The Maquis weren't "persecuted" because they held values contrary to the UFP. The UFP clashed with them because they threatened to drag the Federation into war with Cardassia. I don't think the UFP would have cared what kind of system or values the Maquis had except for the strategic situation.(which was stupid because the Maquis had supposedly explicitly renounced Federation citizenship but the writers couldn't just drop the storyline)
Are all crimes eliminated in the Federation?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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The Maquis weren't "persecuted" because they held values contrary to the UFP. The UFP clashed with them because they threatened to drag the Federation into war with Cardassia. I don't think the UFP would have cared what kind of system or values the Maquis had except for the strategic situation.(which was stupid because the Maquis had supposedly explicitly renounced Federation citizenship but the writers couldn't just drop the storyline)
Why, sure they were. Their major values were to whup Cardie ass and cling on to land, while the UFP wanted peaceful coexistence and doesn't seem to place much stock in material possessions (certainly not valuing them above human or humanoid life!).
The Maquis apparently broke dozens of laws at least, too - but only apparently, as we never quite learn of specific laws limiting colonial conduct. What these bloodlusty warmongers with little value for life and greater good did was refuse to let Starfleet and the Federal government mediate like it typically does in cases like this. And this was because of a rather profound philosophical disagreement: they didn't want to relocate even if that were needed to maintain peace, despite there clearly being plenty of (infinitely many?) other locations for them to choose from.
Heh, "Blaze of Glory" explicates that the Maquis didn't have the guts to declare independence as a group. They just went rogue as individuals - but how rogue juridically speaking, we never learn.
It is quite funny in that context that Sisko in "For the Uniform" would suddenly start talking about "Maquis worlds", as if entire worlds with thousands of people of them were now completely dedicated to the Maquis movement. Does the US bombard "Taleban cities" or "Al Quaeda countries"? Heck, no! Not under those names at least.
In any case, Eddington's "nobody leaves paradise" speech sounds a bit hollow in light of "Legacy" and the ease at which the UFP let Turkana IV go.
Timo Saloniemi
Yea but the problem with that is we don't know that Tasha really is the minority. As I said earlier, Turkana IV didnt have a democratic referendum like Scotland where every citizen had a chance to vote.
And just because you live in an area thats run by gangsters doesn't mean you want to be ruled by them. The fact that the gangs overthrew the government doesn't mean the Turkana people support that new government.
The only way to guarantee that the will of the Turkana people is served is to have Starfleet send in security forces to retake the planet and restore a democratic government. If that government holds a public referendum and votes to leave, then the Federation Council can allow them to leave because it has been proven to be the will of Turkana's majority.
As I also mentioned earlier, allowing a group of gangsters to overthrow the local government is not gang banging anymore. It's terrorism. That is something that Starfleet should respond to with full force. Are the Turkana gangsters as big a threat as the Borg assimilation of Jouret IV? No of course not. But Starfleet should send a message to every Federation world that acts of violence to affect political change will not be tolerated. You want to leave? Do it the democratic way. Hold a referendum. Or be prepared to face Starfleet's ground troops.
Few nations on Earth have had that. Has the total absence of such a thing made, say, the US a lesser democracy?
People losing a democratic vote don't exactly support the new government, either. It's just that they are in no position to do anything about it. Except rebel, which (some of) the people of Turkana IV did.
How would that help?
- The minority would lose the vote. Their will would not be served. Indeed, they would be in a hopeless position if Starfleet intervention was in opposition to the views they (and, coincidentally, the rebels) held.
- Starfleet barging in, phasers hot, is better than the cadres doing the same, how? Democracy from gunpoint tends to pervert the vote, no matter who is doing the democratizing.
- The whole rebellion appeared to be about wanting to get rid of UFP oversight anyway. So if the choices are "stay with the Feds" and "leave the Feds", who's gonna vote "leave the Feds" after the Feds come back in force, and trust that to count?
- Or a dozen other formulations to the same end. Violence and vote equates the violence.
The British Empire tired to restore a system of representation the local elite denounced as ill matching its needs. The Empire failed. Was anybody really worse off for the failure?
It's a matter of colored terminology, is all. The only thing that has ever managed to change a government is a driven and empowered minority - that is, a gang by another name. Being driven means having a fundamentally selfish interest; being empowered means being organized and armed. Gangs overthrew Czarist rule in Russia. Gangs overran British rule in North America. Gangs forced the signing of Magna Carta. Gangs established the Roman Republic, and then the Roman Empire. Elsewhere, gangs failed; whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, we'll never really know.
Timo Saloniemi
Okay, wait a minute.
As I understand it, the original government was a failed one. Unable to provide basic services (like a policing) they turned some authority over to the two largest political factions or parties. The original government ceased to exist some time after that. The colony subsequently descended into civil war.
Now it was never my impression that the two political factions were themselves the "rape gangs" that Yar spoke of, those were entirely separate. There isn't currently a country on Earth that doesn't have gang activity.
As to Yar being a Federation citizen, how? The colony was a Earth colony and not a Federation colony. And the original government lost power prior to Yar birth. About fifteen years before the episode (Yar would have been about ten years) the colony broke all contact with the Federation, but what their relationship with the Federation was just before that time is unclear.
Any political connection with Earth and the Federation could have ceased when the two political parties took power, years prior to Yar's birth.
")
As I understand it, the original government was a failed one. Unable to provide basic services (like a policing) they turned some authority over to the two largest political factions or parties. The original government ceased to exist some time after that. The colony subsequently descended into civil war.
