Why is Earth orbit so... empty?

[PhoenixIreland]

Earth has only a few sizable bases in orbit. And the orbit of the Earth is HUGE so they could easily be too far away to see (or be one of the stars).

I would think they would have taken down the thousands of satellites that pollute our space today in favor of fewer and more powerful ones.

Also Earth seems way too comfortable with their defenses yet they've been breached too much lately (DS9, FC). So if another series was set in the future of these series I'd expect to see more defenses like... Idunno... phaser turrets or something.

Well as an in universe explanation they must have kept a gaurd of ships near earth after the Borg incident.
The Breen attack was not that successful, a real attack would have destroyed the buildings but they just damaged them, so they must have been intercepted.

http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/f/f7/San_Francisco_attacked2.jpg

They WERE intercepted - the 3rd fleet destroyed most of the attacking Breen ships, that much was said on screen.

So it was, I forgot that.

The notion that all the ships during BOBW were at W359 doesn't fly with me, the federation is (depending on the source) 8-10000 light years , and they had I think 48 ships at Wolf 359?
Surely they had more than that?
In the episode Riker reccomended to Hanson holding the line at sector 001 so that sugests there was nothing at 001 or very little as a second line if 359 failed, it's just horribly unrealistic.

 

[archeryguy1701]

They probably weren't all at 359. As you said, the federation is huge, and warp speed isn't exactly instantaneous. And, just because we didn't see the ships in orbit when the cube arrived doesn't mean they were there. They could have been destroyed in orbit, or they could have tried to intercept the cube deep in the solar system simply because since the cube is so powerful, they wouldn't want to face it right over earth. It could chop them and the planet up at the same time.

 

[Michael]

Fairly off-topic, but EmoVulcan, I love your username!

 

[Sector 7]

What Star Trek in general has been missing is a military adviser. They are usually retired officers. As a combat veteran, I am amazed that they are so far off-base so often. Especially when the series were taking place in war-time, they should have spent a few extra bucks to hire a military adviser. Almost every Hollywood movie or series, in order to portray war or battles or just the military accurately on screen, will hire a military adviser.
Perhaps one day the 'future' will portray war as accurately as the 'present' does now.

 

[BigC]

What Star Trek in general has been missing is a military adviser. They are usually retired officers. As a combat veteran, I am amazed that they are so far off-base so often. Especially when the series were taking place in war-time, they should have spent a few extra bucks to hire a military adviser. Almost every Hollywood movie or series, in order to portray war or battles or just the military accurately on screen, will hire a military adviser.
Perhaps one day the 'future' will portray war as accurately as the 'present' does now.

I have always found it bemusing that Star fleet is not a military org. Yet the rank structure and discipline are right out of the Navy. And it's charged with defending the Federation. I understand it's primary mission is exploration but it shouldn't shun it's other just as important role.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

What Star Trek in general has been missing is a military adviser. They are usually retired officers. As a combat veteran, I am amazed that they are so far off-base so often. Especially when the series were taking place in war-time, they should have spent a few extra bucks to hire a military adviser. Almost every Hollywood movie or series, in order to portray war or battles or just the military accurately on screen, will hire a military adviser.
Perhaps one day the 'future' will portray war as accurately as the 'present' does now.

I have always found it bemusing that Star fleet is not a military org. Yet the rank structure and discipline are right out of the Navy. And it's charged with defending the Federation. I understand it's primary mission is exploration but it shouldn't shun it's other just as important role.

I think Bermen described it as a DUAL role of exploration and defence.

I am sure astronaughts have a rank structure and are diciplined too

 

[Anwar]

And remember, the Federation is comprised of several species meaning Starfleet also is and it's not a human organization. Meaning that although it may resemble the USN somewhat it's NOT the USN and doesn't have to follow everything to the letter of how the USN would operate.

 

[Sci]

What Star Trek in general has been missing is a military adviser. They are usually retired officers. As a combat veteran, I am amazed that they are so far off-base so often. Especially when the series were taking place in war-time, they should have spent a few extra bucks to hire a military adviser. Almost every Hollywood movie or series, in order to portray war or battles or just the military accurately on screen, will hire a military adviser.
Perhaps one day the 'future' will portray war as accurately as the 'present' does now.

I have always found it bemusing that Star fleet is not a military org. Yet the rank structure and discipline are right out of the Navy. And it's charged with defending the Federation. I understand it's primary mission is exploration but it shouldn't shun it's other just as important role.

I think Bermen described it as a DUAL role of exploration and defence.

