Starfleet Fleet Positioning

[USSEnterprise]

Well, I just saw the new movie, hooray for me, and I was curious. Was a reason ever given why Starfleet's entire fleet was in one spot? It may be just be, but that seems like a less than ideal idea...

[Mikey]

It seemed like it was just the available ships at Earth, largely uncrewed (thus the mad rush of cadets to fill out the crews.)

[Captain Seafort]

I think he's referring to the force on the Klingon frontier that the neoE was trying to reach after the destruction of Vulcan. In which case I think "the fleet" can be safely dismissed as referring to that specific fleet.

[USSEnterprise]

Vulcan, a founding member of the Federation sent a distress call and all they could send was a handful of ships manned by cadets? It seems to me that most of their ships where away. Heck McCoy was considered a senior medical officer when he boarded the Enterprise.

[Mikey]

Vulcan, a founding member of the Federation sent a distress call and all they could send was a handful of ships manned by cadets? It seems to me that most of their ships where away. Heck McCoy was considered a senior medical officer when he boarded the Enterprise.

Which is just further (circumstantial) evidence that the fleet wasn't in one spot, or even local.

[USSEnterprise]

So Starfleet had zero ships near the "core" worlds? This seems unlikely to me...

[Mikey]

We've seen it before...

It suggests at least that there was no viable strength of established starships around the core, at any rate.

[Tyyr]

This is Starfleet, admittedly a TOS era one but still Starfleet. Brilliant strategic planning is not what these guys do. Hell, they don't even sully their hands with substandard strategic planning.

[Sionnach Glic]

Personaly I was assuming that the fleet guarding the inner worlds was redeployed elsewhere for some reason.

[USSEnterprise]

Personaly I was assuming that the fleet guarding the inner worlds was redeployed elsewhere for some reason.

Thats what I was thinking too. After the destruction of Vulcan, Pike ordered Spock to rendezvous the Enterprise with the rest of the "fleet" elsewhere.

[Graham Kennedy]

They said something about the bulk of the fleet being tied up in the "Laurentian system". That's where Spock wanted to go later on. Whether that was the bulk of the whole of starfleet, or just the home fleet, they don't really say.

[Reliant121]

I would personally err on it being the home fleet. However, we have no proof to say it was either, so we cannot say.

[Sionnach Glic]

It being most of Starfleet wouldn't really make much sense, IMO. What possible need could there be for a sizeable chunk of Starfleet to gather there at the expense of other systems?

[Graham Kennedy]

Well if there was some planetwide disaster that required a whole planet to be evacuated, you'd need every ship you could get your hands on and more besides. I suppose it's possible, but I really would lean towards it being most of the home fleet. No doubt there are other ships out there somewhere.

[Sionnach Glic]

Fair point.