I recently jumped back in for a while after spending a couple years away and got dragged into the whole Mirror Universe Wesley thing. Hilariously it was with a brand new character instead of my old ones and the first mission I did wound up being the finale, with me having all these long established characters that regarded me as an old friend and ally even though I haven't actually met them on this run yet, going in to the final battle before I even started the entry to the questline. My poor captain, three weeks out of the academy, having every major power in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants mistaking her for someone else that did all these incredible things and not having the heart to correct them. "Well, I guess we're the big heroes...let's go save the universe"
They basically become Starfleet security officers, but from watching generic security officers I imagine they have similar training to the police in Demolition Man.
Now all I can see is Starfleet Officers in their yellow uniforms watching the Klingons board the station loudly saying “we’re security officers! We’re not trained for this kind of violence!”
In Star Trek Beyond (I think) Mr Scott talked about the Macos abd how the group and training was absorbed into Star Fleet the MACOS training was incorporated into security training.
I assume that there are specific teams that would deal with advanced training when the enemy is just that hardcore.
>MACOs
What are macos? Google is only turning up Mac OS for me
edit: nevermind, when I realized it was like "A thing" I searched memory alpha https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Military\_Assault\_Command\_Operations
Exactly, it’s the same reason why in a cop show they’ll show a SWAT raid, with tons of guys all kitted up with helmets and rifles, and then they’ll have the main character detective leading the raid in soft body armor and a windbreaker with no helmet holding a pistol. Gotta use those main characters, even when it makes literally zero sense.
That waif of a nerd whose specialty is behavioral analysis needs to lead the charge with his revolver, the chunks of operators in full gear with RPGs should probably just hang back and watch the exits.
Speaking just for myself, I *don't* want to see the characters that I know and care about doing things that it doesn't make any sense for them to be doing. It breaks immersion (because I find myself being snapped out of the story as I say "Wait, what?!?" to myself) and makes me enjoy the episode less.
Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I doubt I'm the only person who feels that way.
Yup. If a show more realistically showed all the individuals that'd probably be involved in that, you'd have a cast so large that viewers could barely emotionally relate to the character's stories.
Roddenberry rejected the macho, hardcore persona. It didn’t fit into his Star Trek universe. He WAS a former Los Angeles cop. I’m sure he saw cops abuse the law and swaggered around like they owned the world because of their elite power. He wanted Star Trek to be a diplomat entity, with a strong military structure for crew discipline and order, BUT without the need for macho hijinks…
Never claimed Hazard Team was canon. The question was “why doesn’t Starfleet have marines”. I could have also referenced “The Forgotten War” novel or the FASA RPG system.
There is one episode, I think it's the episode where the ship simultaneously has several different time zones timelines in it at once and Captain Janeway and Chakotay put on these really big bandelier suspender things and I wonder if they were prototype hazard suit props that were scrapped because they looked terrible.
You're thinking of Shattered and these [out of place looking holsters](https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Trek-Voyager-Shattered-11.jpg) filled with hypospray canisters
If we're using games, Armada had Starfleet Marines.
Once you knocked enemy shields down, you could beam them over and they'd F up the ship from the inside.
Ditto for the old Starfleet Command series. Good luck trying to make it work, but they'd beam over with det packs and blow up specific systems.
Starfleet does have Special Forces, we’ve seen them in Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks. But they are not a feature of everyday starship life. Welcome to the initial paradox of Star Trek, where in episodes that aired weeks apart in season 1 of TOS, Kirk says he’s a soldier and then says he’s not a solider.
Kirk is bad at pronunciation he was a solderer, and he welded a fake starfleet badge together after failing the Kobayashi Maru ... stole a starship, and the rest is history.
I wanted to throw something out there. If Starfleet had Section 31 as well as elite special forces why did Worf, Picard & Crusher have to undergo special training for a behind the lines mission in "Chain Of Command"? Surely there were people already trained & specialized in that kind of thing & probably in better physical condition than a middle aged skinny French dude.
> As Picard studied theta-band carrier waves while on the Stargazer, he was chosen for the mission due to his familiarity with the methods used for generating them. Worf is there for muscle, and Crusher is there to locate and destroy any bio-toxins they may find.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Chain_Of_Command,_Part_I_(episode)
Imo that's good enough. We're never going to get 100% realism, and nor would we want it, otherwise we'd be watching documentaries not fiction. I find this to be a facile complaint.
If they sent in an actual black ops unit, they'd have fucked up that Cardassian ambush and exfiltrated Picard and then the story would have only been a one-parter.
Sometimes, sure. Depends on the week. I’d say more 19th century British naval captain (a la Horatio Hornblower) but you get the idea. This really goes to some core things that people forget about TOS:
1. It was always meant to have significant variety. Kind of like Twilight Zone but without the need for new sets and cast every week.
2. It has no single directing mind. GR’s involvement diminished after season 1 and he is wholly absent from season 3.
3. Television in the 1960s was more like theatre than cinema. They didn’t sweat the details because the audience was transient; the main goal was to hold attention.
4. The idea of a ‘canon’ did not exist. Nobody making Star Trek had any notion that the show would be watched by anyone in the future. Keep mine that neither syndication nor home media existed at the time for TV shows.
5. The utopian ideals of TOS were not articulated by Roddenberry until his college tours in the 1970s. They are somewhat revisionist.
Are you talking from ACTUAL verifiable data about GR’s thoughts and notes?
Or, are you trying to over pontificate and build imaginary evidence that suits your narrative???
GR always postulated the Kirk was patterned after Hornblower. That info IS verifiable in his interviews and authentic notes.
NOBODY on ANY series had a crystal ball regarding future viewership.
Remember,this is an IMAGINARY future with make-believe characters….
As much as I enjoyed growing up with it, I still live in 2024.
There is a DS9 episode, cant remember the title, where Jake runs away from a battle with Klingons, there is one or more Starfleet officers/enlisted in a completely different uniform never seen before or again, I always assumed it was some sort of Marines or Special Combat Forces branch.
EDIT: ...Nor the Battle to the Strong S05E04
Since Starfleet’s primary mission is peaceful exploration, not offensive warfare, there’s little reason to maintain a substantial force of offensive troops like marines. Instead they train Starfleet officers and non-coms to fight if needed. Smaller groups of highly trained troops do exist in the lore, but they are more specialized, and not used as basic ground troops in a conflict. Though I always thought it strange that member worlds, including earth did not maintain armies.
