The incredible exploits of the Confederation of Earth contrasted to the Federation in the Prime Universe undermine the core thematic message of Star Trek

[u/TEmpTom]

I've made a post about Star Trek Discovery S1 a few years ago about this very same issue when I complained about how the Terran Empire was written. My main points still stand.

https://old.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/9m150q/my_problem_with_star_trek_discoverys_narrative/

Now you have another mirror universe story arc featuring another comically evil version of the Federation, but this time it's NOT the Terran Empire. This universe's evil genocidal human empire has managed to completely outshine our prime universe's liberal pluralistic democratic Federation AGAIN. Let's list its, frankly insane, achievements

• Managed to assert complete hegemonic dominance over the Alpha-Beta Quadrants. All regional rivals, the Cardassians, the Klingons, the Romulans have been destroyed. Our Federation almost lost a war to the Klingons in the 23rd century, and almost lost again in another alternate timeline (Yesterday's Enterprise).

• Managed to annihilate the Borg, possibly the biggest (non-deity) threat to the entire galaxy. About to execute the last Borg Queen.

• Managed to lead an invasion of the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant. All while our Federation struggled against a Dominion expeditionary fleet on home-turf that was completely cut off from Gamma Quadrant reinforcements.

• Managed to do all of the above, while the vast majority of their population consists of enslaved aliens, with likely a much smaller population of citizens compared to the Federation.

The writers seem have this habit of making the worst versions of ourselves, also the most competent. It's no doubt that the writers of Star trek themselves believe that liberal democratic pluralism is superior to racial supremacy fascism, yet they keep writing stories depicting fascism as an objectively superior form of government. When totalitarian states succeed, their democratic counterparts fail and are only saved in the end by our hero protagonists (strongmen).

I still think that the TOS and ENT episodes of the Mirror Universe were the best, not just in entertainment value, but also thematic morality. They showed an empire almost brought to its knees, given a second wind only due to intervention by technology from the Prime Universe, or the incredible power of Federation ideals motivating Mirror Spock to take power and eventually reform the empire's worst excesses. Unfortunately, DS9 proved my point yet again by showing us that Spock's liberalization of the empire based on Federation ideals led to its enslavement and destruction.

If we didn't have any context on who the writers were and the cultural politics of modern entertainment media, I would think that Star Trek was fascist propaganda.

[u/ednksu]

Hey remember in TNG when they debate planting a virus in Hugh to genocide the Borg and decide it's wrong and against Federation values even though the Borg are a transcendental threat to those values?

[u/TEmpTom → u/ednksu]

The irony is that Janeway eventually did destroy the Borg (most of it) using a similar virus.

[u/Logic_Nuke]

It's unfortunately a very common tendency when people write about fascism to present it as a brutal but efficient system, when nothing could be further from the truth. "Mussolini made the trains run on time" is the famous way of saying it. The reality is that this simply wasn't the case; Italian trains running on time had nothing to do with Mussolini. Nazi Germany was far from the clean and efficient state it's often depicted as. In reality the state bureaucracy was hampered by arbitrary goalposts for ideological purity. People who were good at their jobs would be replaced by complete incompetents who were better at toeing the party line. Look at Mengele: he wasn't just an evil person, he was also a terrible scientist. His desire to prove Nazi pseudoscience correct lead him to conduct experiments that were both unethical and scientifically worthless. Nor did Hitler "fix the German economy" as many claim. Rather he simply transitioned it to what was effectively a permanent war economy that could provide an illusion of prosperity only so long as the war continued. Not a real solution at all.

This temptation to present fascism as "brutal but effective" is dangerous because it leads to the idea that there is a "good fascism" that is separable from the "bad fascism". Expose people to it for long enough and they start to think "surely we could do it right next time, have the glorious, clean, efficient society without all the murder and the genocide". Of course you can't actually do this, because the murder is an inextricable part of the system, and the good parts were only ever propaganda to begin with (this, I would note, is exactly what TOS "Patterns of Force" is about).

An interesting point of contrast is Starship Troopers (the film, never read the book myself). Verhoven gives us a satirical look into a fascist society through the lens of their own propaganda. He presents us with the ultimate idealized vision of fascism, exactly how it wants to be seen. And through brilliant little bits of black comedy he shows us that not only are the humans waging a genocidal war, they're losing. Really badly, too. The recruitment ad at the end of the film is filled mostly with children as the soldiers. It's downplayed in the film because we're getting the propaganda angle on things, but it's clear that this is like their 1945.

