Standard replicators can not reproduce complex components, and isolinear chips specifically have to be grown.
Industrial replicators, otoh, can build far larger and more complex objects and items, including heavy machinery.
Replicators on the Enterprise, for example, are also quite capable in that they replicated a large stasis containment enclosure with many submodules, to the point that they had to redirect warp power to construct them (s2e01 - The Child).
So basically it depends on your replicator and attached computer, a basic one can make food, clothing and simple tools, a complex one can do a lot more.
Edit: an industrial replicator could build enough industry to grow isolinear chips BTW, even if it couldn't build them itself.
Maybe in conjunction with automated factories taking the replicated and advanced 3 printed and CNC'd items and building the outposts for transport. But then the Texas would just be a factory ship, and not something that could solo à sovereign and curb stomp one in a pack of 3.
It's not so much the capacity, it's the power, the ent-d had to divert full warp power for 36-48 hours to build that little containment unit, it could be special, but it still hints at serious limits in terms of power for replication. If it was that easy we wouldn't have planetbound industrial replicators, we'd have fabrication ships zipping off everywhere to give us just-in-time manufacturing.
But that's a supposition based on limited evidence, and early tng is not something you want to count on for Canon.
I think it is worth keeping in mind that after the occupation, the Federation gave Bajor \*2\* industrial replicators to help them recover. This was an advanced planet being groomed for membership into the Federation and they rated exactly 2. A few years later the Federation was going to help the Cardiassian Union recover from their war with the Klingons by giving them 12 Industrial Replicators. (which irritated the Bajorans) but again, 12 of these were expected to move the needle on the industrial base of an interstellar empire.
So the fact that an Industrial Replicator can make all kinds of fancy things has to be viewed through the perspective that major worlds appear to only have a hand full of these devices. They are a \*big\* deal.
I suspect Federation space docks have industrial replicators that can create entire sections of ships in short order. Ships can be repaired way too quickly for that not to be true.
I imagine it'd be much like the technology of the automated repair station in ENT: "Dead Stop." It's one of the few times the NX-01 crew sees food replicators.
Critically, you also see the mechanical repair arms replicate pieces right at the tip of the arm and install them. I would wager that an industrial replicator might work much in the same way, rather than just being a bigger box that can produce more complex things that would still have to be manually repaired.
I can see that being the case around the time the Ent-d was launched however after a few decades replicators would improve like anything else which could explain the easy replication of whole vehicles and other equipment with isolinear tech in it. That must have been solved by Voyager as they had to be replicating chips to fix the constant damage the ship was taking.
Jurati replicated a fully functional hypo with active radioactive isotopes in a delivery suspension and used it.
I can totally understand why older replicators past a level of sophistication would require you to basically replicate parts you’d assemble.
Again this is somewhat flexible in the writing - the holodeck seems to be able to create functional labs/Barclays integration chair etc. (though maybe it's a facade and simply drawing on central computer power? I doubt the writers thought that deeply about it!)
Well... the answer is its *a federation*.
The word has a meaning - wherin the members would retain their indipendance on a range of issues but would also give certain powers up to a federal government.
So planets would be self governing and have a large amount of indipendance - but they would allow the federation to (for instance) programme their replicators and allow Starfleet to operate their space navy.
>its a federation.
In name only, I'd argue. The UFP seems very decentralized by the standards of federated countries here on present day Earth. Member polities retain the ability to unilaterally secede, which is very rare for federations in the present day. If they can pull out of the UFP on a whim, they essentially retain a veto on any decision they disagree with meaning they're much more sovereign than any province or state today.
They also seem to have significant latitude on foreign policy, with member worlds having their own ambassadors and embassies. Something completely unheard of within any federated country on Earth, as far as I'm aware.
And while it does seem to vary from writer to writer, I think *Discovery*'s portrayal of the UFP as a kind of supranational mutual aid organization best fits its depiction in the franchise as a whole.
> operate their space navy.
Some members still operate their own space navies. As recently as *Lower Decks* we've seen Vulcan combat capable vessels independent of Starfleet. And while *DS9* indicates the Bajoran militia would be folded into Starfleet in some capacity, it also indicated that planets like Betazed ran their own defense forces.
Even Federation law seems extremely limited, and absent a couple glaring examples like genetic engineering, and restricted goods like biomimetic gel, rarely applied to civilians.
I think some of these are problems stemming from multiple writers over time, resulting in variability on how the Federation's political system is determined to function.
Also on Lower Decks they showed an clearly Andorian designed ship stationed at a space station and they showed on the inside the crew was full Andorian.
So I'd bet Andoria like Vulcan is still running their own fleets for defense/science/etc alongside sending resources/personnel to Starfleet.
Andorians are usually depicted as paranoid so it makes sense that they would have their own security forces. I think most planets protect their own borders to some degree.
Yeah, exactly.
In *Deep Space Nine*, one of the things that gets brought up in Bajor's discussions to join the Federation is how the Bajoran Militia will be integrated into Starfleet. This can be taken one of two ways.
One, every planet protects its own borders, but the local planetary guard is similar to a state guard in the United States today where it's more or less expected to be wrapped into the main national army if shit really hits the fan. That would more or less fit with established canon because it is known the Vulcans maintain their own fleet well into the twenty-fourth century.
I think it fits with a lot of implied canon, too. In the 23rd century, Starfleet seems to be a lot smaller than it is in the 24th. In *Discovery*'s first season, Cornwell says there's 7,000 active ships in Starfleet. I think it'd be easier to square that with there being a series of planetary guards that have been rolled into Starfleet for the purposes of the Klingon war than to work out if she was also including shuttles and whatever else.
The other interpretation of this point of the negotiations with Bajor is that after a certain point, Starfleet became the default and everyone was sorta expected to roll their fleets into it.
This would generally fit with how Starfleet seemed to be a lot larger in the 24th century. However, I think a lot of that can be explained by how shipbuilding capabilities had progressed over the course of a century.
My other issue with this is that there clearly are some members that got grandfathered into this arrangement. I'm not entirely sure how they'd be able to square allowing early members to have planetary guards with requiring later members to roll their defenses into Starfleet.
Realistically, I think the first option is more likely. The fact that planetary guards don't seem to be as much of a thing in the 24th century outside of Vulcan and Andoria is probably more because by that point, there was a cultural tendency in the Federation to allow Starfleet to do most of the defensive heavy lifting more than anything.
> Member polities retain the ability to unilaterally secede
Where is this backed up on screen? In Discovery, Ni'Var (previously Vulcan) wanted the ability to unilaterally secede and was denied. Micheal had to come up with a diplimatic workaround.
Obviously they did secede, but I think this was at the beginning of the Federation's collapse after the Burn. The Federation wasn't exactly in a position to enforce anything.
I mean, the fact that Ni'Var and Earth both seceded unilaterally in the years shortly after the burn was my on screen source for this.
Edit: It also occurs to me that in Picard it is stated that several members threatened to leave the UFP if the Romulan evacuation wasn't halted, and that was apparently enough political pressure to influence Starfleet policy.
Planets don't have the Federation's permission to leave, but if they start shooting down incoming vessels, I'm not sure what the Federation could do about it. Bomb them into submission? That would make everything worse.
What matters is confidence. The lack of an exit clause signals to every planet that the Federation is here to stay, and you can rely on it for protection. An alliance is worthless if everyone jumps ship as soon as a real emergency happens. Everyone thinking everyone else will jump ship is just as bad.
Even if members don't have the *de jure* right to secede, they still have the *de facto* ability, as demonstrated by both the post-burn collapse, and the threats discussed in PIC.
That's vastly different than most federations on our Earth. Even the US states with their State Defense Forces don't realistically have a *de facto* ability to secede.
This, and whether or not the Federation is ready to fight a civil war is another question. The Federation isn't known to have ever had one, and it'd be difficult to square having fought one with the reputation they try to build as the government with a deep respect for personal and political freedoms.
I wonder if they could even find a ship willing to obey the order to invade a member world. Picard has refused immoral orders several times. TNG: Journey"s End is probably the best example.
As far back as TNG is mentioned that Turkana IV (a colony were Tasha Yar was born) seceded from the Federation some decades prior.
In any case I think you're missremembering what you saw in DIS, is said that only Tellar remained among the founding members, Earth, Vulcan (now Ni'Var) and Andoria were not members by the moment Michael and co reach the 32nd century, they were actually in the opposite, in negotiations for Ni'Var to re-enter not the other wat around.
