I grew up in the nineties, which I think was the golden era of Trek. Alongside cartoons, I could watch TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager regularly on the tube. Some of my first memories involved me sitting at the foot of my sisters bed watching Star Trek on her thirteen inch television while my father snored away to the sound of a football game in the livingroom. I was still very young, and my ethical sensibilities hadn't yet been tainted by the horrors of the real world or the lifetime of rhetoric which leaves the many confused. Before I even knew another government existed aside from the United States of America, I found myself standing in stark opposition to another government and its "ethics," and that government didn't even exist. It was fictious. It was the United Federation of Planets.
I saw the deep prejudice and hate on the bridge of the Enterprise when, during TOS's Balance of Terror, Spock's crewmembers turned on him because the Romulan offshoot of his race happened to be their adversaries in combat. He wasn't them, but he looked like them, and that was enough to hate him in the Federation.
I saw something very similar during TNG's The Drumhead where a crewman was turned on by his shipmates after it was discovered that he's half Romulan, and thus may be sympathetic with or even in league with Romulans, which lead his crewmembers and representatives of the Federation justice system believe he was a Romulan agent. In that episode, it was also discussed that it had been necessary to lie about his Romulan heritage on his application to Starfleet, making the organization prejudice against Romulans generally.
In VOY's Tuvix, captain Janeway ordered her officer, Lieutenant Tuvix, to sacrifice his life in order to bring Tuvok and Nelix back to life. Tuvix pleaded, arguing that he is a conscious, sentient being just like every other member of the crew, and that he has the right to live. He said that to force him to sacrifice himself would be to execute him. His shipmates, who he'd developed so called "friendships" were stonefaced and apparently unsympathetic as he turned his pleas to them. He called them "good people" as they marched him to his execution, but it was only the doctor who would stand up for him, refusing to carry out the procedure which would leave Tuvix dead. Janeway didn't flinch however, and performed the procedure herself, killing Tuvix.
During TNG's The Measure of a Man, the Federation wants to dismantle and study Data, including if against his will, because Federation philosophy is such to allow a machine the rank and title of lieutenant commander, and yet the Federation doesn't percieve that machine to be equal to a Human. They gave him a uniform, trained him at Starfleet academy, gave him a position of leadership and prestige aboard the Federation's storied flagship, but now suddenly he not quite "real." He a thing, not a person. As the Klingon Chancellor's daughter said in Star Trek VI, " the whole Federation is a human club." That outsider's perspective seems to ring true here as well. They judge Data to be suddenly unworthy of the title of life and the self-determination or protection that other Federation citizens allowed, because it's now inconvenient for them. They want to strip him apart and learn from him. They had to be convinced that this was wrong, because the Federation is filled with bigoted opportunists that apply far too much value to the importance of their species.
In DS9's Dr Bashir I Presume it's revealed that the doctor was secretly given genetic enhancements as a child, in order to offset what sounded to be retardation. He was given the opportunity to live a rich, normal life, except that he was forced to keep his genetic enhancement a secret. Those who have their genes modified are looked down upon in the Federation, treated no only as outcasts and second-class citizens, but perhaps as criminals. Bashir says that had he revealed these enhancements on his Starfleet application, he wouldn't have been accepted into Starfleet. In fact, because his father took Bashir to the doctor as a child in order to cure his apparent retardation, his father was imprisoned for this crime against the state. As immoral as that is, what's perhaps equally immoral among the psyche of Federation citizens, and that Bashir apparently never even considered resigning from the government which imprisoned his father for healing him. Instead, he was content to go on about life in service to both his and his father's opressors, as DS9's token genetic, sometimes working with the other genetically enhanced individuals, who happen to be imprisoned by the Federation, presumably only for the fact of their enhancements.
In another DS9 episode, it's revealed that the Federation's Section 31 had infected Odo with a disease, which would lay dorminant in Odo, allowing him to transmit the disease to the other Founders once he linked with them. The intended goal was the genocide of the Founders.
In DS9's Chimera, Odo catches a glimpse of the Federations bigotry and xenophobic behavior in observing the reactions to a fellow shapeshifter. With Odo naturally troubled by what he's observed, Quark tries to justify the behavior, saying "Don't you get it, Odo? We humanoids are a product of millions of years of evolution. Our ancestors learned the hard way that what you don't know might kill you. They wouldn't have survived if they hadn't jumped back when they encountered a snake coiled in the muck; and now, millions of years later, that instinct is still there. It's genetic. Our tolerance to other life forms doesn't extend beyond the two-arm, two-leg variety. I hate to break this to you; but when you're in your natural state, you're more than our poor old genes can handle."
I could go on and on, about the enslavement of holograms, the forced relocation of Native Americans or the many unethical incidents involving the Federation's "Prime Directive," but I'll only mention one such example - an episode which came many years later, in the form of ENT's Dear Doctor. The Federation wouldn't exist yet for another few years, but it's clear in this episode what drove the Federation's founding principles. In the episode, we see two sentient species coexisting on the same planet, both having evolved together on that same world. One of the species was far more advanced than the other, and that species was standing at the brink of extinction. Dr Phlox created a cure to what ails them, but decides to withold that cure because he doesn't wish to "choose one species over the other," despite that both species coexist happily together, and would most likely continue to do so. Archer goes on to make a statement that's an allusion to the coming Prime Directive, ending with "we didn't come out here to play god." The Federation doesn't cure this new species they've met. They condemn them to extinction. In the opening moments of this human club's Trek among the Stars, it's stepped onto the galactic stage with the act of shameless, needless genocide.
Hardly shocking, considering that throughout Enterprise, and especially in the opening episodes, we were shown more than a glimpse of humanities bigoted hatred of Vulcans. The humans were furious with the Vulcans for "holding them back" by not handing over their warp technology. Yet, one of the first things they did with that warp technology was deny another species the cure they need prevent extinction. What's perhaps worse than them letting those aliens die, is how comfortable they were with letting those aliens die. With letting every alien of that species die, and feeling that they "did the right thing." If the Federation is founded on beliefs which involve mass murder being "the right thing," then there's something very, very wrong with the Federation.
"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth. It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based. And if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform." - Jean Luc Picard
These are the words of a man who is the result of generations of social conditioning, propaganda and outright brainwashing. There is nothing good and benevolent abotu Starfleet's "guiding principles." There is only an empire, expanding by dagger and deception, on its path to dominating the quadrant by hegemony, supported by the deluded galactic police that is Starfleet.
Yet, somehow I love Star Trek. Seen every movie, every episode of every series, played every game, watch the fanfilms. Go figure. I'd put on that uniform in a second if Starfleet was real, but Starfleet is the Evil Empire if there ever was one. I guess you could think of Star Trek as Federation propaganda, and we've all been brainwashed by it. I'm not sure I'd be very well accepted in Starfleet though. Kirk was racist against Klingons. Picard prejudice against Borg. Stiles against Romulans. O'Brien again Cardasians. Archer against Vulcans. I see a pattern here. You have to be filled with hate to wear the Starfleet uniform.
