Revisiting the Starfleet officer:enlisted ratio

[General Zod]

Geordi in Season 2 was a bog standard Lieutenant.

He was quickly promoted to Lieutenant Commander after being made chief engineer, though.

[Mr Bean]

I agree on that and other objections you raise, but I would point out that you're assuming the scheme was actually well-implemented. I'm not saying it was necessarily well-implemented, only that this is what they might have been thinking. We know that enlisted personnel still exist, so we need to explain the bizarre ratio.

Let me put it this way, if it's a modified Havenit system then the enlisted are poorly trained or inflexibly trained. IE they are damaged controlled and then trained only to work in one section to do one job then cycled out of starfleet or to a different ship or dead.

One of the largest sticking points, the biggest unknowns is we do not know how Starfleet handles their enlistment/commissions. Seeing as how Picard gave Wesley a bervert commision as Ensign tells us nothing as that is within the rights of both the Haven system, our own modern system and even the old 18th sailing traditions. Captain's have broad authority in this regard for this kind of on the spot promotions, they simply have to answer questions when they get back to port.

So that tells us nothing, what evidence do we have or examples on how a Federation citizin becomes an enlisted member of Starfleet? Does he sign a contract? Is he drafted? Is he selected via some unknown method? (Standardized testing in basic education? Random number generators and a list of citizens? Wash out's from the Star fleet academy?)

If I knew how someone goes about joining Starfleet as a non-officer I could explain the ratio, as it is there is insufficient data. We don't know of any examples of people being forced to go to the Academy, so therefor the officer core must be all volunteers, only in extreme cases(Voyager) have we seen anyone(The Marquees) being forced to join and given rank and that was a survival situation. In all standard cases we can assume officer=volunteer.

But how do enlisted come about? Do we know how O'Brien joined?

[Uraniun235]

We know how Crewman Tarses joined, in a limited sense - he went through the Academy Enlisted Training Program, because he didn't want to spend four years in classrooms, he wanted to get in space as quickly as possible.

[Lonestar]

In the modern US Navy I can speak for 20-1 Enlisted to officer ratio's and in officer heavy slots that goes down to 6-1 or in extremely rare cases 4-1. However Star Trek as depicted we see 6-1 as standard with some departments(Notably Medical and Security) where we see 2-1 or even 1-1. It always struck me when I watched TNG that Dr Crusher had about two attendants and no dedicated nurses. Voyager as well, there was but a single Doctor. If the EMT were standard and always on in Federation ships but there's a reason we like to get second opinions in medicine. Even if they were pull 12/12 shifts I expect a bare minimum of two doctors, and five attendants... minimum. Part of that is most likely budget. Or it's likely all budget but still...

On my ship of 400ish we didn't have a Doctor, just a HMC and 2 Corpsman. Voyager has less personnel than a USN CG.

[Mr Bean]

On my ship of 400ish we didn't have a Doctor, just a HMC and 2 Corpsman. Voyager has less personnel than a USN CG.

Is your CG designed and staffed for multi-year independent cruises?

[Lonestar]

Is your CG designed and staffed for multi-year independent cruises?

No, but neither was Voyager

[Mr Bean]

No, but neither was Voyager

Voyager was a Intrepid class which according to Wiki only had 150 man crew... wait... is that right?
*Edit, yep some checking shows 141-153 crewman aboard the Voyager...

Wait 150? And they had a doctor? Well it make sense except it makes the observed manning issues all the more insane if they only have 150 people total. Per the show you need 18 for the bridge, 40 for the engineering spaces. Lets say Nelix has a single helper(And boy is that a shit job), 24 security/Damage control department... so that leaves 66 personnel to do everything else on the ship.

That makes sense considering the tight crew constraints to only have a single Doctor/helper in that circumstance.

[Lusankya]

Do we know how O'Brien joined?

Apparently his father was forcing him to become a famous cellist, but he didn't want to do that, so he ran off and enlisted at Star Fleet Academy. He also said that he never really got the hang of fixing stuff until a year after he left the Academy. I'm inclined to take that last bit with a grain of salt, since he was probably just trying to make Jake feel better, but I seem to recall him saying the same kind of thing to either Bashir or Sisko on one of those occasions where they get stuck on some random planet. That could have something to do with him being enlisted rather than an officer.

