Chronological rewatch from a historical perspective

Carpenter Street was a story being told by T'Pol to her crewmates in the 22nd century, and that's where I place it. As for time-travel, our theoretical first time Star Trek viewer time travels when the narrative does. They are following the narrative, not the timeline.

 

Yeah: this is something I'd like to do if I'm ever independently wealthy and can take a month or three.

 

Fairs - obviously was meant out of interest rather than trying to pull apart your concept so hope it was taken that way.

Sounds like a really cool project- looking forward to hearing more

 

The viewer is going to be confused by Kirk stating in 1967 (In TOS S1 "Tomorrow Is Yesterday") when after being told he'll be locked up for about 200 years (In 1967) his response is: "That ought to be just about right."

It's amazing to me how often fans pick out one inconsistent line as utterly more important than the dozens of inconsistent lines stated across all Star Trek series and films of the past 55 years.

From day one (Going from the pilot episode of TOS "The Cage"), The honest fact is overall Star Trek has never been 100% internally consistent.

I don't get how they feel that as time goes forward in Star Trek that aspect will change.

I say that because overall every production team has said, The story they're telling at the time comes first... Thus if they have to ignore some aspect of another episode or film of Star Trek that came before said story, they'll do just that.

 

The line about first contact with the Klingons was in the episode "First Contact," not the movie.

 

I wouldn’t call Archer/humanity’s first contact with the Klingons a success. Humans shot the first Klingon they met. Then proceeded to drag the body across the Galaxy in defiance of Klingon cultural norms to their homeworld where they pissed off the High Council. Every other meeting was about as successful, ending with infecting the species with a disfiguring virus.

Also declaring first contact as between humanity and another species seems a little terra-centric. Could be the Vulcans were the first future UFPer to meet the Klingons. Origin of the “Vulcan Hello”?

 

How in the world did I conflate those two?

 

Time's Arrow. Tomorrow is Yesterday.

Assignment: Earth is set entirely in 1968

It was an illusion, however if you wanted to date it, it would be post First Contact:
"This is a court of the year 2079, by which time more rapid progress had caused all United Earth nonsense to be abolished."

Presumably Cochrane's flight didn't unite everyone on Earth straight away.

 

Point of order - Carbon Creek was a story being told by T'Pol about her great-grandma.

Carpenter Street was that time Daniels was feeling lazy, so he interrupted Season 3's story arc to send Archer and T'Pol to Detroit.

 

Dammit.

 

Choose Your Pain has the first mention of Amanda and the first appearance of Harry Mudd.

Lethe has Amanda's first chronological appearance, and is our first time viewer's first indication that Sarek is really bad at parenting. It is also the first time that the connection between that Spock character from Q and A and Michael and Sarak is made explicit. Michael's ability to forgive Sarek is a credit to her character.

The "logic extremists" will not come as a surprise to our first time viewer as they are familiar with the concept of psycho Vulcans from Enterprise.

I believe our first time viewer would trust Lorca about as well as I did at this point upon my first viewing.

 

It definitely changes the context of I, Mudd, a little bit, knowing that Mudd has known about this place, and used it as a safe haven, for a long time.

 

Part of me feels that The Escape Artist has to take place after I, Mudd, but that's just me. My first instinct is to watch it in between The Original Series and The Motion Picture. Is there an "official" placement of the episodes?

 

I've done a chronological rewatch before. And thought not intentional, there is a fascinating subtext regarding the role of the Federation that is revealed when watching it like that. The Federation goes through cycles of exploration->growth->retrenchment->militarization->war->peace/disarmament->exploration. The shows we have seen broadly represent 5 eras (with a 6th forming, in the 32nd century).

The First Era - The Birth of the Federation, the first Age of Expansion and start of "modern" interstellar politics
2063 - Human's stage their first Warp I flight, followed by Human-Vulcan first contact. In the months and years that follow, Vulcan Central Command becomes extremely concerned with the Human race. Going from a global nuclear conflict to warp capable in 10 years has uncanny parallels to how the people who would become the Romulans left Vulcan 2000 years before. Concerned that Humanity could become a dangers to the region if left unchecked, they begin a mutli-decade partnership with humanity that both helps them rebuild from World War III and advance some technology, but also significantly slow them down in their ability to rapidly get to other star systems.

2151 - Over Vulcan protestations, the NX-01 launches and Earth gains the ability to engage in interstellar affairs on its own, albeit it still significantly technologically inferior to most of its neighbors. Over the next several years, Earth becomes the mediator between various local civilizations that have been, at best, cool to each other and sometimes in open conflict. Crucially, Earth begins exploratory mission to uncharted sectors mostly into what will later be known as the Beta Quadrant. For many decades, or even longer most of the local powers have kept their ships very close to their home systems for defensive purposes, leading to interstellar space being rather lawless. Marauding ships aren't uncommon.

In general however, local space is divided and relatively weak. The Romulan Star Empire is spoken of distantly and far away. The Klingon Empire is feared, but despite local space's proximity to the Klingon Homeworld, Klingon expansionist interests seem to like elsewhere ("eastward" deeper into the Beta Quadrant.

