I loved the MACO as a concept in Star Trek. Space Marines were sorely missing throughout TNG and especially DS9 during an actual war. We see a major ground battle episode were it seemed like these troops were still just regular Starfleet pressed into an infantry role that they were never trained for.
Yeah I did too. I liked the concept of their uniforms- similar to today but with some differences. It makes sense that in "only" 150 years there would still be some kind of armed force structure around, just not an active one.
I honestly like the idea of the MACOS. You never know what dangers are out there. Going in all naive and unprepared sounds incredibly dangerous. Having the MACOS at least gives you the chance to defend yourself if your ship gets bordered or if you need to send a team down to the planet that is likely to meet violent resistance.
The most charming thing about enterprise is how they didn't have all of the power creep that we see with things like the Spore drive. Star gate did pretty well with their first generation of home brewed technology, and Battle Star Galactica was great with the way they showed the Galactica falling apart over time.. I wish the new star gate series would focus on disclosure of the Star Gate program to the general population & colonization of empty worlds and the strengthening ties to inhabited worlds because the Tauri controlled the Milky way, had a convenient access to the Pegasus galaxy, and were essentially given control of the Asgard Galaxy. Colonization would be great because it's building upon the work of the predecessors without falling into bad tropes such as a external threat making all current technology look obsolete.
To quote Picard..."Star Fleet is not a military organisation" , so where does that leave Star Fleet? As DS9 showed when Star Fleet does to war everyone straps on a weapon and gets shoved out the airlock. Good luck if your a botanist or an historian.
DS9 kinda touched on it, but it didn't REALLY show the effect of sending botanists and mechanics with minimal combat training and experience up against battle-hardened troops- the sheer scale of death and understandable cowardice that would take place and just how naive their views were.
@Alex 'Yoon-Sung' Cucina I can't recall the episode name, but it was the one with Jake and the Doc in a field hospital. A patient had a phaser wound on his foot, and it turns out it was self-inflicted. Think the guy was an astrophysicist or something. Would be nice to think that Starfleet train all of their personnel in basic combat readiness, but that's no substitute for a squad of trained and battle ready group, i.e., the Macos.
I think thats why the tide of the war only turned when the Klingons and Romulans started working with the Federation. The empires that actually have a military trained fleet did all the heavy lifting.
Picard is a diplomat and scholar at heart. He's going to see Starfleet as an exploration organization. That doesn't mean everyone sees it that way. Remember how Jellico shook things up when he was in command? Some fan material has posited the existence of TacFleet, which is a more military-oriented arm of Starfleet than we normally see, and suggested there's a certain amount of tension between it and the exploratory arm in terms of resource allocation. During a war, resources are reallocated to TacFleet. Maybe that's why we see hapless Ensign Deadmeat flailing in a war zone.
It's because of Gene's anti-military look...despite Starfleet acting like a military organization. "Starfleet Security" is basically this all encompassing department that could be their answer because "Security" doesn't sound like "Starfleet Army" so it's more of a PR thing
You sort of get something like that in the Voyager game Elite Force, since the main character is a part of a specialized combat unit meant to deal with things, rather than the security teams who die or get incapacitated if you fire a nerf gun near them.
As we have seen, just cause Starfleet isn't a military per say that doesn't mean that there aren't different communities and perspectives in such a large organization. Different species, as well as different individuals, fall all along the spectrum from purely exploratory to an adherent to the prime importance of the defensive/military mission of the organization. This is only natural. The opinions of a crew of a science ship like an Oberth is going to be very different from that of a crew of a Heavy Frigate like a New Orleans.