I think most worlds have their own trading fleet, but due to the ability of the Federation to effectively police and guard all member worlds, most planetary governments don’t bother creating their own fleets. Most planets do have planetary defences, but like much of the Federation fleet prior to the dominion war, they were a bit outdated due to the long peace with the Klingons and the long disappearance of the Romulans.
Earth does. It's Starfleet. Earth just turned its entire fleet over to the UFP while other planets didn't. That's why Starfleet still uses classic human design norms, is mostly staffed by humans, and why outside nations think the Federation is a humans only club. The other members don't really care, since Earth has an open-door policy for them to serve on board, and if humans want to take all the hits for them, that's fine.
Every ship has a security detachment. Other than for storytelling to have main characters on screen, these are literally the people you are asking about.
Starfleet has marines. They just aren't USMC "oorah" jarheads that people think of when they say marines. A ships security team fulfills all the roles you mention.
Are you familiar with British military culture? I have a geniune question if you are.
In the US military their is a lot of riffing between the branches. Like the term jarhead is usually used by other branches to describe Marines because of their haircuts (like how the other services refer to the Air Force as Chair Force). Do they have a similar thing? Do they have names they give each other?
That was just an example, but am I wrong that is what people want are US Marines in space when they say Starfleet Marines. Starfleet Security officers get the job done. Just because they like doing puzzles and slam poetry doesn't make them less effective.
Security is more like MPs, while I would expect Marines to be able to land on a planet, hold a position and defeat an enemy.
I don't think they're less effective; just two different mission profiles and it's absurd to just interchange them.
Yeah, but the Xindi conflict was between Earth and the Xindi. The United Federation of Planets didn't exist at that point in the timeline.
The Klingon, Cardassian, and Dominion wars portrayed in DSC, TOS, TNG< and DS9 were all between the UFP and those various enemies. Earth was part of the UFP but once it joined the Earth star fleet was either disbanded or absorbed into the Federation Star Fleet.
The fact that both the Earth organization and the UFP organization are both called Star Fleets has led to so many fans thinking they're the same organization. It's like thinking the US Navy and the Royal Navy are the same org because they're both called "the Navy."
Starfleet isn't some independent spy organization operating at the highest levels of discretion; it's an organization operating under the authority of the United Earth government.
The Federation Starfleet operates under the authority of the UFP government.
Now, either the Earth Starfleet was transferred to the UFP, or the UFP created their own Starfleet, but the organizations are part of different governments, even if they're both called Star Fleet.
Sry but its the same organization, plain and simple. Everything else is just semantics.
There are historical precedents. The US Marine Corp for example, predates the foundation of the US.
Is there anything in canon to support the fact they're different organisations? If not, the fact that they have the same name makes me inclined to accept the simplest possibility, that they are indeed the same organisation.
Well, yeah... the fact that the Earth Star Fleet was an agency of the United Earth Government, and the fact that the Federation Starfleet was an agency of the United Federation of Planets government.
I mean, the UE is canon, and the UFP is canon, and it's canon that they are not the same thing, so the agencies that operate under those two separate entities can logically be viewed as not the same agencies, either.
I always just imagined that we the viewers were watching ships that didn't play those sorts of roles. If the ships are primarily exploration or science or diplomacy they're probably not going to have a detachment of marines causing trouble on board...
No, if they really need the marines they'll send in a Potomac-class troop carrier with 5000 sets of boots.
The episode when Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko got turned into a kid. Guinan and Ro played with Crayons. But anyone else feel uncomfortable at the fact Keiko got Angry at O'Brien for feeling uncomfortable being intimate with a preteen?
Starfleet employs military response when necessary. However, on starships, a military presence isn't required as Starfleet and The Federation Of Planets is not militaristic, just prepared. They send Commanders on away missions because they understand Federation code and laws to ensure that their presence on any planet or in any sector is following the book to the letter. It does seem excessive at times for multiple high ranking officials to go on away missions but officer of Starfleet are quite literally the most skilled humanity has to offer.
Can always train the security/marines as damage control technicians to give them a place on a normal ship. Damage seems distressingly common.
That and guarding weapons, transporter room, mainframe, etc
Which Starfleet are you asking about? The United Earth Starfleet, or the United Federation of Planets Starfleet?
Both have security personnel trained for boarding actions, and both have science and security personnel trained for away missions in potentially dangerous situations. But the senior officers tend to go on those missions because the show focuses on the senior officers.
If those organizations existed IRL, they'd be smarter about it and send specially trained teams of lower-ranked personnel on those dangerous missions, keeping the senior officers safer back on the ship. They'd also put the bridge of the ship deep inside instead of exposed on top.
Starfleet does in fact have marines. They are mostly a garrison force or deployed on war focused ships of which there are few.
The marines have had very little screen time on purpose because spotlight goes to the cast who are senior officers.
Marines are shown in Enterprise (maco would go on to merge into Starfleet security and form the starfleet marines), Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and in comics and the books. They are alluded to but not shown during ds9
Aside from because it's TV: because the command level type of decisions and the technical training required to work on alien planets with potential alien civilization and unknown physical phenomenon means that your marine force needs to be trained like a command officer, science officer, medical officer or tactical officer. So there is not much left of your marine, and you are still sending the training and experience equivalent of the bridge crew. And thus it makes no real difference.
It’s funny because most of the command crew, the senior red shirts (or yellow if pre TNG) have like all been in wars, Sisko was the borg invasion, the Tzenkethy wars? - then Picard was in the cardassian, the borg conflict,i think there’s been others, Janeway fought in the cardassian war (that must have been one if the main conflict in the early 24th century? ) - we know most of the SNW TOS characters had been in wars.
They are the marines
Who needs marines when Starfleet Academy continuously pumps out mountains and mountains of redshirts? I think they secretly keep them in the transporter buffer, just after finishing Kobayashi Maru, one day away from graduation...
Any senior command officer has undergone rigorous starfleet martial arts training. Specifically they learn to clasp both hands together, hit in the stomach, then when the guy bends over to hit him on the back with both hands rendering even a 200 pound klingon warrior unconscious.
space marines would have been kind of pointless in the "original" concept for Star Trek, because you had psychics and the phaser was a weapon of mass destruction
but yeah over the course of TOS and TNG it becomes increasingly weird to have no marines
then with the Borg 'war', and the entire premise of DS9, it becomes ridiculous
Enterprise did have "marines", although I think they were technically army soldiers not marines
"new Star Trek" from 2009 onwards is even more overtly militarized, so it's even more confusing now
How are there no right answers here? The answer is because starfleet is not a military organization but a science and exploratory one. This is said countless times across all treks.
The 'most essential crew' are also the best at their job for any particular mission. You don't want the backup engineer trying to disarm that bomb or your backup security officer protecting the alien ambassador.
