That's why they call it the blues (Paths of Disharmony SPOILERS)

[Therin of Andor]

I seriously doubt any book series can afford to be bleeding readers in the current economy.

The thing about Star Trek fandom: it's cyclic. People become avid new Star Trek fansor more avid fans, every day; others get disgruntled and "move on" to what is, to them at the time, a greener pasture. Some eventually return to the fold, others don't, but fandom has been growing and shrinking for over four decades now. It hit a peak at about the time of "First Contact"'s premiere, and has been ebbing and flowing ever since.

ST fans discover the book line every day. Others move on.

Nothing new here.

You think the current crop of books is "bleeding readers"? I know plenty of ST readers who walked away from them in disgust in the early 90s. Some eventually returned. The line survived. Even now, every time someone comes here to say how they hated those early 90s novels, someone will come along saying how they missed those glory days.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The survivors of Wolf 359 would surely remember being hailed by Locutus, as we saw in the DS9 pilot. Sisko remembers that Picard was part of the Borg - and I highly doubt he's the only one. And need I remind you how Sisko treated Picard when they first met *after* that? Sisko was about ready to chop Picard's head off. Don't know about now, though.

In Family, didn't Robert have some idea of what had happened if not the precise details?

Yep. Robert seemed to know who the Borg were.

 

[T'deD'Edkeid'Ende'Dejdid]

Why shouldn't Andor leave the Federation?

The Federation failed to defend it. The Federation failed to share knowledge/technology with it. What else does the Federation have to offer?

The main question should be what did Andor leave with? The Federation is basically an alliance of various members. As a prominent member, Andor should theoretically have had access to the latest technology. Are they leaving with knowledge of the slipstream drive? Or possibly an advanced starship design? Where does the loyalty of an Andorian member so S31 lie and what will they reveal to their new spy master?

 

[Hartzilla2007]

[]If Sisko was ready to wipe the floor with Picard out of revenge (as it sure seemed he was), then multiply that by however many survivors of the battle there were. It won't be pretty.

Assuming some of them still carry a grudge after all these years. Has Sisko mellowed in that regard? What does he think of Picard now?

Well considering Sisko had gotten or at least started to get over it by the end of DS9's pilot episode and was on friendly terms with Picard in his appearance in Slings and Arrows, I would say yes he mellowed in that regard.

 

[Sci]

Sorry I've been gone so long. I'm afraid that when that big storm hit Washington, I was one of the many Washingtonians who lost power, and it wasn't restored until this evening.

Sci
In 'Losing the peace' and ZSG it is directly established that the federation is internally unstable.

Sort-of. You're overstating it. Losing the Peace established that the refugee crisis was threatening to create instability, but they solved both the refugee crisis and the Alpha Centauri secession threat in that same novel. The only hint of internal instability in ZSG is a little bit of foreshadowing to PoD.

Not quite, Sci.

In 'Losing the peace', member worlds were thinking about seceding. A vote was organised and most voted to remain.

You are, again, over-stating it. In LtP, the Governor of Alpha Centauri had the notion of pushing for Alpha Centauri to secede. Within a day of him getting that idea, he'd renounced it after seeing the refugee crisis on Pacifica. He pushed for the referendum anyway, because he knew it would be a symbolic re-affirmation of the Articles of the Federation. Same thing on those other worlds. I don't recall anything in LtP indicating that there was a widespread, public separatist movement encompassing multiple planets, just that a few angry elites like the Governor had the thought.

BUT, as per ZSG - which takes place AFTER "Losing the peace' -, this was not the end of political instability in he federation. Not even close:
In the book, there is a scene between Bracco and the kingon ambassador. The ambassador says ~'We're having as much trouble keeping ourselves together as you have, madame president. Perhaps more, because we conquered most of our subjects'.
AKA the federation is politically highly unstable during ZSG, as well.

More like, a Klingon pointing out Bacco's limited political capital in a democratic government and exaggerating to give himself cover for refusing aid to the Empire's ally.

Has Quebec seceded?

