Why was the Federation created?

[Captain Robert April]

Howzabout this: Part of the responsibility of member planets, at least those of a certain size, is to maintain a certain number of Starfleet vessels. This would not only account for Kirk's UESPA citations, but would also for the Enterprise's almost all-human crew, just as it would account for the all-Vulcan crew of the USS Intrepid; their operating authority was probably some branch of the Vulcan Science Academy. Somewhere, there's probably a starship with an all Andorian crew.

If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense to have your crew predominantly of one species. You only have to set your shipwide environmental systems to accommodate one standard, with any individuals from other species with different environmental standards only having to worry about their own quarters. So, the common areas of the Enterprise can be set to 72 degrees, while Spock can set his own quarters to a nice balmy standard Vulcan spring temperature of 120. By the same token, the shipwide temp of whatever ship the Andorians have can be set to a nice comfy 45 (comfy for Andorians, at least).

 

[Myasishchev]

I would also speculate there's another issue that may have occured to Roddenberry, Coon and company: here you have these starships, crewed by some humans, some non-humans, and they have that big "U.S.S." painted across the hull, which Pike called United Space Ship". Note that it's not the same "U.S.S." as applied to today's naval vessels, which are "United States Ship". So if it's not the United States Navy, whose navy is it? United what?

Well, it must be something more than United Earth, and you'll notice it's not "U.E.S." So I suspect that line of discussion may have come up and it led to the Federation concept, as well as that of Starfleet.

I have always liked "United Starfleet Ship," and have entertained the notion of a "United Starfleet" that existed as a NATO-like force of United Earth ships, Vulcan ships (ala the Intrepid), and so forth, which would be a precursor to the 24th century fully-integrated "plain" Starfleet (or "UFP Starfleet") we're much more familiar with due to a lot more canon works. But the "USS" was never dropped.

I don't think the UN-in-space, NATO-in-space, or even EU-in-space model remotely resembles what's actually shown in the 24th century shows, which is almost definitely, as Sci implies here and has said in the past, a federal republic. But as for the 23d century, the segregated crews, early-on references to United Earth, and TOS episodes like "Journey to Babel" (possibilities of war between members) and "The Cloud Minders" (A FEDERATION PLANET OPENLY USES SLAVE LABOR) paint a picture of a legally, culturally, and militarily heterogenous, extremely squabbly alliance, Articles of Confederation-level federalism at absolute best, a mere collective security arrangement at worst.

 

[Timo]

...Vulcan ships (ala the Intrepid)

To be sure, the Intrepid was never referred to as "Vulcan ship". We had things like "Medusan vessel" or "Romulan ship" in other episodes, but the Intrepid was never considered "Vulcan"; she was merely said to be "manned by Vulcans".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

...Vulcan ships (ala the Intrepid)

To be sure, the Intrepid was never referred to as "Vulcan ship". We had things like "Medusan vessel" or "Romulan ship" in other episodes, but the Intrepid was never considered "Vulcan"; she was merely said to be "manned by Vulcans".

Timo Saloniemi

"The Immunity Syndrome" makes it very clear that the ill-fated Starship Intrepid is manned by "four hundred Vulcans" (McCoy's exclamation to Spock, which Spock did not contradict), in other words, most if not the entire Intrepid crew were Vulcanian.

 

[Wingsley]

Howzabout this: Part of the responsibility of member planets, at least those of a certain size, is to maintain a certain number of Starfleet vessels. This would not only account for Kirk's UESPA citations, but would also for the Enterprise's almost all-human crew, just as it would account for the all-Vulcan crew of the USS Intrepid; their operating authority was probably some branch of the Vulcan Science Academy. Somewhere, there's probably a starship with an all Andorian crew.

If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense to have your crew predominantly of one species. You only have to set your shipwide environmental systems to accommodate one standard, with any individuals from other species with different environmental standards only having to worry about their own quarters. So, the common areas of the Enterprise can be set to 72 degrees, while Spock can set his own quarters to a nice balmy standard Vulcan spring temperature of 120. By the same token, the shipwide temp of whatever ship the Andorians have can be set to a nice comfy 45 (comfy for Andorians, at least).

