Starfleet Academy is renowned as the training centre of all Starfleet officers, the best of the best. Amongst this elite group there are those considered better and brighter than others. And a super elite cadre emerged, their name whispered in admiration and awe by their fellow students; 'Red Squad'. Despite the equality promoted by Federation, ideals this group exists because the faculty seems to realise that their reputation and presence seemed to give the student body extra impetus and a target of achievement. The faculty decided therefore to allow Red Squad to exist as an unofficially sanctioned part of the Academy, membership and reputation were left entirely within the student body, allowing the development of this elitism simply because the students wanted it.
That’s before it all went wrong. By 2370 Red Squads superstar status amongst the student body left their members feeling invulnerable, but their own idol worship of some senior Starfleet officers blinded them when they were used by Admiral Leyton. Thinking they were merely running a training exercise they disabled Earths planetary power grid. The realisation of their mistake then bound them into a conspiracy of Silence lest their actions lead to greater repercussions. The eventual revelation of this conspiracy by Captain Sisko filtered down past the imprisonment of the ring-leaders and shook the academy directly resulting in a reduction of Status for Red Squad.
The Academy faculty realised that their hands-off approach had been partly to blame as Red Squad had been operating without oversight, and so the squad was finally made official, adopted by the faculty and the squad increased in size accordingly with membership decided by ability and grades for 3rd and 4th year cadets, rather than student invite.
But on an ill-fated Training mission things went wrong again. The USS Valiant was on a training mission, a state of the art ship at the disposal of Red Squad as a reward for their excellence, and a significant learning opportunity under a small number of commissioned officer instructors. But when hostilities broke out with the Dominion, the ship came under fire all the commissioned officers were killed and the remaining students left to fend for themselves, trapped behind enemy lines. They were so sure of their excellence, they felt themselves the equals of a fully trained and experienced crew, they decided to carry on their mission and continued to fight the Dominion. A decision that was to end in tragedy with the loss of the ship and most hands. Red Squad was reduced in one fell swoop to a membership of 1, and its academy activities were put on hold indefinitely pending the results of the courts martial.
It was the finding of the inquest that the acts of the members of Red Squad while misguided, were in the best traditions of the fleet and several posthumous medals were awarded, with all crew entered into the logs as commissioned officers rather than as cadets at the time of their deaths.
However the academy was left reeling and the faculty tried to close down Red Squad completely. A ban that barely lasted 2 years before it was discovered that the student body had resurrected the group again in 2380. The staff were forced to make a decision and as a result Red Squad was returned to the academy, but this time it would be joined by Gold and Blue squads.
Red Squad would make up the top students in the fields of Command and Tactical, Gold would pick the top Operations and Engineer cadets and Blue would pick Medical and Science specialists. Each squad would operate under the guidance of a dedicated tutor and each would compete for the Squad cup annually, building a total score of merits and demerits collectively from its membership, and it was hoped that this extra competition would reduce the elitism that had cased Red Squad to fall so hard, and still build the ethics of Teamwork and Professionalism that formed the grounding of all Starfleet officers.
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