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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2268490" data-attributes="member: 14159">Well, Starfleet is more than just military, they are apparently exploration and scientific, and (Federal level) law enforcement as well.  In the modern US the Coast Guard is an armed service that performs some law-enforcement related tasks, those at sea, which is a pretty good analogy for Starfleet's law enforcement tasks.  Also, a military law enforcement body with Civil jurisdiction may be highly irregular to the English speaking modern world, but it exists in modern democracies, the Gendarmerie of France and former French colonies is a nationwide military police force.Also note that the few times we see Starfleet acting in a Civilian law-enforcement capacity it is either in space, where nobody presumably they are the Federation body best equipped for the job, in extreme cases.  Violations of the Genetic Engineering/Eugenics laws meant to prevent another Eugenics Wars or Augment Crisis are probably under Starfleet jurisdiction because that degree of Genetic enhancement is treated by the UFP about the way we treat "weapons of mass destruction" in the modern world.  Dr. Julian Bashir is the only case of an Augment human in Star Trek lore who turned out well, without starting a world war, major crisis, severe biohazard (TNG "Unnatural Selection) or the process backfires and cripples the subject (DS9 "Statistical Probabilities" & "Chrysalis").  The one time we see Starfleet just take over and start policing everywhere was in DS9 "Paradise Lost", where a rogue Admiral tries to stage a coup, overthrow the President and rule the Federation by martial law.  Note that this almost starts a civil war as direct day-to-day Starfleet policing was seen by the citizens of Earth as creating a police state, and Starfleet directly ruling was seen as a blatant power grab by many (those who supported the coup were given misinformation that it was to protect Earth and Starfleet from Changeling infiltrators).</blockquote>

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