lovgreno wrote...
That is a very good argument Dean, though I think the same results would be easier to create by setting a more pluraslistic standard with a multi cultural Council including humans and the old powers that be (humanity would have generations of hammering against stubborn old structures to look forward to though).
And how will you do that?
If we could set a pluralistic standard, the Council as we know it wouldn't exist.
There is however still the very big flaw with it: Human dominance means humans in most positions of power. This will exclude the expertise other cultures have about their own races and interests. The humans in power have no reason to listen to advice from other races as they will still be safe in their comfortable place of power. The new political standard of excluding other cultures from having a say makes it less politicaly possible to favour pluralism. The other races has effectively been labeled as unfit to rule themselves as the new people in power thinks they can do it better. The Council has also made itself a lot more dumber by excluding all points of wievs except that of one race.
That's... not inherent at all, and goes directly against the human history of most forms of imposing dominance over others. Plus, the Human Council doesn't rule other species outright: governments have always held a nebulous claim to self-governance before, and in the post-Human setup those xeno-national sovereignities are more intact than before. The Council has less intrusion, not more, into the rights of the species governments as they increasingly reassert their right to such policies as defense. Pluralism was never in the cards before. But more importantly than that, your assertion that the Humans will actively exclude the views of other races is dependant on them being idiots to history and politics.
Only the ignorant (or those who intend to be genocidal, and see no point) occupiers exclude the local expertise and opinions and concerns. This has been known counter-insurgency for decades, and every time it lapses it's quickly remembered: the largest part of, say, American involvement in Iraq isn't combat operations, but in trying to work with and address the needs of local groups. When those local groups have a position, we listen: we may not always oblige, but one of the historically most effective and successful means of enforcing a dominance is to not only accept but go out of your way to gather knowlege on the local concerns, and then deal with them in the scope that you can.
And that's in the context of direct occupation with a clearly overwhelming dominant power: in civil governance, you're even further from active practice. The need and desire for specialist knowledge is at the heart of the lobbying system itself: legislators frequently vote and decide on areas outside their area of expertise. No leader is a subject matter expert on everything, and so the frequently and freely seek out the knowledge of others, whose jobs it is to make their case as best as possible.
Inside a government itself, this means that, say, Councilor Anderson might be a nominal expert on things military, but he's going to be listening to advisors and direct lobbyists from, say, Exo-Geni who try and shape his opinions while informing him about matters of particular importance. From government to government, this means ambassadors and lobbying groups, and any number of other sorts of ties which build relations and understandings: the Israel Lobby might be replaced by the Volus Lobby, or similar. Governments spend great gobs of cash to both get their voice out, and to hear the voices of other groups.
Now this isn't necesarily a bad thing for the galaxy in the longer run. Such a weak ruler can not hold power for long in the extreme competition that is galactic politics and economy. One culture against everyone else simply doesn't work in the long run. When the humans leave office the old powers that be will probalby be back, but this time it won't be as easy as before to keep power. They have lost their power before and therefore the people of the galaxy no longer see them as the only real choice. The human Council has done things differently, probably different in a weak and inefficent way, but still. The people of the galaxy now knows that there are alternatives to the old ways. So the new old powers that be knows that they must make reforms in all kinds of ways, more pluralism for example, to stay in power this time.
I actually agree with this as a long-term boon...
However, there is a big loser in this scenario: Humanity. A scapegoat is needed and the obvious choice would be the race that thought they could rule the galaxy alone (not in real politics probably but this is still the face of humanity the galaxy has been shown). At best humanity can be reduced to a weakened race in every way but still able to slowly work their way back up and gaining the trust of galactic average Joe, though a place in the Council would be generations away this time. At worst humanity could get isolated pariahs like the batarians and quarians. This scenario should be avoided if necesary by the leaders of the Alliance, if only to save their own political and economical behinds.
...but do not agree with this. Humanity isn't an inherent scape goat, or an inevitable one. You can just as easily claim a scenario in which it's the old Council that are scape-goated for it's long-term exclusion of other races, while the way the Alliance handles it's own relative decline can well make it remembered as the forciful reformer who, after the period of revolution, expanded true plurality in a system of it's own creation.
Even if the Alliance is declining, after all, it can still dictate the terms of its own decline. Re-establishing a true multi-racial Council in a set up that doesn't favor the Old Three is not only a concession to the old Council (who regain some more influence), but a great boon to the many other species of the galaxy who stand to gain.
The Alliance can define the next Council as one that will be too weak to dominate: a Council of far more species, a Council with far fewer rights and powers over the governments involved. A Council in which most of the sitting members not only can't take action against the Alliance (because the Council is set up in such a way), but also don't want to: this Council is the first and only Council seat they've ever gotten, and protects them as much as it does others.
The 'average joe' isn't the Average Turian.
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