Well said, Shevet. Self-reliance is a great thing, but no amount of self-reliance and determination and cunning can make you entirely immune from ever needing anyone's help. Sometimes the universe just dumps stuff on your head. You might get sick; your friend might get sick; the colony you rely on for food supplies might have a tornado; the Alliance might confiscate your ship by mistake for a pirate's and then lose it; and no matter what happens, one of these days, you're going to get old. It needs to be said more often; sometimes, the best of us need help.
Reminds me of the history of the 1834 "New Poor Law" in this country. (That's the one that features in Dickens, which was designed to be much harsher than the previous rules - the gist was that from now on no relief payments or food relief would be provided except in the workhouses, and that the workhouses were to be made as grim as possible to deter anyone from taking it up unless they were on the point of starving. Or then, as it turned out in many cases.) In the South of England, where it was mostly steady employment from arable farming, it was introduced without much difficulty. But in the North, which relied on the textile industry, it was a different matter - people were used to intermittent unemployment as just a fact of life for everyone; it was understood that you could work as hard and be as skilled a weaver as anyone, make a good living for a few years, and then the wool market would do one of those things it sometimes did, and everyone just had to hunker down and wait for it to be over. The factory owners were as much in favour of the old relief system as anyone, it was kind of their insurance policy; they needed to subsidise their workers when times were hard, because otherwise by the time they were hiring again all their skilled workforce would have starved or emigrated. The North, in other words, understood that stuff happens.
I've got a local history of the New Poor Law in my (northern) home town which is hilarious. The law required a "Board of Guardians" to be elected to carry out the new rules.
First they just said, "All right, we'll do that", and then didn't.
When the Government sent an ultimatum, they elected a Board of Guardians - but the Guardians were as against the new law as everyone else, and they met, officially agreed to go on doing what they had been doing, officially appointed the committee who'd been running things previously to oversee this, and all went home.
The Government representative summoned them all to a meeting. The first time, nobody came. The second, one single Guardian, Alderman Livesey, finally arrived; asked where the others were, he claimed that they hadn't known which Friday the representative meant, and then lit a cigar. The representative said that this was no way to conduct business. Livesey replied that as far as he was concerned there was no business to conduct.
I don't think they ever did get that law enforced up here.
(That said, the Alliance in Firefly really are villains. As StarswordC mentioned, they tested a new drug on an entire colony without their knowledge, and accidentally poisoned them all. But that only came out in the film. Does anyone know what the revolution on Hera was actually about? Something equally villainous, or just a disagreement about how much tax they should be paying? I haven't seen the show myself.)
(That said, the Alliance in Firefly really are villains. As StarswordC mentioned, they tested a new drug on an entire colony without their knowledge, and accidentally poisoned them all. But that only came out in the film. Does anyone know what the revolution on Hera was actually about? Something equally villainous, or just a disagreement about how much tax they should be paying? I haven't seen the show myself.)
The Alliance aren't the villains. Sure they aren't saints but what do you expect when you're trying to build a stable Empire and some cowboys on the borders won't let you?
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
The Alliance aren't the villains. Sure they aren't saints but what do you expect when you're trying to build a stable Empire and some cowboys on the borders won't let you?
In the background literature of Firefly, it's explained that the Unification War was an Alliance war of conquest. The government in the core worlds got it in their heads that their way, which as I noted before was basically modern-day China IN SPACE!, was all kinds of better than what the outer planets had, which was very little government at all and each planet independent of the others. Basically authoritarianism versus quasi-anarchism.
Hera was in what's called the border planets, which were and still are somewhere in between (less government than Alliance worlds, more than the outer planets). Hera was strategically significant for some reason but I don't have the RPG rulebook in front of me so I'm not sure how.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
The point Firefly makes in terms of governance IMHO comes down to moderation: you can't artificially make people better, and too much government is just as bad as too little. Everything has a cost: the inner planets traded in their liberty for prosperity, but the outer planets made the exact opposite devil's bargain.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
The point Firefly makes in terms of governance IMHO comes down to moderation: you can't artificially make people better, and too much government is just as bad as too little. Everything has a cost: the inner planets traded in their liberty for prosperity, but the outer planets made the exact opposite devil's bargain.
big or small, a governing body is only as good as its leaders, if you have palpatine saying: "wipe them out!" or Sela screaming , "join us or die!" then its safe to say, your comfort and well being isnt part of the plan ^^;
@theraven2378: As with Section 31 in Star Trek, that's the job of legitimate Alliance military officers like Shepard, not a bunch of well-funded xenophobes. And unlike with Section 31 it is made absolutely explicit that Cerberus is not a legitimate organization: their funding comes from being major stockholders of a bunch of megacorps.
