Okay, now you're just making shit up.
Then again, all of it, TV and prose, is made-up shit, so... good job! :thumbsup:
I just finished The Good that Men Do. Some thoughts.
- Thread starter Guy Gardener
- Start date
Then again, all of it, TV and prose, is made-up shit, so... good job! :thumbsup:
No seriously, Sinclair in one of the worst episodes of Babylon 5 ever made, had a little speech at the end, about how if even man survives, the sun is going to die out and destroy the Earth eventually, so we need to go to the stars and take the history of humanity with us. I (*&^ a brick when he said Marylin Munroe and Buddy Holly.
If the Vulcans didn't want to look after our history, then someone has to, if even a midrange colony. Consider eventually, Memory Alpha, the sum total of all knowledge in the Federation (Some TOS episode.), a magic space beastie eats it. The sum total of all knowledge in the Federation was a snack.
We have to survive ourselves, and we have to survive this planet somehow.
The Eugenics war finished in 1996. 60 million people left the 2063, 10 years after WWIII, and god knows how much that number dwindled as Colonel green exterminated the crippled and mutated to make society more "Optimum".
Records were lost. So was civilization is you remember Encounter at Farpoint? Machine Guns which massage your genitals while they fire? Oh what a work of god is man, such a paragon of animals.
If the Vulcans didn't want to look after our history, then someone has to, if even a midrange colony. Consider eventually, Memory Alpha, the sum total of all knowledge in the Federation (Some TOS episode.), a magic space beastie eats it. The sum total of all knowledge in the Federation was a snack.
We have to survive ourselves, and we have to survive this planet somehow.
The Eugenics war finished in 1996. 60 million people left the 2063, 10 years after WWIII, and god knows how much that number dwindled as Colonel green exterminated the crippled and mutated to make society more "Optimum".
Records were lost. So was civilization is you remember Encounter at Farpoint? Machine Guns which massage your genitals while they fire? Oh what a work of god is man, such a paragon of animals.
No -- I'm suggesting there's a mostly-ceremonial president who, like the mostly-ceremonial British/New Zealand Queen, is the legal commander-in-chief of United Earth's armed forces and who needs to sign off on the UE PM's decisions. I figure that the UE President's options would be the same as the NZ G-G's options -- go along with the PM, resign, or dissolve parliament and call for a new general election. This would allow us to have Samuels be PM while remaining consistent with the fact that he was not in the UE Starfleet's chain of command (the PM wouldn't be, only the President would).
Well, I don't think that the exact makeup of the UE Cabinet has been determined -- but I think it's fairly obvious that UE has a parliamentary system akin to Israel's or Italy's or Germany's.
1) There was nothing in Beverly's question to rule out the idea of Australia being the last country to enter UE.
2) Yeah, I don't know why they moved back the date of the last holdouts joining UE to 2140 instead of 2150. It's possible that this was actually a mistake, not a retcon.
3) They didn't move back the date of the founding of UE. United Earth was established to have been founded in 2130 with the signing of the Trate d'Unificiation in Paris in the novel Articles of the Federation. M&M just moved back the date of the last holdouts joining ship.
Sci said:
To a point -- but I just kinda accepted it, since there was no serious continuity violation beyond the use of "Minister" as a form of address rather than "Prime Minister." But Harry Groener is such a great actor that I just really liked the idea of him as PM, so I just accepted it.
I liked him on Mad About You while running for the Mayor of New York.
Just don't let him speak at any high school commencements. You know how snakey he gets....
Yes, but there's nothing in the canon that says there's no UE President.
I'm not sure why you would assume that the UE President's underlings would be called "Senators." In a US-style system, senators are members of an entirely different and independent branch of government, and do not work for the President. In a parliamentary system, they're typically members of the upper house of parliament, and would not be the president's underlings since they'd either be focusing on their role in the parliament or members of the PM's cabinet.
