The Federation - evil ?

David · Post by **David** » 2002-07-13 01:49pm

Kim lives through anything. One episode he died and was replaced by a alternate universe Harry. Then it was never mentioned again the rest of the show run.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-07-13 02:03pm

The Federation is most likely communist, or at least leaning that way.

1) No money. This is stated by Picard sevral times.
2) No corporations. Ever seen a company logo on any widget used in Trek? Hell, at least the Falcon had a registration number.
3) No private starships anywhere in the Federation. Hell, Troi's mom needed to hitch a lift in a message pod for Bob's sake.
4) No religion. Not since Kirk's time has there been any sign of a religion.

Anyone familiar with the Communist Manifesto knows all these are vital to a Communist regime. And we know humans don't work right in a Communist regime, it's against our nature. So if the Federation's citizens are content, they are being brainwashed or coerced in some way.

Ai Phling Pu · Post by **Ai Phling Pu** » 2002-07-13 02:19pm

To further develope my statement, "Oh yeah? If you don't work, we'll cut off your power!"

"Noooo! I'll work, I'll work!"

So a citizen has to work for the Federation in order to keep their happy drugs And people say there isn't any form of control, silly ducky...

Where the hell did you come up with that? Is that dialogue canon, or did your weird Warsie propaganda machine just churn that straight out from between your buttocks?

Ai Phling Pu · Post by **Ai Phling Pu** » 2002-07-13 02:24pm

The Federation is most likely communist, or at least leaning that way.

1) No money. This is stated by Picard sevral times.
2) No corporations. Ever seen a company logo on any widget used in Trek? Hell, at least the Falcon had a registration number.
3) No private starships anywhere in the Federation. Hell, Troi's mom needed to hitch a lift in a message pod for Bob's sake.
4) No religion. Not since Kirk's time has there been any sign of a religion.

Anyone familiar with the Communist Manifesto knows all these are vital to a Communist regime. And we know humans don't work right in a Communist regime, it's against our nature. So if the Federation's citizens are content, they are being brainwashed or coerced in some way.

Hmm, interesting! You do have a good point there, but not as it applies to Trek. Several Fed characters are known to have private starships. Or do you think the Maquis just walked around the DMZ and the Badlands causing trouble? No religion, well that's just a reflection of what's going on in America right now, wouldn't you say?

After all, Science says there is no God. We all came from monkeys. Monkeys came from they don't know what. And where life really started, or why, well they don't know that either. But you're an idiot if you believe in any power greater than, well... scientists.

Also, privately owned weapons are now practically illegal in this country (or will be soon). Yep, it's shaping up to be a really interesting summer, in the "May you live in interesting times." sense of the word.

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2002-07-13 02:27pm

The absence of high levels of private space traffic is proof enough of some kind of governmental stranglehold on interstellar flight in the Federation. The size of the UFP's smallest interstellar-range shuttlepods indicates that vessels like the single-seat couriers and larger trading ships such as those seen in the game Elite should be fairly common.

The fact that the Enterprise doesn't have to jockey for an orbital 'slot' every time it arrives at a Federation world indicates several things:

There are no private haulage or transport corporations whatsoever
Actual interstellar commerce levels within the Federation are low (limited to luxury goods carried by hand)
Even the government does not transport more than a tiny level of goods between systems (unless they are relief supplies, which are moved by the millitary). If it isn't made/grown on your world and you haven't got any replicator credits... too bad!
Even intra-system craft are strictly controlled by government

A pity really, because I'm sure that a lot of kids in the Federation would love to strap themselves into a Cobra MkIII, point the nose at the unexplored end of the Beta Quadrent and just go!

Of course, the Federation's strict society-first moral code would deem such activities as highly deviant, maybe even criminal.

It is interesting to note that in TOS, there were privately-owned starships (including ones of considerable volume). Harry Mudd stole such a vessel to carry slaves to a mining planet.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-07-13 02:29pm

Hey, if replicators and holodecks give you whatever you want, how else are you supposed to get people to work?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 02:29pm

Mr Bean: Who else have we seen?

You say "we havent see joe no body wth nic nacks" well yeah but we havent seen Joe no bodies living space.

Its is bent towards communism and theres nothing wromng with that except communism doesnt work with current greedy humans however if it works for them - good.

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2002-07-13 02:32pm

Something else that occoured to me... (and what the heck happened to the 'edit' option?).

