How big are the other major powers in the Alpha Quadrant, like the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, the Ferengi Alliance and the Cardassian Union (before the Dominion War)? 3 of these civilizations are supposed to be galaxy spanning empires, yet we only see one conquered planet in depth (Bajor during the occupation). What other planets have these empires conquered, how many alien races are subjects of these empires? Also how many planets would be part of the Ferengi's intergalactic business alliance?
How big are the other major powers in the Alpha Quadrant?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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My own take is that the Federation and the Klingons are fairly equal in physical size, population and capacities. Hundred of major world, over a thousand worlds total each and hundreds of billions of people. Kirk spoke of the Empire conquering worlds and slavery.
The Romulans are medium, maybe a quarter the size (or less). A few hundred worlds acquires through either conquest of indigenous people or colonization.
The Cardassians are small, more a regional power, able to take territory from the Federation, but incapable of defeating the Federation as a whole. Dozens of worlds, with a disproportionately large military.
The Romulans are medium, maybe a quarter the size (or less). A few hundred worlds acquires through either conquest of indigenous people or colonization.
The Cardassians are small, more a regional power, able to take territory from the Federation, but incapable of defeating the Federation as a whole. Dozens of worlds, with a disproportionately large military.
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Have they ever mentioned what any of the subjugated races are in the Klingon Empire? All you ever see are Klingons on their ships. You would think they'd have those races on their ships too, as cooks, maintenance, any non-military or non-strategic positions. I'm sure the Klingons wiped out many species and took their worlds to become colonies, but they couldn't have extinguished them all.
The only canonical Klingon subject race is the Kriosians, mentioned in TNG The Mind's Eye. And the fact they were Klingon subjects was apparently forgotten when a year later when they showed up The Perfect Mate.
I've always assumed that the Klingon and Romulan Empires are always described as 'alpha quadrant powers' because of their proximity to the alpha quadrant, and reach of their interests, even though they're both in the Beta Quadrant
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I doubt even the people of Krios were a separate subjugated species. Dialogue in "Mind's Eye" establishes Krios as a Klingon colony, and there's no mention of any native species.
The planet in "Perfect Mate" is probably a completely separate place that happens to have the same name... Not to mention home to the favorite host species of the Trill, out of the many they use.
For all we know, Klingons don't have subject races - sooner or later, they end up slaughtering every non-Klingon, sending the last specimen to Rura Penthe. Then again, for all we know, Klingons just don't discuss their subject races with outsiders. Racial purging would be more up the Romulan alley - but we don't know whether the Romulans ever conquered any inhabited planets during their long but nondescript history from "thugs" to "empire".
Cardassian subjects are not established, but Cardassian allies are. How can Bajor, next door to the Cardassian homeworld, sit in the middle of neutral space? And how come every neighbor in that neutral space aids and abets the Cardassian Union? A natural scenario would be the UFP biting off a big helping of the Union in the old war, and then stopping short of taking Bajor because it's the Cardassian "Okinawa" and a surefire bloodshed that the Feds want to skip because they have no intention of invading "Japanese mainland"...
Timo Saloniemi
The planet in "Perfect Mate" is probably a completely separate place that happens to have the same name... Not to mention home to the favorite host species of the Trill, out of the many they use.
For all we know, Klingons don't have subject races - sooner or later, they end up slaughtering every non-Klingon, sending the last specimen to Rura Penthe. Then again, for all we know, Klingons just don't discuss their subject races with outsiders. Racial purging would be more up the Romulan alley - but we don't know whether the Romulans ever conquered any inhabited planets during their long but nondescript history from "thugs" to "empire".
Cardassian subjects are not established, but Cardassian allies are. How can Bajor, next door to the Cardassian homeworld, sit in the middle of neutral space? And how come every neighbor in that neutral space aids and abets the Cardassian Union? A natural scenario would be the UFP biting off a big helping of the Union in the old war, and then stopping short of taking Bajor because it's the Cardassian "Okinawa" and a surefire bloodshed that the Feds want to skip because they have no intention of invading "Japanese mainland"...