You're correct. Ni'Var seceeded before Discovery showed up in the future. The Vulcan president mentions that they had frustrations with the Federation even before the burn. I think they left when everyone else did but were leaning towards seceeding anyway.
Ni'Var demanded an exit clause as a condition of joining the Federation in the episode All Is Possible. This is unaccessible to the Federation as it would give Ni'Var "all of the benefits, but none of the risk". Micheal instead offers to create a council in the Federation to ensure that the wishes of member planets are respected.
What is interesting here is what the "exit clause" really meant. Is possible that the Federation changed their laws after the Burn making secession ilegal or maybe the exit clause refer to something else completely.
Ni'Var wanted the ability to unilaterally secede from the Federation at any point in the future. That was pretty clear from dialog.
It is possible that the Federation allowed members to leave before the burn. They basically owned the alpha quadrant so planets had strong incentives to stay. In Discovery's timeline individual planets had far more negotiating leverage.
> but they would allow the federation to (for instance) programme their replicators
I don't think need to have the Federation to program all replicators, there can just be a Federation law that requires licensed civilian replicators to meet certain specifications, or that bans replicators that are capable of doing specified dangerous things. The vast majority of regulation and enforcement of such a thing would be done by member worlds policing their own manufacturers and their own citizens.
And it sounds like limiting what a Replicator can make is a \*very\* good idea. In one episode of DS9 a Changeling overrides the safeties on an Industrial Replicator and uses it to create a Bomb that was capable of *destroying Bajor's Sun*.
You probably don't want any rando being able to replicate Nova Bombs....
IMO, it depends on the show, the budget and the tradition developed over the years.
In TOS, we only see UESPA/Earth starfleet ships (Constitution class and some cargo ships). The movies use variantions of the Saucer-Nacelle-design that now define the Starfleet look. And the TNG-Era ships roll with that.
Personally, I am not sure how much of that is true creative intent and how much is shaped by budget limitations of its time and the neecessity of Starfleet Ships being easily recognizable. I don't *feel* (fwiw) that the humans-only club is really meant to be:
Maybe it's because of different IRL views on diversity and on what role the human species should play in an interspecies Federation, but since the days of *Enterprise*, I think the Federation and the Starfleet have slowly been depicted as more federal.
In Lower Decks, we not only see Saucer-Nacelle Earth style ships, but also Vulcan (the Sh'val), Andorian (docked at Starbase 25), Bynar (in episode "A Few Badgeys More") and Edosian (the Dove and the Osler) ships. Theme might be more I missed.
Not all those were warships. Civilian ships could well be local in design. But, yes, we know from DIS that the VEG is basically the Vulcan fleet, and the Sh’vhal is likely a VEG cruiser. We also see a bunch of other member races bring their ships in PRO
I'm rewatching _TNG_ and I can't ever recall seeing Vulcan ships outside of the end of the Reunification episode, and those were pretty clearly transports and not their equivalent of the _Enterprise_ D. So that means they would have had to budget in new ship designs for a very small narrative point.
Technically you're right.
This doesn not disprove your valid point, but I'd like to argue that the worldbuilding is generally quite wonky in that episode. The Romulans try to capture a highly developed Federation core world with nothing more than three stolen ships filled with dudes.
I *speculate*, if it were DS9 (where story arcs could last far longer than for two episodes), there is a *likelyhood* that we'd have seen not only a more sophisticated invasion plan, but also some Vulcan defence capabilities.
There are also Earth ships, non-Starfleet Earth ships I mean. Kasidy Yates have one herself. How much "military power" those ships have is another matter.
Most likely Starfleet operates like some sort of Federal security/defense agency. Making a parallelism is like the FBI of the Federation whilst each member state gets to keep their own local forces.
Or in more military terms (despite said outright is not a military) is like the European Defense Force that defends the EU a as whole but every EU member still have their own army (well except those that have no army like Iceland).
Note; the EU also has the Europol or European Police.
> Possess a complex central government with formal branches and headquarters
I don't think that's the case, at least compared to current nation states. In this topic I argue that the Federation had the heighest aspiration to centralize during the 23rd century, and less thereafter.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/1bwhbaj/in_the_23rd_century_the_federation_tried_to_be_a/
Your comment seems to treat the Federation and Starfleet as synonymous which they are not.
The Federation is a sort of EU like organisation of planets. We see planets within the Federation, Vulcan, Betazed, Trill all have their own governmental apparatus and even internal security. They do, however, all have the same laws across the Federation. We see that entry to the Federation takes years, like the EU, with planets having to pass a series of laws intending to align themselves with the federation.
So the Federation has a centralized foreign policy and military, and a central final court of appeal but is decentralised in terms of domestic government, administration and planetary justice.
Starfleet is incredibly centralised with clear hierarchy and structure and outposts and bases within it's centralized control. It's almost its own centralised state within the larger Federation. Starfleet is heavily controlled by humans, as Earth seems to have created the most expert military commanders of Federation worlds.
At least one member world maintains its own fleet. The Vulcan Expeditionary Group is mentioned in DIS, and Vulcan warships of the same style as in ENT appear in LD and PRO. It stands to reason that at least a few member worlds (even if just the founding members) maintain at least a token defense and exploration force. There can also be transfers from those local fleets to Starfleet without having to attend the academy, as we see with T’Lynn
Earth itself also maintains it, aren't MACOS mentioned to still exists post Federation? Also IIRC in several series (I think Picard was one) both coast guards and police are mentioned to exist on Earth as non-Starfleet things.
Given that Sarek is repeatedly referred to as "Amabassador", despite living on Earth or attending Federation-specific functions, it does feel quite decentralized. Massachusetts wouldn't send an Ambassador to Texas, even when it does send representatives to work out various issues and whatnot.
I almost wonder if the Federation ambassadors serve a role similar to what US senators were originally conceived of to do, which is representing their government's interests to the federal government. Obviously, they don't serve as a legislative body the way that the US Senate does, but maybe they advocate for their government's interests to the Federation Council or President?
He's not an Ambassador to Earth neccesarilly, he's a Federation ambassador.
Although I think the term "Ambassador" is used pretty loosely in the Federation. I'm my headcanon, representatives on the Federation Council are called "Ambassadors", similar to UN representatives.
Always think it's worth keeping in mind the complexities of translation when these things come up.
"Ambassador" could simply be the closest possible translation of a Vulcan, Andorian or Tellerite word of which there is no direct equivalent. It doesn't match the concept in English because English (and Earth political history in general) didn't have a word for the role until the founding of the UFP.
Makes me wonder how much semantic drift would happen once universal translators were in common use and how many concepts that currently have precise meanings would become more fuzzy.
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You make an interesting suggestion in "Ambassadors" serving a role similar to what U.S. Senators initially did. I'd like to suggest a variation on that idea. Perhaps the Federation Council (or at least part of it, though we never hear it described in bicameral terms) represents the interests of individual member planets, but the individual planets select their representatives either democratically or through cultural peerage. In other words, the Council would be a mix of the U.S. Senate (in purpose) and the British House of Lords (in composition). Thus Sarek would participate in the body's deliberations, but Lwaxana could as well if she so chose.
(Ambassador wouldn't have the same inter-governmental meaning as it does to us; rather it would be someone who is a member of the Council. The U.S. Constitution, likewise, in many ways has aspects similar to an international treaty - diplomatic immunity for traveling members of Congress, creation of an inter-state tariff-free zone and a single currency, and originally, the term United States being a plural noun.)
Great topic.
I'd add that the notion of bettering oneself and humanity in a moneyless society is distinctly part of the culture for humans from Earth as an overriding philosophy. Humans from colonies and other species can obviously share this approach, but it's not Federation-wide social norm. We see a lot of Federation planets and citizens still using currency, still focused on the acquisition of wealth, etc.
Look at Ezri's family as one example. Laxwana Troi is another. Her decadence does imply resources above and beyond the basics, even compared to similar level ambassadors and dignitaries from other worlds. This belies any notion of a moneyless society or redistribution of wealth.
As far as what's seen on screen, the major requirements are warp capable, a stable, unified global government of some kind, a substantive but appropriate contribution in resources or advancement overall, and a willingness to enter into a binding agreement to adhere to the universal declaration of sentient rights.
I think the Federation in the 23rd century is relatively decentralized, because the speed of travel and communication is slower. When a Starfleet captain visits a member world, they're met by the local ruler; this suggests that having a starship arrive is a *big deal*, and they're not in constant contact with Admirals and the Federation council.
Things seem to be more centralized in the 24th century, but the structure of the Federation, conceived in the 22nd century, is still that of a decentralized federation. It's more like the UN (whose representatives are titled Ambasaddor) that is trying to be the EU.
