posted
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.
posted
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.
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx
posted
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
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.
------------------ 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
------------------ 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
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.
------------------ You're a Starfleet Officer. "Weird" is part of the job.
posted
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".
------------------ 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
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
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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