In any event, there are many countries that have both PMs and Presidents. The Italian Republic, the State of Israel, the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Russian Federation come to mind right off the top of my head. Some are semi-presidential systems, like France, where the president holds real political power and the PM works for him. Others are more Westminster-type systems, such as Germany or Italy, where the president has a mostly ceremonial role, but retains powers such as dissolving parliament and calling for a general election and appointing the PM according to the rules established by the parliament -- and serving as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
As I noted above, given the reference to a UE President in Starfleet: Year One and SCE: The Future Begins, and the references to a UE PM in the Tales of the Dominion War short story "Eleven Hours Out" and in this novel, I'd infer that UE has a parliamentary-style system with a mostly ceremonial president and a PM. This scenario is wholly consistent with everything about the UE government that's been established in the canon and in the ENT novels.
No. He mentioned having spoken to the UE Starfleet Command Council.
Oh, I dunno. There was that big sign that said "UNITED EARTH EMBASSY" in "The Forge," there was that UE seal in "Home," there were those UE flags in "The Forge" and "Terra Prime." I'd say there's pretty good evidence for the canonical existence of UE.
Again, there are plenty of republics that have both presidents and prime ministers, so there's no reason to assume that United Earth can't be a parliamentary government with a Prime Minister as head of government and a President as mostly ceremonial head of state.
Yeah, I just wanted to note how implausible that particular sequence actually was.
Quick little nit-pick: There is no Queen of England. The English Throne was abolished when the Kingdom of England merged with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. There is a Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (God help me, I even know her full title off the top of my head: "By the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her Other Realms and Territories, Queen and Defender of the Faith"), but not a Queen of England.
That's about what I recall -- except I don't recall her "buckling." She made a very deliberate, pro-active decision, and it wasn't one rooted in weakness or insecurity, as you imply.
Are you unfamiliar with the different roles carried out by a prime minister and by a president within a parliamentary system? Here are some links to get you started (though, of course, take Wikipedia with a grain of salt):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_minister
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system
Suffice it to say that typically, the role of a president within a parliamentary system is akin to that of the Governor-General of a Commonwealth Realm country, except that the president is usually popularly elected rather than appointed by a Sovereign.
It has not. As I noted above, my interpretation that there is a UE President is there on the basis of its presence in other novels and because it would be consistent with both the evidence in The Good That Men Do and in the canon (i.e., Samuels not being part of UESF chain of command).
Let's try to remember that the Federation Starfleet (FSF) is a different organization from the United Earth Starfleet (UESF). But, yes, I see no particular reason that the commander-in-chief can't be c-in-c of two mutually distinct military branches -- the US President is c-in-c of the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, for instance, and the British Queen is commander-in-chief of the British Army, Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Royal Air Force (and of the different military branches of the Commonwealth Realms in which she remains Sovereign).
"Federation Naval Patrol" were his exact words.
Hm. I'm going to have to re-watch the episode, then, because I don't recall the question of civilian life on Mars coming up.
That was the FSF, not the UESF. You can no more equate the UESF and FSF than you can equate the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom with, say, the Scottish Navy, if it had one before the Act of Union. (Did the Kingdom of Scotland have a navy?)
If that were the case, the Vulcans would have protect Earth from the Xindi.
When was this established?
NASA is not a corporation. It's a government agency, and an independent executive branch one at that (meaning it's not part of one of the departments). The President can appoint the head of NASA, and Congress determines its budget and what its money goes for -- but NASA employees aren't part of a military chain of command (unless they're also members of the US Armed Force, which many, though not all, astronauts are).
In any event, it's possible that UESF is an independent agency (meaning, not part of any department) whose head is appointed by the UE President or PM (or perhaps by the President on the advice of the PM) and whose budget is controlled by the Parliament. Or it's possible that it's regarded as a semi-military organization with a chain of command that reaches all the way up to a UE President. It hasn't been established.
