The status of the Federation in 2399

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If I lived in the DS9 era, I'd definitely support the "Defund Starfleet" movement, if my current politics are anything to go by.

Without Starfleet, who's going to protect you?

 

[Turtletrekker]

Without Starfleet, who's going to protect you?

But who protects you from Starfleet?

 

[Sci]

I wouldn't be part of any "defund Starfleet" movement, but I would definitely want the Federation Council to reassess whether or not Starfleet's mission of exploration might have inadvertently exacerbated the coming of the Dominion and whether or not the Federation's policy of constant expansion of its borders is a good thing.

 

[Sci]

Which came decades after "The Drumhead".

It happens about 18 years after "The Drumhead," yes, but that level of prejudice doesn't just emerge from nowhere. If people were angry enough to secede, there must have been long-simmering anti-Romulan bigotry underneath the surface. As the Federation News Network reporter puts it in "Remembrance:" "They were our oldest enemies."

So there's also no evidence that any anti-Romulan sentiment which might theoretically exist in Starfleet as of that episode, was anywhere near that which may or may not exist in PIC. A lot can happen in the intervening time.

You really think it's more likely that a Starfleet noncom would lie out of paranoia rather than that there might be a legitimate concern?

 

[fireproof78]

I wouldn't be part of any "defund Starfleet" movement, but I would definitely want the Federation Council to reassess whether or not Starfleet's mission of exploration might have inadvertently exacerbated the coming of the Dominion and whether or not the Federation's policy of constant expansion of its borders is a good thing.

i would hope that would be under constant review. Sadly, I doubt that is the case, especially throwing in with the Son'a.

 

[Sci]

If I lived in the DS9 era, I'd definitely support the "Defund Starfleet" movement, if my current politics are anything to go by.

I've become a police abolitionist this summer, but I don't necessarily think my political inclinations in the context of real-life cisheteropatriarchical white supremacist capitalism are a good indication of where I'd be in Star Trek's context of post-scarcity egalitarianism. As far as has been canonically established, Starfleet, unlike modern-day police, has not established a long-term pattern of engaging in systemic violence and murder against minority groups in the Federation, nor of engaging in the violent repression of political dissidents and violation of free speech rights when people protest it; so I don't think I'd be a "defund Starfleet" advocate.

But. I think the fact that there have been at least two* criminal conspiracies we know of canonically that sought to overthrow the democratically-elected Federation President -- the Khitomer Conspiracy in 2293 to assassinate President Ra-ghoratreii before he could end the Federation/Klingon Cold War, and Admiral Leyton's conspiracy to launch a coup d'etat against President Jaresh-Inyo in 2372 to turn the Federation into a military dictatorship in the run-up to the Dominion War -- suggests that there's an institutional problem within Starfleet in terms of transmitting the operational ethos of civilian control of the military.

* Two just in the Prime Timeline. If we include the Kelvin Timeline, Admiral Marcus was probably going to overthrow the Federation President and Council and put the Federation under Section 31's control when he tried to start his war against the Klingons in 2258 of the Kelvin Timeline.

 

[The Old Mixer]

The fight for AI rights in the Federation is, at this point, about 34 years old in ST, but even with the significant setback in 2385, it's going a lot better than, say, the fight for equal rights for black people in the real-world United States, which is entering its 401st year with police forces still murdering black people with impunity and white supremacists openly seeking to perpetuate their oppression. I'd rather be an android fighting for my rights in the 24th Century Federation than a black man fighting for my rights in modern America.

I've become a police abolitionist this summer, but I don't necessarily think my political inclinations in the context of real-life cisheteropatriarchical white supremacist capitalism are a good indication of where I'd be in Star Trek's context of post-scarcity egalitarianism. As far as has been canonically established, Starfleet, unlike modern-day police, has not established a long-term pattern of engaging in systemic violence and murder against minority groups in the Federation, nor of engaging in the violent repression of political dissidents and violation of free speech rights when people protest it

You've been told before that hot-button topics belong in Miscellaneous or TNZ. I can't think of anything more hot button than something that's an active subject of protest. Passing references would be one thing, but this is digging in deep, and repeatedly. Dial it down.

