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Fry: DOOP? What's that? Farnsworth: It's similar to the United Nations from your time, Fry. Fry: Uh... Hermes: Or like the Federation from your Star Trek program. Fry: Oh!
The (mostly) good counterpart to The Empire. The Federation is basically a cross between the United Kingdom and the United States, with vague echoes of the Roman Republic. The actual name may vary, but not by much. Usually has the words "Federation", "United" or some version thereof, somewhere in the official title.
In most sci-fi settings, the Federation is entirely or predominantly human, and usually has the most generic-looking ships and equipment — typically, rather square/blocky with some angular aspects — and is most likely to look the closest to Twenty Minutes Into The Future when the other factions may be Crystal Spires And Togas, Organic Technology or both.
Rarely played as evil outright, but will usually suffer from sometimes-crippling red tape, and the occasional corrupt politicians and/or generals. Another common evil Federation set-up is The Federation opposing the independence of a number of colonies, whether space colonies in orbit, Mars or other planets in the system, or on entirely different systems. Even in this case, the main opposing force may be shown to be Well Intentioned Extremists, willing to hurt innocent people to try to gain their independence, or worse, being used as a front for a truly evil Big Bad. The heroes will usually be either among the good soldiers of the Federation or neutral parties who get caught up in the war; this is especially true in anime. In this case, The Federation will be seen as the lesser of two evils.
If pitted against The Empire, is usually in a Cold War-like state, just recovering from a recent war, or a few international incidents from plunging into one. They often give covert aid (weapons, funds, supplies) to any resistance movements, but won't intervene directly unless they're already at war. In general, it frequently plays an America-like role in the political climate of the setting.
Technically a "federation" is a loose conglomeration of states with common goals and purposes, coordinated by a central government that's independent of them all, and from which they have a certain amount of autonomy. One of the best examples of a federation is Russia: not only is its official name "Russian Federation", but most of the lands with a significant ethnic population, like Chechnya, are highly autonomous regions known as "republics". Likewise, the original design of the United States was a federation (hence "federal government"); many so-called "federations" in fiction are nothing of the sort. If the group acts much more like a single country than a bunch of mostly independent states, it's probably The Republic.
Note that a 'Confederation' is typically a conglomeration of states that are even more loosely bound than a Federation, the primary difference is that in a Confederation, the federal good is 'never' allowed to outweigh the good of the individual state. Switzerland is a modern example of a successful confederate democracy. In fiction, Confederations are typically portrayed as (at best) antagonistic neutrals and at worst, bad guys. This seems to be a holdover from the US civil war.
Compare and contrast The Alliance, usually a more temporary union of nations.
Examples:
- The United Federation of Planets in Star Trek, of course.
- A fairly accurate example. While they have a strong "Navy" who also include an FBI-like gendarmerie, they seem to let member worlds largely manage their own affairs and avoid military opposition to secession.
- The Earth Alliance and Interstellar Alliance in Babylon 5
- Though the Earth Alliance devolves into a Space Nazi Empire under President Clark, complete with the Martian-independence subtrope.
- United Earth Oceans (UEO) in Sea Quest DSV.
- The Federation in Blake's 7 is very very corrupt and oppressive, but this should not be taken as a subversion of the trope.
- The Peacekeepers from Farscape should, however, be considered a subversion. They were no less an empire than their enemies, the Scarrans, but they were clean and well dressed (and prettier). They were also Space Nazis.
- The Systems Commonwealth in Andromeda.
- The Earth Empire, the Galactic Federation, and the later Human Empires in Doctor Who, despite the "empire" names, fit this trope (although, because of the multi-millennial time scales involved, how well they fit varies). In most cases, planets are controlled by local governments or corporations, while the central government is benevolent but so distant as to be useless outside of a small sphere. (The Earth Empire could be thought of as analogous to the British Empire, the Galactic Federation to the United Nations, and the Human Empire to the English-speaking world.)
- Not necessarily - the exact mechanism of government for these political bodies were never clarified.
- The Union of Allied Planets in Firefly (though the story is told from the side of a group that lost to the Alliance...)
- The Twelve Colonies of
Man Kobol in Battlestar Galactica. Depicted as being rather weaker than most Federations, as its member Colonies are permitted to be as tyrannical (read: Saggitaron) or fanatical (read: Gemenon) as they please.