The situation changes in 2155. The Romulan Star Empire grows increasingly concerned that Earth is uniting the fractious systems in its region over a series of regional security incidents. It tries to provoke a Vulcan-Andorian War that would destabilize the region. When that attempts fails (rather spectacularly), it launches a series of covert attacks using drone ships to provoke another conflict. It not only fails but manages to unintentionally unite the major space fairing powers of local space - Vulcan, Andor, Earth and Tellar - like never before into what soon would be called "the Coalition of Planets". For the first time in at least living memory, there is an emerging order that could stabilize the security of local space (resolve the marauding alien problem, provide for collective defense) and provide for a standing means of peaceful resolution of disputes.

The biggest event for the next 150 years though would be the Augment Virus crisis. The Klingon Empire messes with genetic engineering based on 20th century Earth enhanced humans and ends up accidentally warping their genome to remove Klingon traits and change Klingon cognition and behavior. While the NX-01 resolves this crisis, the aftermath destabilizes the Klingon Empire, that seemingly fractures into warring houses and becomes insular for the next century, effectively removing them from the map.

2056-2060 - The Earth-Romulan War begins as the Romulan Star Empire decides to directly address the stabilizing security regieme that has this upstart Earth at its center. The Coalition of Planets evidently did not become involved until 2160, when at the Battle of Cheron, the Romulan Empire was decisively defeated by the intervention of the other Coalition members. The costs of the war were so great that the Romulan Empire was apparently marginalized as regional power for the next 100 years.

2161 - The United Federation of Planets founded with the core 4 of the Coalition of Planets as its founding members. It becomes a more formal interstellar government the the loose arrangement of the Coalition.

2062-2255 - The Federation's first Age of Expansion begins.
With The Klingon Empire entirely destabilized and in the midst of a Civil War, and the Romulan Star Empire in an isolationist phase, the Federation begins a nearly 90 year period of growth and expansion where it builds up institutions, harmonizes technology and shipbuilding, and grows to include dozens of worlds who find the mutual protection and trade agreements offered by the Federation beneficial. Earth Starfleet becomes the basis of Federation Starfleet whose core mission is to seek out new worlds and civilizations. With the Klingons and Romulans indisposed, Starfleet acts a principally exploratory organization. It has a defense function, but it is secondary to its core mission of exploring the galaxy and growing the Federation. By the end of this period, the Federation we know has emerged, though it likely only counts dozens of members (let's say 60), mostly in the Beta Quadrant.


The Second Era - The Klingon-Federation Wars, the end of expansion and the militarization of Starfleet
2256 - The Klingon Empire remerges after a century of intercene conflict under T'Kuvma. Some Klingons have taken a wildly new form - perhaps a result of try to use genetic engineering to undo the cosmetic and psychological legacy of the Klingon Augment Virus. The Battle of the Binary Stars occurs, leading to the Federation-Klingon War of 2256-2257. Starfleet, focused one exploration and growth, is badly overmatched by the Klingons and loses 1/3rd of its fleet and many border worlds. By 2257, the existence of the Federation is threatened as the Klingons are within striking distance of the core economic, military and industrial powers of the Federation. The war ends when Discovery and Section 31 manipulate the situation to get L'Rell to become Chancellor, who ends the war.

2258 - L'Rell continues the process of uniting the Klingon Empire into a single, cohesive political and military entity as the fractious nature of the Federation-Klingon War exposed how fragile T'Kuvma's attempts at unification were.

2260s:
In the years after the Federation-Klingon War, Starfleet begins a rapid and expansive militarization initiative that lasts much of the next 30 years, in direct response to the near-loss of the Federation-Klingon War of 2256-2257. The Constitution-class becomes the basis for an expanded starfleet based on variants of its cruiser configuration. While initially this means simply building many Constitution-class ships itself, in the mid-2260s and into the 2270s the came to include the Miranda class and other variants (some of which would serve for the next 110 years). The original Constitution-class design, based on 2240s technology, would be refitted several times in the 2050s and early 2060s, before settling on a unified single refit conflguration in the late 2260s that was carried over to the derivative classes.

During this period, Kirk engaged in his legendary five year mission, most of it in which took place in what would later be known as the Alpha Quadrant, which in the 2260s was largely unexplored (security concerns with the Romulans and Klingons required the a focus on the Beta Quadrant in prior decades). But his mission of exploration was largely an exception to a Starfleet that was transitioning to a more militarized nature in response to the Klingon threat.

Throughout the 2260s the Federation encountered the Klingon Empire much more frequently. The Klingon Empire had seemingly fully stabilized by the middle of the decade for the first time in over a century. The Klingon body type of the prior decade had totally disappeared. Another war with the Federation was adverted through the timely intervention of the Organians in 2267. The Treaty of Organia provided the basis for stable, but cool relatons for the next 25 years and prevented another Klingon-Federation War. Starfleet still continued its growth, modernization and militarization plans as the near miss of another war, plus the reemergence of the Romulan Star Empire for the first time in over a century (and their brief alliance with the Klingons) showed that the security situation was at great risk of rapidly deteriorating.

2270s:
The federation continued its ship building program, but this was mostly a quiet decade. It was typified by a transition away from Starfleet operational practices of the 2250s and 2260s into an operating norm that would be carried through the mid 24th century. Refit-Constitution class and Mirandia-class (and variants, such as Soyuz) were rapidly and inexpensively built out. The Federation still kept many of it's ships on the boarder, but Kirk engaged in at least 1 (and probably 2) more five year missions of exploration. Also notably during this period, the Klingons began to fully undo the legacy of the augment virus and got ever closer to their pre-virus look and personality.