The problem that people keep citing with Starfleet not being a military organization yet being the guys called upon to wage war forgets that the society of the Federation is VERY different from our own. For most of its existence, Starfleet existed in relative peacetime. Science, exploration, and self-discovery were the purpose. All these species united together, with their own ships and relative military strengths incorporated into an organization that felt no need to HAVE a standing military because who were they really fighting against? The Romulans were dormant and the Klingon war lasted a relatively short amount of time. While military training and structure existed, the duty and obligations that they were following were for higher ideals and ethos - towards improving life, helping life, gaining knowledge. THAT is the world they live in. A military exists for one primary purpose: to fight. Oh, sure, they serve in a defensive capacity and consequently are not CONSTANTLY engaged in warfare and battle, but the ultimate purpose is to be READY to fight should the need arise. Starfleet under the Federation doesn't exist for that. Battle is, as Riker put it, a small part in the makeup of a Starfleet officer. Starfleet are builders, diplomats, explorers - there to help out distant colonists who need resources and try to end conflict in ways that don't require firing a phaser. They're there to uncover the wonders of the cosmos, not shoot at them. This can be reflected in phasers. The difference between a phaser and a handgun from our time is that a phaser, while classified as a weapon, is really more of a TOOL. Its myriad of settings and beam options allows for cutting, heating, power transfer, stunning, and finally indeed killing... but also disintegration, which is important for disposing of something and that, too, is a tool function just as much as it is a weapon. Starfleet is not intended to be a military organization because the Federation is not a people that, for the longest time, did not feel that they NEEDED a military. Because the combat training they did have was still sufficient for the job... until the universe began getting a loooot more hostile in the 24th century.
No, starfleet is a military. Regardless of whether or not they actually wage war on a regular basis, they use military ranks, study military tactics (for ground and space) and have a military discipline system including court martials. You just need to compare them to NASA, which is a civilian agency and therefore doesn't have any of that (aside from the people that are on loan from the US military). Plus most countries in the world don't regularly fight anything but they still have militaries. Brazil's standing army hasn't fought anything since WW2, and has engaged in multiple humanitarian missions to Haiti and for certain tragedies that occured in brazil itself, not too different from the Enterprise-D's common taxi/diplomatic/humanitarian efforts, but despite acting out in these roles predominantly for the last several decades it's still a military. Even because TNG-era starfleet does serve a military purpose, the same as brazil's and most other countries: as a deterrant to invasion. Starfleet ships, by mere virtue of traveling around their space with guns and trained officers on them, keeping an eye on their systems and borders, prevents other space powers from attempting anything, even if they use that time to just do scientific or humanitarian tasks, just like countries that have standing armies just hanging out in military bases just in case, again, like Brazil. And yes, it *is* and always *was* Starfleet's job to "be READY to fight should the need arise", just like any military, because they are quite literally the only line of defense the civilian population have from what we're shown, and that's why their ships are equipped with weapons with the power to level planets. So by your own definition they fit the bill. Both things can be true, they can be a military and combat can still be a "minor province of a starship captain" (after all, most brazilian high ranking officers haven't been to real combat at all and all they do and will do for the rest of their career is push papers, which is less than even Season 1 Riker and Picard, but they're still a military)
Wasn't one of the points of the Federation "mutual defense." the idea the Federation has a military body should absolutely be in keeping with that agreement. One of the best bits of dialogue in "The Emissary" was when the Gul didn't want to do anything because Starfleet could show up. No one reacts that way to a science boat.
Tell me this is post 9/11 without telling me it's post 9/11. The whole "It's been a long road" theme song about hope for the future (even though it reminds me of someones cringey uncle trying to be patriotic and everyone else is just trying to enjoy the evening) and then that tone is utterly destroyed and replaced with a "WE'RE DOIN THE WAR ON TERROR NOW! IT'S STARFLEET VS SPACE TERRORISTS WHO DESTROYED FLORIDA!" Strange idea tbh and not one I've ever been fully onboard with.
Feeling that, this season was when I checked out for good from Enterprise (not counting the fun mirror universe two parter) as it was just all so very on the nose in regard to political climate of the time, and it was continuing to be just not at all good telly. So I hated the Macos, but then I hated everything else about the show too by that point so they were just another thing to throw on the pyre.
In my head cannon, the MACOs were still in service during the dominion wars and in the episode Siege of AR-448 (?) most of the people on the planet were MACOs.
