Citizenship

History

The struggle for the ascendancy of the Federation had been long and hard, with many of the founders beginning to grow old or injured in the Federation’s earliest struggles. In any case, they knew all too well that the time would soon come that they would have to turn their great enterprise over to a new generation.

The question was how.

The founders had no interest in establishing a dictatorship, or in creating a kind of royal line so that their biological heirs could continue to rule by divine right. Though their popularity at the time was such they could certainly have created such a system, it would have been a betrayal of all they fought for. They knew that if their new government was to stand the test of the ages, it had to be a government endorsed by its citizenry. The issue before them, then, was how to define citizenship. During its long struggle against the entrenched and corrupt powers of the old world, the founders of the Federation had learned a profound lesson, that the greatest force on Earth was a determined people willing to take up arms and defend itself and forge its own destiny. Every change for good the Federation had accomplished had been achieved through military means – a lesson not lost on the veterans at the heart of the new government. It was with this in mind that Dmitri Petrovich, formerly a colonel in the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and one of the people primarily responsible for that government’s embrace of the Federation, proposed a new definition of citizenship to the assembled founders in Geneva. In a radical departure from the practices of virtually every component nation of the new Federation, Petrovich proposed that the Federation’s criteria for citizenship involve a term of military service to the Federation. This would not be mandatory service. Rather, any person could choose to enter military service or not, as he pleased. Those who did not would be considered civilians, those who did would receive the franchise of citizenship, a franchise that would carry with it certain rights, chief among them the ability to vote for government leaders, to hold elected office and be employed in public service.

Petrovich’s fellow founders rallied around his new and revolutionary definition of citizenship, voting nearly unanimously to adopt it. However, they also realised the Federation was still new and not entirely secure yet – if a populace of angry people were able to throw down the old governments, they could do the same to the Federation. Further, many of the people who had fought hardest for the Federation, even a few of the founders, had never served in any nation’s military. Therefore, they had to find a way to make the majority of the population embrace this new definition.

The means of doing so was simple enough. The founders decreed that anyone who had taken up arms on behalf of the Federation at any point was to be considered a veteran and thus would now be considered a citizen. As this definition applied to the majority of the people now living under Federation rule, the founders felt confident the people would accept this measure.

For the most part, the people did. Although a large number of individuals had the title of citizen conferred on them unjustly, having never actually served the Federation under arms, such imperfections in the establishment of the new system were considered a small price to pay. However well the majority of the people under the new flag of the Federation accepted the citizen and civilian distinction, there were many who did not, who felt they had mistakenly traded one oppressive government for another. As protests to the new law began to flare up, the Federation promptly launched a diplomatic campaign to ensure the rules of citizenship were understood. The reasoning behind Petrovich’s proposal was simple – only those willing to set aside their own needs and work for the betterment of the Federation as a whole should have a say in how it is governed, and enlistment in Federal Service was the only way to judge that. Anyone living in the Federation had the option of entering Federal Service and becoming a citizen, it was a matter of personal choice whether or not to do so. Although the Federation’s well-meaning diplomatic approach had some partial success, this sudden ascendancy, of the military as the dominant social order and backbone of government did not sit well in some regions of the world, and the protests to the Federation’s redefinition of the meaning of citizenship boiled over into violence. In such cases, the Federation acted swiftly and forcefully to bring the issue to a quick and final conclusion. The Federation, obviously, had more on its plate than merely redefining citizenship. It also had to create the entire fabric of its government and ensure that fabric was strong and pliable enough to endure. With the question of citizenship behind them, the founders turned their attention to drafting a constitution, outlining the functions of the government, from passage of legislation to succession of leadership. It was a difficult task, the last great gift of the founders to the Federation. By the time it was completed and the Federal Constitution was ratified on January 1, 2156, the newly renamed Citizens’ Federation was ready to move forward into the future.

Freedom of Choice

One of the hallmarks of Federation governance is the choice afforded to every citizen and civilian of humanity, and any discussion of Federation culture would be remiss not to start here. Each individual may choose to be part of society or not to be. Though the Federation offers housing, employment, health care and education to every member of its population, it is up to the individual whether or not to take advantage of those opportunities. The Federation forces itself on no one. It extends its hand to every citizen and every civilian. It is the choice, and ultimately the responsibility, of the individual to take that hand or to brush it away.

In Federation culture, choice is the only true freedom anyone has. Or rather, it is the root of all freedoms enjoyed under Federation rule. There are no barriers imposed on the populace with regard to race, to creed, to sex or any other of the demarcations and prejudices that divided human society before the Federation. A person’s success or failure in life is his victory or his defeat alone.

The price of Citizenship

Nothing worthwhile is given freely. Nothing important comes without cost. For something to be of value, it must be earned. This is a central precept of the Federation and one which informs everything the government does. For example, the government of the Federation provides housing, education and health care to all its citizens and civilians. This is not given freely, however. In order to take advantage of these opportunities provided by the government, the citizen or civilian must be employed and act as a responsible, contributing member of society. If an individual chooses not to work, he certainly may, but he will find his access to Federation housing, health care and education abruptly cut off. The Federation is not in the business of supplying the needs and wants of an idle population. Housing, education and health care therefore are not truly given by the government to the populace; they are earned through a life of productivity and contribution to the larger community.

For something of even greater value, such as citizenship, the Federation demands a higher price. Any person in the Federation has the option, from the day he turns 18 years old until he reaches 50, to enlist in Federal Service for a term of no less than two years. At the completion of his service, and only upon satisfactory completion, he will become a citizen of the Federation.