[Alex Moon]

Possibly, by the time of TNG, Starfleet had begun to absorb exploration / scientific elements that were once relatively independent agencies. Here in the real world, the Public Health Service and the NOAA both commission officers for legal purposes. The reasons for doing so (Geneva Convention protections) could apply in a similar way for the Federation. With a carryover of that tradition, increased scientific focus onboard starships would drive up the number of officers as these organizations became a standard part of the crew, without seeing a corresponding rise in enlisted / NCOs.

IIRC, Troi had to actually pass an exam before she was qualified to hold a command position, which goes against the nature of the commissioned officer, but would fit with a system where there were a lot of 'specialist' commisions.

[Glom]

Related to military structure, Starfleet is the single military organisation for the Federation, whereas today, militaries tend to come in threes: army, navy, air force (four if you include marines I think they're grouped under Navy).

What does this show about Starfleet as compared with modern militaries?

(Serious question since I'd like to understand why we do things the way we do and I'm hoping the answer will help me do that.)

[Ted C]

Related to military structure, Starfleet is the single military organisation for the Federation, whereas today, militaries tend to come in threes: army, navy, air force (four if you include marines I think they're grouped under Navy).

What does this show about Starfleet as compared with modern militaries?

(Serious question since I'd like to understand why we do things the way we do and I'm hoping the answer will help me do that.)

The modern military has three big categories because land warfare, air warfare, and ocean warfare are substantially different skill sets with substantially different equipment needs -- although there is obviously significant crossover.

Similarly, ship-to-ship combat in space is a much different skill set from controlling surface territory, with different technical needs. Starfleet, however, seems to give little attention to the latter.

[Batman]

Well theoretically if you can maintain space superiority you won't HAVE to worry about surface combat because there's not going to BE any thanks to the enemy never being able to LAND to begin with.
Which of course ignores the possibility of enemy troops already BEING on the ground, either smuggled in or because it's a civil war and the combatants where there from the word go, leave alone Starfleet's obvious inability to MAINTAIN space superiority what with there routinely being only a single ship withing days range of a trouble spot, but then, nobody ever accused Starfleet of being excessively competent.

[RedImperator]

No, but neither was Voyager

Voyager was a Intrepid class which according to Wiki only had 150 man crew... wait... is that right?
*Edit, yep some checking shows 141-153 crewman aboard the Voyager...

Wait 150? And they had a doctor? Well it make sense except it makes the observed manning issues all the more insane if they only have 150 people total. Per the show you need 18 for the bridge, 40 for the engineering spaces. Lets say Nelix has a single helper(And boy is that a shit job), 24 security/Damage control department... so that leaves 66 personnel to do everything else on the ship.

That makes sense considering the tight crew constraints to only have a single Doctor/helper in that circumstance.

Voyager seems pretty undermanned. It has more volume than a Connie and a quarter of the crew. Then again, the Galaxies in peacetime operate at something like 1/3 capacity, so it could be that Starfleet just builds its ships with far more capacity than they need for day-to-day operations. That would fit with Mike's initial hypothesis--perhaps that extra capacity is there as a reserve for wartime situations, when ships' crews are bulked up with masses of enlisted men (reasonable if you're expecting to need many hands for damage control and as replacements for combat losses). Or since Starfleet doesn't appear to have dedicated troop transports, the capacity might be there to allow any Starfleet vessel to act as a troop transport in wartime (borne out in part by "Yesterday's Enterprise", where E-D was a troop transport in addition to a battleship).

Alternately, they were in a hurry to get Voyager into the Badlands and she left DS9 undermanned, but I never got the impression the ship was suffering from personnel shortages, just that they had little excess manpower with which to absorb losses.

[Uraniun235]

David Gerrold, one of the initial TNG producers, thought that the Enterprise-D's "operation crew" was roughly the same size as Kirk's Enterprise: Ent-D's crew was about 450 operations personnel, 350 scientists and technicians, and 200 civilian tagalongs. Voyager may have simply left with few fewer of the usual complement of "gaseous anomaly experts", "20th century historians", and other such personnel that often accompany Starfleet ships, since they were basically just out for a quick two-week search-and-capture mission.

