So, I wrote the preamble to the document thusly:
We, the people of the worlds Andor, Earth, Mars, Tellar, Vulcan, and their respective colonies; in order to provide for the general welfare, promote the cause of peace, and ensure the rights of all sentient beings; do hearby join together in a United Federation of Planets.
My problem is this: As I understand it, generally accepted fandom has always listed the following as UFP founding members: Andor, Earth, Tellar, Vulcan, and Alpha Centauri. However, Alpha Centauri's presence seems to be dependant upon Zefram Cochrane being a native of the planet, something we now know to be untrue. So I've left it out.
Mars, on the other hand, is apparently my own pet idea. From the TOS episode "Court Martial", we learn that part of Federation law is based on the Fundamental Declarations of the Martian Colonies. I believe that this implies a declaration of independance from Earth, thus making Mars a seperate government and therefore able to be a founding UFP member. However, I was discussing this with Tim, and he points out that the Martian Colonies are stilled refered to as colonies into the TNG era. Which of course suggests that they were not independant.
So my question to you is...well, the question in the subject line. Was Mars independant of Earth prior to the founding of the UFP? Is there a Federation world in orbit of Alpha Centauri, and if so are there sentient aliens there?
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"And I can't approach myself, skating over this perdition."
--
Soul Coughing
And Alpha Centauri? What about Londo and Vir?
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"Fire, Fire!" said Mrs O'Dwyer.
"Where, where?" said Mrs O'Hare.
"Down in the town." said Mrs Brown.
"Lord bless us and save us"
said old Mrs Davis.
"I never knew a herring was a fish."
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"One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor". George Carlin
[This message has been edited by Kosh (edited October 26, 1999).]
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Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
Wasn't Cochrane said simply to be "of Alpha Centauri" or the like, implying he could've established his dream island there...?
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Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")
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"I think you people have proven something to the world: that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music� and have nothing but fun and music."
-Max Yasgur; Woodstock, NY; August, 1969
So, I can live without Mars. What about Alpha Centauri, then? There's no canon information on it all, and the best noncanon explanation I'm familiar with is it being the first colony settled after the invention of warp drive, and the place where Cochrane settled. (Hence the "of Alpha Centauri" remark.)
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"Like I told you, you are concentric in your form. When it's cold you've got yourself to keep you warm."
--
John Linnell
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"The story..." Londo says, "is not over yet. The story is never over."
Now, I'm thinking you might be onto something.
Lemme see: you're saying mankind had already got as far as Alpha Centauri before the events of 'First Contact', and finding no intelligent alien life there, colonised it for Earth. They would have used sleeper ships to commute between Earth and AC, which may explain why Zef had never seen the Earth from space before the end of FC. I mean, sleeper ships were in use three years ago .
I fortell much anarchy as a result of this. 
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"Fire, Fire!" said Mrs O'Dwyer.
"Where, where?" said Mrs O'Hare.
"Down in the town." said Mrs Brown.
"Lord bless us and save us"
said old Mrs Davis.
"I never knew a herring was a fish."
ohhhhh resident anarchist
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"The story..." Londo says, "is not over yet. The story is never over."
)I would also postulate mars may not have been a founding member, as suggested by their independent streak so implied. They could have joined say 30 years later, once it had been seen to be a good idea. ("wait & see" in the words of the martian PM )
As for Alpha Centauri, yes I'd say it'd want in - as it'd give new prestige to a colony world to be elevated to member status.
Cochrane was Earth-born and indeed discovered warp drive there. On the back of his invention he made millions ferrying people to Alpha centauri and the colony swiftlyt set up there (before Mars! - perhaps there's a Class M all nice and ready in Alpha Cent?)
He then moved there around 2090-2095 and bought his dream island. His excesses and scandals made headlines and he became a kind of Hugh Hefner of space. Thus mention of him brought to mind his later days as business tycoon and extravagent casanova on Alpha C.
It nicely dovetails into the Metamorphosis backstory. At an old age, depressed by the way his fast-living lifestyle had failed to give him any inner peace, he decides to die in space, (you can just picture him grouchily snapping at the spaceport supervisor, drunk and with his rock'n'roll MDs, asking for departure clearance.)
