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Homefront/Paradise Lost Issue

I always got the feeling in Star Trek that Earth government and officials were little more than Federation figureheads. We don't hear about many political entities on Earth. The United States, European Hegemony, and United States of Africa.
 
Well no. It doesn't mean that at all. It's not all or nothing.

The Canadian government could well have collapsed. Canada itself would still be there.

The US government might still exist just fine.

Canada could even be governed BY the US at the time, but the region would still be called Canada.
 
Individual states within the US, or provinces within Canada, didn't cease to exist once the national governments were formed. I don't see how it would have to be any different on a higher level, so to speak.

There's no reason for nation-states to disappear once United Earth is formed, or for UE to vanish once it becomes a member of the Federation. It simply doesn't have to happen that way. The Federation is not a unitary state, after all. It is a state, yes, but one that is a collection of individual member worlds. (And on a similar note, United Earth is comprised of member nations.) There is no logical reason why Earth must be any different. None at all.
 
How long has it been since independent nations ceased to be a thing? As of TNG, just a couple of hundred years. So naturally the old names of the places would be the way to describe where one comes from, quite regardless of whether the places held political power or not.

It's just that "I'm from Canada" is the very definition of vague, Canada being of rather considerable size at every point of its known history. Of course, Eddington never says "I'm from Canada" in order to specify his birthplace; he's allowed to be vague there, especially as Canada only comes up through a discussion on ancient history (the long-bygone era when Canada minted coins) and specifically refers to the political entity (with the power to mint those coins) rather than any geography.

The thing still is, we get zero references to specific regions of Earth holding any sort of political power. We may assume whatever we wish, then. History is our witness that assuming status quo is a silly thing to do, though. "Nations" came to being just a couple of hundred years ago (and the idea still hasn't taken root everywhere, despite active marketing). They may well be gone by the time of Trek. And names of places predated and may well postdate such developments; c.f. "China" being there long before the nation was founded a century or so ago.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I have this vague memory somebody wrote once (Trek encyclopedia maybe? Not sure... but it was some kinda Trek reference book - so probs not really canon), that Earth had given itself over to the running of the Federation so it didn't really have a separate identify from the Federation like Vulcan or Andor).

As said this is an old memory from the mists of time, lol, so take it as its worth lol.
 
I have this vague memory somebody wrote once (Trek encyclopedia maybe? Not sure... but it was some kinda Trek reference book - so probs not really canon), that Earth had given itself over to the running of the Federation so it didn't really have a separate identify from the Federation like Vulcan or Andor).

As said this is an old memory from the mists of time, lol, so take it as its worth lol.

If so, it would be basically just fanfic. No reference source, novel, or official canon has ever said anything like that (nor should they).
 
If so, it would be basically just fanfic. No reference source, novel, or official canon has ever said anything like that (nor should they).
Ive never read a Trek fanfic in my life (well not counting 'Music of the Spheres' and some of the tall tails on this board).
 
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