I’m still plowing my way through TNG. I finished the episode Coming of Age. I think my suspension of disbelief is broken.
The entry exam for Star Fleet Academy requires knowing how to fuel a starship and navigate inter-species relations.
That’s like required prospective students to know how to design engines for entry into a mechanical engineering undergrad program.
If you already know this stuff, what’s the point of the Academy.
I also can’t believe every one of thousands of officers in Star Fleet on hundreds of ships went through that same test.
If they had made it entry into some super duper ultra special accelerated program, I’d believe it. For regular Star Fleet, that’s dumb.
Going by what is required I think the time scale is off. Unless humans got radically smarter by Star Trek time, high school should take you till your 20s. College/Academy until mid 30s. Commission as an officer by 40, serve till 80, retire, die at 120. Which makes sense given how long life has been extended in that universe.
The problem in engineering programs today is that there is so much new technology that when you teach the fundamentals and the new stuff, it’s closer to 5 years of school than 4. Add 300 years of technology and an undergraduate program should be 10 years to cover everything from intro to physics to warp theory.
Otherwise three year old will have to be doing calculus to be advanced enough to get into the Academy by 16.
Jean Luc should be at the beginning of his career, not captain, in his 50s.
Also, Wesley is still annoying as shit.
I’m re-watching here as well. First time all the way through since it was originally aired. (outside of sporadic re-run watching). S1 and 2 are near unwatchable. 3+ get better for the most part. I’m most of the way through S5.
I always though of Starfleet Academy as more akin to an OCS type institution, rather than general enlistment. Even today folks don’t enter an institution like West Point without an arguably greater than average knowledge base, and you graduate/enter service with an officer rating from the get-go.
I believe the official Star Trek Pravda is there are no enlisted ranks in Star Fleet — everyone is an officer.
while officers are certainly the focus of the show, there are Non-coms; Chief petty officer Miles O’Brien for example.
Kinda gives you a new appreciation for Scotty