I mentioned the game 'Elite'. The level of firepower mounted by privately-owned vessels in that game was high enough for you to challenge the law-enforcement authorities and even the millitary. I can imagine the horror of even the thought of a Federation citizen getting the firepower to back up his point of view even if facing a Galaxy- or Sovereign-class starship. "Unification, Part 1" and the "Gambit" two-parter shows that private starships can match Federation starships in a fight.

Such things are just not acceptable in as rigidly a controlled society as theirs.

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-07-13 02:33pm

When I say mind conditioning techniques I do not mean that everyone is daily put on a chair with an high tech apparatus behinds it,his brain is fried for an half a hour and when he rises up he says in a zombiesque style "I am a loyal and productive citizen of the federation".This is of course not the case.Indoctrination may mean that children are teached to love work.Propaganda may mean that sometimes on the communication network is shown a prize giving in which some stakanovist shipyard worker is awarded for being the fastest control panels installer of Utopia Planitia.
Luxury goods:in a DS9 episode O'Brien and his wife take a runabout for a week end,putting aside the oddness of the situation(Are sailors allowed in the real world to take the navy's patrol boat to make a trip with their wives?
It would be strange) this is an excellent idea to stimulate people to work:if
you are productive you will be assignated some luxury goods,such as a runabout for the weekend.Maybe holodecks accesses are restricted only to people who work.
Then as I said probably they try to make jobs as much as attractive as possible,with reduced working hours,non tayloristic work organization,introducing intellectually satisfying elements in the work. Maybe the shipyard worker can go to the chief engineer of Utopia Planitia and say "Chief,if I had not to lose time to install antiexplosions fuzes in the control panels I could install them twice faster"
"Worker,you are a genius, from now no more useless antiexplosions fuzes in the control panels, a power surge is a next to impossible event in anyway,you will be awarded for this useful suggestion".And so on.
Lazy people are probably fingerpointed by normal citizens.
Then if everything else fails an hopeless lazy man can be declared "ill" and sent to a facility equipped with the mind manipulating chair I have described above.They did have something smilar in the TOS era after all,it was used on prisoners so....
This alone would be a good motivation.
But these are all suppositions not backed by facts as someone has correctly observed.We are supposed to believe that for an unknow reason human beings have become more enlightened in the 24th century.
It is not unsurprising that the show's writers, incapable of rationalizing this do not often portray civilian life.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 02:33pm

VF5SS: because they want too

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2002-07-13 02:34pm

[quote="Ai Phling PuHmm, interesting! You do have a good point there, but not as it applies to Trek. Several Fed characters are known to have private starships. Or do you think the Maquis just walked around the DMZ and the Badlands causing trouble? No religion, well that's just a reflection of what's going on in America right now, wouldn't you say?[/quote]The Maquis used salvaged/reconditioned/stolen/illegally re-directed Federation and Bajoran millitary equipment. I never saw any indication of true privately-owned warships (Privateers, I guess).

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 02:39pm

Admiral Piett: You mean cultural conditioning - that happens here and with much worse things - You will love, you will hate people not like you etc etc.

The federation seems to be much better than our current society and those prisoners you mention were insane and they were trying to cure them.

BenRG: A starship doesnt equate to a car it equates to a boat or prehaps a plane - how many people have these devices?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 02:39pm

*you will love money, arh my kingdom for an edit button.

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2002-07-13 02:50pm

TheDarkling wrote:BenRG: A starship doesnt equate to a car it equates to a boat or prehaps a plane - how many people have these devices?

Quite a few. I think if you totalled up all the Cessna single-engines out there (the model 157?), you would find a huge number in service, all in private hands. Then add all the Boeing Steermans used by crop dusters?

It is true that private starships would not be as common as cars (although private orbital shuttles for Earth-to-moon ranges would probably be very common). However, the cost of a single-seat cargo or 'sport' starship would be within the range of a private citizen given time and saving up of credits. It is just that such a capitalist act as buying a starship to explore/enrich yourself is against the Federation Way.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 02:56pm

The point is why buy a ship when public transport is alot better for everyone, as for earth-moon trips they probably takes 2 minutes using transporter stations.

Ai Phling Pu · Post by **Ai Phling Pu** » 2002-07-13 03:00pm

It is just that such a capitalist act as buying a starship to explore/enrich yourself is against the Federation Way.

