^I agree with that. I'm just not sure it's still the Royal navy by Reed's time (like it was in the time of his father and grandfather), though it still could exist as such.
When did Earth stop having armies or navies?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
Oh I agree with that.
I don't really see why United Earth would retain any of its nations' armies, navies, air forces, marine corpses, or space forces after planetary unification. I suppose I could imagine every national army being integrated into one United Earth Army, every national navy being integrated into one United Earth Navy, every national marine corps being integrated into one United Earth Marine Corps, and every national space force being integrated into one United Earth Space Force. But I'm not really convinced there would be much point for any except that last one.
Yeah, as said earlier in the thread, they most likely had a United Earth Navy (etc), subdivided into "regional" navies, each associated with a large chunk of the planet.
That's how I also see things like "France" still existing by the time of TNG, it's simply a historical region within United Earth.
A lot of the regiments in the British Army are, at least nominally, region; (Royal Welsh, Royal Anglian, Coldsteam Guards, Royal Gurkha Rifles spring to mind). Are other nation's armies organised like that?
*If* the UE/UN/UFP kept armies, I could imagine that structure extending to that.
dJE
*If* the UE/UN/UFP kept armies, I could imagine that structure extending to that.
dJE
I'd also assume France and other former nation-states do exist as some lower-level subdivision of United Earth as well, mostly because of my political preferences; I'd like to think that the Federation utilizes some form of subsidiarity and delegates decision-making to the subdivision those decisions would be affected by. For example, there's no reason why the United Earth central government should decide where the borders of a French wine region should be.
I would imagine something for the territorial regiments of the United Earth military as well. And if not the service uniforms, at least their parade uniforms could exhibit some national character with kepis for the French regiment, Feldgrau for the Germans, Hungarian troops wearing Hussar-style dolmans, and so on.
See and I, because of my political preferences prefer to see the whole Earth as one, without any political subdivision along historical lines. And especially I don't want any "borders".
I prefer to think that to think that the (earth) humans of the 24th century see themselves as Earthlings first and foremost and then, possibly, a more defined cultural identity second. But I don't want any nationalism centred around antiquated, historical "countries".
Realistically there'd be sub-divisions in government, because the Earth is too large for anythign else. But I'd rather see them on the same level as modern-day "regional councils", counties, stuff like that.
Buckingham Palace, and everything attached to the British Monarchy, including the navy, is a Reservation or a Historical landmark, just like Sisko's and Chateau Picard.
Everyone involved is a curator, with a job, that is to continue the pageantry.
Everyone involved is a curator, with a job, that is to continue the pageantry.
Deciding on the borders of a French wine region would be entirely within the remit of a UE central government, but the only reason for them not to be their traditional French ones would be gerrymandering.
Exactly this. I'd imagine the Federation and Earth presidents would have Guards units who'd rotate from the "traditional armies," One month they'd be in British Red, Austrian Black, American Blue, French Blue, etc.
dJE
I don't believe people in the 23rd-24th centuries would succumb to nationalistic divisions either. I think the only thing we're really disagreeing here is on whether the subdivisions would follow the borders of currently existing nation-states or not, with my idea being that it would be probably much easier to consolidate currently existing polities into subdivisions of a unified Earth as opposed to the central government redrawing every border based on some specific criteria, even though ultimately it wouldn't matter in any case specifically because Earth is united and people would have the same rights and the same laws would apply to them no matter where they went. Realistically, how much any person's cultural heritage matters to them would be a completely personal thing and wouldn't determine whether they are considered a part of any community or not. I can't see, let's say, Polish people othering an Uzbek family that moved into their village in 2374 just because they aren't from there and order different dishes from the replicator.
This is fundamentally about differing schools of political philosophy, I think; both are equally valid methods and ultimately boil down to personal preferences about governance.
I understand, so we are both talking about United Earth being a Federal Republic rather than a completely centralized one?
When it comes to the hypothetical borders of the various "member states"/"regions"...it would probably vary a lot form case to case. For example, I guess France is large enough to be it's own "state/region" within the United Earth, but what about much smaller countries like Belgium or Austria? Or about much larger ones, like Russia, I guess there would have to be some merging and splitting of former countries as the states/regions that consists United Earth would be created.
Then a lot of those roughly France/Texas/etc sized member states/regions would probably be bundled together into "Super-Regions" which then would create a sub-division like:
United Earth Government -> Super-Regions (ex. "Europe", "North America" etc.) -> Regions (ex. France, Poland, Texas, California etc.)
To bring it back to navies, I can imagine the Super-Regions each having their own, regional Navy division among the United Earth Navy.
Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more complex it gets... for example, with the European Union, you can argue for both approaches: either they would see no reason to meddle with the currently existing borders because the EU already has open borders for the most part, or they would be absolutely down with completely redrawing them specifically because of those open borders. I'm leaning towards more of a grandfather principle approach with regards to Europe, but I can at the same time definitely see the Benelux countries or even Scandinavia deciding to unify, or maybe even Serbo-Croatian-speaking communities recreating a Yugoslav entity if their religious differences and historic conflicts cease to matter by that time. Of course, I would expect that a lot of regions experiencing inter-ethnic conflict nowadays would probably not have divisions resembling their current national borders under United Earth if those conflicts are set aside by then.
