Tangent from 'If Starfleet were real' topic

[Stofsk]

I again point to the op saying If Starfleet existed today! Not if you were in TNG or something.

It appears to be a common mistake that's been made; possibly due to 'Starfleet' and 'The Federation' being referred to so interchangeably in the shows, that it's hard to divorce oneself from one and not the other.

An understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

[Narsil]

I again point to the op saying If Starfleet existed today! Not if you were in TNG or something.

It appears to be a common mistake that's been made; possibly due to 'Starfleet' and 'The Federation' being referred to so interchangeably in the shows, that it's hard to divorce oneself from one and not the other.

An understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

An addition to that, a Federation civillian was tried and convicted in a Starfleet court. Which very much makes out the Federation to be something of a military state. Which, to be frank, is something I'm not used to living in, nor do I want to live in it.

Other things I do not like about Starfleet/The UFP are the Prime Directive, the lack of simple safety features aboard ships, the fact that humans are often portrayed as something of a more 'in charge' race than the aliens are. The fact is that Starfleet is often portrayed as merely being an extension of the Federation, and for it to exist today, it wouldn't really exist without the Federation.

[Hotfoot]

Thing is though, the OP asked that if Starfleet were real, would we join, it doesn't specify that it's real today, with America or the EU or China in charge (or mercy save us, the UN). For that case, Starfleet and the Federation are united. He did, however, later amend what he wanted to be the case, but said that it really didn't matter.

But, if we want to nit over details here and there, here's what I would do in all of the presented scenarios involved:
If NASA made a scientific exploration corps, I'd sign on as a technician if nothing else.
If the USA created a new branch of the military for space operations and exploration, I'd do my damnedest to end up in a science vessel for deep space exploration, rather than the warship designed to bombard other parts of the world.
If the EU/China ran it, I'd consider going to England to join up, but certainly not China.
If the UN ran it, I might try to join a science vessel and pray they don't fuck things up too badly.
If it's ToS era, again, I'd try and get a science vessel. Sure, they often did stupid shit that got them killed, but with me in charge, I'd stop them from doing the stupid shit in the first place. The vast majority of disasters created by these people were because they jumped before checking to see if they had a damn parachute.
TNG Era on? Fuck them and fuck them hard. They are a bunch of assholes with backwards views on sentient rights, morality, and don't even have a lick of common sense.

[Stofsk]

If NASA made a scientific exploration corps, I'd sign on as a technician if nothing else.

Uh... why don't you join NASA anyway?

If the USA created a new branch of the military for space operations and exploration, I'd do my damnedest to end up in a science vessel for deep space exploration, rather than the warship designed to bombard other parts of the world.

So you would join NASA.

If the EU/China ran it, I'd consider going to England to join up, but certainly not China.

No love for the Chicoms? Aw...

Complete aside, I would like to see what China does with the 21st Century. Interesting times indeed.

If the UN ran it, I might try to join a science vessel and pray they don't fuck things up too badly.

The UN gets a lot of shit slung at them, particularly for their failures in resolving conflicts. However, in these matters: science, world health and so on - and NOT matters related to international security and conflict, the UN isn't quite the disaster area it's made out to be.

If anything, a UN-sponsored Space Exploration agency seems to me to be ideal.

If it's ToS era, again, I'd try and get a science vessel. Sure, they often did stupid shit that got them killed, but with me in charge, I'd stop them from doing the stupid shit in the first place. The vast majority of disasters created by these people were because they jumped before checking to see if they had a damn parachute.

Can you elaborate with examples?

TNG Era on? Fuck them and fuck them hard. They are a bunch of assholes with backwards views on sentient rights, morality, and don't even have a lick of common sense.

Here's the kicker though: TNG Federation is sweet compared to its neighbours. Theocratic barbarians? Klingons. Police state? Cardies and Rommies. Brutal dictatorship? Dominion. Ultimate communism? Borg. Ultimate capitalism? Ferengi.

The TNG era trek is unique in that, everyone is a scumbag including the good guys, but the good guys are only good because everyone else is worse than they are!

[Hotfoot]

Uh... why don't you join NASA anyway?

Nasa sends robots into space and humans into near earth orbits. Big difference from taking hundreds or thousands of people and putting them on to warp-capable ships to explore the cosmos. Suddenly, my chances of actually GOING IN TO SPACE dramatically improve, instead of it just being a handful of personnel.

