Treading on the Prime

[Joy 0]

Treading on the Prime

 

(Just so y'all know why the emotion chip overflow... )

 

Vedek Majour had often heard the tale of Quark preaching the art of economics to the Klingon Council. After hours of listening to the android ambassador talk about internal Federation politics, for the first time Majour had sympathy for the Klingon Council.

 

Oh, much of it made sense. A culture made up of a thousand cultures would not be unified, would not be in total agreement about everything. The militarists would tend to congregate in the military. The Ambassadors, appointed by the planetary governments, would tend to protect the independence of the planets from outside interference. And, yes, the Guarantees and Prime Directive were not just high abstract moral principles, but practical every day lines in the sand. They defined where Starfleet's militarists and others supporting a strong central government and unified culture contested against locally appointed ambassadors favoring independent planets that jealously limited the authority of Starfleet and other executive agencies.

 

But the details were painful. "So, many in the Federation would find Admiral Hasting's position unsatisfactory?"

 

Ambassador Joy Eight sighed. "The most apt phrase I've heard describing the Admiral, used by a fellow Starfleet officer, is "blowhard idiot."

 

The Vedec smiled. "And yet, many share his perspective. To a militarist, those with military values should control an asset as important as the wormhole, and the influence of... what was that phrase..." The vedek curled his lips in contempt, "religious fanatics... should be minimized?"

 

"Some think that," responded Joy. "Others think it prudent to have the gods on one's side." Joy waited for the Vedek to blink and reorient. "I for one do not forget the Organians stopping a Federation - Klingon war, Q providing an early warning of the Borg Incursion, or a Dominion fleet that entered the wormhole in Gamma Quad, but never reached Alpha. The world you live in is real, Vedek, and many within the Federation remember this, even if Admiral Hastings doesn't. I genuinely would like to see Bajor and the Federation working together, but the Bajoran bridge between the material and spiritual worlds may well ultimately prove more important."

 

"So what can you do about Admiral Hastings?"

 

"A number of things. Usually one would start with the small, and work towards the more potent tools. I've already started by reminding him of the Guarantee of Religious Freedom, and suggested that an overt public relations campaign attacking religious values has Prime Directive implications. The next step is a formal diplomatic protest. This would stick to his personnel record and haunt his career, but if he believes his immediate superiors think as he does, he might not consider such a protest important. The next two levels occur in San Francisco. The ambassadors control Starfleet's budget, approve the basic mission statements, and review rules of engagement. Starfleet Admiralty will usually play ball with the ambassadors, will usually honor the principle of civilian control of the military. Either myself or my sister Seven might introduce your people to playing that game.

 

"But the big gun is to bring the issue to a Council debate." Joy paused briefly to emphasize the point. "There are only so many times we can fire that gun. The agenda is busy. Debates on such issues take time. Still, Bajor and the wormhole are key strategically, and any time we catch Starfleet treading on the Prime, there are ambassadors eager to clip Starfleet's wings. This problem is the sort that can leap to the head of the agenda. To my mind, Admiral Hastings will lose this one if it gets pushed all the way to Council, which makes it likely that the Admiralty will back down before it gets to Council."

 

"But that is a guess."

 

"An educated guess, but yes."

 

"And you are advising that we push this?"

 

"If you are in the least bit concerned that the Federation will not allow your culture to continue to live and grow as it chooses, yes, push it, and yes, you should shun Federation membership until you are entirely satisfied that our system works. That is your other big gun. Use it. There are a lot of planets that will back you, including Mudd. If you do in time join the Federation, I would hope you will return the favor. While you should do what is best for your world, I am all in favor of welcoming cultures that will politically defend themselves and other worlds from outside incursion."

 

"You don't fear we will turn militarist?"

 

Joy smiled. "I know yours isn't a one dimensional culture. Your people are not purely religious. You have military values, and economic values, and scientific, and much else. Still, even the Maquis wanted more to live as they had than to impose their will or culture on others. I would not fear your vote being added to Assembly and Council. The louder you denounce Admiral Hastings, the more I believe you will belong."

 

"I can see your perspective," responded the Vedek. "You do appreciate it isn't widely shared."

 

"Quite. Still, you will not object if I demonstrate how things might be done?"

 

"Not at all."

[Greg Nirvana 0]

That was really well done Joy =)

[Joy 0]

That was really well done Joy =)

 

Appreciated. Just as background...

 

In other sim groups, I long played Joy Seven as Mudd's representative on the Federation Council. As the Joys are programmed with the Prime Directive, preservation of sentient life and rule of law at high Priority, I ended up deriving the foreign policy of Mudd from the contents of Joy's Asimov Processor.

 

Each player in the Council sim either borrowed a planet from the Trek mythos, or created a culture from scratch. It was a fairly common practice to base controversial issues for Council debate on player planets. It was a good way for a player to get on center stage for a while, to allow Council to debate an issue that strongly effected one's homeworld.

 

After a few debates ended with Council voting for solutions that strongly impacted player planets in unanticipated ways, the Idealist Party with its strong interpretation of the Prime Directive -- that the Federation could not force changes on any culture -- started coming strongly into play. Thou shalt not mess up my planet. Thus, thou shalt not mess up anyone else's planet. For many years, the loose and shifting alliances within the Council game were between 'Idealists and Pragmatists,' 'Doves and Hawks,' or "Roddenberryists and Bermenists.' The Idealists were entirely ready to offer assistance to cultures within the Federation or without, but were highly reluctant to force changes on any culture. The major exceptions were aggressor cultures and Federation planetary governments that had ceased honoroing the Guaranteed rights of their citizens. The Pragmatists generally sought the most expedient path to increasing the influence and power of the Federation.

 

Anyway, after playing in the Star Trek universe from the Council's perspective for many years, the Joys developed a perspective quite unlike many characters that have always served Starfleet. The notion that the senior officer on the scene has to answer to no individual, no law, and no principle distinctly itches...

[Greg Nirvana 0]

So was there any schism at one point or another?

[Joy 0]

So was there any schism at one point or another?

 

There were several schisms of different intensity. As you might imagine, the game format works best when there are about the same number of players doing Idealists and Pragmatists. There were long stretches of time where one group or the other would have a clean majority, and the hosts struggled to come up with issues that would be debated evenly. For example, during much of the Dominion War, we had a majority of players with militarists attitudes, and Joy was distinctly in the minority. At other times, the Idealists frustrated the more action oriented players, who seldom got to order decisive fleet movements and such like. Violence is the last resort. Don't meddle in a planet's internal affairs...

 

Several times, when the Idealists were in the clean majority, the hosts would play highly secretive militarists with a love of black secret ops. We had the theme of a runaway executive branch with the Council trying to reign it in. If we didn't word our resolutions very carefully, the dirty rotten Chairman would find a way to misinterpret it. There was occasional talk of impeachment, but it never happened.

 

The largest schism, however, wasn't successfully resolved. The Fleet Admiral who had founded the sim group crashed a Council meeting along with a subordinate admiral who had taken over while the Fleet Admiral was sick. Both had a collection of followers and supporters who had at different times maintained the group's web sites, run academies, trained new hosts, and such like. The original boss wanting to return to power with her friends, booting out or giving orders to the incumbent group that had kept things alive but had a different style...

 

Let's just say that that one didn't end with reconciliation. For a while there were two Federation Councils...