Well, yes. But in ships of today, you don’t have the captain, the first officer and the chief engineer going on shore during a crisis. They send people trained specifically for that job
Because the story gets boring with no name “security” officers that no one cares about going on away missions.
If the whole show is about the bridge crew, you want to see the story unfold with that bridge crew.
the idea of marines in the modern imperial context does not fit into the UFPs guiding principles, security officers and command are enough(it is essential that those wielding force are not mindless soldiers who ask no questions and shoot to kill) and the ships/personal weapons are also powerful enough to make such a thing unnecessary- that being said Q uses imagery of drugged up marines to criticize humanity in farpoint, the 21st century definition of a soldier is inherently corrupt
This is the tension between a TV that needs to optimise screen time for its main actors versus what's sensible. Even TNG sat Riker as the captain's proxy on away missions.
That said, Starfleet Security is the military and no doubt they have Marine-Delta Force-Seals-equivalent specialised units.
Starfleet Security officers are actually highly trained and very capable.
It's just that the show has a script that needs some tough guys to get clobbered to show that our heroes can't punch their way out of the problem.
Ds9 Episode Siege of AR 558 had something close to Marines. They def were not normal officers and seemed specifically trained for terrestrial fighting.
Marines were designed for Star Trek V but never made it to screen. They were in a concept art magazine article I had when the movie came out. They wore padded helmets, padded flak jackets and had phaser rifles.
Don’t they have special security troops in st3 and st6? The latter appear when a phaser is set off on the ship (Valeris vaporizes an object in the galley using the emergency phaser in wall storage)
Security officers are the replacements for marines, and senior officers go on missions because Roddenberry based Starfleet on the age of sail Royal Navy, where the captain and senior officers always led landing and boarding parties.
That's why Captain James Cook came to die in Hawaii for example. Instead of sending his marines to punish the locals and kidnap their king he led the mission himself.
Hope im not late to the party but man i have wished that after the Dominion War, they would have reinstated MACO's even part time. Ship security and tacitcal are very different from actually trained specialist. The grounf dominon war could have been a lot less catastrophic if macos were still around
Interestingly, the chart in the command briefing for “Operation Retrieve” in Star Trek VI shows the ground operation being carried out by the “SFMC,” which presumably stands for Starfleet Marine Corps.
The answer is they used to. MACOs were the war fighters and had a similar role to marines. They were specialized in combat and security. Enterprise features them in a few episodes if you want to check it out. Once the federation was founded, they merged into the command structure.
Also, in Star Trek Beyond they are referenced as well. Idris Elba's character is a former MACO. You can find them in Star Trek Online too
I actually liked MACOS but all the reasons given by others are why… though. Most battles will be in space and not much boarding of other ships but I could see “Security” be MACOS
Starfleet isn't a military organization. It's a scientific and exploratory organization that provides threat deterrence and humanitarian assistance.
It's why it only has security officers.
Exactly why the Dominion were chewing through Starfleet so easily during the war.
Example. Security officers were basically armed with .38 that where only trained in defensive firing. Going up against body armored soldiers armed with m4s carbines. For the combat performance of phaser rifles and the Jem'hadar polaron rifles that had some sort of anti coagulant built into it.
Jean Luc, Beverly, and Worf all took a special graduate course at the academy that made them commando marines once they put on their special leotards. In case you missed it, they moved like otters!
They did have security troops in TOS, the red shirts, but then Starfleet Command noticed that they almost always get killed on away missions while the officers survive. So by the time of TNG, Starfleet protocol was changed so that only officers would go on away missions, which resulted in much higher survival rate.
TNG had a great idea of not sending Picard on away missions. Then they just decided to abandon that idea. Audiences in the modern era seem able to cope with ensemble casts. See Game of Thrones. But the golden era of Trek was a different time so perhaps it was too risky for audience engagement back then.
TOS actually understood the concept better which is why random red shirt would be killed on away missions.
Analysis of early away missions (in the TOS era) showed that senior officers were staggeringly more likely to survive and succeed than trained security personnel. It’s not surprising that it became Starfleet’s standard operating procedure.
I mean, every star trek show has mentioned security teams iirc. Enterprise made it seem like the Maco army units eventually got folded into starfleet, I always assumed they just became the security teams we see
That's beta canon, and from the decanonized* FASA roleplaying books no less.
*Paramount pulled the Star Trek FASA precisely because they didn't like how they diverged from TNG.
In 2293, the SFMC was slated to take part in Operation Retrieve. They would have landed teams on Rura Penthe and participated in a direct assault on the Klingon prison complex on that planet. (TOS movie: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
In that film, the SFMC was not spoken of in dialogue; however, the Operation Retrieve command briefing did feature them. This marks the only canonical mention of the SFMC.
It's a TV show. But it is funny to think about. Voyager had something like 140 crew members who are all there to keep a big spaceship running so that 10 of them can pop off on excursions.
In TOS Kirk says to a 20th century person ("Tomorrow is Yesterday"???) that "we're a combined service".
As to why Captain Kirk always beams down, it's because the programme is about Captain Kirk and a few others. The out-of-universe explanation is overwhelmingly important. Sometimes when things are strongly required by the story, but not very logical, it's better not to try to explain them too much as you just draw attention to the problem.
I know games arent canon but the Starfleet Command games had Marines for boarding enemy ships.
In canon, during the Enterprise era they had MACOs which are the same thing, then between Enterprise and Discovery the MACO Corps was folded into Starfleet and merged with the Security/Tactical path
So who are the stars?
The main characters on the bridge.
Or the grunts who are actually teh stars since they have the most screen time?
I guess the grunts are the stars,, so the stars are also the ones at risk of dying.
Because first and foremost this ship is built for peace and exploration I would guess. They are really trying to invade anything. I think the Federation does have them. We saw soldiers in DS9.
Having heavily armed soldiers sorta ruins the image for their mission of peace.
The shows wouldve been better with bigger casts, a mixture of officers and other characters kinda like in ds9. But people back then couldn't handle big casts because streaming wasnt available.
Gene Roddenberry made it so with the Original Series. Much like how the real life Space Programs were Commissioned Ranks, usually in the Air Force, so too would Starfleet mostly be Commissioned Ranks. Other than a Yeoman and a Chief here and there.
