A Prime Team was an elite group of five to ten personnel trained for a variety of roles. They had the full capabilities of a crew unit, of a boarding party, of a commando squad, of a heavy weapons squad, of a hostage rescue team, of a scientific research unit, and of a diplomatic negotiation team.
23rd century[]
Battleships, dreadnoughts, command cruisers, battle cruisers, galactic survey cruisers, as well as diplomatic transports usually had Prime Teams onboard as part of their normal crew, with heavy cruisers having those on occasion only. (Star Fleet Battles)
25th century[]
False Vacuum Squadron was modeled after Prime Teams, and was the first squadron designated as such. They piloted Valkyrie-class fighters in space combat. The privileges of pilots designating callsigns on their own and of squadrons having battle cries were reserved to Prime Teams. The first batch of Prime Teams were named after theoretical physics notions and they were technically assigned to a runabout (usually Caspian-class), which was their lead unit. Prime Team service, and especially command of a Prime Team, was often considered by many as a fast track to command-level postings in fighter service, starting from the late 2410s. Their standard shoulder weapons were the MD-11 disruptor rifle.
A Prime Team was usually abbreviated in military databases by two capital letters followed by Sqn (False Vacuum Squadron becoming FV Sqn, and Spin Liquid Squadron being designated SL Sqn, for example). (Star Trek: False Vacuum)
The Hydran Royal Navy considered Prime Teams the "do-it-alls" of Starfleet. (Star Trek: United Federation of Munchkin Amazons)
Pilot selection process[]
Early Prime Team pilots were transferred to Prime Teams on the whim on their commanders; as Prime Teams became more widespread, Prime Team recruiting became more systematic.
Most pilots usually were drawn to Prime Team service as a means of performing commando duties in addition to flying duties; field medics and diplomatic officers were the least sought-after roles in Prime Teams. In addition, Prime Team pilots need to have flown at least one combat sortie, with preference given to the pilots that scored at least one kill. Prime Team pilots were expected to have at least some grasp of marksmanship, close-quarters combat, in addition to fighter combat duties. (Star Trek: False Vacuum: "No plot? No problem!")
| Prime Teams |
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| False Vacuum Squadron - Harmonic Oscillator Squadron - Metric Tensor Squadron - Quantum Transport Squadron - Spin Liquid Squadron |