- This is likely because the Twelve Colonies united are said to just over 50 years old, 40 years after the end of the decade long Cylon War. It is quite likely they only came together to face the threat posed by the Cylons, and mention is made of various colonies being dominated for centuries by some of the others in the series. The first episode of the Prequel series, Caprica, seems to confirm this. As a result, the only truly powerful Colonies wide organization is the Colonial Military, resulting in the occasionally dark undertones as to the influence it had on government and harsh reactions of previous President's to civil strife.
- The Earth Federation in Mobile Suit Gundam
- The United Earth Sphere Alliance in Gundam Wing
- The Earth Alliance in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. Subverted once it's learned that the EA has been responsible for its own share of atrocities.
- None of the Federations in Gundam are particularly benevolent. In the original 0079, Amuro Ray, hero of the One Year War, is immediately placed under house arrest after the armistice because senior commanders distrusted Newtypes. Even after a decade of service, he is never promoted beyond Lieutenant.
- The United Nations in Super Dimension Fortress Macross, or United Earth Government in the American adaptation ''Robotech.
- The Time/Space Administration Bureau from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
- The Union in Soukou No Strain, pitted against the evil rebel Deague.
- In Code Geass, In response to Holy Empire of Britannia, Zero later creating the United States of Japan, later the United Federation of Nations.
- Likewise, there was the European Universe, who were smacked silly, and only Britain (surprise), Germany and the Norse islands as well as the Congo and Ukraine remained free. And to add salt to wounds, no named characters exist from the EU. They only served to be a throw away country.
- The Atlantic Federation of Valkyria Chronicles. However, they quickly prove that they're not much better than their Imperial counterparts, the East European Imperial Alliance.
- The Free Planets Alliance from Legend Of Galactic Heroes is an example for a Federation treated realistically.
- The Earth Federation in Mobile Suit Gundam
- The Terran factions in Star Craft usually fit this to one degree or another, although in Star Craft it is a Confederation, which is not nearly so well-intentioned. Think in terms of the Confederate States of America that lost the American Civil War. This is a worse of a misuse of a term than 'Federation' tends to be, as a confederation is supposed to have even looser central government, one that wouldn't have the authority to try to retain a region that wanted to leave.
- Up to question, as the Confederation which predated the Union in Real Life prohibited secession ("perpetual union"), and there's actually a very interesting and plausible situation allowed within the Civil War Confederacy's Constitution to oppose secession (If a Secession Convention was called and the state legislature was not in support of the measure, they could call in Confederacy troops to put down the secession attempt)
- Anyways, succeeded by the Terran Dominion, which to all intents in purposes is effectively an autocracy and much more overt in both name and intentions.
- Parodied in Star Control II, where the player character is asked to name the new good-guy faction. One of the options is the United Federation of Worlds. Another is "The Empire of [Your Name]".
- The Earth Federation (later Pangalactic Federation) in Star Ocean; since SO is significantly based on Star Trek, this is quite similar to the UFP above.
- The Galaxy Federation in Xenosaga.
- The Global Defense Initiative (GDI) in Command And Conquer
- Also the United States in the Generals series.
- The Homeworlds from Exosquad.
- The Federation in Frontier, Frontier: Elite and Frontier: First Encounters. Only marginally nicer than The Empire, but still a straightforward example of the trope.
- In Metroid Prime 3, the Galactic Federation (unsurprisingly) turns out be a fairly standard example.
- The Union in Drakengard, fighting the Empire.
- The Terran Confederation from the Wing Commander series.
- The Lycian League in Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals and its prequel, Blazing Sword, are a group of small territories, each ruled by a marquess. In Sword of Seals, they fight The Empire, but in Blazing Sword they mostly squabble amongst themselves. Some endings of Sword of Seals have the main character unifying the territories into a single kingdom.
- The Peacekeeping Forces faction in Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri.
- The Citadel Council in Mass Effect.
- Not to mention the human Systems Alliance, which fits this trope to a tee.
- EVE Online's Gallente Federation.
- Valkyria Chronicles subverts this as the Federation isn't any better than The Empire.
- Escape Velocity Nova features a Federation. They're definitely not portrayed the good guys, and they seem to act like more of an Empire than a Federation. They even have their own Rebellion opposing them. The Auroran Empire is a sort of confederation, being a bunch of independent, warring houses that pass around the leadership baton.
- It's something of an inversion - the Federation is corrupt, and the Empire is honor-driven to a fault. In one ending, the player Takes A Third Option and winds up with a stable society after uniting them.
