Why the Federation/Starfleet is a totalitarian regime

[Whitestar]

When Gene Roddenberry attempted to spread his “tree hugging” New Age philosophy for Next Gen, he wanted to create a government that respected and cherished the differences in its people, especially when encountering extra terrestrials. While the Federation/Starfleet initially appeared to be a benevolent government, there's a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise. In fact, it's a totalitarian regime and here are some examples.

During the initial development of Next Gen, Roddenberry sought to incorporate a ship counselor stationed on the bridge because he wanted the role of the counselor to help the crew adjust to life onboard a starship in deep space. This is understandable, but another reason for this was because at the time the show was made, therapy was the latest fad, it was considered cool and hip. Thus, the character of counselor Deanna Troi was born. Plus, he wanted the character to have empathic abilities, for he felt that she (and probably every Betazoid) would make ideal candidates as spies for Starfleet Captains, using the ship counselor title as cover. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s examine the episode entitled, “The Loss” for instance. In that episode, Troi loses her empathic abilities, albeit temporarily, and becomes angry and hostile towards her shipmates. To makes things even more dramatic, she threatens to quit her job as ship counselor because she felt that she could no longer perform her duty. The question is, why would she do that? Didn’t she bragged in nearly every episode that she has a degree in psychology? Even if she lost her empathic powers permanently, that doesn’t mean that she was incapable of performing as ship counselor because she’s a trained psychologist, or least, she keeps reminding us of that misleading impression. So what does this so-called “professional ship counselor” do? She complains, whines, and cries like a little spoil brat, rather than adjusting to this “handicap” as a mature adult and move on. But in typical Star Trek fashion, Troi miraciously gets her empathic powers back and everything is the same as before, as though the episode in question never happened. It would have been far more interesting if Troi had lost her empathic powers permanently and seek guidance from other professional counselors, who do not possess her former abilities and do their job very well without it. Plus, the crew would have felt more at ease than having Troi poking around in their minds!

The universal translator is another example of the Federation/Starfleet totalitarian mentality. The way it is depicted in Star Trek, this device is capable of deciphering an unknown language whenever the Enterprise crew encounters a new species for the first time. But what’s really stretching plausibility is that it does so instantaneously. The problem with this plot device is that it takes time to understand an unknown language. To get an idea of what that’s like, try watching a foreign film without subtitles in it and figure out what the characters are saying, and I guarantee you that you will not understand anything. Although it helps to figure out what the characters are emoting, judging by their voice intonation and body movement, its not enough for you to fully comprehend what’s happening in that particular scene if you don’t know the lingo. The only exception to this rule is the Next Gen episode entitled, “Darmok”, which highlights how rocky communication can become when words are shared, but not concepts. Which leads to a terrifying prospect: the universal translator operates by scanning the minds of alien beings, thus, breaching a code of ethics in terms of privacy. It scans, reads, and interprets the unknown language accordingly. If that is the case, why the frell does Starfleet need beings like Troi or telepaths in the first place? If it is so good at reading minds, we can forgo all the courtroom dramatics and equipment crises in Star Trek. And since it can read minds effectively, it is also an ideal focusing device for starship control panels. There goes half the episodes! I’m surprised that Troi never once felt that her job was threatened by the universal translator. If Starfleet had any brains, they would have fire her eema the moment the universal translator was invented, and I wouldn’t have minded one bit because I hated her character anyway. No doubt, this technology is something that the Borg would wilt before it. Speaking of which, it amazes me on how the Federation goes so far as to advertise all over the known galaxy on how evil the Borg are, with their plans for assimilating all intelligent life into their collective hive. At least the Borg are upfront about their objectives, but the same cannot be said of the Federation/Starfleet, who uses the universal translator as a mind scanning device, cloaked in the form of extra terrestrial brotherly love and understanding.

