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Is there on instance of commissioning outside of Acadamy?
Posted: 2003-11-16 04:48pm
by Lonestar
Anywhere?
Because, I'm trying to impress upon a friend that with thousands of ships, probably Millions of personnel, it's logistacly infeasible for everyone and his brother to join the Fleet through the Acadamy.
Posted: 2003-11-16 04:51pm
by Crazedwraith
Crew man Taures, the 1/4 romulan enlisted medic from "the Drumhead" TNG. I think picard asked him why he never whent to the acadamy and became an officer/docter.
Posted: 2003-11-16 04:55pm
by Lonestar
He was enlisted.
It still should be fricking impossible for Officer force levels to be maintained with one commissioning program.
Posted: 2003-11-16 04:56pm
by Jason von Evil
Well, we know there are actually people who serve on starships that don't even have ranks, crewmen. I suppose they might be non coms.
Posted: 2003-11-16 05:11pm
by Crazedwraith
Lonestar wrote:He was enlisted.
It still should be fricking impossible for Officer force levels to be maintained with one commissioning program.
oops i misunderstood your OP, i thought u meant any one how hadn't gone to the acadamy since even CPO Miles O'Brein seemed to have.
Re: Is there on instance of commissioning outside of Acadam
Posted: 2003-11-16 07:19pm
by Kitsune
Lonestar wrote:Anywhere?
Because, I'm trying to impress upon a friend that with thousands of ships, probably Millions of personnel, it's logistacly infeasible for everyone and his brother to join the Fleet through the Acadamy.
The episodes that show the Academy seem to show a relatively small place.
I had at one time assumed that there is more than one but am not sure.
Posted: 2003-11-16 07:44pm
by Sir Sirius
In DS9:"Starship Down" Worf is barating an Engineer by the name of Stephens and O'Brien thinks he's treating him and another Engineer a bit too harshly, when O'Brien takes it up with Worf he says, "You have to understand they are abit out of their element, they are not bridge officers, they haven't been to Starfleet Acedemy..."
I guessing that there are quite a few enlisted men aboard Starfleet vessels, but the show concentrates on the officers and we just never really hear of the "little people".
Posted: 2003-11-16 07:47pm
by Howedar
The "academy" could concevably be more than one place, rather referring to a distributed OCS sort of program.
Posted: 2003-11-16 10:14pm
by dworkin
Surely the expendables are just given their togs and shoved aboard vessels. Prehaps the Federation has alsorevived the use of glass bottomed mugs.
Posted: 2003-11-16 10:23pm
by Natorgator
Howedar wrote:The "academy" could concevably be more than one place, rather referring to a distributed OCS sort of program.
Yeah, but since we've seen that it's extremely hard to get in that would still create an extreme shortage of officers IMO.
Posted: 2003-11-16 10:50pm
by Uraniun235
I think non-canon sources peg Barclay as non-Academy.
Posted: 2003-11-16 11:30pm
by Publius
Presumably you're not counting field commissions such as Mister Crusher and the former Maquis members of USS Voyager's company?
PUBLIUS
Posted: 2003-11-17 01:23am
by Death from the Sea
Publius wrote:Presumably you're not counting field commissions such as Mister Crusher and the former Maquis members of USS Voyager's company?
PUBLIUS
indeed I was going to name Wesley Crusher as he was appointed an ensign by Picard.
Re: Is there on instance of commissioning outside of Acadam
Posted: 2003-11-17 03:52am
by Darth Wong
Lonestar wrote:Anywhere?
Because, I'm trying to impress upon a friend that with thousands of ships, probably Millions of personnel, it's logistacly infeasible for everyone and his brother to join the Fleet through the Acadamy.
It's also logistically infeasible for the fleet to be incapable of mustering more than 30 or 40 ships to defend Earth at Wolf 359 and also in STFC, if they actually have "thousands" of serviceable warships at their disposal, yet that is what happened. The only time they're able to muster a lot of ships is when they have a lot of time to prepare, and they combine two fleets into one (and even then, no one knows whether "ships" includes every shuttle and runabout, which it probably does).
The ship count estimate is excessive, and most of the ships we saw in the Dominion War were probably sitting in mothballs prior to that war anyway. When they did press them into service, who knows where they got personnel? For all we know, they took them from the merchant marine. Look at how incompetent they were when pressed into service; the combat effectiveness of Federation starships during the Dominion War was pitiful. In the Battle of Chin'toka, they had to close to within a few hundred metres to hit the Cardassian weapon platforms to shoot at them, for fuck's sake. And given the apparent fragility of their ships in some cases, it's not inconceivable that some of them were sent out without crews trained on the proper operation of shield systems.
