Typhon Pact: Political Analysis

[Sci]

* I admit that there have been individuals in both the civilian government and in Starfleet, that have put their own selfish needs before those of others,

That's what the Federation says. But imagine you're an alien looking at the Federation from the outside -- why would you believe that? Doesn't it look like the Federation is engaged in all sorts of underhanded activities, and if the get caught they put the blame on some admiral for acting on his own.

And for that matter, were the events in Insurrection the result of rogue elements? I thought the Admiral had approval from the Federation Council. Was Picard a rogue when he conquered Tezwa? And what about all of Section 31's shenanigans?




So the Federation says. Why should the Breen or Gorn believe that?



Are the Romulans actually expansionist? Sure, they have a long-standing conflict with the Klingons, but can you blame them -- I mean, the Federation and Klingons are allies and they still fight. The Romulans supported one faction in the Klingon Civil War, but is that so wrong -- the other side was led by a Chancellor installed by the Federation, and if not for the Prime Directive, Starfleet would've aided Gowron directly.

The Romulans did try to conquer their ancestral homeworld, but only after a high ranking Vulcan infiltrated Romulan society and tried to subvert the government. Other than that, their relations with the Federation have been antagonistic but not expansionist.

Who else have the Romulans fought since they ended their period of isolation (very expansionistic policy there).

And speaking of the Tomed Incident, doesn't that rather undermine the Federation's claim to nobility in combating this alleged Romulan expansionism?

If the Tholians wanted peace and cared about others like most Federation citizens do, they wouldn't have joined a group with less-than-reputable governments like the Romulan Star Empire, and the Gorn should have joined the Federation that saved their people from near extinction. Either way you put it, the Federation is the way to go.

You're assuming that they view the Federation the same way you do.

* Any alien sentient being can get to know the inner workings of the Federation and Starfleet, through diplomacy.

Isn't that a bit like saying no reasonable person could ever possibly dislike you once they get to know you?

I don't mean that as an insult to you -- it's just a fact of life that no matter how kind and generous and helpful you try to be, somebody, somewhere, out there, will end up not liking you, even if they get to know you.

The same principle is true of international relations. The Federation can be as good as it wants, but that doesn't mean everyone's going to think they're decent folks -- even if they aren't bad guys, they may still walk away thinking the Federation is full of it. Certainly Odo, for instance, seems to be no fan of the UFP after getting to know it very well during his time on DS9. Is it really so hard to imagine that a small, democratic world that doesn't want to be homogenized by the Federation and doesn't like the way the UFP keeps expanding might view the Federation's relationships with, say, the Klingon Empire in a much less generous light?

 

[Admiral_Young]

In my experience reading the character of Bacco...I'd hardly call her an arrogant character. President Bacco by the time of the Typhon Pact books had been through a devastating war against the Borg in which the very existence of the Federation was in question at the time. I think Nan has handled her Presidency with grace and a hands on approach...if she's displayed signs of irritation towards other members of states delegates and what not that shouldn't be a sign of arrogance, maybe impatience and tiredness.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

* Any alien sentient being can get to know the inner workings of the Federation and Starfleet, through diplomacy.

You're begging the question by assuming that anyone who gets to know the Federation will like it, as though it is objectively good. There's no such thing. The Federation is a complex society with a complex history and complex policies. Your black-and-white view of it is unrealistic.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

So the Federation says. Why should the Breen or Gorn believe that?

Well, there is the fact that Starfleet aided the Gorn Hegemony in restoring its rightful government.

Ever read a biography of Charles de Gaulle? Cause let me tell you, if you were to predict his feelings for Britain based upon all they did for him in WWII, you'd be very surprised. While he never did anything like joining the Typhon Pact, his attitude towards the Brits joining the Common Market was pretty egregious.

And they didn't pursue (so far as I know) sanctions against the Breen in the aftermath of the Dominion War.

I don't think we have evidence one way or another on what the terms of surrender were for the Breen.

The Romulans supported one faction in the Klingon Civil War, but is that so wrong -- the other side was led by a Chancellor installed by the Federation, and if not for the Prime Directive, Starfleet would've aided Gowron directly.

