The way The Federation was portrayed in DS9

[Anwar]

People like to bring up Quark's little speech to Sisko in "Jem'Hadar" about human barbarism. I for one got a laugh out of it considering how full of BS Quark is: the Ferengi not only HAD done just as much bad stuff as the Ferengi, but continued it to DS9's timeframe. He had no place saying any of that!

 

[Sci]

Did you find that The Federation walked the line between democracy ,and fascism more in DS9 then in previous Treks?

Hardly. Even at its worst in DS9, the Federation was still firmly in the realm of liberal democracy. There's no evidence whatsoever of the basic traits of what we call fascism -- no censorship or suppression of free speech; no suppression of free and fair elections; no ideology advocating war as a mechanism for national regeneration and virility; no evidence of racism or suppression of ethnic/racial minorities; no evidence of a single-party state; no evidence of a dictatorship; no evidence of the routine suppression of individual rights, civil liberties, or civil rights; no evidence of totalitarianism.

The Federation as depicted in DS9 is flawed, certainly, but no more so than any extant liberal democracy -- and, really, in many ways is far freer than most liberal democracies today.

ETA:

I think the Federation was shown to be slightly totalitarian in TNG as well. The Prime Directive has its uses, but there were a few times when Jean Luc became ludicrously pompous about it, and should have made exceptions to it.

I don't know if the Federation was ever shown to be a democracy?

I always thought it was totalitarian and run by a small elite.

Ummm, no. Numerous episodes have made it clear that the Federation is run by the Federation Council and Federation President.

In fact, it was actually DS9 that made it clear that the Federation is a democracy, in fact -- DS9's "Paradise Lost" established that the President is democratically-elected and that Federation Member Worlds would never accept a Federation being run as a military dictatorship. And it was DS9's "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?" that established the existence of a Federation Supreme Court with the power of judicial review.

 

[Cyke101]

Did you find that The Federation walked the line between democracy ,and fascism more in DS9 then in previous Treks?

Hardly. Even at its worst in DS9, the Federation was still firmly in the realm of liberal democracy. There's no evidence whatsoever of the basic traits of what we call fascism -- no censorship or suppression of free speech; no suppression of free and fair elections; no ideology advocating war as a mechanism for national regeneration and virility; no evidence of racism or suppression of ethnic/racial minorities; no evidence of a single-party state; no evidence of a dictatorship; no evidence of the routine suppression of individual rights, civil liberties, or civil rights; no evidence of totalitarianism.

Also, no evidence of discrimination/supression against academics, intellectuals, and educational officials in general (mad scientists and insane admirals need not apply!).

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I think the Federation was shown to be slightly totalitarian in TNG as well. The Prime Directive has its uses, but there were a few times when Jean Luc became ludicrously pompous about it, and should have made exceptions to it.

The PD isn't a "totalitarian" philosophy. In fact, it is quite possibly the most LIBERtarian philosophy.

 

[T'Girl]

I don't know if the Federation was ever shown to be a democracy?
I always thought it was totalitarian and run by a small elite.

Sometime posts on here force you to think.

In what episode was it ever clearly stated that the Federation was a democracy? I don't mean one of the member worlds , but the central Federation government itself?

I think we've seen an evolution of the Federation government on Star Trek, during TOS it was a loose confederacy of sorts, certainly not a tight strong central government. By DS9 it is more of a true Federation, with politically weak non-sovereign member worlds.

Did you find that The Federation walked the line between democracy ,and fascism more in DS9 then in previous Treks?

Hardly. Even at its worst in DS9, the Federation was still firmly in the realm of liberal democracy. There's no evidence whatsoever of the basic traits of what we call fascism

You hear people using the term socialism (and fascism) a lot, usual as a metaphor for "more government than we already have." outside of the novels the Federation government is largely unknown. But let's see:

Fascists claim that pluralism is a dysfunctional aspect of society -- Centralization of power in the federal government.
Fascists believe in collective identity -- Kirk often spoke of the Enterprise was a Earth ship and of Earth science, Earth colonies. Picard doesn't.
Fascists oppose and blame capitalism -- Picard, enough said.

no suppression of free and fair elections -- When have the characters on any of the shows spoken of elections to the Federation council.
no evidence of a single-party state -- Evidence by omission I suppose, certainly the member planets wouldn't seem to be sovereign state/entities. Can a group of planets form a political bloc and oppose the council? Do the planets continue to posses individual political identities? Or is there only "The Federation."
no evidence of a dictatorship -- If the Federation is ruled by a small central group of non-elected powerful elite, that would be a dictatorship.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Fascists claim that pluralism is a dysfunctional aspect of society -- Centralization of power in the federal government.
Fascists believe in collective identity -- Kirk often spoke of the Enterprise was a Earth ship and of Earth science, Earth colonies. Picard doesn't.
Fascists oppose and blame capitalism -- Picard, enough said.

