Most Powerful Military Powers in Star Trek

[Crazyewok]

If we ignore the Borg.
Dominion hands down no question.

The only reason the Romulans, Feds and Kilingons were not wiped off the map in weeks was because the wormhole was blocked one way or another.

If the dominion was able to send reinforcements it would have been game over. And that was stated throughout the show.



A dark horse that I think would be equal or better than the feds are the Kremin in the delta quadrant. Infact they are so close to borg space it look like they are pretty powerfull to have survived especialy with there advanced weaponry.

 

[T'Girl]

If by nothing else, the Dominion has the numbers to beat anyone else.

If Starfleet had exercised control over access to the Alpha Quad through the wormhole by mining the mouth early on, the Dominion's numbers would have been largely meaningless.

Starfleet is often quite stupid.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, Starfleet did mine shut the wormhole, and did devastate Dominion dockyards on the Alpha side right thereafter - and still the Dominion beachhead force appeared to outproduce the combined Alpha forces! Dominion numerical superiority was a constant worry during the following years of war, even though we never heard of any Starfleet, Romulan or Klingon ship production or repair facilities getting destroyed or damaged...

It supposedly has canon information.

The thing about DITL is that it's color-coded: most of the stuff there is speculation, but whenever it's based on canon bits, those are indicated by their own color of friendly yellow. Green indicates something gleaned from backstage sources, while white and red mark pure speculation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

If Starfleet had exercised control over access to the Alpha Quad through the wormhole by mining the mouth early on, the Dominion's numbers would have been largely meaningless.

Starfleet is often quite stupid.

Starfleet attempted to collapse the wormhole before the Dominion entered the Alpha Quadrant during "In Purgatory's Shadow," only to have their efforts thwarted by the Changeling impersonating Dr. Bashir. O'Brien and Dax investigated the sabotage to Deep Space 9's systems and determined that even trilithium explosives would not be enough to collapse the wormhole due to the Changeling's intervention. As to why the wormhole was mined after the Dominion entered the Alpha Quadrant, it's difficult to say. Perhaps that's what happens when bureaucrats are calling the shots.

--Shran

 

[TheRoyalFamily]

They didn't mine the wormhole until it was absolutely clear that war was inevitable, and the Dominion was setting up an invasion force. Up until that point, they were merely "defending their ["ally's"] space," reenforcing Cardassian space, since the Klingons destroyed much of the Cardassian military.

 

[Timo]

It is also rather likely that Starfleet simply wasn't ready for war yet. We heard later on that Starfleet had thousands of ships - but several episodes had established that it was impossible to bring such numbers to the vicinity of DS9 in any appreciable time. Indeed, it was only ever possible to summon less than a dozen ships in peacetime, even when the reason for summoning was that a foreign fleet numbering hundreds of ships was going to war! ("Way of the Warrior", "The Die is Cast") We also failed to witness any appreciable shipbuilding during the war: all ships witnessed had registries lower than those of ships seen before the war, and the one documented newbuild, USS Sao Paulo, was a rather small unit.

It thus would be easy to speculate that Starfleet can go to war only by waiting for two years. Right after the events of "Jem'Hadar", the call to war would have been covertly sounded, and thousands of ships would have begun to gather. But they would be gathering from that uniquely UFP thing, deep space exploration errands, and would not reach home until months or years of travel.

Thus, delaying and delaying again would be the only way for the UFP to reach the balance in numbers required for successful waging of war. And that would mean delaying even when the Dominion started pushing forces into Alpha, until the looming numerical defeat tilted the balances and made an attack, however premature, the better chance for survival.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazyewok]

It. But they would be gathering from that uniquely UFP thing, deep space exploration errands, and would not reach home until months or years of travel.

Kinda makes starfleet look like usless baffoons that even after wolf 359 they still cant be botherd to keep a sizeable force in core federation terratory. It amazeing the Federation lasted that long

 

[Pavonis]

Apparently the Federation's nearest neighbors and antagonists are all evenly matched. That is to say, Starfleet is strong enough where it needs to be to keep the Klingons (when they were enemies), the Romulans, and the Cardassians at bay. Not to mention the fact that we don't really know the strengths or typical dispositions of the Klingon, Romulan or Cardassian fleets. Why should the Feds keep a large contingent of their starships close to home, when keeping them "out there" seems to work for them? If there are any dangerous foes to be dealt with, a starship on the frontier is a better warning system and possibly a better deterrent than any large force stuck close to home.

In sum, the Federation's continued existence suggests their strategy with regards to Starfleet's deployment is the correct one.

 

[Timo]

Well, they still win their wars, plus they know more about their neighborhood than the competition.

There's no need to keep sizeable forces at any location if one can rest assured that one's ships are fast enough to get there before the enemy does. Which depends on the speed of the enemy as much as it depends on the speed of the defender.

