And we know that approximately 150 years before Articles of the Federation (so some time circa 2230), a female Trill named Madza Bral became the first Federation President who wasn't from one of the five founding worlds of Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, or Alpha Centauri. (I'm presuming that those worlds' colony worlds are included in that statement, just because I find it hard to believe that every President for 70 years came from only five worlds.) Since Federation President is an awfully important post to elect someone from a new world to, I would speculate that this indicates that Trill was fairly well-integrated into the Federation by 2230.
^Why is it so hard to believe that all the Presidents came from only 5 worlds? The first 15 US Presidents all came from the original 13 colonies (and only from a handful of them at that), which actually equates out to about the first 70 years of US history.
Which is hard to reconcile with their portrayal in "The Host" as a species the Federation was still largely ignorant about. But then, a lot of stuff from "The Host" was retconned away by DS9, like the Trill's original appearance, their inability to go safely through transporters, the fact that the personality seemed to come entirely from the symbiont and the hosts were practically zombies until joined, etc.
Because 5 is less than 13, and because we already know that those 5 worlds have colony worlds that are considered part of their territory. It's hard to buy the idea that no one from those colony worlds would be ambitious enough and successful enough to ascend to the Presidency but people from the home worlds would be. Frankly, I also find it kind of hard to think that it would take 70 years for someone from outside the five founding worlds' territories to make it to the Presidency, just as a function of numbers. By the 2230s, you would think that subsequent Member worlds would outnumber the founding Members, and that thus their citizens wouldn't be inclined to only vote for people from those founding Members. (And, no, the experience of the United States's first seven decades isn't applicable to this issue, because the United States wasn't a true democracy until the 20th Century.) But, hey, it's been established that Madza Bral was the first non-founding Member citizen to be elected President, so the best way to mitigate the mathematical improbability of that idea is to suggest that plenty of the Presidents in those 70 years were from the founding Members' colonies. We might also speculate that some of them were descended from immigrant families -- so, for instance, there might have been, say, a Denobulan citizen of United Earth, born and raised in Buenos Aires, who became Federation President yet was still considered to be from one of the founding Member worlds. It's arguable whether or not it's accurate to say that the first 15 U.S. Presidents were "from" the first 13 states. Andrew Jackson, the 7th President, was born in either North or South Carolina (evidence is unclear), but when he became President, he was a citizen of the State of Tennessee, where he'd lived since he was 20 (before it even became a state). And William Henry Harrison, the 9th President, was a citizen of the State of Ohio, though he had been born born in Virginia and had served as governor of Indiana when it was a territory. James Polk, the 11th President, was also a citizen of Tennessee, where he'd lived since he was 11. Zachary Taylor, President #12, started his life in Virginia, spent most of his formative years in Kentucky, gained prominence in the U.S. Army, and was a citizen of the State of Louisiana when he became President. That does present an interesting question -- might we interpret the line in AotF as including to people who started out on the five founding worlds but later moved to other Member worlds? Might there have been a President who was born on Andor and later moved to, say, Rigel before becoming President? I'm inclined to just ignore everything in "The Host" at this point. It looks to have been as retconned as what "The Alternate Factor"'s depiction of antimatter.
I tend to think of the bumpy-headed Trill hosts in "The Host" as the Trill equivalent of early hominids, a less intelligent subspecies that still has a very few surviving members. Although that can explain every discrepancy except the Federation's apparent unfamiliarity with the Trill.
We could just as easily claim that the bumpheads are one of three already known host species: human, bumphead, spothead. The symbionts are obviously compatible with at least those three to some degree, even though they choose to lie about compatibility as explicated in "Equilibrium". None of those three need be considered "species Trill", except when actually playing a role in the culture of planet Trill, the predominant lifeform of which is the species Trill, that is, the symbiont. The rest of "The Host" is basically classic Trill stuff: they're secretive, they lie about things that could expose the symbionts, the hosts are really anxious about the joining thing and may act strangely at such an occasion, etc. Whether such people would make for good early UFP Presidents is anybody's guess. A predisposition towards fluent lying for a greater cause shouldn't be considered an obstacle, at any rate! So perhaps the UFP isn't, either? Timo Saloniemi
Doesn't wash. Sci is (presumably) referring to the fact that there were many obstacles to voting in American history prior to the 20th century including race and gender. I find it preposterous that the UFP would not have universal suffrage from the very moment of its conception. Aaron McGuire
If the Trill symbionts have their choice of hosts, I'm sure they would consider Kriosians a priority! Regarding universal suffrage in the UFP, at least some of its member worlds are indicated to be quite autocratic. Troglytes clearly don't have a vote, yet nothing indicates that Ardana would not already have been a member during the past few presidential elections. If it is beyond the UFP abilities to ascertain that suffrage really is universal on all planets, yet voting is "one person, one vote" rather than "one world, one vote", it would be quite understandable that the President comes from a world with a broad suffrage, not from one where only part of the population is allowed to vote. The latter type of government would balance between the desire to have influence in the UFP and the desire to remain free of UFP oversight and forced internal equality while reaping the benefits of membership; the latter desire would probably always win out. Timo Saloniemi
I still don't see how that matters. Every state did have people who were able to vote (it might not have been universal, but there were still voters in each state) and yet the first eleven presidents were from only 5 states (Virginia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, New York and Ohio). If the voters in the other states really wanted a candidate from another state in the presidency, they could have done it. Or are you arguing that non-founding members of the UPF would only vote for their particular native candidate and wouldn't want to vote for a Human, Vulcan, Andorian or Tellarite? I'm a little confused.
