize during peace, taking and holding in war.
>
> -=Ryan McReynolds=-
=========================================================================
Hmmm...
"Starfleet Special Forces" - SFSF
"Starfleet Special Operations Division" - SF-SOD
"Starfleet Planetary Operations Command" - SPOC (!!!)
"Planetary Development Command" - PDC
Affixing a title to Starfleet ground troops based on an acronym could be
even more entertaining than this thread. :-)
Such an acronym should contain some inference of "amphibious" actviity.
Ryan McReynolds
--
-=Ryan McReynolds=-
<wing...@penn.com> wrote in message
news:_jdk3.1696$s_2....@newsfeed.slurp.net...
> Hey, by all means refuse to call such an arm of the Federation/Starfleet
> "marines" if it offends you that much. But I would challenge people who
have
> a problem with the notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines to come up with
an
> adequately descriptive alternative name. Starfleet Security doesn't fit
what
> I've put forth above. Anybody have some ideas?
I don't mind "Starfleet Special Forces," or "Starfleet Special Operations
Jaws
possible because noone can establish that the word 'Marine' hasn't been used
even once, things have degenerated to the point of why they 'might' or
'should' be marines. I had no idea that Rambo had so many fans in the 90's.
KRISTY BURKHARDT <katr...@home.com> wrote in message
news:3792443E...@home.com...
Reginald
Jaws <iwo...@antispam.columbus-ks.com> wrote in message
news:Nhzk3.17658$vw1.6...@newscene.newscene.com...
> I had no idea that Rambo had so many fans in the 90's.
IIRC, Rambo was a US Army Delta Force soldier, a Green Beret. He wasn't a
marine.
KRISTY BURKHARDT
and found this
thread something that friends and i have talked about for years. For we
have been in a
star trek club for years. and when the idea to add the marines to it
came up then
some of us asked basically where did they come from.
i can see the need for them during the movie era but not tng. and with
the episodes
of DSN we did see ground forces but they could of been specialily
trained security
beefed up for that kind of work.
so i hope this thread will answer some questions soon.
thanks
JTKirk
>wing...@penn.com wrote:
>>
>
>> This is a very well considered, well written argument. Insisting that some
>> form of Starfleet Marine Corps doesn't exist because a bunch of STAR TREK
>> characters didn't bother to gather in a Conference Room and waste five
>> minutes in the middle of a DEEP SPACE NINE episode taling about Marines does
>> not expressly rule out the existence of such. Chalk it up to "the absence of
>> evidence does not imply the evidence of absence."
>
>Were it just *one* or *two* episodes that clearly went out of their
>way to not mention the words marine or army or even soliders, that
>would make sense. But after nearly 500 hours of ST, we have yet to
>*ever* hear mention of the words.
>
OK, no, we don't know what they are called, but we're only using
the term "marines" as a convenient replacement of "the guys
doing the ground combat, wearing different uniforms and holding
different ranks, whose exact designation we don't know". It's
better than calling them "X".
>Actually "nor the Battle" and AR588 nailed the coffin shut on
>the debate, as to write those two episodes and *NOT* mention the
>words marine or army had to have required *intentional* planing
>on the part of the writers. That two episodes that would have
>been featureing the Federation marines ( if they existed) failed
>to mention them, then followed by their not being mentioned
>( note, a single throw away line would have taken about 2 seconds,
>place it in the scene where Sisco is dividing the targets between
>the fleet. YOu just add at the last that the ground troops/marines
>would target their intial ground assault at such and such point)
>during the assault on a ground target at the end of DS9 makes it
>clear to anyone that the writers have *no* intention of *ever*
>conjuring a marine core into existance for ST. Think about it,
>could you write an episode that centered around a medical unit
>and never once call them doctors? Let alone have two eipsodes
>forget to ever call them doctors?
>
>Before Nor the Battle and AR588, I actually assumed somekind of
>marine core did exist and just never was relevant to the show.
>But after those two episodes, followed by not even a single
>2 second reference to them in the final assault of Cardassia
>( the one thing that people keep saying you *need* a marine
>core for mind you, is ground assaults) proves that they do not
>exist are never to their logical job one or the other.
Well, that is your opinion. Fully understandable, I may add.
m5
TOS episode "Arena" where the Gorn were introduced to trekdom. I believe
that Kirk and a redshirt used a photon mortar on the attacking Gorns in the
hills near the Cestus III installation. To me, the existance and use of
artillery is proof of ground troops. Now whether these well armed
planetary forces are named 'Army' or 'Marines' doesn't really matter. The
job they do is the same - protect the settlers, take and hold ground etc.
Brian Barjenbruch <bri...@home.com> wrote in message
news:180719992333039653%bri...@home.com...
> > i would like to know where in the whole sceme of it where it is
> > mentioned that starfleet has Marines. i know that a few episodes have
> > had people who could be marines but could still be security officiers.
> > i'm a lone time star trek fan and know of no references (canon)
> > references to them. please tell me where.
>
> There was Colonel West in ST VI...(navies don't have colonels, so I
> always assumed he's a Marine)
>
> the phrase "ground troops" was mentioned several times on DS9...
>
> and then there's "Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "The Siege of
> AR-558"...
>
> --
> "Its origin and purpose...still a total mystery."
> - Dr. Heywood Floyd, "2001: A Space Odyssey"
love...@my-deja.com
2nd "missing years" story, about a prototype ship being
hijaacked....), checkov was going back to a starfleet security academy
for advance courses to deal with a career in security....
now what that says to me is that the "security" we have seen on the
ships are of 2 varieties.... the career security officers who probably
comp[rise the core/backbone of the security department, and those
*assigned* to security detail for some unspecified time and reason....
might be to give junior officers cross training, might be punishment
details (ala KP duty), might be to fill holes in the regular security
roster due to attrition....
i imagine that in addition to *starfleet academy*, there are a ton of
suplimental or specialized academies... im assuiming that *the* academy
is mainly for the command track, and that somewhere along the line
cadets choose what their specialties are to be and get shunted
around... and im sure that transporters help the commute so that no
matter how far spread the acutal campuses are, most cadets are housed
in san francisco at *the* academy...
BTW, for my AOL sims, ive been tryingto define the areas of
jurisdiction for not only the SFM, but the starfleet rangers (sci div's
own special forces, think of a bunch of mcgyvers...), StarCAT's (my
own devising: starfleet crisis assessment team,, filling the niche of
navy seals), and special ops/forces...
on the surface it sounds like they are all designed to step on each
others toes... what i have come up with is, if all a parts of a sword,
the starCATs are the point, special ops the cutting edges, and marines
the spine/backbone of the sword....
hoes that sound? o, and security would be the pommel-guards....
lr
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Timo S Saloniemi
>I only have the time to read this NG every few weeks, so forgive me if this
>has been said already-
>
>--
>> "the Seige of AR588" contradicts this, as it clearly shows that
>> Sisco( who by your reasoning is a shipdude) is able to take
>> command from the ground troops( something a visiting naval captain
>> is not able to do with US marines in general) and is also clearly
>> trained in ground combat.
>
>This is not true. A Marine Colonel cannot _generally_ take command of a
>naval vessel, but that is because he isn't qualified for the job (unless
>he's an aviator, he also cannot take command of an aircraft). He isn't a
>Line Officer with a Surface Warfare qualification. HOWEVER, a naval Line
>Officer can (and they have on various occaisions) command Marines in combat
>if he/she is the senior officer present. Usually they wouldn't, but there
>is no "Ground Warfare" qualification (do not confuse qualifications with
>occupational specialties). _Normally_ a landing force is commanded by the
>senior Marine, but there are situations where this isn't true. And
>_normally_ that Marine reports to a naval officer, commanding the operation
>as a whole.
A point of interest here is that, originally, the unit defending the AR-558
installation was commanded by two officers of Captain and Commander
rank, both dead at the time Sisko arrived. The Captain could of course
be an Army/Marines one, but the Commander could not - and the names of
the deceased were given in an order that strongly suggested that the
Captain was senior to the Commander, and thus probably a naval Captain.
So the unit was led by Navy officers to begin with. But as you say below,
it wouldn't be all that exceptional a case. Remember that the installation
came as something of a surprise to Starfleet - the ground force was
probably deployed without much preplanning, using the forces available,
and those would consist of starship security troops, assuming the actual
dedicated Marines or equivalent forces were sent to the more significant
and valuable targets in the Chin'toka system.
Now how could Starfleet spare a Captain here from a starship? Perhaps
the said Captain had already lost his (her? its?) vessel. That
sounds a bit dubious, tho, and the general spirit of the episode would
suggest that a spare Captain and spare naval-rank ground combat people
were available to begin with. This somewhat erodes support from the
idea that an Army-rank system would exist in parallel to the Navy-rank
one - if a ground combat force with a Captain-level commanding officer
was available in advance, wouldn't it be of the Army/Marine hierarchy
if such a hierarchy existed in Starfleet?
> If you look at landings by US Marines before WWI almost all of
>them were commanded by a Navy officer who was on the ground with the
>Marines. And of course when you move up the chain of command, the branch
>of service of a commanding officer isn't as important as his/her staff -
>the first NATO commander in Bosnia was a US Navy Admiral (Admiral Smith,
>who somewhat confusingly took over from the British UN commander, General
>Smith). However we're talking Starfleet here.
>> Now if a strictly "fleet" officer is
>> trained in ground duties, why is a seperate group needed to
>> do what the "fleet" officers already know how to do?
>>
>Remember that Sisko is a major character, and will therefore be in the
>majority of the show for that reason alone. The show isn't about the
>ground troops used against the Dominion, so we haven't really met any of
>their officers.
Exactly.
Sisko's limited training has never been much of a hindrance when he has to
take the center stage from nonregular characters. He takes over a starship
in "Second Sight", tells Admirals how to conduct politics in "The Search",
hunts for criminals, does traffic control and defends a system against
small-craft attack in "The Maquis"...
>In the event that you need a larger force, your senior security officers
>should have the relevant training to command larger bodies of
>troops/crewmen. However this training is probably limited to small unit
>actions of platoon to company size. (I doubt that the security branch takes
>up more than 5% of a starship crew even in wartime, severely limiting a
>landing force's size. The Enterprise D could probably manage a company at
>most, if you included non-security personnel like Worf and the apparently
>ex-soldier O'Brien. Meaning training for larger operations would probably
>be wasted for security officers.)
While your logic is impeccable, Trek does its damnedest to go against it.
In "Descent", something like 99% of the Enterprise personnel was mobilized
for ground searches in hostile territory. I don't know if this was a
once-in-a-millenium occasion in Starfleet history, but I don't
really see Picard as a reckless radical in his later years - even if he
didn't do the search quite by the book, he probably didn't explicitly
contradict it or overstep his authority here either.
Remember we're talking combat here - non
>combat search or other operations (i.e. placing a large number of
>force-field generators in a short period of time) can be handled by any
>competent Starfleet officer.
I'd still say "Descent" falls to the "combat" side of the line, given that
Picard knew a shipful of very violent Borg were in the vicinity... Not
that Picard actually commanded that combat force, mind you - he decided to
join the search instead, even though there was no efficient way to maintain
communications on that planet.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>James Zuelow wrote:
>> The Enterprise D could probably manage a company at
>> most, if you included non-security personnel like Worf and the apparently
>> ex-soldier O'Brien.
>
>Nothing that O'Brien has ever said says he is an ex-solider, unless
>you start with the postulate that a Federation "army" exists to begin
>with. When O'Brien talks about being in combat he is refering something
>that happened while he was in Starfleet. Or at least that is what is
>said in "the Wounded".
Yet the wording is interesting in itself. Especially in "Empok Nor",
where the crazed Garak taunts O'Brien with his warrior past, and
O'Brien emphatically says that he no longer is a "soldier" but
an engineer (when he defeats Garak with his engineering skills).
