Regarding the Strength of the Federation...

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by TheMightyQ, Jul 15, 2013.

  1. TheMightyQ

    TheMightyQ Ensign Red Shirt

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    I was just discussing this with a friend-According to Wikipedia the Federation is composed of " more than 150 member planets and thousands of colonies spread across 8,000 light years of the Milky Way Galaxy". In contrast, the enemies of the Federation are made up of one member species. So can someone explain why the Klingons, the Romulans, or the Cardassians are even a threat to the Federation, which has at its disposal the power and technology of so many different species working together?
     
  2. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    Well just because we haven't seen other races from the RSE or KE doesn't mean they don't exist.
     
  3. Pavonis

    Pavonis Commodore Commodore

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    Sure. The cultures amenable to joining the Federation were not particularly strong in the first place. If they were, they'd have built an empire of their own. Therefore the cultures that did build empires are capable of standing up to a Federation of mostly peaceful peoples. The fact that mostly humans are seen in Starfleet, and that Starfleet is originally an Earth institution suggests that humans are the primary defenders of the Federation. In a way, humans built an empire out of cooperating with weaker species, instead of conquering them like Klingons or Romulans do. Cardassians managed to be more devious about their empire-building, by insinuating themselves into the Bajoran culture. So the Federation is just the Human Empire by another name, and better at empire building than their competitors.

    Basically, the Federation isn't as much more powerful than the surrounding empires as it may seem, they're just less obvious about being an empire. Which I think explains the political situation nicely.
     
  4. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    The Federation may also be far larger than either the RSE or KE, giving them more space to patrol and defend.
     
  5. Elias Vaughn

    Elias Vaughn Captain Captain

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    The Federation doesn't use as many resources for war as the rest of the AQ empires do. The Federation may not be as warlike as the RSE or Klingon Empire, but we also never hear about RSE or Klingon exploration initiatives.
     
  6. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The Romulans have the Remans (featured in Star Trek: Nemesis) and probably many other unseen-due-to-budgetary-constraints subject races. We saw some escapees of a Klingon sebject world in the Enterprise episode "Judgement" and several were mentioned amd detailed in the (non-canon yet utterly awesome) novel The Final Reflection.
     
  7. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    Remember as well the Klingon's focused so many resources onto their military that when Praxis exploded they where unable to cope with the after effects, without the aid of the UFP.
     
  8. TheMightyQ

    TheMightyQ Ensign Red Shirt

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    Yea well you'd think that conquering other races and keeping them conquered would require significant amounts of resources (i.e Cardassian occupation of Bajor)-Especially when those races obviously are going to do their best from increasing the power of their oppressors. Sure, you get the resources but not necessarily the benefits that come with actual cooperation.

    Ha, I was going to ask why humans dominated Starfleet-I suppose this is a reasonable explanation.
     
  9. -Brett-

    -Brett- Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The bolded part has no basis at all in canon. Lily asked Picard how many planets are in the Federation, he answered 150. In context, it seems clear that that number refers to both homeworlds and colonies.
     
  10. BK613

    BK613 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well there's this from TOS, Metamorphosis:

     
  11. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Although non-canon too, pre-release promotional stuff for STXI said the 23rd century Federation consisted of 130something planets and 700 colonies.
     
  12. jmampilly

    jmampilly Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I'm pretty sure that, when Picard said that the Federation consisted of 150 planets, he was talking about member worlds. The impression of the Federation we get in all of the TV series is that there are 150 member species, and those species have multiple colony worlds.
     
  13. Edit_XYZ

    Edit_XYZ Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Federation's greatest strength - greatest resource base from among the local powers (fourth rate, at best, when compared with other powers we know exist in the galaxy, though); its technological prowess is among the best in local space (not in the galaxy, though).
    Federation's greatest weakness - its unpreparedness for armed conflict borders on the comical - this is obvious in everything from starfleet training and procedures to the priorities obvious in its starship design.

    Starfleet ships' greatest strength - flexibility: you can create staggering amounts of techobabble with their deflector; easy to modify engines; etc.
    Starfleet ships' greatest weakness - construction: it takes far too long to build and repair them.
     
  14. The Doctor

    The Doctor Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Because it was never really thought out very clearly and didn't make a lick of sense, that's why. Moreover, it was fairly clear that, in TOS, we were watching the adventures of an Earth ship, not a Federation ship. The difference being that there were untold different fleets out there as part of the Federation. Sadly, this angle was quashed in TNG and beyond, turning the Federation Starfleet into a 'homo sapiens only club.'

    Consider how powerful the Vulcans and Andorians are during Enterprise: they have their own worlds, fleets, armies, etc. Did all of that really go away when the Federation was founded and they meekly retreated to their homeworlds so that the mighty humans could defend them in human-designed starships?

    Please. Like much of the vaunted 'canon,' the organization and power structure of the Federation doesn't make any sense whatever and is a thinly-drawn conceit to focus the story on human characters, save for the token 'outsider.'
     
  15. Pavonis

    Pavonis Commodore Commodore

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    How powerful are the Vulcans and Andorians during the 22nd century? They're apparently a match for each other, but what does that mean? The Vulcans had warp drive thousands of years before humanity, probably before the Klingons and maybe the Andorians, too. Why didn't they take over the entire Alpha Quadrant long before the rest of the future Federation members, and end up with a Vulcan Empire matching wits against the strength of the Klingon Empire?

    Apparently Vulcans are homebodies. Sure, they have a couple of off-world colonies, though P'Jem was a monitoring station/meditation retreat, so how much "power" does that add to the Vulcans? And the Andorians - how big was their "empire"? Just big enough to match the Vulcans, apparently....

    Humans are the glue that holds the Federation together, and they do it by convincing their "compatriots" that without them, anarchy would reign! At least being in a nominally equal relationship with the true Human Overlords of the Federation is better than being explicitly inferior in the Klingon Empire!
     
  16. YJAGG

    YJAGG Captain Captain

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    For me It is inferred that the federation is even matched to KE, or RSE. Like the US, China and Russia in the 60’s and 70’s ( China and Russia were not bosom buddies)
    These Empires subjugate their member worlds, so their “colonies” could really be a pre warp world that happen to have large deposits of Dilithium, good farm lands ( why farm when you can replicate) and now is a “part” of the Empire.

    Without silly rules and directives they could go to these worlds where the Federation would say we’ll wait a few hundred years until they get warp to warp 1. This could give the KE and RSE a lot of worlds and resources for the war machine, but not the personnel to man the mines and till the fields so they would keep the locals as cheap labor, periodic visits to pick up the resources, kill a few locals if the quotas are down, etc.

    In worlds of strategic value (good anchorage and such) kill the locals build up the planet and scare the federation
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2013
  17. kgartm1185

    kgartm1185 Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    That doesn't include colonies. The 150 planets are the home worlds of different member species.
     
  18. kgartm1185

    kgartm1185 Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    No, all the member species had their own smaller fleets in comparison to Starfleet. Starfleet is just the main fleet of the Federation.
     
  19. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Okay, cite what episode or movie said otherwise.