I had a random shower thought today.
Is the federation a pseudo military dictatorship, run by Starfleet?
1. Starfleet and the Federation are separate entities.
2. Starfleet's command structure reports in some way to the federation council, but not directly. It's more like a single employee situation.
3. Starfleet holds the monopoly on force within federation space (and potentially within the entire alpha quadrant post dominion war.)
4. Starfleet enforces all regulations on behalf of the federation, and mediates disputes between member worlds or worlds seeking membership. Often, they do these using Starfleet regulations or codes rather than laws passed by a federation council.
5. Starfleet controls all foreign relations for the federation. There are federation ambassadors, but they are supported by the starfleet diplomatic core and are shown to by and large be sycophantic or airheaded upper class folk from member worlds. The real work gets done by starfleet, often not even diplomatic core members but by ship crew.
6. It was trivially easy for starfleet to depose the federation council on a single world before the dominion war under Leyton, and thereby take military control of the whole federation.
7. Starfleet admirals largely broker peace deals during war time with opposing bodies (Khitomer, Dominion)
8. Foreign powers seem to value starfleet admirals and starfleet command over the federation presidency. (Gowron notably)
9. Starfleet command seems to have power to assign ambassadors to planets (worf)
What does the federation council do?
|