Also in this decade the Federation began "the Great Experiment", a series of technologies, including transwarp drive, that would be implemented in the Excelsior class. The Excelsior was planned to be the basis for a new generation (probably the 5th) of Federation Starships, to replace the Constitution-based ships of the prior 30 years (4th generation?) as the foundation of Federation starship design and technologies. The Excelsior, it was imagined, would be the ship class that would carry Starfleet into the 24th century once the Constitution-refits and their variants were phased out.

Towards the end of this period the "militarization of Starfleet", again, the long term response to the Klingon War, culminated in the adoption of the red military-style uniforms.

2280s: The political situation while stable, risked a rapid unwinding due to the Genesis program. While the Federation's intentions were peaceful, the Klingons saw it in the context of the Federation's perceived (and actual) militarization as a superweapon. Only the failure of the technology prevented a worse political situation. Klingons nearly fully-undo the damage the augment virus did to them, but culturally they have a long road ahead. Klingons of this era are not yet returned to beliefs in honor and tradition and still act very human.

2293: Praxis explodes. The Klingon Empire, faced with an enormous environmental catastrophe that could potentially destabilize the Empire again, reach a peaceful settlement of all disputes with the Federation at the Khitomer conference. The Klingon-Federation Cold War ends and the Federation abandons its military build up as it dismantles bases and downsizes its militarized starships. The Klingon Empire and Federation have cordial relations, but are not yet allies.


The Third Era - The Long Peace and the Federation's Second Age of Expansion.
2294 - 2365:
With the threat of an existential war with the Klingons now gone for good, the next 70 years of history see the Federation and Starfleet vastly reducing its military focus, resuming its exploratory focus and rapid expansion.
With the security situation rapidly improving, the Federation shifts back to a policy of exploration, principally of the Alpha Quadrant.

In the first decade of the peace, 2294-2300, the Constitution-refit class is rapidly retired, despite some ships being relatively young. Many Miranda class ships remain in service. The Excelsior (and some Excelsior refit) classes, minus Transwarp drive, enter service and become the backbone of the Federation Starfleet for the next 50+ years.

The most notable security incident in the first decade of the Peace was the Tomed Incident, which saw a brief, but significant military encounter between the Federation and Romulans for the first time ever (unless you include the Earth-Romulan war which predated the Federation). The outcome of the Tomed Incident drove the Romulans into a 50+ year period of isolation where they evidently focused on other matters than relations with the Federation and Kligons (perhaps their eastward borders?). Notabely, the Tomed Incident did not disturb the long peace.

As the Long Peace period bore on, the Federation explored and expanded ever further into the Alpha Quadrant, until it came up against the borders of five different significant powers that prevented further expansion.

The first was the Tholian Assembly. The Tholians and Federation had encounters in the mid 23rd century, and perhaps earlier, but the scope of their vast domain became clear only in the 24th century. However relations never boiled over into a major military conflict.
The Ferengi were objects of rumor for much of the 2340s, 2350s and early 2360s. Encounters were few and generally hostile, but the nature of the Ferengi political system and the security threat it posed (or if they were just independent operators) wasn't clear. While for a time it was believed the Ferengi could be a major military power akin to the Klingons, that was later found not to be the case and hostile encounters mostly due to enterprising rogue ships. The Ferengi Mauarder proved very advanced for the 2350s, but it's military power turned out to be somewhat overstated.

The Federation encountered the Tzenkethi in in the middle of the 24th century and fought a brief war. While the Tzenkethi were evidently no match for the Federation and the conflict wasn't a large one, it proved a formative experience for some officers and blocked the Federation from further expansion into that region of space.

Most significantly to the future of the Federation and Alpha Quadrant, was the first contact between the Federation and Cardassian Empire. The Cardassians were the nearest Alpha Quadrant great power to the core of the Federation and the most significant military power by far, nearly rivaling the Klingons. And unlike the Klingons, they were engaged in an active period of expansion deeper into the Alpha Quadrant and near Federation space. This lead to the Federation-Cardassian border wars of the 2250s. While in the context of past (and future) military conflicts, they were not large engagements, they were bitter ones and proved to be the most significant military episode during the long peace, and the only principle military experience for an entire generation of Starfleet officers. Keeping the peace with the Cardassians - likely to avoid a return to a militarization policy - was a core focus of the Federation, and of Starfleet for much of the 2350s and 2360. In foreign policy terms, the Federation was being a "status quo" power (in that, the status quo benefited it greatly) and accomodated the needs of the lesser, upstart rival in order to prevent an escalation of military matters.

But even the Cardassian Border wars did not change that the long peace was generally extremely stable and peaceful for everyone in local space. Klingon and Federation relations continued to improve, to the point that, after the Enterprise-C's relief to Romulan attack on Narendra III, the Federation and Klingons entered a formal security and alliance (the Khitomer Accords), one furthered by the Romulan attack on Khitomer itself (symbolic) 18 months later. Klingon-Federation relations proved so good that humans and klingons started to have interpersonal relations, marry and even adopt of children was facilitated.

Within Starfleet, several things happened during the long peace that typify it.