And O'Brien does speak of a change in uniform color when referring to
his career change in "Armageddon Game" - a change from Starship Security
to Engineering wouldn't change the uniform color, really. Or perhaps
it would, considering that the career change (which apparently was a major
change according to "Armageddon Game") took place after Setlik III, which
was in 2347 and thus in the era when Starfleeters still wore the
uniform style of "Yesterday's Enterprise" et al....?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>the existence of some flavor of fleet ground troops goes as far back as the
>TOS episode "Arena" where the Gorn were introduced to trekdom. I believe
>that Kirk and a redshirt used a photon mortar on the attacking Gorns in the
>hills near the Cestus III installation. To me, the existance and use of
>artillery is proof of ground troops. Now whether these well armed
>planetary forces are named 'Army' or 'Marines' doesn't really matter. The
>job they do is the same - protect the settlers, take and hold ground etc.
This is the usual argument: there is a need for ground combat, and there
are tools for ground combat in the Trek universe, and we even see
ground combat in some episodes => there have to be dedicated ground
troops in Starfleet (or outside it).
The proof for the above argument also serves as a proof to the contrary:
since we have seen ground combat already, CONDUCTED SOLELY BY OUR REGULAR
"NAVY" HEROES, it follows that there is no need for DEDICATED ground troops.
The "Navy" guys can do the job, so no separate Marines (or ground forces of
*any* name) are needed.
Beyond these two main lines of arguing, things seem to devolve into
bickering about whether real-world Navy guys would survive half an
hour on a real ground battlefield. On Trek, that's a foregone conclusion,
since we have already seen that the "navy" heroes can and will fight
ground battles whereas it's extremely difficult to spot people
who would be "non-navy", even in episodes centering on ground
combat.
A completely different yet related argument goes, "why do some
Starfleet people have Army ranks and/or curious uniforms, if not
to signify their Marine status?". However, these people in strange
uniforms and with Army ranks are extremely rare in the Trek universe.
A ground combat force would probably be very prominent, especially
in the war-related episodes of recent DS9. So perhaps the role of
these Army-rank people is not one of ground combat, but of some
smaller-scale subset of that mission? Perhaps only the SEALs or
Green Berets of Starfleet get Army ranks?
Timo Saloniemi
Justin T. Broderick
> This is the usual argument: there is a need for ground combat, and there
> are tools for ground combat in the Trek universe, and we even see
> ground combat in some episodes => there have to be dedicated ground
> troops in Starfleet (or outside it).
>
> The proof for the above argument also serves as a proof to the contrary:
> since we have seen ground combat already, CONDUCTED SOLELY BY OUR REGULAR
> "NAVY" HEROES, it follows that there is no need for DEDICATED ground troops.
> The "Navy" guys can do the job, so no separate Marines (or ground forces of
> *any* name) are needed.
>
Kirk in "Tomorrow is Yesterday," when USAF Capt. Christopher mentions
the Navy, says something like "We are a combined service."
[...]
> Perhaps only the SEALs or
> Green Berets of Starfleet get Army ranks?
>
Good theory. Or perhaps "colonel" is a courtesy title for a Starfleet
captain who has specialized in ground or combined ops? The insignia was
admiral-grade, though, wasn't it???
--JTB
James Ward
>
> > i would like to know where in the whole sceme of it where it is
> > mentioned that starfleet has Marines. i know that a few episodes have
> > had people who could be marines but could still be security officiers.
> > i'm a lone time star trek fan and know of no references (canon)
> > references to them. please tell me where.
>
> There was Colonel West in ST VI...(navies don't have colonels, so I
> always assumed he's a Marine)
The air force does use Colonel though......
>
> the phrase "ground troops" was mentioned several times on DS9...
And in AR588, seen to have *NAVAL* ranked officers in command
of them.
>
> and then there's "Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "The Siege of
> AR-558"...
Both of which go *out of their* way to avoid every calling them
anything remotely like ground forces or army or marines. And note
in those two episodes it takes work to write them without using
such terms.
--
buckysan
annapuma and unapumma in 98
44% of people think there is intelligent life besides earth
44% of people think there is intelligent life in washington DC
James Ward
>
> A completely different yet related argument goes, "why do some
> Starfleet people have Army ranks and/or curious uniforms, if not
> to signify their Marine status?". However, these people in strange
> uniforms and with Army ranks are extremely rare in the Trek universe.
> A ground combat force would probably be very prominent, especially
> in the war-related episodes of recent DS9. So perhaps the role of
> these Army-rank people is not one of ground combat, but of some
> smaller-scale subset of that mission? Perhaps only the SEALs or
> Green Berets of Starfleet get Army ranks?
Timo, it should be noted that Colonel West is the only time
a rank was given that clearly was an army rank. And that was
done in TOS setting where we frequently saw Comodore ranks as
well.
The different uniform is a non-issue really. It is basicly
the same black jumpsuit seen worn by the *naval* heros when
tring to be covert in breaking into someplace, you seem them
in Chain of Command actually. The 2 episodes dealing with
ground combat just had them with an included strip for
speciality area.
James Ward
>
> > Perhaps only the SEALs or
> > Green Berets of Starfleet get Army ranks?
> >
>
> Good theory. Or perhaps "colonel" is a courtesy title for a Starfleet
> captain who has specialized in ground or combined ops? The insignia was
> admiral-grade, though, wasn't it???
True, this could actually explain the comodore ranks we saw in TOS.
Since by this logic you would also need a courtesy title for
an "admiral" that is purely specialized in fleet operations.
James Ward
>
> i would like to know where in the whole sceme of it where it is
> mentioned that starfleet has Marines. i know that a few episodes have
> had people who could be marines but could still be security officiers.
> i'm a lone time star trek fan and know of no references (canon)
> references to them. please tell me where.
>
After 500 hours of episodes, there has never been a reference
to anykind of formal ground troops in ST. Peopl just want to
conjure up a billion man face-to-face ground force for some
silly reason.
Consider the *minimal* size that anykind of marine/army in ST would
have to be to do what is claimed to be its one indispenseable job,
ie to physically take and hold fixed ground assests which in ST
is planets. Any other task, should be able to be handled by either
Starfleer secuirty or Starfleet engineering that is usually considered
the job of the army/marines.
The only reason for assuming marines is an assumption that the
rules of face-to-face engagements have not changed in 400 years
of technology advancement, thus requireing a seperate training
for face-to-face combat to be good at it. Without this assumption
there is *zero* problem with doing what the writers do and consider
the few ground soliders members of security. The writers have proven
that they are never going to call *anything* a marine/army in
ST after having 2 episodes that should have featured such if it
existed and not name it.
Assume Marine corps exists to take and hold ground assets for the
presumably inept "fleet" officers. This means we have to have a
force capable of taking an entire *planet*. Ever poundered how
much work it takes to take over an entire planet? Again, since the
"federation marines" fans assume similiar face-to-face engagement
rules as today's military exist in ST we can actually make an estimate
of this from the Kosovo conflict.
Kosovo is a small section of a small country with a population of
around 2 million, lets round that up to 3 million. That makes Kosovo
1/2,000 th of the planets population. Safe assumption is that all
primary planets( Earth, Romulus, Cardasia prime, and such) are at least
as populus as present day Earth. There is actualy some intdications that
Earth has around 9 billion people on it instead of the present 6 billion.
NATO says it requires 50,000 troops to maintain a cease fire in
Kosovo, *with* an premissive environment and on average very lightly
armed population. Based off of that, you would need somewhere in the
neighborhood of 100,000,000 troops to hold a *FRIENDLY* planet sized
population. Again NATO projected it would require around 200,000 troops
to take Kosovo, assuming the help of the KLA. That implies around
400,000,000 troops to actualy take a planet assuming that the planet
is on the same equipment comaparision as NATO to Serbia, assuming the
planet is of equal equipment/training levels and the number would at
least rise to 500,000,000 troops to *conservately* take over a hostile
planet, where the population wants you in to protect itself from its
government. This is roughly the minimium troops size that would have
been needed to physically retake Cardasia since we could assume a
population that did not mind being taken over to get the Dominion
out and there was a relevant resistance movement.
We are not done yet, even though that 500,000,000 number should
shock you seeing as I remember a hugh debate over how Starfleet
could possibly have enough officers to man the 10,000 or so ships
that the war arc episodes implied exists. Imagine how hard a time
they are going to have accepting a 500 million man army/marine
corps. Of course, the problem here is that the basis of the
desire for a marine corps is predicated on the assumption that
face-to-face engagement rules have not changed in response to the
technology. Again look to Kosovo, there it was demonstrated
( debate of what degree of crouse, but the face is Serbia did
surrender) that air power could be used to eleminate or severely
minimize the need for ground troops *at all*. Starfleet, naval
terms accepted, is actually an extension of the air force. Take
lessons from Kosovo, assume the 99.99999% accuracy that Starship
weapons seem to have and about the only need for ground troops
becomes *after the fact* mop operations that anyone who knows
how a gun works can do and actually needs to be someone who
is not a straight line military person( in the sense of fixed
permant army/marines) preferably as the solider mentality tends
to lead to shooting first instead of asking question( needed on
a full scale battle field, but not in a peace keeping mission).
But back to what the "joint chiefs" of the Federation( something
that notably does not exist within any of the semi-offical break
downs of either the Federation or Starfleet, again a serious hint
as to what the writers and producers think on this issue) would
insist their ground forces size really be. Again back to NATO,
it had two major threats to deal with, USSR and China. As such
the US, and by extention NATO, developed a theory of having enough
froces to deal with 2 region conflicts or one major conflict at
all times. Major conflict in ST terms would mean the forceful
taking of any of the primary "captial" planet *systems*. Again,
assume Earth is normal in ST times. So we have Earth with at least
present day population, at least one non-native planet heavily
colonized( Mars), homeworld moon( Luna) heavily colonized, at least
4 or 5 non-native moons heavily colonized, at least one *hugh* ship
yard with attenandent *hugh* space facility( seen in one of the season
5 Voyager episodes actually), at least 3 large space facilities in
orbit of native planet ( space dock 1 and 2 and McKinely). Lets
just be conservative and say that all the non-native planet assests
just add up to the equal of the native planet assests, so taking of
a primary solar system is the equal of the taking of 2 planets. So
even if we can assume a resistance movement to help us, since a
single planet would need around 500,000,000 troops, a primary
solar system would require around 1,000,000,000 troops to take and
hold. Realisticly, the "joint chiefs" of the Federation would not
assume the luxury of a resistance force inside the primary system.
Your guess is as good as mine as to just how big a factor that
would need to increase this by, since it would mean having to
suppress the entire population.
You see, the usually arguement is that we never see them, but that
there is 40 to 100 marines on each ship plus a few *thousand* or so
marines on specilized ships to explain our not seeing them. The only
problem is that does not come anywhere close to the size of a force
needed to do the one thing that if an army/marine corps exists to
augment Starfleet would be kept to do, ie physically taking a planet.
The problem is really that they are thinking of air power as only
capable of being support, while given smart weapons it can actually
become the lead unit of an assault on a fixed installation. Remember
the sole use of ground forces in Kosovo was to rescue one downed pilot
during the conflict. All the rest was done by the air force and the
KLA. And the KLA itself admits that it took the air force's presence
to enable them to do anything major.
James Ward
>
> > i would like to know where in the whole sceme of it where it is
> > mentioned that starfleet has Marines. i know that a few episodes have
> > had people who could be marines but could still be security officiers.
> > i'm a lone time star trek fan and know of no references (canon)
> > references to them. please tell me where.
> >
>
> ===========================================================
>
> For more than a month now, people have been arguing about this very
> question.
>
> While it is not clear that there are "marines" per se, it does appear that
> Federation Starfleet deploys ground-based personnel that are less
> naval-oriented, and seen to use land ranks, like Colonel West in STAR TREK
> VI.
Note, Colonel West, is the *only* example of this. The times we have
seen ground forces they were commanded by *naval* ranked officers or
the commanders not named.
