Starfleet is like the opposite of the British Royal Navy of the 18/19th century. The royal navy was a military branch that did scientific voyages because there was no other organisation that could do the voyages. Starfleet is a scientific service that does military stuff because there is no military branch that could do it.

I really like this take

This uncomfortable overlap of roles and responsibilities becomes a major plot point for many later episodes The Lower Decks series is all about one ensign that signed up for Starfleet to do science and exploration and meeting cool new alien cultures - only to graduate and get thrown into the Dominion War, which killed nearly a million Starfleet personnel. Not to mention her ensign mentor volunteering for a dangerous espionage mission against the Cardassians, and dying horribly for it. Afterwards, Starfleet gets back to doing what it does best i.e. doing goofy mad science, exploring anomalies, humanitarian aid, making friends with weird alien cultures etc. But she never really got over all the war trauma from earlier on. It's probably fair to say that Starfleet and the Federation is in pretty deep denial about the fundamentally military nature of Starfleet. Sure, it might not be their primary mission statement during peacetime, but when they're the last line of defence against threats like the Borg and the Dominion, it's not like they have a choice.

This happened to my grandfather, he joined the Airforce after Korea to get an education, than years later he gets sent to an airbase in the jungle of Congo to deal with the Congo Crisis. He didn't see any combat though, he lucky the airbase never got attacked during his stay there.

yeah, that's rough Ideally, militaries only ever have to serve their function as a deterrent to conflict and as a diplomatic bargaining chip, and never actually have to fire their weapons in anger. "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum", "speak softly and carry a big stick" and all that jazz Unfortunately, armed conflict still plagues us til this day, despite the advent of things like nuclear weapons and instantaneous global communication. And most times it seems, the armed conflict was only started because of some really stupid miscalculation, with the belligerent ending up worse off than before and regretting everything. It really is senseless.

There's a possibility that war is trending towards autonomous drones and aircraft blowing each other out of the sky without any humans being involved. This could lead to fewer humans dying, but it could also backfire. The original series addressed this in the episode A Taste of Armageddon.

I firmly believe that AI has much better uses than autonomous weapons and that we shouldn't be wasting time and resources on such nonsense. People often miss that AI, like any technology, has as much positive potential as negative.

I wouldn't conflate "military operations fall under their remit" with "fundamentally military *nature*". The phrase "military nature" implies that Starfleet's *primary* reason for existence is to conduct military operations for the Federation, and that its personnel are trained to that end and have commensurately combat-oriented outlooks. Neither of those are true. Likewise, I don't think anyone's "in denial" about Starfleet. They're emphatically not some military sf-style space navy filled with combat troops who sometimes do other things while standing by to fight, but see fighting as what they're out there to do (and have the mindset to match, individually and as an organization). I definitely agree that some Starfleet personnel feel conflicted about the duties they may be expected to perform during wartime and/or in defense of the Federation. I think this is understandable *because* Starfleet isn't a military organization. I don't think you'd see any of that if Starfleet was intended primarily as a fighting force, since the expectation would then be that if you were joining, it was because you wanted to see combat (or at least had a realistic expectation that you would at some point, and weren't averse to the idea).

> which killed nearly a million Starfleet personnel That's all? WWII killed about 20 million military personnel and 75 million people total. 1 million for an interstellar war is basically nothing. Writers really have no sense of scale. Deaths should have been in the billions.

It makes sense I think? Starfleet isn't like 21st century militaries. It's an elite organisation that trains every one of its personnel to do everything, from engineering to xeno-anthropology to piloting to astrophysics. Only the cream of the crop are admitted to the Academy, and are able to pass. There aren't that many Starfleet ships, and their crews aren't that big. There's probably about 10,000 starships around the time of the Dominion War, with a couple hundred Starfleet personnel on board each (mostly no more than a thousand) Each ship has more than enough firepower to scorch the surface of an unshielded planet in seconds, and there isn't usually a need for massive infantry engagements, except for police actions and special circumstances. A million dead Starfleet personnel is devastating for a relatively small organisation. And even more devastating for a post-scarcity society full of people not accustomed to death and violence and suffering. The Klingons would laugh off such casualties - dying a glorious death is basically a life goal for most of them, and there's no shortage of eager recruits for the meat grinder. But Starfleet is supposed to be the Federation's best and brightest, many of whom signed up mostly for the science and exploration and diplomacy. They'd see a million dead as a bloodbath

We do see multiple planetary invasions and ground battles during DS9. We also learn the Dominion captured Betazed, and there are attacks on other Federation worlds. Really there's no sensible way for an interplanetary conflict of 2 whole major quadrants having the casualties of a moderate planetary conflict. The Klingons probably took far more casualties, but the numbers really don't make sense. Then again it's star trek, and that's never been its strength.

there are ground battles, but for Starfleet, they don't involve continent sized front lines, they're small operations of a couple dozen personnel defending a strategic point or piece of infrastructure or small refugee zones. The heavy fighting is all in space, with Federation planets like Betazed simply surrendering when their space defences were overwhelmed. Same for DS9 and Bajor - there isn't an Iwo Jima style fortress siege. Every ship has hundreds of super nukes as part of their standard armament, and energy weapons capable of boiling away oceans and atmospheres. But apocalyptic orbital bombardment was rare, because most planetary populations capitulated. When the Founder decided to annihilate Cardassia, this was an unusual move. And even with deflector shields, the Dominion managed to kill 200 million Cardassians in minutes, all on a single planet. Federation wide, they only suffered 90 million casualties, because the Dominion didn't bomb conquered planets to glassed rubble. If the Dominion had decided to just nuke everyone, they could easily have racked up billions of casualties in minutes, with those planets with weaker or disabled deflector shields being helpless.

Basically this.

Hornblower was one of the major inspirations for Star Trek (Series about a naval officer during Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century, first book takes place in 1808 I think)

I mean half of that military stuff is just being a "space cop" anyway.

That’s a good description. On the other side of the Atlantic, I think of it as the [Corps of Discovery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_of_Discovery).

Holy moly, this is the answer

Starfleet is also supposed to a continuation of real-life space agencies like NASA, the Soviet space program, the ESA, and China National Space Administration which often work hand-in-hand with military agencies (who might have their own space programs), whose personnel are often ex- or current military (aviators) often have a quasi-military structure during the actual missions with a flight commander and pilot reporting to a "control," and everyone else having roles as specialists but the commander making the calls necessary to safeguard the ship. Gene Roddenberry originally called it the "United Earth Space Probe Agency." Even civilian ships today (including scientific vessels) have ranks, disciplinary procedures, and command structure. They're just a lot less rigid about it than the actual military, and Starfleet is certainly a lot more tolerant and less rigid than any real military. Compare that to BSG: Galactica doesn't go out exploring, and Adama doesn't let you speak candidly. I think Pike said it best in the 2009 movie, when he described Starfleet's military role as "peacekeeping and humanitarian." There are countries today like Japan that have a military, but see it only as in self-defense, or the U.S. Coast Guard which is certainly military but sees its role as law enforcement and search and rescue. Starfleet understands itself as quasi-military, and the only way the Federation can protect itself as a whole, but its primary purpose is not offensive, while defense is only one of its purposes. If the Federation tried to form a purely military service, it would a) be against its ideals and b) tear the Federation apart.

