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That's a good observation.

Starfleet lets anyone join, even non-Federation citizens if they can get a letter of recommendation. I think the Starfleet oath includes a pledge to defend the Federation, but in that sense Starfleet would be kind of like the French Foreign Legion.

I used to hate DS9 as a very boring show where nothing happened until the Dominion showed up, but meh, it's one of those shows that people like and I won't begrudge them for liking it, as I agree it did do the 'Federation taking the kid gloves off' very well. *Again near the end of the series*

Not for me, as I'll always love TNG and Voyager the most personally. Picard and Janeway are just awesome.

As far as the Maquis thing. Yeah the lack of tension once they were stranded with the regular crew is legit criticism but iirc there was the one guy that went straight up serial killer, which was unique in that I don't remember Trek tackling a mental illness and explaining why they didn't just off him. That said I think the big reason the crew and Maquis put aside their differences was the source of the tension (I.E. the Cardassians) was far removed and they needed bodies to run the ship.

I think one thing DS9 did really well was bridging TNG to Voyager and building a universe out more.

I will say DS9 is better than the new series though, and Enterprise.

Despite its human origin, Starfleet as we see it in TOS forward is not a human (historically, United Earth) organization. It’s THE military of the Federation state.

I think that's something that's always interested me though about Trek in general. You don't have traditionally 'unarmed' vessels. As even exploratory ships have phasers and torpedoes.

It makes me wonder what a show based around a 'civilian' ship would be like.

There was a mini arc of Enterprise that focused around that, a warp three transport that the Enterprise's helmsman came from and they fight off a band of Norsicans. Mostly it was centered around the tensions between the emergent Starfleet and the merchant marine but it was not too bad.

 ingtaer wrote:
There was a mini arc of Enterprise that focused around that, a warp three transport that the Enterprise's helmsman came from and they fight off a band of Norsicans. Mostly it was centered around the tensions between the emergent Starfleet and the merchant marine but it was not too bad.

It was honestly one of the better Enterprise episodes. Also, one of the few episodes where Mayweather was more than the token helmsmen.

Just thinking....

Another notable thing with DS9 was it's lack of reliance on TNG baddies.

Maquis? Set up by TNG, owned by DS9.

Q? He's in for one episode. And it's fun.

Borg? Nowhere to be seen.

Given how much Voyager chipped away at the Borg as a race, and made them rather dull (seriously, remember how pants fillingly scary they were, and then look at how Janeway just sasses her way out of trouble).

Introducing The Dominion was ace. We got to see a more scattered Alpha Quadrant come up against the Gamma Quadrant, so under the thumb they were pulling in the same direction.

And to go back to my original comments? That we've had to wait until Picard to see any kind of fallout following the end of the Dominion War is frankly criminal - especially when three series have squandered that opportunity so far (Voy, Ent, Disco).

Why! Why show runners! Why!

Honestly I think the writers felt they'd "done" so much with advancing the story that they didn't know where to go after Voyager. Even that series felt that they had to throw the ship into the other half of the galaxy to have meaningful exploration aspects. It's like the Alpha Quatrant has no more mysteries (and no boarder section with any other segment of course for some unbeknown reason).

Then again each series has often had new aliens - TNG never used many of the Original series beasties beyond a few of the most iconic. Although you could argue that Q like beings appeared several times, if of lesser power (generally limited to one planet's sphere of influence)

Voyager could've been so much more.

If it was done in the modern day, I think they could really push things with a relative ensemble approach.

Think Seasons 1 and 2 is the crew finding their feet, and beginning again, realising there's literally no realistic way home. They begin to put down the roots of a new Federation outpost - becoming the Vulcans of First Contact. Show some resistance etc, but winning cultures over via humanitarian efforts (including peace keeping).

Seasons 3 and 4, perhaps a time jump to things being a bit more established, and facing their first major threat (Borg, by all means).

Season 5 6 and 7? Adapt and change up depending on how the audience reacted to the previous ones. Let us see how Federation ideals adapt and change in the face of outright adversity and isolation.

But no. Instead we got Voyager. Blech.

I should note I didn't hate Voyager, I liked it as a series for what it was. It just felt not as deep as DS9 because Voyager was far more faithful to ST history and was slaved to its alien of the week system.