Point of fact here. In TOS times we also had Comodores floating
around and they seem to have disappeared by TNG, seeing as the
offical breakdowns of the ranks do not allow for any rank between
Captain and 1 "star" admiral.
There is an explaination given for this that actually does make sense
and explains why in TOS times there might have been an old guard
colonel around. We know from the first few episodes that it took
about half of season one of TOS for Kirk to get straight what the
name of Starfleet and the Federation was. From this it is a safe
assumption that the final stages of the formal intergartion of
all of the Federation's memebers military units into a single
force to be know as Starfleet happened just prior to the timing
of TOS starting. It could well be that an expection was made
in the cross over for "flag rank" officers allowing them to
maintain their pre-merger honorary titles and to use them until
they aged out of service or retired. It could easily as well be
that some of the members or colonies had created military ranks
that did not fit into the standard model, like some colony
perhaps having made a "senior" captain rank in between captain
and admiral. These could have been incorperated by temporary
letting these people use place holder army titles.
And an interesting thing to note, Starfleet is actually an
air force that uses naval ranks. That does sound a lot like
somekind of compromise out of their merger. And also,
colonel is an air force rank as well so why do you assume
he was a ground pounder?
James Ward
>
> So what? My postulating that Federation Marines do exist, is no
> different (and no less permissible) than you postulating they don't. I
> may have little evidence that they are there, but you have even less
> evidence that they don't.
>
> Look, why are you people getting so upset at the possibility that
> Federation Marines *might* exist in the Trek universe? I admit,
> there's not a whole lot of evidence either way. But the possibility is
> there.
Actually between "AR588" having *naval* officers in command of the
ground forces there and *no* mention of any ground invasion force
when Sisco is dealing out the assault forces orders, there is
basicly zero possiblity that they exist. Or if they to exist,
it is for show since they never to the jobs that they supposedly
are needed for.
The biggest problem is that the agruement for anykind of
formal ground force is based on a seriously flawed assumption.
That being that face-to-face combat is not affected by
technology levels. Take Kosovo as an example, how many ground
troops were used to obtain Serbia's surrender? Answer however
many are required to fly 5 resuce helicopters, and there calling
the ground troops is a courtsy. Technology changes the nature
of face-to-face combat. Given what little we know that a
*single* starship can do to a planet in seconds ( such as
drill 10+km shafts, imagine that done over a wide are of
the surface. Also the TOS stun setting of the ship phasers),
ground opertations would be after the fact mop up operations
at best. Sending down assult troops would serve only to
increase the body count.
> At a moment's notice, the writers could devote an entire novel,
> episode, film, hell, even a frickin' *series*, to Federation Marines.
> Not that they should, but they can.
Problem there, why did they skip the two *obvious* chances they
already had? Those episodes made the ground forces clearly starfleet
and clearly in AR588 under naval command.
> What the hell is so repugnant
> about that? I admit, I like the idea that they should exist, and so my
> judgment is colored in favor of such an organization. But why is yours
> colored *against* it? What is it about Marines that disgusts you so
> much? Have you ever MET a real Marine?
My brother almost got into the rangers, if you must know ( 20/70
eyesight is all that kept him out, if he ever corrects it he
probably could get back in). I have met several of his friends.
I know what military is like.
Why are you so insistent on forcing present day models onto
ST?
> There's gotta be a reason why
> you hate them so much. If you want to believe that there are no
> Marines in the Federation, then go right the hell ahead. But don't
> throw a hissy fit every time somebody mentions them.
When the writers have went out of their way to write them
out, all logic says they do not exist. They write in some
ground forces and prompty put naval ranks in for their commanders.
That *should* tell you something about what the writers
, who actually control this mythical marine corps existance,
think about the issue.
Ever poundered the size of a army/marine corps needed to
physically take a primary planet? It is into the 100 *millions*,
and assuming a total hostile population probably over a *billion*.
Explain how in the HELL such a force that size has remained
hidden during DS9's war arcs?
>
> As far as Trek goes: It's not like they're beating us over the head
> with it. The examples that I cite in favor of Federation Marines,
> haven't exactly been given a lot of screen time. Even "Siege of
> AR-558" mainly focused on the actual people, not their ranks or what
> organization they belonged to.
AR-588 had *naval* ranks in command. All it would have took for
your position to make sense would have been for they commander of
the unit to have been a major or colonel. Or do you think the
writer really beleive that the army and marine corps use naval
ranks?
> If, in a future Trek film for example,
> we hear of a character on the Enterprise (or Voyager, or any other ship
> or starbase) who's a Fed. Marine, and this only gets a few lines of
> dialogue at most, are you going to leave the theater in disgust? It
> doesn't have to be Starship Troopers, you know. I bet you really hated
> that film...
Actually I loved Starship Troopers. I have no problem with
marines. And before "siege of AR588" actually had no problems
with ST having marines, but after AR588 if marines show up
it would only be a *CONTRADICTION* within the show. Nothing
else could logically be the result of it.
>
> --
> "Its origin and purpose...still a total mystery."
> - Dr. Heywood Floyd, "2001: A Space Odyssey"
--
James Ward
>
> >Were it just *one* or *two* episodes that clearly went out of their
> >way to not mention the words marine or army or even soliders, that
> >would make sense. But after nearly 500 hours of ST, we have yet to
> >*ever* hear mention of the words.
> >
> OK, no, we don't know what they are called, but we're only using
> the term "marines" as a convenient replacement of "the guys
> doing the ground combat, wearing different uniforms and holding
> different ranks, whose exact designation we don't know". It's
> better than calling them "X".
Actualy what they do falls nicely under security, why
people have a problem with that escapes me.
AR588, had naval ranks in charge. The "different uniform",
is the same black jumpsuit we see Riker and Worf were when
they try to rescue a single sexed lover of Riker and in other
occasions in TNG where the crew is tring to be covert, just
with a colored strip on it.
And we know that appearently any SF officer can take over
ground forces at will.
Colonel West is the only non-naval rank ever seen. And that
occures in the same time frame as several Comodores being
ship captains......
> >Before Nor the Battle and AR588, I actually assumed somekind of
> >marine core did exist and just never was relevant to the show.
> >But after those two episodes, followed by not even a single
> >2 second reference to them in the final assault of Cardassia
> >( the one thing that people keep saying you *need* a marine
> >core for mind you, is ground assaults) proves that they do not
> >exist are never to their logical job one or the other.
>
> Well, that is your opinion. Fully understandable, I may add.
--
James Ward
>
> ----------
> In article <378F633C...@eos.ncsu.edu>, James Ward
> <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Before Nor the Battle and AR588, I actually assumed somekind of
> > marine core did exist and just never was relevant to the show.
> > But after those two episodes, followed by not even a single
> > 2 second reference to them in the final assault of Cardassia
> > ( the one thing that people keep saying you *need* a marine
> > core for mind you, is ground assaults) proves that they do not
> > exist are never to their logical job one or the other.
> >
>
> Force is. Just because they are called ground forces doesn't mean that they
> only fight on the ground. The U.S. Marines fight on the ground, on the
> water, and in the air. So saying that just because there was no reference
> to any particular force attacking a ground target proves that they don't
> exist is Poppy-Cock.
In ST, "ground forces" equals to planetside forces. I am well aware
that the marine corps uses plans and ships as well. The problem is
we have seen planetside forces on the ground no less being commanded
by naval ranked officers, while never having heard reference to a
dedicated planet assault force.
James Ward
>
>
> >> Besides, in "Rapture" it was said that when planets (particularly
> >> Bajor) join the Federation, their military forces are absorbed into
> >> Starfleet.
> >
> >DId they say they change the rank titles?
> >
> When Kira was given a Starfleet commission, she was given a
> "Commander" rank and everybody refered to her by that rank,
> instead of her Bajoran rank of "Colonel" (whether or not Colonel
> really mena Lt.Colonel is another thing). It's a safe bet to
> assume that's the case when planetary forces are "absorbed"
> into Starfleet.
Small detail, that was not the normal way that they do the
merger and was done solely to present a front that Kira was
a member of Starfleet. Not to mention, I think colonel
is actually the equal of a 1 "star" admiral unless I am mistaken
in why colonel's have a star on their uniform hats.
> >There is mention of his prior service in which he was
> >refered to as captain, and all other Klingon ship commanders
> >have been captains.
> >
> First, remeber that "Captain" is a rank too in non-naval
> military branches (not equivalent to Navy Captain, though).
> And then, the Klingons have a "Klingon Defense Force" whose
> structure needn't be exactly like an army or a navy...
The problem is the captains refered to in the Klingon forces
are clearly shipmasters, which is a position an army captain
would not normally have the seniority for.
> >So the Romulans and the Klingons can combine them into one,
> >but you have problems accepting that the Federation can?
> >Now that makes a lot of sense.
> >
> We aren't saying that - only that that part of Starfleet (or the
> Federation, maybe) that carries on "ground-based large-scale
> combat tasks" have their own uniforms and rank system. THAT's
> canon.
Actually it is not. The "different uniforms" are the same covert
operation black jumpsuits we saw used on various occasions on TNG.
We have seen a single officer ever refered to with a clearly non-naval
rank, that being colonel west, and notable that scene were he is named
was edited out of at least one version of the movie.
What we do have as canon is AR588 being commanded by naval ranked
officers though.
> Calling them "Marines" is just looking for a short way
> of referring to them, since we don't know what they're called.
From what the show has shown Security to be trained in, I
still fail to see the need for anything else to fulfill this
role.
> >People claim that in "Nor the Battle" and "AR588" that the ground
> >forces have somekind of patch on their uniforms.
> >
> They had a different uniform design. In at least two of the three
> "division colors" used by Starfleet.
Actualy it is the same covert operations uniform seen on TNG, just
with the strip added for division markers.
> >Gee, or it could just be something like the Rangers and their
> >*odd* hats that look *nothing* like any of the hats worn by other
> >Army units.
> >
> Then if they are like the Rangers, they are a special division
> or unit, and they are NOT security. That's the only thing we've
> been saying.
But security has been shown to be what handled what you keep
saying you need somekind of army/marine force for.
And consider the minimal size of a army/marine corps required
to just hold a planet, let alone take it by force. It is well
over 100 *million*, and easily over a billion assuming no help
from the natives. Where could such are large force have kept
hidden during the war?
>
> >Hell that black suit could be what passes for a field combat uniform
> >from WHAT little we know about it. Or maybe it is the normal uniform
> >for security when not assigned to ships?
> >
> That hypothesis would also be acceptable.
It is also the "uniform" worn by TNG crew doing covert operations.
It is seen in "Chain of Command", just missing the strip.
James Ward
>
> >Consider
> > that marines do in the US navy and other navies, that is the exact jobs
> > ( at least ship board) that we see security officers doing. If a marine
> > core exists, it seems to not be doing the main job that historicly
> > marine forces have done.
>
> The idea (as I saw it) is to have a ground-based counterpart to Starfleet's
> "shipdudes" to carry on the Federation's business where the ships leave off.
Problem is that it appears that it is "shipdudes" that do the
ground work.
>
> > The few things that suggest a marine core might exist
> > 1) Colonel west
> > Consider that we now have Colonel Kira on DS9, it is possible that
> > when planets join the Federation they keep their old ranks?
>
> When Kira put on a Starfleet uniform, she was battlefield-commissioned as a
> Commander. Unless she was a *Lieutenant-Colonel* in the Bajoran Militia, she
> actually stepped down in rank.
Which implies that her "absorbtion" into Starfleet was more for
the purpose of putting on a front than a real absorbtion. The reduction
in rank probably being to not outrank her cardasian counterpart.
I find it highly unlikely that the normal process would cause a
demotion.
>
> >Note that
> > Martok went form Captain to General as well. So is the Klingon space force
> > an army or a navy?
>
> Why not both?
He was a captain when he was in command of a ship, that is a naval
thing. So he is appearently in both forces at once, or they are
a single force that uses naval ranks up to ship level and army ranks
above single ship level.