That's one interpretation of the canonical evidence, but it's not the only one. There only inconsistency with saying that Samuels was PM is that he was only ever addressed as "Minister" in the canon, which implies a Cabinet position but not the premiership -- but the novel got around that by having him addressed as both "Prime Minister" and "Minister."
Yes, a PM would.
Keep in mind that terms like "highest civilian authority" are kinda off-base. Government isn't typically a straight linear progression from "lower authority" to "higher authority;" it's not the military. There are separations of powers and checks and balances, especially in a US-style system (where the President is not higher than the Congress and Supreme Court, but, rather, co-equal with them and possessing a different range of responsibilities), but also within a parliamentary system.
The question isn't "highest authority," as though we're comparing a flag officer to a commander. The question is, "head of government" and "head of state."
Again, that's a valid interpretation of the canonical evidence, but it's not the only valid interpretation.
Well, if we accept the novels, he could have taken the initiative and woken Commander Donna O'Neil, the night-shift watch officer, from her illness-induced slumber, informed her of the situation, and then Commander O'Neil could have gone on-duty and relieved Hoshi -- but that would have taken some time.
Yeah, they made a new seal for the floor of the conference room of UESF HQ in "Demons" that had the words "United Earth Space Probe Agency" at the bottom of the Starfleet seal's circle. There's a closeup of this new seal at the very beginning of Act I of "Demons." So it's possible that the UESF is a division of UESPA.
Exactly. And the chapter headings didn't say, "Louisiana, Early 25th Century," as they would if we were seeing a hologram of the events.
Yep, the same Vulcans who used to pretend they weren't spying on Andorians, and the same Vulcans who hid details such as melding, and the truth about Romulans, from their own people. Yeah, I'd trust that the records are untampered.
Re: I just finished The Good that Men Do. Some thoughts. *D
You do realize how many assumptions and leaps of logic you have made to create an air where this government is possible? You will also remember that Starfleet Year One contradicts Enterprise completely as an alternative storyline telling a different founding of the Federation because the writer was annoyed at how Enterprise ignored all the Easter Eggs left behind by previous series, so Littlejohn and his position has no due reason to be respected in the Enterprise TV of Novel Time Lines? I don’t want to be mean, I am enjoying this discussion, but can you cite me one conical tv/movie reference where it said there was ever a UE President?
In the book or on TV?
In DS9 when that other guy, Akorem the poet who found the Wormhole first, he forced everyone to return to their D’Jarras, a cast system which dictated by their family status and occupation and strict codes of conduct, from dung eaters up to leadership and who was allowed to beat who for no reason, Sisko freaked because the Federation did not allow entry to any world which still respected a cast system or ran a government based upon lineage.
United Earth, there was one Planetary Government with no figurehead or ceremonial effects of power which are not duly representative of the people. And surely if this was a second body of elected official acting in tandem to control the earth, then it’s an UnUnited Earth?
True. Could have been Turkey too.
That’s interesting. Noncaonical, but interesting, and certainly possible.
HA!
Thank you. Did not know that. Seems you’re not crazy.
I can usually make a decent argument that the Federation is a communist state. Ooo, that gets people riled. But as you said, we have no information about the make up of the government, and then you begin making “logical guesses” based on smoke and other novels. The only thing we know for a certainty is that there are Ministers, and that every country is fairly represented (or renumerated for a lack of representation somehow?).
I did say “probably” called senators, meaning I have no idea what the presidents underlings are called who are representatives of political blocks on Earth.
Bsides, there’s the simple scifi model you seem to have forgotten about, a bunch of Ministers lead by a First Minister and not a Prime Minister, because I assumed the leader of the UE would be similarly selected like UFP President, just form the body of Councillors already sitting in representation of their planet, but yeah “assumptions”.
You have to remember that every government on Earth was smashed, then a tyrant took over building up from the rubble. There are no complicated finicky traditions, which the people rebuilding Earth had to abide by when constructing their leadership mechanisms. True limiting, even dividing the powers of any new “ruler” would be nice to make war and tyranny impossible, but they were probably on a clock too with not enough time to make anything so fancy.