Re: Is there on instance of commissioning outside of Acadam
Posted: 2003-11-17 08:33am
by Stofsk
Lonestar wrote:Anywhere?
Because, I'm trying to impress upon a friend that with thousands of ships, probably Millions of personnel, it's logistacly infeasible for everyone and his brother to join the Fleet through the Acadamy.
I would assume the local Starbase fulfills that function. There seems to be one on every major colony, so they're close to the recruitment base. Not only that but the facilities on a Starbase would be ideal for training recruits and officers, and presumably less expensive that shuttling everyone who wants to join all the way over to Earth (remember how large the Federation is, and how slow their warp drive). Also, the Federation is made up of 150 alien races, who may have their own training methods/facilities. That's a factor that should be considered.
There was that TNG 1st year episode where Wes Crusher was doing some Academy entrance exam that was ridiculously difficult. That was on a Starbase rather than at Earth - this would corroborate the above to some extent (that Starbases have the facilities and capability to handle recruitment).
Then again, how many Academies do you really need? I doubt there's the one, but the only one we ever hear about is the one on Earth - not surprising, given the majority of Starfleet personnel is Human.
Posted: 2003-11-22 01:12am
by Lonestar
I seem to recall Jadzia Dax implying McCoy went to Ole Miss, but that was During the TOS era...
Posted: 2003-11-22 01:33am
by Stormbringer
Lonestar wrote:I seem to recall Jadzia Dax implying McCoy went to Ole Miss, but that was During the TOS era...
But McCoy was also a real MD rather than just a medic.
Re: Is there on instance of commissioning outside of Acadam
Posted: 2003-11-22 07:27am
by MKSheppard
Lonestar wrote:Anywhere?
Because, I'm trying to impress upon a friend that with thousands of ships, probably Millions of personnel, it's logistacly infeasible for everyone and his brother to join the Fleet through the Acadamy.
Yeah I tried to point this out to Alyeska, that Starfleet CANNOT be 2 Billion
personnel, if all we have is just ONE academy, everyone is an officer,
and we have NO officer shortage, since you can only graduate x number
of officers each year.
Posted: 2003-11-22 08:29am
by MKSheppard
OTOH, the Imperial Sourcebook is explict on Training:
Imperial Army:
Of all the Imperial Army Officer Training Academies, Raithal Academy is renowned for producing the best officers in the Army.
Imperial Navy:
Many with officer potential come from regional or sector military schools, where the best of a world’s inhabitants are groomed for local and Imperial military careers.
.....
Beings chosen for officer training are selected both from recruits new to the military and from active duty crewmen recommended by their superiors. These crewmen-cadets attend one of many naval academies located throughout the Empire. Although often called an "Imperial Naval Academy," such institutions are more properly termed Sector Naval Academies, to differentiate them from the original Imperial Naval Academy after which they are modeled.
Each Sector Naval Academy is an Imperial institution which shares a uniform training program and curriculum with others of its kind. Officer training occupies one standard year. It includes military indoctrination, education in technical specialties, and training cruises. When a crewman-cadet graduates he is commissioned as a lieutenant, and often goes on to advanced technical training.
Officer candidates who rate in the top two percent of their qualifying tests have the opportunity to attend the Imperial Naval Academy, the original and oldest of the academies. An applicant must receive the endorsement of his Moff, and undergo a more thorough background investigation than other officer candidates. If accepted, he is inducted as a cadet and boards a transport bound for the Academy.
Posted: 2003-11-23 04:24pm
by MKSheppard
Bump?
Posted: 2003-11-24 12:44am
by Gandalf
Troi mentions attending a University at Betazed, perhaps other planets have campus' there. Just the Earth one is for the best students.
Posted: 2003-11-24 01:08am
by GrandMasterTerwynn
Gandalf wrote:Troi mentions attending a University at Betazed, perhaps other planets have campus' there. Just the Earth one is for the best students.
Well, Counselor Troi is hardly a typical example. She was specifically a counselor and wasn't even qualified for most of the tasks required for starship operation. (There was at least one episode where she spent a lot of time on the holodeck trying to qualify for actual bridge duty.)
With that being said, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that it is possible to have a two-year or one-year accelerated program in Starfleet Academy.