We could assume that session of the council was open to the public and Gillian was there to provide expert testimony into the events that Our Heroes had just gone through. If I was a Starfleet officer allowed to be present at "The Trial of Admiral Kirk", I'd certainly grab a front row seat if I could! The relatively low turnout of ambassadors could be ascribed to the major emergency the planet had just experienced, the session being of, say, a subset of the council rather than the council entire, or simply councillors feeling their presence wasn't needed at this proceeding.
In Conspiracy, it's implied the Admirals Picard is meeting with constitute the leadership of the Federation. TVH and TUC aren't fresh enough in my memory, but where is there a Federation president in DS9? All I recall is an Earth President. In Star Trek it's never explicitly stated to what extent Federation law overrides planetary law of its member planets. We know that when you join the Federation, it absorbs your planet's military, and we know there are certain minimum standards of equality and human rights that are enforced and a Constitution. But beyond that local law is generally shown to be determined by each individual planet.
If a heathy percentage of the people there were looky-loos, it seems unlikely that what we saw in the movie was a session of the Federation Council. And if the Federation President was presiding a Starfleet court-martial, this would be further proof that he isn't very important, certainly would be proof that he apparently doesn't have much to do. Interesting.
Now it's been a while since I watched the episodes Homefront" and "Paradise Lost" But my memory is that it's that it's implied (if not stated) that Jaresh-Inyo is the Federation President. As for whether or not Earth has a President we can't say for sure, "Demons" and "Terra Prime" infer that Earth has a Parlimentary style Government (Though that can not be stated with certainity) but even that doesn't preclude the existance of a President with the President acting as Head of State with a Prime Minister acting as the Head of Government.
The Federation is an affiliation of sovereign worlds and peoples. The president of the UFP is not like the President of the United States, but more like the President of the United Nations. And with backpack transporters, they should just be beaming from place to place anyhow. Super-transporters are part of the prime timeline too; prime-Spock gives nu-Scotty the formula for transwarp beaming which prime-Scotty developed. You can beam from Earth to the Klingon empire (without need of a transporter pad on either end).
Secretary-General of the United Nations. But yes, the Federation is probably more the UN, and less the USA. The Secretary-General doesn't have his own plane, he travels via commercial airplanes. If a commercial flight is not available into a specific region, a country's government will usually provide a private plane. The expenses incurred are then subtracted from the country's UN contributions. Maybe that's how the Fed Prez gets around.
It could have been a meeting of a subset of the council that was also open to the public, as I said in my original post. And I put "trial" in quotes specifically because I don't interpret the situation as a court-martial. I do believe the person presiding over it is the Federation President.
I never thought those Admirals presided over the Federation, though perhaps they were Starfleet top brass at the time. President Jaresh-Inyo appears in DS9 and I'm pretty sure it's always been assumed he was the UFP President, not the Earth President.
Neither Paris One nor Starfleet One have ever been the setting of a story. It's a small piece of background trivia; it does not affect the qualify of the stories being told, the plot, the characterization, or the thematic content. Details like that exist to create a sensation of verisimilitude, but they don't make or break a story. I'd have more sympathy for this line of thought if we weren't literally talking about a show set 400 years in the future about starships of a vast interstellar union of many different species... whose starships all carry the same "U.S.S." prefix as the U.S. Navy. Meanwhile, the Federation government as established in the novels is fundamentally different from the U.S. government in some very important ways. The President presides over full sessions of the Federation Council, and may preside over sessions of the various sub-councils (committees); she appoints all members of the sub-councils with the full Council's ratification. This is a fundamentally different system than exists in either the U.S. or U.K. He's literally deciding whether or not Starfleet gets to invade Klingon space and setting Federation foreign policy towards the Klingon Empire in TUC. Pretty damn significant power it establishes there. There is no mention of a United Earth Prime Minister in "Homefront/Paradise Lost," though Ronald D. Moore reported at the time that there was an initial plan to do so. It just establishes that the Federation President has the authority to declare a State of Emergency over a Federation Member world, same as the U.S. President has the right to declare a State of Emergency over a U.S. state. In STIV, the unnamed Human-looking fellow whom all the other characters refer to as "Mister President" has a line of dialogue in which he explicitly says, "This is the President of the United Federation of Planets." And then in TUC, when the Klingon Ambassador is addressing the new alien fellow as "Mister President," there is a big ol' sign on the wall that gets its own close-up. The sign reads, "UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS - OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT." No, we don't. We just don't get a view of Federation leadership, period; we usually only get a view of Starfleet leadership. Don't confuse the Pentagon for Capitol Hill. This flatly contradicts the powers we have seen the Federation Council and Federation