Thread temporarily closed.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Alright now...."Status of the Federation 2399"...not "Status of the United States 2020". Proceed.

 

[Gonzo]

Alright now...."Status of the Federation 2399"...not "Status of the United States 2020". Proceed.

It's dead Jim...

I think you may have killed it by stopping the slide off the cliff of politics.

Bringing it fully back to where it should be.

I think the Dominion War hurt a lot and the loss of Mars just drove it home even further, which is to be expected and the ramifications will be felt well into the 25th Century, the question is how much of that we will actually get to see on screen.

Exploration at break neck speed is all well and good but who knows what is hiding out there in the dark, as shown in DS9 and Picard.

The Federation/Klingon/Romulan Empires suffered from big fish in a relatively small pond syndrome, they have now been cured of that but there will be consequences, many of which will actually be positive (ship design/standardisation of construction/Hologram crew perhaps) but some may be negative at least in the short to medium term.

The Alpha/Beta Quadrants have never been tested to the extent that they were by the Dominion, what made it worse was that all the battles were fought on home territory which is good for supply lines but really bad for the amount of damage that is suffered by the home teams coupled with the inability to truly hurt the opposing side, which is why I consider S31 use of the Founder virus the only viable way to really strike at the root of the problem which is the Founders themselves as they were out of reach otherwise.

Its about time that the Federation started looking outside of the Alpha/Beta quadrants for allies but they also have to expect that they will end up encountering new enemies as well, we saw that begin with Voyager but at least it was only Voyager at risk due to distance and lack of a handy wormhole.

Its also to be expected that all of the allies will shore up their own defenses for when it happens again, that goes double for the Federation and Starfleet after the attack on Mars, its really not a surprise that Starfleet would refuse to use their big ships to move the Romulans as it would reduce their ability to react to aggression.

It must be said that even if it had succeeded it was a big risk with even bigger potential rewards, if the three main Alpha/Beta powers started to truly work together they would have a real shot at punching above their individual weight in the larger galaxy and beyond both militarily and politically, especially with the addition of Quantum Slipstream and Transwarp.

I would like to see the political fallout for the Zhat Vash actions in the next season of Picard, I don't think there will be enough air time to do it justice though as it would have to be a side plot alongside whatever it is that Picard is up to.

Certain individuals within Starfleet and the Federation need to take the long walk over it, at best they have been made fools of and at worst they used events for their own Political gain, they were on the wrong side of the argument and there must be consequences for that.

I do respect the Commander in Chief (forgotten her name already) for her no messing response to Picards request for help but I have to wonder if that was at least partly due to guilt and an attempt at saving her own political arse, they hung Picard out to dry when all he was trying to do was match the Federations previous words with action.

It won't surprise me if we find that the Cardassians have joined the Federation or are in the process of doing so, even if they had more in common with the Romulans before the Supernova, let's not forget the price the Cardassians nearly paid for their actions, even if it was cuckoo Dukat that was the driving force.

I would like to see Picard S2 focus on the consequences of what we saw in S1 but that would fill the season all on its own.

I think its pretty obvious that Picard will not be rejoining Starfleet, could we see him go for some sort of Political position, after all he holds all the cards after the events of S1, a lot depends on whether or not the events of S1 and the truth about Mars actually becomes public knowledge.

 

[Sci]

You've been told before that hot-button topics belong in Miscellaneous or TNZ. I can't think of anything more hot button than something that's an active subject of protest. Passing references would be one thing, but this is digging in deep, and repeatedly. Dial it down.

Thread temporarily closed.

The creators of Star Trek: Picard have explicitly said that the series was created to comment upon real-world politics. It is therefore completely reasonable to react to Star Trek: Picard by comparing and contrasting its events with real-world politics.

This decision was unreasonable and heavy-handed.

I think the Dominion War hurt a lot and the loss of Mars just drove it home even further, which is to be expected and the ramifications will be felt well into the 25th Century, the question is how much of that we will actually get to see on screen.

