With that said, I don’t think it’s realistic to assume we would ever choose a Federation style society without widespread use of AI. The value proposition of AGI is too high. I don’t know if Roddenberry genuinely didn’t expect AGI to be realistic or if he chose to omit it as a stylistic choice(leaning towards the latter because of Data).
You can leave The Culture, but The Federation assumes there are no GSVs.
com•5mo ago
My vote is for the Culture where the hedonism is balanced by good deeds - such as a hand discretely extended - for those crawling out of the mud looking at the stars which the culture leaves as close to untouched and untrammelled as they can.