Something tells me MV Eleya's got a target on her back now. I hope she makes it through things alright, and I hope her relationship with Gaarra goes as well as it has been in B&S.
Appendix 1: The Colonial Authority Restoration Act, Federation Council Bill 2412/1138
The long-threatened repeal-and-replace of the Colonist Act of 2371, introduced on the Federation Council floor by Councilor Rem Tasi of the Republic of Bajor, co-sponsored by Councilor Mot Wai of Bolarus IX and Councilor Meetra Carth of the Federated States of Trill, on 8 July 2412. Major provisions:
The Colonist Act of 2371 is repealed.
The Bureau of Colonial Development is restricted to an advisory, recruitment, and procurement role in colonial governments. Police forces are to be recruited locally after first landing.
Equipment, especially critical infrastructure such as industrial replicators, provided to the colony becomes sovereign property of its local government. The Bureau of Colonial Development is not permitted to seize colonial property without due process of law. The colonial government is permitted to appeal such seizures to the Federal judiciary before they may take effect, up to and including the Supreme Court of the United Federation of Planets.
At the discretion of the colony's government, Starfleet shall have the responsibility to train and equip locally recruited planetary defense forces to confront threats to residents and/or territorial integrity. Decisions on personal weapons ownership are to devolve to the discretion of the colonial government.
Thresholds for Category 2 and Category 1 planets are reduced by 50 percent.
The Bureau of Colonial Development is required to submit to yearly audits of all operations by the Office of the Inspector General until further notice.
Bill forwarded by Speaker of the Federation Council to Colonial Affairs Committee for analysis and debate.
"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"
I haven't had a chance to speak to Patrick and see if he wants to do his own appendix to the story, but this seems a good place to call it as far as I'm concerned.
On George Goff: He's not a bad guy, as seen, but he is a good lawyer. Much as we may vilify them (whether humorously or not), attorneys have a professional ethical obligation to get the best possible outcome for their client by whatever means legally possible, and they swear a binding oath to fulfill a particular and very necessary role in the judicial system.
On the political stuff: Remember that the characters' opinions are not necessarily shared by the authors. A good example is the Bajoran stance on gun rights: I'm personally in favor of more restrictions rather than less, but I was the one who came up with that part. I've consistently viewed the Bajorans as being rather akin to a red-to-purple state relative to Federation mainstream: in particular being more agrarian, strongly nationalistic and somewhat distrustful of the faraway Federation central government (the mainstream Bajoran Nationalist Party fundamentally has a states' rights/federalist position in relation to the central government), and considerably more religious and less inclined to secularism.
(Of course, note that "Federation mainstream" is considerably further to the left of the political spectrum than anything we in the United States are generally used to: I voted for Bernie and call myself a socialist but I'd probably be a centrist at best by their standards.)
A lot of this arc was meant to address complaints about the Mary Sueification of Moab, show just how much of a house of cards it really was. I had this discussion with my other (Eleya Prime) collaborator Worffan101 about it after posting the last piece, and got his permission to copy it since I think it explains some of the issues with this story pretty well. A couple warnings, it's a little disjointed because our IMs were crossing each other in transit. And remember that, like anyone, his worldview shapes his perception.
Worffan101. Yup.
But like I've said, Eleya comes off as the only moral person.
In fact, she comes off as a freaking paladin next to these people.
StarSword. The Federation does have a bit of a "clueless left authoritarian" streak in canon. Eleya is a center-left libertarian, the Moabite establishment is middle-right libertarian.
Worf. and I know you like to try to write her as a little more morally grey, she's coming off as the most squeaky-clean Lawful Good ever.
because she's doing the right thing and TRIBBLE the consequences to herself.
she may not know what the right thing is, she can't find a perfect solution, but she will pursue what is right.
so overall?
this story has actually ended up in more character development for Eleya than anything.
SSC. Also, with her background, some of Bajoran "Resistance culture" is that the law can be a tool of resistance.
Worf. This is a combat CO evolving into an all-around hero.
SSC. Yeah.
Worf. I know you try to contrast her with Picard, but...
here, she's late Picard at his finest.
And I think that's a good thing.
SSC. Huh.
I never thought of that.
Worf. See, once they were able to write him as a human being, Picard often became very similar to Sisko.
the difference being, Sisko solves problems with carefully-calculated threats, and Picard solves problems with polite carefully-calculated threats, outreach, and rules lawyering.
both approaches are fine.
But Sisko is very much a Neutral Good hero who doesn't have time for red tape. Picard--and Eleya in this story--do have the patience for it, and are Lawful Good.
tl;dr: CYOF doesn't so much portray Moab as complicated as portray it as a terrible hellhole that somehow slipped under the Federation's radar and then got even worse once it left.
there's no real moral ambiguity unless you're a really, really devoted L. Neill Smith-esque libertarian.
Moab is a sh*thole.
If anything, Bajor is the place coming off as more gray.
They have active terrorist groups, a ton of problems, endemic bigotry and violence, a parochial, anti-Federation attitude among much of the population...
but they are doing right by their people
SSC. Huh.
Worf. Whatever else you can say about the Bajoran government, and I'm sure most Bajorans could say a lot of uncomplimentary things, at a fundamental level they have provided for their people a high standard of living, a great deal of freedoms, and for the most part peace and security without sacrificing that freedom.
