I don't recall any recent discussion on this topic, but there is one thing I've wondered about since I first viewed the series: What is the possibility that most of the individual citizens of the Federation have been sterilized, by one means or another?
We saw very few children throughout the entire run of the show, no matter where the LIBERATOR and the SCORPIO travelled...certainly far fewer than one sees today in any public environment. The Auronar were an isolated and 'alien' situation with a different policy, and there were other hints of isolated colony planets that had gone back to breeding their own, but for the most part, there were hints that the Federation was in control of the process. All we really ever heard about it was a vague reference to 'creches', and these appeared to be divided up into some sort of class system (or else the class of Alpha, Delta etc. was awarded afterward, based on some Federation standard).
Any ideas or thoughts on this?
Leah
--- Bizarro7@aol.com wrote: >
I don't recall any recent discussion on this topic, but there is one thing I've wondered about since I first viewed the series: What is the possibility that most of the individual citizens of the Federation have been sterilized, by one means or another?
I find it difficult to imagine a motive for this. Furthermore discussions about family members seem to assume normalish sort of family relations - Blake refers to siblings, Avon has a brother, Jenna's mother is seen, Hal Mellanby does not feel the need to explain away the existence of a daughter, nor does the existence of Ushton's daughter excite any undue comment. This is just off the top of my head.
We saw very few children throughout the entire run of the show, no matter where the LIBERATOR and the SCORPIO travelled...certainly far fewer than one sees today in any public environment.
A lot of the environments that we saw were not really the sort of place you'd expect to see children - The London, the planet of the lost, the bases on Saurian Major and Centero, Space Command HQ, Star One, The Thaarn's artificial black hole, Malodaar... again, those are just the ones off the top of my head.
The Auronar were an isolated and 'alien' situation with a different policy, and there were other hints of isolated colony planets that had gone back to breeding their own, but for the most part, there were hints that the Federation was in control of the process.
Given that the Federation had renounced cloning (Weapon) and that Servalan wanted to use the techniques the Auronar possessed in CoA as the Federation didn't have them it seems that natural birth would have still been the norm in the Federation.
All we really ever heard about it was a vague reference to 'creches', and these appeared to be divided up into some sort of class system (or else the class of Alpha, Delta etc. was awarded afterward, based on some Federation standard).
Vila's comments about choosing the wrong parents, seem to indicate that the class system was largely hereditary. I imagine creches would have been available for Alpha women who also had careers - possibly there was an element of class resentment in Bayban's sneer at Blake.
FWIW I don't think there were any real pressures for the Federation to control fertility as the surplus population could always be shipped off to found another colony. Possibly leaving earth could be one of the few ways for social advancement - which in turn may have been why Governor Le Grand wanted the leader of her new alliance to come from Earth.
Stephen.
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