They pay better than the Systems Alliance
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
If I lived in the Mass Effect universe, I'd work for Cerberus, someone has to protect the human race
Who the hell plays any of the Mass Effect games and concludes that Cerberus is the one protecting humanity? The only person doing that is Shepard.
The Alliance might be a bunch of well-meaning dorks but that's better than being Stupid Evil like TIM and Cerberus.
I always play renegade, means I don't have to question my morality, after all sometimes the ends justify the means
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
If the Federation weren't taking any more refugees (or even if they were), I wouldn't mind 22nd-century Mattapoisett from Marge Piercy's "Woman at the Edge of Time". Anyone here read that? They're a commune of sorts, at first sight apparently an almost primitive farming community, but with a pretty sound level of technology behind the scenes - they live like that partly on sustainability grounds, and partly because they think it's fun. Jobs nobody likes (mining, and manufacturing everyday clothes and bedding) are totally automated, the others are done more or less by hand. Everyone is expected to do their share on the farms; I'd be OK with that, I love working out of doors; apart from that, most people do something else part-time, and usually switch "careers" several times during their lives.
They're extremely hippy, mad on arts and crafts, and have an endearing habit of throwing parties about every other week - there is a dedicated machine for making disposable party clothes, anything you like to the user's own design, 18th-century ballgown, translucent bubbles, peacock's tail, whatever, and you throw them in the compost afterwards. That machine essentially sums up Mattapoisett.
The book's vague on technology (Piercy was more interested in how the community might work socially), but they seem ahead of us on biotechnology and neuroscience (for instance, there's a mention of changing hair colour permanently by changing the proteins produced, and a lot of advanced EEG and biofeedback stuff), so they pass on the medical care question, and their society being what it is, whatever they had definitely wouldn't be only for those who could pay for it.
They're definitely not a post-scarcity society - a lot of the way they run things is with an eye to making the available natural resources go around - but for me that'd be a good thing. I like to be useful; I think I'd be bored on Star Trek's Earth if nobody really needed any help. Other than that, I like to think that parts of Star Trek's Earth are a bit like Mattapoisett. (We - "we" the RP/fanfic community - could do the single-use-clothes thing on our replicators. We should do more of that. :-) )
They do speak in a rather silly future dialect; "per" (short for "person") instead of "him" or "her", "attent", "Fasure" (that one had me puzzled for a long time, because we don't say "For sure" like that over here!) - though I quite like "feathered", as in "Wow, I'm feathered that my paper got published!" Also, it has to be said they're at it all the time with everybody - this IS a 1976 utopia, after all! - but so long as they leave me out of it I don't care what they do!
If I had a choice, I would choose either the Star Trek-verse or Ian M. Banks The Culture Verse. I'm really leaning on The Culture, mostly becuase it seems to be a bit more libertarian-left/a bit more free compared to the Federation.
I'm somewhat surprised that the Federation doesn't have any subcultures or and dissenting opinions when it comes to things like the Prime Directive. I fear that most of the Federation has seemed to slowly changed it into unthinking dogma that's not to be questioned somewhere in between TOS and TNG. The Prime Directive has essentially become the Federation's quasi-religion, even backed up with similar arguments one would use to try to defend one's religion.
The Star Fox universe, if it was on the list :P, but personally I find the Star Wars universe a very rich one in diversity and possibilities if including the expanded universe with so much to explore. Trek however would be second, as the rest on the list I am not very knowledgeable on so I would not gamble on them :P. I for one like both Trek and Wars, but I think much more goes on in Star Wars plus it has awesome ships and vehicles and greater differences in species. and of course, the Force!
