ok, forgive me if this seems kind of odd, but i never really knew the true answer to this. is joining starfleet the same as it is like the army or anything (meaning that anyone can join starfleet but to go to the academy you have to get accepted like you would have to get accepted into west point). if this is true, do you start out a higher rank upon graduation if you went to the academy, as opposed to just joining starfleet? or, do you have to get accepted no matter what and the only place you can learn is at the academy? thanks for all the answers.
cary
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Uh ...
In "The Drumhead" Simon Tarsis said he enlisted in Starfleet. He got into the service quicker, but at an enlisted rank. Those who graduate the Academy enter as officers.
One would imagine there is an Officer Candidate School for people who want to be officers in Starfleet (Ensign and up) but don't want to spend four years at S.A.
I think Tarsis attended enlisted training ("boot camp", if you will) on or near Starfleet Academy, since he said he saw the cadets parading around under the same tree Picard has liked to study. However, I'm almost certain this isn't the only "boot camp" in the Federation -- just as I'm sure that Starfleet Academy has branches spread about on various worlds. "I've been accepted to Starfleet Academy - Andoria Prime!"
[ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: Malnurtured Snay ]
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
So, Snay when do you leave for Andoria Prime?
Posted by Michael_T (Member # 144) on :
He'll leave when transporters become safer to use...
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
I imagine that to enter Starfleet one would require a certain familiarity with such concepts as spelling, grammar, punctuation, capital letters, that sort of thing. . .
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
That is, if your species were capable of grasping such a concept.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
It'll take forever for the transporter to become safer, I say we shoot him off in a modified torpedoe casing. We'll pack him extra airplane peanuts for the long trip.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Just to be specific, we have seen everyone's favorite acting ensign take just such a test. Onscreen canon! As it were.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
In this Starfleet Academy entry test in "Coming of Age", four candidates were pitted against each other in a contest where only the winner would be accepted for an "opening" in the Academy. It seems pretty odd whichevery way you look at it.
If there was only one opening for the Academy in general during that year, it's a miracle Starfleet hasn't run out of officers already. More officers than that were killed aboard the E-D alone, even during the relatively bloodless first season of TNG. Why were only these four people eligible for the contest? And why was this contest of galactic importance held out in the sticks on some two-bit outpost?
If, OTOH, there were several openings that year, and this one was a "special" reserved for the best and the brightest, then why didn't Wesley try out one of the other, less "special" openings when he flunked this one? Pride? He'd surely have topped the majority of the competitors in the "lower leagues", if Nog later managed to enter without difficulty.
Or were these four fighting against a special handicap of some sort? Perhaps they had to enter a fiercer competition than the rest because they were underage, or from undesired or already overrepresented population groups, or came recommended by officers who were in political disfavor? Had Picard sponsored a disappointing candidate the year before, which is why his judgement was questioned and Wes subjected to closer scrutiny?
Or were all these four possibly sponsored by Picard? Perhaps they competed for a single sponsorship opening, whereas actual entry after the securing of that sponsorship was a mere formality? Still, Wes ought to have been able to get a new recommendation from some other officer, even if he or she wasn't as surefire a guarantee for entry as Picard would have been. The lowly Sisko got Nog in - surely Cmdr Riker or, say, Capt DeSoto would only have been happy to usher in Wesley.
If Starfleet simply checks the whereabouts of each applicant and arranges for tests in locations that are logistically the most convenient, then this all might make some sense. These four would be but a minor part of, say, 4000 yearly applicants. But then the total score of each of the four should have been compared to those of the other 4000, not just to those of the other 3... Perhaps none of the four would have made it. But considering the quality of other applicants we've seen accepted, all four would probably have qualified. Was it just a freak accident that one out of four here got results over the numerus clausus? Was the quality of entrants especially high overall that year? Was the examining officer prescient or in possession of inside information when he said only one of the four would qualify? Did he rig the contest?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I recall Tac Officer Chang saying that only only one candidate would be accepted from the installation they were at. So, obviously there was more than one opening. Just only one would be taken from that group. Possibly these were all Starfleet brats that were out in the boonies and had no way to test other than this.