- The Horde in Warcraft III and World of Warcraft is a fantasy example of this trope. Unlike the Horde's rival, the Alliance, the Horde has a centralized political leadership (the Warchief), chosen based on merit, who holds the various races together.
- The humans in Master Of Orion II has democracy as their form of government. Their "Advanced government type" turns them into The Federation. Oh, and the picture of the human leader is a bald man, just in case you missed the message.
- Much like The Empire, the MMORPG Pardus plays this trope pretty straight. Mostly humans? Check. Somewhat corrupt? Check. 20 Minutes Into the Future ships? Oh yes. What makes this interesting, though, is that the Federation is comprised completely of players(along with the other 2 factions, the Empire and the Union).
- The United Nations Space Command from Halo is a schoolbook example of this.
- The Alliance in Breath Of Fire IV is a borderline case between The Alliance and this trope, going more towards The Federation just due to the length of time it and The Empire have been at a state of running hot- and cold-wars. Six hundred years, to be precise, with at least four de facto World Wars and armistices...and the wars have lately involved the use of nuke Expys by the Alliance. And you thought the Hundred Years War was bad...
- The Galactic Republic, the New Republic, and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances (Galactic Alliance for short) in the Galaxy Far Far Away.
- Also, the Confederacy of Independent Systems of the prequels, though they were more or less evil.
- Ditto with the Trade Federation, which would become part of the CIS.
- The United Galactic Federation of Lilo And Stitch.
- The United Citizen Federation of Starship Troopers is more of a Peoples Republic Of Tyranny than a Federation, complete with a Propaganda Machine. Though civil rights are surprisingly good.
- The People's Republic of Haven in the Honor Harrington series is a very nasty and brutal deconstruction of this trope. Haven starts out as a simple Republic that is referred to as an 'Interstellar Athens' and lived in a perpetual golden age. Then the Havenite government decided to jack up the welfare programs, which in turn causes the economy to collapse. Instead of cutting the welfare programs, the Republic instead decides to turn conquistador, conquering and looting other planets to put money in their treasury. Fast forward a hundred or so years later, Haven rules a vast interstellar empire of over two hundred star systems, and its citizens are divided into the second-class 'proles' ruled by Hereditary political families. Then, a revolution kicks off, trying to fix the system. Unfortunately the revolution is modeled after the French Revolution complete with a leader named Rob S. Peirre. Saying that it didn't end well would be a kind of an understatement.
- Of course, now that the Havenite version of the Thermidorian Reaction has occurred (Theisman and Pritchard), and with their version of Napoleon removed ahead of schedule (Citizen Admiral Clusterbomb, AKA Esther McQueen), things seem to be on track for the restored Republic of Haven. Aside from the whole resumption of war with Manticore, of course.
- And Athens was running a de facto empire at one point. It's just shifted its timeframe.
- The old Haven's model of "corrupt government fighting wars of conquest to bribe the masses" can be interpreted either as a Strawman Political of today's welfare systems... or as the later days of the Roman Empire Recyled In Space, with a series of corrupt emperors and a useless Senate looting the empire to provide "bread and circuses" for the Roman plebs. Or even more directly since Haven's capital is Nouveau Paris, it's France under Louis XVI.
- In the "Storm from the Shadows" it's revealed that the real cause of the fall of the "old" Republic was some clever maneuvering by The Alignment as part of their master plan., so that conservative readers may still read it as "welfare is evil" Aesop and those less so may point out that it was engineered to fail from the beginning.
- I always thought that the Solarian League was the one that was meant to be taking the wind out of TheFederation's sails. They're based on Earth, they have unlimited red tape, and a smug (and unfounded) sense of their own superiority. The slippery way that they acquire and hang onto "protectorate" worlds aligns with the Maquis view of Trek's Federation, as well, unlike Haven who simply send out invasion fleets.
- If anything fits the benevolent version of the Federation it's the Alliance led by Manticore, at least in nascent form.
- Why? Is Manticore not the Kingdom of the Honorverse?
- It's The Empire of Manticore now...
- Actually a Federation would allow for individual polities to rule with whichever system they wish as long as they fit certain guidelines. However the Manticoran Alliance is in fact closer to being The Alliance since it is a group of governments facing a greater threat (The Republic of Haven) though it may become a Federation in its own right later.
- The Confederation in Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy, and the Commonwealth in his Commonwealth Saga.
- Despite its name (and being lead by the same handful of nearly-immortal humans for centuries), the Solar Empire of the Perry Rhodan series is a voluntary alliance of Earth and alien worlds with proper civil rights.
