Does Starfleet Ground Force realy exist?

[JALU3]

I use to have a character who had a M-14 around.

Nothing like saying . . . look at that red spray coming out of your friend in a world where people just die or get vaporized to make someone think twice.

[Tobian]

Errr. 'cause being killed or vapourised isn't threatening enough??!!

The fact that species posses energy beam weapons would in and of it's self change the nature of war. Since this is a roleplaying forum, I will point out that anyone who's played either of the games will tell you how lethal and nasty it can become in very short order should a firefight break out.. Yes your phaser will wear out sooner if you vapourise mountains.. but you only need to hit it once! no matter how hard i tried I could never seem to get the crew to run out of energy in their weapons as a story point

While I realise that you could invent all manner of technobabble for your games, I can't think of a realistic way that you can shield against damage that can vapourise 5 cubic meters of Duranium! We are talking about a material that already defies the properties of any known mineral/ metal / substance in science today!

Shuttlecraft with fusion (or antimatter, in the case of a runabout) reactors can generate sizeable ammounts of energy, enough to shield the ship against such weapons, and yes, dedicated ground facilities and vehicles could also be shielded.. but.. A Shuttle is a fast moving object, a tank is a slow moving brick witha 'hit me' sign painted on the back - and all shields go down if hit enough times (With the exception of the Borg, but they are a special case). Those type 8 shuttles look like a boxy people carrier, but how many people cariers can move at mach 20 ?

I've seen all sorts of fan-inspired rubish about such things in the past, but untill the Federation or other comparable races invent the equivalent of a pocket warp core: personal armour is simply infeasible!

With regards to dodging the speed of light: Phasers might well emit at the speed of light, but people who use them do not move at the speed of light; so you only ever need to be faster than the person firing them NOT the beam it's self! Bullets are phenomenally fast too, but people can dodge them, because they see a person pointing a gun at them.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

This is always a tough subject.

The way I see it, this is my opinion, ground forces are nearly useless.

With ships possessing weapons in power far in excess of anything ground forces could bring to bear, what would be the point? With photon torpedoes, multiple phaser banks, etc...I see no reason for alot of the equipment we would think they would need. If I remember correctly, during a TNG episode, a photon torpedo was used to penetrate a planet's crust.

As for personal protection or camo; also no real reason. There is no shrapnel from standard energy weapons, granted I'm sure the normal crew could use some protection against exploding consoles...but ST doesn't have widespread seatbelts for them either so there.

Whoever mentioned that ST is essentially a exploratory body is right on the money. If the shows made sense, then they would have to introduce faceguards and armor for anyone near consoles, raillings in the corridors, seatbelts and...chairs for everyone. They would also have to fix the shields so they don't go down in 3 shots. Redesign all the ships so they can't be easily cut into pieces, the Borg ships designs are the most combat worthy.But...if they did all these things, the show would be much less enjoyable without Dramatic Death of the Week(Tm).

So if your looking for sense or logic in ST then this isn't the right place for it. There are alot of inconsistencies, illogical creations and overall zany ideas. All for one purpose. The story. If it succeeds, well then mission accomplished I guess.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Lt.Khrys Antos
The way I see it, this is my opinion, ground forces are nearly useless.

Nearly, there are always going to be situations where a Starship is ineffective, unavailable, or simply over kill. Think the current style of combat taking place in Iraq, it's urban fighting with a lot of innocent by-standers all over the place. Now some might suggest wide beam stun setting from the ship's emitters, but as was pointed out in The Undiscovered Country and the TNG episode 'Samarian Snare' [sp?] repeated stunning of an individual can be hazardous to your health or possibly lethal. Not to mention if you have combatants on the planet they'll wait for you to try this trick by hiding under ground of in a hardened location (OK the civilians are all stunned, they'll beam down medics and security next, kill any thing in yellow, capture all other colors). Also this is not a good way to make friends.

Another situation where Gound Forces are likely to exist, remote colonies. Now day to day operations will be spent as a police force on the worst of normal days. Now lets say some hostile entity likes this patch of dirt in space, the nearist starship is days away, after you can contact them that is, what's going to protect you happless colonisits? Ground Forces sent with them until they have there own defense personal.

In Star Trek, too many people asume just because it's not on the mighty Enterprise, it does not exist at all, anyplace. There could very well be things out there that have nothing to do with the Flag Ship of the Federation.

Personally, my take on Ground Forces (in the context of this thread anyway) in akin to a National Guard. People that have been trained and equipped in the defense of the homeland, but have other jobs when times are peaceful.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Originally posted by Phoenix
Nearly, there are always going to be situations where a Starship is ineffective, unavailable, or simply over kill. Think the current style of combat taking place in Iraq, it's urban fighting with a lot of innocent by-standers all over the place. Now some might suggest wide beam stun setting from the ship's emitters, but as was pointed out in The Undiscovered Country and the TNG episode 'Samarian Snare' [sp?] repeated stunning of an individual can be hazardous to your health or possibly lethal. Not to mention if you have combatants on the planet they'll wait for you to try this trick by hiding under ground of in a hardened location (OK the civilians are all stunned, they'll beam down medics and security next, kill any thing in yellow, capture all other colors). Also this is not a good way to make friends.