The ending also felt like a bit of a cop-out. Future Janeway not only saves them and gets them home but destroys all the Borg at the same time. A grand ending to be sure, but sort of felt like "Hey we wanted to do another 3 seasons but lost budget so here's 3 seasons of story in 2 episodes"



Also Voyager should have changed appearance! It should have lost parts, gained new bits - evolved due to the fact that they couldn't stop in at a SF space station for refitting and repair. Even subtle things like different metal plates on the outside. Though granted with replicators able to make almost anything they need that kind of loses some influence. Introducing a "replicator resource that we've got very little of out here" would have been a bit of a series lore retcon but would have at least let them bolt-bits onto a ship that gets itno a LOT of fights on its way home.

I have just started watching DS9 right from the start. I've seen bits and pieces of the Dominion war arcs, but never the entire show, and never in any real order.

It's weird seeing Sisko wit hair!

So far the thing that probably annoys me is that they're going to the well of "Odo pretends to be a random object to infiltrate something" a little too often. I'm 10 or 11 episodes into Season 1. Let's see how far I get.

There was just so mince in Voyager. Stories that went nowhere, and explored nothing.

I'll never forgive them for the Maquis crew just suddenly behaving themselves. Or the lamentable Kes and Neelix, who were just awful.

Or the god awful Naomi 'Captains Assistant' Wildman.

Vomit inducingly bad stuff. Again, I'm hesitant to blame the actors. They had dodgy scripts, bad plots, and quite possibly rubbish direction. Having beef with them would be like shouting at a Burger Flipper because McDonalds changed what goes into the burger.

Odo reminds me that I'm glad we didn't get 3 or 4 DS9 films all focused around how he wanted to be more normal! They did it in the series and that was all that was needed - unlike poor DATA who got brought out as the cornerstone of the whole "becoming more human" in every single film almost for The Next Generation. It sort of felt really flat because if you'd followed the series we'd already seen him tackle quite a lot of things and none of the films even went half as far such as his relationship with Tasha - a huge plot point and development for him as a character and it happened way back at the start of the ST series.


Was always kinda sad we lost Tasha in the series. I think she fit the confident powerful female character in a typical male role quite well.

I have had a much shallower relationship with ST than SW, only watching the shows as a kid.

DS9 struck me as far more world building than I was ready for at the time and far too little going on. I think the political situationw as beyond me, but SG1 was available at the same time where the badguys wore metal face masks and could be shot with long uncontrolled bursts.

I did like Voyager as a guy who appreciates the ships, but I could never empathise with any of the characters. Janeway was a stoic, Tuvac was a stoic, 7 was kind of stoic, and the rest weren't that engaging.

DS9 is definitely a series that grows on you.

If memory serves, it wasn't terribly well received when it first aired. I guess the wider audience just weren't used to arc based story telling, especially in Trek which was absolutely episodic.

But in the days of Netflix, when we can conceivably book a week off work, shun daylight and belt through a season a day? That's when the arcs really pay off. You can see the sheer amount of character development. Some is subtle, some not so much. And it varies for different characters at different times.

Quark and Garak are solid examples. In their focus episodes, we get to know them better. But, a lot of their development comes from 'also starring' episodes, where we get to see their take on events which otherwise don't particularly involve them. Hence why bingeing is recommended


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Come to think of it, Quark and Garak both serve as ciphers for their respective cultures.

For Quark? Brunt (FCA!*) serves as the stereotypical, greedy, backstabbing Ferengi. This is how we first meet Quark. Rom shows where the Ferengi could end up - still liking his profit, but with more of a conscience. The Grand Nagus (and what an arc he has!) represents the financial logic behind the steps between the two extremes - someone with the Lobes to see that, actually, change can be far more profitable in the long run than the tried and tested.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
*If I ever jump ship to the Financial Conduct Authority, I may well change my name, legally, to Brunt. Just because.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It's just the 'Federation Is Always Right, And You Can't Join Until You Are Like Us'.

It's a trope we often see in Star Trek. The half human/half X character must choose between those two factors. And the human half is almost always shown to be the better choice.

Which is, kinda dodgy. I'm not saying this is intentional by the script writers, or some kind of hidden agenda.

But it helps show that The Federation is fairly insidious, even if that's not its intent.

I'm almost certainly reading too much into it though Of course, if it wasn't for DS9 being the besterest Star Trek ever, we wouldn't even have the info to have this conversation


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider the episode where Vedek Winn kicks off about Keiko O'Brien teaching of the 'wormhole aliens' rather than profits.

Yes, Wynn is a reprehensible religious extremist. One who seemingly only follows a given path for the promise of power and influence.