They've had two referendums on secession in the last thirty years. The first referendum in 1980 came back with No at 59.56%/Yes 40.44%. The second referendum in 1995 came back as No 50.58%/49.42%. The largest political party in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois advocates for secession. And in 1999, the Canadian Parliament passed the Clarity Act, which outlines the conditions under which the Canadian Crown-in-Council would recognize a province's secession.

So it's very fair to say that secessionist sentiment in Quebec is a major political force, far more than what we'd ever be familiar with in modern America. And yet I still doubt Canada would collapse if Quebec seceded.

Are the other canadian territories thinking of seceding?

Provinces. They're called provinces.

And, yes, there are secessionist movements in other provinces.

Canada is a model of political stability by comparison to present federation.

The present Federation, where a single Federation Member State has seceded after numerous others have re-affirmed their intention to stay Members? That one?

No. I think that a Federation composed of Earth and over one hundred other worlds counts as a Federation still intact. Remember, the Federation had just added its 155th Member right before the Borg Invasion. Even if we assume that the Borg destroyed 30 Members, that still leaves 120 Members -- 119 after Andor's secession.

Which could easily turn into 10 members in the very near future,

Couldawouldashoulda. You have no evidence, you're just outlining possibilities. Any damn thing is possible; that doesn't make any damn thing probable. You tried to claim that Andor leaving meant that the Federation would only have about a dozen species as Members, and the actual numbers flatly contradict your assertion. Your statements here are full of nonsense.

if the current trend in the federation holds.

I had no idea a single event constituted a trend.

And stopping this trend requires actually fulfilling some - how did you called them? - 'impossible' orders/assignments/etc.

You're confusing the idea of keeping Andor from seceding being impossible with the idea of keeping other Member States from seceding being impossible.

The level of difficulty is inherently going to be different for each individual world being considered, because every Federation Member State is different.

In Losing the Peace, it was ridiculously easy to keep Alpha Centauri from seceding. Why? Because there was no actual grassroots support for the idea of seceding, just a hotheaded Governor with some hair-brained ideas for what to push for who was easily swayed once he was confronted with the reality of his own sense of entitlement.

In Paths of Disharmony, on the other hand, there seems to have been a years-long grassroots movement for Andorian secession, as a consequence of the Andorian reproduction crisis and of the difficulties the Federation has had. You can't stand against the will of the people in a democracy. It wasn't the will of the people of Alpha Centauri that they secede, so secession could be prevented. It was the will of the people that Andor secede, so preventing it becomes impossible.

It will inherently vary from planet to planet. It's a mistake to treat every planet like they're all the same and interchangeable.

As it happens, 'Taking wing' specifically said not only that a small majority is against it, but also that a large minority is FOR the reunification.

I just re-read that section yesterday. It does not say that. It establishes that a small majority is opposed to unification. It does not establish anything about the large minority who do not explicitly oppose unification. Deanna Troi's internal monologue features her inferring that Vulcan is split down the middle, but no data is actually given about the poll results beyond the small majority who oppose unification.

As such, it remains entirely possible that the remainder might be divided between people who support unification, people who have no opinion, or people who are undecided.

Also in RBoE, Spock directly says that one of the ways he envisions vulcan-romulan reunification is the vulcans leaving the federation and uniting with the romulans- and he has no problem with such an outcome.

You are, again, over-stating your case. You are, after all, talking about the eminently logical Mister Spock, who can speak in perfect serenity about his own imminent death when discussing a given situation's potential outcomes. Spock, being the frank person that he is, simply answers the question of how Vulcan and Romulus might reunite by listing a number of possible scenarios. That he includes a one scenario -- that one of the ways in which Vulcan might reunite with Romulus is through secession from the Federation -- in such a way indicates anything about what he actually advocates about the future of Vulcan's status within the Federation.

There was nothing theoretical about Spock's words in RBoE.

His words about the manner in which Vulcan/Romulan unification might occur is completely hypothetical.

This is the exchange to which you are referring. From page 221-222 of Rough Beasts of Empire:

"Do you really believe there's any way that the Romulan people could reunify with the Vulcans?" Slask said. "Especially now, with Romulus a part of the Typhon Pact? How could that possibly work?"