Another situation where Gound Forces are likely to exist, remote colonies. Now day to day operations will be spent as a police force on the worst of normal days. Now lets say some hostile entity likes this patch of dirt in space, the nearist starship is days away, after you can contact them that is, what's going to protect you happless colonisits? Ground Forces sent with them until they have there own defense personal.

In Star Trek, too many people asume just because it's not on the mighty Enterprise, it does not exist at all, anyplace. There could very well be things out there that have nothing to do with the Flag Ship of the Federation.

Personally, my take on Ground Forces (in the context of this thread anyway) in akin to a National Guard. People that have been trained and equipped in the defense of the homeland, but have other jobs when times are peaceful.

Granted those are all useful situations, but, in my defense I did say nearly.

I always understood colonies as being run by the colonists with little or no federation oversight, unless it was warranted/asked for. In the case of someone invading the planet, I doubt a small contingent group of soldiers would make any difference. I also assume that Romulans, Tholians, Cardassians and other on screen enemies do not value the life our of enemies the way we do; thus obliterating the population of a planet would not be out of the question.

Again this is just my opinion.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Lt.Khrys Antos
Granted those are all useful situations, but, in my defense I did say nearly.

I wasn't arguing that, I also said nearly. I am also one of the people around here that respect other people's opinions, a few opinions have crept their way in to my game from time to time.

[Tobian]

I wouldn't argue that ';ground forces' are completelly redundant, and several pieces of equiptment and scenes we've seen in the shows / films show that they are relevant.

Yes technically a starship could level a site from orbit, but then that's not always going to be an option (such as if the location is shielded - planet wide shields have been known!) or more importantly it's not wanted...

For example if a Cardassian Gul had his daugher kidnapped by the maquis, he's hardly likelly to level the entire colony in revenge - we would have to mount a siege and take the buildings one by one. So to say that just because Klingons / Romulans / Cardassians are 'ruthless' it doesn't make them one dimensional or level a complex scenario. Few Klingons in the modern era would want to just sit and press a button and level everything; they'd want to go down there and pick on something - with a Bat'leth Romulans equally prefer to use their ships mostly for intimidation, because they like to conquor the minds of the people as much as they like to physically conquor them.

if you step back to the expansion era of Tos and before - the klingons Romulans and Cardassians didn't have infinite energy or super fast warp drives or replicators (as neither did the Federation) - so if you 'invaded' a planet you wanted it for it's resources - so you are hardly likelly to liquify it's crust! besides if you kill everyone - who strip mines the planet for you!?!

There are plenty of reasons to use some form of 'ground forces' within Startrek and we've seen them used allot in many scenarios - but under most circumstances, the addition of Starships and advanced technology radically changes the face of that battle!

[UDT/Frogman]

all u ppl say that tanks is useles in st world sound like a franch in WWI cuz when the British presented their first tank franch said that the weapons to defeat it already existed and i 60s they even stoped to making tanks

but i say that camuflage bodey protection and heavy weapons would evolve in and serve in 24th sentury

as for ppl who says that starfleet is exploratory then i asume that they more like NASA . then why are they doing so much diplomatic crap and ocasional combat

when u see away team going into hostile terretory they only have phasers and tricorders but when sailors from modern navy go into hostile terretory for whatever reason be it corpsman or a seabee or someone elce they always wear camies and flack vest and they carry M16 u dont see many sailors running in their white uniform on the battle field then why does starfleet sends their away teams on the hostile ground all read and yellow like a freaking christmass trees

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Oh my eyes are opened, how could I have ever been so foolish to disagree. Frogman is the new Roddenberry.

Look, some people agree with you, others don't. That's life. Get over it, and stop taking the damn thing so seriously. It's just a TV show. Trust me, you'll be much happier if you learn to relax.

[Owen E Oulton]

Okay, This really has gone far enough. Frogman, you're not interested in a dialogue at all, you're just trying to stir things up. Everyone, I suggest we all simply stop replying to him - don't feed the troll. Just let the thread fade away since nothing useful is being accomplished.

[Sea Tyger]

Yeah, his last statement put him on my ignore list. Have a nice life, wannabe.

[UDT/Frogman]

what ever

[redwood973]

Originally posted by Sea Tyger
Yeah, his last statement put him on my ignore list.

You can ignore peoples posts!? How?

[Owen E Oulton]

Go to your User CP. There is a bar with a number of "Edit" commands. Select "Edit Ignore List" and enter the offender's name. From then on, any time he enters a message, the Boards will display a blank message with the sentence "This person is on your ignore list." Should you want to read their message, you can click on it and it will open in a separate window.