General Discussions

The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek

POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Sunday, June 7, 2026 16:12
VIEWED: 22000
PAGE 11 of 14

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, September 28, 2006 12:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
If Starfleet is a military it is completely unlike any military today. The main job of militaries today is defence of their parent nation. Starfleets main job is Scientific and Exploration, Defence of the Federation is a secondary role. I'm finding it hard to see Starfleet as a military, at least as a military as we understand it, since militaries today don't spend most of their time exploring the Amazon or trying to find the cure for cancer.

And the British military is unlike the military of Anglo-Saxon England, so what? Militaries evolve to meet the threat. They always have. And modern militaries today are far more technical and scientific then they have ever been in the past. It is, in fact, quite in keeping with the theme and attitude of Star Trek that Starfleet should be a highly technical military with a strong emphasis in scientific research.

How do you know that Defence is secondary role of Starfleet? Just because Sweden isn't at war doesn't mean their Army thinks Sweden's defence is secondary, but I bet there is an Amy building somewhere in Sweden where scientific research, not war fighting, is the principle endeavour.

As for the degree to which the Starfleet appears to represent a science and exploration, how do you know that this isn’t simply because the Enterprise was charged with exploration? It actually makes perfect sense that, given the conditions assumed in Star Trek, that the military would want to explore and patrol their region of space. You made this comment earlier:

Quote:
Although the implied militarism is about a military star ship, kind of like saying JAG implies America is militarist.

Citizen, ibid.

Evidently, you believed that the Enterprise was a military ship and a show about this ship wouldn’t necessarily imply that the Federation is militarist. So by the same argument if the Enterprise, being “a military star ship” charged with exploration, as is its mission statement, doesn’t necessarily imply that Starfleet isn’t a military.

Also it is interesting to note that the website of the TA describes itself as not being separate from the Army. So regardless of whether the TA is or isn’t militia it would seem that even the TA believes they are a military, if in fact, the British Regular Army is a military.

Quote:
The Regular Army is a force of full-time professional soldiers. The TA is a reserve force of civilians who fulfil soldier training and operational support on a part-time basis. The TA is not a separate Army. It is an integral part of the Army’s organisation and is designed to reinforce the Regular Army wherever necessary. [Emphasis mine]

http://www.armyjobs.mod.uk/TerritorialArmy/RegularandTA.htm

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

CITIZEN

Thursday, September 28, 2006 4:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
And the British military is unlike the military of Anglo-Saxon England, so what? Militaries evolve to meet the threat. They always have. And modern militaries today are far more technical and scientific then they have ever been in the past. It is, in fact, quite in keeping with the theme and attitude of Star Trek that Starfleet should be a highly technical military with a strong emphasis in scientific research.

How do you know that Defence is secondary role of Starfleet? Just because Sweden isn't at war doesn't mean their Army thinks Sweden's defence is secondary, but I bet there is an Amy building somewhere in Sweden where scientific research, not war fighting, is the principle endeavour.

As for the degree to which the Starfleet appears to represent a science and exploration, how do you know that this isn’t simply because the Enterprise was charged with exploration? It actually makes perfect sense that, given the conditions assumed in Star Trek, that the military would want to explore and patrol their region of space.

So you agree with me, if Starfleet is a military it's completely unlike the militaries of today, the same as the militias of yesteryear are completely unlike the militaries of today, so why are you still arguing with me on that?

But how do I know defence is secondary? They spend nearly all their time on other things, nearly all the characters are Scientists or of Scientific backgrounds, and they've said so, on numerous occasions.

Quote:
Quote:
Although the implied militarism is about a military star ship, kind of like saying JAG implies America is militarist.
Citizen, ibid.

I wasn't aware that I wasn't allowed to come to a different understanding through the course of this discussion. Why are you bothering to say anything if you think it's wrong for me to change my mind?

Quote:
Quote:
The Regular Army is a force of full-time professional soldiers. The TA is a reserve force of civilians who fulfil soldier training and operational support on a part-time basis. The TA is not a separate Army. It is an integral part of the Army’s organisation and is designed to reinforce the Regular Army wherever necessary. [Emphasis mine]

Many standing armies included militias, that were still militias, this means nothing.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

CYBERSNARK

Thursday, September 28, 2006 7:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Quote:
Originally posted by Veteran:
I'm not sure what Sulu's nationality was . . .
I think there has actually been some debate over that. Originally, I think he was supposed to be Japanese, but at some time later, it was discovered that the name Sulu actually can’t be pronounced in Japanese. Or so I understand. I really don’t know for sure. What I do know is that Sulu is generally thought to be American now.