On the one hand, the MACOs make sense, especially given how cartoonishly pathetic the security teams on Trek usually are. On the other hand, it just drives home how worthless the guys who die at the drop of a hat really are. And as we've seen over the years, Starfleet didn't learn this lesson and god knows how many people have died because of it. Then again, maybe the ship getting boarded by hostile elements every other week is unique to the Enterprise. Which makes me think they should really stop naming ships that, since the name is clearly cursed.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. The ship gets into more trouble but it also usually accomplishes great things, and with all of that bad juju concentrated on the Enterprise, it allows the rest of Starfleet to usually have an easier time of it, aside from all of the times where they're doomed to be destroyed or stricken so that the Enterprise can come along and solve a negative space wedgie.
There are lots of things that don't make sense about the Federation and the lack of actual combat troops highlights many of them: 1) We know the Federation is dominated by humanity which doesn't really make sense to begin with because humanity is very new to the galactic community. This dominance is most recently reinforced by S3 of Picard where Frontier Day is extremely focused on humanity and doesn't even make mention of the other races in the Federation. Why do all these older races that make up the Federation have such small numbers compared to humans? Why are they happy to be dominated by an upstart rookie race? 2) If the Federation is dominated by humanity, why is it so incredibly unmilitaristic? That is completely at odds with the history of the human race. Maybe the Federation is not aggressive, sure, but big standing armies have been a mainstay of human governments for centuries if not millennia. 3) Roddenberry famously sourced the conflict depicted in the show as coming from outside the Federation - if there is frequent conflict with outside factions, then the first thing to do would be to increase the Federation's defense capabilities. And they get into combat very often. So why no actual combat troops? Starfleet might as well be suicidal.
To answer some of your question, I think the idea is that human culture as of the Star Trek future has evolved to be far more diplomatic that it has in the past, which means that they end up being the effective glue that holds the Federation together. Hence why the old alien races might be more willing to take a backseat to humanity to an extent. Though it's also worth pointing out that it's possible that the Federation isn't dominated by humanity as much as it seems, given that in DS9 the leader of the Federation is an alien and at least in TOS and early TNG there were a lot more aliens who looked exactly like humans, so it's entirely possible that characters who aren't stated as being form Earth are actually from say, the Roman Empire planet.
Hey chuck, been watching you since deployment in 2011. Do you still take donations for episodes? I know you stopped for awhile due to the backlog. I'm just glad you allowed me to donate before for a video. I love ya now and forever
The MACOs make a lot of sense when considering the Star Trek timeline. The Unified Earth Government has finally come together just before the start of Enterprise, built from what had essentially been a post-apocalyptic wasteland run by ruthless warlords not even a century prior. While First Contact was the catalyst towards a more enlightened society, there is no way that transition was all together peaceful. The MACO perspective would've been an entirely vindicated one in the 22nd century, and was a sadly rare instance of Enterprise showing that Star Fleet ideals weren't just some smug immaculate conception that popped into reality fully-formed and consequence-free.
Suggestion: The Gift from Voyager. One of my favorites as its the last episode with Kes - who is, imo, an awful mix of Deanna Troi and Wesley Crusher and maybe the worst character on Voyager with the exception of Seska.
The MACO's were integrated into Starfleet. They are, the Red Shirts in TOS and Yellow Shirts in TNG forward. So all the comments here with people calling Security for 'cartoonish' and stuff.. I can't but laugh at you
I loved the MACO as a concept in Star Trek. Space Marines were sorely missing throughout TNG and especially DS9 during an actual war. We see a major ground battle episode were it seemed like these troops were still just regular Starfleet pressed into an infantry role that they were never trained for.
Yeah I did too. I liked the concept of their uniforms- similar to today but with some differences. It makes sense that in "only" 150 years there would still be some kind of armed force structure around, just not an active one.
I honestly like the idea of the MACOS. You never know what dangers are out there. Going in all naive and unprepared sounds incredibly dangerous. Having the MACOS at least gives you the chance to defend yourself if your ship gets bordered or if you need to send a team down to the planet that is likely to meet violent resistance.
