What If? Not wanting to be in the Federation, even though your in there space.

Another thought exercise!
Okay, Say your a newly emerging planet. You just discovered warp drive, and the federation does "First Contact"
1. Your a warlike race, (Say humans today, or Klingons, etc.) and you want to "expand" out in to the universe conquering planets left and right, believe its there "Manifest Destiny" but low and behold, your planet is smack dab in the middle of the federation! All your neighboring planets are members of the federation, and any nearby habitable world has already been colonized! What do you do?

2. Your just emerging as a warp society, don't have the technology to fight on par with your neighbors, but your planet is a wreak, it has 15 billion people on it, over crowded, and like the example before, your local neighborhood is full. What do you do? what does the federation do?

Any more ideas along these lines? Make first contact, and theres a problem??

 

In the novel Prime Directive, it says that the Federation puts aside 50 worlds surrounding any "emerging" prewarp culture, to colonize... Although that's also the sort of fire wall the Federation would need so that prewarp astronomers wouldn't figure out that the galaxy is teeming, practically overrun with life.

Novels are not canon.

1. Ally yourself with every enemy that the Federation has.

2. Time travel. Slingshot the excess population around the sun. Hundreds of new colonies on their own home-world, separated by millions of years.

 

Leave the matter in Section 31's capable hands.

 

Ugh. As much as I love DS9 I'll always hate that it introduced this particular cancer into Trek

 

The Federation is 6,000 light years at it's greatest dimension and only has 150 members. The odds of the area around your home system being "full" are pretty low.

 

1. For this one I assume you suck it up buttercup! Either you plot and scheme and strike at the Federation or you just sit there and do nothing. Either that or join in a war the Federation is losing. Plenty of examples of this throughout human history.

2. I've always interpreted things as: the Federation absolutely will not colonise the home system of a neutral species. So if the planet in your example is overcorwded then they would be free to colonise the other planets in their system. If there are none I'd assume the Federation may even leave neighbouring systems alone. Space is vast...they must have some protocol for a species 'sphere of influence' regardless of their neutrality.

 

It's also not the feel I get from TNG episodes such as 'Justice', where they apparently landed colonists in 'the adjoining star system' before they visit the Edo people planet. Though, to be fair, it says they discover the M planet in that next system only after dropping the colonists off, it still suggests that the area isn't researched thoroughly beforehand.

Reading that as 150 'mother'worlds or races, such as Earth(lings), Vulcan(s), etc, not all colonies. Otherwise I can't easily reconcile it with Kirk's statement 100 years before of 'We're on a thousand planets and spreading out. ' (which could refer to humans only, or to all Federation races). Also, we don't know how many non-aligned races there are in that volume of space who perhaps do colonise without reservation.

 

The first thing you do is isolate said planet and place embargo after embargo upon them and then make them play nice!
JB

 

The Federation would ignore you if you are not hostile and respect your claim to unclaimed planets. But attack any Federation member, very different story.

One other case is that you leave your planet and start attacking prewarp worlds in Federation space. This is the case I’m not sure of. They’d probably be forced to let you do it.

 

You're. Their.

 

I'm betting The Picard Show will be about this. Frexit.

 

I'd imagine there are countless inhabited planets within what the Federation considers "boarders" who are not Federation members. In fact, the whole concept of "boarders on a map" with regard to interstellar political entities is a bit absurd. I'd guess in reality it would work very very differently.

 

There are likely thousands of planets and moons within Federation space that are not actually members. I'm sure those worlds maintain their independence and are free to conduct business with anyone they like as long as they mutually respect the Federation's sovereignty (i.e., don't be a threat). In that sense, the Federation isn't so much some solid chunk of territory, but more like a big spider web, IMO.

But even those independent planets and moons could be considered under Federation/Starfleet protection simply due to their geographical locations. An obvious example was probably Bajor, which may have not been that relatively far from Earth, but its sector may have been considered independent or nonaligned space within the overall physical span of the Federation.

 

Boarders? I don't think they're renting space.

 

"Borders"...damn, yo.

 

Indeed.

