Founded in 2161, Starfleet Academy began with a commitment to excellence it maintains to this day. The newly formed United Federation of Planets charged the Academy with preparing its member species to serve in Starfleet. From the very beginning, Starfleet Academy sought the greatest minds of five different civilizations, training worthy Federation representatives as we explored the frontiers of space. Today the Academy continues traditions established over more than two centuries of experience.
The Early Years
The beginning of the Academy is, in many ways, the beginning of Starfleet itself. Part of the United Federation of Planets charter formed Starfleet in 2161 shortly after the end of the Earth-Romulan War and the establishment of the Romulan Neutral Zone. A combination of explorers, diplomatic corps, and defense force, Starfleet was the most ambitious organization ever conceived by the Federation's founding worlds.
Its mission, "to boldly go where no one has gone before", embodied the members' col elective deals of peacefully exploring the greater galaxy. The organization recruited the best and brightest from the Federation's member world to represent it across the galaxy. Starfleet founded the Academy to help bring this vision to life.
The Federation Council chose San Francisco, on Earth, to host Starfleet Headquarters and Starfleet Academy. Earth possessed the most extensive shipbuilding and dry-dock facilities and the strongest fleet of starships after the Earth-Romulan War. These were ideal for firmly establishing Starfleet as soon as possible. Earth's environment also proved the most suitable for the various member races to live and work together. Construction began almost immediately on the Academy's main campus and the first of the Federation's own starship fleet.
Before the Starfleet Academy campus was finished and the first cadets trained, Starfleet included officers and volunteers from the Federation's original member worlds. Officers from the Tellarite Defense Force stood side by side on the bridge of starships with graduates of the Andorian Military Institute and Earth's Space Force.
Each world donated ships and personnel to form the core from which Starfleet grew. Each world also provided different preparation for its personnel. The very first Starfleet crews and ships held widely divergent levels of training and technology. Officers used equipment often unfamiliar to them and worked with new and strange species, all 11 struggling to create something greater than the services from which they had come. The Vulcans absented themselves from Starfleet altogether, having difficulties dealing with more emotional species in the chaotic shipboard environment. Starfleet's first years offered the service's first challenge of diversity, one of its officers met with openness, innovation, and discipline.
Starfleet Academy assumed the heavy task of taking many disparate species and teaching them to work together. We did so by creating a uniform training regime that provided the skills needed by Federation representatives. The first Starfleet cadets trained on equipment and starships the Corps of Engineers designed and constructed at the San Francisco Starfleet Yards.
The Daedalus-class starship, the first widely used Starfleet design became a unique symbol of the service belonging to no particular race but created by the efforts of all Federation species. Starfleet vessels were the first to use the new impulse engine designed in 2169. 12 The Academy's training program promoted trust, cooperation, and acceptance among the numerous UFP member species. Starfleet was one of the first bridges across which the members of the Federation met and worked together.
Over time the Academy's proven success helped bring the first Vulcan cadets into Starfleet and has since attracted new cadets from more than a hundred different species.
The Academy continues to provide a place of acceptance for new species and alien ideas, helping integrate them into the Federation's most esteemed institution -- Starfleet.
