For a quick understanding of Lore's stance on the Federation jump to the 2 minute 19 second mark on this excellent video Venom put out in April th-cam.com/video/CtAGR-nKGOc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=eLL0Ai0dybQpvkPf
Just watched both. Both have good points, but 2 points. 1. Venom is more correct in his analysis of the federation. 2. I think Lore is drawing real life comparisons to the US govt. Creeping censorship(Elon directly saying that letter agencies were directing censorship on ex-twitter)(as other platforms). So they are outsourcing censorship to private corporations). That should be treason against our constitution. If they take a single penny from our govt, they are a state like actor.
You can aspire(or claim to be) one thing, and be the compete opposite. "National Socialism Party" for example. Not socialist in anyway. DPRK(not democratic in any way). USA claiming to have a free-market economy despite large corporations and banks setting policy to benefit them and gaining monopolies. Hundreds.....literally hundreds of examples are about. Aspirations mean nothing, actions do. And starfleets aren't always good, nor is the USAs.....They can and should be, but greed and money win out. Oh, journalism vs what we have now "access journalism". Only those carrying the correct message get access to our leaders and what they want said. Edit: fixed a typo. ".only" changed to "money".
I assumed people would understand journalism vs "access journalism", then re-read the comment and realized that most probably don't. Journalism is about "holding power to account and ensuring they are always questioned constantly on their actions and reasoning to ensure they ALWAYS have the best interests of the PEOPLE in mind". Whereas Corporate controlled access journalism is not asking the hard questions, not asking for proof, not doing anything the politicians won't like(so they don't lose access or ruffle their corporate masters desires/intended message to lead and or mislead the general public). It's why people called so many "journalists" in the USA are known as "presstitutes".....because these people and what they say are controlled by corporations and will say anything to keep their easy paycheck. You can even see on youtube CNN saying(paraphrased), youtube it for exact wording: "we make the news, they don't get to decide".
"Spreading freedom and upholding democracy"......while supporting monarchies and dictatorships that do what they want. As I said there are HUNDREDS if not thousands of easy examples. I THINK that Lore is trying to get people to watch and learn if and or how starfleet and our govts can and/or ARE changing because of their greed and desire for control. Time will tell, but it's very telling that many of our vets live overseas.....Who else to better KNOW the truth??? SHOULD make you think....Many in what the US labels "police states" like Vietnam, yet if you go to Vietnam for a year, you will not see 1/10,000th of the police you see in the USA.....nor do they spy on their citizens like the USA does. It one thing to claim to be one thing, yet be another, that's hypocrisy and deception for the sake of power and money, and control. The church CLAIMS to be about saving souls etc, yet you pay them money to tell you how to live your life.....lol. One of MANY ways you pay for your own subjugation. Same as paying for the "news" in the USA or UK.....you're actually paying for corporate propaganda on how they want you to think so they can do what they want(and maintain their profits), no matter the cost to your way of life and cost of living. Something to think about yes?
As early as TOS, we see that Starfleet is far from all-poweful, even within the borders of the Federation. In The Trouble With Tribbles, we see Kirk bow to the increasingly petty and out-of-perspective demands of a civilian official on his ship's time and resources. Kirk doesn't like it, but he does it; because Starfleet is ultimately under the authority of a civilian government, just like the militaries of C21st democracies. As for the claim that Starfleet has some kind of veto power over access to interstellar travel, I think that idea can be very quickly answered by the mere continued existence of one Harcourt Fenton Mudd...
SFdepries also had something to say about star fleet military, but his was a critique of how Starfleet insisted it's not a military and the tactical thinking was only a small part of being an officer. He rightly called out how childish and hypocritical that stance is and we see constantly Starfleet paying for that belief
This was also the golden age when Star fleet hadn’t had any big wars in 70 years, and diplomacy and logistics was the focus of Starfleet. The most military experience we see came from legacy admirals and captains who were part of cardassian border skirmishes, which saw deployment of only second and third line Starfleet ships, nothing even from the present century, maybe some ambassadors later on.
When the golden age provides problems other than war, it should be no surprise that the solutions are not war solutions, and efforts are not pushed towards war efforts. That said, there were voices in SF and the Federation who recognized this fact and pushed towards rectifying it... Ala the D playing a wargame with Riker and Riker thrashing the D. But when I look at Starfleet who hadn't fought a war in ages vs The borg, they did what anyone would have done. Gather a big fleet and smash it into the Borg cube. Because they didn't know any better... And knowing is StarFleet's greatest strength... Or rather, discovering the unknown. But when facing the Borg they didn't take the time to discover who they were fighting and adapt to them. That's the problem. SF officers are taught to adapt and think on their feet. Ironically it was going with the Admirals plan that got them all killed. One large scale assault designed to overpower them, instead of stringing out the skirmishes like they did in First Contact. I don't think it was that they were complacent... I think they were just used to finding other ways to win that didn't involve combat. But when combat came, SF rose to the occasion, and what they didn't know, and what they didn't prepare for killed them. Because SF's motto and driving force is to be prepared to face any eventuality. That said, that golden age provided SF a wealth of scientific discovery and information that allows StarFleet to adapt faster than a large organization should. SF's technical strength is in it's technologies ability to adapt to any event instead of raw power. But you can only fight smart for so long before you come up against a foe where smart fighting won't cut it and you need to break out the big guns
@@davfree9732 Agreed. There's this great insistence that the Golden Age was negligent, weak and pacifist. I think it looks like that because we see how formidable Star Fleet becomes in the Dominion War but rewatch season one and 2 of TNG. The height of the Golden Age and Roddenberry's power and idealism. The entire reason it takes Picard seven years to join the Poker Game is that for all he looks like a soft diplomat compared to Kirk, Sisko, Janeway and Archer, Picard in TNG was a hard pragmatic officer who was experienced in war. This is the man who lost his ship in the first (to their knowledge) military encounter with the Ferengi. And yes saying Picard lost his ship to the Ferengi now sounds like a joke but they were intended to be the literal representation of capitalist exploitation and one need only look at America to see how terrifying that is. The Enterprise D stood toe to toe with the Klingons and the Romulans and both of those forces were outclassed and manipulated by the Dominion and the Borg. In both cases of external impossible to prepare for forces it was Starfleet that was able to defeat them.
I can see why someone would make the mistake of seeing the federation as an authoritarian state because the federation has yet to be portrayed from anywhere but a starfleet perspective. Life from outside starfleet is only glimpsed and has never been fleshed out. I'd imagine that federation citizens have enormous personal freedom.
But there's a reason we see it from a Starfleet perspective. Because Star Trek is about exploration, it's more interesting for us the adiance to see Starfleet.
@@Starfleet8555 Also, as long you don´t wont a show about personal drama it would be booooring as hell. Theres a reason most epic tales play in times of conflict and strife and dont stay in the shire.
@@christopherstephenson7199 I think the Eu is a better comparison, but that is also not on the nail. If anything, the UN in a more real sense would be fitting if it had a foreign policy
He forgets the United Federation of Planets exists separately from Starfleet, the UNFP has its own ships The Raven was a UNFP science ship, not a private vessel, most federation races have their own indigenous ships too.. races with their own craft, Mining groups as well...
This was always my understanding as well. Kinda like the original ideas behind the US, or EU. Individual cultures and "states" that are basically autonomous but still have a higher governing body for defense, interstellar trade etc.
You do realize that Starfleet is the military and exploratory arm of the Federation? It doesn't exist seperately from the Federation. It is in fact part of and subordinate to it. You know, the way the US military is to the US government.
@@Jasmin_Pepelko What he is saying is right. He is not saying that starfleet exists separate from the UFP, but that the UFP exists separate from Starfleet. For example you wouldn't say that the US government is a part of the US military, you would say the military is part of the US government. Unless you live in a military dictatorship this is usually the case.
@@Jasmin_PepelkoBut each planet in the Federation still have their own "internal" police and military for their own recognized physical political space. Starfleet is the U.S. Armed forces. The local Andorian or Vulcan forces are just that, local jurisdiction.
Starfleet should be more alligned with the idea of United Nations blue helmets. Since Starfleet doesn't consider itself as a military force. But still has the force necessary for peacekeeping mission even tho its primary goal is exploration (scientific and diplomatic)
That's a very interesting notion about Khitomer that I never thought about. Military Officers negotiating a peace treaty. There are many, many examples in Earth history where having the military be the face of the government is a bad idea. Civilian control of the military is the mark of a free society. Also, remember Quark's description: "Its so bubbly, and coy, and happy. Just like the Federation."
Quark was right about one thing humans are only nice when they have everything they want handed to them on a silver platter metaphorically speaking but when humanity has nothing they become ruthless savages, which is why when humans in the Federation say their more evolved I would then say horse shit, your only nice when you have everything your heart desires but when you have nothing your basically become barbarians. Just look at the 32nd century when dylithium was running out Earth and Titan in the Sol system alone where brutally attacking each other for years until the USS Discovery came along and I bet Quarks spirit is laughing in his version of a after life some where saying I told you so.
Joy and happiness is infectious and addictive. The federation enables the most happiness of its galactic neighbors. You can keep your own culture and your own values, we have our values. If they’re compatible you can join if you want to. If they aren’t, you don’t have to join, we can just trade, or not. Up to you. Starfleet is about exploration and self determination.
@@mackenziebeeney3764 they are only that relaxed about other minor races joining or not, is because they know that if they spread all around you, in a few generations they will get you trough cultural osmosis.
Keep in mind LoreReloaded is making these clickbaity thumbnails and questionable topics to drive views on his channel. Its not coming from a place of wanting an honest discussion. Views are the priority. He used to make more "normal" Trek discussion videos earlier in his career, but along the way he started making more and more outlandish video essays (trying to get more views). Now it's all he does. Typical LoreReloaded video is some photoshoped image of a main character made to look more evil or sinister. And the title will be something like: "The Federation are the TRUE evil" Or "Janeway is a crazy genocidal MURDERER" Or "The Romulans were RIGHT about the Federation." Or "Klingons SUCK at everything! Ferengi are best" Its just what LoreReloaded does now. Outlandish video essay topic with evil looking thumbnail.
He's also really fallen way into his current-day ideological feelings of being all cynical and anti-government and really anti-social progress and paranoid about the idea people can actually be better without there being some shadowy insidious horribly 'tyrrany' about competence and all. Those political impulses also really do use 'contrarianism' and re-appropriating of pop culture to really disrupt anything that might be positive and especially aspirational. Taps into that regressive 'fandom' element as well as some number of views and attention about controversy, while validating a certain type.
To be fair...Janeway IS a murderous psycho if you measure her decisions from the start of Voyager to the end. That wasn't how she was intended to be written but a consequence of Rick Berman's "devil-may-care" attitude towards scripting, and especially his utter disdain for continuity going from episode to episode. Remember: Berman was the man who coined the phrase "dumbing down" when describing what he wanted to do to Star Trek to make it more appealing to the masses in a TV Guide Interview back in the late 90s.
People still pay any attention to TrollRetrolled? I thought his 90's edgelord takes and clickbait hijinks died off before the pandemic... The Internet is the greatest invention in human history. Its most unforgivable sin is that it allowed the "village idiots" to find each other and commiserate. Here online they can ask each other serious deep questions like, "How many MAGA hats do you have? I gots 9!" and "Did you watch the latest from LoreReloaded?"
Lore Reloaded has done some good videos in the past. He has some interesting theory videos, such as the Q and their relationship with the Borg as an example. Another interesting one is the paradox of how the Romulans probably used findings from the wreckage of the Enterrpise C in designing their future warships. However, I do find myself wincing at the occasional click bait cynical Federation video that shows up. It's reached the point where I feel like his opinion of the Federation is well documented and he is just retreading old ground.
What about anything involving Voyager? As he is biased against the series. I bring this up because he mistakenly says Starfleet sent out a ship with family on board to go up against the Maquis in the Badlands, as well as into the Delta Quadrant. One, the Intrepid class was *not* a family ship like the Galaxy class. Two, only one child was born onboard the ship, and the other children were adopted from the Borg. Three, Voyager had *no* facilities for civilians the way a Galaxy class like Enterprise D did.
On press censorship it is actually amazing how even during the biggest war in modern Galactic History (therr are many references to major powers and wars existing in the distant past who seem to have had their own wars) Jake had an amazing freedom
He never mentioned the crime the federation committed against the marquis. They were forcibly relocated at the barrel of a gun because star Fleet signed a treaty and gave their homes away. He didn't even mention the first act of war between those 2 sides. Such holier-than-thou do-gooders as the federation though don't acknowledge their victims. It's like the question at the end of the watchman movie how many more bodies are required for the foundation of paradise?
@@deadend1041the Federation and Starfleet warned people not to settle on those planets in the first place. The Federation didn't give their homes away, they withdrew their protection, protection they never should have provided in the first place because those planets had been in dispute for decades, before anyone even settled there.
Two points: The UFP is a federation. That means the planets have a very high degree of self-rule. There are some overarching laws, but most of the laws and governing system is left at the local (aka planetary) level. Starfleet is a combined military/exploration/diplomatic service. We do not have anything like it today. The closest would be in the 18th and 19th when communications between the government and ships could take months and naval captains had the authority to open diplomatic relations and in some cases acted as the governor of various areas. For this reason alone, Starfleet would have a seat in any committee that may involve defense or diplomatic relations with outer regions. As you pointed out at the Khitomer Accords, those in Starfleet uniform stood BEHIND the civilians. In the case of the US Presidential Cabinet, there is a Secretary of Defense (a civilian), but right behind him is the Joint Chief of Staff, representing the uniformed military.
3:24 In fact, we see that Jake is completely shocked that his story won't go out, implying that the press is so free within the Federation that the idea of a restricted press didn't even cross his mind, even during wartime.
whenever soemone tries to convince you the federation is fascist or authoritarian or dystopian or whatever, in the end it all comes down to this Ultimate question. "did you even watch the show?"
Related to your point on travel, it's quite clear in the shows there must be a large number of populated independent worlds that are actually completely surrounded by Federation territory, yet both their citizens and Federation citizens are allowed to travel to and from each others' sides at will for whatever reason. This is how the Orion Syndicate works and has such an influence still all over the Federation because of free travel and soft borders with those interior independent worlds where they setup their operations.
My thoughts on each point regarding the Federation; 1) Censorship/media control; since Star Trek itself was also made from a US-based viewpoint any "antagonism" would be based on that news style and the Universal Translators while "standard" were mostly treated (at least during the pre-2280s) as being an Earth-based system as Chekov in "Undiscovered Country" stated the universal translator would "be recognized" 2) The Maquis; their growth was because of a dislike for allowing Federation citizens to become "citizens" of the newly-expanded Cardassian territory and used terror to strike at the CU, within this the idea of Starfleet as a police force is rarely seen and only in the case of Harry Mudd would this be applicable, 3) "Starfleet is a military ergo the Federation is a military:" does not work because the Starfleet command structure would require a hierarchal-style system to ensure command worked and nobody took drastic action without making things worse for other regional powers, 4) Starfleet monopolizes travel: what?, 5) replicators: I'm sure this as ubiquitous a system as the UT as a variant was recognized by T'Pol in "Dead Stop," 6) inequity: depending on how one defines 'inequity' it's likely to remain within the Star Trek universe in some degree as the social challenges associated with competition add drama and thus ensure some level of interest within the series, 7) Section 31: they shouldn't exist to the level they do because at least with DS9 they make a point of calling themselves out as "covert operations" which negates the ability to work within the shadows compared to the 'secret police' of the Romulan Tal Shiar. Looking at the timing of Leyton's coup is important, it was nearing the height of tension within the Dominion War, the attempt at blood screenings was out of a xenophobic fear that Changelings were "hiding in plain sight" and could destroy them from within (likely a callback from the writers to the Red Scare of the 1950s), the decision to "regress" Starfleet to it's late-23rd century form would have been during the intervening period between the heightened security of the challenges posed by the Klingons and Golden Age presented at the beginnings of TNG, and thus with the focus of defending Earth those within high-level positions who agreed with Leyton likely would have been swayed by this. Add in the near-recent schism with those like Eddington chose to defect and fight the Cardassians within the DMZ, there could also be the fear those "radicalized" officers might turn on the Federation itself. I apologize if this sounds like a rant, but I was trying to write this while going through the video to keep track of the points (I might have overlooked or missed one) as they were being made
Also remember that even Section 31 wasn't even that dark, they knew they were compromising their principles and felt it was required but still attempted to minimize the compromising that they needed to do. The founders were the extreme because that was the only way they could accomplish saving the Federation. Keeping the Romulans in the Dominion War wasn't accomplished through killing the Senator it was done by destroying her influence and outright embarrassing her, the Romulans would have kept her around in shame as an example and not executing her because it would be a better example.
