--- Dana Shilling dshilling@worldnet.att.net wrote:

Is the Federation elite a large or small group? The phrase "the 400" to mean "high society" was coined because that was the number of people who could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom, and the same people got invited over and over again. Could any Alpha be expected to know every other Alpha in the Dome? Are there a few oligarchic families that intermarry?

The Federation, as far as I can see, was a Civilian Administration which had degenerated/ was degenerating into a military dictatorship. I would envisage a civilian oligarchy, whose power and status were being eroded by the military. (My guess would be that Servalan was a member of this civilian oligarchy who jumped ship when she realised that it's days were numbered). We know that there were people who were trying to get into this oligarchy - Tyce describes the commander in "Bounty" as a social climber and the Chief Pirate in "Assassin" refers to the nouveau riche. (Assuming of course that the slave buyers were acting on behalf of Federation citizens). I think that there were probably a few Oligarchic families who consisted of an elite within the Alpha group, and who tended to bag the important jobs on the High Council. I suspect that this was resented and this resentment was one of the reasons that the pretensions of the military was tolerated (I think something simillar happened in ancient Rome). But I think the Alpha class would have been too numerous to all know each other.

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