• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Is there a way to win the war without using time travel?

What never makes sense to me is how could Starfleet ever loose a war to just about anyone. They literally got hundreds of worlds to drawl resources and people from and that doesn't even include colonies and non-alligned allies. How could one world ever stand up against that? At least with the Dominion it was kind of like the evil version of the federation which also had many worlds under it's control and I guess creating Jem'Haddar and Vorta must be like no big deal at all since they just hatch them from cloning facuilities.

Jason
Because The Federation isn’t a military industrial complex, and the Klingons still had the tactical advantage with their cloak.

The Federation probably couldn’t switch to a war footing fast enough.
 
This might be true but I think they were clearly playing the moment up to create a sense of false tension to make things more dire than they might be revealed. I mean it is a Cliffhanger type of moment so most of those are kind of false. It's the same as someone being shot with a gun and when you come back from commerical break they are talking about it only being a flesh wound. Not sure what they did is wrong but it did sort of set up I think a more interested situation in people's minds of having the Federation being totally defeated only to fall back on a situation that might not be as interesting though that will all depend on the story the actually tell instead of the one they implied.

Jason
I didn't take it as a false tension... a 20% loss of all territory and 33% of fighing capability is no tap on the shoulder, it's actually quite devastating. The map was entirely red but given that it shows the border between the Federation and the Klingons it's quite obvious that it only shows the theater of the war itself. Being unable to establish communications with Starfleet didn't imply for me that the Federation was outright conquered either. They were deep in Klingon-occupied space after all.
 
Because The Federation isn’t a military industrial complex, and the Klingons still had the tactical advantage with their cloak.

The Federation probably couldn’t switch to a war footing fast enough.

I know but you would still think the sheer number of worlds even if they only spent a fraction of their resources on military stuff would be enough. Granted I don't it's ever been established just how big the Klingon Empire is. We know they have conquered worlds before so their population might actually be closer to what the Federation has than it might seem. Plus even though the Federation has many worlds it doesn't many those planets are very populated though I think that actually works against my argument. If you have a world and it only has 3 million people on it that is different than how we see the world today, where I think I last heard we have 6 billion people on earth right now.

Jason
 
I didn't take it as a false tension... a 20% loss of all territory and 33% of fighing capability is no tap on the shoulder, it's actually quite devastating. The map was entirely red but given that it shows the border between the Federation and the Klingons it's quite obvious that it only shows the theater of the war itself. Being unable to establish communications with Starfleet didn't imply for me that the Federation was outright conquered either. They were deep in Klingon-occupied space after all.

I guess it comes down to what we think would be a more interesting idea. Does a fully conquered Federation sound like a more interesting place to start off a story than 20% which is something that feels kind of vague because we don't know what that means since we don't just how big the Federation really is. I wonder if they will actually talk about the issue in terms of how many worlds are in the Federation and how many of them have been defeated. If they do I wonder if they will pull out some familiar worlds. It really helped on DS9 in "Pale Moonlight" that they had Betazaid be conquered instead of some alien planet we never heard about. Maybe Vulcan has fallen which is why partially why Sarek is involved in the action. Of course you also have secondary things to think about as a fan such as what are the Romulans doing while watching their two main rivals, fight in this war. Also what is Section 31 doing. Why would Georgiou have any more insight than they would on how to do some dirty tricks to beat the Klingons.

Jason
 
It really helped on DS9 in "Pale Moonlight" that they had Betazaid
IIRC they originally wrote that as Vulcan, but they changed it because it was too big of loss or something.

Why would Georgiou have any more insight than they would on how to do some dirty tricks to beat the Klingons.

Because she comes from a world where shooting first abd talkimg later is the norm. She knows how to fight battles.
 
IIRC they originally wrote that as Vulcan, but they changed it because it was too big of loss or something.



Because she comes from a world where shooting first abd talkimg later is the norm. She knows how to fight battles.


I can see that is being helpful but not sure I totally believe in the idea that the Federation could become as powerful as it has without knowing how to do some not so nice things in a war. Sisko adapted pretty well to war and I think Kirk could also think outside of cliche Federation Box. Not sure about Picard. Also we are talking about a pre-TOS setting so the utopia of the 24th century is still pretty far off in the distance. This time period isn't all that far removed from the Earth-Romulan war or the Xindi conflict. Also why didn't just have Captain Robau save the day. Don't tell me they got Earth's greatest Hero standing on the sidelines when he is needed more than ever before.:)

Jason
 
I guess it comes down to what we think would be a more interesting idea. Does a fully conquered Federation sound like a more interesting place to start off a story than 20% which is something that feels kind of vague because we don't know what that means since we don't just how big the Federation really is. I wonder if they will actually talk about the issue in terms of how many worlds are in the Federation and how many of them have been defeated. If they do I wonder if they will pull out some familiar worlds. It really helped on DS9 in "Pale Moonlight" that they had Betazaid be conquered instead of some alien planet we never heard about. Maybe Vulcan has fallen which is why partially why Sarek is involved in the action. Of course you also have secondary things to think about as a fan such as what are the Romulans doing while watching their two main rivals, fight in this war. Also what is Section 31 doing. Why would Georgiou have any more insight than they would on how to do some dirty tricks to beat the Klingons.

