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If the Prime Directive were done properly

There is precident going back to the age or wooden ships that the Captain of a warship has supreme authority while out of communication with the home government. And when did this elected official board the ship?? This wasn't BSG with the Sec. of Education on a tour visit........

In the absence of such a representative, they should organize elections. it's inadmissible that a mixed crew should be squashed under the bootheel of ONE military dictator, in a ship that belongs to a so-called civilized and civilian federation.
 
Imagine if Captains of US warships were able to offer billions in aid, or military support, picking who to back in foreign wars, or foreign civil wars, all without asking their immediate superiors
A few hundred years ago, this is pretty much what ship captain could do. Add in signing binding treaties, and engaging in acts of war on their own authority.
The Federation, or specifically the Federation Council makes decisions that Starfleet implements, inside the limitations of Starfleet's regulations, to improve the galaxy, not "lowly" Starfleet Captains.
Not exactly what we were seeing.
 
That failed coup in DS9 Paradise Lost was about how Star Fleet was sick of having their hands tied by the Federation Council, and Ditto for the undiscovered Country.

Most of the Fleet is inside the Federation?

Captains of deep Space Missions, have to be chosen for their temperament, because they have a very long leash.

Janeway was on a 2 week mission to murder Chakotay.

That's how long they thought that she could survive without being investigated by oversight.
 
Why was Starfleet looking for so called terrorists, that should be a police or security job, the whole opening premise of Voyager smacks of the Federation being a military space dictatorship.

I agree. This isn't coherent with what we are told otherwise of Starfleet.
 
Soldiers are trained to kill, and other stuff.

Starfleet Officers are trained to serve and protect, other stuff, and kill as the last resort.

They will do everything that the army does, but they are working towards peace, rather than the annihilation of the enemy.

Splitting hairs.
 
^ I'd bet that the majority of 24th century Humans would snicker at Picard little "enlightened Humanity" thngy.
 
there were far more references to the 24th century federation having money, than it being absent.
 
Well, it's hard to depict something with precision when you haven't the slightest idea of how it could work.
My understanding is that at one (or more?) point, the writers went to Roddenberry and asked how the Federation's economic system was supposed to work without money. Roddenberry admitted he was incapable of describing one.

The writers just wrote a Federation with money (purchases, banks, etc.) in some episodes/movies, while in other episodes/movies having someone state that money didn't exist.

Picard makes a purchase, then later states that money doesn't exist.

Jake earns money, then later says he doesn't need money.

In my opinion, there needs to be a way of combining the two positions, instead of embracing one and discounting the other.

Picard doesn't just live in a insulated Pollyanna bubble where he doesn't understand what going on around himself, he's accurate in his statements, although his statements perhaps don't necessarily tell the whole story.

It isn't a case of money only existing in the Federation only out in the "hinterlands."

Kirk can truthfully agree with Gillian Taylor that "they don't use money in the twenty-third century," yet still buy and sell a house located on Earth, and Kirk did have the means of hiring a ship in TSFS (as did McCoy).

So what is the truth? Again I think it should all be taken into account somehow.

Credits in the form of electronic financial transfers not being considered "money" in the future, and the term money being reserved exclusively for money in a physical form in one possibility. A change in how certain words meanings have evolved.

This would line nicely up with Riker's statement that he doesn't carry money (for tip jars), money is something that is physical and carried. And maybe also Jake's situation where he (usually?) didn't need physical money, but did for a auction.

Thing with Jake's statement is that his seemed to be implying that the lack of need for money was a Human thing, and perhaps not beyond that species.

Picard as well, when speaking of money not existing, soon after directly mentions Humanity. Picard doesn't seem to be the type of person who would use the term Humanity generically to refer to all the species of the Federation.

So there, does the Federation as a whole also engage in money not existing? I could easily image individual members of the Federation retaining their own separate monitory system, while also making use of a interstellar form of money (the credit).
 
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