Turkana IV

[Talondor]

Tasha Yar's home world was once a thriving colony before it somehow collapsed into anarchy and became some sort of post-apolcolyspe like nightmare, with rapegangs and children scavenging for food among the ruins. How come the Federation never went in to restore order? I imagine even the Utopian 24th century has civil rights/social welfare groups that have lobbying powers. How come none of them went to the Federation president and (In their best Mrs. Lovejoys' voice) say "Won't someone think of the children!?" I always thought of the Federation as far more liberal then libertarian, and would never let colonies, even independent colonies, get this chaotic without doing something.

[Teaos]

Bureaucracy.

[Graham Kennedy]

The novel "Survivors" indicates that it was one of those lost colonies that crop up once in a while.

The idea was that the colonists left 21st century Earth in sub-light ships, possibly during the "post atomic horror" after World War III, or maybe before it (it's unclear). The colony thrived for a while once established, but things fell apart there. IIRC, the ship which Tasha left on was the Federation Starship that rediscovered the planet. So the Federation never kept the peace because they had no idea what was going on there, or that the place even existed.

But that was written before Legacy. Not sure if it contradicts anything in that or not.

Interestingly, a couple of the TOS books describe Federation worlds that are pretty horrific places to live. According to one, Janice Rand was supposed to have grown up in such a world. Presumably this would be possible under the TOS model of the Federation, which seems to imply that individual planets are pretty much sovereign when it comes to their internal workings. That's backed up by The Cloud Minders :

Plasus to Kirk : "We will get it for you, and in our own way. Remove the prisoner to confinement quarters. You will return to your ship at once or I shall contact your Starfleet command myself and report your interference with this planet's government."

Plasus to Kirk : "And I forbid it. Your Federation orders do not entitle you to defy local governments! This communication has ended!"

Under that model it may well be the case that the Federation and Starfleet simply don't have the legal authority to intervene in a colony, no matter how badly it is falling apart, unless asked to do so by the local government. If there even is a local government.

Of course by TNG Federation planets seem to be a lot more like states of the USA than countries of the UN, but perhaps something similar applied.

[Talondor]

Thanks. Did not know the history of the planet. Still, once it was found again, you would think that someone would have come up with a plan to bring order and civilize the planet again and bring it into the Federation family.

[Graham Kennedy]

No, I wouldn't have thought that at all. The people were obviously not welcoming of the Federation. So the only way to do as you describe would be an armed invasion. The Federation doesn't do that, nor do they have any right to do that.

Hell, Picard disapproved of the colony in The Masterpiece Society. Should he have forcibly integrated them into the Federation too?

[Mikey]

As I understood the matter, Ardana in TOS: "The Cloud Minders" was not a UFP world, nor a colony, nor anything at all to do with Earth or the Federation. However, while it's not an analogous example, it does reinforce the fact that the Turkana colony, the Mariposa colony, or any of the others are sovereign territories wherein the UFP has no authority - and perhaps no motivation - to step in in any circumstance, be it "goodwill" or otherwise.

I am curious as to how things could have degenerated to the point of the Turkana colony considered the "freedom from want" engendered by even the most basic 24th-c. tech. A handful of technological pieces that were even 50 years old at the time of YNG: "Legacy" could have rendered that whole gang-y, pseudo-anarchic society moot.

[Graham Kennedy]

Kirk : "I hope so. Ardana is a member of the Federation, and it is your council's responsibility that nothing interferes with its obligation to another member of the Federation."
Plasus : "Of course, and we accept the responsibility."

[Mikey]

Kirk : "I hope so. Ardana is a member of the Federation, and it is your council's responsibility that nothing interferes with its obligation to another member of the Federation."
Plasus : "Of course, and we accept the responsibility."

I certainly don't remember that bit, but I bow to your superior data mining.

[Talondor]

Guess the Federation is not as liberal-progressive as I always imagined it to be. Not caring what their colonies did as long as they do not bother anyone else.

[Mikey]

Guess the Federation is not as liberal-progressive as I always imagined it to be. Not caring what their colonies did as long as they do not bother anyone else.

Well, I think that's a bit glass-half-full vs. glass-half-empty. The obverse of that coin is that the Federation chooses not to tread carelessly on the sovereignty of its member-states.

[Captain Seafort]

Guess the Federation is not as liberal-progressive as I always imagined it to be. Not caring what their colonies did as long as they do not bother anyone else.

That's about as liberal as you can get while still retaining them within the UFP.

[Graham Kennedy]

Kirk : "I hope so. Ardana is a member of the Federation, and it is your council's responsibility that nothing interferes with its obligation to another member of the Federation."
Plasus : "Of course, and we accept the responsibility."

I certainly don't remember that bit, but I bow to your superior data mining.

Episode transcripts... such useful things!

[Graham Kennedy]

Okay so I looked up Legacy, and here's what we know :

Picard : "Captain's log, supplemental. We are in orbit above Turkana Four, an Earth colony that severed relations with the Federation nearly fifteen years ago."

So, that seems to deep six the idea that they discovered the colony fifteen years before. You MIGHT be able to have them find the planet, the lose contact ago. But honestly the implication here is that they knew about it all along, and lost contact when it fell apart.

Now this brings us to another aspect of Trek that seems to have fallen by the wayside lately, which is the idea that the Federation and Alpha quadrant is really large, and that it's possible for things to simply fall out of contact for a long, long time.

I offer as evidence "Angel One". where the E-D was sent to check out why a Federation freighter was overdue... by seven years. And bear in mind, it wasn't lost in unexplored space or anything. They found the ship abandoned in space, went to the nearest planet - a world they already knew about in some detail - and there they were. Even when I first saw this episode back in the 80s I remember going "Huh? Really, a ship goes missing and it takes Starfleet seven years to get around to going to have a look?"

The image offered is one of a Federation so spread out that a good deal of it is barely in contact with the rest in the first place. In such a situation I can imagine a distant colony dropping off the subspace link and no ship arriving to see what happened for a decade afterwards. And such a scenario would actually work with the kinds of distances and speeds quoted, which would imply travel times of years to cross the Federation, let along go beyond it.

But DS9 largely blew this out of the water, cutting travel times from the "distant frontier" of the station such that the crew could pop home to Earth for a conference or a bit of shore leave.

[Mikey]

Because, you know, :

[Graham Kennedy]

Oh, a similar thing happened in TOS "Bread and Circuses", where the Enterprise is investigating the loss of the SS Beagle, lost six years ago. But in that case the dialogue could be taken to indicate that the ship had just mysteriously vanished and now the wreckage was discovered, rather than that they hadn't yet gotten around to looking for it.