A Chancellor selected by a Starfleet officer upon invitation/insistence by the outgoing Chancellor. Until Duras got himself stupidly killed, the possibility remained that he would be selected. And the fact remains Starfleet didn't aid Gowron directly despite his appeal to the terms of Alliance.

Until Duras got himself assassinated by a Starfleet officer who barely received a reprimand for his actions.

 

[PrimeDirective]

That's what the Federation says. But imagine you're an alien looking at the Federation from the outside -- why would you believe that? Doesn't it look like the Federation is engaged in all sorts of underhanded activities, and if the get caught they put the blame on some admiral for acting on his own.

And for that matter, were the events in Insurrection the result of rogue elements? I thought the Admiral had approval from the Federation Council. Was Picard a rogue when he conquered Tezwa? And what about all of Section 31's shenanigans?




So the Federation says. Why should the Breen or Gorn believe that?



Are the Romulans actually expansionist? Sure, they have a long-standing conflict with the Klingons, but can you blame them -- I mean, the Federation and Klingons are allies and they still fight. The Romulans supported one faction in the Klingon Civil War, but is that so wrong -- the other side was led by a Chancellor installed by the Federation, and if not for the Prime Directive, Starfleet would've aided Gowron directly.

The Romulans did try to conquer their ancestral homeworld, but only after a high ranking Vulcan infiltrated Romulan society and tried to subvert the government. Other than that, their relations with the Federation have been antagonistic but not expansionist.

Who else have the Romulans fought since they ended their period of isolation (very expansionistic policy there).

And speaking of the Tomed Incident, doesn't that rather undermine the Federation's claim to nobility in combating this alleged Romulan expansionism?


You're assuming that they view the Federation the same way you do.

* Any alien sentient being can get to know the inner workings of the Federation and Starfleet, through diplomacy.

Isn't that a bit like saying no reasonable person could ever possibly dislike you once they get to know you?

I don't mean that as an insult to you -- it's just a fact of life that no matter how kind and generous and helpful you try to be, somebody, somewhere, out there, will end up not liking you, even if they get to know you.

The same principle is true of international relations. The Federation can be as good as it wants, but that doesn't mean everyone's going to think they're decent folks -- even if they aren't bad guys, they may still walk away thinking the Federation is full of it. Certainly Odo, for instance, seems to be no fan of the UFP after getting to know it very well during his time on DS9. Is it really so hard to imagine that a small, democratic world that doesn't want to be homogenized by the Federation and doesn't like the way the UFP keeps expanding might view the Federation's relationships with, say, the Klingon Empire in a much less generous light?

* Maybe I should rephrase what I'm saying, so that I'm understood correctly. What I meant to say, is that compared to the member governments of the Typhon Pact, the ones that comprise the UFP have formed because they saw in uniting with others, they would benefit from the peace, order, and protection that having others help you would bring with membership. The Federation isn't perfect, but it is the largest democratic political power in the known galaxy, whose aims are largely to maintain peace with other governments, and make sure that its citizens and those of its allies are kept as safe as possible.
Can all of the Typhon Pact's members claim the same thing? The Romulans, like most of the time, just want to monopolize the interstellar political scene for their own benefit; the other members are just looking out for each other. The only reason that the Breen even sent some of their warships to join the Romulans on the Federation-Breen border, is because they were afraid that the Romulans were going to convince the Typhon Pact council to take the slipstream project away from them, and impose political and economic sanctions on them. I haven't read enough of Seize the Fire to make the same kind of judgements of the Gorn, and the Tholians.

 

[PrimeDirective]

* Any alien sentient being can get to know the inner workings of the Federation and Starfleet, through diplomacy.

You're begging the question by assuming that anyone who gets to know the Federation will like it, as though it is objectively good. There's no such thing. The Federation is a complex society with a complex history and complex policies. Your black-and-white view of it is unrealistic.

* The Federation came from the Coalition of Planets, which fought long and hard to preserve its ideals of peace, order, and scientific exploration of the galaxy. After 2161, the idels of the Federation have been challenged by various individuals, groups, and events set in motion by either of the previously mentioned groups, but those ideals are still in place, which is why Bacco's administration has used as much of its severely-reduced civilian and military resources, to help millions of refugees, and help its allies in anyway it can. The Federation even went out of its way to aid the Romulan Star Empire in the aftermath of the Borg invasion, with food and other resources; the only reason that they were turned away, was because unbeknownst to the Federation at that time, the RSE had joined the Typhon Pact, negating the aid that Preator Tal'Aura had requested. If the situation was reversed, I highly doubt that any member of the Typhon Pact would aid the Federation in the same way.

