Politics As Usual

[Joy 0]

“Good evening, Ambassador.... Two? Five?”

 

“Just Joy will do, Admiral. We seldom use the numbers unless more than one of is is present. That doesn’t happen very often. Right now, we are scattered from Broadway to Camelot.”

 

“Joy it is then. Sit down, please.”

 

“Thank you. And what may Mudd do for Starfleet?”

 

“I’m just trying to clean up some confusion. Ambassador Seven has a reputation for playing straight. What you have been saying around the Council complex, and what you said to Commander Jenkins aren’t really in agreement.”

 

“Yes. I suppose that is true. Frankly, my evaluation of Captain Corizon as an ambassador is very different from my evaluation as a Starfleet officer. That, and in the Council complex, politics is involved, as always.”

 

“Could you review the distinction, please?”

 

“From the diplomatic perspective, he performed a difficult mission well without balking at the limitations Council placed upon him. I’ve no complaints. Then too, the economic wing of the Pragmatist party and the humanitarian wing of the Idealists want a peace dividend. They are after your budget. Rather than debate the issue on its merits, they are looking for someone who might represent Starfleet in an unfavorable light. The poor captain has been nominated. It is just good for political leverage at this point for me to keep his image shiny. This is not hard. In many respects, he did a difficult job very well.”

 

“Hmm... I’ve heard a few alleged Joy quotes, perhaps third hand. ‘Corizon is brave, loyal, passionate, brilliant, deadly and brushes his fangs regularly?’”

 

“That’s.... pretty accurate, actually.”

 

“And he is not the first person to make a wrong turn in a wormhole? You claim the dubious honor?”

 

“I was at helm, both coming and going. I got nary a bogus order. Read the science report, admiral. Even with 20 20 hindsight, neither captain nor helm was going to catch the alternate reality transition without monitoring a rather obscure form of radiation of which we knew nothing at the time. I’ve got enough credibility in Council circles to take the hit on the corridor gossip level, and enough science that if anyone really pushes the issue, they lose. They are working a character assassination game, and I can backfire it on them if they push. I almost hope they push.”

 

“What were you doing at helm?”

 

“There were severe casualties in the wormhole battle, admiral. Also, the political issues I was originally assigned to handle never really came up. I ended up a sort of a floating extra officer. I worked science, helm, ops, had a brief moment at tactical, and was for a time informally XO.”

 

“And that is where you saw a problem?”

 

“Yes." Joy quietly thought for a moment. "Corizon has perhaps been in special ops to long. He wants control. He maintains need to know secrecy. He will force people to act a particular way through authority, threat or force, rather than trying to convince them. I learned command on the old Hawking under Admiral Alpha. Alpha gave you the information and resources needed to do the job, the freedom to do it your own way, and just enough supervision to make sure you didn’t blow it. In the diplomatic corps, that approach has served well. You want to explain why a proposed course is in mutual interest, rather than twist arms and force someone to do it your way.”

 

“How large a problem is it?”

 

“Not fatal. He will get the job done. He is really great as a leader of a small elite team. Still, I would warn anyone trying to reach the Mirror Imperium by the wormhole that they will likely not be welcomed smiling by those who interacted with the captain. He forced them more than developed mutual interests. Among the Excalibur crew, relations between the captain and the department heads were getting ragged. He would micromanage one department, essentially taking over as a floating department head, while ignoring the others. Officers not reasonably briefed on the situation will be given explicit orders they don’t understand, and might often balk. As department heads might not be briefed in all aspects of what is going on, there are misunderstandings.”

 

“Can you propose corrections?”

 

“Councilors know all about officers needing to learn to delegate as they are given more responsibility. Give them a heads up on it. Also, when you have a CO who leads from the front, I’ve found an XO with a delegating style useful. While Corizon is off with the security department leading a charge, the XO might best be left on the bridge keeping the rest of the crew in the loop. If you assign him an XO who intends always to be at the CO’s side, you will end up with the Ops officer trying to run the ship.”

 

“Would a good ops officer do?”

 

“Right now, he does have a great one. I just didn’t know what I was getting into when I cleared her shuttle out on what almost turned into a one way mission.”

 

“But you will still praise Corizon to Council?”

 

“Yes. Council has far better things to do than debate the command style of individual captains. Just don’t try to use him as a diplomat. From what I saw on that trip, he is no diplomat. He’ll also hopefully be half forgotten shortly, at least in Council circles, as soon as the next crisis rolls through. It’s just that the ‘great hero returning from the dead’ effect is turning him into this week’s pawn.”

 

“Noted. So, what is your sister Seven trying to negotiate in Gamma Quadrant?”

 

“There are roughly seven powers contending in Gamma Quad, depending on how one counts them. We consider seven to be the ideal number. If any one power attempts military expansion, forming a defensive alliance to contain it should not be difficult. Developing such an alliance is apt to be necessary. The common wisdom in Gamma Quadrant is that if one does not conquer the known universe, the known universe will conquer you. Thus, most every power out there has universal conquest on their mind. We have to teach them that defensive alliance trumps universal conquest. There will be no true peace until that value switch occurs, and that will take several war cycles, and likely a few centuries.”

 

“How does she intend to work it?”

 

“The Federation can’t be seen as the threat, the power that needs most to be defended against. Thus, fleet strength should not be high enough to threaten, but must be sufficient to make the Federation a worthy choice of ally. Push the Prime Directive in its ‘not interfere with the development of any society’ interpretation. We must not be seen as a threat to destroy or alter civilizations. If groups see us as not coercing cultural change, as leaving existing governments intact, but helping them provide security against common military threats, we may get long term alliances and eventually new Federation members.”

 

“She expects more conflicts?”

 

“Eventually. One war lost will not dissolve expansionist values. For practical reasons though, most every power needs a generation off. It would be rational for most powers to rebuild economies before rebuilding fleets. It is possible that some sort of peace through strength or balance of power arrangement might hold for some time.”

 

“But not forever.”

 

“Unlikely. The existing Gamma cultures hold war to be cost effective and indeed necessary to the survival of their races. Such a basic core value cannot be lightly reversed. A single loss in even the largest war is unlikely to erase such strong values.”

 

“Then you will help us fight the proposed peace dividend? It seems Mudd believes a strong Starfleet is necessary?”

 

“Admiral, the Federation needs a peace cycle too. Even from a purely military perspective, we too will benefit from recycling the economy to build a better base to construct fleets later.”

 

“Have you seen the sizes of the proposed cuts?”

 

“I have. Some of my more prudent Idealist friends are going to be sitting down with the Andorians shortly, and see how many votes the old Pragmatist Hawk faction can muster. I’m hoping that if the Hawks will agree to speak softly for a while, perhaps the Idealists will let them keep a fairly big stick. It isn’t clear yet how many of the Idealists will play. There is lots of dickering to be done. Starfleet might want to produce some strategic options based on a hairy Hawk - Idealist coalition of convenience, and evaluate how well you can make it work with significantly but not brutally reduced budgets.”

 

“Already underway. We have long kept teams working during peace to game plan the next war. We are considering teams during wars to game plan the next peace.”

 

“Wonderful. And if you could suggest to the Andorians they might not want to shoot Joys on sight for a while, I’d appreciate it. Seven had been bumping heads with them, lately.”

 

“I will. That covers things?”

 

“I believe so.”

 

“Best of luck then, Ambassador.”

 

“You too, Admiral.”