The Klingons or the Romulans would probably be quite unable to penetrate to any appreciable depth before the UFP got enough ships together to slow them down, allowing further ships to gather and slow them down further, etc., until finally the attack would grind to a halt. Not so with the superfast Borg, or with enemies like V'Ger or the Whale Probe that cannot be slowed down or stopped by any amount of firepower!

The Dominion did not have a speed advantage that we'd know of. What they did have was a convenient smokescreen to prevent the UFP from witnessing a slow buildup of forces - the chasm between Gamma and Alpha quadrants, only spanned by the wormhole. Thus, the Dominion could spit out alarming numbers of ships to a location close to the UFP in a short time, upsetting any defensive calculations based on speed and numbers alone.

We know that making do with as few ships as possible is a major advantage: building or operating starships in great numbers is a known bottleneck, as we can see from the fact that Starfleet is short on ships even in peacetime and does nothing to improve the situation. So if the Klingons keep "standing fleets" idled close to strategic spots, but the Feds have their ships do useful work in peacetime, the UFP wins a strategic victory.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazyewok]

Well, they still win their wars, plus they know more about their neighborhood than the competition.

There's no need to keep sizeable forces at any location if one can rest assured that one's ships are fast enough to get there before the enemy does. Which depends on the speed of the enemy as much as it depends on the speed of the defender.

The Klingons or the Romulans would probably be quite unable to penetrate to any appreciable depth before the UFP got enough ships together to slow them down, allowing further ships to gather and slow them down further, etc., until finally the attack would grind to a halt. Not so with the superfast Borg, or with enemies like V'Ger or the Whale Probe that cannot be slowed down or stopped by any amount of firepower!

The Dominion did not have a speed advantage that we'd know of. What they did have was a convenient smokescreen to prevent the UFP from witnessing a slow buildup of forces - the chasm between Gamma and Alpha quadrants, only spanned by the wormhole. Thus, the Dominion could spit out alarming numbers of ships to a location close to the UFP in a short time, upsetting any defensive calculations based on speed and numbers alone.

We know that making do with as few ships as possible is a major advantage: building or operating starships in great numbers is a known bottleneck, as we can see from the fact that Starfleet is short on ships even in peacetime and does nothing to improve the situation. So if the Klingons keep "standing fleets" idled close to strategic spots, but the Feds have their ships do useful work in peacetime, the UFP wins a strategic victory.

Timo Saloniemi

It could have easily gone sour though if the Dominion had not given the Feds a few years to prepare. If they had just poured through the Wormhole it would have been game over before the federation could have grouped together.


Plus with Borg out there I would want a fleet of 200 ships at least ready to respond at all times like in first contact. One crew up and the Federation is now the new Alpha quadrent collective

 

[Pavonis]

The Dominion apparently needed time to prepare, too, though. They don't necessarily always keep huge conquest fleets ready to deploy at a moment's notice. In fact, they may normally have only a small force available, searching out new worlds to bring into the Dominion by Vorta carrot diplomacy, and only using the Jem'Hadar stick when deemed necessary by the Founders. In the case of stumbling over the Federation "early" (they supposedly knew of its existence and were preparing to deal with it in the long term), they had to take time to prepare "defense" (i.e., conquest) fleets and troops while the Federation was doing more or less the same thing - recalling starships and pulling others out of mothballs. The fact that the Dominion can grow their troops from infancy to fighting fitness in a few days is to their advantage, and they apparently can build battleships faster than the Federation, but then, the Feds build ships for multipurpose deployment, while the Jem'Hadar's ships are more-or-less built exclusively to fight, and are probably much simpler technologically anyway. If you can have an effective fighting force put together fairly quickly, you don't need to keep it around all the time.

As for the Borg, again, the Federation's continued survival suggests they are dealing with the Borg effectively (that, or the Borg aren't really out to assimilate them).

 

[Timo]

If they had just poured through the Wormhole it would have been game over before the federation could have grouped together.

Which is the risk you run in believing that impossible things such as stable wormholes don't actually exist.

And that's a very good reason to do what the UFP does, and send out exploration starships to find out whether the universe really is like you believe it to be, or whether there are nasty surprises out there, surprises that will come to you regardless of whether you scout them out in advance or not...

Plus with Borg out there I would want a fleet of 200 ships at least ready to respond at all times like in first contact.

Respond where? If you guard Earth, Vulcan is lost. If you guard both, Andor has even less hope. You lose the outer colonies anyway - but when you do, this gives you some warning about where the threat is coming from, and enables you to do the slowing-down-and-escalating thing. You just have to readjust your parameters for the superfast travel methods of the Borg.