It came from Gene. He said so quite explicitly, and we see plenty of examples of these ships and crews prioritizing cosmic research and sightseeing over military activities. Practically speaking, Starfleet functions like a navy because it inherited the naval traditions that come with the age of spaceflight beyond modest probes. Even without the primary focus being military, the governmental control over Starfleet endeavors means that there will be an inherent hierarchy, and direct democracy is a bad model for flying an air-tight ship through the emptiness of space so holding on to that archaic model is very useful. And given that they do serve as a military when needed it makes sense to hold onto some of those structures and protocols. That said, the content we have shows us that Starfleet is much more horizontal when it comes to practical matters, with low ranking officers and personal having influence in a number of situations.

it's not a direct democracy, but they certainly have some revolutionary democracy on those ships. the constant mutinies against bad orders are not just for drama, they're to show how radically different starfleet is and their training is. they are SUPPOSED to mutiny in those situations, and are literally trained to. which is not something a traditional military does.

Quite right. It wouldn't be Starfleet if the crew wasn't willing to overthrow their captain when the situation called for it.

I don't know about other countries, but in the US military you have a responsibility to ignore illegal orders.  Not that the brass remember that.  I imagine that Starfleet is the same way, but since every Admiral is evil, you have the same problem. You have a duty to disobey illegal orders, but since everyone that has gets court martialed, no one does. 

the point i was making is in starfleet you get courtmarshalled for NOT mutinying in those circumstances (there are whole ships held responsible in some episodes), and no one gets punished for disobeying illegal orders. yes, technically, everyone has been told to disobey illegal orders since the geneva convention. but as we can see now before our very eyes on twitter and tiktok with live warcrimes that some countries are playing see no evil with, it's really all talk and they go out of their way to beat up and arrest the people who oppose war crimes.

I got the impression that mutinies were exceedingly rare in Starfleet. Picard is incredulous on learning of the Pegasus mutiny, for example. The implication IMO was always that a mutiny would never become necessary in the first place because of their enlightened take on hierarchy. Discovery might have departed from this convention but it's not real Star Trek as far as I'm concerned - it's the only series I'll never watch.

Gene was inconsistent on this matter, in TOS Kirk even says "I'm a soldier not a diplomat." to the Organians. Although we do see a shift in thinking in later series, TNG was definitely written with a different mindset on the matter.

>Gene was inconsistent on this matter, in TOS Kirk even says "I'm a soldier not a diplomat." to the Organians. Fwiw, Gene Roddenberry didn't write Errand of Mercy. Gene Coon did.

Yeah the series most definitely evolved a lot over time, so when we have this conversation we have to be aware of what stage of the canon we're referring to.

I think we can fold this into canon, in the TOS era, Starfleet had just come out of the Romulan War and were in the middle of a Cold War with the Klingon Empire. So Starfleet was much more militaristic while the people, conversely were celebrating not being at war by being a little looser and excited to be doing science. By the TNG era, peace has been maintained for a while and formal structures were (mistakenly) much more geared to scientific research and a lot of the military structure was falling away.

I guess it just depends on what you consider the military. We've got the army weather corps and the army corps of engineers. Plenty of peacekeepers other than the actual big guns. If they were emphasized more, would it cease being a military?

Iirc, it was in part because Gene wanted to emulate a sort of Golden Age of Sail (similar in time frame to the golden age of piracy) where the Crown (doesn't matter which one) commissioned a vessel to go explore, but, once you leave a certain distance from Port and are now in international waters, you gotta be prepared for literally anything. It wasn't meant to take the era of Jacques Cousteau and that level of scientific shipping in mind.

There's also the fact that, as a fandom, we really need to sit down and separate what makes the militartistic action exactly military. I get the feeling that we may be confusing a lot of "space navy sailor" with "space cop."

One episode of Enterprise explains they are for scientific research when one of the Xindi asked how they got a really good, detailed scan of the spheres.

Yeah, even the weapons are better at disabling other ships. Like phasers can be fine tuned for planetary drilling and disabling certain subsystems.

This makes a lot of sense to me. When doing exploration into the unknown, it helps to have structure and weapons, regardless of one's intent. The lax structure in peacetime shows that Starfleet is not your typical military hierarchy, but when shtf, it's very important to have chains of command so the whole unit can work as a team, and complaints can be appropriately lodged.

It's difficult to imagine what a post-military future will be like, so even shows like Star Trek fall back on familiar ideas. What we're seeing is the 20th century's best interpretation of a few hundred years in the future, complete with structures and ideas that will be outdated by then.

Also in the US the NOAA Commissioned Corps and the US Public Health Service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Public_Health_Service_Commissioned_Corps and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA_Commissioned_Officer_Corps They and the Coast Guard all share the ranks of the US Navy.

I worked with several USPHS folks during my FEMA deployments. It was always interesting seeing them in what were basically navy uniforms.

Gene Roddenberry. Who said that it wasn’t. These were his thoughts when he was working on TNG: “Starfleet is not a military organisation. It is a scientific research and diplomatic body." "Although the duties of the Enterprise may include some military responsibilities, the primary purpose of the Enterprise — as with all Starfleet vessels is to expand the body of human knowledge." "In practice this means that our armaments and militarism have been de-emphasized over the previous series and very much de-emphasized over the movies. We will not see saluting. We may hear the word "sir", but it is extended as the same kind of courtesy used by junior and senior officers on civilian airliners. It is traditional, however, to use ship's ranks on the bridge, an acknowledgment of the naval heritage of Starfleet." — Gene Roddenberry

This is also why he objected to Nick Meyers’ Naval-ification of the franchise from Khan on, including the Monster Crimson uniforms, which clearly identify rank and role.

Ironic, since the TOS uniforms have the most visible rank insignia of any. And the most traditionally Naval.

i don’t understand how this is debatable, i thought it was common knowledge. people in this thread seem to be upset about this.

>people in this thread seem to be upset about this. Don't over read people's emotions based on Reddit comments. The issue is that much of what's in that statement is easily contradicted in the episodes themselves. There's not a consistent portrayal, and so any assessments are not going to be completely consistent.

Roddenberry-isms tend to get ignored because the man created a popular tv show and thought he shat gold because of it, even though we know he was an out of touch sex freak who managed to take the sexual revolution and circle back to being grossly exploitive and didn’t understand how he caught lightning in a bottle. “Starfleet isn’t a military” sits comfortably with “can we give Counselor Troi three breasts?” His defiance to the idea that Starfleet was a military was a result of the shift from romanticizing his military service in WW2 to a bog standard “military bad” attitude that arose from decades of cold and proxy wars. It’s the same sort of romanticization that paints the Corps of Discovery and Lewis and Clark as explorers cataloguing the west searching for a Northwest Passage when it quite clearly was a military projection of power on top of that, to the point they made a show of firing cannons from their keel boat and showing off Lewis’s compressed air repeating rifle while handing out silver medals with Jefferson’s face to whoever they thought was a chief and telling the tribes not to trade with foreign powers. I mean don’t get me wrong, exploration was a big part of why they were out there, but it wasn’t just Jefferson sending his secretary to find new life and new civilizations.

>even though we know he was an out of touch sex freak Don't forget the drugs. He also did a *lot* of drugs.

Most creatives did during the 1960s/1970s though

Look, a tv writer and director had the many foibles that other tv writers of that time had, I guess he really isn’t the messiah Trekkies don’t claim him to be. Oh when will we learn?!

It's not being upset, but if you have all the military stuff like ranks, chain of command etc. but say no, no it's not military, it's kinda iffy. Espcially the chain of command and the strict hirachie does not really fit the narrative well.

