Which was the federations greatest enemy?

Avon and the crew of the Liberator.
Servalan will catch that rabble, soon enough.

 

Because an external threat is just that-external. The Federation can agree that the Borg are bad, or the Cardassians are bad and focus as a united front. But, internally is more insidious, slowly corrupting the trust that had brought them together.

 

Yeah I do hear great things about DS9 and the dominion war. I started watching again, but started at season 3 because of suggestions made on this forum and how it's the beginning of the war.

When you say the Dominion is what United the federation with the Romulans and Klingons. It does seem a little sad in a way, that not even star trek found ways to unite any of the major groups without some kind of external catalyst. It really makes me wonder if that's the only way of peace for humanity as well. Oh well haha.

In my opinion it's always been unwise of the federation to not develop both warships and also cloaking devices. Diplomacy often doesn't work out for the crew of any of the exploration ships. They usually have to resort to finding a combat solution. Which is always made all the more difficult because they are working with starships that aren't necessarily designed for combat (although they certainly seem well equipped haha).

Whilst it is admirable to want to go out into the galaxy and be one of the galactic powers by using mainly use of diplomacy. It's still quite reckless and endangering to starship crews to be put in situations with ill-equipped ships. I just don't believe it's practical, and if there are other hostile species out in the galaxy, then sometimes only the threat of or action of violence can defeat them and make own people safe.

 

Yes I understand that both external and internal threats have the ability to destroy the federation at the core of not only it's people, but it's ideals. Yet I'm saying that I believe the possibility of destruction of the idea of Starfleet is still greater from those outside threats that the federation encountered than any internal struggle they faced.

 

That's fair, I just disagree.

As I stated earlier, I believe the greatest threat to the Federation is itself and the Dominion.

 

According to this article, aside from the US Navy Admiral I mentioned, there have also been five Generals from the Army to be court-martialed. That's it. The article even specifies no Air Force General has ever been court-martialed, and though they don't mention the Marines at all, I'm going to infer non of their Generals have ever been court-martialed.

So in the 244 since the US military has been founded, six flag officers have been court-martialed. Starfleet has been around for six years longer than that amount of time, and they're already close to double that amount. And that's before we get into special cases like Kirk, not court-martialed, but did receive executive discipline direct from the Federation President, or Ross, who collaborated with Section 31 and put innocent people in prison but was never court-martialed. Utopia seems to breed corruption.

 

Whilst I do definitely believe that starfleet should hold itself to a higher standard than any modern day military. I don't agree with "Utopia seems to breed corruption" in this instance simply because starfleet encompasses many many world's and probably has many times more personnel than the combined population of all modern militaries. Yet as far as we know, there's only been a handful of insurrectionists or dissidents within it.

Now there might be more. Yet like I've said in a previous post, I'd wager that the total population of Starfleet exceeds that of the population of the entire lifespan of American military, and perhaps even all human military. So as long as they don't have more court-martials per capita, throughout the course of one generation of Starfleet personnel, than in current human military history. Then it can be said that they are doing a better job than humanity has done up to this point at least.

The entire federation would have a population of around a few hundred billion. Perhaps trillions. As long as we follow the trend of current human population growth rates. It puts humanity within the hundreds of billions. Which would be possible with other worlds be added to the picture. Then the other species have to be accounted for as well. So star fleet probably has billions of personnel. Therefore I tend to believe that only a handful of these troublemaker admirals might just only seem like a lot when measuring it against the size of today's armies.

 

Court-martial can't be the only bellwether used. The US military was founded in the first place by people committing treason. Nearly every officer could have been tried if Britain had won. Another big chunk rebelled in the Civil War, in favor of chattel slavery, of all things.

It isn't even stated that all the Starfleet examples you named were court-martialed. Cartwright could have become a university head or music teacher, if the Federation president was as lenient as Johnson was.

 

Their biggest enemy depends on which time period we are discussing.