Actually, the best source I know of (a novel that hasn't been contradicted by anything [yet]) suggests that Sulu's father is Vietnamese. His mother is Japanese (she's the one who taught him how to fight --Sulus aren't fighters. . . but his mother is a Tanaka

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
We are told that a character is a reporter, but no one ever seems to read the paper or watch the news.
Not true, we don't see news channels, which would be the only way of expressly getting over the idea of an independent news service, because apparently people don't like watching TV and it's disappeared. I imagine it has something to do with holodecks .

It's also implied that Jake's stories were aimed at a print market. He was likely freelance, selling stories to either the Federation News Service or the Bajoran networks.

And we did see different ideas of media freedom when DS9 was occupied by the Dominion: Weyoun promised Jake that his work would not be censored, while the Cardassians demanded that it would be (Of course, we know from Garak that a free press is not a Cardassian concept).

In the post-series DS9 novels, we see that Bajor's infonet is as unregulated as our own (Kira posts a forbidden religious text, and is Attainted, but once something hits the infonet it can never be put back in the bottle), though there are attempts to curtail media freedoms, made possible by the fact that Bajor's government is effectively an appendage to the Vedek Assembly.

We never really needed to see people reading the paper (or the morning news downloads to their PADDs), because we were too busy watching the characters make news. (Actually, now that I think about it, we did see hundreds of scenes of people reading PADDs over raktajinos, so they very well could've been reading the morning news. 'Course, they could also have been reading this month's The NEW Adventures of Captain Proton, but whatever.)

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

CAVALIER

Thursday, September 28, 2006 9:23 PM

The Federation has no money, no capitalism and, by implication, a command economy.

Officially the wonderful thing that allowed the creation of what the Federation claims to be paradise on Earth, was contact between Earth and the outside universe. However the Prime Directive requires that all primitive non-warp capable civilisations be left alone and uncontacted and uninfluenced by the outside universe. Why, if first contact was so good for Earth?

Officially, Starfleet exists to explore, and is armed only for self-defence. It has enough firepower to fight the navies of the other major powers on at least equal, and usually superior terms. Why are Starfleets explorers so unwelcome that they need to be so heavily armed?

Every sizeable ship that calls at DS9 from the Federation is a Starfleet vessel. Private citizens are apparently unable to trade with the outside universe.

Officially the Federation has a free media. But we never see anyone pay any attention to a news report, even when there is a full scale war going on around them. Apparently, the official media is not worth listening to. Quarks bar does not even have so much as a TV showing the football scores, never mind CNN.
Note that Sisko should pay some attention to such stations, partly because they often react faster than the militaries own intelligence, and partly because, as station commander, he would have to know what the stations inhabitants have just heard.

Human nature “changed” when the Federation was set up. Why, did they start adding G-32 Paxilon Hydrochlorate to the air processors?

People in the Federation waste no opportunity to tell people, especially each other, how wonderful, paradisical, and perfect the society is. They say it a lot too often, and we never see any actual evidence to that effect.

And according to “Paradise Lost”, this utopia came within a hairs breadth of being overthrown by a single Admiral. Shouldn’t paradise inspire greater loyalty?

Now, there could be an innocent explanation for perhaps any one of these, but all of them?

Anyone would think that Star Trek was a propaganda show, designed to give the impression that the Federation is a wonderful place, and covering up anything questionable…

Of course, in a sense, it is. The writers were told the Federation is some wonderful post-capitalist paradise, and could not imagine what such a society would look like. So we just get people on the fringes, telling us that Earth really is wonderful really…

PS

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:

Except it was always maintained that Starfleet was formed for scientific research, and research is what they spend most of their time doing.
Quote:
As I understand your arguments, if the army took over the police and counterintelligence roles, as well as complete control over the economy, the army would cease to be a military organisation. After all, the defense of the country would no longer be its primary role. And you would deny, on that basis, that the resulting society was militarised.
I'm not arguing that at all. I'm saying the Federation doesn't have a full time army. You're argument seems to be that if we were to disband the military and in times of war used Civilian planes to move police to the combat zone then all of a sudden that means the Police are all in the military even when they're acting as the Police in peace time and that all civilian planes are really military planes no matter where they're going or who they're taking there.

I am attempting to argue (perhaps not entirely clearly) that it does not matter why Starfleet was formed, or what it does when it is not defending the Federation. It clearly controls the vast majority of the mobile firepower of the Federation, and therefore serves the Federation as the functional equivalent of a military, whatever its mission statement.

