Imagining the Federation governmental structure

[Cheapjack]

Nobody here, apart from myself, has addressed that.

You still haven't

If you'll check past posts, I'm the one who encouraged you to fully explain what you meant by different, something which Cheapjack you still haven't really done. If you don't feel or haven't observed a parliamentary system or democracy republic on Star Trek in any form okay. It not like we're all in agreement on the Federation governments structure, I've been pushing my little confederacy idea pretty hard.

Innovate how? I mentioned the idea that as each new member was incorporated into the Federation there would be a blending of two into one, that the Federation would likely change at least slightly each time.

You do need to fully explain your own ideas. Not just protest that the ideas of others don't coincide with your (largely unknown) views.

T'Girl, it states quite clearly in 'The Neutral Zone' ...

This is blatantly false, people in the 24th century will still possess material needs. Food. Shelter. Clothing. Even if these thing are completely free, the need for them still exists. This statement by Picard is wrong.

Last night on SyFy The Inner Light was shown, in the last scene of the episode, Picard walks his quarters, examining his nick-nacks. Looking at the things he had accumulated over the course of his life. Perhaps what people discarded was the obsession, kept the things.

That first addition William Shakespeare that Picard keeps open and under glass in his ready room says otherwise.

Three hundred years, they've learned to grow food. Bravo.

This is Science Fiction we're talking about here.

I'll be the first to admit, Star Trek in general isn't the most innovative SF I've ever come across, it rarely takes chances. In terms of the economics of the future there is a lack of continuity, but this is true in a lot of in-universe areas.

GR has said so.

Cheapjack, from what I understand, Gene Roddenberry was very interested in the accumulation of wealth.

T'Girl:

Some people are just unconvincable that everyone is not as selfish as them. GR may have been interested in making money, but he did his bit to work for a future where you didn't need to.

As to structures, in a Paradise they will be minimal and small. I've said that before. People will be more socially responsible and need less to be kept in line.

 

[Matt4511]

Some people are just unconvincable that everyone is not as selfish as them.

*face palm*

Look, I'll concede that I'm extremely selfish. Very greedy. Ubermaterialistic. I stand on the backs of the poor just because I like the squishy feeling between my toes.

But in the interests of having a discussion on the future structure of the United Federation, can you actually explain what you think the Federation government will look like, without endlessly referencing a throwaway line in the first season of TNG that was thoroughly disproven over the next 20 seasons of Trek, and calling other people either too greedy or too dumb to understand your point?

I'll grant that in my case, I am too greedy and dumb, so I'm challenging you to turn on all the mental awesomeness you seem to think you possess and tell us how you think the damn thing works.

As to structures being small because we'd be socially conscious, once again, while claiming to speak for the 24th century mindset, you trip over the 21st and fall flat on your face. Social responsibility is ENTIRELY relative. Small structures only make sense where there is limited space and resource scarcity. In the 24th Century, we could all have our own skyscrapers, probably. I might grant you that people might have evolved to a point where a nice, well-kept condo is good enough for them, but that's not social responsibility, but probably just modesty or practicality.

The Federation controls entire worlds and can harness incredible energies to make something out of nothing (yes, I know it's not literally nothing, but let me stick with the metaphor). Our concept of social responsibility hinges on accepting that everything we consume takes away from someone else. In the Federation, that need not necessarily be the case. Social responsibility, therefore, would be obsolete, at least as we know it.

 

[Cheapjack]

'The Federation controls entire worlds and can harness incredible energies to make something out of nothing (yes, I know it's not literally nothing, but let me stick with the metaphor). Our concept of social responsibility hinges on accepting that everything we consume takes away from someone else. In the Federation, that need not necessarily be the case. Social responsibility, therefore, would be obsolete, at least as we know it.'

How like you to think of social responsiblity in terms of consumerism! It seems to be your reference point for everything!

'Look, I'll concede that I'm extremely selfish. Very greedy. Ubermaterialistic. I stand on the backs of the poor just because I like the squishy feeling between my toes.'

