I'm sure the federal subunits have police forces, but that's probably about it. "I'm a pink cop in a blue man's world."
Conjecture: StarFIREs
- Thread starter Wingsley
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I'm sure the federal subunits have police forces, but that's probably about it. "I'm a pink cop in a blue man's world."
TMP production material mentioned a federation infantry.
While at best semi-canon, Fred Phillips and Robert Fletcher postulated that the Arcturians seen in ST:TMP were a race of clones who composed the bulk of the "UFP Army".
I sometimes wonder about the Andorians performing such a function myself, given their militaristic tendencies. It would seem a logical choice for that part of their society, as both an outlet and a way to make them feel like an integral cog in the Federation. Perhaps the Tellarites might have a similar arrangement.
What would an army actually be good for, though?
Armies don't make sense in the TREK universe. Moving them from planet to planet would require space vessels, which are limited in capacity. So you're only going to move a very limited number of troops from one world to another. If a typical inhabited planet is home to millions or billions of intelligent lifeforms, and you can only move troops by the thousands, projecting power through armies would seem to be impractical. Besides, the Federation Starfleet, with all of its military traits, obviously does not operate through military conquest. As Riker said "It's not our job to police the galaxy."
There's nothing wrong with conjecture on how the Federation would organize ground operations, but assuming these ground operations would be used for purely military aims would contradict what STAR TREK stands for.
There's nothing wrong with conjecture on how the Federation would organize ground operations, but assuming these ground operations would be used for purely military aims would contradict what STAR TREK stands for.
The ones we've seen are fairly limited. I can picture an Andorian-designed troop transport having a capacity of around twenty thousand troops with enough landing craft and transporters to deposit them all into a good sized LZ within thirty minutes or less.
Considering there are already six billion people right here on Earth, power projection even in modern terms is, technically, impractical.
On the other hand, "power projection" is one of those longstanding pet projects of imperialist powers anyway, and not likely something the Federation would waste time with. More likely their ground forces would be involved in various island-hopping campaigns and/or peacekeeping actions between Federation members and their various opponents, or between fueding Fed members themselves.
Indeed. In which case I submit with all seriousness that the Federation infantry might very well double as one incredibly sophisticated and highly disciplined mining/engineering corps. Picture the Army Corps of Engineers with a gigantic arsenal of energy exploration equipment along with tanks, IFVs and artillery pieces, plus representative units of the Air Cav/paratroopers.
That would be the more practical side of space exploration, which is to say, the PURPOSE of exploring new worlds. Starfleet surveys planets to make contact with the locals, make maps and charts and study geology and biology, but the ground troops go in there to actually extract the vital resources needed by the Federation, collect and process tritanium and uranium ore, etc etc. Obviously, sometimes the Federation sends civilians to do this job, but it's more often done by "the ground forces" whose primary job is energy/resource production and whose secondary job is ground combat.
If you think about it, that fits the pattern of the Federation: Starfleet is a group of scientist/astronauts moonlighting as navy aviators, where their infantry is a group of gold miners and oil drillers moonlighting as marines.
The Federation Army could also perform planetary defense duties. Operating and maintaining ground based shield generators, phaser banks, torpedo launchers. The personnel on the boarder outposts in the episode "Balance of Terror" could of been Army.
The Army would be deployed to member world where there has been a natural disaster, tidal wave, hurricane, earth quake. There are medical problems likes epidemics and quarantines. If the Star Fleet does the "fast and dirty" planetary surveys, then the Army comes in and does the long term work, months or years.
The Army would send in a team, of whatever size, to handle problems too large for local police or militia, i.e. the current situation in northern Mexico.
Not all Federation worlds have a single world government, the Army would keep all of the antagonists seperated, while the diplomats settle any disputes.
And why would the Federation be invading a planet? If an outside aggressor landed a force on a member world you wouldn't be able to bombard that world from orbit. If a political group went against the local constitution, slowly and quietly seizing power. In both of those situations the Army would enjoy the support of the bulk of the populace.
The Army would be deployed to member world where there has been a natural disaster, tidal wave, hurricane, earth quake. There are medical problems likes epidemics and quarantines. If the Star Fleet does the "fast and dirty" planetary surveys, then the Army comes in and does the long term work, months or years.
The Army would send in a team, of whatever size, to handle problems too large for local police or militia, i.e. the current situation in northern Mexico.
Not all Federation worlds have a single world government, the Army would keep all of the antagonists seperated, while the diplomats settle any disputes.
