Australia

[Timo]

The Federation was founded in 2161. This was agreed upon early on during the filming of TNG (for various obscure reasons), and first explicitly referred to in the episode "The Outcast" where a combination of playing cards was known as "Federation Day" because it spelled out 2161, when according to Deanna Troi "the Federation was founded". Later shows and episodes kept to the time reference, inserting it into various props, graphics and bits of dialogue.

The ENT finale appeared to describe the founding of a planetary alliance that was said to "give birth to" the Federation eventually, in a year that appeared to be 2160 or 2161. No episode of ENT prior to that suggested that a Federation would have been founded, though, despite ENT spanning the years 2151 through 2154 before jumping to the finale.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

For whatever it's worth, the ENT novel The Good That Men Do established that the last holdout to joining United Earth was, indeed, Australia -- the Independent Republic of Australia, which joined in 2150. The novel Articles of the Federation had previously established that United Earth was founded in 2130 with the signing of the Traité d'Unification in Paris. Presumably, United Earth must have continued to accept new members until Australia closed the deal twenty years later.

It's clear that the dialogue in "Attached" does not require Australia to have been the last holdout, but that's the interpretation the authors chose to go with.

What does this tell about political changes in Australia before the joining, BTW? Would the nation today be free to make decisions of that sort, or would it have to beg the Queen for permission?

Well, they wouldn't "beg" the Queen of Australia for "permission," because it's not hers to give. Political questions like that are the province of the Parliament and the Government of Australia, not the Queen, who must stay apolitical. Besides, the Queen's powers are exercised by the Governor General.

I've heard some arguments that any Government seriously proposing allowing Australia to be annexed by a foreign state -- supposedly the U.S. offered to accept Australia into the Union after World War II -- would by legal definition be considering treason against the Queen, however. I'm not sure if that's true or not -- or if allowing Australia to be annexed by United Earth would be the same thing. If that is the case, however, maybe the public would have passed a constitutional amendment allowing Australia to join United Earth (presuming Australia was still a monarchy rather than the republic the novels establish it to have been).

...So, how does it go? Would the death of Elizabeth II change something vis-á-vis Australia's ability to make decisions of this sort?

Well, not in terms of the constitutional functioning of the Commonwealth of Australia. Charles would ascend to the throne and become the new King of Australia, but he would be as obliged to stay politically neutral as his mother, and his powers would still be exercised by the Governor General. Constitutionally, the role of a hypothetical King Charles III of Australia would be no different from his mother's role as Queen Elizabeth II of Australia.

Would a new face beneath the crown make it likelier for Australia to cease to be ruled by the Queen/King of Australia, incidentally aka Queen/King of United Kingdom? Or is Australia going to go republic only after the UK does?

Well, Australian public opinion seems quite divided. But it does seem as though support for the Australian Monarchy is at least in part contingent upon the popularity of the present Monarch. When she goes, that does look like it would help the cause of Australian republicanism. And it does seem as though an Australian republic is more likely than a British republic, especially since the current Prime Minister has said Australia should become a republic after the Queen's death, and that the prior Prime Minister refused to swear an Oath of Allegiance to the Queen when he was sworn in as PM by the Governor General.

The ENT finale appeared to describe the founding of a planetary alliance that was said to "give birth to" the Federation eventually, in a year that appeared to be 2160 or 2161. No episode of ENT prior to that suggested that a Federation would have been founded, though,

No, the Federation was explicitly referenced in the "Shockwave" two-parter and in Season Three's "Zero Hour," where Daniels brought Archer to the Federation's founding ceremony. The CGI set used at the climax of "These Are the Voyages..." was a reuse of the CGI set they used for the Federation's founding in "Zero Hour."

... why would Crusher pick 2150 for her example ...

"... twenty one fifty? Would that have disqualified us as a Federation member?"

The year 2150 might have more to do with the process of Earth (and the others) becoming the founding members of the Federation, than anything involving Earth's uber-state and who joined when.

Except that earlier episodes had explicitly established the Federatin's founding at 2161. It's pretty clear that she's asking a hypothetical question about whether or not the rules of the eventual Federation would have had to have applied to a partially disunited Earth in order upon the Federation's founding, not trying to place the Federation's founding in 2150.

The creation of the Federation was likely a protracted multi-year series of events and procedures.

Depends on what you mean by "creation" and "the Federation." It's likely that the process which resulted in the Federation's establishment was a protracted, multi-year process involving prior legal entities, but that the establishment of the Federation itself has a specific date. (In the novels, the explicit date of the Federation's establishment is 12 August in 2161, with the ceremony itself being held at Candlestick Auditorium in San Francisco.)