Timo Saloniemi
I don't know how that map and other similar maps I've seen squares with canon but it's interesting to see the Federation as the biggest bloc and divided into two "islands" with all the logistical problems and strategic perils that follows on from that. Where the Klingons and Romulans are placed, it must be a tough business trying to defend that.
In DS9 and Voyager, 'Alpha quadrant' was used as shorthand for 'The immediate area of Earth' even though Earth is supposed to be the dividing line between the alpha and beta quadrants and the powers near the Federation only make up a small percentage of the total area of both.
My interpretation is that the Klingons and Romulans are large, the Cardassians are more regional, and the Ferengi alliance is scattered throughout a medium sized area but not militarily held. For other planets controlled by the Klingons and Romulans, my interpretation is that Romulan planets are basically slave planets kept under tight military control, and Klingons operate more by just taking what they want, killing a bunch of people and leaving.
My interpretation is that the Klingons and Romulans are large, the Cardassians are more regional, and the Ferengi alliance is scattered throughout a medium sized area but not militarily held. For other planets controlled by the Klingons and Romulans, my interpretation is that Romulan planets are basically slave planets kept under tight military control, and Klingons operate more by just taking what they want, killing a bunch of people and leaving.
That's the old Star Charts book, its map design perpetuated in the newer Stellar Cartography and even STO. It's not just two islands, it's all sorts of pseudopods and blobs and distant annexes and other stuff no conquest- or defense-minded star empire would ever put up with. That's basically the only way to make the UFP both 8,000 ly wide as required, and compact enough for certain storylines.
Romulans and Klingons both kinda straddle or at least kiss the A/B line there, for storytelling convenience. Neither placement is canonically set in stone, but there are some onscreen maps that place the respective national symbols or related star names in those rough locations. Romulans are kinda small - they are nasty customers, but supposedly they are kept behind the RNZ which was established way back, when they cannot have been particularly big or they wouldn't have lost the war to the puny Earthlings. So they don't really cut the UFP in two halves; their compact ovoid space just floats in the middle of the "right arm" of the UFP.
Klingons have more in the way of conquered space around them, but more strategically compact than with the UFP. Cardassians are a second-rate power. Etc. Lots of guesswork, some outdated tidbits, and it doesn't really prove anything, but it rides on a certain assumption about the relative and absolute sizes and tries to make that consistent with onscreen facts.
One really wonders if the Ferengi hold any territory at all, outside their home system. I mean, private Ferengi probably own planets everywhere, or otherwise have them in their back pockets, but the Alliance is unlikely to be a conventional empire when the Ferengi themselves are so unconventional.
Timo Saloniemi
What I imagine is that they economically pressure nearby planets to join them. Like "Oh...you don't want to join the Ferengi Alliance? Ok, well we'll just go ahead and cut off your dilithium supply. Oh, you want to join now? Well then there's just the matter of the small membership fee! And of course you'll need to buy dilithium from only our approved suppliers."
That map has all kinds of canonical mistakes in it. There's no Nimbus III in the intersection between Romulan/Klingon/Federation space, and has a planet it calls Eden/Vorta Vor/Qui Tu along the Romulan border with the Federation. It isn't hard, then, to take it with a block of salt.
Nothing says Nimbus III would be at the intersection of the empires. And indeed the events of the movie suggest it isn't there - Klingons do send a ship (if only to shoot stuff to pieces), but they get there much later than the Feds (despite Klaa's ship apparently being in Federation space to begin with, hurting innocent Earth space probes). And when Sybok captures the ship, there is no Klingon or Romulan Empire blocking their way to the center of the galaxy.
Whether the Eden of the RNZ (starring in TOS "The Way to Eden") would be the same place as the Eden of Sybok is dubious. It isn't even in the right direction from Nimbus in this setup. But if one planet gets the full set of names, the other could as well. After all, Eden/Qui'tu/Vorta Vor/Sha Ka Ree is mythical and thus not located in any particular place; a dozen planets could hold that honor simultaneously, none being the real deal.
Minor errors aside, the one thing this map has in rather visual contradiction of onscreen material is the shape of the RNZ. Before ST:NEM, there were good reasons to think the Zone could be a simple eggshell. But ST:NEM shows a floor mosaic with a jagged border between the RSE and the UFP. Could be "Romulan artistic license", sure, but it'd be a shame to ignore that.