Now it was never my impression that the two political factions were themselves the "rape gangs" that Yar spoke of, those were entirely separate. There isn't currently a country on Earth that doesn't have gang activity.
As to Yar being a Federation citizen, how? The colony was a Earth colony and not a Federation colony. And the original government lost power prior to Yar birth. About fifteen years before the episode (Yar would have been about ten years) the colony broke all contact with the Federation, but what their relationship with the Federation was just before that time is unclear.
Any political connection with Earth and the Federation could have ceased when the two political parties took power, years prior to Yar's birth.
")
It is true, Turkana IV was never refered to as a Federation colony, merely an "Earth" colony. Which is a strange distinction for them to make unless it not being the Federation is somehow important to the backstory.
A Captain's Log entry in TNG: "Legacy" does imply that one equals the same as the other, though:
So at least, there were 'relations' with the Federation, even if the colony itself was not strictly speaking a 'Federation Colony'.
However, Tasha possibly was born with some kind of Earth citizen status (and by extension, maybe a Federation citizen status?), because the colony didn't sever official ties with Earth until 2352, whereas Tasha was born before this, in 2337. So while the colony may have long descended into anarchy, it wasn't 'officially' outside of Earth influence until it severed ties completely.
(If she wasn't born with it, she likely applied for and got Federation citizen status after fleeing the planet.)
It does serve to highlight, among other hints throughout TNG, that things in the Alpha Quadrant weren't nearly as rosy in the time leading up to the start of TNG as many would have thought...
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Ya I agree that every government whether democratic or not is just a really big gang.
And I also agree that when every peaceful democratic process to achieve your goal (such as independence) has been exhausted you may need to resort to violence (which is how the United States was formed)
But I think every world is supposed to be entitled to some kind of representation on the Federation Council. Nothing really suggested that the Turkana rebels were fighting some evil repressive regime that tried to tax them without representation. These guys were shoot each other over cases of booze. As Picard said, they're just street thugs
Americans didn't get representation in London. England never offered America a chance to hold a referendum. That's why they resorted to violence.
In my country, Canada, we had a province that wanted to declare independence. We gave them a chance to hold a referendum. The majority of people (albeit narrow majority) voted to stay with Canada and they are still part of our country today. But not everybody believes in the democratic process. We had a small minority of people that came together to terrorize the province. They planted bombs, killed innocent people including a government minister. If these people somehow overthrew the rest of the local government you really think we should just allow them to declare independence?
If a bunch of people tried to overthrow the government of Texas and declare independence, would you not expect Washington to send in the National Guard?
Our Prime Minister did. He declared martial law and sent in the Canadian Army to help the local police find the terrorists. This is Canada we're talking about. Not some military dictatorship in the middle east or Africa with a history of civil wars and terrorist attacks and government coups. We're the peace loving, free and democratic, liberal "always friendly and polite" country. But even our federal government wouldn't stand by and allow an armed rebellion to take place in one of our provinces without being challenged by our armed forces.
The people of Turkana didn't rebel; the gangs did. Normal citizens had no say in the matter.
Possibly because said scene was the only vision we ever got of Turkana IV before the Enterprise actually visited there in "Legacy" during the fourth season. The image in question comes from a flashback scene in the first season episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" (where the bizarre circumstances of the Traveller's experiments see lots of weird things happening, including Tasha regressing to a bad memory of her childhood on the planet).
But that doesn't sound like what happen.
The population formed into multiple factions, the two largest faction replaced the previous government after the civil war started. So it sounds like the population was exercising choice by joining/backing a particular faction.
The population was definitely exhibiting choice by dropping support for the previous government.
By the time of the episode it appear that the situation had stabilized to a large degree. Basically it's a case of two independent sovereign nations with a ongoing border dispute.
We don't know the exact nature of the two powers that eventually became the Cadres. Dialogue simply suggests there were several originally, and fighting got that down to two. Several political parties? Several organized crime groups? Several security corporations? Turkana was a single-town planet, that was made clear - but the population appeared to be considerable, allowing for all sorts of fragmentation. Perhaps running an entire planet from a single town called for various "clans" or "guilds" specializing in things like mining, farming, power generation, prospecting for the former, etc. and the power groups coalesced around those?
The impression we get is that this is another fairly isolationist Earth colony to start with - but isolationism never stopped Kirk from stepping in and essentially ousting the former government. The obstacles to Starfleet overrunning Turkana IV might not be legal, then, but practical: will intervention really improve matters?
I strongly agree with T'Girl that the rape gangs were a phenomenon the UFP was happy with (i.e. it made no intervention back when those still existed, before the revolution), but the local population was not - which is why there was the attempt at crackdown by drafting the help of the Cadres. Supposedly, the crackdown worked, and the revolution was just a side effect of sorts.
Timo Saloniemi
The impression we get is that this is another fairly isolationist Earth colony to start with - but isolationism never stopped Kirk from stepping in and essentially ousting the former government. The obstacles to Starfleet overrunning Turkana IV might not be legal, then, but practical: will intervention really improve matters?
I strongly agree with T'Girl that the rape gangs were a phenomenon the UFP was happy with (i.e. it made no intervention back when those still existed, before the revolution), but the local population was not - which is why there was the attempt at crackdown by drafting the help of the Cadres. Supposedly, the crackdown worked, and the revolution was just a side effect of sorts.
Timo Saloniemi
I'm leaning toward this.
Opposition parties to the majority party of the failing government. After the civil war begins, the majority party recognizes that they don't have what it takes to reassemble a working government and tranfers a small amount of power to the two largest opposition parties, maybe with the intent of retaining the reins of power in most areas.
The majority party subsequently get kicked to the curb.
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