YE: How could the UFP be losing the Klingon war?

[Emperor Norton]

In the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" the alternate reality had it that the Federation was only a few months from losing the war with the Klingons. But how could this be? Decades previous, the destruction of Khitomer had devastated the Empire to such a degree that it was forced to sue for peace with the Federation, and to basically beg for food and aid and the (non-canonically sure) evacuation of Kronos. And Colonel West had said that the Federation could clean their chronometers. The disappearance of the Enterprise-C would not change those factors since it took place after them. But now it was to Federation itself, which suffered no event like that, which was losing and was going to fall in short order.

I know Star Trek 6 came out after this, but canonically, this has always confused me. Could the Klingons have really rebounded to such a degree by when the Enterprise-C disappeared that when war erupted, they were so tactially better than the UFP?

 

[Anwar]

The main point is, as you said, YE was written BEFORE TUC and as such they weren't operating under the assumption that the Klingons couldn't wage war on the Feds to that extent anymore.

But in TUC the issue was that the Klingons had such a massive military budget they didn't have the money to deal with the Praxis problem. And we don't even know if they really evacuated Kronos, maybe the Feds found a way to reverse the environmental damage.

With their homeworld safe, and whatever other aid and tech advances making up for the loss of Praxis the Klingons were back in business.

 

[JediKnightButler]

Good question. Plot hole for dramatic effect? After all, they couldn't make it too easy for them to be able to send the ENT-C back in time. It might have been better if they made the Romulans the ones at war with the Federation. Frankly, I didn't quite get how the disappearance of the ENT-C led to war between the Klingons and Federation in the first place but it was such a good ep, I tend to overlook these flaws.

 

[JediKnightButler]

The main point is, as you said, YE was written BEFORE TUC and as such they weren't operating under the assumption that the Klingons couldn't wage war on the Feds to that extent anymore.

But in TUC the issue was that the Klingons had such a massive military budget they didn't have the money to deal with the Praxis problem. And we don't even know if they really evacuated Kronos, maybe the Feds found a way to reverse the environmental damage.

With their homeworld safe, and whatever other aid and tech advances making up for the loss of Praxis the Klingons were back in business.

The Klingon Empire was still based on Kronos in the TNG-era, so I guess we can assume that they were able to address the problems caused by Praxis' explosion.

 

[Emperor Norton]

Well, it could also be thought perhaps the Kronos in TNG was not the original Kronos. In ENT, for example, Kronos had blue skies and looked rather like somewhere out of Mongolia. Or, perhaps the green sky of TNG Kronos could just be attributed to the pollution from Praxis.

Or, perhaps ENT just fudged the canon again. ^_^

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

It's likely the Khittomer outpost wouldn't have been as big a loss as Praxis (a major resource producer).

Still, if the Ent-C hadn't shown up, it's like that in itself was being treated as a huge turning point. Who the hell would gave known if the outpost was completely destroyed?

It never seemed in the TOS/movies era, that the Klingons were that much more powerful than the Federation.

But, alternate universe - alternate plot-line.

 

[bullethead]

Actually, I'm not surprised that the Federation was losing, given that their strategy apparently called for ships to sit still in the middle of battle and occasionally fire phasers and torpedoes. I figure everyone in the Federation got soft between TUC and Narendra III and they couldn't get into war mode fast enough after mothballing so much of Starfleet.

 

[Disruptor]

Klingons had lots of offscreen allies?

The Romulans faked the attack so that it looked like the Federation did it?

Maybe YE was JJ Abrams verse and there was no planet Vulcan and Starfleet never recovered from the losses to Nero's ship and had a habit of fast promoting insubordinate cadets to high ranking positions.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Klingons had lots of offscreen allies?

I never got this impression.

The Romulans faked the attack so that it looked like the Federation did it?

Except Picard and co. were surprised to hear about the outpost attack at all.

Maybe YE was JJ Abrams verse and there was no planet Vulcan and Starfleet never recovered from the losses to Nero's ship and had a habit of fast promoting insubordinate cadets to high ranking positions.

 

[Doug Otte]

Historical predictions are often wrong. Perhaps the ST VI experts were wrong, and the Klingon Empire, due to various foreseen or unforeseen developments over the ensuing decades, was able to recover and strengthen itself. Further, perhaps the Federation made fateful policy blunders during that time which weakened its military resources and/or capabilities.

Doug

 

[Timo]

Could the Klingons have really rebounded to such a degree by when the Enterprise-C disappeared that when war erupted, they were so tactially better than the UFP?

Why not? Germany came to a hair's breadth to conquering half of Eurasia and perhaps all of the world just two decades after collapsing. It doesn't really take all that much to be victorious in a war where the standard weapons can reduce the opponent's infrastructure or deny him its use a) in a large scale and b) in a short time.

For all we know, once a 24th century war gets going, everything else stops. There was basically no evidence of Federation shipbuilding in the Dominion War, and only the alien and superhuman Dominion was seen replenishing or increasing its combat strength. Quite possibly the producing of a "casualty replacement" starship is as implausible as producing "casualty replacement" F-22 jets in wartime. Wars of the future might be decided once again solely on the gall of the attacker...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Emperor Norton]

Maybe YE was JJ Abrams verse and there was no planet Vulcan and Starfleet never recovered from the losses to Nero's ship and had a habit of fast promoting insubordinate cadets to high ranking positions.

Naw, it was clearly intended as a straight alternate reality. One point of departure occurred, and then everything started to change from that one.

Plus, the lack of lens flare is a dead give away.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Frankly, I didn't quite get how the disappearance of the ENT-C led to war between the Klingons and Federation in the first place but it was such a good ep, I tend to overlook these flaws.