Timo Saloniemi
Whether the Eden of the RNZ (starring in TOS "The Way to Eden") would be the same place as the Eden of Sybok is dubious. It isn't even in the right direction from Nimbus in this setup. But if one planet gets the full set of names, the other could as well. After all, Eden/Qui'tu/Vorta Vor/Sha Ka Ree is mythical and thus not located in any particular place; a dozen planets could hold that honor simultaneously, none being the real deal.
Minor errors aside, the one thing this map has in rather visual contradiction of onscreen material is the shape of the RNZ. Before ST:NEM, there were good reasons to think the Zone could be a simple eggshell. But ST:NEM shows a floor mosaic with a jagged border between the RSE and the UFP. Could be "Romulan artistic license", sure, but it'd be a shame to ignore that.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, it says so much in the movie.
However, that's at a timepoint when there probably are at least two places called "the Neutral Zone": in the next movie, we will learn there's one with the Klingons, while TOS told us that the one with the Romulans was well-established and TNG will show it still in place. So we have quite a bit of leeway with the location. (Or are we to think that both the Klingons and the Romulans now lie behind one and the same Neutral Zone?)
Yup. All the onscreen glimpses to the Romulan NZ show nicely monotonic curvature, allowing us to believe in a fairly simple eggshell shape. It's just the Romulan Senate floor that begs to differ there. But yes, that map could be at right angles with the monotonically curving ones or whatever. It's not as if it has any features we could associate with "Balance of Terror" map ones, other than (apparently) Romulus itself.
Timo Saloniemi
One thing always bothered me about describing me is describing the sizes of a power. It always irked me how Seven described the Devore Imperium as controlling 11 star systems across three sectors, if I remember right. I'd think a single sector has more than 11 star systems.
11 systems across three sectors doesn't seem much and shouldn't be hard to go around at warp. She may have meant populated star systems...but three sectors? Star Trek encyclopedia (I know, not "canon" but...) suggests one sector is about 20 lights across.
11 systems across three sectors doesn't seem much and shouldn't be hard to go around at warp. She may have meant populated star systems...but three sectors? Star Trek encyclopedia (I know, not "canon" but...) suggests one sector is about 20 lights across.
Yeah, a sector is "currently" supposed to be a cube 20 ly on a side, and some onscreen maps would seem to support this. Eleven stars with planets might be a reasonable average for such a volume of space; perhaps just one third of those are worth controlling?
OTOH, if an empire controls the top eleven systems within a given volume, it will no doubt also do its damnedest to keep anybody else from exploiting the empty space in between. Never mind whether its military resources actually are capable of this feat to any degree of effectiveness - if an intercept did take place, it would involve the use of deadly force.
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, if an empire controls the top eleven systems within a given volume, it will no doubt also do its damnedest to keep anybody else from exploiting the empty space in between. Never mind whether its military resources actually are capable of this feat to any degree of effectiveness - if an intercept did take place, it would involve the use of deadly force.
Timo Saloniemi
But there's already a discrepancy there in it taking several months to cross just fifty-ish lightyears. Janeway might not have felt there would be much risk to Tuvok from a quick crossing that ignored the huffing and puffing of the silly local authorities, and only took the long and slow playing-nice route because she ran into the Brenari and felt the need to help.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps the Klingon Neutral Zone isn't a perfect eggshell and is more amorphous (like the Federation is), allowing for it and the Federation side to somehow also overlap with the Romulan Neutral Zone? Or we have to assume the 3-Dimensional model allows for it in a way we've never seen the 2-D maps indicate.
Well, the BoT Map also called Remus "Romii" and that story implied the Romulan Empire was ONLY their Home system and nothing else. So we have to assume things changed from the original idea.
Personally I just view it as, the Federation, Klingons, Romulns, Vulcans etc consider it to be "We're in this region of space, therefore this region is the "Alpha Quadrant".
All quadrant boundries are arbritary anyway. Rather than split it in a grid like "+", they could have split it into grid like "X" and got the same distinctions.
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