"It might not be accomplished easily, but that does not make it unworthy of pursuit," Spock said. "There are several practical ways in which such a reunification could take place. Both Romulus and Vulcan could withdraw from their respective allegiances, or they could spur détente, or even entente, between the Khitomer Accord nations and those of the Typhon Pact."

In other words, he cites Vulcan secession as one scenario. He also cites Vulcan's continued membership in the Federation as another.

And, mind you, this conversation occurs in the context of him and Slask faking a conversation in a public locale in order to allow Slask to send a secret message to the Federation President.

Spock put his actions behind his words. For decades, all he's done is be on Romulus, tirelessly trying to advance the reunification cause,

Yes. But that does not mean that his speculations about ways in which unification might occur indicate he wants Vulcan to secede.

As Spock himself said in the TOS episode "That Which Survives:"

SCOTTY: What you’re saying is, the planet didn’t blow up, and the captain and the others—they’re still alive!

SPOCK: Please, Mister Scott. Restrain your leaps of illogic. I have said nothing. I was merely speculating.

instead of advancing federation interests elsewhere.

Actually, Spock's been popping up all over the quadrant in the novels. He's able to come and go from Romulus periodically. And he believes he is promoting Federation interests by promoting unification, as indicated by his belief that such an event would spur peace between the Federation and the Romulans.

In RBoE, Spock specifically said the vulcan-romulan reunification he worked so hard for was quite likely to be achieved by vulcan seceding from the federation

False. As I demonstrated with the quote above, he merely lists that as one possibility, and says nothing about probabilities.

* * *

As for all this speculation that Starfleet would have covered up Picard's assimilation into Locutus:

There is no evidence of this whatsoever. Further, the VOY duology Homecoming/The Farther Shore establishes that shortly after the Battle of Wolf 359, one of the victims' family members issued what was known as the Borg Entreaty, calling upon the Federation government to suspend habeas corpus and due process rights for Federation citizens when Borg activity or assimilation are suspected. It's unlikely a civilian would do so if no one outside of Starfleet knew that the Borg had assimilated Picard into Locutus.

 

[RonG]

As for all this speculation that Starfleet would have covered up Picard's assimilation into Locutus:

There is no evidence of this whatsoever. Further, the VOY duology Homecoming/The Farther Shore establishes that shortly after the Battle of Wolf 359, one of the victims' family members issued what was known as the Borg Entreaty, calling upon the Federation government to suspend habeas corpus and due process rights for Federation citizens when Borg activity or assimilation are suspected. It's unlikely a civilian would do so if no one outside of Starfleet knew that the Borg had assimilated Picard into Locutus.

First of all, your entire post was right on the money, Sci you were sorely missed the last couple of days on this discussion... Hope everything is back to normal..

As for the last point (quoted above) - I can't speak for anyone else, but what I meant with my argument with ProtoAvatar , and utterly failing to bring my point across it seems, was that the line of thought linking Picard's and Janeway's dealing with the Borg to other races / empires / UFP states' blaming the UFP for "causing the Borg invasion" was, at the very least, implausible.

I had stated my opinion that the general public, i.e. people with no experience, link or dealings with the Borg - as opposed to Starfleet, victims' families, civilians involved etc - may not even have knowledge of just *who* Picard and Janeway are/were (as opposed to us readers), as the UFP is larger beyond anything we know today...

 

[Sci]

As for all this speculation that Starfleet would have covered up Picard's assimilation into Locutus:

There is no evidence of this whatsoever. Further, the VOY duology Homecoming/The Farther Shore establishes that shortly after the Battle of Wolf 359, one of the victims' family members issued what was known as the Borg Entreaty, calling upon the Federation government to suspend habeas corpus and due process rights for Federation citizens when Borg activity or assimilation are suspected. It's unlikely a civilian would do so if no one outside of Starfleet knew that the Borg had assimilated Picard into Locutus.

First of all, your entire post was right on the money, Sci you were sorely missed the last couple of days on this discussion... Hope everything is back to normal..

Thank you very much. Power has been restored to my part of town and everything seems fine now. Though the inability of the local utility to get the power grid working for this part of the D.C. Metro Area has been making headlines for several days now.

