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Federation: Horrible People?
sharksinspace
Member Posts: 121 Arc User
So I was re-watching Chain of Command and it occurred to me after hearing how much starving and junk the Cardassian were doing a while ago in canon. This brings me to the point of this post: the Federation seems to let other people starve a LOT! So knowing that the Federation can make an almost unlimited supply of food, is the Federation evil for letting so many people starve?
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There was a season 1 episode of TNG, where a planet had become dependent on a drug manufactured on a neighboring one, all of their industry was designed to earn enough to buy the drug from that other planet. Picard decided not to help them fix their ships warp coils, to force them to evolve on their own and learn independence. Most likely allowing for their future generations to grow away from servitude and begin to expand like the setting of Enterprise, only without the time traveling alien TRIBBLE. =@.@=
They're the (kind-of) human-oriented guys. THAT'S IT. END OF STORY.
Neither Good nor Bad enter into it - this is SURVIVAL. If survival is horrible, then yes: Feds are 'Horrible People.'
Feds are the good guys in the same way that fishes are acrobats: Some of them are, perhaps - but there's no actual correlation.
(Mainly because we've veered well away from Gene's vision, but that's a whole other conversation.)
No I think you have a point, Trek seems to follow the times and trends of the RL era they are written to relate to its audience, kinda like how the pagan gods in greek mythology changed to become more war like when Rome came into power. Even theater back then became the Colosseum with more action and death, people where no longer satisfied with drama and storys, they wanted the next new ship console...er, i mean gladiator fight.
It's also incredibly well-known that during the imperial state, the Cardassian military took the main hold of governmental control. They were the reason that resources were not distributed to the civilian populace. Their proud nature prevented anyone from seeking outside help. They believed that the price to be paid for the protection of the Empire was the suffering of the meagre.
Kind of reminds me of the policies of many present-day governments on Earth.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
At any rate, the Federation is probably the closest thing we have to a good guy faction in the ST universe.
Just compare:
Klingons: Warmongers in space
Cardassians: Evil space TRIBBLE's
Romulans: Roman Empire in space with some really bad intentions
Dominion: Only interested in expansion and domination
Breen and Tholians: We don't see too much of them, they aren't exactly friendly
Borg: Don't need to explain this one
Species 8472: They got kinda mild in their last Voyager appearance, though they went completely Dalek in their first appearance.
The Feds can't force food on people. If I remember correctly when relations improved just after the Klingons attacked them the Feds sent them some industrial sized replicators so clearly they are happy to help but they other side have to want their help and not be trying to kill them at the same time.
This is why the TNG politics gave us a more discussed and detailed look into the prime directive, what i consider the best achievement of trek, the moral and ethical debates on how to approach a situation when dealing with alien worlds and civilizations. Its also why Making Caitian Picard was a must for my RP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SsF15wTWU4
Klingons were originally an allegory to the aggressive warlike threat from the Soviets (a theme that followed from their first appearance in the old days, all the way through to Star Trek VI).
Romulans took on the cloak-and-dagger persona of the Red Scare. Undercover acts by the KGB and all the fears of surveillance were hinted at as early as the 1950s when the United States began blacklisting American citizens who were thought to be communist sympathizers - purely based on all the scare tactics enacted by Soviet Intelligence.
The Borg were just Space Zombies. One bite and you were one of them.
Cardassians actually represent the cold standoff between American powers and North Korean dictatorship - which was a fear of the States for YEARS before Kim Jingy Jong Whatchacallim was hucking bombs into the ocean and making weird propaganda YouTube videos.
The Dominion were a terribly belated TRIBBLE allegory. Freedom and liberty had never been challenged in that way in the Federation's history, just like Britain and the rest of Europe were fighting tooth and nail for their own against the Third Reich.
Species 8472's philosophy of extermination of the impure harkens to the terrifying policy of unmitigated destruction on Western society by Islamic extremist groups and homegrown terrorism. They cannot be bargained or reasoned with, purely because the belief structure and personal liberties of Western culture is brutally offensive to them. It goes even further, as 8472 justifies their assault based on an intrusion onto their territory by those they consider inferior, impure beings.
Breen and Tholians didn't have any personalities, and they never clashed with the Federation on their own in a large scale manner. The Breen did JOIN the Dominion War, though their entry was extremely late in the fighting and seemed to be more of a clever bargaining tactic by the Dominion to bolster their dying fleet and supplant the ever-more-jaded Cardassian forces. The Breen must not have been aware of the Dominion's weakening position, or believed their contribution would turn the tides and allow them to stake claim on large tracts of territory within the Federation. This points at them being thoroughly opportunistic, at least on a governmental level.
I may have been thinking way too far into this.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
...and then came Voporak!
prime directive. the federation can not interfere in another culture unless the government in charge accepts the aid even if the federation offiered. its not the federations fault the cardassian government just can not get around to the civilians after a recent war with the klingons.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
My character Tsin'xing
That's also why Kirk was never court-martialed for destroying the casualty-calculating computer on Eminiar VII in "A Taste of Armageddon" - that culture was no longer developing in a viable fashion.