But, yes, any way you look at it, it's odd. Why would all of them not be acceptable? Why does Starfleet take 16 year olds? It didn't really make any sense other than as a plot device.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
Of course, and that was the whole point, wasn't it. Who in the ranks of TPTB gives anything about logic?
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
I think its because they were on Relva VII.. lets say that Starfleet Academy has a class of several thousand.. and they take a 1,000 Earth applicants, 1,000 applicants from the planet Vulcan, then maybe a few hundred or so from each of the member worlds, and a few dozen from each colony like Mars or Titan.. by the time you got down to rinky-dink-re-used-Buck-Rogers-installations like Relva VII, there wouldn't be that many spots left. its on the basis of population. Earth probably has 6-8 billion beings on it, so it has a lot of applicants.. Relva might only have a population of a couple hundred, and therefore only gets one applicant accepted..
Its the same reason why its hard for kids here in Rhode Island to go to Brown.. Brown prefers its students to be from out of state, and therefore only has a couple of spots for native Rhode Islanders.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
The differnec is, though, that Starfleet isn't Brown. It's a service organization. I'm having trouble with the idea that entrance has anything to do with population. Starfleet has relatively unlimited resources in the terms of facilities. This is especially so if they have off-world annexes.
So, if we assume that there are several planet-side facilities like the one in San Francisco, I see no reason why all applicants who met the entrance qualifications would not be accepted. Especially in a time of war.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
i still think it was because Relva was backwater. even if Starfleet Academy was huge, had off-world annexes, and could accept exactly 9,423,091 students.. they would still have that limit of 9,423,091 chairs for the kids to sit in, and billions of kids applying from the trillions who inhabit the Federation worlds. Its a fact of life that some of them will need to enlist.
And 2364 was assuredly NOT a time of war.. post Tzenkethi, Talarian, Cardassian, the Klingon peace, and before the Romulan reappearance, the first 24 or so episodes fo TNG were in a time of ridiculous peace for the Federation.. one of the reasons they put a lot of toddlers on their explorers compared to the ships of the Borg-Dominion wars era.
And a time of war isn't an excuse to lower the bar for the admission of your officers. Quite the opposite, in fact it should demand that you train a higher quality of officer. Read 'Starship Troopers'
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I never said it was a time of war. Also we're talking about an organization who seems to be made up, for a large part, of officers. It's been noted before that the officer/enlisted crew ratio is a bit off aboard Starships. There should be many more enlisted crew than we see.
So really, we're already talking about a system that doesn't make alot of sense. We're going to have to ignore a point somewhere.
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
Service acadamies do admit based on population, even more than say Brown or Princeton. In order to be admitted to one of the United States' service acadamies (excluding the Coast Guard), you need to secure a nomination from a Congressman, Senator, Vice President, or President. V-P and Pres are reserved for sons and daughters of people who were in the service. So the rest of the applicant pool seek Congressional and Senatorial nominations. These officials can only give out so many nominations based on the population of their district. This is part of the actual admissions process, unlike an unwritten rule as such with schools like Brown or Princeton.
And why would Wesley admit under the jurisdiction of Relva VII? He lives aboard a Federation starship. I would imagine that instead of subjecting ship/facility applicants to backwater towns, they would have a separate division for them, just as the acadamies allow for a quota (for lack of a better term) of enlisted personnel to enter.
Then again, if Starfleet works like the Armed Forces, then Wesley could practically walk into the Academy. His mother is an officer and his father was killed in the line of duty.
And the Acadmies are smaller than most other schools, most likely as Starfleet Academy is still much smaller than other twenty-fourth century universities. They have the luxury of taking the best of the best, and have only the facilities they need to do such a job. Just about everybody at the Naval Academy was captain of a team, or president of the student council.