And Hitler liked dogs, as did Janeway!

 

[TheGodBen]

And Hitler was a vegetarian, just like the Vulcans!

(Note: Hitler was not actually a vegetarian.)

 

[Anwar]

It's been shown that Vulcan maintains its own government, and a plot point that was dropped for time would've been the United Earth government communicating with the Federation President over the Dominion infiltration of Earth in "Paradise Lost".

So yes, we don't see it much because the plots don't mention them much but individual governments still exist.

The Federation President mentioned that he was nominated and elected in DS9.

Kirk talked of the Enterprise being and Earth ship and all that because back then the idea was that the Federation was actually the "Earth Federation" whom allowed its alien allies to be weaker partners with political rights, IE a benign Terran Empire. By TNG it was clear it was an equal partnership between several different species and polities.

 

[Sci]

Did you find that The Federation walked the line between democracy ,and fascism more in DS9 then in previous Treks?

Hardly. Even at its worst in DS9, the Federation was still firmly in the realm of liberal democracy. There's no evidence whatsoever of the basic traits of what we call fascism

You hear people using the term socialism (and fascism) a lot, usual as a metaphor for "more government than we already have." outside of the novels the Federation government is largely unknown. But let's see:

Fascists claim that pluralism is a dysfunctional aspect of society -- Centralization of power in the federal government.

Debatable. The Federation seems to be just that -- a federation. We know that Federation Member States have a lot of power over their own affairs -- ritual murder is legal on Vulcan, for instance. And we know that Federation Member States maintain diplomatic missions to one-another, separately from the Federation itself, from ST09, wherein we discover that Sarek was revealed to be Vulcan Ambassador to Earth. We know from "Journey to Babel" that when the Federation was on the verge of a civil war, it convened a conference of ambassadors from its Member States to decide on the issue of Coridan's admission, and that the various Member States had some very different economic interests in Coridan's admission. All of which seems to imply to me that Federation Members have strong powers and that not all power is centralized in the Federation government -- it seems to be a genuine federalism.

Fascists believe in collective identity -- Kirk often spoke of the Enterprise was a Earth ship and of Earth science, Earth colonies.

No, Kirk only spoke of the Enterprise as being an Earth ship in the early episodes, before the writers had invented the Federation. Thereafter, he and all other characters in TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY referred to their ships as Federation ships.

Fascists oppose and blame capitalism -- Picard, enough said.

Fascists also oppose socialism and communism. That one is opposed to capitalism does not make one a fascist.

no suppression of free and fair elections -- When have the characters on any of the shows spoken of elections to the Federation council.

The mechanism for elevation to the Council is canonically unestablished.

We know from DS9 that Bajor was a democracy and that, when it was about to become a Federation Member, Federation Councillors would have to be "selected" -- implying either an election or an appointment by the democratically-elected government of Bajor. This would be similar to how the United States Senate used to be determined; state legislatures would elect their state's Senators rather than have a popular election.

The novels have established that every Federation Member State gets to determine for itself how its Councillors will be selected -- Betazed does direct popular elections, for instance, while the Bajoran First Minister appoints their Councillor with the advise and consent of the Chamber of Ministers, and the Andorian Councillor is determined as part of the Andorian Cabinet on the basis of which Andorian political party wins a majority of seats in the Parliament Andoria. There is no evidence of any Federation Member States that are not themselves some form of democracy.

no evidence of a single-party state -- Evidence by omission I suppose, certainly the member planets wouldn't seem to be sovereign state/entities.

A non-sequitor. I'm referring to political parties, not to the division of power between the central and local governments.

Can a group of planets form a political bloc and oppose the council?

That's a bit like responding to someone asking if multiple political parties exist in the U.S. by asking, "Can a group of states form a political bloc and oppose Congress?" It's an entirely separate issue from whether or not multiple political parties participate in democratic elections.

For the record, the novels have established that Federation Member States have the right to secede from the Federation, and that worlds such as Cait have exercised that option. They've also established that there are no Federation-wide political parties, but that every Federation Member State has its own political parties and that Federation Councillors can and do often form issue-by-issue political alliances with one-another.

no evidence of a dictatorship -- If the Federation is ruled by a small central group of non-elected powerful elite, that would be a dictatorship.

Again, it has been canonically established that the Federation President is democratically elected; that alone keeps it from being a dictatorship. As I noted above, the canon has not established how the Council is selected, but has implied a democratic or semi-democratic mechanism.

 

[TheGodBen]

Kirk talked of the Enterprise being and Earth ship and all that because back then the idea was that the Federation was actually the "Earth Federation" whom allowed its alien allies to be weaker partners with political rights, IE a benign Terran Empire. By TNG it was clear it was an equal partnership between several different species and polities.

