When Trek is Moronic
So... in Starfleet universe everyone is super nice and no one ever goes for the head-shot, right? Or is it just part of the list of things designed to make security officers look implausibly dysfunctional and incompetent to the point that my suspension of disbelief goes flying out the window? The list goes something like this:
- No helmets to prevent ( Read more... )
Comments 9
1) Security and marines wear helmets.
2) Energy weapons don't cause things to blow up so shrapnel is not that big of a problem
3) When weapons fire at the speed of light, you're dead in an instant
4) See #3
5) Legit compalint. I'd give them a holdout of some kind
6) Don't need extra power cells. Phasers and other beam weapons can fire for decades on one power cell, plus they're all kept fully charged on-board.
7) Depends on the ROE
8) Mostly because the TV show and movies focus on the stars, none of whom are Security types. Sure, Worf (and Yar before him) were heads of Security, but small-unit actions were rarely, if ever, the focus.
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The only time I can recall them wearing helmets is in the very first movie. And helmets are also good places to put a little camera thingy or a light, or hell, a nice heads-up display so they can actually hit the broadside of a barn.
Don't forget how flimsy their weapons look. The problem with those props is that they look like plastic props instead of real weapons. TNG was atrocious about that, what with the dust buster phaser things that were flat out ridiculous.
And then there is camouflage. Trust me, it's a really good idea.
As I've said elsewhere, the only reason the Federation manages to win wars is because the bad guys are even dumber than they are. Seriously, if the Klingons or Romulans or Cardassians or Dominion or the Threat of the ( ... )
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I was hashing out a scene involving ground combat during the Dominion War and it was like running into a giant pink elephant, y'know? Through some digging, I discovered that there are standard issue security helmets (Illyrian style) and Surface Operation Blacks which we see in DS9. They appear to be some sort of padded flak jackets and pants. Of course, in those episodes there is a ridiculous absence of the standard issue helmets so I assume Starfleet just prefers massive casualties do to shrapnel through the skull.
Course, the official site also denies the existence of combat uniforms and there's some hilarious creator quote about how obvious combat accouterments would conflict with Star Trek's original vision as a non-militaristic exploratory organization. ( ... )
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If I had to fanwank it, I'd say that the Federation has some sort of cultural hangup about face-to-face combat (and probably planetary, too), but not when it comes to space combat. Hypocritical, perhaps, and clearly self-defeating in some situations, but in the context of ST warfare between civilizations, probably not as damaging as it would be in another situation.
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If you don't have boots on the ground, then you don't control that ground, no matter how much air/space superiority you have. The only other option is to utterly obliterate the target ... which rather clashes with Starfleet's utopianism.
So sorry, gotta disagree with you there. Infantry will always be necessary.
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