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Keep in mind that when Earth made contact with the Vulcans, which eventually lead to the creation of Starfleet, the Third World War was still a recent memory. What was the death toll according to First Contact? Six hundred million or so wasn't it? I imagine that soured people on militarism.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Keep in mind that when Earth made contact with the Vulcans, which eventually lead to the creation of Starfleet, the Third World War was still a recent memory. What was the death toll according to First Contact? Six hundred million or so wasn't it? I imagine that soured people on militarism.

Zephram Cochran lived in a metal shack in the middle of Montana with everyone still afraid of the Eastern Coalition or other factions. It's clear that the fighting was brutal and happened mostly between various groups with the collapse of centralized government and authority. The actual death count of the war might only be 600 million, but I'm willing to bet good money that the casualties extended far beyond that. With no central authority or government, there's nothing to really allow the large network of infrastructure that feeds the millions that live around the world. Without technology firms selling equipment for purifying water or medical equipment, no one can sustain a working hospital. It comes down to what individual doctors know and can pass on, and that becomes limited.

So picture the average person living in the world of 2063. Your world is only what you can see around you. You hear stories of people travelling to distant cities in cars and buying food in bulk at supermarkets. Hospitals keeping you healthy and fixing injuries, or police keeping you safe. Then along come these strange people who tell you they're peaceful from a far away place called Vulcan, a distant planet, and they're going to help you rebuild the world. You can once again enjoy the luxuries your ancestors took advantage of. Security has come once more. And they tell you that violence is not the way, that people don't have to fight wars because you see what happens when war occurs. People suffer. The school your kids are going to has people explaining the works of Martin Luther, Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., all the famous people in history who solved problems with peace.

Give them enough time, and yeah, it becomes easy to say that wars never solve anything. Especially since they can point to fresh memories and say, "This is what war brought you last time."

Simon_Jester wrote:

Did Starfleet's predecessor- an actual military- attempt to overthrow the government (United Earth's, Vulcan's, Andoria's), and the Federation government imposed such limitations to prevent history from repeating?

Maybe their predecessor was NOT a military. Maybe it was the equivalent of NASA.

It was the United Earth Space Probe Agency, I thought?

It was the United Earth Space Probe Agency, I thought?

Indeed, although that phrase hasn't really ever been used aside from one episode in TOS I think. But it is canon.

Borgholio wrote:

It was the United Earth Space Probe Agency, I thought?

Indeed, although that phrase hasn't really ever been used aside from one episode in TOS I think. But it is canon.

it's in ENT, while it's never said outright the logo for Starfleet shows them to be part of that organization.

Certainly the violence preceding the Enterprise era probably had a lot to do with Starfleet being run as a civilian agency. We hear about stuff like the Earth-Romulan War, and there seem to have been on-off conflicts with the Klingons as well as the execrable Xindi storyline in Enterprise, but apart from the Xindi there don't seem to have been any actual wars for the Federation to handle (Earth-Romulan war was pre-Federation IIRC). A few isolated battles between individual ships or small units here and there, the occasional showdown, some harassment between antagonists... but no real outright, pitched wars until the Dominion became an actual threat to the Alpha Quadrant. Any other wars that we hear about are always between other races, never actually Earth/the Federation and them, such as Tholians versus Suliban or Klingons versus Romulans or Cardassians and Bajorans.

So with that in mind Earth/the Federation probably felt confident enough that they could manage with a civilian rather than a military Starfleet until the Dominion War and the threat of the Borg forced them to militarize.

the Xindi-incident pre-dates the federation by about 10 years or so.

Good point... and wasn't a lot of it nullified anyway by that fucking stupid Temporal Cold War or whatever?

Elheru Aran wrote:Certainly the violence preceding the Enterprise era probably had a lot to do with Starfleet being run as a civilian agency. We hear about stuff like the Earth-Romulan War, and there seem to have been on-off conflicts with the Klingons as well as the execrable Xindi storyline in Enterprise, but apart from the Xindi there don't seem to have been any actual wars for the Federation to handle (Earth-Romulan war was pre-Federation IIRC). A few isolated battles between individual ships or small units here and there, the occasional showdown, some harassment between antagonists... but no real outright, pitched wars until the Dominion became an actual threat to the Alpha Quadrant. Any other wars that we hear about are always between other races, never actually Earth/the Federation and them, such as Tholians versus Suliban or Klingons versus Romulans or Cardassians and Bajorans.

