I am curious as to what you guys think about the most powerful entity in known space following the end of the Dominion War. Disregarding non-canon sources as STO, I am inclined to think that the Federation comes out on top of the Dominion War. Section 31 Agent Sloane explicitly states that the Klingon Empire is effectively out of play for at least a decade following the war. Although the Romlulans' late entry into the war would have saved them some of the damage suffered by the Federation and Klingons, I doubt they came out as the top power post-war. I see the pre-Dominion War Federation as being analogous to the United States before WWII. A huge economic superpower with major potential to be a military power, but with no incentive to be one. The Dominion War served as a sort of wake-up call for the Federation, after which point they chose to ensure a sizeable, technologically advanced force was always prepared to defend the Federation. Once the Federation chose to increase resource expenditure on Starfleet, they rose to the number one spot in known space. The Federation was considered a major power, on par with the Klingons and Romulans prewar, despite maintaining a defense force that consisted largely of antiquated vessels. After developing significantly more advanced ships during the Dominion War, as well as increasing the number of standing personnel in Starfleet during the war, I am inclined to think the Federation is incredibly powerful in the postwar world. What do you guys think?
Starfleet - number one in known space? Not even close. Discounting the various ascended beings - who are the ruling class of the multiverse (Q, organians) -, the strongest power in known space is the borg. The collective's military technology is far above the familiar players' (most definitely above the federation's) and its numbers are overwhelming - millions of cubes (Voy: Scorpion). From the participants in the dominion war, the strongest player at the end is the gamma quadrant dominion. A mere expeditionary force sent by it came close to overwhelming the combined forces of the federation, klingons and romulans. If this expeditionary force would have received the reinforcements sent in DS9: Sacrifice of angels, it would have won - everyone admitted this obvious fact. And, of course, the gamma quadrant dominion - with its economic infrastructure untouched (as opposed to the alpha/beta quadrant powers) and far greater than what a mere expeditionary force could put together in a limited time/by using cardassian resources; etc -, leaves starfleet in the dust by a large margin. BTW, by comparison to the more recently introduced powers, the federation, klingons and romulans are rather pathetic. 'Incredibly powerful'? This is merely an unsupported wish-fulfillment scenario.
I think it is either the Delta Quadrant Borg or the Gamma Quadrant Dominion- since distances have now been trivialized with convenient wormholes and transwarp corridors. Both races have only shown a small fraction of their resources and that fraction devastated the Alpha Quadrant each time. The big question is if the Dominion could be considered a military force with the new and improved Odo-Founders view of things and how the Borg dealt with Future Janeway's destruction of the Prime Queen and the loss of their main Transwarp Hub. Both races were relentless, aggressive and could both conquer a foe and then turn their resources to creating even more forces. Both could crew new ships almost immediately through Borg assimilation and Jem'hadar's ability to grow from infant to adult in days. Alpha Quadrant races can build ships too, but they have to train crews from cadet level and while computers can fly the new ships they are not as effective as living beings on the bridge.
The Prophets: they control contact with the Dominion, are capable of disappearing its fleets, and have the Federation's chief anti-Dominion strategist on their side.
Seems like all of the Alpha Quadrant powers were pretty devastated, so in this context "coming out on top" might be more like "who got their asses kicked the least"? The Federation might win that contest, but they'd still be in pretty bad shape. I'm not sure how many Borg there are in the Alpha Quadrant at any given time, but I'd still be tempted to say they're the ones on top. After all, there's a reason the Dominion never picked a fight with them (man, that would've been awesome).
As devastated as the Federation might have been, I was under the impression that their economy improved during the war, and that their shipbuilding capabilities were vastly improved. Even further, Starfleet consisted now mostly of veteran soldiers rather than civilians.
I don't believe the Federation was "devastated" by the Dominion War, but it was hurt by it to the point where a brief period of reconstruction was needed. By now (2390 if 24th-Century Trek was still being made today), the Federation is probably well past where it was before the war. The same is likely true of both the Klingon and Romulan Empires*, with the Cardassian Union still reeling from the loss of 800 million people on their homeworld, but on the mends nonetheless. *Prior to the fall of Romulus.
None of that is unique to the Federation. All of the other powers involved in the war would have increased their production of war material as well. Their militaries would also likely have come out with more combat experience on average than before the war. Since they were all erased by a certain time travel mishap 11 years later, none of them really came out on top of anything.
