What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

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paladin
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What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by paladin »

I found this on Youtube. It's a fan produced web series. I watched the episode (link below) and was impressed by how much it feels like the original series. The only problem I had was Kirk returning Lolani since the Federation didn't want an incident with the Orions. Didn't the Federation oppose slavery and would attempt to stop it where possible?

Star Trek Continues E02 "Lolani" - A survivor (an Orion slave girl) from a distressed Tellarite vessel pulls Captain Kirk and his crew into a moral quandary over her sovereignty. Whether she should be returned to her original Orion master or freed?

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mOpmIFTxkE
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by Prometheus Unbound »

Internal matter. Not seen the episode, but if they're not Federation citizens, there isn't much they can do about it, unless they ask for asylum. If they asked for asylum and were denied, that goes against most of Trek - but since it's not canon it doesn't matter.

See Cardassia and Bajor.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by Lord Revan »

I got the feeling from the TOS episodes I watched that Orion was a pretty strong minor power and like the Cardassian Union or similar, so UFP wouldn't want to piss them of on what's essentially an internal matter without a good reason, for all we know the Federation council is applying political pressure to what ever passes for a government for the Orions to stop the slavery.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by StarSword »

Lord Revan wrote:I got the feeling from the TOS episodes I watched that Orion was a pretty strong minor power and like the Cardassian Union or similar, so UFP wouldn't want to piss them of on what's essentially an internal matter without a good reason, for all we know the Federation council is applying political pressure to what ever passes for a government for the Orions to stop the slavery.
Non-canon but I think the EU says that the Orion government either is the Orion Syndicate (i.e. the same people doing the slaving) or has been completely corrupted by it.

My bet: The UFP and other similarly inclined governments (I think DS9 mentioned that even the Ferengi hate the idea of slavery) interdict it when it crosses their borders and provide asylum to escapees (one of the writers for ST09 said the latter was the case for Gaila), and retaliate when the Orions raid their own people (ref: ENT: "Bound"), but otherwise leave it be, either because of the Prime Directive or because it's not worth the effort to try stopping it altogether.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by Batman »

paladin wrote:I found this on Youtube. It's a fan produced web series. I watched the episode (link below) and was impressed by how much it feels like the original series. The only problem I had was Kirk returning Lolani since the Federation didn't want an incident with the Orions. Didn't the Federation oppose slavery and would attempt to stop it where possible?

The operative term here being 'where possible'. As others have mentioned, the Orions may have been too strong politically, militarily or economically (or any combination thereof) for Starfleet to risk pissing them off. Which, I might add, Kirk is perfectly willing to do anyway because he didn't particularly like his orders. (Which is of course totally unprecedented)
And I knew that slaver fellow looked and sounded familiar!

Also pretty damned good production value for a fanfilm. Other than Spock and Uhura their cast is reasonably close to either the old or the new TOS visually and voice-wise, female security guards FTW, and I think their uniforms actually look better than the original's.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by Panashe »

paladin wrote:The only problem I had was Kirk returning Lolani
Because of the Federation's version of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by FTeik »

Wasn't it revealed in "Enterprise" (pre-TOS), that it were actually the (female) slaves, who were calling the shots with the Orions?
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by Elheru Aran »

FTeik wrote:Wasn't it revealed in "Enterprise" (pre-TOS), that it were actually the (female) slaves, who were calling the shots with the Orions?
The problem there is that Enterprise's canonicity is kind of on the shady side, thanks to the whole "oh hey it's a holodeck" reveal in the finale... That said, STO has run with that concept to some degree, where you see Orion girls running crews on that fucking Nimbus planet. They also have male gang bosses, so their culture isn't that weird matriarchy they tried to pull it off as in Enterprise.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by FaxModem1 »

Only the last episode is a holodeck adventure, and we could say that it gets a lot of things wrong. We see it that way from how things look differently than for the rest of the series, with nametags, T'pol wearing makeup, the bridge being different, etc.

Also, in the novels, though non-canon, say that the whole thing was essentially a stinker of a holodeck adventure that Riker rather disliked because of how much it varied from history and how awful the writing was. Also, Tucker wasn't killed and lived the rest of his life with T'pol on Vulcan after the Romulan War.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by Lord Revan »

Elheru Aran wrote:
FTeik wrote:Wasn't it revealed in "Enterprise" (pre-TOS), that it were actually the (female) slaves, who were calling the shots with the Orions?
The problem there is that Enterprise's canonicity is kind of on the shady side, thanks to the whole "oh hey it's a holodeck" reveal in the finale... That said, STO has run with that concept to some degree, where you see Orion girls running crews on that fucking Nimbus planet. They also have male gang bosses, so their culture isn't that weird matriarchy they tried to pull it off as in Enterprise.
STO seems to have a hybrid of the ENT and pre-ENT Orions, essentially that while in the end the Orion Syndicate is a Matriarchy, men can and have gained major influence and power within it (like the "boss" of Nimbus III), also not all Orion women have great power within the syndicate. and some slave girls are just that slaves with little to no power over their lives. IMHO this is a better version to the ENT one as it explains why claiming an orion female is a slave still works in TOS and possibly TNG era, cause it can be true.
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Re: What was the Federation view of Orion slavery(TOS era)?

Post by EnterpriseSovereign »

Lord Revan wrote:
Elheru Aran wrote:
FTeik wrote:Wasn't it revealed in "Enterprise" (pre-TOS), that it were actually the (female) slaves, who were calling the shots with the Orions?
The problem there is that Enterprise's canonicity is kind of on the shady side, thanks to the whole "oh hey it's a holodeck" reveal in the finale... That said, STO has run with that concept to some degree, where you see Orion girls running crews on that fucking Nimbus planet. They also have male gang bosses, so their culture isn't that weird matriarchy they tried to pull it off as in Enterprise.
STO seems to have a hybrid of the ENT and pre-ENT Orions, essentially that while in the end the Orion Syndicate is a Matriarchy, men can and have gained major influence and power within it (like the "boss" of Nimbus III), also not all Orion women have great power within the syndicate. and some slave girls are just that slaves with little to no power over their lives. IMHO this is a better version to the ENT one as it explains why claiming an orion female is a slave still works in TOS and possibly TNG era, cause it can be true.
The Vanguard series of books builds on this, with some of the seemingly powerful men actually being more of a figurehead while behind the scenes it's actually a woman pulling the strings. Vanguard also fleshes out the origins of the Nimbus 3 project, and how most of the trouble that arose on that world was actually Klingon due to the empire sending mostly disgraced/undesirable colonists.

STO also establishes that the Orions are now part of the Klingon empire, and there's nothing stopping members of their race captaining Klingon warships :mrgreen:
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