Absolutely right! Exploring, enriching their lives... totally against what the Federation and Starfleet stand for! Picard himself said so in First Contact! Oh, wait... he didn't say that. In fact, he said the opposite thing. Oh, well.

And what he said about wealth was that it was "no longer the driving force" in the lives of Federation citizens. It may very well be that the acquisition of wealth and luxuries is an option but no longer something people feel compelled to do in order to survive.

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2002-07-13 03:03pm

TheDarkling wrote:The point is why buy a ship when public transport is alot better for everyone, as for earth-moon trips they probably takes 2 minutes using transporter stations.

I'm not sure what the safe maximum range for ST transporters is, Darkling, but I'll bet that it can't manage Earth-to-Moon. Earth-to-Geostationary Orbit certainly (starships do that all the time). However, ranges beyond that and you would need a spacecraft of some kind.

There are only so many places on public transport, so I imagine there is a slight congestion problem at peak usage times, no matter how skillfully the traffic was controlled (as with any transit system). Private transports would slightly relieve that, and relieve pressure at bottlenecks where you had to change shuttles for different destinations off the main trunk routes. A private ship would go all the way in one journey.

There are good logistical reasons for, but the real reasons against (in the terms of this debate anyway) are ideological.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 03:04pm

Ah I just remembered Seven of Nines parents had their own ship and used it for exploring - maybe you have to show them you intend to use the ship for something other than joy rides.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 03:06pm

BenRG: I meant beam up to a space dock then a quick 2 minute shuttle ride to the moon then you beam down. ok maybe it would be more like 5 minutes.

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2002-07-13 03:07pm

Ai Phling Pu wrote:Absolutely right! Exploring, enriching their lives... totally against what the Federation and Starfleet stand for! Picard himself said so in First Contact! Oh, wait... he didn't say that. In fact, he said the opposite thing. Oh, well.

And what he said about wealth was that it was "no longer the driving force" in the lives of Federation citizens. It may very well be that the acquisition of wealth and luxuries is an option but no longer something people feel compelled to do in order to survive.

Okay, you caught a failure to explain clearly enough. No need to get sarcastic!

Let me specify: Doing things like that as a private citizen and for your own purposes, rather than for the pre-defined "good of society", are frowned upon by the Federation govenment and society in general in UFP space.

Example: Look at the Hansens in VOY - 'The Raven'. They had a (government-supplied) ship and were going on an open-ended survey of the Beta Quadrent looking for the Borg. You get the impression from how Janeway and The Doctor described them that they were considered mavericks and slightly eccentric for sticking their head above the parapet like that.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-07-13 03:07pm

TheDarkling wrote:The point is why buy a ship when public transport is alot better for everyone, as for earth-moon trips they probably takes 2 minutes using transporter stations.

The reason is plain and simple: Personal freedom.
In the USA, you could no doubt travel only with busses and such around the whole country. So why do people still own cars? It gives them independence.

And again: You said people will work for the Federation voluntarily.
I ask you: Has there in history ever been a state in and for which the people worked completely out of free will, without getting back anything in exchange? It's almost a philosophic issue, but humans don't work that way. They never did, and never will!

Ai Phling Pu · Post by **Ai Phling Pu** » 2002-07-13 03:10pm

Ah I just remembered Seven of Nines parents had their own ship and used it for exploring - maybe you have to show them you intend to use the ship for something other than joy rides

Or maybe it was just their ship. Everyone is so intent on proving the Federation is some kind of totalitarian society that they've put the conclusion ahead of all the relevant evidence.

As far as transporters go, I recall a pretty widely accepted range of 40,000 km.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 03:11pm

In star trek they do.

Picrard does what he does because he likes it so do many many others - in fact almost everyone we have seen enjoys what they do.

You know the creators didnt mean for forced re education etc so yu are simple using flimsy evidence to prove something you know isnt true.

I have already given examples of people who work and dont have to and people who take very low paying jobs because they want to do what they like to do.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-07-13 03:13pm

Bullshit, its not like human nature is going to up and change like that.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-13 03:16pm

VF5SS: IT DID. Whether its likely or not its canon and what happened.

Human nature alters a little - no its not possible, We used to own slaves and think all races werent equal - that thinks going so is greed.

We havent always been greedy we used to work in a some tribal setup where we helped each other - the tribe had a peckibng order but they still worked towards a goal.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The Federation - evil ?

Do you think the Federation works the way it promises?