Exactly.
You are entering the No-Spin Zone. The "spin" stops right here--because we're definitely looking out for you!
What is your Federation?
- Thread starter Arpy
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Exactly.
You are entering the No-Spin Zone. The "spin" stops right here--because we're definitely looking out for you!
That's been an idea of mine too for some time. It's the only way to make the entire trek culture make sense.
I's hard to explain the Cardassian situation when you see they possess replicator technology.
The problem is, in their day to day lives, the average Federation citizen doesn't have to involve themselves in worrying about energy.
Trek seems to emphasize that Fed technology provides solutions easily, not that it has a cost.
Didn't they have something called a portable transporter the size of a cell phone?
In a Voyager episode Tom Paris uses one.
I wonder how do people in the 24th century buy land on earth if they use no money.
I's hard to explain the Cardassian situation when you see they possess replicator technology.
The problem is, in their day to day lives, the average Federation citizen doesn't have to involve themselves in worrying about energy.
Trek seems to emphasize that Fed technology provides solutions easily, not that it has a cost.
Didn't they have something called a portable transporter the size of a cell phone?
In a Voyager episode Tom Paris uses one.
I wonder how do people in the 24th century buy land on earth if they use no money.
The scarce resources or 'energy isn't free' example, seems like the best explanation so far, I'll admit.
It's also the best way to make the plot lines make sense in Trekdom.
But then again, considering they (Klingons) were maintaining a empire (mostly by military force) I wouldn't be surprised.
But when you look at how energy or resources are often spoken of, you get a conflicting message.
The site to site transporter was only a few inches in length, yet had the power to transport a person from one site to another.
I remember a few statements here and there in Trek episodes, about how available energy is, and how much massive long lasting power it can provide easily.
For example a starship having enough power to run for decades. (TOS?)
Or abandoned ships or devices that have been left running for centuries. (TOS TNG )
For example A Klingon "sleeper" ship in TNG that was operating for 75 years before its crew woke up.
If power sources can power large complex devices for that long, smaller devices like a replicator should be even easier and last even longer.
The Klingons know what replicators are, have a large empire, yet still have 'poor' sections of town?
Is the Federation the only ones that have gotten it right?
It's also the best way to make the plot lines make sense in Trekdom.
But then again, considering they (Klingons) were maintaining a empire (mostly by military force) I wouldn't be surprised.
But when you look at how energy or resources are often spoken of, you get a conflicting message.
The site to site transporter was only a few inches in length, yet had the power to transport a person from one site to another.
I remember a few statements here and there in Trek episodes, about how available energy is, and how much massive long lasting power it can provide easily.
For example a starship having enough power to run for decades. (TOS?)
Or abandoned ships or devices that have been left running for centuries. (TOS TNG )
For example A Klingon "sleeper" ship in TNG that was operating for 75 years before its crew woke up.
If power sources can power large complex devices for that long, smaller devices like a replicator should be even easier and last even longer.
The Klingons know what replicators are, have a large empire, yet still have 'poor' sections of town?
Is the Federation the only ones that have gotten it right?
I dunno. Say Earth has just three billion people on it. That's just one planet, and you've got replicators, holodecks, and transporter service to extend to three million times the population of the Enterprise-D. Even the highest "estimates" (wild guesses) for Starfleet's strength is around ten thousand ships. So Earth alone uses more power than all of Starfleet, at least when the ships aren't moving.
Presumably a faster-than-light drive takes a lot of power too, but equally presumably much less than any solution to the Alcubierre metric currently demands.
As for all that stuff still that still works after millennia, it's usually only needed enough juice to keep the internal clocks running.
On the other hand, there's always Voyager, which seemed to traverse thousands of light years without ever needing to refuel. But that show never really engaged with any sort of logistic reality, much to its detriment.
Presumably a faster-than-light drive takes a lot of power too, but equally presumably much less than any solution to the Alcubierre metric currently demands.
As for all that stuff still that still works after millennia, it's usually only needed enough juice to keep the internal clocks running.
On the other hand, there's always Voyager, which seemed to traverse thousands of light years without ever needing to refuel. But that show never really engaged with any sort of logistic reality, much to its detriment.
Tom Paris does indeed use a portable transporter in the episode Non Sequitor. Of course, that was an alternate timeline, and it's implied such things didn't exist in the prime timeline at that point. After all, we don't see such a device being used in the prime timeline until Nemesis, and there they refer to it as a prototype.
I'd probably portray the Federation government itself as being more like the U.S. but the division of authority between the federal and Member State governments as being closer -- but not as extreme -- to the E.U. model. I'd say that it would be a matter of practicality that Member States would retain much more authority, simply by virtue of size and distance, than U.S. states.
