UFP Civil War

[Dogsoldier]

Below is how a UFP Civil War could occure 30 years after the ending of the Dominion War.

Its ten years after the end of the Dominion War and for some time many have begun to become increasingly upset with what the Federation is becoming. The see an increasingly centralized and federalized government centered on Earth "controlling" and interfearing into the daily lifes of the various member worlds and systems.

The hotest issue so far has been the imposing of a Tarriff on Federation interterstellar trade which almost brought about the succession of Tellar from the Federation. The Federation is finding it increasingly difficult to work in an interstellar society with out "hard" currency and the tariff was a means to achieve that. It was thought the tariff would mainly effect Feringi and Orion dealers as they carried on the bulk of such trade within the Federation however the Tellarites were also deeply effected and they responded with fury and intense debate the like sof which had not been heard on Tellar for centuries. The crisis was only resolved when President Ross (yes the former Dominion War hero turned politician) threaten to personally lead a Starfleet Task force to make sure Tellar collected the tariff and did not succede.

The Federation Governments action meet with both widespread acceptence and support except on some worlds were talk about the heavy handed approach taken was looked upon with skiptism and anger, even among the Vulcans. Meanwhile another movement which ahd far more importance was taking place in 2379 a little known Starfleet Science officer published a book called "The Non-Interfearence Myth" In that work he wrote that the prime directive was now largely illrelevent as most cultures in the Galaxy had reached a level to which made them aprt of the interstellar community and to ignore them and treat them as outsider was dangerous and criminal. He also suggested that to allow any culture or world to die when others now possed the eman to correct those problems unseen was an action paramount to geniocide/planetcide.

The books influence was great at one point it was even banned from Starfleet Academy due to the fact of the many debates, some of them ending violently, its discussion brought about. The Interventionist/non-Interventionist battle became wide spread and entered into the growing schism between the Confederist and Federalist (who usually sided with the itnerventionist).


Ok that the start of the thing, I hope to pop out more soon any thoughts?

[Dogsoldier]

I know destroying a utopia is not your idea of a good plot idea but utopias are always flawed and bound to fail in some way and I wanted to work on that premise.

[Ramage]

**sigh**

I guess the reason I like Trek is that it is the utopia that has not failed.

Of course, that's a personal take.

Best games I ever had were in the movie era. It was easy enough to have a battle if you wanted one (Klingons still as Bad Guys), but there were other ideas running around as well.

As far as your set up is concerned, I don't know about the tariff. I mean, I know that taxation is a current bugbear, but I'm not sure how much it affects the Federation, at least "as written". Maybe you would want to hit another angle?

[Cochrane]

Some good ideas, but I think there are always plenty of primitive cultures.

[KillerWhale]

I like the idea of not destroying, but at least threatening the utopia - and I think the idea of a civil war is interesting.

In order to keep it "Trek" I think it's interesting too to have a moral dilemma at the root (I'm not a big fan of the tariff affair): the Prime Directive thing is cool, but I think there would have to be some really special reason for this to lead to war.

Or maybe there was some external influence by threat races. Or ancient ones (think Babylon 5).

What would be great would be to focus the campaign depending on the choices of the PCs: what side do they choose?

I also think in the end, the utopia should prevail... Just to stick to the Trek paradigm that cooperation is better than violence.

[BouncyCaitian]

Actually, I can see a civil conflict for a very different reason: home defense.

The premise goes something like this: The dominion war is long over and the Core worlds of the Federation have grown complacent (again) and downgraded the fleet to more exploritory. While laudable, this has angered many of border worlds, who have suffered border raids from many different soruces and factions. But protests from the border worlds have fallen on deaf ears.
This dispute has given new power to the Essentalist potlical faction, a somewhat militaristic faction whose primary concern is the defense of the Federation first and exploration second. The Traditionalists (exploration first, defense second) have activiely scuttled plans for any new warships since the Dominion War, which has angered the Essentalists, leading to heated arguements within Starfleet Command's upper eschelons....

[C5]

As Ramage said, what I love in Star Trek is that their utopia is not flawed. Strange this taste for kicking doll houses...

OK, now for some constructive comments :
I am not too fond either of the tariff thing, but the reworking of the Prime Directive is very good. This infamous book could demonstrate how interference can be a good thing at some times, and would be well argumented enough to gain enough support among StarFleet, leading to huge dissenssions among his ranks, some of them attempting rogue actions to prove the new theory correct.


Woohoo!! 1400th post!!!

[toadkiller]

I've created some tension - with no intention of carrying it to a war - by pitting the "Core Worlds" vs. the "Fringe" or as they perfered to be called the "Outer Colonies".

Basically the center of the UFP has the majority of the non-material resources, manufacturing base, and governmental power and also has the fringe regions to soak up damage in the event of invasion or war. The colonies have huge amounts of natural resources but limitied means of developing them without depending on (and giving a cut to) the Core.

Growing from the whole Marqui situation, friction continues in my game universe post DW. Mostly non-violent it still creates some adventures from time to time as I've brought some politicians into the game as NPC's.

I did have a "war" between one of the colonies and Earth, but it was more in the fashion of the Cod Wars between Iceland and the UK then a "real" war. Led to a couple of fist fights in SF though....

[KillerWhale]

About the kicking the doll's house situation... I think we have canon precedence that the utopia sometimes suffers (although it did not lead to such catastrophic events as to what we are debating). Ie:

- The Orion Syndicate. IIRC, Orion IS a member of the Federation, yet such an organization exists...
- The Maquis
- Section 31

What is important, I think, is that those elements did not bring the Federation down - they just weakened it, showed the utopia had some flaws - but the Fed emerged stronger. The utopia prevails: that is what's Trek IMO, and the "lesson" to be taken of all this.

