{"id":97784,"date":"2026-01-29T02:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=97784"},"modified":"2025-09-09T20:42:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T00:42:48","slug":"starship-troopers-service-isnt-the-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/01\/29\/starship-troopers-service-isnt-the-point\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>Starship Troopers<\/em>: Service Isn\u2019t The Point"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MzxNv7GUdjU?si=Dvdu167q8Q3tpV5f\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Feral Historian<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 5 Sept 2025<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a long-running argument over whether Heinlein&#8217;s book describes military service as the exclusive path to citizenship, or if &#8220;federal service&#8221; is a much broader basket of enfranchisement. While a close read of the book makes it unquestionably clear which is correct, it misses the greater point. Heinlein was writing about the role of civic virtue in the stability of a republic, his citizenship-through-service framing is the literary conceit for discussing that larger question. <\/p>\n<p>For a more detailed examination of the nature of Federal Service, I recommend James Gifford&#8217;s essay on the subject: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/redirect?event=video_description&#038;redir_token=QUFFLUhqblN1UnZPQWpnZ2RBa3Y4enpBbjBNb05MSEpvd3xBQ3Jtc0ttSTJVUnFnc3c2NVNxaTRNNTBYWEozTjl5MFlGcWYtN29RalZ3ZG5aWFJGMEVTNzI2a0g0ZmpVbk5YekRmVXMtNzdBQTg2bEhGdGVHc0F0RktCbmxjZWNLOHlIUTBSNWhhTU53aGtHMWhaWml1WElVdw&#038;q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nitrosyncretic.com%2Frah%2Fftp%2Ffedrlsvc.pdf&#038;v=MzxNv7GUdjU\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.nitrosyncretic.com\/rah\/ft&#8230;<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>00:00 Intro<br \/>\n00:45 What is Federal Service?<br \/>\n02:18 An Exploration of Enfranchisement<br \/>\n03:13 <em>Expanded Universe<\/em><br \/>\n05:38 But Why?<br \/>\n06:59 Starside R&#038;D<br \/>\n09:07 &#8220;Unreasonable Facsimile&#8221;<br \/>\n10:54 Filtering Civic Virtue<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udd39 Patreon   | patreon.com\/FeralHistorian<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 Ko-Fi     | ko-fi.com\/feralhistorian<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 and Merch! | feral-shop.fourthwall.com<br \/>\nObligatory plug for <em>Ninti&#8217;s Gate<\/em><br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 amazon.com\/dp\/B0CYXH9BWD<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 also on Kobo<br \/>\nkobo.com\/us\/en\/ebook\/ninti-s-gate?sId=f30f9d90-907a-449a-aeab-7b25215297f1<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feral Historian Published 5 Sept 2025 There&#8217;s a long-running argument over whether Heinlein&#8217;s book describes military service as the exclusive path to citizenship, or if &#8220;federal service&#8221; is a much broader basket of enfranchisement. While a close read of the book makes it unquestionably clear which is correct, it misses the greater point. Heinlein was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,84,28,53,13],"tags":[509,1593,217,478,85],"class_list":["post-97784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-government","category-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-civilservice","tag-feralhistorian","tag-rights","tag-robertheinlein","tag-sf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-pra","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97785,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97784\/revisions\/97785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}