[Glom]

The modern military has three big categories because land warfare, air warfare, and ocean warfare are substantially different skill sets with substantially different equipment needs -- although there is obviously significant crossover.

Similarly, ship-to-ship combat in space is a much different skill set from controlling surface territory, with different technical needs. Starfleet, however, seems to give little attention to the latter.

What does seem weird is how each branch seems to have the ability to do the jobs of the others although to a lesser degree. The Air Force maintains regiments. The army has an air wing. The Navy has an air wing and regiments in the form of marines who are supposed to be of an even higher standard than the army itself (Lois Griffin: "The army is lame. Now the marines: those are the guys you wanna fuck!"). It seems the Navy is the only one to have monopoly on its specialism.

In particular, what is the point of having a separate Air Force? Sea based air power is maintained by the Navy. Can't land based air power be maintained by the Army, since they already have air power anyway?

On the Star Trek issue, I suppose it would be difficult to project the divison of land, sea and air to space. Starfleet is clearly analogous to the Federation Navy, but by the nature of its ships, it would have power over the air as well. That would explain why we can't see anything resembling an Air Force. The concept is redundant in the interstellar age. Now the Army, well we've seen how they seem lack effective ground combat. Evidence of a marine force would have given the whole structure more credibility.

[RedImperator]

To be fair to Starfleet, it's pretty easy to imagine them in a political situation where they can't maintain a credible ground force* and they can't resort to orbital bombardment* and they can't get enough ships to maintain space superiority everywhere. In universe, I can imagine many of Starfleet's lamebrain ideas originating on the desk of some bureaucrat somewhere. Of course, it's also possible, given the attitudes seen from some Trek characters (especially in early TNG), that the current Starfleet admiralty doesn't want a credible ground force.

*This has historical precedent, in the United States of all places. The United States refused to maintain a peacetime standing army, considering it a threat to liberty, for most of the 19th and early 20th centuries, even while it went through several periods of serious naval construction.

**Actually, it's perfectly understandable why the Federation would not want to resort to indiscriminate orbital bombardment, but Starfleet lacks any other tool to deal with an occupied planet.

[Uraniun235]

Given the limited carrying capacity of Starfleet ships, I can very well see why any Federation ground force would be under Starfleet (within the 'unified service' that Kirk described) rather than a wholly separate branch. Larger armies could then be the jurisdiction of those planets that wanted to raise them.

**Actually, it's perfectly understandable why the Federation would not want to resort to indiscriminate orbital bombardment, but Starfleet lacks any other tool to deal with an occupied planet.

A planet is a pretty huge place, and I have a hard time believing that any of the Federation's neighbors have the capability of landing an assault force of millions within any reasonable timeframe (at least one that doesn't involve the Federation already having been overrun or having conceded control of that planet), so really what we're talking about is that a few key facilities have been seized and the local planetary authority probably surrendered in the face of potential planetary bombardment. Those facilities probably are going to be lost anyway, since if they're valuable enough to warrant occupation, they're probably valuable enough to warrant being destroyed if it looks like they'll be lost back to the Federation - so we could just phaser them down anyway if the enemy refuses to surrender. Nearly any other occupation scenario would leave enemy troops incredibly vulnerable to either local resistance or to orbital bombardment.

(You could also completely occupy one of the dinky frontier colonies with a force of thousands, but who cares?)

[NetKnight]

(You could also completely occupy one of the dinky frontier colonies with a force of thousands, but who cares?)

Of course, the Federation's pre-TNG 'small wars' with the Cardassians, Talarians, etc, seem to have involved a lot of ground engagements on small border worlds. Forcing the Federation into ground war would seem to be a good way to bleed them into peace without escalating into full-fledged existential war, but that's provided they oblige you by trying to hold on to border worlds with Starfleet forces. They quite evidently did, however. There may have been other strategic concerns at play, but I doubt protecting civilian colonists wasn't a major motivation.

...Yeah, I suppose that sums to yet another "Starfleet suks" post, but their policy of holding on to dinky border colonies (for whatever reason; I'd argue civilians) really does call for dedicated ground forces, rather then starship technicians and naval line officers.

[Uraniun235]

Yeah but that's a dumb policy.


