Starship Troopers

by

Robert A. Heinlein

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Terran Federation Symbol Analysis

Terran Federation Symbol Icon

The Terran Federation demonstrates the achievements available to humanity if it follows the evolutionary impulses of the survival instinct and outcompeting other species for dominance. Starship Troopers presents the Federation as a kind of utopia: the people living within the Federation seem to have moved beyond internal divisions such as religion, nationality, and race, although local traditions and languages persist; Johnnie frequently notes the language or ancestry of other soldiers, and he himself speaks both Tagalog and English. The division and chaos that characterized the twentieth-century “history” represented in the book are all gone: humanity on earth and spread among the stars shares one government, culture, and education system. A benevolent but limited government controlled solely by military veterans—the only group of people who can vote or run for office—makes this peaceful and safe society possible.

The Federation shows what humanity could accomplish when united by military leadership and guided by the evolutionary forces that Starship Troopers claims as the basis of a “scientific” theory of morality. And these accomplishments are marvelous: faster-than-light technology, the exploration of space, and the colonization of new worlds. But despite the prosperity and safety of this era, the Federation ultimately can’t meet its utopian vision: the Bug War demonstrates that even a strongly united humanity is not immune to harm. And there are tensions between civilians and soldiers. Johnnie and his Father characterize civilians as “groundhogs,” profiteers, and clueless bumpkins; Johnnie’s fight with a group of merchant marine civilians in Seattle demonstrates that the enmity goes both ways. Mr. Dubois and Major Reid teach that the Federation represents the best system of government yet discovered by humans because it is the most stable. Yet, dissent is virtually impossible in a society where aggressive tendencies are channeled into military service, franchise and political office are only available to the subset of people who join the Federal Service, and all children are indoctrinated in History and Moral Philosophy Class.

Terran Federation Quotes in Starship Troopers

The Starship Troopers quotes below all refer to the symbol of Terran Federation. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Militarism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2  Quotes

“Son, don’t think I don’t sympathize with you; I do. But look at the real facts. If there were a war, I’d be the first to cheer you on—and to put the business on a war footing. But there isn’t, and praise God there never will be again. We’ve outgrown wars. This planet is now peaceful and happy and we enjoy good enough relations with other planets. So what is this so-called ‘Federal Service’? Parasitism, pure and simple. A functionless organ, utterly obsolete, living on the taxpayers. A decidedly expensive way for inferior people who otherwise would be unemployed to live at public expense for a term of years, then give themselves airs for the rest of their lives. Is that what you want to do?”

Related Characters: Johnnie’s Father (Mr. Rico) (speaker), Johnnie Rico
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

“Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.”

Related Characters: Mr. Dubois (speaker)
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

Suddenly, he pointed his stump at me. “You. What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?”

“The difference,” I answered carefully, “lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.”

“The exact words of the book,” he said scornfully. “But do you understand it? Do you believe it?”

“Uh, I don’t know, sir.”

“Of course you don’t! I doubt if any of you here would recognize ‘civic virtue’ if it came up and barked in your face!”

Related Characters: Johnnie Rico (speaker), Mr. Dubois (speaker)
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 32-33
Explanation and Analysis:

“I,” we each echoed, “being of legal age, of my own free will—”

“—without coercion, promise, or inducement of any sort, after having been duly advised and warned of the meaning and consequences of this oath—

“—do now enroll in the Federal Service of the Terran Federation of not less than two years and as much longer as may be required by the needs of the Service—

[…]

“I swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the Federation against all its enemies on or off Terra […]

“—and to obey all lawful orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Terran Service and of all officers or delegated persons placed over me—

“—and to require such obedience from all members of the Service or other persons or non-human beings lawfully placed under my orders—

“—and, on being honorably discharged at the completion of my full term of service […] to carry out all duties and obligations and to enjoy full privileges of Federation citizenship including but not limited to the duty, obligation, and privilege of exercising sovereign franchise for the rest of my natural life.”

Related Characters: Johnnie Rico (speaker), Carl (speaker), Mr. Dubois, Fleet Sergeant Ho
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 42-43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6  Quotes

You are now going through the hardest part of your service—not the hardest part physically (though physical hardship will never trouble you again; you now have its measure), but the hardest spiritually … the deep, soul-turning readjustments and re-evaluations necessary to metamorphose a potential citizen into one in being. Or, rather I should say: you have already gone through the hardest part, despite all the tribulations you still have ahead of you and all the hurdles, each higher than the last, which you still must clear. But it is that “hump” that counts—and, knowing you, lad, I know that I have waited long enough to be sure that you are past your “hump”—or you would be home now.

When you reached that spiritual mountaintop you felt something, a new something. Perhaps you haven’t a word for it (I know I didn’t, when I was a boot). So perhaps you will permit an older comrade to lend you the words, since it often helps to have discrete words. Simply this: The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war’s desolation.

Related Characters: Mr. Dubois (speaker), Johnnie Rico
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 114-115
Explanation and Analysis:

This very personal relationship, ‘value,’ has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him … and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts ‘the best things in life are free.’ Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted … and get it, without turmoil, without sweat, without tears.

Related Characters: Mr. Dubois (speaker)
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 117-118
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“Law-abiding people,” Dubois had told us, “hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children, armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons … to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably—or even killed. This went on for years, right up to the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony. Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places—these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark.”

Related Characters: Mr. Dubois (speaker), Johnnie Rico
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

In the past, armies have been known to fold up and quit because the men didn’t know what they were fighting for, or why, and therefore lacked the will to fight. But the M.I. does not have that weakness. Each one of us was a volunteer to begin with, each for some reason or other—some good, some bad. But now we fought because we were M.I. We were professionals, with esprit de corps. We fought because we were Rasczak’s Roughnecks, the best unprintable outfit in the whole expurgated M.I.; we climbed into our capsules because Jelly told us it was time to do so and we fought when we got down there because that’s what Rasczak’s Roughnecks do.

Related Characters: Johnnie Rico (speaker)
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 193-194
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12  Quotes

“The ruling nobles of many another system were a small group fully aware of their grave power. Furthermore, our franchised citizens are not everywhere a small fraction; you know or should know that the percentage of citizens among adults ranges from over eighty percent on Iskander to less than three per cent in some Terran nations—yet government is much the same everywhere. Nor are the voters picked men; they bring no special wisdom, talent, or training to their sovereign tasks. So what difference is there between our voters and wielders of franchise in the past? Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.

“And that is the one practical difference.

“He may fail in wisdom, he may lapse in civic virtue. But his average performance is enormously better than that of any other class of rulers in history.”

Related Characters: Major Reid (speaker)
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:

Superficially, our system is only slightly different; we have democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service—nothing more than a light workout to our cave-man ancestors. But that slight difference is one between a system that works, since it is constructed to match the facts, and one that is inherently unstable. Since sovereign franchise is the ultimate in human authority, we ensure that all who wield it accept the ultimate in social responsibility—we require each person who wishes to exert control over the state to wager his own life—and lose it, if need be—to save the life of the state. The maximum responsibility a human can accept is thus equated to the ultimate authority a human can exert. Yin and yang, perfect and equal.

Related Characters: Major Reid (speaker)
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 234-235
Explanation and Analysis:

Young man, can you restore my eyesight? […] You would find it much easier than to instill moral virtue—social responsibility—into a person who doesn’t have it, doesn’t want it, and resents the burden thrust on him. This is why we make it so hard to enroll, so easy to resign. Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most tribe, requires imagination—devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues—which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out. Conscript armies have been tried in the past.

Related Characters: Major Reid (speaker)
Related Symbols: Terran Federation
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
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