Starfleet i guess is the equivalent of the Navy and airforce combined. So the difference between soldiers and starfleet personell i guess is similar to the difference between marines and gi's?

However, you do not often see army personell in startrek. Infact, during the entire dominion conflict in depp space nine, no army personell are ever seen and no army comanders are ever seen! From this i must assume their is no army, i mean how can you have a big war without an army?? because their isn't one.

Your above mentioned episode or deep space nine can therefore be considered a blooper on startreks part.

yes but remember it is a show about star fleet not the military

and the federation military is not restricted by the prime directive ie they can go where ever they need to secure the federation

it isn't just one episode it is the entire xendy campaign


oh and the last time i checked the navy and the airforce were considered part of the military

this is the defference between star fleet and the military

star fleet explores and expands the federation

where as

the military defends the federation

i would think that the military gives up speed for more guns

maybe think of star fleet like the merchant marines

Starfleet does not form until the last episode of ST:Enterprise. The folks Archer was getting in that episode really were military personnel. Also if I'm not mistaken, that episode was the same one or right around the same time that the Enterprise limped home after being soundly thrashed in battle and got more defenses and more offenses added to it.

A ground force military isn't particularly needed in the Startrek setting, especially in the ones that take place further and further into the future. Kirk frequently turned the ship's phasors to stun and put entire cities to sleep in the original series. The genesis probe has the ability to depopulate and repopulate a planet. In one of the next generation movies someone blows up a freaking sun. In one episode of the next generation (there was a trial to own a planet with a con artist claiming to be a god) Picard uses the ship's tractor beams to cause an earthquake as a demonstration. Large scale ground assault troops aren't exactly that important when compared to godlike powers of turning a city off, causing earthquakes, destroying solarsystems, and depopulating planets.

this only works on people who don't know that their not gods

it wouldn't even slow down the klingons only ground troops will

Stun the entire city would stun Klingons too .

it isn't starfleet that forms in the last episode it is the federation



true but when they destun they are going to be very mad klingons

you just have to assume standard counteractive technologies are in place such as transport disruptors, shields, field generators and tricoders.

Although counteractive technologies are deffinately inconsistent throughout the series.

There really is one unit no military can do without, that is infantry someone has to go in a clear the area.  Plus control the area after you take it.

 

If you watch original star trek and next gen. Both captians in at least one episiode states that their ships are for exploration and not for fighting.  Their weapons are strictly for defense.

 

As far as Star Trek episodes go, Star Fleet seems to be the space military and the exploration fleet. After all, when the borg cube attacked Earth, it was every Star Fleet craft that was there to defend Earth. They have never really made a distinction between the two as far as I know. I would assume that the Federation military would include troops to do things such as (for example) taking over a Federation starbase that has been captured by an enemy, protecting Federation planetary settlements, colonies, and installations if under threat from another ground force, or something like that.

Is Star Fleet the military? Don't ask, don't tell.

 

 

when your being attacked by such a superier force you have to use everything you have.  Including the coast guard

As an old Trekker myself, please allow me to chime in:

Starfleet is, as far as its mission goes, strictly a scientific/exploratory body, but with military/defensive capabilities.

There is, in fact, a Federation Marine Corps; I've heard it mentioned in an episode of ST:TNG, I believe, and in DS9. I believe they also may also have been mentioned in the old Filmways/NBC cartoon of the early 70s. TOS/TNG writer DC Fontana once said that she considered those shows to be an actual part of the saga; in fact, as she pointed out, if you add those two years to the originals, you have the whole original 5-year mission.

Essentially, Starfleet Security (the poor, hapless Red Shirts of the TOS, and the guys in the goofy-looking armor in The Motion Picture), handles most of the day-to-day offensive/defensive needs of the Fleet and Federation, though.

Also, according to a fellow Trekker (whom I just called, disturbing his dinner), the Federation Marines are rather prominently mentioned in Undiscovered Country, too.

After Kirk and McCoy were taken by the Klingons for "assassinating" Chancellor Gorkon, Colonel West (played by Rene Whosheewhatsis, the guy who played Odo) was in the President's office, talking about a plan to use Federation Marines to rescue them.

Do you all remember the TNG episode, where the cube was heading past Mars, and they sent the Mars defense ships (or w/e they were) in against them... there was like 3 tiny ships that attacked the cube and got blasted to oblivion by a few shots. That must have been the Starfleet Coast Guard there.

Strange how Voyager (single ship in another quadrant with no support), was able to infiltrate the MAIN BORG 'homeworld' (so to speak) and save 7 of 9, where thousands of cubes are everywhere. Whereas the whole Federation was barely able to destroy a single Cube in TNG.