Count me in as one of those folks who thinks it's quite likely that Dygan, as an officer in the Cardassian Guard who is serving aboard the
Enterprise, likely is not authorized to receive all classified information that Starfleet officers may receive. After all, while he may have been seconded to Starfleet, he ultimately (at the top of his chain of command) works for the Castellan of the Cardassian Union, not the President of the United Federation of Planets.
I agree with the others here that Federation, as a sovereign union of worlds, would not restrict access to classified information on the basis of one's Federation Member State of citizenship, anymore than the Royal Canadian Air Force would on the basis of one's province or the German
Bundeswehr would on the basis of one's
Land.
I was just thinking to my Army days that when I worked in a joint environment in Iraq with the coalition the forces (i.e. the British, French, Aussies, etc) that some intel/briefings was release-able to coalition countries, while some info was only certain country specific...meaning, we could have the Aussies and the Brits in the room, but if you were from Poland or another country you had to step out....and of course some was just USA only....where all our coalition partners had to leave the room.
Fascinating! If I may ask -- did that sort of thing ever cause tension?
This is a really interesting thread, Nathan. With your example of Dygan though, it wouldn't be about Federation members having the same access; what you're referring to, I believe, is the fact that Dygan isn't a Federation officer or indeed a citizen, he's there on an exchange program between allied nations. I do wonder how they handle the operational ins-and-outs of that.
In some ways, I imagine that the pervasive computerized surveillance that seems to accompany life aboard a Starfleet starship for everybody -- seriously, the damn ship keeps track of what room you're in at all times? -- would in some ways make it easier to restrict access to classified data. Likely there are files on the
Enterprise computer that simply will not open if Dygan is in the room (presumably unless Picard or someone with sufficient security clearance countermands the automatic security lock).
But I don't believe we've ever seen limited access based on nation. There are definitely things that only people of sufficient rank or access level are able to see, we've seen plenty of stuff like that, but I don't think we've ever seen any evidence in either the shows or the books that there'd be, say, an "Earth/Vulcan/Tellar/Andor/Alpha Centauri-eyes-only" level or something..
True, of course, but I guess it's worth noting that the Federation does have its moments regarding subtle distinctions in status. The five founding worlds had permanent seats on the security council until at least 2380 (I wonder what happened following Andor's secession). This despite the fact that by the late 24th Century, Bolarus, say, was undoubtedly contributing more to the Federation's overall security than Andor.
I always wonder how that came about. Obviously, out-universe, it's a reference to the
five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, but the parallels are very rough. The U.N. Security Council, of course, is one of the principal organs of the U.N. organization in general; the Federation Security Council, on the other hand, is just the committee of the Federation Council charged with overseeing security issues -- the Federation's equivalent of the U.S. Senate Committees on
Armed Services and
Homeland Security and Government Affairs, or of the U.K. House of Commons
Defence Select Committee.
I wonder if perhaps the founding Members get permanent representation in the Security Council as the unintended result of some arcane manner in which the Articles of the Federation were worded? I imagine that in the early years of the Federation, the Council wasn't even large enough to require dedicated sub-councils for different issues -- with Arken as the Federation's ninth member as of June 2165, it's likely that the Federation Council essentially conducted all business as a committee of the whole. Maybe by the time there were enough Federation Councillors to warrant creating dedicated sub-councils whose members could specialize, someone read the Articles, said, "Hey, they forgot to word this section so that other worlds' Councillors could get in," and then just never got around to passing a constitutional amendment to change it?
As regards the security council business, and the secessionists' complaints, we also have things like Uhura in Catalyst of Sorrows being warned away by the Council when she tried to dig deeper into the First Families of Rigel, being told that they were embedded too deep into the Rigel System's institutions and that Rigel was too valuable to the Federation to risk offending. So it's definitely the case that there exists some...flexibility...as regards the member states being on equal footing. Legally and in the general spirit of things they are, but other matters will muddy the waters and give some more weight than others.
Interesting! I have to admit that I never got around to reading those last couple of
Lost Era novels. I should read
Catalyst of Sorrows in light of what
Rise of the Federation: Tower of Babel has established about Rigel. I wonder -- has Rigel IV joined the United Rigel Worlds and Colonies by this point?
