Starfleet Academy

[Talondor]

Has anything ever been mentioned about how big the academy is, student population wise?

And do you think they have varsity teams that play in inter-college sports, and are members of a conference like the PAC-12? The Air Force, Army, and Naval academies have sports teams that play in various conferences.

[McAvoy]

I think there was mention of sports. I think Picard was track star. There was wrestling too I believe, I think Sisko was on it.

[Mikey]

I seem to also recall something about Picard being a x-country runner. The sticky wicket in this convo is that I don't remember any mention of the state or manner of higher education in the 23rd or 24th centuries.

[Teaos]

We know the academy is on Earth, but it would be unbelievable if there weren't satellite academies on other planets.

[Mikey]

We know the academy is on Earth, but it would be unbelievable if there weren't satellite academies on other planets.

I'd assume there would be other institutions, maybe or maybe not attached to Starfleet Academy. How those institutions are organized - if even in a way to match up with the Academy regarding average age of the student body - we have no idea. Further, what might the student bodies of those other institutions comprise, compared to the Academy? Could you imagine an American football, or Union, team composed of nothing but Nausicaans and Chalnoth squaring off against an all-human team?

[Graham Kennedy]

There are certainly related facilities off Earth, because we saw Wesley taking the entrance exam in one.

There really should be many Starfleet Academy branches, perhaps even one per member world. Yet it's only ever referred to in the singular, and people who talk about it only ever seem to be talking about the one on Earth.

As for how big a class is... well, we know the fleet is thousands strong or more. So that's a million plus right there. Throw in the Starbases and you're probably looking at several million.

Divide that by the average length of an officer's career. Most officers seem to want to serve until retirement, or even death. I don't recall ever hearing of one who planned to do five years and then quit or anything. But call it an average of thirty years in service. So three million divided by thirty years would mean you would have to graduate a hundred thousand new officers every year.

Of course there's loads of leeway in that. But it's certainly going to be a few tens of thousands per year as a lower limit, and several hundred thousand per year as an upper limit.

The campus we keep seeing on Earth, and the way it's talked about, seem far, far too small for anything like that. So there pretty much has to be many academies all over the Federation.

[Teaos]

Logically wouldn't the highest ranks of starfleet just be filled with the longest lived members. If there were members who did not die of old age or maybe data joined starfleet, they would end up in top command due to length of service eventually

[Graham Kennedy]

Sure, but it can't be the case that everyone does that. There are far more Ensigns than Admirals, so logically 90% of Ensigns must leave the service before they become Admirals.

All the Trek characters we see appear to be lifers who want to stay in Starfleet until they die or retire of old age. But these must be the exceptions.

[Mikey]

Why? We have no reason to believe that Starfleet is analogous in that way to modern militaries, with the commonality of short, defined tours of duty. When Spartan mothers told their sons to "come back with your shield or on it," they didn't add, "until you're 25." Nor is there an indication that Starfleet is like Tzahal.

[Graham Kennedy]

See above. Not everyone can ride up the chain of command.

Of course, we do know Starfleet lets people languish in the same rank indefinitely. But I find it hard to believe Starfleet is full of large numbers of veteran officers with 30 or 40 years worth of experience who are still Lieutenants.

Indeed there's canon to suggest otherwise, since in Datalore Data said that getting a uniform like his took "four years at the Academy, another three as ensign, ten or twelve on varied space duty in the lieutenant grades." He did reference this as the way he'd done it, but the fact that he said "ten or twelve" indicates that it's a more general statement rather than referring to his specific career. The alternate Picard who never went far up the ranks in Tapestry was also treated like he was the exception rather than the rule.

[Mikey]

This is true, but circumstantial. As yet another fly in the ointment of understanding the mechanics of Starfleet, there is the example of O'Brien. We have seen him go from NCO to officer and back seemingly at random; we've heard of his history in a position (cf. TNG: The Wounded) as a command advisor of a captain that would most probably belong to a WO of the U.S. Army circa 1952; and most curious - not about him personally, because we know his qualifications, but certainly about the bureaucracy behind it - become Chief of Operations of space station at an enlisted grade. Certainly here is an example of a man who at once remained relatively stagnant as far as grade (save for the brevet(?) rank and quick demotion from same) yet had wildly varying spheres of responsibility.

[Teaos]

But statements on Voyager made it clear that promotion to the ranks is common and expected after a few years.

[IanKennedy]

Not if your name is Harry Kim...

[Teaos]

One of the best Voyager scenes is when his parents say they are going to write to starfleet and Janeway to complain.