A sentient entity, no doubt.
Well, no, it's not really an alliance as much as it is a state in its own right.
Well, it goes further than that. The U.N. was clearly an early influence on the Federation, but as Star Trek evolved, it clearly began to depict the Federation as more of a federal state.
The canon has not established how Federation Councillors are selected, but DS9's "Paradise Lost" establishes that the Federation President is democratically elected.
For whatever it's worth, the novels have established that Federation Councillors are determined in whatever way their home Member State government prefers. Some are popularly elected (Betazed), some are Member State Cabinet-level positions appointed based upon which local party wins parliamentary elections (Andor), and some are appointed by the sitting Member State head of government with confirmation from the legislature (Bajor).
TOS made it very clear that Ardana, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar, all Federation Member States, maintained their own governments within the Federation. And there's no evidence that the United Earth government was dissolved.
(True, "Homefront"/Paradise Lost" didn't involve the U.E. government, but what of it? Any such liaisons would have been handled by the Federation government talking to the U.E. government, not by Starfleet, and the story was told from Sisko's POV.)
Uh, no, they never said anything about confusing the audience.
This is Ronald D. Moore's quote on the use of the United Earth government in "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost:"
Ronald D. Moore said:
In other words, it wasn't about avoiding confusing the audience or about time constraints. It was about efficiency of storytelling.
I don't see why that even needs an explanation. States in the U.S. maintain their own State Defense Forces (such as the Ohio Naval Militia or the Texas State Guard), after all. No reason Federation Member States couldn't do the same.
Indeed, that's almost a matter of necessity. It would be impossible for the Federation to maintain the level of authority over Member planets that the U.S. maintains over its states, simply because of the sheer differences in size and distance.
How many hungry children in America have you met? Keep telling yourself that. Maybe it'll come true one day.
This sounds reasonable to me.
I've always considered the Federation to have a futuristic version of European social democracy; a mixed economy with market exchange and free trade, paired with equality of opportunity and a strong universal social state.
Same here!
My Federation? A perfect society filled with imperfect people, trying to hold it all together while exploring new planets and fending off hostile neighbors.
I agree that member states will be largely autonomous. All this makes it stranger that Vulcan was portrayed as helpless in the face of attack by Nero in the recent reboot and that no Federation member states seemed to have any defence ships at all (are we expected to believe that the war-like Andorians who share a border with the Vulcans have no ships of their own) that could have been drafted in to help the Starfleet ships?
I remember the episode where Spock was trying to reunite Vulcan and Romulus without the Federation's (or Vulcan's) approval.
Instead they attempted to invade Vulcan-in that case having the Federation oversee defense and some politics would make a lot of sense.
Why Spock thought everyone would just sit back and watch something like that is hard to understand.
Instead they attempted to invade Vulcan-in that case having the Federation oversee defense and some politics would make a lot of sense.
Why Spock thought everyone would just sit back and watch something like that is hard to understand.
I thought Spock's program was mostly cultural exchange, with an eventual endgoal of Romulan admission into the Fed thru normal channels. Not the annexation of Romulus by Vulcan.
Oh, I dunno about that. Remember that giant saucer section the Enterprise almost ran into when it dropped out of warp? That wasn't from any of the ships that left Earth with the Enterprise. That must have been a Starfleet ship that was either already in orbit of Vulcan or that arrived before the fleet from Earth did -- perhaps from Andor!
Either way, the Narada was clearly so powerful that it was just cutting through every single Federation starship and starbase it came up against with ease. I'm sure there were plenty of Starfleet starships in orbit of Vulcan (or, at least, as many as there usually are of Earth -- which, if the films is any indication, sometimes not many...
), but the Narada just destroyed them in no time flat.
Spock said something about "reunification" which had some serious undertones, like a political/military/social union.
I know that the core trek premise is that in the distant future, there is very advanced technology, and that a lot of problems have been solved.
It just makes it hard to understand why people in this century do what they do when they have replicators, advance medicine, food for all.
Why they need to conquer territory as if they desperately need it, ala 20th century style.
The crazy Dominion and the Borg, maybe, yes, but the Romulans, Cardassians and Klingons ?
And they possess replicators?
For shame, for shame, there's no excuse.
I know that the core trek premise is that in the distant future, there is very advanced technology, and that a lot of problems have been solved.
It just makes it hard to understand why people in this century do what they do when they have replicators, advance medicine, food for all.
Why they need to conquer territory as if they desperately need it, ala 20th century style.