To reverse your example, suppose the police were abolished, and the Army used to maintain law and order. The Army would now be acting as the police in peace ti

CITIZEN

Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The Federation has no money, no capitalism and, by implication, a command economy.

I see so before the invention of money and capitalism there was only command economies. Nice propaganda and rhetoric, shame it doesn't have any relation to reality.

It seems the writers aren't the only people who can't imagine people living their lives in freedom without the motivator of greed, the acquisition of personal wealth.

Quote:
Officially the wonderful thing that allowed the creation of what the Federation claims to be paradise on Earth, was contact between Earth and the outside universe. However the Prime Directive requires that all primitive non-warp capable civilisations be left alone and uncontacted and uninfluenced by the outside universe. Why, if first contact was so good for Earth?

Yeah, except the real problem with your example is that Earth wasn't pre-warp at first contact. First contact was attained because of the first Human Warp flight. So first contact for Earth doesn't support you at all there.

So Earth wasn't contacted until after it attained warp drive. By comparison civilisations that were contacted prior to attaining warp drive ended up as vicious gangster regimes and so on. In fact relations between Vulcans and Humans were strained because the Humans thought the Vulcans were holding them back by NOT giving them the advances to warp five drives.

With martial arts as nice as it would be to be able to download all that ability like in the Matrix, if you could do that you'd have all the power and none of the discipline. Every technology has a good and a bad application, and if nothing else is a constant through history its that if something is given rather than earned it usually ends up being mistreated.

Quote:
Officially, Starfleet exists to explore, and is armed only for self-defence. It has enough firepower to fight the navies of the other major powers on at least equal, and usually superior terms. Why are Starfleets explorers so unwelcome that they need to be so heavily armed?

Exploring has always been dangerous, rarely because the explorers are unwelcome invaders from a militaristic nation, so again I fail to see how this supports anything.

Quote:
Every sizeable ship that calls at DS9 from the Federation is a Starfleet vessel.

All you have to do to disprove this is watch any episode without the blinkers. DS9 is constantly being visited by sizeable vessels, rarely Starfleet ones. I'm afraid the reality is the polar opposite of what you say.

Quote:
Private citizens are apparently unable to trade with the outside universe.

I've already disproved this, Federation citizens are clearly shown trading with the outside world. Ignoring anything I say that doesn't fit what you think doesn't make you right.

Quote:
Officially the Federation has a free media. But we never see anyone pay any attention to a news report, even when there is a full scale war going on around them. Apparently, the official media is not worth listening to.

Again, I've already indicated that the people read the news, there's overt references to it. I don't feel the need to keep disproving these things simply because you won't listen.

Quote:
Quarks bar does not even have so much as a TV showing the football scores, never mind CNN.

Hardly surprising considering TV doesn't exist any more. I've seen period dramas where people didn't have CNN on the TV too, I guess that means that the Victorians didn't have a free news service.

Or it means they don't have TVs, perhaps.

Quote:
Note that Sisko should pay some attention to such stations, partly because they often react faster than the militaries own intelligence, and partly because, as station commander, he would have to know what the stations inhabitants have just heard.

Actually I'm sure there are scenes of him referring to a civilian media, as I said.

Quote:
Human nature “changed” when the Federation was set up. Why, did they start ad

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, September 29, 2006 12:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Actually, the best source I know of (a novel that hasn't been contradicted by anything [yet]) suggests that Sulu's father is Vietnamese. His mother is Japanese (she's the one who taught him how to fight --Sulus aren't fighters. . . but his mother is a Tanaka ).

I knew that there was some reference to Sulu’s origins on screen, but I couldn’t think of where, so I decided to star rewatching the movies and the first one that I watched, Star Trek IV, I found it. (Must have been some of HK psychic powers.

) Sulu says that he was born in San Francisco.

On another note, I found it rather telling that Starfleet headquarters as well as Starfleet Academy is located in San Francisco. I think there is a bit of a cultural nod in the direction of the Academic Left.

CYBERSNARK

Friday, September 29, 2006 2:49 PM

There's also the old joke about how the weird people move west. Europe to the Americas, across the continent to California --if you're too weird for San Francisco, you may be too weird for the planet.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

CAVALIER

Friday, September 29, 2006 4:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The Federation has no money, no capitalism and, by implication, a command economy.
I see so before the invention of money and capitalism there was only command economies. Nice propaganda and rhetoric, shame it doesn't have any relation to reality.

