So what do you think of the Typhon Pact (as an organization)?

[Charles Phipps]

^Even a democratic society can get imperious in its treatment of others, as many, many Second and Third World "beneficiaries" of American intervention could tell you. It's not good to have one unilateral superpower, no matter how benevolent it may believe itself to be.

The United States' consistent inability (and in many cases) unwillingness to live up to many of its own stated doctrines from the founding of said nation onward points this out but, however, I'm not sure a rival superpower makes things any better. Rival nations (France and Britain, the Germans and British, the Ottomons and Hungary) seem to bring out the worst in each other as opposed to the opposite.

In addition to the threat of MAD, the Typhon Pact are just as likely to make the Federation worse as the Klingon Empire did Kirk's era.

Then again, I'm not the writer. I'm just a fan.

 

[Christopher]

^Perhaps. Good intentions often produce bad results, especially if the wrong method is employed to pursue them. It's just important to understand that nations rarely consider themselves "evil." They're usually trying to do what they think is best for their own people, but different nations have conflicting priorities and worldviews and that's where conflict comes from. Simplifying it to good vs. evil is usually just propaganda that gets in the way of understanding the real issues and causes. True, a lot of fiction does dumb down politics to good vs. evil, but Star Trek has rarely done so. Even the Klingons, who were generally pretty irredeemable in TOS, were shown more sympathetically in "Day of the Dove," and it was stated in their first appearance that they would one day be friends with the Federation.

 

[Sci]

^ And the Pact itself isn't "imperialist"? Somehow I find that hard to believe.

Imperialism has a funny way of making itself invisible to those who practice it.

 

[rfmcdpei]

The Federation sadly promotes the EVILS of equality and democracy.

Sure. What the Federation did to the Tholians in the era of the Vanguard starbase arguably legitimately makes it some kind of villain in the eyes of the Tholians, especially given the generally much longer individual lifespans of Federation species. Continued Tholian hostility towards the Federation makes sense, given the potentially catastrophic outcome of the Shedai experiments.

 

[JD]

Spoiler: Vanguard

Didn't the Tholians even try to tell the Federation to stop, only to be ignored? I swear I remember a scene with the Tholian ambassador trying to tell them to leave the Shedai tech alone, only to be blown off.