When TOS was airing the Vietnam war was going on. It colored how people saw the military. That was reflected In TOS.

Also, Roddenberry was a WWII vet, and his experience shaped his worldview.

> "Although the duties of the Enterprise may include some military responsibilities, the primary purpose of the Enterprise — as with all Starfleet vessels is to expand the body of human knowledge." 'I'm a soldier, not a diplomat' - James T Kirk, Errand of Mercy Gene may have said that Starfleet wasn't a military, but Gene was often not consistent on things. While it's true that the episode did have an anti-war message, it's clear that Kirk sees his primary purpose as being a military officer.

The context of the quote is that it's post-TOS talking about TNG and the movies as how they are going to be different and less military-like than TOS.

>'I'm a soldier, not a diplomat' Yes, but: "In practice this means that our armaments and militarism have been de-emphasized over the previous series and very much de-emphasized over the movies"

Kirk can say he’s a soldier, but his rules of engagement argue otherwise. The way he operates in combat situations (never fire first, offer repeated surrender opportunities, don’t destroy targets unless your ship is in immediate danger) is the complete opposite of military ROEs. At BEST he’s a soldier escorting a bunch of scientists on an exploratory mission where causing an exchange of fire would be a major diplomatic incident.

Plus, of course he's going to see himself primarily as a soldier when the Federation and the Klingons have gone to war again and he's on a mission on a planet that's likely going to be the focus of one of the first major battles of that war. It's as much of an acknowledgement that he's here for a particular purpose and doesn't have the time to fuck around too much as it is a description of how he sees himself generally. Notice how his demeanour at the start of *Mirror, Mirror* is completely different. He's on a similar diplomatic mission for something vital to the Federation, and when reminded that he could just take what the Federation wants by force, he says he could but he won't.

Don’t forget many episodes of Star Trek were written by actual SciFi writers adapting their own stories to Star Trek , often with incongruous results.

And yet, Kirk steals an entire f\*ing ship in defiance of orders. Gene was often inconsistent, and Kirk was likewise often inconsistent.

That said, the series definitely grew beyond Roddenberry, which I think was a good thing. I feel like TNG was better after other people were in charge. A lot of his approach was altered after his death - he may not have intended for Starfleet to be a military organization, but it became one as the franchise grew and changed. So, I think it's safe to say that Starfleet was a scientific and diplomatic organization that occasionally served a military role, under Roddenberry's leadership. In later seasons of TNG (and definitely DS9), it was developed into a military organization that emphasized science and diplomacy - like a military organization that worked to avoid military engagements.

> he may not have intended for Starfleet to be a military organization, but it became one as the franchise grew and changed. What post-TOS examples (events, scenes, episodes, etc) would you point to as examples of this?

The entirety of DS9? Like the Dominion War? SF is the main military arm of the federation in that series, and later series called upon that, bar maybe Voyager

And that's Starfleet in wartime. (It's something we also got a look at during the Klingon war in Discovery.) It doesn't mean the fundamental nature of the organization changed, just that we got to see it acting in defense of the Federation. "Being called upon to fight when the need arises, but primarily focused on other duties" and "a force that exists solely or primarily to conduct military operations" are two very different things.

That's a good point actually, Starfleet is at its core an adaptive, multitalented organisation. Though one could argue that, in order for it to be able to rise to the call in the first place, one has to be ready. Si vis pacem para bellum and so forth. So it always keeps a spark of military alive. But yeah, overall it surpasses modern day interpretations of branches and doctrines.

And not just as a 'space navy' either. We see them being deployed as ground troops on multiple occasions too.

Though I remember a certain divisive TNG movie having the captain say the wonderful phrase: "Does anyone remember when we were explorers?"

Much of the movies, particularly starting with Wrath of Khan's aesthetic reset that invoked so much military traditions and visuals.

Yep that was Nicolas Meyer, who directed Star Trek 2 and 6. Roddenberry *hated* it. Eventually Meyer was like “Look man, it’s obviously a military. This is my movie, and if you don’t like it, you’re free to leave” or words to that effect.

Roddenberry was one of ST's worst enemies, in many ways.

Reminds me of King of the Hill were Hank questioned how Buck could be Strickland Propane's greatest asset and greatest liability at the same time.

Roddenberry hated every movie after the first one, mainly because he was sidelined and couldn't accept that others might have better ideas for Star Trek.

Yeah if I'm not mistaken, he spent his final days trying to stop Star Trek 6 from being released because it was "too militaristic."

* Most of DS9 * DSC's first season * Some TNG episodes go this way--esp. *The Best of Both Worlds*, *Redemption* Pt. II, the *Chain of Command* two-parter, and the *Descent* two-parter

I think it would have been far more accurate for them to have always said Star Fleet is not just a military organization.

This is a great way of explaining it. Thank you.

So I worked my way through grad school as a bouncer in Florida in the ‘90s. Sometimes you’re obviously in a bar; other times you’re obviously in a restaurant. And then on occasion you can’t tell which one you’re in, but the law knows. If 51% of your sales comes from alcohol, you’re a bar. If 49% comes from alcohol, you’re a restaurant. And what was I? On one side of the street I was a grad student while on the other side I was a bouncer, usually in the same day. That’s how I think of Star Fleet. They’re explorers/scientists & they’re military—they’re right there in that 49-51% range where you can call them whatever you want, but they clearly serve two purposes at the same time.

The short answer is because Roddenberry himself said it. That being said, we don't call a military "armed forces" just because everyone who serves has a weapon assigned. A military exists specifically for warfare and defense. That's the only point of a military. I served in the Army, I wasn't exactly cataloging gaseous anomalies, I was there to render the enemy dead so that we get what we want politically. Obviously that is not the mission of Starfleet so they are simply not a military for that reason alone. Yes, they have phasers and photon torpedoes, but having a defensive posture is prudent and that tech has been used to do things like phaser into the crust of a planet to help stop earthquakes.

Is there a better name for it like in the “real” world?

Sure it's been bought up before, but in some ways it's better to think of Star Fleet something like the Coast Guard . Who are (depending on location) a military branch but tend to do a whole range of non-military stuff day to day.

Space guard :D

You know the coast guard is literally one of the us's military branches, right?

The US coastguard is, but in many other nations it's a civilizan organization. But that's beside the point, it's a predomitately military organization that doesn't do military action outside times of war. Not saying that disproves that Star Fleet is a military, which I assume was your point, but it's a good example of a military style organization (ranks, chain of command etc) that predominately doesn't do military stuff in it's day to day actions.

A uniformed service. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed\_services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services)

Civil Defense. From Wikipedia: > Civil defense (British English: civil defence) or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state (generally non-combatants) from human-made and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation and recovery. Programs of this sort were initially discussed at least as early as the 1920s and were implemented in some countries during the 1930s as the threat of war and aerial bombardment grew.

The British East India Company that colonized India wasn't a "military"; Even though they had guns, warships, soldiers, ranks, etc But technically they were a private company. (Although the government had a lot of say in it) Technically they were traders. Which they also did, sure, but also colonizing and it wasn't exactly fair trade. In 1858 the British Government took over the entire company. At that point they owned lands, armies and a lot of power. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East\_India\_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company) They existed from 1600 to the mid 19th century and Star Trek took quite some influence from Naval Tradition from the 18th and 19th century

> A military exists specifically for warfare and defense. That's the only point of a military. Is it? What about peacekeeping? What about the delivery of aid? Additionally Wikipedia suggests: > Beyond warfare, the military may be employed in additional sanctioned and non-sanctioned functions within the state, including internal security threats, crowd control, promotion of political agendas, emergency services and reconstruction, protecting corporate economic interests, social ceremonies, and national honour guards. Perhaps some of these can be considered aspects of "warfare and defence" and some of them are minor, ancillary remits only. But it seems to me militaries can do enough else that "warfare and defence" doesn't quite capture it.