I am sure astronaughts have a rank structure and are diciplined too

Not exactly. Most astronauts have been members of the armed forces separately from their employment at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. However, NASA does not have the right to engage in any disciplinary actions other than suspension or termination of employment. NASA does not have the right, for instance, to lock someone up in a brig the way the United States Navy does, because it is not a military organization. That's one of the key distinctions of a military, in fact -- it is the only employer that is legally empowered to discipline its employees with the use of force.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Perhaps it's a fan misconception that Starfleet is comprised of thousands and thousands of starships. Perhaps the total number of ships in the fleet is far smaller than we would think for a galactic goverment spanning thousands of light-years.

I'm sure anyone here can think of logical reasons why Starfleet should have a minimum of a million starships at its disposal, but it does seem that starships sometimes appear few and far between, even around the Federation homeworld...

 

[PhoenixIreland]

I have always found it bemusing that Star fleet is not a military org. Yet the rank structure and discipline are right out of the Navy. And it's charged with defending the Federation. I understand it's primary mission is exploration but it shouldn't shun it's other just as important role.

I think Bermen described it as a DUAL role of exploration and defence.

I am sure astronaughts have a rank structure and are diciplined too

Not exactly. Most astronauts have been members of the armed forces separately from their employment at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. However, NASA does not have the right to engage in any disciplinary actions other than suspension or termination of employment. NASA does not have the right, for instance, to lock someone up in a brig the way the United States Navy does, because it is not a military organization. That's one of the key distinctions of a military, in fact -- it is the only employer that is legally empowered to discipline its employees with the use of force.

I thought they came from military backgrounds because they needed people who were diciplined, and in the case of former Air Force pilots people who could handle the physical stress of the job.
If say the whole world combined its space agencies into one, and we made first contact with an alien race that turned out to be hostile, that agency might have to take on a dual role of defence like starfleet, at that point you'd see more sanctions for stepping out of line etc

 

[BigC]

I think Bermen described it as a DUAL role of exploration and defence.

I am sure astronaughts have a rank structure and are diciplined too

Not exactly. Most astronauts have been members of the armed forces separately from their employment at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. However, NASA does not have the right to engage in any disciplinary actions other than suspension or termination of employment. NASA does not have the right, for instance, to lock someone up in a brig the way the United States Navy does, because it is not a military organization. That's one of the key distinctions of a military, in fact -- it is the only employer that is legally empowered to discipline its employees with the use of force.

I thought they came from military backgrounds because they needed people who were diciplined, and in the case of former Air Force pilots people who could handle the physical stress of the job.
If say the whole world combined its space agencies into one, and we made first contact with an alien race that turned out to be hostile, that agency might have to take on a dual role of defence like starfleet, at that point you'd see more sanctions for stepping out of line etc

When mankind does move out in to space in earnest. There will have to be the capability to defend themselves. It's only logical. But sometimes I think if we did meet another race, "we" would be the Klingons.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

Not exactly. Most astronauts have been members of the armed forces separately from their employment at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. However, NASA does not have the right to engage in any disciplinary actions other than suspension or termination of employment. NASA does not have the right, for instance, to lock someone up in a brig the way the United States Navy does, because it is not a military organization. That's one of the key distinctions of a military, in fact -- it is the only employer that is legally empowered to discipline its employees with the use of force.

I thought they came from military backgrounds because they needed people who were diciplined, and in the case of former Air Force pilots people who could handle the physical stress of the job.
If say the whole world combined its space agencies into one, and we made first contact with an alien race that turned out to be hostile, that agency might have to take on a dual role of defence like starfleet, at that point you'd see more sanctions for stepping out of line etc

When mankind does move out in to space in earnest. There will have to be the capability to defend themselves. It's only logical. But sometimes I think if we did meet another race, "we" would be the Klingons.

Thats why Im not upset seeing a badly fragmented, underfunded and directionless space programe from humanity, were not mature enough to be out there yet.
If we had a unified world government in ten years and we started really exploring space, I can easily see us being agressive imperialist bastards

 

[USS Excelsior]

I don't get why defense appears to be totally reliant on starships.

Surely you would think that there would have been far more powerful planet based weapons or canons to fire up at the Borg ships in both BOBW or First Contact. Even huge canons in orbit.

But I guess it all depends on the plot.

 

[Anwar]

Like I said, Roddenberry himself wrote that most of Earth's real defenses are all ON the planet, not ABOVE the planet.

 

[Timo]

I'ts inexcusable that the Enterprise was the only ship to engage the Borg Cube in Earth orbit, there should have been ships coming out of those starbases to help.