Well, you'll be better off in the 24th Century, as portayed by TNG. All your wants will be catered for.

If want is eliminated, so is greed, to a certain degree. There will always be some who want more, I suppose. But I don't think eliminating it will result in more selfish humans. On the contrary, they will share more and have more of a sense of valuing things. They will have more time to think and less time to fight and scrabble for everything, as we do and our cavemen ancestors did. They might even be a society of philosophers, like the platonians in TOS. Such people would not need a government to tell them what to do, and government would be small. It would concern itself with just preserving the status quo and ensuring no-one comes along who will threaten everyone else. It won't be quite as philosophically inclined as the platonians, just more than ours is. There would not be as many laws, as people would govern their own behaviour more,as they do today, to a small extent,just more so. i think you will take issuse to this, particularly.

You keep looking towards the negative and bestial. I don't think ST is about that. I've only watched it for 40 years and 700 episodes, and I think it is a 'glass half full' sort of show.

Maybe a lot of laws will be concerned with who has access to the replicators and at what time, and what you can use them for and what you can replicate. But, I don't think this will be a big issue. People will wait their time in the queue. To be fair, I think that the security services will spend a LOT of time monitoring people, just to make sure no-one is building an army, or starting a war, or arranging an insurrection, more so than they do now. A better future comes at a cost! Does that satisfy you?

On a world-wide scale, it has been stated that the mid21st century apocylipse has had a great effect on people, as ww1 and 2 have had on us. Doesn't the UN show that we are more likely to talk than war?
24th Century people are even more affected by this.

It's just amazing to me that something like ST which is successful because it is positive and paints a picture of a more alrtuistic human and is successful because of this, is going backwards as much as it is. It seems to be coming to a dead stop, and is just portraying 21st Centrury humans with phasers.

 

[Penta]

I'm a little annoyed at how this thread (and the colonization thread) has gotten hijacked into being "Cheapjack vs the World" thread(s), especially since the discussion has long since gone circular in both.

That said, I will one last time deal with Cheapjack's objections. After this, I'm sorry, but my instinct will be to presume you a troll. I've been patient, Sci's been patient, T'Girl's been patient, Matt's been patient. Speaking solely for myself, you've tested my patience, both in the manner in which you enetered the thread and how you have confucted yourself since. My patience ends here.

Re the UN: Okay, Cheapjack. You're playing on my and Sci's turf here. (I'm not claiming to be any sort of expert, but I have a sneaking feeling that when it comes down to it, me and Sci individually know more here.) The UN doesn't show much at all. The brutal reality is that conflict has not gone down - it's just changed forms. You aren't likely to see what's known as "general war" again, no. But that's a limited subset of conflicts. Interstate conflict is still a real threat, as is all manner of intrastate conflict. The UN certainly doesn't show that we've moved more from warfighting to talking - even UN supporters who look at the matter admit the organization is largely toothless at preventing conflict. If one side or another wants to go to war, nothing the UN does will stop a damn thing. What the UN does, and does brilliantly, is facilitate the "technical" stuff, what my international relations prof called "low-level IR"; this runs the gamut from aeronautics standards through ICAO to vaccination campaigns through WHO. It provides a great place for the sort of back-channel, unofficial diplomacy that helps maintain relations between nations.

But the UN cannot prevent war. The UN does not show that people have become less warlike. I'll remind you that basically the same thing was tried in the League of Nations - we still had WW2 break out.

You want to keep contesting a point like that: Come back with data, not anecdotes.

I also fundamentally disagree that "Trek is popular because it is optimistic" or something.

No. It's popular because it's largely been good TV. It happened to be optimistic for the times in TOS, but that was largely, almost solely, by showing that race didn't matter a damn. Recall that in 1966 that concept was still rather controversial.

So far as TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT (and the movies)? No, only some Trek die-hards who have a fixed view of what Trek "must be" care about any "optimism".