@@farshnuke I think they are more portrayed prior to that which we will not speak of (why you insist to speak of it I know not) as a necessary evil. They are not good by any measure but they are a solution to the evil paradox from Code Geass. They know there is evil out there that cannot be defeated by just means. So rather then allow the Federation as a whole to stain its self with evil or to surrender to evil Section 31 does it for them. They stain their hands with evil over and over so that the greater evils fall and the Federation can prosper. They revel in the knowledge that the Federation will survive by their actions and are willing to become monsters so that it will. And they will do it with a smile. And great now I can only imagine its leadership doing a Zero Requiem in space should Section 31 become to public.
@@farshnuke Ik I’m late to the party but this touched on something I think is super important for the fandom to realize. TL;DR - New Trek sucks because it misunderstands stuff like this, and somehow a Star Trek comedy show does a better job understanding what Trek is about than the writers of DIS, PIC, and all the other New Trek shows combined. EXACTLY. Section 31 was literally one of the main antagonistic forces in DS9, but New Trek writers don’t seem to get that. Even in Enterprise, with Malcolm, the tone around their founding shifted. You can draw a really interesting line between the writing of section 31 in pre-9/11 Trek and post-9/11 Trek. Really goes to show the cultural shift in America at that time. But yeah you’re entirely correct, S31 were the bad guys until Discovery. That’s why the vast majority of New Trek just doesn’t feel like Trek, except maybe Lower Decks. It’s bleak and depressing and the federation is systematically flawed and grim, rather than systematically good with a few bad actors who are clearly the bad guys. Trek should be hopeful and smart and focused on exploration and diplomatic missions, not constantly about one war after another with some racism subplots mixed in. Trek is about the goodness of humanity, and how we get over our worst tendencies even in the darkest times, not about how we should actually embrace those problems. It’s just so clear that Old Trek writers read Marx and Adams, Russell and Descartes, Rousseau and Einstein, while New Trek writers watch Rachel Maddow. New Trek just misses the pointof Star Trek. The federation isn’t some post-scarcity liberal state, it’s the pinnacle of human (and alien) political and economic philosophy. There’s not even a good word for the political system of the federation. The closest thing we have to a definitive description would be something like “a post-scarcity libertarian socialist economy with a decentralized multiplanetary governmental system and a night watchman planetary government”. It just bugs me how thoroughly 98% of New Trek misses the point. Lower Decks is the only New Trek show to get it right, and that’s just crazy. Also, Jean-Luc Picard, the man who worked on solving Fermat’s Last Theorem for fun, doesn’t knowing Calculus? I’m sorry, that singlehandly made me discard Picard as noncanon in my head.
@@elias8356 I can't judge because Lower Decks is the only Kurtzman era Trek I have seen and Lower Decks is up there as my favourite trek but there are certain key setting aspects that are unmissable. In Picard it's the abolition of Robot rights. (When TNG, DS9 and Voyager were all striving towards progress in that regard) Discovery deciding that the blatant villain was completely right in DS9 and making Section 31 an outright legit part of Star Trek (something I refuse to accept) and the jump to the future in Discovery needlessly dooming everything when they could have told the same stories by leaping to the Andromeda Galaxy or something in the future. It comes to something when I am reading the Star Trek books in the lead up to the big Borg crossover event Destiny and post Nemesis books are more optimistic upbeat and Federation despite the darkness of the stories they tell. Honestly I'd prefer to find out that the Kurtzman era (with the exception of Lower Decks) took place in a different timeline. Maybe this is all part of the temporal cold war and building up to evil Archer going back in time.
You’re right in regards to the Federation being … sort of good (I’d say more Lawful Neutral tbh) and you’re very much right about civilians free access to the cosmos Although the F17-Class, what the La Sirena was is classed as a “Speed Freighter”, and seems to follow this in its design with its bridge being a Slrt of Main Area that’s Bridge/Cagro-Bay/Engineering Area (With that Glowey thing in the Back OBVIOUSLY Being the La-Sirena’s Warp-Core I decided to say it was part engineering aswell), and unlike its Star Wars Contemporary in the “Millennium Falcon” looks like it can transport stuff other than people in its interior and does, it actually is a 24th Century version of an Independently operated Tramp-Steamer, except is a Spaceship. I’d say that Starfleet is as Kirk says in TOS, it’s mostly a Peacekeeping and Government run Scientific Research force, but has the ability to be converted to Military if Something like “The 4-Years War”, “The Federation Klingon Wars of 2256 and 2372” (Although lets be honest the former was a real war while the latter was a soured relationship with a few skirmishes), and “The Dominion War” ever happened. As for Replicators, i can definitely imagine that it started out as a Civilian product, likely Developed by Daystrom Institutes and Sold under some kind of Daystrom-Run Technology Company, Like maybe “Daystrom Technologies Inc.”? But Replicators don’t really work like that, they do require materials to operate, but they Break other Materials down into their molecular components and either recycle them if it was replicated before, or break them down to be used for something. You can probably make a Chicken Dinner from a Pile of sand of you wanted with some kind of Wine and All. And there’s also Two Types of Replicators, Commodities Replicators, and Industrial Replicators, the latter of which is basically a Far larger version of the Commodities replicator. Both operate using pre-requisite patterns stored in Databases that are Built up from the Atomic level inside the replicator, this is probably how Voyager Both Had so many Shuttles and Torpedoes, yet also had Replicator Rations as Currency to conserve Replicator Storage, Most its Replicator Energy was going into making industrial components like Replacement Parts and New Equipment. Also Speculating the reason why Voyager went into that Living nebula one time was because the particles in it were so dense that it could potentially Refill the Replicator’s Atomic Storage Banks to capacity for at least awhile. And yeah, you’re extremely right about how much cultures are important to the Federation, and further out the more opportunities and Freedoms you had to construct a society and culture of your own, back in the times of The British, French, Spanish, and Portugese Empires, Colonialism Operated EXACTLY like that, Less bureaucracy father out you go. And yeah i can definitely see what you said about Starfleet being more militaristic and more ingrained with Federation Politics in the past, and agree that Yes Starfleet still serves as sort of a Police-Force/Military even in Picard’s time but it’s not as well ingrained in Federation Politics and the Federation itself is more Strict about making sure Starfleet Officers are acting under protocols and dealing those who’ve crossed lines, Cartwright, Leyton, and Dougherty as few big examples, Dougherty being from “ST IX: Insurrection” or as Captain Liam Shaw of the USS Titan-A put it: “That time ‘Someone’ threw the prime directive Out-the-window to Snog a villager on Baku.” Or as I would say it “That time ‘Someone’ threw the prime directive Out-the-window to Snog a villager on Baku while also preventing a Bad-Apple Starfleet Admiral helping a Dominion-Allied Alien Race from Relocating 600 people against their will for a taste of immortality.” Yeah you’re right, 24:40-25:00 and that’s what happened to Captain Erika Benteen, The Captain of the Lakota, She Disobeyed Leyton’s orders to Destroy the Defiant and Escorted them to Earth, after the Fight both the Lakota and Defiant had. and Yeah, if the Federation was Authoritarian, Leyton wouldn’t have been Dealt with, if anything Leyton would’ve dealt with the people wanting to deal with him, You want a Truly Authoritarian Starfleet? Look at the Mirror Universe, The Terran Empire, THAT’S Authoritarianism and militarism, it just wouldn’t stand, and Not even for almost 1000 years, like what we see in the later 3 seasons of Discovery. Lore Views Starfleet in a pretty shoddy light because it doesn’t fall within the per views of what he THINKS Starfleet should be, and Starfleet, while bureaucratically strict isn’t as strict as he makes it out to be, While I haven’t seen this particular video of his yet, i’ve seen many similar ones he’s put out, and yeah, he thinks the Federation is too strict, like it’s holding its citizens back and stifling what they can and can’t do, while Highly competitive Yes, it’s certainly not that, in fact it’s the opposite, the Federation is a Utopia, not a Dystopia.
Some of their decisions do make you wonder about the "utopia" part tbh, that's why Lore's videos are fun (at least to me), interesting what ifs. However, the Federation is certainly the better place to be than their neighbors tho, as far as has been seen on screen. They do make some incredibly stupid foreign policy moves tho.
Yes, there are plenty of civilian transports people could book passage in. DS9 showed that a lot. The Replimat was a place for such travelers to eat. And ships like Rio's was expensive transport. There were ships like we see in The Mandalorian in the Milky Way
I've been subscribed to Lore Reloaded for a couple of years now and his takes just keep getting worse. Whether its his endless ranting about Tuvix's life being more valuable than the lives of Tuvok and Neelix (two lives are inherently more valuable than one, especially when one of those lives is the ship's executive officer), his constant attempts to denigrate the Federation based on nothing more than some inferences based on set dressing or one-off plotlines, or his regular efforts to just be needlessly contrarian, it gets tiresome.
I think the Maquis is a great example of starfleet not even wanting to deal with them. at any point they sent the bare requirements to deal with his, hoping they could just talk their way out of it.. never trying to wipe these people out.
I really like Lore’s alternate take on things, but he absolutely pushes it to the extreme, “Starfleet was basically the bad guys” and all. He’s very convincing, though.
It just feels like a lot of genre fan community content makers are actively lacing their shit with a lot of RW/MAGA styled talking points about society. It's LESS prevalent in the TREK community as the Star Wars one but it is there and I think WE collectively have to start grappling with it seriously.
Convincing how? He is just plain wrong, especially anything involving Voyager, as he is biased against the series. I bring this up because he mistakenly says Starfleet sent out a ship with family on board to go up against the Maquis in the Badlands, as well as into the Delta Quadrant. One, the Intrepid class was *not* a family ship like the Galaxy class. Two, only one child was born onboard the ship, and the other children were adopted from the Borg. Three, Voyager had *no* facilities for civilians the way a Galaxy class like Enterprise D did.
6:39 Eh, I mean, I think the argument can be made that they were driven to those actions by Federation neglect. I think the creation of the Maquis is one of those things that critics of the Federation are absolutely right about. After all, they just did the same thing the Bajorans did to defend themselves in their war with the Cardassians, again because the Federation refused to directly intervene (even though it wasn't, as the Federations claims, an internal matter), and while people certainly don't like what the Bajorans had to do, they don't argue their need to do those things to survive. It really comes across like the Federation is against the Maquis's actions specifically because they are former Federation citizens using formerly Federation technology to do them. Even Sisko's issues with the Maquis seem to come down to him not liking that people he once trusted agreed with them. After all, while the Federation claims that the Maquis were Federation citizens and therefor subject to Federation law, they weren't. The first Maquis were the colonists that the Federation abandoned, and every additional member left the Federation behind, a thing that, in a free society, people have the freedom to do.
I think another point not pointed out is if the Federation was so controlling, why would they tolerate members from having their own military. The Andorians, Telarite, and Vulcans have their own military, and I assume Earth does as well since they talk more about Earth's own separate defenses (make me think the Macos still exist, just not part of Starfleet). Yet we know by the 24th Century, many races still have their own military, with Vulcan ships leaving to explore beyond Federation space. And if you want to make the argument that the Federation controls all military, just not overtly, then why did they let Batazeds neglect their own defenses to be undermanned and 20 years out of date. It is believable that a pacifist member neglects them, but not a totalitarian government looks to keep its people under control. Especially a species that could be used to read the thoughts of citizens to enact better control over the population. If it was the Dominion, Betazed would be the second most defensible world in Dominion space, just shy of the Founder's homeworld.
You are right about Earth because in the TNG episode, best of both worlds, they reference a Mars Defense Fleet attacking the Cube. Star Fleet seems to be the main power but there are probably militia units (I think of it like the National Guard vs. US Military).
@@cludecat7072 I thought that but it looked very amateurish for Star Fleet. It gives me more of a United Earth militia feel. Granted, the writers of Star Trek don't analysis this stuff like fans do. Often these items are retcon lol.
The Federation might not be necessarily evil, but sure it is pretty much hypocrite. Like Captain Sisko once said: The Federation is a Paradise, and it is easy to be a Saint in Paradise...
So to paraphase podcaster Dan Carlin, when he was describing the United States. The Federation acts like Superman during the day and like Batman at night.
Thank you Greek venom media 98 for For defending the federation. I was shocked too when I saw the words . I get it the federation isn't perfect but at least they're trying .
I don't get the complaint about periphery vs core worlds. "The core worlds are paradise and the peripheries struggle!" Like... yes? Obviously? The core worlds have centuries of infrastructure and geoshaping projects to ensure sufficient and even excess power, water, food and material goods. They have enormous populations and thus the manpower to respond to any issues quickly and decisively. The colony world on the periphery made landfall two years ago and has maybe a hundred people. The infrastructure is still in the nascent stages of development, they haven't altered the planet's topography to suit them, and they barely have enough hands to keep one village functioning. Now, you give that colony time to develop, they'll probably have solid infrastructure within a few decades thanks to modern tech, they'll start to shift some local topography, their population will grow. By the time a century passes the main settlement will have lots of people and a standard of living comparable to the core. Satellite communities are forming and going through the same growing pains, but with a much shorter supply line they'll develop faster. Another century passes and it's basically a core world across the entire planet in terms of amenities, infrastructure and quality of life. It's just a matter of time and investment. The core worlds are the way they are because of *centuries* of hard work by their inhabitants. You can't just land a colony ship somewhere, snap your fingers, and expect Earth 2.0 to spring instantly into being. Replicator tech isn't nearly that advanced yet.
The idea that the Federation is evil is insane.. Even in modern trek, even with section 31 (or w/e its called) the federation is at least neutral to external politics and do take care of its citizens.
Admiral Cartwright and General Chang remind me of the stereotypical 50-60 year old “Cold Warriors” who could never adjust to the fact that their relevancy was slipping as time passed them by. They’d be the guys watching the 24th century equivalent to Fox News railing against anything the newer Starfleet does-everything from the unisex onesie uniforms, to bringing families onboard ships-even the remote control like Phasers they’d decry.
I think too often Trek as a fandom uses "Federation" and "Starfleet" interchangeably when they're very much NOT. It seems very clear to me that Starfleet is the military wing of the civilian Federation government, and I think this is true from ST:ENT all the way to ST:PIC and I do maintain it IS a recognisably military institution under the overall command of the civilian Federation government, akin to a modern navy. And one of the things that makes the Dominion War so interesting is how the boundaries between the two do degrade, but then that's what happens in a time of war. Venom mentioned WWII, but just look at the Russo-Ukraine war. Both sides withhold information, particularly regarding casualties, there are clamp downs on personal freedoms compared to peacetime (To wildly varying extents between the two nations...) and the military does have a greater say over the polices and priorities of the civilian government. But then the Federation is fighting an existential threat to its existence; it NEEDS the military to step up and make the decisions needed to, you know, keep existing... On Section 31, I don't consider it to be a KGB-style secret police, but I absolutely think it's a Black Ops-style institution that is absolutely a resource for the Federation, think CIA to the US government in the 60's; it exists and there are people in power who can make use of it and its unique capabilities, but at the same time offering a level of plausible deniability to the Federation government. And honestly, I think that's great that it does exist in Trek, because it makes for a potentially interesting writing tool. And while the Golden Era of Peace meant Section 31 had little to do but glare menacingly at the Romulan's across the Neutral Zone, during a time of war, a secret wing of your military that specialises in carry out extrajudicial operations at home and 'abroad' is going to be a very useful tool and I can absolutely see that kind of institution that has dubious morals but generally acting for the "Greater Good" of the Federation getting carried away, again there are historical examples of this. I do think LR does create some videos to get a rise, he does seem to like his hot takes, but I don't think he does it maliciously, more in the same way you describe the media; poking around to see who he get a reaction out of. What he undeniably does is spark discussions. Sometimes very heated ones at that.