Given the situation of being saved, I think it would have been difficult for humans not to mimic the Vulcan style of Government, what ever that might have been, from a purely psychological standpoint. Though I doubt the Vulcans would have let them, for fear of being called “conquerors” down the line.
I said “barely any” not Nonexistant. As in the wardrobe/set design people put a lot more thought into the subject than the writers. We get to talk this long because there is so damn little information on the subject. Though I must now google the UE flags.
No reason at all. Except that they have never mentioned the UE President if s/he is so important.
My apologies. I should have said the Queen IN England. Of course if another Queen is visiting England then it would get confusing.
Thank you.
Oh, yes I agree, I was more so wondering how many other “paramilitary organizations” worked for the UE.
Oh, he was drunk half the time.
http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/97.htm
Online transcripts save so much time.
Oh you so can too. They’re distantly related. They may work for different people, but it’s definitely the same creature at different stages in it’s incredibly long and adaptive life span. Starfleet’s role and duties change with the times. Besides, apart from Enterprise being Mothballed, do we expect there to be much difference between the UE Starfleet and the CoP Starfleet? Because those “warp 8 beauties” as Reed put it, where not built by human hands alone considering it took Man 32 years to get Enterprise off the ground. If the CoP is collaborating in the design and construction of a new (war)fleet you’d expect that they would want representation in the staffing of those ships proportional to the resources and know-how they put into the construction of this fleet. Or were the hundreds of Tellerites and Andorians asking for a tour of duty going to be like T’Pol on detached duty, or even like Kurn and Riker switching out to each others military (Yes, not in the same episode.)? Or as I always like to put it, every one else thought the humans were expendable and they were welcome to their danger thrillseeking on the frontier and frontline?
Not the same. But through a process of evolution you can track the radical different appearances, political make up and duties through out the eras. If you clean your glasses during the first half of the TOS years, they even continuously operate under the same wavefunction arrowhead emblem. It’s more like comparing the Colonial Militia to the US marines, than the example that supports your notions.
The Klingons were four days away. Who do you think maintained that boarder through truce and muscle? I did say “in principle” and that’s exactly why I meant in principle. Which is why Archer had a screaming fit at Soval in Home, claiming that the Andorians are better friends, because the Vulcans couldn’t even spare one ship.
It took me 2 hours to find an online reference. I was beginning to doubt myself, all because I was looking for the Moon and not Luna.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/J._Hayes
Trained on the Moon and West Point. Although you were probably more curious about the 2 years comment, which I can’t reference and could have actually been some one saying, 2 years ago we were on Luna or we were on Luna for 2 years, as easily as what I distantly half remember. Soooooooo much television in my head to keep straight.
Ha! Wikipedia took me to the Macintosh Operating System first.
You don’t recall reed snearing about being offered to be taught about their “simulated” combat methods? Such a chip on his soldier. It was no thank you, we’ve actually been in combat, if we need help sticking bayonets through sandbags I’ll give you a call. Or words to that effect. It was a really good “sneer”. Spoke volumes.
I think we know from my first post exactly how much I believe Andy and Michael took heed of continuity for one reason or another. All why did he think he could give Hoshi orders, If he couldn’t?
Only through your unfounded hypothesis but not through my unfounded hypothesis. Ocum’s Razor, you’re inventing an entire wing of government out of ether.
I say it’s exactly that simple. No matter what hoops Samuels has to jump through, bodies he has to co-ratify and supplicate to, he’s still the guy on top and that there is no UE President. I’m not a fool to think it’s that simple, and you’re not too smart for your own good to weave in new layers of expected government traditionally found in real world models. Either theory is as good as the other, and both as unprovable as the other without more information.
I was reading in my Encyclopaedia, the other day and it said that in DS9 Paradise Lost, that there was talk among the Production staff about what the UE Government was doing when Martial law was declared, but they eventually dropped line about UE troops being deployed along side Starfleet Security because of timing issues. Not canon, but interesting.
