Sfdebris.net

Simple question. If you had the opportunity, would you live in the Federation from Star Trek?

Why or why not?

Sure, so long as it was Earth. Though I may be living inside a holodeck and be considered to have a problem.

Yes, though with my background in civil planning I would probably be doing colony establishment or reconstruction efforts on Bajor.

Society with a no money, peace, prosperity and freedom

Sign me up

I don't know.

The Federation seems like an okay place, for the most part, but the abundance of super beings, anomalies, and time travellers who could casually wipe it from existence is a bit concerning.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I don't know.

The Federation seems like an okay place, for the most part, but the abundance of super beings, anomalies, and time travellers who could casually wipe it from existence is a bit concerning.

Keep in mind, by the logic of the show those guys are around in spite of the Federation, not because of it. Having Starfleet as a super powerful guardians of interstellar paradises ups your survival chances.

True. If I had to live somewhere in the Star Trek universe, well, the Federation has as good a track record as anyone. Probably better than anyone else, really.

The Romulan Republic wrote:The Federation seems like an okay place, for the most part, but the abundance of super beings, anomalies, and time travellers who could casually wipe it from existence is a bit concerning.

That's not an insignificant issue, but even assuming none of those things exist out in 'our' galaxy now, we could still be casually wiped out by any number of natural events. At least the Federation generally has people working the problem - for every time-travelling meddler there's temporal agents from the future trying to stop them (even if they are often the same person), the superbeings have been placated so far by speeches or fisticuffs, and most anomalies get patched up by something something deflector dish after just eating an Oberth class or two. We may have fewer extinction-level crises on our doorstep now, but there's not a great deal we can do about most of them either; besides, it's decent odds that whichever takes us out will be our own fault, which will just be embarrassing in addition to tragic.

Excluding people who've been screwed over by the cosmos through no fault of their own, so far as people in the Federation go - citizens within its borders, not going out of their way to bring misery on themselves by getting greedy and mixed up with the Orion Syndicate, or being on a science ship for any reason - I feel like Richard Bashir's a fair worst-case scenario. Ignoring everything surrounding his son, which could as easily have happened to any family, including out here in reality (only we'd likely just be stuck with his condition as-is without the option, however risky, to try to 'fix' it - plus a whole range of other potential medical issues that can strike at any moment, which the 24th Century can probably fix with a hypospray), the guy seems nice enough and doesn't go out of his way to invite trouble, but he quits instead of persevering, working a succession of nondescript jobs with little to show for it. I remember reading in the DS9 companion that he was intended to show that, even on 24th Century Earth where 'the Federation is wonderful and everyone is very happy', there will still be people who don't make it, who don't make the most of whatever opportunities they have, and wind up just not ever amounting to anything much.

Even so, he's got a roof over his head, he's obviously got opportunities, if not grand ones, even though his CV wouldn't be that impressive to a potential 'employer', there's no real suggestion he's struggling to make ends meet or his wife or extended family are having to work second jobs to prop up his lack of career advancement, and really the only serious hardship in his life seems to have resulted from Jules's developmental disorder, and going outside Federation law to try to treat it. Even then, judging by what we saw with Paris, he's hardly going to be dumped in future-Gitmo for his sins; Federation prison life would be a step up for plenty of the less fortunate on Earth now.

So, yeah. I don't see myself as the Starfleet type (if I were daydreaming, I'd probably picture myself as a holoprogram author, either getting by comfortably enough and being no trouble to anyone on Earth, or living like a king on Risa, depending on how much of a market there is in the 24th Century for Willow/Tara fanfic), but if that's what failure looks like for your average Federation citizen, I'll take my chances.

MissKittyFantastico wrote:

The Romulan Republic wrote:The Federation seems like an okay place, for the most part, but the abundance of super beings, anomalies, and time travellers who could casually wipe it from existence is a bit concerning.

