Poll Nature of the First Federation?

It's smaller on the inside.

 

So people say

 

Or maybe he was by himself because nobody else could stand him. Or they were sick of tranya. Boy is Bailey in for a shock.

 

And nobody ever heard anything from Abner's boy ever again!!
JB

 

Q?

 

Errrr, close....think of a famous sci fi hero Q was partially inspired by who isn't Trelane

 

Who?

 

Dr. Who?

 

I still say he's a wandering Ferengi merchant. Probably got a good price for ol' Dave.

 

exactly

 

If Balok represented nobody, where was he towing the Enterprise to, so aggressively? Why be off on a huge ship on your own? I just look at what's in front of me... He goes through the whole routine, big scary ship, threats etc, to protect his society. If you don't have enough firepower, deceptively huge ships could compensate and scare people away. I assume they're all vaguely like Balok, since there's no indication that they're not. Just another alien society.

 

Is that a good idea, though, when we learn the guy's a big liar and did at least some of that stuff purely for show?

If here was real intent or need behind the towing, then it would not make sense to use the towing as the test, with deliberate faking of trouble and all. And if that bit is fake, then basically all of it is. Including seemingly having the glassware for parties with multiple participants.

Timo Saloniemi

 

What was he going to do with the Enterprise?

 

Basically he was testing them to see if they were friendly, reliable and humanoid! Imagine if he'd appeared as himself and confronted a Klingon ship? They'd have beamed aboard and taken over his ship and liberated his technology before probably killing him!
JB

 

The first two, yes, but why would he care about the third? He didn't strike me as a racist.

 

Racist? Hah! How can there be such a concept in outer space? Once alien races have got to know each others ways perhaps but not on first contact surely?
JB

 

If we accept the 24th-century spinoffs, then apparently the First Federation begins to participate in the galactic economy at some point, as Tranya is available on space station Deep Space Nine.

Incidentally, this is in my Trek head canon:



Kor

 

Hey, you were the one who claimed that Balok was "testing" whether they were humanoid, implying that he would reject nonhumanoids. That's the very essence of racism, judging people by what they are instead of who they are.

And you're getting it backward. Racism is pre-emptive rejection based on ignorance. Learning about others cures racism; it doesn't create it.

 

I've always assumed it was more powerful than the Federation. Balok had to come from some context, after all, and that's a huge and powerful ship designed to do...what, exactly?

I also have assumed that when the writers were casting around some weeks later for something to call the government that Kirk reported to, they sort of vaguely remembered this use of "Federation" and decided that it sounded good.

 

I went with the first choice because it's always bugged me that Trek, especially the 24th century shows, never seemed to show us an equally powerful culture that wasn't too dissimilar from the Federation. Think of France, UK or Canada to the US. Everyone seemed to be adversarial, and running some sort of Empire with conquered worlds. I like the idea of another Federation like galactic power, and in this case, they're called "Federation" as well.