I forget, is Lore Reloaded the one that thinks Section 31 is the OFFICIAL Federation intelligence Agency? Instead of Federation Security and Starfleet Intelligence?
@@venomgeekmedia9886 His takes used to be interesting. Then became a devil's advocate forcing the viewer to question their assumptions. Lately, I'm trying to decide if i should just unsubscribe.
I have a theory [that I posted on his channel] that Section 31 is a _necessary evil_ that *allows* Starfleet and the Federation to be good and idealistic, and without them as a _secret_ guardian and watchdog the Federation evolves into one of the Mirror Universe Dictatorships. They are completely secret, so they are not an instrument of State terror - you can't be scared of something you don't even know exist. And they aren't interested in being the power behind the throne, they really just want to protect the idealist so that the idealist can run the Federation. They would have opposed the coup attempt in Paradise Lost .... and secretly may have? A bit of help to Sisko that he wasn't aware of. They keep the Federation _nice..._ through any means necessary. But without them the Federation becomes the Imperium, just in order to survive the threats against it.
I think part of his decline was a shout out by some of the star trek cast members. That is where it started to change or the personality came out more. Edit: It was Ezri who did the shout out to LoreReloadeds channel. In a sense it could serve as vindication of his views, because hey DS9 cast member shouted me out.
"Under the sea, or on the moon, that is maybe a different story". That's actually an interesting idea. What if there were underwater cities, similar to what USOs supposedly come from? I mean, it's not like the Delta Flyer wasn't able to fly in under the sea in that one episode of Voyager, so perhaps Federation technology is so advanced, that as long as they are properly equipped, they can fly as easily in a fluid as in space. But why do this? Because it's cool, the view (when built in the right location, location, location) can be incredible, and because they can! And the Moon? It's already theorized to be an artificial structure. So it's probably a good as place as any to settle (assuming that there aren't already inhabitants that object), especially if you have artificial gravity to supplement the Moon's microgravity!
I unsubbed from that channel ages ago, got tired of the clickbaity titles and whining about how mean people were online. Be careful to not get caught up in the drama.
Thing people forget about Federation of 23'th century is that Federation was at war! After misunderstanding and series of small confrontations with Klingoins, on beginning of this century. Federation understand that they are vastly under-equipped for the war, with most ships based on purely civilian Bonaventure class and only few falling apart battleships of old. And Klingon having vast numbers and many rouge warlords, who could try glory like T'kuvma. This forced Starfleet into rapid militarization, with introduced in 2030's new militarized starships and it actually do make sense why military advisers would be everywhere. Or even S31 operating in the open. It was life and death scenario. But after Undiscovered Contry war ended and there was gradual demilitarisation, with Starfleet compensating to point that TNG starships were again vastly under-equipped for the upcoming threats.
Thus is just such a more practical and genuine look at the federation. I actually find lore reloaded very interesting but he becomes more and more negative and social agenda driven every day.
That is a big reason why I stopped watching his stuff a few years ago. Very knowledgeable yes, but equally as negative. I want to believe in the Federation because it is an extension of ourselves and what we could be. If we are exactly the same as a species then it negates a lot of TOS and TNG. DS9 is my favorite because of no matter how dark things get, if you keep doing the best you can, things will ne okay
@@russellharrell2747 you're not wrong, Discovery season 1 was the embodiment of that inherent negativity. Trek has gone a long way to regain its identity and I am really hoping Paramount doesn't fuck it up once again
Alright children. The joke was about one person controlling so much of the media period. It would be just as bad if he owned a multinational far left media empire or even centrist media empire. He's the grand nagus that never found his Ishka.
I’ve gotta say… As a follower of both channels…both Venom & LoreR… I have always looked upon “Venom” as the “source”. (The more accurate depiction of the world being discussed.) Mike? I’m glad … No… I’m Thankful, actually…that you do what you do, with the integrity that you do it. As a child of TOS, this stuff can get…complicated. Ya know? You sir, keep it all sourced and balanced. I’ve said in previous comments that I send Everyone that I know to your channel because it is the Best for interpreting all things “Trek”. Thanks again for what, and how you do this.
I actually do believe that Federation has control over replicators. But that is for obvious reason preventing people from making nukes with them. Those things are dangerous! It would be illogical to give those to everyone. And we do see those being strategical commodity. But of course that mostly apply to use in the Federation space. Technology itself was widespread and many other civilizations have it. Even civilians did have access to those, but obviously with the proper security clearance.
I would like to have seen more from canon in regards to how the Federation maintains its ideals and safeguards against corruption despite having a monstrous amount of members. DS9 didn't really do much with Bajor in terms of showing us the process of joining the Federation aside from mentioning that those with a caste-based system cannot become members. (A simple referendum for joining to make sure that the population actually wants to join would be enough for me.) 2:20 Would you happen to be familiar with the term "manufacturing consent"? American media companies rarely allow for their talking heads to cross their sponsors and more often than not the latter get gone.
but the Marquis were no longer Federation citizens. Starfleet had no jurisdiction at all over the space the colonies were in. they just went after them because they wanted to appease the Cardassians.
They were federation citizens though, that doesn't just go away magically. Starfleet abandoned its citizens to try get peace with the cardies when they could have whooped them at any point but didn't
@@everettjohnson9374 The Federation and Starfleet have a history of interfering in situations where they have no stake, jurisdiction or past involvement. While they enforce the Prime directive on pre warp civilizations, They often take the moral high ground to involve themselves the Marquis may have been criminals but not in federation space.
Great video thank you very much. SO... I woke up and LM was live streaming, I got up and had breakfast and LM was live streaming, I watching this video and LM was live streaming, I finally got round to watching and LM was still live streaming. Bloody Hell! In all seriousness it's important to remember the culture that LM is coming from. Culturally he's a conservative American and is applying the Zero Conditional conservative American mindset to every thing and everyone. If one is bad than all are bad because they statistically can be. Although his videos can be interpreted as "The Fox News of Star Trek" I think he doing it deliberately within the limitations of his cultural discourse. As as we all. But like you said at the start it's all in good fun... and LM is STILL live streaming
I like the different points of view from both channels. Refreshing to have a debate without name calling and being respectful towards each other. Good job.
To me all of the problems of the Federation comes from their desires to be Lawful Good but because of their extreme Pacific beliefs and their belief that all species are good. They constantly cross over into the lawful stupid area. That TNG episode where that Federation ship went after those Cardassian's ships. Picard at the end told the Cardassians that he knew about the bio weapons. The Federation should had either delt with Cardassian, even if that means war or forcibly dragged all Federation citizens back to Federation space. They allowed the situation to get out of hand by doing noting even as the Cardassian government order the use of bio weapons on Federation citizens. I don't believe for one second that the Federation violated Dominan space. As the they believed all spaces belong to them. The Federation should have mine the worm hole way sooner then they did. Also they should have fast track the Cardassian into the Federation after the Klingon invasion. Letting Cardassians space to go to hell, was just asking for something like them joining the Dominon. One last thing, the wrong think allegations. That's come from Gene's beliefs in how humanity should act in the future and how technology advance the Federation is. Gene wanted humanity to put all disagreements and politics behind them. Combined that with the Federation technology. They have no economics disagreements because of tech. Religions have all been wide away. So no religious or philosophic disagreements. They intergrate all aliens into the Federation so no immagration disagreements. Technology have no environmental problems, so no disagreements there. The Federation is OK will anything sexual, so no disagreements there. Let's be honestly, all Federation citizens in the core worlds. Live in the perfect nanny state. Everyone of them have gone to Federation schools, training and education. All most all get jobs by the government. Get government housing and with technology everything they ever want. The Federation government I think outsource everything ( almost everything) to Star Fleet because it's easy. To be honest the Federation shouldn't be a democracy. What could the major of the Federation citizens disagree about for them to have a democracy. No the Federation should have been a technocracy.
I think DS9 showed of what the Federation would actually be like the best. People tend to forget Sisko basically virus bombed a planet. To the point even Worf was WTF'ing. So there are "grey actions" they are cleared at the very top. The council never punished him for it.
I always argue that Picard is the ideal that the Federation strives for but falls short of. Kirk gave guns to a preindustrial civilisation so the Federation could fight a proxy war with the Klingons. Jellicoe was chomping at the bit to have a go at the Cardassians, Solok was an outright racist, to name just a few flawed Star Fleet officers
@@tullyDTno Sir I have to respectfully disagree. I think Picard made both some great decisions, but, some glaring mistakes. I do like the fact that he admitted that he does make mistakes.
Caesar can do no wrong . Sisko using a bioagent on an inhabited planet is IMO a perfect example of a war crime but Starfleet ignores it ? Even IF the Marquis were the only ones on the planet ...... indiscriminate weapons of that nature are a no-no .
I feel like that detail didn’t get reported. The chemical bombing that is. But yeah sisko made some really suspect actions, this wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. But it was probably one of the biggest.
I wouldn't say he wasn't punished. He never got promoted again despite at some points basically acting as an admiral during the war. The only reason they probably didn't cashier him out of the fleet was the role he played in Bajoran politics and by extension their control over the wormhole.
Lore argument is taking certain subjects that look bad, ignoring all the content, and make it your based to make the whole look bad. It the same tactic that activists used to demonize someone or something by misrepresent history by morden strandard. If you take time to read history, the event play is understandable and reasonable, even if it grimm. Most historical didn't wake up one day and said "I'm going do something infamous" rather the situation they were face with were difficult and hard choices had to be made. Dracula, aka Val the in impaler is one such historical figures, he was cruel because the Islamic oppressor were cruel over his country which he learned from. It was only respond which to fight back. The title Impaler isn't a title of fear but of respect. 5:55
2:21 I agree that this generally was the method in british tv news, however this has deteriorated in very recent times when questioning politicians of a not left or centre viewpoint. This can be seen with TalkTV and GB News for example and to a lesser extent the BBC among others. This has resulted in a warped (pardon the pun) outline of events and policy reporting causing confusion among parts of the populace, the reporting of Brexit and it's effects as an example.
the Raven is the perfect reason for Starfleet TO control civilian travel at least to a reasonable extent. they went borg hunting and made it clear they where not supposed to be doing that.
Yeah I really think the guy is being overly critical of Star Trek as a whole, with the Federation getting the worst of it because they're the main character.
Worst people are Klingons who had trillions of slaves. Then the Cardasians because they ran death camps. But they're not post scarcity so it's slightly more forgivable. Then the Romulans because they're sneaky. Then Xindi who despite their love of nuking others got along despite the difficulties that whales and monkeys have in achieving consensus. Then the Ferengi because they don't really do war that much. Plus their capitalist tide probably lifted all boats into orbit. And the best is obviously the Dominion who used artificial soldiers allowing normal people to live in peace since before Earth had pyramids. Tholians are hell spiders so they're too weird to compare. Borg might be right. It may just be better to be Borg. No way to tell unless you sip a nanoprobe cocktail. So where does the Federation go on the Geek/Lore tier list of evil? They go to war a lot so you're better as a Dominion citizen. Also, because it's okay to break the prime directive with no punishment sometimes and not others, there seems to be a two tier justice system. Romulans don't like Federation expansionist practices. There seems to be tremendous grooming and indoctrination as everyone seems to think the same commie crap like when Riker said that studying combat tactics was stupid and starfleet wasn't military. My grandpa said that the same kind of propaganda happened in Lenningrad. Federation does seem a bit Stalin-y in how the Feds control travel. LR is clearly correct there and the few examples you give could be private but official, like the Raven probably was. If not there'd be massive kamakazi strikes of private craft on the whale probe instead of just Kirk to save the day. Too bad there wasn't a million private yachts and commuter ships to remote control ram the Borg at Wolf 359. No space traffic jams. No Correscant like lines of ships leaving orbit. Sorry, Lore was right (but I like you one percent more.) I'd say the feds were worse than the Ferengi and better than Cardasians. They're commie, indoctrinated, hipocritical and care more about their appearance than properly defending their citizens. But not the worst place to live. If I were upper crust I'd rather be a Ferengi or Romulan, but otherwise, if the Dominion and Xindi didn't take me, I'd go Federation.
Rather well reasoned here! And even if the Federation does not have galactic transportation for the general public, merely ask your local Ferengi entrepreneur whom will negotiate for your firstborn.. Latinum and can take you anywhere!
At 14:00 you are correct on replicators, and there's proof in the Star Trek Enterprise episode where they go to the automated repair station, season 2 episode 4, and find food replicators on the station. What's notable is T'Pol remarks that she had "seen a similar device on a Tarkalean vessel," from which you can infer other races had them before the Federation was even formed and even Vulcans didn't have them first. All the Federation did once they learned of them was to figure out how to get them installed on a massive scale without blowing their power grid because you can't have 1000 million people replicating dinner at the same time without some work on that.
I honestly think it’s a blind spot he has purely because he’s an American: as a fellow countryman, it do be looking less and less likely we’ll reach utopia if our current situation is any indication.
I agree that the potential for abuse was present, and I can think of at least three instances where said potential was actualised. It's also very true that the Admiralty in particular were persistently corrupt; the less said about Nechayev, the better. You learn to expect psychopathy at the top as a matter of course, however, and in any organisation, it's always the responsibility of the middle and upper middle people to maintain integrity.
Lore Reloaded intentionally gives wrong info to drive comments correcting him. He doesnt believe what he says, it is a cynical attempt to trick people into commenting and interacting that seems to work. One perfect example is he once made a claim that the word transwarp was never uttered in any Star Trek movie, knowing very well it was said both verbally and visually on-screen a number of times in Star Trek 3, but it drove a lot of traffic to his channel and created a lot of comments which he then could reply to which created a whole lot of interaction for his channel. He has no problem saying things that he knows that are wrong or that he knows our inflammatory merely to get drama clicks to feed the algorithm, he has no interest in being truly informational.
I feel there is this predisposition to make the federation feel fascist, and or communist, so that modern politics can say look it can work in an idealistic way.
replicators are probably more important for the military than for civilians and were likely a military R&D project. This is because the biggest problem for any military organization is logistics and replicators solve many logistical problems.
I can't agree with this idea that life on the Federation core worlds is meant to be hyper-competitive with crushing amounts of bureaucratic regulation stifling movement and ambition for anyone but the best of the best, nor this idea that Earth is basically a Human Historical Culture Preserve. For one thing, in the picture you showed of a Federation city there were all kinds of modern buildings and infrastructure, so they're definitely still making progress and advancing what the culture is. For another thing, the idea that only the Best Chefs get to even try to open restaurants in New Orleans and that the city would favor stereotypically New Orleanean things is pretty dystopian. A big part of the Federation ideal is that #1) nobody has to do any work they don't want to do because all basic needs are met and technology has assured everyone a significant degree of comfort and 2) an ethos of self-improvement has replaced the accumulation of wealth as the driving force in human society. Granted, there is a degree of "don't worry about the details, it just works," in the fiction, and also granted there is plenty of text evidence that competition is fierce if you want to be at the elite level of any job, like a physicist at the Daystrom Institute or Starfleet crew on a Galaxy class exploring the frontier instead of flying a shuttle on Titan. But the idea that the homeworlds are paradise is pretty core to the fiction, so the assumption has to be that there's some equilibrium between the drive to excel and the meritocratic pyramid and the government that regulates that pyramid.
I saw that guy's video the other day. I didn't agree either. One thing I want to mention is that if the media was controlled by the Federation you'd think that there would be tons and tons of "soft news" and most citizens wouldn't know very much about wars, military actions, or even huge galactic events like the super nova that knocked out the Romulans or the Nexus ribbon or the Maquis fight for their homes. They'd fill out news hokes with stuff that makes us feel good. Such as curing plagues, successful colonies, the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole, scientific break throghs, and how the old lady on the moon just had her 132nd birthday last week. That's my opinion.