To draw a comparison: The establishment of the United States was certainly a protracted, multi-year process. You have to start from the founding of the various colonies, to the legal evolution of the Thirteen Colonies, to the Declaration of Independence, to the establishment of the Articles of Confederation, to the establishment of the Constitution, to the constitutional evolution of the U.S. since the Constitution came into effect. Yet it's pretty clear that the actual state known as the United States of America came into existence on 21 June 1788. (The Declaration of Independence had declared each colony to be its own independent sovereign state -- its own country, in other words -- and the Articles had united them into an alliance more akin to the European Union today than a sovereign state in its own right.)

And we've seen part of the process of establishing the Federation, and it did indeed involve establishing a precursor entity: The Coalition of Planets, established in 2155. And we do indeed know that not all worlds who were involved in the establishment of the Coalition were involved in the Federation at first: The Rigel worlds, Denobula, and Coridan were involved in the early Coalition but not in the early Federation.

 

[Captain_Nick]

I'm sorry, but Star Trek canon aside, this topic is nonsensical. No Australian would ever submit to that idiotic name - 'The Independant Republic of Australia'. We are not a despotic third world nation!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Not to go all Timo on your ass Nick but perhaps there really was a "The Independent Republic of Australia" and it was a successful breakaway state that had seceded from Australia much like the Principality of Hutt River blathers on about doing. It achieves nation status at some point and while the rest of Australia just caves in to the one world government The Independent Republic of Australia holds out until it's the last sovereign nation.

 

[Sci]

I'm sorry, but Star Trek canon aside, this topic is nonsensical. No Australian would ever submit to that idiotic name - 'The Independant Republic of Australia'. We are not a despotic third world nation!

Well, fair enough if you don't like the name, but I'm not sure what about it implies that Australia is despotic or "Third World" (which should be a meaningless term in the post-First Contact Earth, where all nations are equal).

 

[Captain_Nick]

Visiting his royal highness Prince Leonard is one of the things I hope to do before I die. And before he does too!

 

[Captain_Nick]

I'm sorry, but Star Trek canon aside, this topic is nonsensical. No Australian would ever submit to that idiotic name - 'The Independant Republic of Australia'. We are not a despotic third world nation!

Well, fair enough if you don't like the name, but I'm not sure what about it implies that Australia is despotic or "Third World" (which should be a meaningless term in the post-First Contact Earth, where all nations are equal).

People's Free Republics, Independant Democracies, People's Nations - they are usually communists, or dictatorships

 

[Sci]

I'm sorry, but Star Trek canon aside, this topic is nonsensical. No Australian would ever submit to that idiotic name - 'The Independant Republic of Australia'. We are not a despotic third world nation!

Well, fair enough if you don't like the name, but I'm not sure what about it implies that Australia is despotic or "Third World" (which should be a meaningless term in the post-First Contact Earth, where all nations are equal).

People's Free Republics, Independant Democracies, People's Nations - they are usually communists, or dictatorships

I'll be sure to tell my old friend from the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

Speaking more seriously, you're invoking the People's Republic of Tyranny trope. But I think it's safe to say that in the world of Star Trek, in the post-First Contact paradise that Earth became, that that trope no longer applies. Presumably Australia just had a republican movement that was slightly too anxious to declare an end to monarchy somewhere along the line, that's all.

 

[Captain_Nick]

I don't know what trope is - it looks suspiciously like tripe, which is a British English word that means bullshit - but yes, that's what I was doing

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think tripe means unimportant dribble more than it means bullshit.

 

[Captain_Nick]

Depends who's saying it.

 

[Sci]

I don't know what trope is - it looks suspiciously like tripe, which is a British English word that means bullshit - but yes, that's what I was doing

Definition of a trope:

Merriam-Webster gives a definition of "trope" as a "figure of speech." In storytelling, a trope is just that — a conceptual figure of speech, a storytelling shorthand for a concept that the audience will recognize and understand instantly. Above all, a trope is a convention. It can be a plot trick, a setup, a narrative structure, a character type, a linguistic idiom... you know it when you see it. Tropes are not inherently disruptive to a story; however, when the trope itself becomes intrusive, distracting the viewer rather than serving as shorthand, it has become a cliché. On this wiki, "trope" has the even more general meaning of a recognizable pattern — not only within the media works themselves, but also in related aspects such as the behind-the-scenes aspects of creation, the technical features of a medium, and the fan experience. Around here, it is a stunt root, as in, "That isn't really different enough from our other tropes to be separately tropeable." The tropeability of a work is referred to as its tropiness; works that are particularly tropeable are often referred to as Troperiffic. The intent being to set Noah Webster spinning in his grave as quickly as possible.