It wasn't until TNG that Gene was able to make everyone adhere to his vision of the Feds being completely hands-off, even in dealing with other warp-capable societies. The TOS Federation would have dropped replicators on the Cardies, programmed (among other things) to make more replicators.
tl;dr - Gene Roddenberry was kind of like George Lucas - a brilliant originator of ideas, but in desperate need of someone to rein him in when he got excessive.
My character Tsin'xing
Give a replicator to Kim Jung Un- they won't use it to feed the people. They'll use it to feed and arm the military.
you got to have the food for a replicator to assemble the food in its cooked form...The replicator is a very power consuming device but it does not create items or food from power
It beams flour oil butter yeast from a store room to make assenbled cooked ..Bread so to speak
replicators cant replicate a ship either ..The replicatorers need (ore ) to make steel to make a nut or a bolt
and it would still have to be tempered to be of any quality
So even if you have the power and the replicators you still need the food
Or a cook :P
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Being someone who plays off of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, I really wish to know the source of their none-wealth, wealth.
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
http://youtu.be/r0HX4a5P8eE
(possibly one of the greatest, most iconic commercials of all time. How much trouble this commercial forecast...)
I suspect that in SOME way the whole thing is a house of cards that could be knocked down more easily than anyone would like to imagine...
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lolz, It sounds like the politicians we have in our country. Certainly a better economic system can be put together then borrowing to pay the interest on the money we are continually borrow borrowing. I'm good with numbers, I would love to help. I would love to make what they do as well!! I wish we could all live a nice luxurious lifestyle, starting with me! hehe
I watch the stock market, and see how it's always kept unstable, I keep hoping that an opportunity will present itself for a solid investment, but as you said, it is all one big house of cards, for some reason they have tied it all in together around the world, and feed it just enough to keep it barely alive, I just do not trust betting unless it's on a sure thing. I suppose a savings account will due for the time being.
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
and some say "charity begins at home, help your own people first before giving to everyone else."
i really dont understand this illusion of power and how people believe they have no place to change the world and accept life as a sheep. but thats where we are in the world these days. if humans ever evolve out of our savage primitive ways to better ourselves, it would take something on the scale of our sun going supernova in comparison to try that. but as far as we are concerned, our leaders can only do what they can as long as the other side agrees to it and lets face it petty little hitlers wouldnt mind having millions of dollars hard earned by the taxpayers of another country, or weapons or food.
i think its just best to focus off the real world and back into trek level.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Eminem is pre-warp........ wait o.0
Am I the only person who believes taht Gene's "vision" didn't really appear until around the time of The Motion Picture, well after TOS was cancelled and Gene began to believe his own publicity? :rolleyes:
Regarding the Federation...even "good guys" have limits. The Federation is pretty consistently shown to at least offer aid to those (warp-capable species) who need it...however, they do have pretty strict rules on non-interference.
Don't help warp-capable species who don't want help.
Don't help non-warp-capable species at all.
The ethics of these policies can be debated - and they are, even on the shows, but it's not hard to see the reasoning behind them.
One doesn't have to look too far in the modern world to realize that well-intentioned intervention in the affairs of another government can have unintended, unpleasant, long-term consequences.
My character Tsin'xing
Honestly, I've always subscribed to the interpretation that it's just Earth specifically that doesn't use money, because that's been pretty constant. Everything else conflicts.
But I think it runs from a conceptual misunderstanding of money. Money is an agreed-upon medium of exchange for simplifying trade so that you don't have to use the barter, thereby lessening the risk that you won't have anything the other guy wants.
And remember, 1 Timothy reads "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil". "Money is the root of all evil" is a misquote, and from a frequently inaccurate translation no less.
As far as the Prime Directive? I'm pretty much in agreement with Chuck here. Between TOS and TNG it transformed from a general principle intended to avoid harm, but which can be violated on basis of clear and present need (i.e. when the foreseeable harm from not violating it > "oh, some random species finds out they're not alone in the universe"), into unflinching, uncompassionate dogma.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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No, you most certainly are not. In the 60's Roddenberry was just a producer that wasn't a racist, with a cool idea for a tv show. Then in the 70's he eventually learned to like the smell of his own farts...after all the trekies told him just how wonderful they were.
Rick Berman was actually placed as Roddenberry's studio handler because Paramount learned from the fiasco that was TMP. (Also, Berman was a hack, and they wanted to get rid of him; and what better way than to put him in charge of the sure-fire flop that was TNG (they saw the scripts for S1...).) Too bad that, instead of reigning in Roddenberry, Berman became an acolyte. And because he was a hack, we got VOY and ENT (S3 TNG had competent people in charge by that point, and Berman didn't have much to do with DS9, because of the TNG movies and VOY taking all his attention).
The difference that I see is that in "A Taste of Armageddon", the Eminians had committed an outright act of war against Starfleet by declaring the Enterprise to be a valid target and then "destroying" it and demanding the deaths of its entire crew.
Or maybe the whole 'money' thing in Star Trek is about as contradictory as any other topic in the franchise.
Which doesn't prove your theory about 'money not existing on Earth' wrong, it just highlights how canon has always been contradictory.