>
> > 2) the 2 times we see ground forces, they were green patches
> > The Army Rangers were a slightly different uniform from the regular
> > Army, care to tell one of them they are not part of the Army to their
> > face sometime? Same is true of the Green Barrets. Actually all of the
> > major divisions of the Army were seperate *patches* to indicate their
> > division. I am fairly certain that something simliar is done in the
> > Navy. So could the patches just be to signfy that they passed their
> > ground combat training, instead of forceing a whole seperate military
> > force into existance?
>
> Why assume the Federation is "forcing a whole seperate military force into
> existance"? If these are Starfleet Marines, the organization would fall
> under Starfleet Command.
Then we would *see* them occasionally and *hear* reference to them.
> The Marine commandant would answer to the Secretary
> of Starfleet. I do not recall anyone putting forth the suggestion that
> Starfleet Marines would be autonomous, let alone in competition, with
> Starfleet's ships and starbases.
Marines being part of Starfleet would be in direct competition for
formal duties with security, unless you consign them to pure
ground (planetside) duties.
> As I put forth a few times already (I'm
> beginning to think nobody reads my posts) the whole point of Marines would
> be to complement the fleet's mission.
But we have been shown too many things to show that they are not
needed for that. A single starship can level a planet if it wants
to according to several episodes. Think Kosovo, and ask yourself
a simple question did the air force need the marines to complement
it during the conflict? Could not air force MPs not be able
to do just as good a job of peacekeeping as the army and marine
MPs? Remember Starfleet, name aside, is really an air force in
terms of how it should be modeled.
> > This actually does not have to follow, and given what Wesley had
> > to pass to get *into* the academy does not seem to be a general
> > restriction on the academy cadets. It is silly to suggest such
> > high IQs for the cadets, but it is what the show has clearly shown.
> >
> > And ever watch a show called MASH? Their second base commander was
> > a line infantryman *and* a general sergon. Learning all of medicene is
> > much more complicated than learning all of engineering( unless you
> > include all of the theory, but that is not needed to fix the engines),
> > but it appears that in RL people were able to master both.
>
> This last quotation assumes that Starfleet Marines exist only to serve
> combat roles or to project purely military power. Instead, Starfleet Marines
> could be as different from today's military as Starfleet's starships and
> starbases are.
>
> The whole point of using the word "marines" should not be to suggest pure
> militarism, but instead to indicate what would be (for lack of a better
> term) an *amphibious arm* of Starfleet that carries on the Federation's
> mission (whether peaceful or not, scientific or not, humanitarian or not)
> "on-the-ground" after the starships have left the "marine" personnel there.
It appears form AR588, that it is naval officers that command ground
troops left on the ground after a starship leaves the area.
--
buckysan
annapuma and unapumma in 98
44% of people think there is intelligent life besides earth
44% of people think there is intelligent life in washington DC
.
.
James Ward
>
> On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 16:46:37 -0400, James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
>
> >Brian Barjenbruch wrote:
> >>
> >> > Again, SF security spends *four* years at a military academy.
> >>
> >> Cops have an academy too...
> >
> >That last only a few months, and most of that is training in
> >law and protcol for arresting people.
> >
> >Guess what you are going to learn at a military academy if
> >you area is security? It is going to logically be a damn sight
> >more than just how to guard a door and who to say sir to.
>
> Do yourself a favor: go ask someone who attends a naval or militarya
> academy what they do all those four years. It's basically like
> attending college, though I admit the training will be tougher
> than phys ed...
My brother was only kept out of the rangers because of his
eyesight, I do know that kind of training at least one
college ROTC program does. And he did more than a couple of
days of combat exercises while he was there. Maybe he went
to an extra gungho ROTC program than normal. But I highly
doubt a pure military academy would do less combat training
than a normal univeristies ROTC program does.
And if someone is in a specility area, are you really tring
to say they neglect to teach them about that specility area
at all while in the academy and before they actually enter
the service? Surely you are not going to be that silly. That
officer have been stated to be specilitist in security should
logically mean *something*.
James Ward
>
> > Now since there does seem to be a position
> >of perment security officer and not all of them just pulling the
> >short straw, it stands to reason that they are trained in something
> >more than door guarding at the academy.
> >
> I would think they get that training >after< the Academy.
But *before* they enter the service proper.....
>
> >And if that policeman has had *four* years of military training,
> >I would not hesitate to send him onto a battlefield. Your example
> >is flawed since you want to keep forgeting that the security officers
> >are *trained*, not just some doorman off the street.
> >
> Hah. I wish a policeman heard you calling him a "doorman".
Compared to present day military police, he is.....
> >> tactics... Likewise, there's a limit for what Security can do.
> >
> >Why do you assume that the Security officers have so little training?
> >At least the long haul ones would have more training than your
> >basic cop does.
James Ward
>
> We don't know what, exactly, that Colonel West and the troops seen in "Nor
> the Battle" or "AR-558" actually were. They could be Starfleet Marines. They
> could be Starfleet Special Forces. (SFSF???)
AR588 had naval ranked commanding officers...... We know more
about what they *can't* be than you want to admit.
> They could be something else
> entirely. But it seems logical that Starfleet employs some kind of
> "amphibious" (for lack of a better, spacial-to-ground-like term) subsidiary
> arm that is dedicated to "on the ground" work, and surely uses land-based
> ranks, such as "Colonel West."
This is predicated on the assumption that face-to-face combat has
not changed over 4 centiries. It also fails to consider the fact
that Starfleet functions like an air force when it comes to ground
(planetside) assaults. Remember Kosovo and all the thousands of
marines that were involved in the conflict, oh yeah it was just
5 rescue helicopters wasn't it....
>
> So what if they aren't expressly called Marines? That misses the whole point
> that I started this sub-thread on anyway. It was about concerns regarding
> the mixture of canon and concept erosion in STAR TREK's evolution.
The problem really is the technology of ST would make face-to-face
ground combat just dumb. One starship from orbit could stun the
entire army. In any normal situation sending in the marines would
be followed by an equal number of body bags going back.
James Ward
>
> (1: Let's revisit Colonel West, who appeared in STAR TREK VI - THE
> UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. He wore a Federation uniform, with a striking
> resemblance to Starfleet. For sake of argument, let's call him a Starfleet
> Colonel. How can that be if Starfleet is based, at least in part, on an "old
> Earth naval tradition"? (Let's also establish that last quote as Gene
> Roddeberry's original STAR TREK ideal for Starfleet.)
Remember that TOS also had Comodore ranks runing around all the time.
Remember that Kirk took about 1/3 of the first season of TOS to get
the name of Starfleet and the Federation right.
Colonel West could far more easily be a memeber of an old guard that
was allowed to keep his rank title after the formal merger of all the
Federation militaries into the single Starfleet.
> (2: Let's assume that the Federation forces seen in "Not the Battle" and
> "AR-558" are not strictly so-called "shipdudes," that is not as purely based
> in their operations on that same "old Earth naval tradition" as, say,
> Starfleet personnel Ben Sisko works with on DS9 every day.
AR588 had naval ranks for its commanding officers....
> Surely Starfleet,
> as a vast interstellar, multi-purpose organization, does not employ all its
> personnel in exactly the same way for all missions/operations.
No, they have this neat division called security to deal with
security issues.....
> Are we really
> assuming that it is absolutely not possible that some divisions of Starfleet
> are not, in essence, directly part of the fleet itself? I would assume it is
> indeed possible that some non-fleet, non-"shipdude" ground operations could
> be part of the Federation Starfleet.
Never has appeared in any of the semi-canon breakdowns of Starfleet or
Federation command structures......
> (3: It is also logical to assume that ground-based Federation/Starfleet
> operations would use land-based conventions as part of its structure. (Use
> of terms like Officer of the Day, as opposed to Officer of the Deck, for
> instance, or "Attention all troops!" as opposed to the equally militaristic
> "Classic" TREK expression Kirk often used" "All hands... <blah, blah, blah>
> ...Captain out.") Why not also assume such ground operations would use
> land-based ranks, such as, well, "Colonel West"? Major, Brigadier and
> Sergeant would make more sense here than Lieutenant Commander, Commodore and
> Petty Officer.
AR588 is a major problem then, since the commanders of that force
where a captain( appears to be the top commander) and a commander
under him. The reall problem is a lot is being made out of this
single reference in over 500 hours of ST to a *single* army/air force
rank( note, it is just as likely that West is in somekind of air
force as it is he is in some form of army).
>
> (4: Would it not also make sense that such a planetary-oriented arm of the
> Federation/Starfleet would have amphibious (space-to-ground) capabilities?
Yes, we have seen that regular Starfleet ships have these in more
than apmle abundance, please explain why a new division is needed
to do what is already in existance?
>
> Think about it.
Think about why you want a new division to do what already exists.
>
> -------------------------------------------
>
> Hey, by all means refuse to call such an arm of the Federation/Starfleet
> "marines" if it offends you that much. But I would challenge people who have
> a problem with the notion of Federation/Starfleet Marines to come up with an
> adequately descriptive alternative name. Starfleet Security doesn't fit what
> I've put forth above. Anybody have some ideas?
Starfleet security has been shown to do all of the things a marine
corps would do, care to explain that one?
Ryan McReynolds
--
-=Ryan McReynolds=-
James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote in message
news:379501E1...@eos.ncsu.edu...
> After 500 hours of episodes, there has never been a reference
> to anykind of formal ground troops in ST.
Aside from them repeatedly saying things like "We're sending down ground
troops" and the Dominion saying "Federation troops have landed on Cardassian
soil."
> Peopl just want to conjure up a billion man face-to-face ground force for
> some silly reason.
Billion man face-to-face ground force? What's wrong with a smallish group
of people dedicated to ground comat? They don't have to even be marines...
> Consider the *minimal* size that anykind of marine/army in ST would
> have to be to do what is claimed to be its one indispenseable job,
> ie to physically take and hold fixed ground assests which in ST
> is planets.
How many things are we talking about? I'd see the "marines" as being used
for what they seem to be used for. In "The Seige of AR-558" the troops were
holding a Dominion communications array. That's not the sort of thing you
can just do from orbit, and there is little risk of being bombarded from
orbit ebcause the Dominion wants the array as well. Therefore, a team of 20
ground troops is appropriate for holding the position. In "The Undiscovered
Country" Colonel West was proposing a rescue mission for Captain Kirk and
McCoy. We aren't talking about using ground troops to perform planet-scale
invasions on several worlds simutaneously, we're talking about using small
teams to do specialized missions that cannot be normally accomplished by
starship crews. More like special forces than marines, I would think.
> Any other task, should be able to be handled by either Starfleer secuirty
> or Starfleet engineering that is usually considered the job of the
> army/marines.
>
> The only reason for assuming marines is an assumption that the
> rules of face-to-face engagements have not changed in 400 years
> of technology advancement, thus requireing a seperate training
> for face-to-face combat to be good at it. Without this assumption
> there is *zero* problem with doing what the writers do and consider
> the few ground soliders members of security. The writers have proven
> that they are never going to call *anything* a marine/army in
> ST after having 2 episodes that should have featured such if it
> existed and not name it.
And given that it is a division within Starfleet (Colonel West's uniform and
Kirk's line regarding a "combined service"), why should they be
distinguished? They're Starfleet officers just like starship crews, only
not starship crews. In fact, they routinely refer to "ground troops." If
they're just security, why not call them security? The answer: they're not
just security.
> Assume Marine corps exists to take and hold ground assets for the
> presumably inept "fleet" officers. This means we have to have a
> force capable of taking an entire *planet*.
Why? Isn't holding one position of strategic importance on the surface of a
planet? Refer to "Seige of AR-588" again... holding the entire planet is
unneccessary if you've got the important site under control. You seem to
think that either Starfleet has no ground troops at all, or they have a
monstrous war-mongering army of billions... why can't the ground troops be a
small but neccessary subdivision?
