Non-Federation Diplomats

[Setzer]

I noticed something in Trek. Actual diplomatic behavior is extremely rare, at least, from non-Federation species. The Federation seems to be the only group out there interested in actually understanding other cultures. Every other group out there is more likely to wage eternal war because a foreigner didn't sit down properly, or cut off contact for twenty years because they didn't like the Federation ambassador's accent.

Are there any examples of more sane diplomacy?

[SeaTrooper]

I assume you are referring to all the species of the week here, rather than the more established and settled powers. In which case, you are correct. More often than not, they were so extremely touchy over some petty cultural faux pas, some point of esoteric ettiquette as to be a joke. The question becomes, why did the writers make them so?

All of the Trek writers inhabited an mildly-liberal, tolerant, inclusive sub-culture that dominates in a comparatively small area of California. A type I have never actually encountered outside of the LA/SF area. This tolerance extends to other cultures and societies to an often ludicrous degree; as demonstrated by feminists who refuse to defend muslim women's rights and pacifists who insist mass-murderers are simply part of another culture. It may even be a reaction to the cultural contamination of so many cultures by the dominant US commercial pop-culture; McWorld, anyone?

Yet I also feel that this comparatively extreme tolerance of the Other comes with a sub-conscious price. An over-valuing of other cultures and a celebration of difference that simply goes too far in declaring their members different. And hence, a degree of protection is afforded to anything someone else does, that cannot be argued or condemned, solely because they have always done it. The initially confused response when medical organisations in the UK and US suggested allowing a form of female genital mutilation to be conducted by their members, comes to mind as an example.

So, how does this attitude translate in Trek? By affording these utterly insignificant star nations some often ridiculous little cultural quirk, and then demanding that their diplomats follow these to the freaking letter. Learning another people's language prior to opening diplomatic exchanges is only respectful and certainly valuable towards learning their motivations, but covering yourself in shit and doing a little dance? I would strongly suspect that someone is having a joke at the dipolmats expense, if I were to encounter that.

Finally, my broadly similar experience has been meeting with the natives of various south Pacific Island nations; usually in a semi-military or constabulary capacity. We are certainly briefed before and during such operations, and treating the locals with respect and cultural sensitivity is strongly reinforced on a nearly daily basis... but when some local hunts, kills and cooks a wild pig in thanks for our doing something, we DON'T freaking eat it! In that case, it was turned into fishbait. Our own concerns regarding intestinal parasites over-rode any concerns over the appearance of the thing. Respect for cultural differences can thus be taken only so far.

[Setzer]

I mean how the Federation seems to be the only group that tries to accommodate for differences between cultures. Even species that aren't bloodthirsty war mongerers don't seem to allow for different customs. It's more like "The human didn't pronounce our customary greeting with the degree of skill you'd hear from a native speaker. We will immediately withdraw from the negotiating table."

Now that I think of it, the only time I can remember reading about a group that accepted a man's apology for a mistake was "Night in Sickbay." How sad is that?

[Purple]

Now, I know nothing of Star Trek canon outside of the series but I always imagined that the Cardasian occupation of Bajor must have started something like that. Cardasians come and try to talk. Locals act like morons. Cardasians say: We are not the federation! Burn!

lol

In other words, what I am trying to say is that the Feds seem to let anyone walk over them and the foreign diplomats know this. Hence they walk over them on every occasion. If that was a Klingon diplomatic ship my guess is that things would look quite differently.

[SeaTrooper]

Now, I know nothing of Star Trek canon outside of the series but I always imagined that the Cardasian occupation of Bajor must have started something like that. Cardasians come and try to talk. Locals act like morons. Cardasians say: We are not the federation! Burn!
lol
In other words, what I am trying to say is that the Feds seem to let anyone walk over them and the foreign diplomats know this. Hence they walk over them on every occasion. If that was a Klingon diplomatic ship my guess is that things would look quite differently.

Hmmm, Klingon diplomats! Like we saw at Organia (TOS). In fact, I'd thought they did quite well, given the limited information available and the no doubt equally poor briefing they would have received regarding the locals. There seemed to be little real difference between Kang (is that right?) and Kirk with regards their aggressive styles in that episode.

No, its TNG that the Fed diplomatic corps and starship captains were first seen to have been emasculated. Something changed between the 2 series to cause this, hence my argument above.