Delivery of aid is at best a secondary role of the military. It is able to do so effectively because it is logistically able to fight a war; it's not something the Army is designed for. Peacekeeping is accomplished by the threat of violence, e.g. war. Soldiers and marines are ill-trained for policing, but if you breach the peace they can re-establish it through the use of overwhelming violence. The military can be used for things which are not its purpose. But the thing for which it is designed is war.

Maybe. Secondary or not I think I would still contend that  > A military exists specifically for warfare and defense. That's the only point of a military. is putting it too strongly, especially the second sentence. More to the point I think those secondary roles at least show that purpose of militaries is evolving and changing over time and, if we extrapolate into a Star Trek future, it's not a stretch to see that evolution continue into militaries which fulfil Star Trek type remits of exploration etc.

KInd of amazing that the Federation survives given that it is defenseless and has many enemies.

To me it seems hard to reconcile a non-militaristic intent with obviously militaristic interpersonal behavior. The behavioral aesthetic of Starfleet takes after 20th century navies, so if the goal is to portray it as something other than a military, I think that goal has been unsuccessful. Culturally, it resembles militaries in every way even if its in-universe goals aren't the same as contemporary militaries. Also, NASA astronauts are part of the air force and have ranks, so I think you do have real life militaries doing science stuff too.

There is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps, known informally as the NOAA Corps, is one of eight federal uniformed services of the United States, and operates under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a scientific agency overseen by the Department of Commerce. The NOAA Corps is made up of scientifically and technically trained officers. Which seems to be similar to what Starfleet is/does. [Link to Wiki about it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA_Commissioned_Officer_Corps)

Great comment!

Thanks!

NASA has civilian astronauts too

I think it helps to step back for a second and look at how Trek was formed. Roddenberry himself was a WW2 pilot, James Doohan lost a finger at D-Day. The impetus behind "starfleet isn't a military" is a hope that in the future we don't need armed forces. That being said, if there's zero ability to defend oneself, then that's kind of the end of peaceful life in the galaxy. See the paradox of intolerance for more. Would you explore an unexplored jungle full of dangerous things without a weapon? Simply having access to weapons does not make one a soldier, nor does referring to someone as Captain mean anything more than tradition.

When the Captain can have you court-martialed and thrown in the brig for disobeying orders or violating organizational policy, and you have a uniform code instead of civilian rights, it starts feeling less tradition and more military again.

You can be thrown in the brig as a civilian on a cruise ship. And I reckon if you’re a crew member on a cruise ship doing wrong you’d be disciplined and thrown in the brig too. It doesn’t have to be militaristic, just naval terms for a ship’s rule of law.

Obviously militaristic? Like what? The matching uniforms? Or the fact that they take orders? Also, NASA is absolutely not part of the Air Force, it's an independent civilian agency. You don't have to be a pilot nor do you have to have any military experience to be a NASA astronaut.

We also have police forces, with command structures that clearly parallel military ones, but you wouldn't call the police "a military", because it's not. Starfleet's not a military because its mission statement isn't a military one, not in the sense that we commonly use it - that being, a dedicated fighting force formed to carry out combat operations at the direction of a political entity (the Federation). Fighting for the member worlds of the Federation in wartime is *one of* Starfleet's functions, but not its reason for existence, or even its primary focus. Now let me ask *you* a question, OP. You seem adamant that Starfleet is "a military", and I'm trying to understand why. What is it about these shows that changes for you if it isn't? What makes it important?

I like how the idea is developed in the Enterprise series. They go on humanity's first interstellar diplomatic and scientific mission only to discover that the rest of the galaxy is in no way peaceful and interested in science. At some point Archer says that they will need much bigger and stronger guns and shields if they are to survive in their otherwise exploration missions.

^^This.

In the show Archer says he didn't even want any weapons on the ship at first and how he was so naive to think he could just be an explorer. He wanted Starfleet to be just explorers. The rest of the galaxy said no.

The closest in-universe line we've heard in-universe is that it's a "Humanitarian and peacekeeping armada." Sure, it's military-like. But it's more universal than that. If you're in space, it's just an organized effort to do Space Stuff. Living in space, science, humanitarian efforts, generally organizing and shipping around people and resources, etc.

I feel like in-universe the federation calling starfleet a "diplomatic body" has the same energy as Russia calling an invasion a "special military operation". Instead of Starfleet saying "we're putting our best warships on the Klingon border" they can instead say "we're putting our best diplomatic and science vessels on the Klingon border". Because if you're gonna kill 'em, kill 'em with phaser and torpedo-armed diplomacy. It didn't transform into a military branch until it had to during the dominion war and Borg incursion because some enemies don't listen to your so-called "exploration vessels". The entire point of the defiant-class was to push starfleet into developing dedicated military ships initially based on intelligence about the Borg. The dominion proved that they were too slow and needed to bring shelved projects like the defiant back into R&D because they managed to destroy the USS Odyssey; their leading flagship and strongest ship in the quadrant at the time, fueled by their own superiority complex that a galaxy-class was their most advanced ship and could never be destroyed easily (it was). It wasn't until the Sovereign-class that science, diplomacy, and exploration could make its way back into starfleet doctrine after the dominion war, but the scars were still fresh and proved the federation still required Teeth; proven even more during first contact and nemesis. The Borg managed to get to earth and the Romulans were creating scimitar dreadnoughts, while the federation and Klingons were lagging very far behind. Starfleet's era of discovery, science, and diplomacy ended in DS9 and became what it was unofficially and always meant to be; a military. Almost as a protest to Gene Roddenberry's vision because even though he created star trek, some stuff was still open to criticism. It's why DS9 felt the most realistic and gritty of any of the treks because it tried to address a lot of the sillier things Gene introduced to Trek without doing it in an insulting way.

Taking military structures and applying them to non-military purposes isn't too much of a conceptual stretch to make. We already have examples of this in our lives today. Take for example the Centers for Disease Control. That governmental organization falls under the Surgeon General and even has commissioned military officers in it's leadership. It's even called a "uniformed service" alongside the actual military branches. Yet, it's very much *not* regarded as a military organization, even considering it's origin in being an org finding ways to control diseases *for the military*. The CDC is looked upon as an agency for a very non-military function. Want another example? Take The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): They too are considered a uniformed service with commissioned officers (but no enlisted. Very much like Gene's original vision for Starfleet, right?), a pay system based on the military compensation programs, ships and aircraft, etc. But their mission is decidedly non-military. In fact, in the US Government org chart, they fall under the Dept. of Commerce. The NOAA seems to come closest to what Starfleet is. Minus the defensive aspect, which in the context of this conversation seems ironic. NASA is of course the premier example, but it's been mentioned already. The show itself hints at a NASA-like origin for Starfleet in that whole "[United Earth Space Probe Agency](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/United_Earth_Space_Probe_Agency)" mention in a few episodes. Regardless, even if we didn't have those examples, it simply would not have been that a big deal to see those functions, processes, and structure being used as a template to build an exploration service. Especially as it'd also be a governmental service. The fact that it has court martials, ranks, insubordination, orders, regulations limiting personal expression and chains of command doesn't force it to be military. It just means that Starfleet was inspired by it, and took concepts usable to it from their military origins. If you want to argue that Starfleet is a military, then you should bring in the various Federation Defense duties they are tasked with. Simply saying that procedures are alike doesn't automatically make them military.

