Can anyone Explain how The Federation works to me like I am five years old?
Can anyone Explain how The Federation works to me like I am five years old?
Picture for your undivided attention
The Federation is a representative republic, with an elected president as the head of the entire interstellar state. An election is held every four years, and a president may serve for an unlimited number of terms.
Political and direct administrative power is held within the Federation Council, which is composed of one councillor from every Member World. There is no limit as to how many terms a person may serve as councillor. T'Latrek of Vulcan, for instance, served on the Federation Council for nearly a century. Each individual Member determines how its councillors will be determined; the First Minister of Bajor, for instance, nominates that world's councillor and the Chamber of Ministers ratifies him or her, while the electorates of many other Members elect their councillors directly.
The Federation government has several executive departments whose heads form the Presidential Cabinet, who advise the president on their issues of jurisdiction and run their departments on a day-to-day basis. Cabinet members can have strong influence on Federation policy based upon their work with the president and the appropriate members of the Federation Council.
By the late 23rd and 24th century, the capital city of the Federation is Paris, and the capital planet is Earth. The seat of government is the Palais de la Concorde.
- Memory Beta article on The Federation
Five-year-olds must be pretty advanced in the 24th century.
A bunch of people set up public bulletin boards, and agree to copy whatever gets posted on one of them to all the others.
That is a very nice photo.
Thanks, whoever the home owner was did a great job with their landscaping! I was in awe.
The Terran Federation is the government of Earth and its Space Colonies. It is a multicultural society that functions as a limited democracy. Full citizenship is not guaranteed to all members of the population and must be earned, typically through military service. Citizenship grants additional civil rights, such as suffrage and the right to run for political office.
People of higher levels of authority also have to suffer tougher repercussions of their actions. For instance, a Lieutenant could hang for making a mistake that a Private would merely be dismissed and maybe lashed for, while Corporal and Capital Punishment are practiced by the government as well as physical child rearing being standard use amongst the population.
Everyone is born a "Civilian", and at age 18 every "Civilian" has the right to enroll for a minimal 2 year term of "Federal Service". In theory a completed term of Federal Service ensures a "Citizen" is willing to put the needs of the community before their own personal well-being. This is because Federal Service is tough and dangerous (by design). It can involve joining the Military, being a Human Guinea Pig, testing survival equipment or Manual Labour.
The Federation makes it quite easy to quit a term of service before completion (even during war time), but once someone has quit they are never allowed to enroll again. This is to ensure that all volunteers are dedicated, whilst also discouraging people from leaving.
"Civilians" are neither discriminated against, nor deprived of legal rights other than that of the ballot.
Once in the military a volunteer has the choice to "go career", choosing to devote 20 years of service to the Federation instead of the usual 2 years required to gain Citizenship. After these 20 years they can then leave and get a "reserved job", for example in the police.
- Starship Troopers Wiki article on the Terran Federation
The Federation makes it quite easy to quit a term of service before completion (even during war time)
I'm fairly sure it's mentioned that once war broke out Rico was no longer allowed to leave, but he didn't pay much attention because his two years weren't up anyway.
once someone has quit they are never allowed to enroll again. This is to ensure that all volunteers are dedicated, whilst also discouraging people from leaving.
On the contrary, the Federation deliberately makes leaving as easy as possible to get rid of anyone who would otherwise leave later, or worse stay and let his squaddies down in a way that would get them killed. You can't just up and leave (though no effort is made to find you if you desert), but at any time you can ask to see a superior, get your papers voided, and walk out off base.
This is because Federal Service is tough and dangerous (by design). It can involve joining the Military, being a Human Guinea Pig, testing survival equipment or Manual Labour.
This is a funny one. On the one hand, in execution it's mentioned those physically unfit to serve in the military do get any pointlessly dangerous job available. But in principle, many speeches are made specifically saying military service is what makes someone worthy of political rights, because of the responsibility of military service. Someone counting the hairs of venomous caterpillars (an example job given in the book) has no responsibilities that could harm or help the country he's serving.
The Wikipedia entry does a very good job in its first few paragraphs:
The fediverse (a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe") is an ensemble of social networks which can communicate with each other, while remaining independent platforms. Users on different social networks and websites can send and receive updates from others across the network.
ActivityPub, a W3C standard, is the most widely used protocol that powers the fediverse. Noted fediverse platforms include Mastodon, Lemmy, PeerTube, Pixelfed, and Threads.
I appreciate the information you shared about a standard. I was curious at how some level of control was implemented to advance The Federation without there being a sole source of power.
Simple English Wikipedia might help.
That was a great reference, thank you.
Possibly not for a five-year-old, but most people have an email account, and technically this is a federated network. Tuta, Proton, Posteo, and all the others are independent networks, but they can communicate with each other (unlike Facebook, Twitter, and others which require an account on each platform for communication).
Forum: People set up communities on their or someone else’s server. People have to individually find and register for each siloed community.
Aggregator site (i.e. reddit): Everyone sets up communities on the same server. A single account on the server can join and interact with any community they want, and aggregate them all together into a feed.
Federated aggregator (i.e. Lemmy): People set up communities on their or someone else’s server. They all use the same language so they can communicate with each other. You can make an account on any server and then visit any community, and aggregate them all together into a feed.
Another great explanation, thank you!
Imagine you have multiple groups of people sitting in circles passing notes between each other. Optionally those notes can be copied to other groups.