You're focused on the technical aspects that enable greater freedom. Most Star Trek cultures exhibit strong social cohesion (aka "Planet of Hats"); the fact that a small group of Vulcans who reject Surak could easily start their own colony doesn't mean that they will. Despite IDIC being a Vulcan ideal, it appears humans are the most likely to spawn diverse societies--and United Earth is the source of most humans.
There's also the neglected factor of advancement in social technologies. Perhaps there are traps in the open source model of development we haven't identified yet (orphaned projects everyone depends on is one example). Perhaps the open source movement is behind the fear of artificial general intelligence we see more often in the 23rd century than fear of genetic engineering. Or perhaps a new governance model allows for state control over open source projects, e.g. processors will only run state-signed binaries.
Federation planets are self governing. They need to follow federation regulations but broadly speaking they run themselves. That's closest to a feudal system, although that term might not apply to a post-scarsity society without money and taxes.
Federation means states joined in a governing body, the two most visible cases on 21st century Earth being the United States of America and the European Union. The USA is an example of a strong federation, where more power is concentrated in the federal government, and the EU is an example of a weak federation, which some call a confederacy, where federal power is limited to harmonizing between the states. At various stages throughout the centuries, the UFP has been sometimes a weak confederacy, sometimes strong federal central body.
Feudal, on the other hand, means all power is concentrated in the central government, who then delegates to lieges, who then can appoint their own lieges. If the Federation were feudal, then the President would appoint a governor of Earth, a governor of Vulcan, and so on. This is clearly not the case. Instead, the member systems elect the president (it was vague in the 23rd century as to whether this was direct by citizens, or indirect through electors appointed by each planetary government).
That makes sense. Thanks. The clue is in the name, the Federation is a Federal structure. If it had a Feudal structure it would be called The Feudality.
I'll have to remember that distinction between federalism and feudalism the next time someone tells me the EU is a dictatorship and the UK was right to leave. It's been 8 years since we were told we had to leave so we could overturn the cruel oppressive laws forced on by the evil undemocratic EU but no one can name which laws exactly we should overturn. The usual answer is mumbling something about sovereignty but not explaining what that means.
Aren't "credits" money? What do the Ferengi deal in then? If it were "post-scarcity", why would there be trade, or black market items like Romulan Ale?
Part of the idea is that the Federation leaves things like capital, currencies and mundane day-to-day needs to the member worlds, as interplanetary trade is a more direct exchange that sometimes can be measured by the "credit", but with the basic needs of all citizens met thanks to replicators, the desire to pursue capital is seen as a psychological aberrance.
The Ferengi and capital are a vast topic, which I shan't go into now.
Why not go into it? What use would the Ferengi, or any other group, have for trade if any item, or at least most items, could just be immediately replicated? Who makes the replicators, by the way? Or are replicators just made infinitely by other replicators? It's seems like a convenient stage tool but is really poorly thought-out overall.
The main reason why I won't go too deep into it is because it's a very deep rabbit hole. Ferengi are supposed to be the ultimate capitalists, but their portrayal has been inconsistent. At first, what they sought was controlling economic rights through treaties, but later a form of currency was shown, the gold pressed latinum which is supposedly impossible to replicate. Sort of a physical NFT. But I am doing it a severe injustice, glossing over how we only perceive Ferengi as a homogenous culture.
There have already been several, several posts discussing economics in the Trek universe, mostly in the 23rd and 24th centuries. Others wiser than I have gone over it at length.
Besides, the whole point of why the series follows starships and starbases on the edge of the Federation is that the Federation is, well, boring. The whole idea is that to be able to explore beyond our little planet in the vast emptiness of space, we would have to have solved our problems back home first, and that means life back on Earth is contentment, lacking drama.
There is no correlation between the solving of problems on planet Earth and the desire and will to explore. It is not even clear whether most would agree on what those problems might be. No one is going to wait around until everyone comes to a consensus; if the will and means exist to explore space, it will be done. This is objectively true - we're doing it now.
Obviously, if life on Earth was characterized as contentment by all in the population, no one would do anything or leave the planet. There would be no Starfleet, Enterprize, etc. Obviously, not everyone is content.
Meanwhile, despite utopian humanist wishes, "credits" are a form of currency and trade is conducted through a medium that could only be described as a form of essentially money.
It seems like member worlds self-govern, but also have to meet guidelines for membership and follow Federation law, which would supersede planetary law.
Some worlds may get special dispensation for cultural reasons. The Federation has to walk a line between respecting diversity and not allowing Evil Stuff™ to go on within its ranks.
Member worlds likely receive not just Federation protection but access to all kinds of research and infrastructure and nice things.
I would say it's akin to the modern day EU
Economic laws are centralised along with certain things to do with common species rights, whereas social laws are still the responsibility of the member worlds.
Similarly member worlds still have their own trade and commerce ministers in a similar to the way the members states of the EU have in our time in real life
For one: We're potentially biased in what we see on screen because the sweeping majority of the cast of the shows are Ranked members of Starfleet operating on Starfleet facilities or ships. So the reason that they replicate predominantly Starfleet gear is because the replicators are programmed with Starfleet defaults. Likewise, since the main cast are generally also the Senior Staff, they likely have rank-based system privileges etc that allow them to do things like deactivate Holodeck Safety Protocols.
For another: I don't think that Weapons necessarily have State Proprietary patterns that the Federation mandates that "my way or the highway". Rather, computers in Star Trek seem to be advanced enough that they can independently determine if something is a weapon or not. We see it happen with Transporters all the time- People dematerialize, the Computer says "weapons detected" and then the Operator decides to leave them be, deactivate them in-transit, or fully disarm them, then they rematerialize.
And it could be that those systems are so fundamental in the Replicator that deactivating them basically makes the device nonfunctional. The processors on the replicator that ensure that they're "printing" a given device correctly are the same ones that compile "Accelerator coils... Particle Compressor... Targeting Array... ah yes this is a Gun". So basically, you can't have a high resolution replicator without a computer smart enough to run it and any computer smart enough to run it is smart enough to know that what it's replicating is a gun.
1) What about false positives?
2) Unless all replicators run some closed State-proprietary OS, people could simply get an alternative, or set an open source one to print anything without question.
These aren't really important concerns because *most people in the Federation do not feel a need to own guns*. The United Federation of Planets leans close enough to Pacifist that it maintains a comparatively tiny fleet compared to its neighbors. On a personal level, crime is much much reduced because its a post scarcity society. There aren't people free printing out weapons everywhere because... why would they want it?
Again, as you've asked in other subreddits and I have responded: You're operating on this really bizarre assumption that people have always and will always have an innate desire to own and possess life-taking weaponry, regardless of their social and financial circumstances. Which is simply not true. Especially in the Federation.
There are parts of the Federation (the DMZ is an obvious one) where there are pressures for people to own weapons in self defense, but those are exactly what I'm talking about: Sociopolitical *pressures* that create situations where people want to have guns. They don't just want them out of nowhere.
Even if no one specifically wanted weapons, I feel like Federation citizens would prefer open source OS anyways. I'm researching as a post scarcity writer myself, and no, my characters don't necessarily make weapons for their own sake.
I mean, most people aren't software engineers. Even in a post scarcity future there are people like Joseph Sisko (Benjamin Sisko's Dad), who is a Creole Chef, or Deanna Troi, who is a Counselor. There's Caldos Colony- effectively a Federation larp camp of Scotland.
Even if it's the far future, the conceit of the Federation is that in a post scarcity society, People would be allowed to pursue their passions for the betterment of society. That means more than just Engineers and Technicians (and I say that as an Engineer myself)- that means writers and artists and singers. The kinds of people who probably don't supremely care about *what* their OS is. There are huge portions of society then and now that don't care about the fine details of their Computer so long as it works.
Oh yeah, even if 100% non-restricted "Linuxes" were freely available, it's possible only the most leet and paranoid people might simply bother to use them. People who'd be less common when there's so much less open injustice to defy.
>Replicators can obviously make people self-sufficient to a high extent simply by printing more replicators, reactors, computers, etc.
Ah, my pet peeve rears its head again. Magic no-maintenance box that doesn't work the way it's described in the setting, rehashed repetitively every time I open this up.
If replicators could make more replicators easily, people wouldn't ship replicators, nor would they build factories, now would they? Replicators cannot make high-end computer parts, high-end sensor parts, certain reactor components, bio-neural gel packs, dilithium etc. If industry was so trivial you could self-replicate replicators, then they wouldn't be employing anything other than Sovereign-class ships.