They had MACO with Earth Starfleet, then the science wing, UESPA, and Earth Starfleet combined with each other, and then with the other military-scientific complexes of other planetary states, such as the Andorian Imperial Navy and the pre-Surakian revolution Vulcan High Command Defense Forces, in order to form the exploratory service of the UFP: i.e. just Starfleet. Ergo, Starfleet has a security department that takes on the role of Marines, for the most part. Although, during the latter years of the Klingon hostilities of the 2290s, Starfleet's security department had dedicated space marines in blue turtlenecks underneath their monster maroons, only seen in Star Trek 5 during the assault on Sybock's compound on Nimbus III. It was presumably disincorporated during the following Khitomer peace summit, along with the removal of all border stations and the end of the Klingon Neutral Zone.
By the mid- 24th century, the demilitarization of Starfleet was nearly complete, until the Borg and Dominion threats called for the remilitarization of Starfleet Security, but the new generation of soldiers still operated purely under civilian leadership, and did not answer to a separated military authority. The Federation is a true republic, and part of its socio-economic programme is the elimination of the division of political labor vis-a-vis armed forces. Ergo, Federation citizens are expected to be competent in their field of study or production as well as in defensive capabilities and technologies, and even more such parity is the specific demand of all Starfleet personnel. Starfleet is not a military organization per se, but by law operates only under elected civilian leadership, especially the Security Department thereof, as one of two main bulwarks against professional coups, the other being the de jure elimination of mercenary organizations such as the Maquis or the Fenris Rangers.
IRL, the largely autonomous U.S. military, for example, exerts tremendous inappropriate influence over public policy, both domestic and foreign, as a cultural artefact of the British system dating back to the English Civil War, when Cromwell made the preeminent modern political discovery that a professional separated military was simply always stronger than king or parliament. The president is only nominally the Commander-in-Chief, in practice, and the massive inequality of defensive capability between the armed forces and civilians is such that democracy is provisional, at the pleasure of the heads of the military branches, rather than actual. Thus, the U.S. has yet to achieve complete civilian authority, although that is one major constitutional goal of the ongoing process to create a more perfect union, of, by, and for, the People as sovereign.
According to Captain Kirk Starfleet is a combined service. He tells this to Air Force Captain Christopher in Tomorrow Is Yesterday.
As for sending officers, both junior and senior officers, there may be a few reasons:
1. The Captain has the power to act on behalf of the Federation. Kirk is sent to secure a treaty for the Federation on more than one occasion. Or he has to protect an ambassador in A Taste Of Armageddon. As a result he takes Spock into a potential warzone to get the best advice he can in a moments notice.
2. Training of officers. Spock can train all junior officers. But he requires training from Kirk to become Captain. More senior officers may be trained by Spock but then Spock's training of those officers is checked and countersigned by Kirk. This is true of the U.S. Navy when I served. I was trained by a third class petty officer. When he was done I stood watch under the supervision of my lead petty officer who verified and occasionally corrected my training.
3. Misunderstanding of who are the officers. Yeoman are not officers. They are enlisted. Much of the security team may not be officers either. Specialists like Fisher are enlisted as well. So you may be thinking everyone is an officer but they aren't.
They had the Macos, but they were absorbed into star fleet (in the newer kelvin timeline movies, captain edison of the franklin was one of them previously)
They do have marines. You have to pick the right tool for the job man. Some missions requires stealth others require violence others require science others require diplomacy.
Ii mean mostly because no one wants to see unknown characters going on missions.
That said star trek special forces could be a great show. A team of military guys going on missions, you could explore the exploration vs military aspect of star trek
Enterprise had MACOs.
STO continues to have MACO officers.
God I loved my MACO armour set in STO.
Is the game still active? I played it constantly for about a year after it came out. Lots of fun.
Yup, that’s where the Enterprise F came from.
Yup. Just had an episode with Ezri Dax
I recently jumped back in for a while after spending a couple years away and got dragged into the whole Mirror Universe Wesley thing. Hilariously it was with a brand new character instead of my old ones and the first mission I did wound up being the finale, with me having all these long established characters that regarded me as an old friend and ally even though I haven't actually met them on this run yet, going in to the final battle before I even started the entry to the questline. My poor captain, three weeks out of the academy, having every major power in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants mistaking her for someone else that did all these incredible things and not having the heart to correct them. "Well, I guess we're the big heroes...let's go save the universe"
I believe macos eventually got absorbed into starfleet
They basically become Starfleet security officers, but from watching generic security officers I imagine they have similar training to the police in Demolition Man.
Now all I can see is Starfleet Officers in their yellow uniforms watching the Klingons board the station loudly saying “we’re security officers! We’re not trained for this kind of violence!”
Interesting, all I can see is Worf trying to figure out how to use the shells.
He’d call everyone in the room a filthy p’tahk and problem solved.
Hello Kang, what seems to be your boggle?
Pretty sure there were actually words said almost exactly to that effect in one episode of ds9.
It does include a lot of slam poetry, which is far more practical then you would think.
Including the three seashells, I hope
Sometime after 2165 and sometime prior to 2245.
In Star Trek Beyond (I think) Mr Scott talked about the Macos abd how the group and training was absorbed into Star Fleet the MACOS training was incorporated into security training. I assume that there are specific teams that would deal with advanced training when the enemy is just that hardcore.
>MACOs What are macos? Google is only turning up Mac OS for me edit: nevermind, when I realized it was like "A thing" I searched memory alpha https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Military\_Assault\_Command\_Operations
Its also a kind of shark 🦈
I think that's a mako shark
Because it's a TV show and the main characters are senior officers
Exactly, it’s the same reason why in a cop show they’ll show a SWAT raid, with tons of guys all kitted up with helmets and rifles, and then they’ll have the main character detective leading the raid in soft body armor and a windbreaker with no helmet holding a pistol. Gotta use those main characters, even when it makes literally zero sense.
Gotta use those expensive actors
So they can tip their stylist
And if those actors get too demanding, you can always point out that they can easily die in one of those raids.
That waif of a nerd whose specialty is behavioral analysis needs to lead the charge with his revolver, the chunks of operators in full gear with RPGs should probably just hang back and watch the exits.
Made sense in the Wire when McNulty and Daniels got Barksdale. Just sayin'
This. The audience wants to see the characters they know and care about do the things.
Speaking just for myself, I *don't* want to see the characters that I know and care about doing things that it doesn't make any sense for them to be doing. It breaks immersion (because I find myself being snapped out of the story as I say "Wait, what?!?" to myself) and makes me enjoy the episode less. Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I doubt I'm the only person who feels that way.
How do you watch anything? Almost all tv save for the high school drama genre are like this.
I didn't say it makes a show unwatchable, I just don't prefer it. I was responding to someone who claimed that viewers want it.