But you would not be invading an entire world, think special forces, not the allies in Europe. Choke points and infrastructure.
And why would the Federation be invading a planet? If an outside aggressor landed a force on a member world you wouldn't be able to bombard that world from orbit. If a political group went against the local constitution, slowly and quietly seizing power. In both of those situations the Army would enjoy the support of the bulk of the populace.
This is an interesting discussion, but it digresses from the OP.
Some folks try to superimpose STAR WARS-style Imperial occupying forces-strategy onto the STAR TREK Universe. STAR TREK and STAR WARS are fundamentally incompatible. Even if you could move an army of +100,000 from one planet to another gracefully in the TREK model of starship transportation, how are 100,000 going to conquer/occupy even one world of, say, 2 billion? That's about a ratio of about 20,000 natives for every individual hypothetical Federation army trooper.
I agree with T'Girl: the Federation might use rapid deployment teams for a variety of uses. In terms of an invasion, I could see the Federation deploying a contingency force to repel/undermine someone like the Dominion. But how many Dominion-type threats could there be? The notion of a "Federation army" begins to sound like a one-trick pony to me.
The notion of StarFIREs (or maybe TACTs) would be an institution for organizing ground-based operations within Starfleet. These could be small expedition teams for planetary surveys (like young Lt. Kirk on Neural or Dr. McCoy on Capella IV) or they could be much larger, SeaBees-style operations for building Federation starbases, or assisting in the establishment of colonies (like what the ill-fated Commodore Travers was doing at Cestus III). This kind of nomadic organization, built into Starfleet itself, would seem to make sense in the context of the post-ENT TREK Universe and may even blend in with the MACOs as a kind of ancestor.
Some folks try to superimpose STAR WARS-style Imperial occupying forces-strategy onto the STAR TREK Universe. STAR TREK and STAR WARS are fundamentally incompatible. Even if you could move an army of +100,000 from one planet to another gracefully in the TREK model of starship transportation, how are 100,000 going to conquer/occupy even one world of, say, 2 billion? That's about a ratio of about 20,000 natives for every individual hypothetical Federation army trooper.
I agree with T'Girl: the Federation might use rapid deployment teams for a variety of uses. In terms of an invasion, I could see the Federation deploying a contingency force to repel/undermine someone like the Dominion. But how many Dominion-type threats could there be? The notion of a "Federation army" begins to sound like a one-trick pony to me.
The notion of StarFIREs (or maybe TACTs) would be an institution for organizing ground-based operations within Starfleet. These could be small expedition teams for planetary surveys (like young Lt. Kirk on Neural or Dr. McCoy on Capella IV) or they could be much larger, SeaBees-style operations for building Federation starbases, or assisting in the establishment of colonies (like what the ill-fated Commodore Travers was doing at Cestus III). This kind of nomadic organization, built into Starfleet itself, would seem to make sense in the context of the post-ENT TREK Universe and may even blend in with the MACOs as a kind of ancestor.
Regarding this sort of warfare, one might want to note that the inhabited planets at and near the contested borders of Trek political entities tend to be small rather than large. Things causing friction between empires happen on colonies that seem to house at most thousands, perhaps just hundreds of troublemakers - perhaps understandably because such colonies would be relatively new, and might grow slowly in the proximity of enemies.
For the purpose of policing those small colonies, or perhaps bossing around primitive planets where a land army of millions would be no match to the firepower of a division of UFP troops, an Army type organization might well be useful and defensible.
Other "for" arguments have already been made, such as the ability of even a relatively small number of troops to make invasion by an advanced enemy more difficult, thereby forcing him to have (and be hobbled by) an impracticably large army, too. Still, one'd think that the UFP would see very, very little use for forces of this kind, and therefore might be significantly opposed to supporting them except in the gravest circumstances. Perhaps the suddenly appearing "troops" of Dominion War are indeed a recent addition to the arsenal of the UFP, and do not exist as a standing army?
Timo Saloniemi
^ No, I still think those "troops" are dual purpose like Starfleet, thus justifying their existence and expense. When there's no war stuff to do, they probably beam down to planets with mining equipment and chew tritanium by the megaton: the "roughneck" aspect of space exploration.
Then the shooting starts, and suddenly twenty million deuterium drillers pick up phaser rifles and become Marines, alongside the ten million space explorers who reprogram their science stations to work as auxiliary fire control consoles. The nice thing about a dual-purpose organization is that you can use them for all kinds of different operations as long as you give them the right training and equipment and you never have to worry about justifying their existence at the Federation Appropriations Committee.
