Space Relations: The Politics of Star Wars vs. Star Trek

An Opinion Article by Akash Sethi and Tejas Raghuram 

Midterm elections are upon us.  If you’re tired of political ads, campaign shenanigans and realpolitik, join our contributors as they navigate the fictional machinations of intergalactic governance.  A warning though: Sith lords and Klingons can be as cagey and manipulative as our real-life politicians but thankfully without truly affecting our terrestrial lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn8g9J_CxDo&feature=youtu.be

Palpatine Power
By Akash Sethi 

When asked “What is Star Wars?”, one might say, “It’s the wondrous tales of the Jedi Order,” “a rebellion from an empire shrouded by the dark side,” or “a republic that used  clone troopers to suppress a widespread revolution.” All three of these descriptions hold merit; however, they only scratch the surface of complexity within the Star Wars galaxy; they don’t explain its politics. Harold Lasswell defined politics as “who gets what, when, and how.” I will explore how Lasswell’s definition applies to Star Wars, specifically the Clone Wars.

To better understand George Lucas’s galactic governance, it is important to gain an understanding of the Star Wars universe.

In it, the closer a star system was to the capital, Coruscant, meant it would have more influence, power, and wealth; the further it was meant its economic status and influence in the government would be lowered. Furthermore, racism had a strong effect on the galaxy as humans treated aliens as lesser beings. Due to discrimination, the aliens were forced to live in worlds further from the core systems in a region called the Outer Rim. Not unlike in today’s world, the poor star systems were left with limited representation in the senate, limited protection by the Republic military, and limited aid. This caused these Outer Rim regions such as Geonosis and Onderon to join the Separatist Alliance, a revolutionary group with ideals to create a democratic government free from the corruption that was flaring in the Republic’s senate.

These political configurations may seem to be a source of the Clone Wars, but nothing could be further from the truth. The real politics and strings were all played by Darth Sidious, a Sith lord with dark force powers. So what did Darth Sidious want? He, as most villains do, wanted control over the galaxy. And the Clone Wars was his path to do so.

Before the start of the Clone Wars, Darth Sidious was only an apprentice to the Sith lord Darth Plagueis. On Coruscant, the two had set their plan into motion. They, by using shady methods, raised Senator Valerium of the Republic to become its Supreme Chancellor.

In the galaxy, the Outer Rim planets were supplied goods by the core and inner planets, while the Outer Rim planets supplied the core with luxury goods. To allow these trades in the galaxy, trade routes were mapped out and were taxed by the central government. However, the government decided to remove taxes on these routes to allow for more trade. A group called the Trade Federation seized the opportunity and formed a monopoly of these routes. As the government started to realized that the Trade Federation had too much power, some groups started talking about curbing their power. However, the Sith Lord Darth Plagueis convinced them otherwise. A deal was reached: the Outer Rim would be given a little more power, while the federation was given a seat in the senate. This further strengthened the Trade Federation and allowed them to continue harming the fringe territories economically.

With the public unhappy about the Trade Federation’s power, protests formed a small criminal group, causing the Trade Federation to create a droid army to protect itself. Furthermore, this criminal group, assisted by Darth Sidious, successfully assassinated most of the Trade Federation’s leadership resulting in Nute Gunray, a low-level member of the Trade Federation, to rise up in power and become the leader of the Trade Federation.

This allowed Darth Sidious to have the leader of the Trade Federation under his control. Around the same time, his found out about an assassination attempt on his master from the King of Naboo, and he swiftly assassinated the king. Additionally, he was able to get a child queen appointed. Next, he convinced Newt Gunray to blockade the planet of Naboo to send a message to the Republic for not protecting them from the criminal group. However, this blockade was illegal. Under the supervision of Darth Sidious, Trade Federation made the child queen legalize their actions so the Republic Senate could not intervene to stop the blockade. Next Darth Sidious, as Naboo Senator to the Republic, used a vote of no confidence to impeach Chancellor Valorum for not protecting the starving people of Naboo. Finally, he played on the sympathies of other Senators, since he was the Senator of the starving people, and was able to be elected as Supreme Chancellor.