Jason
Hopefully we'll hear a more detailed account about what happened from Cornwell, maybe name-dropping a few more well-known worlds as well which would be certainly perfect to establish more perspective. Not to mention it would confirm how much they're relying on the map of the border region from Star Charts. Going with the zoomed-in map from Episode 7, Vulcan and Andoria are both visible in the upper left corner so we might hear their names. Coridan, Regulus and Deneva are in the region as well but these are the kinds of names that would only be included if a more well-known one is heard as well.

I have to admit, I didn't even examine the map that closely until reading the theory about McCoy's line in The Conscience of a King about a conquered Vulcan. I was already excited about canon connections after finding the Archanis sector on the map and remembering Gowron talking about their ancient and indisputable claim to the region in Broken Link (and of course Kira mentioning the Klingons relinquishing that claim 100 years before the episode). Of course, your mileage may vary about whether it was a conscious choice on the writers' part or not, but it still fits for me.
 
I also though about Archanis. Also was thinking about Sherman's World and that entire situation maybe coming out from the war. Wouldn't mind a Praxis mention as well. Also something to do with Kithomer and why that was seen as a neutral place for peace talks in Trek 6. Maybe the story will end with Sarek and some Klingon to yet to be seen talking peace at Kithomer.


Jason
 
Being unable to establish communications with Starfleet didn't imply for me that the Federation was outright conquered either. They were deep in Klingon-occupied space after all.
At first I was confused by how they downloaded a real time updated tactical map of the war when just seconds earlier they had said all communications from Starfleet and the Federation were down, even automated beacons, then once I saw the preview for next week's episode where Cornwell and Sarek were leading an armed boarding party to Discovery and Sarek was using mind melds to verify their identities, it hit me.

Communications aren't actually down (hence why the map still updated), Starfleet is deliberately ignoring Discovery's hails because they don't trust them, either because they thought they've been dead for nine months or because the ISS Discovery has been going around wreaking havoc on the Federation and Starfleet in their absence, and they mistook their hail for a trick from their Terran counterparts.
 
Of course with are luck we will get our THIRD Donald Trump villian who talks about wanting to build a wall or a neutral zone between them and the Federation.
:brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall::brickwall:

The long night has come. The Federation, the greatest civilization in history, has fallen. Now one ship, one crew, have vowed to drive back the night and rekindle the light of civilization. On the starship Discovery... hope lives again.
Kevin Sorbo as Discovery's new CO confirmed? :mallory:
 
I've got it! The last episode ended with Saru announcing that "The Federation lost the war"

Next episode drastically changes it to "The Federation lost 20% of their territory" and the last episode will retcon that into it all being a glitch on the map and everything's fine.:D
 
I've got it! The last episode ended with Saru announcing that "The Federation lost the war"

Next episode drastically changes it to "The Federation lost 20% of their territory" and the last episode will retcon that into it all being a glitch on the map and everything's fine.:D
or: the space cow, who is known to overreact in times of danger, over reacted
 
The long night has come. The Federation, the greatest civilization in history, has fallen. Now one ship, one crew, have vowed to drive back the night and rekindle the light of civilization. On the starship Discovery... hope lives again.
You know, this actually basically was the premise for Fullers other terrible idea for a Trek show set post-Voyager.
 
Supposedly the last two episodes of the season were ordered late in production, expanding the season to 15 episodes. Their original plan might have been to wrap up the Klingon War in the second season, so they made the problem seem more insurmountable. Then when they got an order for two more episodes, they had to scale back the occupation to make it seem like something that could be solved in around 80 minutes of airtime.

Who says the Federation doesn't win some territory back between the end of the last episode and when that scene happens, because of something happening what we don't know about yet...
 
The Federation isn’t a military industrial complex

Yeah right. Not only is the Federation a military industrial complex but it’s THE most advanced and powerful military and industrial complex EVER.

Not only that, but the Federation is Starfleet and Starfleet is RUNNING the Federation.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top