If I had a choice, I would choose either the Star Trek-verse or Ian M. Banks The Culture Verse. I'm really leaning on The Culture, mostly becuase it seems to be a bit more libertarian-left/a bit more free compared to the Federation.
I'm somewhat surprised that the Federation doesn't have any subcultures or and dissenting opinions when it comes to things like the Prime Directive. I fear that most of the Federation has seemed to slowly changed it into unthinking dogma that's not to be questioned somewhere in between TOS and TNG. The Prime Directive has essentially become the Federation's quasi-religion, even backed up with similar arguments one would use to try to defend one's religion.
Don't forget, the Prime Directive only applies to Starfleet officers, not civilian Federation citizens, a point Worf's step-brother made when he acted against it, and put the wind up Picard
I choose Star Wars for a few reasons, one, I can be captain of my ship and not have to deal with a super large crew, I keep my own hours, I can shoot first, I can decide if the reward is worth it, there is no continuity issues like trek has (I could write a 500 page novel on how many times trek has messed up its own story) I can work for anyone I wish, be it hutts, imperials, rebels, black sun, whenever im not stuck with one faction. I could rescue a princess, blow up an evil planet blower upper gun...twice...really tons of endless possibilities.. and the best part, I can decorate my ship.
If I had a choice, I would choose either the Star Trek-verse or Ian M. Banks The Culture Verse. I'm really leaning on The Culture, mostly becuase it seems to be a bit more libertarian-left/a bit more free compared to the Federation.
I'm somewhat surprised that the Federation doesn't have any subcultures or and dissenting opinions when it comes to things like the Prime Directive. I fear that most of the Federation has seemed to slowly changed it into unthinking dogma that's not to be questioned somewhere in between TOS and TNG. The Prime Directive has essentially become the Federation's quasi-religion, even backed up with similar arguments one would use to try to defend one's religion.
Don't forget, the Prime Directive only applies to Starfleet officers, not civilian Federation citizens, a point Worf's step-brother made when he acted against it, and put the wind up Picard
Izzat so? That's worth remembering for possible fictional monkey business, then! The problem I have with writing Star Trek stuff is that there are so many limits on what Starfleet people can be and do (if they want to remain Starfleet people beyond the end of the chapter, that is!) But good point about how dogmatic the Federation seems to be - although that could just be that they haven't shown any of the dissenting movements; they've shown very little of Earth or other Federation core worlds at all, after all, and openly expressing such views wouldn't be allowed in Starfleet itself - have to present a united front to the aliens.
A thing I'm currently wondering about is what a protest campaign could be about on Star Trek's Earth. (They say write what you know, and those are the kind of people I'm used to.) A lot of the causes we're used to aren't applicable - e.g. workers' rights are no longer a thing when nobody has to work unless they want to, renewable energy is already a done deal. There could be campaigns against military intervention somewhere, or for military intervention somewhere else. And there's the A.I. rights thing. MontyW's suggestion - people wanting the Federation to intervene somewhere against the Prime Directive - is another one I hadn't thought of. Can anyone think of others?
You could even have people wanting the Federation to deal more *harshly* with sentient-rights violators (such as the Klingon Empire and, before the Dominion War, the Cardassian Union). When you think about it, the Maquis Rebellion was just such a protest though its tactics were over the line any time that they harmed civilians.
It is a shame that the only time we saw protests in Trek they were terrorists and in the case of the New Essentialists, a complete farce that IMO wasn't there to make you think seriously about anything and only there to ridicule views the writers did not give their authorial fiat to.
One other point though. Unlike on modern Earth, where no livable territory (I am not counting Antarctica as livable) is outside the claim of any government, you would still have the option if you lived in the Federation and were fed up enough, to found an independent colony. That comes with all of the risks and potential hardships associated with a new settlement especially doing so without outside support or defense, but it means there is another option besides straight emigration to another established power.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Izzat so? That's worth remembering for possible fictional monkey business, then! The problem I have with writing Star Trek stuff is that there are so many limits on what Starfleet people can be and do (if they want to remain Starfleet people beyond the end of the chapter, that is!) But good point about how dogmatic the Federation seems to be - although that could just be that they haven't shown any of the dissenting movements; they've shown very little of Earth or other Federation core worlds at all, after all, and openly expressing such views wouldn't be allowed in Starfleet itself - have to present a united front to the aliens.
