How many planets and races dose the federation has??

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by Xenoween, Oct 12, 2014.

  1. Xenoween

    Xenoween Ensign Red Shirt

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    How many planets and races dose the federation has??
    I think the number has changed throw out the original until the Voyager
    but do you guys have any clear numbers?
    in star trek enterprise it showed interesting races were forming the new state that we never meet again
    In the original they only brought us terrain colonies in some planets as far as am watching now in the second season
    Of course there are the Vulcan planet one of them
    what else??
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2014
  2. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    There is nothing official on any of this, beyond basically just two datapoints:

    1) In "Metamorphosis", Kirk says that "we" are on a thousand planets and spreading. Thus the UFP controls at least a thousand planets at that point, and the context would actually indicate that mankind controls those - any worlds controlled by other UFP members would come atop that.

    2) Picard in ST:First Contact, when asked about how many planets there are in the UFP, says there are "over 150". He's speaking to an ignorant listener, though, and probably answering a different question she didn't have enough knowledge to ask. Obviously, Kirk's statement would make Picard's statement a lie (even if technically 1000 > 150) unless these meant two different things: Picard appears to be listing UFP members, and indicating that one member doesn't control just one planet.

    There has been no real change to observe, because the movie ST:FC is the only one to actually mention the number of members ("planets"); no comparable number was given for Kirk's or Janeway's adventures.

    We did get firsthand data on how the UFP was founded through Archer's adventures, though, and learned that there were either four or five founding members in the UFP - the humans, the Vulcans, the Andorians, the Tellarites and (only seen mentioned in obscure props from the movie ST:Generations) the Alpha Centaurans. Since Zephram Cochrane in "Metamorphosis" is defined both as being "of Alpha Centauri" and fully human, the fifth founding member culture could be just a facet of the human culture, and therefore commonly ignored. Then again, the Vulcan culture being a member doesn't mean all Vulcans would be UFP citizens (the Romulans most definitely are not, and they are Vulcans biologically). Perhaps Alpha Centauri survives as a political entity independent of "mankind" even in the 24th century?

    All the shows and many of the movies feature UFP members that never reappear. This is basically possible with 150 members, as only less than 50 are ever made explicit, although the "revolving door" portrayal would be easier to buy if there were a bit more members.

    The original show never mentioned anybody but humans as being members of the Federation - until showing a bunch of Ambassadors of varying species in "Journey to Babel", and indicating that they all came from Federation member cultures. No colony of Vulcans or Tellarites was ever mentioned, but we can conjecture that such things did exist even back then. Or then we can choose to conjecture otherwise. (Yet Archer did visit Vulcan offworld settlements explicitly "earlier"/"later" on!)

    This list is probably the most reliable, or even erring a bit on the side of caution:

    http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Federation_members

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  3. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    One of the promotional wallpapers for ST'09 said the Federation of 2258 consisted of 130 planets and over 700 colonies, which seems like a pretty good way to reconcile TOS and FC.
     
  4. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Agreed in principle...

    ...But Kirk's "over a thousand" might have included planets other than homeworlds and colonies, too: surely there would be workers from Earth toiling at uninhabitable worlds and bringing in dilithium and whatnot. So, 130 members (each with one homeworld), 700 colonies between them, and then all the uninhabitable worlds atop that.

    Even the real galaxy now appears to be full of rocky planets for us to explore, and Trek would have many of those terraformed by ancients to produce even better playgrounds. A civilization with two centuries of warp drive but less than a million flags planted might actually appear quite unrealistic! And those million could well fit within the 8000 lightyears quoted by Picard.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  5. Xenoween

    Xenoween Ensign Red Shirt

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    Timo I really appreciate that you are telling me all of this , thanks :)

    i have although something i realized

    if they have all of this huge number of planets i guess they should've bin un stoppable force with all of these huge Resources and fleets they could've have

    like sometimes the Romulans who dosn't seemed to own more then one planet and few moons seemed like something powerful and competitor to the entire federation

    more like the cold war between the US and the Soviet
    the same with the Klingon or the Cardassion

    Of course it could be somehow a math mistake but for the good of the show they had to be some sort of hard challenges to get throw

    don't you agree? :)
     
  6. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Who's to say the Klingons don't have thousands of planets, too?

    We don't learn of many "members of the Klingon Empire", but just one member might suffice: Klingons could enslave thousands of species for their purposes (like we see them enslave the Organians), or then kill everybody and send in their own men and women instead, keeping up with the demand through aggressive breeding policies or medical aids such as cloning.

    In terms of onscreen references, just half a dozen Klingon planets were ever mentioned - but that's still more than Vulcan planets. And we did hear of plenty of Cardassian worlds, with no indication that what we heard was all of it.

    I think Trek features a nice mix of thousand-planet empires, single-planet cultures, and all sorts of in-betweeners. That we don't always learn which category a particular culture represents makes it just all the more interesting...

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  7. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Given that Kirk was talking to Cockrane, both Humans, I take Kirk's statement to mean Humans were (at the time) on a thousand planets. And not that the Federation was composed of a thousand planets.

    Not necessarily, just because a world was colonized by Humans doesn't mean that that world is automatically a part of the Federation. Also, the planet might be the homeworld or colony of a nonHuman species who aren't a Federation Member. Nothing says Humans can't emigrate to someone else homeworld to live.

    While there's no proof one way or the other, I personally take that to mean 150 plus species homeworlds, with the total number of worlds associated with the Federation in some fashion being significantly higher.