As for the last point (quoted above) - I can't speak for anyone else, but what I meant with my argument with ProtoAvatar , and utterly failing to bring my point across it seems, was that the line of thought linking Picard's and Janeway's dealing with the Borg to other races / empires / UFP states' blaming the UFP for "causing the Borg invasion" was, at the very least, implausible.

Ah, I gotcha. Yeah, agreed. The closest you can argue is that Janeway may have provoked them by using and then collapsing their transwarp conduit, but frankly, I have a hard time seeing how you can hold it against a Starfleet officer for collapsing a transwarp system that literally leads right to Earth's doorstep. And there was no way to predict the Borg's genocidal reaction.

I had stated my opinion that the general public, i.e. people with no experience, link or dealings with the Borg - as opposed to Starfleet, victims' families, civilians involved etc - may not even have knowledge of just *who* Picard and Janeway are/were (as opposed to us readers), as the UFP is larger beyond anything we know today...

Okay, I see what you're saying then.

I would agree with you -- at least, to a point. I doubt the average Federate knew who Captain Picard was, for instance, before the events of "The Best of Both Worlds." They might have heard of him in publicity surrounding the launch of the Enterprise-D as the newest flagship, but I doubt he'd have any fame after that -- until the Battle of Wolf 359. It's almost certain that Picard would end up infamous for his abduction by the Borg. But, by the same token, I would not be surprised if his intervention in the Klingon succession crisis and then the Klingon Civil War, combined with his saving the Earth from the Borg almost single-handedly six years later (from the POV of the people who didn't travel into the 21st Century with him), would likely make him a much more famous and widely-admired officer.

And Janeway would almost have to be a celebrity. The captain who pulled her ship back to the Federation from the other side of the galaxy? She'd be the Federation's equivalent of Captain Sully.

Sisko is a more interesting question. Certainly he's famous amongst the Bajorans -- would his accepting a role in the Bajoran church make him famous amongst the general Federation public? Or would commanding the most important Federation outpost during the Dominion War? I'm not sure there.

 

[RonG]

Looking at this topic from a 21st Century POV, I would guess that the general public would be much more "aware" of Starfleet's C-in-C, or high ranking admirals, rather than "mere" captains.

Is the average US citizen aware of the heroics of field captains? The ones usually in the headlines are Generals and high ranking officers, making the strategic decisions, not captains who implement these decisions, however successfully.

Of course, there are instances when field officers make headlines, for better or for worse, but even in today's global media, they (barely) have 15 minutes of fame (or infamy).

Considering the size and nature of the UFP, Starfleet and the MEmber States (not to mention other empires), I find it hard to believe that any of the main characters in Trek are known to the general UFP public. On their homeworld? sure. To other worlds effected directly and considerably by their actions. probably. To their colleagues, fellow officers and even select enamies? again- probably. To the general UFP public (some hundreds of billions of sentient beings), let alone in other galactic powers? IMO, highly unlikely.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Considering the size and nature of the UFP, Starfleet and the MEmber States (not to mention other empires), I find it hard to believe that any of the main characters in Trek are known to the general UFP public. On their homeworld? sure. To other worlds effected directly and considerably by their actions. probably. To their colleagues, fellow officers and even select enamies? again- probably. To the general UFP public (some hundreds of billions of sentient beings), let alone in other galactic powers? IMO, highly unlikely.

To paraphrase Kira, "Who's Kirk?"

 

[rahullak]

^
"Whose Kirk? Mine or yours?"

 

[rfmcdpei]

Also in RBoE, Spock directly says that one of the ways he envisions vulcan-romulan reunification is the vulcans leaving the federation and uniting with the romulans- and he has no problem with such an outcome."

Future news:

Sure. And it would seem that reunification has not yet occurred by the time Spock is whisked into the past by JJ Abram's movie. Romulus is slated to be wiped out by a supernova, and only offworld Romulans will be left. And it seems that Ambassador Spock has no way to return.

Although by this point, two thousand years after Romulus' settlement, there are plenty of Romulans offworld on their colony worlds, on Glintara and Archernar Prime and Artaleirh and the rest. The Romulans are like the humans: destroy their homeworld, the species is still not in any risk of extinction. There'd still be any amount of chaos, mind.