And the ultimate abomination is the transporter. This device has so many problems in Star Trek that I don’t understand why the writers insist on using it, plot convenience aside. When Roddenberry realized that he couldn’t land the Enterprise or a shutlecraft on a planet every week due to budget constraints, he had to figure out another creative way to get Captain Kirk and his crew from the Enterprise to a planet. Thus, he invented the transporter (well, not really, he stole it from the classic film, “The Fly”). Very convenient. Not only did it solved the budgetary problems of its time, it also removed the necessity of landing starships onto a planet, which would have been time consuming at best, boring at worse. Anyway, let’s examine for a moment on how it functions. Based on the writers description, it works by separating crew members at the atomic level, which is then converted into energy and sent through a matter stream. Once the energy arrives at the appointed destination, the process is reversed. Sounds neat. Too bad it doesn’t work as a means for transportation and I’ll explain why. The transporter cannot separate crew members atoms due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which states that one can measure an atom’s position and velocity with great precision, but never both at the same time. To measure one, cancels out the other. A good analogy to this the heads-or-tails scenerio. When you flip a coin, you can either have heads or tails, but not both. Same thing goes for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Plus, it also converts crew members into energy, which is Einstein’s most famous formula, E=mc2. To convert a 50 kilogram person into energy, the energy equivalent would be somewhere in excess of a thousand 1 megaton hydrogen bombs! If we were to take that energy and reconvert back into matter, it would result in a clone, thinking that he or she is the original person. Thus, the transporter is actually a form of capital punishment as oppose to the ultimate transportation device. Some claim that the Empire in Star Wars is ruthless, but at least they don’t subject them to the horrors of the transporter by willingly destroying themselves as raw fuel, only to be cloned! Besides, if they wanted to get inside a captured ship, all they have to do blast their way through the doors. Crude, but effective. Roddenberry should have placed more careful thought in creating a teleportation device that displaces its occupants, like a wormhole or hyperspace, rather than destroying and cloning his characters.

The absurd part about all this is that this is coming from Roddenberry himself, who said from the beginning of the original series that he would never allow Starfleet vessels to be equip with cloaking devices because the Federation/Starfleet are not spies, and yet he fully endorsed Troi (and possibly other Betazoids) as pseudo-ship counselors to read (and invade) the minds of every people or being they come into contact, without their consent and he has the gall to state that the Federation/Starfleet are not sneaks?!? Like hell they’re not! The Federation is a totalitarian regime who does not care for its citizens well-being. It must be overthrown and replaced with a more benign government (if there is such a thing).

[carrie221]

That is a very cool look at the series, I had never looked at it in that way before but you brought up a lot of very good points... hmm...

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Whitestar

The Federation is a totalitarian regime who does not care for its citizens well-being. It must be overthrown and replaced with a more benign government (if there is such a thing).

Oh Yeah! You and who's army. Tha's fightin' talk!

Seriously, I agree with everything you said (and I've read it before too), except that much of that later development was beyond Roddenberry's original concept.

What about the 'Prime Directive'? That doesn't strike me as the ideology of a Totalitarian regime. It doesn't work though. Star Fleet Captains break the 'Prime Directive' on more occasions than they mention it. Kirk and Janeway break it everyday before breakfast!

I much prefer Iain M Bank's idea of the 'Culture'; a regime that constantly interferes and tinkers with other societies to set them back upon what they deem to be the right path. Much more like our own Governments do today.

Have you ever seen this website?:
The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek: Militarism, Collectivism, & Atheism

[Whitestar]

Originally Posted by Dave

Oh Yeah! You and who's army. Tha's fightin' talk!

LOL! Actually, there's a LOT of people who feel the same as I do, you'd be surprised.

Originally Posted by Dave

Seriously, I agree with everything you said (and I've read it before too), except that much of that later development was beyond Roddenberry's original concept.

What about the 'Prime Directive'? That doesn't strike me as the ideology of a Totalitarian regime. It doesn't work though. Star Fleet Captains break the 'Prime Directive' on more occasions than they mention it. Kirk and Janeway break it everyday before breakfast!

I much prefer Iain M Bank's idea of the 'Culture'; a regime that constantly interferes and tinkers with other societies to set them back upon what they deem to be the right path. Much more like our own Governments do today.