    Or Cochrane went to live (or just visit) another species world. One of the founding members of the Federation being that species (Centaur?).

    :devil:
     
  8. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    As Timo says, onscreen evidence is scant, but I would tend to agree that Picard's line referred to Members and not planets. But one other thing to consider is that Picard also says the Federation spans 8000 light years. Which means it has a fairly decent chunk of space to patrol. So yes it might have tens of thosuands of ships spread out throught that space, but for example the Romulans might have a similar amount of ship but might only control a region that spans 4000 light years. So they have a greater density of ships.
     
  9. eyeresist

    eyeresist Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: How many planets and races does the federation has??

    Yes, just because a species is only seen in one show does not cause continuity problems. I imagine there are many worlds safely within Federation territory that never make major trouble, and so are not worth presenting on screen. Risa only gets mentioned because it's populated by (and popular with) perverts ;)
     
  10. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ^ If the TOS Enterprise hadn't had a Vulcan first officer, we might never have heard of, or seen, any Vulcans during TOS.



    .
     
  11. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ...Technically, in in-universe terms, Sarek could have been ferried by Kirk's ship anyway - and the adventure might have been worth televising for all the associated hijinks, including Sarek's death for lack of suitable blood donor. :devil:

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  12. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Just spotted this, on page 127 of FASA's TNG Officer's Manual:

    Number of Inhabited Worlds:
    United Federation of Planets - 2,401 planets
    Free Worlds of Klinzai - 1,401 planets

    Number of Indigenous Civilized Races:
    UFP - 2,598 with 1,400 starfaring races
    FWK - 660, with 103 starfaring races

    FASA also postulates that the Federation and Klingons are joined to make the "Federation Grand Alliance", so it's pretty far from canon. But interesting nonetheless.
     
  13. Ithekro

    Ithekro Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That was basically what it looked like in the first season of TNG. Only after that did the continued seperation of the Federation and Klingon Empires become understood.
     
  14. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ^ I suppose at the time of the beginning of TNG that the Empire and the Federation could of enjoyed a closer relationship that had existed for decades, this cooled during the first few seasons of TNG, resulting in the somewhat strained association we see from that point forward.

    The death of pragmatic K'mpec certainly doesn't help.

    Or we could have focused on the Enterprise's Andorian first officer and her uncomfortable family bond with her father the Andorian ambassador (who was hiding his own poor health), somewhere in the back ground there would be seen a non-speaking extra depicting the Vulcan ambassador.

    :devil:
     
  15. neozeks

    neozeks Captain Captain

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    Hmmm, 130 member worlds feels a bit too much for mid-23rd century. It would mean the Federation went from 5 to 130 worlds in it's first century of existence and then added only some, say, 30 worlds in it's second century. Not impossible, of course, but I feel like the pace of Federation's expansion should be broadly accelerating, not decelerating, over time (thanks to warp speed advances and the Federation's growing power, prosperity and influence). And the Federation of Picard's time feels a lot bigger than the Federation of Kirk's time, at least to me.

    Of course, maybe the alt-Federation of nuTrek expanded much more rapidly after the timeline diverged, compared to the Federation of the Prime Universe.
     
  16. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    Just like TOS before it, TNG had certain things in its early episodes that changed as they became more refined. But the idea of an alliance/peace treaty existing between the Klingons and the Federation was established in TNG's first "Klingon" episode, "Heart of Glory." It was the later second season episode "Samaritan Snare" that put forth an idea that the Klingons had actually joined the Federation, but it doesn't really work with earlier and later Klingon episodes that has them as separate nations.
    The rate of the Federation's expansion may not always be constant. There could be periods where it was high and periods where it may even have been stagnant.

    It's also possible that among the worlds counted are multiple worlds within a single star system (Earth and Mars may be counted as two member worlds in the Sol System--the United Earth and the Martian Colonies mentioned in TOS)
     
  17. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    For the record, the novel Articles of the Federation established that there were 155 Federation Member States as of December 2380. However, that number may be lower as of 2385, as
    a number of Federation Member State capital planets were exterminated by the Borg Invasion two months later in Star Trek: Destiny, including Deneva, Regulus, Coridan, Ramatis, Rhaandarel, and Risa, and it is unknown how many of those polities continued to exist legally after their homeworlds' destruction.

    For the record, the ENT novel The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing established that the Confederated Martian Colonies declared independence from Earth in the early 22nd century. Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures established that the Confederated Martian Colonies then joined the Federation as a separate Member State in 2161 -- the first to join after the Federation was founded by United Earth, the Confederacy of Vulcan, the Andorian Empire, the United Planets of Tellar, and the Alpha Centauri Concordium.
     
  18. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    The idea that the Mars might have been an independent body (at least from Earth) first originated in TOS' "Court Martial" in which Kirk's lawyer (Cogley) referred to the "Fundamental Declarations of the Martian Colonies," which may have been a twist on the Declaration of Independence of the [American Colonies], IMO.
     
  19. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ...The document name featuring the word "colonies" sort of suggests that the declaration did not change the status of those colonies into non-colonies, or at least that the later authorities do not recognize any such change as having happened and thus keep referring to "colonies" when mentioning this document!

    Not much of an "independence" declaration, then.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  20. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    It worked for the United States of America...

    From the Declaration of Independence:
    We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States...
    http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

    The continual use of the word "colonies" on Mars could merely because settlements like Utopia Planitia, Olympus Mons, or whatever never called themselves anything other than colonies.