UFP Federation Council

[Voodoowoman2]

The United Federation of Planets (UFP) is an interstellar alliance of more than 150 planetary governments, spread out over 8,000 light-years. It was founded in 2161 and is governed by the Federation Council, which is a unicameral body consisting of representatives from member planets.3 The Council meets in San Francisco on Earth and is led by the Federation president, based in Paris.03 The Federation is based on the principles of universal liberty, rights, and equality and operates semi-autonomously under a single central government.2 The UFP is a large international Star Trek community that provides members with a wide range of Star Trek and supported Non-Trek gaming events, Sci-Fi News, and a place for members to engage in discussion.1

Ok, I'll probably be attacked for this, but that's ok. The Federation Council governs the Federation. It seems clear since T'Pau turned down a seat that these officials are unelected, but appointed by one person, the head of the world government. This is very bad. The council, if it is a governing body, makes laws. Those laws are made and passed by unelected officials. This could be why some fans think the Federation is soft Fascism. I don't use that term lightly. Gene founded many of his ideas on the Italian fascist Giovanni Gentile.
Note: Fascist does not necessarily mean Nazi. All Nazis are fascists but not all fascists are Nazis.
I know fascist is a triggering word. Gentile coined the phrase "post scarcity economy" and posited the moneyless economy. I think the first is impossible since dilithium is a limiting factor in the Federation and the second reminds me of progammable CBDCs which the government giveth and the government taketh away at their pleasure. Picard tells us there is no "money" in their Utopia.
All of this raises dire questions to me. I don't think I want to live on 22nd century Earth. Yeah, yeah, I know it's all perfect, and everybody's happy. Are they really? I don't buy Gene's vision but I love the way the writers played with it. Colonel Greene starved his population, ostensibly to stop even bigger famine. I assume that no one was allowed to "own" land. Land gives you the ability to plant a garden, grow and preserve food. Greene was using food as a weapon. Once a government gets that kind of control over the people great danger lies ahead.
Voodoowoman stands ready to receive hate.

 

[Citiprime]

I always got the impression that the title "ambassador" in Star Trek is the equivalent of being a senator in the United States. For example, we don't know if Sarek was the only Vulcan ambassador, especially since Spock seems to have held the title as well when Sarek was still going on diplomatic missions. So you could have a situation where each planet gets a number of members in the Federation Council based on population, or each planet gets a flat number of representatives on the council.

I also have always kinda felt that the Federation probably allows each member to use their own standards in picking their representative, but only within reason. Bajor was told that a caste system would be unacceptable. So there are some standards.

We've never seen a Federation election on screen, but President Jaresh Inyo implied in DS9's "Homefront / Paradise Lost" that he did have to run for office. His title as "President" rather than "Prime Minister" or anything similar makes me think that he is specially elected by the people.

 

[Shawnster]

On the other hand, the office of Federation President is an elected position.

What is the structure of the European Union? Are there elected positions? What about the structure of the UN? Are those elected positions?


The Federation, especially in TOS feels like the UN. There are ambassadors and commissioners. Each planet seems sovereign. The Enterprise operated with the United Earth Space Probe Agency. There were distinct Earth colonies.

By the TNG era the Federation seems much more unified. Instead of a loose collection of independent or semi independent states, all the planets seem to be part of a more cohesive Federation. Instead of each planet being like a separate country in the UN, it feels more like separate states of the United States. Whatever legal or political differences there are between worlds is much more minor than in the TOS era.

Is the Federation comparable to the United States? The European Union? The United Nations?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Is the Federation comparable to the United States? The European Union? The United Nations?

Yes!

^_-

 

[Henoch]

Is the Federation comparable to the United States? The European Union? The United Nations?

Technically by definition of what's a Federation, the USA is a Federation, but the EU is not and the UN is not, but they each can have federated states in each.

 

[Shawnster]

Definition is up to whomever decides what it is, though. After all, China is a Republic and the old Communist East Germany was a Democratic Republic.

At least, that's what they were named.

