Biggest of Alpha Quadrant Powers

[jmampilly]

I am curious as to what you guys think in regards to the amount of territory and population controlled by the various Star Trek species...

My own rankings are as follows

1. Federation
2. Klingons
3. Romulans
4. Cardassia
5. Ferengi
6. Tzenkethi

I am without a doubt convinced that the Federation has the highest population, because the living standards within its boundaries are significantly better than the other powers. I also believe that, since the Federation absorbs new species rather than solely encouraging the propagation of a single ruling species gives it a radical population growth advantage. It is for the same reason, that the Federation absorbs new species, that I am inclined to think they have the largest territorial control as well. Without the need to expend resources conquering neighboring species, as well as the burden of populating its various territories divided up amongst numerous species, the Federation can easily expand and populate the galaxy.

 

[Pondwater]

Federation
Klingon Empire
Romulan Empire
Breen
Cardassian Union

And then the Ferengi.

 

[Jono]

I haven't seen the new stellar cartography book that was released recently but going by images from the older Star Charts from a couple of years ago.

1. Federation?
2. Klingon?
3. Tholian Empire
4. Breen
5. Romulan
6. Cardassian
7. Gorn
8. Talarian
9. Ferengi
10. Tzenkethi

There isn't much different between the Federation and Klingons in size, the Klingons might in fact be bigger as they have a mass of territory, while the Federation is spread out with lots of tentacles spreading out so it gives the impression it is bigger.

Of course given you have a flat top down look there is a lot of wiggle room to how big they actually are.

 

[jmampilly]

Is it possible that the Klingons might have a slight territorial advantage over the Federation, but much of said territory is sparsely populated if at all? I could see the Klingons claiming a lot of space without having the resources to actually populate/use the territory.

 

[C.E. Evans]

My own theory is that there's probably someone even bigger than the Federation waiting to be discovered out in the unexplored reaches of the Alpha Quadrant. In comparison (and excluding those like the Dominion and the Borg on the other side of the Galaxy), the majority of the interplanetary powers encountered thus far in Trek are localized ones--within a thousand light-years or two of Earth--frequently jostling with each other for elbow room.

 

[Jono]

Is it possible that the Klingons might have a slight territorial advantage over the Federation, but much of said territory is sparsely populated if at all? I could see the Klingons claiming a lot of space without having the resources to actually populate/use the territory.

Very possible. As with any territorial claim people are going to have different interpretations. For example, the Star Chart maps shows isolated pockets of Federation space split from the rest of the Federation by "unclaimed" space, you'd think given the Klingon mentality they wouldn't do that. They would likely claim all the space from the pocket back to their main territory regardless of their ability to enforce or truly control that space.

 

[jmampilly]

I wonder how the Federation is realistically capable of defending isolated areas of space. Surely they wouldn't leave such a strategic vulnerability out in the open...

 

[USS Triumphant]

My answer for TOS (includes some fanfic notions of mine):

1. Federation
2. Klingon Empire
3. First Federation (including Betazed, Trill, Bolia and others)
4. Breen
5. Cardassian Union
6. Tholian Assembly
7. Ferengi Alliance (small territory but with much broader financial/political influence)
8 & 9 (tie). Gorn Hegemony and Romulan Empire (The Gorn require very specific worlds to colonize, the Romulans were extremely insular)

By TNG, the answer is still pretty much the same, except that some time in between, the First Federation joined the Federation, and the Romulans came out of their shell a little and moved up a step or two.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It depends entirely on writers and the needs of the story being told at the time. In "Balance of Terror", the Romulans are a defeated people with a small bubble of territory, testing the Earth's might after a century with a comparatively primitive ship. Come TNG, and they're the Federation's equal. The Klingons could no longer make war after STVI, yet in the "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline (which diverged just 22 years before TNG and 60 after STVI) they're somehow completely overwhelming the Federation. The Federation itself could only scrape together 40 ships to fend off the Borg in "Best of Both Worlds", but in DS9 the Federation had a dozens of war fleets, each 100+ ships strong.

 

[USS Triumphant]

The Klingons could no longer make war after STVI, yet in the "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline (which diverged just 22 years before TNG and 60 after STVI) they're somehow completely overwhelming the Federation.

