Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Starfleet Corps of Marines?

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

You know, I'm watching the Dominion War episodes ... and I'm hearing references to "troops" and "troopships" ... and you know, the explanation from "AR-45whatever" that they're Starfleet SECURITY doesn't fly with me at all.

Security people are trained to provide security. That means breaking up domestic fights on Starships with families, etc. Look, they're Starfleet's cops, ok? They've got cool weapons, they're really trained weapons ... but I doubt Starfleet would fight a ground war with Security people.

Does Starfleet have a Marine Corps?

There is VERY striking evidence ... Rene Auberjonis played an officer in Star Trek VI ... do you remember him presenting plans to the CIC and Admiral Cartwright? Do you remember how they addressed him? "Colonel." Colonel? Why would they call someon a Colonel unless he WAS a Colonel?!

This is how I picture it: during peacetime, Starfleet maintains a small Marine Corps. This means a handful Generals, some officers, maybe a couple thousand troops, who are used primarily in peace keeping missions (i.e.: a member world experiences a famine, the Marines move in to provide security for the relief effort).

Also during peacetime, Starfleet naval personnel can select to recieve additional training in Marine Officer School for Naval officers, and Troop/Infantry School for the enlisted ranks. Upon graduation, they would recieve a commission to go into effect during war only as a Marine officer/soldier. In a time of war, these personnel will be transferred to the Marine Corps and their ranks switched to Marine ranks. I.E. -an ensign would be switched to the Marines and become a 2nd Lt. A Lt. Commander would become a Major and so on. Starfleet would maintain enough of a permenant Marine Corps that the assimilation of these "Navy/Marine" officers/troops would provide only little hardship (perhaps a Reserve program would be run, you serve 6 weeks a year training with other Navy/Marine units?)

This is the best explanation I have. I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts.

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

You know, I'm going off on a tangent here, but I was reading some other topics earlier, and I remember someone bringing up the question of how many people Starfleet had in it ...

The Federation has 150 Member Worlds (give or take). Most of those member worlds have colonies. Shall we say a total of 6 or 700 colonies? Earth, for example, would probably have fifty or more colonies, Andor might have a couple dozen, etcetra.

The populations of these worlds would vary from a few million to, possibly, a couple billion. The population of the UFP would be ... I don't know, shall we guess? Several hundred billion.

How many of those would be intereasted in joining Starfleet? I mean, DAMN! Even just 1% would be a LOT of personnel, don't you think? I mean, we're talking a Naval fleet with potentially over a billion people in it!!!! And 1% isn't an unreasonable number, either. How many people did you go to school with join the military?

Starfleet would need a HELL of a lot of places to train these people. I can easily imagine Starfleet Academy, San Francisco; Starfleet Academy, Andor Prime; Starfleet Academy, Rigel IV, etc, etc. In addition to that, of course, you'd have OCS - Officer Command School- (to commission regular college/university graduates & qualified enlisted personnel as Starfleet Officers), OIS - Officer Indoctrination School (to train staff officers ... JAG lawyers, doctors, etcetra, in the proper etiquette of Starfleet service), and how many enlisted training facilities? How many ships would you need to TRAIN all these people? Good lord!

I'm really going off on a tangent. Please, shoot me now.

Now, you've got the various missions of Starfleet. Exploration, humanitarian aid, interdiction, etc. You've got hundreds of Starbases and outposts established to support Federation and Allied shipping, as well as providing for the maintenance of the fleet. You've got countless shipyards, repair docks, supply facilities. You've got communication relays, sensor posts, listening posts, and so on and so on.

At any given time, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers might be helping build a Starport on a Member World, while a half-dozen medical ships are assisting at a disaster on a colony world half-way off the beaten shipping track, and a detachment of security personnel (or Marines?!) are providing security for a relief team on a colony which is experiencing a famine.

Damn. I told you to shoot me!!!!

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Bang!

Anyway, while there's evidence for a section of Starfleet that is dedicated towards more traditional ground combat roles, there's nothing to suggest they're called "Marines", though that would be the obvious choice, or even that they're under a seperate command.