Tower had them as a separate polity from the URWC.
^ Gotta watch out for those Canadian separatists. But then such an unholy fusion of English and French couldn't possibly lead to anything good.
Hey, now! My grandfather, a Canadian citizen, is from Ontario, and my step-cousins from his first marriage are proud citizens of Quebec! I'll not have you speaking ill of the great nation of Canada, eh?
In terms of member access, one does wonder how much intelligence Selelvia was able to share with the Tholians when it went, er, rogue-er.
Ultimately, this would be a matter of what kinds of classified materials the Federation Councillor for Selelvia, and/or any other Selelvians in Starfleet or the Federation government who might have sided with their homeworld, would have had access to.
Basically, I imagine that the Federation is almost painfully open to new and potential members. I'm sure there are political and military assets that provide a necessary counter to this, keeping it from heading too far into the dysfunctional, though I imagine their role is as a cautionary counter-current tweaking the policies rather than anything setting policy as such. The Federation generally prefers the risks and evils of an open and (within reason) trusting policy to the risks and evils of a paranoid or overly defensive one.
Interestingly,
The Fall seems to imply that even the citizens of polities that have only just become Federation Member States can qualify to run for Federation President, given the example of zh'Tarash. Unless they were fulfilled by zh'Tarash back when the Andorian Empire was still a UFP Member State, there doesn't seem to be any requirement that one have been a Federation citizen or resident in the Federation for
x number of years: The instant your homeworld is in, you're a Federate and you can run for President.
We've actually seen groups like the Anti-Federation League in the novels, who basically take the Federation's ideals to the extreme and resent the UFP for supposedly not living up to them, by doing such things as arming its ships with powerful weapons and engaging in uneasy tactical dances with other major powers. That is, blaming the fact that realities in the wider galaxy force adjustment and compromise on the UFP supposedly not trying hard enough.
The Federation's equivalent of the radical left? I suppose it makes sense that in a pseudo-socialist utopia, the radical left would end up focusing more on foreign policy than on domestic.
The Federation also has its own equivalent of the reactionary right, as evidenced by the New Essentialist Movement and its attacks on the Risian Hedony in DSN's "Let He Who Is Without Sin...."
However Dygan is an interesting case as a long term exchange officer, there will be information that's kept from him, presumably not enough to prevent him from doing his job, but ultimately he isn't a member of starfleet. More interesting to my mind is what about Nog? Worf is an Federation citizen (note, not an Earth citizen, a Federation citizen), but Nog isn't.
1) Worf and the Rozhenkos first settled on Gault, but ended up living on Earth in Minsk. So Worf is probably a United Earth citizen in addition to being a Federation citizen -- when he votes, he's voting on Federation Councillor for United Earth. (I wonder if this means Worf is Belarusian?)
2) Side-note: Since Omicron Theta was described as an "Earth colony" (and thus presumably was part of the United Earth polity), I wonder if this means that Data is considered a United Earth citizen and therefore also receives his representation on the Federation Council through the Federation Councillor for United Earth?
3) Cases like Nog's are interesting. Nog is not (presumably) a Federation citizen -- but he
is a Starfleet officer, and thus holds a commission from (presumably) the Federation President and has sworn an oath to serve the Federation and obey the lawful orders of Starfleet. Given this, I would say that Nog and other such foreign citizens serving in Starfleet are afforded the same trust that a Federate officer of comparable rank and experience would have.
Trill used to keep information about the symbionts out of the general Federation database so non-Trill wouldn't know anything about them, so I'd guess yes.
This assumes Trill was a member when Odan died I guess, but the sticky thread says that it's likely Trill joined in the early 23rd century, so I'm assuming that's accurate.
I really never know how to justify the idea that the Trill could keep what is, in essence, the foundation of their social structure and the most important aspect in the lives of their elites, secret from the Federation once they've joined. I just squint and try to ignore it.
^ It seems from The Cloud-Minders that Ardana kinda kept that whole "we're oppressing a large segment of our population" thing hush-hush, too.
I can justify that with the assumption that the Federation was still relatively new, was still in the process of federalizing power, and was probably rushing some planets into Membership status that really should have been vetted more if they were, for instance, located near the Klingon border.