Thinking about it further, though, I remember that Luxwanna Troi was considered to be an effective and successful Fed diplomat. Someone who had NO freaking compunctions about listening in on private thoughts! Sure, that might explain why she was thought to be good at it, but this still represents a conscious decision by the Feds to use her. We have repeatedly seen, and posted on, the apparent lack of personal privacy within Trek; not just telepaths going around willy-nilly listening in on people's thoughts, but there being such limited protection on personal records, correspondence and medical data. As such, the use of so unethical a creature as Troi as a prominant diplomat becomes strangely reasonable - to their point of view.

[lord Martiya]

Now, I know nothing of Star Trek canon outside of the series but I always imagined that the Cardasian occupation of Bajor must have started something like that. Cardasians come and try to talk. Locals act like morons. Cardasians say: We are not the federation! Burn!

lol

According to Dukat it was more like this:
Cardassian diplomat: Hey! Your prices are too high! We must solve this... Well, if you allow us, from now on we'll rule your world.
*Bajoran diplomat looks to the Cardassian fleet.*
Bajoran diplomat: OK.

[Purple]

Actually, if you consider it...
Alternate character interpretation:

Dukat: Greetings. Also we declare war.
Bajoran diplomat: Why? What have we ever done?
Dukat: Nothing yet, but allow me to explain.
Dukat: We are on a diplomatic mission. And as such, we have seen this happen a million times.
We are going to declare our good intentions and get invited to your planet where you will hold a grand party in our name. Than one of my less important crewmen is going to make some silly mistake like not pick his nose between the dishes or something other similarly idiotic that just happens to be customary by some obscure tribal tradition you once had a trillion years ago while you were still living in caves.
Dukat: Immediately, you will than chase us off the planet and kidnap the crewman for something like a show trial and execution for his horrible crime.
Dukat: Than, inevitably we will declare war and bomb you from orbit.
Dukat: So you see, I am merely skipping over the formalities.
Bajoran diplomat: ...
Bajoran diplomat: Sounds fair. That is probably what would have happened anyway.

[SeaTrooper]

Yep, that 2nd script works much better. Now imagine how a Fed diplomat would have reacted?

Speaking of which, how the hell do Fed diplomats get away with just surrendering presumably important assets solely to get a treaty? The DMZ between Cardassia and the Feds, where they simply ordered the abandonment of Fed colonies - and then actually abandoned the people who refuses to do so. The deal with the Romulans that unilaterally halted all Starfleet R&D into cloaking technology. Neville bloody Chamberlain would have been shocked by such ready appeasement. Peace at any cost?

[dworkin]

An alternate view.

The Federation is an utopia. It expands less by force of arms and more by seducing everyone to their way of life. It can just outlive any bizarro culture it comes across until it's citizens decide they just can't live without the luxuries a Fed takes for granted. And the attitude works. They managed to hold the Klingons and Romulans off with one arm doing research on odd anomalies at the same time until both those empires imploded. You will join the Federation, is their message. Maybe not you today, but your children or grandchildren will. We can wait. Diplomacy is the province of hobbyists doing whatever they want because hey, it doesn't matter. They will join. And if you lose a few ensigns, who the fuck cares? Well, maybe the ensign's mum. The Federation are the richest, happiest and coolest kids on the block and everybody wants to play with them.

So give away swathes of territory. It'll come back. Disown terraformers and colonists. They'll fight and give the agressor a taste of what even the civilians can arm themselves with. And then they'll join. Agree not to rersearch some line of weapons tech. We've got a dozen other ways to reduce bad guys to component quarks and we'll just start again after the beligerant empire implodes or joins.

This could be why the Borg scares them. You can't seduce the borg.

[Purple]

Speaking of that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRxPjJ8V ... r_embedded

No idea if that is original, but I think it is.

So yes, even the official people acknowledge your theory.

[SeaTrooper]

A damned fine post.

And to reinforce the point, I have seen it argued in several other threads that the Big-E's primary function was neither exploration nor military, but rather propaganda. Here you had the biggest, most outwardly impressive starship design SF was then capable of building, crewed by the elite of SF (apparently), 90-odd% of whom seemed to be officers(wtf?), and all flying around the AQ in the lap of luxury. 10FWD and the incredible size of their living suites alone can not be justified from a ship-building perspective, especially as we have learned that the saucer retained large areas that were never used at all, so some other consideration must have been at work here. Ooh, look! Shiny!

Dr Crusher was not alone in pushing the line that Feds lived in an 'ideal culture', for example, but what really pissed me off was the sanctimonious self-righteousness of Sisko during DS9s Dominion War. Especially at the very end of the battle for Cardassia Prime, when he and his people actually stood back and sneered at the Klingons celebrating the victory. Compare this to the Argentine surrender at Port Stanley, when a British Para was filmed hearing the news and his response was 'Bloody Marvellous' and a huge grin at having survived...

