Is the Federation an Empire?

[BigJake]

^ It might help if the Federation was ever shown opposing alien powers in conflicts analogous to the Cold War, with episodes revolving around brinksmanship. Or if Starfleet / the Federation were ever referred to as the guarantors of "interstellar law" (much as America regarded / portrayed itself as a similar guarantor of "international law" during the era when that was its source of legitimacy viz. the Soviet Union). Or if a bunch of the Federation's political and military infrustructure was headquartered on Earth in much the same way that the Cold War was largely piloted from Washington. Or if Starfleet was consistently shown as being the Federation's primary "naval" force despite the supposedly "equal" contributions of member worlds. Or...

... oh, but all of those things happened. Kind of makes it hard to portray the American-esque trappings of Starfleet as meaningless coincidence for my credits.

 

[Jedi_Master]

^ It might help if the Federation was ever shown opposing alien powers in conflicts analogous to the Cold War, with episodes revolving around brinksmanship. Or if Starfleet / the Federation were ever referred to as the guarantors of "interstellar law" (much as America regarded / portrayed itself as a similar guarantor of "international law" during the era when that was its source of legitimacy viz. the Soviet Union). Or if a bunch of the Federation's political and military infrustructure was headquartered on Earth in much the same way that the Cold War was largely piloted from Washington. Or if Starfleet was consistently shown as being the Federation's primary "naval" force despite the supposedly "equal" contributions of member worlds. Or...

... oh, but all of those things happened. Kind of makes it hard to portray the American-esque trappings of Starfleet as meaningless coincidence for my credits.

Does ANY of the stylistic trappings of the on screen portrayal of the Federation provide evidence of actual imperial behavior?

For example, did the Federation conquer a planet to "defend interstellar law"?

Is there any examples of Earth being able to dictate the laws, structures or internal policies of the Federation or any of it's member states? Planets may vary in strategic importance, but there is no indication that Earth has a larger voice in the Federation government than say Vulcan, or Tellar, or Andoria, or Betazed.

Is there any indication that Starfleet was used as a conquering force?

This is an in-universe question and as of yet no one has provided even one example of the Federation acting as an Empire.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

This is an in-universe question and as of yet no one has provided even one example of the Federation acting as an Empire.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGcAbI-4_io[/yt]

 

[BigJake]

Does ANY of the stylistic trappings of the on screen portrayal of the Federation provide evidence of actual imperial behavior?

The Federation has a General Order on the books that reserves it the right to glass planets in case they pose a threat to member worlds. It also generally reserves to itself the right to police interstellar law within its boundaries, quarantine planets, regulate commerce and so on; those are all parts of the fundamental mission of the original Enterprise. In more than one TOS episode we see the Enterprise engaged in Cold War-style proxy struggles with the Klingons which include involvement in local dynastic politics or arming factions in a local struggle.

You can dress all of that up in whatever language you like, but those are basically analogous to the functions of American imperium / mandate viz. NATO during the Cold War era, translated into a sci-fi setting. It isn't ambiguous.

Does the Federation ever behave like a Cartoon Evil Empire (which is different from just "acting like an empire")? Of course not, because in fantasies of benevolent imperialism the empire / hegemony never has to conquer anyone, because one's own cause is Genuinely Right and other people recognize your inherent awesomeness and want to join you. We covered that already. (Ergo Star Trek doesn't ever quite have the Enterprise engaged in the more obviously grubby business of real-life American imperium like knocking over elected governments on behalf of Space United Fruit; although some of its Cold War content is certainly skeevy in retrospect. But TOS Star Trek was most assuredly, in portraying the struggle with the Klingons, taking a direct stance on questions like the war in Vietnam, just as TNG Star Trek reshaped those ideals for a latter era.)

 

[Jedi_Master]

I was hoping that someone would bring up the Maquis.


The Maquis and their relationship with the Federation form a crack in the concept of a peaceful, unified government.
But the crack, IMO is in the treatment of the Colonies that would eventually become a part of the Demilitarized Zone.

The colonies were settled peaceably, and were not conquered territories, but there is some ambiguity as to when a colony can become a full-fledged member of the Federation. That is an issue that is not fully outlined. If colonies are Federation property, capable of being disposed of in a treaty, that could be considered an "Imperial" act although yet again they are not conquering but rather settling new and open territory.