But as has been pretty well established in Trek, instead of nominations from the Federation Council, applicants must procur them from Starfleet officers, which makes sense. I rather like the concept for the Star Trek universe actually. In which case, it might've been something like the following:
Wesley: Will you nominate me for the Academy, Captain Pickard?
Picard: GET THE FUCK OFF MY BRIDGE!
LATER...
Picard: Hey, Will, wanna hear something hilarious? Wesley wanted me to nominate him for the academy!
[They fall onto the floor and urinate themselves laughing so hard]
Riker: On the other hand, sir. It would get him off the ship and on the other side of the Federation.
Picard: Mmm, you make an interesting point. Make it so...
(as an interesting aside, it has been discussed more than once that when and if the United States were to form a space based service as an independent branch of the armed services, that Embry-Riddle would become it's academy. Such conversations always label the as yet unformed academy as Starfleet Academy, for obvious reasons. But if it did happen, I'd be the only one here able to claim that I graduated from Starfleet Academy. )
[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: OnToMars ]
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
Aban.. I dont think we have enough information about populations & admittance standards for you to declare it doesnt make sense.. especially since OnToMars points out that that is exactly how academies work now.
And reading Starship Troopers did really change the way i think about how both Starfleet and present militaries work.. i'd recommend it to anyone who has a question on this (like whoever started this thread.. im too lazy to scroll and see)
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well, OnToMars' post does make alot of sense, but since he posted it after I made my remarks, how exactly was I supposed to be taking his comment into consideration...?
Anyway. The point I'm making (or rather trying to make) is that the admissions standards in "Coming of Age" don't make sense when one considers other episodes that have touched on the issue. How does Wesley get rejected when (as was also pointed out by OnToMars) he's the son of two officers, he's already saved the Enterprise lord knows how many times, he's already an acting Ensign (right?). More importantly, how does he get rejected and someone like Tasha Tar get in? Wanna talk about backwater...Tasha was from God-forsaken hole of a colony. How many best of the best qualities do you think she displayed? I'm not saying that she didn't turn out to be a decent officer, I'm saying that, in light of all that, the standards Wesley and company were being measured under don't make alot of sense.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
It could have been a major government conspiracy to keep Wesley out of Starfleet...
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I like that idea. So what you're saying is, there was no way he was going to pass that test...
Hmmmmm...
Ah, they should've just killed him. Transporter accidents happen, you know.
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
[Wesley begins to materialize. O'Brian pushes a few buttons and the boy wonder begins to flicker in an out of existence.]
O'Brian: I'm losing the pattern, Captain...
Picard: Can you...
O'Brian: Nope.
Picard: But you didn't even hear what I was going to say...
O'Brian: Sorry, Captain. There's nothing I can do.
[O'Brian pulls out a hammer and starts pounding the console.]
Data: Chief, try...
O'Brian: Already did.
Dr. Crusher: ( a la Helen Lovejoy) Won't some one PLEASE think of my child!
O'Brian: Sorry, ma'am. I did all I could.
[He pulls a phaser and melts the still functioning pad.]
Did we ever get a detailed bio on Tasha? Perhaps she enlisted and then got into the Academy that way?
[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: OnToMars ]
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I suppose it's possible that she was an enlisted security crewman and went through officer candidate school or something. But she seems awfully young to have served as a crewman for for a few years, gone back to school, then worked her way up to the rank of Lt. and the head of a department aboard the flagship.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
quote:Originally posted by OnToMars: O'Brian: Sorry, ma'am. I did all I could.
[He pulls a phaser and melts the still functioning pad.]
He probably also pissed in the pattern buffer, just to be sure. Good old chief O'Brian.