 

[herofhyrule]

So is your argument that the Federation is fascist because the Federation Council is possibly unelected? Because as others have pointed out, the EU and UN both have unelected representatives, and I would definitely not describe either of them as fascist. Also, you bring up not being to own land. That's not really true either, as we see with Picard's vineyard and Joseph Sisko's restaurant. They clearly owned that land, they just probably didn't buy it with money.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

We know absolutely nothing about how each Federation member world selects its councillors.

But even if we did, they don't have to be popularly elected to ensure democracy. Non-canon though this may be, in the novelverse we do learn some of this stuff, and it's all still democratic as shit:

- Bajor's councillor is chosen by the First Minister and ratified by the Chamber of Ministers
- Andor selects its councillor from the party that holds the majority in the Andorian parliament
- Betazed DOES popularly elect its councillor

And I think we can all agree that all three of those worlds are democracies. So I'm not really seeing the problem here.

I mean, it's not like the Federation government does, or even can, select its member worlds' councillors. The Federation doesn't work like that. Individual member worlds are left to run their own local affairs (up to and including selecting Federation representatives) as they see fit.

Ediit: Would you think that the UK is fascist because their Prime Minister is chosen by the monarch? No? Then this isn't either.

 

[Magic Maik]

The Terran Empire has a greater possibility of being less damaging to alien cultures than a United Federation of Planets in my opinion.

"Going by rebellion sources, the culture of the Empire was fascistic, described as oppressive, racist and xenophobic, predicated on an unconditional hatred and rejection of anything and everything "other". Michael Burnham summarized this information by identifying the Empire as the antithesis of the United Federation of Planets in every way."

It's a shame that the Terran Empire is so poorly thought out as a concept, I suppose there's little to no motivation amongst an ideologically driven creative staff of fundamentalists to develop any more than a superficial understanding of such an Empire, so a cartoonish Harkonnen style Empire is the best they could come up with.

Fascist, Fascistic or Fascism are nice words to slap on whenever people don't want to put too much effort into explaining the nuances of a totalitarian/repressive/reactionary/whatever additional "bad" thing, entity.

"Humans of the prime universe could be violent, but violence was so ingrained in Terran culture that it self-propagated as an evolutionary survival mechanism, resulting in a strength that Michael Burnham described as "painted rust" – a facade hiding mutual fear between target and potential killer."

So, they are essentially a human, un-compromised, Klingon Empire in it's prime then? Sounds great!
I have doubts that upon contact with the Klingon Empire the Terran Empire would hold an unconditional hatred and rejection of anything and everything "other".There'd be conflict but also a begrudging admiration of their qualities as a strong people, maybe even cooperation? I'm sure there'd be other cultures with specific traits that would also be considered admirable. Conflict wouldn't be a constant as it is unsustainable, alliances would have to be made as a natural reality in any universe.

There'd be a lot more order to the universe from a human standpoint, "Imperial Starfleet officers often promoted themselves by killing superiors that did not follow the rules of the Empire." That's just plain Anarchy, I highly doubt you could create a stable and successful Human Empire based on that lunacy, it would just breed endless chaos.

"Torture was a common form of interrogation and discipline." What was that episode in TNG where a Human child was kidnapped by an invading enemy from a Federation colony and was subsequently being raised as the son of said invading alien? They used "Torture" as a form of discipline too... but that's culturally acceptable. That's just one example, double standards me-thinks!

I reckon the entire concept of the Terran Empire is lazy and deliberately made unsympathetic. There's absolutely no desire to give it any greater depth than "painted rust" because adding any nuance will make the already questionable utopian vision that is the United Federation of Planets look like even less of a favourable outcome for Humanity.

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[The Wormhole]

Would you think that the UK is fascist because their Prime Minister is chosen by the monarch?

Eh? Aren't UK Prime Ministers elected.?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ No.

Linky

Oh, and as for @Magic Maik's CS Lewis quote: That doesn't apply either, since membership in the Federation is voluntary.

 

[herofhyrule]

The Terran Empire has a greater possibility of being less damaging to alien cultures than a United Federation of Planets in my opinion.