Out in space, he ends up on the planetoid with the Companion. The Companion rejuventates him to a form he WISHES he'd had. Better looking; that'd have given him more contentment in his life. It doesn't help, as he's lonely. He finds happiness in a monogomous relationship with the Companion. (How's that for typical Trek family values!)
Well, that's my rationalisation anyway.
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"FOOLS! Will I have to kill them ALL?!?!"
By the way, the Fundamental Declaration of the Martian Colonies could have been a failed Declaration of Independence. Maybe try tried to break away, but the attempt was crushed.
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
All this seems good, but I don't like the bit of Zefram Cochrane being a playboy. History saw Cochrane as the greatest human being. It's hard to say that if he maintained that kind of lifestyle.
Sure, he may had some backwater dealings, but they were probably small enough to be kept under wraps. Too bad there's no 24th century National Enquirer.
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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation
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"Like I told you, you are concentric in your form. When it's cold you've got yourself to keep you warm."
--
John Linnell
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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation
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"Resolve and thou art free."
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"I think you people have proven something to the world: that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music� and have nothing but fun and music."
-Max Yasgur; Woodstock, NY; August, 1969
notice in relativity and lifesigns - Mars hasn't been 'Terraformed'.
So maybe there was an adversion to destroying the original Martian conditions - until it was CERTAIN there was no evidence of life - or previous forms of life.
maybe then they gave up and people just started building colonies there - but not terraforming.
of course the moon hadn't any colonies in 2063 either.
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"The story..." Londo says, "is not over yet. The story is never over."
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")
Captain Kirk gives the following sequence-
Moon (Apollo)
Mars
Stars
In reality, for 1960's, the plan was this-
Moon (Apollo)
Space Station around Earth
Moon Bases
Mars
This was to have begun in the 1970's.
I personnally believe that human beings, sadly, will never leave the Earth-Moon system for the simple reason that the pressures of a growing, older, and poorer population will have on the available resources.
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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory
Even if I have to get out and PUSH.
Someday those half-blind idiots running things will realize that the resources are out there for the taking, if only one makes the initial investment to get there.
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'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
[This message has been edited by First of Two (edited October 28, 1999).]
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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation
I would suggest also that a planet as far away from a star like Sol could never be terraformed anyway. You can't bring the planet closer to the sun by terraforming it. It would simply always be way too cold.
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"Resolve and thou art free."
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"Like I told you, you are concentric in your form. When it's cold you've got yourself to keep you warm."
--
John Linnell
.As for the whole question of terraforming:
I think that it's still an infant technology. Look at the TNG ep 'Home Soils' (I think that's it's name). They had techies living and breathing their work on that planet, and really didn't have mush to show for it.
And what about O'Briens line in 'Past Tense, Part I' about the disappearance of the Venus terraforming station? I mean, they're only as far as Venus? For crying out loud, that would have been one of the first planets I would've terraformed, not some obscure rock in some other system.
Also, Venus has an atmosphere, where the Moon most definitely does not. This may have serious implications on the feasability of actually attempting terraforming in the first place.
AND Mars (which did have a fairly tenuous atmosphere, last time I checked) would already have been planted with those poxy domes and buildings (by the 2103 colonists, and with eff-all help from NASA) before the notion of terraforming became a technological possibility.
My way of thinking is that terraforming would have damaged those buildings, or at the very least they would have interfered with the terraforming process.
Oh, and I think Cochrane was a Vulcan. I've always thought their eyes were too far apart for them to be trusted .
*gibbers like a mad fish*
*I can type 'terraforming' a lot faster now too*
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"Fire, Fire!" said Mrs O'Dwyer.
"Where, where?" said Mrs O'Hare.
"Down in the town." said Mrs Brown.
"Lord bless us and save us"
said old Mrs Davis.
"I never knew a herring was a fish."
BTW, the Genesis device was so much more powerful than the primitive technology in "Home Soil". It's hard to find an explanation why Genesis was abandoned (apart from the Klingons' demands).