I strongly agree. In particular, I think the impact of the one-two punch of the Breen attack on Earth in 2375 and then the Mars Attack in the heart of the Sol system just ten years later would significantly undermine the feeling of safety that Federation citizens and Sol system residents have and their confidence in the Federation government's ability to protect them.

Exploration at break neck speed is all well and good but who knows what is hiding out there in the dark, as shown in DS9 and Picard.

That's a really good point -- I could easily imagine a movement starting to cut back on deep-space exploration after the Borg and the Dominion. For that matter, I could imagine a separate movement advocating for a reduction in staffed exploration missions and a greater reliance on automatic probes.

The Alpha/Beta Quadrants have never been tested to the extent that they were by the Dominion, what made it worse was that all the battles were fought on home territory which is good for supply lines but really bad for the amount of damage that is suffered by the home teams coupled with the inability to truly hurt the opposing side, which is why I consider S31 use of the Founder virus the only viable way to really strike at the root of the problem which is the Founders themselves as they were out of reach otherwise.

Strongly disagree. The entire point of the Founder virus was that it was a mistake because it embittered the Female Shapeshifter into prolonging the war long past the point she knew she couldn't win. She only surrendered because Odo showed her the mercy of agreeing to grant the cure. Had the virus never been deployed, the Dominion would have surrendered instead of retreating to Cardassia and getting ready to force the Federation Alliance to fight to the last soldier.

I would like to see the political fallout for the Zhat Vash actions in the next season of Picard, I don't think there will be enough air time to do it justice though as it would have to be a side plot alongside whatever it is that Picard is up to.

I'm very curious what happens to the Zhat Vash from here. I strongly suspect that the Romulan Free State would consider them a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of millions of Romulans, so I find myself doubting that General Nedar stayed in RFS space after returning the Tal Shiar fleet.

Certain individuals within Starfleet and the Federation need to take the long walk over it, at best they have been made fools of and at worst they used events for their own Political gain, they were on the wrong side of the argument and there must be consequences for that.

Definitely. Personally, if I'm the Federation President in 2399, I'm going to do the following:

• Order Starfleet Intelligence and the Federation Security Agency (established in TSFS) to investigate the Starfleet Security division from top to bottom: find out if anyone else in Security is a Zhat Vash agent or knew or had suspicions; figure out the chronology of Nedar's infiltration under the alias "Oh" and how she managed to rise to flag officer rank
• Order an investigation into the exact role Nedar played in the Mars Attack and how she executed her plan
• Investigate any political relationships Nedar may have cultivated with Starfleet Admirals, Federation Councillors, and/or former Federation Presidents
• Establish a special commission to investigate why the Federation government reacted to the Mars Attack in 2385 as it did
  • Investigate the possibility that the governments that threatened to secede may have been responding to Zhat Vash manipulation
• Order a Federation special counsel to investigate key Federation policy-makers in 2385 to see if there's any evidence of crimes against sentient life or sentient rights violations vis-a-vis the decision to abandon Romulus

It won't surprise me if we find that the Cardassians have joined the Federation or are in the process of doing so, even if they had more in common with the Romulans before the Supernova, let's not forget the price the Cardassians nearly paid for their actions, even if it was cuckoo Dukat that was the driving force.

I suspect that Cardassia has to demonstrate a lot more domestic reform of its political culture before it will be allowed into the UFP. I just can't imagine a society can go from centuries of military dictatorship, to outright fascism, to a liberal democracy that's enduring enough and commands enough loyalty from enough power-brokers and citizens for Cardassia to qualify for UFP membership. I think Cardassia needs to demonstrate a couple of decades worth of enduring, liberal democracy that's been embraced by the citizenry and civil society before they can join.

Side-note: I think one of the issues with an interstellar state the size of the Cardassian Union joining the UFP would be how to divide up the territory. Would the entire Cardassian Union, consisting of dozens of star systems, join as a single Federation Member State? If they do, that presents the question of proportional representation on the Federation Council, and the possibility of disproportionate influence within the UFP. Alternately, maybe the Union would get divided up, and each division would join as a separate Member State with their own separate issues represented by separate Federation Councillors.