Indeed. In The Conscience of the King McCoy even implied that Vulcan was conquered, which I assumed was referring to a human invasion (disproved by later canon).

MCCOY: Would you care for a drink, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.
MCCOY: Now I know why they were conquered.

Of course, I don't think the Federation had even been conceived at that point in the show, the first mentions of it were either in late season 1 or early season 2.

 

[Sci]

Kirk talked of the Enterprise being and Earth ship and all that because back then the idea was that the Federation was actually the "Earth Federation" whom allowed its alien allies to be weaker partners with political rights, IE a benign Terran Empire. By TNG it was clear it was an equal partnership between several different species and polities.

Indeed. In The Conscience of the King McCoy even implied that Vulcan was conquered, which I assumed was referring to a human invasion (disproved by later canon).

MCCOY: Would you care for a drink, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.
MCCOY: Now I know why they were conquered.

Of course, I don't think the Federation had even been conceived at that point in the show, the first mentions of it were either in late season 1 or early season 2.

The writers didn't invent the Federation until "Arena," and it wasn't referred to by its full name until "A Taste of Armageddon." Obviously, Vulcan was not conquered by anyone, and the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 was not a United Earth starship that answered to UESPA; the Federation and its Starfleet (itself first established in "Court Martial") retconned all those references of Trek continuity.

 

[Anwar]

That Vulcan thing was contradicted anyways, Spock later said that Vulcan cannot conceive a conqueror after McCoy's "Vulcan was conquered" line.

Of course, that is STILL a blatant lie given Vulcans' violent past. Of course they can conceive a conqueror!

 

[Navaros]

You can't judge the entire human race and the Federation based on actions of just a part of it. If anything, it's more realistic to show both sides of the coin.

In that case, the writers failed in their responsibility to include the other side as part of the story. As the story is presented, there is no 'other side'. The story presents itself as if the entirety of the Federation condones continuing the genocide.

Wait...what? No one was complacent about the genocide except for Section 31 and maybe a few key members of the Federation, admirals, etc. Wasn't the whole point of that plot line to show that genocide was wrong? That Dr. Bashir was noble and just being used by Section 31 and that Sloan was no better than the Founders themselves? I really thought that was the point. Sisko was pissed about the genocide, they all thought it was terrible..

They thought it was terrible at the time when Odo was the one being hurt by it.

But later, when it came time to save the other Founders, they thought the genocide was great and Sisko endorsed its continuation by telling Odo that curing the genocide would give the Founders 'an advantage' and therefore must not be done. That excuse for genocide is pathetically weak, and does not hold up to any kind of scrutiny, if it is purported to come for a moral man/entity.

If I were in command, I would have sent a fleet of cloaked, drone ships deep into Dominion space and took out the Founder's planet, w/the Founders on it.

The started the damn war, I would end it.

I would argue that Sisko started the war. If he didn't mine the wormhole, the war would not have come as it did (granted, it may have came later on anyway).

Anyhow, I can see why you'd take that position. My problem is mainly with how the Federation is presented as having some sort of moral high ground over inferior evil bad guys, when really the Federation is just-as-bad or even worse than the most evil bad guys; in other words, the Federation/"heroes" are no better, morally, than the "villains", and their lies saying that they are is what is most annoying.

If they (the showrunners, and Federation characters in-show) just admitted that the Feds are dirty and do evil things, it wouldn't be so offensive.

Anywho, Behr hates Trek so he wanted to make things less "perfect" (though NO Trek series made the Federation perfect, especially not TNG). It made the Federation less noble, but with an organization that is composed of so many billions upon billions of people and hundreds of separate species NOTHING will be perfect. I do think they should've tried harder to maintain their integrity, but I was overall satisfied with the Federation being pushed a little harder than usual.

And seeing how giving the Dominion the cure worked out the best for everyone in the end, not just the Feds, is a Trekian message. Instead of selfishly acting for sheer self-preservation characters influenced by Trek ideals make the choice that served the good for ALL and not just the "good side".

I doubt that.

Don't you see? It is logical for someone who hates Trek to become a head writer and showrunner for a Trek show. In fact, people who hate Trek are always fighting for a chance to get to work on it. That way that can work from the inside to ruin it (and by ruin, I mean, run a really great Trek show and write many of its best episodes). And then this Trek can also be loved by the hatedom (i.e. people who hate Trek, which they show by watching every Trek episode ever, analyzing its every detail, and writing thousands of posts about it on Trek forums). It makes perfect sense. Really.

Anwar actually has somewhat of a point, although it is skewed by hyperbole.

Behr has admitted that he did not enjoy writing for TNG due to it having no conflict (which makes it impossible to write drama) and no character development.

Anwar's mistake, though, is that Anwar thinks a person must love absolutely everything with a 'Trek' label slapped onto it, otherwise, in Anwar's opinion, that person 'hates' Trek.

