Klingon-Federation War of 2372-3

Regular phasers can drill through a planet's crust. Photon torpedoes make nukes look like firecrackers. A little bit of armor for a few seconds isn't going to matter much. Heck, it's the structural integrity field that keeps ships together much more than the hull itself, no matter the material.

Guinan. All sorts of timey-wimey stuff seems to swirl around her. (In one of the books they say it's because of the Nexus, but that's just a book.)

 

I find that every Federation vs Klingons thread ends up debating the validity of the "Yesterday's Enterprise" alternate timeline. 30 years into the future, things would have changed.

Starleet's encounter with the Borg and Dominion would mean that new starships would be war oriented. Given that the Federation is already considered a major power, on par with the Klingons and Romulans, could it really be weaker than those speciesafter replacing its exploration-based fleet with warships?

 

And again, all we see in YE is the Federation side. For all we know the Klingons were on the verge of collapse but were willing to die fighting to the death whereas the Feds weren't, and the final battle at Earth (if the Feds didn't surrender) wouldn't left the Klingons with nothing either to hold the Empire together.

It's like the Federation-Zeon war in the Gundam series. They fought and it seemed like the Feds were on the verge of surrendering, but then a Federation General escapes and lets the Fed High Command know that Zeon exhausted all its resources in the biggest battles and were putting up a false front to trick the Feds into surrender. Which led to a longer war where the Feds win.

 

Maybe, but let's face it - the fact is the Galaxy-class ships never fared too well in battle. If they're outnumbered by 3:1 or worse, they usually end up destroyed. So if the Galaxy-class was the best the Federation had to offer, what would their real chances be in a war?

 

By the 2370s, the Federation had developed the Defiant, Prometheus, and Akira classes.

 

Prometheus was a prototype, and the Defiant was a small gunship. Lots of those might be better than one Galaxy. I don't know much about the Akira beyond it inspiring the NX-01 (or in-universe, being inspired by the NX-01).

At best, I think a Klingon-Federation war would lead to stalemate. They must feel each other to be equals, else it'd be an asymmetric war. It takes the combined effort of all the Federation's cultures to meet the strength of the monolithic Klingon Empire. If the war went badly for Starfleet for a little while, I could see some of the more pacifistic or fearful cultures backing out of the Federation to avoid war with the Klingons, or even just to avoid the Klingons' wrath.

I've heard a theory that wars only really end when one side considers themselves defeated. And if I had to pick, I'd say the Federation would end up considering themselves defeated long before the Klingons could come to that conclusion, if they are even capable of psychologically doing so. In the end, Klingon tenacity could defeat Federation resolve...if it came to war. Perhaps that's why the Federation decided to make friends with the Empire, despite them being a non-democratic feudal society centered on war. Why else would the enlightened Federation even deign to side with the barbarians, except to keep them from conquering Earth, Tellar, Andoria and even Vulcan?

 

Such a protracted conflict might be enough for the prime universe Federation to build a Vengeance-class azzkicker, just to finish it and stop the mass casualties, provided they still had the resources and protected territory to build such a thing. If push came to shove and defeat/possible extinction become likely, I could see Starfleet being inclined to build a pure war machine like that.

 

We never saw Prometheus in action in any meaningful way. We can assume it has tech that is new, but to take down a Galaxyh class or Sovereign class? We don't have enough info. Considering the latter are hero ships, I doubt it.

Defiant was a powerful ship that could fight well above its weight class, but better than a Galaxy? Not. For all intents and purposes, it was a prototype pocket battleship of sorts, intended for escort duty, that got pressed into service because starfleet couldn't cough up a Nebula or galaxy ship to protect DS9. So they dragged Defiant out of mothball.

If the Defiant was a pocket battleship, then the Galaxy and Sovereign classes were more like the Iowa and Yamato classes, to make an analogy. Unless Sisko is captain and they are using a cloak, a Defiant class couldn't expect to defeat a Galaxy class or Sovereign class under normal circumstances. Absolutely no way in a toe to toe "fair fight."