That the Borg "always" target Earth (even though ST:FC has dialogue to the effect that they advance and the Federation falls back, establishing that other places are being targeted and lost) just goes to show that even the deepest core of the Federation cannot be safe from speedy penetrations. It is probably just the Collective showing off - it isn't a justification for pulling forces from all other fronts and concentrating them at Earth. After all, if the Borg have enough speed to bring in one Cube to defeat 40 ships, they have everything set up for bringing in fifty Cubes to defeat 2,000 ships! You don't stop the Borg by escalating your defenses. You stop them by praying that they keep only sending individual Cubes, while you frantically research for indirect ways to defeat the Collective...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazyewok]

The Dominion apparently needed time to prepare, too, though. They don't necessarily always keep huge conquest fleets ready to deploy at a moment's notice. In fact, they may normally have only a small force available, searching out new worlds to bring into the Dominion by Vorta carrot diplomacy, and only using the Jem'Hadar stick when deemed necessary by the Founders. In the case of stumbling over the Federation "early" (they supposedly knew of its existence and were preparing to deal with it in the long term), they had to take time to prepare "defense" (i.e., conquest) fleets and troops while the Federation was doing more or less the same thing - recalling starships and pulling others out of mothballs. The fact that the Dominion can grow their troops from infancy to fighting fitness in a few days is to their advantage, and they apparently can build battleships faster than the Federation, but then, the Feds build ships for multipurpose deployment, while the Jem'Hadar's ships are more-or-less built exclusively to fight, and are probably much simpler technologically anyway.

A lot to bet on speculation though.

The federation got lucky that the dominion delayed.

 

[Pavonis]

Life's a gamble - what're you going to do?

How many wars has the Federation fought in its existence? It survived a couple of centuries so far, and apparently has a few more in store for it - at least until the 31st century. It's fate beyond that is unclear. Maybe the Dominion will win in the long run, maybe some other superpower will destroy them, or conquer them, but the Federation won't win by keeping all their ships close to home indefinitely. A fear-based siege mentality won't win them any friends, won't help them expand, and won't necessarily help them survive longer.

 

[Timo]

On the other hand, the Dominion thrives on "siege mentality" of sorts. Its leaders are certainly "fear-based" - they cower out of sight, presenting no target to either external or internal enemies. They aren't just difficult to find, they maintain the impression that they don't even exist! And their forces do appear extremely concentrated: they are seen in decisive defensive action around the hideout world of the leaders once, but make only extremely sporadic appearances elsewhere.

Reaching out is no doubt good for survival. But it might be a good idea to do it without confessing to doing it... Even the Borg lurk in the dark depths of space, rather than conquering territory and presenting targets for counterattacks.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pavonis]

Granted, the Founders are fearful creatures, basically making every policy of the Dominion a fear-based one, but their Vorta representatives are incredibly outgoing, friendly, even charming. If they weren't representatives of such a scary polity, who wouldn't want to be part of the Dominion?

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

They didn't mine the wormhole until it was absolutely clear that war was inevitable, and the Dominion was setting up an invasion force. Up until that point, they were merely "defending their ["ally's"] space," reenforcing Cardassian space, since the Klingons destroyed much of the Cardassian military.

And no reason was ever given for the wait. Starfleet would have saved itself a lot of trouble by preventing the Dominion from establishing such a signfiicant fleet in the alpha quadrant. It's possible, however, that the Dominion would still have been able to manufacture enough vessels to wage war against the Federation without the additional ships from the gamma quadrant.

It is also rather likely that Starfleet simply wasn't ready for war yet. We heard later on that Starfleet had thousands of ships - but several episodes had established that it was impossible to bring such numbers to the vicinity of DS9 in any appreciable time.

Sisko says as much during "In Purgatory's Shadow" when he notes that the Dominion picked "a perfect time to invade." He cites the war with the Klingons and the Borg invasion of First Contact as reasons for the Federation being short on ships. They definitely weren't ready for war. Who knows what may have happened without the assistance of the Klingons and (eventually) the Romulans?

--Sran

 

[Crazyewok]

Granted, the Founders are fearful creatures, basically making every policy of the Dominion a fear-based one, but their Vorta representatives are incredibly outgoing, friendly, even charming. If they weren't representatives of such a scary polity, who wouldn't want to be part of the Dominion?

I have a feeling if the Federation, Klingon and Romulans had not been such huge powers the dominion would have most liklely sent the Vorta in first.

If Humans had encounterd them pre federation then there is a good possiblity the Vorta could have spun it so earth joined the dominion peacefully.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

I have a feeling if the Federation, Klingon and Romulans had not been such huge powers the dominion would have most liklely sent the Vorta in first.

If Humans had encounterd them pre federation then there is a good possiblity the Vorta could have spun it so earth joined the dominion peacefully.

This makes sense to me. The Dominion sent the Jem'Hadar only because they viewed the Federation and its neighbors as threats. What's not clear is whether their assessment of the Alpha Quadrant changed significantly after the simulation that Sisko and the Defiant crew were put through during "The Search."

--Sran

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's unclear how big an invasion force the Dominion could have mustered up in short notice.

But it's pretty clear, the Dominion did not want to alarm the entire quadrant into all out war. They preferred a political invasion to a military one. They wanted to make a deal with everyone, then say "I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further". That's why they never attacked the Ferengi, because they knew no military might was necessary to conquer them.