Trill a Federation Member?

[T'Girl]

And yet, novels aren't canon.

No, but when a novel states something (in this case, "Trill is a member"), and there is nothing in canon that explicitly contradicts it, then it still counts in favor of the premise being discussed.

No, even if there is absolutely nothing to contradict the supposition of a published author, it is still just personal opinion if it's not in a episode or a movie. It can certainly be brought up as a discussion point, but Leslie Moonves himself could say it and it still wouldn't be canon.

But to be an ambassador representing the interests of a nation, you have to be from that nation.

Don't see your point. If the Federation basically brings in a "hired gun" to accomplish what they previously could not, obtain a treaty with the Klingon Empire, great. Find someone outside the Federation, someone well versed in the Klingon culture, who was acceptable to the Klingons, appoint them as the Federation's official ambassador in the matter, and get a treaty.

Whatever treaty Curzon brought back was going to be vetted by the membership prior to becoming effective anyway, so it's not like they're handing Curzon the keys.

Londo Mollari to Vir Cotto: "Don't give away the Homeworld."

Remember, we're not talking exclusively about Humans here. Hell, the Humans might have been against the very concept and were over-ruled by their fellow Federation members.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Ambassadors are not hired guns. They are employed by the government under which they live. That's simply how diplomacy works.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

I think its entirely safe to assume that Trill is a Federation world, and a pretty major one at that due to their advanced technology and society.
Also Jadzia, Ezri and that Trill chick from Insurrection were hot! So clearly they produce some fine specimens of womanhood.

^ Ambassadors are not hired guns. They are employed by the government under which they live. That's simply how diplomacy works.

I agree. I don't really understand why people are even trying to say otherwise.

 

[Saito S]

And yet, novels aren't canon.

No, but when a novel states something (in this case, "Trill is a member"), and there is nothing in canon that explicitly contradicts it, then it still counts in favor of the premise being discussed.

No, even if there is absolutely nothing to contradict the supposition of a published author, it is still just personal opinion if it's not in a episode or a movie. It can certainly be brought up as a discussion point, but Leslie Moonves himself could say it and it still wouldn't be canon.

Uh... yeah?

That's exactly what I said. I wasn't claiming the information was canon, merely pointing out that since it isn't contradicted by canon, it still works as a point "in favor" of the premise being debated. You just repeated my same point with different wording.

But to be an ambassador representing the interests of a nation, you have to be from that nation.

Don't see your point. If the Federation basically brings in a "hired gun" to accomplish what they previously could not, obtain a treaty with the Klingon Empire,

Then that person is a mediator, not an ambassador.

Whatever treaty Curzon brought back was going to be vetted by the membership prior to becoming effective anyway, so it's not like they're handing Curzon the keys.

Yes, but do they really want to go through the process of potentially rejecting multiple treaty proposals?

Mr. Laser Beam points out why ambassadors are employed by their own government. The entire idea is that the person is invested in the outcome.

For a nation to enlist someone outside of their nation to assist with hammering out a treaty or settle a dispute is certainly not unheard of; the term for that is "third party arbitration". Curzon was clearly not meant to be operating in that capacity.

Londo Mollari to Vir Cotto: "Don't give away the Homeworld."

Interesting quote for you to pick, since Londo is an excellent example of what an ambassador is, and why one is chosen from among the citizenry of the nation in question.

Remember, we're not talking exclusively about Humans here. Hell, the Humans might have been against the very concept and were over-ruled by their fellow Federation members.

Now who's supposing all kinds of things that are not even hinted at in canon? Humans being against using hired gun Curzon, but being over-ruled by other members? That's simply not how things are depicted.

A lack of direct, stated evidence (in this case, the lack of someone actually saying, straight out, "Trill is a member") doesn't mean there is a complete vacuum of context. "Well, anything could have happened!" No, not ANYTHING. We don't know exactly what happened, but if what you suggest were even close to what went down, we would have heard about it in some way. Curzon had too much respect from everyone around him for this to be plausible. He was a renowned "Federation ambassador" with a long, distinguished career, not "a skilled diplomat whom the Federation hired here and there."

Even pure speculation should at least be rooted in what makes reasonable sense given what we saw on the show.

 

[Sci]

And yet, novels aren't canon.

No, but when a novel states something (in this case, "Trill is a member"), and there is nothing in canon that explicitly contradicts it, then it still counts in favor of the premise being discussed.

No, even if there is absolutely nothing to contradict the supposition of a published author, it is still just personal opinion if it's not in a episode or a movie. It can certainly be brought up as a discussion point, but Leslie Moonves himself could say it and it still wouldn't be canon.

I hate to tell you this, but the definition of "canon" basically only boils down to, "What the novels aren't allowed to contradict." Something being non-canonical is not the same thing as it being invalid. After all -- it's all equally fictional.

 

[T'Girl]

They are employed by the government under which they live.

And Curzon would have been employed by the Federation as their ambassador to negotiate a treaty. Whether from a member world or not, bringing in Curzon to act as the Federation's representative would have been a matter of judgement as to Curzon's abilities.

Whether from a member world or not, Curzon came through.

The Federation apparently employed Curzon's services at least twice as a ambassador for treaties with the Klingons (2289 and 2293). And at least once as a mediator (46 years later), during the civil war on Klaestron Four.

That's simply how diplomacy works.

Is it? In a environment of many dozens, perhaps over a hundred alien species, all with their own cultures, traditions and histories, you honestly think the rules are going to be exactly how they are on Earth in the early twenty-first century?