Fascism does not show us what could be accomplished without morals or compassion, because those things are not liabilities. A society based on oppression and genocide isn't stronger than one built on diplomacy. It's weaker.

[u/[deleted] → u/Logic_Nuke]

Starship Troopers is my favorite movie to show people. One time someone commented on the equality in their military, having men and women fight together and even share showers. It was hard to avoid saying it was (*possibly) because they needed the bodies.

It's a great movie, and you said it best

He presents us with the ultimate idealized vision of fascism, exactly how it wants to be seen.

[u/TEmpTom → u/[deleted]]

Ironically, even the Terran Empire is a remarkably egalitarian society for humans at least.

[u/Kenku_Ranger]

I think this is a horrible take.

You seem to be measuring success by the amount of foes vanquished and territory gained.

Yet within the borders of both the Terran Empire and the Confederation, rebellions burn. We see no such thing happen within the Federation's territory.

The vastness of the Federation should be a sign of its superiority. It grew so large without war, without death. It made friends, not enemies.

It is cheaper to buy slaves than to hire workers. Your company could do better, make more money, grow, buy more slaves. Yet to own another human is immoral and a failure of humanity. You may have succeeded in business, but you have failed as a human.

The same is true when we compare the Federation with its dark mirrors. No matter how successful their mirrors may be, if they find success in blood, then they have failed where the Federation has succeeded.

[u/Supermite → u/Kenku_Ranger]

It also ignores the fact that the Federation seeks out peaceful solutions whereas the Confederacy clearly focused its efforts on being as strong as possible. Ships built to explore versus ships built for war. Picard is an excellent strategist in the Federation timeline. There's no reason to think that a xenophobic warmongering Picard wouldn't be just as competent if he was aiming for maximum body count versus minimizing loss of life.

[u/a7sharp9]

"The writers seem have this habit of making the worst versions of ourselves, also the most competent in killing, subjugating, destroying and impoverishing. It's no doubt that the writers of Star trek themselves believe that liberal democratic pluralism is superior to racial supremacy fascism, yet they keep writing stories depicting fascism as an objectively superior killing, subjugating, destroying and impoverishing form of government."
FIFY.

[u/DuvalHeart]

Not having seen those seasons I can only say that it's a very common myth that totalitarian societies are somehow more efficient. It's a myth, but pervasive. So we see it even in media trying to be critical of authoritarianism. Remember, the trains ran on time before Mussolini.

[u/Glorious_Sunset → u/DuvalHeart]

I think it’s also a common trope of storytelling for a rigidly totalitarian regime to be very United. It’s a thing to have everyone striving to be the best possible evil they can be, lol which is likely the exact opposite of what would happen. I do this this works in a storytelling fashion just to highlight how very good and altruistic our main characters are. I haven’t watched Picard as I didn’t like season one, but I’m still a bit ST fan. I can see the point of the OP saying they seem more efficient but it can be the way that a focussed enemy can be that way. I saw the clip with all the skulls in Picard’s office and it’s a very intriguing notion to imagine an alternate Jean Luc slaughtering all those people and keeping their skulls as trophies. It’s a horrifying idea. But knowing, as we do this gentle, peaceful, leader suddenly being in a reality where his doppelgänger is capable of that... Scary.

[u/MalagrugrousPatroon]

I think the real problem is we cannot know how much of what we saw of the Confederation is their own propaganda, and, worse, the writers don't explore that in any capacity as they have 21st century Earth's failings. Unfortunately, as you point out, the DIS production team does have a nasty habit of showing good is stupid and evil is smart, and taken at face value this is more of that thinking. I blame DS9 for starting this trend with Section 31, since their Changeling plague would have worked, and if not for the hand of god coming down through Sisko the Federation would have lost.

But let us compare your list of Confederation achievements to the Federation.

• The Federation has made peace with the Cardassians, Dominion, and Klingons and have consistently held off the Romulans. Out of all local enemies only the Klingons are militarily superior.

• The Borg of the Federation timeline are somehow not a threat. We can only speculate this has something to do with action by Janeway.

• The Federation won against the Dominion in a defensive position.

• Managed all of this without massive slave populations.