The Federation began a successor program to the Excelsior class, that it thought would prove to be the base-model starship for the second half of the 24th century. The Ambassador-class, however, proved to be merely a half step. It was more advanced and capable than the Excelsior, but was not as much a leap forward as the Excelsior was from the Constitution. Few were built, while Excelsiors continued to be upgraded and produced. Furthermore Miranda-class ships continued to be modified and improved, likely owing to a vast surplus of components from the military build up of the 2260s-2290s, deep into the 24th century. With the Constitution-refit long out of service and the Ambassador class leading to no variants and short production, the Excelsior class and Miranda class proved to "the face" of Starfleet for the first half of the 24th century.

The leap forward Starfleet was seeking would be found in the Galaxy class of the 2260. However the Galaxy-class, the most ambitions, integrated technology and starship program yet attempted was an endpoint that required significant development on other types of starships first. Before the first Galaxy class was built, nacelle designs, interior designs, components, hull parts were all developed and implemented on smaller, less ambitious but meaningful ship classes, such as the New Orleans class, the Freedom class and the Niagara class. While none of these implimented the full suite of technologies the Galaxy class would, and where very much a half-step between Ambassador/later Excelsiors and Galaxy, they were an essential part of development and it was thought would make up the "face" of Starfleet in the 2nd half of the 24th century, alongside the Galaxy class. Unfortunately that provided not to be the case for a variety of reasons and once the Galaxy (and its derivative Nebula) entered service, no more of those "half steps" were built. However, likely the Excelsior-derivitives and the Constitution-refit derivitives before them, they were all united by a common window, hull, nacelle and similar saucer design. Ultimately, however, it wouldn't prove nearly as enduring as its predecessors.

The Galaxy class represented not just a technological achievement for the Federation and STarfleet, but also a statement of its philosophy at that point in time. With the long peace, besides Cardassian border skirmishes, seemingly continuing without end, and the space the Federation could explore and expand into ever further away, what was needed was ships that could be self sustaining for far longer than any class built previously. With warp speed having "just" doubled in the past 100 years, 5 year missions wouldn't be enough before long. So in the late 2350s and early 2360s Starfleet began the controversial policy of allowing officers to include their families on their ships, with the Galaxy and Nebula class being built around this philosophy.

This was fundamentally a statement of belief that the military conflicts that were so formative to the Federation in the 23rd century were now permanently behind them.

2364 - The Enterprise-D, the most advanced of the Galaxy class starships, is launched on a mission of deep space exploraiton. It spends its first few months in the northern periphery of the Alpha Quadrant, near the unclear (at that time) borders of Ferengi space (and has several encounters with them), however it soon spend much of its time along the periphery of the Beta Quadrant, beyond Romulan and Klingon space. This columinates with the return of the Romulan Empire to interstellar affairs as both agree to investigate the destruction of several colonies along their borders. The Romulan D'deridex class, twice the size and power of a Galaxy-class starship, comes as a surprise.

(end of Part 1)

 

The Third Era - Losing the Peace
2365 - The Long Peace comes to an end as Q enables the Federation to encounter the Borg in System J-25, years before they otherwise would have. While the encounter is brief and fatalities few, the enormous overmatch of the Borg and Picard's report fundamentally changes Federation and Starfleet policy in a way that hasn't been seen since the Federation-Klingon War 109 years earlier (the sophisication of the D'deridex, we can speculate, also concerned them).

Q's message what the correct one: the Federation is moving deeper into the Galaxy and is entirely unprepared for what lies beyond. The Borg may be the least of it. In response, the Federation begins a major research and militarization program. The remaining Galaxy-class hulls are built, along with a modified Nebula class. Excelsior and Miranda class ships are life-extended and modernized, growing the fleet. The Defiant-class program begins, along with the ships that came to be commonplace in the 2370s - the Sovereign class, the Steamrunner class, the Akira class, the Saber class, the Nova class and the Norway class. The planned Intrepid class, a planned successor to the Excelsior class as a "middle-weight" explorer, continues but sees a small planned production run as its technology falls a step between post-Galaxy and counter-Borg design. Also the weapons programs that culminate in Pulse Phasers and Quantum Torpedoes begin. All put together, the plan is to fully modernize Starfleet by the mid 2370s with a new generation of ships, without families once again, that would be a better balance of exploration and security needs, and be designed to defeat the Borg and threats like them. The Federation in planning to build a "Battle fleet" as Commander Shelby put it, was drawing a close on the long peace.

Despite this the Enterprise D continued exploring and growing the Federation, mostly in the periphery of the Beta quadrant, for the next several years, even after the Borg attack.

Also during this period, showing the end of the long peace, was several ever more dangerous military encounters with the Romulans and renewed covert attempts by the Romulans to destabilize local space. They in part succeeded with the Klingon Civil War (still a couple of years out). The Romulans had some kind of change in political administration in the late 2350s/early 2360s that would lead to a policy of engagement (and often times interference) over the next 25 years.

With the long peace at an end, the Federation had grown to several times its former size: over 150 worlds and a few thousand light years. By 2365, it was far larger than the Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire and Cardassian Union. It had made the most of the openening provided by peace with the Klingons and Romulan Isolationism. But it had come up against the hard natural limits to its borders. To the "west" of Earth in the Alpha Quadrant, the Breen, Cardassians, Tzenkethi and Tholans formed a barrier. To the east, in the Beta Quadrant, the Klingons and Romulans formed a barrier to expansion. Expansion was limited to worlds within existing Federation space, to the periphery in the Beta Quadrant beyond Romulan space, and to the "south".