It certainly seems like for their first 100 years or so, their biggest enemy were the Romulans. The Romulan War led to the Federation's very existence. While the first Klingon War, Tkuvma's war or whatever it's called was destructive, it ultimately was resolved quickly enough, though again leading to a long cold war period. Nevertheless even during that period the Romulans may have been the greater threat.

there are enemies of the Federation that seemed Earth specific, and so may not necessarily be good candidates for being worst enemies of the Federation:

1. V'ger: only interested in Earth
2. The Whale Probe Thingy: again, earth specific
3. The Kzinti: wars with the Kzinti preceeded the UFP. If the Tzenkethi are also Kzinti, this would include them as enemies of the federation, but there is nothing in the few mentions this conflict gets to suggest it was anything but a brushfire war.
4. The Borg seemed specifically interested in Earth. They did not show great interest in piecemealing the Federation, though perhaps long term that would have been their plan. Regardless they were defeated so many times by the end of VOY they they just didn't seem very dangerous, anymore.

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CONTROL: easy to overlook, but considering the fact that it's technology was on the cusp of being bolstered far beyond anything the UFP (or anyone else, beyond the usual god-like beings in the background) could have done to stop it, in the time period if went rogue, it posed, albeit very briefly, one of the most significant threats.

Kelvins: potentially extremely dangerous, and eventually they'll be migrating en-masse to the Milky Way galaxy. but they also really like to party and hook up with other species, so they may mellow out by that time. The chance for a good time and free table salt far surpasses the threat with these hepcats.

Klingons: dangerous yes, and fought the UFP at least twice, but at different times could also be a staunch ally.

Cardassians: A regional but not existential threat until becoming part of the Dominion. Punching way out of their weight class and ultimately paid a heavy price for that. Their arms were too short to box with god.

The Breen: Same as Cardassians. Dangerous, but also relying on a one trick pony strategy that the UFP were bound to eventually understand and adapt to.

The Dominion: the most dangerous conflict the UFP ever had to deal with was certainly with the Founders and their associated minions. If Romulans were the centuries' old greatest threat to the Federation, it is telling that they had to be enlisted by devious means just to allow the war to continue until it could be resolved.

Sphere Builders: threat probably nullified.

Species 8472: hard to say. They have not apparently posed a threat to Federation Space since becoming aware of the UFP.

So I would say, apart from brief punctuation marks of greater brief enemy threats, through most of the UFP's known history so far, the greatest threat has been the Romulan Star Empire, however in terms of conflict the Dominion War was at least as dangerous and possibly more devastating.

 

No, sir 40.835 Snoops

 

Worst enemy. Who caused the most damage to the Federation over the longest term?

Klingons --> Not really.
Cardassians --> They couldn't by themselves.
Romulans --> They're cold enemies.
Dominion --> Any damage was relatively short-term.
Borg --> If they applied themselves, they could do a lot of damage, but they haven't.

Hmmm. In theory, it should be the Borg. In practice, I'll have to go with the Dominion.

 

Star Trek fans.

 

No, no. The Federation's greatest enemy, not the franchise's.

 

I thought it was always the Neilsen Collective that was the Federation's greatest enemy, LOL!

 

Its own hubris.

Kor

 

No no no! It's "Is own ****ing hubris!"

 

Lwaxana Troi!

 

I'm going to say the Dominion, because of all the threats to the Federation over the course of the franchise, the Dominion forced the Federation into some unsavoury changes and challenged the Federation's foundations. We saw Starfleet officers get into bed with Section 31 to undermine allies, we saw Starfleet officers deceive other empires into joining the war, and we even had the possibility of a coup. At more than one point during the war, the Dominion had the Federation against the wall, desperate and showing it.

 

I kind of think the United Federation of Planets greatest enemy was themselves. I mean one of the life lessons I got from the animated show was how we got to improve ourselves. Either you are growing as a person or shrinking. Pastor Jim at my church and his husband are always saying there is no standing still. You either go forward or backwards. This seems to be true of "Picard."