However in that one where Sisko found the city, an admiral claimed that the Bajoran Militia was going to be assimilated into Starfleet soon, which would say that there is no military operating under the auspices of any world government in the Federation era, not that that’s at issue.
Oh? I thought it said she was offship? No big.
I physically buckled when I saw that seal in Demons. I mean if that had been there all along, that’s some ()*(&^ing amazing hiding in plain sight.
Glad we can agree on something.
You do realize how many assumptions and leaps of logic you have made to create an air where this government is possible? You will also remember that Starfleet Year One contradicts Enterprise completely as an alternative storyline telling a different founding of the Federation because the writer was annoyed at how Enterprise ignored all the Easter Eggs left behind by previous series, so Littlejohn and his position has no due reason to be respected in the Enterprise TV of Novel Time Lines? I don’t want to be mean, I am enjoying this discussion, but can you cite me one conical tv/movie reference where it said there was ever a UE President?
In the book or on TV?
In DS9 when that other guy, Akorem the poet who found the Wormhole first, he forced everyone to return to their D’Jarras, a cast system which dictated by their family status and occupation and strict codes of conduct, from dung eaters up to leadership and who was allowed to beat who for no reason, Sisko freaked because the Federation did not allow entry to any world which still respected a cast system or ran a government based upon lineage.
United Earth, there was one Planetary Government with no figurehead or ceremonial effects of power which are not duly representative of the people. And surely if this was a second body of elected official acting in tandem to control the earth, then it’s an UnUnited Earth?
True. Could have been Turkey too.
That’s interesting. Noncaonical, but interesting, and certainly possible.
Sci said:
Sci said:
To a point -- but I just kinda accepted it, since there was no serious continuity violation beyond the use of "Minister" as a form of address rather than "Prime Minister." But Harry Groener is such a great actor that I just really liked the idea of him as PM, so I just accepted it.
I liked him on Mad About You while running for the Mayor of New York.
Just don't let him speak at any high school commencements. You know how snakey he gets....
HA!
Thank you. Did not know that. Seems you’re not crazy.
I can usually make a decent argument that the Federation is a communist state. Ooo, that gets people riled. But as you said, we have no information about the make up of the government, and then you begin making “logical guesses” based on smoke and other novels. The only thing we know for a certainty is that there are Ministers, and that every country is fairly represented (or renumerated for a lack of representation somehow?).
I did say “probably” called senators, meaning I have no idea what the presidents underlings are called who are representatives of political blocks on Earth.
Bsides, there’s the simple scifi model you seem to have forgotten about, a bunch of Ministers lead by a First Minister and not a Prime Minister, because I assumed the leader of the UE would be similarly selected like UFP President, just form the body of Councillors already sitting in representation of their planet, but yeah “assumptions”.
You have to remember that every government on Earth was smashed, then a tyrant took over building up from the rubble. There are no complicated finicky traditions, which the people rebuilding Earth had to abide by when constructing their leadership mechanisms. True limiting, even dividing the powers of any new “ruler” would be nice to make war and tyranny impossible, but they were probably on a clock too with not enough time to make anything so fancy.
Given the situation of being saved, I think it would have been difficult for humans not to mimic the Vulcan style of Government, what ever that might have been, from a purely psychological standpoint. Though I doubt the Vulcans would have let them, for fear of being called “conquerors” down the line.
I said “barely any” not Nonexistant. As in the wardrobe/set design people put a lot more thought into the subject than the writers. We get to talk this long because there is so damn little information on the subject. Though I must now google the UE flags.
No reason at all. Except that they have never mentioned the UE President if s/he is so important.
Sci said:
Yeah, I just wanted to note how implausible that particular sequence actually was.