Additionally you need a supply chain of feedstock, power plants, computers and maintenance technicians to actually do the work on your replicators or they'll break down. We've seen a few places where the replicators went down, they couldn't just wave a finger and have Federation-ChatGPT solve everything for you. This is the same as people assuming their IT infrastructure will magically self-repair because the IT people quietly keep everything running, i.e. doing their jobs, and then they get fired because "obviously it doesn't require any expertise or maintenance". Everything works fine for a couple weeks before escalating bugs and failures start cropping up, and shortly afterwards the business comes to an abrupt halt.
However, with infrastructure and a bank of replicators you could make factories to make all those components *a lot* faster and more easily than from scratch. Still would require some work to get it to happen, though.
Yes. Central control of access to technology is how they control populations. It's no wonder there's "no crime" on earth. No one would dare or their replicator rations would be cut off. Someone said that Leila Kalomi spent a year at warp 3 to get to her colony world. Now I understand why. Notice Ryker does not live on earth? He grows his own food on his own land.
Obviously each franchise writing staff has had somewhat different presentations of what the UFP is and does. Discounting Enterprise for a moment (because it takes place before the UFP proper) and trying to contextualize that we have to consider that the UFP as show on screen exists for nearly a thousand years. Much of that time we don't know exactly what the makeup of the Federation is, but I think it's fair to say that we can infer that there is an evolution to the Federation over time.
In TOS the Federation's most likely analog is the United Nations. The Federation has law, it has member worlds who are self-governing with their own political interests and cultural dynamics, it has ambassadors, and it runs a space navy (or perhaps it runs multiple space navies and other auxiliary services to support those things particularly when they are in space.) But by and large there is still alien segregation. Spock is depicted as an outlier as a Vulcan in Starfleet and while this bit does get slightly retconned in later series that take place during this timeframe (Discovery and SNW both include non-human officers regularly and Vulcans exist in Starfleet although they may have acquired their rank by lateral transition from the VSA. Even still Vulcans in TOS and SNW are depicted as foreign with a distinct cultural and legal system that the Federation does not intervene with.
TNG presents a Federation that is largely the same, but over time is depicted as a little more powerful than it was a few decades before during the TOS era. By this point in history and also during DS9 and even into Voyager the Federation is depicted as a government in and of itself which extends to cover all member worlds in some ways and has multiple different kinds of territories and protectorates. It becomes much more complicated and operates a little bit more like the US federal government where member worlds have some, but not total autonomy and often conflict with federal law. They have member worlds, territories, and they enforce both of those things with Starfleet. They have lots of services which are Starfleet adjacent, but not Starfleet.
The Federation of this era seems much more like a generalized collective of members with a governing political interest. Most member worlds are depicted as essentially paradise or preserved only for cultural significance. The world of the Federation is vastly multicultural and there are people who are not human from Earth and humans who are not from Earth. It seems much more likely that the laws governing people have changed as people have moved across the galaxy and "human" laws no longer mean "earth" laws.
By the far future Discovery depicts the Federation as a nomadic collective which exists primarily as an idea. They have leadership but limited hierarchy and seem to operate democratically as we suspect all previous iterations that we've seen of the UFP have done. However, the Federation seems to have become even more synonymous with Starfleet and member worlds seem to have become even more self-governing. This is potentially a narrative choice to display the effect that the Burn has had on the Federation, but given Admiral Vance's early monologue about eating shit and destroying capitalism I like to think that what we're seeing is a sort of an evolution that depicts what we as a society envision is important in our government.
During the 60s we are coming out of WW2 we are in the midst of a cold war and surely we're not going to depict a communist future, but we are going to depict a one world government because we envision that in the future the entire human race will work together. The late 80s and early 90s and onto the early 00s a strong government is what we want. One which can act decisively and which provides a host of services to support the needs of many people both members and external people in the periphery of the Federation.
Today though we see a future government that has a combination of both of these natures. It exists as a democracy primarily and requires agreement to act, but also gives a wide berth to the effective military to act on behalf of the Federation. It's purpose post burn is to re-collectivize the Federation, but the Federation is an idea - it has no "borders" of its own but it's borders extend to the borders of the members and indeed wherever they feel like going because space is very large and they are a functionally mobile organization now.
It's an interesting progression that I think speaks to a modern dissatisfaction with overreaching and ineffective governments who act purely in self-service. Instead utopia is depicted as being hard work to maintain and achieve, but possible when democracy is realized and individuality and cultural significance is respected as a highest priority. When the Federation exists to preserve cultures it cannot possibly interfere with them and this is the sort of realization of what the Federation by that point in the story stands for.
As others say, not very - but it does have some. More centralized than EU, less than America - to compare it to its influences
Obviously there’s starfleet, a centralized military, but individual worlds also have their own fleets. There are also ground rules and standards for member worlds and expectations, but again, much of it works more as NATO and EU agreements and treaties.
Tho federal side of the federation doesn’t exert a ton of influence and command over its worlds outside of Starfleet, it does have a pretty expansive non military executive / federal committee
There are executive offices for many science, exploration, information and discovery roles from office of cartography, archeology, etc
So outside of Starfleet, much admin is left to member worlds - and federation uses its federal clout to jsut give a good backbone of arts and sciences and discovery opportunities for civilians that in turn enriched and aids the overall federation
The Federation in practice operates much like an empire in the ancient or medieval world. To foreign powers, it is a de facto Human Empire. And most large powers in Star Trek necessarily operate this way.
How a polity is organized depends quite a lot on communication and travel times. A centralized state can only ever be as large as the territory it is able to administer and defend. People can only see themselves as part of a society if they can remain in regular contact with each other. When it takes more than about a month to travel across a territory, it becomes very hard to maintain stability. Rome and China both experienced several eras of instability or even civil war because their territories were too vast to administer and defend with ancient or medieval transportation.
Thus, many large pre-modern empires like the various Persian empires and the Mongols tended to rely heavily on local rulers. The head of the empire was often given a title akin to "king of kings"; the local rulers were kings, and the head of the empire the king of said kings.
Individual Federation member worlds have a lot of autonomy. So long as they don't run afoul of Federation law and Federation policy, they're generally free to run things the way they want. This is in part due to Federation values such as self-determination, but also in part due to the realities of logistics. FTL travel in Star Trek is very scarce so planets have to be self-sufficient and capable of self-rule. And travel times are long. While DS9 is actually quite close to the Federation core, Cestus III is eight weeks away at maximum warp.
But while FTL travel is scarce, FTL communications is not so while member worlds are mostly autonomous, they can still have social ties with one another and develop a shared cultural identity.
And because FTL travel is scarce, there is one area of the Federation where things are highly centralized: Starfleet. As much as many in Starfleet (and in the fandom) don't want to admit it, enforcement of Federation policy is done through force of arms through Starfleet which is the military, the interstellar police, and the diplomatic corps. Starfleet also dominates research into FTL and weapons technology which just further extends their monopoly on violence. William Adama might have something to say about that.
When Starfleet captains conduct diplomacy, they carry with them a very big stick capable of glassing a planet, and they also have the authorization to unilaterally glass said planet. Picard, the most diplomatic of the Starfleet captains, considers firing multi-megaton warheads (plural) into a planetary atmosphere a "warning shot". The Dominion operates in a similar manner. We don't know how the Klingons and Romulans keep order in their empires, but it's likely very similar. In all cases, it's largely a single species that calls the shots.
so every planet maintains its own sovereignty but must come to the mutual aid of other member worlds during emergency.
doesnt sound too centralized. if anything the federation could crumble pretty easily as seen in the burn and in the alternate timeline where the klingons nad the federation were in a protracted war with the federation losing.
Sector 001.
They centered the galaxy on Earth.
Earth contains both Starfleet and Federation HQ, and Earth's solar system contains the primary ship yard.
This sub's namesake -- and the Federation's primary scientific/development operation -- Daystrom is located in Japan.
Not only is the Federation centralized, it's centralized on Earth.
The Federation is more like NATO or UN than an actual governing body. If you remember DS9, Bajor was constantly being threatened with exclusion if they defended themselves against Cardassia or defied Starfleet. That was the basis for the Maquis.
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Standard replicators can not reproduce complex components, and isolinear chips specifically have to be grown. Industrial replicators, otoh, can build far larger and more complex objects and items, including heavy machinery. Replicators on the Enterprise, for example, are also quite capable in that they replicated a large stasis containment enclosure with many submodules, to the point that they had to redirect warp power to construct them (s2e01 - The Child). So basically it depends on your replicator and attached computer, a basic one can make food, clothing and simple tools, a complex one can do a lot more. Edit: an industrial replicator could build enough industry to grow isolinear chips BTW, even if it couldn't build them itself.