 

[Thestral]

A Chancellor selected by a Starfleet officer upon invitation/insistence by the outgoing Chancellor. Until Duras got himself stupidly killed, the possibility remained that he would be selected. And the fact remains Starfleet didn't aid Gowron directly despite his appeal to the terms of Alliance.

Until Duras got himself assassinated by a Starfleet officer who barely received a reprimand for his actions.

Duras' death was the result of a legal and honorable combat with witnesses present and was recognized as such by the High Council. Since the combat was appropriate by Klingon law, assassination isn't an accurate way to describe it.

If Duras didn't want himself to face consequence, he shouldn't have accepted Worf's challenge (or, better yet, not demeaned himself by murdering Worf's mate and opening himself to ritual vengeance).

 

[Arpy]

I don't understand writers' preoccupation with undermining the notion of Federation idealism. I find nothing shocking in the baddies not being mustache-twirling villains. From "Balance of Terror" the Romulans were not just Darth Vader & Co. If writers want to explore more of that, I'd say it's about time. As a common viewer and reader, I'm used to simplistic storytelling, but I didn't write it, or, despite my paying for cable or enjoying Coca-Cola, commissioning it.

But far more than any single Trek story I've ever read or watched, the idea of the Federation has moved me - metaphorically, and literally to take action. Obviously no nation will ever be truly ideal any more than anyone can ever know the mind of "God". But the notion of one near it is a stirring one that, like any other, needs to be revisited from time to time or it will be forgotten. ...The notion that it's been done forgets that that's another way of saying we've seen the mind of God already.

 

[Sxottlan]

I don't understand writers' preoccupation with undermining the notion of Federation idealism.

Same here. Both in what the Federation as a whole believes and what people believe of the Federation.

Is it really so hard to imagine that a small, democratic world that doesn't want to be homogenized by the Federation...

How exactly does the Federation homogenize a world? The word for me carries a negative connotation. Certainly we've seen member worlds cloaked in a lot more secrecy than one would expect from a member world, but the Federation appears to be as hands off or as hands on as the member world wants.

We've certainly seen some members tell Starfleet to go fly a kite when it comes knocking for recruits.

 

[BrotherBenny]

If you look at the map of the galaxy in Star Charts, it is quite obvious that the Federation is the largest political entity across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. It has almost completely surrounded the Romulan Empire and the Klingon Empire has to expand in the other direction so they don't run into Federation colonies ripe for the conquering. In the AQ, the Federation seems to squeeze itself between the borders of other empires such as the Cardassian Union and the Tzenkethi Coalition, the Tholian Assembly, and the Talarian Republic, and almost choke them off from the rest of the galaxy unless they wish to expand in the other direction.

The Federation don't expand ruthlessly, but to an outsider looking at the volume of space they control, one could easily see them as rabidly expansionist and wonder when they might be next.

 

[Stoek]

I don't think the writers are seeking to undermine anything. But here is a simple truth as I know it. Idealism is easy. Putting those ideals into practice is hard.

Now perhaps to some stories where the good guys are so very good that no wrong ever occurs to them, may be inspiring.

But not to me.

To me what is inspiring are stories about people under difficult circumstances figuring out how to live their ideals. And if they fall short, then figuring out how to dust themselves off and try again.

There is another fact that I think people may be forgetting in their comments about the Typhon Pact, namely that this is really only the opening of what I suspect is going to be a fairly robust ongoing storyline. Are things dark right now? Yep. Are they going to get darker? Probably. Is darkness all there will ever be? I very seriously doubt it.

 

[kkozoriz1]

I don't think the writers are seeking to undermine anything. But here is a simple truth as I know it. Idealism is easy. Putting those ideals into practice is hard.

Now perhaps to some stories where the good guys are so very good that no wrong ever occurs to them, may be inspiring.

But not to me.

To me what is inspiring are stories about people under difficult circumstances figuring out how to live their ideals. And if they fall short, then figuring out how to dust themselves off and try again.