Quick little nit-pick: There is no Queen of England. The English Throne was abolished when the Kingdom of England merged with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. There is a Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (God help me, I even know her full title off the top of my head: "By the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her Other Realms and Territories, Queen and Defender of the Faith"), but not a Queen of England.
My apologies. I should have said the Queen IN England. Of course if another Queen is visiting England then it would get confusing.
Thank you.
Oh, yes I agree, I was more so wondering how many other “paramilitary organizations” worked for the UE.
Oh, he was drunk half the time.
http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/97.htm
Online transcripts save so much time.
Oh you so can too. They’re distantly related. They may work for different people, but it’s definitely the same creature at different stages in it’s incredibly long and adaptive life span. Starfleet’s role and duties change with the times. Besides, apart from Enterprise being Mothballed, do we expect there to be much difference between the UE Starfleet and the CoP Starfleet? Because those “warp 8 beauties” as Reed put it, where not built by human hands alone considering it took Man 32 years to get Enterprise off the ground. If the CoP is collaborating in the design and construction of a new (war)fleet you’d expect that they would want representation in the staffing of those ships proportional to the resources and know-how they put into the construction of this fleet. Or were the hundreds of Tellerites and Andorians asking for a tour of duty going to be like T’Pol on detached duty, or even like Kurn and Riker switching out to each others military (Yes, not in the same episode.)? Or as I always like to put it, every one else thought the humans were expendable and they were welcome to their danger thrillseeking on the frontier and frontline?
Not the same. But through a process of evolution you can track the radical different appearances, political make up and duties through out the eras. If you clean your glasses during the first half of the TOS years, they even continuously operate under the same wavefunction arrowhead emblem. It’s more like comparing the Colonial Militia to the US marines, than the example that supports your notions.
The Klingons were four days away. Who do you think maintained that boarder through truce and muscle? I did say “in principle” and that’s exactly why I meant in principle. Which is why Archer had a screaming fit at Soval in Home, claiming that the Andorians are better friends, because the Vulcans couldn’t even spare one ship.
It took me 2 hours to find an online reference. I was beginning to doubt myself, all because I was looking for the Moon and not Luna.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/J._Hayes
Trained on the Moon and West Point. Although you were probably more curious about the 2 years comment, which I can’t reference and could have actually been some one saying, 2 years ago we were on Luna or we were on Luna for 2 years, as easily as what I distantly half remember. Soooooooo much television in my head to keep straight.
Ha! Wikipedia took me to the Macintosh Operating System first.
You don’t recall reed snearing about being offered to be taught about their “simulated” combat methods? Such a chip on his soldier. It was no thank you, we’ve actually been in combat, if we need help sticking bayonets through sandbags I’ll give you a call. Or words to that effect. It was a really good “sneer”. Spoke volumes.
I think we know from my first post exactly how much I believe Andy and Michael took heed of continuity for one reason or another. All why did he think he could give Hoshi orders, If he couldn’t?
Only through your unfounded hypothesis but not through my unfounded hypothesis. Ocum’s Razor, you’re inventing an entire wing of government out of ether.
I say it’s exactly that simple. No matter what hoops Samuels has to jump through, bodies he has to co-ratify and supplicate to, he’s still the guy on top and that there is no UE President. I’m not a fool to think it’s that simple, and you’re not too smart for your own good to weave in new layers of expected government traditionally found in real world models. Either theory is as good as the other, and both as unprovable as the other without more information.
I was reading in my Encyclopaedia, the other day and it said that in DS9 Paradise Lost, that there was talk among the Production staff about what the UE Government was doing when Martial law was declared, but they eventually dropped line about UE troops being deployed along side Starfleet Security because of timing issues. Not canon, but interesting.
However in that one where Sisko found the city, an admiral claimed that the Bajoran Militia was going to be assimilated into Starfleet soon, which would say that there is no military operating under the auspices of any world government in the Federation era, not that that’s at issue.
Oh? I thought it said she was offship? No big.
I physically buckled when I saw that seal in Demons. I mean if that had been there all along, that’s some ()*(&^ing amazing hiding in plain sight.