All we know about the Romulan political situation in 2387 is that, apparently, Spock was close enough to the Romulan leadership for him to take a Vulcan craft and try to save the Romulan homeworld from destruction. To me that implies, at a minimum, a basic amount of trust on the Romulans' part in Vulcan good intentions, and by extension that of the Federation, thus that there hasn't been or isn't going to be imminently a general Romulan-Federation war.

Thoughts?

They've had two referendums on secession in the last thirty years. The first referendum in 1980 came back with No at 59.56%/Yes 40.44%. The second referendum in 1995 came back as No 50.58%/49.42%. The largest political party in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois advocates for secession. And in 1999, the Canadian Parliament passed the Clarity Act, which outlines the conditions under which the Canadian Crown-in-Council would recognize a province's secession.

So it's very fair to say that secessionist sentiment in Quebec is a major political force, far more than what we'd ever be familiar with in modern America. And yet I still doubt Canada would collapse if Quebec seceded.

Speaking as a Canadian, if Quebec left the federation the major problem would be the dominance of Ontario, with a near-majority of the Canadian population and Ontario, while western Canada--Alberta especially, also British Columbia--would resist, well, resist. I don't think that the collapse of Canada would happen if only because there's a real Canadian community, but it would make things complicated.

The thing to note when you're talking about Quebec separatism that it isn't a binary situation. The 1995 referendum question didn't even use the word "independence."

Do you agree that Québec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Québec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?

Said bill would give Quebec the "exclusive power to pass all its laws, levy all its taxes and conclude all its treaties," and let it become "sovereign"--not, again, "independent." It also authorized the Quebec government to negotiate a very close federation with Canada, including a shared economic space, common labour market, and even a shared currency.

The original ideal of sovereignty-association helped make Quebec separatism a powerful force. Quebecois feel they belong to a Quebec nation, by and large, but they also still have connections with the rest of Canada, they still enjoy benefits from the Canadian state, and the idea of independence without retaining as many of the benefits of the Canadian federation as possible is relatively unpopular. If, in either the 1980 or 1995 referenda, the federal government had made it clear that an independent Quebec would be completely independent and that there would be no Canada-Quebec union, I suspect that the "Non" would have had much larger majorities.

How does this relate to Vulcan and talk of Romulan reunification? Vulcan may be split down the middle between pro- and anti-reunificationists, but we have no idea how they're defining reunification. Are we talking about opened borders? A new Vulcanoid bloc? Romulan membership in the Federation? Federation (or Vulcan) membership in the Typhon Pact? A strong commitment to intensified cultural and economic exchange programs? Joint projects? Any suggestion or combination of suggestions is imaginable, IMHO.

How does this relate to Andor? The Andorians are unhappy with the Federation, understandably so to a degree. The vote for separation seems to have won by a substantial, if not overwhelming, majority. By opting for independence they've shown a decided disinterest in continued Federation aid--remember that the Andorian ambassador asked for the expeditious removal of Federation and Starfleet personnel from Andor--but that does not mean that Andor is going to queue up for Typhon Pact membership. I get the sense, given Andorian xenophobia, that isolationism may be independent Andor's policy for some time.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Sisko is a more interesting question. Certainly he's famous amongst the Bajorans -- would his accepting a role in the Bajoran church make him famous amongst the general Federation public? Or would commanding the most important Federation outpost during the Dominion War? I'm not sure there.

In addition to Sisko's key role in discovering the Bajoran wormhole, opening up the Gamma Quadrant, and first learning about the Dominion, he probably also "made the news" when he stopped Bajor's (initial) process of joining the Federation.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Why shouldn't Andor leave the Federation?

The Federation failed to defend it. The Federation failed to share knowledge/technology with it. What else does the Federation have to offer?

That's the thing. Dayton Ward did a fantastic job of creating a scenario where the Andorians would secede from the Federation, even making the separatists seem not entirely unreasonable.

Blaming the Federation for not adequately defending Andor from the Borg is unfair--the Federation was planning for the Borg from at least the 2360s on, and no one expected the scale of the Azure Nebula invasion--but if you're Andorian you won't necessarily care that your world was only devastated, not annihilated. The world of Alrond in the Andorian system--I'm guessing, one of the Andorians' oldest colony worlds--was glassed, so they'll have had experience of that fate.