It's not really a flaw... In the 'normal' timeline, the Enterprise-C prevented a war with the Klingons, and her disappearance altered the flow of history so that the war went ahead.

Starfleet's conventional history records that about 20 years before TNG, tensions escalated between the Federation and the Klingons once again until the two powers were on the verge of war. The Enterprise-C intercepted and responded to a distress call from a Klingon outpost on Narendra III, which was under attack from the Romulans. The Enterprise valiantly fought off four warbirds to defend the outpost, but was lost. The Klingons viewed this as a noble and honourable sacrifice - the loss of a Federation starship in defence of one of their outposts - and began talk with the Federation.

What history didn't record was that a volley of photon torpedo fire, apparently near some kind of weak point in space/time, was the catalyst for a temporal rift that sucked the Enterprise-C out of the battle before it could finish defending the outpost from the Romulans, and deposited it 22 years in the future, into a timeline in which the war went ahead. The Enterprise returning through the rift and completing its role in the battle ensured that the war never happened, and restored the original timeline.

 

[sonak]

Could the Klingons have really rebounded to such a degree by when the Enterprise-C disappeared that when war erupted, they were so tactially better than the UFP?

Why not? Germany came to a hair's breadth to conquering half of Eurasia and perhaps all of the world just two decades after collapsing. It doesn't really take all that much to be victorious in a war where the standard weapons can reduce the opponent's infrastructure or deny him its use a) in a large scale and b) in a short time.

For all we know, once a 24th century war gets going, everything else stops. There was basically no evidence of Federation shipbuilding in the Dominion War, and only the alien and superhuman Dominion was seen replenishing or increasing its combat strength. Quite possibly the producing of a "casualty replacement" starship is as implausible as producing "casualty replacement" F-22 jets in wartime. Wars of the future might be decided once again solely on the gall of the attacker...

Timo Saloniemi

the German analogy doesn't exactly fit though. Germany was already the strongest military power in WWI, so all they had to do to was re-arm between wars, while the victorious Allies disarmed. It's easy to be successful when you're arming to the teeth while your opponents are doing the opposite.


In contrast, we'd never previously seen that the UFP was so overmatched by the Klingons, in fact it seems to contradict much of what we see in TOS.


Chalk it up to dramatic license.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Actually, I'm not surprised that the Federation was losing, given that their strategy apparently called for ships to sit still in the middle of battle and occasionally fire phasers and torpedoes. I figure everyone in the Federation got soft between TUC and Narendra III and they couldn't get into war mode fast enough after mothballing so much of Starfleet.

You can feel the lackadaisical attitude during that final battle.

Picard is casually calling out course corrections instead of saying "fire everything!"

 

[Search4]

Could the Klingons have really rebounded to such a degree by when the Enterprise-C disappeared that when war erupted, they were so tactially better than the UFP?

Why not? Germany came to a hair's breadth to conquering half of Eurasia and perhaps all of the world just two decades after collapsing. It doesn't really take all that much to be victorious in a war where the standard weapons can reduce the opponent's infrastructure or deny him its use a) in a large scale and b) in a short time.

For all we know, once a 24th century war gets going, everything else stops. There was basically no evidence of Federation shipbuilding in the Dominion War, and only the alien and superhuman Dominion was seen replenishing or increasing its combat strength. Quite possibly the producing of a "casualty replacement" starship is as implausible as producing "casualty replacement" F-22 jets in wartime. Wars of the future might be decided once again solely on the gall of the attacker...

Timo Saloniemi

Oh wonderful. Now we are comparing the UFP with the French....

I don't think its unrealistic at all. Think Mutually-Assured-Destruction doctrine with a Klingon first strike.

 

[The_Baroness]

In ENT, for example, Kronos had blue skies and looked rather like somewhere out of Mongolia. Or, perhaps the green sky of TNG Kronos could just be attributed to the pollution from Praxis.

Or, perhaps ENT just fudged the canon again. ^_^

Or perhaps it was just the weather...

I mean, here on Earth the sky is usually blue, but can be red, or grey depending on the time of day or the weather...

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think by 2340 or so the Klingon economy had recovered to the point where they could conduct business as usual again (presumably that was the case in both timelines, IMO).

"Yesterday's Enterprise" does seem to suggest in a straight out war between the Federation and the Klingons, the Federation would lose (or perhaps more accurately, Starfleet would be so decimated over time, that the Federation would be forced to surrender).

It could be that the Klingon Empire committed all of its resources into the war--consequences be damned--while the Federation didn't. To win, the Klingons may have allowed many of their worlds to go without basic essential needs while the Federation refused to do so for any of their worlds.

 

[Anwar]

We don't know the Klingon side to things. Perhaps they were just putting on a strong front but they themselves were ready to collapse as well if fighting kept on.

After all, they were ordering Picard to surrender and prepare to be boarded instead of outright destroying the Enterprise. Perhaps it meant more to them to capture and interrogate the Flagship crew and take their Battleship than to destroy it and damage Fed Morale.

I don't think it was specifically the Narendra III thing that CAUSED war, I think things were just at a bad point between them (Castillo said that back in the 2340s they were negotiating a peace treaty, meaning there was no declared peace) and the ENT-C's actions simply defused the growing tensions and got them to take the treaty negotiations seriously.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

i think the alternate reality war just happened at a bad time for the Federation.
After the Khitomer Accords happened relations got worse again and the escalation caught the Federation on the wrong food. They way were more commited to exploration and less to border defense at the time.
The same thing which may have almost lead to the destruction by the Borg which was a wake up call in it's own right.

Then again, there is another precedent of the Federation losing against the Klingons in an all out war.

After the loss of Ben Sisko in The Visitor, nothing stopped the war from going on and the Federation wasn't destroyed but forced to give into Klingon territory demands and even abandoning DS9.