06-10-2022, 03:15 PM
I expect that Starfleet and the Federation were much like the real life military and civilian government they were loosely patterned after. A lot of lofty, high-minded rhetoric, but if Kirk brought home a new source of strategic materials, signed up some new allies against the Klingons or managed to steal some Romulan tech, deviations from by the book behavior got quietly swept under some rug and forgotten.