There is another fact that I think people may be forgetting in their comments about the Typhon Pact, namely that this is really only the opening of what I suspect is going to be a fairly robust ongoing storyline. Are things dark right now? Yep. Are they going to get darker? Probably. Is darkness all there will ever be? I very seriously doubt it.

When the heroes throw away their values then they cannot recover them. The can get close but the damage is done.

Spoiler: Bashier and ZSG

Bashier murdered a room full of civilian technicians and shot an unconscious, unarmed guard in the head "just to be sure" all so he could be with a woman that he sees as his soulmate. After this and seeing Sarina's connection to Section 31 I think that they do belong together.

Picard helped depose the President of the federation who later disappeared. Picard doesn't seem to have given it a second thought.

There's altering your heroes and then there's altering them beyond recognition.

And then there's Sisko....

 

[PrimeDirective]

I don't think the writers are seeking to undermine anything. But here is a simple truth as I know it. Idealism is easy. Putting those ideals into practice is hard.

Now perhaps to some stories where the good guys are so very good that no wrong ever occurs to them, may be inspiring.

But not to me.

To me what is inspiring are stories about people under difficult circumstances figuring out how to live their ideals. And if they fall short, then figuring out how to dust themselves off and try again.

There is another fact that I think people may be forgetting in their comments about the Typhon Pact, namely that this is really only the opening of what I suspect is going to be a fairly robust ongoing storyline. Are things dark right now? Yep. Are they going to get darker? Probably. Is darkness all there will ever be? I very seriously doubt it.

When the heroes throw away their values then they cannot recover them. The can get close but the damage is done.

Spoiler: Bashier and ZSG

Bashier murdered a room full of civilian technicians and shot an unconscious, unarmed guard in the head "just to be sure" all so he could be with a woman that he sees as his soulmate. After this and seeing Sarina's connection to Section 31 I think that they do belong together.

Picard helped depose the President of the federation who later disappeared. Picard doesn't seem to have given it a second thought.

There's altering your heroes and then there's altering them beyond recognition.

And then there's Sisko....

* Which president did Captain Picard help get rid of? I don't know the specifics of what happened in this particular incident, but based on what I know about Picard's history and personality, he probably had very good reasons for doing so, thus doing the Federation and the rest of the galaxy a favor.

 

[kkozoriz1]

I don't think the writers are seeking to undermine anything. But here is a simple truth as I know it. Idealism is easy. Putting those ideals into practice is hard.

Now perhaps to some stories where the good guys are so very good that no wrong ever occurs to them, may be inspiring.

But not to me.

To me what is inspiring are stories about people under difficult circumstances figuring out how to live their ideals. And if they fall short, then figuring out how to dust themselves off and try again.

There is another fact that I think people may be forgetting in their comments about the Typhon Pact, namely that this is really only the opening of what I suspect is going to be a fairly robust ongoing storyline. Are things dark right now? Yep. Are they going to get darker? Probably. Is darkness all there will ever be? I very seriously doubt it.

When the heroes throw away their values then they cannot recover them. The can get close but the damage is done.

Spoiler: Bashier and ZSG

Bashier murdered a room full of civilian technicians and shot an unconscious, unarmed guard in the head "just to be sure" all so he could be with a woman that he sees as his soulmate. After this and seeing Sarina's connection to Section 31 I think that they do belong together.

Picard helped depose the President of the federation who later disappeared. Picard doesn't seem to have given it a second thought.

There's altering your heroes and then there's altering them beyond recognition.

And then there's Sisko....

* Which president did Captain Picard help get rid of? I don't know the specifics of what happened in this particular incident, but based on what I know about Picard's history and personality, he probably had very good reasons for doing so, thus doing the Federation and the rest of the galaxy a favor.

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Min_Zife

"In October, confronted with millions of deaths on Zife, Azernal, and Quafina's hands as part of their coverup attempt, a number of Starfleet officers, including Picard, Admiral William Ross, Admiral Alynna Nechayev, Admiral Owen Paris, Admiral Edward Jellico, and Admiral Mamoru Nakamura, along with the Federation Ambassador to Tezwa, Lagan Serra, agreed that something had to be done. While they could not risk a public airing of the information lest war with the Klingons result, each agreed that Zife and his cohorts could not be allowed to remain in office. They agreed to conspire to force Zife out of office at gunpoint, with Ross taking leadership of the conspiracy. The officers' plan was for Zife, Azernal, and Quafina to simply be forced to resign, claiming reasons of economics, and to be taken into protective custody and given new identities afterwards, and Admirals Ross, Nakamura, and Nechayev later confronted the trio in the Monet Room of the Palais."

