(1.) This still undermines the analogy to Rome, since the UFP does in fact provide for Earth defenses under this interpretation. These defenses would indicate that the center of the Earth empire is vulnerable to attack (which is why they have the defenses).
True. But the same sort of logic that made Rome keep its legions away from the center of power could apply: starships might be a practical means for blackmailing a planet, but fixed planetary defenses and fortifications might be built so that they cannot be easily turned inward. The Cardassians had a central power source for their orbital fortresses as a corner-cutting measure; the UFP might have centralized resources as a means of neutering the offensive potential of the defenses.
Right... ...but the Romans still didn't have Ion Cannons. Their means of defense was simply "guys with spears". When infantry is your means of defense "not having infantry on the capital" means you lack active defense at the center of the empire.
The Romans did not need/did not believe they needed a defense at their core where UFP, under this scenario does.
And since when are our utopian, morally perfected Federation-types worried about about starship captains turning on Earth? Recall, that TOS bragged that there had never been a mutiny in starfllet (Space seed).
To the contrary, dialogue suggested that the starships were cutting up the Borg vessel rather nicely by the time Picard arrived. Planetary defenses might have held their fire to allow the ships to keep up the good work, much like anti-aircraft cannon often were/are silenced when a successful interception by friendly fighters was/is taking place.
Come on Timo, this is purely speculative. We never see planetary defense outside of starships. Very often Enterprise is the only ship within range of Earth.
TAs for the general concept of pumping up defenses, I guess Starfleet is already hitting some very hard limits. All of TNG stands testimony to the fact that Starfleet does not have enough ships, that even getting one ship to the hot spot on the eleventh hour is hard work.
OK, so what was the excuse during TOS and TMP?
Also, a planetary defense need not be a ship (recall the moon command base in Starship Troopers). Even if it is a ship, a dedicated Planetary defense ship would only need limited warp capability to patrol the local waters around Earth.
You big Galaxy class starships are hard to make, but these are self-contained cities of exploration. Defense systems, on the other hand, can be largely robotic (e.g., no need to separate the saucer section).
Apparently, then, it's impossible to build more ships, or to crew them, or to fuel them, or some other hard limit like that. The same is probably true of planetary defenses: they can annihilate a Breen invasion force before it achieves anything beyond pockmarking one city, but even increasing their strength and extent a hundredfold would not prevent the pockmarks, and would not be affordable or worth the while.
This is an interesting idea, but again, is rather speculative.
DS9 was certainly a well fortified location (5,000 torpedoes?) and it was only guarding an entry point for a trade/exploration route. Surely, UFP could spare a DS9 style defense system to protect Earth?
A DS9 style station unleashing a volley of fixed high power plasma weapons and a hail storm of photon/quantum torpedoes would certainly be better than hoping that your cruisers and destroyers and scouts would arrive in time. By comparison they are like pea shooters. And DS9 was not strictly a defensive encampment. It was like a hotel six, shopping mall, embassy, and command post wrapped into one. Surely, a dedicated defense station or ship (manned or unmanned) would not even be as costly as a DS9 (which apparently was an affordable expense to protect a far flung interest).
You're a hell of a debater, but I think you have to admit (if only to yourself) that there is something rather fishy about Earth defenses in Star Trek.
Cheers,
YARN
