Earth is seen as the capital of the United Federation of Planets and the home of Starfleet
Command. The real reason is obviously, but in universe it’s generally for two reasons.
The first is that out of the four founding member worlds, Andoria, Earth, Tellar and Vulcan,
Earth has a more central location, or at least its easy to get to, but the other is because as
we see in Star Trek Enterprise, it was mostly humanity and its approach to cooperation among
others that did much in the founding of the Coalition of Planets, then the UFP.
An important distinction to remember, that even the in-universe races of Trek often confuse,
is that the Federation, Starfleet and Earth’s own government, the United Earth, are three separate
things. The United Earth represents the planet and all its inhabitants and therefore is simply
a member of the United Federation of Planets, much as many nations are part of the United Nations.
In fact, the U.N. in many ways is the basis for the United Federation of Planets,
drawing its flag design from the U.N. and the location of the signing of the UN charter. San
Francisco is also home to Starfleet Command. On top of this, the city has a history as a
Naval Shipyard, and connections to the Silicon Valley, so that was extended into the science
fiction universe with it being the location of a Starship shipyard too. This facility not only had
factories and manufacturing plants on the ground, but additionally in orbit
over Earth that would go on to be the construction site for many an iconic vessel,
such as the Enterprise NX-01 and the NCC-1701. But what of some other major cities and locations
of Earth? What are they up to as part of the United Earth Government? As it’s been stated in
Star Trek that poverty, inequality, greed, money and prejudice have all been firmly dealt with
(or at least like 95% dealt with. 90%), or mostly dealt with, then any part of the planet could be
the home for any particular thing surely? So, let’s take a look at some other locations to
see what goes on there. Naturally, this is going to be an incredibly limited view because there
are a lot of cities and only a finite amount of screen time in a show, let alone a Youtube video.
Starting with one we see in the show’s canon, we have Paris, which has several Starfleet and
Federation offices, including the Office of the Federation President and the location of the UFP
council. This makes it the hub of political activity for the Federation
and the site of many meetings. Of course, I feel I should also point out that transporters exist, so
that sort of instantaneous travel really mitigates the need for such centralised hubs of power,
so you could literally live in Australia and work in Paris, with a daily commute. Additionally,
in other stories, it was also the site of the signing of the United Earth treaty after First
Contact, so its choice as the UFP HQ makes sense. This made it an early seat of the United Earth,
but there are some discrepancies in the apocrypha (shocking, I know) that describe the head of the
UE as either titled the President or the Prime Minister. Equally, the location for the U.E.
government has shifted around a bit, originally it seems to have been settled in London in the
early to mid-22nd century but also being in Paris for a time too. It could quite easily be
that that the various ministers simply converge in whatever location is most convenient at the time.
Canary Wharf in London is the headquarters for the Federation’s department of Temporal Investigations
but they also maintain a facility in Greenwich, because clocks.
New York City appears mentioned in several books and seems to have had a bit of a harsh time.
It was severely hit during Trek’ World War III by nukes towards the end of the war in 2053,
but it was hardly unique in that. During is rebuilding, the site became the home for the New
United Nations headquarters, something that was founded pre-war and one of the sides in WW3.
Seems like this was on track to become the new global hub until first contact happened,
which was pretty unexpected to be fair. It still retains many of its landmarks
that make it famous today, and as such tends to be a tourist hotspot called New New York.
Bozeman is of course the site of First Contact in 2063 and home of Zephram Cochrane. So aside
from the cultural significance to the United Federation of Planets,
it is also the home to the Warp 5 complex, which resulted in the construction of Earth’s first
deep space exploratory vessel. In later eras its involvement in propulsion has fallen off,
but it houses museums to Cochrane’s works. In a world where money is no longer a thing,
how does Las Vegas fare? Erm… well, it still exists and is still a tourist destination. It
was sieged during World War 3, and Caesar’s Hotel turned into a frontline HQ. That’s about all I can
find on it, but it does remind me that I want to make a video on Vic Fontaine at some point.
Los Angeles… kind of sank. A bit. In 2047 the Hermosa earthquake submerged it by
74 metres. What remains is now called the LA Island instead. On the plus side,
it made a nice coral reef. This is not apocrypha; this was mentioned in “Future’s End”. Picard’s
series 2 seems to be hinting at in-universe LA adventures, so let’s hope that they remember that.
Panama City was of course struck by the Xindi attack in 2153 and the land
still bears the scar of that Xindi probe.
The Tellar New Service strangely had offices in Vancouver.
Okinawa, Japan houses the headquarters for the Daystom Institute, named after Richard Daystom,
the computer expert and it since focuses on the development associated work.
It is not a Starfleet institution, but is under Federation purview. As such, the short-lived and
reactionary UFP ban into Artificial Intelligence hit the facility hard and its advanced synthetics
department was reduced to theoretical work only for 14 years before the ban was lifted.
Canberra is home to the Vulcan consulate on Earth, presumably because its summers are less humid and
closer to Vulcan-like atmosphere. Sydney was relatively untouched by the third world war,
meaning that much of its original architecture remains. This made it a recommended site
for students of history to visit and it was regarded a great place to go for a night out.
Auckland is situated near to the Federation Penal Settlement where Tom Paris was recruited,
alongside many other Maquis operatives and has been in operation since at least 2256.
Interestingly, although alien visitors to Earth maintain their embassies
or consulates all over the globe, a high number appear to be in Berlin, with the Cardassians,
Gorn and Vulcans all having embassies there at various points in their history.
Places in Star Trek are still referred to and mentioned, either as the birthplace of character,
a ship name. Aside from that confirmation that they still exists, not much else is
revealed about them and what is, is usually in relation to current real-world events.
This also means that what a city or location is known for today, is generally still the
same in the future of Star Trek and many historical sites continue to be preserved,
providing that they were not destroyed in one the wars or by natural disaster. Many a capital
was hit hard during World War III, the Romulan War or the Dominion War and therefore only noted
in apocrypha for that fact. And in Trek, most cities house a Starfleet or Federation office
for some unspecified administrative function. So there we have some standouts to me from the
extended and canon lore of Star Trek. Again, there are just too many to go through, and
not all have lots of details mentioned so I really had to narrow down the selection,
to those with a prominent supplementary history or a relevant Trek flavoured addition. However,
if you know of any I missed drop them in the comments. Thank you for watching,
I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you again for another sci-fi, lore, theory or gameplay video! Goodbye!