[Metahive]

Dr Crusher was not alone in pushing the line that Feds lived in an 'ideal culture', for example, but what really pissed me off was the sanctimonious self-righteousness of Sisko during DS9s Dominion War. Especially at the very end of the battle for Cardassia Prime, when he and his people actually stood back and sneered at the Klingons celebrating the victory. Compare this to the Argentine surrender at Port Stanley, when a British Para was filmed hearing the news and his response was 'Bloody Marvellous' and a huge grin at having survived...

Umm, you do know that most of the dead Cardassians on Cardassia were the victims of the attempted genocide the Female Changeling tried to push through at the last minute? Not being in the mood to celebrate over their corpses is fully understandable and has nothing to do with sanctimonousness. That you compare that to the Falkland War is...misguided to say the least.

[Setzer]

My main point was, why bother talking with people who will stop talking on the slimmest of pretexts? If the Russian ambassador had been kicked out during the Cuban missile crisis because he didn't speak English without an accent, wouldn't that have convinced the Russians that America really didn't have any interest in resolving things diplomatically? If Nazi Germany had thrown out an ambassador from England because he wasn't wearing the right color of suit, wouldn't that have convinced the Allies that Hitler couldn't be negotiated with?

Why does the Federation never come to a similar conclusion?

[Uraniun235]

I mean how the Federation seems to be the only group that tries to accommodate for differences between cultures. Even species that aren't bloodthirsty war mongerers don't seem to allow for different customs. It's more like "The human didn't pronounce our customary greeting with the degree of skill you'd hear from a native speaker. We will immediately withdraw from the negotiating table."

Now that I think of it, the only time I can remember reading about a group that accepted a man's apology for a mistake was "Night in Sickbay." How sad is that?

This argument seems to be built on the notion that the only things that ever happened were either depicted in the episodes or were like those events depicted in the episodes, which leads us to the pressing question of "why doesn't Starfleet believe in toilets?"


The answer is that the writers are generally not going to show us the routine and easy missions that Starfleet ships must find themselves on frequently. Why would you write an episode about a mission where Picard negotiates some sort of trade agreement and everything goes smoothly? These stories are about conflict. Star Trek is really basically just The captain makes a decision to solve a problem.

That said, having the antagonist be a bunch of intolerant jerks is prone to becoming cheap and overplayed, although I still think you're overstating the problem - not every negotiation has been with intolerant jerks.

Why does the Federation never come to a similar conclusion?

What conclusion is that? Bomb them all and occupy their worlds to instill good values and the American Federation way of life?

[Uraniun235]

Dr Crusher was not alone in pushing the line that Feds lived in an 'ideal culture', for example, but what really pissed me off was the sanctimonious self-righteousness of Sisko during DS9s Dominion War. Especially at the very end of the battle for Cardassia Prime, when he and his people actually stood back and sneered at the Klingons celebrating the victory. Compare this to the Argentine surrender at Port Stanley, when a British Para was filmed hearing the news and his response was 'Bloody Marvellous' and a huge grin at having survived...

Man, you're right, how dare those fucking Federation weenies not exult in the deaths of millions of people. How dare they.

[Stofsk]

I kinda hate DS9 and 'What you leave behind' in particular, but I thought that scene was done well. I could actually appreciate both sides of it (Martok made the quite correct observation that the Cardassians weren't blameless victims, they did bring it upon themselves, but IIRC Sisko or Ross said well the 600 million civilians didn't bring it upon themselves, or whatever)

The rest of the show episode show was shit...

[Uraniun235]

I kinda hate DS9 and 'What you leave behind' in particular, but I thought that scene was done well. I could actually appreciate both sides of it (Martok made the quite correct observation that the Cardassians weren't blameless victims, they did bring it upon themselves, but IIRC Sisko or Ross said well the 600 million civilians didn't bring it upon themselves, or whatever)

The rest of the show episode show was shit...

Yeah, presumably when they talked about drinking blood wine on Cardassia Prime, they (at least, the Starfleet guys) had probably imagined it would be following a decisive space battle over Cardassia, not after an abortive attempt at mass extermination by the Dominion.

[Setzer]

This argument seems to be built on the notion that the only things that ever happened were either depicted in the episodes or were like those events depicted in the episodes, which leads us to the pressing question of "why doesn't Starfleet believe in toilets?"

The answer is that the writers are generally not going to show us the routine and easy missions that Starfleet ships must find themselves on frequently. Why would you write an episode about a mission where Picard negotiates some sort of trade agreement and everything goes smoothly? These stories are about conflict. Star Trek is really basically just The captain makes a decision to solve a problem.

