This is my new headcanon

This is part of the classic The United Federation of "hold my beer, I got this" post chain. It's definitely part of my headcanon, if only in general spirit instead of literally that's-what-happened. It conveniently explains so much about why these shows focus so much on humans. It's like reality TV, it's pointless to focus the camera on the well-adjusted ones.
Edit: I should mention that my headcanon extends humanity's hold-my-bear mad science bent to the social sciences. Why else do you think we so rarely see other multi-species governments, or when we do it's just a boring old "boss species conquered a bunch of subordinate species"? Humans were probably warned by the Vulcans that different species tended to have incompatible governing interests and doctrines and the humans thought "but what if we gave them all a vote anyway and see what happens? Maybe a Federation will go twice as fast!"
- Wow. A lot of this is brand new to me and that's saying something. This is hysterical. You should post it! It also really does explain quite a bit.... extremely conveniently no less.
  
  This is also the source of the "humanity fuck yeah" and "humans are space orks" genres
  
  I've tried posting other things before and it's been a bit flaky for me, I'm not sure if anyone else saw them. So feel free to reap the karma-equivalent for yourself if you like. Or edit it in to this post and you can pretend you meant to do that from the start. :)
- I don't care if it makes me inhuman, I'm not holding anybody's bear
  
  Don't worry, you only need the bear arms.
- But isn't that actual canon, that humans are the only species that actually brought together all those species.
  
  Sure, but my headcanon is more about the underlying reasoning of why they did that. In canon it was out of some sort of high-minded ideals and a unique human ability to build communities and see past differences and such blather. In my headcanon it's actually more because the Vulcans told them they didn't think it would work.
- I love it. Thanks.

Also humans: If we eject the warp core behind us, we could use it like a mine and take out the persuing ship.
- Hey, it worked. Didn't it?
  
  Yes and now we have no engine power and 1 hour of life support left before we suffocate. Everyone except the EMH who doesn't require oxygen.
  
  Of course it did. It's an antimatter reactor. It goes boom like a giant photon torpedo. Trouble is, warp cores don't exactly grow on trees, neither does the antimatter fuel, and you have to somehow get clear of the huge explosion without a working warp drive.
- And ride the explody wavey thing, hang ten, bro!
- Bajorans and humans fist bumping in front of an exploding warp core
  
  You got this, Shaxs!

- I'm afraid to see interpretations of "cannonball" now
  
  I'm excited! 👀 👀

Absolutely no clue about star trek but this sounds fun :)
- Well why not join us on the journey? We got 57 years worth of content to choose from and a fanbase that is usually pretty accepting and open. Of course there are outliers, same with everything, but be hard pressed to find people on this instance who are negative as hell and actively supported by everyone else.
  
  This is as negative as I get:
  
  And there’s the reason for the focus.
  Vulcan scientific monitoring devices intended to capture the outcomes of the various things humans have done.
  For later analysis and then proper controlled studies to validate the findings. Which explains why Vulcans have adapted some of the warp tech identified by the federation and not others.
- The Original Series is technicolor sci-fi horror dressed as episodic space exploration. It's campy and melodramatic and by god does it know it. Some episodes were blatantly "what's available on the back-lot next month?" and are a coin toss between stupid and incredible.
  TOS had some movies (roman numerals) and they range from "what if an episode was three hours long" to "modern-day San Francisco zoo heist." At their best they're fun and at their worst they're even more fun.
  The Next Generation is high-concept ethical debate framed as the experiences of naval officers. The cast is seriously talented and the writing is usually excellent.
  TNG had some movies (bald guy on the poster) and they were written by people who didn't like the show for people who didn't watch the show. You have to turn your brain off, but they're well-directed.
  
  TNG had some movies (bald guy on the poster) and they were written by people who didn’t like the show for people who didn’t watch the show.
  So many of my undefined feelings of sadness about TNG movies just snapped into focus.
  I HATE how true this is.

Very much a "humans are space orcs" type story. Actual space orcs like the ones from wh40k are even more space orcs with their waaagh supported shenanigans

Wasn’t this the catalyst for the “humans are space orcs” meme?

Sisko be like: oh yea those genocidal shape shifting freaks that have contempt for everything that isn't them and can ruin any government from within, have a billion-strong army of generically engineered suicidal supersoldiers armed to the teeth with resources of an entire quadrant. Aight brb, lemme grab our mortal enemies to work for us, and then I'll talk to my multidimensional gods pals for assistance.

Wait, wasn't this the official canon of Enterprise?

Earth is the Florida of the federation and humans are the Star Trek equivalent of gnomes.
- And now I'm picturing the Misadventures of Florida Gnome.

"The Federation is functionally the Human empire" has always been a far less interesting view than "The Federation is functionally the Vulcan empire"
- Humans created the federation. The Vulcans had been around for hundreds of years just wondering around the quadrant not really doing anything other than antagonising the Andorians. Who, Humans managed to form an alliance with by not antagonising them, and claiming to be superior.
  
  But why did the Vulcan join when their old antagonists are part of it? A pretty good answer is that they need to make sure humans don't ruin everything.
  This isn't quite as cynical as it looks at first glance. They saw that humans could go either way. Keep them from turning too many stars into touruses, and they'll be capable of greatness.

Humans: beating the laws of physics into submission since 2061.

Humanity is God's collective nepo-fail-upwards-son.

"Warp Cores are like Voltron; the more you connect, the cooler it is!"

- Shorter lived species than humans should be even more widespread and rapidly developing. Skaven should invade 40k before 40k is 40k! 🐀
  
  Shorter lived species than humans should be even more widespread and rapidly developing
  Great, now I have "I am the very model of a scientist Salarian" stuck in my head

The Federation are the octopus from Children of Ruin. (Fantastic book series btw)

🫡 Thank you for sending me down a rabbit hole of early Federation days which made me rediscover Tellarites.

genius!

[off topic]
My headcanon is that every time a new race joins the Federation, they have the option of designing the Star Fleet uniform.
The Betazeds are responsible for the miniskirts.

Don't the Vulcans have their own fleet of non federation ships?
Also I'm pretty sure a ton of Vulcans are super racist. Like hilariously so.

Reminds me of that species in Star Control's reboot that worships Jeff, dies constantly, but rapidly learns from those many disasters where even Jeff is kind of scared of them.