It seems the writers aren't the only people who can't imagine people living their lives in freedom without the motivator of greed, the acquisition of personal wealth.

If you think about it, all societies must contain elements of trade and command economics. To take an example, in a small group of similar people, such as a band of hunter-gathers or, possibly, a small group of farmers, people trade favours. We all do this with friends. But it is always expected that favours will be repaid. Someone who refuses to pay favours back is remembered, and people stop doing him favours.
As the group gets larger or more complicated it becomes harder to keep this system working as it becomes harder to decide whether a favour has been paid back in full. It may be hard to pay the favour back at all. If this is the first time you have met a man, and neither of you expects to see the other again, how can either of you return a favour?
So the trade becomes explicit: you do something for him, and he does something for you. The community has now invented barter. “I’ll give you these dilithium crystals, and you fix my warp core.”
If the community becomes larger or more complicated still, even barter has a problem. If you are an air traffic controller, and you want to buy some bread, what exactly can you give the baker in exchange? Or the guy you need to fix your vacuum cleaner?
So people start to use something that almost everyone will want at some time, and use it as a medium of exchange. It can be anything widely used. Rice, tobacco, gold, even sea shells have all been used.
This is the invention of money, when suddenly it becomes possible to get almost anyone to do you a favour, at almost no notice.
The latest step was the invention of fiat money (dollars, euros etc) which have absolutely no value, except as a medium of exchange.
In a complex society, the elimination of money would make trade almost impossible, because it would be rare for two people to have needs and abilities that matched exactly.
A complex society that lacks money is therefore one in which trade is almost impossible, or unnecessary.

The small group of people must also have elements of a command economy. Some things are done because a more important person, or group of people, or the group as a whole, tells you to. Again, in a bigger and more complex group things will tend to become more formalised, as people try to keep track of what decisions have been made by who about what and who will carry them out.

From this point of view fascism, communism, feudalism, democratic socialism etc are distinguished by who makes the decisions about what for which (declared or undeclared) purpose. And of course, they have different means of selecting the decision making entity or person. (e.g. town council, feudal overlord etc).

If the Federation has no money, internal trade must be unimportant, and by default the Federation must be largely a command economy. Post any alternative you can think of. People could still do favours for friends, and there may be some barter, but if trade with strangers were at all common they would still use money.

Note that all this has nothing to do with the motives “greed”, “altruism” etc, of the people who live in a society. Federation citizens could be perfectly altruistic in an entirely free market society. Those who earned more than average could give the extra money away to those with a below average income. And they could give the government however much money it thought it needed.

We are compelled to pay taxes only because people will not give the government as much money as it wants voluntarily.

Conversely of course, people living in a command economy may be altruist

CAVALIER

Saturday, September 30, 2006 8:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Officially the wonderful thing that allowed the creation of what the Federation claims to be paradise on Earth, was contact between Earth and the outside universe. However the Prime Directive requires that all primitive non-warp capable civilisations be left alone and uncontacted and uninfluenced by the outside universe. Why, if first contact was so good for Earth?
Yeah, except the real problem with your example is that Earth wasn't pre-warp at first contact. First contact was attained because of the first Human Warp flight. So first contact for Earth doesn't support you at all there.

So Earth wasn't contacted until after it attained warp drive. By comparison civilisations that were contacted prior to attaining warp drive ended up as vicious gangster regimes and so on. In fact relations between Vulcans and Humans were strained because the Humans thought the Vulcans were holding them back by NOT giving them the advances to warp five drives.

Earth had possessed warp technology for less than one day at the time of First Contact. I find it hard to see how this development could have made First Contact so much more beneficial to humanity, than it would have been five, or even a hundred, years before.

Quote:
From memory alpha:
Starfleet officers are required to understand that allowing cultures to develop on their own is an important right and therefore must make any sacrifice to protect cultures from contamination, even at the cost of their own lives.
In all, there are 47 sub-orders in the Prime Directive. (VOY: "Infinite Regress")
Originally the Directive was a shield for primitive worlds. If such a world was in danger, Starfleet had been known to order ships to save that world, provided it could be done without violating the Directive (TOS: "The Paradise Syndrome").
The Directive was later amended, prohibiting Starfleet officers from intervening even if it would result in the extinction of an entire species or the end of all life on a planet or star system. By the 24th century the Federation had begun applying the Prime Directive to warp-capable species, refusing to interfere in internal matters such as the Klingon Civil War. (TNG: "Pen Pals", "Homeward", "Redemption, Part I", "Redemption, Part II")

It would appear that the primary purpose of the Prime Directive is to maintain the cultural purity of the worlds in question, and that it is thought better to let a species die than render them impure. I really do not think that that is a very good sign at all.