Moab, even prior to Fek Day, brought its people inequality, civil strife, poverty, and rights restrictions bordering on unfreedom.
Now, one could argue about how the Federation handled the cases in the backstory, but...
Bajor, in 40 years, went from "burned-out craphole that just suffered Space N*zi occupation", to "utopia with some social problems"
Moab, in centuries, went from "struggling lone colony" to "Let's oppress our people on purpose for ideological purity!"
The poll taxes and employment requirement, as unfair restrictions on voting, are in my opinion a violation of human rights.
Long story short--this is supposed to make Moab look flawed, but still positive, and the Moab characters as gray, but sympathetic.
What it does is make Bajor look flawed, but still positive, the Bajoran characters as flawed, but still Lawful Good, and Moab look like a sh*thole full of *ssholes, victims, and *sshole victims.
Even Bentine, who is absolutely the most victimized character in the whole story, whose every scene tugs at the heartstrings--eventually starts spouting propaganda about the "Col-Dev diet" and how it would make her kids lazy druggies.
Which breaks the flow of jesus TRIBBLE this poor woman how could her life have possibly gone so badly and how can we help her?
and gives us instead, "OK, I get it, the author thinks that wellfare queens are leeching off the public dole and is really angry about that"
SSC. As I said, remember that the characters' opinions are not necessarily the authors. For example, I don't agree with the Bajorans (or Patrick) on gun laws, but that bit was entirely mine: I pretty much write the Bajorans as the Federation equivalent of a reddish-purple state.
Bentine has that opinion because it's what she was raised in, and because she was victimized by an insufficiently audited Big Government.
Worf. hmm, so like how Rachel [his character Rachel Connor, a MACO who was turned into an augment by Section 31 without her consent] is nakedly racist against augments?
SSC. yeah, kinda
Worf. I guess in that case the solution would be to have someone call the character out.
But you can't really do that for Bentine without being an *sshole.
SSC. Yeah.
Exactly.
Worf. she needs support, not "your thought process is TRIBBLE up and you're being a TRIBBLE"
OK.
SSC. And that's what happened to Nung.
Worf. Yeah, Nung...
OK, she's been TRIBBLE up her whole life
but
she comes off as an TRIBBLE
and I get that's the point?
but since we don't see her internal thought processes like you do with Rachel or Eleya, we have to rely on others' understanding of her.
Others' understanding of her in-verse
SSC. Yeah, and that's the limits of first-person perspective, unfortunately.
Worf. and so we don't get her TRIBBLE-up internal thoughts or more than implications of her backstory.
What you could do, and IMO probably should've done, is put Nung in first-person.
Just for a couple of scenes.
Actually, you know what?
Have the mind-meld be from her perspective.
The Vulcan shuffling through and the worst part is she's just purely logical.
No condemnation.
No sympathy.
Just "amusing attempt at distracting me" and go from there.
SSC. Sh*t, that's brilliant and I wish I'd thought of it.
I do plan to approach Patrick about doing a POV sequel retelling that scene from Nung's POV.
"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"
Comments
Something tells me MV Eleya's got a target on her back now. I hope she makes it through things alright, and I hope her relationship with Gaarra goes as well as it has been in B&S.
The long-threatened repeal-and-replace of the Colonist Act of 2371, introduced on the Federation Council floor by Councilor Rem Tasi of the Republic of Bajor, co-sponsored by Councilor Mot Wai of Bolarus IX and Councilor Meetra Carth of the Federated States of Trill, on 8 July 2412. Major provisions:
Bill forwarded by Speaker of the Federation Council to Colonial Affairs Committee for analysis and debate.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
On George Goff: He's not a bad guy, as seen, but he is a good lawyer. Much as we may vilify them (whether humorously or not), attorneys have a professional ethical obligation to get the best possible outcome for their client by whatever means legally possible, and they swear a binding oath to fulfill a particular and very necessary role in the judicial system.
On the political stuff: Remember that the characters' opinions are not necessarily shared by the authors. A good example is the Bajoran stance on gun rights: I'm personally in favor of more restrictions rather than less, but I was the one who came up with that part. I've consistently viewed the Bajorans as being rather akin to a red-to-purple state relative to Federation mainstream: in particular being more agrarian, strongly nationalistic and somewhat distrustful of the faraway Federation central government (the mainstream Bajoran Nationalist Party fundamentally has a states' rights/federalist position in relation to the central government), and considerably more religious and less inclined to secularism.
(Of course, note that "Federation mainstream" is considerably further to the left of the political spectrum than anything we in the United States are generally used to: I voted for Bernie and call myself a socialist but I'd probably be a centrist at best by their standards.)
A lot of this arc was meant to address complaints about the Mary Sueification of Moab, show just how much of a house of cards it really was. I had this discussion with my other (Eleya Prime) collaborator Worffan101 about it after posting the last piece, and got his permission to copy it since I think it explains some of the issues with this story pretty well. A couple warnings, it's a little disjointed because our IMs were crossing each other in transit. And remember that, like anyone, his worldview shapes his perception.
I do plan to approach Patrick about doing a POV sequel retelling that scene from Nung's POV.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/