2366 - The Borg Invasion and Battle of Wolf 359. The Federation wasn't close to ready. None of its new ships or new weapons where anywhere close to done. Starfleet loses 39 ships at Wolf 359, showing the inadiquacies of its military preparadeness. Disaster is averted by the Enterprise-D at the last moment. The Borg threat recedes in its wake. Over the next few years essentially all Starfleet security build up programs continue, however the most explicit of them, the warship-by-another-name Defiant-class, is mothballed despite being nearly complete a couple of years after this date. Starfleet continues to grow and activate new ships and retrofit old ones.

2367 - The Klingon Civil War destabilizes the Empire to its worst degree since before the time of T'Kuvma 110 years prior. Romulan interference is discovered, but the Federation plays a supporting role in stabilizing the Empire and securing the continuation of the alliance under is new chancellor, Gowron.

Also in 2367, Spock goes to Romulus and begins to build relationships with powerful Romulans and law the seeds for Re-Unification. This is the last year the Enterprise D spends exploring the far periphery of explored Space. It spends the last three years of its life along the Federation border, mostly in the Alpha Quadrant, mapping sectors and doing surveys. Much of this is due to the pending political changes in the Cardassian Union and growing concerns about a new security threat there.

Regardless, the Borg attack the year before, the Klingon Civil War, encounters with the Romulans, and increasing problems with the Cardassians has created by far the most unstable security situation in well over a century. This many crosscurrents could be found in the 2260s... maybe.

2368/2369 - The Cardassian withdrawal from Bajor changes the face of security and politics within known space. The Federation sends more and more ships to the Cardassian border to protect its interests, and in 2369, moves into Terok Nor to assist the Bajorans with rebuilding. The Enterprise D spends a lot of time around the Argolis cluster, only a stones throw from Cardassian Space. In 2369, Lt. Dax and Commander Sisko discover the Bajoran Wormhole, opening exploration up to the Gamma Quadrant, 50,000 light years away.

2370 - The formation of the Maquis along the Cardassian-Federation border threatens to badly destabilize the region and lead the Federation and Cardassian Union into open war. The Federation has a severe and unprecedented philosophical divide in how to confront the Maquis. The political accomodation with the Cardassians was extremely controversial and unpopular and some senior and very respected Starfleet officers either joined the Maquis or came to support the Maquis cause indirectly. There was also an undercurrent of declining satisfaction with 24th century life as they knew it... a feeling of being stifled to such a degree that that the frontier nature of the Maquis proved a powerful draw.

Intrepid class starships start entering service. The earliest of the post-Borg generation of ships begin construction, including the future Enterprise-E.

Meanwhile in the Gamma Quadrant, ships and traders begin to hear rumors of a powerful "Dominion" beyond the regions they've explored.



The Fourth Era - The Dominion War
2371 - In the first half of the year, the USS Voyager is thrown 70,000 light years to the far side of the Delta Quadrant. While Voyager would play no role in the security/politics of the Federation for the next 7 years, its legacy would prove to be arguably the most crucial to its future in a way no ships has since the NCC-1701.

The Enterprise D is destroyed. The crew is transferred to a new ship, the Sovereign class Enterprise E. The Sovereign class is the largest and most capable of post-Borg first encounter ships and its systems, weapons and design stand in sharp contrast to its predecessor Galaxy class. The Galaxy class represented a Starfleet focused on exploration and expansion, where as the Sovereign class represents a Starfleet in a mode of thinking much more in line with the 2380s - border patrol, security and some exploration, but mostly of nearby space that needs mapping.

In the second half of the year, the reality for every living person in known space changes as the Federation has a disastrous first contact with the Dominion. The Dominion proves to be another aggressive, militarized power with technology beyond the Federation and it's neighbors. It's size is vast - perhaps several times that of the Federation. It is right up there with the warning Q gave in 2365 that what lied beyond known space was dangerous and much different than the threats the Federation know. The destruction of the USS Odyssey, a Galaxy class starship only underscores the need for remilitarization of Starfleet and of the inadequacies of early 2360s technology and plans for meeting that thread. The Federation begins what is by far the biggest, fastest starship build up program in its history. It also pretty much stops expanding its borders and exploring space.



The Dominion Cold War begins. Changelings from the Dominion begin to infiltrate the Alpha and Beta Quadrants and in an attempt to destabilize it in order to prepare the region for an invasion. They decimate the Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar leading to the destruction of dozens of ships (including powerful Warbirds). They nearly provoke a war between the Federation and Tzenkethi. The infiltrate Klingon Empire and Federation leadership.

2372 - Without the Obsidian Order, the Cardassian Central Command is overthrown, fully destabilizing the region. The Klingons begin their invasion of Cardassian space. The invasion is initially sucessful, but grinds to a stalemate as the Klingons close in on Cardassian home systems. However the result is that the Klingons are more aggressive than they've been in over a century, the Cardassian Union was badly weakened, and Federation / Klingon relations were badly damaged with the Khitomer alliance breaking down. Manipulated by the Dominion, the Federation and Klingons begin a brief, but fierce war. Although no side seems very interested in an aggressive push into the other's territory and large numbers of ships are not committed, the localized fighting along the border in the Beta Quadrant is fierce.