I think its pretty obvious that Picard will not be rejoining Starfleet, could we see him go for some sort of Political position, after all he holds all the cards after the events of S1, a lot depends on whether or not the events of S1 and the truth about Mars actually becomes public knowledge.

I mean, we know from the end of S1 that the synth ban has already been overturned. I don't see a plausible scenario where the ban gets overturned without the public being informed about the Zhat Vash's involvement in the Mars Attack. Nor do I think the Federation is the sort of society that would conceal information like that.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If people were angry enough to secede, there must have been long-simmering anti-Romulan bigotry underneath the surface.

Or a long history of dealing with Romulan plots against their home planets. You only have to look at IRL China underneath the modern day CCP (Chinese Communist Party) regime and all the BS they've been pulling against all it's neighbors in the past 50+ years to understand why many are against certain governments. There's a reason why there's a lot of enmity towards the CCP and some of it's peoples.

As the Federation News Network reporter puts it in "Remembrance:" "They were our oldest enemies."

You can say the same about Germany, Russia, Japan after WW2, yet look at where we are now. Relations between "The West" and Germany & Japan are pretty damn good; Russia, not so much.

But. I think the fact that there have been at least two* criminal conspiracies we know of canonically that sought to overthrow the democratically-elected Federation President -- the Khitomer Conspiracy in 2293 to assassinate President Ra-ghoratreii before he could end the Federation/Klingon Cold War, and Admiral Leyton's conspiracy to launch a coup d'etat against President Jaresh-Inyo in 2372 to turn the Federation into a military dictatorship in the run-up to the Dominion War -- suggests that there's an institutional problem within Starfleet in terms of transmitting the operational ethos of civilian control of the military.

One is more of an assassination attempt to change the outcome of certain political decision
The other is a true Coup D'etat.
And those events are 79 years apart and unrelated to each other.
That speaks more of individual personal political issues taken to the extreme.

It is therefore completely reasonable to react to Star Trek: Picard by comparing and contrasting its events with real-world politics.

This decision was unreasonable and heavy-handed.

The mods have spoken, you're out of bounds. Penalty flag for you.

That's a really good point -- I could easily imagine a movement starting to cut back on deep-space exploration after the Borg and the Dominion. For that matter, I could imagine a separate movement advocating for a reduction in staffed exploration missions and a greater reliance on automatic probes.

Sounds like Isolationists and we all know what happened during WWI & WWII. When the US Isolated itself, things in Europe and around the world got worse, so bad it erupted into a World War. It's better to be part of the greater Galactic Community than bury our heads in the sand, you can't figure out what's going on at the Greater Galactic and Universal level if you're huddling in/hiding in your section of space.

 

[The Old Mixer]

The creators of Star Trek: Picard have explicitly said that the series was created to comment upon real-world politics. It is therefore completely reasonable to react to Star Trek: Picard by comparing and contrasting its events with real-world politics.

A note about politics and current events...

The showmakers have been open that aspects of the Picard series are meant to reflect the current political climate. Thus, while we usually discourage discussion of politics and other hot topics outside of Miscellaneous and The Neutral Zone, it can be expected that these topics may come up to some extent in relation to how the show is reflecting them. This is fine, so long as the discussion is focused on the show.

But this is not the place to actually debate politics or current affairs. If you're inclined to steer a discussion in that direction, it should indeed be taken to Misc or TNZ. Likewise, unnecessary swipes at specific political figures are discouraged.

Passing references would be one thing, but this is digging in deep, and repeatedly. Dial it down.

This decision was unreasonable and heavy-handed.

Delving into such unnecessary detail about the current affairs in question was heavy-handed. You can reference the current situation without getting up on your soapbox about it.