I am not one of those. I care what makes good TV. I care what makes for good stories. I care what makes for a realistic world to tell good stories in.

Trek could be more pessimistic than any series on TV or whatever other medium. I wouldn't care, so long as there was good TV (or whatever), good stories being told, and maybe, if I'm lucky, a realistic world, because a realistic world makes it so much easier for me to create my own stories, be it through writing or roleplay or whatever.

(There's less you need to spend time reconciling and cleaning up after logical messes in a vaguely realistic world. There's still a place for suspension of disbelief, but most people have a very limited degree to whi9ch they will suspend disbelief. You basically get the very basics of the setting, which for the Trek universe is FTL travel and possibly the transporter, which the audience will give you a pass on. Those are what I call the "basis gimmes" for the setting. After you've been given that? Most people are not going to suspend disbelief too much. You have to have stuff make sense, at least to the point where the logical holes stand up to fan scrutiny, or the viewer/reader is going to stop paying attention. Viewers are not morons - they're not geniuses, but they're not morons. They know when they're being talked down to, or fed a line of BS.)

Now, can we please get past the "Cheapjack vs the world" show? It's boring.

 

[T'Girl]

Now, can we please get past the "Cheapjack vs the world" show? It's boring.

After class we got to talking about the role of the Attorney General, at the state level this person is elected, at the federal level appointed by the President. In the Federation government would a elected and there for independent Attorney General (independent of the President) be more effective? Or do you feel this would create an adversarial relationship inside the executive branch?

Our (Washington state) attorney general and our governor are once again going at it like animals, but in a strange way, maybe this is good for a healthy government.

 

[Penta]

An elected AG is a particularly American thing, and not even universal among the states. My instinct says it would be a bad idea - you want one center of political power in the executive, that being the President (and, I suppose, his staff). A multiplicity of political power sources is more effective in the legislature.

 

[Sci]

I don't Japan is TOTALLY like either the British system or the American.

For the record, you're wrong on this.

Japan is a constitutional monarchy in which the Emperor reigns as a figurehead head of state, with legislative power falling to the National Diet.. The Emperor appoints the Prime Minister from the Member of the Diet chosen by the whole body, and the Prime Minister must retain the confidence of the lower house to stay in office. The Prime Minister is the person who holds real political power, and he heads the Cabinet, which is also composed of Members of the Diet. There is a Supreme Court and a judicial system below it.

In other words, the Japanese system of government is almost identical to the British system of government. The only real difference between them was the presence of the Supreme Court of Japan -- and now that difference has been washed away with the recent establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

On a world-wide scale, it has been stated that the mid21st century apocylipse has had a great effect on people, as ww1 and 2 have had on us. Doesn't the UN show that we are more likely to talk than war?

The UN doesn't show much at all. The brutal reality is that conflict has not gone down - it's just changed forms. You aren't likely to see what's known as "general war" again, no. But that's a limited subset of conflicts. Interstate conflict is still a real threat, as is all manner of intrastate conflict. The UN certainly doesn't show that we've moved more from warfighting to talking - even UN supporters who look at the matter admit the organization is largely toothless at preventing conflict. If one side or another wants to go to war, nothing the UN does will stop a damn thing. What the UN does, and does brilliantly, is facilitate the "technical" stuff, what my international relations prof called "low-level IR"; this runs the gamut from aeronautics standards through ICAO to vaccination campaigns through WHO. It provides a great place for the sort of back-channel, unofficial diplomacy that helps maintain relations between nations.

I'm somewhere between you two, actually. I don't think the United Nations is quite as useless as Penta is arguing, but I certainly don't think it's proof that people the world over are more likely to negotiate than fight.

What I would argue is that the United Nations, along with international organizations like the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, represent significant first steps on the road towards world governance and universal peace. I don't expect to see that any time in my lifetime, but the European Union, in particular, is a remarkable institution. Through a combination of the stabilizing presence of United States troops in Western Europe, the establishment of a common market, and now the pooling of national sovereignty by Member States, the European Union represents an institution that has managed to create such a profound peace amongst countries that spent two thousand years at each others' throats that, today, the idea of an intra-European war -- particularly between the Big Three, France, Germany, and Britain -- is virtually unthinkable.