2373 - In the first half of year, the Klingon-Federation War is brought to a conclusion when the Dominion's role is exposed. The conflict ends in an uneasy ceasefire as a diplomatic solution is agreed to.

Mid year, the Borg return with an Invasion of Sector 001. Fortuitously, with so much ship building (in prep in part for the Dominion War) in the Sol System, the Borg faces a far more capable starfleet than it did previously. Starfleet's modernization and build up since 2366 pay off, as the new ship designs and weapons it perfected since Wolf 359 destroy the Borg cube and suffer comparatively few casualties (though not insignificant). The Borg attempt to attack the Federation through time is foiled by the Enterprise-E, but ominously presage a future means by which rival powers will attack a Federation they can't defeat by conventional means.

A few months later, The Cardassian Union joins the Dominion, which surges through the wormwhole. The Dominion destroys the Maquis and chases the Klingon Empire out of Cardassian space, as a prelude to a major military build up. The Klingon Empire rejoins the Khitomer accords.
The year ends with the Federation mining the wormhole to end the Dominion build up. In response the Dominion launches an invasion of Federation space. The Dominion War has begun.

2374 - The first few months of the Dominion War go terribly for the Federation. Many hundreds of ships are lost. The federation is hugely outnumbered and outgunned and begins to seek a diplomatic solution. The conflict turns when the Federation destroys a crucial long-range sensor system that allowed the Dominion to track fleet movements, and the Federation-Klingons adjust their tactics. With the retaking of DS9, The Dominion is pushed back into Cardassian space for most of the rest of the war.
In the second half of the year, the Romulan joins the Klingon-Federation alliance, marking the first time the three principal powers of known space have ever fought side by side, and opening up a new door to Federation-Romulan reconcilation.
The year ends with the first major Federation movement into Dominion-held space, the Chintoka System.The war is a still at a stalemate, as neither side has the resources for a significant major move behond that.

2375 - The Dominion War stalemate continues for months, with mostly border skirmishes and fights to hold/retake Chintoka.

The existence of Section 31 becomes known to several officers within Starfleet. It's leader, Sloan, delivers a prophecy of sorts: after the Dominion War, the Dominion will be forced back through the wormhole, Cardassia will be occupied, the Klingons will spend a generation rebuilding from their enormous losses in three back to back to back wars, and that will leave the Romulans and the Federation to at last, resume their ancient rivalry and contest each other for supremacy of known space.

The Dominion finally breaks the stalemate with the joining of the Breen, an Alpha Quadrant species long known but highly mysterious and from space beyond the Cardassian Union. The Breen Energy Weapon destroys hundreds of Federation, Klingon and Romulan ships. For a couple of months, the Klingon Defense Force, out numbered 10-to-1, is all that stands in the way of a Dominion victory. The Federation eventually discovers how to defend against the Breen Energy weapon. The Dominion is driven back to Cardassian Prime. After a period of orbital bombardment and house-to-house executions, at least 800 million Cardassians are killed and the planet devastated. The Cardassian Union effectively ceases to exist. The Dominion surrenders and is driven back through the Wormhole.

The Dominion War ends with a Federation alliance victory. It was by far the largest war in known galactic history. Of the victors, the Federation is in by far the best shape. The Klingon's losses presaged a period of retrenchment to ward off a return to the destabilization that has dogged it for a decade (to the point that it almost lost the war over it thanks to Gowron's schemes). The Romulan Empire faired better, but it's large D'deridex class was already few in number and relatively easily destroyed compared to more agile Federation and Klingon ships. The Federation emerged as leading power of the Alpha-Beta quadrant that beat back the most significant known power from the Gamma Quadrant.

The question is now: what would come next? Would a period of expansion resume? Thus far the federation has had cycles of retrenchment+war and expansion+peace. Was this the start of a new era of expansion? Well....


(end of part 2)

 

The Fifth Era - The Post-War Order Takes shape
Not unsurprisingly, the effects of the Dominion War would be felt for the next 25 years or more.

2378 - Voyager returns from the Delta Quadrant. Beyond just the human story, Voyager achieved several important milestones which would forever change the future of the Federation.
The first is that, in their closing days home, they dealt a major defeat to the Borg by destroying its Transwarp hub and Unimatrix 1. It is unclear if the Borg were totally destroyed, but intelligence gathered by Voyager in the Delta Quadrant mapped the extend of Borg Space and indicated that the risk to the Federation from the greatest power of the Delta Quadrant would be low for many years to come. While there were still many parts of the galaxy still to explore, the Federation was safe in knowning that two major military threats from the other side of the galaxy were, for the time being, minimized. This bodes well for a new era of expansion.

The second is that Voyager brought back with it an unequal cache of advanced technology. Quantum slipstream in particular is probably "the answer". Its technology is broadly compatible with Federation technology. It could be the solution where Transwarp failed a century earlier. Between 2151 and 2266, ships got many times faster. Yet between 2373, ships got just twice as fast. Cochrane-style Warp Drive was running into hard limits on distance/time/energy requirements as early as the 2350s, necesitating something like the Galaxy class - enormous ships with families that could act autonomously. Quantum Slipstream offers the possibility of opening extreme deep space exploration and travel to ships of almost any size, in a time scale much more compatible with human life. It would make expanding the Federation deeper into the Beta and Alpha Quadrants more feasible.