There is no way that the Federation News Service could be a monopoly. Literally any Federation citizen could go play journalist and broadcast to potentially hundreds of billions of interested citizens. Even in the *much* less free internet we have today there is an explosion of citizen journalism, and those people still have bills to pay and all other kinds of worries and barriers that a citizen journalist of the Federatoon would not.
British and American coverage of D-day etc was different because the US has the 1st amendment(freedom of the press). So we have to PRETEND(key word) that it's not heavily censored, which it still is. When have you ever heard a corpor9news outlet say that never ending extentions of copyright(Disney for a perfect example) is a bad thing. Not one single time. A perfect case in point.
The only thing evil about the Federation is the absolutism of the Prime Directive. There is no morally justifiable reason that they shouldn't prevent the destruction of innocent worlds just because they have invented fancy engines yet. They tended to skirt the issue in the show by having the captain either choose to help anyway or be forced into it by circumstance, thus preventing him from becoming a villain by inaction. But any organization that requires evil by law has a serious problem. Other than that the Federation is just what Roddenberry wanted it to be, an imperfect utopia, full of mostly good, enlightened people, doing their best.
@randomusernameCallin I don't remember Bajor being in danger of destruction BEFORE the spoonheads arrived. I'm guessing you didn't really watch the show?
@randomusernameCallin I'm talking about preventing planetary annihilation, you know, super novas, plagues, astroid impacts, etc. If you don't want to talk about those occurrences and how evil the prime directive is to allow them, then why are you in this thread? Of course imperialism = bad, any five year old can tell you not yo take what isn't yours. We're talking about preventing specieside.
I honestly wouldn't be suprised if a lot of UFP tech is actually open-source, since there is less of a pressure to create things for the sake of profit instead of progress. It's one of those things that tends to get glossed over but if one lives in a core world of the Federation, all of their basic needs are cared for. There's no need to worry about housing, or food, or shelter. It's not a "gilded cage", it's a government supplying public services to the public. Now, are there actual arguements to be made against certain stances of the Federation? Yes. The issues of genetic modification, augmentation, and artificial intelligence have constantly been in the backburner, and in some ways have attempted to be addressed. The Federation has always been a vision of a brighter future. This is the show that, during the Cold War, showed crew members with japanese and russian ancestries, had a woman of color as part of the bridge crew, and a mixed alien-human person. These are things that were unthinkable at that time, pushing boundaries of "good taste" and assumed societal conventions. TNG rolls around, and it goes even further, with one of the cast members being disabled, another is a synthetic life form, and Picard even states that the citizens of the UFP work to better themselves and others, not for profit.
But probably rather dull, or not really seeming like Science Fiction. A Boston Bar, owned by a failed pareses square player, a Vulcan waitress who tends to do the books, an other telerite waitress who tells it like it is. Common customers is Morn, a federation corridor, and Captain Brackston comes in from time to time to demine the others into not living up to the federations ideals.
It would depend on what people want to do. You could laze around at home all day. You could just as well study or train anything you like. And depending on how good/successful you are, you might get access to more resources. For example, thanks to the classic episode "Assignment: Earth" it is known that it is theoretically possible to use a transporter for distances of at least a thousand light years or more. Should you come up with a theory how to do that, but need a Federation Supercomputer to make the calculations, you would probably get access to one. Even as a self-studied civilian if specialists say that the only way to find out if the theory works is to make the calculations. You want to make music? Make music. You want to create a holonovel? Go for it. You want to study other cultures? and so on.
Economically intellectual property appears to be at play. With replicor technology or holographic art . I recall a voyager episode , a federation judge , hears a case involving the doctor and ownership of something he wrote. ( the argument was similar to the data episode), On section 31 in the books post nemesis. Section 31 was made public after a scandal. ( the assassinated a federation president) after an investigation it was madr public the government took control and placed it under control of starfleet intelligence. ( 2385 ish ) and several admirals including admiral ross were prosecuted for their involvement ( a few other fleet admirals ) as well. But the agency continued as another brance of the intelligence/ security services. I believe their is slso s federation security service. ( the search for spock ), I see starfleet as similar to the jedi o order in star wars. Therr are semi independent but answering to a democracy elected senate, they are peacekeepers, and have diplomatic dutys , when a new member is added they go through the jedi . Who represents the republic. Like starfleet. In wartime they become a military in peace time exploration. ( jedi did explore as well ) .
I think part of the problem with the perception that the Federation is authoritarian is that we only see things from a pseudo-military's perspective. It's like if you only knew about the US from watching NCIS or Law & Order. IMHO they should do a more civilian oriented TV show at some point, like how Lower Decks has been showing what life is like outside of the front-line hero-ships we can do a show like that but with some civilian tramp freighter, kinda like Firefly but less with the lawbreaking.
Hello VG. I tend to agree with just about everything you've said in the video. I would like to remark upon a few thoughts myself. The Federation does not practice limitations upon civilian movement around space as a whole. If you can afford the resources, you can move anywhere you want, whenever you want, for a 'price'. Now this price might be 'credits', or it might be providing some sort of 'labor'. Which, can be 'pay as you go' type work aboard a ship headed in the direction you wish to proceed, or, perhaps some type of labor to be performed upon landing on the new world. Replicators, and Transporters seem to be pretty common technology. Especially by the 24th century. There are actually two types of replicators (actually three)... Civilian, and Military. Civilian Replicators are in two sub-sets... General and Industrial. General replicators cannot produce much more than food, clothing, and simple items like glassware, simple plastic items, etc. Industrial replicators are 'tuned' to produce Civilian use machinery for various needs, like mass production of simple engines, power generation systems, and even simpler things like concrete blocks, bricks, and steel supporting structural members. Military replicators have almost no limits, so long as power is available, and materials are available. Military replicators CAN produce phasers of various types, as well as higher tech items like sensors, parts for a starship, including all the various parts needed to build a Warp Core. Some Civilian Industrial replicators have 'licenses' to produce more 'military' items. These are closely watched and regulated, to prevent a civilian company from producing weapons for sale to other races, unless specifically allowed by contract to do so, and even then, not the 'latest and greatest' of weapons. This allows for Civilian companies to build starships for the Star Fleet, and lower their 'costs' to do so, and free up 'manpower' to man their ships, instead of needing vast numbers of 'support personnel' just to produce ships and other structures. It should be noted, that the computer limits upon replicators can be bypassed. A 'Military' replicator could be 'hacked' to allow people without the correct passwords and codes to produce military equipment and weapons... but this, is a violation of standards, and law, and if caught, the persons doing so would pay the penalties for doing so. Most likely being imprisoned and forced to perform 'hard' labor. The same is true for Transporters. Cargo transporters are not 'rated' for personnel use, although they can be used in that manner in an emergency. Personnel transporters are rarely used for mass cargo movement due to being 'fine-tuned' to transport living personnel safely from point to point. I have not even gotten into the 'you need something to make something' issue with replicators. Contrary to popular myth, things just don't 'appear' using energy alone. The whole E=MC2 issue comes into play here. It would take MASSIVE amounts of power to produce a relatively tiny amount of mass, of any kind. But, if you have a supply of various molecules in storage, you can 'build' more complex molecules out of them, and thus produce your end product more efficiently. Even Military replicators need something to build their end products out of. Which is why starships have large storage areas for basic materials to be used by replicators, and thus only need the energy to shift molecules around to 'build' larger and more complex molecules, and place the results in the appropriate matrix locations. And, of course, the replicator 'patterns' to make the item(s). Transporters do NOT render a person or item into basic energy and then rebuild that into mass. Instead, they break down the person, or item, into molecules, held in a force field as a high energy plasma, and the plasma is transmitted through subspace and reassembled. It is argued that the plasma has a sort of 'memory' for the shape it was in before being rendered, since even this would push computer technologies way beyond 'faintly believable' to pure fantasy. Also, being 'old', I remember that Transporters were originally canonized as being developed from an alien ship's garbage disposal system. The aliens just moved the garbage outside their ship, and left it free floating in space. So, the hardest part about early transporter tech was 'targeting' the plasma stream to a very precise destination. A lot of people equate replicators with modern 'printers'... like those used to make plastic figures and other items from a spool of plastic 'wire'. As you can see above, the actual method is more similar to Transporters, than modern 'printer' technology. When you can scan an item down to its individual molecules, and know their placements to an exact degree, you no longer need 'printer' technology, since you have control of the 'mass' almost down to the Atomic scale. Just a few thoughts.
Any time an institution has the power to do something, someone within that institution WILL abuse that power for their own benefit. So yes, if they can do something, they WILL.
Everything the guy comes out with is negative or wrong like how it’s impossible for the Akira to have 15 Torpedo lunchers, He knows better than the design team
You know, Starfleet is different all the time. I’m referring to Starfleet 22nd century, 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 31st. Starfleet is far from perfect. They are explorers and scientists first, military second. Or at least that’s how they see themselves. I often see different characters saying as soon as the war is over, we can go back to exploring. At the same time, the warrior officers are listened to more during times of threat and are likely to set Starfleet organization one way for a generation or two. Think of the Dominion war and how many officers were receiving their commission during the war. That’s a generation of officers where even the pure scientist officers will feel silly going on a science mission without a full military load out. I think Starfleet has to go two generations of peace in order to lower their tactical priorities. I think that was the next generation era, and I don’t think those eras last long. But even in peaceful eras, Starfleet has admirals off in a corner somewhere polishing their swords. Jelico was a perfect example of that. And the way the crew of the enterprise reacted to him was like he was crazy. But I bet people were fanatical about following him during the Dominion war. It’s fascinating really, they really want to be scientists, but find themselves often fighting and winning against enemy warrior cultures.
Joseph could have been given the title to the restaurant by the former owner on the basis of merit. Like when he dies maybe it goes to Nathan..... So he owns it but there is still no need for money.
While I agree with your point of view overall, I'd argue you're off on a few points. You mentioned Layton wanted to go back to the 23rd century Starfleet. But back then, Starfleet was not a strictly military organization. " Are we talking about mothballing the Starfleet? Well, I'm sure scientific and exploration programs would remain unaffected." This aspect of Starfleet is, and always has been, part of Starfleet's identity. As such, it was also at the forefront of technological development. Both for obvious ones, like Warp drive, but also replicators. When taking the cannonnical addition of food resequencers on Enterprise, we can discern it was ret-coned as a precursor to the food replicator. The same could be said for the universal translator, with the linguacode translation matrix invented by Hoshi Sato. Another point of contention from Lore's thesis is to assign the label of strick military to Starfleet. While in times of war, this is their primary role, I would argue that, as a hole and for its entire existence it was more akin to Canada's Northwest Mounted Police, who cumulated the roles of policing the western frontier, surveilling it's border with the US, assisting in exploration and scientific research, and in times of need, protecting the citizenry. I'd say this description fits Starfleet as well.
Okay here is my thoughts. The federation is lawful good but is also can be arrogant, naive, and misguided. The biggest sign of that is early TNG era. With an alliance with the Klingon and a stable peace with the Romulans they grew complacent. Ships of the TMP era minus a few were a balance of military duties and peace time duties. A Connie could act as a heavy cruiser in battle as easy host a conference or perform scientific acts. By the time of the galaxy their designs leaned to the peace time role and not war. While the Galaxy class is powerful she is not as powerful as she can be. In less then 10 years about half of their initial production run had been destroyed proves that. But even with this they did had power but not will to commit. Let's take the first time we see the Cardassians in the Wounded. There the top of the line warship the Galor manages a sneak attack on a Galaxy and and only did minimal damaged while in just a couple of shots the Galor has taken major damage. Heck Phoenix in her AWACS configuration and shields down wiped out another warship likely another Galor in one volley. They can easily beat the Union but they don't commit. They search for a quick out and get it at the cost of colonies they betrayed for peace. The people there didn't want to move so any rep if they had any they might have not considering their leave me alone attitude. The Union agrees to keep it demilitarized but break that quickly. Heck the break the treaty often even going so far as to make a trap to capture Picard in hopes of gaining territory. All the federation does is wagged their finger and get Picard back. And this repeats every time the Union violates the treaty. Note one of the core founders of the Marquis is Cal Hudson a STARFLEET COMMANDER because he sees the bullshit Starfleet and the federation are doing. To take a concept from HBO's Chernobyl. The federation was too focused on the cost of war to realize the cost of peace. Sometimes the cost of peace is higher then the cost of war. The feds forgot that. The simple fact that Picard says that Starfleet is not a military organization is ridiculous on its face. When ever trouble happens it is Starfleet that is sent not any other group. The Federations key flaws is that it's too centralized in its administration thus out of touch with it's boarder citizens and too naive and arrogant to see that galaxy doesn't work as it wants. As Sisko said Earth is a paradise and it's easy to be a saint in paradise but the galaxy is not paradise. We have Gene to thank for that. I know you did your best to justify the Algeron treaty but it does not fly. No military officer would accept those considtion and I bet a few councilers agreed. Maybe if was a full ban for all factions sure but fed only no way. The treaty only exists because gene didn't want the good guys sneak around. Gene, batman would like a word with you. This is why DS9 is so good for it challenges the federation belief. Puts it to the test
For a quick understanding of Lore's stance on the Federation jump to the 2 minute 19 second mark on this excellent video Venom put out in April th-cam.com/video/CtAGR-nKGOc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=eLL0Ai0dybQpvkPf
Much better to watch the actual video to make up ones' own mind, imo. It's in the description. I'm not sure which to watch first. Hmmmm....BRB....
Just watched both. Both have good points, but 2 points.
1. Venom is more correct in his analysis of the federation.
2. I think Lore is drawing real life comparisons to the US govt. Creeping censorship(Elon directly saying that letter agencies were directing censorship on ex-twitter)(as other platforms). So they are outsourcing censorship to private corporations). That should be treason against our constitution. If they take a single penny from our govt, they are a state like actor.
You can aspire(or claim to be) one thing, and be the compete opposite. "National Socialism Party" for example. Not socialist in anyway. DPRK(not democratic in any way). USA claiming to have a free-market economy despite large corporations and banks setting policy to benefit them and gaining monopolies. Hundreds.....literally hundreds of examples are about. Aspirations mean nothing, actions do. And starfleets aren't always good, nor is the USAs.....They can and should be, but greed and money win out.
Oh, journalism vs what we have now "access journalism". Only those carrying the correct message get access to our leaders and what they want said.
Edit: fixed a typo. ".only" changed to "money".
I assumed people would understand journalism vs "access journalism", then re-read the comment and realized that most probably don't. Journalism is about "holding power to account and ensuring they are always questioned constantly on their actions and reasoning to ensure they ALWAYS have the best interests of the PEOPLE in mind". Whereas Corporate controlled access journalism is not asking the hard questions, not asking for proof, not doing anything the politicians won't like(so they don't lose access or ruffle their corporate masters desires/intended message to lead and or mislead the general public). It's why people called so many "journalists" in the USA are known as "presstitutes".....because these people and what they say are controlled by corporations and will say anything to keep their easy paycheck. You can even see on youtube CNN saying(paraphrased), youtube it for exact wording: "we make the news, they don't get to decide".
"Spreading freedom and upholding democracy"......while supporting monarchies and dictatorships that do what they want. As I said there are HUNDREDS if not thousands of easy examples. I THINK that Lore is trying to get people to watch and learn if and or how starfleet and our govts can and/or ARE changing because of their greed and desire for control. Time will tell, but it's very telling that many of our vets live overseas.....Who else to better KNOW the truth??? SHOULD make you think....Many in what the US labels "police states" like Vietnam, yet if you go to Vietnam for a year, you will not see 1/10,000th of the police you see in the USA.....nor do they spy on their citizens like the USA does.
It one thing to claim to be one thing, yet be another, that's hypocrisy and deception for the sake of power and money, and control.
The church CLAIMS to be about saving souls etc, yet you pay them money to tell you how to live your life.....lol. One of MANY ways you pay for your own subjugation. Same as paying for the "news" in the USA or UK.....you're actually paying for corporate propaganda on how they want you to think so they can do what they want(and maintain their profits), no matter the cost to your way of life and cost of living. Something to think about yes?