And the U.N. has helped create peace. It was one of the primary forums the United States used to prove the existence of Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis and, by granting the U.S. the moral high ground in that crisis, helped deter a Soviet attack and therefore bought time for the U.S. and Soviet Union to negotiate a peaceful solution to the crisis. The United Nations was also the coordinating authority for its Member States' armed forces during the Korean War -- South Korea literally owes its freedom to the U.N. And U.N. agencies save millions of lives every year, as Penta noted.

So, what I would say is, we're doing better. But we're not there yet, either. It's important not to portray the United Nations as being the embodiment of either extreme -- it's not the great preventer of war, and it's not an abject failure, either.

 

[Penta]

For the record, you're wrong on this.

Japan is a constitutional monarchy in which the Emperor reigns as a figurehead head of state, with legislative power falling to the National Diet.. The Emperor appoints the Prime Minister from the Member of the Diet chosen by the whole body, and the Prime Minister must retain the confidence of the lower house to stay in office. The Prime Minister is the person who holds real political power, and he heads the Cabinet, which is also composed of Members of the Diet. There is a Supreme Court and a judicial system below it.

In other words, the Japanese system of government is almost identical to the British system of government. The only real difference between them was the presence of the Supreme Court of Japan -- and now that difference has been washed away with the recent establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

Bit of pedantry here: You're not wrong, Sci, but you aren't exactly right, either.

The role of the Emperor in the Japanese system is up for debate, but he's generally acknowledged to not even have any reserve powers. Whereas the British Monarch has rather significant reserve powers, totally apart from those powers executed by the Sovereign under Advice from his/her Ministers.

Yes I know the British Monarch doesn't often (if ever) use those reserve powers...But they remain available.

Not so in Japan.

 

[Sci]

For the record, you're wrong on this.

Japan is a constitutional monarchy in which the Emperor reigns as a figurehead head of state, with legislative power falling to the National Diet.. The Emperor appoints the Prime Minister from the Member of the Diet chosen by the whole body, and the Prime Minister must retain the confidence of the lower house to stay in office. The Prime Minister is the person who holds real political power, and he heads the Cabinet, which is also composed of Members of the Diet. There is a Supreme Court and a judicial system below it.

In other words, the Japanese system of government is almost identical to the British system of government. The only real difference between them was the presence of the Supreme Court of Japan -- and now that difference has been washed away with the recent establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

Bit of pedantry here: You're not wrong, Sci, but you aren't exactly right, either.

The role of the Emperor in the Japanese system is up for debate, but he's generally acknowledged to not even have any reserve powers. Whereas the British Monarch has rather significant reserve powers, totally apart from those powers executed by the Sovereign under Advice from his/her Ministers.

Yes I know the British Monarch doesn't often (if ever) use those reserve powers...But they remain available.

Not so in Japan.

Fair enough. But the Japanese system is still far closer to the British system than Cheapjack was saying.

 

[Cheapjack]

I think that trying to imagine a political system 400 years down the line is not possible in detail.

It's a bit like asking: 'How does warp drive exactly work?'

If you knew, exactly, you'd be able to invent it.

It's only possible to talk in generalisms. The knowledge shown here of present systems is good, but there has been shown no desire to improve them, only replicate them.

If I was an editor in an SF magazine, running a competition with a subject like this thread title, I would have rejected a lot of these ideas. People are going to change in the next 400 years.


If the question was: 'Please detail the present day structures of the governments of America, Britain and Japan', I would give 9 out of 10. But, that's not the question.

 

[Penta]

Cheapjack: Finally, something I can work with! If you could stop going around and around with SpyOne on the colonization thread and do similar there, I'd be happy.