 

I'm not interested in getting into a tedious debate about the merits of ship classes and particular commanders. But in a pinch, quantity has a quality all its own. If a hundred Defiants can be fielded for the same resources invested in one Galaxy, I think the larger number would be preferable in a war, especially if they can "fight above their weight class".

 

Well, of course it would make sense to field 100 Defiants VS 1 Galaxy. Maybe even if it were 10 Defiants to 1 Galaxy, which is far more realistic. But that isn't what I was talking about.

At any rate, production of both types of ships is important and shouldn't be relegated to either\or. Each is designed for specific missions. Defiant classes would be best used as recon or supply convoy and battle group escorts while larger ships like Galaxy and Sovereign classes as main battle ships in battle groups.

 

I'm sure the Federation would field some larger ships in an extended war with the Klingons. I just don't think they'd look exactly like the ships the Federation produced in peacetime with exploration in mind. Since the war timeline does have a ship that looks exactly the same, it must indicate something about the similarities of the timelines.

At any rate, I still find it hard to believe that, in a prolonged war with the Klingons, Picard, Riker and the others all ended up in the exact same positions on the exact same ship. Again, that their career paths converged so exactly must say something about the similarities between the timelines.

Perhaps the parallels between the timelines say that the Federation didn't take the war as seriously as it should have in the early stages, so they focused just as much on exploration as they did in the prime timeline, but Starfleet found itself ground down by the relentless Klingon advances until they realized they should have been putting more resources towards the war then had been. By then it was too late....

 

To be technical, the E-D didn't look exactly the same on the bridge, and there were subtle differences on the interior shots. While it probably was mostly due to the cost of modifying the ship models for just a single episode, one can infer that maybe there were subtle differences to the exterior we could not see (IE enhanced shields, phaser arrays, torpedo bays we could not see, and the like). We just don't know.

I get what you are saying about how the timelines are too conveniently similar, but if you want to avoid tedious discussions, this is one to avoid, LOL!

The thing about alternate timeline and alternate\mirror universe episodes that have if you think too deeply about it, there shouldn't be the same characters at all. One event could erase cities of people. Butterfly effect and all that.

But yes, it is a fair assumption that both Federation and Klingon ships are close enough to the prime timeline to calculate a possible winner. But, it also must be considered when the war started, as well. 2340s vs 2372 is a big variable to account for, so in a word, all bets are off if you are strictly going by the YE timeline to say the Klingons would absolutely win.

BTW, like I said earlier, think it would be a stalemate for both sides, or Pyrrhic victory for the Klingons. I don't think the Feds could decisively defeat the Klingons.

 

Even if you handwave that the ship is different (though a set of stairs on the bridge do not a new class make), how do we explain the same people being in the same positions on the same ship?

 

Except it wasn't the exact same people, now was it? Troi and Worf were absent, while Yar was still alive. Only the rest of the command staff remain, however, we don't know how many of the "no name" crew members remain. For all we know, most of the crew is different.

 

Yeah, I think you missed my point. It doesn't matter if "most of the crew" is different. The command crew (the main characters) are exactly the same. What are the odds? They could've at least shuffled them up a bit.

 

They did, they removed Worf and Troi.

 

No you missed the point, actually. It's that, or you are just being intentionally confrontational. And of course it matters if most of the crew is different because it shoots your theory down. The command crew is made up of what is supposedly the best of the best in starfleet, being that the Enterprise is the flag ship in both timelines. Picard was the best captain who gets appointed the flag ship. Naturally he is going to make similar crew selections.

 

Worf doesn't count. Troi has the most non-appearances anyway. Doesn't mean she wasn't there.

I don't buy the "best of the best" argument, either. If Starfleet lets one captain hog the best officers of the fleet then they deserve to lose. If Riker is so good, he should be in charge of his own ship in the war timeline. Same with Data. And if the war has radically changed the events of the timeline, then the supposed "butterfly effect" should lead all the characters to be dispersed throughout the fleet, not concentrated on the same ship.

 

So which is it? The timelines are too similar or too different? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

 

The point is the war timeline isn't different, as shown by the completely same people serving in the same ship, which makes it a viable point in arguing the Klingons would beat the Federation, since they did beat them. If the E-D is the same, how could everything else be radically different? It can't.