So with that in mind Earth/the Federation probably felt confident enough that they could manage with a civilian rather than a military Starfleet until the Dominion War and the threat of the Borg forced them to militarize.

The Borg were a particular problem because unlike, say, the Klingons, or even Q, who could theoretically be negotiated with, the Borg were implacable. They didn't negotiate. They just kept coming. Yes, that changed a bit in Voyager because of Species 8472, but even then the Borg quickly turned on Voyager. That's not a fight you can end with peaceful means. Its a threat you have to be able to either out technobabble or out shoot.

Prometheus Unbound wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:

Did Starfleet's predecessor- an actual military- attempt to overthrow the government (United Earth's, Vulcan's, Andoria's), and the Federation government imposed such limitations to prevent history from repeating?

Maybe their predecessor was NOT a military. Maybe it was the equivalent of NASA.

It was the United Earth Space Probe Agency, I thought?

To analogize to the US government...

That sure sounds a lot more like "National Air and Space Agency" than it does like "United States Navy."

So I would infer that UESPA was in fact an agency responsible for space probes and represented a united Earth government, both of which would tend to encourage it to take a peaceful stance.

In Enterprise we see the transitional "United Earth Starfleet," but it's still clearly not a military organization first and foremost- the motto is "Semper Exploro," "I am Always Exploring." Sure, Enterprise and her sister ships are armed..

But you'd be armed too, if you had to travel in a galaxy that contained Klingons.

Elheru Aran wrote:Certainly the violence preceding the Enterprise era probably had a lot to do with Starfleet being run as a civilian agency. We hear about stuff like the Earth-Romulan War, and there seem to have been on-off conflicts with the Klingons as well as the execrable Xindi storyline in Enterprise, but apart from the Xindi there don't seem to have been any actual wars for the Federation to handle (Earth-Romulan war was pre-Federation IIRC). A few isolated battles between individual ships or small units here and there, the occasional showdown, some harassment between antagonists...

Frankly, during that era Starfleet had only a handful of ships, and they were very limited in terms of speed and range- along with being badly outgunned by people like the Klingons.

The "Earth Starfleet" of that era needed their ships to be armed with literally the best weapons Earth could supply (or better!) just to be able to defend themselves against casual bullying. They didn't have the wherewithal to be a fighting navy, or to wage long-distance interstellar wars.

...but no real outright, pitched wars until the Dominion became an actual threat to the Alpha Quadrant. Any other wars that we hear about are always between other races, never actually Earth/the Federation and them, such as Tholians versus Suliban or Klingons versus Romulans or Cardassians and Bajorans.

It is strongly implied that the conflict with the Klingons has gone 'hot' into full-scale warfare at least once during the TOS era, I think. I could have sworn.

Also bearing in mind that some of the 'skirmishing' of the TOS and TNG eras could get pretty intense.

So with that in mind Earth/the Federation probably felt confident enough that they could manage with a civilian rather than a military Starfleet until the Dominion War and the threat of the Borg forced them to militarize.

Now this I agree with.

Elheru Aran wrote:Good point... and wasn't a lot of it nullified anyway by that fucking stupid Temporal Cold War or whatever?

According to STO no it wasn't nullified as they still refer to those events as have happend (the Xindi Ambassador refers to them directly so it's not matter of interpitation either). Though the events are not mentioned in TOS, TNG, DS9 or VOY, though the Xindi might have been in TNG thought it was pronounced "Xendi" there.

Simon_Jester wrote:

...but no real outright, pitched wars until the Dominion became an actual threat to the Alpha Quadrant. Any other wars that we hear about are always between other races, never actually Earth/the Federation and them, such as Tholians versus Suliban or Klingons versus Romulans or Cardassians and Bajorans.

It is strongly implied that the conflict with the Klingons has gone 'hot' into full-scale warfare at least once during the TOS era, I think. I could have sworn.

Also bearing in mind that some of the 'skirmishing' of the TOS and TNG eras could get pretty intense.

In TOS: Errand of Mercy, the Enterprise receives a Code One signal from Starfleet, which Kirk interprets as a full declaration of war with the Klingon Empire, which itself was part of the larger Federation-Klingon Cold War. Then there was the Federation-Klingon War of 2372, which only ended with Gowron resigning the Khitomer Accords.