As early as TOS, we see that Starfleet is far from all-poweful, even within the borders of the Federation. In The Trouble With Tribbles, we see Kirk bow to the increasingly petty and out-of-perspective demands of a civilian official on his ship's time and resources. Kirk doesn't like it, but he does it; because Starfleet is ultimately under the authority of a civilian government, just like the militaries of C21st democracies.
As for the claim that Starfleet has some kind of veto power over access to interstellar travel, I think that idea can be very quickly answered by the mere continued existence of one Harcourt Fenton Mudd...
SFdepries also had something to say about star fleet military, but his was a critique of how Starfleet insisted it's not a military and the tactical thinking was only a small part of being an officer.
He rightly called out how childish and hypocritical that stance is and we see constantly Starfleet paying for that belief
This was also the golden age when Star fleet hadn’t had any big wars in 70 years, and diplomacy and logistics was the focus of Starfleet. The most military experience we see came from legacy admirals and captains who were part of cardassian border skirmishes, which saw deployment of only second and third line Starfleet ships, nothing even from the present century, maybe some ambassadors later on.
@@mackenziebeeney3764 and Q called them out on that.
When the golden age provides problems other than war, it should be no surprise that the solutions are not war solutions, and efforts are not pushed towards war efforts.
That said, there were voices in SF and the Federation who recognized this fact and pushed towards rectifying it... Ala the D playing a wargame with Riker and Riker thrashing the D.
But when I look at Starfleet who hadn't fought a war in ages vs The borg, they did what anyone would have done. Gather a big fleet and smash it into the Borg cube. Because they didn't know any better... And knowing is StarFleet's greatest strength... Or rather, discovering the unknown. But when facing the Borg they didn't take the time to discover who they were fighting and adapt to them. That's the problem.
SF officers are taught to adapt and think on their feet. Ironically it was going with the Admirals plan that got them all killed. One large scale assault designed to overpower them, instead of stringing out the skirmishes like they did in First Contact. I don't think it was that they were complacent... I think they were just used to finding other ways to win that didn't involve combat. But when combat came, SF rose to the occasion, and what they didn't know, and what they didn't prepare for killed them. Because SF's motto and driving force is to be prepared to face any eventuality.
That said, that golden age provided SF a wealth of scientific discovery and information that allows StarFleet to adapt faster than a large organization should. SF's technical strength is in it's technologies ability to adapt to any event instead of raw power. But you can only fight smart for so long before you come up against a foe where smart fighting won't cut it and you need to break out the big guns
@@davfree9732 Agreed. There's this great insistence that the Golden Age was negligent, weak and pacifist. I think it looks like that because we see how formidable Star Fleet becomes in the Dominion War but rewatch season one and 2 of TNG. The height of the Golden Age and Roddenberry's power and idealism. The entire reason it takes Picard seven years to join the Poker Game is that for all he looks like a soft diplomat compared to Kirk, Sisko, Janeway and Archer, Picard in TNG was a hard pragmatic officer who was experienced in war.
This is the man who lost his ship in the first (to their knowledge) military encounter with the Ferengi. And yes saying Picard lost his ship to the Ferengi now sounds like a joke but they were intended to be the literal representation of capitalist exploitation and one need only look at America to see how terrifying that is.
The Enterprise D stood toe to toe with the Klingons and the Romulans and both of those forces were outclassed and manipulated by the Dominion and the Borg. In both cases of external impossible to prepare for forces it was Starfleet that was able to defeat them.
I can see why someone would make the mistake of seeing the federation as an authoritarian state because the federation has yet to be portrayed from anywhere but a starfleet perspective. Life from outside starfleet is only glimpsed and has never been fleshed out. I'd imagine that federation citizens have enormous personal freedom.
Yeah. It's like watching NCIS and thinking the US Navy is the government of the United States.
But there's a reason we see it from a Starfleet perspective. Because Star Trek is about exploration, it's more interesting for us the adiance to see Starfleet.
@@Starfleet8555 Also, as long you don´t wont a show about personal drama it would be booooring as hell. Theres a reason most epic tales play in times of conflict and strife and dont stay in the shire.
If you want to understand the Federation, look at NATO for a real-life comparison.
@@christopherstephenson7199 I think the Eu is a better comparison, but that is also not on the nail. If anything, the UN in a more real sense would be fitting if it had a foreign policy
He forgets the United Federation of Planets exists separately from Starfleet, the UNFP has its own ships The Raven was a UNFP science ship, not a private vessel, most federation races have their own indigenous ships too.. races with their own craft, Mining groups as well...
This was always my understanding as well. Kinda like the original ideas behind the US, or EU. Individual cultures and "states" that are basically autonomous but still have a higher governing body for defense, interstellar trade etc.
You do realize that Starfleet is the military and exploratory arm of the Federation?
It doesn't exist seperately from the Federation. It is in fact part of and subordinate to it.
You know, the way the US military is to the US government.
@@Jasmin_Pepelko What he is saying is right. He is not saying that starfleet exists separate from the UFP, but that the UFP exists separate from Starfleet. For example you wouldn't say that the US government is a part of the US military, you would say the military is part of the US government. Unless you live in a military dictatorship this is usually the case.
@@Jasmin_PepelkoBut each planet in the Federation still have their own "internal" police and military for their own recognized physical political space.
Starfleet is the U.S. Armed forces. The local Andorian or Vulcan forces are just that, local jurisdiction.
Starfleet should be more alligned with the idea of United Nations blue helmets.
Since Starfleet doesn't consider itself as a military force. But still has the force necessary for peacekeeping mission
even tho its primary goal is exploration (scientific and diplomatic)
Joseph Sisco got his restaurant because he was in the witness protection program.
I thought he was admiral cartwright in hiding...
That's a very interesting notion about Khitomer that I never thought about. Military Officers negotiating a peace treaty. There are many, many examples in Earth history where having the military be the face of the government is a bad idea. Civilian control of the military is the mark of a free society.
Also, remember Quark's description: "Its so bubbly, and coy, and happy. Just like the Federation."
Garak "It's insidious "
@@desperateneedofscotch I agree
Quark was right about one thing humans are only nice when they have everything they want handed to them on a silver platter metaphorically speaking but when humanity has nothing they become ruthless savages, which is why when humans in the Federation say their more evolved I would then say horse shit, your only nice when you have everything your heart desires but when you have nothing your basically become barbarians. Just look at the 32nd century when dylithium was running out Earth and Titan in the Sol system alone where brutally attacking each other for years until the USS Discovery came along and I bet Quarks spirit is laughing in his version of a after life some where saying I told you so.
Joy and happiness is infectious and addictive.
The federation enables the most happiness of its galactic neighbors.
You can keep your own culture and your own values, we have our values. If they’re compatible you can join if you want to. If they aren’t, you don’t have to join, we can just trade, or not. Up to you.
Starfleet is about exploration and self determination.
@@mackenziebeeney3764 they are only that relaxed about other minor races joining or not, is because they know that if they spread all around you, in a few generations they will get you trough cultural osmosis.
Keep in mind LoreReloaded is making these clickbaity thumbnails and questionable topics to drive views on his channel. Its not coming from a place of wanting an honest discussion. Views are the priority.
He used to make more "normal" Trek discussion videos earlier in his career, but along the way he started making more and more outlandish video essays (trying to get more views). Now it's all he does.
Typical LoreReloaded video is some photoshoped image of a main character made to look more evil or sinister. And the title will be something like:
"The Federation are the TRUE evil"
Or
"Janeway is a crazy genocidal MURDERER"
Or
"The Romulans were RIGHT about the Federation."
Or
"Klingons SUCK at everything! Ferengi are best"
Its just what LoreReloaded does now. Outlandish video essay topic with evil looking thumbnail.
And in a way, by taking it to the extreme he deliberately shows the argument is in jest.
He's also really fallen way into his current-day ideological feelings of being all cynical and anti-government and really anti-social progress and paranoid about the idea people can actually be better without there being some shadowy insidious horribly 'tyrrany' about competence and all. Those political impulses also really do use 'contrarianism' and re-appropriating of pop culture to really disrupt anything that might be positive and especially aspirational. Taps into that regressive 'fandom' element as well as some number of views and attention about controversy, while validating a certain type.
To be fair...Janeway IS a murderous psycho if you measure her decisions from the start of Voyager to the end.
That wasn't how she was intended to be written but a consequence of Rick Berman's "devil-may-care" attitude towards scripting, and especially his utter disdain for continuity going from episode to episode.
Remember: Berman was the man who coined the phrase "dumbing down" when describing what he wanted to do to Star Trek to make it more appealing to the masses in a TV Guide Interview back in the late 90s.
@@desperateneedofscotchMaster Debater… and Masterbater, no doubt!
People still pay any attention to TrollRetrolled? I thought his 90's edgelord takes and clickbait hijinks died off before the pandemic... The Internet is the greatest invention in human history. Its most unforgivable sin is that it allowed the "village idiots" to find each other and commiserate. Here online they can ask each other serious deep questions like, "How many MAGA hats do you have? I gots 9!" and "Did you watch the latest from LoreReloaded?"
Lore Reloaded has done some good videos in the past. He has some interesting theory videos, such as the Q and their relationship with the Borg as an example. Another interesting one is the paradox of how the Romulans probably used findings from the wreckage of the Enterrpise C in designing their future warships. However, I do find myself wincing at the occasional click bait cynical Federation video that shows up. It's reached the point where I feel like his opinion of the Federation is well documented and he is just retreading old ground.
Haha I thought you meant Q as in anno
I don't know... feels like he's on the MAGA/Conservative path pretty far already. It's THERE in the content.
@@miguelvelez7221 Yeah I stopped watching years ago now because he was so blatantly twisting canon to justify his perspective.
What about anything involving Voyager? As he is biased against the series. I bring this up because he mistakenly says Starfleet sent out a ship with family on board to go up against the Maquis in the Badlands, as well as into the Delta Quadrant. One, the Intrepid class was *not* a family ship like the Galaxy class. Two, only one child was born onboard the ship, and the other children were adopted from the Borg. Three, Voyager had *no* facilities for civilians the way a Galaxy class like Enterprise D did.
On press censorship it is actually amazing how even during the biggest war in modern Galactic History (therr are many references to major powers and wars existing in the distant past who seem to have had their own wars) Jake had an amazing freedom
Thank you! Your absolutely right! And as you know, Lore Reloaded has a bit of a dystopian mindset.
In the game of Civilization, the Federation are going for the culture victory.
I don’t dislike him or his channel but he’s so sarcastic and jaded lol
That why I like his stuff. 😂
to be fair star trek does have some serious world building issues.
@@1000nodThink of it as a snowball, it just picks up stuff as it rolls
Thats most of he has to offer really.
@@rmcdudmk212me too
Some people are so cynical that they can't even imagine a fictional future world where things are better.
Amen
He never mentioned the crime the federation committed against the marquis. They were forcibly relocated at the barrel of a gun because star Fleet signed a treaty and gave their homes away. He didn't even mention the first act of war between those 2 sides. Such holier-than-thou do-gooders as the federation though don't acknowledge their victims. It's like the question at the end of the watchman movie how many more bodies are required for the foundation of paradise?
Eh, the writing is what it is… And like any art.. I’d say there is some interpretation :)
@@deadend1041the Federation and Starfleet warned people not to settle on those planets in the first place. The Federation didn't give their homes away, they withdrew their protection, protection they never should have provided in the first place because those planets had been in dispute for decades, before anyone even settled there.
@KingOfMadCows in the TNG episode Journey's End, the colonists were being forcibly relocated by the Cardassians.
Two points:
The UFP is a federation. That means the planets have a very high degree of self-rule. There are some overarching laws, but most of the laws and governing system is left at the local (aka planetary) level.
Starfleet is a combined military/exploration/diplomatic service. We do not have anything like it today. The closest would be in the 18th and 19th when communications between the government and ships could take months and naval captains had the authority to open diplomatic relations and in some cases acted as the governor of various areas. For this reason alone, Starfleet would have a seat in any committee that may involve defense or diplomatic relations with outer regions. As you pointed out at the Khitomer Accords, those in Starfleet uniform stood BEHIND the civilians. In the case of the US Presidential Cabinet, there is a Secretary of Defense (a civilian), but right behind him is the Joint Chief of Staff, representing the uniformed military.
3:24 In fact, we see that Jake is completely shocked that his story won't go out, implying that the press is so free within the Federation that the idea of a restricted press didn't even cross his mind, even during wartime.
whenever soemone tries to convince you the federation is fascist or authoritarian or dystopian or whatever, in the end it all comes down to this Ultimate question.
"did you even watch the show?"
Related to your point on travel, it's quite clear in the shows there must be a large number of populated independent worlds that are actually completely surrounded by Federation territory, yet both their citizens and Federation citizens are allowed to travel to and from each others' sides at will for whatever reason. This is how the Orion Syndicate works and has such an influence still all over the Federation because of free travel and soft borders with those interior independent worlds where they setup their operations.
My thoughts on each point regarding the Federation;
1) Censorship/media control; since Star Trek itself was also made from a US-based viewpoint any "antagonism" would be based on that news style and the Universal Translators while "standard" were mostly treated (at least during the pre-2280s) as being an Earth-based system as Chekov in "Undiscovered Country" stated the universal translator would "be recognized" 2) The Maquis; their growth was because of a dislike for allowing Federation citizens to become "citizens" of the newly-expanded Cardassian territory and used terror to strike at the CU, within this the idea of Starfleet as a police force is rarely seen and only in the case of Harry Mudd would this be applicable, 3) "Starfleet is a military ergo the Federation is a military:" does not work because the Starfleet command structure would require a hierarchal-style system to ensure command worked and nobody took drastic action without making things worse for other regional powers, 4) Starfleet monopolizes travel: what?, 5) replicators: I'm sure this as ubiquitous a system as the UT as a variant was recognized by T'Pol in "Dead Stop," 6) inequity: depending on how one defines 'inequity' it's likely to remain within the Star Trek universe in some degree as the social challenges associated with competition add drama and thus ensure some level of interest within the series, 7) Section 31: they shouldn't exist to the level they do because at least with DS9 they make a point of calling themselves out as "covert operations" which negates the ability to work within the shadows compared to the 'secret police' of the Romulan Tal Shiar.
Looking at the timing of Leyton's coup is important, it was nearing the height of tension within the Dominion War, the attempt at blood screenings was out of a xenophobic fear that Changelings were "hiding in plain sight" and could destroy them from within (likely a callback from the writers to the Red Scare of the 1950s), the decision to "regress" Starfleet to it's late-23rd century form would have been during the intervening period between the heightened security of the challenges posed by the Klingons and Golden Age presented at the beginnings of TNG, and thus with the focus of defending Earth those within high-level positions who agreed with Leyton likely would have been swayed by this. Add in the near-recent schism with those like Eddington chose to defect and fight the Cardassians within the DMZ, there could also be the fear those "radicalized" officers might turn on the Federation itself. I apologize if this sounds like a rant, but I was trying to write this while going through the video to keep track of the points (I might have overlooked or missed one) as they were being made
I like Lore Reloaded and your channel. Its a fun to debate the world of star trek.
always enjoy venoms counter views myself
@@desperateneedofscotch Fat Electrician would be awesome.. Love his content
Also remember that even Section 31 wasn't even that dark, they knew they were compromising their principles and felt it was required but still attempted to minimize the compromising that they needed to do. The founders were the extreme because that was the only way they could accomplish saving the Federation. Keeping the Romulans in the Dominion War wasn't accomplished through killing the Senator it was done by destroying her influence and outright embarrassing her, the Romulans would have kept her around in shame as an example and not executing her because it would be a better example.
you sound like a federation apologist
And they are always (before Discovery anyway) portrayed as the Bad guys.
@@farshnuke I think they are more portrayed prior to that which we will not speak of (why you insist to speak of it I know not) as a necessary evil. They are not good by any measure but they are a solution to the evil paradox from Code Geass. They know there is evil out there that cannot be defeated by just means. So rather then allow the Federation as a whole to stain its self with evil or to surrender to evil Section 31 does it for them. They stain their hands with evil over and over so that the greater evils fall and the Federation can prosper.