I agree with your core argument. But on this specific point, perhaps it wasn't so much that they could no longer make war as that the situation with Praxis meant that their options for survival were that they *either* had to rein in their military and military expenses, or they had to go full out for conquest to try to *take* the resources they would need to continue on, probably from larger, more powerful, and/or more advanced adversaries - and the leadership of the Empire, with the exception of Chang and his cronies, saw the former as the better course.

The other possibility is that with 60 years of aid from the Federation, maybe the Klingon Empire was ready to get back on a war footing, and in "Yesterday's Enterprise", they had turned that against the Federation. After all, nothing like that has happened in *real* history. (:cough: U.S. and Mujahideen :cough: )

 

[bbjeg]

As I said in jmampilly's "Who comes out on top post-Dominion War?":

IMO Out of the Alpha Quadrant powers the rankings are:

1. Federation
2. Romulan Star Empire
3. Klingon Empire
4. Breen Confederacy
5. Tholian Assembly
6. Gorn Hegemony
7. Ferengi Alliance
8. Bajoran Provisional Government
9. Cardassian Union

Plus, the Federation has that God Mode tech that Janeway brought back. I'd say the Federation is the strongest in the galaxy, above the Borg and Dominion.

I put the Klingons 3rd because they were devastated by the Dominion war but I'd suspect they still have a little bite in them, at least more than the rest of the quadrant.

 

[jmampilly]

As I said in jmampilly's "Who comes out on top post-Dominion War?":

IMO Out of the Alpha Quadrant powers the rankings are:

1. Federation
2. Romulan Star Empire
3. Klingon Empire
4. Breen Confederacy
5. Tholian Assembly
6. Gorn Hegemony
7. Ferengi Alliance
8. Bajoran Provisional Government
9. Cardassian Union

Plus, the Federation has that God Mode tech that Janeway brought back. I'd say the Federation is the strongest in the galaxy, above the Borg and Dominion.

I put the Klingons 3rd because they were devastated by the Dominion war but I'd suspect they still have a little bite in them, at least more than the rest of the quadrant.

I find your argument very vaild. Many people seem to have dismissed the Klingons because of Section 31 Agent Sloane's comment about the post Dominion cold war between the Romulans and Federation. But I sincerely doubt any of the smaller powers in Star Trek were realistically more powerful than the Klingons.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Are we talking before or after DS9? After DS9, Cardassia shouldn't even register. Are Tzenkethi ever mentioned besides that one episode of DS9? It's not clear how big they might be other than they are strong enough to be a threat to the Federation.

My impression of the Romulans in TNG (The Neutral Zone) is that they dominate a smaller area of space but they have a huge military.

I also wonder how big the area of space in Conundrum is. They may be technologically behind the major powers but they seem like they control a large area of space next to the Federation.

 

[jmampilly]

Are we talking before or after DS9? After DS9, Cardassia shouldn't even register. Are Tzenkethi ever mentioned besides that one episode of DS9? It's not clear how big they might be other than they are strong enough to be a threat to the Federation.

My impression of the Romulans in TNG (The Neutral Zone) is that they dominate a smaller area of space but they have a huge military.

I also wonder how big the area of space in Conundrum is. They may be technologically behind the major powers but they seem like they control a large area of space next to the Federation.

We are generally referring to the post-Nemesis era.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

If we're talking post-Nemesis, then the Cardassian Empire is Cardassia and not much else.

 

[jmampilly]

If we're talking post-Nemesis, then the Cardassian Empire is Cardassia and not much else.

Why is that?

 

[T'Girl]

Why is that?

Because after they lost WWII, Germany wasn't allowed to keep France, Eastern Europe, Norway, and Russia.

 

[jmampilly]

Why is that?

Because after they lost WWII, Germany wasn't allowed to keep France, Eastern Europe, Norway, and Russia.

Ah.

 

[Zungen]

In an episode of DS9, Julian Bashir once said there will be over 900 billion deaths if Federation fights to the death when suggesting to Captain Sisko that the Federation surrenders before the war even began in Statisical Probability with help of some genetically enhanced humans who calculated war could never be won. So, by Nemesis there is probably at least a trillion people who make up the Federation.

Unlikely, any other power have even close to a citizen population of that size.

 

[T'Girl]

Could the klingon Empire have a population of a trillion? Don't see why not, we see mostly biological/ethic Klingon on the show, but there has long been an unofficial belief that the Empire has other species as part of it. Everything from second class citizens through out and out slaves.

A total population of a trillion? Sure.