Starfleet Marines and Fighters

[Seoulless]

I'm always curious, since I've been around the Star Trek block for quite sometime, players reasoning behind Starfleet Marines when there has never been any mention of them in Star Trek canon.

[Treymiar]

It did seem curious.
Maybe it's like Master & Commander movie.
The marines seemed to be their own unit.

I also wonder about fighter craft.
Against a deflector shielded ship, they would seem rather useless.
For that matter, I'd think the same of runabouts.
A full phaser bolt should blow any of them to bits.

[Seoulless]

For me I found it interesting because the MACO's from Enterprise aren't Marines. So I always wondered how they came up with Marines. Traditionally (and this is a view I take when I write Star Trek fiction) is that the UFP is like the UN. It maintains a security force, but has no standing army. If it goes to war and needs ground troops, it pulls units from the Federation member worlds. So you might have regiments of Earth units, like Marines or Army, units from Betazed, Andoria, etc. But no mixed units unless those mixed units were Starfleet Security.

As for fighters, in modern day warfare fighter craft are on the decline because defensive technology has surpassed them. In another century they might be on the rise again as offensive technology give them an advantage. According to Memory Alpha, Star Fleet Attack Craft during the Dominion War mounted Type 8 phaser arrays and torpedo launchers. Yet in most SIMs I see fighter craft with micro-pulse phasers and micro-torpedoes. And I wonder, where did that come from? LOL.

I have no problems with fighter craft. Though personally I do think they are at a disadvantage because of their size.

Mostly I wanted to hear other people's view and opinions on something I found to be an interesting departure from cannon.

[Williams]

Personally, I like to keep the Highlander as close to canon in terms of its crew positions as I can. I've always wondered as to the rationale behind an intel department and a diplomacy department on starships as well, consider they aren't canon, and the extra uniform colours that have become pretty standard on sims for those departments.

The way I tend to set things up is that the ship only has the tri-colour departments, but as an additional role one officer serves as the ship's liaison with SFI (like Worf on DS9, or Data on the Ent-E), one officer serves as the ship's diplomatic officer or contact specialist (like Troi on the Ent-D), and the ship would only get marines anywhere near it if we were in a state of war. Ship is too small for fighters, giving me an easy out there, but even if it weren't I'd go with the logic of that they should only really be assigned to dedicated ships which serve as carriers - otherwise there aren't really enough of them to be much more useful than an over-powered shuttle

[Alex]

With marines, my stance has been that marines should only be in starships large enough to really support them. Like Williams said, the Intrepid class is not really suited for them, though a ship like the Lexington class would be. I also don't really think of them as Starfleet Marines, but instead how they are treated on Starbase 332. There the marines are part of the UFPMC, so they do represent the Federation, and not Starfleet. However, they still answer to the sector commander, which is the CO of the station. The division of duties is that Starfleet Security is still responsible for policing the station, the marines are often used to supplement those security forces if they are short handed, to preform ship boardings and inspections before the visiting ship reaches the station, and in times of battle, could be utilized to repel enemy invaders if they were to get aboard the station.

The fighters serve a similar role. They are used in patrols of the station perimeter, escorting ships in or out of station airspace (space space?) or for detaining freighters prior to marine boarding or seizures. They could be used if an attacking force was to invade the system, though against larger capital ships they would operate in swarms. In real life navies, fighter craft are becoming less useful, but that's because of the rise of long range guided missiles. A lot of combat sorties are probably flown to provide support for ground forces, and less for engaging enemy planes or navies. Depending on the CO, they could be used in many different ways, but I tend to treat them as a support unit, though thanks to our new CAG, I hope to get them involved in more action, which has been working well so far. But I do agree that with the small size of the fightercraft used in Pegasus Fleet, you would need swarms for them to be really effective in combat.