But she still actually has a point. Bajorans are a pretty religious society, and with good reason given their deities most definitely exist, and most definitely do interfere in the mortal plane. But The Federation is more 'no no no, strictly secular' - despite there being no real contradiction in discussing the wormhole aliens and Prophets as being one and the same. It's literally just a title to The Federation, so what difference should it make?

That's a sign of the Federation favouring it's own morals, over those to whom they are no more than guests. Yes, Winn deliberately blows it out of all proportion.

Indeed, Winn is possibly one of the undersung lynchpins of the entire series. Whilst The Federation and Starfleet put few barriers to an individuals Faith, this was the first time we saw a sustained butting of heads over the issue.

We're getting into a sticky moderation area here, as the next logical step would be to compare to modern religions. If we could avoid that, it'll save a thread lock and telling offs

Wynn might have been an unlikeable character but she is great at being an unlikable character. She is a true believer but she also knows she is unworthy and still wants the power. Shes willing to kill to have that power. That makes here Evil. It is possible to be evil and be right about things. She did have some good points. She was just so corrupt that she could not be reasoned with.

Manchu wrote:Despite its human origin, Starfleet as we see it in TOS forward is not a human (historically, United Earth) organization. It’s THE military of the Federation state.

Which kind of always stood out weirdly at various points of certain captain's runs on screen. . . I mean, I can really only think of a couple times where Kirk says "we're not a military organization", or the more often than that-times that Picard says "we're not a military organization" or "we're explorers" or some such with a heavy handed hint of meaning away from militarism.

KingmanHighborn wrote:I think that's something that's always interested me though about Trek in general. You don't have traditionally 'unarmed' vessels. As even exploratory ships have phasers and torpedoes.

It seems to me that they take a view similar to organizations who operated on the oceans during the "Golden Age of Piracy" . . . Every ship was armed back in the day. . . Largely, what I've read most often is that, with the exception of stupid puritanical Calvinists on the Mayflower on their colony ships, even the most humble merchant would have at least a couple of guns/cannon on board. Ships operating the golden triangle/slave routes often swapped gun space for more slave bodies, but toward the end of that, that particular set of trade routes was quite heavily patrolled, and thus pirates tended to steer clear.

FF to the age of Kirk and Picard, and even to Janeway a bit, there are even a few episodes where the ship's erstwhile weapons are magically recalibrated to be beneficial to some space creature. Which I guess just goes to show that in the minds of the show writers and creators, that having purely energy based weaponry can have some positive impacts with the right thinking, whereas say. . . . 40k, a Nova Cannon does 1 thing and 1 thing only.

The impression I always got is that weapon systems commonly used by the Federation are practical security measures living off things they'd already have.

Torpedos are fired from the same tubes that launch probes. Phasers are just dedicated energy projectors and are while nominally weapons have been shown countless times to have pretty broad functionality.

It’s fairly easy to be skeptical of claims that Starfleet is not a military. Everyone goes around in military uniforms with military insignia and the whole thing is structured by military rank. I mean, this isn’t how NASA operates.

The key distinction is between a society that has a military on one hand and a militaristic society on the other. Most of the Great Powers of the Alpha and Beta quadrants are militaristic, especially in the sense that they tend to significantly blend civilian and military authority.

Even here, however, the Federation bears some criticism. One gets the impression that people (especially humans) who want to really excel in their chosen field try to do so via a commission in Starfleet.

Militarism is a sin Starfleet flirts with pretty often but, in contrast to the Klingons, Romulans. Cardassians, etc., the Federation pretty clearly identifies militarism as a sin in the first place.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Which kind of always stood out weirdly at various points of certain captain's runs on screen. . . I mean, I can really only think of a couple times where Kirk says "we're not a military organization", or the more often than that-times that Picard says "we're not a military organization" or "we're explorers" or some such with a heavy handed hint of meaning away from militarism.

It's best to view this as a self-serving propaganda much like "we're here to bring democracy to you and your oil". Of course Starfleet is a military organization. It deploys heavily armed warships with crews organized into a textbook military structure. The Enterprise (of any version) is not just a research ship with a couple of self-defense weapons, it's a capital ship capable of engaging and defeating the largest capital ships of the Federation's rivals. And all the "we aren't really a warship, we're here for peace" nonsense ends the moment the shooting starts. And it makes sense. The Federation may take pride in being a progressive democracy where the military serves civilian goals instead of a military dictatorship where any civilian government is little more than a branch of the military, unlike most of its neighbors, but when you're surrounded by hostile military dictatorships armed with fleets of warships you don't survive through noble ideals and love of science.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Which kind of always stood out weirdly at various points of certain captain's runs on screen. . . I mean, I can really only think of a couple times where Kirk says "we're not a military organization", or the more often than that-times that Picard says "we're not a military organization" or "we're explorers" or some such with a heavy handed hint of meaning away from militarism.