I always thought it was kind weird that a bunch of Lts would be holding what would be considered very important and senior positions onboard the flagship of Starfleet. A Lt for chief engineer, and another for chief of security? Wouldn't they have prefered to have someone with a few more years under the belt taking such important positions?
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
Picard hand-picked Riker as his first officer and we're criticizing his choice of low-ranked engineers?
Not sure what Picard was thinking, but its pretty clear he hand-picked just about everyone (except maybe Bev Crusher.. she made him nervous). Tasha impressed him in the Carnellian minefield. Geordi impressed him on some shuttle trip. He liked young Lt. Cmdr Riker's service record of talking back to the center chair. It's pretty clear that Picard was in charge of picking his crew, and he picked talent over more established ranking officers. When the Galaxy class was originally commissioned, it was pictured as a long-range explorer with 20 year missions, so perhaps it was considered important to pick youthful crewpeople who would become seasoned on the way (of course the Romulans and the beginning of the Borg-era disrupted Starfleet's 'pure exploration' era of goals, so the Enterprise spent more time NOT exploring after season 3 and 4). And since Picard was picked specifically for his experience as a previous commander of a 20 year long range mission, he seems to have been given a lot of leeway.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I doubt Starfleet ships would literally get missions of "20 years thataway without crew rotation". Some might, but not the ones we would get to see up close in the shows... We got Voyager and we won't get another. Nevertheless, there would be a variety of excuses we could use for the variety of junior officers on the E-D.
Picard could handpick some people like Riker and Tasha. Some would be assigned because of the publicity value of having them aboard the Federation Flagship - Worf, at least, perhaps also Troi. The Chief Engineers could be juniors because this was a "training mission" for them - a new ship type for which a new breed of engineers had to be raised, explaining the rapid rotation of CEOs during the first season. The training period would then conveniently end when it was LaForge's turn to sit in that chair (Picard would see to it that this happened...).
Onboard training would be an issue on many hardwware-related positions on that ship - Ops, Conn etc. If the hardware was common with the rest of the fleet (transporters, shuttles, waste recycling, astrography?), then a more standard selection of already trained and senior personnel would be used.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Good points Timo. Though it does seem that the Enterprise's original schedule was disprupted by political events. The Romulans. The Borg. Then later on, the Maquis and the Cardies.
Having plans for the ship to be out in the sticks for several years may also explain the presence of families, children, and other civilians on board.
Though, the Stargazer wasn't necessarily on a long range exploration mission. Apparently they were in the area during the Cardie Wars. Picard simply commanded that ship for that long.
And I'm still sticking with my opinion that he had another command between the Stargazer and the Enterprise Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Just saw "The Apple," thought it worth mentioning (unless someone here already has and I missed it): an Ensign Mallory (so credited, but wears a Lieutenant's stripe) dies; Kirk says Mallory's father was the one who recommended Kirk to the Academy.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
It seems that he took 9 years off just wandering around the Federation waiting for lt. j.g.s to impress him so he could handpick them...
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
So, today's ep on E4 was "The Apple." Then, ronight's TNG ep on BBC2 is "Coming of Age." Spooky. This has been happening all week, the other day I needed to see "Mirror, Mirror" for a proposed Mirror Universe weapons page, guess what's that day's ep on E4? Plus the day before they showed "The Changeling," the only TOS ep I'd never seen. . .
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I've got a pic I want to send to you, Voggie. It's a shot from one of the desktop calendars of Jake from "Nor the Battle to the Strong". He's holding a kind of Phaser that I've never seen before. The scene must've been cut from the ep...I'm going to have to go find that tonight...
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
"Voggie?" Oh well, turnabout's fair play, Runeychops. Looking forward (no pun intended) to it. . . You still got my email address? 8)
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I brought it in today...I'll scan it in a bit and post it on my server so everyone can take a gander. It'll be in the tech forum...
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
)![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I brought it in today...I'll scan it in a bit and post it on my server so everyone can take a gander. It'll be in the tech forum...