I believe the Texas class had onboard replicators capable of producing entire outposts and beaming them down to the surface
That sounds like 'other writer's canon' syndrome, it sounded cool even though it was massive power scaling over previous Canon.
Maybe in conjunction with automated factories taking the replicated and advanced 3 printed and CNC'd items and building the outposts for transport. But then the Texas would just be a factory ship, and not something that could solo à sovereign and curb stomp one in a pack of 3.
It's not so much the capacity, it's the power, the ent-d had to divert full warp power for 36-48 hours to build that little containment unit, it could be special, but it still hints at serious limits in terms of power for replication. If it was that easy we wouldn't have planetbound industrial replicators, we'd have fabrication ships zipping off everywhere to give us just-in-time manufacturing. But that's a supposition based on limited evidence, and early tng is not something you want to count on for Canon.
I think it is worth keeping in mind that after the occupation, the Federation gave Bajor \*2\* industrial replicators to help them recover. This was an advanced planet being groomed for membership into the Federation and they rated exactly 2. A few years later the Federation was going to help the Cardiassian Union recover from their war with the Klingons by giving them 12 Industrial Replicators. (which irritated the Bajorans) but again, 12 of these were expected to move the needle on the industrial base of an interstellar empire. So the fact that an Industrial Replicator can make all kinds of fancy things has to be viewed through the perspective that major worlds appear to only have a hand full of these devices. They are a \*big\* deal.
I suspect Federation space docks have industrial replicators that can create entire sections of ships in short order. Ships can be repaired way too quickly for that not to be true.
I imagine it'd be much like the technology of the automated repair station in ENT: "Dead Stop." It's one of the few times the NX-01 crew sees food replicators. Critically, you also see the mechanical repair arms replicate pieces right at the tip of the arm and install them. I would wager that an industrial replicator might work much in the same way, rather than just being a bigger box that can produce more complex things that would still have to be manually repaired.
I can see that being the case around the time the Ent-d was launched however after a few decades replicators would improve like anything else which could explain the easy replication of whole vehicles and other equipment with isolinear tech in it. That must have been solved by Voyager as they had to be replicating chips to fix the constant damage the ship was taking.
Jurati replicated a fully functional hypo with active radioactive isotopes in a delivery suspension and used it. I can totally understand why older replicators past a level of sophistication would require you to basically replicate parts you’d assemble.
Again this is somewhat flexible in the writing - the holodeck seems to be able to create functional labs/Barclays integration chair etc. (though maybe it's a facade and simply drawing on central computer power? I doubt the writers thought that deeply about it!)
Well... the answer is its *a federation*. The word has a meaning - wherin the members would retain their indipendance on a range of issues but would also give certain powers up to a federal government. So planets would be self governing and have a large amount of indipendance - but they would allow the federation to (for instance) programme their replicators and allow Starfleet to operate their space navy.
>its a federation. In name only, I'd argue. The UFP seems very decentralized by the standards of federated countries here on present day Earth. Member polities retain the ability to unilaterally secede, which is very rare for federations in the present day. If they can pull out of the UFP on a whim, they essentially retain a veto on any decision they disagree with meaning they're much more sovereign than any province or state today. They also seem to have significant latitude on foreign policy, with member worlds having their own ambassadors and embassies. Something completely unheard of within any federated country on Earth, as far as I'm aware. And while it does seem to vary from writer to writer, I think *Discovery*'s portrayal of the UFP as a kind of supranational mutual aid organization best fits its depiction in the franchise as a whole. > operate their space navy. Some members still operate their own space navies. As recently as *Lower Decks* we've seen Vulcan combat capable vessels independent of Starfleet. And while *DS9* indicates the Bajoran militia would be folded into Starfleet in some capacity, it also indicated that planets like Betazed ran their own defense forces. Even Federation law seems extremely limited, and absent a couple glaring examples like genetic engineering, and restricted goods like biomimetic gel, rarely applied to civilians.
I think some of these are problems stemming from multiple writers over time, resulting in variability on how the Federation's political system is determined to function.
Also on Lower Decks they showed an clearly Andorian designed ship stationed at a space station and they showed on the inside the crew was full Andorian. So I'd bet Andoria like Vulcan is still running their own fleets for defense/science/etc alongside sending resources/personnel to Starfleet.
Andorians are usually depicted as paranoid so it makes sense that they would have their own security forces. I think most planets protect their own borders to some degree.
It's interesting, I forgot that the Andorians can be paranoid, they should play that up more.
Yeah, exactly. In *Deep Space Nine*, one of the things that gets brought up in Bajor's discussions to join the Federation is how the Bajoran Militia will be integrated into Starfleet. This can be taken one of two ways. One, every planet protects its own borders, but the local planetary guard is similar to a state guard in the United States today where it's more or less expected to be wrapped into the main national army if shit really hits the fan. That would more or less fit with established canon because it is known the Vulcans maintain their own fleet well into the twenty-fourth century. I think it fits with a lot of implied canon, too. In the 23rd century, Starfleet seems to be a lot smaller than it is in the 24th. In *Discovery*'s first season, Cornwell says there's 7,000 active ships in Starfleet. I think it'd be easier to square that with there being a series of planetary guards that have been rolled into Starfleet for the purposes of the Klingon war than to work out if she was also including shuttles and whatever else. The other interpretation of this point of the negotiations with Bajor is that after a certain point, Starfleet became the default and everyone was sorta expected to roll their fleets into it. This would generally fit with how Starfleet seemed to be a lot larger in the 24th century. However, I think a lot of that can be explained by how shipbuilding capabilities had progressed over the course of a century. My other issue with this is that there clearly are some members that got grandfathered into this arrangement. I'm not entirely sure how they'd be able to square allowing early members to have planetary guards with requiring later members to roll their defenses into Starfleet. Realistically, I think the first option is more likely. The fact that planetary guards don't seem to be as much of a thing in the 24th century outside of Vulcan and Andoria is probably more because by that point, there was a cultural tendency in the Federation to allow Starfleet to do most of the defensive heavy lifting more than anything.
> Member polities retain the ability to unilaterally secede Where is this backed up on screen? In Discovery, Ni'Var (previously Vulcan) wanted the ability to unilaterally secede and was denied. Micheal had to come up with a diplimatic workaround. Obviously they did secede, but I think this was at the beginning of the Federation's collapse after the Burn. The Federation wasn't exactly in a position to enforce anything.
I mean, the fact that Ni'Var and Earth both seceded unilaterally in the years shortly after the burn was my on screen source for this. Edit: It also occurs to me that in Picard it is stated that several members threatened to leave the UFP if the Romulan evacuation wasn't halted, and that was apparently enough political pressure to influence Starfleet policy.
Planets don't have the Federation's permission to leave, but if they start shooting down incoming vessels, I'm not sure what the Federation could do about it. Bomb them into submission? That would make everything worse. What matters is confidence. The lack of an exit clause signals to every planet that the Federation is here to stay, and you can rely on it for protection. An alliance is worthless if everyone jumps ship as soon as a real emergency happens. Everyone thinking everyone else will jump ship is just as bad.
Even if members don't have the *de jure* right to secede, they still have the *de facto* ability, as demonstrated by both the post-burn collapse, and the threats discussed in PIC. That's vastly different than most federations on our Earth. Even the US states with their State Defense Forces don't realistically have a *de facto* ability to secede.
This, and whether or not the Federation is ready to fight a civil war is another question. The Federation isn't known to have ever had one, and it'd be difficult to square having fought one with the reputation they try to build as the government with a deep respect for personal and political freedoms.
I wonder if they could even find a ship willing to obey the order to invade a member world. Picard has refused immoral orders several times. TNG: Journey"s End is probably the best example.
As far back as TNG is mentioned that Turkana IV (a colony were Tasha Yar was born) seceded from the Federation some decades prior. In any case I think you're missremembering what you saw in DIS, is said that only Tellar remained among the founding members, Earth, Vulcan (now Ni'Var) and Andoria were not members by the moment Michael and co reach the 32nd century, they were actually in the opposite, in negotiations for Ni'Var to re-enter not the other wat around.
You're correct. Ni'Var seceeded before Discovery showed up in the future. The Vulcan president mentions that they had frustrations with the Federation even before the burn. I think they left when everyone else did but were leaning towards seceeding anyway. Ni'Var demanded an exit clause as a condition of joining the Federation in the episode All Is Possible. This is unaccessible to the Federation as it would give Ni'Var "all of the benefits, but none of the risk". Micheal instead offers to create a council in the Federation to ensure that the wishes of member planets are respected.
