Non-human species representation in the UFP

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Mr. Oragahn
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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:49 pm

sonofccn wrote:I guess I'm a little unsure of the point of this thread.

If it was to point out the lack of aliens in starfleet that has of course already been observed and theroys equally good or bad submitted.

You also talk about how the goverment is designed which implies to me at least your wondering if the Federation is a humans only club that bullies lesser species, the Hegemony of Man jibe and all. In that regard seems a little silly.
What I see is that in more than a century of Federal activity, there's been very little conclusive efforts, as far as we can see, to have Starfleet represent a fair share of all members' forces and naval industries, and that most of it is in human hands.

There seems to be a certain level of mistrust, with other member worlds maintaining their own fleets. The result of this proacted exclusion is a fleet's assets being largely under human responsability, and control.
The defense of the UFP was assured by Terran made ships, again, with a good amount of human crews, and above all human captains and admirals.

This lack of balance is distressing in a way, especially since it provides all the cards for the basis to foment a coup over several years.
Get a secretly xenophobic human president at the helm, raise trading tensions here and there between alien worlds and human worlds, have agents on both sides stir trouble and grow resentiment against alien species, have ex-Maquis leaders pose as their former selves, reactivate past cells, resume their role as leaders, and turn ex-Maquis forces into the armed branch of a new political movement that would oppose the supremacy of humans over the Federation.
Let the President pretend he's doing his best to fight the new Maquis, while using UFP resources to arm it, notably via Section 31 (which would proably need to start a new branch and start getting new members who would be recruited among a pool of potentials, who'd clearly show a grudge towards non-humans).
Speaking of which, prepare new Amendments, or the equivalent name for modifications applied to Starfleet Charter's 14th Article, Section 31, which would extend the nature of threats to the Federation, including non-humans, dissidents and anyone suspected of having ties with them.
Keep those modifications under the arm, and prepare a couple of false flag assaults on some planets, some involving the Maquis, others involving allied fleets of so-called alien ships (largely bought, captured or disguised as non-human vessels). Among the assaulted planets, one would be wisely chosen to be the perfect martyr world.
Destroy the Federation Council's building and the President's Office, and pretend that, say, the Maquis is behind those agressions, or any other enemy force that would seem likely.
Also, at some point, the enemy will officially retaliate, and as such, if there's any need to convince humans of the Federation even more, then wait to be aware of the approach of enemy forces towards a colony, and barely intervene, while putting enough pressure on the enemy force to be sure that they'll strike the mightest force.
Obviously, thoughout the escalation of the conflict, progressively put those modifications you kept under your arm into application.

At that point, you should be able to establish a form of martial law or new totalitarian government for the preservation and interests of the human race.

Considering that you worked from a situation where most military ships were under human control anyway, with a very low alien representation, your work was rather easy to boot.
The federation has almost no power over it's indiviual members. A member planet is not apparently even throughly checked out, the cloud minders fisasco, and as long as that world has abolished slavery and isn't shoving people into disintergration booths you can do whatever you want. As been pointed out the Federation president is not human and we see alien high ranking officers typically when we see the upper echelons. Aliens just don't have the will, or desire, to do the grunt work.
The aliens certainly don't seem to have the will, desire, or capacity to access to the vast bulk of Starfleet's assets either.
But you can still find legions or bataillions still belonging to one country in particular, and above all, you don't have the new guys on the block taking the reign of the union. For the Federation, the humans were catching up, and yet they still attained the central role of the USA enjoyes in an organ like NATO for example.
While the exact reason for humanity becoming the core of the Federation has never been directly stated (ENT) did give us some clues. Our of the founding members the Vulcans were at least hated by the Andorians if not the Telleriates and in addition were undergoing a regiem change and down sizing. The Andorians hated the Telleriates and the Telleriates hated the Andorians neither one would have wanted the other to take up the military arm of the Federation. Humans on the other hand were a rapidly expanding young race that had treated all parties reasonably honorably and did not have decades if not centuries of grudges to settle. Humanity was the best option with the various members keeping thier fleets "pure", keep in mind while we see aliens on Federation vessels the majority alien vessels are wholly one race. I've never heard of a Vulcan ship having Telleriates on board or any other race.
Precisely. The seeds of conflicts were just brushed under the carpet. Man, the fan fiction! :D
But they're still Earth-style ships, that's quite telling, and contrary to the T-34s, they're not sold to other forces.
I'm a little curious to know how you know that. We rarely ever see member worlds and are not privy to what thier defense force, if any, consist of. I don't think we know that if Bajor had become a member if a few older style starships might have been aquired or not.
Considering the power of Bajor and how it was curbed, aside from some few defense ships we saw quite some time ago, I don't see anything meaningful to oppose to the countless terran starbases and shipyards.