While we're at it, maybe we can stipulate that the Federation leader can't ask the representative of a usually hostile power whether it's advisable to send a armed task force into the Klingon Empire to rescue two captured officers. That certainly isn't exactly how we (Humans) do it today.

This is Star Trek my friend, outside of canon, everything is open , and everything is on the table.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It possible that Curzon was a UFP citizen but Trill was not a member world. I see no reason why individual citizenship and world membership have to be linked in all cases.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ There is no evidence that Curzon was from any world other than Trill. Heck, he was even on the board of the Symbiosis Commission, which is located on Trill.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^ There is no evidence that Curzon was from any world other than Trill. Heck, he was even on the board of the Symbiosis Commission, which is located on Trill.

He can be from a non-Member world and be a UFP citizen. There is a thing called naturalization. Worf is/was a UFP citizen even though he was born in the Klingon Empire.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Trill is a Federation world. Jeez people, get over it.
You'd think if it wasn't that Jadzia would mention that in conjuction with the Dominion.

 

[Saito S]

That's simply how diplomacy works.

Is it? In a environment of many dozens, perhaps over a hundred alien species, all with their own cultures, traditions and histories, you honestly think the rules are going to be exactly how they are on Earth in the early twenty-first century?

ALL the rules? EXACTLY like they are today? No, of course not.

But he is an "ambassador." Star Trek's producers and writers generally don't take a real word with a specific meaning, and just arbitrarily alter that meaning, and then not tell us. The use of the word "ambassador" suggests that such a character functions in the same way as real ambassadors do, until and unless we are informed otherwise. Since we never were so informed, the assumption is that it means the same thing that it does today.

In addition, Mr. Laser Beam is correct in saying that "that's how diplomacy works." We saw diplomacy in action a HUGE number of times on Star Trek, and there was every indication that the Federation conducts itself in a manner that is quite recognizable to us 21st-century humans.

While we're at it, maybe we can stipulate that the Federation leader can't ask the representative of a usually hostile power whether it's advisable to send a armed task force into the Klingon Empire to rescue two captured officers. That certainly isn't exactly how we (Humans) do it today.

If you are referring to the scene in TUC where the Romulan ambassador is inexplicably still present when West outlines his plan to rescue Kirk and McCoy, that is a major writing/production gaffe, and I honestly don't see what it has to do with this discussion.

This is Star Trek my friend, outside of canon, everything is open , and everything is on the table.

No. Not everything.

This is the antithesis of the point I was making in my previous post. Star Trek's setting is not simply a free pass to just throw ANY idea out there and have it stick. The setting DOES have established rules and parameters, and while some things do work in an entirely different way than they do today, some other things work almost exactly like they do today. There is every indication that being "an ambassador" means pretty much the same thing as it does today, save for adjusting the scope to a galactic, rather than planetary, scale.

^ There is no evidence that Curzon was from any world other than Trill. Heck, he was even on the board of the Symbiosis Commission, which is located on Trill.

He can be from a non-Member world and be a UFP citizen. There is a thing called naturalization. Worf is/was a UFP citizen even though he was born in the Klingon Empire.

Certainly, individuals from non-member worlds can become citizens. But while Worf chose to study Klingon culture while living among humans, he was a nobody to other Klingons (until that mess with Mogh and Duras came to light, anyway).

Curzon's status as a well-known, borderline legendary figure was as a diplomat, AND as a UFP citizen, AND as a Trill. He was very well-known among his own people, and odds are he grew up on Trill. He is just not presented as someone who left his homeworld and had to go through this kind of process to become a UFP citizen. And I'd forgotten about him serving on the Symbiosis Commission, but that's a good point. I really have a hard time seeing how one individual could serve both on that commission, and as a Federation ambassador, if the Trill aren't members.

 

[Timo]

Curzon's status as a well-known, borderline legendary figure was as a diplomat, AND as a UFP citizen, AND as a Trill.

There is no single instance where all these three criteria would be simultaneously met.

Both Curzon and Riva are credited with negotiating treaties between the UFP and the Klingon Empire. Riva was expressly a neutral mediator from outside both realms. Curzon self-referred to having been "the Federation Ambassador" about a century after those events, in "You Are Cordially Invited". This appears to be the sole reference to Curzon as Ambassador anywhere in aired Star Trek, BTW.

Dax: "I was once the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire. I negotiated the Khitomer Accords before Worf was even born."

While not unambiguous, the reference seems to establish ambassadorship at the time of the Khitomer negotiations, rather than at some other time.

However, there is no evidence that Curzon's Trill identity and nature was recognized at the time, nor is there direct reference to his UFP citizenship, just the indirect implication from him being the UFP Ambassador (rather than the one for the Klingon Empire or, say, for the mediating Khitomer power Romulus).

Curzon's tenure at the Symbiosis Commission comes much later, when the host candidate Jadzia is up for naughty grabs. And the one important thing about Trills is that they have many lives, even within one host life thanks to the life-elongating and -enriching effects of the symbiont. Things done in one life need not relate to things done in another. Indeed, the very discussion where Dax boasts on having been Ambassador Curzon ends with Sisko declaring that Dax no longer is Ambassador nor Curzon.

Much of the discussion is moot anyway, because there is no reason a citizen of nation X couldn't become a highest-echelon leader for nation Y. Many heads of state are of foreign origin today - and if legislation goes against the leader being foreign-born, then it may suffice for his foreign-born parents to have attained citizenship at a suitable time before or during the whiz kid's life. Curzon could well be a sixth-generation Fed even though the UFP has been at bitter war with Trill since the day of the signing of its founding articles. Just remember that the United States was de facto led by Germans during its wars with Germany in the previous century!

Timo Saloniemi