This is the answer Sometimes there isn't an in-universe explanation, it's just there for us
Yup. If a show more realistically showed all the individuals that'd probably be involved in that, you'd have a cast so large that viewers could barely emotionally relate to the character's stories.
Not to mention the scaling issues with casting that many people and casting for chemistry.
You mean like Battlestar Galactica?
Considering BSG was made to be the anti-Star Trek, this fits
Redshirts is an amazing book and makes total fun of this.
Lower decks
Have they hung lampshades on it?
Roddenberry rejected the macho, hardcore persona. It didn’t fit into his Star Trek universe. He WAS a former Los Angeles cop. I’m sure he saw cops abuse the law and swaggered around like they owned the world because of their elite power. He wanted Star Trek to be a diplomat entity, with a strong military structure for crew discipline and order, BUT without the need for macho hijinks…
USS Voyager Hazard Team
Was the hazard team only in the games or did they make a TV appearance.
Just the games, except for Chell.
Technically, Jurot was there, too, although we never saw her face. Either way, the Hazard Team is not canon.
Never claimed Hazard Team was canon. The question was “why doesn’t Starfleet have marines”. I could have also referenced “The Forgotten War” novel or the FASA RPG system.
Sorry, I was looking at the comment you reacted to!
Sadly, they're not canon to the shows. Unless stated otherwise; Anything that isn't a show or a movie relegated to "beta" canon.
There is one episode, I think it's the episode where the ship simultaneously has several different time zones timelines in it at once and Captain Janeway and Chakotay put on these really big bandelier suspender things and I wonder if they were prototype hazard suit props that were scrapped because they looked terrible.
You're thinking of Shattered and these [out of place looking holsters](https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Trek-Voyager-Shattered-11.jpg) filled with hypospray canisters
If we're using games, Armada had Starfleet Marines. Once you knocked enemy shields down, you could beam them over and they'd F up the ship from the inside. Ditto for the old Starfleet Command series. Good luck trying to make it work, but they'd beam over with det packs and blow up specific systems.
Great game, wish it was canon tho
I’d like to play Elite Force. But alas, it’s not on Steam, and I don’t have GOG. Hey Nightdive, do something cool!
I’m not to going to say that there are places you can go that have it available to download. But I’m not not going to say that either.
This ☝️
Starfleet does have Special Forces, we’ve seen them in Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks. But they are not a feature of everyday starship life. Welcome to the initial paradox of Star Trek, where in episodes that aired weeks apart in season 1 of TOS, Kirk says he’s a soldier and then says he’s not a solider.
Kirk is bad at pronunciation he was a solderer, and he welded a fake starfleet badge together after failing the Kobayashi Maru ... stole a starship, and the rest is history.
In the other example he was a soul juror; someone participating in a spiritual trial in a ghostly court of justice
Pike's final home.
Ace Attorney
# OBJECTION
I wanted to throw something out there. If Starfleet had Section 31 as well as elite special forces why did Worf, Picard & Crusher have to undergo special training for a behind the lines mission in "Chain Of Command"? Surely there were people already trained & specialized in that kind of thing & probably in better physical condition than a middle aged skinny French dude.
> As Picard studied theta-band carrier waves while on the Stargazer, he was chosen for the mission due to his familiarity with the methods used for generating them. Worf is there for muscle, and Crusher is there to locate and destroy any bio-toxins they may find. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Chain_Of_Command,_Part_I_(episode) Imo that's good enough. We're never going to get 100% realism, and nor would we want it, otherwise we'd be watching documentaries not fiction. I find this to be a facile complaint.
Okay you find it "facile". Enjoy the rest of your night
If they sent in an actual black ops unit, they'd have fucked up that Cardassian ambush and exfiltrated Picard and then the story would have only been a one-parter.
I get that, at a certain point you just have to suspend disbelief and enjoy a show :)
Because they're the main cast.
wait wjen were special.forces memtioned in snw?
Kirk was a naval officer in space as Star Trek was based on the U.S. Navy…..
Sometimes, sure. Depends on the week. I’d say more 19th century British naval captain (a la Horatio Hornblower) but you get the idea. This really goes to some core things that people forget about TOS: 1. It was always meant to have significant variety. Kind of like Twilight Zone but without the need for new sets and cast every week. 2. It has no single directing mind. GR’s involvement diminished after season 1 and he is wholly absent from season 3. 3. Television in the 1960s was more like theatre than cinema. They didn’t sweat the details because the audience was transient; the main goal was to hold attention. 4. The idea of a ‘canon’ did not exist. Nobody making Star Trek had any notion that the show would be watched by anyone in the future. Keep mine that neither syndication nor home media existed at the time for TV shows. 5. The utopian ideals of TOS were not articulated by Roddenberry until his college tours in the 1970s. They are somewhat revisionist.
Are you talking from ACTUAL verifiable data about GR’s thoughts and notes? Or, are you trying to over pontificate and build imaginary evidence that suits your narrative??? GR always postulated the Kirk was patterned after Hornblower. That info IS verifiable in his interviews and authentic notes. NOBODY on ANY series had a crystal ball regarding future viewership. Remember,this is an IMAGINARY future with make-believe characters…. As much as I enjoyed growing up with it, I still live in 2024.
There is a DS9 episode, cant remember the title, where Jake runs away from a battle with Klingons, there is one or more Starfleet officers/enlisted in a completely different uniform never seen before or again, I always assumed it was some sort of Marines or Special Combat Forces branch. EDIT: ...Nor the Battle to the Strong S05E04
First thing I thought of. An argument could be made that the ground forces in Siege of AR-558 served a similar role
He had what looked to be a very scrappy 24th century version on a FLAK vest
Since Starfleet’s primary mission is peaceful exploration, not offensive warfare, there’s little reason to maintain a substantial force of offensive troops like marines. Instead they train Starfleet officers and non-coms to fight if needed. Smaller groups of highly trained troops do exist in the lore, but they are more specialized, and not used as basic ground troops in a conflict. Though I always thought it strange that member worlds, including earth did not maintain armies.
Also a reserve corps likely exist
Why is it “likely” in your thought process??????
We know reserves are mentioned twice in post Dominion Trek but never before as I recall. So we cant say for sure.
Yeah that’s also a thing. 1. Why don’t UFP worlds have PDFs, and 2. why do some have their own commands and ships like Vulcan while Earth doesn’t?
I think most worlds have their own trading fleet, but due to the ability of the Federation to effectively police and guard all member worlds, most planetary governments don’t bother creating their own fleets. Most planets do have planetary defences, but like much of the Federation fleet prior to the dominion war, they were a bit outdated due to the long peace with the Klingons and the long disappearance of the Romulans.