They revel in the knowledge that the Federation will survive by their actions and are willing to become monsters so that it will. And they will do it with a smile.
And great now I can only imagine its leadership doing a Zero Requiem in space should Section 31 become to public.
@@farshnuke Ik I’m late to the party but this touched on something I think is super important for the fandom to realize.
TL;DR - New Trek sucks because it misunderstands stuff like this, and somehow a Star Trek comedy show does a better job understanding what Trek is about than the writers of DIS, PIC, and all the other New Trek shows combined.
EXACTLY. Section 31 was literally one of the main antagonistic forces in DS9, but New Trek writers don’t seem to get that. Even in Enterprise, with Malcolm, the tone around their founding shifted. You can draw a really interesting line between the writing of section 31 in pre-9/11 Trek and post-9/11 Trek. Really goes to show the cultural shift in America at that time. But yeah you’re entirely correct, S31 were the bad guys until Discovery. That’s why the vast majority of New Trek just doesn’t feel like Trek, except maybe Lower Decks. It’s bleak and depressing and the federation is systematically flawed and grim, rather than systematically good with a few bad actors who are clearly the bad guys. Trek should be hopeful and smart and focused on exploration and diplomatic missions, not constantly about one war after another with some racism subplots mixed in. Trek is about the goodness of humanity, and how we get over our worst tendencies even in the darkest times, not about how we should actually embrace those problems. It’s just so clear that Old Trek writers read Marx and Adams, Russell and Descartes, Rousseau and Einstein, while New Trek writers watch Rachel Maddow. New Trek just misses the pointof Star Trek. The federation isn’t some post-scarcity liberal state, it’s the pinnacle of human (and alien) political and economic philosophy. There’s not even a good word for the political system of the federation. The closest thing we have to a definitive description would be something like “a post-scarcity libertarian socialist economy with a decentralized multiplanetary governmental system and a night watchman planetary government”. It just bugs me how thoroughly 98% of New Trek misses the point. Lower Decks is the only New Trek show to get it right, and that’s just crazy.
Also, Jean-Luc Picard, the man who worked on solving Fermat’s Last Theorem for fun, doesn’t knowing Calculus? I’m sorry, that singlehandly made me discard Picard as noncanon in my head.
@@elias8356 I can't judge because Lower Decks is the only Kurtzman era Trek I have seen and Lower Decks is up there as my favourite trek but there are certain key setting aspects that are unmissable.
In Picard it's the abolition of Robot rights. (When TNG, DS9 and Voyager were all striving towards progress in that regard) Discovery deciding that the blatant villain was completely right in DS9 and making Section 31 an outright legit part of Star Trek (something I refuse to accept) and the jump to the future in Discovery needlessly dooming everything when they could have told the same stories by leaping to the Andromeda Galaxy or something in the future.
It comes to something when I am reading the Star Trek books in the lead up to the big Borg crossover event Destiny and post Nemesis books are more optimistic upbeat and Federation despite the darkness of the stories they tell.
Honestly I'd prefer to find out that the Kurtzman era (with the exception of Lower Decks) took place in a different timeline. Maybe this is all part of the temporal cold war and building up to evil Archer going back in time.
You’re right in regards to the Federation being … sort of good (I’d say more Lawful Neutral tbh) and you’re very much right about civilians free access to the cosmos Although the F17-Class, what the La Sirena was is classed as a “Speed Freighter”, and seems to follow this in its design with its bridge being a Slrt of Main Area that’s Bridge/Cagro-Bay/Engineering Area (With that Glowey thing in the Back OBVIOUSLY Being the La-Sirena’s Warp-Core I decided to say it was part engineering aswell), and unlike its Star Wars Contemporary in the “Millennium Falcon” looks like it can transport stuff other than people in its interior and does, it actually is a 24th Century version of an Independently operated Tramp-Steamer, except is a Spaceship.
I’d say that Starfleet is as Kirk says in TOS, it’s mostly a Peacekeeping and Government run Scientific Research force, but has the ability to be converted to Military if Something like “The 4-Years War”, “The Federation Klingon Wars of 2256 and 2372” (Although lets be honest the former was a real war while the latter was a soured relationship with a few skirmishes), and “The Dominion War” ever happened.
As for Replicators, i can definitely imagine that it started out as a Civilian product, likely Developed by Daystrom Institutes and Sold under some kind of Daystrom-Run Technology Company, Like maybe “Daystrom Technologies Inc.”? But Replicators don’t really work like that, they do require materials to operate, but they Break other Materials down into their molecular components and either recycle them if it was replicated before, or break them down to be used for something. You can probably make a Chicken Dinner from a Pile of sand of you wanted with some kind of Wine and All. And there’s also Two Types of Replicators, Commodities Replicators, and Industrial Replicators, the latter of which is basically a Far larger version of the Commodities replicator. Both operate using pre-requisite patterns stored in Databases that are Built up from the Atomic level inside the replicator, this is probably how Voyager Both Had so many Shuttles and Torpedoes, yet also had Replicator Rations as Currency to conserve Replicator Storage, Most its Replicator Energy was going into making industrial components like Replacement Parts and New Equipment. Also Speculating the reason why Voyager went into that Living nebula one time was because the particles in it were so dense that it could potentially Refill the Replicator’s Atomic Storage Banks to capacity for at least awhile.
And yeah, you’re extremely right about how much cultures are important to the Federation, and further out the more opportunities and Freedoms you had to construct a society and culture of your own, back in the times of The British, French, Spanish, and Portugese Empires, Colonialism Operated EXACTLY like that, Less bureaucracy father out you go.
And yeah i can definitely see what you said about Starfleet being more militaristic and more ingrained with Federation Politics in the past, and agree that Yes Starfleet still serves as sort of a Police-Force/Military even in Picard’s time but it’s not as well ingrained in Federation Politics and the Federation itself is more Strict about making sure Starfleet Officers are acting under protocols and dealing those who’ve crossed lines, Cartwright, Leyton, and Dougherty as few big examples, Dougherty being from “ST IX: Insurrection” or as Captain Liam Shaw of the USS Titan-A put it: “That time ‘Someone’ threw the prime directive Out-the-window to Snog a villager on Baku.” Or as I would say it “That time ‘Someone’ threw the prime directive Out-the-window to Snog a villager on Baku while also preventing a Bad-Apple Starfleet Admiral helping a Dominion-Allied Alien Race from Relocating 600 people against their will for a taste of immortality.”
Yeah you’re right, 24:40-25:00 and that’s what happened to Captain Erika Benteen, The Captain of the Lakota, She Disobeyed Leyton’s orders to Destroy the Defiant and Escorted them to Earth, after the Fight both the Lakota and Defiant had. and Yeah, if the Federation was Authoritarian, Leyton wouldn’t have been Dealt with, if anything Leyton would’ve dealt with the people wanting to deal with him, You want a Truly Authoritarian Starfleet? Look at the Mirror Universe, The Terran Empire, THAT’S Authoritarianism and militarism, it just wouldn’t stand, and Not even for almost 1000 years, like what we see in the later 3 seasons of Discovery.
Lore Views Starfleet in a pretty shoddy light because it doesn’t fall within the per views of what he THINKS Starfleet should be, and Starfleet, while bureaucratically strict isn’t as strict as he makes it out to be, While I haven’t seen this particular video of his yet, i’ve seen many similar ones he’s put out, and yeah, he thinks the Federation is too strict, like it’s holding its citizens back and stifling what they can and can’t do, while Highly competitive Yes, it’s certainly not that, in fact it’s the opposite, the Federation is a Utopia, not a Dystopia.
Some of their decisions do make you wonder about the "utopia" part tbh, that's why Lore's videos are fun (at least to me), interesting what ifs.
However, the Federation is certainly the better place to be than their neighbors tho, as far as has been seen on screen. They do make some incredibly stupid foreign policy moves tho.
Yes, there are plenty of civilian transports people could book passage in.
DS9 showed that a lot. The Replimat was a place for such travelers to eat.
And ships like Rio's was expensive transport. There were ships like we see in The Mandalorian in the Milky Way
in the Falklands war, you hear the journalist say "i counted all the planes out and all the planes back in", so he didnt release numbers.
Data's Brother always causes mischief.....
I've been subscribed to Lore Reloaded for a couple of years now and his takes just keep getting worse. Whether its his endless ranting about Tuvix's life being more valuable than the lives of Tuvok and Neelix (two lives are inherently more valuable than one, especially when one of those lives is the ship's executive officer), his constant attempts to denigrate the Federation based on nothing more than some inferences based on set dressing or one-off plotlines, or his regular efforts to just be needlessly contrarian, it gets tiresome.
In all fairness to Lore, assuming the worst of people is almost always the safe bet.
This reminds me when Film Theory called the Federation fascist.
I stopped watching that channel as well. 🤷🏻♀
I think the Maquis is a great example of starfleet not even wanting to deal with them.
at any point they sent the bare requirements to deal with his, hoping they could just talk their way out of it.. never trying to wipe these people out.
Lore is very much a reactionary, and not all that hidden of one.
I really like Lore’s alternate take on things, but he absolutely pushes it to the extreme, “Starfleet was basically the bad guys” and all. He’s very convincing, though.
Lore Reloaded and being convincing?
Now i understand why cheap propaganda works even today
If you say a lie with enough conviction
People who don't know better will believe it
It just feels like a lot of genre fan community content makers are actively lacing their shit with a lot of RW/MAGA styled talking points about society. It's LESS prevalent in the TREK community as the Star Wars one but it is there and I think WE collectively have to start grappling with it seriously.
Convincing how? He is just plain wrong, especially anything involving Voyager, as he is biased against the series. I bring this up because he mistakenly says Starfleet sent out a ship with family on board to go up against the Maquis in the Badlands, as well as into the Delta Quadrant. One, the Intrepid class was *not* a family ship like the Galaxy class. Two, only one child was born onboard the ship, and the other children were adopted from the Borg. Three, Voyager had *no* facilities for civilians the way a Galaxy class like Enterprise D did.
6:39 Eh, I mean, I think the argument can be made that they were driven to those actions by Federation neglect. I think the creation of the Maquis is one of those things that critics of the Federation are absolutely right about. After all, they just did the same thing the Bajorans did to defend themselves in their war with the Cardassians, again because the Federation refused to directly intervene (even though it wasn't, as the Federations claims, an internal matter), and while people certainly don't like what the Bajorans had to do, they don't argue their need to do those things to survive.
It really comes across like the Federation is against the Maquis's actions specifically because they are former Federation citizens using formerly Federation technology to do them. Even Sisko's issues with the Maquis seem to come down to him not liking that people he once trusted agreed with them.
After all, while the Federation claims that the Maquis were Federation citizens and therefor subject to Federation law, they weren't. The first Maquis were the colonists that the Federation abandoned, and every additional member left the Federation behind, a thing that, in a free society, people have the freedom to do.
I think another point not pointed out is if the Federation was so controlling, why would they tolerate members from having their own military. The Andorians, Telarite, and Vulcans have their own military, and I assume Earth does as well since they talk more about Earth's own separate defenses (make me think the Macos still exist, just not part of Starfleet). Yet we know by the 24th Century, many races still have their own military, with Vulcan ships leaving to explore beyond Federation space.
And if you want to make the argument that the Federation controls all military, just not overtly, then why did they let Batazeds neglect their own defenses to be undermanned and 20 years out of date. It is believable that a pacifist member neglects them, but not a totalitarian government looks to keep its people under control. Especially a species that could be used to read the thoughts of citizens to enact better control over the population. If it was the Dominion, Betazed would be the second most defensible world in Dominion space, just shy of the Founder's homeworld.
You are right about Earth because in the TNG episode, best of both worlds, they reference a Mars Defense Fleet attacking the Cube. Star Fleet seems to be the main power but there are probably militia units (I think of it like the National Guard vs. US Military).
@@volbound1700mars defense fleet could be a star fleet fleet similar to how the u.s. has a Pacific fleet and an Atlantic fleet
@@cludecat7072 I thought that but it looked very amateurish for Star Fleet. It gives me more of a United Earth militia feel. Granted, the writers of Star Trek don't analysis this stuff like fans do. Often these items are retcon lol.
@@volbound1700 could be a sort of almost coast guard style: older or worse equipment
The Federation might not be necessarily evil, but sure it is pretty much hypocrite. Like Captain Sisko once said: The Federation is a Paradise, and it is easy to be a Saint in Paradise...
So to paraphase podcaster Dan Carlin, when he was describing the United States. The Federation acts like Superman during the day and like Batman at night.
Every state is a hypocrite if viewed by another state.
Thank you Greek venom media 98 for For defending the federation. I was shocked too when I saw the words . I get it the federation isn't perfect but at least they're trying .
I don't get the complaint about periphery vs core worlds. "The core worlds are paradise and the peripheries struggle!" Like... yes? Obviously? The core worlds have centuries of infrastructure and geoshaping projects to ensure sufficient and even excess power, water, food and material goods. They have enormous populations and thus the manpower to respond to any issues quickly and decisively.
The colony world on the periphery made landfall two years ago and has maybe a hundred people. The infrastructure is still in the nascent stages of development, they haven't altered the planet's topography to suit them, and they barely have enough hands to keep one village functioning.
Now, you give that colony time to develop, they'll probably have solid infrastructure within a few decades thanks to modern tech, they'll start to shift some local topography, their population will grow. By the time a century passes the main settlement will have lots of people and a standard of living comparable to the core. Satellite communities are forming and going through the same growing pains, but with a much shorter supply line they'll develop faster. Another century passes and it's basically a core world across the entire planet in terms of amenities, infrastructure and quality of life.
It's just a matter of time and investment. The core worlds are the way they are because of *centuries* of hard work by their inhabitants. You can't just land a colony ship somewhere, snap your fingers, and expect Earth 2.0 to spring instantly into being. Replicator tech isn't nearly that advanced yet.
The idea that the Federation is evil is insane.. Even in modern trek, even with section 31 (or w/e its called) the federation is at least neutral to external politics and do take care of its citizens.
Admiral Cartwright and General Chang remind me of the stereotypical 50-60 year old “Cold Warriors” who could never adjust to the fact that their relevancy was slipping as time passed them by.
They’d be the guys watching the 24th century equivalent to Fox News railing against anything the newer Starfleet does-everything from the unisex onesie uniforms, to bringing families onboard ships-even the remote control like Phasers they’d decry.
Honestly the way he talks about the Federation from Star Trek seems more like the Federation from Gundam.
I think too often Trek as a fandom uses "Federation" and "Starfleet" interchangeably when they're very much NOT. It seems very clear to me that Starfleet is the military wing of the civilian Federation government, and I think this is true from ST:ENT all the way to ST:PIC and I do maintain it IS a recognisably military institution under the overall command of the civilian Federation government, akin to a modern navy. And one of the things that makes the Dominion War so interesting is how the boundaries between the two do degrade, but then that's what happens in a time of war. Venom mentioned WWII, but just look at the Russo-Ukraine war. Both sides withhold information, particularly regarding casualties, there are clamp downs on personal freedoms compared to peacetime (To wildly varying extents between the two nations...) and the military does have a greater say over the polices and priorities of the civilian government.
But then the Federation is fighting an existential threat to its existence; it NEEDS the military to step up and make the decisions needed to, you know, keep existing...
On Section 31, I don't consider it to be a KGB-style secret police, but I absolutely think it's a Black Ops-style institution that is absolutely a resource for the Federation, think CIA to the US government in the 60's; it exists and there are people in power who can make use of it and its unique capabilities, but at the same time offering a level of plausible deniability to the Federation government. And honestly, I think that's great that it does exist in Trek, because it makes for a potentially interesting writing tool.
And while the Golden Era of Peace meant Section 31 had little to do but glare menacingly at the Romulan's across the Neutral Zone, during a time of war, a secret wing of your military that specialises in carry out extrajudicial operations at home and 'abroad' is going to be a very useful tool and I can absolutely see that kind of institution that has dubious morals but generally acting for the "Greater Good" of the Federation getting carried away, again there are historical examples of this.
