Do you believe at some point, everyone in the Milky Way joined the Federation?

I wonder if in the far far future, the Federation was able to accomplish such a feat (and I'm guessing that races like the Borg were long gone by this time). And in this time, they had the ability to easily travel to other galaxies, so instead of conflicts within the Milky Way, we now have conflicts involving OTHER galaxies fighting a united Milky Way galaxy!

 

No.

 

It would take a lot of time and effort on all sides, but it would be the next logical step

 

No, it wouldn't be in EVERYONE's best interests to do so. Particularly cultures like the Borg.

 

I think the Borg and races like them would be long gone by this time.

 

It's impossible, unless the Federation because incredibly draconian and imperialistic and begin "admitting" all the pre-warp and developing planets into their membership.

The Federation, as we know it, will always be caretakers of countless civilizations that are growing and developing and evolving.

 

Not ever happening, IMO. There will always be those that will see the Federation as a threat--if not to their way of life, then to their ability to have opportunities that don't mesh with that of the Federation's.

NEW ALIEN RACE: We want to join Federation...
FEDERATION DIPLOMAT: Well, that's great. We always would welcome new--
NEW ALIEN RACE: We wish to plunder many worlds, have countless slave women, and kill as many weaklings as we please.
FEDERATION DIPLOMAT: Ah, I see...
NEW ALIEN RACE: We like your starships. They very fast. Very powerful weapons too. Kill billions of weaklings they can...
FEDERATION DIPLOMAT: Um, let me explain something first...

 

I agree...no

Regarding pre-warp civilizations...I've always wondered about what if there was a pre-warp civilization among the core worlds...within 20 light years of Earth, who would be quite hostile to the idea of the UFP... Would Starfleet block them from leaving their star system?

 

Can't imagine that an entire galaxy would be homogenous enough that they could all comfortable belong to the same alliance or government.

And, honestly, I don't see any story potential there. You can always use independent worlds, unknown worlds, and even "no trespassing" worlds to generate plots, conflicts, and complications.

Just like you never want to lock down exactly how many worlds are in the Federation, just in case you need to invent a new one someday.

 

Well, the story potential would be the Milky Way galaxy having conflicts with other galaxies.

 

No.
Even in the 24th century in there own sphere it's not happening.
1. Pre warp worlds: say in a 1000 light years bubble that is the federation, you'd have numerous pre warp civilizations. When they are ready some might accept membership, some decline, some hostile. But since they exist in "federation space" theyd have to find a way to coexist.
2. World's that are not members: in a 1000 ly bubble there are numerous civilizations, yet only 150 are members. That leaves many that are not members. They may be proectorats, or xenophobic, or religious in a way that prevents contact with others. Ant number of reasons there not part. But since there in fed space again have to cooperate, and I would think the Fed would be magnanimous enough not to interfere or just leave them alone.
Now expand to a whole galaxy. I doubt most species would join but they would have joiners like ocampa in other parts of the galaxy.

At most thered be an understanding and a general frame work with most species. But you'd always have "bad" ones.

And it goes back to colonization in a way. Or At least something like our current political scene. As in My way is right, your way is wrong, no live and let live, agree to disagree, it's if you don't bend to our will you will be punished. .
That's a shitty way to go through the galaxy. You don't push your beliefs on others. As said.. Homosapiens only club.

 

Not a pre-warp civilization, but the Kzinti might qualify. They're close to Earth (4 wars pre-TOS/ENT), and following the losses not allowed armed vessels aside from police ships. Essentially a warrior race is being blocked from doing warrior stuff by the Federation, presumably due to their location which should be right among the core worlds.

 

No, of course SF wouldn't prevent the species leaving their own system.
If a pre-warp civilization is hostile to the UFP... by the time they achieved FTL, I suspect that SF would keep an eye on them and issue a warning throughout UFP to avoid contact, and tell the emergent species that they cannot set foot onto planets in UFP space... and I suspect SF would transmit a crude map of areas and create routes to them to abide by. Should they fail, they'd probably be escorted back to the route they have been designated... or something to that effect.
At least for a while, the species in question wouldn't pose a threat to UFP due to massive technological disparity that exists between them.