So you would join NASA.

Or Air Force Research

No love for the Chicoms? Aw...

Unless universal translators exist, I'd have a hard time of things, and additionally, I'm not going to bother working for them or trying to gain citizenship with them. So no, no love for them. They were bad and have to sit in the corner.

Complete aside, I would like to see what China does with the 21st Century. Interesting times indeed.

Indeed. I predict that their ability to maintain a growing economy will be limited by their ability to feed their workers and maintain their population.

The UN gets a lot of shit slung at them, particularly for their failures in resolving conflicts. However, in these matters: science, world health and so on - and NOT matters related to international security and conflict, the UN isn't quite the disaster area it's made out to be.

If anything, a UN-sponsored Space Exploration agency seems to me to be ideal.

Until we run into aliens. Then we're fucked.

Can you elaborate with examples?

Don't have examples handy, but from what I recall, things would be resolved by the Enterprise's bridge crew by figuring out some simple or relatively simple thing that the science team overlooked in their rampant rush for results.

Here's the kicker though: TNG Federation is sweet compared to its neighbours. Theocratic barbarians? Klingons. Police state? Cardies and Rommies. Brutal dictatorship? Dominion. Ultimate communism? Borg. Ultimate capitalism? Ferengi.

The TNG era trek is unique in that, everyone is a scumbag including the good guys, but the good guys are only good because everyone else is worse than they are!

You forgot the Vulcans - repressed emo more logical than thou brats. Seriously, how fucked up is your society that every seven years your repressed sex drive will kill you if you don't get laid? Let's not forget how quickly they turn their backs on their ways. Prime Directive? Sure, great idea! Oh, wait, didn't we give you guys the technology you needed to get past your own solar system without killing yourselves?

[frigidmagi]

Prime Directive? Sure, great idea! Oh, wait, didn't we give you guys the technology you needed to get past your own solar system without killing yourselves?

Very off topic here but I think one of the reasons the Vulcans were willing to share tech with humanity was to give them a lever on us. We bred faster than Vulcans, we're more militant and under the right (wrong?) condaintions we're certainly more warlike, we're also expandionist and aggressive enough to that the logical Vuclan might decide he has two options, some form of alliance or conflict.

Looking at how things turned out... It certainly shook out well for the Vulcans didn't it?

[Hotfoot]

Very off topic here but I think one of the reasons the Vulcans were willing to share tech with humanity was to give them a lever on us. We bred faster than Vulcans, we're more militant and under the right (wrong?) condaintions we're certainly more warlike, we're also expandionist and aggressive enough to that the logical Vuclan might decide he has two options, some form of alliance or conflict.

Looking at how things turned out... It certainly shook out well for the Vulcans didn't it?

Sure, it worked out great - but look at the concept of the prime directive logically. It's glossed over in ToS, but in TNG they harp on it - "It's not just an order, it's a philosophy!" Non-interferance, sitting out while people die due to a natural disaster or a war of aggression by another space-faring race. Yet, it's how they reached the stars themselves. Like Warp Drive is a factor in readiness to join the rest of society. Just going through the list of cultures inhabiting the Star Trek universe, we can see that virtually none of them are really fit for an interstellar government (most of them simply get by via writer's fiat). But I rant. Yes, things turned out peachy for the Vulcans, but what I'd really like to know is why their full-blown emo cousins managed to figure out cloaking devices, but the super-scientific logical Vulcans couldn't figure it out.

And yes, we've gone on a huge tangent, this may be worth splitting.

[frigidmagi]

When it comes to the Prime Directive I'm pretty jaded. It seems to be applied pretty damn selectly. Yep, we'll let specis A die in fact we'll even watch but when specis B has something we want, we're gonna fucking take it! Pah, yep iron clad rule y'all got there.

[Stofsk]

When it comes to the Prime Directive I'm pretty jaded. It seems to be applied pretty damn selectly.

I'm not surprised. It's a lofty goal to hold yourself to, but realistically there are times when it is prudent or necessary to break it. TOS had an episode where Kirk deliberately broke the PD in order to arm Tyree's village with guns. He did it because the Klingons had armed a rival village with similar technology, so if Kirk didn't do it then his friend's village would be overun and that would be the end of that. Then of course there was the episode with the Nazis, or the Commies (whom Robert Tracey was supplying phasers to), or the Mobsters (cultural contamination by a history book), and this time we are shown a different perspective, that the PD is necessary in order to prevent that kind of bullshit from occuring.