The most charming thing about enterprise is how they didn't have all of the power creep that we see with things like the Spore drive. Star gate did pretty well with their first generation of home brewed technology, and Battle Star Galactica was great with the way they showed the Galactica falling apart over time..
I wish the new star gate series would focus on disclosure of the Star Gate program to the general population & colonization of empty worlds and the strengthening ties to inhabited worlds because the Tauri controlled the Milky way, had a convenient access to the Pegasus galaxy, and were essentially given control of the Asgard Galaxy. Colonization would be great because it's building upon the work of the predecessors without falling into bad tropes such as a external threat making all current technology look obsolete.
To quote Picard..."Star Fleet is not a military organisation" , so where does that leave Star Fleet? As DS9 showed when Star Fleet does to war everyone straps on a weapon and gets shoved out the airlock.
Good luck if your a botanist or an historian.
"But I'm just a Flooring Inspector and carpet fitter for Galaxy class ships!"
"TOUGH!"
(Proceeds to be booted out of airlock)
DS9 kinda touched on it, but it didn't REALLY show the effect of sending botanists and mechanics with minimal combat training and experience up against battle-hardened troops- the sheer scale of death and understandable cowardice that would take place and just how naive their views were.
@Alex 'Yoon-Sung' Cucina I can't recall the episode name, but it was the one with Jake and the Doc in a field hospital. A patient had a phaser wound on his foot, and it turns out it was self-inflicted. Think the guy was an astrophysicist or something. Would be nice to think that Starfleet train all of their personnel in basic combat readiness, but that's no substitute for a squad of trained and battle ready group, i.e., the Macos.
I think thats why the tide of the war only turned when the Klingons and Romulans started working with the Federation. The empires that actually have a military trained fleet did all the heavy lifting.
Picard is a diplomat and scholar at heart. He's going to see Starfleet as an exploration organization. That doesn't mean everyone sees it that way. Remember how Jellico shook things up when he was in command?
Some fan material has posited the existence of TacFleet, which is a more military-oriented arm of Starfleet than we normally see, and suggested there's a certain amount of tension between it and the exploratory arm in terms of resource allocation. During a war, resources are reallocated to TacFleet. Maybe that's why we see hapless Ensign Deadmeat flailing in a war zone.
Really makes you wonder how different Star Trek would be if the MACOs had been part of Trek back in TOS, TNG and DS9.
Star Trek but with soldiers is basically Stargate
It's because of Gene's anti-military look...despite Starfleet acting like a military organization. "Starfleet Security" is basically this all encompassing department that could be their answer because "Security" doesn't sound like "Starfleet Army" so it's more of a PR thing
You sort of get something like that in the Voyager game Elite Force, since the main character is a part of a specialized combat unit meant to deal with things, rather than the security teams who die or get incapacitated if you fire a nerf gun near them.
As we have seen, just cause Starfleet isn't a military per say that doesn't mean that there aren't different communities and perspectives in such a large organization. Different species, as well as different individuals, fall all along the spectrum from purely exploratory to an adherent to the prime importance of the defensive/military mission of the organization. This is only natural. The opinions of a crew of a science ship like an Oberth is going to be very different from that of a crew of a Heavy Frigate like a New Orleans.
In the book 'No Time Like the Past' Seven of Nine goes back to TOS, and at one point is escorted by some MACOs I believe.
The problem that people keep citing with Starfleet not being a military organization yet being the guys called upon to wage war forgets that the society of the Federation is VERY different from our own. For most of its existence, Starfleet existed in relative peacetime. Science, exploration, and self-discovery were the purpose. All these species united together, with their own ships and relative military strengths incorporated into an organization that felt no need to HAVE a standing military because who were they really fighting against? The Romulans were dormant and the Klingon war lasted a relatively short amount of time. While military training and structure existed, the duty and obligations that they were following were for higher ideals and ethos - towards improving life, helping life, gaining knowledge. THAT is the world they live in.
