Presidents of the Federation Are Based in France—Why?

[at Quark's]

Well for one thing there is about 600 years of French history of aggression in Europe from about 1250 to 1860. Then there is the history of French colonial expansion outside of Europe which might make Paris as unpopular in some regions as Moscow was in the USA during the Cold War, for example.

To be fair, based on such conditions, most nations that have been significant powers at some point in their past would disqualify, certainly the major European powers. Probably safer then to move the presidency to a very small or neutral nation, or to another planet like Vulcan altogether.

 

[Vger23]

Because SOMETHING had to be done to make France feel relevant again.

 

[MacLeod]

Because SOMETHING had to be done to make France feel relevant again.

You mean after their language was downgraded to obscure at least by the 24th Century.

 

[Mirror Tuvix]

What's so special about United States of America that San Francisco that it was chosen as the HQ of Starfleet?

U.S. background in space exploration might have something to do with that.

As for California, it's been a center of the aerospace and information technology industries since the 1950s.

 

[Tomalak]

It does seem a little odd to build your Headquarters on a fault line.

 

[Rrune]

Much of TUC was all about penny pinching though. Many TNG sets were reused in the movie, hell the Federation President's office is Ten-Forward. I really do believe they just chose an Earth city they had a matte painting for and that was the end of any thought on the matter.

TSFS' budget was $16 million and they managed seven unique matte paintings. TUC's budget was $27 million with three unique matte paintings. One more unique painting does not sound like a stretch. Both, Memory Alpha and Wikipedia, go into details about what was affected by TUC's budget cuts; none of them mention the geographical location of the Federation President's office.

That's technically correct, but San Francisco is named for St. Francis of Assisi, who was Italian. He got his name because his father was fond of the French.

Nonetheless, the meaning of the name supports the theme.

Worrying about the long-term health of a profitable franchise is one thing. Fretting about an arbitrary bit of trivia that doesn't really matter is something else.

It seems very unlikely that the seat of the Federation's political power is something that would have been trivial to the writers.

Who were in turn named after the anti-Franco guerilla fighters in Spain starting in 1939, and Jean-Luc Picard's oldest stated anscestor was the Spaniard Javier Maribona-Picard, so just about any connection can be made when you apply random trivia and tin foil hats.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion and Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 2, p. 18) state that the Maquis in Star Trek were named specifically after the French resistance group. Also, besides Jean-Luc Picard being French, the meaning of his surname translates as "a person from Picardy, France". There is no need for tinfoil hats with a bit of research.

 

[MacLeod]

U.S. background in space exploration might have something to do with that.

As for California, it's been a center of the aerospace and information technology industries since the 1950s.

First Artificial Satellite - Sputnik
First animal space - Russia
First Man in space - Russia
First Woman in Space - Russia
First Probe to hit another space body (The Moon) - Russia
First probe launched to Mars - Russia
First Multi-crewed ship - Russia

I could go on but my point is other countries have had a background in space exploration notable Russia.

The real reason is because it's an American TV show they picked a US city for Starfleet HQ.

 

[Nyotarules]

In DIS, there was a Federation building in Paris, but I couldn't read all of the sign out front. Was it said to be the building that held the President's office?

Does the White House have the label 'White House' stuck on it

 

[Tenacity]

Okay, then how does that building in Paris contain the office of the federation president?

 

[Tomalak]

TSFS' budget was $16 million and they managed seven unique matte paintings. TUC's budget was $27 million with three unique matte paintings. One more unique painting does not sound like a stretch. Both, Memory Alpha and Wikipedia, go into details about what was affected by TUC's budget cuts; none of them mention the geographical location of the Federation President's office.

I'm not really sure what the point is here. They needed an office set, probably didn't really care what city it was in, and had a lovely Parisien matte painting ready to go. Other than that, you wouldn't know where the office was supposed to be, but it wouldn't matter at all. It's hardly integral to the plot.

They saved the money on creating an unnecessary matte painting and spent it on Shatner's hairpiece or the actual location footage they shot in Alaska.

Are you really saying they should have prioritised a painting because the President's office being in Paris is an issue?

 

[Vger23]

First Artificial Satellite - Sputnik
First animal space - Russia
First Man in space - Russia
First Woman in Space - Russia
First Probe to hit another space body (The Moon) - Russia
First probe launched to Mars - Russia
First Multi-crewed ship - Russia

I could go on but my point is other countries have had a background in space exploration notable Russia.

The real reason is because it's an American TV show they picked a US city for Starfleet HQ.

