Sally Manton wrote:
I'm wondering what other people's mental picture of the Federation's ruling group is.
Loved your "I, Claudius" comparison, Sally (more about that in a moment). "Stalinist" also sounds fitting. My personal picture, though, would be Orwellian (i.e. no personality cult, and even the opponents are by and large a construct of the ruling party), or, alternatingly, the Byzantine Empire.
The amount of scheming and backstabbing that goes on is very Roman to me (as in I Claudius, most of whose characters would fit beeeutifully into Servalan's world IMO),
Absolutely. Livia would have ruled the Federation behind the scenes, setting up someone a bit more stable than Travis to do the military work for her. Bercol & Rontane would probably have been her sidekicks. Since she was much more patient than Servalan, and since her plots usually suceeded, she'd have gotten hold of Blake & Co. very early on and we would never have gotten the show.
There's also a flavour (for me) of decay, especially in the 4th
series, that clashes with the canonical fact that the Federation *is* in Pylene-driven resurgence and makes me believe that said resurgence is probably due to collapse soon with or without Our Heroes' intervention.
I know what you mean about the flavour of decadence, which is why I chose the Byzantine Empire, because during the Julian-Claudian dynasty, Rome actually was still on the rise, not in its decadent stage. Never mind Caligula's mad shenanigans, the infrastructure and the administration were still sound, and the Empire hadn't even reached its largest extension yet. Though... in the year of the Three Emperors, following Nero's suicide, we do have an atmosphere very like the Federation following Servalan's coup d'etat, with general after general going for the throne. However, with Vespasian finally installed, everything stabilised again. So, alternatingly, could it be that the Federation after a final major shake-up becomes even more, not less stable?
Tanja