You really don't know what you're talking about. It's a marginal detail what the ship carrying the President is called. That's really not an indication of the quality of a story -- it's just a piece of background info. To decide to evaluate all sorts of novels based on such a small thing is just silly..
What's silly is that you think that background info and setting of a story in not important.
Neither
Paris One nor
Starfleet One have ever been the setting of a story. It's a small piece of background trivia; it does not affect the qualify of the stories being told, the plot, the characterization, or the thematic content. Details like that exist to create a sensation of verisimilitude, but they don't make or break a story.
Name like Starfleet One takes you right out of the story and suspension of disbelief. <SNIP> Instead of creating an original setting based of what's seen on screen, they decided to copy entire American system down to the name of a plane....brilliant.
I'd have more sympathy for this line of thought if we weren't literally talking about a show set 400 years in the future about starships of a vast interstellar union of many different species... whose starships all carry the same "U.S.S." prefix as the U.S. Navy.
Meanwhile, the Federation government as established in the novels is fundamentally different from the U.S. government in some very important ways. The President presides over full sessions of the Federation Council, and may preside over sessions of the various sub-councils (committees); she appoints all members of the sub-councils with the full Council's ratification. This is a fundamentally different system than exists in either the U.S. or U.K.
None of those movies establish that he has significant power at all.
He's literally deciding whether or not Starfleet gets to invade Klingon space and setting Federation foreign policy towards the Klingon Empire in TUC. Pretty damn significant power it establishes there.
In DSN's "Paradise Lost" story, I don;t recall any mention about the Earth Prime Minister being consulated, does that mean he wasn't consulted off screen or that the Federation President has direct power over members world governments?
There is no mention of a United Earth Prime Minister in "Homefront/Paradise Lost," though Ronald D. Moore reported at the time that there was an initial plan to do so.
It just establishes that the Federation President has the authority to declare a State of Emergency over a Federation Member world, same as the U.S. President has the right to declare a State of Emergency over a U.S. state.
Is it ever established in a canon source that there exists a Federation president?
In STIV, the unnamed Human-looking fellow whom all the other characters refer to as "Mister President" has a line of dialogue in which he explicitly says, "This is the President of the United Federation of Planets."
And then in TUC, when the Klingon Ambassador is addressing the new alien fellow as "Mister President," there is a big ol' sign on the wall that gets its own close-up. The sign reads, "UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS - OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT."
In the TV shows we always see Federation leadership as a council of admirals.
No, we don't. We just don't get a view of Federation leadership, period; we usually only get a view of
Starfleet leadership. Don't confuse the Pentagon for Capitol Hill.
Based on what we know of the Federation, each planet has their own sovereign leadership, and if there exists an individual who is 'Leader of the whole Federation' he only has the 'Commander in Chief of the armed forces' role and no litigious power.
This flatly contradicts the powers we have seen the Federation Council and Federation President exercise in TVH, TUC, "Homefront/Paradise Lost," "The Defector," "Force of Nature," "The Way of the Warrior," etc.
Edit: Is the president we see in Paradise Lost Federation president? He seemed to me to be only Earth president.
We know for a fact that Jaresh-Inyo, the non-Human who is addressed as "Mister President," is the President of the United Federation of Planets rather than an Earth President, because that same ol' sign appears on the wall in his office. The one that reads "UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS - OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT."
In Conspiracy, it's implied the Admirals Picard is meeting with constitute the leadership of the Federation.
No, it's not. It's implied that they are the leadership of
Starfleet. You are confusing the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the President and Members of Congress.
TVH and TUC aren't fresh enough in my memory, but where is there a Federation president in DS9? All I recall is an Earth President.
The
Star Trek canon has never established the existence of a President of United Earth. The closest to that would be the
Voyager EMH pretending to be the President of Earth in the world of
Captain Proton in VOY's "Bride of Chaotica!" episode.
However, the novels have established that United Earth is a federal parliamentary republic, with a ceremonial President and a Prime Minister who is the real leader. There is also a Parliament, and a cabinet whose members hold ministerial offices.
In Star Trek it's never explicitly stated to what extent Federation law overrides planetary law of its member planets. We know that when you join the Federation, it absorbs your planet's military, and we know there are certain minimum standards of equality and human rights that are enforced and a Constitution. But beyond that local law is generally shown to be determined by each individual planet.
Federal systems can override local law while only being applicable in key areas. For instance, U.S. law trumps state law, but the federal government leaves key areas to the states to determine for themselves.
And if the Federation President was presiding a Starfleet court-martial, this would be further proof that he isn't very important, certainly would be proof that he apparently doesn't have much to do.
The Klingon Ambassador to the Federation was proclaiming that there would be no peace so long as Kirk lived as a result of his actions in TSFS. Obviously Kirk's court-martial was way more important than your standard military tribunal; ergo, the President's presiding over it does not indicate that his role is not important.
The Federation is an affiliation of sovereign worlds and peoples. The president of the UFP is not like the President of the United States, but more like the President of the United Nations.
There is no President of the United Nations. As an international organization, the U.N.'s executive organ, the Secretariat, is led by the Secretary-General. Most other international organizations, such as the Commonwealth of Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, etc., are led by Secretaries-General.
Meanwhile, the Federation is sovereign in its own right, and no canonical source that I can recall has ever claimed that its Member worlds are the sovereigns. The Federation has all of the traits and powers of a sovereign state -- it has its own territory, its own constitution applicable in that territory, its own citizenship, a set of rights guaranteed to all persons within its territory, it has a legislature capable of making binding statutory law, it has a president capable of setting foreign policy, it declares and wages war, it has its own military in the form of Starfleet, it has its own currency in the form of Federation credits, etc.
The U.N., by contrast, contains none of these traits; it describes itself as "a tool of its Member States."