Blaming the Federation for not using the Shedai data is unfair. Apart from the spectacularly high levels of security relating to all Project Genesis material that kept anyone knowing about their relevance until the Tholians leaked the information to the professor, the Federation has made sustained efforts to help the Andorians, most recently with the acquisition of the Yrythny DNA from the Gamma Quadrant. But then, if you're an Andorian knowing that your species is certainly going to become extinct unless an increasingly unlikely medical miracle comes about, and experiencing a holocaust that just makes things worse, if you find out that a long-time enemy has given you a miraculous solution* to your problem that the Federation had, in theory, almost a century ago ...

* It will work, right? I'd prefer the Andorians not to follow the Aenar into extinction.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Sisko is a more interesting question. Certainly he's famous amongst the Bajorans -- would his accepting a role in the Bajoran church make him famous amongst the general Federation public? Or would commanding the most important Federation outpost during the Dominion War? I'm not sure there.

In addition to Sisko's key role in discovering the Bajoran wormhole, opening up the Gamma Quadrant, and first learning about the Dominion, he probably also "made the news" when he stopped Bajor's (initial) process of joining the Federation.

Point.

WHATLEY
The Federation is not just a union
of planets, it's much more --

The Admiral is interrupted by the door OPENING to
REVEAL Sisko. He slumps against the door frame. He
looks exhausted and in pain.

Kai Winn and Whatley move toward the Captain.

WINN
Emissary...

WHATLEY
(turns to an aide)
Get him to the Infirmary.

But Sisko shoves the aide away.

SISKO
No! I have to tell them.

WINN
What is it, Emissary? Have the
Prophets revealed something to
you?

Sisko looks to Kai Winn and to the Admiral, and though
he's in obvious pain, there's a clarity of purpose to
him that cannot be denied.

SISKO
The locusts... they'll destroy
Bajor... unless it stands alone.

That gets the room buzzing.

WHATLEY

Ben, what the hell are you talking
about?

SISKO
It's too soon. Bajor must not
Join the Federation. If it does,
it will be destroyed.

Everyone in the room is stunned by Sisko's words. A
moment as this sinks in, and then he collapses to the
floor

as he lies on the floor, limbs akimbo, shaking from
mild but constant tremors. off this disturbing sight

That would have made for spectacular media footage, wouldn't it, especially with the Bajoran government following through on the Emissary's request?

So, Sisko's galactically famous. Who else?

1. Spock. Enough said.
2. There is a reasonable chance that Picard is, perhaps primarily because of his Borg contacts but also for his careers as a diplomat and an explorer. Finishing Galen's request and revealing the existence of a species eons old that seeded the galaxy with intelligence comes to mind.
3. Worf is also a strong possibility. At one point the only Klingon serving in Starfleet, and scion of a powerful Klingon house at one point charged with responsibility for allowing the Romulans to destroy the Khitomer colony (emphasis added) and later destroyed--after being rehabilitated--for his refusal to aid the Klingon invasion of Cardassia, finally killing Gowron in a duel and handing power over to Martok ... yes, Worf is going to be famous.
4. Kirk, likewise. His career as a diplomat and explorer is one thing; his saving Earth from V'Ger another; his role in the entire Project Gensis mess yet another; his saving Earth from the whale probe yet another; his role in the Khitomer conference of 2293 ... A fairly good case can be made that Kirk's more famous in the Federation core and in the Romulan-Klingon areas he frequented than in the "west" of the Federation, towards Bajor and Cardassia and the Ferengi Alliance, which seems to have entered into contact with the Federation at a later date.

Who else? Android Data's a possibility; Deanna might be notable for her family connections; McCoy and Scott, in specialist circles; maybe scientist and diplomat Dax on Trill ... suggestions?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Sci

About ZSG:
More like the klingon ambassador stated the federation's political instability as clearly as possible - not that this statement about the federation provides him with cover regarding the Klingon Empire - and Bracco had nothing to contradict him with.
More like you would like to ignore such statements because you just don't like them.

About Canada - already answered by rfmcdpei.