Ultimately, the said species would probably see the UFP is leaving them for the most part alone and doesn't want a conflict... and I suspect that if the species in question encounters issues and SF responds to potential distress calls, they might eventually reconsider how they view the Federation.
Or they'd be too scared to actually challenge the UFP because of how powerful it is.

If a species is hostile, they probably won't stay hostile forever. The Borg could be an exception to this because they are more cybernetic... but we've seen the UFP can establish rudimentary rapport with the Borg when they have the upper hand.

To this effect, I do think its more than doable that the entire Milky Way could establish some kind of diplomatic ties with United Federation of Planets (minus emerging non-Warp capable species)... in fact, I do think this is what the UFP should have technically achieved by the 32nd century.

Empires like the Dominion, Klingons and Cardassians might not have 'joined' the Federation, but could have established peaceful ties and could in fact be helping each other.

 

It is far more likely that the Federation would be one of countles thosuands of space realms that gradually merge to form a galaxy wide government.

The TV Tropes site has a trope called:

Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale

The Milky Way Galaxy consists of a few hundred billion stars and their planets, plus several times as great a mass in widely and thinly spread mysterious dark matter.

Most of the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy are in the galactic disc, which is about 100,000 light years in diameter and about 1,000 light years "thick" between its "upper" and "lower" edges. In our part of the galaxy, the average distance between a star and its nearest neighbor star is about 5 light years.

Astrobiologists estimate that only a minority of stars in the galaxy have planets habitable for life forms in general. Since, even on Earth, many lifeforms flourish where unprotected humans would swifly die, planets where unprotectd humans could survive are a minority of planets habitable for lifeforms, which in turn are a minority of planets.

And yet it has been estimated that there might be 600 million planets habitable for humans in the Milky Way Galaxy.

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf

And possibly billions of planets not habitable for humans but habitable for some types of life forms.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/planets--universe-support-life.htm

So there are possibly about 60 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. that could potentially have some sort of life, and which maybe do have life.

Of course space opera stories like Star Trek often assume that planets with life - and even planets habitable for humans and intelligent aliens similar to humans - are many times more common than the estimates of scientists.

And so some science fiction writers imagine very vast, galactic-wide governments. For example, in E.E. Smith's Lensman series the governments of two galaxies, each governing millions or billions of industrialized planets, fight a war. In the first big space battle there are millions of space battleships, but the battles get larger during the war.

By contrast, Star Trek space maps often show realms like the Federation or the Romulan Empire, or the Dominion, spread out across large parts of the galaxy, each possibly ruling 1 to 10 percent of the total volume of the galaxy, and thus ruling at least a billion star systems each, with probably millions of industrialized planets considering how common planets with advanced societies seem to be in Star Trek.

But during war stories, such as the Dominion War in DS9, important space battles between major powers involve fleets of tens or hundreds of space warships. In the DS9 episode "Sacrifice of Angels' the Federation fleet had only 600 warships and the Dominion and Cardassians had only 1,200.

So it seems like Star Trek writers often have no sense of scale. Thus I can believe some future Star Trek movie or series could involve the United Federation of Planets ruling the entire Milky Way Galaxy and yet having only 10,000 inhabited and industrialized member worlds, even though that would make no sense considering how common civilized planets seem to be in Star Trek.

What would be far more plausible than the Federation expanding to include the entire Milky Way Galaxy would be the United Federation of Planets merging with the First Federation and the Star Federation to form the United Federations. And later the United Federations might merge with the Federated Stellar Unions to form the United Federations and Unions. And after a series of such mergers to form larger and larger space realms, there might eventually - after many, many mergers - be a realm including the entire Milky Way Galaxy. A realm that the former United Federation of planets would be a tiny part of.

.

 

And how would that happen?

 

I do think it makes for a more interesting story if there are societies that aren't Federation members even in the Alpha and Beta quadrants - even (and maybe especially) if they end up being allies nonetheless. It opens up more possibilities in worldbuilding and storytelling if you leave that option open.

 

Living Witness is not that far before the Burn and they had not.

 

If they are pre-warp, how COULD they leave their system?

In any case, regardless of warp status, the Federation would have no jurisdiction over them. Once they do develop space travel and begin to explore, there's nothing the Federation could do about it.