Massive New Trek Lit Update in Star Trek Magazine

[ProtoAvatar]

Sci

The name of those institutions means that Britain was once an empire, even if it is not one anymore.
Similarly, Andoria was, at one point in time, an empire.

In any case, the passionate, warrior-nature of the andorians was established on several on-screen ocasions - even directly.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Making the andorians leave the federation could actually be beneficial for the andorians

IIRC, the concept of a threat of an Andorian secession from the UFP dates way back to Fred & Stan Goldstein's "ST Spaceflight Chronology" (1980).

Diane Duane had Vulcan threaten a UFP secession in "Spock's World". And PAD had the humorous Caitian "when they were in, they wanted to be out and, when they were out, they wanted to be in" shtick in "NF: Gateways: Cold Wars".

and in telev we hear about the importance of family to andorians which seems to balance out the agressive nature.

That was Thelin in "Yesteryear" (TAS). Thelev (TOS) was an Orion in disguise and there was a Telev in ENT.

 

[Christopher]

Christopher, since I am British, much of my knowledge of history, indeed most of it, comes from being taught history by the victors of a sort, and is of course skewed. Throughout my schooling, I was always taught that being an empire, Britain was necessarily aggressive so that its neighbours did not have the ability to counter us at any turn which they were wont to do after the way we had mistreated them as subjects, allies or indeed enemies.

But again, that's aggression as a political stance of a government, which is not the same thing as aggression in the sense of a savage individual lusting for blood. Like I said, it's a mistake to confuse the policies of the state with the psychology of the individuals. A society that prides itself on civility, morality, and self-control, like Victorian England, can be politically aggressive because it deems it necessary for state security, even if that differs from their behavior as individuals. By the same token, it follows that a culture that values and promotes individual aggressiveness could have a government that chooses to be nonaggressive on a state level because it's in their best political or economic interest to do so. So just because Shras said that individual Andorians are driven by fierce passions, that says nothing about whether the Andorian government is pursuing policies of military aggression. Those are questions operating on two completely different levels.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Christopher, I now see the point you were trying to make before. My apologies for being blinded by my own imperial behaviour

 

[captcalhoun]

Britain still is an Empire. Gibraltar, the Falklands, South Georgia, South Shetlands, Channel Islands and Diego Garcia are all our Empire consists of, outside the mother country, but still...

 

[Captain Robert April]

Yeah, the rest is now the Commonwealth.

 

[Sci]

Sci

The name of those institutions means that Britain was once an empire, even if it is not one anymore.
Similarly, Andoria was, at one point in time, an empire.

Yes, I do believe that that's what I said.

As I noted before, the presence of the word "Imperial" in an institution's name does not automatically mean that the society it belongs to engages in imperialism. I specifically cited Britain as an example, in order to counter the idea that the presence of an organization called the Andorian Imperial Guard means that Andor is imperialistic.

In any case, the passionate, warrior-nature of the andorians was established on several on-screen ocasions - even directly.

Yes, but that's not the same thing as being militant, aggressive, or imperialistic.

Britain still is an Empire. Gibraltar, the Falklands, South Georgia, South Shetlands, Channel Islands and Diego Garcia are all our Empire consists of, outside the mother country, but still...

That's a very liberal definition of the term "empire," I'd say, especially since it's my understanding that the populaces of the inhabited overseas territories retain British citizenship and that if any of the British overseas territories were to vote for independence, the U.K. would recognize it and acquiesce.

 

[captcalhoun]

i'm a pretty liberal person...

 

[Sci]

i'm a pretty liberal person...

So'm I. But I like my vocabulary to have some specificity.