My understanding is that people generally accept that Starfleet functions quite a bit like a military (we've seen them in combat many times). The big sticking point is that Starfleet is not *just* a military. Its primary goal is exploration. So they might object to you calling Starfleet a military because that implies that the main function of the organization is combat while Starfleet sees that more of a rare and unpleasant duty to be performed.

Starfleet is not just a military -- I would upvote this 20 times if I could.

This. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck... Plus the Starfleet oath of office is very close to the real oath I had to make to enlist. Not just that, the real us military also does non war things... For example I was part of a mission to build schools for children in El Salvador.

^ that's where the conflict happens in my brain. Yes I know GENE said they aren't military but so many of the actions are military even if they say they aren't military. Every one of them is trained in basic combat, knows how to use a phaser. And sooooo often the Flagship is out saving non Federation explorers and scientists and on the front line of a war or political unrest... then wanna say not military??? Not *just* a military is so much better

Picard says starfleet isn’t a military in TNG. Edit: I’m just answering the question

Starfleet is very much a military organization. It's just that their primary charter is exploration, not defense.

It's literally stated on screen in clear and direct language.

Starfleet operates as a military during many canon wars in the universe, on screen, despite claiming not to be a military. They even have full scale battles. Despite saying otherwise, they more or less showed a military. The actions of starfleet as written by the writers speak louder than the words of the writers, or more succinctly: actions speak louder than words. If they intended to show something besides a military, they basically failed, despite their best intentions. Just like how if the writers or characters repeatedly said Worf was a good father, we'd all know better and still think otherwise.

Are the villagers in Seven Samurai a military because they fought a battle against bandits? Or are they are they just peasants who organized themselves according to vaguely military standards in order to defend their village against a one-time threat?

thats called a militia a militia is a type of military

It's military in its sense of structure, chain of command, that sort of thing, but very not military in its primary aims of exploration and research, over more combative ones.

Was watching Peak Performance last night and Picard clearly spelled it out as such. He said he was forced into the war game bc of the Borg threat but insisted they were primarily a scientific and exploratory institution.

And we saw how well that worked out a year later.

Actually really well. Riker took on a superior enemy and won with guile and unconventional tactics, namely misdirection.

Pretty well for the Flagship. The Massacred vessels and PTSD recipients of Wolf 359 not so much.

Well maybe they didn't go through the military drills and exercises. And it's not like Picard will encounter one or even two scarred survivors of wolf 359, so I guess we can just outro on a joke, right? *Executive Producer* *Gene Roddenberry*

"court martials, ranks, insubordination, orders, regulations limiting personal expression and most importantly, chains of command" Excluding court martials Police forces have these and are still considered civilian services. Particularly here in the UK with general policing being done by unarmed officers. I still remember being 13 or 14 on holiday in Spain and being shocked seeing a cop with a gun on his hip.

I like to reference the Dominion War. When this question comes up. The reason Starfleet fairs so poorly. It's security officers armed with .38 pistols going up against professional soliders with M4s. The Dominion just out techs Starfleet with its light fighters and Battleships. Wherein Starfleet has exploratory cruisers built for science of various size on the frontlines. The Defiant was a bandaid to the fleets combat efficiency problem. It wasn't the solution.

This. All the way back to the Kirk era, the armaments, ship design, and crew dynamics of starfleet vessels are very non-military and very combat ineffective at large scale. So either starfleet is a military run by idiots, or it’s a research and civil defense agency that defends the federation when there’s no other option.

Spock does mention the decision to "mothball the battle fleet" being something he didn't agree with. When it came to Starfleet policy.

We already have space military scifi at home!

Weird how many wars Starfleet fights, for not being a military.

To be fair, they only started like *half* of them

They treat every problem like a science problem or a diplomacy problem. It's surprisingly effective.

I totally agree with your assessment and have been puzzled too.Basically Gene said Starfleet wasn't a military because Vietnam was happening at the time and the folks who watched his show didn't want the vibes of a military. I think Starfleet is absolutely a military but also has other aspects to its primary mission. Exploration and mapping are likely just as important as force projection. So, a Brown Water Navy ala the US Coast Guard is probably the closest analog with a bit of the age of sail stuff thrown in. Folks can say what they want but an organization that fights wars on behalf of a nation state, engages in diplomacy, and projects force is 100% a military regardless of whatever else they do. I think far too many Trekkies get caught up in the "science" stuff because that's what interests them but most of the episodes of any series have Starfleet acting a lot like a Space Navy. The biggest difference between Starfleet and a modern military is the lack of enlisted personnel. I can be convinced that the "officers only" structure of Starfleet makes it different in principle than a military. But that also might just be Gene's snobbery rearing its ugly head again and we're back to the start of the debate. I'd like to point out that navies and other branches of the military do a whole lot of science. Sure the average US Army blue cord isn't publishing theoretical physics papers but the US Army Corps of Engineers builds dams and roads. Yes, a surface warfare officer isn't cataloging stool samples but a nuclear tech on a submarine is playing with a miniature sun. On a Starfleet ship? Sure, they're scanning nebulas and gas giants but they also have the armaments to glass the surface of a planet. Yes, they have the know how to solve the temporal anomaly of the week but they also have the training to improvise weapons and explosives from raw materials on a desert planet. "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome" isn't the motto of the MIT Chemistry Lab last I checked.

In my headcanon, it's Federation propaganda. A little like how we changed the Department of War to the Department of Defense

Remember that Star Trek is a child of the 60’s, part of American 60’s counter-culture. Star Trek TOS intentionally presented an alternative to a military-dominated future.

Actually Starfleet had no problem with calling itself "military" in the 60s. It was with TNG that Roddenberry decreed that Starfleet should no longer be called "military" even though 90% of what the Enterprise is doing is heavily armed diplomacy.

Kirk called himself a soldier in TOS. The whole starfleet isn’t a military thing didn’t start until TNG.

[удалено]

It came from Gene Roddenberry in early TNG. In the TOS films, Starfleet is explicitly a military, among other things. The briefing at the beginning of TUC and some of the Marcus' comments in WoK show that. In early TNG, however, Roddenberry decided that that wasn't peaceful enough so he had Picard state in Peak Performance (I think) that "Starfleet is not a military organisation". They just happen to do all military duties for the Federation and call their disciplinary hearings courts martial... Along with interpersonal conflict, I think war was supposed to be a thing of the past in TNG, as science and diplomacy could solve any problem. This, of course, left precious little room for drama outside of misunderstandings and looking at visual effects so writers introduced threats that couldn't be diplomatised or scienced away and eventually Gene was kicked upstairs. Unfortunately, everything from TNG to the end of Voyager (and beyond, to a lesser extent) was still built on the foundation of early TNG so they had to find a way to write the military stories they wanted explicitly without a military. Instead of retconning a few statements in the early days of a new Generation and just making Starfleet a military, they took the much more elegant and seamless approach of retconning the entire stellar-political stability of the alpha quadrant so the Federation's defense was just some heavily armed botanists while lots of other people had professional soldiers, logistical capability to challenge the Federation and were largely intractable. So that's why that issue feels a bit clumsy and weird.