I do think LR does create some videos to get a rise, he does seem to like his hot takes, but I don't think he does it maliciously, more in the same way you describe the media; poking around to see who he get a reaction out of. What he undeniably does is spark discussions. Sometimes very heated ones at that.
I forget, is Lore Reloaded the one that thinks Section 31 is the OFFICIAL Federation intelligence Agency? Instead of Federation Security and Starfleet Intelligence?
from the sounds of it... yes.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 His takes used to be interesting. Then became a devil's advocate forcing the viewer to question their assumptions. Lately, I'm trying to decide if i should just unsubscribe.
Lore thinks everything StarFleet is secretly a fascist cult.
I have a theory [that I posted on his channel] that Section 31 is a _necessary evil_ that *allows* Starfleet and the Federation to be good and idealistic, and without them as a _secret_ guardian and watchdog the Federation evolves into one of the Mirror Universe Dictatorships.
They are completely secret, so they are not an instrument of State terror - you can't be scared of something you don't even know exist. And they aren't interested in being the power behind the throne, they really just want to protect the idealist so that the idealist can run the Federation.
They would have opposed the coup attempt in Paradise Lost .... and secretly may have? A bit of help to Sisko that he wasn't aware of.
They keep the Federation _nice..._ through any means necessary. But without them the Federation becomes the Imperium, just in order to survive the threats against it.
@freelancenerd4804 Wasn't he one one the original guys to often wear SF uniforms? I no longer get those videos in my feed.
I think part of his decline was a shout out by some of the star trek cast members. That is where it started to change or the personality came out more.
Edit: It was Ezri who did the shout out to LoreReloadeds channel.
In a sense it could serve as vindication of his views, because hey DS9 cast member shouted me out.
"Under the sea, or on the moon, that is maybe a different story".
That's actually an interesting idea. What if there were underwater cities, similar to what USOs supposedly come from? I mean, it's not like the Delta Flyer wasn't able to fly in under the sea in that one episode of Voyager, so perhaps Federation technology is so advanced, that as long as they are properly equipped, they can fly as easily in a fluid as in space.
But why do this?
Because it's cool, the view (when built in the right location, location, location) can be incredible, and because they can!
And the Moon? It's already theorized to be an artificial structure. So it's probably a good as place as any to settle (assuming that there aren't already inhabitants that object), especially if you have artificial gravity to supplement the Moon's microgravity!
I love both of you guys. I am also very proud of you guys for being able to have a back-and-forth without people getting pissed.
"Don't bully him" *posts tons of meme photos
BRAVO!!!!
Venom Geek Media, you just PIMP-Slapped LoreReloaded 10 ways to Sunday with that Video Essay.
I unsubbed from that channel ages ago, got tired of the clickbaity titles and whining about how mean people were online. Be careful to not get caught up in the drama.
Thing people forget about Federation of 23'th century is that Federation was at war! After misunderstanding and series of small confrontations with Klingoins, on beginning of this century. Federation understand that they are vastly under-equipped for the war, with most ships based on purely civilian Bonaventure class and only few falling apart battleships of old. And Klingon having vast numbers and many rouge warlords, who could try glory like T'kuvma. This forced Starfleet into rapid militarization, with introduced in 2030's new militarized starships and it actually do make sense why military advisers would be everywhere. Or even S31 operating in the open. It was life and death scenario. But after Undiscovered Contry war ended and there was gradual demilitarisation, with Starfleet compensating to point that TNG starships were again vastly under-equipped for the upcoming threats.
Thus is just such a more practical and genuine look at the federation. I actually find lore reloaded very interesting but he becomes more and more negative and social agenda driven every day.
That is a big reason why I stopped watching his stuff a few years ago. Very knowledgeable yes, but equally as negative. I want to believe in the Federation because it is an extension of ourselves and what we could be. If we are exactly the same as a species then it negates a lot of TOS and TNG. DS9 is my favorite because of no matter how dark things get, if you keep doing the best you can, things will ne okay
Lately trek has been pretty negative, so I guess Lore is being influenced by that
@@russellharrell2747 you're not wrong, Discovery season 1 was the embodiment of that inherent negativity.
Trek has gone a long way to regain its identity and I am really hoping Paramount doesn't fuck it up once again
I enjoy his channel and find it interesting how he points out bad scriptwriting that creates plot holes that are often just ignored by the fans.
He does have an eye for scriptwriting
As much as I love Star Trek, the shows do have plot holes big enough for a Klingon B-10 battleship to pass through.
This is a very detailed and solid rebuttal of lores claims. Well researched.
Now, now, there's no difference between US and British media. Both are owned by the same Australian.
and they all suck and spread misinformation
😂 lol hilarious
And he owns the Conservative Party in all three countries.
Alright children. The joke was about one person controlling so much of the media period. It would be just as bad if he owned a multinational far left media empire or even centrist media empire. He's the grand nagus that never found his Ishka.
Judging the Federation based on post-Roddenberry shows, especially ones that seam to hate the ideals of ST, is its self a bit of bad faith.
I’ve gotta say…
As a follower of both channels…both Venom & LoreR…
I have always looked upon “Venom” as the “source”.
(The more accurate depiction of the world being discussed.)
Mike?
I’m glad …
No…
I’m Thankful, actually…that you do what you do, with the integrity that you do it.
As a child of TOS, this stuff can get…complicated. Ya know?
You sir, keep it all sourced and balanced. I’ve said in previous comments that I send Everyone that I know to your channel because it is the Best for interpreting all things “Trek”.
Thanks again for what, and how you do this.
I actually do believe that Federation has control over replicators. But that is for obvious reason preventing people from making nukes with them. Those things are dangerous! It would be illogical to give those to everyone. And we do see those being strategical commodity. But of course that mostly apply to use in the Federation space. Technology itself was widespread and many other civilizations have it. Even civilians did have access to those, but obviously with the proper security clearance.
I would like to have seen more from canon in regards to how the Federation maintains its ideals and safeguards against corruption despite having a monstrous amount of members.
DS9 didn't really do much with Bajor in terms of showing us the process of joining the Federation aside from mentioning that those with a caste-based system cannot become members. (A simple referendum for joining to make sure that the population actually wants to join would be enough for me.)
2:20 Would you happen to be familiar with the term "manufacturing consent"? American media companies rarely allow for their talking heads to cross their sponsors and more often than not the latter get gone.
but the Marquis were no longer Federation citizens. Starfleet had no jurisdiction at all over the space the colonies were in. they just went after them because they wanted to appease the Cardassians.
They were federation citizens though, that doesn't just go away magically. Starfleet abandoned its citizens to try get peace with the cardies when they could have whooped them at any point but didn't
@@everettjohnson9374
The Federation and Starfleet have a history of interfering in situations where they have no stake, jurisdiction or past involvement. While they enforce the Prime directive on pre warp civilizations, They often take the moral high ground to involve themselves the Marquis may have been criminals but not in federation space.
Great video thank you very much.
SO... I woke up and LM was live streaming, I got up and had breakfast and LM was live streaming, I watching this video and LM was live streaming, I finally got round to watching and LM was still live streaming. Bloody Hell!
In all seriousness it's important to remember the culture that LM is coming from. Culturally he's a conservative American and is applying the Zero Conditional conservative American mindset to every thing and everyone. If one is bad than all are bad because they statistically can be. Although his videos can be interpreted as "The Fox News of Star Trek" I think he doing it deliberately within the limitations of his cultural discourse. As as we all.
But like you said at the start it's all in good fun... and LM is STILL live streaming
I like the different points of view from both channels. Refreshing to have a debate without name calling and being respectful towards each other. Good job.
To me all of the problems of the Federation comes from their desires to be Lawful Good but because of their extreme Pacific beliefs and their belief that all species are good. They constantly cross over into the lawful stupid area.
That TNG episode where that Federation ship went after those Cardassian's ships. Picard at the end told the Cardassians that he knew about the bio weapons. The Federation should had either delt with Cardassian, even if that means war or forcibly dragged all Federation citizens back to Federation space. They allowed the situation to get out of hand by doing noting even as the Cardassian government order the use of bio weapons on Federation citizens.
I don't believe for one second that the Federation violated Dominan space. As the they believed all spaces belong to them.
The Federation should have mine the worm hole way sooner then they did.
Also they should have fast track the Cardassian into the Federation after the Klingon invasion. Letting Cardassians space to go to hell, was just asking for something like them joining the Dominon.
One last thing, the wrong think allegations. That's come from Gene's beliefs in how humanity should act in the future and how technology advance the Federation is.
Gene wanted humanity to put all disagreements and politics behind them. Combined that with the Federation technology. They have no economics disagreements because of tech. Religions have all been wide away. So no religious or philosophic disagreements. They intergrate all aliens into the Federation so no immagration disagreements. Technology have no environmental problems, so no disagreements there. The Federation is OK will anything sexual, so no disagreements there.
Let's be honestly, all Federation citizens in the core worlds. Live in the perfect nanny state. Everyone of them have gone to Federation schools, training and education. All most all get jobs by the government. Get government housing and with technology everything they ever want.
The Federation government I think outsource everything ( almost everything) to Star Fleet because it's easy.
To be honest the Federation shouldn't be a democracy. What could the major of the Federation citizens disagree about for them to have a democracy. No the Federation should have been a technocracy.
I'm so glad that the two of you have met one another
I think DS9 showed of what the Federation would actually be like the best. People tend to forget Sisko basically virus bombed a planet. To the point even Worf was WTF'ing. So there are "grey actions" they are cleared at the very top. The council never punished him for it.
I always argue that Picard is the ideal that the Federation strives for but falls short of. Kirk gave guns to a preindustrial civilisation so the Federation could fight a proxy war with the Klingons. Jellicoe was chomping at the bit to have a go at the Cardassians, Solok was an outright racist, to name just a few flawed Star Fleet officers
@@tullyDTno Sir I have to respectfully disagree. I think Picard made both some great decisions, but, some glaring mistakes. I do like the fact that he admitted that he does make mistakes.
Caesar can do no wrong . Sisko using a bioagent on an inhabited planet is IMO a perfect example of a war crime but Starfleet ignores it ? Even IF the Marquis were the only ones on the planet ...... indiscriminate weapons of that nature are a no-no .
I feel like that detail didn’t get reported. The chemical bombing that is.
But yeah sisko made some really suspect actions, this wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. But it was probably one of the biggest.
I wouldn't say he wasn't punished. He never got promoted again despite at some points basically acting as an admiral during the war. The only reason they probably didn't cashier him out of the fleet was the role he played in Bajoran politics and by extension their control over the wormhole.
Lore argument is taking certain subjects that look bad, ignoring all the content, and make it your based to make the whole look bad.
It the same tactic that activists used to demonize someone or something by misrepresent history by morden strandard.
If you take time to read history, the event play is understandable and reasonable, even if it grimm. Most historical didn't wake up one day and said "I'm going do something infamous" rather the situation they were face with were difficult and hard choices had to be made.
Dracula, aka Val the in impaler is one such historical figures, he was cruel because the Islamic oppressor were cruel over his country which he learned from. It was only respond which to fight back. The title Impaler isn't a title of fear but of respect. 5:55
2:21 I agree that this generally was the method in british tv news, however this has deteriorated in very recent times when questioning politicians of a not left or centre viewpoint.
This can be seen with TalkTV and GB News for example and to a lesser extent the BBC among others.
This has resulted in a warped (pardon the pun) outline of events and policy reporting causing confusion among parts of the populace, the reporting of Brexit and it's effects as an example.
the Raven is the perfect reason for Starfleet TO control civilian travel at least to a reasonable extent. they went borg hunting and made it clear they where not supposed to be doing that.
I watched a few minutes of Lore's 7 hour dominion war chronicles and decided that he didn't know what he was talking about and not worth my time.
Yeah I really think the guy is being overly critical of Star Trek as a whole, with the Federation getting the worst of it because they're the main character.
Worst people are Klingons who had trillions of slaves. Then the Cardasians because they ran death camps. But they're not post scarcity so it's slightly more forgivable. Then the Romulans because they're sneaky. Then Xindi who despite their love of nuking others got along despite the difficulties that whales and monkeys have in achieving consensus. Then the Ferengi because they don't really do war that much. Plus their capitalist tide probably lifted all boats into orbit. And the best is obviously the Dominion who used artificial soldiers allowing normal people to live in peace since before Earth had pyramids. Tholians are hell spiders so they're too weird to compare. Borg might be right. It may just be better to be Borg. No way to tell unless you sip a nanoprobe cocktail.
So where does the Federation go on the Geek/Lore tier list of evil? They go to war a lot so you're better as a Dominion citizen. Also, because it's okay to break the prime directive with no punishment sometimes and not others, there seems to be a two tier justice system. Romulans don't like Federation expansionist practices. There seems to be tremendous grooming and indoctrination as everyone seems to think the same commie crap like when Riker said that studying combat tactics was stupid and starfleet wasn't military. My grandpa said that the same kind of propaganda happened in Lenningrad. Federation does seem a bit Stalin-y in how the Feds control travel. LR is clearly correct there and the few examples you give could be private but official, like the Raven probably was. If not there'd be massive kamakazi strikes of private craft on the whale probe instead of just Kirk to save the day. Too bad there wasn't a million private yachts and commuter ships to remote control ram the Borg at Wolf 359. No space traffic jams. No Correscant like lines of ships leaving orbit. Sorry, Lore was right (but I like you one percent more.)
I'd say the feds were worse than the Ferengi and better than Cardasians. They're commie, indoctrinated, hipocritical and care more about their appearance than properly defending their citizens. But not the worst place to live. If I were upper crust I'd rather be a Ferengi or Romulan, but otherwise, if the Dominion and Xindi didn't take me, I'd go Federation.
Rather well reasoned here! And even if the Federation does not have galactic transportation for the general public, merely ask your local Ferengi entrepreneur whom will negotiate for your firstborn.. Latinum and can take you anywhere!
I don't remember where but I think I read somewhere that Layton's Coup was described as "A Desparate Act of Patriotism."
That's what Layton claims when they arrest him... but isn't that what EVERY coup claims?
Absolutely definitely yes, I agree.
At 14:00 you are correct on replicators, and there's proof in the Star Trek Enterprise episode where they go to the automated repair station, season 2 episode 4, and find food replicators on the station. What's notable is T'Pol remarks that she had "seen a similar device on a Tarkalean vessel," from which you can infer other races had them before the Federation was even formed and even Vulcans didn't have them first. All the Federation did once they learned of them was to figure out how to get them installed on a massive scale without blowing their power grid because you can't have 1000 million people replicating dinner at the same time without some work on that.
I imagine British engineers would like with that power spike as they have experience with dealing with the post soap opera tea making power use spike.
Oh I almost forgot. In Lorereloaded's Federation, I wouldn't be allowed to open a chain of Catgirl Anime Maid Cafe's. 0/10 would not recommend
Well.. you can with holograms... so... okay?
Absolutely you would… I’d hope.. that sounds awesome
I honestly think it’s a blind spot he has purely because he’s an American: as a fellow countryman, it do be looking less and less likely we’ll reach utopia if our current situation is any indication.
I agree that the potential for abuse was present, and I can think of at least three instances where said potential was actualised. It's also very true that the Admiralty in particular were persistently corrupt; the less said about Nechayev, the better. You learn to expect psychopathy at the top as a matter of course, however, and in any organisation, it's always the responsibility of the middle and upper middle people to maintain integrity.
Nechayeve was based... Change my mind ;)
Lore Reloaded intentionally gives wrong info to drive comments correcting him.
He doesnt believe what he says, it is a cynical attempt to trick people into commenting and interacting that seems to work.
One perfect example is he once made a claim that the word transwarp was never uttered in any Star Trek movie, knowing very well it was said both verbally and visually on-screen a number of times in Star Trek 3, but it drove a lot of traffic to his channel and created a lot of comments which he then could reply to which created a whole lot of interaction for his channel.
He has no problem saying things that he knows that are wrong or that he knows our inflammatory merely to get drama clicks to feed the algorithm, he has no interest in being truly informational.
If the enemy has a tricorder, why would the media not be allowed to tell me what they see? Just a thought experiment
I feel there is this predisposition to make the federation feel fascist, and or communist, so that modern politics can say look it can work in an idealistic way.