A thing I'm currently wondering about is what a protest campaign could be about on Star Trek's Earth. (They say write what you know, and those are the kind of people I'm used to.) A lot of the causes we're used to aren't applicable - e.g. workers' rights are no longer a thing when nobody has to work unless they want to, renewable energy is already a done deal. There could be campaigns against military intervention somewhere, or for military intervention somewhere else. And there's the A.I. rights thing. MontyW's suggestion - people wanting the Federation to intervene somewhere against the Prime Directive - is another one I hadn't thought of. Can anyone think of others?
The thing I now try to bear in mind with my writing, is that if Starfleet is a military*, then realistically, Starfleet officers would be held accountable to standards beyond what the episodes showed. I've read some interesting discussions about how realistically, Riker's career would have been over way before the loss of the Enterprise-D, but his actions during that engagement would have been the final straw, so accountability and realism is something I now strive to incorporate in my writing...
I think protests on Federation Earth will be somewhat different to they are nowadays, indeed, a point raised by one of my characters in a recent piece, was that they were a 'better class of protesters', so no need to break out the teargas and set the dogs loose
Of course there are no need for teargas, Why not just phaser stun setting wide beam, take out a bunch at a time. Or STARSHIP LEVEL phaser at stun setting for wide area. DAMn I swear 24th century cops are gonna be more trigger-happy then 21th century cops.
Hast thou not gone against sincerity
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Of course there are no need for teargas, Why not just phaser stun setting wide beam, take out a bunch at a time. Or STARSHIP LEVEL phaser at stun setting for wide area. DAMn I swear 24th century cops are gonna be more trigger-happy then 21th century cops.
Absolutely so, the comment was made in reference to the South African apartheid riots... With regards a Kirk-style mass-stunning from orbit, without knowing the medical status of each protestor, such an act could open the Captain up to charges of manslaughter if someone was to die as a result, so I wouldn't like to say what kind of protocols might be in place against civilian population...
Of course there are no need for teargas, Why not just phaser stun setting wide beam, take out a bunch at a time. Or STARSHIP LEVEL phaser at stun setting for wide area. DAMn I swear 24th century cops are gonna be more trigger-happy then 21th century cops.
Absolutely so, the comment was made in reference to the South African apartheid riots... With regards a Kirk-style mass-stunning from orbit, without knowing the medical status of each protestor, such an act could open the Captain up to charges of manslaughter if someone was to die as a result, so I wouldn't like to say what kind of protocols might be in place against civilian population...
Phaser to stun seems very reliably stun their targets instead of kill some dude in accident. ppl in show don't seem to be worried about that... Well of course using ship phasers to blast probably need some damn good reason..
Hast thou not gone against sincerity
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Of course there are no need for teargas, Why not just phaser stun setting wide beam, take out a bunch at a time. Or STARSHIP LEVEL phaser at stun setting for wide area. DAMn I swear 24th century cops are gonna be more trigger-happy then 21th century cops.
Absolutely so, the comment was made in reference to the South African apartheid riots... With regards a Kirk-style mass-stunning from orbit, without knowing the medical status of each protestor, such an act could open the Captain up to charges of manslaughter if someone was to die as a result, so I wouldn't like to say what kind of protocols might be in place against civilian population...
Phaser to stun seems very reliably stun their targets instead of kill some dude in accident. ppl in show don't seem to be worried about that... Well of course using ship phasers to blast probably need some damn good reason..
The characters in the show often were not worried about things they should have been worried about, such as Worf not properly identifying his target when in command of the Defiant (Yes, the situation was a trap to discredit him, but he still fell for it) or Riker's participation in the Pegasus coverup or any number of things, which in today's military, if not for Plot Armour, would lead to an officer facing charges, so their judgement is hardly a sound basis to say that it's okay to stun someone/something because they weren't worried about it...
Phaser to stun seems very reliably stun their targets instead of kill some dude in accident. ppl in show don't seem to be worried about that... Well of course using ship phasers to blast probably need some damn good reason..