The whole reason story goes well in the Federation is because humans are fair.

If for some reason, that fairness was to fade away, the results would be absolutely terrible, in my opinion and from what I saw, for non-humans.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The point is that the alien members of the Federation seem to relinquish their role in the Starfleet to a large degree.
The Federation is a bizarre entity, really.

All we know is that they don't participate in the military wing of the Federation, such as it is, which to me since we know of no regulations prohibiting it suggest cultural stagnation or other alien based reasons for not join up rather then some insidious Terran ploy to gain power over the universe.
Of course, I'm not saying this is a plan, the result of a malignous will. But my point is that if such evil was to raise, there's quite a lot of the work that's already done.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

ILikeDeathNote
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Post by ILikeDeathNote » Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:57 am

Mike DiCenso wrote: Given the 220 some-odd year history of the Federation, it seems odd that they would not have more than four presidents.
-Mike
You do realize that we have only seen four presidents during the selected time frames we were allowed to view, right? That that is not necessarily an implication that the UFP has had only four presidents during that entire time span, right?

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Wed Feb 11, 2009 5:52 am

No, I meant that the Federation ought to have more than four presidents given how long it has been around, and assuming similar term limits as the U.S. and other democratic nations in our real world.
-Mike

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Post by sonofccn » Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:00 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:What I see is that in more than a century of Federal activity, there's been very little conclusive efforts, as far as we can see, to have Starfleet represent a fair share of all members' forces and naval industries, and that most of it is in human hands.
I would say there has been no conclusive results, we do not know what measure if any the Federation attempted to encourage alien members to activly participate but judging from how aliens are intermixed through the other fields, federation scientists are at best 50% to be human, they would have at least tried at one point or another to bring the others in.
There seems to be a certain level of mistrust, with other member worlds maintaining their own fleets.
? I find that odd since we know of two member worlds that maintain thier own fleet and I don't recall anyone ever saying anything alone those lines.
The aliens certainly don't seem to have the will, desire, or capacity to access to the vast bulk of Starfleet's assets either.
Which is the aliens problem not the Federation. If only Earth is willing to pay the bill needed to build and maintain the starfleet then only Earth should have one. My point is the Federation appears to bend over for nonhumans and for one reason or another they do not serve it.

Hmmm maybe it's time we eliminated the deadwood? :-)
Considering the power of Bajor and how it was curbed, aside from some few defense ships we saw quite some time ago, I don't see anything meaningful to oppose to the countless terran starbases and shipyards
Bajor never had power from what I remember. They were an overly peaceful race that the cardasions curbstomped for fifty years before releasing them. In the reformation of a Bajoran goverment they had IIRC a handful of relics from the pre-war years left to defense thier sol system and for the most part were struggling to keep from desecending into anarchy. I never suggested they were capable of defeating the federation with it's thousands of vessels, what I said was we don't know if the Federation would have sold Bajor some older starfleet vessels after they joined the Federation to safe guard their own system.
The whole reason story goes well in the Federation is because humans are fair.

If for some reason, that fairness was to fade away, the results would be absolutely terrible, in my opinion and from what I saw, for non-humans.
I am not disagreeing that if starfleet was replaced with it's Terran empire replicas bad things would happen. That is a risk of a hyperpower, but one you have to risk in order to bring about order and peace.
Of course, I'm not saying this is a plan, the result of a malignous will. But my point is that if such evil was to raise, there's quite a lot of the work that's already done.
Possible. That may also be a reason Vulcan has it's own fleet...just in case Terrans get a little too big for thier britches.

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Post by The Corporal » Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:24 pm

Honestly if I were a member nation of the Federation I'd maintain my own SDF for the simple reason that SF seems to be very unlucky in it's fleet placement during a crisis.

TMP: only ship in the area
Dominion War: Betazed fleet out of position
Sol during BOBW: Just the MArs defense perimeter

I'm sure I'm missing a few.

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Post by Praeothmin » Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:53 pm

Oragahn wrote:Didn't someone not even remembering any human president?
That's now addressed.
Not really, no.
The two human Presidents were during Enterprise-time, meaning Pre-Federation.
That would not be surprising, since the "Terran" fleet before the Federation would be comprised mostly of, and managed by, Humans.