Then the shooting starts, and suddenly twenty million deuterium drillers pick up phaser rifles and become Marines, alongside the ten million space explorers who reprogram their science stations to work as auxiliary fire control consoles. The nice thing about a dual-purpose organization is that you can use them for all kinds of different operations as long as you give them the right training and equipment and you never have to worry about justifying their existence at the Federation Appropriations Committee.
The Feds might not like the idea of standing armies (even if temporarily disarmed and creatively employed) for the same reason standing armies haven't been in favor in real history even when the nation pondering their use has possessed the resources to support such a thing. That is, a standing army might be seen as a threat to the society itself, since it would exist in the middle of said society, be dedicated to operations against the likes of said society, and have lots of idle time to turn a million pairs of hands to the tools of the Devil.
The Feds apparently loathe the idea of having starships anywhere near Earth in peacetime already. Perhaps they wouldn't tolerate armed/armable forces on planetary surfaces, either. The dual infantryman/pioneer role postulated by newtype alpha would help, as the men-at-arms would be deployed in the far frontier even in peacetime. But it might not be enough.
Timo Saloniemi
The Feds apparently loathe the idea of having starships anywhere near Earth in peacetime already. Perhaps they wouldn't tolerate armed/armable forces on planetary surfaces, either. The dual infantryman/pioneer role postulated by newtype alpha would help, as the men-at-arms would be deployed in the far frontier even in peacetime. But it might not be enough.
Timo Saloniemi
Actually, I think the reason the Federation (well, Earth) doesn't keep ships close to home is because space is too vast and there's too much exploring to do to concentrate starships close to the homefront. Normally, the fifty to one hundred torpedo and phaser batteries positioned around the planet are sufficient for defense, though, sort of like the Patriot batteries that are supposed to be (but aren't for some reason) deployed around Washington D.C.. Of course, from time to time we do see some starships on station near Earth. STXI sees a fleet of seven ships at space dock, and there are at least four in the dock and in orbit when the Whale Probe shows up.
The other problem to consider is the problem of cost. Standing armies are expensive, and military industrial complexes tend to grow up around them. The Federation seems to have a science-industrial complex that throws its weight around in this regard, to the point that various starships sometimes get side tracked to deal with the pet experiments of various scientific projects, and with surprisingly regularity, almost the way U.S. Naval Vessels get pressed into testing new weapon systems and wargame exercises. I would say that the Vulcan Science Academy and a few other organizations probably have more than their fare share of special interest groups and lobbying firms in the Federation Council that manage to finagle their way onto starships from time to time, and the same should be true of the infantry/marines: when a paleontologist wants to find the missing evolutionary link between Tellarites and Rigelian Tree Sloths, he gets the Federation to assign him a platoon of Starfires to help him excavate the site.
newtype_alpha makes some good points.
I've been thinking about what a StarFIRE's uniform would look like. For some strange reason, I keep thinking of the pre-TOS "Cage"/"Where No Man..." era turtlneck outfits, only the color for StarFIREs as being dark green or maybe brown. They may be fundamentally the same otherwise, except I like the idea of StarFIREs having their chest badge on the opposite side to set them off a little. Comments?
I've been thinking about what a StarFIRE's uniform would look like. For some strange reason, I keep thinking of the pre-TOS "Cage"/"Where No Man..." era turtlneck outfits, only the color for StarFIREs as being dark green or maybe brown. They may be fundamentally the same otherwise, except I like the idea of StarFIREs having their chest badge on the opposite side to set them off a little. Comments?
It also shouldn't be overlooked that "StarFIRE" is, with all due respect, a really bad name.
One wonders why the sub-organization would have to be in any manner distinct from the bulk of Starfleet (uniforms, ranks, or even paperwork). Our starship sailors have been shown engaging in a variety of groundside tasks, ranging from quick disaster relief or SAR missions to colonization support to long term archaeology work or terraforming or surveying of entire planets.
They're a flexible bunch, these sailors. Would somebody like O'Brien really have to start calling himself a StarFIRE and perhaps dressing up funny when assuming a planetside role for a year or three?
If we're already double-training these folks as per newtype alpha's good ideas, why not triple-train for work aboard starships while in transit?
Timo Saloniemi
They're a flexible bunch, these sailors. Would somebody like O'Brien really have to start calling himself a StarFIRE and perhaps dressing up funny when assuming a planetside role for a year or three?
If we're already double-training these folks as per newtype alpha's good ideas, why not triple-train for work aboard starships while in transit?
Timo Saloniemi
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