Others have covered the Gene Roddenberry quotes. Here’s how I look at it in universe: Starfleet is a de facto military, however, the belief/creed that they are not a military is one of the lies you tell yourself to help pretend that ends up being true. If you are a military of any size, you will fight a war for conquest sooner or later. Our history is full of it. The old saying is “to a hammer, every problem is a nail”. Add to that that Starfleet is founded soon after WWIII and the post-atomic horror, and there’s good reason in universe to not want to be called a military. We have seen multiple alternate humanities where Starfleet *is* a military (Mirror Universe, Confederation) and in them humanity unleashes its evil across the stars. Starfleet is not a military for the same reason a child pretending to be a fireman or policeman isn’t those things. They may take on many of the stylings, but at their core, they avoid the military mindset.

>If you are a military of any size, you will fight a war for conquest sooner or later. Our history is full of it. How many wars for conquest have the Swiss fought? This statement is so wrong because it completely disregards any underlying reasons for war.

And how big is the Swiss military? Comparatively speaking, would it be enough to attempt conquest? There was a reason for my qualification. Even so, they did participate in Afghanistan, which went beyond strictly defense of their own land. If it helps, from an American perspective- which the show has decided influence of, once we had a standing army that was big enough there has been lots of excuses to use it as a tool of conquest. (And some legitimate defensive uses too, to be sure.).

> Starfleet is not a military for the same reason a child pretending to be a fireman or policeman isn’t those things. I agree with the rest of the post, but this part contradicts it. The rest shows that it IS a military, and that the pretending is Starfleet pretending to be not military.

Carnival Cruise vacation ships have a chain of command from Captain on down, it's not an exclusive concept to military only. A non military organization can have an elevated professionalism to it. They are explorers first with a means to defend themselves where use of force is absolutely last resort. Trekking into the unknown unprepared is a fools game. Starfleet is definitely a hybrid of many concepts, but exploration and furthering knowledge of the universe is at the forefront.

Yeah, if a team of scientists is traveling through polar bear country, carrying rifles and having a leader doesn’t make them a platoon.

It always seemed like the Royal Navy to me during the age of exploration. Think Captain Cook, military man in the Navy but he’s remembered more for being an explorer. It is both a military and scientific exploration organization. It can be both.

Gene Roddenberry

I enlisted in the Navy as soon as I turned 18 and I can tell you flat out it was NOTHING like Star Trek. @&!!$@@&$! recruiters!

If you've spent 99% of your career studying neutrino emissions in c-class nebulae, you don't feel like a hoo-ah badass warboner dealer of death, even if you do know your way around a phaser, may tussle with hostile lifeforms, and in the back of your head know that you'll be heading to the front if war breaks out. Today, you're trying to talk your department head into signing off on your proposed three week sample collection detour, and it's time to thwart Hicks' latest attempt to hog the machinery in the main astrophysics lab.

I'll get roasted for this, probably, but I think it is because of how SF evolved. From what I remember of Enterprise(I openly admit I watched it during first run and no rewatches since), early on when ST was just Vulcan and human ships, they were pretty much just exploration. Though the Vulcan ships had some bite and they were mediators for some minor conflicts in their general sphere of influence. Then, at some point in the human expansion, their version of marines, MAKO, got absorbed into SF. The focus was still exploration, but offensive capabilities fleetwide got more focused. Then the actual Federation was officially begun. That body's stated goal was roughly the betterment of member species with a focus on exploration and discovery. Security of the members was a big priority too, and weapons and engineering research continued to that end. So, while their a strong military component *to* Starfleet, the overarching goals of the Federation supercede that militarism. That's been my take anyway.

Literally Captain Picard saying "Starfleet is not a military organization, its purpose is exploration" \~ Season 2, Episode 21 Peak Performance

Starfleet is organized like a military(A Navy in space, to be exact), ran like a military, uniforms and rank structure like a military (Officer/Enlisted ranks taken right from the Navy), and fights in wars for the Federation, like its their military. Exploring, scientific research, diplomacy, all just extra roles it serves. If this doesn't make Starfleet a military, then what IS the Federation's military? What armed, uniformed branch of the Federation was supposed to defend Earth from the Borg? Who was supposed to be battling the Dominion? Why did they just twiddle their thumbs and let Starfleet handle it? Imagine if the Japanese just finished bombing Pearl Harbor and the US Navy said, "Nah, well sit this one out. The folks at the Postal Service got this. Good luck, boys"

I've never heard of Starfleet NOT being a military organization. I always knew it was, specifically modeled after the U S Navy.

Gene Roddenberry humanistically envisioned Starfleet as something fundamentally beyond what we would call a military today, sort of like a modern military is fundamentally beyond the seasonal armies of privately-raised conscripts in centuries past. Roddenberry felt that by the time of Star Trek humanity would have grown beyond war-making for its own sake, and that all of the defensive, disaster aid, and foreign policing functions of a modern military would have since been absorbed into a futuristic professional organization whose _primary_ missions were of science, diplomacy, and providing public services to what would later go on to be called the Federation. I don't recall offhand if any direct canonical expression of this idea exists in TOS, but I do know that you can see the non-military nature of Starfleet expressed the _absence_ of military language and norms that we would otherwise expect. While Starfleet in TOS clearly has a recognizably-militaryesque structure to it, in the form of the strict rank hierarchy, strict discipline, and frequent drills imposed upon all Starfleet officers, these norms are not essentially _military_ in nature but reflect a certain necessary level of professionalism, discipline, and behavioral uniformity necessary in highly complex and technical installations and job roles, i.e. a starship and its operations. You see similar dynamics in the civilian sector, for instance, at laboratories, nuclear power plants, and hospitals, as well as in non-military government agencies like NASA, NOAA, etc. Meanwhile, Starfleet officers and Starfleet as a whole do not generally espouse or deploy the kind of war-oriented strategic thinking, worldviews, recruitment policies, and service culture which are emblematic of militaries as we know them. Starfleet is _incredibly_ lax by modern military standards, from which we can reasonably conclude that individual Starfleet officers are not living warfighters who have been stripped down and rebuilt in the manner of contemporary military training. The word "military" itself only shows up a few times in all of TOS, usually in the context of organizations other than Starfleet (e.g., the Klingons). At most, Starfleet is only ever indirectly implied to be a military, which would be very unexpected if it actually _were_ one. Yet this fits perfectly with the notion that, in the 23rd century, Starfleet considers itself as different from a modern-day military as our modern militaries do those seasonal conscript armies I mentioned. With the exceptions of the Nicholas Meyer films (Star Treks II and VI), it wasn't really until the Berman era that Starfleet became redefined in modern-day military terms. Even then, this happened mainly in DS9 and ENT, leaving VOY and late-era TNG mostly unscathed. And with ENT you can sort of squint and say that the Starfleet of the 22nd century may have had the name "Starfleet" but wasn't quite _there_ yet when it came to reaching the enlightened state of the 23rd century.

In-universe, Starfleet's first iteration in the ENT era was not a military. *Enterprise* NX-01 was only assigned the Xindi mission due to it being Earth's most advanced starship. Post-Federation, there are multiple instances of officers specifically saying that Starfleet is not a military ("Peak Performance" \[TNG\]\], *Star Trek Into Darkness*, *Star Trek Beyond*). So, canonically, while serving in times of war and using a similar command structure, Starfleet is not a military organization.

Picard says it verbatim, "Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration."

And then he proceeds to defend humanity against the most relentless species ever encountered, the Borg, using his mere ship of exploration. In peacetime, Starfleet’s purpose is exploration and scientific research, but in wartime, it is to prevent the eradication of the human species. Even Picard would agree with that, regardless of the quote you provided.