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Officially, Starfleet exists to explore, and is armed only for self-defence. It has enough firepower to fight the navies of the other major powers on at least equal, and usually superior terms. Why are Starfleets explorers so unwelcome that they need to be so heavily armed?
Exploring has always been dangerous, rarely because the explorers are unwelcome invaders from a militaristic nation, so again I fail to see how this supports anything.

Because Starfleets explorers apparently require enough firepower to fight a full scale war against another major power. It is as if every expedition in the amazon took an army battalion with them. If you take that much firepower, people will assume that you are invading, and then you probably will have a battle.

Quote:

Quote:
Every sizeable ship that calls at DS9 from the Federation is a Starfleet vessel.
All you have to do to disprove this is watch any episode without the blinkers. DS9 is constantly being visited by sizeable vessels, rarely Starfleet ones. I'm afraid the reality is the polar opposite of what you say.

All the Starfleet ships have mostly human crews. Every non-starfleet vessel I have seen appeared to have a non-human crew, strongly suggesting that it did not come from the Federation. This was not true in Captain Archer’s day, but that was the time

CITIZEN

Saturday, September 30, 2006 10:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Earth had possessed warp technology for less than one day at the time of First Contact.

It's a milestone. Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki proves we had harnessed the atom and were moving into the atomic age.

Quote:
I find it hard to see how this development could have made First Contact so much more beneficial to humanity, than it would have been five, or even a hundred, years before.

So you think aliens turning up in medieval Europe with technology like nuclear weapons, handing them over and saying "go nuts" wouldn't have an adverse reaction?

Quote:
It would appear that the primary purpose of the Prime Directive is to maintain the cultural purity of the worlds in question, and that it is thought better to let a species die than render them impure. I really do not think that that is a very good sign at all.

But the Federation council has decided to not implement the prime directive under certain circumstances. Frankly I find the idea of a law that prevents one captain from beaming down and handing over nuclear weapons to an alien tribal chieftain who could never hope to understand the consequences of using them as a pretty good idea.

Quote:
Because Starfleets explorers apparently require enough firepower to fight a full scale war against another major power. It is as if every expedition in the amazon took an army battalion with them. If you take that much firepower, people will assume that you are invading, and then you probably will have a battle.

Actually many times in the series Starfleet ships have been shown to be less powerful than the individual warships of other nations. A Romulan warbird is superior, as is a Vor'Cha Klingon Cruiser, to the Enterprise D, apparently the most powerful ship in starfleet.

Quote:
All the Starfleet ships have mostly human crews. Every non-starfleet vessel I have seen appeared to have a non-human crew, strongly suggesting that it did not come from the Federation. This was not true in Captain Archer’s day, but that was the time the Federation was created, about 200 years before DS9.

Actually I think this is one of the circumstances where you can defer to the dictates of television budgets. They can't afford to stock the ships with cool looking aliens. I think that the fact that they mention Starfleet is open to all and show enough Aliens to indicate an alien presence is enough.

There's no reoccurring Asian characters in Firefly, but say so is enough to accept that America and China merged.

Quote:
If Jake is unable even to buy a baseball card, that strongly suggests that individual Federation citizens do have problems trading with the outside universe. (My claim that it is impossible is admittedly an exaggeration.)

Not really, my god daughter can't bid in auctions. I can't bid in an auction if they don't accept the currency I carry. I have to exchange it, which in the above episode is exactly what Jake does (I was actually going to bring that episode up myself, thanks). He trades what he does have to get Latinum so that he can bid in the auction. I don't see how that's fundamentally different to going to a Bureau de Change.

Quote:
Note that all this is consistent with the Federations belief that to interfere with a culture is bad for it. Trade between two cultures would alter both cultures. IIRC we do see Sisko conducting trade negotiations, but that would imply that Starfleet or the Federation Government is trading, not private citizens (and as Sisko is the commander of a space station, trade negotiations cannot make up that much of his duties).

Interference and trade with cultures of a similar technological level are different things.

Quote:
Fair enough. Does the media matter though? Is there, for example, any case where freedom of the press requires one thing, and the Federation desires another? And if so, how is the conflict resolved?

Can't think of an example off hand, but that's not indicative of anything, we don't see the Daily