If done once, not often, it doesn't seem to be a problem. However, in "Samaritan Snare" (yes, that awful episode), we find out that repeated stunning can cause cumulative damage over time.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Of course there are no need for teargas, Why not just phaser stun setting wide beam, take out a bunch at a time. Or STARSHIP LEVEL phaser at stun setting for wide area. DAMn I swear 24th century cops are gonna be more trigger-happy then 21th century cops.
Absolutely so, the comment was made in reference to the South African apartheid riots... With regards a Kirk-style mass-stunning from orbit, without knowing the medical status of each protestor, such an act could open the Captain up to charges of manslaughter if someone was to die as a result, so I wouldn't like to say what kind of protocols might be in place against civilian population...
Phaser to stun seems very reliably stun their targets instead of kill some dude in accident. ppl in show don't seem to be worried about that... Well of course using ship phasers to blast probably need some damn good reason..
The characters in the show often were not worried about things they should have been worried about, such as Worf not properly identifying his target when in command of the Defiant (Yes, the situation was a trap to discredit him, but he still fell for it) or Riker's participation in the Pegasus coverup or any number of things, which in today's military, if not for Plot Armour, would lead to an officer facing charges, so their judgement is hardly a sound basis to say that it's okay to stun someone/something because they weren't worried about it...
Which ultimately just points out one thing - Starfleet may be a military by some standards, but it's also not by some standards. It is its own thing, and arguing it should conduct things differently because it is a military or because it is not a military is pointless.. Starfleet is Starfleet and what we see on screen is what it does.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Which ultimately just points out one thing - Starfleet may be a military by some standards, but it's also not by some standards. It is its own thing, and arguing it should conduct things differently because it is a military or because it is not a military is pointless..Starfleet is Starfleet and what we see on screen is what it does.
Personally, I think it points to writers who don't take the time to properly research military procedure, but still try and use it in their work I agree, Starfleet is not necessarily the same as the militaries of today, and it does indeed conduct operations other than purely combative military roles, but as has been mentioned before, Starfleet is more easily definable as a military than not:
- The organisation uses military rank structure rather than civilian 'management' heirarchy.
- The academy graduates commissioned officers, not simply 'qualified graduates'.
- Their uniforms are, well, uniform (when Jellico made Troi start wearing her uniform again on duty)
- Officers subject to disciplinary action can be court-martialled.
- Officers who are imprisoned are held in a military stockade (Ro Laren)
- Officers who are imprisoned lose their rank and are demoted back to Ensign (Ro Laren and Tom Paris)
Those criteria define Starfleet as a military(of sorts) rather than anything else. It just happens to also perform other non-combat functions such as research, diplomacy, exploration and other relief efforts...
Which ultimately just points out one thing - Starfleet may be a military by some standards, but it's also not by some standards. It is its own thing, and arguing it should conduct things differently because it is a military or because it is not a military is pointless..Starfleet is Starfleet and what we see on screen is what it does.
Personally, I think it points to writers who don't take the time to properly research military procedure, but still try and use it in their work I agree, Starfleet is not necessarily the same as the militaries of today, and it does indeed conduct operations other than purely combative military roles, but as has been mentioned before, Starfleet is more easily definable as a military than not:
- The organisation uses military rank structure rather than civilian 'management' heirarchy.
- The academy graduates commissioned officers, not simply 'qualified graduates'.
- Their uniforms are, well, uniform (when Jellico made Troi start wearing her uniform again on duty)
- Officers subject to disciplinary action can be court-martialled.
- Officers who are imprisoned are held in a military stockade (Ro Laren)
- Officers who are imprisoned lose their rank and are demoted back to Ensign (Ro Laren and Tom Paris)
Those criteria define Starfleet as a military(of sorts) rather than anything else. It just happens to also perform other non-combat functions such as research, diplomacy, exploration and other relief efforts...
Certainly, I see no big problem with seeing it as a military organization, but one shoudn't be surprised if it allows its officers to reject a command position without this being a career-ending move, or officers having relationships with people under their command, and what not. That's obviously all accepted by Starfleet.
A real world military might not work like this, and it might not work like this because it wouldn't function, but in Star Trek, it works like that and it clearly functions.