That's not an insignificant issue, but even assuming none of those things exist out in 'our' galaxy now, we could still be casually wiped out by any number of natural events. At least the Federation generally has people working the problem - for every time-travelling meddler there's temporal agents from the future trying to stop them (even if they are often the same person), the superbeings have been placated so far by speeches or fisticuffs, and most anomalies get patched up by something something deflector dish after just eating an Oberth class or two. We may have fewer extinction-level crises on our doorstep now, but there's not a great deal we can do about most of them either; besides, it's decent odds that whichever takes us out will be our own fault, which will just be embarrassing in addition to tragic.

All valid points.

Excluding people who've been screwed over by the cosmos through no fault of their own, so far as people in the Federation go - citizens within its borders, not going out of their way to bring misery on themselves by getting greedy and mixed up with the Orion Syndicate, or being on a science ship for any reason - I feel like Richard Bashir's a fair worst-case scenario. Ignoring everything surrounding his son, which could as easily have happened to any family, including out here in reality (only we'd likely just be stuck with his condition as-is without the option, however risky, to try to 'fix' it - plus a whole range of other potential medical issues that can strike at any moment, which the 24th Century can probably fix with a hypospray), the guy seems nice enough and doesn't go out of his way to invite trouble, but he quits instead of persevering, working a succession of nondescript jobs with little to show for it. I remember reading in the DS9 companion that he was intended to show that, even on 24th Century Earth where 'the Federation is wonderful and everyone is very happy', there will still be people who don't make it, who don't make the most of whatever opportunities they have, and wind up just not ever amounting to anything much.

Even so, he's got a roof over his head, he's obviously got opportunities, if not grand ones, even though his CV wouldn't be that impressive to a potential 'employer', there's no real suggestion he's struggling to make ends meet or his wife or extended family are having to work second jobs to prop up his lack of career advancement, and really the only serious hardship in his life seems to have resulted from Jules's developmental disorder, and going outside Federation law to try to treat it. Even then, judging by what we saw with Paris, he's hardly going to be dumped in future-Gitmo for his sins; Federation prison life would be a step up for plenty of the less fortunate on Earth now.

This may be largely true if you're around Earth, or perhaps another major world. Outlying colonies get destroyed regularly, and we saw how things were near the Cardassian border.

So, yeah. I don't see myself as the Starfleet type (if I were daydreaming, I'd probably picture myself as a holoprogram author, either getting by comfortably enough and being no trouble to anyone on Earth, or living like a king on Risa, depending on how much of a market there is in the 24th Century for Willow/Tara fanfic), but if that's what failure looks like for your average Federation citizen, I'll take my chances.

Well, the copyright on Buffy the Vampire Slayer will have expired by then (plus they got rid of capitalism anyway), so you'd be in luck.

Me, I'd probably just be an actor/writer. Not too different from what I do now, except I wouldn't have to worry about money.

Maybe run for office, if politics in the Federation is substantially less dangerous/corrupt than in the real world.

The Romulan Republic wrote:This may be largely true if you're around Earth, or perhaps another major world. Outlying colonies get destroyed regularly, and we saw how things were near the Cardassian border.

With all due respect to the Native Stereotypan Tribe, if my homeworld's going to be handed over to the Cardassians, I'll be stowing my bags in the Enterprise's overhead lockers before Picard's finished saying "Unfortunately..."

The colonies did tend to bear the brunt of being on the edge of the unknown, true (although there's no doubt some bias at work, since mostly we only saw them when something was going ploin-shaped, otherwise it'd be a really boring episode). That said, I kind of got the feeling that a lot of the 'colonist movement' we saw was to do with humanity's zest for exploration and boundless curiosity and all that jazz - those were people who wanted to break new ground, turn some lifeless dirtball into a garden paradise by honest hard work, or at least go somewhere isolated where they could be ridiculous Irish stereotypes in peace. That's a fine thing and I admire it, but I'm a stay-at-home type; I get my build-something-with-my-own-hands fix just fine from Lego sets.