The crazy Dominion and the Borg, maybe, yes, but the Romulans, Cardassians and Klingons ?
And they possess replicators?
For shame, for shame, there's no excuse.
I can try and explain that
Romulans: The Romulans are characterised as having an obsession with being the dominant power in the Galaxy, in the 3-Part "Drone Arc" of ENT, one of the characters mentions he was expelled form the Senante for challenging the Romulan Philosophy of "Infinite Expansion", for the Romulans, its not about Resources or Reducing Population its about Power for them
Klingons: This is a toughie...The Klingons between the 22nd and 24th Century are a Warlike Race, they see Conquer as a trophy of success, in the 24th Century, the Klingons aren't Conquerers, rather they are "Honour" seekers, they relish battle as it gives them an opportunity to display success in a more "Honourable" way than all out conquer, I guess in 200 years, the Klingons bucked up their ideas and stoped being petty (starting wars), perhaps because it was a "Romulan" way of doing things
Cardassians: There are many reasons for the Cardassians interest in Conquer, the best example is them joining the Dominion, which was done to rebuild Cardassia quickly after the Klingon War, any conquering that occured after was done for the Dominion, The Cardassians I guess you could say wanted to be known as a "Force To Be Reckoned With", especially since the Federation constantly interfered in their affairs, whether it be rougue Federation Citizens (Maquis) attacking them or Starfleet mediating pressured Peace Talks, either way the Federation was a pain in the ass for the Cardassians
Originally, I bought into many of the warefare/profit plotlines, but lately when you think about it, except for defense, the conquest/we need resources badly thing just doesn't make sense.
It just seems that just about most of the problems with Cardassia could be traced back to that one thing again da da dumm -the replicator.
Cardassia was still exploiting Bajor's resources yet they had replicators.
The Romulans had no trade problems, there was a thick neutral zone between them and the Fed, they had replicators and territory-yet that was just not enough?
It's as if Trek made technolgy solve so many problems, they had to create artificial dangers or motivations.
Remember the episode where Picard's double goes into Ten Forward and orders ales for everyone, and everyone cheers like that was a very generous gesture.
Except in Ten Forward, aren't the drinks and food free? And especially if they came from the replicator .
Agreed, I think the alliance with the Fed brought genuine prosperity to them, IMO. And then the old fashioned concepts like honor and warfare became romanticized to a certain degree.
I'm not sure the replicator is as limitless as it looks. It seems to me that it must need some kind of raw matter to operate, and I wonder if it requires a specific kind of element to be able to break down and reassemble officially? Just making that up and believing it, but it might help to explain...
I agree. Replicators don't make something out of nothing, but convert some kind of bulk matter into any refined matter it's programmed to produce, IMO. The limits of a replicator might be determined by how much bulk matter it can process as well as by how much bulk matter it has access to in a given location.
The real savings of a replicator might be in the reclamation and recycling of used matter, both organic and inorganic...
The most logical solution to that problem is that Bajor was providing something to the Cardassians that the replicators could not. The replicator could produce a metal wrench easily, but not millions of tons of refined metal ... not economically. We've seen in TNG that the replicator can't make certain pharmaceuticals, the plant life on Bajor might have provided the Cardassains with a medical drug that could not be found elsewhere.
One reason might simply be the cultural or psychological need to grow and expand. If the class M planets/star systems surrounding the Cardassian homeworld were already inhabited, either through being someone else's homeworld (like Bajor) or a previously established colony, that might have lead the Cardassains to the path of conquest. A path they originally weren't going to pursue.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
About the cardassians:
In the past their world became barren. In order to gain resources, they started conquering/exploiting weaker civilizations (TNG:Chain of command).
By the time of TNG, the cardassians were quite wealthy - much more so than many species of the week that had a high standard of living without conquering anyone.
But the cardassians also got the taste of easily gaining wealth by robbing other species of their resources, using their superior military to steal whatever they want. So they continued with their policy of conquest/slave labour/exploitation.
By this time, the cardassians also got a '~we're the superior species, so we have the right to kill/steal whatever we want, it's our destiny to be the dominant species' mentality.
In the past their world became barren. In order to gain resources, they started conquering/exploiting weaker civilizations (TNG:Chain of command).
By the time of TNG, the cardassians were quite wealthy - much more so than many species of the week that had a high standard of living without conquering anyone.
But the cardassians also got the taste of easily gaining wealth by robbing other species of their resources, using their superior military to steal whatever they want. So they continued with their policy of conquest/slave labour/exploitation.
By this time, the cardassians also got a '~we're the superior species, so we have the right to kill/steal whatever we want, it's our destiny to be the dominant species' mentality.
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