All the Presidents I remember seeing in the Federation during TNG, DS9 and Voyager were non-human.

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Post by ILikeDeathNote » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:29 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:No, I meant that the Federation ought to have more than four presidents given how long it has been around, and assuming similar term limits as the U.S. and other democratic nations in our real world.
-Mike
Image

So I take it that if you're watching, say, CSI (original flavor), you would assume that Gil Grissom has been the head of Las Vegas' forensic investigations lab for, say, the vast majority of Las Vegas' history? Or that Dr. Gregory House, M.D., has been Princeton University's head pathologist since Princeton University was founded?

My point being is that there is no doubt that the UFP has had more than four presidents in its entire history. We have only seen four presidents because those were the presidents who have been in office during the times of TOS, the movie era and the TNG era. To assume that what we have seen is a complete representation of all office holders of the UFP presidency is nothing short of ludicrous.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:19 am

ILikeDeathNote wrote: So I take it that if you're watching, say, CSI (original flavor), you would assume that Gil Grissom has been the head of Las Vegas' forensic investigations lab for, say, the vast majority of Las Vegas' history? Or that Dr. Gregory House, M.D., has been Princeton University's head pathologist since Princeton University was founded?
No. In fact, I would hope that wasn't the case at all. But they live in clearly different universes, despite their attempts to portray otherwise. After all, the CSI series show vastly better funded CSI operations for their respective cities than is actually the case in real life, and CSI personnel doing things that few, if any actually ever get to do, as well as cases being resolved in a time frame vastly faster than would be possible.
ILikeDeathNote wrote: My point being is that there is no doubt that the UFP has had more than four presidents in its entire history. We have only seen four presidents because those were the presidents who have been in office during the times of TOS, the movie era and the TNG era. To assume that what we have seen is a complete representation of all office holders of the UFP presidency is nothing short of ludicrous.
My point as well, too. Therefore we cannot take what we see (only four presidents) as meaningful statistical sampling of which races get elected the most time to that particular office. Not to mention, each president, with only one exception, is separated by centuries: Archer is separated from the Unnamed (presumably) Human Federation president by about a 100 years, then about 10 years later we see the Unnamed Efrosian president, who is then separated by another 80 or so years later by Jaresh-Inyo. Even if we saw what looked to be a Human president, we cannot be certain we are seeing one since there are plenty of species in the ST verse that look externally alike to Terrans.
-Mike

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:22 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Mike DiCenso wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote: As for human presidents, on the four Memory Alpha lists, two were humans, including Archer apparently (although it's related to those AU episodes).
So the list is of four known presidents... out of how many again? Given the 220 some-odd year history of the Federation, it seems odd that they would not have more than four presidents. In the similar timespan it has been around, the United States has had 44 presidents. So can we take that list as an indicator of anything?
-Mike
Didn't someone not even remembering any human president?
That's now addressed.
Archer is one, and the president seen in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the other, presuming he is indeed Human and not one of those nearly-identical to Human races.
-Mike

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:32 am

Praeothmin wrote:
Oragahn wrote:Didn't someone not even remembering any human president?
That's now addressed.
Not really, no.
The two human Presidents were during Enterprise-time, meaning Pre-Federation.
That would not be surprising, since the "Terran" fleet before the Federation would be comprised mostly of, and managed by, Humans.

All the Presidents I remember seeing in the Federation during TNG, DS9 and Voyager were non-human.
See the list here at Memory Alpha. Only one TNG-era president has been seen, Jaresh-Inyo. Two late TOS-era presidents (Unnamed Human and Unnamed Efrosian), and one early Federation president, Jonathan Archer (2184-2194). Archer's term establishes either two 5-year terms, or one 10-year term.
-Mike

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Post by Praeothmin » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:48 am

Mike D wrote:the president seen in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the other, presuming he is indeed Human
I don't think he is, since he definitely has enough structural differences to class him in the non-human category.
See here:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/229/5145 ... f501_o.jpg

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:58 am

No, that's the Efrosian president from Star Trek VI:TUC. The human president is seen here, is from ST IV:TVH.
-Mike

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Post by Praeothmin » Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:14 pm

Really?
I thought he was just the Court President, for the trial of Kirk and Co.
Where is it mentioned that he is actually the Federation President?

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:22 am

At least once, by the man himself:

"This is the President of the United Federation of Planets. Do not approach Earth!"

It does not get any more explict than that.
-Mike

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Post by Praeothmin » Fri Feb 13, 2009 5:57 pm

I guess not... :)

I have to re-watch all my ST movies... :)

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