And you should know better than to argue moderator instructions in-thread. You've earned a one-week reply ban from this thread.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Strongly disagree. The entire point of the Founder virus was that it was a mistake because it embittered the Female Shapeshifter into prolonging the war long past the point she knew she couldn't win. She only surrendered because Odo showed her the mercy of agreeing to grant the cure. Had the virus never been deployed, the Dominion would have surrendered instead of retreating to Cardassia and getting ready to force the Federation Alliance to fight to the last soldier.

I disagree, the Female Changeling wouldn't have surrendered if Odo didn't offer a cure and the ability to take her place and save the entire race of Changelings. There is no gurantee that the Dominion would've surrendered otherwise if there wasn't a cure available.

The Dominion don't play by the same rule set we do, they play for keeps and for long term stakes. If that means temporarily losing the Alpha Quadrant and fighting until the last soldier, that's a viable strategy for the Dominion in the short term loss with long term gains down the line should the Dominion be ready to invade again with a secondary wave by the other contingent of Changelings.

Just because the Female Changeling is lost, doesn't mean the other Changelings will give up.
The virus guranteed a win for the Alliance.

The Cure from Odo offered a alternative peace solution that ended the fighting even faster on the conditional detachment of Odo to the Changeling Homeworld.

And having Odo live amongst his people and be a response for peace is even better since he can explain that not all Solids are evil.

I suspect that Cardassia has to demonstrate a lot more domestic reform of its political culture before it will be allowed into the UFP. I just can't imagine a society can go from centuries of military dictatorship, to outright fascism, to a liberal democracy that's enduring enough and commands enough loyalty from enough power-brokers and citizens for Cardassia to qualify for UFP membership. I think Cardassia needs to demonstrate a couple of decades worth of enduring, liberal democracy that's been embraced by the citizenry and civil society before they can join.

We only need to look at modern day Germany IRL. They've gone through horrible things, but eventually they've changed and are a powerful force for "The West".

Side-note: I think one of the issues with an interstellar state the size of the Cardassian Union joining the UFP would be how to divide up the territory. Would the entire Cardassian Union, consisting of dozens of star systems, join as a single Federation Member State? If they do, that presents the question of proportional representation on the Federation Council, and the possibility of disproportionate influence within the UFP. Alternately, maybe the Union would get divided up, and each division would join as a separate Member State with their own separate issues represented by separate Federation Councillors.

UFP would be Governmentally designed to have a smarter & accurate separation of representation within the greater UFP governmental body.
Each Planet could be the equivalent of a US State
Each Species would get it's own 3rd house of representation turning UFP into a Tri-Cameral Legislature.

 

[Lord Garth]

If anything, I think Starfleet should always be compared to the Navy. It's been the Space Navy from Day One.

La Sirena is like the Nostromo in Alien. Rios is basically like Captain Dallas. He has his ship, with his small tight-knit crew, and he goes where the job is.

 

[Charles Phipps]

The ending of DS9 is nicely ambiguous.

Killing all the Changelings wouldn't have benefited the Alpha Quadrant because the Jem'Hadar would have gone on a genocidal jyhad and the Founders would have made their last wish to kill as many solids as possible.

HOWEVER, the threat of genocide combined with the offer of peace and Odo returning certainly made it possible.

Carrot and stick.

I like to think this was deliberate.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If anything, I think Starfleet should always be compared to the Navy. It's been the Space Navy from Day One.

I concur

La Sirena is like the Nostromo in Alien. Rios is basically like Captain Dallas. He has is ship, with his small tight-knit crew, and he goes where the job is.

I felt "La Sirena" was more like Serenity from FireFly & Rios is basically Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I felt "La Sirena" was more like Serenity from FireFly & Rios is basically Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

If only it had been the most beloved TNG character of them all: the outrageous Okona!

 

[fireproof78]

I felt "La Sirena" was more like Serenity from FireFly & Rios is basically Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

This is my general feel and something I think Trek needs more of.

 

[Charles Phipps]

This is my general feel and something I think Trek needs more of.

Before Mal and Solo there was Mudd and Jones.

 

[fireproof78]

Before Mal and Solo there was Mudd and Jones.

True enough. Better characters.