 

[BigJake]

Yes, good thing settling new territory has never had a whiff of imperialsim.

 

[T'Girl]

The Federation unilaterally decided that the Talos star system would receive no interstellar traffic, without apparently consulting that planet's inhabitats.

They seemed to enjoy visitors.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Yes, good thing settling new territory has never had a whiff of imperialsim.

Well there is big difference between settling an empty, unclaimed planet and you know, conquering one with a resident population and enslaving them Klingon/Romulan/Cardassian/Dominion style.

As for law enforcement, planet quarantines, commerce protections, etc those are all government functions. The Federation is a federal government.
The citizens of that government agree to submit to it's laws in exchange for the right to elect accountable representatives to create, oversee and enforce t hose laws, as well as to accumulate the benefits of being an equal part in a shared society.

Is Canada an Empire because it has police or Ministry of Commerce? If we are going to equate a representative unimercal government with an elected executive, to an Empire, then I need to retake Government 101.

Talos IV was a supreme threat to the safety of the citizens of the Federation. Forbidding travel to and from that planet is no different that imposing a quarantine on the site of nuclear plant meltdown. There are some non-canonical references that indicate that the quarantine was lifted once technology had improved and there were ways to resist the Talosians powers of illusion.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I have always viewed the UFP is more like the United Nations. Dozens of free and self-governing worlds that have come together for mutual diplomatic, economic, scientific and defensive benefit. As part of the UFP, they must first reach a certain level of technological advancement, recognise the individual freedoms and equal rights of all its citizens, and agree to adhere to the charter and ideology of the Federation.

That's how I look at it anyways.

 

[fireproof78]

Yes, good thing settling new territory has never had a whiff of imperialsim.

Well there is big difference between settling an empty, unclaimed planet and you know, conquering one with a resident population and enslaving them Klingon/Romulan/Cardassian/Dominion style.

As for law enforcement, planet quarantines, commerce protections, etc those are all government functions. The Federation is a federal government.
The citizens of that government agree to submit to it's laws in exchange for the right to elect accountable representatives to create, oversee and enforce t hose laws, as well as to accumulate the benefits of being an equal part in a shared society.

Is Canada an Empire because it has police or Ministry of Commerce? If we are going to equate a representative unimercal government with an elected executive, to an Empire, then I need to retake Government 101.

Talos IV was a supreme threat to the safety of the citizens of the Federation. Forbidding travel to and from that planet is no different that imposing a quarantine on the site of nuclear plant meltdown. There are some non-canonical references that indicate that the quarantine was lifted once technology had improved and there were ways to resist the Talosians powers of illusion.

Settling territory in space could also be different simply because planets are out there, and not everything belongs to someone. Just because you expand your territory does not make you imperialistic.

 

[BigJake]

Well there is big difference between settling an empty, unclaimed planet and you know, conquering one with a resident population and enslaving them Klingon/Romulan/Cardassian/Dominion style.

Of course, settling empty, unclaimed land is also part of the fantasy of benevolent imperialism, which is identifiable as fantasy because its protagonists are never implicated in the ugly things that Other Sorts Do. Which goes back well before Star Trek; the myth of the Wild West, or Canada's parallel (and less sexy) myth of the virtuous pioneer, are the sanitization of that process in fiction, both typically cleansed of much of the ugliness of the actual history. It was no accident that Star Trek, which was conceived as Wagon Train to the stars, reproduced a version of that in sci-fi. (Of course there was the occasional unintentional conflict with native lifeforms, cf. the Horta and their heirs on TNG, which was a gesture toward that sort of thing.)

As for law enforcement, planet quarantines, commerce protections, etc those are all government functions.

Actually the Federation doesn't just enforce those things on member planets -- its territory also embraces all sorts of non-member worlds on and around whom those same standards are basically enforced de facto whether they necessarily want it or not. Which again is a close parallel to the way America / NATO shaped the international order, and goes beyond being a purely representative government.

For that matter I doubt whether the Federation functions vis a vis its member worlds like an idealized textbook federal democracy. No doubt different writers have different specific notions but the most persistent impression is of something like an assembly of sovereign states, which would fit something like the UN as Bry notes (or indeed the Delian League model); in fact it's probably no accident that the Federation's sigil is a version of the UN sigil featuring stars instead of continents. (This would also explain why its assembly convenes on Earth, much the way the real UN -- originally a political instrument of the victorious Allies and especially America -- convened in New York.)