And there you go assuming these ground troops would be used to hold entire,
completely populated worlds. A simple starship blockade can handle that,
you need ground troops for holding specific locations on these or other,
unpopulated worlds.
> We are not done yet, even though that 500,000,000 number should
> shock you seeing as I remember a hugh debate over how Starfleet
> could possibly have enough officers to man the 10,000 or so ships
> that the war arc episodes implied exists. Imagine how hard a time
> they are going to have accepting a 500 million man army/marine
> corps. Of course, the problem here is that the basis of the
> desire for a marine corps is predicated on the assumption that
> face-to-face engagement rules have not changed in response to the
> technology.
According to "AR-558," they haven't.
> Again look to Kosovo, there it was demonstrated ( debate of what
> degree of crouse, but the face is Serbia did surrender) that air power
> could be used to eleminate or severely minimize the need for ground
> troops *at all*.
In that sort of situation, yes. Explain how, using only air or space power,
Starfleet could have taken and held the Dominion comm array on AR-558,
repaired it, and repelled shrouded Jem'Hadar troops from taking it back.
They can't, which is why we clearly saw ground troops on the planetoid
taking and holding it, just like all of the other so-called "marines" would
be doing whenever required.
> Starfleet, naval terms accepted, is actually an extension of the air
force.
> Take lessons from Kosovo, assume the 99.99999% accuracy that
> Starship weapons seem to have and about the only need for ground
> troops becomes *after the fact* mop operations that anyone who knows
> how a gun works can do and actually needs to be someone who
> is not a straight line military person( in the sense of fixed
> permant army/marines) preferably as the solider mentality tends
> to lead to shooting first instead of asking question( needed on
> a full scale battle field, but not in a peace keeping mission).
Why does a permanant army or marine corps have to have "straight line
military" people in it? Why has O'Brien made referenced to being both a
"soldier" and a "ground-pounder" before being an engineer? More
importantly, why do they refer to dedicated "ground troops" being landed in
force on several occasions, such as Chin'toka? They weren't landed after
starships bombarded the surface, they were sent down to take the planet once
orbital defenses were eliminated.
That may be one argument, but it doesn't have to be the only argument. I
see the "marines" as being a special forces type group of perhaps 1000
total, sent on very select missions, such as holding a comm array, or
rescuing important people... what a coincidence? Every time we see
reference to "ground troops" or the famous Colonel West, it is in relation
to such a mission. You generalize the marine supporters as wanteing a
massive war-mongering army...
The only
> problem is that does not come anywhere close to the size of a force
> needed to do the one thing that if an army/marine corps exists to
> augment Starfleet would be kept to do, ie physically taking a planet.
> The problem is really that they are thinking of air power as only
> capable of being support, while given smart weapons it can actually
> become the lead unit of an assault on a fixed installation. Remember
> the sole use of ground forces in Kosovo was to rescue one downed pilot
> during the conflict. All the rest was done by the air force and the
> KLA. And the KLA itself admits that it took the air force's presence
> to enable them to do anything major
And as I propose, the sole use of ground forces would be rescue and special
operations...
Ryan McReynolds
with them using Colonel (an Army rank)? At the time of TOS, Commodore was
actually used by the US Navy, therefore it made sense for them to use it on
the Naval-ranked Starfleet. The rank Colonel has never been used in the
Navy, and always in the Army/Marines/Air Force.
--
-=Ryan McReynolds=-
James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote in message
news:379505A0...@eos.ncsu.edu...
Timo S Saloniemi
>Brian Barjenbruch wrote:
>>
>> > i would like to know where in the whole sceme of it where it is
>> > mentioned that starfleet has Marines. i know that a few episodes have
>> > had people who could be marines but could still be security officiers.
>> > i'm a lone time star trek fan and know of no references (canon)
>> > references to them. please tell me where.
>>
>> always assumed he's a Marine)
>
>The air force does use Colonel though......
And I would be remiss in my duties not to mention that the Romulans
use a naval-sounding yet somewhat alien system for their regular
soldiers, but a system that translates as Army ranks for their
intelligence service, the Tal Shiar. Now why does the Universal
Translator translate the intelligence service ranks as Army ranks,
when it has to retort to made-up translations like "subcommander"
or Roman-style titles like "centurion" with the regular soldiers'
ranks?
Could it be that the UT bows to the Starfleet practice of addressing
intelligence service operatives by Army/Air Force ranks?
Wild Theory #8472: Perhaps the Air Force guys eternally tarnished the
Army rank system by nuking 600 million people in the 2050s, and
Starfleet thus feels compelled to use that rank system only with
people it holds in low regard or suspects of treasonous activities?
:-P
>> the phrase "ground troops" was mentioned several times on DS9...
>
>And in AR588, seen to have *NAVAL* ranked officers in command
>of them.
>> and then there's "Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "The Siege of
>> AR-558"...
>
>Both of which go *out of their* way to avoid every calling them
>anything remotely like ground forces or army or marines. And note
>in those two episodes it takes work to write them without using
>such terms.
One wonders if the respective writers at first used standard war
movie dialogue with sergeants and corporals etc., and the tech
& continuity experts then revised the scripts to feature more
"Starfleetish" ranks? It would come as naturally as editing
out a "grenade launcher" in favor of a "phaser rifle", I guess.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>> >> There was Colonel West in ST VI...(navies don't have colonels, so I
>> >> always assumed he's a Marine)
>> >
>> >The air force does use Colonel though...
>
>>
>> And I would be remiss in my duties not to mention that the Romulans
>> use a naval-sounding yet somewhat alien system for their regular
>> soldiers, but a system that translates as Army ranks for their
>> intelligence service, the Tal Shiar. Now why does the Universal
>> Translator translate the intelligence service ranks as Army ranks,
>> when it has to retort to made-up translations like "subcommander"
>> or Roman-style titles like "centurion" with the regular soldiers'
>> ranks?
>
>military?
Quite possibly - and Roman naval ranks are another matter still, even
if the Roman navy never really was a terror of the seas.
>And the Russian KGB used to use army ranks, I always thought this was
>what the Romulan Tal Shiar was based on.
>
>> Could it be that the UT bows to the Starfleet practice of addressing
>> intelligence service operatives by Army/Air Force ranks?
>
>Starfleet Intelligence is commanded by an Admiral. This was stated in
>one episode of TNG (The Drumhead) and, I think, on DS9 a couple of
>times.
Ahem, not exactly. Starfleet SECURITY is commanded by an admiral. I
believe we see the head of Starfleet Security, Adm. Henry, in "The
Drumhead", and hear the name of his successor in "The Pegasus", with
another reference to this female admiral in "The Search".
However, Starfleet INTELLIGENCE is a different service branch altogether.
It didn't even exist in Star Trek until "The Pegasus", since Roddenberry
and a few others thought that it would be naughty for Starfleet to
have a spy service. "The Pegasus" is the first episode to make the
distinction between Security and Intelligence. And I don't think we
ever get to see a true Intelligence operative or official in that
episode, or learn his or her rank - Rear Adm. Pressman seemed like
a regular Fleet flag officer to me, with only a tenuous connection
to SF Intelligence (that is, he was doing their bidding for the
time being).
Do you remember an instance where a SF Intelligence officer would
specifically be mentioned, or perhaps even make an appearance?
Timo Saloniemi
Ryan McReynolds
which an assassinated Vice-Admiral (Japanese name, can't recall it off hand)
is stated to be the Deputy Chief of Starfleet Intelligence. Presumably the
Chief would be a full Admiral.
--
-=Ryan McReynolds=-
Timo S Saloniemi <tsal...@huilu.hut.fi> wrote in message
news:7n455b$104$1...@nntp.hut.fi...
James Ward
>
> > >> There was Colonel West in ST VI...(navies don't have colonels, so I
> > >> always assumed he's a Marine)
> > >
> > >The air force does use Colonel though...
>
> An "air force" in Star Trek would be redundant. :)
No more so than an marine force......
James Ward
>
> > > Good theory. Or perhaps "colonel" is a courtesy title for a Starfleet
> > > captain who has specialized in ground or combined ops? The insignia was
> > > admiral-grade, though, wasn't it???
> >
> > True, this could actually explain the comodore ranks we saw in TOS.
>
That was *only* used during TOS. We know that by TNG times, the
use of the rank title has dissappeared. That implies that there
was some form of modification to the rank titles in between.
James Ward
>
> What exactly does Starfleet using Commodore (an actual Navy rank) have to do
> with them using Colonel (an Army rank)?
It proves that there has been tinkering with the rank titles along
the way, for some unknown reasons. That after the initial merger of
the militaries into a single force, some of the higher rank old guard
were permited to retain their rank titles for honorary purposes is
not that odd a possibility.
> At the time of TOS, Commodore was
> actually used by the US Navy, therefore it made sense for them to use it on
> the Naval-ranked Starfleet.
But, it is not a rank title used for ship masters. It is meant to
be a low rank flag officer, who should have more than a single
ship under his command normally.
> The rank Colonel has never been used in the
> Navy, and always in the Army/Marines/Air Force.
Note that Starfleet actually is best modeled as an air force
in terms of an assault on a planet, just something to consider....
James Ward
>
> > The different uniform is a non-issue really. It is basicly
> > the same black jumpsuit seen worn by the *naval* heros when
> > tring to be covert in breaking into someplace, you seem them
> > in Chain of Command actually.
>
> black turtleneck sweaters and black pants. They look like Dieter from
> "Sprockets" on SNL. The uniforms we saw in AR-558 and "Nor the Battle"
> are more stylized black uniforms (possibly with colored arms and legs)
> and a colored stripe across the middle, none of which the CoC uniforms
> had.
ie, ones that had been personally fited to the wearer perhaps? Or
ones that were intended to be worn more than once a year? The fact
remains that the covert ops uniform of choice is a black jump suit,
you are discussing how it is stiched together.
And again, the strip is probably not something that would appear
on a generic uniform, sort of like you don't order a major's
uniform. You instead order a basic battle uniform and sew on
the major's rank patches on it. So when the TNG crew just grabed
suits off the shelf, it only makes sense that they lacked any
of the patches. And if you are really doing covert ops, do you
think people reeally go out of the way to wear all of the patches
on their "uniform", think about it for a second.....
>
> --
> "Its origin and purpose...still a total mystery."
> - Dr. Heywood Floyd, "2001: A Space Odyssey"
--
James Ward
>
> James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote in message
> news:379501E1...@eos.ncsu.edu...
> > After 500 hours of episodes, there has never been a reference
> > to anykind of formal ground troops in ST.
>
> Aside from them repeatedly saying things like "We're sending down ground
> troops" and the Dominion saying "Federation troops have landed on Cardassian
> soil."
Starfleet is the Federation troops though....
>
> > Peopl just want to conjure up a billion man face-to-face ground force for
> > some silly reason.
>
> Billion man face-to-face ground force? What's wrong with a smallish group
> of people dedicated to ground comat? They don't have to even be marines...
Really try to for one second think about the shear size of
a force required to suppress a 6 billion or larger population.
Do you really think less than a few 100 million could do the
job? Realisticly it would need to be over 1 billion to do it.
Unless of course, some smart Starfleet admiral realizes that
starfleet against a fixed planetary assest is best modeled
like an air force and remembers the air war over Kosovo.....
Of course, then you need zero ground troops to enforce the
surrender of your enemey.....
>
> > Consider the *minimal* size that anykind of marine/army in ST would
> > have to be to do what is claimed to be its one indispenseable job,
> > ie to physically take and hold fixed ground assests which in ST
> > is planets.
>
> How many things are we talking about? I'd see the "marines" as being used
> for what they seem to be used for. In "The Seige of AR-558" the troops were
> holding a Dominion communications array.
Those troops are commanded by *naval* ranked commmanders.... ie, everything
points to them being main line starfleet officers. I am just tring
to show people what it would really take to take by force an entire
planet sized population.
