Age of the Federation....
- Thread starter Warped9
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@Timo, I don't get what your problem with this is. There is a solid theory that fits the observed evidence pretty much perfectly. And trying to dismiss things in style "maybe United Earth actually doesn't mean United Earth is silly." We know that there was United Earth government and it is crystal clear that UESPA was meant to be agency of that government.
Yes.
Often the two leads of a show will get near-equal billing by having one come first and the other come last with an "And" -- for instance, Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson in Person of Interest.
I read once that it actually started with Jonathan Harris on Lost in Space. He was added to the show after the pilot was made (and integrated into the story through reshoots and new footage), so all the other actors' places in credit order had already been negotiated, but it wouldn't do for a noted adult actor to be billed after a group of children. So they invented the "Special Guest Star" credit for him and thus started the tradition of last billing as a prestige credit.
Agents of UESPA...hmm.
Also, Cagney and Lacey. When Sharon Gless was signed to take over as Cagney in season two, her agent wanted top billing, but as Tyne Daly had been there for a year her agent wanted her to get top billing.
They compromised on a top right, bottom left dual billing, that alternated, with the PR releases also alternating the order. But that meant Gless got top billing on the PR for season start episodes, which were the ones the Hollywood press noticed.
Agents of U.E.S.P.A.
I find top right/bottom left to be an interesting way of giving essentially equal billing -- one person comes first if you read top-to-bottom and the other if you read left-to-right. Adding alternation on top of that seems a bit redundant.
The Man from U.E.S.P.A
That's roughly what Barney Rozenweig says in his autobiography: when they were caught in these agent discussions he remembered seeing it on a movie, and suggested it as a way of settling something that didn't really matter on a show that depended for its survival on the leads being a team.
There may have already been some precedent: The Big Valley premiered the same day as Lost in Space with the final opening credit of "and starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley."
Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno is probably the most noted example.
C
C57D
Guest
This is such a fascinating thread that I have just got to throw my observations at it.
1) in Court Martial one StarFleet officer says something about having not seen Kirk "since the Vulcanian mission". It is said as if it was a very important mission. Now, if the UFP had been together for a century at that point why would a StarFleet mission to one of the core civilizations be so noteworthy? It sounds like something new and important!
2) in Search for Spock, when Sark comes to Kirk for help, he says some thing about having already been to "your government". Surely as a Council member for Vulcan it is "his" government too? Or do old pre-Federation habits die hard?
3) Journey to Babel feels less like a cohesive government working out a disagreement over mining rights and more like a fractious group of semi independent allies undertaking a land grab.
Just my opinion to add in agreement with the OP.
1) in Court Martial one StarFleet officer says something about having not seen Kirk "since the Vulcanian mission". It is said as if it was a very important mission. Now, if the UFP had been together for a century at that point why would a StarFleet mission to one of the core civilizations be so noteworthy? It sounds like something new and important!
2) in Search for Spock, when Sark comes to Kirk for help, he says some thing about having already been to "your government". Surely as a Council member for Vulcan it is "his" government too? Or do old pre-Federation habits die hard?
3) Journey to Babel feels less like a cohesive government working out a disagreement over mining rights and more like a fractious group of semi independent allies undertaking a land grab.
Just my opinion to add in agreement with the OP.
Because the writers hadn't worked out what Vulcan was yet. Which is why the term "Vulcanian" is used. IIRC, Starfleet didn't even exist when Court Martial was made.
Bad research by the writers of the film. Though in JTB, Sarek is there representing Vulcan, not the Federation. perhaps in SFS he is once again in the service Vulcan rather than the Federation.
I don't think it was about mining rights. It was about admitting Coridan into the UFP which would put a crimp in the Tellerites illegal mining operation.
"The military division of NASA". 'Nuff said.
Except that none of it does. There was no exploration before combat - the military came first. There was no unity on Earth when there was UESPA - UESPA came first. The ENT heroes don't work for UESPA, and there never is a character associated with UESPA in ENT. There are no middlemen from UESPA when Admiral Forrest, of Starfleet Command and not of UESPA employ, discusses policy with the Vulcan Ambassador.