This is much how I reconciled the UESPA / Starfleet / "only twelve like it in the fleet" issue. Think of the Federation Council as "the Club" non-aligned alien worlds and colonies of Federation member-worlds are not directly involved in. How does one join "the Club"? I wondered about that for some time. Given the procession of obnoxious bureaucrats and political personalities we've seen, it's obviously an insular, "you can't play in my sandbox if I don't let you" clique. "The Galileo Seven", "A Taste of Armageddon", "Metamorphosis", and "The Trouble With Tribbles" should make that clear.

So, how does one join "the Club"? Well, we've seen from TNG's 4th-year ep "First Contact" that warp activity becomes the threshold for basic interaction between the Federation and alien societies. Pre-warp societies like the "Roman" inhabitants of 892-IV and Zeon/Ekos are handled more gingerly by the Prime Directive. But when you're ready to join "the Club", you're well beyond Malkor III. You don't just have warp drive and open trade relations with the UFP, you're ready to proove yourself as a viable member and a major player/contributor. I doesn't take an Einstein to see that the Enterprise was being refit/rebuilt for TMP in Earth orbit for an obvious reason. She's a UESPA-sponsored Federation Starship. That makes her Earth's pride-and-joy well before she's a Federation flagship.

So, here's how it would have to work: each Federation council member would have to prove itself by sponsoring a number of Federation starships, all built to Starfleet specs and prooven in trail runs. Enterprise, and quite possibly Lexington, Defiant, and maybe Constellation, Excalibur, Hood and Potempkin, (and presumably others) would be UESPA-sponsored, meaning it's the responsibility of United Earth to build, test, and predominantly man each of these ships to validate Earth's role as a player. Spock's presence as the token Vulcan was likely a political decision. He's not a spy, but he is there in addition to his duties to report on the ship's normal operations per Starfleet regulations. The would explain why he's science officer, XO and a walking rule book.

It would also make sense that Federation starships would have crews of similar species, if not each one being only a single species, since that would make it easier to set up the Sickbay and medical staff to care for everyone the same.

 

[Timo]

"The Immunity Syndrome" makes it very clear that the ill-fated Starship Intrepid is manned by "four hundred Vulcans" (McCoy's exclamation to Spock, which Spock did not contradict), in other words, most if not the entire Intrepid crew were Vulcanian.

Quite - and the interesting point is that this still isn't enough to make her a "Vulcan ship" in dialogue!

She's just a ship crewed by Vulcans. And the Enterprise is a ship crewed by humans. And Kirk later on in the episode emphasizes that there are no real differences between the two ships and the two crews, with the implied pessimism on Kirk's chances. All that Spock can respond with is a bit of pep talk, after which Kirk starts calling his crew the best in Starfleet. These morale-raiser speeches never even remotely hint at hard facts that would amount to a difference between the Intrepid and the Enterprise, in terms of technology or organization.

It thus sounds that the Intrepid is no more a "Vulcan ship" than the Enterprise is an "Earth ship". If Kirk's vessel is available for doing general federal services under the UFP flag (and we see this often enough), so in all likelihood is the Intrepid. Semantically speaking, "Immunity Syndrome" then undermines the idea of "national fleets" more than it supports the idea...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

^ I don't see what Captain Robert April and I were talking about as an "idea of national fleets". Note that I put forth the notion of sponsorship. The Enterprise has, on numerous occasions, been described alternately as an "Earth ship" and as a "Federation starship". The notion of member-world agencies contributing to the Star Fleet doesn't need to parallel the United Nations. Rather, it can be seen as a unique super-nation, both generated by and superimposed over those member-worlds that would be part of the Federation Council.

 

[Sci]

The Enterprise was only ever described as an Earth ship before the writers created the Federation.

Seems to me that we ought to ignore such references and acknowledge that the creation of the Federation in "A Taste of Armageddon" constituted a retcon -- that the characters are actually saying "Federation" and "Starfleet" when in the pre-"Taste" episodes they say "United Earth" and "UESPA."

 

[Captain Robert April]

I really don't like revisionism, especially not on the scale of where we have to start rewriting dialogue. For one thing, where does that road end? Plus, it's also a cheat. Why bother to try and reconcile an apparent discrepancy when you can just blink and wish it away?