> That's not the sort of thing you
> can just do from orbit, and there is little risk of being bombarded from
> orbit ebcause the Dominion wants the array as well. Therefore, a team of 20
> ground troops is appropriate for holding the position. In "The Undiscovered
> Country" Colonel West was proposing a rescue mission for Captain Kirk and
> McCoy. We aren't talking about using ground troops to perform planet-scale
> invasions on several worlds simutaneously, we're talking about using small
> teams to do specialized missions that cannot be normally accomplished by
> starship crews. More like special forces than marines, I would think.
The problem is that almost no one wants to call them anything other
than marines. Special forces would fall under security and not
need any other special status.
And the taking of a planet sized population would have to be one
of the focuses of a possible prolonged war of any formal ground
force the Federation has. It is what equates to captureing a
captail city in today's terms. How else do you expect to force
the surrender of a turely hostile force in the Star Trek setting
besides taking over their home world?
>
> > Any other task, should be able to be handled by either Starfleer secuirty
> > or Starfleet engineering that is usually considered the job of the
> > army/marines.
> >
> > The only reason for assuming marines is an assumption that the
> > rules of face-to-face engagements have not changed in 400 years
> > of technology advancement, thus requireing a seperate training
> > for face-to-face combat to be good at it. Without this assumption
> > there is *zero* problem with doing what the writers do and consider
> > the few ground soliders members of security. The writers have proven
> > that they are never going to call *anything* a marine/army in
> > ST after having 2 episodes that should have featured such if it
> > existed and not name it.
>
> And given that it is a division within Starfleet (Colonel West's uniform and
> Kirk's line regarding a "combined service"), why should they be
> distinguished? They're Starfleet officers just like starship crews, only
> not starship crews. In fact, they routinely refer to "ground troops." If
> they're just security, why not call them security? The answer: they're not
> just security.
Oddly enough they use naval ranks though from what we can tell.
And oddly enough in AR588, they refer to them as being starfleet
personel, not ground troops when in personal conversation with
them.
And none of the break down charts ever presented for the break
down of Starfleet and Federation command structures have ever
shown a formal post of ground forces commander. Why is that
post lacking from these command charts? Espeically if such
a force exists, and it is prepared to do what logically it
would have to do, it needs to be at least several 100 *million*
people strong.
Trust me, run the numbers, anything less could not even keep
the peace of a planet anywhere near the population of Earth.
>
> > Assume Marine corps exists to take and hold ground assets for the
> > presumably inept "fleet" officers. This means we have to have a
> > force capable of taking an entire *planet*.
>
> Why? Isn't holding one position of strategic importance on the surface of a
> planet?
Simpler to simply hold the planet from *ORIBT*. Why even let the
enemy ever set foot on the *planet* again. YOu are assuming inept
fleet officers now.
> Refer to "Seige of AR-588" again... holding the entire planet is
> unneccessary if you've got the important site under control.
It is far simpler than tring to hold a small peice of the planet
while allowing the enemy clear skys...... That is simply bad
tactics. Again, to create a need for the marines you are assuming
inept fleet officers. Do you think any present day army commander
would just tell the air force, "don't worry about me, I only have to
hold this peice of land in the middle of enemy forces, you planes
*can't* help me at all"? That is exactly what you are implying that
should have been done on AR588. Such makes no sense at all.
> You seem to
> think that either Starfleet has no ground troops at all, or they have a
> monstrous war-mongering army of billions... why can't the ground troops be a
> small but neccessary subdivision?
Either the fleet physically keeps that planet a no fly zone of sorts
or it hold the entire planet. Anything else is tactically suicide.
Imagine the US navy during WW2, allowing the japense to keep a base
on one of the islands they captured and let it keep taking pot shots
at their new base. Do you think anyone would ever do that?
If the entier planet is blockaded, you need ZERO formal ground troops
to do anything.
And in any situation, blocking the entier planet form orbit is the
far more sound tactical plan. It really is suicide to *give* the
other side complete air superiourity over you.
>
> > We are not done yet, even though that 500,000,000 number should
> > shock you seeing as I remember a hugh debate over how Starfleet
> > could possibly have enough officers to man the 10,000 or so ships
> > that the war arc episodes implied exists. Imagine how hard a time
> > they are going to have accepting a 500 million man army/marine
> > corps. Of course, the problem here is that the basis of the
> > desire for a marine corps is predicated on the assumption that
> > face-to-face engagement rules have not changed in response to the
> > technology.
>
> According to "AR-558," they haven't.
Acoording to AR588, naval ranked commanders run the ground forces
as well....
And AR588 showed that the use of cloaked mines is normal, I somehow
think such things would drasticly change the nature of the engagements.
It also shows that use of holograms is not unhread of as a diversionary
tactic.
>
> > Again look to Kosovo, there it was demonstrated ( debate of what
> > degree of crouse, but the face is Serbia did surrender) that air power
> > could be used to eleminate or severely minimize the need for ground
> > troops *at all*.
>
> In that sort of situation, yes. Explain how, using only air or space power,
> Starfleet could have taken and held the Dominion comm array on AR-558,
> repaired it, and repelled shrouded Jem'Hadar troops from taking it back.
Simple DO NOT LET ANY ENEMEY SHIP WITHIN TRANSPORTER DISTANCE of the
planet. That would allow a simple engineering team time to study the
station at their own pace.
And as to taking the base, we have seen before that standard ship
dudes can physically take a base over with no need for calling in
specialists.
> They can't, which is why we clearly saw ground troops on the planetoid
> taking and holding it, just like all of the other so-called "marines" would
> be doing whenever required.
Yes, then you also need them to be able to "take and hold" an entire
primary planet, like Romlus or Cardasia prime. That would require
100 *millions* of troops at a *minimium*. YOu can't have both
here, either the fleet is so inept that it can't hold a planet blockade
up for a *small* object or it needs ground forces. To claim the
ground forces are needed insults the fleets abilities to be blunt.
>
> > Starfleet, naval terms accepted, is actually an extension of the air
> force.
> > Take lessons from Kosovo, assume the 99.99999% accuracy that
> > Starship weapons seem to have and about the only need for ground
> > troops becomes *after the fact* mop operations that anyone who knows
> > how a gun works can do and actually needs to be someone who
> > is not a straight line military person( in the sense of fixed
> > permant army/marines) preferably as the solider mentality tends
> > to lead to shooting first instead of asking question( needed on
> > a full scale battle field, but not in a peace keeping mission).
>
> Why does a permanant army or marine corps have to have "straight line
> military" people in it? Why has O'Brien made referenced to being both a
> "soldier" and a "ground-pounder" before being an engineer?
But he never says he was in an army or marine corps oddly enough either....
> More
> importantly, why do they refer to dedicated "ground troops" being landed in
> force on several occasions, such as Chin'toka?
Gee, if you are a naval officer and told to take up duties on the
ground, guess what you just became for the duration of those orders.
Right, ground troops. But you are still a naval officer. That does
not force the need for a formal ground force.
> They weren't landed after
> starships bombarded the surface, they were sent down to take the planet once
> orbital defenses were eliminated.
At which point, it becomes a Kosovo style air war. The planet surrenders
and you send in anyone that knows how to handle a gun to keep the peace.
That does not require some special formal marine or army force
in no way shape or form.
A waste of *LIVES*, since that only leads to body bags comeing home,
when a few small ships could keep the entire planet's surface clear
of hostiles by keeping hostile ships *AWAY* from the planet.
> or
> rescuing important people... what a coincidence?
Oddly enough such things seem to be done by main line naval officers
from what we see in the episodes.
> Every time we see
> reference to "ground troops"
Ground troops is just people assigned to the ground, it means nothing
beyond that really. Anything more is being read into it for your
own personal reasons.
> or the famous Colonel West,
Noteably that rank title was edited out of at least one version
of the movie, I wonder why......
> it is in relation
> to such a mission. You generalize the marine supporters as wanteing a
> massive war-mongering army...
That is the only *SIGNLE* thing that they want the marines to do that
could not and has not been shown to be the responsiblity of Starfleet
*SECURITY* forces on numerous occasions.
>
> The only
> > problem is that does not come anywhere close to the size of a force
> > needed to do the one thing that if an army/marine corps exists to
> > augment Starfleet would be kept to do, ie physically taking a planet.
> > The problem is really that they are thinking of air power as only
> > capable of being support, while given smart weapons it can actually
> > become the lead unit of an assault on a fixed installation. Remember
> > the sole use of ground forces in Kosovo was to rescue one downed pilot
> > during the conflict. All the rest was done by the air force and the
> > KLA. And the KLA itself admits that it took the air force's presence
> > to enable them to do anything major
>
> And as I propose, the sole use of ground forces would be rescue and special
> operations...
Such operations fall under *SECURITY* already, why have 2 seperate units
with the same formal duties?
--
buckysan
annapuma and unapumma in 98
44% of people think there is intelligent life besides earth
44% of people think there is intelligent life in washington DC
.
.
.
JTKirk
>
>lesssee.... according to the novel *flag full of stars* (i think...
>2nd "missing years" story, about a prototype ship being
>hijaacked....), checkov was going back to a starfleet security academy
>for advance courses to deal with a career in security....
>
>now what that says to me is that the "security" we have seen on the
>ships are of 2 varieties.... the career security officers who probably
>comp[rise the core/backbone of the security department, and those
>*assigned* to security detail for some unspecified time and reason....
>
>might be to give junior officers cross training, might be punishment
>details (ala KP duty), might be to fill holes in the regular security
>roster due to attrition....
>
>i imagine that in addition to *starfleet academy*, there are a ton of
>suplimental or specialized academies... im assuiming that *the* academy
>is mainly for the command track, and that somewhere along the line
>cadets choose what their specialties are to be and get shunted
>around... and im sure that transporters help the commute so that no
>matter how far spread the acutal campuses are, most cadets are housed
>in san francisco at *the* academy...
>
Let's see... the way I understand it, the 4 years in SF Academy
are roughly equivalent to college. Then, once they graduate,
the then-ensigns (not cadets anymore) are assigned to posts
which will serve them to choose a specialization area. They
may serve in several different posts before choosing the area
they want to specialize in.
Those who want to follow Command would go to Command School at
the Academy (that's AFTER the initial four years). That's why
Saavik would be a Lt. JG and not just a cadet when she was a
trainee aboard the Enterprise (and the same goes for the other
trainees, including the Engineering ones). This idea is further
backed up (IIRC) by the "Starfleet Academy" novel based on the
game... (question: if it's seen on a MONITOR screen, could it
be considered canon? referring to the broadest definition of canon
as "anything seen onscreen")
I guess the "two varieties" of Security Officers would be very
plausible, then. Remember, we have seen an Admiral who was Chief
of Starfleet Security, and Eddington spoke about a career in
Security. Plus the junior officers in cross training...
BTW, that Admiral has been the only one so far wearing a Gold
uniform... that definitely indicates that Security's color
(in the 24th Century) is Gold, and would exclude the possibility
that the "marines" (whatever they are called) seen in Nor the
Battle... and The Siege... were simply Security wearing field
uniforms, since they wore all the colors, not only Gold...
That wouldn't prevent them from having been picked from among
Security, though, before transfering to this, whatever it's
called.
>BTW, for my AOL sims, ive been tryingto define the areas of
>jurisdiction for not only the SFM, but the starfleet rangers (sci div's
>own special forces, think of a bunch of mcgyvers...), StarCAT's (my
>own devising: starfleet crisis assessment team,, filling the niche of
>navy seals), and special ops/forces...
>
>on the surface it sounds like they are all designed to step on each
>others toes... what i have come up with is, if all a parts of a sword,
>the starCATs are the point, special ops the cutting edges, and marines
>the spine/backbone of the sword....
>
>hoes that sound? o, and security would be the pommel-guards....