I'm arguing that in a real democracy (rather than a pseudo-democratic plutocracy, which is what the early United States was), the pool of candidates would inevitably be too large and their supporters across multiple worlds too numerous, for it to be plausible that no non-Founding Member citizens would be elected to the Presidency. All things being equal, it's just highly improbable that only five worlds would produce Presidents for 70 years. It matters whether or not the early U.S. was a real democracy because all things were not equal. The pool of potential candidates was artificially restricted through requirements for race, gender, property ownership, through the necessity of holding wealth and being of the right class, and through the attempts of the early states to dominate the national political process (particularly Virginia's).
Is it really? Given that UFP presidents have been established in the literature as serving 4-year terms, 72 years is 18 terms. It stands to reason that at least some of the presidents served two or more terms (we know it's possible to serve more than two terms since AotF informed us that Wescott declined to run for a third term, meaning he theoretically could have). So the number of distinct presidents in that span could be under a dozen, even under ten. The smaller the sample size, the less improbable it becomes for the distribution to be uneven just due to the luck of the draw. True, that's still 18 distinct elections, but incumbents tend to have an advantage so long as the economy's not in trouble, and hey, the Federation's kind of a post-scarcity society (maybe not as much in 2200 as in 2380, but certainly closer than we are), so the economy probably wouldn't be that big a worry. Besides, who says all things were equal? However egalitarian the UFP may have been in theory, the founding worlds would've carried a lot of clout and would've assumed a leadership role from the beginning. Even with universal suffrage and an absence of racism or classism, politics is still a game of associations and resources, of publicity and prestige. The people who have the most connections and the most public recognition have an advantage over outsiders and newcomers. Naturally the Federation government would've started out populated primarily by people from the five founder worlds, because they and their colonies would've pretty much been it at first. So when new worlds joined and new councillors came in and ran for office, they'd still be going up against the established veterans from the founder worlds, people who'd been in the government longer and whose names and reputations the voters knew. So that early advantage for politicians from the founder worlds could've become an entrenched advantage in terms of political connections and prestige. Even without any intentional bias, newcomers would have an uphill battle.
Then why don't we have a Chinese president followed by a Mexican one. It's certainly not because they're not smarter. I would like to see a prequil to Enterprise. It seems like an unmined area as well with a fledgeling Space program getting off the ground, or after ENT and before Kirk with Pike and April but, there is a danger of not only not being any different from any other time line or series but writing yourself into a corner and losing the freedom and wiggle room that comes from advancing the plot line and continuuing the development of established characters to greater greater depths and realizations of change which can be a strong draw for readers seeing how characters you know and who have a history you're famililar with grow. Writers like to bridge gaps as well as push boundries, though, where stories set within the framework of the series might not be seen to have any lasting impact or meaningful reverberations considering the continuity.
Hi, I'm new and am in awe of everyone's vast trek knowledge. I'd love to see this period 'filled in'. I love the original series and Enterprise (plus many TOS novels esp. Diane Carey's works about Romulans) so would love to see this continued. I've just finished the latest Enterprise novel - good, but not as good as the Romulan War, but better than the preceeding 2 Enterprise novels - anyways, the ending of the last book just left me wanting more. It ends 25 years in the future (during the 2180's +/-) so I hope that another book comes out. I liked how Enterprise tried to tie up some of the loose ends / questions from the other series. As well, I loved how the series tried to delve into Andorian and Vulcan culture. (Yes, I know many didn't like how the Vulcans were depicted). And the novels are good in that they work overtime to cover multiple 'threads' - some people dislike the Romulan War because of this but I thought that the book did a pretty good job covering so much ground. But I have a dumb question, did the Aenar really go extinct?
I'm pretty sure that, according to the novels, Thelin of TAS: "Yesteryear" was Aenar. So they lasted until they lasted until the late 2260's, at least.