A military exists for one primary purpose: to fight. Oh, sure, they serve in a defensive capacity and consequently are not CONSTANTLY engaged in warfare and battle, but the ultimate purpose is to be READY to fight should the need arise. Starfleet under the Federation doesn't exist for that. Battle is, as Riker put it, a small part in the makeup of a Starfleet officer. Starfleet are builders, diplomats, explorers - there to help out distant colonists who need resources and try to end conflict in ways that don't require firing a phaser. They're there to uncover the wonders of the cosmos, not shoot at them.
This can be reflected in phasers. The difference between a phaser and a handgun from our time is that a phaser, while classified as a weapon, is really more of a TOOL. Its myriad of settings and beam options allows for cutting, heating, power transfer, stunning, and finally indeed killing... but also disintegration, which is important for disposing of something and that, too, is a tool function just as much as it is a weapon.
Starfleet is not intended to be a military organization because the Federation is not a people that, for the longest time, did not feel that they NEEDED a military. Because the combat training they did have was still sufficient for the job... until the universe began getting a loooot more hostile in the 24th century.
Well put, Linkara^^
No, starfleet is a military. Regardless of whether or not they actually wage war on a regular basis, they use military ranks, study military tactics (for ground and space) and have a military discipline system including court martials. You just need to compare them to NASA, which is a civilian agency and therefore doesn't have any of that (aside from the people that are on loan from the US military). Plus most countries in the world don't regularly fight anything but they still have militaries. Brazil's standing army hasn't fought anything since WW2, and has engaged in multiple humanitarian missions to Haiti and for certain tragedies that occured in brazil itself, not too different from the Enterprise-D's common taxi/diplomatic/humanitarian efforts, but despite acting out in these roles predominantly for the last several decades it's still a military. Even because TNG-era starfleet does serve a military purpose, the same as brazil's and most other countries: as a deterrant to invasion. Starfleet ships, by mere virtue of traveling around their space with guns and trained officers on them, keeping an eye on their systems and borders, prevents other space powers from attempting anything, even if they use that time to just do scientific or humanitarian tasks, just like countries that have standing armies just hanging out in military bases just in case, again, like Brazil.
And yes, it *is* and always *was* Starfleet's job to "be READY to fight should the need arise", just like any military, because they are quite literally the only line of defense the civilian population have from what we're shown, and that's why their ships are equipped with weapons with the power to level planets. So by your own definition they fit the bill. Both things can be true, they can be a military and combat can still be a "minor province of a starship captain" (after all, most brazilian high ranking officers haven't been to real combat at all and all they do and will do for the rest of their career is push papers, which is less than even Season 1 Riker and Picard, but they're still a military)
Wasn't one of the points of the Federation "mutual defense." the idea the Federation has a military body should absolutely be in keeping with that agreement. One of the best bits of dialogue in "The Emissary" was when the Gul didn't want to do anything because Starfleet could show up. No one reacts that way to a science boat.
MACO Monday before Taco Tuesday.
Tell me this is post 9/11 without telling me it's post 9/11. The whole "It's been a long road" theme song about hope for the future (even though it reminds me of someones cringey uncle trying to be patriotic and everyone else is just trying to enjoy the evening) and then that tone is utterly destroyed and replaced with a "WE'RE DOIN THE WAR ON TERROR NOW! IT'S STARFLEET VS SPACE TERRORISTS WHO DESTROYED FLORIDA!"
Strange idea tbh and not one I've ever been fully onboard with.
Feeling that, this season was when I checked out for good from Enterprise (not counting the fun mirror universe two parter) as it was just all so very on the nose in regard to political climate of the time, and it was continuing to be just not at all good telly. So I hated the Macos, but then I hated everything else about the show too by that point so they were just another thing to throw on the pyre.
Reminds me of "hazard team" from the elite force games
In my head cannon, the MACOs were still in service during the dominion wars and in the episode Siege of AR-448 (?) most of the people on the planet were MACOs.