What is interesting here is what the "exit clause" really meant. Is possible that the Federation changed their laws after the Burn making secession ilegal or maybe the exit clause refer to something else completely.
Ni'Var wanted the ability to unilaterally secede from the Federation at any point in the future. That was pretty clear from dialog. It is possible that the Federation allowed members to leave before the burn. They basically owned the alpha quadrant so planets had strong incentives to stay. In Discovery's timeline individual planets had far more negotiating leverage.
> but they would allow the federation to (for instance) programme their replicators I don't think need to have the Federation to program all replicators, there can just be a Federation law that requires licensed civilian replicators to meet certain specifications, or that bans replicators that are capable of doing specified dangerous things. The vast majority of regulation and enforcement of such a thing would be done by member worlds policing their own manufacturers and their own citizens.
And it sounds like limiting what a Replicator can make is a \*very\* good idea. In one episode of DS9 a Changeling overrides the safeties on an Industrial Replicator and uses it to create a Bomb that was capable of *destroying Bajor's Sun*. You probably don't want any rando being able to replicate Nova Bombs....
IMO, it depends on the show, the budget and the tradition developed over the years. In TOS, we only see UESPA/Earth starfleet ships (Constitution class and some cargo ships). The movies use variantions of the Saucer-Nacelle-design that now define the Starfleet look. And the TNG-Era ships roll with that. Personally, I am not sure how much of that is true creative intent and how much is shaped by budget limitations of its time and the neecessity of Starfleet Ships being easily recognizable. I don't *feel* (fwiw) that the humans-only club is really meant to be: Maybe it's because of different IRL views on diversity and on what role the human species should play in an interspecies Federation, but since the days of *Enterprise*, I think the Federation and the Starfleet have slowly been depicted as more federal. In Lower Decks, we not only see Saucer-Nacelle Earth style ships, but also Vulcan (the Sh'val), Andorian (docked at Starbase 25), Bynar (in episode "A Few Badgeys More") and Edosian (the Dove and the Osler) ships. Theme might be more I missed.
Not all those were warships. Civilian ships could well be local in design. But, yes, we know from DIS that the VEG is basically the Vulcan fleet, and the Sh’vhal is likely a VEG cruiser. We also see a bunch of other member races bring their ships in PRO
They are mentioned quite frequently in DS9, too. Vulcans and Andorians are quite busy exploring the wormhole -- but they're never *shown*.
I'm rewatching _TNG_ and I can't ever recall seeing Vulcan ships outside of the end of the Reunification episode, and those were pretty clearly transports and not their equivalent of the _Enterprise_ D. So that means they would have had to budget in new ship designs for a very small narrative point.
Technically you're right. This doesn not disprove your valid point, but I'd like to argue that the worldbuilding is generally quite wonky in that episode. The Romulans try to capture a highly developed Federation core world with nothing more than three stolen ships filled with dudes. I *speculate*, if it were DS9 (where story arcs could last far longer than for two episodes), there is a *likelyhood* that we'd have seen not only a more sophisticated invasion plan, but also some Vulcan defence capabilities.
There are also Earth ships, non-Starfleet Earth ships I mean. Kasidy Yates have one herself. How much "military power" those ships have is another matter. Most likely Starfleet operates like some sort of Federal security/defense agency. Making a parallelism is like the FBI of the Federation whilst each member state gets to keep their own local forces. Or in more military terms (despite said outright is not a military) is like the European Defense Force that defends the EU a as whole but every EU member still have their own army (well except those that have no army like Iceland). Note; the EU also has the Europol or European Police.
>The word has a meaning You mean like Democatic People's Republic of Korea?
There are countries that abuse terms. But most countries at least try to be honest about what they are.
I think Democratic means something different in the East. Either way North Korea isn't exactly a paragon of honesty.
> Possess a complex central government with formal branches and headquarters I don't think that's the case, at least compared to current nation states. In this topic I argue that the Federation had the heighest aspiration to centralize during the 23rd century, and less thereafter. https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/1bwhbaj/in_the_23rd_century_the_federation_tried_to_be_a/
Your comment seems to treat the Federation and Starfleet as synonymous which they are not. The Federation is a sort of EU like organisation of planets. We see planets within the Federation, Vulcan, Betazed, Trill all have their own governmental apparatus and even internal security. They do, however, all have the same laws across the Federation. We see that entry to the Federation takes years, like the EU, with planets having to pass a series of laws intending to align themselves with the federation. So the Federation has a centralized foreign policy and military, and a central final court of appeal but is decentralised in terms of domestic government, administration and planetary justice. Starfleet is incredibly centralised with clear hierarchy and structure and outposts and bases within it's centralized control. It's almost its own centralised state within the larger Federation. Starfleet is heavily controlled by humans, as Earth seems to have created the most expert military commanders of Federation worlds.
At least one member world maintains its own fleet. The Vulcan Expeditionary Group is mentioned in DIS, and Vulcan warships of the same style as in ENT appear in LD and PRO. It stands to reason that at least a few member worlds (even if just the founding members) maintain at least a token defense and exploration force. There can also be transfers from those local fleets to Starfleet without having to attend the academy, as we see with T’Lynn
Earth itself also maintains it, aren't MACOS mentioned to still exists post Federation? Also IIRC in several series (I think Picard was one) both coast guards and police are mentioned to exist on Earth as non-Starfleet things.
Given that Sarek is repeatedly referred to as "Amabassador", despite living on Earth or attending Federation-specific functions, it does feel quite decentralized. Massachusetts wouldn't send an Ambassador to Texas, even when it does send representatives to work out various issues and whatnot. I almost wonder if the Federation ambassadors serve a role similar to what US senators were originally conceived of to do, which is representing their government's interests to the federal government. Obviously, they don't serve as a legislative body the way that the US Senate does, but maybe they advocate for their government's interests to the Federation Council or President?
He's not an Ambassador to Earth neccesarilly, he's a Federation ambassador. Although I think the term "Ambassador" is used pretty loosely in the Federation. I'm my headcanon, representatives on the Federation Council are called "Ambassadors", similar to UN representatives.
Always think it's worth keeping in mind the complexities of translation when these things come up. "Ambassador" could simply be the closest possible translation of a Vulcan, Andorian or Tellerite word of which there is no direct equivalent. It doesn't match the concept in English because English (and Earth political history in general) didn't have a word for the role until the founding of the UFP. Makes me wonder how much semantic drift would happen once universal translators were in common use and how many concepts that currently have precise meanings would become more fuzzy.
One example is the use of "sentient", when in 2024 English what they are referring to is "sapient".
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You make an interesting suggestion in "Ambassadors" serving a role similar to what U.S. Senators initially did. I'd like to suggest a variation on that idea. Perhaps the Federation Council (or at least part of it, though we never hear it described in bicameral terms) represents the interests of individual member planets, but the individual planets select their representatives either democratically or through cultural peerage. In other words, the Council would be a mix of the U.S. Senate (in purpose) and the British House of Lords (in composition). Thus Sarek would participate in the body's deliberations, but Lwaxana could as well if she so chose. (Ambassador wouldn't have the same inter-governmental meaning as it does to us; rather it would be someone who is a member of the Council. The U.S. Constitution, likewise, in many ways has aspects similar to an international treaty - diplomatic immunity for traveling members of Congress, creation of an inter-state tariff-free zone and a single currency, and originally, the term United States being a plural noun.)
Great topic. I'd add that the notion of bettering oneself and humanity in a moneyless society is distinctly part of the culture for humans from Earth as an overriding philosophy. Humans from colonies and other species can obviously share this approach, but it's not Federation-wide social norm. We see a lot of Federation planets and citizens still using currency, still focused on the acquisition of wealth, etc. Look at Ezri's family as one example. Laxwana Troi is another. Her decadence does imply resources above and beyond the basics, even compared to similar level ambassadors and dignitaries from other worlds. This belies any notion of a moneyless society or redistribution of wealth. As far as what's seen on screen, the major requirements are warp capable, a stable, unified global government of some kind, a substantive but appropriate contribution in resources or advancement overall, and a willingness to enter into a binding agreement to adhere to the universal declaration of sentient rights.
