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I have always had a problem with Nog being a starfleet officer. Last time I checked the Ferrengi were not members of the Federation and there is no mention of the Ferrengi joining the Federation in TNG, Voyager, or DS9. You would think there would of been some mention of the Ferrengi joining the Federation when Nog was perusing the path of a starfleet officer. Ain't one of the requirements of being a starfleet officer is that your species has to be a member of the Federation?

What are your thoughts about this?

I preferred him as a Starfleet Officer then as a brat Ferengi - Jake and Nog managed to go from annoying kids to well developed characters.

I'm pretty sure the Ferengi aren't part of the Federation yet, though I didn't realise that your species had to be a member of the Federation - Worf enrolled in Starfleet. Garak stated that he wanted to join, even though he was winding Worf up at the time. Ensign Ro was in Starfleet for a time.

Actually, it stated in DS9 that if your from a non federation member world, you have to have a recomendation from a senior level Starfleet Officer as your sponsor, or some such. Hence, Nog asked Sisko to help him get into the acadamy.

As Kostmayer mentioned, there were pre-DS9 examples of non-Federation citizens becoming Starfleet officers. IIRC, that fish-faced dude that Wesley competed with for Academy entrance wasn't a Fed citizen, though I may be wrong on that.

A Benzinite, I think was the race.

Yep, I don't see any problem with it, I mean he likely would have applied for Federation Citizenship for himself and thus he would be a Fed citizen.

As long as they don't try and put Nog in Security, I can accept his role. I can see him having a great career in Ops or Engineering.........even commanding a ship some day. But PLEASE don't let anyone try and sell him as a tactical officer.

Anyone can join SF if they pass certain tests and have a Star Feet officer as a sponsor.

That's a rather stupid state of affairs. There's plenty of possibilities for sabateours to get in that way.

Mark wrote:A Benzinite, I think was the race.

Ah yes, the ones with the one-man-band harmonicas near their mouths

He did, in fact, closely resemble Bob Dylan.

But I agree - a security officer whose natural instinct is to scream like a four-year-old girl at the first sign of danger probably ain't a great idea.

What ever makes you think that?

Rochey wrote:That's a rather stupid state of affairs. There's plenty of possibilities for sabateours to get in that way.

There's no problem in principle - they just need to make sure they've got some effective vetting proceedures in place. Take the British armed forces for example. A significant minority of "British" troops are foreign born - mostly Ghurkas, but there's also considerable numbers of non British nationals in the line regiments, including Johnson Beharry VC.

Unfortunately, Starfleet haven't got effective vettingots. Take the Klingon in "The Drumhead", for example. He not only managed to get a place aboard the Federation flagship, but also got access to sensitive information and was able to smuggle it off the ship. That's just one example - there's numerous cases of people gaining access to areas they're not authorised to be in, with no computerised systems or guards stopping them. Their physical security is a crap as their computer security.

Isn't that a separate problem from vetting actual officer candidates?