It's best to view this as a self-serving propaganda much like "we're here to bring democracy to you and your oil". Of course Starfleet is a military organization. It deploys heavily armed warships with crews organized into a textbook military structure. The Enterprise (of any version) is not just a research ship with a couple of self-defense weapons, it's a capital ship capable of engaging and defeating the largest capital ships of the Federation's rivals. And all the "we aren't really a warship, we're here for peace" nonsense ends the moment the shooting starts. And it makes sense. The Federation may take pride in being a progressive democracy where the military serves civilian goals instead of a military dictatorship where any civilian government is little more than a branch of the military, unlike most of its neighbors, but when you're surrounded by hostile military dictatorships armed with fleets of warships you don't survive through noble ideals and love of science.

That's our real-world cynicism talking, like 'Sheev did nothing wrong'. In universe, Starfleet are considered squares and idealistic fools by Ferengi and most 'cynical' factions. Corruption exists within Starfleet for sure, and they've done shady things with those heavily armed exploration ships. But by and large to buy into Trek you have to accept Starfleets mission as explorers and moral peaceniks at face value- otherwise you are watching Tau Empire, Gue'la edition.

I think the idea that its a military organisation sort of hits the wall when you consider how woefully unarmed most of their ships are compared to what they could be armed with. The Defiant, a tiny ship, has more torpedo bays than a Galaxy Class starship which is many many times its size. Similarly whilst the long laser banks are powerful, they are still only very lightly armed with two on the fore half and one or two on the rear.

I think the key is that Starfleet is based on military structure in terms of how they organise and train their staff. This prepares them for potential conflict whilst their ships are in deep space and far from any kind of support or easy escape. NASA doesn't operate like that, but then again when they send up a shuttle they are in no way expecting to have to fight the Russians or the Chinese for space; nor are they expecting to encounter aliens of unknown powers and intent who could be hostile. There's really no reason for them to be armed and no reasonable expectation of combat.

Starfleet has expectation of conflict with the unknown and also with the known. Therefore it makes logical sense that the bridge and key crew would be trained and organised for combat and that the ship would have suitable weapons to defend itself. They aren't looking to launch invasions or battle large fleets; heck just look how heavily beaten the Federation is by the Dominion. The Federation is one of the largest factions and yet it took a combined arms approach to battle the Dominion.

Look at the upgrades to DS9 in terms of its weapon capabilities between the start of the series and the end where they had weapon banks with multiple lasers and torpedo launchers.



Starfleet spreads itself not by military conquest nor threat of invasion. They don't even brandish their weapons unless they have to. I think the key is that they are peaceful explorers, but they aren't pacifist fools. Alongside that there's a general view to expansion of their own self interest by taking in more races and worlds into the Federation itself; thus promoting their way of life and their morals and ideals; whilst also ensuring that fewer and fewer races are poised to be against them because they become part of the Federation.

Perhaps my own cynicism of the show is just an artefact of budgetary limitations.

The vast majority of the crews we see are human. So to the casual 'not really thinking about it' eye, it can seem 'humans and their kooky pet aliens'. Which feeds into the 'it's pretty much just a human spehss empire'.

One thing Disco does do is overcome that somewhat.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Perhaps my own cynicism of the show is just an artefact of budgetary limitations.

The vast majority of the crews we see are human. So to the casual 'not really thinking about it' eye, it can seem 'humans and their kooky pet aliens'. Which feeds into the 'it's pretty much just a human spehss empire'.

One thing Disco does do is overcome that somewhat.

I think its both budget, but also one of those things that somewhere in management found a students paper on which says that audiences identify better with a human core cast than an alien core cast. Seriously outside of some kids TV shows; most teen to adult series tend to focus fully upon human casts in the key positions. There's a few where the lead isn't human (although things like chappi the lead is often trying to be more "alive/human"); but by and large if its humans in space then you can bet the humans are the good guys and the Xenos are not; even if its something where humans are in the wrong (Avatar) humans are often the core cast. Heck Avatar is one of the few where the lead isn't a human and that's only be a sort of technicality and he still spends a good half or so of the film being human.

It's likely that, even without budget, presenting a series to producers with a totally alien cast or even aliens justas the core characters would likely never get approved for live action. You might get it if its animated and aimed at kids; but adults no way.