"Going by rebellion sources, the culture of the Empire was fascistic, described as oppressive, racist and xenophobic, predicated on an unconditional hatred and rejection of anything and everything "other". Michael Burnham summarized this information by identifying the Empire as the antithesis of the United Federation of Planets in every way."

It's a shame that the Terran Empire is so poorly thought out as a concept, I suppose there's little to no motivation amongst an ideologically driven creative staff of fundamentalists to develop any more than a superficial understanding of such an Empire, so a cartoonish Harkonnen style Empire is the best they could come up with.

Fascist, Fascistic or Fascism are nice words to slap on whenever people don't want to put too much effort into explaining the nuances of a totalitarian/repressive/reactionary/whatever additional "bad" thing, entity.

"Humans of the prime universe could be violent, but violence was so ingrained in Terran culture that it self-propagated as an evolutionary survival mechanism, resulting in a strength that Michael Burnham described as "painted rust" – a facade hiding mutual fear between target and potential killer."

So, they are essentially a human, un-compromised, Klingon Empire in it's prime then? Sounds great!
I have doubts that upon contact with the Klingon Empire the Terran Empire would hold an unconditional hatred and rejection of anything and everything "other".There'd be conflict but also a begrudging admiration of their qualities as a strong people, maybe even cooperation? I'm sure there'd be other cultures with specific traits that would also be considered admirable. Conflict wouldn't be a constant as it is unsustainable, alliances would have to be made as a natural reality in any universe.

There'd be a lot more order to the universe from a human standpoint, "Imperial Starfleet officers often promoted themselves by killing superiors that did not follow the rules of the Empire." That's just plain Anarchy, I highly doubt you could create a stable and successful Human Empire based on that lunacy, it would just breed endless chaos.

"Torture was a common form of interrogation and discipline." What was that episode in TNG where a Human child was kidnapped by an invading enemy from a Federation colony and was subsequently being raised as the son of said invading alien? They used "Torture" as a form of discipline too... but that's culturally acceptable. That's just one example, double standards me-thinks!

I reckon the entire concept of the Terran Empire is lazy and deliberately made unsympathetic. There's absolutely no desire to give it any greater depth than "painted rust" because adding any nuance will make the already questionable utopian vision that is the United Federation of Planets look like even less of a favourable outcome for Humanity.

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I'm sorry, could you please make your point a bit clearer? Are you saying that the writers deliberately don't explore the Terran Empire to make the Federation look better?

 

[Magic Maik]

Eh? Aren't UK Prime Ministers elected.?

Technically.

A group of candidates are pushed forward by God knows who as potential party leaders, then the party's members vote for their favoured candidate, then there's a national election, then they go through the rigmarole of bowing/curtsying to the Monarch where they go through a traditional ceremony where *pffft* they agree to totally not be a treasonous, thieving, lying dog.

 

[The Wormhole]

Odd no one brought any of this up during the "Vote Saxon" storyline on Doctor Who.

 

[Magic Maik]

"The United Federation of Planets (UFP) is an interstellar alliance of more than 150 planetary governments".

It'd make sense if each planetary government could select/elect three members each to serve in the Federation Council.

That'd mean a chamber of 450 councillors which isn't unrealistic.

Why three each? Humans like things in threes, it might be an universal constant.

The Federation President elected from amongst this chamber?

 

[Jedi Marso]

As Kirk once said in TOS, the primary benefit of Federation membership is that 'your planet will always be yours.' Since different species have different forms of government, it stands to reason that the representatives sent to the Federation Council or what not are determined in different ways by their home governments. Some might be elected, some appointed, some hereditary, and perhaps some assigned by virtue of their physiology (the progenitor of a hive mind, for example). Once on the Federation Council, Federation matters are determined according to Federation Law. But the planets themselves are governed according to the wishes of their species. (The caveat being that planets joining to the Federation must have to meet certain requirements in terms of technological advancement and the rights of its citizens, etc.)

 

[herofhyrule]

@Voodoowoman2
I've just stumbled upon your earlier thread where you also claim that the Federation is fascist. May I ask where exactly this originated? Why do you feel so strongly that the Federation is fascist despite there being basically no evidence of that whatsoever?