About 'Taking wing':
"A political majority can be transitory," T'Sevek said coolly. "Particularly such a narrow one."
"Vulcan must be split right down the middle on this, Troi thought."

Sure a large minority is not for reunification, Sci - despite the fact this was both heavily implied and directly stated in the book. After all, you don't like it.

About RBoE:
Again, Sci, like it or not, Spock worked for decades, tirelessly, for a reunification knowing full well it can involve Vulcan breaking away from the federation. Knowing full well it's a lot more unlilely for such a reunification to create detente.


About Voy:Homecoming:
What is esteblished is that the population of Earth was organising mass demonstrations to celebrate Janeway&7of9 - due to their victories over the borg.

About Picard/Janeway's popularity:
During the Voyager series it is well established that Voyager was popular at home.
Picard saved Earth, put klingon chancellors in office - this makes one popular.
It's established in TNG that civilians knew about what happened in BOBW.
About starfleet - any ensign knew his resume by heart, called him 'great man', etc. You think such fame is confined to starfleet? Just because that's what RonG wants to think doesn't make it any less ridiculous.

And after 'Destiny' you can be sure the previous borg encounters were looked at with a microscope - by everyone.

And the inescapable resulting conclusion is that the borg would not have attacked so soon, in so large numbers and with intent to exterminate if Picard/Janeway would not have provoked it by killing queens and destroying a transwarp hub.


So - an unstable federation, with a founding member already left (a decision taken by vote, with a substatial margin), another founding member with a very good cause for leaving, many other victimised, looking for what went wrong, who made the mistakes that lead to such a catastrophic outcome - yes, the trend IS for the federation to disintegrate.

Is this a possibility, not a certainty, Sci? Yes, but a possibility far likelier than the ones you advocate.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Blaming the Federation for not using the Shedai data is unfair. Apart from the spectacularly high levels of security relating to all Project Genesis material that kept anyone knowing about their relevance until the Tholians leaked the information to the professor, the Federation has made sustained efforts to help the Andorians, most recently with the acquisition of the Yrythny DNA from the Gamma Quadrant. But then, if you're an Andorian knowing that your species is certainly going to become extinct unless an increasingly unlikely medical miracle comes about, and experiencing a holocaust that just makes things worse, if you find out that a long-time enemy has given you a miraculous solution* to your problem that the Federation had, in theory, almost a century ago ...

Whoever was responsible for not finding the shedai data - which, once, was at the heart of a very large scale program - should face court martial for incompetence.
His/her/their failure was far more disastrous for the federation than the most abject betrayal.
And his/her/their incompetence is not in question - considering how the tholians had no problem finding the relevant data without having the andorians as members in need of help.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Sci

About ZSG:
More like the klingon ambassador stated the federation's political instability as clearly as possible - not that this statement about the federation provides him with cover regarding the Klingon Empire - and Bracco had nothing to contradict him with.

Was there any particular reason for her to contradict the ambassador? Bacco's not going to say the Federation's going to conquer any civilization that steps out of line, she's not going to deny obvious issues to an ally, and, well.

More like you would like to ignore such statements because you just don't like them.

"A political majority can be transitory," T'Sevek said coolly. "Particularly such a narrow one."
"Vulcan must be split right down the middle on this, Troi thought."

Sure a large minority is not for reunification, Sci - despite the fact this was both heavily implied and directly stated in the book. After all, you don't like it.

About RBoE:
Again, Sci, like it or not, Spock worked for decades, tirelessly, for a reunification knowing full well it can involve Vulcan breaking away from the federation. Knowing full well it's a lot more unlilely for such a reunification to create detente.

That it could; the passage in Rough Beasts of Empire identified Vulcan secession from the Federation as one scenario for reunification of many.

Would Vulcan secession be something Spock would favour himself? I'm skeptical--leaving Spock's World aside, he is a child of two worlds, and he doesn't seem to have any great desire to leave Federation service.

Would Vulcan secession necessarily be anything that even many Vulcan supporters of reunification want? Vulcan does have numerous offworld connections--Vulcans, unlike Andorians, have non-Vulcan relatives, even--and Vulcan culture seems rather closer to Human, Trill, etc. norms than to Romulan norms. One key to the possible complications come in the passage, when the two Vulcans exchange barbs of Romulus becoming a second Vulcan or Vulcan becoming a second Romulus. How many Vulcan supporters of reunification would favour the second outcome?