One-liner aside, I suppose my question would still be "what's the point?". If you can seize the entire place with a few thousand troops, is the enemy really seizing any actually relevant resources, or are they just holding a bunch of civilians hostage in order to try and extract demands? It shouldn't matter whether you have a real army or not - those few thousand troops would be there not to fight a real army, but to make sure the locals don't overwhelm them. As soon as Federation forces started moving in on them - battle-hardened ground veterans or otherwise - those occupiers should either surrender or start executing hostages. If they're smart, they'll have a nice nasty nuclear bomb set to go off.

If we're really going to talk about what Federation policy demands, then I'd bet dollars to donuts that Federation policy also demands that large armies are just too bloody expensive to keep sitting around most of the time, especially when Starfleet forces appear capable of handling things like the Cardassians dicking around on frontier worlds.


On a more populous world, it simply doesn't make sense to rely on Starfleet trucking soldiers in - they should be raising and equipping their own army, having much better knowledge of the local population and terrain than any imported (or invading) force is likely to have, having far superior numbers than any of the Federation's neighbors is likely to be able to land, and having the luxury of building up a large weapons inventory over time.

[RedImperator]

That's a point I'd never considered: none of the Federation's neighbors have ever shown the capability to land large armies. It puts Trekverse warfare in a different light; either they don't intend to capture planets by landing large ground armies, or they don't intend to capture planets, period. Gaining orbital supremacy, holding the civilian population hostage, and using the planet as leverage in treaty negotiations seems much more in line with Trek capabilities, and as Uraniun said, a genuine Federation army would be bloody enormous and not as good at defending planets than properly equipped local forces.

The problem for the Federation in this model is that if they ever did get sucked into a big war with the Klingons or Romulans, they'd have no way to capture planets in an offensive, because nobody would believe they'd bombard civilians. If they gain space superiority, they can effectively isolate and neutralize a planet, but "surrender or we'll nuke the cities from orbit" isn't going to be a credible threat at the negotiating table.

Now I want to think about this a little more. Say this is the Trekverse warfare model, pre Dominion War. If you're the Federation and you find yourself in a major war with, say, the Romulans, how do you force a favorable peace treaty?

[Darth Wong]

That's a point I'd never considered: none of the Federation's neighbors have ever shown the capability to land large armies. It puts Trekverse warfare in a different light; either they don't intend to capture planets by landing large ground armies, or they don't intend to capture planets, period. Gaining orbital supremacy, holding the civilian population hostage, and using the planet as leverage in treaty negotiations seems much more in line with Trek capabilities, and as Uraniun said, a genuine Federation army would be bloody enormous and not as good at defending planets than properly equipped local forces.

The problem for the Federation in this model is that if they ever did get sucked into a big war with the Klingons or Romulans, they'd have no way to capture planets in an offensive, because nobody would believe they'd bombard civilians. If they gain space superiority, they can effectively isolate and neutralize a planet, but "surrender or we'll nuke the cities from orbit" isn't going to be a credible threat at the negotiating table.

Now I want to think about this a little more. Say this is the Trekverse warfare model, pre Dominion War. If you're the Federation and you find yourself in a major war with, say, the Romulans, how do you force a favorable peace treaty?

I'm thinking that perhaps agriculture skills are sparse in the 24th century, so planetary colonies tend to rely heavily on antimatter and deuterium fuel shipped from orbital "energy production facilities" to run their replicators and water purifiers (you can collect deuterium planet-side, but that requires infrastructure that does not seem to be common; one is forced to ask why USS Voyager was never able to simply scoop up ocean water and refine the deuterium out of it when they were short on fuel).

A hypothetical high-tech energy-bound civilization would have colonies which are extremely vulnerable to blockades. In effect, they can force a surrender simply by holding space superiority long enough for the colonists to exhaust their fuel supplies.

Another possibility is that they would use repeated orbital wide-area stun blasts to cause widespread chaos, social disruption, minor injuries, and casualties due to accidents without destroying the infrastructure or resorting to full-blown WMD usage, thus harassing the population into eventually surrendering since they can't stay indoors all day.

