Presidents of the Federation Are Based in France—Why?
- Thread starter Rrune
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Paris may have been the capital of United Earth, and so became the preferred place to locate the UFP government as well. French used to be considered the international language of diplomacy, and the nation is known for its many scientific and cultural achievements. Plus, it really is a beautiful place.
What's so special about United States of America that San Francisco that it was chosen as the HQ of Starfleet? Now one reason for SF being chosen as the HQ for Starfleet is perhaps because the UN charter was first signed there after WWII.
But to answer the question there is nothing "special" about France or any other country, Paris was simply chosen perhaps by the writers to create a sense of Earth being a planet rather than having all major things in one region. For all we know the United Earth Government is headquartered in Moscow, Tokyo or London to name but a few examples
Of course, a more general question would be why Starfleet Headquarters and the Federation Presidency (and who knows how many more important Federation institution of prime importance) are located on Earth, and not on Vulcan, or Tellar, or Andoria, or even one of the other hundreds of planets that belong to the Federation ....
Humans from Earth were the prime mover in creating the Coalition of Planets.
They were also the most amenable to having aliens from other member worlds live on their planet.
It also seems likely the human population was the highest of the founding members.
Earth also has a long history representative democracy whereas the Vulcan appears to be a military dictatorship at the time.
Hence Earth is named Capital World of the Federation, and gets the top offices for the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. Since Starfleet is such a key part of the Federation, it makes sense to have those headquarters on the same world as the Executive Branch too.
As it takes mere seconds (via transporter), or perhaps half an hour (via shuttlepod) to travel between cities on Earth, those offices can, however, be spread out around the planet. Paris and San Francisco are both important Earth cities with long histories. Perhaps the United Earth government itself sits in Geneva, New York or Delhi, who knows...
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^yes, but that was back in the 22nd century. You would expect there to have been some (political /power/ influence/lobbying) rebalancing in the 200 years since then, but in the late 24th century, everything still seems to be located on earth.
Even with today's transportation and telecommunication technology, a global organisation with different branches can have headquarters on different continents. I see no reason to assume it would be any different in the 24th century, in which travel times between planets might be somewhat longer (I assume Earth-Vulcan to take a few days in a high warp ship) than between, say, Paris and Melbourne, but communications between planets seems just as instantaneous as global communication today.
Of course, the most important reason today for such distribution is that everyone wants a slice of the pie. Presumably, in the future everyone is more highly evolved and hence probably content to let Earth play Top Dog ...
Even with today's transportation and telecommunication technology, a global organisation with different branches can have headquarters on different continents. I see no reason to assume it would be any different in the 24th century, in which travel times between planets might be somewhat longer (I assume Earth-Vulcan to take a few days in a high warp ship) than between, say, Paris and Melbourne, but communications between planets seems just as instantaneous as global communication today.
Of course, the most important reason today for such distribution is that everyone wants a slice of the pie. Presumably, in the future everyone is more highly evolved and hence probably content to let Earth play Top Dog ...
The Federation President's Office being in Paris was first established in TUC, and in that case it was just so they could get away with using the matte painting of Future Paris which very clearly included the Eiffel Tower from TNG's first season as a backdrop.
One other factor is that Humans being relative newcomers to the galactic stage and as such there hadn't been decades of animosity between them and the other races such as between the Vulcans and the Andorians. So Earth might have been a compromise that those races were willing to accept.
^yes, but that was back in the 22nd century. You would expect there to have been some (political /power/ influence/lobbying) rebalancing in the 200 years since then, but in the late 24th century, everything still seems to be located on earth.
Even with today's transportation and telecommunication technology, a global organisation with different branches can have headquarters on different continents. I see no reason to assume it would be any different in the 24th century, in which travel times between planets might be somewhat longer (I assume Earth-Vulcan to take a few days in a high warp ship) than between, say, Paris and Melbourne, but communications between planets seems just as instantaneous as global communication today.
Of course, the most important reason today for such distribution is that everyone wants a slice of the pie. Presumably, in the future everyone is more highly evolved and hence probably content to let Earth play Top Dog ...
In terms of the Capital cities of countries how many years have they been the capital's in some cases we are talking hundreds if not thousands of years.
But once a capital is established it is easy to say lets move it rather than to actually move it. Besides the Capital of Earth in ST seems to be a magnet for trouble.
Why not?
Stonkingly.
That's an interesting idea. Then it could have been an indication of earth's relative lack of power at the time (mid 22nd century) that made it the capital- much like small or 'neutral' member states of the UN or the EU often get important offices.
For whatever it's worth, the ENT novel The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing and the novel Sectio 31: Control both seem to imply that the capital of United Earth in the 2150s was Paris. It's left ambiguous if this was the case after that decade.
I think of United Earth as being the "honest broker" the other founding planets trusted.
I like to imagine the capital city of United Earth is Mogadishu, personally, just as a rebellion against the tendency of ST to be U.S./Euro-centric and out of recognition that part of the idea of Star Trek is that those countries so often thought of unjustly as "shithole countries" will be just as important and prosperous as any other country in the STU.
I've long thought that the best place for the capital of a United Earth government would be on the Moon. It's the one place that would be devoid of any historical/territorial baggage and be equally for everyone, except maybe Antarctica. Of course, it wouldn't be feasible in a universe where the Moon colonies seceded to become independent.
The capital of Earth should be Wakunda as per the Marvel universe. I can imagine the whole continent in the ST universe being at that level of technology. As for having San Fran being the town which trains the UE version of NASA and then the whole of the Federation, the city must be five times the size it is now. A city with a population of 864k in our time would be too small.
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I think the reason Starfleet ended up headquartered in San Francisco is because the original Enterprise dedication plaque said it was built there (at the San Francisco Navy Yards, according to behind-the-scenes info). Which doesn't really logically follow, since Starfleet could be presumed to have more than one shipyard, but I guess it was the path of least resistance. Plus, it gave them a cool visual in TMP, putting SFHQ right next to the Golden Gate Bridge.
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