Poll Nature of the First Federation?

[Christopher]

I've watched that episode a lot over 50 years, and I don't recall Balok announcing that the engine failure on his ship was faked.

"And I thought my distress signal quite clever. It was a pleasure testing you." That, plus the fact that the life support system is working perfectly when the distress call said it had failed, and that Balok acts as though everything is fine rather than asking for help repairing his engines, makes it pretty clear that the distress was faked to see how the humans would react. It was the final stage of the test to see if they were as benevolent as they claimed. "I had to discover your real intentions. ...Your records could have been a deception on your part."

Clearly this is an unusual defence strategy. They can't build a huge intimidating space fleet, so they spend what they have on a great big scary watchdog with no teeth. They hope to scare potential invaders away. If it's ALL faked, if there's no First Federation, any understandable motivation for what he does vanishes instantly.

That's how I've always seen it, and how I approached it in The Face of the Unknown, the Definitive First Federation Novel I've wanted to write my whole career and finally got to write a couple of years ago.

Although I don't agree with the "no teeth" part. The Fesarius was obviously quite powerful. If it had the power to hold the Enterprise in a tractor beam and require maximum engine thrust to escape, then it could easily have directed that same power to weapons and destroyed the ship. And the cube buoy emitted enough radiation to kill the crew if it hadn't been destroyed first. It's not that Balok couldn't have destroyed the Enterprise, it's that he didn't want to -- at least, not unless they'd failed his tests and turned out to be hostile.

 

[Timo]

That Balok would be defending something called the First Federation with buoys, ships and ploys is one interpretation here. That the whole defense bit is just part of his program of testing folks is the other extremity, making the very existence of the First Federation dubious. All sorts of in-between models can exist, but the datapoints also cater for the extremities nicely enough.

- Balok has some ill-defined "need" to test folks' "intentions". What need if not a defensive one?
- But defense never comes up in the final dialogue. Nor does the First Federation. Kirk only makes contact with Balok personally, not with any political entity or spatial location.
- Balok states but one goal after the pretense is dropped: to get personal company. This would certainly pose a "need" to know "intentions".
- The goal itself suggests Balok has trouble finding interaction with putative others of his kind. Perhaps nobody else exists, or alternately Balok is ostracized from his society for good? Both alternatives would speak against defending a First Federation, unless Balok is a fanatic who defends emptiness just because, or an altruist who defends his enemies.
- But Balok says "even an alien" would do, rather heavily suggesting he is not the only one of his species in existence, and a species-mate is not a purely theoretical consideration.
- Yet everything we see is Balok's alone: he refers to the "complex" that includes his actual vessel, plus the big Fesarius which he does not consider his vessel, plus potentially other things such as the flypaper buoy.

What is the Fesarius? Not Balok's vessel. Not anybody else's vessel, either, as it is Balok's chattel, for him to do with as he pleases. Part of a "complex". But the Fesarius persists, while any references to a First Federation cease to matter...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

I suspect that the First Federation was a small local interplanetary consortium which was originally simply known as "The Federation." However, due to all the publicity that the United Federation of Planets was receiving throughout the galaxy, the term "The Federation" came to be understood as referring to the UFP. This resulted in much confusion whenever Balok's government tried to do anything in the galactic community. So, to clarify matters, they had no choice but to re-brand themselves as the "First Federation." They were there before, after all.

Kor

 

[Maurice]

I suspect it's First Federation as in First Baptist Church or First National Bank.

 

[johnnybear]

How long was it before Bailey discovered what was in the Tranya?
JB

 

[UnknownSample]

What would Balok have done, if Kirk hadn't come up with the corbomite thing?

 

[MAGolding]

I wonder if Kirk was ever thankful that he never made contact with "The Worst Federation"?

 

[Mytran]

Rewatching this episode again recently, I wonder if the Fesarius is some huge mobile automated mining/ore processing machine, needing only a single supervisor to report back to his superiors occasionally. Balok being bored out of his mind and resorting to pranks or tricks would certainly fit the bill of explaining his ever changing motivations!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What would Balok have done, if Kirk hadn't come up with the corbomite thing?

Maybe the Enterprise crew would have found out that there is always room in the Fesarius to put one more starship on ice.

 

[EmoBorg]

Someone somewhere... maybe here... suggested that Trill and Betazed were originally part of the First Federation. When the First Federation was incorporated or joined the UFP, those planets came along.

On some days I like this idea and on other days I like the idea that Betazoids were part of the Federation in the TOS era.

Emony Dax knew Leonard McCoy.

I like that idea.