Fridge Horror: The Cosmic Being that keeps the Federation in working order keeps an entire race under the delusion that they are not Too Dumb to Live; An entire race has been reduced to some Cosmic Being's pet gold fish.
Alternately, the Federation is hiding behind the protection of that Cosmic Being so they don't have to change elements of their civilization that are just plain broken.Which is just about everything.
AlternateFridge Horror: An entire species that is just too idiotic to realize that, when a Nigh Invulnerable, God-like, cosmic entity with unimaginable wisdom at it's disposal tells you that you really need to make some changes to the way they have been doing things, you should probably do so. The Cosmic Being literally devotes nearly all of it's spare time just to keeping their absolute mess of a government/educational system/legal system/EVERY FREAKIN' POSSIBLE FACET OF THEIR SOCIETY AND CULTURE from collapsing in a fiery heap of shame and failure. Again. The only change that has occurred in their society in 400 years of interstellar exploration is that the smart ones actually have an opportunity to leave their steaming failure of a society before it finally self destructs.
The scariest thing about the entire scenario is that, the higher up the command chain you go, the greater the incompetence of the people in charge. Looking at the crew of the Glorious Undertaking, and their entire civilization, is like looking at the The Dilbert Principle in action: the most incompetent people have been elevated to the highest offices, while the most competent are stuck at the lowest levels.