Misunderstanding that the key thing about the federation is its lack of tyranny.
I stopped watching Lore Reloaded videos years ago, his views are wrong, and he makes to many assumptions. I agree with everything you said.
replicators are probably more important for the military than for civilians and were likely a military R&D project. This is because the biggest problem for any military organization is logistics and replicators solve many logistical problems.
Why is "authoritarian" such a snarl word? It's literally a paramilitary organization lol
I can't agree with this idea that life on the Federation core worlds is meant to be hyper-competitive with crushing amounts of bureaucratic regulation stifling movement and ambition for anyone but the best of the best, nor this idea that Earth is basically a Human Historical Culture Preserve. For one thing, in the picture you showed of a Federation city there were all kinds of modern buildings and infrastructure, so they're definitely still making progress and advancing what the culture is. For another thing, the idea that only the Best Chefs get to even try to open restaurants in New Orleans and that the city would favor stereotypically New Orleanean things is pretty dystopian. A big part of the Federation ideal is that #1) nobody has to do any work they don't want to do because all basic needs are met and technology has assured everyone a significant degree of comfort and 2) an ethos of self-improvement has replaced the accumulation of wealth as the driving force in human society. Granted, there is a degree of "don't worry about the details, it just works," in the fiction, and also granted there is plenty of text evidence that competition is fierce if you want to be at the elite level of any job, like a physicist at the Daystrom Institute or Starfleet crew on a Galaxy class exploring the frontier instead of flying a shuttle on Titan. But the idea that the homeworlds are paradise is pretty core to the fiction, so the assumption has to be that there's some equilibrium between the drive to excel and the meritocratic pyramid and the government that regulates that pyramid.
I saw that guy's video the other day. I didn't agree either.
One thing I want to mention is that if the media was controlled by the Federation you'd think that there would be tons and tons of "soft news" and most citizens wouldn't know very much about wars, military actions, or even huge galactic events like the super nova that knocked out the Romulans or the Nexus ribbon or the Maquis fight for their homes.
They'd fill out news hokes with stuff that makes us feel good. Such as curing plagues, successful colonies, the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole, scientific break throghs, and how the old lady on the moon just had her 132nd birthday last week.
That's my opinion.
There is no way that the Federation News Service could be a monopoly. Literally any Federation citizen could go play journalist and broadcast to potentially hundreds of billions of interested citizens. Even in the *much* less free internet we have today there is an explosion of citizen journalism, and those people still have bills to pay and all other kinds of worries and barriers that a citizen journalist of the Federatoon would not.
British and American coverage of D-day etc was different because the US has the 1st amendment(freedom of the press). So we have to PRETEND(key word) that it's not heavily censored, which it still is. When have you ever heard a corpor9news outlet say that never ending extentions of copyright(Disney for a perfect example) is a bad thing. Not one single time. A perfect case in point.
The only thing evil about the Federation is the absolutism of the Prime Directive. There is no morally justifiable reason that they shouldn't prevent the destruction of innocent worlds just because they have invented fancy engines yet. They tended to skirt the issue in the show by having the captain either choose to help anyway or be forced into it by circumstance, thus preventing him from becoming a villain by inaction.
But any organization that requires evil by law has a serious problem. Other than that the Federation is just what Roddenberry wanted it to be, an imperfect utopia, full of mostly good, enlightened people, doing their best.
Right, so what the Cardassian did to Bajor is not evil.
@randomusernameCallin I don't remember Bajor being in danger of destruction BEFORE the spoonheads arrived. I'm guessing you didn't really watch the show?
@@Russo-Delenda-Est I watch the show and what they Cardassian did was evil and something the Prime Directive was created to stop.
@randomusernameCallin I'm talking about preventing planetary annihilation, you know, super novas, plagues, astroid impacts, etc. If you don't want to talk about those occurrences and how evil the prime directive is to allow them, then why are you in this thread? Of course imperialism = bad, any five year old can tell you not yo take what isn't yours. We're talking about preventing specieside.
@@Russo-Delenda-Est So you get to cherry pick what parts of the Prime Directive we can talk about?
I honestly wouldn't be suprised if a lot of UFP tech is actually open-source, since there is less of a pressure to create things for the sake of profit instead of progress. It's one of those things that tends to get glossed over but if one lives in a core world of the Federation, all of their basic needs are cared for. There's no need to worry about housing, or food, or shelter. It's not a "gilded cage", it's a government supplying public services to the public.
Now, are there actual arguements to be made against certain stances of the Federation? Yes. The issues of genetic modification, augmentation, and artificial intelligence have constantly been in the backburner, and in some ways have attempted to be addressed.
The Federation has always been a vision of a brighter future. This is the show that, during the Cold War, showed crew members with japanese and russian ancestries, had a woman of color as part of the bridge crew, and a mixed alien-human person. These are things that were unthinkable at that time, pushing boundaries of "good taste" and assumed societal conventions. TNG rolls around, and it goes even further, with one of the cast members being disabled, another is a synthetic life form, and Picard even states that the citizens of the UFP work to better themselves and others, not for profit.
IMO its just a "cup half empty" vs "cup half full" matter of taste ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wonder what a civilian show would be like, non-Starfleet?
Showing life in the Federation
Something i'd find interesting.
But probably rather dull, or not really seeming like Science Fiction. A Boston Bar, owned by a failed pareses square player, a Vulcan waitress who tends to do the books, an other telerite waitress who tells it like it is. Common customers is Morn, a federation corridor, and Captain Brackston comes in from time to time to demine the others into not living up to the federations ideals.
@@toddfraser3353I'd totally watch that, but the general masses wouldn't lol
It would depend on what people want to do.
You could laze around at home all day.
You could just as well study or train anything you like. And depending on how good/successful you are, you might get access to more resources. For example, thanks to the classic episode "Assignment: Earth" it is known that it is theoretically possible to use a transporter for distances of at least a thousand light years or more. Should you come up with a theory how to do that, but need a Federation Supercomputer to make the calculations, you would probably get access to one. Even as a self-studied civilian if specialists say that the only way to find out if the theory works is to make the calculations.
You want to make music? Make music. You want to create a holonovel? Go for it. You want to study other cultures? and so on.
Economically intellectual property appears to be at play. With replicor technology or holographic art . I recall a voyager episode , a federation judge , hears a case involving the doctor and ownership of something he wrote. ( the argument was similar to the data episode),
On section 31 in the books post nemesis. Section 31 was made public after a scandal. ( the assassinated a federation president) after an investigation it was madr public the government took control and placed it under control of starfleet intelligence. ( 2385 ish ) and several admirals including admiral ross were prosecuted for their involvement ( a few other fleet admirals ) as well. But the agency continued as another brance of the intelligence/ security services. I believe their is slso s federation security service. ( the search for spock ),
I see starfleet as similar to the jedi o order in star wars. Therr are semi independent but answering to a democracy elected senate, they are peacekeepers, and have diplomatic dutys , when a new member is added they go through the jedi . Who represents the republic. Like starfleet. In wartime they become a military in peace time exploration. ( jedi did explore as well ) .
I think part of the problem with the perception that the Federation is authoritarian is that we only see things from a pseudo-military's perspective. It's like if you only knew about the US from watching NCIS or Law & Order.
IMHO they should do a more civilian oriented TV show at some point, like how Lower Decks has been showing what life is like outside of the front-line hero-ships we can do a show like that but with some civilian tramp freighter, kinda like Firefly but less with the lawbreaking.
Hello VG.
I tend to agree with just about everything you've said in the video.
I would like to remark upon a few thoughts myself.
The Federation does not practice limitations upon civilian movement around space as a whole. If you can afford the resources, you can move anywhere you want, whenever you want, for a 'price'. Now this price might be 'credits', or it might be providing some sort of 'labor'. Which, can be 'pay as you go' type work aboard a ship headed in the direction you wish to proceed, or, perhaps some type of labor to be performed upon landing on the new world.
Replicators, and Transporters seem to be pretty common technology. Especially by the 24th century. There are actually two types of replicators (actually three)... Civilian, and Military. Civilian Replicators are in two sub-sets... General and Industrial. General replicators cannot produce much more than food, clothing, and simple items like glassware, simple plastic items, etc. Industrial replicators are 'tuned' to produce Civilian use machinery for various needs, like mass production of simple engines, power generation systems, and even simpler things like concrete blocks, bricks, and steel supporting structural members. Military replicators have almost no limits, so long as power is available, and materials are available. Military replicators CAN produce phasers of various types, as well as higher tech items like sensors, parts for a starship, including all the various parts needed to build a Warp Core.
Some Civilian Industrial replicators have 'licenses' to produce more 'military' items. These are closely watched and regulated, to prevent a civilian company from producing weapons for sale to other races, unless specifically allowed by contract to do so, and even then, not the 'latest and greatest' of weapons. This allows for Civilian companies to build starships for the Star Fleet, and lower their 'costs' to do so, and free up 'manpower' to man their ships, instead of needing vast numbers of 'support personnel' just to produce ships and other structures.
It should be noted, that the computer limits upon replicators can be bypassed. A 'Military' replicator could be 'hacked' to allow people without the correct passwords and codes to produce military equipment and weapons... but this, is a violation of standards, and law, and if caught, the persons doing so would pay the penalties for doing so. Most likely being imprisoned and forced to perform 'hard' labor.
The same is true for Transporters. Cargo transporters are not 'rated' for personnel use, although they can be used in that manner in an emergency. Personnel transporters are rarely used for mass cargo movement due to being 'fine-tuned' to transport living personnel safely from point to point.
I have not even gotten into the 'you need something to make something' issue with replicators. Contrary to popular myth, things just don't 'appear' using energy alone. The whole E=MC2 issue comes into play here. It would take MASSIVE amounts of power to produce a relatively tiny amount of mass, of any kind. But, if you have a supply of various molecules in storage, you can 'build' more complex molecules out of them, and thus produce your end product more efficiently. Even Military replicators need something to build their end products out of. Which is why starships have large storage areas for basic materials to be used by replicators, and thus only need the energy to shift molecules around to 'build' larger and more complex molecules, and place the results in the appropriate matrix locations. And, of course, the replicator 'patterns' to make the item(s).
Transporters do NOT render a person or item into basic energy and then rebuild that into mass. Instead, they break down the person, or item, into molecules, held in a force field as a high energy plasma, and the plasma is transmitted through subspace and reassembled. It is argued that the plasma has a sort of 'memory' for the shape it was in before being rendered, since even this would push computer technologies way beyond 'faintly believable' to pure fantasy.
Also, being 'old', I remember that Transporters were originally canonized as being developed from an alien ship's garbage disposal system. The aliens just moved the garbage outside their ship, and left it free floating in space. So, the hardest part about early transporter tech was 'targeting' the plasma stream to a very precise destination.
A lot of people equate replicators with modern 'printers'... like those used to make plastic figures and other items from a spool of plastic 'wire'. As you can see above, the actual method is more similar to Transporters, than modern 'printer' technology.
When you can scan an item down to its individual molecules, and know their placements to an exact degree, you no longer need 'printer' technology, since you have control of the 'mass' almost down to the Atomic scale.
Just a few thoughts.
Any time an institution has the power to do something, someone within that institution WILL abuse that power for their own benefit. So yes, if they can do something, they WILL.
Everything the guy comes out with is negative or wrong like how it’s impossible for the Akira to have 15 Torpedo lunchers, He knows better than the design team
Did he actually say that?
You know, Starfleet is different all the time. I’m referring to Starfleet 22nd century, 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 31st. Starfleet is far from perfect. They are explorers and scientists first, military second. Or at least that’s how they see themselves. I often see different characters saying as soon as the war is over, we can go back to exploring. At the same time, the warrior officers are listened to more during times of threat and are likely to set Starfleet organization one way for a generation or two. Think of the Dominion war and how many officers were receiving their commission during the war. That’s a generation of officers where even the pure scientist officers will feel silly going on a science mission without a full military load out. I think Starfleet has to go two generations of peace in order to lower their tactical priorities. I think that was the next generation era, and I don’t think those eras last long. But even in peaceful eras, Starfleet has admirals off in a corner somewhere polishing their swords. Jelico was a perfect example of that. And the way the crew of the enterprise reacted to him was like he was crazy. But I bet people were fanatical about following him during the Dominion war. It’s fascinating really, they really want to be scientists, but find themselves often fighting and winning against enemy warrior cultures.
Who else would love to see a Battle space episode based on the Conflict between the Cardassians and Talarians?
Thank you, I was there as well. Lore Reloaded has some anger problems.
Joseph could have been given the title to the restaurant by the former owner on the basis of merit. Like when he dies maybe it goes to Nathan..... So he owns it but there is still no need for money.
While I agree with your point of view overall, I'd argue you're off on a few points. You mentioned Layton wanted to go back to the 23rd century Starfleet. But back then, Starfleet was not a strictly military organization. " Are we talking about mothballing the Starfleet? Well, I'm sure scientific and exploration programs would remain unaffected." This aspect of Starfleet is, and always has been, part of Starfleet's identity. As such, it was also at the forefront of technological development. Both for obvious ones, like Warp drive, but also replicators. When taking the cannonnical addition of food resequencers on Enterprise, we can discern it was ret-coned as a precursor to the food replicator. The same could be said for the universal translator, with the linguacode translation matrix invented by Hoshi Sato. Another point of contention from Lore's thesis is to assign the label of strick military to Starfleet. While in times of war, this is their primary role, I would argue that, as a hole and for its entire existence it was more akin to Canada's Northwest Mounted Police, who cumulated the roles of policing the western frontier, surveilling it's border with the US, assisting in exploration and scientific research, and in times of need, protecting the citizenry. I'd say this description fits Starfleet as well.
Okay here is my thoughts.
The federation is lawful good but is also can be arrogant, naive, and misguided.
The biggest sign of that is early TNG era. With an alliance with the Klingon and a stable peace with the Romulans they grew complacent. Ships of the TMP era minus a few were a balance of military duties and peace time duties. A Connie could act as a heavy cruiser in battle as easy host a conference or perform scientific acts. By the time of the galaxy their designs leaned to the peace time role and not war. While the Galaxy class is powerful she is not as powerful as she can be. In less then 10 years about half of their initial production run had been destroyed proves that. But even with this they did had power but not will to commit.
Let's take the first time we see the Cardassians in the Wounded. There the top of the line warship the Galor manages a sneak attack on a Galaxy and and only did minimal damaged while in just a couple of shots the Galor has taken major damage. Heck Phoenix in her AWACS configuration and shields down wiped out another warship likely another Galor in one volley. They can easily beat the Union but they don't commit. They search for a quick out and get it at the cost of colonies they betrayed for peace. The people there didn't want to move so any rep if they had any they might have not considering their leave me alone attitude. The Union agrees to keep it demilitarized but break that quickly. Heck the break the treaty often even going so far as to make a trap to capture Picard in hopes of gaining territory. All the federation does is wagged their finger and get Picard back. And this repeats every time the Union violates the treaty. Note one of the core founders of the Marquis is Cal Hudson a STARFLEET COMMANDER because he sees the bullshit Starfleet and the federation are doing.
To take a concept from HBO's Chernobyl. The federation was too focused on the cost of war to realize the cost of peace. Sometimes the cost of peace is higher then the cost of war. The feds forgot that. The simple fact that Picard says that Starfleet is not a military organization is ridiculous on its face. When ever trouble happens it is Starfleet that is sent not any other group.
The Federations key flaws is that it's too centralized in its administration thus out of touch with it's boarder citizens and too naive and arrogant to see that galaxy doesn't work as it wants. As Sisko said Earth is a paradise and it's easy to be a saint in paradise but the galaxy is not paradise. We have Gene to thank for that. I know you did your best to justify the Algeron treaty but it does not fly. No military officer would accept those considtion and I bet a few councilers agreed. Maybe if was a full ban for all factions sure but fed only no way. The treaty only exists because gene didn't want the good guys sneak around. Gene, batman would like a word with you.
This is why DS9 is so good for it challenges the federation belief. Puts it to the test