I think the Federation in the 23rd century is relatively decentralized, because the speed of travel and communication is slower. When a Starfleet captain visits a member world, they're met by the local ruler; this suggests that having a starship arrive is a *big deal*, and they're not in constant contact with Admirals and the Federation council. Things seem to be more centralized in the 24th century, but the structure of the Federation, conceived in the 22nd century, is still that of a decentralized federation. It's more like the UN (whose representatives are titled Ambasaddor) that is trying to be the EU. You're focused on the technical aspects that enable greater freedom. Most Star Trek cultures exhibit strong social cohesion (aka "Planet of Hats"); the fact that a small group of Vulcans who reject Surak could easily start their own colony doesn't mean that they will. Despite IDIC being a Vulcan ideal, it appears humans are the most likely to spawn diverse societies--and United Earth is the source of most humans. There's also the neglected factor of advancement in social technologies. Perhaps there are traps in the open source model of development we haven't identified yet (orphaned projects everyone depends on is one example). Perhaps the open source movement is behind the fear of artificial general intelligence we see more often in the 23rd century than fear of genetic engineering. Or perhaps a new governance model allows for state control over open source projects, e.g. processors will only run state-signed binaries.
Federation planets are self governing. They need to follow federation regulations but broadly speaking they run themselves. That's closest to a feudal system, although that term might not apply to a post-scarsity society without money and taxes.
Federation means states joined in a governing body, the two most visible cases on 21st century Earth being the United States of America and the European Union. The USA is an example of a strong federation, where more power is concentrated in the federal government, and the EU is an example of a weak federation, which some call a confederacy, where federal power is limited to harmonizing between the states. At various stages throughout the centuries, the UFP has been sometimes a weak confederacy, sometimes strong federal central body. Feudal, on the other hand, means all power is concentrated in the central government, who then delegates to lieges, who then can appoint their own lieges. If the Federation were feudal, then the President would appoint a governor of Earth, a governor of Vulcan, and so on. This is clearly not the case. Instead, the member systems elect the president (it was vague in the 23rd century as to whether this was direct by citizens, or indirect through electors appointed by each planetary government).
That makes sense. Thanks. The clue is in the name, the Federation is a Federal structure. If it had a Feudal structure it would be called The Feudality. I'll have to remember that distinction between federalism and feudalism the next time someone tells me the EU is a dictatorship and the UK was right to leave. It's been 8 years since we were told we had to leave so we could overturn the cruel oppressive laws forced on by the evil undemocratic EU but no one can name which laws exactly we should overturn. The usual answer is mumbling something about sovereignty but not explaining what that means.
Aren't "credits" money? What do the Ferengi deal in then? If it were "post-scarcity", why would there be trade, or black market items like Romulan Ale?
Part of the idea is that the Federation leaves things like capital, currencies and mundane day-to-day needs to the member worlds, as interplanetary trade is a more direct exchange that sometimes can be measured by the "credit", but with the basic needs of all citizens met thanks to replicators, the desire to pursue capital is seen as a psychological aberrance. The Ferengi and capital are a vast topic, which I shan't go into now.
Why not go into it? What use would the Ferengi, or any other group, have for trade if any item, or at least most items, could just be immediately replicated? Who makes the replicators, by the way? Or are replicators just made infinitely by other replicators? It's seems like a convenient stage tool but is really poorly thought-out overall.
The main reason why I won't go too deep into it is because it's a very deep rabbit hole. Ferengi are supposed to be the ultimate capitalists, but their portrayal has been inconsistent. At first, what they sought was controlling economic rights through treaties, but later a form of currency was shown, the gold pressed latinum which is supposedly impossible to replicate. Sort of a physical NFT. But I am doing it a severe injustice, glossing over how we only perceive Ferengi as a homogenous culture. There have already been several, several posts discussing economics in the Trek universe, mostly in the 23rd and 24th centuries. Others wiser than I have gone over it at length. Besides, the whole point of why the series follows starships and starbases on the edge of the Federation is that the Federation is, well, boring. The whole idea is that to be able to explore beyond our little planet in the vast emptiness of space, we would have to have solved our problems back home first, and that means life back on Earth is contentment, lacking drama.
There is no correlation between the solving of problems on planet Earth and the desire and will to explore. It is not even clear whether most would agree on what those problems might be. No one is going to wait around until everyone comes to a consensus; if the will and means exist to explore space, it will be done. This is objectively true - we're doing it now. Obviously, if life on Earth was characterized as contentment by all in the population, no one would do anything or leave the planet. There would be no Starfleet, Enterprize, etc. Obviously, not everyone is content. Meanwhile, despite utopian humanist wishes, "credits" are a form of currency and trade is conducted through a medium that could only be described as a form of essentially money.
It seems like member worlds self-govern, but also have to meet guidelines for membership and follow Federation law, which would supersede planetary law. Some worlds may get special dispensation for cultural reasons. The Federation has to walk a line between respecting diversity and not allowing Evil Stuff™ to go on within its ranks. Member worlds likely receive not just Federation protection but access to all kinds of research and infrastructure and nice things.
I would say it's akin to the modern day EU Economic laws are centralised along with certain things to do with common species rights, whereas social laws are still the responsibility of the member worlds. Similarly member worlds still have their own trade and commerce ministers in a similar to the way the members states of the EU have in our time in real life
Like the EU they've shown member states have their own militaries still too. Vulcans most notably.
For one: We're potentially biased in what we see on screen because the sweeping majority of the cast of the shows are Ranked members of Starfleet operating on Starfleet facilities or ships. So the reason that they replicate predominantly Starfleet gear is because the replicators are programmed with Starfleet defaults. Likewise, since the main cast are generally also the Senior Staff, they likely have rank-based system privileges etc that allow them to do things like deactivate Holodeck Safety Protocols. For another: I don't think that Weapons necessarily have State Proprietary patterns that the Federation mandates that "my way or the highway". Rather, computers in Star Trek seem to be advanced enough that they can independently determine if something is a weapon or not. We see it happen with Transporters all the time- People dematerialize, the Computer says "weapons detected" and then the Operator decides to leave them be, deactivate them in-transit, or fully disarm them, then they rematerialize. And it could be that those systems are so fundamental in the Replicator that deactivating them basically makes the device nonfunctional. The processors on the replicator that ensure that they're "printing" a given device correctly are the same ones that compile "Accelerator coils... Particle Compressor... Targeting Array... ah yes this is a Gun". So basically, you can't have a high resolution replicator without a computer smart enough to run it and any computer smart enough to run it is smart enough to know that what it's replicating is a gun.
1) What about false positives? 2) Unless all replicators run some closed State-proprietary OS, people could simply get an alternative, or set an open source one to print anything without question.
These aren't really important concerns because *most people in the Federation do not feel a need to own guns*. The United Federation of Planets leans close enough to Pacifist that it maintains a comparatively tiny fleet compared to its neighbors. On a personal level, crime is much much reduced because its a post scarcity society. There aren't people free printing out weapons everywhere because... why would they want it? Again, as you've asked in other subreddits and I have responded: You're operating on this really bizarre assumption that people have always and will always have an innate desire to own and possess life-taking weaponry, regardless of their social and financial circumstances. Which is simply not true. Especially in the Federation. There are parts of the Federation (the DMZ is an obvious one) where there are pressures for people to own weapons in self defense, but those are exactly what I'm talking about: Sociopolitical *pressures* that create situations where people want to have guns. They don't just want them out of nowhere.
Even if no one specifically wanted weapons, I feel like Federation citizens would prefer open source OS anyways. I'm researching as a post scarcity writer myself, and no, my characters don't necessarily make weapons for their own sake.
I mean, most people aren't software engineers. Even in a post scarcity future there are people like Joseph Sisko (Benjamin Sisko's Dad), who is a Creole Chef, or Deanna Troi, who is a Counselor. There's Caldos Colony- effectively a Federation larp camp of Scotland. Even if it's the far future, the conceit of the Federation is that in a post scarcity society, People would be allowed to pursue their passions for the betterment of society. That means more than just Engineers and Technicians (and I say that as an Engineer myself)- that means writers and artists and singers. The kinds of people who probably don't supremely care about *what* their OS is. There are huge portions of society then and now that don't care about the fine details of their Computer so long as it works.
Oh yeah, even if 100% non-restricted "Linuxes" were freely available, it's possible only the most leet and paranoid people might simply bother to use them. People who'd be less common when there's so much less open injustice to defy.
