(Oh, BTW, mactavish, Proxima Centauri is the distant third star of the Alpha Centauri ternary system, not the other way around.)
Thanks, Owen. I only taught the solar system when I was in the classroom, never distant stars. 
As for the founding of the Federation, I must be thinking of the Starfleet Technical Manual. I think I bought that in the early 1980's when I was still a lad, but I specifically remember the mention of five races. Of course, that could also be from my exposure to the ICON Trek material, which states the founding races were human, Andorian, Centauran, Tellarite and Vulcan.
As TTK wrote, however, Enterprise clearly showed four representatives and not five. That indicates to me that, while there may have been more than just the four homeworlds uniting under the UFP, there were only four races that founded the Federation. That suggests to me that Martians, Vegans, Centaurans, and whichever other humans claim membership in the UFP, only Earth is a founding member (even if Mars, Vega and Alpha Centauri signed up on Earth's coattails as "colonies" or some such).
The Coalition of Planets was, as written earlier, most likely a trade and information-exchanging alliance between Earth, Andoria, Coridan, Denobula, Tellar and Vulcan as "first tier" members, with the six species' colony worlds attached as peripheral members or perhaps just colonial holdings. I'd also guess that this is probably one of the reasons that this alliance eventually failed: some of the colonies wanted equal representation in the coalition and some (or all) of the homeworld declined. This could also explain why the Denobulans pulled out and were not among the founders of the Federation.
I find it amusing that Earth might have declined to offer its colonies independence given American (and much of European) history regarding colonies and protectorates and such. Perhaps a condition of the foundation of the UFP was a Colonial Administration that aided colonies in becoming full members over a period of time, in much the same way that new worlds are admitted to the Federation after a lengthy screening process. In that way, perhaps Alpha Centauri WAS a founding member of the UFP, even if Centaurans are nothing more than humans born in the Alpha Centauri system.
One poster wrote that Coridan likely stayed out of the UFP initially because of an incident described in one of the Star Trek novels (which I won't post here for fear of ruining the surprise!), but I can't rightly explain why Denobula stayed out. Maybe the idea of joining an organization so soon after humanity's war with Romulus spooked them and, given their own experiences with war, led to their decision to remain a friendly neutral or an allied power to the Federation.
mactavish out.
Last edited by mactavish; 04-23-2007 at 11:52 AM.
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Originally Posted by mactavish
