Actually, it’s probably not all that difficult. I just figured putting that in the title would make any Trekkies feel like coming and answering to look smart.
Anyway; about what percentage of people in Starfleet actually serve on a ship? I’m not including star bases here, so those probably have a lot of people. There’s probably anywhere from a small outpost to a large compound on every Federation planet. And there’s shipyards, too.
Mainly I ask because the Academy is shown as being pretty damn tough to get through. I wouldn’t have thought one single training facility, with exacting standards, would be able to provide recruits for the entire fleet. Are there more than just the main one on Earth?
Yes, they do. I’m just not including people on star bases in the amount of people on starships. It’s not really a huge difference, which is why I felt the need to be clearer (though clearly I failed on that).
I didn’t realise the Academy was just for officers. That does make more sense, but I still get the feeling that there wouldn’t be enough officers graduating each year to make up the numbers in the fleet and elsewhere.
We do seem to see them picking up various personel from different places, so that probably makes up at least part of the personel, but I imagine that StarFleet Academy is mostly for those who hope to be on the fast-track to promotion (ie: Better training, more competitive entrance qualifications, and good old fashioned politics), while others get into Starfleet based on their own technical qualifications.
It does certainly seem to be Starfleets “Earh” Headquarters, buy there is no reason to believe that the different member planets don’t each have thier own Acadamies, etc…
You earthers…thinking you’re the center of the universe and all…
I think the problem is that whenever a character in the show refers to the institution(s) that train and graduate Starfleet officers, they always say “the Academy,” and context frequently establishes that they are referring to the one in San Francisco.
Consider that Starfleet Academy might easily be the size that Penn State is today, if they’re pulling candidates from all over the Federation. Let’s say there’s an annual graduating class of 10,000 and an average ship complement of 400 - that’s 25 new ships’ worth of officers every year.
While I certainly agree with your logic, the issue with it is that our context is (99% of the time) on an “Earth” based ship/station… thereby ignoring all of the other members contributions… Klingons are a member of the Federation, yet I would say that none of thier officers went to that pansy (by comparison to the Klingon Acadamy) training acadamy in SF. Same with Vulcan… although some certainly did go to SF.
So, as for Earth based vessels and crew, certainly they were likely trained in SF (officers anyway)…
Four hundred officers per ship? How about 360 crewmen and 40 officers. Most of the officers graduated from the academy rather than were promoted from the ranks.
Originally, there was no issue. Officers went to school, enlisted men did not. In Next Generation, it’s extremely heavily implied that everyone on ship went to the same academy, and no other facilities are ever mentioned, anywhere. This is not impossible, although it is extremely inefficient. This can be done if your really need a disciplined crew and don’t care how much it costs. Given how relatively small Starfleet needs to be (although in some cases civilian government seems to have been taken over by Starfleet officers), it might not be a strain on a multi-planet civilization.
There were other exchange programs during TNG that would have one think that the Klingons were more than just “allies”… perhaps calling them a member of the federation was a bit of a stretch.
My point still stands… other member planets/systems would have thier own fleet(s) and Acadamies to pull from… 99% of our references, however, are “Earth” centric, so we really don’t know how other members deal with the issue.
I think Starfleet is actually the Federation’s fleet, rather that just Earth/human’s fleet. There were occasions when there were Vulcan ships, though I think these were scientific vessels…not sure.
Didn’t Spock and Tuvok both go to the Earth Academy? If any place in the Federation would have it’s own academy, Vulcan would, since they had fleets long before Earth. Maybe they just closed them down when they joined, because I don’t remember there being any reference to them.
Yeah, you’ve got a point. Kira was a Major in the Bajouran system, and was not a Star Fleet officer…yet her rank/status was recognized on DS9. Riker was part of an exchange program, and served briefly aboard a Klingon ship in an officer’s slot.
The Trekverse is a little top heavy, at least on the shows. We rarely see enlisted guys. Off the top of my head, I can name Yeoman Rand and Chief O’Brian, but that’s about it. The Enterprise prolly has grunts pulling KP or Firewatch, but they don’t get screen time until it’s time to feed somebody to an alien.