 

[Tiberius]

The Federation was founded in 2161. This was agreed upon early on during the filming of TNG (for various obscure reasons), and first explicitly referred to in the episode "The Outcast" where a combination of playing cards was known as "Federation Day" because it spelled out 2161, when according to Deanna Troi "the Federation was founded". Later shows and episodes kept to the time reference, inserting it into various props, graphics and bits of dialogue.

The ENT finale appeared to describe the founding of a planetary alliance that was said to "give birth to" the Federation eventually, in a year that appeared to be 2160 or 2161. No episode of ENT prior to that suggested that a Federation would have been founded, though, despite ENT spanning the years 2151 through 2154 before jumping to the finale.

Timo Saloniemi

Ah, I stand corrected. In my defence, I did say 2151 when it was 6am, I'd been up for a while and quite tired.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The reason why is because the world government had a "No shoes, no shirt, no membership" rule.

We wear flip flops (thongs) because we couldn't be buggered learning how to tie laces.


thongs austflag by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

much like the Principality of Hutt River blathers on about doing.

The NSW ambassador of Hutt River Province, Lord John Davies, was my high school English teacher.

 

[Timo]

It's clear that the dialogue in "Attached" does not require Australia to have been the last holdout, but that's the interpretation the authors chose to go with.

Alas, the dialogue directly contradicts the idea of Australia being the sole holdout.

After all, Crusher clearly picks Australia from among a number of options for possible (even if unlikely) last dissidents remaining in 2150. Her use of "say, Australia" dictates there being at least one other dissident at that date.

The options we're left with are

a) Australia and at least one other nation in 2150 joined the preexisting World Government, completing the political unification of Earth under a single government.
b) Australia and all other nations of Earth in 2150 joined under the rule of a novel organization named World Government, completing the political unification of Earth.
c) Something cataclysmic happened to Earth politics in 2150, and the decision of Australia to join the World Government at that date was a key event in prompting the remaining dissidents to join at some later date; had Australia failed to join at that date, Earth would assuredly not have become unified even by the 24th century, and thus might have flunked UFP membership by the TNG era standards.

IMHO, that's listed in a decreasing order of likelihood. If United Earth and its World Government had not preexisted in 2150, Crusher's use of the word "join" would sound a bit out of place. And if 2150 didn't mean the absolute surefire transition from disunity to total unity, Crusher picked a poor date for her example.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

It's clear that the dialogue in "Attached" does not require Australia to have been the last holdout, but that's the interpretation the authors chose to go with.

Alas, the dialogue directly contradicts the idea of Australia being the sole holdout.

After all, Crusher clearly picks Australia from among a number of options for possible (even if unlikely) last dissidents remaining in 2150. Her use of "say, Australia" dictates there being at least one other dissident at that date.

Nothing about that rules out the idea of Australia being the last holdout. And it's just as possible that there were several holdouts that joined in 2150, with Australia being the last of them.

 

[Timo]

If we're speaking about a difference measured in hours, or the exact ordering of signatures in a treaty signed in a single meeting, then Australia could have the dubious honor of being the last nation out. But if Australia indeed is historically known for being the last nation to join, then Crusher's "say, Australia" is pretty pretentious. Why try to make it sound as if she's picking at random, when she's just referring to the factual case?

At the very least, this goes badly against the spirit of Crusher's case being hypothetical. It's just not common in the real world for people to use real events as hypothetical cases, except when they want to be sarcastic - and it's difficult to read sarcasm into Crusher's case.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tiberius]

Wait, Timo, you're saying she wasn't being hypothetical?

 

[Timo]

Umm... No?

Sorry, all this semantic wrangling is making things more confused than they need be.

IMHO, if she says "say, Australia", she's making it clear that Australia is a hypothetical case and didn't really hold back. But if she wanted to be sarcastic, she could of course say things like "What if we had a Klingon aboard? Wouldn't we then be disqualified from representing Starfleet?". It's just that I sense no such sarcasm here.

Which means Australia doesn't hold unique special status here. True, it may have been among the last to join (which means Crusher was presenting a semi-plausible "what if" case, always a good idea), or among the first (which means Crusher was picking a maximally absurd example, often a good polemic tactic). But if it really were the very last to join, Crusher wouldn't use language that makes her choice of Australia sound arbitrary.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

Umm... No?

Sorry, all this semantic wrangling is making things more confused than they need be.

IMHO, if she says "say, Australia", she's making it clear that Australia is a hypothetical case and didn't really hold back.

No, she's just saying that it did eventually join, but that in her hypothetical it did not. Nothing about her statement precludes Australia from having been the last holdout.