If it's a military, it's not your grandfather's military. It's the military of an Utopia.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
Reminds me of the history of the 1834 "New Poor Law" in this country. (That's the one that features in Dickens, which was designed to be much harsher than the previous rules - the gist was that from now on no relief payments or food relief would be provided except in the workhouses, and that the workhouses were to be made as grim as possible to deter anyone from taking it up unless they were on the point of starving. Or then, as it turned out in many cases.) In the South of England, where it was mostly steady employment from arable farming, it was introduced without much difficulty. But in the North, which relied on the textile industry, it was a different matter - people were used to intermittent unemployment as just a fact of life for everyone; it was understood that you could work as hard and be as skilled a weaver as anyone, make a good living for a few years, and then the wool market would do one of those things it sometimes did, and everyone just had to hunker down and wait for it to be over. The factory owners were as much in favour of the old relief system as anyone, it was kind of their insurance policy; they needed to subsidise their workers when times were hard, because otherwise by the time they were hiring again all their skilled workforce would have starved or emigrated. The North, in other words, understood that stuff happens.
I've got a local history of the New Poor Law in my (northern) home town which is hilarious. The law required a "Board of Guardians" to be elected to carry out the new rules.
First they just said, "All right, we'll do that", and then didn't.
When the Government sent an ultimatum, they elected a Board of Guardians - but the Guardians were as against the new law as everyone else, and they met, officially agreed to go on doing what they had been doing, officially appointed the committee who'd been running things previously to oversee this, and all went home.
The Government representative summoned them all to a meeting. The first time, nobody came. The second, one single Guardian, Alderman Livesey, finally arrived; asked where the others were, he claimed that they hadn't known which Friday the representative meant, and then lit a cigar. The representative said that this was no way to conduct business. Livesey replied that as far as he was concerned there was no business to conduct.
I don't think they ever did get that law enforced up here.
(That said, the Alliance in Firefly really are villains. As StarswordC mentioned, they tested a new drug on an entire colony without their knowledge, and accidentally poisoned them all. But that only came out in the film. Does anyone know what the revolution on Hera was actually about? Something equally villainous, or just a disagreement about how much tax they should be paying? I haven't seen the show myself.)
The Alliance aren't the villains. Sure they aren't saints but what do you expect when you're trying to build a stable Empire and some cowboys on the borders won't let you?
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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...it would mean sequels!
Hera was in what's called the border planets, which were and still are somewhere in between (less government than Alliance worlds, more than the outer planets). Hera was strategically significant for some reason but I don't have the RPG rulebook in front of me so I'm not sure how.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
big or small, a governing body is only as good as its leaders, if you have palpatine saying: "wipe them out!" or Sela screaming , "join us or die!" then its safe to say, your comfort and well being isnt part of the plan ^^;
They pay better than the Systems Alliance
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Alliance might be a bunch of well-meaning dorks but that's better than being Stupid Evil like TIM and Cerberus.
I always play renegade, means I don't have to question my morality, after all sometimes the ends justify the means
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
They're extremely hippy, mad on arts and crafts, and have an endearing habit of throwing parties about every other week - there is a dedicated machine for making disposable party clothes, anything you like to the user's own design, 18th-century ballgown, translucent bubbles, peacock's tail, whatever, and you throw them in the compost afterwards. That machine essentially sums up Mattapoisett.
The book's vague on technology (Piercy was more interested in how the community might work socially), but they seem ahead of us on biotechnology and neuroscience (for instance, there's a mention of changing hair colour permanently by changing the proteins produced, and a lot of advanced EEG and biofeedback stuff), so they pass on the medical care question, and their society being what it is, whatever they had definitely wouldn't be only for those who could pay for it.
They're definitely not a post-scarcity society - a lot of the way they run things is with an eye to making the available natural resources go around - but for me that'd be a good thing. I like to be useful; I think I'd be bored on Star Trek's Earth if nobody really needed any help. Other than that, I like to think that parts of Star Trek's Earth are a bit like Mattapoisett. (We - "we" the RP/fanfic community - could do the single-use-clothes thing on our replicators. We should do more of that. :-) )
They do speak in a rather silly future dialect; "per" (short for "person") instead of "him" or "her", "attent", "Fasure" (that one had me puzzled for a long time, because we don't say "For sure" like that over here!) - though I quite like "feathered", as in "Wow, I'm feathered that my paper got published!" Also, it has to be said they're at it all the time with everybody - this IS a 1976 utopia, after all! - but so long as they leave me out of it I don't care what they do!