I laid out my intents here, pretty concisely, in the first post of the thread.

I know, any poli-sci student who's serious about their discipline (ie, not a freshman taking intro courses) knows that trying to predict the evolution of political systems 20 years out is a fool's game. You'll be wrong in ways you didn't even know you could be wrong, most times. (20 years ago, nobody would have expected the Internet to play the role it does in campaigning, to name a small example.) 100 years is pointless. 200 years? Insanity. Let's not even go near 300 or 400 years.

But make no mistake, what you see in the UFP would be an evolution, not a revolution.

If it doesn't feel futuristic, that's because a government system that felt "futuristic" enough would likely make no sense to a 21st-century observer. As I was writing for the benefit of discussion among 21st century observers, and for the benefit of those doing roleplaying or writing or other endeavors where this sort of detail is helpful, I wanted it to make sense first. I wasn't writing for an SF mag or anything - I was writing for gamers, for writers, for poli-sci geeks (it feels good to know there are a few of us, Sci.). So you're accusing me of missing an audience I wasn't even aiming at.

There's also the brutal reality that trying to figure out what a futuristic governmental system would look like depends deeply on the details of technology (particularly comms technology) among other things - and as it's not set down how fast subspace messaging really is, or what range is needed for audiovisual comms, or so forth, in Trek that's not really possible. It's never really been stated what the tech can do and can't do, because so much is "speed of plot". Speed of plot, unfortunately, is actually unhelpful for my/our purposes. It's too vague, too variable. The limitations and details of subspace communications, in Trek, would determine a lot about how centralized (or decentralized) any system would be, to name a basic example.

So what I did in my design work was basically "Okay, using canon to a point, speculation, and some basic assumptions, what would the UFP government look like as of 2383?" I used RL models because, funnily enough, they make immediate sense (or at least don't take much thinking to make sense) to the reader, and they've been proven to work for lifespans up to 230-odd years, with modern technology, and not fall apart.

You may well be right - it may be that the UFP government (were it ever to come about) would look a lot different from anything we've ever seen.

But on the other hand? People are innately conservative when it comes to the structural evolution of political systems - revolutions that completely overturn the previous political system are notable because they are not, in fact, common. So I feel safe in guessing that what the future holds will have at least a fair degree of resemblance to what we have today, so far as organizational structures go. Organizational psychology, among other things, isn't likely to change - and as silly as things may seem in modern government, there are good reasons for the basic principles, and a lot of the details.

I'll be honest, too: Every "futuristic" political idea I've seen usually raises more questions than it answers, which is the hallmark (to me) of a really bad idea, or at least one not-thought-through. The death of political parties, for example, is a fantasy even I've indulged in, but it raises the question of how the hell you organize and motivate people (who are usually quite apathetic to politics, something I doubt would change) to vote, and vote for your guy, in populations (and over scales) of any real size. ("The internet" is a classic answer. And it even works, sort of. But it doesn't fulfill all of the many necessary functions a political party fulfills.) Cyberspace or other "remote" voting, for another example, would be ludicrously easy to hack the moment anybody got the idea in their noggin to do so (because there would always be security holes in any software, and the voting system would be all-too-tempting a target for any hacker in existence). It would only need to happen once to completely destroy popular confidence in the electoral system. You could never be sure the vote wasn't rigged.

 

[Cheapjack]

Cheapjack: Finally, something I can work with! If you could stop going around and around with SpyOne on the colonization thread and do similar there, I'd be happy.

I laid out my intents here, pretty concisely, in the first post of the thread.

I know, any poli-sci student who's serious about their discipline (ie, not a freshman taking intro courses) knows that trying to predict the evolution of political systems 20 years out is a fool's game. You'll be wrong in ways you didn't even know you could be wrong, most times. (20 years ago, nobody would have expected the Internet to play the role it does in campaigning, to name a small example.) 100 years is pointless. 200 years? Insanity. Let's not even go near 300 or 400 years.