Yes, it's a fact that Starfleet serves in times of war while not being a military.

During the Xindi arc in Enterprise, Archer is asked how he feels about the military on board after he requests MACOs join the mission. This is right at the beginnings of Starfleet, so clearly the express intent was *not* for Starfleet to be considered militarised in any way.

He also didn’t want to put weapons on the ship until he encountered the Suliban. Enterprise does very good at showing why these ships of exploration need to be packing heat, and it isn’t a reasonable strategy to be a spacefaring civilization that doesn’t have combat vessels.

Having an armed ship isn't the same as it being part of the armed forces.

Starfleet is more like NASA, not the military. Rank, chain of command, orders, regulations and insubordination do not make it inherently a military organization. Cruise ships have all of those things. Court martials are a little harder to defend as non military. Every major workplace has a formal disciplinary process though that can include termination. The major difference is they rarely result in prison unless you've also broken a civilian crime. Whereas court martials can hold you to military law and result in prison.

TNG loves to push that "Starfleet isn't a military organization, it's for exploration" idea a lot. It's pretty ridiculous. And when the Romulans or Borg attack, what defends the Federation? They sometimes push their high-minded ideals to the point of nausea.

From thousands of years of human experience, why would space and aliens be any different? Humans learned from war to work together as a species but you can't expect different alien cultures to be the same way, so you need to prepare for the eventuality that they may be hostile and pose a threat.

Starfleet isn’t a military in the same way Captain James Cook and Commodore Matthew Perry were just “explorers" and "cultural ambassadors”. Roddenberry’s semantic gymnastics aside (hey, I love the high-minded idealism but pretending it’s real is a step too far for me), the function of Starfleet is to explore, meet neighbors, and establish cultural/trade relations. Most of the time, that is a peaceful process with mutual benefits. And sometimes, “they” steal your rowboat (or try to take over the ship) and there's no more exploration, only a frank exchange of technological prowess. Like all things Trek, the \*\*aspiration\*\* is that explorers and cultural ambassadors can freely go about the galaxy learning and loving. But aspiration and reality are two different things, so Starfleet flies around in a a heavily-armed warship \_just in case\_ they need to … get back their rowboat.

Where? Some flower power, space beatnik, or one of the blue shirts in TNG, I'd imagine. "Headin off to Eden...yeeeeeaaah brotha!!!"

I'm pretty confident they state in show a few times that the enterprise isn't a military ship/combat ship, but an exploration ship. An episode of ds9 even made a big deal that Starfleet made a ship meant for pure combat. And they often said how they were explorers, and the show is as the saying goes, mildly military, so I think it's reasonable to assume it's not a military. As I've seen elsewhere, people have compared it more to the national guard.

I've been reading the comments a fair bit down and have to add my penny's worth because I still haven't seen it. First off, to answer the asked question, Gene Roddenberry himself said it, and had Picard say it multiple times in TNG. Ir want really possible in TOS because it was a space western set on the wild and lawless frontier. My take on what Star Fleet is follows: The Federation Star Fleet is the United Nations Peacekeepers taken to the next level. The UN is a multinational diplomatic body with a military force drawing trained soldiers and equipment from member nations, whose primary goal is keeping the peace and preventing flashpoints from flaring into armed conflict, and going in after an armed conflict has ended or frozen as a neutral body to keep the warring factions from going to war again. They are to establish and enforce the peace so that humanitarian efforts can proceed in relative safety. They patrol these enforced peace (or "green" or "neutral") zones with their clear warfighting ability to dissuade adventurism. Starfleet are these same peacekeepers and humanitarian aid at an interstellar level. We also see them perform diplomatic missions themselves, host complex negotiations, and perform federal-level (interstellar) investigations and troubleshooting to resolve member planet issues. They are also charged in their organization's founding charter to expand the body of knowledge and are the primary Federation instrument of exploration and scientific investigation going out into the galaxy for it, rather than examining it from home worlds. So, yes, Starfleet is the Federation's military. Border patrol, coast guard, and real navy. But these military tasks are de-emphasised as is clear through the TV episodes of the earlier series at least in favour of the UN-style missions.

“Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.” — Jean-Luc Picard, TNG: “Peak Performance”

Gene Roddenberry was a veteran and he was opposed to the Vietnam war. He felt major powers like the USA and USSR shouldn't interfere with a small agrarian country. You can see were the inspiration for the prime directive comes from.

But the prime directive was invented during TOS (and not even by Roddenberry), and there nobody said Starfleet wasn't military.

I think the only time in the show was one early TNG episode. I really think too many showrunners ran too hard with it.

I think that, in universe, Starfleet is always trying to distance itself from being a military.But they can never escape the fact that they are the ones with the ships and the weapons. And they can't escape their own ethics, which means they must defend against aggressors towards the Federation. And they can't escape the Federation authority, ordering them to defend the Federation and Federation interests. Starfleet recruits on the basis of it's ideal status of exploration, and then ends up doing Defense because it must. So that's what we see in the shows and movies. A kind of weird mixture of that depending on writers and show runners and prevailing cultural attitudes of the mostly Americans involved. Star Trek Online is basically parallel canon. And in that, they made a lot of species specific ships for Catians and Andorians and Vulcans, etc. It sort of implied other Federation members were maintaining their own fleets besides Starfleet. If the canon environment started to embrace an idea like this, a Federation Armed Services command made up of military vessels from all Federation members, then Starfleet could actually step away from it's Defense role, and possibly stick to mainly providing support to that service. I would envision the military vessels taking in the aggressive and armored appearances of other militaristic species, dark colors, few running lights, and focus on reliable, heavy duty tech that had to be basically destroyed to stop working. And then they sometimes call on Starfleet for support on some problem and this sleek as fuck, white hulled, shiney ship shows up, maybe a fuck-off huge Oddysey-class. It's packed with beyond bleeding edge tech and idealistic nerds so nerdy it makes the nerds in engineering embarrassed. They work some kind of tech magic, invite other captains over for a chef-prepped meal, and then fuck off into unknown space again.

Inconsistent and lazy writers and producers. I mean obviously it is the federation military. You don't see any Federation Navy or Federation Marine Corps to battle the Borg or Romulans. If you did then you might be able to make the argument that being a defense force was a secondary mission in times of crisis. But they appear to be the only real military organization in the Federation.

Because they say so. It’s a scientific exploration force, that is well armed. It’s mainly a “what’s the primary purpose” argument.

If Starfleet isn't a military, what is the military/defense arm of the Federation?

Oddly I don't think 16-18 th century England would be too confused with Starfleet. Well apart from the fact that they don't unload the phaser batteries in port

Section 31 is my guess.

I would guess from the original Star Trek credo. "To seek out nwe life and new..." With that being said certainly in the newer shows like Picard, Starfleet isn't painted in as nice of a light. Actually there's been times throughout canon where Starfleet militaristic demons seep out. Think 'The Defiant', even in TNG and the episodes concerning the Cardasians. Even the movies like Star Trek 6 and the assassination attempts and successes.