Yes, you're quite right about the Prime Directive. While I don't particularly like the character of Kirk, I do however, agree with him disobeying it whenever it suited him because its a very unattainable ideal. Not only is it easy to violate the Prime Directive; in fact, it is hard NOT to violate it. Now if Starfleet actually followed the Prime Directive to the letter, they wouldn't achieve their objectives which involves from tentative exploration to outright colonization, and that alone is a violation of the Prime Directive. In addition, its also a scientific impossibility. For instance, we know that behind the Prime Directive is the idea that it is possible to observe a society without actually affecting it. Based on this observation, the Prime Directive is a direct violation of the aforementioned Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which again states that observers always interfere with the things they're observing. Just like in the beginning of the movie, "Insurrection" (which by the way was originally called, "Prime Directive") Starfleet is spying on the Baku village people through a cloaked observation dome (sneaky, aren't they?). No observation is or can be neutral. You can't have it both ways and neither can Star Trek. Whether the Federation/Starfleet likes it or not, observers are indeed participants. Even Picard who was more strict in adhering to this principle had violated the Prime Directive at least nine times in his career and everytime he had a good damn reason for doing so. Ditto for Kirk. Thus, violating the Prime Directive is not really a matter of principle but of degree. I addressed this in my thread entitled, "Prime Directive: Why it should be abolished" on the following link:

http://www.chronicles-network.com/fo...abolished.html

The problem is, historically speaking, there is no such thing as exploration for exploration's sake. Exploration usually leads to empire, and empire leads to war. Roddenberry was aware of exploration being a poor excuse for conquest and empire, hence, he created the Prime Directive because he wanted the Federation to as a corrective to this bloody history of exploration. Some consider Christopher Columbus a hero, but I don't because he deliberately killed innocent men, women, and children. Anyone who commits this type of atrocity is a coward and a criminal in my book, and he was both. Its no wonder he always considered himself a failure till the day he died. But getting back to the subject at hand, I think that maybe the Prime Directive should not be abolished, but remodified. It should state that the Federation/Starfleet's mission is to explore strange new worlds and civilizations and whenever they encounter new species that are a spacefaring society, they can establish commerce and trade, thus, forming alliances and allies. They should do this even with the primitive worlds as well because they will appreciate getting their technology jump-started by a thousand fold and will no doubt have something of value to the Federation/Starfleet too. Its a win-win situation, I think.

Originally Posted by Dave

Have you ever seen this website?:
The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek: Militarism, Collectivism, & Atheism

Yes, I came across that link a few years back and its a very good one.

[Cloud]

there are trees in space?

[Whitestar]

Here is another example of why the Federation/Starfleet is a totalitarian regime. During the DS9 era, the war between the Federation and the Cardassia ended when both factions signed an armistice, consisting of the Federation surrendering colony planets which originally belonged to Cardassia. The problem was that there were many Federation officers and citizens who were living on these colony planets and refused to leave. However, the Federation has offered them to relocate elsewhere under Federation rule, but the Maquis's loyalties lied more with their homes colonies, as opposed to the Federation. The moment the armistice was signed, Maquis felt the Federation had abandoned them, leaving the impression that the Federation was a totalitarian regime. Faced with no other alternative, the Maquis began to rebel against the Cardassian government by attacking their ships, outposts, and militarized zones. The Maquis generally tended to avoid attacking Federation ships, advising them to get out of the way instead. In response to these attacks, the Federation and Cardassia has labeled the Maquis as terrorists and both have pursued them relentlessly ever since. However, there were many within the Federation who considered the Maquis heroes and sympathized with their cause.

In the DS9 episode entitled, "For The Cause", paints the Federation in a very unflattering light when former Starfleet officer, Michael Eddington has become a member of the Maquis and provides a very convincing argument on why the Federation/Starfleet is a totalitarian regime:

"Why is the Federation so obsessed about the Maquis? We've never harmed you. And yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism, starships chase us through the Badlands, and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators so that one day they can take their 'rightful place' on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you're worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious. You assimilate people and they don't even know it."

See link for more information:

United Federation of Planets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unfortunately, the Dominion eventually anniliated the Maquis, except the ones stationed on board Voyager, the last surviving remnants when they were stationed in the Delta Quadrant at the time. It should also be noted that its not actually known if the Federation/Starfleet actually forces other species to join them, considering how hard it is to apply for membership and many are turned down. But they certainly give that impression. For those wishing for a new Trek show with a cool premise, I got one for you: the Rebirth of the Maquis!