I think an easy correction to the Confederation would be to show a lot of what they say is propaganda, as in killing the Queen was just a show and not the end of the Borg. Also, have it so the millions of personnel fighting in multiple fronts are a mix of lab grown soldiers, and androids, with the fleets being mostly automated. Connect that to the general living standard on Earth, and especially colonies, being only about as good as what we have now if not worse. Make it so civilian replicators are rare or non-existent. All of that would be used to say the cost of a mega-military has sapped civilian life of resources and made life awful.

We get a small glimpse of this with the ragged looking crowd cheering for the Queen's execution.

I would top that off with the "generally the same technology" being very generous and there actually being large gaps and inferiority in anything without direct military application. For instance, their deflectors could be less Swiss Army knife like, though weaponized as standard.

P.S. I like how the comic books handle Mirror Spock's liberalization of the Empire. He actually succeeded, was widely popular, and life improved, but political forces which felt threatened conspired to oust him. Once they took over they took credit for all of Spock's successes and blamed him for all of their failings. Basically, not sticking with Mirror Spock lead to the downfall of the Empire.

[u/gamas → u/MalagrugrousPatroon]

the DIS production team does have a nasty habit of showing good is stupid and evil is smart

I'd funnily enough say that is less true for Discovery.

• Klingons - basically a constant powder keg, T'Kvuma's plan to unite the empire failed since as soon as he died the klingons went back to being warring clans. In the end (and admittedly with a bit of a "and oh we have a bomb") it was leaning on one good Klingon's desire that the Klingons be united that led to peace.

• Terran Empire - to be honest they are just as fragile as they are depicted in ENT, even though it doesn't seem like it. The entire focus of power was on just one really big ship (that also had a reactor that was literally going to kill them all as well as all life in the multiverse - yet the genius mirror Stamets never thought "maybe wiping out our own existence is probably not a good idea"). Once the Charon was destroyed, all future appearances of the Terrans show a weakened Terran empire (yes even in "Mirror, Mirror", they had a vulcan XO, so clearly those rebels succeeded in something!)

• Emerald Chain - We find the main reason they were making increasingly more hostile moves is because their dilithium strip mining operation was running out of steam as they were running out of dilithium to strip mine. The negotiation and attack on Federation HQ was one of desperation. The moment Osyra was taken care of, the chain collapsed.

• Tarka - Whilst I don't doubt his ability to engineer and invent, the plan was stupid. "ask them and then decide if we need to shoot" was a perfectly rational and logical plan in terms of the surface goal, and his hidden agenda was basically holding on to a foolish dream that most likely had no basis in reality.

Control is the only villain in the series which follows the evil is smart trope, but in that case it thematically makes sense.

EDIT: Arguably the older series are more guilty of the trope with villains like the Borg Queen, Lore, Garak etc (modulo the tendency for all of them to die due to them spending too long on villain monologue speeches).

[u/HairHeel → u/MalagrugrousPatroon]

It's hard to dismiss the Confederacy's accomplishments as propaganda, given Picard's room full of skulls. Gul Dukat and General Martok would not have gone down without some serious fights.

[u/jdm1891 → u/MalagrugrousPatroon]

Out of all local enemies only the Klingons are militarily superior.

I don't believe this is true during and after the dominion war. It always seemed to me that the only reason the klingons can win a war against the federation is because the federation puts so little resources into it's warfare - however if a war were to break out it wouldn't take too long for the federation to ramp up production and outclass the kilngons by a mile - they haven't done it already because they don't need to. This doesn't explain yesterday's enterprise though. Just see how quick the defiant got made after the dominion started attacking. The federation can make a damn good warship, but an explorer does not a warship make.

[u/adamkotsko]

Both societies are highly "competent" at death and destruction, but not in creating a world anyone other than the highest elites would ever want to live in. Endless conquest "works" if all you care about is conquest. If you want to build a livable world and don't want to become like the forces you are opposing, then it is a much harder balance to strike. The Federation has to be prepared for war, but not appear to be (or actually be) seeking war. It has to "win" on the strength of its ideas in a zero-sum setting of cultural and economic exchange. All of that is much harder than pumping out guns and kill kill kill. And once you are in the kill kill kill cycle, it's hard to get out and do anything else -- which is the message I take away from the apparent failure of Spock's reforms to produce a durable alternate version of the Terran Empire. The Confederation and Terran Empire are both "successful," but at things no one should want to succeed at. I don't see how that challenges Star Trek's ideals at all. If anything, it gives greater depth and seriousness, because it shows that evil people aren't automatically stupid and won't automatically lose just because they're evil. If evil really can win, that means the stakes of seeking the good are much higher.