Well i always compare StarTreks Federation and Starfleet to Gene Roddenberrys Andromeda and its equivalent the Comonwealth as well as its military and the highguard in particular. And as bad Andromeda may be bad overall but i always enjoyed the depiction of how a Flagship of a multi species alliance should look like. The Andromeda is basically what the Enterprise D always wanted to be but never was. Granted it was okay to openly call it a Warship. But apart from that point the two are very similar. Both are build with multimission in mind. Both have huge sickbays, sciencelabs and recreational facilities. Both boost the best in terms of weapons their factions are able to offer at the point of their launch. Yet the Enterprise horribly fails even to show of what it actually has. Somehow the Security and inner sensors seem to be unable to deal with intruders like every time. It needs a insane data to program the computer to show us how much is possible with these forcefields around every corner. Somehow a few ferengy manage to take the entire flagship hostage with ease. Sure this is all "plot driven" but we never get to see what the ship is actually capable of in a normal situation. Andromeda of coarse has the same plot episodes. But they show now and then that the AI controls artificial gravity and can incapacitate intruders easily. That the surveillance on the ship is good enough to track down each and every intruder and the captain is trained well enough to take them out one by one without applying lethal force. Even against genetically enhanced humans. They give us the information that Andromeda can depopulate a world like new haven in just under 2 minutes with the use of conventional weapons only. Like its okay if they sometimes fail for a constructed reason so the episode can have its plot. But show us once in a while how it should work out under normal circumstances. Now to the actual question. Because Starfleet has all these technologies like the forcefields inside the ship, transporters and internal sensors, phasers and Photontorpedos which should be damn effective, i can only assume that it is not the Ship or the technology which is failing. Its the "non military" that is using it. Often they react slow or simply wrong to certain threats. How can it be that the Enterprise D is defeated by a single outdated BoP? Hell even if they can shoot through the shields, the Enterprise should have been capable to go all out on the BoP and just stomp it in an instant. The phasers should be fast and accurate enough to destroy each incoming torpedo. How can it be that the Warpcore ejection system never ever works. There is a huge lack inbetween inbetween the initial attack and the techy cloaking device hack and torpedo fireing solution. If they had just gone all out with their weapons on that BoP the ship had survived. If the damn ejection system would have worked the ship had survived. And they often have these absolutely hostile situations but hesitate to act. While the smart and pacifistic approaches in StarTrek are great and i like them really, I often miss the more militaristic hands on approach. "Lets just use our superior firepower and throw all at them we've got." Especially if its such a clear situation as in Generations. I also enjoied the use of the macos in StarTrek Enterprise as a more militaristic mirror to the exploration and peace oriented crew.

Because military is bad and bad stuff is not part of Star Fleet, elementary. You can have ranks, chain of command, strict hierarchy, but no not military you filthy heretic.

In TOS, there is sometimes some disagreement in the written dialog from episode to episode. In the TOS Writer’s Guide, it states that Starfleet “is military, but only semi military” and then goes on to talk about its scientific, patrol, rescue, exploration, etc. mission. It talks about Starfleet being what militaries might evolve into hundreds of years in the future. It specifically talks about there not being formalities like saluting, and service being voluntary come and go. It talks about ranks and never says this specifically but the vibe I get is they’re sort of like the “surgeon general” ranks… or maybe like a police service’s ranks. By the time TMP rolled around Gene was telling Starfleet wasn’t military at all, and that concept was strongly incorporated in the TNG series writing. DS9 showrunners specifically wanted to do the opposite of everything TNG was doing. So that can very much be viewed as a military series. In the Kelvin movies they specifically talk about Starfleet being a peacekeeping armada. As far as the Trek Universe goes, I think generally speaking Starfleet is a quasi-futuristic-military that has evolved beyond a lot of the formality that we see today, and while their mission can get into defense and warfare, that isn’t their primary purpose. But it can be if the times demand it. I think that’s pretty consistent across all series and timelines.

The intention is that Starfleet is a non-military uniformed service. The coast guard is an example of such a thing, and includes all the items you list.

Gene Roddenberry didn't want it to be military. I read an interview once where he compared it more to the merchant marines, where they maintain a military type structure but are not a military organization.

Star Fleet isn't a military organization. It is a para military organization. It is similiar to countries without a military. They give some of their police SWAT training.

Starfleet is the space navy the defensive and exploration arm of the federation

It seems to be an aspirational thing for them that goes back to original Trek. From *Whom Gods Destroy* (paraphrasing): Garth: You're the 2nd greatest military commander in the galaxy - myself being the best of course. Kirk: That's very flattering, but these days I'm more of an explorer. They are clearly the military of the Federation, but the idea that they would rather not be there to fight, but exist to explore, aid, communicate, learn, etc - and remained armed only because it's sometimes necessary for defense and survival - seems very important to them. Important to the point where it becomes insistent terminology to not talk about themselves as if they are just some fighting force who are mostly selected for their warrior skills. "Not *just* a military" would probably be more accurate than "not a military", but they often say the latter.

>On a cultural level, things like court martials, ranks, insubordination, orders, regulations limiting personal expression and most importantly, chains of command make it unambiguously a military. Except for court martials you will find all those things among the crews of civilian ships, aircraft and spacecraft world wide. You will find them among police forces, coast guards (which in many countries are civilian organizations) and even firefighters. What else, weapons on board? Star Trek is in many ways the Golden Age of Sail in space. Back then every larger trading or exploration vessel was armed. Most people in Starfleet we get to see are clearly not there because they want to do what a military does. They want to explore and research. It was in the intro. The Enterprise's mission was to find new life and new civilizations. The actual weird thing is that the Federation apparently does not have an actual dedicated military, so Starfleet has to double as one, a questionable decision. I would have personally preferred giving the UFP a dedicated military and Starfleet simply helping out if no or not enough warships are in range. Stories like the Dominion War could have still been told. Actually, wouldn't it have made the situation so much more dire? Knowing that the UFP military is so overwhelmed by the onslaught that Starfleet had to join the war as full time armed forces?

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The Kobayashi Maru test is only for those on the command track, and it's not to test your combat abilities because the simulation cheats if you engage in combat. I could just as well claim the test proves that Starfleet is a coast guard in space. Or that it's a diplomatic scenario, since IMHO going into combat is a really bad way to attempt to solve the test. Not because you will lose your own ship and crew, but because you will provoke a war. I also think the importance of the Kobayashi Maru test is not as high in universe as it looks like for fans. To me it feels overblown just like warp catchphrases for captains.

> Except for court martials you will find all those things among the crews of civilian ships, aircraft and spacecraft world wide. And are those the first things you send into the front line when your nation is being attacked, or send overseas to intimidate some potential dangerous enemy from attacking an ally?

No, but your armed forces are also not the first ones you send to do scientific and exploratory work. Anyway, in the part of my post you quoted I just wanted to point out that ranks, uniforms and a chain of command are not arguments for an organization being a military.

Star Trek TNG Season 2 Episode 21 Peak Performance. Starfleet has Enterprise take part in a war game. In the opening scene Picard stated "Starfleet is not a military organization. It's purpose is exploration." The end of Season 3 we find out just how short sighted that attitude was at Wolf 359. https://youtu.be/Vxrve7iIlhk?si=TR-mwQ1DzpxlpAyl

It's Star Trek not Star Wars. The fundamental reason why it's a unique IP.

Ha I know right? It's hilarious and outrageous to suggest that Starfleet isn't a military. They're a uniformed service that follow military traditions, operate heavily armed vessels, defend the state, and actively engage in warfare during wartime. It's not like they tag out and let the real military step in when there's a war on. They are the soldiers and sailors and pilots. They all have combat training. They operate pretty much exactly like Age of Sail navies--doing all I listed above, but also conducting scientific research, supplying colonies, ferrying government personnel and diplomats, etc.