Sacrifice and Responsibility

When a young civilian of the Federation becomes old enough to qualify for Federal Service, freshly graduated from high school and with the lessons from his History and Moral Philosophy class still prominent in his mind, he is usually able to recite by rote memory the official distinction between a soldier and a civilian. The text of the current edition of the class textbook reads like this: ‘The difference lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.’

Of course, being able to recite this distinction by rote and understanding what it truly means are two entirely different things and represent a central thrust of the standard coursework of the History and Moral Philosophy class – to teach young people, who have not yet been faced with the difficult choices of adulthood, exactly what the distinction between citizen and civilian means, knowledge that will allow them to make an informed decision regarding whether or not to apply for Federal Service.

Those who do enlist in Federal Service and who manage to see their terms of service through to the end, will become citizens of the Federation. This is no mere semantic distinction. With citizenship comes power, the ability to exert one’s will upon the government through the ability to vote, or even to hold public office within the government. Such is the franchise of a citizen, the ultimate expression of power within the Federation.

Citizens and Civilians

It is no secret in the Federation that being a citizen carries with it a certain amount of prestige and honour that a civilian, no matter what his accomplishments, cannot achieve. It is also no secret that, by and large, citizens and civilians do not mix. The most important reason for this demarcation of mutual consent in Federation culture is that citizens and civilians simply do not understand one another. The citizen sees the civilian as someone who is all too willing to reap the benefits of life under the Federation but is not willing to endanger himself to defend it. The civilian sees the citizen as someone who spent two years crawling around in the dirt being shot at and is somehow under the impression that makes him a better man than the civilian. Unless they happen to work side by side in their place of employment, citizens and civilians rarely mingle. Citizens often choose to marry other citizens and are likely to encourage their children to enter Federal Service to earn their franchise when they reach the age of 18. Civilians are equally likely to stick to their own, to marry other civilians and urge their children to get an education or a job instead of Federal Service when they reach the minimum age for enlistment. Families have been broken apart because the children of citizens have chosen not to enter Federal Service, just as they have when children of civilians have taken the path of enlistment. Citizens and civilians rarely even live in close proximity – a Federation-supplied housing complex is usually taken up with entirely citizens or entirely civilians, who often complain the citizens have more luxurious accommodations. That it is the civilian residents who damage and vandalise their own housing projects is rarely factored in to those complaints.

Life as a Citizen

Of course, no one can live his or her entire life as a citizen. All minors in the Federation population are, by law, civilians until they reach the age of 18 and can select enlistment in the Federal Service. Once the two-year term of service in Federal Service is complete, the newly-minted citizen may choose whether to remain in the Federal Service, perhaps even going to Officer Candidacy School and going career, or he may retire to the private sector, his franchise as a citizen gladly bestowed. As all citizens know but most civilians do not, it is illegal for anyone still enlisted in Federal Service to vote, whether he has served two days or two decades. If the citizen chooses to go career in the Federal Service, he has a rewarding life ahead of him spent in the service of the Federation and humanity as a whole. Perhaps eventually he will achieve the rank of general or admiral, depending upon his branch of service, of course. Or, if he is willing to accept the challenge, he may try his hand at both Fleet and Mobile Infantry, in hopes of one day becoming a sky marshal. On the other hand, the new citizen may choose to leave

Federal Service behind. If so, he will find the world has opened up to him. His franchise as a citizen gives him not only the right to vote but the right to seek employment in the government as anything from an economist at the Economic Services department to a police officer in his old home town. He may also choose to follow a career in politics, serving the Federation at the local or regional level, or perhaps even aspiring to a seat on the Federal Council. In time, the awkward boy from high school who felt the need to enlist in Federal Service and serve all of humanity may even attain the position of prime councilor, the highest office in the entire Federation.

Even if the citizen chooses not to pursue any of these paths reserved for citizens only, he will still find a number of perks offered to him by a grateful government and population for his service. If he wishes to enroll in a university, he will enjoy a lower tuition cost. Should he choose to open his own company, to test his capitalistic wings and see if he has what, it takes to succeed in the private sector like he did in Federal Service, he will find he is entitled to certain advantages there as well. Ultimately, whether he serves only one term or makes a career of Federal Service, the citizen knows that, when the end finally comes, he will able to look back on a life well spent.

Life as a Civilian

For a civilian, life in the Federation tends toward one of two extremes, either great wealth or crushing poverty. The latter is by far the more common of the two. Upon finishing his education at age 18, the civilian may choose to go straight into the workforce, labouring at a job assigned him by Social Services that best fits his aptitudes and talents. Alternatively, if his grades and/or his finances permit, he may seek higher education at one of the many universities of the Federation, seeking a better education and the better standard of living that often comes with it. If at any time before he turns 50 years old the civilian realises that he has made a mistake in not choosing Federal Service, he may rectify that mistake by signing up and seeking his franchise as a citizen. However, many civilians, particularly those that succeed in the private sector, either through skill, ability, luck, education or all of them combined, feel that Federal Service is a dangerous waste of time and effort. They see the sovereign franchise as a wholly nominal political privilege that has little or no effect upon the Federation and, most importantly, does not pay a single penny. So long as the civilian remains employed (and he always will, if he is willing to work), he need never fear for the loss of shelter, food or safety. All of these will be provided for the productive civilian until the end of his days. However, even the wealthiest civilians, looking back on their lives when the end comes, may find themselves wondering what legacy they have left, how they have bettered the world by their passage through it. On that day, if on no other, the civilian will look at the citizen and feel regret.