Making yourself worth joining, as the Federation aspires to, is not even close to forcibly assimilating other life forms. In fact I'd say it's precisely the opposite.
Despite what egomaniacs named Eddington might like to claim.
Do you believe at some point, everyone in the Milky Way joined the Federation?
- Thread starter The Rock
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Making yourself worth joining, as the Federation aspires to, is not even close to forcibly assimilating other life forms. In fact I'd say it's precisely the opposite.
Despite what egomaniacs named Eddington might like to claim.
This could be narrowed by only visiting "likely" star systems. Not all stars seem to have planets, for example.
Most stars are red dwarfs, and current science is up in the air on habitablity .. So most star systems could be uninhabited/ uninhabitable so we could just send a robot probe to it. Any planet or system of interest drastically reduced the number of stars one has to visit.
All but thirteen sovereign states are United Nations Members, although the definition of "sovereign state" gets fuzzy sometimes.
But the Federation isn't really like the United Nations, in spite of the similarity of its seal. The Federation meets all the criteria of a sovereign state in its own right (possession of a discrete territory over which its government has exclusive legal jurisdiction; capacity to make binding law within its territory; possession of a system of regular courts and law enforcement that enforce law within its territory; possession of citizenship; conduct of its own independent foreign policy; possession of a military to defend it in times of war; a binding constitution that guarantees certain civil rights and liberties to all persons within its jurisdiction and which organizes how the government shall function; possession of an extensive civil bureaucracy; the ability to bypass its member polities' governments when declaring States of Emergency; etc.).
The U.N., by contrast, is not a sovereign state and does not claim to be such. It has no sovereign territory of its own, no regular courts or law enforcement, no military of its own, and no ability to pass binding law. It is an intergovernmental organization that serves as a platform for its Member States to conduct and/or coordinate their foreign policies, not as a sovereign actor in its own right.
“Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space, listen...”
Galactic Warming is a hoax, man!
MUST HAVE! Where'd you get it?
It would take a long, long time, but then you have to realize there is an exponential increase in visitors. So that idea of "visiting one an hour" would increase to "visiting one a minute / second / picosecond" pretty quickly when the new guys go about helping with this odd imperialistic kick the Federation is on, in this far, far future.
I mean, it's all ludicrous, though.
This is the actual one I bought:
https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/1...erse-and-everything-vint?feed_sku=16318965D1V
Most Star Trek Space Maps are 2D and they draw maps using traditional 2D planar maps.
The Milky Way Galaxy is very much 3D with Star Systems above, at, or below the common Galactic Plane.
Vulcan could potentially be several LY's Above or Below the Sol System while being X LY's apart from us on the 2D view.
You're correct in that the writers don't have an accurate sense of scale in terms of Volume or how many Star Systems they would hold as part of their "Territory".
The UFP is more like a mix of the US Federal/State Governmental System & the EU Governmental System.
Thanks!
That was rather my point.
The Sun is pretty close to the plane of the galactic disk. So, if we consider a cylinder centered at the Sun that is 1000 light years tall (to get to the limits of the galaxy perpendicular to the disk), with a radius of 1000 light years (to be a lower limit of what's necessary to jibe with locations and distances cited in TOS), then, at a stellar density of .0004 stars per cubic light year, we have over one million stars in Federation space or in close proximity to it. That's a lot less than the number in the whole galaxy, but it's still pretty large. (edit - This figure of a million or so in this volume is almost certainly an overestimate, because the stellar density decreases with distance from the galactic plane, but I have no figure for how rapidly it is believed to decrease. Also, there's variation with distance from the galactic center, though relatively speaking at this scale there shouldn't be much due to that, but the larger the radius the greater the variation.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Sun's_location_and_neighborhood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Size_and_mass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_density
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigel
Note that the density of stars gets much larger the closer you get to the core, which would be expected to affect the suitability for the evolution of civilization, as e.g. the evolution of life on Earth has been greatly affected by impact events. So, while there might be more stars per unit volume the closer to the center you get (at least until you get really close), that doesn't necessarily mean more civilizations or even more class M planets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Sun's_location_and_neighborhood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Size_and_mass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_density
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigel
Note that the density of stars gets much larger the closer you get to the core, which would be expected to affect the suitability for the evolution of civilization, as e.g. the evolution of life on Earth has been greatly affected by impact events. So, while there might be more stars per unit volume the closer to the center you get (at least until you get really close), that doesn't necessarily mean more civilizations or even more class M planets.
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It's just a way for Big Starship to sell more starships!Galactic Warming is a hoax, man!
Practically impossible, but entertaining the thought or at least partially in a story angle in universe, Starfleet should have annexes for academy training and also political offices on far away planets besides Earth. During TNG Federation vessels were mapping stars and first contacts at an accelerated rate, exploring at farther distances; at some point the trip to Earth should be unfeasible.
I'd find it amusing if they came across a larger, better and more benevolent Federation and were absorbed into that. Earth goes from centre of the universe to a junior member.
I wish I was a better writer - so many good story ideas!
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