Star Trek: Discovery (2017) S4 E4
mattalica 6 points 2 years ago*.

Think Brexit… was it easy for the UK to leave the EU? Not at all. Now imagine if any country in the EU could leave on a whim without any repercussions. What if a new anti-EU, populist leader is elected and says “Hey, we’re out” — if it’s that easy, then anyone could go whenever for whatever reason. As stated in the show, if we did that then you get all the benefits of membership and all the responsibility is on us. This is the way coalitions work in the real world - the EU, NATO, UN, OPEC, etc. etc. etc. Exit clauses are never “you can leave whenever you want with no conditions” but rather “if you want to leave, there is a process for that (and it won’t be easy).

mattalica 3 points 2 years ago.

And after the burn, planets left the Federation because without warp-drive ships, every planet was too far away from every other planet. The Federation fell apart as planets simply could not interact with one another in person. Even if the Federation wanted to keep it together (which they did) there was no way for them to actually do so without having the ability to GO to those planets.