Speaking of medical care, I just wanted to remind people about Razorwalker's appeal: http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1204348/one-of-our-own-desperately-needs-your-help
I'm somewhat surprised that the Federation doesn't have any subcultures or and dissenting opinions when it comes to things like the Prime Directive. I fear that most of the Federation has seemed to slowly changed it into unthinking dogma that's not to be questioned somewhere in between TOS and TNG. The Prime Directive has essentially become the Federation's quasi-religion, even backed up with similar arguments one would use to try to defend one's religion.
Which one ?
:P
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Izzat so? That's worth remembering for possible fictional monkey business, then! The problem I have with writing Star Trek stuff is that there are so many limits on what Starfleet people can be and do (if they want to remain Starfleet people beyond the end of the chapter, that is!) But good point about how dogmatic the Federation seems to be - although that could just be that they haven't shown any of the dissenting movements; they've shown very little of Earth or other Federation core worlds at all, after all, and openly expressing such views wouldn't be allowed in Starfleet itself - have to present a united front to the aliens.
A thing I'm currently wondering about is what a protest campaign could be about on Star Trek's Earth. (They say write what you know, and those are the kind of people I'm used to.) A lot of the causes we're used to aren't applicable - e.g. workers' rights are no longer a thing when nobody has to work unless they want to, renewable energy is already a done deal. There could be campaigns against military intervention somewhere, or for military intervention somewhere else. And there's the A.I. rights thing. MontyW's suggestion - people wanting the Federation to intervene somewhere against the Prime Directive - is another one I hadn't thought of. Can anyone think of others?
It is a shame that the only time we saw protests in Trek they were terrorists and in the case of the New Essentialists, a complete farce that IMO wasn't there to make you think seriously about anything and only there to ridicule views the writers did not give their authorial fiat to.
One other point though. Unlike on modern Earth, where no livable territory (I am not counting Antarctica as livable) is outside the claim of any government, you would still have the option if you lived in the Federation and were fed up enough, to found an independent colony. That comes with all of the risks and potential hardships associated with a new settlement especially doing so without outside support or defense, but it means there is another option besides straight emigration to another established power.
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I think protests on Federation Earth will be somewhat different to they are nowadays, indeed, a point raised by one of my characters in a recent piece, was that they were a 'better class of protesters', so no need to break out the teargas and set the dogs loose
*For want of a better term...
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Phaser to stun seems very reliably stun their targets instead of kill some dude in accident. ppl in show don't seem to be worried about that... Well of course using ship phasers to blast probably need some damn good reason..
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
If done once, not often, it doesn't seem to be a problem. However, in "Samaritan Snare" (yes, that awful episode), we find out that repeated stunning can cause cumulative damage over time.
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Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Which ultimately just points out one thing - Starfleet may be a military by some standards, but it's also not by some standards. It is its own thing, and arguing it should conduct things differently because it is a military or because it is not a military is pointless.. Starfleet is Starfleet and what we see on screen is what it does.
I would serve the Master of Mankind, the God Emperor.
- The organisation uses military rank structure rather than civilian 'management' heirarchy.
- The academy graduates commissioned officers, not simply 'qualified graduates'.
- Their uniforms are, well, uniform (when Jellico made Troi start wearing her uniform again on duty)
- Officers subject to disciplinary action can be court-martialled.
- Officers who are imprisoned are held in a military stockade (Ro Laren)
- Officers who are imprisoned lose their rank and are demoted back to Ensign (Ro Laren and Tom Paris)
Those criteria define Starfleet as a military(of sorts) rather than anything else. It just happens to also perform other non-combat functions such as research, diplomacy, exploration and other relief efforts...
A real world military might not work like this, and it might not work like this because it wouldn't function, but in Star Trek, it works like that and it clearly functions.
If it's a military, it's not your grandfather's military. It's the military of an Utopia.