Forbidding travel to and from that planet is no different that imposing a quarantine on the site of nuclear plant meltdown.

And reserving the right to destroy all life on hostile planets? (That's General Order 24 about glassing planets, from "Whom Gods Destroy" and "A Taste of Armageddon.") What is that no different from?

Why, it's no different from a strategic alliance -- led by a single overwhelmingly powerful member -- that reserves the right to use nuclear force against hostile powers who threaten the allies. Like NATO.

If we are going to equate a representative unimercal government with an elected executive, to an Empire, then I need to retake Government 101.

It is perhaps more interesting to go beyond Government 101. The notion that types of state can be neatly divided up into "empire" and "not-empire" according to how their parliaments work is indeed decidedly Government 101 -- as too would seem to be the quaint but puzzling notion that anything that doesn't behave like the baddies from Star Wars cannot be an empire -- but has little or no relation to how actual imperialism, colonialism or hegemony work, or (for our purposes) how they tend to fictionalize and fantasize their workings.

 

[Shawnster]

Yes, good thing settling new territory has never had a whiff of imperialsim.

Talos IV was a supreme threat to the safety of the citizens of the Federation. Forbidding travel to and from that planet is no different that imposing a quarantine on the site of nuclear plant meltdown. There are some non-canonical references that indicate that the quarantine was lifted once technology had improved and there were ways to resist the Talosians powers of illusion.

Really? Quarantining an inhabited location that is not under ones governmental authority is equal to quarantining an uninhabited location that is under ones governmental authority?

Talos was not part of the Federation. Talos didn't want to be part of the Federation. Talos was inhabited by sentient beings and the Federation decided they were a threat and quarantined the system. By what right did the mighty United Federation of Planets have the authority to isolate and virtually imprison sentient beings who were not now nor had ever been subjects of the United Federation of Planets?

 

[MacLeod]

They could have objected to it, when they made contact with Captain Kirk in "The Menagerie" and given what we saw in the episode it was likely they knew their planet was considered off limits.

 

[Anwar]

Yes, good thing settling new territory has never had a whiff of imperialsim.

Talos IV was a supreme threat to the safety of the citizens of the Federation. Forbidding travel to and from that planet is no different that imposing a quarantine on the site of nuclear plant meltdown. There are some non-canonical references that indicate that the quarantine was lifted once technology had improved and there were ways to resist the Talosians powers of illusion.

Really? Quarantining an inhabited location that is not under ones governmental authority is equal to quarantining an uninhabited location that is under ones governmental authority?

Talos was not part of the Federation. Talos didn't want to be part of the Federation. Talos was inhabited by sentient beings and the Federation decided they were a threat and quarantined the system. By what right did the mighty United Federation of Planets have the authority to isolate and virtually imprison sentient beings who were not now nor had ever been subjects of the United Federation of Planets?

If the Talosians cared, they'd have done something about it. They did nothing, so they don't care.

 

[T'Girl]

it is a Confederacy of various planets with mutual interests

The Federation is a federal government.

I have always viewed the UFP is more like the United Nations.

an assembly of sovereign states

Of these, my own view of the Federation is closest to BigJake's, but may be different than what he (he?) sees. Basically an alliance of completely sovereign powers, who formed a interstellar co-operative for diplomatic, trade, defensive purposes. The Council (and no it not a Empire-style government) would have a short lists of mandates, responsibilities and abilities.

 

[MacLeod]

I was hoping that someone would bring up the Maquis.


The Maquis and their relationship with the Federation form a crack in the concept of a peaceful, unified government.
But the crack, IMO is in the treatment of the Colonies that would eventually become a part of the Demilitarized Zone.

The colonies were settled peaceably, and were not conquered territories, but there is some ambiguity as to when a colony can become a full-fledged member of the Federation. That is an issue that is not fully outlined. If colonies are Federation property, capable of being disposed of in a treaty, that could be considered an "Imperial" act although yet again they are not conquering but rather settling new and open territory.