>
>lr
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
--
__________ ____---____ Marco Antonio Checa Funcke
\_________D /-/---_----' mailto:mch...@li.urp.edu.pe,
_H__/_/ jtk...@usa.net,JTK...@HoTMaiL.com
'-_____|( http://www.GeoCities.com/Hollywood/2645
remove the "no_me_j." in front of the address when replying
James Ward
>
> > > Commodore is a navy-only rank.
> >
> > That was *only* used during TOS. We know that by TNG times, the
> > use of the rank title has dissappeared. That implies that there
> > was some form of modification to the rank titles in between.
>
> modification of rank titles we've had.
But we have *NEVER* heard why it was modified, or what the entire
extent of the modification was. Why do you find it so hard to
beleive that a few legacy rank titles were carried over during
the intial merger of the militaries into a single force? And that
these legacy rank titles just aged out when the people with
them left the service. Seems a reasonable solution to not forcing
the high level officers to change over all of their personal letter
heads just because they are not all one "big happy family".
James Ward
>
> > > > >> There was Colonel West in ST VI...(navies don't have colonels, so I
> > > > >> always assumed he's a Marine)
> > > > >
> > > > >The air force does use Colonel though...
> > >
> > > An "air force" in Star Trek would be redundant. :)
> >
> > No more so than an marine force......
>
Note, you think. The writer clearly think otherwise.
>
> Think of it: What would an air force do in Trek? Fly around in
> planetary atmospheres, but not in space?
Actually the fleet attacking a planet, becomes an air force model
of military force projection, if you really think about it for
a second.
> Why would anyone need that?
> At least an argument can be made (I know you're not making that
> argument, though, so calm down) for Marines--to provide ground troops
> in wartime. But in a sense when *everything* in Trek is airborne, you
> don't need an Air Force in Trek.
Actually what you realy need is just an air force, it is extremely
odd that Starfleet is a navy instead of an air force. Note, in
the real world the air force is the only military force really
tring to include space based operations in their plans. At least
aside from useing satelites as guidance systems.
Kasey Chang
> > planetary atmospheres, but not in space?
> Actually the fleet attacking a planet, becomes an air force model
> of military force projection, if you really think about it for
> a second.
Nope, more like a CVBG force projection, which brings us right back to
NAVY.
> > > Why would anyone need that?
> > At least an argument can be made (I know you're not making that
> > argument, though, so calm down) for Marines--to provide ground
> > troops in wartime. But in a sense when *everything* in Trek is
> > airborne, you don't need an Air Force in Trek.
> Actually what you realy need is just an air force, it is extremely
> odd that Starfleet is a navy instead of an air force. Note, in
> the real world the air force is the only military force really
> tring to include space based operations in their plans. At least
> aside from useing satelites as guidance systems.
Not to me. You are trying to apply terrestrial logic to space ops, which
is a contradiction in my book.
Airpower can slow an army down, it can't stop it completely, Kosovo not
withstanding.
--
Kuo-Sheng "Kasey" Chang / spam-hater /
Paradox guru / X-Com Guru / Sci-Fi Fan /
Treknologist / Military buff / a guy (yes, male!)
James Ward
>
> > > or the famous Colonel West,
> >
> > Noteably that rank title was edited out of at least one version
> > of the movie, I wonder why......
>
It is just an interesting point, that basicly the sole date point
that the agurement fro conjurign up a army/marine corps is actually
something that the production staff on one occasion edited out of
the movie. Everything else fits in perfectly with what has been
said and shown to be Security's duties.
Or do you think the three or four times that Kirk goofed up the
name of the Federation and Starfleet in TOS were because he
really did not know the name instead of editing mistakes?
Ryan McReynolds
--
-=Ryan McReynolds=-
James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote in message
news:379640F8...@eos.ncsu.edu...
> Starfleet is the Federation troops though....
"Starfleet" as a whole isn't, but a special division of Starfleet is,
regardless of what it's called.
> Really try to for one second think about the shear size of
> a force required to suppress a 6 billion or larger population.
> Do you really think less than a few 100 million could do the
> job? Realisticly it would need to be over 1 billion to do it.
And I propose that the alleged "marines" (a name which I'm using only for
convenience) do not do such actions, but only smaller engagements.
> Unless of course, some smart Starfleet admiral realizes that
> starfleet against a fixed planetary assest is best modeled
> like an air force and remembers the air war over Kosovo.....
> Of course, then you need zero ground troops to enforce the
> surrender of your enemey.....
Exactly. If you're aiming to subjugate a population, you can do it from
orbit. If you want to control a small installation or rescue op, you need
specialized ground troops. In Kosovo, there was no need for ground troops
for the bombing raids, because they wanted to destroy the things they were
hitting. If they wanted to actually capture Yugoslavian facilities,
equipment, or personnel, they would have to send in ground troops to do so.
Likewise, if Starfleet wants to capture Dominion facilities, equipment, or
personnel, they have to send in ground troops.
> Those troops are commanded by *naval* ranked commmanders.... ie,
> everything points to them being main line starfleet officers.
I have no problem with their organization being changed soemtime between
STVI and TNG such that they use naval ranks instead. However, I still
maintain that the "ground troops," regardless of what rank system they use,
are not starship crews, but exclusively ground forces.
> I am just tring to show people what it would really take to take by force
> an entire planet sized population.
And nobody is arguing that point, as far as I know.
> The problem is that almost no one wants to call them anything other
> than marines. Special forces would fall under security and not
> need any other special status.
But they don't fall under security. We see that the "ground troops" are of
many divisions, there are science, engineering, and command "ground troops,"
which implies that they are just like starship crews (i.e., mixed) only
devoted to surface operations. A special forces type unit fits the bill
nicely.
> And the taking of a planet sized population would have to be one
> of the focuses of a possible prolonged war of any formal ground
> force the Federation has. It is what equates to captureing a
> captail city in today's terms. How else do you expect to force
> the surrender of a turely hostile force in the Star Trek setting
> besides taking over their home world?
You can take a home world from orbit, by destroying all military forces and
using wide-beam stun to hold it. Normal security, as you say, can perform
clean-up and peacekeeping duties. However, special forces would be needed
for smaller oprations outside the normal range of security experience.
> Oddly enough they use naval ranks though from what we can tell.
So? It is entirely possible that in the 2290s they used Army ranks and
converted to Navy ranks before the 2370s. By that time, they were more like
present-day Navy SEALs than Marines.
> And oddly enough in AR588, they refer to them as being starfleet
> personel, not ground troops when in personal conversation with
> them.
If the ground troops are a divsion of Starfleet, as Colonel West's uniform
indicates, then why wouldn't they refer to themselves as Starfleet
personnel? Navy SEALs are still Navy personnel, so Starfleet "marines"
should still be Starfleet personnel.
> And none of the break down charts ever presented for the break
> down of Starfleet and Federation command structures have ever
> shown a formal post of ground forces commander.
You keep referencing these charts... we have NEVER seen even a semi-canon
chart of Starfleet organization in any episode, film, or reference book.
> Why is that post lacking from these command charts? Espeically if such
> a force exists, and it is prepared to do what logically it
> would have to do, it needs to be at least several 100 *million*
> people strong.
So you say. You just can't accept the idea of independent, non-security,
special forces in Starfleet, and so you build a strawman argument around
this massive invasion force of billions of evil war-mongerers. I agree with
you that there isn't a standing army of planetary proportions in Starfleet.
However, I do feel that the "ground troops" are a distinct group from those
people who serve aboard starships. They have separate uniforms, and they
have the same three subdivisions that starship crews do.
> Trust me, run the numbers, anything less could not even keep
> the peace of a planet anywhere near the population of Earth.
And you're the only one talking about peacekeeping duties for these
"marines."
> Simpler to simply hold the planet from *ORIBT*. Why even let the
> enemy ever set foot on the *planet* again. YOu are assuming inept
> fleet officers now.
No, I am assuming that special situations require special forces. In "The
Seige of AR-558" it was clearly established that (for whatever reason)
Starfleet could not spare ships to maintain orbital control of the facility.
Therefore, they left behind a brigade of ground troops to repair, monitor,
and control the location.
> It is far simpler than tring to hold a small peice of the planet
> while allowing the enemy clear skys...... That is simply bad
> tactics. Again, to create a need for the marines you are assuming
> inept fleet officers. Do you think any present day army commander
> would just tell the air force, "don't worry about me, I only have to
> hold this peice of land in the middle of enemy forces, you planes
> *can't* help me at all"? That is exactly what you are implying that
> should have been done on AR588. Such makes no sense at all.
No, I am not implying that. I am restating wht they clearly said: there
were no orbiting starships. If there were, then there wouldn't have been a
need for the ground troops. See, we really agree on that point: if you can
use a starship, use it. But for reasons unknown, there was not orbital
support.
> Either the fleet physically keeps that planet a no fly zone of sorts
> or it hold the entire planet. Anything else is tactically suicide.
> Imagine the US navy during WW2, allowing the japense to keep a base
> on one of the islands they captured and let it keep taking pot shots
> at their new base. Do you think anyone would ever do that?
Ask whatever Starfleet admirals left AR-558 undefended with ground troops on
the surface.
> If the entier planet is blockaded, you need ZERO formal ground troops
> to do anything.
>
> And in any situation, blocking the entier planet form orbit is the
> far more sound tactical plan. It really is suicide to *give* the
> other side complete air superiourity over you.
If it's not a matter of air superiority, then that is moot. In "AR-558,"
there were no Starfleet ships, and there were no Jem'Hadar ships. The air
didn't matter, it was ground troops against ground troops. Have you even
seen that episode?
> Acoording to AR588, naval ranked commanders run the ground forces
> as well....
What's wrong with that?
> Simple DO NOT LET ANY ENEMEY SHIP WITHIN TRANSPORTER DISTANCE of the
> planet. That would allow a simple engineering team time to study the
> station at their own pace.
The Jem'Hadar were already on the planet! No Dominion ship got in
transporter range, in fact there were no Starfleet ships in range either!
> And as to taking the base, we have seen before that standard ship
> dudes can physically take a base over with no need for calling in
> specialists.
Sure, but when their ship leaves, they have to leave, too. That's why you
have this wonderful group of "marines" who stay behind. It's not a hard
concept to grasp... on AR-558, there was no orbiting starship, there were
just ground troops. I didn't write the episode, so don't ask me why it
turned out that way.
> Yes, then you also need them to be able to "take and hold" an entire
> primary planet, like Romlus or Cardasia prime. That would require
> 100 *millions* of troops at a *minimium*. YOu can't have both
> here, either the fleet is so inept that it can't hold a planet blockade
> up for a *small* object or it needs ground forces. To claim the
> ground forces are needed insults the fleets abilities to be blunt.
Yes, to say that ground forces are needed to take and hold a planet does,
but YOU'RE the only person who's even bringing that up! It's called a
strawman argument: if you can't defeat the argument at hand, you create a
new one (a "strawman") that is easier to defeat and then tear it down. If I
were arguing for a massive interplanetary invasion force, then you would be
just. I am arguing for a small group, but you keep bringing the massive
force in because that's the thing you want to argue against.
> But he never says he was in an army or marine corps oddly enough
> either....
He doesn't have to. I never claimed there was an army or a marine corps,
did I? Are you confusing me with someone else here? I maintain that
Starfleet has two major groups: Starfleet Galaxy Exploration Command
(starship crews, etc) and Starfleet Planetary Operations Command (ground
troops, terraformers, etc.). I do not support a "Marine Corps" or "Army,"
so why do you keep bringing it up?
> A waste of *LIVES*, since that only leads to body bags comeing home,
> when a few small ships could keep the entire planet's surface clear
> of hostiles by keeping hostile ships *AWAY* from the planet.
Tell that to the Admirals who left AR-558 undefended... and to the hundreds
of Navy SEALs who went on covert ops in Desert Storm. Why didn't they just
station a few cruisers nearby those oil rigs they took and held so they
didn't "waste" the SEALs on them? There is no need for a standing army in
Starfleet, but there is a very real need for special forces.