I think he's referring to the reboot movies (which don't erase anything - Pocket plan to keep making Prime 'verse Trek novels until either the end of time or they become unprofitable. Whichever comes first)
Yeah, the only thing that's happened otherwise is the destruction of Romulus, the loss of a Romulan mining ship, and the apparent death of Ambassador Spock.
Although true that the big three Alpha Quadrant powers had all improved production capabilities, I always thought that the Federation's economic prowess always surpassed that of the other two major powers. I was under the impression that the Federation used its large economy as a deterrent to agression over maintaining a powerful fleet before the Dominion War. With the war over, it seems that the Federation's extremely powerful economly would bring the Federation to the number one spot.
Here is how I would rank the Alpha Quadrant and nearby powers (IE Romulans in Beta), immediately after "What you Leave Behind" to Nemesis: 1. Federation 2. Klingon Empire 3. Romulan Star Empire 4. Tholian Assembly 5. Breen Confederacy 6. Ferengi (ships seem to be able to stand up to early Galaxy Class ships, have a lot of economic influence) 7. Gorn Hegemony 8. Bajoran Provisional Government (since they were sending envoys to help with reconstruction on Cardassia, they seem to be in a better shape than Cardassian Union. 9. Cardassian Union We don't have enough information to go on (excluding Pocket Book apocrypha and STO events), but as of Star Trek 2009, with the destruction of the Romulus System, the Romulan Star Empire definitely loses a lot of status. How much, we don't know. I don't think the Romulans as a people or even as an Empire go away. The loss of Romulus is more like the destruction of a capitol city for a nation. but considering they probably were still reeling from the Dominion War AND Shinzon's coup d'etat when Romulus was destroyed, it is possible that Empire is on the verge of collapse. So, assuming they don't completely collapse and a strong leader steps up to unify the rest of the Empire and found a new capitol world, I would nominally re-rank them somewhere below the Breen, and above Bajor. If there is an utter collapse, then they are probably at least as bad off as Cardassia was initially post Dominion War.
The Federation-militarily-I don't know. After the Cardassian war, during a then current crisis, an admiral told Picard they weren't prepared for another sustained conflict. If that was true in the case of the Cardassia war, then militarily they would have to be really worse off after the Dominion War. On advantage the Fed has is that they're smart--they base their economy and ability to feed themselves on replicator technology, so they can replace basic needs and even luxuries pretty quickly. Romulus sustained war damages, and their government may be in shambles. It may resemble Cardassia right after the Obsidian Order f*** up. Full of security holes and dissension. The Klingons--I always theorized they had a HUGE stock of military vessels. But they probably used it all up by fighting so much. Ironically Bajor may end up benefiting the most. They were kept out of the fighting, and they were already initiating a rebuilding program. It was said in some episode that parts of Bajor looked like paradise. They might be the real winners.
I believe the Admiral's reference to the Federation not being ready for another war was more an indication of civilian attitude towards further conflict rather than the Federation's military capabilities.
I consider Abrams Trek to exist in a separate canon from 'our' Trek, so we don't necessarily have to take red goo black holes into account. The Federation certainly came out the strongest of the comparable powers within the Federation area of space, although the Breen probably made out pretty damn well too. The Federation fleet was heavily damaged in the war, but they were in the best position to rebuild, AND they probably lapped up new members around the area from worlds under the rule of the many weakened powers and neutral powers shocked out of complacency. Think about it, you're on a world that was previously conquered by the Klingons, the Romulans, the Breen, whatever. They withdraw from your planet because they can't logistically afford to hold it anymore and need to rebuild. You think, hmm...Bajor was in the same situation we were. They cozied up to the Federation and look at them now. Hey Federation, can we join? Also Bajor probably joined the Federation a few years after the end of the war, but they made out like bandits. Besides becoming an economic powerhouse, now everybody in the galaxy knows if you mess with Bajor the prophets will dead you quick. Ferenginar also probably came out really strong. Besides being the biggest power in the quadrant not to stage a single battle on their soil, they must have made out like bandits selling planets the supplies they needed to rebuild. AND for the first time in decades they had a Nagus with a trustworthy reputation and could plausibly play the 'Oh you couldn't trust us before but NOW you can' card. Rom obviously wasn't going to be a smart businessman, but I bet he had smart businessmen behind the scenes telling him 'Hey, package the NEW Ferenginar as a product with you as the face of the planet, and we get a reputation do-over.'