While the rapid growth of the organization might well explain some of it I honestly have a hard time imaging a government letting things escalate to this degree - especially since many of the functions Starfleet has taken over like for example foreign policy or military, are key features of a sovereign state. Those are not simply given away!
That's the thing, they
haven't been given away. Starfleet is part of the government!
The Federation at large does not seem to have the clear division between civilian and military authority that the Western world on Earth circa 2000 takes for granted. I doubt the Vulcans even have a concept of 'military' to begin with as distinct from 'people whose spaceships happen to be armed.' And it's entirely possible that the Andorians and Tellarites' spacegoing armed forces began with their version of NASA and bolted guns on.
Even Earth, which
you'd think would draw this division super-tightly... doesn't. Earth's own "armed forces" are dominated by
the United Earth Space Probe Agency. Let that name sink in for a while.
Given that kind of a background, there really is no reason to assume that the Federation government would see itself as having 'given up' all these core diplomatic and economic functions to Starfleet. Especially since Starfleet is
by definition and intent as much a civilian agency as a military one, hence its ability to maintain industrial complexes, research programs, and so on.
You're making far too many assumptions about how much concern or alarm members of the Federation government have in dealing with a situation they created in the first place. Yes, Starfleet is bigger in that it has more ships and does more research. But no new
functions were assumed by Starfleet under Kahurangi. Starfleet Intelligence was always the Federation's primary intelligence arm. Starfleet Medical was always its main health and humanitarian branch. Starfleet Engineering and Shipyard Ops were always a major part of its infrastructure operations. And so on. The growth of Starfleet has been broadly proportionate to the growth of the Federation as a whole; it does not represent "power creep" or Starfleet taking over government functions it didn't formerly have.
Especially not to an organisation you have only limited influence over and which is already starting to amass a military/security monopoly. Even in the EU, where there is a concentrated effort to create a "common" foreign policy, the various states have made sure to secure they have the last say in the matter (and in fact the High Ambassador is a mostly failed idea) and the idea of a an EU army is still an idea despite several decades of trying to get it...
Yeah, which would be extremely applicable if we were talking about the Federation circa 2210 (when it was about as old as the
earliest parts of the EU project are today).
But it's not 2210 in our game, it's 2310. The Federation has existed for a long time and the four original member species have become very comfortable working together and operating within shared bureaucratic, diplomatic, economic, and military structures.
You're projecting your own cultural concerns and the political reality of your own times onto an organization whose culture is different and in most cases literally alien, and into a time three centuries in the future.
Hell their mistrust of each other should make this whole thing even more impossible since it should make them even more cautious to give power away and downright paranoid when it comes to powerbuilding in Starfleet... A modern democratic nation simply can't afford to give away its control of military, security and foreign policy to such a a large degree - nor can it survive it.
The actual experience of the Federation with Starfleet suggests otherwise, since Starfleet has not attempted any coups so far as we know. The closest the Federation ever came to such a crisis was the conspiracy to restart war with the Klingons after Khitomer- and that was a criminal conspiracy by Starfleet officers that would have worked regardless of how much of the rest of the government Starfleet controlled. Furthermore, the conspiracy was detected and routed out BY Starfleet, further supporting the notion that the organization is free of corruption as a whole, and does a good job of self-policing.
Honestly I've kinda of interpreted the diplo pushes as using some of our political capital/Starfleet to help out the FDS. This might be a retxon to what has been established previously, but it would probably be easier to just imagine it that way than bringing in a whole new FDS mechanic.
I agree.
Again, I'll be satisfied if we just see some evidence of the Council and the FDS
actually trying to accomplish anything. Regardless of whether it's productive or counterproductive, regardless of whether we do or don't get to vote on input, regardless of anything else.
A stupid FDS, or a Council that does inadvisable things, doesn't imperil my suspension of disbelief. At least not so long as it's within reason (e.g. I didn't complain when the diplomats and the Council recognized the new government of Bajor, and I didn't complain MUCH that they agreed to stop diplomacy with Cardassian affiliates).
But an
inert Council that has to be actively pressured by Starfleet to make basic foreign policy decisions
at all, when those issues are a matter of common knowledge and have been building up in an overt, undeniable manner for years... that isn't something I can believe in.
I would vote to keep things as they are.
Me, I'll be happy if we just get a change in the precise wording of a few snakepit options from:
"30pp : Get the Council to actually have a meeting on Urgent Crisis of the Year"
to read:
"30pp : Secure influence with key players regarding the Council's upcoming meeting on Urgent Crisis of the Year."
It's not that I want us to have more control, more options, or more votes than we have. I'm happy on those fronts. No mechanical thing really needs changing. I just want to feel like the Federation government isn't composed entirely of mindless bureaucratic lemmings who will 'stay the course' until the ship runs into the ground unless we go out of our way to make them change direction.
