XPost: rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.startrek.current, alt.tv.star-trek.ds9   
   From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
      
   rgormannospam@telusplanet.net (David Johnston) writes:   
      
   > On 13 Apr 2004 08:45:05 -0700, hondainsightful@yahoo.com (Troy Heagy)   
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >> What lifestyle in the real world closely resembles life in Starfleet?   
   >> The obvious choice is a Naval career albeit without the "boldly   
   >> exploring" aspect.   
   >   
   > Most of the exploration of the world has actually been carried out   
   > by various navies.  And of course TNG rarely did any exploration.   
      
   Roddenberry wrote that he originally modeled "Starfleet" more after the   
   U.S. Coast Guard than the U.S. Navy. However, by the time TNG roled around,   
   "Starfleet" had clearly become more military, more territorial, and more   
   more bureaucratic and hidebound in nature. However, I suppose that is not   
   unreasonable, given that the Federation had clearly degenerated and ossified   
   into a massively bureaucratic centralized coercive nation-state, from its   
   origin as a relatively free-wheeling, "classically liberal" loose confederacy   
   with a relatively "laissez faire" attitude toward both its member planets   
   and their citizens. (I suppose that might be because Roddenberry, like most   
   people (and like the U.S. itself), had gotten more coercive and "conservative"   
   (or more precisely, _reactionary_) as he got older...)   
      
      
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