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

I think there has been strong enough evidence over the years that Starfleet does have marine corps, whether they are called that or not. As heavily steeped as SF is in Earth Naval traditions, though, Marines seems like an appropriate name.

I doubt the line dividing duties is that clear though (Starfleet personel on ships, Marines on planetside assignments) since we have seen SF officers on planetside starbases and we saw the Enterprise crew go on relief missions all the time.

The kicker for me was when they introduced new uniforms in "Nor the Battle to the Strong". And what's more, you saw those new "marine uniforms" and the regular DS9 style uni's serving together, almost like there were two...different...groups...hmmm.

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Posted by Nemesis (Member # 255) on :

Yes, these black uniforms (with only a department stripe over chest) struck me as odd!
There must be some kind of marines in Starfleet. It is impossible to wage a war only with Security-Officers.

And i think in a DS9 Episode it was mentioned that the Defiant had patrol duty to do (I don't recall the episode at the moment)and protect a Starfleet Troop Carrier.

So i think there is a seperate Department in Starfleet (Marine Corps) just doing this kind of war things and wearing these black uniforms.

I think something like this was explained in one of the LastUnicorn RPG books, although they are not canon.

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

The episode was "Waltz" ... the Defiant was taking its time to go guard these ships b/c it was looking for Sisko.

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Well, what I mean by having the dual commissioning, is that these Naval officers who qualify as Marines would only be called into duty by a War or such. Presumably, the Federation Council would have to give the "ok" to authorize this, at which time those officers and enlisted would become Marines, go by Marine ranks, wear Marine uniforms, etcetra. Simply being on a planet wouldn't suddenly mean they'd be called by their Marines ranks.

There would be a very small existing Marine Corps already ... maybe no more than 4,000. This would barely be enough to preform more than one relief operation, and they would probably only go in if it was going to be an extended mission. When the ENTERPRISE does a relief mission, she's usually the first ship on the scene, and has a large enough crew to handle things herself.

(i.e.: the Enterprise goes in first, then the other supply ships arrive, along with a Marine detachment, who set up security for the relief effort, and relieve the Enterprise of the duty, which is then freed up to go back to "boldly going")

If that makes any sense.

Posted by spyone on :

a message in two parts:

part One
i agree that Starfleet has Ground combat Specialists. According to DS9, there must be thousands of them. What they are called is never established.
I agree that the logical thing to call them is "marines", because a Marine is " one of a class of soldiers serving on shipboard or in close association with a naval force".
I have found that many people in other parts of the world, intelligent and orherwise rational people, equate the word "marine" with a ruthless mindless killing machine that will rape and kill civilians when no enemy is convenient, and they cannot be disuaded from this definition.

Part two:

as time marches on, the economy changes. As the economy changes, the society can support a larger percentage of the population in the peacetime armed forces. since the Industrial Revolution or so, western industrialized nations could support a peace-time army of 1% their population.
So, completely discounting Starfleet's scientific role (and budget, and the people thus supported), their military budget can support 1% the population of the Federation (or more). 150 member worlds with an average population of 6 billion (sheer conjecture based on the current and future population of Earth), give one 9 billion people in Starfleet.

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Ok, given an estimated size of Starfleet at 9 billion, we're talking a HUGE institution here. How many starships, starbases, outposts, relay posts, research facilities, ground facilities, training facilities, etcetra would it take to give 9 billion people something to do?

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

So lets say Starfleet's got 800 Starbases dedicated to the minor repair of her fleets, and to serving as bases of economic development for the Federation. These starbases' officer/crew/civilian compliment varies widely, from 300 aboard DS9 (number given in the early seasons, before it got "popular" with the Dominion), to say 10,000 aboard those really big stations we saw in almost EVERY one of the TOS films.

Then, of course, you've got the shipyards and drydocks. I don't even want to GUESS how many of these there are. Each would probably be fairly well staffed by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, and could conceivably staff upwards of 60,000 or A LOT MORE officers and crew there depending on how many ships are being constructed at any one time.

You've got the little posts. The communications relays (with maybe 2 people aboard, tops), the defense nets (lightly crewed, if even), listening posts, etcetra, etcetra. You've got research facilities for science, medical, weapons, anything you can name. Hell, you've probably got Starfleet personnel running around the Federation doing pro-bono work!

