XPost: rec.arts.sf.tv   
   From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 12 Feb 2026 09:34:34 +1300, Your Name wrote:   
      
   > On 2026-02-11 07:29:11 +0000, Lawrence D´Oliveiro said:   
   >   
   >> An organization where everybody is an officer, and there are no   
   >> enlisted personnel!   
   >   
   > There areplenty of enlisted personnel ... they were original the   
   > expendable "red shirts" (until some fool in charge of the shows decied   
   > to swap the shirt colours around).   
      
   So who does the grunt work now? You’d think they would have more   
   robots. Lots more robots. Remember what I said about automation   
   obviating the necessity for large ship crews?   
      
   >> “Not a purely military force”, yet they go around in fully-armed   
   >> warships. If that’s the kind of deadly force they have access to, I   
   >> wonder what the *actual* “military force” in that universe is like?   
   >   
   > Klingons, Romulans, ...  ;-)   
   >   
   >> What about all those times they went into battle against Romulans   
   >> and Klingons and the Borg and who-knows-what-else? Did they ever   
   >> get backup from a separate “proper” military force?   
   >   
   > That's the "peacekeeping" part.   
      
   On the one hand you are saying that the Federation depends on erstwhile   
   enemies to be the proper “military force”, yet on the other Starfleet   
   on its own was able to defeat their ambitions of conquests in the first   
   place.   
      
   Part-time amateur soldiers do not, as a rule, tend to do well against   
   a professionally-trained fighting force.   
      
   >> Nope. They were it. They *are* the “proper” military force. No ifs or   
   >> buts, no more hemming and hawing about it.   
   >   
   > Military do not do usually do exploration (other then for   
   > reconnaissance purposes) nor diplomacy.   
      
   Which is what I’ve been saying all along. You need professional   
   researchers and explorers to do proper research and exploration. You   
   can’t entrust delicate work to operatives whose fingers are never far   
   from some deadly triggers indeed.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)