> That is the only *SIGNLE* thing that they want the marines to do that
> could not and has not been shown to be the responsiblity of Starfleet
> *SECURITY* forces on numerous occasions.
Who is "they?" How come these ground troops have division colors on their
uniforms if they're all in the security division? The answer: they aren't
all in the security division, they're all in the "ground troops" division
which has the same three subdivisions as the "starship" division.
> Such operations fall under *SECURITY* already, why have 2 seperate
> units with the same formal duties?
Because a starship is a starship and a planet is a planet. Starfleet
security handles starships and their crews (unless an emergency arises)
while Starfleet "ground troops" handle planetary operations, rescues,
terraforming, colonization, etc.
-=Ryan McReynolds=-
James Ward
>
> > > > That was *only* used during TOS. We know that by TNG times, the
> > > > use of the rank title has dissappeared. That implies that there
> > > > was some form of modification to the rank titles in between.
> > >
> > > It's disappeared from the real US Navy as well, and that's the only
> > > modification of rank titles we've had.
> >
> > But we have *NEVER* heard why it was modified, or what the entire
> > extent of the modification was.
>
> really) of Commodore was taken away. In its place was put "Rear
> Admiral Lower Half." It's the same rank (one star), just a different
> word. As to why they did this, I don't know, although it does seem to
> make sense; in the Army, Marines, and Air Force, one-star is a rank of
> general--Brigadier General--so it stands to reason that a one-star
> officer in the Navy should be an admiral.
If it stands to reason, it would have been done in the first
place. YOu are just yet again showing that you will ignore
anything( actually several things) that might point away
from their being a marine corps( something the writers *CLEARLY*
do not way to exist).
If one rank title had to be changed to something, it stands
to reason that other might have been changed/modified as well.
>
> > Why do you find it so hard to
> > beleive that a few legacy rank titles were carried over during
> > the intial merger of the militaries into a single force?
>
> Hey, I don't find it *hard* to believe at all. I'm just not as
> stubbornly anti-Marine as you are.
I am just saying what the SHOW is SAYING about the issue. The
writers are the ones that are stubbornly anti-marine. Until
AR588, I would have actually agrued that the marine corps and
some forme of army had to exist. AR588, makes it impossible for
an army or marine corps to be mentioned in any context( execpt
as a newly force organizeation) in the future without
being a MAJOR contradiction to canon events.
>
> --
> "Its origin and purpose...still a total mystery."
> - Dr. Heywood Floyd, "2001: A Space Odyssey"
--
Justin T. Broderick
[...]
> > Commodore is a navy-only rank.
>
Was only _seen_ in TOS.
> We know that by TNG times, the
> use of the rank title has dissappeared.
How do we know this? Just because the rank has not been seen since TOS,
can we claim to "know" that it doesn't exist?
--JTB
JTKirk
notes... (But who's going to pay for that time? Noone.)
Well, here are my notes:
a) From "Nor the Battle to the Strong":
First, some talk about Ajilon Prime and "the colonists"
Then, the guy in the uniform with a gold stripe. Later he's
refered to as an ensign.
Jake's comments "But they are Starfleet!" and "hundreds of hours
in battle simulations".
Then mention of hearing a lieutenant say that "they can't beam
troops anywhere" and tried "using hoppers".
Later, the guy in the uniform with a red stripe, refered to
elsewhere as a lieutenant. He talks about his platoon, his C.O.,
his squad and the last thing he saw, everybody climbing the ramp
of the hopper.
Then the ensign again... talking about when he was "at the Academy"
and the "battle simulations", then saying "I don't deserve to be
in Starfleet"
Then when they're evacuating, they are informed that "Resources
is sending a secutiry detail", then two in uniform with gold stripe
appear... "Two guards?! Is that it?!" (refered to in the credits
as "male guard" and "female guard")
b) From "The Siege of AR-558":
First, Bashir and Vic talking about the "troops on the front
lines".
Then, upon arriving, the lieutenant in regular Starfleet uniform
who is in command, after the death of both the Captain and the
Commander.
Vargas, wearing thje uniform with a gold stripe.
Reese, not wearing his jacket so we don't know what it looks like.
Nog's comment: "that knife isn't regular Starfleet"
Nog: "that soldier over there"
Quark's comment: "not the Starfleet you know"
Nog: "two thirds of their unit killed"
Sisko's "every soldier under my command"
Finally, "they are beaming down troop replacements and an
Engineering crew". We then see guys in regular Starfleet uniform
enter, gold color, carrying phasers. Somehow I'm not convinced
those are the engineers...
Well, my comments based on those notes will have to wait until
tomorrow... right now I don't have the time.
However, I"m making one or two comments on this message:
On Wed, 21 Jul 1999 17:51:52 -0400, James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote:
>Ryan McReynolds wrote:
>>
>
>> James Ward <jgw...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote in message
>> news:379501E1...@eos.ncsu.edu...
>> > After 500 hours of episodes, there has never been a reference
>> > to anykind of formal ground troops in ST.
>>
>> Aside from them repeatedly saying things like "We're sending down ground
>> troops" and the Dominion saying "Federation troops have landed on Cardassian
>> soil."
>
>Starfleet is the Federation troops though....
>
>>
>> > Peopl just want to conjure up a billion man face-to-face ground force for
>> > some silly reason.
>>
>> Billion man face-to-face ground force? What's wrong with a smallish group
>> of people dedicated to ground comat? They don't have to even be marines...
>
>Really try to for one second think about the shear size of
>a force required to suppress a 6 billion or larger population.
>Do you really think less than a few 100 million could do the
>job? Realisticly it would need to be over 1 billion to do it.
>
Nobody is going to try to conquest a whole planet! Nobody has
even suggested that, aside from yourself. "planetary operations"
mean they are on the planet's surface, not that the operation
involves the whole planet... that would be a "planetary SCALE
operation".
>Unless of course, some smart Starfleet admiral realizes that
>starfleet against a fixed planetary assest is best modeled
>like an air force and remembers the air war over Kosovo.....
>Of course, then you need zero ground troops to enforce the
>surrender of your enemey.....
>
If you are supporting the policy of cowardly bombing from a
distance, wiping out your enemies no matter that you also are
killing other people (and THAT's what was happening at Kosovo),
even the people you are claiming to "protect"... and then you
say the concept of "Marines" is "too militaristic"... Ha!
>>
>> > Consider the *minimal* size that anykind of marine/army in ST would
>> > have to be to do what is claimed to be its one indispenseable job,
>> > ie to physically take and hold fixed ground assests which in ST
>> > is planets.
>>
>> How many things are we talking about? I'd see the "marines" as being used
>> for what they seem to be used for. In "The Seige of AR-558" the troops were
>> holding a Dominion communications array.
>
>Those troops are commanded by *naval* ranked commmanders.... ie, everything
>points to them being main line starfleet officers. I am just tring
>to show people what it would really take to take by force an entire
>planet sized population.
>
Again, nobody said "planet sized"... only "planetary operations"
which has a different meaning.
>> That's not the sort of thing you
>> can just do from orbit, and there is little risk of being bombarded from
>> orbit ebcause the Dominion wants the array as well. Therefore, a team of 20
>> ground troops is appropriate for holding the position. In "The Undiscovered
>> Country" Colonel West was proposing a rescue mission for Captain Kirk and
>> McCoy. We aren't talking about using ground troops to perform planet-scale
>> invasions on several worlds simutaneously, we're talking about using small
>> teams to do specialized missions that cannot be normally accomplished by
>> starship crews. More like special forces than marines, I would think.
>
>The problem is that almost no one wants to call them anything other
>than marines. Special forces would fall under security and not
>need any other special status.
>
>And the taking of a planet sized population would have to be one
>of the focuses of a possible prolonged war of any formal ground
>force the Federation has. It is what equates to captureing a
>captail city in today's terms. How else do you expect to force
>the surrender of a turely hostile force in the Star Trek setting
>besides taking over their home world?
>
That again?!?
>>
>> > Any other task, should be able to be handled by either Starfleer secuirty
>> > or Starfleet engineering that is usually considered the job of the
>> > army/marines.
>> >
>> > The only reason for assuming marines is an assumption that the
>> > rules of face-to-face engagements have not changed in 400 years
>> > of technology advancement, thus requireing a seperate training
>> > for face-to-face combat to be good at it. Without this assumption
>> > there is *zero* problem with doing what the writers do and consider
>> > the few ground soliders members of security. The writers have proven
>> > that they are never going to call *anything* a marine/army in
>> > ST after having 2 episodes that should have featured such if it
>> > existed and not name it.
>>
>> And given that it is a division within Starfleet (Colonel West's uniform and
>> Kirk's line regarding a "combined service"), why should they be
>> distinguished? They're Starfleet officers just like starship crews, only
>> not starship crews. In fact, they routinely refer to "ground troops." If
>> they're just security, why not call them security? The answer: they're not
>> just security.
>
>Oddly enough they use naval ranks though from what we can tell.
>And oddly enough in AR588, they refer to them as being starfleet
>personel, not ground troops when in personal conversation with
>them.
>
They can still be Starfleet ground troops, as opposed to ship
crews. Starfleet infantry, if you prefer.
>And none of the break down charts ever presented for the break
>down of Starfleet and Federation command structures have ever
>shown a formal post of ground forces commander. Why is that
>post lacking from these command charts? Espeically if such
>a force exists, and it is prepared to do what logically it
>would have to do, it needs to be at least several 100 *million*
>people strong.
>
Which charts? Presented where? By who?
And again insisting in the size?
>Trust me, run the numbers, anything less could not even keep
>the peace of a planet anywhere near the population of Earth.
>
Again?
--
love...@my-deja.com
> > Commodore is a navy-only rank.
>
> use of the rank title has dissappeared. That implies that there
> was some form of modification to the rank titles in between.
or just simply *not seen*.... which is not as far stretched as it
sounds... look at the scarcity of the various *hero class ships* from
ds9..... or the apparent absence of the Enterprise-D and -E from the
dominion war
lr
GOW extrodinaire
love...@my-deja.com
>
> Note, you think. The writer clearly think otherwise.
>
> >
> > Think of it: What would an air force do in Trek? Fly around in
> > planetary atmospheres, but not in space?
>
> Actually the fleet attacking a planet, becomes an air force model
> of military force projection, if you really think about it for
> a second.
>
> > Why would anyone need that?
> > At least an argument can be made (I know you're not making that
> > argument, though, so calm down) for Marines--to provide ground
troops
> > in wartime. But in a sense when *everything* in Trek is airborne,
you
> > don't need an Air Force in Trek.
>
> Actually what you realy need is just an air force, it is extremely
> odd that Starfleet is a navy instead of an air force. Note, in
> the real world the air force is the only military force really
> tring to include space based operations in their plans. At least
> aside from useing satelites as guidance systems.
actually, i believe that he proper term for a space-oriented corps is a
*spacy*... but since that does sound so silly, and most people will
think it contrived, the model of a navy is justified, especailly when
so many parallels are drawn between a wet navy and beiong on a
space/starship...
look to david weber's *honor harrington* series for a very realistic
sounding divisionn between the navy and marine forces.... id really
love to read a star trek story written by him, even making allowances
that any marines written about are still uncanon...
lr
gow extrodinaire
Jonah Rapp
out
specifically.
Originally, the flag progression went:
Commodore
Rear Admiral
Vice-Admiral
Admiral
Now it goes:
Rear Admiral (Lower Half)
Rear Admiral (Upper Half)
Vice-Admiral
Admiral
As our Navy's rank terminology changed, so did Star Trek's. And for the
record,
the only TOS Commodore who wasn't commanding a fleet or a Starbase was
Decker, who
may have been prior to going to investicate the Planet-killer, but we'll
never
know. Also, the Constellation just could have been his flagship. He may
have had a
Captain under him, and taken direct command when he beamed the rest of
the crew
down tot he planet...
--Jonah