Then you've got the Starships. A Galaxy-Class with a crew of nearly 1,000 (including non-Starfleet personnel, but I doubt very many of them, not more than 150 or so), down to an Oberth- with maybe 20 aboard.

Good lord this organization is huge. I'm imaging the titles on the doors of Starfleet Command's Operation Division:

Admiral In Charge Of Starfleet Operations
Admiral In Charge Of Supplying Outposts
Admiral In Charge of Supplying Starbases
Admiral In Charge of Supplying Sol System Starships
Admiral In Charge of Supplying Vulcan System Starships
Admiral In Charge of Supplying Correct Sized Condoms

and so on, and so on

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Black uniform? What? Where? Screencaps anyone?

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

"Khartoum is in the room." - Soul Coughing

These particular uniforms were literally all over the place in DS9's "Nor The Battle To The Strong".

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Posted by bear (Member # 124) on :

I like to think that the Marine division is composed mainly of enlisted men. Marine officers would be security officers that chose the Marine division instead of transfering to the Command division.

I also like to think for the most part the marines is a laughably small division,which explains why most security officers eventually transfer to command. For all we know the Marines could have been dispanded after STVI. Hell... I could see enlisted marines being discharged , and marine officers either returning to command, security, or intellegence branches.

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Well, the only example I can remember of a unit of what I consider to be Starfleet Marines was in the Siege of AR-558 or whatever the number was. There we had a group of black uniforms with a female CO in a regular Starfleet uniform. I believe she stated that the Captain had been killed, so here we have a captian in charge of the unit. A command officer, not a security or tactical officer. There were also several other regular uniforms walking around, though they were probably the group of scientists repairing the facility that was being held by the Marine unit.

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Posted by Nemesis (Member # 255) on :

Yes that's one of two!
Then first episode with Starfleet Marines and these Black Uniforms was DS9 "Nor the battle to the strong".

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

To be accurate, the female lieutenant in red regular uniform said that both the Captain and the Commander had been killed. Since "Commander" is a purely naval expression, this suggests that the "Captain" was not an Army rank (0-3) but a Navy one (0-6), equivalent to an Army Colonel.

A Colonel in charge of just 150 men. Hmm... Might give us a hint on how these "Starfleet Marines" do things. Or perhaps the initial force was bigger still, and when mentioning casualties, the people Sisko met were only speaking of their local unit. The Captain/Colonel could have been in charge of several such units, of which the remnants of the one we saw were the only survivors.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :

Black uni's, no no, std. battle fatigues and body armour. One doesn't go into battle with just officer uniform.

if memory serves me right they were black sweat suits, re. voyager, with shoulder pads

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

I remember, "Nor the Battle to the Strong", but we didn't really see a unit structure IIRC. There were just some guys scattered here and there. Units were mentioned, but we didn't get any info.

I meant a naval captain in my above post. I meant to suggest, that the enlisted marine unit seemed to be under the command of a group of naval officers. Perhaps there was a ship that landed the troops on the outpost and was damaged...

It's possible that the troops had body armor on, though there was no mention of it, but the black uniforms were clearly different in design from the voyger ones being used at the time of their introduction in "NTBTTS". The best way to describe them is the current fleet uniforms except, where there is a textured grey shoulder stripe now, there was a black shoulder stripe. The dickie underneath was division color IIRC, but looked more like a simple turtleneck. There was also a thin division color stripe between the shoulder area and the rest of the uniform.

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Maybe she was refering to what the "Commander" was wearing on his collar. Some "company" sized units are commanded by a Major/Lt. Commander grade, she, being Star Fleet, would call him Commander by default, since the pipping may be the same, as it is in the US Military.

