Why was the Mirror Universe classified?

In "Journey to Babel," the Enterprise was transporting ambassadors from Federation planets to a neutral planetoid to negotiate, debate, and decide the admittance of a currently unaligned system, Coridan, to the Federation. Sarek, et al., were ambassadors from Federation planets engaged in negotiations with a non-Federation member. Calling them "ambassadors" is therefore quite the appropriate term.

What these ambassadors were not necessarily, though, were members of the Federation parliamentary body who represented Federation member worlds as legislators who created internal Federation law as part of the routine activity of the Federation government.

In other words, no implication of how law is created in the Federation can be gleaned from the fact that the Federation was sending ambassadors to debate and decide the issue of the admittance of Coridan to the Federation. All we know is that the power to decide that particular issue had been delegated by the Federation to the representative body of ambassadors from member worlds that the Enterprise was carrying.

 

Except that Kirk and company were clearly unaware until they got there that Ardana had those practices. I've always inferred that Ardana got into the Federation under false pretenses. If its social structure were widely known, the Starfleet representatives visiting the place would have been prepared for it.

(Of course, that problem could easily have been sidestepped at the script level just by making Ardana a candidate for Federation membership. But that was hardly the only problem with the episode; it wasn't exactly a standout, even by third-season standards.)

 

The local officials made it clear that it wouldn't have mattered if they HAD known:

KIRK: Are you afraid the filter masks will work? Is that why you don't want the Troglytes to try them?
PLASUS [on monitor]: You are here to complete an emergency mission, not conduct tests, Captain.
KIRK: I am here to get that zenite. If these will help me get them, I'll use them.
PLASUS [on monitor]: And I forbid it. Your Federation orders do not entitle you to defy local governments. This communication has ended.​

Federation law doesn't trump Ardana's sovereignty, nor is Ardana doing anything illegal enough for Kirk to be compelled to intervene. In point of fact, even giving the filters to the Troglytes is technically a violation of LOCAL law, and Kirk does it on his own initiative based on a very liberal interpretation of his own orders.

 

Well, no, they were engaged in negotiations with one another. As made clear from the episode, different members had competing interests Coridan's membership or lack thereof:

Captain's log, Stardate 3842.4. The interplanetary conference will consider the petition of the Coridan planets to be admitted to the Federation. The Coridan system has been claimed by some of the races now aboard our ship as delegates, races who have strong personal reasons for keeping Coridan out of the Federation.​

I do believe that Coridan ITSELF didn't have a delegation present at this debate (the absence of an ambassador from the story-line would be very conspicuous considering everything else that's going on), so this was mainly a meeting by Federation delegates to decide among themselves whether or not Coridan's petition would be accepted or not.

You would think, however, that even if Coridan DID have a representative, that they would be considering its petition for membership at Federation headquarters, yes? Not a neutral asteroid far from anyone's territory. The fact that it's "neutral" literally means that it isn't controlled by any Federation member per se, which means the different members don't really trust each other and don't want to meet under territory that any one of them actually controls. So again, while this suggests they may decide the matter by vote, none of the people who do the voting are elected officials.

Except to say that it's a matter for the diplomatic corps of Federation members individually and NOT for a separate legislative body of elected representatives. This is either because no such body exists, or because the Federation Council is the equivalent of the U.N. General Assembly in which case they literally ARE the legislative body collectively (and Ambassador Sarek is the equivalent of a senator).

It's not clear exactly how the Federation passes its laws, but it is VERY clear that the issue of Coridan was going to be settled at the Babel Conference and not by any body of elected representatives.

 

Exactly. That's exactly the point, which is why "Journey to Babel" can't be used to support the idea that the Federation is not a democracy.

 

But Kirk says that it is!

And, in a weird coincidence, this video popped up on my YT feed. Now, I'm not endorsing it. But, I found it amusing:

 

It supports the idea, as I explained in the second half of that sentence, that an important issue like adding a new member to the Federation isn't settled by elected representatives, but by diplomats.

We don't even know for sure that the Federation is an actual government in the 23rd century. Again, like the United Nations it could just as easily be an alliance or treaty organization.

 

Disagree.

 

It seems to me to be tighter than that. For one thing, they can write treaties with other unified territories, like the Klingon Empire for example.

 

Technically, so can the United Nations, although everyone party to those treaties have to ratify them.

And in "Journey to Babel" it's strongly implied that the conference was being called as a way to avoid interstellar war. Question is, war between WHO? It's strongly implied that the war might break out between competing Federation members -- e.g. Vulcan and Tellar, or Andor, etc -- and this possibility is strong enough that the Orions deliberately tried to spoil the conference and TRIGGER that very war.

What's also interesting is that nobody in that episode calls this a possible CIVIL war. Apparently, at this point in history, Federation members are all still mostly (if not entirely) sovereign states.

 

No, not really. MU Archer told Hoshi at the end he was going to wipe of the database but then a few minutes later, MU Archer was dead due to Hoshi's poisoning him. So unless Hoshi decided to wipe the database herself afterwards, it never got wiped.

Also, I was amazed in the last DS9 MU episode 'The Emperors New Cloak' how casual the whole MU thing got. Everyone (like everyone) new about the MU, Rom even left his Padd laying around with designs for the MU transporter device (that was invented by MU O'Brien) that the Nagus used to get to the MU and try to open trade with them! I'm sure the Ferengi sold the device design to other races for a profit. By the time Nemesis rolled around, I'm sure there were a lot of people who had the capability to go back and forth to MU

 

Love this! Hopefully all this stuff is being protected by 'Top Men'! LOL

 

True but I believe there is a great possibility that Hoshi agreed with Archer's reason (Given that her ambition was similar to his) and wiped off the database after her coup d'etat to limit the possibility of a revolt.