But make no mistake, what you see in the UFP would be an evolution, not a revolution.

If it doesn't feel futuristic, that's because a government system that felt "futuristic" enough would likely make no sense to a 21st-century observer. As I was writing for the benefit of discussion among 21st century observers, and for the benefit of those doing roleplaying or writing or other endeavors where this sort of detail is helpful, I wanted it to make sense first. I wasn't writing for an SF mag or anything - I was writing for gamers, for writers, for poli-sci geeks (it feels good to know there are a few of us, Sci.). So you're accusing me of missing an audience I wasn't even aiming at.

There's also the brutal reality that trying to figure out what a futuristic governmental system would look like depends deeply on the details of technology (particularly comms technology) among other things - and as it's not set down how fast subspace messaging really is, or what range is needed for audiovisual comms, or so forth, in Trek that's not really possible. It's never really been stated what the tech can do and can't do, because so much is "speed of plot". Speed of plot, unfortunately, is actually unhelpful for my/our purposes. It's too vague, too variable. The limitations and details of subspace communications, in Trek, would determine a lot about how centralized (or decentralized) any system would be, to name a basic example.

So what I did in my design work was basically "Okay, using canon to a point, speculation, and some basic assumptions, what would the UFP government look like as of 2383?" I used RL models because, funnily enough, they make immediate sense (or at least don't take much thinking to make sense) to the reader, and they've been proven to work for lifespans up to 230-odd years, with modern technology, and not fall apart.

You may well be right - it may be that the UFP government (were it ever to come about) would look a lot different from anything we've ever seen.

But on the other hand? People are innately conservative when it comes to the structural evolution of political systems - revolutions that completely overturn the previous political system are notable because they are not, in fact, common. So I feel safe in guessing that what the future holds will have at least a fair degree of resemblance to what we have today, so far as organizational structures go. Organizational psychology, among other things, isn't likely to change - and as silly as things may seem in modern government, there are good reasons for the basic principles, and a lot of the details.

I'll be honest, too: Every "futuristic" political idea I've seen usually raises more questions than it answers, which is the hallmark (to me) of a really bad idea, or at least one not-thought-through. The death of political parties, for example, is a fantasy even I've indulged in, but it raises the question of how the hell you organize and motivate people (who are usually quite apathetic to politics, something I doubt would change) to vote, and vote for your guy, in populations (and over scales) of any real size. ("The internet" is a classic answer. And it even works, sort of. But it doesn't fulfill all of the many necessary functions a political party fulfills.) Cyberspace or other "remote" voting, for another example, would be ludicrously easy to hack the moment anybody got the idea in their noggin to do so (because there would always be security holes in any software, and the voting system would be all-too-tempting a target for any hacker in existence). It would only need to happen once to completely destroy popular confidence in the electoral system. You could never be sure the vote wasn't rigged.

That's what I said, all along!!



Actually, I think that people will be a little more restrained and less greedy and more socially reponsible, as a generalism. I think a lot of the work of government will be less of getting at people and controlling them and more of determining that this better future isn't wrecked.

That's a generalism about the role of goverment. As to it's structure, I haven't thought.

 

[Sci]

I for one am deeply skeptical of the idea that there is, or could be, a better system of government than liberal democracy. People always have many different points of view and agendas; liberal democracy is the only system of government that tries to accommodate all of these different factions while also protecting everybody's rights.

Seems to me that the structural changes in governance that are most probable are those that stem from the question of how to be a better liberal democracy, not of how to change the entire system. Things like the question of whether or not there is a right to an abortion or whether or not LGBT individuals should have the right to marry or be treated equally, or whether the judicial system treats the accused of all crimes equally, or whether or not there should be lifetime punishments for felonies such as the loss of the franchise. Not things like whether or not we should have elections for the legislature.

 

[T'Girl]

I agree with you Sci, while there is some variance in what is a "liberal democracy" as you go from country to country, it appears to be the best we're going to be able to create.

