Here's another question: In a world where you can remotely read the quantum state of every atom of someone's body from (at minimum) thousands of miles away (as this is what would be required for beaming from the surface of a planet into orbit, a fairly ordinary task by Trek standards), how could informational security exist? A transporter sensor array ought to be able to read the screen on any computer on any ship without specific shielding, as that would be a comparatively macroscopic task, compared to transporting a living being.

No it is not a military vessel. It is an exploration vessel. That is the core mission. Not sure how anyone who has actually watched StarTrek miss this key point.

Shhhhh... It's a TV show and the transporters were always just a plot device anyway.

The Federation is a pseudomilitary thank you very much.

Beaming out their life support system seems pretty slow. Why not just beam a bunch of cinder blocks into their body cavities.

Its always been dumb that transporting opposing crews into space or directly into brig cells isn't the main strategy for any culture with transporter tech.

Oh, their shields are down. Better poke tiny holes in their hull for an hour and hope they don't kill us first.

Isn’t that what the borg did?

They just kinda pulled off sections to analyze/wreck the ship like a tiny bug.

I think the cannon response is that you'd have to lower your own shields to do it, which is risky. But yeah if both were down, then go to town.

Military? What military?

It's an exploration fleet.

However, much like myself, they recognize that the place they're in isn't a peaceful utopia where everyone gets along, and nobody wants to push others around just for being there. So of course they're armed and armored exploration vessels.

The ranks and protocol just make for standardized things across the fleet so people don't need 500 different ways of doing things, and can integrate with each other more easily. Ranks make chain of command clear in stressful situations.

In very few instances is starfleet's intent to end the life of anyone else. Why punch a hole through shields and beam a quantum torpedo into the enemy ship's engineering section when you want them to stop fighting and talk things out? Hard to do when you're dead.

Starfleet has similar patterns to militaries, but as a peaceful exploration focused group tries to use peaceful measures at every turn, even when their opponent has refused to listen every time.

Hell, even the romulans got help when they needed it despite centuries of constant threats, fleet action, intrusions into territory, subterfuge and sabotage, and outright hostility. The klingons are allies despite once being at war, and older generations still being distrusting of the federation.

The damn transporters are cloning and immortality machines.

The transporters and replicators solve virtually every problem they have.

This is how Thrawn would have used teleporters

"I have done nothing but teleport bread for the last 3 days"

I mean Janeway did that once to the Borg