Additionally, after the Borg attack the Vulcans don't strike me as likely to follow the Andorians in getting the Federation out of their system. The Vulcans are too integrated into the Federation as is, and the Romulans make dubious patrons.

I'm inclined to think Andor was an extreme situation: an isolated species, facing extinction in the near future, suddenly confronted with the devastation of its homeworld and at least one major colony and with existentially important information that the Federation had forgotten about.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Whoever was responsible for not finding the shedai data - which, once, was at the heart of a very large scale program - should face court martial for incompetence.

I wonder if the data might not have been classified decades before the present, at a time when Federation science wasn't advanced enough to even ask the questions that triggered the computer alert in Aldrin City. The originals involved might not even be alive.

And his incompetence is not in question - considering how the tholians had no problem finding the relevant data without having the andorians as members in need of help.

Tholian society generally is structured on different lines, and presumably had priorities apart from helping a major component civilization of a major enemy solve its reproductive issues.

The Tholians might have known the importance of the data for the Andorians all along and just waited for the right moment; the Tholians might have deciphered it recently; the Tholians might have used the Andorians to decipher some of the Shedai data for them.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

rfmcdpei

"More like you would like to ignore such statements because you just don't like them."
What statements from canon/trek lit have I ignored, exactly, rfmcdpei?
You're taling about Sci and his convoluted hypotheticals or RonG and his ~'because I don't like it'.

About ZSG and federation political instability:
"Bacco's not going to say the Federation's going to conquer any civilization that steps out of line, she's not going to deny obvious issues to an ally, and, well."
I see you even agree with me - and with ZSG, that is (unlike Sci, who does his best to ignore it).
The klingon ambassador said that Bacco had problems keeping the federation together - a statement which gained him no advantage (the relevant and more than sufficient fact was that the klingon empire had trouble keeping itself together) - and Bacco did not 'deny obvious issues'.


About RBoE and reunification:
"That it could; the passage in Rough Beasts of Empire identified Vulcan secession from the Federation as one scenario for reunification of many."
One scenario out of three. And, of these three, the 'entente' scenario is unlikely.

"Would Vulcan secession be something Spock would favour himself?"
Maybe it's not Spock's favourite scenario. But it's one he can more than live with, as long as it means reunification. Reunification he worked for for decades, while having no illusions he can control the future political shifts.

"Additionally, after the Borg attack the Vulcans don't strike me as likely to follow the Andorians in getting the Federation out of their system. The Vulcans are too integrated into the Federation as is, and the Romulans make dubious patrons."
As per 'Taking wing', only a small majority of vulcans are against reunification. Also, as per 'Taking wing', this could change at any time, with a majority of vulcans favouring reunification - with all this could entail.
And this was BEFORE 'Destiny', when Vucan was half vaporised in a borg attack caused by Picard/Janeway's provocations.


About the shedai data:
"I wonder if the data might not have been classified decades before the present"
Who cares when it was classified? It was genetic data, artificially made DNA (aka the first thing to look for and examine) at the center of a huge program in the taurus reach less than a century ago.
And the so-called 'intelligence' agencies can't keep track of even that, find it today?
That's crass incompetence.
Incompetence which, as said, in this case, had disastrous consequences for the federation.

It's no wonder such 'intelligence' agencies had trouble, during 'Destiny', in finding efficient weapons against the borg in the wealth of data collected in various explorations by starfleet - when, on this board, posters had no problem finding such data.
Crass incompetence.

 

[JD]

You keep talking about people blaming the Federation for antagonizing the Borg. But I can't see that at all, I might be able to see that if the UFP ships actually went out and purposefully tracked down and attacked the Borg. But most of the encounters we saw with the Borg were either coincidental or instigated by the Borg. And in pretty much every encounter the UFP ship was defending itself from the Borg or trying to keep them from attacking Earth or another planet. I'm sorry, but I really can't see anyone blaming anybody but the Borg, or.... maybe, and this is just a maybe, the Caeliar.