Glad we can agree on something.
Holy crap... I've never seen embedded quotes blocks squeezed down to 10 character width before.
Lucky I'm not even bothering to read this back-and-forth anymore...
Lucky I'm not even bothering to read this back-and-forth anymore...
Good grief, Guy Gardener. Please edit your post so it doesn't stretch the thread.
That took a long time to sort out.
Charles, Albert and Elizabeth are all members of the Royal family, if you go back a couple generations. I was wondering if that was on purpose?
Charles, Albert and Elizabeth are all members of the Royal family, if you go back a couple generations. I was wondering if that was on purpose?
As with any fictional media (and sci-fi especially), an excuse can always be found. But generally, the fewer excuses necessary, the easier it can be swallowed. I don't buy the idea that in a time with as sophisticated record keeping as Trek's 22nd century, that history could erroneously report Charles Tucker III's "death" as being six years later than it actually was and that no one; no family member, no shipmate, no hero-worshipping historian who idolized Trip in kindergarten even noticed; let alone all of the significant historical events that must have surrounded these two points in history. With the degree of knowledge that some people have in following the history of their favourite rock-bands, surely the presence or absence of a famous cheif engineer/first officer onboard the starship Enterprise over a period of six years would go noticed.
While I still enjoy the story, it scores its biggest fault in that the degree of re-writing of TATV that was required became more of an exercise in justification than in clever story-telling.
Re: I just finished The Good that Men Do. Some thoughts. *D
Strangely enough, I don't remember that. Could it be that we're thinking of two different people called Michael Jan Friedman? The one I know can't see the future, which is why he wrote SF:YO unaware that the next TV series would show a different early history of Starfleet and the Federation.
Except it wasn't erroneous. It was deliberately concealed. That sophisticated record-keeping technology goes both ways -- the more advanced the tech, the easier it is to falsify records. We also don't know how long after the fact this falsification was done -- just that the idea of Trip dying in 2161 has been codified sometime before 2370.
And maybe somebody did notice. Take it from a history student -- there are plenty of controversies in history, plenty of clashing theories about how things happened or even when things happened. There may very well have been a number of historians over the succeeding two centuries who dug beneath the surface and spun theories about Trip Tucker's death being faked and moved six years as part of a massive secret conspiracy, but they've been dismissed as crackpots because their claims are so ludicrous.
Which would've made it all the easier for the death of some starship engineer to be overlooked. Just because the whole Trek universe revolves around these characters from our perspective doesn't mean that it does from the perspective of the masses who live in it. Do you know every detail of the life of Wilbur Wright?
Absolutely. But again, something being noticed by a specialist fringe does not equate to it being common knowledge to the average person. There are a ton of things that specialists know while the masses believe something totally different.
For instance, who made the first transatlantic flight? Conventional wisdom says Charles Lindbergh in 1927, but that's wrong. He made the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight. The first ever transatlantic flight was made in May 1919 by the US Navy flying boat NC-4 and its crew of six. The first nonstop transatlantic flight was made in June 1919 by a two-man British bomber crew, and there were at least three other transatlantic firsts between that and Lucky Lindy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_flight But even though these events are documented by history, most people have never even heard of them. And there wasn't even any attempt at concealment in this case; it's just pure general ignorance.
Possibly because you haven't been reading the 4-gender stuff in the DS9-R?
For me, it was obvious that the entire Shran-violated-the-rules bit was just a way of reconciling the novelists' four-gender concept with the ENT writers' lack of same.
I'll bet there was quite a scene over at Pocket Books when "The Andorian Incident" first aired....
Quick: did the original chief engineer of the USS Monitor survive the Battle of Hampton Roads in the Civil War?
What, you don't know? But, surely there are naval records that have that info! Surely his 19th-century kin knew the exact day! How can you not know! And surely, if a Hollywood movie depicted him igniting a keg of gunpowder to drive back rebels who had boarded, you would instantly that as a fabrication, wouldn't you?!