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Posted by SFMC Major on :

This discussion is quite intriguing as it is, but I think I can provide another element to make it more interesting. I am part of a large group of people that use AOL chatrooms to stage RPGs. There are several different groups that do this, and I am in one that possesses a sim based on the Starfleet Marine corps in which I am a Major. There are a lot of different opinions on what's what with the SFMC but I can give you the perspective of my group, and feel free to post questions or email them to me at [email protected]. Basically the SFMC is a separate division of the Starfleet Navy. the SFMC has about 30-50% the personnel population the Navy enjoys and grows much larger during wartime. I am in command of a company of Marines which is about 4 platoons of 40 Marines. which is 160 men, you go on to add a reinforced platoon of 50, with 10 navy security to add to that platoon and that makes 210 Marines plus 10 Navy security. Now, the Marines in this group are like the US Army and Marine Corps put together, and the Navy Security that goes along with the SFMC is the equivalent of the Navy Seals. Fleet security let me remind you acts autonomously as well as in addition to Marine units. Now my group has a view of the SFMC that is not very widely shared, but it seems to be popular among a lot of RPGers as indicated by our recruitment margins. We've gained about a 50% growth as opposed to the fleets 20-30%. Now I am going off on a tangent here, but as a member of this group and an officer to boot, I am bombarded with these conflicting opinions and find it hard to pick which ones are true, but in the end. There really is no true opinion about the SFMC, it just seems to be a mixture of canon and non-canon information swirled into an amalgum of unreliable ideas and concepts. However, it is a hell of a lot of fun to RP. Right now the group is fighting a conflict that is somewhat similar to the Vietnam war particularly, Dak To. It's not exactly like Dak To, but it follows it rather loosely and most members are enjoying it. Like I said feel free to ask questions. Right now all I can say is the SFMC might not be canon, but it is fun and intersting to speculate about.

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Thanks for the contribution! I hope you keep looking around Flare and keep posting! Any new perspective is *always* welcome =)

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Posted by SFMC Major on :

Absolutely

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Starfleet Marines don't study scientific things, they take it to boot camp and teach it a thing or two about being a Marine, then it shuts up and stops bothering everybody

Posted by spyone on :

quote:
How many of those would be intereasted in joining Starfleet? I mean, DAMN! Even just 1% would be a LOT of personnel, don't you think? I mean, we're talking a Naval fleet with potentially over a billion people in it!!!! And 1% isn't an unreasonable number, either. How many people did you go to school with join the military?

FYI, the US Military comrises about 1% of the population, as does the military of most other industrialized, first-world nations. It is a sign of a post-industrial economy that it can support a peacetime, standind military of 1% the population (compared with 0.1% for a feudal economy).
With 150 member worlds, at a conjectured average population of 6,000,000,000, you get a budget that will support a military with 9,000,000,000 members.

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Posted by spyone on :

OOPS!

I said virtually the same thing about 2 months ago.

DOH!

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Posted by SFMC Major on :

As far as this 1% population of the military thing goes, I'm not entirely sure how accurate that is. I think it's pretty close to the mark, but I can't say as I'm sure, in the group civilian to military population ratios aren't really something we focus on. Let's face it compared with the lives (or what we see of them) of the people in Starfleet civilian life would be pretty damn dull, nobody wants a sim about people who work as HR directors or computer programmers, unless they're programming a computer with a phaser in hand. I've never seen any RPG group try to emulate the idea that Will Wright put forth in his game "The Sims".

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Starfleet Marines don't study scientific things, they take it to boot camp and teach it a thing or two about being a Marine, then it shuts up and stops bothering everybody

Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :

The 9 billion number could be a good estimate.

But - only if it includes the "army" or "national guard" type ground units the each world would (might) likely have for self defense. (i.e. to keep 20000 Dominion troops from being able to take over the planet)

Perhaps these troops would augment the Marines or SF security forces?

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

I think its a given that each member world has its own military, but at the same time supports Starfleet with Officer Exchange Programs, joint exercises, and of course TAXES! =)

But would that 1% 9,000,000,000 in Starfleet include these? I don't know (although, they would fall under command - I'm sure - of a Starfleet Commander during times of war, probably swelling the numbers...)

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Starfleet Operations
Starfleet Combat Operations
Starfleet Naval Operations
Starfleet Marine Corps Operations
Starfleet Diplomatic Operations
Starfleet Colony Operations
Starfleet Research & Developement Operations
Starfleet Intelligence
Starfleet Communications
Starfleet Backgammon League

Plus the para-military groups, Civial Air Patrol, Young Jarheads, Sea Cadets, etc....

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