Basically, they decided that Zife was unfit for office and removed him. In a democracy, that is a job for the public, the legislature or the judiciary, not the military and NOT in secret.

 

[David cgc]

You do realize that that completely ignores the issue of Zife's culpability, right? I mean, it seems just a tick like not seeing the forest for the trees if you're going to say that Picard merely endorsing the forced retirement of a politician from office destroyed the soul of Star Trek, while essentially ignoring that the President of the Federation, the person who embodies the ideals of the union by tradition if not in fact, created a situation that resulted in the deaths of thousands of allied soldiers, as well as a bloody invasion of a planet that resulted in who knows how many deaths, and set things up for total war with a foreign power.

How do you think this would've went down if Zife was president of the Planet of the Week and Picard or Kirk had to deal with that kind of thing in a episode?

 

[kkozoriz1]

The should expose them to the Council and let the law take care of the situation.

Are you seriously saying that you prefer that democratically elected politicians should be removed in secret by the military?

If Zife's actions are a violation of the Khitomer Accords as we are told they are then perhaps he could have been turned over to the Klingons for trial like Kirk & McCoy were in TUC.

 

[Sci]

^^ I for one think you're doing exactly what many accuse the Typhon Pact nations of doing to the Federation: Taking behavior that has a particular set of motivations -- in this case, the motivation to punish a war criminal but avoid a war in the process -- but only presenting it in the most damaging manner possible.

I don't think the writers are going out of their way to undermine the notion of Federation idealism. As soon as Zife was gone, KRAD created a very idealistic leader in Bacco, and Articles of the Federation is positively brimming with Trekian idealism. Bacco's made some decisions in subsequent books that may be seen as immoral -- but they may not. That's not undermining idealism, that's introducing ambiguity.

"It's easy to be a saint in Paradise" is the basic theme of DS9. All TrekLit has done is remove Paradise from the equation -- there is no more Paradise. We all have to try to be saints while living on Earth now. So how does that work?

I hope no one will pardon my mentioning politics, but I suspect that this may be related to an outgrowth of some authors' political inclinations. One of the motivations, in my view, behind modern American liberalism is a skepticism of the idea that the reality of society matches up to the ideals of society -- a desire to hold up a mirror to society and say, "You're not the kind of society you want to be yet. You can do better. You need to change more into something you have not yet been."

I suspect that that same impulse may be at work in the novels. A skepticism of the idea that the Federation is as good of a society as it wants to be, combined with a belief that it's a genuinely better society than any that exists today and with the idea that while it will never be perfect, it can always get better.

And on every conceivable level, the Federation is a better society than exists today. Even the absolute worst moments of corruption we've seen in Federation history -- the Tezwa affair that led to Zife's removal from office -- are positively benign compared to the kinds of corruption we see in the world today. After all, Starfleet did not seize control of the government; the Federation Council appointed a President Pro Tempore and held an election. As coups go, that's awfully democratic.

But that's the reality of life: No society will ever be perfect, because societies are made up of people. And people (irrelevant of their species ) are never anything more than human. It would be dishonest to portray the Federation as a Utopia, because Utopia can never exist, only aspired towards. Societies will always sometimes fall short of their greatest ideals, sometimes lightly and sometimes badly. And societies, even well-meaning ones, will always sometimes resent one-another. France owed Britain, America, and Canada her freedom, yet that didn't stop Charle de Galle from wanting France to serve as a counter-weight to American hegemony on the NATO side of the Cold War, to the point of removing French forces from NATO's operational military system and developing an independent French nuclear deterrent. Canada and America have one of the best relationships of any two countries in the world, but plenty of Canadians resent U.S. domination of Canadian markets and culture. The United States and the People's Republic of China are both convinced the other is secretly trying to screw them over, even as both sides constantly try to project messages of peace and anti-imperialism to one-another.