President exercise in TVH, TUC, "Homefront/Paradise Lost," "The Defector," "Force of Nature," "The Way of the Warrior," etc. We know for a fact that Jaresh-Inyo, the non-Human who is addressed as "Mister President," is the President of the United Federation of Planets rather than an Earth President, because that same ol' sign appears on the wall in his office. The one that reads "UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS - OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT." No, it's not. It's implied that they are the leadership of Starfleet. You are confusing the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the President and Members of Congress. The Star Trek canon has never established the existence of a President of United Earth. The closest to that would be the Voyager EMH pretending to be the President of Earth in the world of Captain Proton in VOY's "Bride of Chaotica!" episode. However, the novels have established that United Earth is a federal parliamentary republic, with a ceremonial President and a Prime Minister who is the real leader. There is also a Parliament, and a cabinet whose members hold ministerial offices. Federal systems can override local law while only being applicable in key areas. For instance, U.S. law trumps state law, but the federal government leaves key areas to the states to determine for themselves. The Klingon Ambassador to the Federation was proclaiming that there would be no peace so long as Kirk lived as a result of his actions in TSFS. Obviously Kirk's court-martial was way more important than your standard military tribunal; ergo, the President's presiding over it does not indicate that his role is not important. There is no President of the United Nations. As an international organization, the U.N.'s executive organ, the Secretariat, is led by the Secretary-General. Most other international organizations, such as the Commonwealth of Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, etc., are led by Secretaries-General. Meanwhile, the Federation is sovereign in its own right, and no canonical source that I can recall has ever claimed that its Member worlds are the sovereigns. The Federation has all of the traits and powers of a sovereign state -- it has its own territory, its own constitution applicable in that territory, its own citizenship, a set of rights guaranteed to all persons within its territory, it has a legislature capable of making binding statutory law, it has a president capable of setting foreign policy, it declares and wages war, it has its own military in the form of Starfleet, it has its own currency in the form of Federation credits, etc. The U.N., by contrast, contains none of these traits; it describes itself as "a tool of its Member States."
There's a couple pieces of dialog that pretty clearly make him the Federation President. But there is other dialog that make it seem more like he is the Earth President, still others could be interpreted either way. Get rid of those couple of lines towards the end of Paradise Lost and he definitely would be the Earth Prez.
Yeesh, the argument that the label Starfleet One takes the reader out of the book because it's "unoriginal" is not only really petty, but also conveniently forgets historical precedent (esp. given Sci's earlier point that it's mere trivia). It's like complaining that the name Enterprise for a 2260s starship is horrid because that name was already taken by a legendary aircraft carrier. "It reminded me of World War II, so it took me out of the show! They're just blatantly copying now!" -- but perhaps that analogy is a tad off since the Enterprise plays a much bigger role in the mythology than any vehicle the UFP president uses. Much ado about nothing.
Yes but the name Enterprise has been in used since the early 1700's. But in terms of writing, you tend to write what you know. True many people around the world might be familiar with the names Air Force One and to maybe a lesser extend Marine One. But if you come from a country where your Head of State/Government doesn't have a private aircraft you might think it silly that would continue into the 24th century. It can come down to perspective, I might think the name Starfleet One is silly and thing perhaps if you had to go that one Federation One would be a better choice. But in terms of storytelling it's a minor plot detail. And lots of stories have minor plot details which some of us don't like.
It wouldn't be a thread in a Star Trek forum without someone getting worked up over something innocuous. Anyway, presidential transport seems kind of a given considering the size of the Federation. I'd expect it to be something purpose built rather than part of any particular class.
I think the Galaxy Class starship would probably be their first choice. It is large and luxurious to attend to diplomatic needs of all kinds without inconveniencing anyone else (ie: having to move the first officer to different room to accommodate an ambassador). The Galaxy also being a small fortress of such and being very fast. Also, I believe some official descriptions mention the Galaxy Class as being used for just so? That's why it has all the amenities that it has. I would imagine some smaller ships are used from time to time to transport, but the Galaxy would be the main ship of use. If you include the Star Trek Online ships though (STO is supposed to be cannon is it not?), I would be inclined to think a Star Cruiser such as the Emissary Class would probably be the new diplomatic choice. For all the same reasons as the Galaxy just more, refined(?) ~IMO
And, indeed, even the continuity between the Primeverse novels and STO is broken, given that.. Spoiler: DS9 TrekLit ...the Cardassian-built DS9 still exists in 2413 in STO, but it has been destroyed and replaced with the Starfleet-built station well before that in the novels.
I doubt STO was meant to exist in the same continuity as the litverse. If it was, continuity between them was broken before STO was even released.