I always thought the conflict between hayes and reed was as much one of the conflict between army and navy as anything else
Misread the title as macOS
Yes please! MACOs - the unsung group heroes of Enterprise.
On the one hand, the MACOs make sense, especially given how cartoonishly pathetic the security teams on Trek usually are. On the other hand, it just drives home how worthless the guys who die at the drop of a hat really are. And as we've seen over the years, Starfleet didn't learn this lesson and god knows how many people have died because of it. Then again, maybe the ship getting boarded by hostile elements every other week is unique to the Enterprise. Which makes me think they should really stop naming ships that, since the name is clearly cursed.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. The ship gets into more trouble but it also usually accomplishes great things, and with all of that bad juju concentrated on the Enterprise, it allows the rest of Starfleet to usually have an easier time of it, aside from all of the times where they're doomed to be destroyed or stricken so that the Enterprise can come along and solve a negative space wedgie.
@@CoidLower Decks disagrees with you
There are lots of things that don't make sense about the Federation and the lack of actual combat troops highlights many of them:
1) We know the Federation is dominated by humanity which doesn't really make sense to begin with because humanity is very new to the galactic community. This dominance is most recently reinforced by S3 of Picard where Frontier Day is extremely focused on humanity and doesn't even make mention of the other races in the Federation. Why do all these older races that make up the Federation have such small numbers compared to humans? Why are they happy to be dominated by an upstart rookie race?
2) If the Federation is dominated by humanity, why is it so incredibly unmilitaristic? That is completely at odds with the history of the human race. Maybe the Federation is not aggressive, sure, but big standing armies have been a mainstay of human governments for centuries if not millennia.
3) Roddenberry famously sourced the conflict depicted in the show as coming from outside the Federation - if there is frequent conflict with outside factions, then the first thing to do would be to increase the Federation's defense capabilities. And they get into combat very often. So why no actual combat troops? Starfleet might as well be suicidal.
To answer some of your question, I think the idea is that human culture as of the Star Trek future has evolved to be far more diplomatic that it has in the past, which means that they end up being the effective glue that holds the Federation together. Hence why the old alien races might be more willing to take a backseat to humanity to an extent. Though it's also worth pointing out that it's possible that the Federation isn't dominated by humanity as much as it seems, given that in DS9 the leader of the Federation is an alien and at least in TOS and early TNG there were a lot more aliens who looked exactly like humans, so it's entirely possible that characters who aren't stated as being form Earth are actually from say, the Roman Empire planet.
Hey chuck, been watching you since deployment in 2011. Do you still take donations for episodes? I know you stopped for awhile due to the backlog. I'm just glad you allowed me to donate before for a video. I love ya now and forever
The MACOs make a lot of sense when considering the Star Trek timeline. The Unified Earth Government has finally come together just before the start of Enterprise, built from what had essentially been a post-apocalyptic wasteland run by ruthless warlords not even a century prior. While First Contact was the catalyst towards a more enlightened society, there is no way that transition was all together peaceful. The MACO perspective would've been an entirely vindicated one in the 22nd century, and was a sadly rare instance of Enterprise showing that Star Fleet ideals weren't just some smug immaculate conception that popped into reality fully-formed and consequence-free.
02.06.99... 24 years since DS9 ended... times fly by..
Suggestion: The Gift from Voyager. One of my favorites as its the last episode with Kes - who is, imo, an awful mix of Deanna Troi and Wesley Crusher and maybe the worst character on Voyager with the exception of Seska.
Lol i get it. I cheered when Kes died and prefer the series afterwards when she’s not a character.
It’s not a popular take 😂
Not to be confused with MacOS. 🍎
The MACO's were integrated into Starfleet. They are, the Red Shirts in TOS and Yellow Shirts in TNG forward.
So all the comments here with people calling Security for 'cartoonish' and stuff.. I can't but laugh at you
Wow, their training went really downhill over the years in that case.
Too bad MACOs were useless in the actual show.