Whatever the case, the legacy of Voyager is such that, in the 32nd century, they still name ships after her.

2379 - The legacy of the Dominion War continues. Shinzon, a human clone, Dominion War veteran and leader of the Remans, wins favor of sections of the Romulan fleet inclined to go to war against the Federation against the policy of detente of the current Praetor and Senate (itself a continuation of its Dominion War policy). After a coup, he declares himself Praetor and with his advanced warbird Scimitar, attempts to launch a major attack on the Federation. He is stopped by the Enterprise E and elements of the Romulan fleet not interested in resuming a hostile relation with the Federation.

Big picture, we can see that Romulan policy vis a vis the Federation stretching back to the late 2350s remains unresolved. Back then, there was policy shift (and leadership shift) away from 50 years of isolation into one of engagement in 2364. And while they engaged in the 2360s, the Romulans also launched a series of schemes meant to curtail federation influence or destabilize the region, with some elements of Romulus seeming to welcome a war. By the early 2370s this shifted to a policy of cooperation in the face of the Dominion threat, and then outright military alliance 2374 and 2375. Post-war, the peace has held and engagement, seemingly a popular policy, except for those who fell in with Shinzon. Regardless, the end of Shinzon represented the final end of any aggressive policy towards the Federation, however his coup severely destabilized the Romulan Star Empire.

2381 - The Romulan Star is predicted to go supernova within the next decade. Picard leaves the Enterprise and accepts promotion to admiral in order to lead the relief effort, which will require the evacuation of the core of the Romulan Star Empire. He is the only many they trust for the job, and the Romulan political situation is still very unstable due to the coup of 2379.


2385 - The Attack on Mars. The enormous fleet (10,000 strong) Picard's team built to evacuate Romulan space is destroyed by the Zhat Vash. Mars is decimated. 92,000 people are killed. The Federation has no time (or political unity) to build more relief ships. Riven by discord over the already controversial Romulan relief effort, the Federation adopts an isolationist policy for the first time in its history. Picard resigns from Starfleet.

2387 - Commander LaForge works with the Vulcan Science Institute to build the Jellyfish and equips it with "Red Matter". Spock returns to Vulcan to become pilot for the Jellyfish, in a last ditch attempt to prevent the Romulan Supernova by creating a black hole. The attempt fails and Spock is pulled into an alternate reality.
The Supernova of 2387 occurs, which destroys Romulus, Remus and neighboring star systems. Billions are killed. The Romulan Star Empire falls and is replaced by a series of fiefdoms, the most significant being the Tal Shair backed "Romulan Free State". The Romulan diaspora spreads across the quadrant.

Referring back to Director Sloan's prophecy in 2375, the Klingon Empire is still licking its wounds from the Dominion War, no where to be found. The Romulan Star Empire is, unexpectedly, no more and its successor states not a rival to the UFP. Federation stands alone as by far the most powerful actor in known space. However its policy of isolationism and retrenchment stifle it until 2399. Sometime in the 2390s the Federation does start to build a true successor to Dominion War era ships, that are ready en mass in 2399, but clearly have a common lineage to them.

2399 - The Federation changes its policy away from retrenchment and becomes actively engaged in interstellar affairs again. At the top level, known space is more stable than its been in 40 years. There is no risk of a war between the major powers. However at the local level, space is more dangerous than its been in some time, with marauding ships and criminality on border worlds not seen in over 150 years. This required groups lie the Fenris Rangers to form, to fill the void left by the Federation pull back

Depending on what happens in Picard and any other shows around 2399/2400, a sixth era would perhaps start around now and be one of demilitarization/expansion again, similar to what happened after Praxis, the last time the Federation found itself without an aggressive military rival.


What Comes Next - The Third Age of Expansion followed by the Fall of the Federation
Form Enterprise and Discovery we have bits and pieces of what's in store for the Federation. The good news is: it's future is VERY bright. The bad news is, nothing lasts forever.

Whatever the challenges of the late 24th/early 25th century, the Federation will eventually grow in size and sophistication that by the 26th century the Klingon Empire is incorporated into it and it builds ships as large and as capable as the Enterprise-J. This implies that the Federation likely has a near galactic reach within 150 years of the Dominion War, which seems to be the last major military conflict fought for many centuries. There maybe a confrontation with the Sphere Builders in the 26th century, but it's unclear as to if that happened in our timeline anymore given the outcome of the Temporal Cold War and Xindi Conflict.

By the 27th century the Federation will begin to informally explore time.

By the 29th century the Federation will begin to formally explore time, with ships like the USS Relativity.

My interpretation of this is that, so far as we know, the Dominion War was pretty much "it". By triumphing over the greatest powers of two quadrants, the Federation left a wide runway for an unprecedented age of expansion in the 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th centuries. This is where I think, by the time of pre-burn, it grew to 350 worlds (and who knows what worlds means in that context), and likely spanned much of the galaxy.to the point it was exhausting dilithium supplies. At some point the Federation may have more or less been _the_ Milk Way. It may have had other military conflicts over those 5 centuries of growth, but nothing comparable to the Dominion War, which was its last existential conflict. This evidently gave it a free hand to start formally exploring time in 28th and 29th centuries.