Why would those ships have waited until the Cube reached Earth orbit before they fought back?

They were probably all destroyed long, long before the enemy arrived at the inner gates. In all likelihood, most of the warp-capable ones died at Wolf 359, and the impulse-only ones perished in the big battle at Jupiter.

A "second line of defense" would have been rather idiotic strategy in this particular case, really. You throw everything you have at the Borg at once and hope it suffices. If it doesn't, whatever you have remaining will be useless anyway, as the bastards will have adapted.

It's actually a fairly general rule in naval fighting: there is no such thing as a reserve in a well-conducted naval battle. Contrary to what is dictated by terrain on land battles, you can and should bring all your forces to bear at the same time, especially if all your units have weapons of roughly the same range (as was the case for most of the history of naval fighting, and as again is the case in Star Trek).

The only time this thing ever annoyed me was in Enterprise's Zero Hour. When the Xindi weapon arrives at Earth, there's no defenses against it. No ships, no satellite weapons, nothing. In fact, the only ship that was near the solar system was Shran's Andorian warship.

We have to remember that Archer's superfast ship took six minutes to go to Neptune and back. If the warpships defending Earth were deployed in a sensible manner at the outer rim of the Sol system, they wouldn't have arrived in time to do much defending in "Zero Hour".

Of course, a ship or two would probably still have been left in Earth orbit if Starfleet knew the Xindi were coming in using their exotic jump drives. And Starfleet should have known that.

Whether any sort of fixed fortresses (that is, idly orbiting ones with small or no engines) existed is debatable. Perhaps the technology simply wasn't up to it? Weaponry of that day had extremely limited range: the plasma cannon only seemed to reach across a few dozen kilometers at best, meaning that a defensive network of those would have required millions of fortresses. Simply not doable. And building a hundred such forts when ten million were needed would have been worse than useless, as they would have served no defensive role but would have eaten up resources.

If the argument "they needed defenses so they should have had those" really carried weight, no war in history would have been possible. Usually, militaries don't have the things they need to negate the threat, which is why attacks are still viable.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Who would need to orbit Earth?

Freighters would be unlikely to need to drop anything large off (we have replicators), passenger ships would drop off passengers and leave (beam them down, scrub shore leave for a holodeck), deep space is scanned and observed by stations outside of the solar system itself (beaming back results through subspace comms), I can't really imagine how busy it should be.

 

[Timo]

And we always get back to the worst case scenario anyway. If there were, say, a million starships like Kirk's on Earth orbit at a thousand klicks or so, they would be spread over a spherical surface a billion square kilometers wide. Each would thus enjoy a thousand km^2 of private space around them, or a radius in the order of 20 kilometers.

That is, with a million starships in orbit, it would be unlikely that any two could see each other!

For two spacecraft to see each other, there would have to be some operational reason for them to fly in formation or otherwise next to each other, a couple of kilometers apart or closer. Such an operational reason might exist around busy spaceports - but then again, such spaceports would probably be set well apart from each other, and thus we would need justification for having the hero starship and the accompanying camera near the spaceport.

And we might very well argue that Kirk doesn't go to spaceports. Instead, he goes to dedicated Starfleet facilities, which are nowhere as busy.

A seemingly utterly empty Earth orbit is steel-hard realism. A scene like that over Coruscant in SW1-3 would require more spacecraft than there are people in the Federation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Maurice]

The 'clever' people who did the show conveniently did this same thing.
Even when Voyager was coming home or whenever Earth was on screen ... the Moon was missing.
Ok, I understand the emphasis on the planet, but ignoring stellar bodies and everything else is just plain DUMB.

It's not surprising you don't see the Moon, as above. We on Earth can see the moon readily because we look around and have lots of peripheral vision. We're not limited to a camera's field.

If these shows get anything right it's that you wouldn't always see the Moon when near the Earth. Even when they do show it, they make it look too big. It's visible face is really only about 3 degrees across as seen from Earth.

 

[Sululu]

The thread question is a good one. I too have wondered why low Earth orbit is so empty in Trek... I would expect to see drydocks, habitation rings, private shuttles buzzing to and from the surface, 'cruise' ships and transports taking holidaymakers to/from Earth etc. Or, from a military point of view, no starships orbiting the planet (either for R&R, in active duty or whatever)

 

[Timo]

But as said, you would need a telescope for seeing them. Unless there were millions upon millions of them, that is.

Mere tens of thousands is a more realistic assumption, including very small craft, and you certainly wouldn't see much of those.

Timo Saloniemi