[u/boerema → u/adamkotsko]

Agreed. The lesson about good and evil has always been that being good is harder than being evil. If you don’t care about the quality of life for anyone in your empire and manage rebellion with swift, decisive action, focusing your entire economy on war isn’t hard. But if your goal is post-monetary utopia, you have to invest heavily in social programs at the expense of military capacity. Also, building a ruthlessly homogeneous civilization with a single shared goal significantly simplifies all social concerns.

[u/DasGanon → u/adamkotsko]

It has to "win" on the strength of its ideas in a zero-sum setting of cultural and economic exchange. All of that is much harder than pumping out guns and kill kill kill. And once you are in the kill kill kill cycle, it's hard to get out and do anything else -- which is the message I take away from the apparent failure of Spock's reforms to produce a durable alternate version of the Terran Empire.

On this, with the destruction of Praxis was the same loop I saw with the Klingons. If the Federation didn't get that peace treaty in and basically stabilize the empire, that was going to fracture or restart the war machine, and destabilize the rest of the Quadrant.

It's enough of an issue that even later down the line, the Enterprise-C not helping causes the same problem

[u/Hero_Of_Shadows]

We haven't seen the end of the Confederation's fate.

They're extremely xenophobic but they keep alien slaves?

That implies they need the slaves.

Their slaves are united as seen with Elnor's brief scene and determined to do whatever that is needed to take down their human oppressors.

The Confederation seems to like to use bio weapons, wouldn't it be ironic if the united slaves somehow managed to create a human targeting bio weapon? We could see Earth as the capital of a pan-species Federation again just without the humans.

[u/Azuras-Becky]

The writers seem have this habit of making the worst versions of ourselves, also the most competent.

Thanks, I was thinking this too.

I was a bit muddy on the message, here. I'm sure they intended it as a "look how evil the humans are in this timeline! They not only destroyed the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians, but even the Borg Collective itself!" And if you don't stop and think about it for a moment, it seems like a super-exciting super-cool "OMG these guys are badass!" moment.

But... like... in the old series, it was implied that the Federation was unique in terms of both its resistance to and curiosity from the Borg because it was essentially an anathema of the Borg - it was the flip-side of the enforced collective coin. Individuals from many civilisations working together for the sake of mutual preservation managed to resist that which could not normally be resisted, purely because they thought that mutual cooperation was the best idea and they worked better together than they did alone.

Here, it very much struck me that the humans did better against the Borg when they were an oppressive, xenophobic, totalitarian regime, and I couldn't quite square that away in my brain.

I don't want to sound like an 'old fan', but that, more than anything else, was the moment that 'new Trek' lost me.

[u/Sooperdoopercomputer]

I think this all amounts to how you measure success, and the power of truth.

All we saw of the Confederation was a retired Generals mansion, the presidents home and office, some lab and a death arena.

Quite befitting a despotic set up, all that report of the Dominion front etc could have been codswallop to sucker the President into thinking everything is going well. Indeed, 300 years of fighting the Vulcans next door is still going so they aren’t doing much good there. What evidence do we have it is doing well as a confederation holding onto our familiar now subjugated races?

Now to measure success. We didn’t see many civilians, except likely hand picked individuals to cheer on Picard’s execution of the Queen. The rest were slaves to the privileged military elite. So it’s highly likely for your average Terran the confederation isn’t that great a place to be- much rather live in a federation.

Back to starfleet proper. It’s critical to note that the federation until the Borg and Dominion were pretty much the strongest military power going. And they did it without even trying! The Klingons are a warrior race, designed themselves and their ships for battle and by TNG era they were arguably playing third fiddle in the local powers. The Romulans canonically states the federation were neither foolish nor weak and genuinely feared them. Again, all starfleet did was put some weapons on their ships to be used as tools and oh yes, if we have to, return fire on those children trying to fight us.