Yeah...but Russia is kind of cold and dreary. Know what I'm sayin'?

 

[XCV330]

Its possible an organization like the Federation could have rotating capitals as well. Back and forth between at least the three founding worlds.

 

[Greg Cox]

It seems very unlikely that the seat of the Federation's political power is something that would have been trivial to the writers..

And how often has it been relevant to the plot of a movie or episode? And would the plot of TUC have changed one iota if it had been Berlin or Melbourne? Nope. It's been mentioned onscreen--what?--three times in the last thirty years or so?

I think you're over-estimating the importance of an arbitrary detail--and underestimating the degree to which movies and TV shows, including STAR TREK, make stuff up as they go along.

 

[XCV330]

Honestly the federation government hasn't been dealt with on camera that much, period. Thankfully so.
We also don't know a great deal about how the economy works, how the 4th estate functions (Jake can't be the only journalist), what happened to all the toilets, or why bald-headed Deltan women have to sign agreements to not have sex. I would like to see less of the Earth-centric bits of the UFP and more of the other aspects, but mostly I'm ready for Discovery to go beyond. We've been in the waiting room long enough.

 

[Greg Cox]

Exactly. "The seat of the Federation's political power" sounds very important when you put it like that, but, on a practical level, it's just a trivia point on Memory Alpha that gets mentioned once in a blue moon. STAR TREK movies and TV shows take place out in the Final Frontier, not in political chambers back on Earth. Hell, TOS never showed 23rd-century Earth once in its entire run, let alone mentioned where the Federation President's office was. Didn't hurt the Original Series one bit.

Not sure TNG ever mentioned it either . . ..

 

[The Old Mixer]

De France is de France...vhat can be done?

 

[Tim Thomason]

Exactly. "The seat of the Federation's political power" sounds very important when you put it like that, but, on a practical level, it's just a trivia point on Memory Alpha that gets mentioned once in a blue moon. STAR TREK movies and TV shows take place out in the Final Frontier, not in political chambers back on Earth. Hell, TOS never showed 23rd-century Earth once in its entire run, let alone mentioned where the Federation President's office was. Didn't hurt the Original Series one bit.

Yet, every single original TOS movie featured 23rd century Earth.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yet, every single original TOS movie featured 23rd century Earth.

I know. Weird, isn't it? It's like the original show went out of its way to avoid showing what Earth looked like in the future, but then the TOS movies tried to make up for lost time!

 

[Christopher]

Yet, every single original TOS movie featured 23rd century Earth.

Which was odd, given that TOS went out of its way to avoid that.

Well, I guess that finally showing 23rd-century Earth in TMP was a conscious choice, partly to take advantage of the enlarged budget, and partly to give the audience something new -- plus, by this point, Roddenberry had started to buy into his own hype about being this great science fiction visionary and wanted to show off his utopian vision. Then TWOK probably opened on Earth in part so that it could reuse stock footage of the Enterprise in drydock from TMP. And maybe TSFS had the ship return to Earth instead of to a starbase or something so that they could reuse the set they'd built for Kirk's apartment. For TVH, it was because they wanted to do an environmentalist story, so they built it around a threat to Earth's ecosystem.

After that, it just became a habit. There was no real story reason why the crew had to be on Earth in the first act of ST V; Shatner just wanted to climb a mountain. As for TUC, obviously the inclusion of the Federation President in the story justifies those scenes being on Earth, but the first scene with Kirk & crew could've been at a starbase if the movies hadn't gotten so much into the habit of featuring Starfleet Headquarters.

As for the TNG movies, 24th-century Earth was frequently involved but almost never directly visited. The Generations prologue was in Earth orbit and around the Sol system, but that was it for non-holodeck Earth. FC involved an attack on Earth from space, but we only saw the surface of 21st-century Earth. INS took place entirely in deep space. NEM opened with the wedding reception on Earth, and then had Earth under threat from Shinzon, but not actually seen until the epilogue. I gather that for a while, there was a belief among movie executives that audiences wouldn't respond to a story that didn't involve or threaten Earth in some way, so that's why Shinzon's attack on Earth was tacked on, and possibly why Nero and Khan attacked Earth or its cities in the subsequent movies. But Beyond showed that a Trek movie can do fine without needing to get anywhere near Earth. (Even the word "Earth" was only spoken twice in that film -- McCoy calling Uhura "an Earth girl" and the Franklin being called an "Earth ship.")

 

[Paradise City]

France is regarded as the place were diplomacy is honed to a fine art. So the President is put there. Napoleon would no doubt be proud the capital city of a galactic empire is in Paris.