Plus, with my work on the new Concordance, those mismatches have to be dealt with. So pretending that Kirk said something else simply isn't an option.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I really don't like revisionism, especially not on the scale of where we have to start rewriting dialogue. For one thing, where does that road end? Plus, it's also a cheat. Why bother to try and reconcile an apparent discrepancy when you can just blink and wish it away?

Plus, with my work on the new Concordance, those mismatches have to be dealt with. So pretending that Kirk said something else simply isn't an option.

Isn't that what the writers and producers did?

 

[Wingsley]

Maybe, maybe not.

It's not like any of the characters ever denied the notion of United Earth after the Federation concept was introduced.

So we either have an apparent discrepancy, or there's some other explanation. The whole point of this thread, as I understood it at least, was to go back to the early eps of TOS and explore what happened with the Federation notion and ask "why". That seems to open up the door to a variety of approaches, both looking at the show's creative process and looking at the Federation in-universe. Sci can retcon it by replacing UESPA with Starfleet, or CRA can contend that UESPA and Starfleet are deeply involved with each other as part of the unique nature of how the Federation works. Either one seems to hold water just as well as the other.

 

[Nerys Myk]

They changed their minds plain and simple and were not worried about reconciling conflicting information. As professionals of that era they didnt think that that way. Moving forward was their main concern. The producers did not like "United Earth" and UESPA so they changed them. Star Trek was evolving even as the episodes were filmed and aired. As far as the producers were concerned the most recent information presented was "correct", the previous information was "wrong".

My impression of the thread is it was looking for reasons the show runners made the change, not an in-universe explanation.

 

[Myasishchev]

Well, that's reasonably clear--they wanted a society so inclusive that it would accept weird aliens, making human divisions even more meaningless. Ethnic and national divisions would probably remain major problems under a world government, no matter how freely entered into, but with a many-worlds government, that sort of thing would come off as bizarre as it (perhaps) really is.

 

[T'Girl]

... just as it would account for the all-Vulcan crew of the USS Intrepid ...

Just took a fast look, the Intrepid was never referred to as USS.

Okay try this one on for size. The series Enterprise made clear that during Captain Archers time period "Star Fleet" was entirely a earth organization. Move forward in time a century, Star Fleet is still solely a United Earth organization, Star Fleet is a sub-division of the UESPA which also handles pure civilian space missions and human colonies, other things too. The USS Enterprise is, in fact, a earth ship, it was built in earth orbit, the bulk of officers and enlisted crew are humans. The Star Fleet Academy in San Fransisco is a also a division of UESPA, again United Earth.

Lets take it farther, the outposts along the Romulan neutral zone are earth outposts. From Balance Of Terror:

SPOCK: Referring to the map on your screens, you will note beyond the moving position of our vessel, a line of Earth outpost stations. Constructed on asteroids, they monitor the Neutral Zone established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict a century ago.

The various starbases we've seen are also United Earth. Every ship during Kirk's time that's called a Star Fleet vessel is United Earth. United Earth is a Federation member.

Other Federation members have their own organizations, ships, fleets (or not) and bases to service them. They call their organizations by various names, but not star fleet. The Federation during Kirk's time period has no organic fleet of it's own. When the Enterprise is on a Federation mission, Kirk might refer to the ship as a Federation starship, but how many times did he do that total? And the Federation couldn't directly issue orders to Kirk, they would have to go through United Earth / UESPA / Star Fleet's chain of command.

The Federation isn't yet a strong central government, individual member worlds are still using ambassdors directly with each other, by-passing the Federation. A Federation member might be composed of a multiple world state. A home world, colonies and former colonies that have a political association seperate from the Federation.

By Picard's time this all may all have changed.

 

[Timo]

I'd argue that the Earth outposts relating to the old Romulan conflict shouldn't affect the discussion on the nature of TOS Starfleet at all. UN forces could reinforce South Korean fortifications in the 1950s without the UN becoming a Korean military force... Or the RAF could fly in support of the Maginot line in WWII without becoming a French air force. A "truly interstellar" Starfleet wouldn't need to take over all the old Earth outposts or Vulcan listening stations or Andorian gunnery emplacements that are of scant military significance in the 2260s. OTOH, no dedicated Earth military or Vulcan spy agency or Andorian guard would be needed to crew those installations; obscure, separate detachments could handle those, while all starship services could come from the unified Starfleet.