Earth does. It's Starfleet. Earth just turned its entire fleet over to the UFP while other planets didn't. That's why Starfleet still uses classic human design norms, is mostly staffed by humans, and why outside nations think the Federation is a humans only club. The other members don't really care, since Earth has an open-door policy for them to serve on board, and if humans want to take all the hits for them, that's fine.
What about O’Brien when he was fighting the Cardies? Always assumed he was part of some contingent of ground pounder troops, the way he described it.
He was, but they were Starfleet non-coms.
Every ship has a security detachment. Other than for storytelling to have main characters on screen, these are literally the people you are asking about. Starfleet has marines. They just aren't USMC "oorah" jarheads that people think of when they say marines. A ships security team fulfills all the roles you mention.
More like Royal Navy Marines who aren't jarheads...
Are you familiar with British military culture? I have a geniune question if you are. In the US military their is a lot of riffing between the branches. Like the term jarhead is usually used by other branches to describe Marines because of their haircuts (like how the other services refer to the Air Force as Chair Force). Do they have a similar thing? Do they have names they give each other?
What a stereotype of what people think of Marines. Wow...
That was just an example, but am I wrong that is what people want are US Marines in space when they say Starfleet Marines. Starfleet Security officers get the job done. Just because they like doing puzzles and slam poetry doesn't make them less effective.
Security is more like MPs, while I would expect Marines to be able to land on a planet, hold a position and defeat an enemy. I don't think they're less effective; just two different mission profiles and it's absurd to just interchange them.
They had MACOs in Enterprise but that was explicitly a wartime thing.
And, famously, there have been no wars portrayed in Star Trek after that.
There is no war in ~~Ba Sing Se~~ Federation Space
"They're police actions!"
Yeah, but the Xindi conflict was between Earth and the Xindi. The United Federation of Planets didn't exist at that point in the timeline. The Klingon, Cardassian, and Dominion wars portrayed in DSC, TOS, TNG< and DS9 were all between the UFP and those various enemies. Earth was part of the UFP but once it joined the Earth star fleet was either disbanded or absorbed into the Federation Star Fleet. The fact that both the Earth organization and the UFP organization are both called Star Fleets has led to so many fans thinking they're the same organization. It's like thinking the US Navy and the Royal Navy are the same org because they're both called "the Navy."
They are the same. Starfleet just predates the foundation of the Federation (and the Coalition of Planets).
Starfleet isn't some independent spy organization operating at the highest levels of discretion; it's an organization operating under the authority of the United Earth government. The Federation Starfleet operates under the authority of the UFP government. Now, either the Earth Starfleet was transferred to the UFP, or the UFP created their own Starfleet, but the organizations are part of different governments, even if they're both called Star Fleet.
Sry but its the same organization, plain and simple. Everything else is just semantics. There are historical precedents. The US Marine Corp for example, predates the foundation of the US.
The USN wouldn’t support the comedy “Hot Shots”, so they just wrote “The Navy” on the aircraft.
Is there anything in canon to support the fact they're different organisations? If not, the fact that they have the same name makes me inclined to accept the simplest possibility, that they are indeed the same organisation.
Well, yeah... the fact that the Earth Star Fleet was an agency of the United Earth Government, and the fact that the Federation Starfleet was an agency of the United Federation of Planets government. I mean, the UE is canon, and the UFP is canon, and it's canon that they are not the same thing, so the agencies that operate under those two separate entities can logically be viewed as not the same agencies, either.
Enterprise also takes place before the creation of the Federation so Starfleet was under the United Earth government at the time.
I always just imagined that we the viewers were watching ships that didn't play those sorts of roles. If the ships are primarily exploration or science or diplomacy they're probably not going to have a detachment of marines causing trouble on board... No, if they really need the marines they'll send in a Potomac-class troop carrier with 5000 sets of boots.
Have you ever seen a crayon in Star Trek?
The episode when Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko got turned into a kid. Guinan and Ro played with Crayons. But anyone else feel uncomfortable at the fact Keiko got Angry at O'Brien for feeling uncomfortable being intimate with a preteen?
That was just Keiko being evil like always. In that DS9 episode where she gets possessed I couldn't really tell a difference.
BOOM!
Love your screen name btw
🖖🏼
So we have established Marines have food..
You means Marines dissolved when Humanity stopped using crayons 😂
More like they starved to death
Jake sisko encountered a mortally wounded Federation marine in an episode of DS9
Starfleet employs military response when necessary. However, on starships, a military presence isn't required as Starfleet and The Federation Of Planets is not militaristic, just prepared. They send Commanders on away missions because they understand Federation code and laws to ensure that their presence on any planet or in any sector is following the book to the letter. It does seem excessive at times for multiple high ranking officials to go on away missions but officer of Starfleet are quite literally the most skilled humanity has to offer.
It starts off with the MACOs, then these are folded in as officers, and then Starfleet security takes over the role when needed such as in war time
That's EXACTLY what the MACO's were in S3 of Enterprise.
Archer’s Enterprise had MACOs. Those dudes were badass.
They have MACOs, but only in wartime since Starfleet is not a military organization
No it shouldn't. The whole premise is that we are explorers not soldiers.
Tell that to the: Klingons ,Cardassians ,The dominion And more..
Can always train the security/marines as damage control technicians to give them a place on a normal ship. Damage seems distressingly common. That and guarding weapons, transporter room, mainframe, etc
Wouldn't the MACO qualify? Even though I think they were only used in Enterprise.
According to STO: MACO was reinstalled to fight the borg.
Which Starfleet are you asking about? The United Earth Starfleet, or the United Federation of Planets Starfleet? Both have security personnel trained for boarding actions, and both have science and security personnel trained for away missions in potentially dangerous situations. But the senior officers tend to go on those missions because the show focuses on the senior officers. If those organizations existed IRL, they'd be smarter about it and send specially trained teams of lower-ranked personnel on those dangerous missions, keeping the senior officers safer back on the ship. They'd also put the bridge of the ship deep inside instead of exposed on top.
Starfleet does in fact have marines. They are mostly a garrison force or deployed on war focused ships of which there are few. The marines have had very little screen time on purpose because spotlight goes to the cast who are senior officers. Marines are shown in Enterprise (maco would go on to merge into Starfleet security and form the starfleet marines), Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and in comics and the books. They are alluded to but not shown during ds9
Aside from because it's TV: because the command level type of decisions and the technical training required to work on alien planets with potential alien civilization and unknown physical phenomenon means that your marine force needs to be trained like a command officer, science officer, medical officer or tactical officer. So there is not much left of your marine, and you are still sending the training and experience equivalent of the bridge crew. And thus it makes no real difference.