[Seoulless]

I guess my main point of curiousity, was why Marines specifically when there has been no mention of them in canon, but there are already the MACOs that were mentioned in canon, and could very well have continued to exist after Starfleet was formed since the implication was that prior to First Contact with the Vulcans there were no established military organizations and that the Military Assault Command Operations (or Organization) was created when Earth began to formalize as a single government.

So my question is really, why do you think people have latched onto Marines as the force? And why does not one every mention any other military branch?

Not to mention I'm just trying to stir up some activity on the forum.

[Alex]

Oh, I definitely support activity on the forum

That's a good question. I'd be fine with using MACOs, but marines have had a presence in simming since before I started, so I don't know what started the trend. My guess is that marines are mentioned instead of other military branches to streamline the organization. Starfleet already represents the navy and air force, and since marines would be carried into battle by the navy, it makes more sense than an army. Perhaps there is still a UFP Army, but they would be used for long term deployment or occupation. Since we deal primarily with starships, we would be more likely to see marines than soldiers.

I would be interested in transitioning marines to MACOs, but I wonder if we would be able to drum up support elsewhere in the Fleet.

[Seoulless]

If you're interesting my perspective, I think moving to something like MACOs' would help separate PF from other fleets.

Current arguments about the Marine Corp aside. (Cuz I don't want to start an argument.)

Traditionally, because MACOs are essentially special forces (like SEALs, Green Berets, etc.) they are equipped with the best equipment (and probably some experimental stuff too). That might provide an opportunity to really flesh out and provide a great deal of detail on who they are and what they do within the scope of PF's Star Trek universe. Give them a definable place and make them something special. Because we wouldn't necessarily be bound by any pre-conceptions about what they are, it might provide an opportunity to really give them a unique flavor and presence.

That is my two cents.

But I welcome other people's opinions as well.

Let's get some chatter going!

[Caeslius]

I remember I was once vehemently opposed to including marines in sims. I was on a sim quite a few years back that ended up having a significant conflict among the writers around the inclusion of a single marine character. But I've well and truly relaxed my position since then and I'm of the view that if you want marines, bring 'em on! But make them realistic. So my stance would be similar to Williams and Alex here.

Generally speaking, I think that the use of the term 'marines' makes sense given that they are the futuristic spaceborne analog of modern amphibious troops and if you're going to have naval nomenclature you might as well go all in. I think they've also been mentioned in one or two of the Trek novels and certainly in games over the years, variably as Starfleet Marines and Federation Marines. As for using the MACO tag, my thoughts are that maybe the MACOs still exist as special forces (as Seoulless says), but specifically as a special forces unit of the Federation Marine Corps. They'd be a Federation version of MARSOC or the SBS. They're still marines, but the best of the best.

If they are a special forces unit, though, I would imagine they would be retained centrally at Pegasus Fleet HQ on Cestus III and then deployed as required for specific operations. They wouldn't be assigned full-time to any one ship. Which, in itself, is an interesting concept for a sim ...

[Seoulless]

Yay! Someone else has joined the conversation!

I've not been able to find any reference of Marines (Starfleet or Federation) in any canon source. I have seen references to 'Ground Troops' in some of the Dominion War novels. In official canon, MACO was the abbreviation for Military Assault Command Operations. There is no reference that they are/were Marines. Not to mention that most players I've SIMM'd with seem to play their Marines as Special Forces to anyway.

My initial question was why? Why have players latched onto the term 'Marine' when in canon there is no reference to marines existing within the Starfleet structure?

If we were to base the fact that Marines exist because Starfleet has taken the role of the Navy, then why isn't Starfleet Intelligence more like the Office of Naval Intelligence and more like the CIA or FBI? I just find it curious as to why SIMMers seem to have latched onto some terminologies and such that have never been mentioned in canon. So started this post to get other people's perspectives on the matter.

In a way I want to hear what individuals think, not that its just the way it was when I started. Just because it was that way when you began doesn't mean that we have to perpetuate it. Why not do something different? But I'm not trying to change anything. I'm just trying to get some discussions going and to find out why other people seem to have latched onto it.

And... Go... More debate please.