True, but the plot point of overly touchy ambassadors threatening to cut off diplomacy over trivial nonsense is a cheap way to create conflict.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Storyt ... episode%29

I would hold this up as a good example of conflict created by diplomacy. The Federation was arbitrating talks between two Bajoran tribes over territory rights. The existing agreement had a river as the border between two tribes. However, during the Occupation, the Cardassians shifted the course of the river. One tribe wanted to keep to the old agreement, since the new course of the river would give them new territory. The other tribe wanted to renegotiate the treaty given the changed circumstances. Each side had something they wanted, each side was intent on having their way, and the conflict was resolved by keeping the river as the border, but giving both tribes free access to the river.

They never had to rely on the tired old nonsense where one side will only meet with one particular person, or leave the talks because of some obscure rule of courtesy they made no attempt to inform the Federation about.

That said, having the antagonist be a bunch of intolerant jerks is prone to becoming cheap and overplayed, although I still think you're overstating the problem - not every negotiation has been with intolerant jerks.

True, but it's popped up far too often for my liking. I understand that the Federation's preference for diplomacy is meant to be a sign of how mankind has changed from our bloody past, but diplomacy doesn't mean you just do whatever the other side wants and damn the consequences. There's a difference between meeting someone halfway and making Veruca Salt's parents look assertive.

What conclusion is that? Bomb them all and occupy their worlds to instill good values and the American Federation way of life?

No, the conclusion being "Anyone who ends talks over such trivial details isn't really interested in talking."

[Metahive]

I kinda hate DS9 and 'What you leave behind' in particular, but I thought that scene was done well. I could actually appreciate both sides of it (Martok made the quite correct observation that the Cardassians weren't blameless victims, they did bring it upon themselves, but IIRC Sisko or Ross said well the 600 million civilians didn't bring it upon themselves, or whatever)

The rest of the show episode show was shit...

How could the Cardassians have brought it over themselves when Dukat pretty much unilaterally brought the Union into the fold of the Dominion? Something which was only possible because the fucking Klingons thought it would be a good idea to steal cardassian territory and weakening its government? A civilian government that had just asserted authority over the traditional cardassian military dictatorship no less. Yeah, the Klingons were influenced by a Changeling infilitrator, but still. Given that Klingons are bloodthirsty shitbags who hunger for war and battle, the infiltrator surely didn't need to push them all too much.

Also, Martok's argument was "Remember, those are Cardassians" which sounds way more like speciesist/racist hatfuckery than anything.

[Stofsk]

Martok's argument was 'These are Cardassians - who have a reputation for doing this kind of thing to other people.'

The exact line is: 'Before you waste too many tears... remember, those are Cardassians lying dead at your feet... (re: the devastation) The Bajorans would call this poetic justice...'

emphasis added

He wasn't being racist, he was directly referring to how Cardassians had done similar things to other people, including the Bajorans. And frankly, the Cardassians are at fault. They went along with Dukat, they went along with the Dominion, and they went to war. Should we blame someone like Hitler for what the Nazis as a group did in WW2? Doing so would be simplistic. Without Dukat, the Dominion wouldn't have had the invite to come into the alpha quadrant and hang out with the Cardassians. But that doesn't excuse the Cardassians who went along with it or agreed to it, and I think it's a bit disingenuous to claim it was all on Dukat's shoulders when he went crazy early into the war and Damar took over - and happily kept the alliance going until his inexplicable change of heart at the end of the show. Hell the last guy, the one who replaced Damar, was falling over himself to suck up to the Founder and the Dominion.

The civilians though were the ones who suffered for the decisions of the leadership, which is not a good thing nor did I suggest that it was. I said I could appreciate where Martok was coming from. His attitude makes perfect sense for his character. He was a general who had seen thousands of his people die in a bloody and costly war; he was happy to celebrate that war's end with a toast. The humans getting squeamish is also in-character because, hey, it turns out that having a drink over piles of dead civilians is in poor taste... who knew. Although I wonder what would have happened had the Cardassians not rebelled nor the Dominion retaliate against them for having done so.

[Metahive]

You still ignore that the Cardassians didn't ally with the Dominion in a vacuum, the fucking Klingons had just annexed several of their worlds and devastated the rest, thrown the government into chaos and those squatters called the Maquis, with Klingon support, were using biological weapons against them to steal (or "liberate") some more planets. If you want a WW2 comparison for that particular situation, think of Finland, who cooperated with the Third Reich because the Soviets threatened to absorb them. I must also stress once again that the military junta, which had ruled Cardassia with the help of the Obsidian Order and which was responsible for the atrocities commited in Cardassia's name had just been deposed of by the long powerless civilian government.