I think the idea of a kicking the utopia is perfectly fine, as long as it does prevail in the end... Showing its strength.

[Dogsoldier]

As to the tariff, I think most of you are misreading the intent of this little number. The tariff by itself is not a cause of the war (in fact save for the tellarites it will be largely forgotten about by the time the war starts) however the excessive use of central power to enforce it has caused many to look at the Federation government a little different. Its the salt in the water if you will. By itself it is nothing just a momentary blip however with the various forces begining to pull at the seams it gives people who would have never considered the Federation as a threat a pause to rethink that assumtion.

You all did get the intent of the book presenting the moral question and illustrating the point to a large audience. Many within the Federation (Civilians) are not awear of how rigidly the PD is applied they are still filled with stories of Archer, April, and Kirk always saving the day the consequences be damn. When they read this book they become shocked at how easily the Federation assumes it has no right to at least prevent natural disasters from occuring when it can be done without interfearence.

[Ensign Arrgh]

The main problem with this scenario, and the tarriff part in particular, is that it is incredibly dated (by dated, I think mid 18th to mid 19th century). I hardly think it could be realistic on 20th and 21st century Earth (we don't see Canada and the US gearing up for war over tariffs and NAFTA violations, the have the WTO for this), having the UFP Head of State play King George is VERY (capitalise many times) far fetched. Another point is the thing about hard currency. Then what is Latinum? Credits and local moneys can serve as well for internal UFP trade.

The PD point, if it reaches so many people, they can elect people favourable to a change in the Prime Directive, and can therefore put pressure on the Federation Council through the planetary/province governments to have a constitutionnal change take place. The movement can gain more influence by lecturing in places of learning (the pen is mightier than the sword, after all), publishing books, publishing essays in the press, etc. I don't see either being enough to launch any kind of civil war (apart from a slight fistfight compared to which the 1995 Quebec referendum would seem like an all out war )

[Dan Gurden]

Re; The Orion Syndicate.

When was the last time any of us saw an Orion member of the syndicate. My take is that its simply a name. perhaps inherited from an older Orion Pirate cooperative, maybe simply a name to throw investigators off the scent.

[T'lara]

Originally posted by Dan Gurden
Re; The Orion Syndicate.

When was the last time any of us saw an Orion member of the syndicate. My take is that its simply a name. perhaps inherited from an older Orion Pirate cooperative, maybe simply a name to throw investigators off the scent.

Deep Space Nine. Chief O'Brien went under cover to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate. This was also the first time we saw the neronetwware hacking device. We just have not seen any Orions since TOS, but the Syndicate does exist still.
Also Ezri's family was being blackmailed by the Orion Syndicate I believe in another Deep Space Nine Episode as well.

[qerlin]

A more likely reason would be Orion/Ferengi economic interests in destroying the Federation; they are capitalist in nature and the UFP is -- at best -- socialist. There's an inherent conflict of interests. The Ferengi, driven by profit, probably put out a sizeable amount of entertainment; in a century where work is passe and everyone is cared for, entertainment is going to be job 1. They could use this control on media to slowly undermine the confidence in the UFP, by hammering home to the planets that were abandoned/invaded during the war how little the Fed did for them. The UFP would be on a massive rebuilding process after the war; the amount of resources that would have to flow to the center -- by the very nature of the centralized, non-monetary economy -- would be a drain on a lot of the newer or fringe worlds

Yeah, yeah...the economy of the Fed is based on the replicator, which gives unlimited production capacity. Bull. It still requires energy. Energy still requires you to burn something, ultimately -- you might get away with the solar-powered utopia, but it's unlikely that you could put enough solar collectors to power the computer-intensive, transporter/replicator intensive Fed society. Matter/antimatter is fine...but you still have to collect hydrogen, use energy to make antimatter... Ultimately, there's a cost/benefit point where just replicating certain stuff isn't cost effective. The point being: the member worlds are going to have a higher drain on materials and 'monetary' resources; this has a tendency to tick off people who aren't seeing immediate benefits of such spending.

STVI gave a good impression of how some other alien cultures might view the Fed: as a 'humans only club'. People stuck in dead-end jobs because Vulcans live so long they can hold high offie forever might view the Vulcans the same way. Most of Federation law seems to be a mish-mash of socialist humanism and Vulcan asceticism and non-intervention. Not always an attractive thing, if your from some lowly third tier world, looking to exert a little influence int he Fed Council. (If you're not from France or Germanhy in the EU, you'll get my point...)

There's all sorts of ways the enemies could exploit inherent weaknesses in the Fed. Diversity is a sign of strength to a point; then division creates lack of cohesion. The Fenergi & Orions are also the kind of 'secondary threat' that every one pooh-poohs...'til it bites 'em. The Romulans would be particularly good at exploiting this sort of thing, I think. It would allow you to keep the Federation as a gleaming example, being attacked from within, but due to external forces.

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by T'lara
Deep Space Nine. Chief O'Brien went under cover to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate. This was also the first time we saw the neronetwware hacking device. We just have not seen any Orions since TOS, but the Syndicate does exist still.
Also Ezri's family was being blackmailed by the Orion Syndicate I believe in another Deep Space Nine Episode as well.

Absolutely... And yet. No Orions.

Back to the subject. One of my players (Fortunae) came up with a good group name for the 'Hawks' party referred to above, and in my game they are simply a political movement dedicated to upkeeping Starfleets military capabilities and the defence of Federation borders over the return of older Federation policy. This is the 'Federation First' movement...

Damn good name, solid, safe, and innocent and yet also ominous.