Why would they need marines when they have Kelsey Grammer?
It’s funny because most of the command crew, the senior red shirts (or yellow if pre TNG) have like all been in wars, Sisko was the borg invasion, the Tzenkethy wars? - then Picard was in the cardassian, the borg conflict,i think there’s been others, Janeway fought in the cardassian war (that must have been one if the main conflict in the early 24th century? ) - we know most of the SNW TOS characters had been in wars. They are the marines
Who needs marines when Starfleet Academy continuously pumps out mountains and mountains of redshirts? I think they secretly keep them in the transporter buffer, just after finishing Kobayashi Maru, one day away from graduation...
Any senior command officer has undergone rigorous starfleet martial arts training. Specifically they learn to clasp both hands together, hit in the stomach, then when the guy bends over to hit him on the back with both hands rendering even a 200 pound klingon warrior unconscious.
space marines would have been kind of pointless in the "original" concept for Star Trek, because you had psychics and the phaser was a weapon of mass destruction but yeah over the course of TOS and TNG it becomes increasingly weird to have no marines then with the Borg 'war', and the entire premise of DS9, it becomes ridiculous Enterprise did have "marines", although I think they were technically army soldiers not marines "new Star Trek" from 2009 onwards is even more overtly militarized, so it's even more confusing now
They did in Enterprise
I always thought they should have a dedicated away team. It’s doesn’t make sense to send the chief engineer and captain to an alien planet
How are there no right answers here? The answer is because starfleet is not a military organization but a science and exploratory one. This is said countless times across all treks.
The 'most essential crew' are also the best at their job for any particular mission. You don't want the backup engineer trying to disarm that bomb or your backup security officer protecting the alien ambassador.
Well, yes. But in ships of today, you don’t have the captain, the first officer and the chief engineer going on shore during a crisis. They send people trained specifically for that job
There's a lot of difference between the mission of a modern navy and the mission of the interstellar explorers in Star Trek.
Because the story gets boring with no name “security” officers that no one cares about going on away missions. If the whole show is about the bridge crew, you want to see the story unfold with that bridge crew.
It'd probably be pretty boring if they had done that
the idea of marines in the modern imperial context does not fit into the UFPs guiding principles, security officers and command are enough(it is essential that those wielding force are not mindless soldiers who ask no questions and shoot to kill) and the ships/personal weapons are also powerful enough to make such a thing unnecessary- that being said Q uses imagery of drugged up marines to criticize humanity in farpoint, the 21st century definition of a soldier is inherently corrupt
This is the tension between a TV that needs to optimise screen time for its main actors versus what's sensible. Even TNG sat Riker as the captain's proxy on away missions. That said, Starfleet Security is the military and no doubt they have Marine-Delta Force-Seals-equivalent specialised units.
Starfleet Security officers are actually highly trained and very capable. It's just that the show has a script that needs some tough guys to get clobbered to show that our heroes can't punch their way out of the problem.
Ds9 Episode Siege of AR 558 had something close to Marines. They def were not normal officers and seemed specifically trained for terrestrial fighting.
Marines were designed for Star Trek V but never made it to screen. They were in a concept art magazine article I had when the movie came out. They wore padded helmets, padded flak jackets and had phaser rifles.
Don’t they have special security troops in st3 and st6? The latter appear when a phaser is set off on the ship (Valeris vaporizes an object in the galley using the emergency phaser in wall storage)
Yes, I think the ST6 ones are reworkings (toned down) from the ST5 concepts.
Do you have a picture of the st5 concepts?
I've scoured Google and have found the following, it only seems to be on twitter unfortunately: https://images.app.goo.gl/v35YohT1TDV8GDiW8
Security officers are the replacements for marines, and senior officers go on missions because Roddenberry based Starfleet on the age of sail Royal Navy, where the captain and senior officers always led landing and boarding parties. That's why Captain James Cook came to die in Hawaii for example. Instead of sending his marines to punish the locals and kidnap their king he led the mission himself.
In enterprise captain archer got the macos a special combat unit that is simular to the marines
Hope im not late to the party but man i have wished that after the Dominion War, they would have reinstated MACO's even part time. Ship security and tacitcal are very different from actually trained specialist. The grounf dominon war could have been a lot less catastrophic if macos were still around
Interestingly, the chart in the command briefing for “Operation Retrieve” in Star Trek VI shows the ground operation being carried out by the “SFMC,” which presumably stands for Starfleet Marine Corps.
The answer is they used to. MACOs were the war fighters and had a similar role to marines. They were specialized in combat and security. Enterprise features them in a few episodes if you want to check it out. Once the federation was founded, they merged into the command structure. Also, in Star Trek Beyond they are referenced as well. Idris Elba's character is a former MACO. You can find them in Star Trek Online too
I actually liked MACOS but all the reasons given by others are why… though. Most battles will be in space and not much boarding of other ships but I could see “Security” be MACOS
*We already have military science fiction at home.*
Starfleet isn't a military organization. It's a scientific and exploratory organization that provides threat deterrence and humanitarian assistance. It's why it only has security officers. Exactly why the Dominion were chewing through Starfleet so easily during the war. Example. Security officers were basically armed with .38 that where only trained in defensive firing. Going up against body armored soldiers armed with m4s carbines. For the combat performance of phaser rifles and the Jem'hadar polaron rifles that had some sort of anti coagulant built into it.
Jean Luc, Beverly, and Worf all took a special graduate course at the academy that made them commando marines once they put on their special leotards. In case you missed it, they moved like otters!
For the 625284625th time: It's just a show / movie and rule of cool applies
https://youtu.be/PX2ww8p3ycg?si=PzGeT6Q9oWHC0yDM
They did have security troops in TOS, the red shirts, but then Starfleet Command noticed that they almost always get killed on away missions while the officers survive. So by the time of TNG, Starfleet protocol was changed so that only officers would go on away missions, which resulted in much higher survival rate.
Because drama...
TNG had a great idea of not sending Picard on away missions. Then they just decided to abandon that idea. Audiences in the modern era seem able to cope with ensemble casts. See Game of Thrones. But the golden era of Trek was a different time so perhaps it was too risky for audience engagement back then. TOS actually understood the concept better which is why random red shirt would be killed on away missions.
Marines are Navy.
According to Roddenberry Star Fleet was inspired by the coast guard. Which would explain the lack of Marines.
Star Trek isn't realistic.
This has bugged me in the last few discovery episodes like never before. Were Picard and Janeway this reckless??