If someone has been ransacked and besieged like that the chance is rather high he'll throw himself into the arms of the next best guy who comes to the rescue with a massive army in tow.

'Before you waste too many tears... remember, those are Cardassians lying dead at your feet...The Bajorans would call this poetic justice...'

I can't see how that isn't racist, "Dead Cardassians are nothing to cry about". Also hypocritical considering that the Klingons themselves are bloodthirsty conquerors who have subjected and massacred many a species. Kira didn't express such an attitude and she had way more justification for it.

[...]and happily kept the alliance going until his inexplicable change of heart at the end of the show.

Have you not noticed that Damar started to drink quite heavily and even arranged for the death of a Weyoun clone long before he officially went into resistance? I think that's quite a sign of growing discontent and not sudden at all. Also, how can you call it inexplicable? The Dominion was using Cardassians as throwaway cannon fodder and sold their territory out to the Breen. If your allies let you know they consider you to be utterly expendable, then yes, that would cause loyalties to waver quite a bit.

Although I wonder what would have happened had the Cardassians not rebelled nor the Dominion retaliate against them for having done so.

There's a good chance the AQ Alliance would have lost. Remember, the Cardassian rebellion was responsible for giving the AQ Alliance a model of the Breen energy dampening weapon to study. Without that they had to fight at a 20:1 disadvantage due to only Klingon ships being able to withstand that weapon. Then again, bringing the Breen into the fold and kissing up to them shamelessly was what brought about the rebel movement in the first place and the Dominion acted in this way to overcome a stalemate.

[Uraniun235]

Did Finland have a reputation for going around starting fights and invading territories prior to WW2? Because Cardassian foreign policy was seriously "annex/invade other people's planets, take their resources". They propped up their economy by pillage and plunder.

[CDiehl]

can't see how that isn't racist, "Dead Cardassians are nothing to cry about".

Simple. It's not because they're Cardassians. It's because they're the enemy. Remember, they're the people who willingly sided with the Dominion in their effort to conquer and enslave the Alpha Quadrant.

[Metahive]

Did Finland have a reputation for going around starting fights and invading territories prior to WW2? Because Cardassian foreign policy was seriously "annex/invade other people's planets, take their resources". They propped up their economy by pillage and plunder.

Irrelevant to my point which was "in desperate situations, people will accept help no matter from where it comes" not "The Cardassians are just like the Fins". Also, the same can be said about most of the dominant space faring species in the Alpha Quadrant, except for the Federation they're all imperialist to some degree or another, propping themselves up on other people's labor's fruits. Do I need to remind that even when the war was going on, Romulus tried to underhandedly annex Bajor? And those are the "good guys" here.

Simple. It's not because they're Cardassians. It's because they're the enemy. Remember, they're the people who willingly sided with the Dominion in their effort to conquer and enslave the Alpha Quadrant.

The joined the Dominion because other Alpha Quadrant powers were aggressively encroaching upon them. I can't really blame them for this. Also "It's the enemy and he started it, so he deserves everything bad coming his way up to including genocide", really?

Barbarian, simply barbarian.

[Uraniun235]

can't see how that isn't racist, "Dead Cardassians are nothing to cry about".

Simple. It's not because they're Cardassians. It's because they're the enemy. Remember, they're the people who willingly sided with the Dominion in their effort to conquer and enslave the Alpha Quadrant.

The joined the Dominion because other Alpha Quadrant powers were aggressively encroaching upon them. I can't really blame them for this. Also "It's the enemy and he started it, so he deserves everything bad coming his way up to including genocide", really?

Barbarian, simply barbarian.

Let's remember that the Klingons themselves have a history of naked aggression and still retained a demographic which advocated a return to "the old ways" of pillage and conquest. Kor gleefully conceded to Kirk in Errand of Mercy that the Klingon Empire would very likely meet its demise after eventually biting off more than it could chew, and that this was the likely and rightful consequence of what he considered to be a very natural and right order of things.

I don't see it necessarily motivated by 'race'. I think Martok would as easily say much the same thing after a campaign against the Federation, the Romulans, the Ferengi, or even other Klingons; they were the enemy, they tried to fight us, and they lost. Boo them, go us. Barbarian? Well, yeah, I daresay that most of the Klingon episodes in TNG/DS9 tried to portray the Klingons as being pretty fucking barbarian; to that end, the portrayal of Martok in What You Leave Behind was fairly consistent.