And, yes, sometimes nations pursuing their own honest self-interests will come into conflict, even if neither side actually intends on hostilities. That's just how international relations works and always will work, for the same reason that two really decent guys might end up hating each other's guts and trying to screw one-another over if they're both competing for the same promotion at work.

 

[David cgc]

The should expose them to the Council and let the law take care of the situation.

Are you seriously saying that you prefer that democratically elected politicians should be removed in secret by the military?

If a public trial will probably lead to an apocalyptic war, I might be willing to make an exception, yeah.

 

[kkozoriz1]

The should expose them to the Council and let the law take care of the situation.

Are you seriously saying that you prefer that democratically elected politicians should be removed in secret by the military?

If a public trial will probably lead to an apocalyptic war, I might be willing to make an exception, yeah.

Then you are giving Starfleet a veto over the democratic ideals of the Federation. You might as well give Admiral leyton the keys to the Presidential Palace. Your ideals are what you live up to when times get tough. If the Federation made a mistake then you call in the Ambassidors or call a summit with Martok, lay everything out on the table and take your punishment. That doesn't mean that you automatically go to war. You fight for keeping the peace as strongly as you'd defend yourself in war.

The cat is out of the bag as far as Zife is concerned. Word will eventually leak out. It was a reporter who basically blackmailed Bacco after all and the Orions know something is up as well. Imagine how it will be when the Klingons not only learn the truth about Tezwa but also that the closest of their allies has covered it up and lied about it to avoid conflict. The Klingons will see this as cowardice and make the Federation even less worth of the Klingons support.

Let's not forget that Worf also knows the truth and he's part of Martok's house.

Lies and cover-ups will evenutally come to light.

 

[Sci]

Are you seriously saying that you prefer that democratically elected politicians should be removed in secret by the military?

No one is saying that. But what they are saying is that Zife's being forced out of office at gunpoint isn't exactly the awful assault on truth, justice, and the Federation Way that you keep implying it is, either. It's somewhere in between. Certainly there's no indication that Starfleet wants or intends to act on any sort of veto power over who can hold the Presidency -- this was a one-time-only decision made to remove a criminal from office who would otherwise have escaped, scot-free and above the law.

If Zife's actions are a violation of the Khitomer Accords as we are told they are then perhaps he could have been turned over to the Klingons for trial like Kirk & McCoy were in TUC.

Absolutely not. The extradition of a former head of state to a foreign state for trial and possible execution is an implicit attack on the sovereignty of the extraditing state. At no point could the Federation afford to undermine itself in that way.

If there were to be a public airing of Zife's crimes, he would have to be indicted by a Federation Grand Jury for violations of Federation law, put on trial in a Federation court, convicted by a Federation jury, and sentenced by a Federation judge to serve time in a Federation penal system. At no point can a former head of state be allowed to find himself/herself subject to a foreign state's judicial system--that is an inherent attack on Federation sovereignty and undermines the ability of the sitting President to conduct foreign policy.

If the Federation made a mistake then you call in the Ambassidors or call a summit with Martok, lay everything out on the table and take your punishment.

And if the Klingon Empire responds by declaring war on the Federation?

Tell me, how well do you think the Alpha Quadrant would have held up against the Borg Invasion if the UFP and KE had been at each other's throats for the two years leading up to the Borg attacks? You think Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, Qo'noS, Romulus, Tholia, Ab-Tzenketh, Ferenginar, Tallar, and Breen would still be standing? I don't.

The cat is out of the bag as far as Zife is concerned. Word will eventually leak out. It was a reporter who basically blackmailed Bacco after all and the Orions know something is up as well. Imagine how it will be when the Klingons not only learn the truth about Tezwa but also that the closest of their allies has covered it up and lied about it to avoid conflict. The Klingons will see this as cowardice and make the Federation even less worth of the Klingons support.

That's certainly a risk.

Let's not forget that Worf also knows the truth and he's part of Martok's house.

No, Worf does not know that Starfleet forced Zife out at gunpoint. He knows that Zife's resignation was a result of the Tezwa debacle, but that's pretty much something anyone paying attention to the news could figure out. Nowhere does Worf find that Admiral Ross and Captain Picard made a decision to force Zife out of office at gunpoint, and nowhere is it indicated that he is aware of Zife's subsequent disappearance.