Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through February 09, 2020	25		02/10 01:32pm

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Quote:

Well, you have to figure that the prospective recruit would have to be

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By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, February 09, 2020 - 08:49 pm: Edit

"Well, you have to figure that the prospective recruit would have to be"

Indeed, I can agree on the list for perhaps the Federation. Other empires/species may have a similar or different list of what the prospective recruits would have to be.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, February 10, 2020 - 10:58 am: Edit

The point I was making is that it's just a sieve of population.

5% totally non claustrophobic.

20% in the top fifth of the intelligence spectrum (1%)

50% very stable mentally (.5%)

25% good education (.25%)

25% clear background (.0625%)

20% willing to go off and risk their life (.0125%)

10% totally un xenophobic (.00125)

5% volunteer (.0000625%)

so that's only around 62 volunteers per million...

Seriously, there are HOW MANY billions/ trillions of beings in the Federation? And how many serve?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 10, 2020 - 12:48 pm: Edit

I'd say you are making some super-tight assumptions that aren't necessarily valid.

The Federation should have exemplary education. The Federation has significant social and medical services. The Federation is completely cosmopolitan. That means that "education", "claustrophobic", "mental stability", and "xenophobic" should be high enough percentages to be irrelevant.

Also, I doubt "volunteer" is gonna be that low, either. There is a lot of cache from the Star Fleet uniform.

Honestly, of the list you made, the only two real filters I see are "risk life" and "top fifth".

And, despite all of that, we can probably assume there are a very small group of planet systems with around 10 billion people in it. Using your percentages, that means 625,000 candidates from that system alone. Regardless, you are not running out of potential candidates.

Also, if the pool of candidates are that tiny, then the attrition worry is even less, as these people would end up being *so* special and *so* extraordinary that most people would not even be able to relate to them. In that case, Star Fleet personnel are effectively aliens to their own population. And that isn't supported by any of the published setting anywhere.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, February 10, 2020 - 01:32 pm: Edit

Of those that meet requirements for the "Space Force", how many are already lost to Merchant Marines, Pirates etc
Even with small crews, how many more freighters running around empires than warships.....
How many crew members do you want to remove from freighters, even in wartime.....

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 10, 2020 - 02:28 pm: Edit

Well, to be honest, for those other lines, the acceptable percentages that Mike was trying to define change greatly. For example, I imagine that the whole "clear background" thing doesn't really matter to pirates. And I imagine the educational, intellectual, background, and everything else opens up significantly. Even the "willing to die" gets better, as merchants generally don't have to worry about being "willing to die".

In all honesty, I imagine that the applicants for Star Fleet admission so overwhelm the available opportunities, that those on "lower" rungs of the metaphorical ladder still get to cherry pick even with just Star Fleet rejects.

To actually address the question, I would assume "virtually none" to be the answer. Almost none of those meeting the requirements for Star Fleet are lost to the other services. Rather, those services get a significant portion of their entrants from those rejected by Star Fleet. For the rest of those services' needs, their standards will be lower enough that they still will get way, way more applicants than they could ever use.

IMO, YMMV, IANAL, ETC

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Monday, February 10, 2020 - 07:03 pm: Edit

Perhaps as a reference, there are roughly three hundred million people in the United States. We have an all-volunteer military and have had for long enough that any and all draftees should have retired by now.

How many people serve the United States in various militaries, emergency services, and law enforcement?

IIRC, there's just shy of a million personnel in the United States Army, and I would be VERY surprised if, due to that number, the total number of people in the various services I brought up was less than two million. Perhaps even three million is not out of the question.

That means the all-volunteer U.S. forces are roughly one in every one hundred to one hundred fifty people. I believe that such a ratio can be fairly applied to the peoples of the SFU UFP.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, February 11, 2020 - 07:21 pm: Edit

https://www.army.mil/article/137112/last_continuously_serving_draftee_retires_after_42_years_of_service