But it not the only system out there, I confess I'm still having a problem with what Cheapjack is specifically referring to. On the political sliding scale (non pol sci major) it's far right/absolute anarchy -over to- far left/total communism. It seems that what Cheapjack is advocating in his posts is a future communist state.

No classes, no private capital, No possessions because all property is common.

Karl Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto of "superabundance of goods and services." If you imagine a capitalist system creating replicator technology and a market to go with it. Followed by a socialist government providing replicators as a social right. By the time Cheapjack's 24th century communist state arrives replicators are ubiquitous along with their power systems that, like the replicator, were designed and created in a earlier capitalist environment. With a certain degree of difficulty you can reconcile what we saw in the various series with this line of thought (although you can't explain everything). We've seen communist states where the leader is referred to as president, there have been (one candidate) presidential elections. The Federation council is the central committee, with the individual planetary soviets sending their commissars/ministers to Paris.

Not where I'd want to live, but hey Sci diversity of thought.

---------------------------

Penta I like to know where people on Trek BBS got their online names from.

The TNG second season episode Pen Pals featured a character named Sarjenka played by Nikki Cox (one of my favorite actresses), in the year 2000 the animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (which at twelve I loved) featured a character named Penta Hammerhold who was voiced by, again, Nikki Cox.

Is this where you got Penta?

----------------

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

If anyone thinks the Federation is "the United States in space" go check the Earth Alliance from Babylon 5.

It had a vice president who was elected on the same ticket as the president. The VP also assumed the presidency in case of the incumbent's death. The Earth Alliance's legislative body was called Senate, although there seemed to be no House of Representatives. The president also functioned as the commander-in-chief and was assisted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ah yes, and the president's personal spaceship was called Earthforce One.

(The political structure of the Twelve Colonies in nuBSG also closely resembled the United States. Then again, they always tried to keep the show "contemporary".)

Anyway, the Federation is actually one of the least US-like "star nations" in science fiction... judging by on-screen evidence.

 

[Penta]

Penta I like to know where people on Trek BBS got their online names from.

The TNG second season episode Pen Pals featured a character named Sarjenka played by Nikki Cox (one of my favorite actresses), in the year 2000 the animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (which at twelve I loved) featured a character named Penta Hammerhold who was voiced by, again, Nikki Cox.

Is this where you got Penta?

Nope.

 

[Sci]

If anyone thinks the Federation is "the United States in space" go check the Earth Alliance from Babylon 5.

It had a vice president who was elected on the same ticket as the president. The VP also assumed the presidency in case of the incumbent's death. The Earth Alliance's legislative body was called Senate, although there seemed to be no House of Representatives. The president also functioned as the commander-in-chief and was assisted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ah yes, and the president's personal spaceship was called Earthforce One.

(The political structure of the Twelve Colonies in nuBSG also closely resembled the United States. Then again, they always tried to keep the show "contemporary".)

The Earth Alliance and the Twelve Colonies of Kobol were both more specifically supposed to function as allegories for the United States and American culture. It's not so much a matter of being "contemporary" as of being specifically about both the good and bad parts of modern America set into a sci-fi context.

Anyway, the Federation is actually one of the least US-like "star nations" in science fiction... judging by on-screen evidence.

Eh, yes and no. I outlined my thoughts on the influence of the United States on the writers' depictions of the Federation in this post.

As I concluded in that post:

So over time, the depiction of the Federation changed from that of a UN-style organization to that of an American-style interstellar state. However, even in later films and series, the Federation is not strictly US-based. Why? The Federation Council is consistently depicted as having far more authority over the operations of Starfleet than the US Congress does over the American armed forces, and more influence over foreign affairs. In "Valiant (DS9)," the Federation Council sends a message to Ferengi Grand Nagus Zek proposing an alliance during the Dominion War; they have the power to serve as jury on court-martials in ST4; they give operational orders to the Enterprise crew in "The Defector" (TNG); they determine that the Founders will not be given the cure to the morphogenic virus in "The Dogs of War" (DS9). The US Congress, while active with oversight, does not have the kind of operational authority over the US armed forces that the Federation Council does over Starfleet (as current history is no doubt demonstrating). In the US system, there is a clear separation of powers, and operational control of the armed forces falls to the President (though Congress retains oversight rights). The lack of a clear separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches, and the increased involvement of the legislature over Starfleet, suggets parliamentary influences.