Well, you're trying to apply 19th-century records to Treknology. Even with 19th-century records, it's possible to find out limited information about who was where during the Civil War.
With 23rd-century records, Kirk was able to find out that Karidian had been present everywhere a Tarsus IV survivor had been killed. If the computers of the Trekverse can keep detailed records on where and when a minor touring company has been, there was probably a wealth of information on Trip.
You can't possible equate the historical accuracy of events that happened pre-information era, for which limited contemporary documentation was created, and what documentation created was easily susceptible to being lost because it was generally only a few sheets of paper, with an entirely computerized society where new data is constantly recorded and logged, and that information relayed to and copied to thousands if not millions of individual databases. Yes, the information in the latter case could still be falsified, but it would take nothing less than a colossal effort to rebuild several years' worth of daily data for several individuals (not only 'writing in' Tucker, but 'writing out' his replacement(s)), not to mention some kind of extroadinarily complex virus to then spread through the network making those substitutions--and the longer you wait, the greater the possibility of failure because of databases and backups that become disconnected from the overall network. It's a mind-boggling conspiracy, and the weakest link by far in the contrived rewriting that TGTMD represents.
EDIT: Oops, Turbo beat me to it.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
But it's not about the records, it's about the general public's awareness of them. And again, in this case there was a deliberate effort to conceal the truth.
Information that was selectively deleted and emended by Section 31. Now, I'd be the first to insist that no conspiracy can perfectly conceal the truth, but I can believe that they could muddy the issue enough that those who found evidence of the true events would be discounted as crackpots because their claims conflicted with what was believed to be an accurate historical record. Any science, even a "soft" science like history, is only as good as its evidence, and deliberately falsified evidence can successfully deceive the scientists recording it.
And often, history is more concerned with selling a point of view than with recording the truth. Look in just about any US school history book about Columbus and it will most likely contain claims that are totally false, such as the fiction that people back then believed the Earth to be flat (something that is obviously untrue to anyone who's travelled far enough to see their hometown fall below the horizon -- people weren't idiots back then, at least no more so than they are today). As ludicrous as this claim is, even respected historians have believed it to be true, because it's a lie that's been propagated so far and repeated in so many books that people go through their entire lives and careers just assuming it must be true. If you go back to the actual documents of the day and study them, it's obvious that people didn't believe the Earth was flat, but that doesn't prevent even distinguished historians from believing that they did. Repeat a myth often enough, and even people who should know better will end up believing it.
Actually, no, I'm not. Records are records. Paper, data tape cartridge, isolinear chip, doesn't matter. The information is there, it's just a matter of how accessible it is, and whether anyone cares enough to go digging for it.
My point exactly. Except... who knows these things? The engineer's name isn't on wikipedia, so as far as 99% of the population is concerned, such information doesn't exist.
Now, consider the 24th century person looking at the NX-01. Yes, somewhere in some dark dusty archive, there's a record that says Trip Tucker died in 2155, before the Coalition Charter was signed. But, there's also an easily accessible holoprogram dramatizing Tucker's death in 2161, before the UFP Charter signing. If schoolchildren from, say, 2300 on have been taught the holoprogram version of the last mission of the NX-01, and if evidence of Trip's "real" death in 2155 was buried by Section 31 and/or Starfleet Intelligence, how or why would anyone ever suspect the dates were fixed?
Apples and elephants. A traveling theater troupe publicizes their itineraries. Private citizens -- even in Starfleet -- don't.
(I won't even bring up the fact that 23rd century computers couldn't figure out that one of the most infamous mass murderers of recent times looked just like a guy who performed for huge audiences all over the Federation, and who just happened to appear right after the murderer disappeared. Because that's just fucking stupidity.)
Well, I'm glad that you didn't bring it up then.
"Pre-information era"!!! Oh, god, that's rich!!
Similar threads