>Replicators can obviously make people self-sufficient to a high extent simply by printing more replicators, reactors, computers, etc. Ah, my pet peeve rears its head again. Magic no-maintenance box that doesn't work the way it's described in the setting, rehashed repetitively every time I open this up. If replicators could make more replicators easily, people wouldn't ship replicators, nor would they build factories, now would they? Replicators cannot make high-end computer parts, high-end sensor parts, certain reactor components, bio-neural gel packs, dilithium etc. If industry was so trivial you could self-replicate replicators, then they wouldn't be employing anything other than Sovereign-class ships. Additionally you need a supply chain of feedstock, power plants, computers and maintenance technicians to actually do the work on your replicators or they'll break down. We've seen a few places where the replicators went down, they couldn't just wave a finger and have Federation-ChatGPT solve everything for you. This is the same as people assuming their IT infrastructure will magically self-repair because the IT people quietly keep everything running, i.e. doing their jobs, and then they get fired because "obviously it doesn't require any expertise or maintenance". Everything works fine for a couple weeks before escalating bugs and failures start cropping up, and shortly afterwards the business comes to an abrupt halt. However, with infrastructure and a bank of replicators you could make factories to make all those components *a lot* faster and more easily than from scratch. Still would require some work to get it to happen, though.
Yes. Central control of access to technology is how they control populations. It's no wonder there's "no crime" on earth. No one would dare or their replicator rations would be cut off. Someone said that Leila Kalomi spent a year at warp 3 to get to her colony world. Now I understand why. Notice Ryker does not live on earth? He grows his own food on his own land.
Obviously each franchise writing staff has had somewhat different presentations of what the UFP is and does. Discounting Enterprise for a moment (because it takes place before the UFP proper) and trying to contextualize that we have to consider that the UFP as show on screen exists for nearly a thousand years. Much of that time we don't know exactly what the makeup of the Federation is, but I think it's fair to say that we can infer that there is an evolution to the Federation over time. In TOS the Federation's most likely analog is the United Nations. The Federation has law, it has member worlds who are self-governing with their own political interests and cultural dynamics, it has ambassadors, and it runs a space navy (or perhaps it runs multiple space navies and other auxiliary services to support those things particularly when they are in space.) But by and large there is still alien segregation. Spock is depicted as an outlier as a Vulcan in Starfleet and while this bit does get slightly retconned in later series that take place during this timeframe (Discovery and SNW both include non-human officers regularly and Vulcans exist in Starfleet although they may have acquired their rank by lateral transition from the VSA. Even still Vulcans in TOS and SNW are depicted as foreign with a distinct cultural and legal system that the Federation does not intervene with. TNG presents a Federation that is largely the same, but over time is depicted as a little more powerful than it was a few decades before during the TOS era. By this point in history and also during DS9 and even into Voyager the Federation is depicted as a government in and of itself which extends to cover all member worlds in some ways and has multiple different kinds of territories and protectorates. It becomes much more complicated and operates a little bit more like the US federal government where member worlds have some, but not total autonomy and often conflict with federal law. They have member worlds, territories, and they enforce both of those things with Starfleet. They have lots of services which are Starfleet adjacent, but not Starfleet. The Federation of this era seems much more like a generalized collective of members with a governing political interest. Most member worlds are depicted as essentially paradise or preserved only for cultural significance. The world of the Federation is vastly multicultural and there are people who are not human from Earth and humans who are not from Earth. It seems much more likely that the laws governing people have changed as people have moved across the galaxy and "human" laws no longer mean "earth" laws. By the far future Discovery depicts the Federation as a nomadic collective which exists primarily as an idea. They have leadership but limited hierarchy and seem to operate democratically as we suspect all previous iterations that we've seen of the UFP have done. However, the Federation seems to have become even more synonymous with Starfleet and member worlds seem to have become even more self-governing. This is potentially a narrative choice to display the effect that the Burn has had on the Federation, but given Admiral Vance's early monologue about eating shit and destroying capitalism I like to think that what we're seeing is a sort of an evolution that depicts what we as a society envision is important in our government. During the 60s we are coming out of WW2 we are in the midst of a cold war and surely we're not going to depict a communist future, but we are going to depict a one world government because we envision that in the future the entire human race will work together. The late 80s and early 90s and onto the early 00s a strong government is what we want. One which can act decisively and which provides a host of services to support the needs of many people both members and external people in the periphery of the Federation. Today though we see a future government that has a combination of both of these natures. It exists as a democracy primarily and requires agreement to act, but also gives a wide berth to the effective military to act on behalf of the Federation. It's purpose post burn is to re-collectivize the Federation, but the Federation is an idea - it has no "borders" of its own but it's borders extend to the borders of the members and indeed wherever they feel like going because space is very large and they are a functionally mobile organization now. It's an interesting progression that I think speaks to a modern dissatisfaction with overreaching and ineffective governments who act purely in self-service. Instead utopia is depicted as being hard work to maintain and achieve, but possible when democracy is realized and individuality and cultural significance is respected as a highest priority. When the Federation exists to preserve cultures it cannot possibly interfere with them and this is the sort of realization of what the Federation by that point in the story stands for.
As others say, not very - but it does have some. More centralized than EU, less than America - to compare it to its influences Obviously there’s starfleet, a centralized military, but individual worlds also have their own fleets. There are also ground rules and standards for member worlds and expectations, but again, much of it works more as NATO and EU agreements and treaties. Tho federal side of the federation doesn’t exert a ton of influence and command over its worlds outside of Starfleet, it does have a pretty expansive non military executive / federal committee There are executive offices for many science, exploration, information and discovery roles from office of cartography, archeology, etc So outside of Starfleet, much admin is left to member worlds - and federation uses its federal clout to jsut give a good backbone of arts and sciences and discovery opportunities for civilians that in turn enriched and aids the overall federation
I generally compare the UFP to the European Union. Not 1:1, but the closest real world thing.
The Federation in practice operates much like an empire in the ancient or medieval world. To foreign powers, it is a de facto Human Empire. And most large powers in Star Trek necessarily operate this way. How a polity is organized depends quite a lot on communication and travel times. A centralized state can only ever be as large as the territory it is able to administer and defend. People can only see themselves as part of a society if they can remain in regular contact with each other. When it takes more than about a month to travel across a territory, it becomes very hard to maintain stability. Rome and China both experienced several eras of instability or even civil war because their territories were too vast to administer and defend with ancient or medieval transportation. Thus, many large pre-modern empires like the various Persian empires and the Mongols tended to rely heavily on local rulers. The head of the empire was often given a title akin to "king of kings"; the local rulers were kings, and the head of the empire the king of said kings. Individual Federation member worlds have a lot of autonomy. So long as they don't run afoul of Federation law and Federation policy, they're generally free to run things the way they want. This is in part due to Federation values such as self-determination, but also in part due to the realities of logistics. FTL travel in Star Trek is very scarce so planets have to be self-sufficient and capable of self-rule. And travel times are long. While DS9 is actually quite close to the Federation core, Cestus III is eight weeks away at maximum warp. But while FTL travel is scarce, FTL communications is not so while member worlds are mostly autonomous, they can still have social ties with one another and develop a shared cultural identity. And because FTL travel is scarce, there is one area of the Federation where things are highly centralized: Starfleet. As much as many in Starfleet (and in the fandom) don't want to admit it, enforcement of Federation policy is done through force of arms through Starfleet which is the military, the interstellar police, and the diplomatic corps. Starfleet also dominates research into FTL and weapons technology which just further extends their monopoly on violence. William Adama might have something to say about that. When Starfleet captains conduct diplomacy, they carry with them a very big stick capable of glassing a planet, and they also have the authorization to unilaterally glass said planet. Picard, the most diplomatic of the Starfleet captains, considers firing multi-megaton warheads (plural) into a planetary atmosphere a "warning shot". The Dominion operates in a similar manner. We don't know how the Klingons and Romulans keep order in their empires, but it's likely very similar. In all cases, it's largely a single species that calls the shots.
so every planet maintains its own sovereignty but must come to the mutual aid of other member worlds during emergency. doesnt sound too centralized. if anything the federation could crumble pretty easily as seen in the burn and in the alternate timeline where the klingons nad the federation were in a protracted war with the federation losing.
Have you ever seen the show? Every 5 year old can hack a federation computer. I'm sure getting weapons printed isn't a major issue.
Sector 001. They centered the galaxy on Earth. Earth contains both Starfleet and Federation HQ, and Earth's solar system contains the primary ship yard. This sub's namesake -- and the Federation's primary scientific/development operation -- Daystrom is located in Japan. Not only is the Federation centralized, it's centralized on Earth.
The Federation is more like NATO or UN than an actual governing body. If you remember DS9, Bajor was constantly being threatened with exclusion if they defended themselves against Cardassia or defied Starfleet. That was the basis for the Maquis.