Are Federations actually Confederations?
- Thread starter Sapidianus
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You are probably right. I guess in Stellaris, the idea of the United Federation of Planets is kind of in the way for applying the official definition of Federation.
There may have been rigid differences in definition in the past but usage these days has blurred. Partly this is because some of the differences listed on that site are difficult to assess in practice...lots of 'usually's. It is very difficult, for example, to know for sure whether membership of an international organisation is voluntary or not - and it often depends on what one believes to be the criteria for 'voluntary'. In practical reality a federation is just an organisation that calls itself such.
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Yeah, from what I've seen. I'd love it if it were renamed to Confederation.
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seems like a Federation as the leader can declare war and the members are forced to join it. That does not seem like a weak central authority which would be indicative of a confederation.
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Confederation or Confederacy also has a negative modern connotation since a lot of people would think of the Confederates in the US Civil War. Federation now ends up sounding 'friendlier' than Confederation.
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I would hope Paradox would not use Federation simply because it is more PC...
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I guess Federation has a more moder connotation.. Swiss Confederation is considered "ancient régime" (simplyfied) and yeah, the Star Trek Federation, which established the term "Federation" widely to the SciFi mainstream... The OP is kinda correct, but a) meanings shift and b) Federation incorporates probably the various forms of confederation, confederacy, federation, union... so it's ok, since you cannot implement 3234 forms of unions.
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I wasn't necessarily thinking that... More that the American Civil War is so widely known in the English speaking world, and that they are normally viewed negatively, so that the very word Confederation might be moving out of use. Despite the subtle difference in meaning, it looks like most people would use them interchangeably, so it becomes a choice, and Federation becomes attractive because of its sci-fi parallels, whereas Confederation makes people think of the Confederate States or Switzerland, which are a lot less exciting. I think that the more narrow associations of Confederacy give it a general feeling of an 'old' type of government, whereas a Federation has somehow won the lottery and sounds entirely suitable to multiracial sci-fi governments.
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This. For example, the Southerners clearly believed the USA to be a confederation, until they were shown rather sternly that actually, they're not. (If I got my history right)
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From what I have seen they do indeed look more like a Federation then a Confederation. On the other hand normal alliances from what we have seen, seem more like a Confederation sense every member has to vote for the war unlike in a Federation where they have no say. It seems individually the empires have more say in normal alliances then they would in a Federation outside of them being the leader. So if anything maybe the alliances should be called Confederations..
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I wouldn't really call it "more PC." The usage of terms in fiction is supposed to convey an idea to your audience. Confederacy might be more accurate, but the added baggage means that to a sizable chunk of your players it's not going to convey the right message, or it conveys a bunch of stuff you don't necessarily intend it to.
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That is actually the definition of PC. It is avoiding words that people find offensive and in extreme cases avoiding the use of words people don't understand to avoid people getting upset.....
anyhow, I think they are federations as the ability to force wars by a central authority demonstrates a very powerful central authority.
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Yeah, ummm... no. Most people outside of the US don't even care about your silly war from centuries ago.
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Well, I'm not from the US, but when I read "Confederacy" I think Richmond and I'm also not sure, I could name many other Confederacies from history. Most didn't call themselves "confederacy", even if they were one.
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A lot of people in the world see US events via CNN and other programs. Otherwise they wouldn't know about US elections in so much detail. It's not as if they can vote in them. If CNN and such had been available back then, the world definitely would have cared as much as they do now a days.
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I wish it were so. I'm from Wales and went to a Welsh-speaking secondary school and even there American Civil Rights and the American Civil War were two of the main GCSE history modules*. Granted, that's only one case, but it seems like as many people here have a basic grounding in American history as they do in their own. Many people here know more about the American Civil War than the English Civil War, simply because if you're not really in to history, American history is sometimes easier to pick up accidentally through cultural products. In my school the policy seemed to be that there were two types of history, local Welsh history and universal American history. (though this is probably not at all representative of schools in England or the English language)
*To be fair, there was one piece of coursework on an awesome piece of local history: A series of riots where men put on dresses, blacked their faces and smashed toll gates into pieces.
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