[RedImperator]

I'm thinking that perhaps agriculture skills are sparse in the 24th century, so planetary colonies tend to rely heavily on antimatter and deuterium fuel shipped from orbital "energy production facilities" to run their replicators and water purifiers (you can collect deuterium planet-side, but that requires infrastructure that does not seem to be common; one is forced to ask why USS Voyager was never able to simply scoop up ocean water and refine the deuterium out of it when they were short on fuel).

A hypothetical high-tech energy-bound civilization would have colonies which are extremely vulnerable to blockades. In effect, they can force a surrender simply by holding space superiority long enough for the colonists to exhaust their fuel supplies.

I don't think it necessarily follows, though, that because Voyager didn't have on-board deuterium refining that a planet wouldn't have groundside facilities to do it. It just doesn't make any sense for a planet with oceans to import deuterium from space, and I don't think we've ever seen them show the transport capacity to do it, anyway. Antimatter is another story, but antimatter makes no sense for generating electrical power, as you well know.

Now, on the other hand, I think phasers have been shown to be precise enough against planetary targets to effectively destroy planet-bound deuterium refineries and other power infrastructure without causing extensive civilian casualties. They are heavily dependent on electrical power, and in the Federation at least, the power grid is highly centralized. Wiping out the power plants might be a fast way to force a surrender as transporters and replicators fail.

Another possibility is that they would use repeated orbital wide-area stun blasts to cause widespread chaos, social disruption, minor injuries, and casualties due to accidents without destroying the infrastructure or resorting to full-blown WMD usage, thus harassing the population into eventually surrendering since they can't stay indoors all day.

This option is pretty fun, but I have my doubts the TNG-era Federation would resort even to indiscriminate stunning of civilians. You've pointed out yourself (or was it Winchell Chung?) that a stun blast that can reliably knock out a young, healthy man could kill small children and the elderly. From what we know about the Federation, it seems more likely that they would limit themselves to direct strikes on military targets. Which would still be pretty disruptive with phasers and total orbital superiority, but I don't know if it's enough to force a surrender.

[Uraniun235]

Forcing a surrender would probably require something like most of the enemy's warmaking capacity being neutralized - including widespread damage or destruction to the spacedocks and other fleet support facilities that allow the enemy fleet to operate. Against the Romulan Empire, you probably wouldn't need to go that far - they'd probably want to conclude a peace treaty before it got to the point that they wouldn't be able to hold off the Klingon hordes from pillaging their inner worlds with impunity.

[RedImperator]

Forcing a surrender would probably require something like most of the enemy's warmaking capacity being neutralized - including widespread damage or destruction to the spacedocks and other fleet support facilities that allow the enemy fleet to operate. Against the Romulan Empire, you probably wouldn't need to go that far - they'd probably want to conclude a peace treaty before it got to the point that they wouldn't be able to hold off the Klingon hordes from pillaging their inner worlds with impunity.

Yeah, that's true. The Romulans can usually be relied upon to back down whenever they're in danger of serious consequences. The Klingons might make a more interesting opponent, because they can be relied upon not to surrender unless they've been really brutalized. What does the Federation do if they destroy the Klingon Empire's warmaking capacity and the empire refuses to give up anyway? Does the Federation get stuck maintaining orbital blockades of Klingon planets? Even if individual planets did surrender, there would almost certainly be diehards willing to wage guerrilla war. And then you'd have the Romulans to deal with. I'm sure they'd love the Klingon Empire smashed on one border and the Federation overstretched on the other.

...this would probably make a pretty good fanfic. Set it during the "lost era". The plot to stop the Khitomer peace talks succeeds, and the Federation defeats the weakened Klingon Empire in the resulting war. Run from there. Call it Star Trek: The Long War, or something.

[phongn]

Forcing a surrender would probably require something like most of the enemy's warmaking capacity being neutralized - including widespread damage or destruction to the spacedocks and other fleet support facilities that allow the enemy fleet to operate. Against the Romulan Empire, you probably wouldn't need to go that far - they'd probably want to conclude a peace treaty before it got to the point that they wouldn't be able to hold off the Klingon hordes from pillaging their inner worlds with impunity.

How thorough of a job are we talking about here? Neutralizing a nation's "warmaking capacity" means doing what the Allies did to Germany or Japan in WW2 at a minimum, the result of which would pretty much put paid to any such power unless someone wants to rebuild them.