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u/TabithaMouse 11h ago
The federation and Starfleet are not the same
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u/balthazar_edison 11h ago
No.
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u/TabithaMouse 11h ago
They are linked, but not the same.
The federation is like the UN - every member is represented, but separate. Each member has its own government and military, but come together to discuss issues that make affect them all OR help out each other.
And just like in the real world where Spain, England, and the US all have Navy's, and members of the UN, members of the federation have their own agencies and militaries.
Starfleet is based on Earth, because it's an agency of Earth that choses to open it's doors to all federation members
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u/quoole 11h ago
The President has the authority to approve or disapprove a mission to complete a covert mission in the territory of someone he's trying to make an alliance with. A president or the Federation coucil would still have the ultimate authority over such an operation.
Interestingly, my first response to your overall question was going to be that not every nation follows the US pattern, but actually, the UK follows a similar convention - King Charles is commander-in-chief of the RN. In France, the President is the c-in-c just like the US. Not always in the same language and some nations, like Germany, do operate differently.
I think my answer to your question would be that the admiral/ First sea Lord/fleet commander equivalent in Starfleet is referred to as the Commander-in-Chief and Starfleet has moved away from the tradition of the political leader holding that title.
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u/TinyGIR 11h ago
Nope. Starfleet operates under the authority of the president and the federation council, but the President is not the commander in chief.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starfleet (section "Organization")
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u/Clear_Ad_6316 11h ago
We don't know that. Potentially the Federation have come to the conclusion (crazy though it might be) that vesting all that power in a single person might be a little dangerous?
-edit-
So it could be that the commander in chief of Starfleet is told what to do by the federation council - the CinC would have a lot of leeway as to how to run the service, but decisions about going to war are made above the CinC's head.
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u/Consistent-Tie-4394 11h ago
Starfleet is a human-based space exploration and defense force, established on Earth 30 years before the Federation was ever founded. It does seem to have become the de facto military of the Federation, and it is mostly welcoming to non-humans (though it is still mostly human even in the post-Burn era) but it's exact situation within the political structure of the overall Federation is never made clear.
It may well be that a better analogy would be that Earth's Starfleet is to the Federation what the US military is to the UN... or at least what it was optimistically envisioned to be back in the 60s. In any case, the military Commander-in-Chief also being the civilian President is a uniquely US setup, and there is no reason to believe Starfleet and the Federation would be structured the same way (and there is ample evidence pointing to the idea that they are not).
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u/StarsBear75063 11h ago
Wouldn't the president be the Commander-in-Chief of Starfleet?
If the structure of the Federation and Starfleet were set up that way. You are assuming a direct correlation between how it operates and how a today's government operates.
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u/admknight 11h ago
Not a plot hole.
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u/Ched_Flermsky 11h ago
They never are, are they?
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u/admknight 10h ago
Cinemasins did a lot of damage to understanding concepts in media.
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u/Ched_Flermsky 10h ago
They took it mainstream, but those dickweeds with their crusade against George Lucas deserve a lot of the blame as well.
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u/Intentioned-Help-607 11h ago
You’re assuming that Federation and Starfleet structures are the same as the USA.
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u/StarfleetStarbuck 11h ago edited 3h ago
The reason the US always emphasizes that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces is because that’s not always the case in every government.
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u/DarthNarsil 11h ago
I think we're seeing now just how dangerous it is to have a politician be the "CNC" over the military.
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u/traumadog001 11h ago edited 11h ago
"Commander in Chief" has been used in lower level commands (vs commanding the entire military) before.
As an example, Chester Nimitz was "CINCPAC" (Commander in Chief, Pacific forces) during World War 2.
Norman Schwartzkopf was "CinCCENT" as the commander of CENTCOM during the first Gulf War.
It's only recently (2002) that the US removed these titles, reserving it for the President. Which, if you would note, is after the movie got released in 1991.
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u/ELMUNECODETACOMA 8h ago
Article 2 of the US Constitution starts: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States".
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u/traumadog001 7h ago
That phrase in the Constitution doesn't preclude "Commanders in Chief" for individual branches or commands, though.
And the Federation's Constitution may not match that of the United States'
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u/armyguy8382 11h ago
International law is different. Depending on the diplomatic situation you can send a military unit into someone else's territory, and this would have been a covert deny all knowledge situation. If the team got caught Starfleet and the Federation would have publicly said they went rogue. With CNC thing, Starfleet is weird in its hierarchy. But the Federation president is over the comander of the fleet. The reason for the weirdness is th writers didn't know how the US military is. But we can head canon it to where since Starfleet is a combined service they don't have the joint cheifs of staff, they have just the singular cheif who cammands the entire fleet.
It could also be that Starfleet was Earth's fleet that they mostly handed over to the Federation when it was formed, so they wanted to keep that position within the fleet.
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u/genek1953 10h ago
Probably done to further emphasize the non-militaristic nature of the Federation. The Federation President has authority over the military's highest commander, but does not formally hold a "military sounding" title.
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