What makes Star Wars so interesting is that this story was only the plot of how Chancellor Palpatine, secretly known as Darth Sidious, catapulted himself to Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. It does leave out how his apprentice, Darth Tyranus, created the Separatist Alliance from groups which wanted lower taxes on their trade, not groups that were discriminated against by the Republic. Darth Tyranus was able to make star systems join their cause by playing on their emotions and ideals of the Republic’s discriminative attitude toward them. Moreover, the entire Clone Wars was one person’s orchestra as Darth Sidious controlled the Republic and his apprentice controlled the Separatist Alliance. By starting the war, Chancellor Palpatine was given emergency wartime powers, doing it with the full support of the senate. As Senator Amidala of the Galactic Republic said, “So this is how liberty dies…with thunderous applause.” With his wartime powers, Chancellor Palpatine was able to command the clone army to swiftly eliminate the Jedi with Order 66. Once the Jedi were finished, there was no one left to oppose him, allowing him to declare himself emperor of his new Galactic Empire. By starting the Clone Wars, he was able to topple a government that had stood for 25,000 years.

Dominion Domination
By Tejas Raghuram

(SPOILERS for seasons 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. If you haven’t watched this show, you have to! Season 1 is pretty bad but past that it is just fantastic TV)

The universe of Star Trek has always been a vast and complex one, full of political conflict and intrigue with many different factions each controlling its own small part of galactic real estate. Definitely the most famous is the United Federation of Planets, which is an interplanetary alliance led by Earth with the mission to peacefully “seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

The other major factions include the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassians and the Dominion, just to name a few. Each one of the factions listed here are unique; they all have their own dynamic interplay with the other factions. While there are plenty of examples of this interplay in all of Memory Alpha (Star Trek canon), none demonstrate it better than the Dominion War, as depicted on the show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The Dominion War is basically the conflict between the Federation (and its allies) and the Dominion. When the Federation took over the Cardassian space station Terok Nor and renamed it to Deep Space Nine, they discovered a wormhole to a different part of the galaxy called the Gamma Quadrant. However, on the other side of that wormhole was the Dominion, an alliance of alien races comprised of the Jem’Hadar, a race of warriors; the Vorta, the negotiators; and the Founders, a race of shapeshifters.

Although the Federation tried to start peaceful relations with the Dominion, the negotiation team was captured and imprisoned by the Jem’Hadar, resulting in the subsequent destruction of the Federation starship Odyssey. This shocked all the major powers in the Alpha Quadrant (where the Federation is), including the Romulan and Cardassian empires. Afraid of a Dominion attack, the two combined their fleets and decided to conduct a preemptive strike on the homeworld of the Dominion leaders. However, this effort ended up being an ambush, one that caused the combined destruction of both fleets.

After the disastrous first contact with the Dominion, tensions rose, as the threat of an invasion from the Gamma Quadrant grew ever larger. To make matters worse, a desperate Cardassia joined the Dominion, granting them access directly into the Federation’s quadrant. Not only did the Dominion begin building their own fleet in Cardassian space, they also began to sign non-aggression pacts with systems all over the quadrant, making the list of Federation allies grow ever shorter.

As more and more Dominion ships came through the wormhole, tensions rose even further until Captain Sisko, the commander of DS9, had no choice but to mine the entrance to the wormhole. This caused things to spiral even further out of control, leading to the start of the Dominion War. The building tension portrayed throughout seasons 3-6 of DS9 is really cool to watch, as you see the Dominion grow from a small threat at the back of everyone’s minds to the biggest danger the galaxy has ever seen. It is this buildup that Star Trek does so well, and there is no better example of it than the Dominion War.

The Dominion War, however, is not just a demonstration of the politics of dealing with outside threats. It also showcases brilliantly the inner workings of the Alpha Quadrant itself. Shortly after the Dominion threat was discovered, the Klingon Empire began to fortify its positions against the coming invasion. In order to gain a better defensive position, Klingon troops commanded by Chancellor Gowron, head of the empire, occupied Deep Space Nine, causing prolonged tensions between the Federation and the Klingons.

Ever since the days of Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise (from original Star Trek series), the Klingons have always been quite hostile towards the Federation. However, all that changed with the signing of the Khitomer Accords, which was a treaty between the two factions ensuring that they would remain allies. However, with the Klingon troops sparring against Starfleet personnel on board DS9, it seemed conflict was inevitable. This all culminated in the Federation going to war with the Klingons again (as shown in the brilliant story arc of Season 4), breaking the Khitomer Accords and leaving the entire quadrant a prime target for the Dominion. What this story arc does so well is show how the threat of war can fracture the closest of alliances. With everyone set on a hair-trigger, even the tiniest of nudges set things off and, in this case, quite explosively.