But perhaps all was not so well, because various species and coalitions in the 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th centuries, realizing they couldn't defeat the Federation through conventional means, began to utilize time travel to attack its history. This began the Temporal Cold War, which culminated in the Temporal War of the 30th and 31st century. Whatever the means, it seems to have been by far the most vast conflict the Federation was involved in, even dwarfing the Dominion War. The outcome was a ban on time travel and a seeming massive exhaustion of resources, not to mention a halt to growth of the Federation for the first time in hundreds of years. The Federation may have won the war (or at least, not lost it), but it was ruinous.

The Burn, coming shortly after the end of the Temporal Cold War, lead to over a century of decline, until the Federation was barely a tenth its former size. Which is where we pick it up, as the vast rebuilding project lies ahead of it.


Conclusion:
The surprising thing about the 1200 year history is that, given how far Discovery vaulted us ahead, how narrow, consistent and self contained the first 250 years of Federation history truly is. If you want to narrow it down, its a regular cycle of decades long expansion due to a lack of military challenges (with a focus on exploration and growth), followed by a return of a rival great power, a major military conflict, and a period of remilitarization that eventually passes. But so far as we know, that cycle comes to a long term halt after the Dominion War and its legacy, because starting around 2400, the Federation is destined for hundreds of years of extraordinary growth, really to the other side of the year 3000.

Another way of looking at is is Star Trek is really the story of four races: the Humans, the Vulcans, the Romulans and the Klingons, and how despite our early history in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries having periods of conflict, alliances, and tensions - all are destined to live together, under one roof in the centuries after every Star Trek series except Discovery's 3rd season. From that angle, everything we've seen - from the Romulan intrigue in Season 4 of Enterprise, to the Klingon-Federation War on Discovery, to the Federation-Alliance on DS9 - is all just a prelude to that inexorable coming together.

The Klingons and Humans found each other first, oddly enough. There was a cultural-species respect that started growing in the mid 23th century, that by the mid-24th had some of the wiser Klingons regard humans as just as strong and as honorable as they were, just in a different way. The Romulans and Humans started to reconcile in the 2360s, and the ongoing engagement them through the 2380s illustrated that, although there were some hardliners, few were really interested in a major conflict again. And that leaves the Romulan-Vulcan and Romulan-Klingon relations to be worked out in the centuries ahead, and thos would be thorniest for different reasons. But like always, human mediation would probably play a key role.

Big picture, all of this encapsulates about a third of the Federation's long history by the late 3180s. And who knows how much else is there. Did the Federation ever have a final conflict with the Borg? Was there some kind of settlement with the Dominion when the Federation expanded into the Gamma quadrant? How many more godlike beings did a more advanced, and lets say "wordly" Federation encounter by the 32nd century. Starfleet of Kirks time may be rightly called children by some godlike species, but it would hard to call a Starfleet that has vast matter/energy manipulation power at its disposal, and has explored and fought in time itself, as children.

The irony of a series built around exploring "strange new worlds" I think lies in that the exploration of its strangest will have barely begun by the 24th century. Explorers of Kirks tiem thought they had seen a lot. Turns out they hadn't. Not compared to what explorers would find in the 24th. Deep space of the 23rd century was a reliable trade route by the mid 24th. Who knows what the galaxy of the mid 25th, 26th and 27th look like!


(the end)

 

If warp speeds doubled in the last 100 years, I would assume that the Transwarp drive did actually work, then.

Great write up.

 

In my OP, I mentioned there were some episodes that I really had no desire to revisit. With the exception of the original Mirror Mirror episode, anything that has to do with the Mirror Universe qualifies in that category. Like the Highlander movies, there should have only been one.

Our first time viewer would remember the Mirror Universe from the In A Mirror Darkly duology, although I skipped those because I wanted to watch it at them after Mirror Mirror seeing as that actually was the proper order to watch them. However, I had forgotten that Discovery's Mirror Universe quadrilogy tied into that storyline as well, albeit marginally. I think I would have preferred if they had taken the story in the direction that they first indicated it might, that they were going to find the Defiant and how it crossed over and was going to repeat the maneuver. Instead, we get this bloated overblown threat to the entire Multiverse through the mycelium network. I think this is the only time that watching episodes in a strictly chronological order would result in episodes of an arc being viewed in the wrong order.

I was really enjoying revisiting Discovery season 1 until this detour Into the Mirror Universe brings the story to a screeching halt. Lorca was much more interesting as a Starfleet captain than he ever was as just another Mirror Universe fascist.

 

What is there to suggest that Mirror Mirror should precede In a Mirror Darkly?

As far as I can see there is no connection between episodes at all (other than setting)

Forgive me if I have the episode title wrong but if we are talking about the start of an arc, is it not The Tholian Web that kick starts the arc as that is where the Defiant is pulled from our universe to the Mirror one?

From there you can then hit IAMD, follow up with the Disco arc due to their connections and so on.

 

The last time I watched The Tholian Web, I followed it up with Still Tread the Shadow..... and there is no way to watch Mirror Mirror, without following it up with Fairest of them All. In my opinion. I also watch To Boldly Go, as a lead in to The Motion Picture.