As for Mars, I'm pretty sure that it's not an independent member planet. For what we have seen in "Lifesigns" and "Relativity" it's perhaps Class K (something like a desert planet). The moon is nothing but a big space station. What population did Riker mention, 20 million or 50 million? Is it correct there was a lake (probably beneath a dome)?
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Get your free signature at Ex Astris Scientia
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"I see you have the ring. And that your Schwartz is as big as mine!
-Dark Helmet, Spaceballs
I still think Venus is a viable planet for terraforming to be used on, as it has about the right mass and location for a sustainable ecosystem. Once the terraformers had gotten rid of the mainly-CO2 atmosphere and replaced it with something more useful to life as we know it, why wouldn't life thrive upon it's once-arid surface?
I once read that an astronaut landing on the surface of Venus would be simultaneously suffocated (CO2 atmosphere), flattened (by the atmospheric pressure) and roasted (by the insane +650K temperature that the atmosphere helps maintain). His remains would then be disintegrated by the ferocious lightening that scars Venus' surface, and lightening comes frome where? That's right. The Atomsphere.
IMO (not a humble one, mind), changing the atmosphere would be high on my list of priorities if I were terraforming any planet.
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"Fire, Fire!" said Mrs O'Dwyer.
"Where, where?" said Mrs O'Hare.
"Down in the town." said Mrs Brown.
"Lord bless us and save us"
said old Mrs Davis.
"I never knew a herring was a fish."
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"Like I told you, you are concentric in your form. When it's cold you've got yourself to keep you warm."
--
John Linnell
basically the last time we saw the moon was "BOBW" and they weren't there...
they weren't there in Star Trek V - either...
seriously - I reckon they are new projects - maybe even divised by Sisko and co. during his tenure overseaing the orbital habitats...
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"Remove your hand or I will remove your arm!" - 7 of 9
Regarding terraforming of the Moon: the level of difficulty of giving the Moon an athmosphere that
could maintain bodies of liquid water is, well, incredibly high. Thus, I'd prefer to think that
"Lake Armstrong" as mentioned by Riker has nothing
to do with open water. After all, the Moon has
plenty of seas, oceans, bays... By Riker's time,
there could be one more basalt formation named
Lake Armstrong, perhaps marking the spot where a
big nuclear or antimatter warhead or a kinetic-
energy projectile hit during the last war. The
"lake" of volcanic origin could be one of the most
easily discernible things on lunar surface in 2373,
and enough to make our satellite look different
from the one Cochrane was used to seeing. There
might be other such impact marks as well (but
there aren't any parklands or bodies of water
visible when we see the Moon in, say, STV).
And as far as colonizing Mars is concerned:
perhaps humans visited Mars before WWIII and
found it uninteresting to the extreme. No colonies
were established before the war. And when warp
drive opened the skies for human exploration,
nothing could have interested the explorers less
than a nearby rathole that wasn't even class M.
Using warpships, humans could probably locate
planets which could be colonized simply by sending
over a bunch of people no better equipped than
the settlers of the American west - but settling
Mars would have required constant supply flights
for such simple things as water or nitrogen!
The availability of class M planets would explain
why humans neither need nor seem to be eager to terraform non-earthlike planets. The desire to
protect native life would be secondary, since
life is so abundant in the Trek galaxy that it
has little intrinsic value.
Welcome.
Regarding Lake Armstrong: While terraforming the entire Moon is not a logical task to undertake, it would be relatively simple to dome off a large section, say a crater, and terraform the area underneath.
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"Stirs a large iron pot. Casting a spell on Vermont."
--
John Linnell
[This message has been edited by Sol System (edited November 01, 1999).]
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"Agh! Save me from the wee turtles!"
-Groundskeeper Willy, The Simpsons
And I thought Sisko was just thinking of leaving Starfleet and construct orbital habitats after Wolf 359 - as revelaed in 'Way of the Warrior'.
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"Fire, Fire!" said Mrs O'Dwyer.
"Where, where?" said Mrs O'Hare.
"Down in the town." said Mrs Brown.
"Lord bless us and save us"
said old Mrs Davis.
"I never knew a herring was a fish."
Oh and yeah, I thought maybe he didn't take up the job - I couldn't remember - so I put it in anyway
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"Remove your hand or I will remove your arm!" - 7 of 9