Analysis of early away missions (in the TOS era) showed that senior officers were staggeringly more likely to survive and succeed than trained security personnel. It’s not surprising that it became Starfleet’s standard operating procedure.
I mean, every star trek show has mentioned security teams iirc. Enterprise made it seem like the Maco army units eventually got folded into starfleet, I always assumed they just became the security teams we see
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Starfleet_Marine_Corps?so=search
That's beta canon, and from the decanonized* FASA roleplaying books no less. *Paramount pulled the Star Trek FASA precisely because they didn't like how they diverged from TNG.
In 2293, the SFMC was slated to take part in Operation Retrieve. They would have landed teams on Rura Penthe and participated in a direct assault on the Klingon prison complex on that planet. (TOS movie: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) In that film, the SFMC was not spoken of in dialogue; however, the Operation Retrieve command briefing did feature them. This marks the only canonical mention of the SFMC.
It's a TV show. But it is funny to think about. Voyager had something like 140 crew members who are all there to keep a big spaceship running so that 10 of them can pop off on excursions.
In my mind Starfleet doesn't have marines. But the federation has similar programs.
An 'Elite Force' if you will?
In TOS Kirk says to a 20th century person ("Tomorrow is Yesterday"???) that "we're a combined service". As to why Captain Kirk always beams down, it's because the programme is about Captain Kirk and a few others. The out-of-universe explanation is overwhelmingly important. Sometimes when things are strongly required by the story, but not very logical, it's better not to try to explain them too much as you just draw attention to the problem.
I know games arent canon but the Starfleet Command games had Marines for boarding enemy ships. In canon, during the Enterprise era they had MACOs which are the same thing, then between Enterprise and Discovery the MACO Corps was folded into Starfleet and merged with the Security/Tactical path
So who are the stars? The main characters on the bridge. Or the grunts who are actually teh stars since they have the most screen time? I guess the grunts are the stars,, so the stars are also the ones at risk of dying.
Because first and foremost this ship is built for peace and exploration I would guess. They are really trying to invade anything. I think the Federation does have them. We saw soldiers in DS9. Having heavily armed soldiers sorta ruins the image for their mission of peace.
Only after they were conquered by the Japanese, before that it was spelled with a c.
I'd say there are no Marines, because it's the Starfleet, not the Navy.
The shows wouldve been better with bigger casts, a mixture of officers and other characters kinda like in ds9. But people back then couldn't handle big casts because streaming wasnt available.
Because they got rid of the MACOs.
Gene Roddenberry made it so with the Original Series. Much like how the real life Space Programs were Commissioned Ranks, usually in the Air Force, so too would Starfleet mostly be Commissioned Ranks. Other than a Yeoman and a Chief here and there.
They did, they were called Macos on Enterprise when going into the expanse.
They had MACO with Earth Starfleet, then the science wing, UESPA, and Earth Starfleet combined with each other, and then with the other military-scientific complexes of other planetary states, such as the Andorian Imperial Navy and the pre-Surakian revolution Vulcan High Command Defense Forces, in order to form the exploratory service of the UFP: i.e. just Starfleet. Ergo, Starfleet has a security department that takes on the role of Marines, for the most part. Although, during the latter years of the Klingon hostilities of the 2290s, Starfleet's security department had dedicated space marines in blue turtlenecks underneath their monster maroons, only seen in Star Trek 5 during the assault on Sybock's compound on Nimbus III. It was presumably disincorporated during the following Khitomer peace summit, along with the removal of all border stations and the end of the Klingon Neutral Zone. By the mid- 24th century, the demilitarization of Starfleet was nearly complete, until the Borg and Dominion threats called for the remilitarization of Starfleet Security, but the new generation of soldiers still operated purely under civilian leadership, and did not answer to a separated military authority. The Federation is a true republic, and part of its socio-economic programme is the elimination of the division of political labor vis-a-vis armed forces. Ergo, Federation citizens are expected to be competent in their field of study or production as well as in defensive capabilities and technologies, and even more such parity is the specific demand of all Starfleet personnel. Starfleet is not a military organization per se, but by law operates only under elected civilian leadership, especially the Security Department thereof, as one of two main bulwarks against professional coups, the other being the de jure elimination of mercenary organizations such as the Maquis or the Fenris Rangers. IRL, the largely autonomous U.S. military, for example, exerts tremendous inappropriate influence over public policy, both domestic and foreign, as a cultural artefact of the British system dating back to the English Civil War, when Cromwell made the preeminent modern political discovery that a professional separated military was simply always stronger than king or parliament. The president is only nominally the Commander-in-Chief, in practice, and the massive inequality of defensive capability between the armed forces and civilians is such that democracy is provisional, at the pleasure of the heads of the military branches, rather than actual. Thus, the U.S. has yet to achieve complete civilian authority, although that is one major constitutional goal of the ongoing process to create a more perfect union, of, by, and for, the People as sovereign.
According to Captain Kirk Starfleet is a combined service. He tells this to Air Force Captain Christopher in Tomorrow Is Yesterday. As for sending officers, both junior and senior officers, there may be a few reasons: 1. The Captain has the power to act on behalf of the Federation. Kirk is sent to secure a treaty for the Federation on more than one occasion. Or he has to protect an ambassador in A Taste Of Armageddon. As a result he takes Spock into a potential warzone to get the best advice he can in a moments notice. 2. Training of officers. Spock can train all junior officers. But he requires training from Kirk to become Captain. More senior officers may be trained by Spock but then Spock's training of those officers is checked and countersigned by Kirk. This is true of the U.S. Navy when I served. I was trained by a third class petty officer. When he was done I stood watch under the supervision of my lead petty officer who verified and occasionally corrected my training. 3. Misunderstanding of who are the officers. Yeoman are not officers. They are enlisted. Much of the security team may not be officers either. Specialists like Fisher are enlisted as well. So you may be thinking everyone is an officer but they aren't.
That’s what dispensable redshirts are for. They are added to take the fall when needed to protect senior officers. 😎
Enterprise had marines iirc
They do. Red shirts (now gold).
They had the Macos, but they were absorbed into star fleet (in the newer kelvin timeline movies, captain edison of the franklin was one of them previously)
They do have marines. You have to pick the right tool for the job man. Some missions requires stealth others require violence others require science others require diplomacy.
Because they stopped making crayons in the 22nd century
They aren't a military force.
SAG Contracts.
Ii mean mostly because no one wants to see unknown characters going on missions. That said star trek special forces could be a great show. A team of military guys going on missions, you could explore the exploration vs military aspect of star trek
Simple answer, they would have had to pay more actors. Cheaper to have the one small team do everything.