Star Trek and the Federation's "Utopian" hell hole

Having watched a fair chunk of Trek over recent years on Virgin 1 I have to ask if the Federation actually that wonderful. Because they seem to me at times not to far away from the Federation of Blake's 7.

In Blake's 7 the Federation obviously used strong arm tactics and brainwashing to get their way, but like all massive organisations they are a mixed bag of leaders with some being obviously more malevolant than others. They did put their own people on trial for war crimes, like Travis, and Servalan was a loose cannon even by their standards. But lets consider that Blake's 7 as a series, and largely told from the point of view of terrorists, sets out to highlight the evil side of the federation rather than the largely benign parts that most people live out their lives under. Similarly this applies to the federation in Firefly.

Compare then with the Federation of Star Trek that is supposed to be a badge wearing 'utopia'. They have replicators and have done away with money, and everyone can happily join up to to back breaking work for Starfleet for no reward at all other than knowing they've done a job well. But their record on 'human' rights is dubious at best, even though within the context of the programme the Federation/Starfleet way of life is supposed to be rather aspirational. Do you know where people who commit criminal acts against the federation end up? Penal colonies. Julian Bashir's father was locked up in one for 2 years for having his son genetically engineered 30 years beforehand. While against the rules, it was effectively a victimless crime and for what exactly did an old man need to be punished or rehabilitated?

Lets recall that after accepting Data to join Starfleet and serve as an officer, they were quite happy for a scientist to request, with threats of force, to dismantle him just to find out how his brain worked, a proceedure supported by Starfleet officials. Data had to go through a trial simply to get a marginal enough victory to give him control over his own existance so as to choose not to be experimented upon by the Federation's own Dr Mengele. Though he was still not granted equal rights to a human, even though he is otherwise treated as one and allowed to work for them. Strangely, other bizarre aliens like the Horta (a rock) or Q (god-like), who both stretch the definition of 'life' are accepted as such, but Data is good for having his wires pulled out when they see fit. They look for life in new forms in outer space but overlook that going on in their own front yard.

But after that ruling for Data, where you'd hope some sort of precedent was set, we fast forward to Voyager where the hologram Doctor has exactly the same battle and ends up having the same dubious 'trial'. In this case he had a book stolen from him by a publisher who claimed that he wasn't a person and had no authorial rights over his creation and Starfleet seemed to largely agree. The doctor is arguably close enough to being sentient (which has been demonstrated to occur outright in holograms, see Moriarty in ST:TNG). He too gets his partial victory, barely enough to retract the book from the publisher, but he's still not recognised as a lifeform. But here's the best bit - the Mk1 hologram Doctors were an unfriendly bunch so they 'retired' them from being Doctors and packed them all into mines to chisel away at rocks to dig for ore. And I bet that as holograms aren't 'people' they are expected to work inhumane hours without reasonable breaks. So the Federation endorse slave labour when it suits them too, I suppose *that* is why they didn't want the court to decide that holograms could be people.

And lets not spend too long on the prime directive other than to say it's applied whenever certain people see fit. They either stick their oar in when it suits them to spy on people or turn a blind eye to people desperate for help and who are dying in droves. Furthermore it's frequently used as a brickbat every time one officer wants to get one over on the career of another rather than for the greater good of people and civilisations they meet. Every federation officer seems to dream of going to the planet Risa, which has a nice sunny veneer to cover the fact that it is in fact the Federation's brothel planet for uptight officers needing a break. The Maquis are Federation 'Terrorists' that only formed because the Federation encouraged people to start colonies on planets which they then decided to hand over to the Cardassians who have no concept of human rights. When these people decided to fight back and declare themselves nothing to do with the Federation, the Federation effectively help the Cardassians hunt them down. Oh, and then there's Section 31, the organisation that the federation leaders claim doesn't exist but which conveniently does all their dirty work like stealing stuff, assassinating people and even a little genocide.

So what do we think? Utopia or authoritarian hellhole? Where for all their claims of freedom if you don't fit their square shaped hole defining a 'lifeform' and don't want to sign up to the federation way of life, you can expect to find yourself imprisoned or dissected.