- The Con Sentiency, a federation of truly alien societies.
- The Humanx Commonwealth, in the Space Opera series of the same name by Alan Dean Foster.
- The trading nations in Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy that Rhian has to fight with in order to get an army and ships from them to stop the oncoming attack from Mijak.
- The Solar Federation in Rush's 2112 is a strawman communist state.
- Sarah Brightman lost her heart to a starship trooper who was "fighting for the Federation".
- The Tau Empire would be the Federation of Warhammer 40000, mainly because they actually give you the option of joining them or dying instead of just dying and are the only faction who knows the definition of the word diplomacy. This makes them the closest thing even resembling the good guys in the setting. Anywhere else and they would be the Well Intentioned Extremists opposing the Federation.
- or The Empire, as even if you discard Imperium propaganda, the Tau easily have the most firmly centralized governmental structure of all the 40k factions, making them actually very much unlike a Federation.
- The Imperium itself fits the trope in a lot of ways; individual worlds are largely allowed to run themselves so long as they pay a tithe of warm bodies for the Imperial Guard, food for the myriad Hive Worlds, and psykers for the Inquisition's Black Ships.
- The Traveller's Third Imperium is one of these, despite the name suggesting something different.
- The Federated Commonwealth in BattleTech. Meanwhile, the Free Worlds League, while not fitting the "good guys" vibe of the trope, is more of an actual federation, with many nigh-independent worlds and regions, and the loosest central government of the major powers.
- The New Earth Government in Cthulhu Tech (formed from the New United Nations during an "alien" genocide) might qualify, for all that it's a Police State in a Lovecraftian universe which operates a borderline Ministry Of Love to prevent EldritchAbominations from controlling you in an attempt to destroy/convert/use as breeding fodder/transform humanity. The Cthulhutech world is not a happy place.
- The Seven Kingdoms in Talislanta fit this trope perfectly, the moreso in that each of the seven is populated by a (very!) different race. Not all aliens have to be from outer space.
- British Space in the Space Arc of Arthur King Of Time And Space. Despite being a monarchy, very close to being a proper federation: Arthur likes his petty kings and subject lords to have relative autonomy, because it means less work.
- Associated Space features the Terran Associated States, a fairly loose federation of petty human star empires, republics, and every other form of government that's ever been tried.
- Tech Infantry has the Earth Federation, which at various times both plays this trope straight and subverts it by being oppressive and evil.
- Decades Of Darkness has the Russian Empire/Federation, the German Empire and the British Empire.
- Open Blue has the Axifloan Coalition, a very shaky confederation whose members were hated enemies no more than 170 years before the present time, stopping only because they realized fighting was stupid. Interestingly enough, its most powerful member states include two rival empires, a Vestigial Empire, a Nation Under Copyright, and a small but extremely powerful City-State.
- Two of the more powerful slider factions in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yaku-Asobi
 are the Crossway and Odinean Federations. The former is closer to The Republic (reformed from The Empire), however.
Web Comics
- The United Nations of Sol in Schlock Mercenary, as a semi-villainous version; it's heavily factionalised, and has an extremely untrustworthy longevity project going on in secret; knowledge of this project outside those cleared for it is ruthlessly suppressed.
- The Democratic Organization of Planets (DOOP) in Futurama.
- The Federated Commonwealth in BattleTech. Meanwhile, the Free Worlds League, while not fitting the "good guys" vibe of the trope, is more of an actual federation, with many nigh-independent worlds and regions, and the loosest central government of the major powers.
- The Earth Kingdom, a vast confederate monarchy in Avatar The Last Airbender.
- The United States of America. The degree of autonomy the states get is especially interesting to many foreigners.
- Great Britain
- - Unlike most federations, Great Britain is not a constitutional federation - whilst Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have varying degrees of devolved power, these can be revoked by the British Parliament in Westminster
- Any others by non-need-to-sleep people?
- Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Russia with varying degrees of autonomy for their members.
- The long term goal of the European Union is to be one. Its a very very long time goal.
- Australia fits the Federation trope quite well. Each state is its own entity, with it's own legislature, head of state, and head of government. The commonwealth government ('i.e.' the federal government) has the power to make law only for purposes enumerated in the constitution (of which the High Court has always read broadly), unless a state refers that purpose to the commonwealth.
- Canada, which has a constitutional structure similar to Australia's, substituting provinces for states.
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