Citizenship

Full citizenship in the future age in which Starship Troopers is set – meaning the right and obligation to vote and hold public office – is strictly limited to those who have honorably completed a term of service in the armed forces of the Terran Federation. This criterion develops gradually out of a period of social turmoil in which young people are raised, believing they have inalienable rights but no responsibilities. Veterans, including former prisoners of war, respond in various locales by forming vigilante bands that restore order, sometimes resorting to the controlled violence for which they are trained. Over generations, this de facto situation is codified. The new order is not revolutionary in the sense of the American, French, and even Bolshevik experiences. It is evolutionary and largely unopposed, because it works.

Veterans, alone, may be full citizens. This is not because they are inherently wiser or more disciplined...