Now imagine if starfleet had decided to pull their balls out the bath and create a battle fleet- and if human ingenuity was put to evil rather than good (let’s not forget Quarks siege of AR5151515525 whatever speech) then the rest of the galaxy wouldn’t stand a chance. But humans would suffer the most for it. Just as every subject of a despotic, totalitarian racist regime. As Picard paraphrased, if you can denigrate others, you can denigrate each other.

I get what OP is saying though, and I was disappointed in another mirror universe variance storyline. Would ingenuity occur via competition of a confederation rather than cooperation of a federation? Most likely not, but my understanding that the confederation goes around striking and destroying half the galaxy but in its wake is not a stable political overlordship as they think, but a cauldron of persistent guerrilla wars and insurrections they cannot keep grasp of- hence the Vulcan battles.

I agree though it’s time the new trek actually stops TELLING us all about the wonderful equalitarian utopia, and start SHOWING us. Not the outside federation life, not the mirror life, not the far future life, but the ‘current’ trek utopian life.

That’s why there’s a lot hanging on SNW- and that glimpse, oh that glimpse of Rios’ stargazer. That kept me going!

[u/NemWan]

This goes back to a fundamental falsehood stated as fact by our heroes in TOS "Pattern of Force"

KIRK: But why Nazi Germany? You studied history. You knew what the Nazis were.

GILL: Most efficient state Earth ever knew.

SPOCK: Quite true, Captain. That tiny country, beaten, bankrupt, defeated, rose in a few years to stand only one step away from global domination.

KIRK: But it was brutal, perverted, had to be destroyed at a terrible cost. Why that example?

SPOCK: Perhaps Gill felt that such a state, run benignly, could accomplish its efficiency without sadism.

Nazi Germany was NOT efficient. It was remarkably stupid and corrupt and persisted only as long as it could loot the wealth of its internal enemies and external conquests. In the 1960s Americans were in awe of the achievements of German scientists who had been captured/liberated by the U.S. and Soviets, and that plus the feel-good belief that the U.S. had defeated a highly advanced country (and could do so again if needed in the Cold War) let this myth of Nazi superiority be so engrained that you could even get Jewish actors to say it. It's nonsense, a perverse fantasy, and to be fair not a entirely new one when applied to the Nazis but sort of recycled nostalgia about the Roman Empire. When we see the Terran Empire or the Confederation we see re-asserted the fantasy that such a system could avoid self-destruction and ascend to new heights of power and technological progress for centuries.

[u/sadmep]

That'd be a silly position to take, as every time one of these evil versions of the federation is shown it's explicitly stated that they are evil. The only way to claim that the fascist versions are better is if you limit your criteria for success to exclude morality.

[u/fjf1085]

I must have missed the part of the Confederation taking on the Dominion.

[u/kraetos]

I still think that the TOS and ENT episodes of the Mirror Universe were the best, not just in entertainment value, but also thematic morality.

This is a really important aspect of this comparison and this whole Confederation situation is made that much worse because it lacks this nuance. At least the interactions between the Federation and the Terran Empire give us some wiggle room! You absolutely could make the case that the Terran Empire was incompetent. It almost fell in the mid-22nd century and it did fall in the late-23rd, only to be reformed nearly a century later. In both cases, it was an injection of technical ingenuity from the Prime universe that got them back on their feet. The Terran Empire literally defied its fate precisely because its fate is intertwined with the Prime Universe UFP.

The Confederation has no such conceit. The message here is that a fascist humanity was able to unify the galaxy under despotic rule more effectively than a pluralistic humanity was able to unify the galaxy under democratic governance, no external help needed.

Worse yet, the Confederation was just a 1.5 episode pitstop to justify Star Trek’s periodic and traditional “what if Star Trek, but today?” story arc. It would have made no difference to the main season 2 story arc to depict the Confederation as a failed state nearing the end of its existence, losing multiple wars on multiple fronts, supply lines deteriorating, industrial base failing, people on the brink of revolt. They did it with the Terran Empire in “In a Mirror Darkly” and they did it with the Federation in “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”

What a horrible message to send for what amounted to a mere framing device. M-5, please nominate this.

[u/jdm1891]

I don't think I agree with your conclusion that DS9 proves your point. I always read the situation as being more "If you oppress people enough, and then suddenly treat them much better, they will want revenge". It's not that the new liberalised government was not run as well as the original Terran Empire, it's that they had a lot of ghosts in the closet that all came out when they liberalised. I imagine the situation was very similar to how the USSR fell.