But haven't borders been re-drawn dozens of times on Earth? In the case of DMZ treaty, didn't some planets that were formally within the Cardassian sphere became Federation planets?

Sure it sucks for those affected by the change, but surely any government would follow policies that benefit most of it citzens so do you risk war that could impact hundreds of billions over perhaps a few million?

 

[Nightdiamond]

There are some minor shades of grey when it involves the military and territory.

The DMZ/Maqui situation is one, depending on whose version you listen to.

Either the Feds gave away active colonies to the Cardassians without their consent or consulting them, or

......They were warned not to settle there in the first place, and the solution was the best one designed to save many lives.


There where some minor issues with how they dealt with the Bajorans as well.

When the Bajoran government objected to the Romulans setting up a missile base on their moon, Starfleet told them they would have to deal with it, because they weren't as important to the war effort.

Another, though it was some type of altered reality (The Visitor) --the Klingons got more aggressive against the Bajoran sector, so the Federation decided to 'hand over' the station (and possibly the Bajoran sector) to the Klingons.

It was a Bajoran station in sovereign Bajoran space-- where did the Federation get the authority to hand over a sovereign's property and territory to another power?

I think what some of the posters are asking, does the Federation sometimes appear too authoritarian without realizing it, because it's so democratic in nature?

 

[Lance]

Now, this one is a tougher question than the one about whether Starfleet is a military..... it can't be denied that Starfleet shows some signs of imperialism..... BUT, I agree with the following statement from Jedi_Master:

Voluntary membership, rules of conduct when dealing with non members, a defensive military force. The Federation is not an Empire.

The key thing there is "voluntary". Starfleet doesn't in normal circumstances try to annexe whole planets. Sure, they sometimes make First Contact with new warp civilizations and try to persuade people to become new members. But if they refuse, then the Enterprise doesn't just send down the troops and take the planet by force. Which, let's face it, is what so many of Earth's empires did (they started out with the 'free trade with the natives for their goods', and ended with the blood being shed).

Cf. Errand of Mercy, where before they learn the true nature of the Organians, Kirk trumpets the differences between the Federation and the Klingons' philosophies as essentially being "If you say no to us, then we'll leave you alone, but if you say no to THEM, they'll massacre all of you".

This is really what the sticking point was supposed to be in Insurrection. That Starfleet was essentially working with another race to take possession of the planet. Of course, the moral grey area is that Starfleet acted in desperation, and the majority of the despicable acts were coming from the Sona.....

And I guess at the end of the day, that's what defines the Federation as not being an empire. Their gains are not ill-gotten, and (I presume) member planets are free to leave if they really feel it necessary.

 

[BigJake]

Again there's the assumption that "empire" automatically means "evil" or "ill-gotten gains" somehow. The method of annexation or joining the state doesn't have anything to do with whether it is or isn't an "empire." The Roman Republic was left some of its territories in royal wills; the Crimea recently voted to join Russia; many of both America's and the Soviet Union's activities and interventions in the Cold War were carried out at the invitation of various local governments favoring one or the other; European colonial powers frequently came to occupy and administer territories on the account of having been asked to protect one local group or dynasty from another. All of that is "voluntary," none of it rules out empire. "Goes around conquering stuff" is not precisely what "empire" means, or at any rate "conquest" takes many forms.

 

[fireproof78]

Here is a question I have: the Federation, at least in TOS, is a controlled society, with planned cities and urban development, according to "The Way to Eden." One of Dr.Sevrin's complaints is the fact that they live in such a technological infused world, that it caused his disease.

"There are many who are uncomfortable with what we have created. It is almost a biological rebellion -- a profound revulsion against the planned communities, the programming, the sterilized, artfully balanced atmospheres. They hunger for an Eden where spring comes." Spock


So, it begs the question as to what kind of society the Federation is or how it changed and developed.

To me, the Federation is an empire, but a hegemonic one, that seeks to maintain order and standards through different controls. We are not shown what the daily life of a Federation citizen is so we can only speculate as to what type of government exists on Earth and other planets.

The Federation Council and President are not defined in their powers, but they have the authority to direct Starfleet to direct their will, see Insurrection.


But, due to the different nature of society, I don't think we could just call it an Empire, in the traditional sense, beyond the idea of hegemonic controls. We know more about Starfleet that we do about the Federation.