ALT.SF4M

  Soldiers and Space Marines in Star Trek?

   • g*****o@k****.****t.net
     20/09/1996 00:00:000 UTC

     Question: Where are the Soldiers and Space Marines in Star Trek?

     I've always wondered about that question whenever an episode becomes a

     space battle, exploring a hostile planet or when they transport a

     boarding party over to a hostile spacecraft.

     I remember reading about Space Marines in the Star Fleet Battles
     strategy

     game. Every Starship has Space Marines that can board or protect the
     ship

     from hostile boarding parties.

     With the Star Trek universe, they've always showed a slanted view that

     everything gets done with starships. What about all the ground battles

     that the Federation has to deal with?

     Lets say a Federation fleet defeat an enemy fleet that protecting a

     planet. Now the Federation have to liberate the planet of all the ground

     troops. I can imagine the Admiral ordering in Troop Transports with some

     type of assault soldiers or space marines that don't mind getting mud
     all

     over themselves in order to take key positions on the planet.

     But you never see this in the Star Trek episodes. You see a small band
     of

     officers going down to the planet, follow some lame plot line, defeat
     the

     bad guys and head back to the ship for tea and move off to the next

     episode.

     I really don't buy the fact that Federation Officers are "expert"

     warriors for every purpose. I thought one of the worst episodes that I

     ever saw was when Picard was ordered to sneak onto an enemy planet and

     got caught and tortured. Who in their right mind would ever send a

     starship captain to do a mission like that. Wouldn't you think they
     would

     have some type of Special Forces that are tranied for missions like
     that?

     That's like ordering a Captain of a U.S. Battleship to sneak into Iraq

     with a squad of 5 of his bridgecrew so they can blow up a chemical
     factory.

     --Glen

       • s******j@**.com
         20/09/1996 00:00:000 UTC

           >>Question: Where are the Soldiers and Space Marines in Star Trek?

         I was going to write somethng about how space troopers and marines
         are

         a romantic assumption, and that various technologies woudl change
         the

         nature of warfare such that these would be as outmoded as

         armored knights today.

         But . . .

         Don't worry about it. It's only a fucking TV show. They're not

         consistent with much else; whcy should they be consistent here?

         --

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