From the admittedly non-canon star charts I've seen, the Federation in 2D projection appears to be a rough ellipse about 6,000ly by 3,000ly. The galactic disk is no more than 1,000ly thick so the total ellipsoidal volume is 4/3 * pi * 6,000 * 3,000 * 1,000 / 8 = 9.4 billion cubic ly. In the vicinity of Sol, the stellar density is roughly one star per 250 cubic ly. Assuming this density is a reasonable average, that's 37.6 million stars in Federation space. The 150 Federation members' homeworld stars occupy a volume of only 37,500 cubic ly or 0.0004% (1/250,000th) of the total available volume. Even if each member has colonised 50 stars, the volume is still only 1,875,000 cubic ly or 0.02% (1/5,000th) of the total available volume.

Space is big. Really big...

ETA: The density of stars to avoid tidal disruption of planetary systems is estimated to be lower than one star per 12.5 cubic ly. In the centres of galaxies and globular clusters, the density is thought to be about one star per 0.5 cubic ly so any planets are very likely to get tossed out of their orbits before life can develop and evolve.

 

In "Metamorphosis", Kirk says "we are on a thousand planets and spreading out". He seems to be speaking of humans only, for Cochrane's benefit and in answer to his question. Now, if every other member species is like that, we get more than 150,000 planets before the 24th century already.

If the UFP is 8,000 ly across and of the shape allowing for maximum volume (that is, a sphere), that's about 1.8 million cubic light years per planet, leaving about 150 lightyears between planets (probably meaning stars, assuming humans mainly claim Class M planets and one system doesn't have several). Still plenty of openings to seep through for the upstart culture... Other member cultures expanding more cautiously gives different figures, as does assuming the others have been at it for much longer than humans, but this is still where we ballpark.

But nothing in Trek supports even and systematic expansion of the UFP. There probably are plenty of places where UFP holdings are packed tight, and even more places where the UFP takes a dim view on trespassers even if they only pass through emptiness (because while it might not be possible to keep the Klingons out even with vigilant patrols, it's nice to have the legitimacy to blow them to bits when a patrol does stumble upon a trespasser, and not cool to let Klingons establish their own outposts right between UFP systems). So the scenario of the OP is certainly plausible.

But the price of a transit permit for establishing one's colonies beyond UFP holdings need not be excessive. Sure, you now have to pay for keeping your homeworld connected with the colonies, but this may be pretty standard for UFP members, too. And in both of the original scenarios, abandoning the homeworld might actually be a good idea! I mean, it's not as if emigration could solve population problems, so the homeworld isn't better off in scenario #2 even after colonization - but OTOH you don't need to evacuate the homeworld in order to sever ties with it and set up an expansionist empire in more open space. Perhaps something like this happened to, say, Vulcan, with its colonies founded on the other side of major political/astrographical obstacles of the day and therefore becoming myths and legends and independent star empires?

Timo Saloniemi

 

As I mentioned, the galactic disk is only about a thousand ly thick 27,000ly from the centre so your calculation is slightly off there. Vulcans don't seem to colonise much (deduced from the 2009 movie) so maybe humans are in the upper tail of the distribution -- rapidly breeding fuckers that we are. Even 150,000 planets spread among as many stars (no multiple planet colonisation per star) represent only 1/250th of the total volume I estimated -- of the order of 45ly between inhabited stars. Still lots of room to spare, especially given the availability of terraforming technology.

 

The UFP could easily stick out of the galactic disk if it wanted to, with no appreciable loss of star density (and supposed not planet density either, at least not in Trek). But it probably would not (at least not in Trek, where the galaxy has this nasty feature at its edge/rim/surface).

But personally, I'm not inclined to believe in a spherical UFP. We already know of unexplored, unexploited enclaves: Pollux in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" is right next door to Earth and difficult to interpret as anything else. We also know of isolated locations and hear distant real-world places mentioned or involved in the action. So the 8,000 ly being between the Federation's South Georgia and Shetland is more likely than it being between the Federation's Southampton and Inverness or whatnot.

Also, spherical expansion ought to be impossible in a galaxy with hundreds of other local players on UFP tech level, each with expansionist ambitions. But the UFP might be the one out of that lot likely to spread its assets, leaving room in between for newcomers to expand (within limits), while the Klingons or the Cardassians would do nothing of the sort and would indeed huddle inside fortified (even if expanding) spheres if they possibly can.

Timo Saloniemi