What's interesting is that it didn't seem like a rule set in stone, yet the Roman leader in the Roman episode knew about Starfleet procedures and commented that the PD is held in such regard that Captains are expected to die first rather than break it.

Contrast this with TNG, where an example of holding up the PD is Picard blithely standing by and letting a prewarp civilisation be destroyed due to some cataclysm because removing them would interfere with their natural evolution or whatever. Kirk comes across as someone who holds up the spirit of the law rather than the letter, while Picard is the exact reverse.

[Batman]

One wonders how Federation intervention does more damage to a species' evolution than extinction does. If 'let's have nature have her way' is oh so paramount (pun intended) in your thinking I suggest you stop all them disaster relief missions, Starfleet.
That ironclad insistance on the letter of the PD was one of the stupider things TNG did.
Do we know the exact wording of the TOS-era PD? If memory serves, Kirk arming Tyree's village with guns was technically not a violation anyway because since the Klingons had already messed with that species, the PD no longer applied. Mind you, this is from memory so I might be 100% wrong.

[Destructionator XV]

As I've posted before here, I don't think the Prime Directive was originally intended as a hard moral rule, but instead as a economic and perhaps diplomatic rule. It prohibited individual captains out in the field from spending Federation resources (their ship, supplies, crew, and time) on something that isn't going to benefit the Federation at large. Those decisions would be made by the Federation Council or Starfleet Command, and unless told otherwise, officers in the field were not to do anything to other nations (planets).

[Josh]

The PD was what made me give up on TNG, specifically the episode with Edo where Picard said 'Fuck the PD, we're going to risk the entire ship and break the number one rule over Wesley.'

Which was a prime example of how selective they are about it. They can let an entire civilization die because of it, but Wesley, who didn't belong on the away team in the first place and didn't do a jot of study on the culture he was interacting with was sentenced to death, and it was 'Well, fuck this shit.'

Bah.

Screw Starfleet, I'm down with the Maquis.

[Batman]

I rather liked that episode, because they ignored the PD (and I'm still a little confused about why the PD would apply in the first place- I was under the impression that the PD says don't mess with civilizations that don't know of alien life, which the Edo guys already do as per the presence of the away team), given the complete idiocy of the laws in question.
Pity they didn't remember to go with the spirit of the law rather than the letter later on.

[Hotfoot]

Actually, in TNG, the Prime Directive is so all-encompassing it means total non-interferance with other cultures, regardless if they are threatened by natural disasters or civil war. At one point, the Klingon Empire is at civil war, and the Federation does not get involved, not because they don't want to get involved in a war, but because it is an internal matter. The only way they would get involved was if it could be proven that the Romulans were already aiding one side or the other.

[Batman]

The nonintervention of the UFP during Redemption seemed to be a lot more realpolitik than actual worry over violating the PD (which might not apply in the case of the Klingons anyway, as they've been in contact with other species for quite some time.)

[Josh]

I rather liked that episode, because they ignored the PD (and I'm still a little confused about why the PD would apply in the first place- I was under the impression that the PD says don't mess with civilizations that don't know of alien life, which the Edo guys already do as per the presence of the away team), given the complete idiocy of the laws in question.
Pity they didn't remember to go with the spirit of the law rather than the letter later on.

I could tolerate Picard saying fuck-off to the PD, but what pissed me off was the entire premise of sending Wesley down to an alien culture that clearly had some rather barbaric practices, then deciding that saving Wesley was worth risking the entire ship. You could say that TOS had the crew bouncing around the galaxy like a troop of Boy Scouts who had no idea what they were getting into each week, but at least they were entirely trained Starfleet personnel who knew the risks they took when they put on their red shirts.

[Stofsk]

If they had gotten rid of the 'families on a starship' angle of TNG, and instead replaced it with Midshipmen who were training, then you could still have Wesley on the ship and have it actually make sense. The whole Wesley saves the ship thing would also be excised as well, but at least now he wouldn't be this bratty teenager who keeps getting into trouble when he shouldn't have.

But they didn't, so too bad.