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The status of the Federation in 2399
- Thread starter Charles Phipps
- Start date
And organ legging.
It's the future's version of waking up in a bath of ice missing a kidney.
We don't know if Freecloud was located in Federation territory.
Its explictly not part of the Federation but close enough.
It's not.
Didn't think so. 
I was under the impression that Freecloud is located in the former neutral zone.
I believe she was born on a lunar colony. Her grandmother lived (at least in her latter years) on the Scotland loving planet. With her ghost lover.
I don't know why anyone would assume that Freecloud is primarily or even significantly made up of former Federation citizens. It's just another place outside the Federation that doesn't follow Federation rules or norms.
The answer being the name is a reference to a David Bowie [a human by some accounts] song. We also see Cassidy Yates and Quark both have businesses there.
And the Romulan Empire is based on ancient Rome. Those are writer's references, not in universe evidence. And Quark has very little to do with the Federation and Cassidy has a long history of working outside the Federation for non-Federation citizens.
If it's formally the neutral zone, what is it after? Current Federation terrirtory, Romulan, someone elses?
The Federation has obviouly expanded through the years.
The Federation is composed of hundreds (thousands) of planets, personally doubt they all have the same monolithic "rules and norms."
Well, yes, we know they don't all have the same norms. But there usually is a sort of dominant Federation norm portrayed (in favor of diplomacy, science and orderly freedom) even if it isn't universal.
And they certainly do have the same rules to a significant extant, though there is definitely also local autonomy in important ways.
But in any case, the point was not that Freecloud is 100% definitely nothing like any hypothetical Federation world. The point is that Freecloud isn't in the Federation and there's no clear evidence it has any significant relationship with the Federation, formally or informally, so there's no particular reason it should be viewed as some sort of off-shoot of Federation culture instead of just another place out there in the galaxy that has its own entirely separate identity.
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Okay, whose territory is it in then?
Tasha wasn't from Earth, neither was Beverly.
I used to share that impression, but then I checked and, although the US is still dominates (and China, India, Brazil, Germany, ... are underrepresented), there are quite a few characters that aren't supposed to be Americans.
TOS:
- Sulu is Japanese.
- Chekov is Russian.
- Uhura is from the "United States of Africa". Not sure which exact actual countries that corresponds to.
- Scott is, famously, British (Scottish variety).
Kirk, McCoy and presumably Chapel are all Americans.
TNG:
- LaForge is Somali. Which is cool, they didn't Sisko/Kim him.
- Beverly Crusher is lunar. Presumably, so is Wesley.
- Picard is, of course, French.
- Worf is not Human, but his adoptive family is Belarussian.
- Yar is from Turkana IV.
Of the main cast, only Riker is a yank (and likely Barclay if you want to include him in the main cast).
DS9:
- Bashir is British (English variety).
- O'Brien is Irish, with a Japanese wife.
Only the Siskos are yanks.
VOY:
- Chakotay is from an unspecified colony in Cardassian space (probably the one in TNG: Journey's End).
- Torres (half-Human) is from Kassik IV.
VOY is quite guilty of yankification: Janeway, Paris, Kim, Lewis Zimmerman (though they borrowed him from DS9, he's mentionned here because the EMH is his creation).
ENT:
- Sato is Japanese. (could have made her Korean, since Linda Park is and we've had Japanese characters before)
- Reed is British (English variety).
- Mayweather is from nowhere (he's leaving very soon, not sure if he'll pass close to the back side of the moon).
Archer and Tucker are seppos.
They still do "feel" American (a lot less so for TNG, IMO), but that's because the actors mostly are and the writers, too.
Not sure why you say "until DSC". Aren't Stamets, Tilly and Lorca all Americans? And maybe Georgiou? Not to mention Burnham's heritage (but then the same applies to the Crushers and Mayweather).
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No one's really. The Federation is unwilling to step in there, possibly out of fear of irritating the Romulan Free State, and the Romulan Free State lacks to the resources for any meaningful power projection in the area.
I had assumed many of characters you listed like Laforge, Uhura, Sato and Sulu were from the US because of their accents I don't read the bios so unless it is mentioned like some of the off worlders or obviously not from the US like Bashir or Scotty I assumed they were American.
As for DIS I should have been clearer that I was more talking about human culture like the addition of non US names for ships but ya crew wise you are actually right
As far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to be in anyone's territory.
Or else it's in the territory of a government that doesn't care about genocide, forced medical experiments and ongoing AI research. Which we know is not the Federation.
Well, that Sato wasn’t declared to be Korean doesn’t really matter, since there are Koreans that live in Japan anyways. Kind of figured Sato has a Korean ancestor of sorts and that her upbringing was Japanese. It was just never brought up during the show, and shouldn't really matter in Star Trek anyways.
On topic, there are four unique takes on the post-Dominion War Federation, prior to PIC:
DS9 – Federation recovering from Dominion war losses, like the other major powers involved in the war
VOY – new technologies and knowledge of the Delta Quadrant, as well as knowledge of the Federation spread through the Delta Quadrant
NEM – political instability in the Romulan Empire leads to a Federation-Romulan Alliance
ST ’09 – Vulcans tried to help prevent the destruction of Romulus; clearly failed
When you take them into account when understanding the universe that PIC created, the 14 Federation worlds that wanted to leave, and the destruction Mars were a pair of suckerpunches to a recovering Federation. Assisting Romulus became one to many tests for them to handle, resulting the Federation basically curling up into a ball on the issue.
Then add in that the Romulans still hold a grudge dating back to first contact with Archer in ENT. The Federation has probably thrown up their hands in regards to the Romulans, at least on a political level. They are welcoming of Romulan refugees, which is in line with the Federation spirit.
As for Freecloud, I guess its supposed to be the anti-Risa, if that makes any sense.