 

[Anwar]

Behr's a whiner who didn't like that everything about the TNGverse wasn't 100% like the 20th century and then goes on about how hard they had to struggle to do DS9 when there wasn't much trouble at all in making it . And Behr saying that TNG was hard to write for just proves he wasn't up to the task considering other better writers were able to do it for 7 years.

But anywho, no the Feds weren't into genocide, the Dominion started the War by being a bunch of warmongering @$$hats, and Odo's choice in the end (which was supported by the main Fed characters) was very much a Trek choice.

So Trek's core shined through, despite what any overly-opinionated nihilists have to say about it.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

But anywho, no the Feds weren't into genocide, the Dominion started the War by being a bunch of warmongering @$$hats

Well sort of, but didn't the Federation infect the Founders a year before the war started? If the Dominion had found out, they'd have had a pretty good casus belli.

 

[Withers]

I would argue that Sisko started the war. If he didn't mine the wormhole, the war would not have come as it did (granted, it may have came later on anyway).

I think the war started in Inferno's Light. It might not have been declared or made official but that was the point where it was pretty much indisputable that this wouldn't be a Federation-Romulan situation where there would be years of "cold war" status.

My problem is mainly with how the Federation is presented as having some sort of moral high ground over inferior evil bad guys, when really the Federation is just-as-bad or even worse than the most evil bad guys; in other words, the Federation/"heroes" are no better, morally, than the "villains", and their lies saying that they are is what is most annoying.

If they (the showrunners, and Federation characters in-show) just admitted that the Feds are dirty and do evil things, it wouldn't be so offensive.

What they did was show Federation citizens performing genocide. They showed Starfleet Officers making morally dubious (at best) decisions. They gave the characters weak justifications for them in dialogue... and then they let the audience decide how they felt about it. Rather than being told "They were absolutely right in what they did because (insert reason)," or "Our 'heroes' are just as dirty as our villains (insert reason [though I don't think anybody would truly have liked if they Jack Bauer'd Starfleet]) we as the audience got to make our own judgment calls and I think that speaks a lot to how much effort went into crafting the depiction of Starfleet and the Federation itself.

Behr's a whiner who didn't like that everything about the TNGverse wasn't 100% like the 20th century and then goes on about how hard they had to struggle to do DS9 when there wasn't much trouble at all in making it . And Behr saying that TNG was hard to write for just proves he wasn't up to the task considering other better writers were able to do it for 7 years.

Well... most of that is debatable (especially the fact that other writers were able to do it for seven years- so could kindergartners but that doesn't mean it would've been better.) What I'll focus on is the 20th century bit;

That's exactly what he did with his portrayal of Starfleet- he made it something people in the 20th and 21st century could relate to more effectively. Here we have a society with infinite technology, no hunger, no economic problems (no money at all for that matter), no political strife and with consciences Christians have been struggling to have for two thousand years; you go on with that for long enough and they start to sound as alien as Vulcans or Klingons. Behr's approach made it clear that these are still very much human beings. There are so many examples of that in DS9 in both action and dialogue it could constitute its own thread... but they're there. And that's what made the show infinitely more enjoyable (to me) than other incarnations of Trek that portrayed Starfleet and the Federation as these absolutely pure beings of light. It isn't a fault in the approach. It's the ultimate credit to it.

-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

NO Trek series EVER portrayed the Feds as beings of absolute morality and purity. That's just unjustified hostility because they didn't all act like a bunch of throwbacks to the 19th century and earlier.

 

[Withers]

NO Trek series EVER portrayed the Feds as beings of absolute morality and purity.

There's some irony in your getting heated over the use of hyperbole. Fine, perhaps not beings of absolute morality, but so removed from the people of the 20th century in terms of morality they might as well have been. Citing that Behr made the characters of DS9 easier to relate to in that sense isn't "unjustified hostility" over earlier (and later) incarnations- it's just a statement on my personal ability to suspend disbelief.

Treating Federation morality like it was set in stone on the side of the angels lessened my ability to relate to the characters of other incarnations and thus to vest in them. Allowing me to make my own judgments based on the behavior they exhibited on screen, however, made them more relatable and thus easier to vest in. It is as simple as that.


Again... a big lol at your getting hot and bothered over the use of hyperbole to make a point.

-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

To each his own, I can relate to people who stick to their morals just fine.

 

[RyuRoots]

To each his own, I can relate to people who stick to their morals just fine.

Uh, so can Withers I imagine, as can I, as I imagine most people on this forum can. That wasn't his point. You have a knack for replying to things that have nothing to do with what people say.

Sticking to morals isn't the issue. It's that some episodes (especially early TNG and some parts of VOY) shove down your throat that humans and UFP are pure by default, and that DS9 did that the least.