Also, I would be careful never to mix UESPA and either Earth's or the Federation's military forces. A "space probe agency" ain't military - at most it's a cover name for something intelligence-related. UESPA could be one of Starfleet's many scientific affiliates or associates, having started as such for UE Starfleet and continuing as such for UFP Starfleet. UESPA never did anything military in its two TOS appearances, or in the name-droppings in VOY or ENT.

Sure, one may postulate a more or less "national" organization for Earth's corner-patriotic military needs. But one should invent a new name for it. UESPA shouldn't be it.

And returning to the Intrepid, if she isn't exactly established as a Starfleet vessels, she is at least described as the exact counterpart to Kirk's ship in every practical respect. If she really were operated by a separate organization, then we should be able to discern this from the dialogue. The gist of the episode is that she's either from the very same Starfleet, or then from an organization that perfectly parallels Kirk's Starfleet. The above idea of an Earth Starfleet in TOS times is perfectly fine, but the Intrepid should then be argued to be from a parallel Vulcan Starfleet. Alternately, both could be from the unified organization.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[startrekrcks]

I think it is very interesting the federation, you like it.

 

[Wingsley]

Can this discussion be any more like your crazy uncle in his old Roadrunner, doing donuts in his favorite parking lot after hours? You betcha!

Other than the mention of "four hundred Vulcans" in "The Immunity Syndrome", we cannot discern what kind of vessel the Intrepid was. The 400 reference, combined with the mention of her being a "starship", and Starfleet ordering Kirk to divert the Enterprise and "report progress" after stating "we've just lost contact with the Intrepid" seems to strongly suggest that Intrepid was a Constitution-class Federation starship crewed mostly (in not entirely) by Vulcans and that the ship was therefore sponsored by Vulcan. But none of that is explicitly established in "Immunity". It is merely implicit, especially following up on the repair orders given by Commodore Stone in "Court Martial" which have also been a topic of speculation and extrapolation for many years.

We only saw another Connie in orbit of Starbase 11 in TOS Remastered, with the implication given that it would have to be the Intrepid.

For me, the notion of "the Club" serves as an in-Universe way to reconcile the "United Earth" and "Federation" terms, as well as to establish what it would take, in-Universe for a Federation Council member-world to actually get a seat on the council in the first place. I know some people aren't going to buy into it, and there seems to be a push to retcon the "United Earth" mentions in the show's dialogue out of existence for some reason, but it does seem to be a way to reconcile all these fragmentary references sprinkled throughout the series.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Personally, I think reconciling all the differing references makes for a much more interesting universe. Retconning it all away with a wave of the metaphorical hand is just boring.

 

[Wingsley]

^ I agree, but if there's one lesson I've learned over the last 20 years in talking with other TREK fans, it's that TREK canon can be vague enough at times such that if you ask 11 different people what something means you'll likely get 11 different answers. This vagueness has the advantage of making the show appeal to a very broad, diverse audience. For instance, I talked to one guy who was a libertarian and he felt that TOS showed us a Federation that was essentially a utopian anarchy. Another person I talked to regarded Roddenberry's vision as a socialist utopia. The more I looked at the show and talked with these people, the more I understood that one of the greatest things about TOS (which probably keeps it so popular to this day) was that the shows relied so heavily on imagination rather than showing us everything including new special FX all the time. That reliance on imagination, mostly perpetuated by the actors' spoken words, allowed many folks to more engaged than they were from later series like SPACE : 1999 and the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, both of which relied more heavily on FX. By engaging the audience's imagination, TOS did more with less. To this day, it never ceases to amaze me how much more they did!

 

[Nerys Myk]

Personally, I think reconciling all the differing references makes for a much more interesting universe. Retconning it all away with a wave of the metaphorical hand is just boring.

As do I. But the producers at the time, not so much. And IIRC, that was the question.