Can anyone give me one good reason not to believe in this? When there is historical precesadence between the the United States and the individual states... why can't Earth have it's own defense force like the individual states did? The Articles of Confederation were drafted in 1781 and after the founding of the Continental Army [which had to be around for the Revolutionary war]. As well each of the colonies had their own defensive forces since their beginning.
So, in US History:
Colony defense forces Continental Army + state defense forces
ST History: Earth defense forces Starfleet + Earth defense forces
Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Mainly because supposedly the post- "First Contact" Earth is no longer being driven by selfish nationalistic motivations, whereas such feelings have been predominant in most human stuff so far and certainly were the main factor behind the formation of the state militias in the US.
Of course, it would make sense for the 22nd century humans to be just as self-centered and paranoid as the humans of today are. And to be fair, things don't seem much different in the enlightened 24th century, either. But supposedly there is a drive in the Trek history towards greater unity and away from selfish motivations, and independent defence organizations for any given subgroup (say, for an Earth nation during Earth's pre-Federation unification, or for Earth during the interstellar pre-Federation unification let alone *after* the founding of the Federation) would ill fit that drive.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
But in TOS unity didn't seem forefront... Mudd, Cyrano Jones, Baris Nilz, and others seemed to be out for themselves. Even some Starfleet personnel [or rather Humans will a lot of Brass on their shoulders whether they were UESPA or Starfleet] seemed to be only concerned with Earth.
However, I even see that Earth is the centerpiece of the Federation. The Dominion recognize this, the Borg do/did, and many others do as well. But still in the 24th century we've got people that are solely concerned with Earth as Earth, not as the Federation's capital planet.
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
Even if UESPA and Starfleet don't co-exist as completely autonomous units, it's stil entirely possible (probable, in fact) that in the species-segregated era of TOS, each planet has a certain degree of control over "their" starships. The Enterprise was called an "Earth ship" on many occasions, and there was never any indication of aliens aboard save Spock, who was even half human. For purposes of defense or other "common interest" goals, Starfleet calls the shots, but UESPA is allowed to send the Enterprise on UESPA missions provided there isn't a more pressing need. Maybe there are a Vulcan Space Exploration Fleet, Andorian Mission Control, and Arcturian Space Force that are the operating authorities behind the ships crewed exclusively by Vulcans, Andorians, and Arcturians. The Federation of TOS was much more like the United Nations than the United States, even if a hundred years later it was a central authority.
-=Ryan McReynolds=-
[ June 21, 2001: Message edited by: Ryan McReynolds ]