On the other hand, there are a lot of countries all around the world, especially in Africa, the Middle East and South America, whose borders were generally drawn by colonial authorities and usually make no sense at all, be it in a cultural, tribal, language-based sense or even geographically in some cases. These might see themselves being reorganized along completely different lines not resembling 21st century national borders at all.
With both categories, I think United Earth could use a similar approach as some US States do with congressional redistricting, namely that they would probably make an effort to draw up subdivisions that don't tear existing communities apart. Not necessarily national/ethnic communities, but I'd think interdependent local communities would probably belong in the same local government area.
But is that no irrelevant in an United Earth with free movement of persons (and goods, as far that would still be relevant with replicators)?
As for the "grandfathered" borders of Europe (and other places) See that's something I don't like. Keeping something only because it "has always been that way" that's like nails on a chalkboard to me.
That is were the idea of a "historical" region would come into place. Like, seeing Belgium, for example as a historical region that now belongs to the French region in the south-west, and German region in the north-east for example.
Plus many borders in Europe were re-drawn as recent as Post-WW II and after the Fall of the Soviet Union and today they seem very natural. So the borders could be re-drawn again as the world is converted into sub-devisions of a single polity.
Last edited:
I think even with the interconnectedness offered by transporters and other high-speed transport options, a lot of people would prefer to mainly interact with their local communities in their day-to-day lives. Mobility would be much higher, after all Sisko still used to regularly dine in his dad's restaurant in New Orleans during his stay at the Academy, but I'd still see members of a community commonly educating their children in a local school, going to a local doctor for a checkup, and if they don't rely on replicators by choice, getting food from local suppliers. I also have a feeling that a greater freedom to go anywhere you wanted, whenever you wanted could actually lead to people putting more value on the local community they can go home to... at any rate, I don't think the mobility offered by transporters would lead to people losing their roots. And of course, I think it's also important to consider whether the subdivisions were drawn up before the development of transporters and possibly the construction of a global high-speed transportation network, or if they were redrawn at least once since.
Not to mention, there's the question of tribal communities like Native Americans, Australian aborigines, Papuans or the Māori who would probably prefer to keep their traditional lands unharmed by any central government. I think any 21st century interpretation of Star Trek's Federation would treat their concerns and traditions with the utmost respect, even if they have the same opportunities to participate in the unified humanity as any other community.
As a European, my main concern with redrawing borders is specifically if it's done over people's heads without asking them because the entire 20th century was rife with that, and there's still a lot of healing to be done after all the wars this caused, be it WW2, the Balkan Wars or the recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Caucasus. There are villages in the Eastern Carpathians that were transferred five times between four different countries in the last 100 years without any person living there having any say in it. Even if it doesn't really matter anymore because Earth is completely unified, I'd rather that the people decide which subdivision/community they want to belong to, and if that has no relation to current national borders, so be it.
Ah no, I didn't mean easier movement due to transportation.
I meant there wouldn't be anything anymore like "you can't come here without a visa" or "you can't live here without local citizenship"
So having your family live in a different administrative region would not be a problem any-more since it's all Earth, that's what I meant with it not being a concern anymore due to free movement (as it also exists within the EU, for example)
Oh that's a special case. I can imagine that there might be something like "autonomous regions" for tribal communities.
Oh, you're a European too? See that whole history is exactly why I want all borders to vanish and nationalist crap to just go away. And I understand what you mean. Yet in a unified "United Earth" those borders wouldn't be any actual "borders" anymore, since again, you could cross them whenever you feel like and you are under the same global government (if under different regional councils) no matter which side of the "border" you are on.
But to quote a more positive occurrence of this; look at how France re-sturctured their regions in the 2010s. I think that's a good example of how I could see it work.
Of course, this goes without saying.
To be honest, I kind of feel like these borders would for most people mean something like an idealized version of those divided towns on the border of Belgium and the Netherlands, the border being demarcated on the floor, but all the administrative bullcrap (like restaurants in the same building having to close at different times because they're technically in different countries) mainly preserved as historical anecdotes on information plaques and so on.
Naturally, redrawing the borders would actually allow keeping divided towns together, and just because I keep digging deeper and deeper, there are a lot of fascinating microregions and localities that could be taken into consideration, like the Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg metropolitan area that's divided between Switzerland, France and Germany, is already seeing a great degree of integration, and would probably love to do away with annoying inconveniences that stem from being in legally different jurisdictions.
Yeah there's more and more of that happening, especially due to the EU. I coudl swear some years back I read that there was some considerations to implement administrative regions that cross national borders for metropolitan regions like that.
Suddenly picturing people like Scott Morrison thrust into the 24th Century realizing that "tough on borders" is now antiquated policy.. I'd love to see people like that react to no borders
The United States Army and Air Force have an active, reserve, and National Guard component within each branch. Each state has an Army and Air National Guard. Therefore, there’s a Texas Air National Guard, Kentucky Army National Guard, and so on.
When in state service, that state’s governor is commander-in-chief of that state’s National Guard forces. When called to federal service, the President of the United States is the commander-in-chief. Each state can also organize its own state defense force that is not subject to federal service.
Federal law also allows each state to have a Naval Militia with a similar arrangement to their National Guard counterparts but allowing members to be called into federal service with the U.S. Navy.
Perhaps, the Royal Navy in the future operates under similar circumstances.
Last edited:
Similar threads
- Poll