For all practical purposes, UESPA doesn't exist in ENT. UE government does make an appearance. SF Command makes an appearance. UESPA never makes an appearance. If involved somewhere between the UE government and Starfleet, how could it fail to make an appearance?
Even if it was a mission with Vulcanians to target X, this still suggests cooperation with that culture is either a new thing or a rare thing or both...
There definitely were levels to government in TOS already. Say, in "Cloud Minders", Kirk refers to "your government" as regards the outfit of Ardanan leader Plasus, and Plasus refers to "this planet's government", adding that "your Federation orders do not entitle you to defy local governments". This despite Ardana very explicitly being a member of the UFP.
The concept of "local governments" seems to be part and parcel of the way the UFP is set up, not a remnant of a recently disbanded system. Now, did Sarek have a reason to deal with Earth government as opposed to the federal umbrella organization? Or does Starfleet have a government of its own that Sarek would have to access for Genesis information and the like? Both sound quite unlikely - but I could see Sarek being sent from door to door in an attempt to thwart his search, and United Earth government might be one of the stops he was forced to make.
Ver much so. The loose alliance might be ages-old, though.
Timo Saloniemi
No, as stated above the mission was to escort Federation ambassadors to the Babel planetoid to discuss admitting Coridan to the Federation which would protect them against illegal mining of their resources by as then 'unknown' alien forces!
JB
So if NASA would put weapons on their spacecraft, world would stop making sense?
Why is it silly for government to have an agency to oversee their starships? If comparison to NASA does not fit, think it more like Department of Defence.
And why is UESPA on that ENT logo? Why is Kirk working for UESPA? Why is there the arrowhead on EUSPA logo on Friendship One?
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"The Vulcanian Expedition" doesn't have to be an expedition to Vulcan. If anything, given that it uses an adjective rather than a noun, it sound more like an expedition organized by the "Vulcanians," or one consisting mostly of them with just a few humans along.
In fact, "Court Martial" was the episode that introduced the term "Starfleet." Although the same episode mentioned "Space Command" as the group for which board member Lindstrom was a representative.
Do you seriously think it would not?
The Soviets had guns aboard some of their space stations. But those weren't operated by their NASA or any comparable organization, they were operated by their military - much like their US counterpart, the MOL, was supposed to be run by the USAF.
Whatever weaponry is flying on NASA spacecraft nowadays would be under USAF jurisdiction, too. Although they have their own spacecraft for all imaginable purposes anyway. And they don't take orders from NASA, although they may place an order or two in certain circumstances.
And that's my very point - the UE Ministry of Defense would be the organization bossing over UESF, not some silly agency with a misleading name.
We know the UE is governed by a system featuring Ministers as in any parliamentary democracy. The (unverified) absence of a MoD and the use of UESPA in its place seems an unfounded complication to a natural scheme of things.
Really... Why would the USAF be bossed over by an organization named US Atmospheric Sounding Agency in a scenario where all other government Departments still supposedly exist?
Why is Starfleet Command?
The logo supposedly is on the carpet of a building that has Starfleet Command symbols on the outside, without any hint of UESPA there.
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x20/demons_020.jpg
The building flies a flag that may or may not feature the UESPA text, but it's a flag they don't normally fly. Perhaps they put the carpeting in place for their rare UESPA guests, too?
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x03/home_047.jpg
UESPA may well be one of the many partners with which UESF cooperates - perhaps on the same level as the UE Diplomatic Corps or whatnot. Nothing suggests it would be above UESF in any sense, though.
Why was Ramart?
Again, we can dream up dozens of scenarios, since there is none in place in the source material. But two "transports" made an inexplicable detour to Thasus, one marooning Charlie Evans there, another retrieving him. Perhaps that's what UESPA does, asking ships with completely different missions and priorities to do the occasional favor for them.
Because everybody wants an arrowhead. There's nothing either UESPA-specific or Starfleet-specific about the shape. Nor was there anything NASA-specific about it when NASA first adopted it.
If anything, we should be disabused of the idea that the arrowhead is significant to Starfleet in the early days! It's nowhere to be found in Kirk's Starfleet, except for the uniforms of the subdivision to which Kirk belongs (some claim it's exclusive to the crew of NCC-1701, but while it clearly is broader than that, it's certainly not common to all Starfleet at that time).
Timo Saloniemi
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