So, to me, the implication would seem to be a primarily American-based model, with some parliamentary influences. Clearly, the President is popularly-elected, but, clearly, he must share more power with the Council -- and the Council with him -- than is typical in American presidentialism. It's obviously strongly influenced by the American government, but there's a distinct suggestion of parliamentary influences. Either way, though, the depiction of the Federation has generally remained consistent with the characteristics of constitutional liberal democracy (though, interestingly enough, it has never been established how members of the Federation Council are determined).

 

[Cheapjack]

I agree with you Sci, while there is some variance in what is a "liberal democracy" as you go from country to country, it appears to be the best we're going to be able to create.

But it not the only system out there, I confess I'm still having a problem with what Cheapjack is specifically referring to. On the political sliding scale (non pol sci major) it's far right/absolute anarchy -over to- far left/total communism. It seems that what Cheapjack is advocating in his posts is a future communist state.

No classes, no private capital, No possessions because all property is common.

Karl Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto of "superabundance of goods and services." If you imagine a capitalist system creating replicator technology and a market to go with it. Followed by a socialist government providing replicators as a social right. By the time Cheapjack's 24th century communist state arrives replicators are ubiquitous along with their power systems that, like the replicator, were designed and created in a earlier capitalist environment. With a certain degree of difficulty you can reconcile what we saw in the various series with this line of thought (although you can't explain everything). We've seen communist states where the leader is referred to as president, there have been (one candidate) presidential elections. The Federation council is the central committee, with the individual planetary soviets sending their commissars/ministers to Paris.

Not where I'd want to live, but hey Sci diversity of thought.

---------------------------

Penta I like to know where people on Trek BBS got their online names from.

The TNG second season episode Pen Pals featured a character named Sarjenka played by Nikki Cox (one of my favorite actresses), in the year 2000 the animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (which at twelve I loved) featured a character named Penta Hammerhold who was voiced by, again, Nikki Cox.

Is this where you got Penta?

----------------

TGirl;

What I am saying is that the idea in STTNG is that fusion power is so incredibly cheap and replicators so abundant that people are not as obsessed with the accummulation of things anymore. You can turn a ton or two of rock into a rolls royce or a mansion or a yacht or a personal android servant, or whatever you want. People are SATIATED with materialism, if you can imagine that, and that's not communism.It's uber capitalism. It's just that things are so cheap, that anyone can have them. They can go on and do the things that only the rich today have the leisure time to do. If you want to work in the fields and would like a few licks of the whip everyday, that's up to you. You are FREE to choose that. If you feel you will be a better person for that. If you want someone to write you out a personal life plan and bully you into completing it, if you are one of those people who have little personal motivation, you can get that too. In the british magazine 2000AD, people in Mega City One even have work trips to the Cursed Earth, where they can work for an overseer and are paid peanuts for it and they feel better for it!

And, it's capitalism that's delivered this.

But this system is beyond capitalism and communism. It's the next step. There will still be haves and have-nots. But the havenots are dozens of times better off than the havenots of today, just as the have-nots 400 years ago didn't have toilets or deodorant or TV or hifi or books or the internet or the ability to change their station in life, without expending exajoules of effort in doing it. You will only have to expend kilojoules in the TNG world, if you want to, that is.

I think this will have some effect on government. Actually, I think the people of the TNG world will be more like the present day Swedes - socially responsible. I think that the 24thC world will be very chaotic to a 20thC person though - if you visited, you would get Future Shock!

 

[T'Girl]

Good, all I was looking for was you to bring out your thoughts.