It's probably like how there's theory that audiences love series with no development changes episode to episode. Again its "true" but its not the whole picture as many non-episodic series have proven.

 Overread wrote:
I think the idea that its a military organisation sort of hits the wall when you consider how woefully unarmed most of their ships are compared to what they could be armed with. The Defiant, a tiny ship, has more torpedo bays than a Galaxy Class starship which is many many times its size. Similarly whilst the long laser banks are powerful, they are still only very lightly armed with two on the fore half and one or two on the rear.

I think the key is that Starfleet is based on military structure in terms of how they organise and train their staff. This prepares them for potential conflict whilst their ships are in deep space and far from any kind of support or easy escape. NASA doesn't operate like that, but then again when they send up a shuttle they are in no way expecting to have to fight the Russians or the Chinese for space; nor are they expecting to encounter aliens of unknown powers and intent who could be hostile. There's really no reason for them to be armed and no reasonable expectation of combat.

Starfleet has expectation of conflict with the unknown and also with the known. Therefore it makes logical sense that the bridge and key crew would be trained and organised for combat and that the ship would have suitable weapons to defend itself. They aren't looking to launch invasions or battle large fleets; heck just look how heavily beaten the Federation is by the Dominion. The Federation is one of the largest factions and yet it took a combined arms approach to battle the Dominion.

Look at the upgrades to DS9 in terms of its weapon capabilities between the start of the series and the end where they had weapon banks with multiple lasers and torpedo launchers.



Starfleet spreads itself not by military conquest nor threat of invasion. They don't even brandish their weapons unless they have to. I think the key is that they are peaceful explorers, but they aren't pacifist fools. Alongside that there's a general view to expansion of their own self interest by taking in more races and worlds into the Federation itself; thus promoting their way of life and their morals and ideals; whilst also ensuring that fewer and fewer races are poised to be against them because they become part of the Federation.

If you think about it, Starfleet is a lot more like the US Coast Guard then US Navy or NASA. It does both paramilitary and nonmilitary missions, but has a navy structure.

 Peregrine wrote:
The Federation may take pride in being a progressive democracy where the military serves civilian goals instead of a military dictatorship where any civilian government is little more than a branch of the military, unlike most of its neighbors, but when you're surrounded by hostile military dictatorships armed with fleets of warships you don't survive through noble ideals and love of science.

Mind you, it seems like there are no other law enforcement agencies in the Federation other than Starfleet. For example, Julian Bashir's parents are both civilians, but are tried and convicted by Starfleet, not by any civilian judiciary.

 Frazzled wrote:


If you think about it, Starfleet is a lot more like the US Coast Guard then US Navy or NASA. It does both paramilitary and nonmilitary missions, but has a navy structure.

Or like the Royal Navy (and probably other navies) in the 18th and 19th centuries. Definitely built as warships, but used for exploration. HMS Beagle, for example.

That definitely was one model, and probably fit much closer in STOS. It was definitely a warship with exploration capabilities. STNG tended to push more of the "nonmilitary" schick. One gets images of Klingons guffawing behind their backs.

TOS is straight up American military.

I think that fits the two settings quite nicely.

Deliberately ignoring the woeful Enterprise, TOS shows Starfleet’s first proper forays.

They’ve no idea who or what’s out there, and how other species might react.

So you pack more heat etc. Better to have it and not need it etc.

TNG? Things are better known. I mean, at that point, it was only really The Romulan Empire that was openly hostile (and the Cardassians, but they come into ded late, with the war as a retcon). So you can be more focussed on the research and exploration, as you know your dakka is good.

 Frazzled wrote:
That definitely was one model, and probably fit much closer in STOS. It was definitely a warship with exploration capabilities. STNG tended to push more of the "nonmilitary" schick. One gets images of Klingons guffawing behind their backs.

I'm not sure if it was ever really pushed as an idea in the series, but the Federation strikes me as the sort of state with so much military might that it never really has to use it. They think they're non-military because most of the time they never shoot anyone, even while a ship like the Galaxy-class vessels can go toe-to-toe with the ships-of-the-line of the other powers, while still devoting half their capacity to civilian accommodation and research. The Enterprise goes into battle with one hand tied behind its back because it's like an MMA champion going up against some chav hanging round the bus shelter. It's Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick theory in the 24th century. You can see that when they finally come up against someone they can't easily steamroller - the Borg - then the gloves come off and the Defiant turns up.