That’s why I said unification has both its benefits and defecits Reed. The point is you’re free to choose for yourself. Obviously working together with hundreds of planets will speed up your technology and help defend against enemies (and besides that, working together is such a romantic notion, who can resist it?), but you will probably have to compromise some of your self in the process. It is up to the individual government to judge wether or not it is worth it, and as such, I see nothing tyrannical about it.

Matthew, thx for that clarification. I assume that info you provided is canon in that this stuff about The Treaty of Algeron was mentioned in an episode or movie. It sounds familiar. But it does seem stupid that the treaty allowed the Romulans to still use the cloak. I betcha the treaty was negotiated by some cowardly Federation Ambassador who was always getting in Kirk’s way.

An amendment was added to the Treaty of Algeron that allowed a cloaking device permanently installed on the USS Defiant, though it was only to be used in the Gamma Quadrant. This, naturally, was frequently ignored by Commander/Captain Sisko.

So. Yeah. Clarification.

Unification has both benefits and defecits of course, but as long as people volunteer (I realize in TOS, things were alot more gung-ho, much more simple and far less interesting than in TNG) I find it hard to hold it against the union. As far as I know, people can resign from the Federation without quarrel as well.

I think in TNG there are episodes in which human beings are exposed, and discover ideals that they did not anticipate. While it lacks the melodrama that you miss so much (You attribute this to Roddenberry knuckling down on scripts, I would also give credit to the superior writing staff + helpful viewers), it has much deeper thoughts about society than you give it credit for. One of my favourite episodes is The Drumhead, which deals with issues of modern society towards its citizens. Jean-Luc Picard obviously comes across as enlightened, but I don’t think he is unrealistic, he is merely wise, well-tempered and intellectual. He realizes the moral dilemmas and the consequences of the easy ways out, that Kirk (or the TOS writers) never had the brain capacity to figure out, or even care about.