• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Most Powerful Military Powers in Star Trek

Which is the most powerful military?

  • Starfleet

    Votes: 17 22.1%
  • Klingons

    Votes: 2 2.6%
  • Romulans

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • Dominion

    Votes: 57 74.0%

  • Total voters
    77
  • Poll closed .
And they kicked butt - much like the Americans.

Wrong. The Americans entered World War I much later than their allies, hence their being labeled "late to the party." They didn't kick anyone's butt. If anything, American prevented Germany from winning the war, but to say that they were the reason the "good guys" won is completely off-base. And this is coming from an American. If you ever say something like your above comment to anyone from Great Britain, you'd better stand back.

--Sran
 
And they kicked butt - much like the Americans.

Wrong. The Americans entered World War I much later than their allies, hence their being labeled "late to the party." They didn't kick anyone's butt. If anything, American prevented Germany from winning the war, but to say that they were the reason the "good guys" won is completely off-base. And this is coming from an American. If you ever say something like your above comment to anyone from Great Britain, you'd better stand back.

--Sran

I didn't say the Americans entered WWI before anyone else, maybe you should get some glasses, I said once they arrived, they did really well in preventing Germany from winning the war.
 
I didn't say the Americans entered WWI before anyone else, maybe you should get some glasses, I said once they arrived, they did really well in preventing Germany from winning the war.

No, you didn't.

kgartm1185 said:
And they kicked butt - much like the Americans.

That's what you said. I said the Americans prevented Germany from winning the war. I think you're the one who needs glasses (you could use an ass-whipping, too).

--Sran
 
The federation managed to come up with shields efficient against dominion weapons only after it obtained a dominion ship.

No such causality was ever indicated. You could just as well claim, equally baselessly but equally plausibly, that the Breen weapon was based on reverse-engineering or the stealing of foreign blueprints.

Besides, you completely misunderstand the concept of reverse engineering here. Naturally, any military technology ever developed would rely heavily on intel about the foes it's supposed to be used against. But developing a Dominion-proof shield isn't done by stealing the skill from the Dominion, because there's no evidence the Dominion has such a skill. They just have the guns that go through Fed shields; developing a defense against them involves studying them one way or another, but is a separate effort overall.

It managed to develop a countermeasure for the breen energy weapon only after it obtained the weapon.

...Whilst the Breen apparently developed nothing after obtaining hundreds if not thousands of free Federation, Klingon and Romulan ships through their use of the energy-gobbling weapon. (Of course, they never developed anything apart from that weapon, that we'd know of...)

Timo Saloniemi
 
Timo
1 The dominion and the breen both came up with weapons the federation proved unable to counter - because it needed direct access to to them in order to even understand them properly.
Starfleet has nothing even resembling such technologies to bring to bear (or do you count S31 as starfleet?).

2 It's directly established that the federation didn't understand the fundamentals of the breen weapon - until they could study one.
Considering the length of time federation shieds were vulnerable to dominion weapons, that was accurate about dominion weapons, too.

Despite your semantic hair-splitting - and coming up with utterly unsupported affirmations -, reverse engineering these technologies proved a sine qua non step in order to create countermeasures. Without this step, the federation would have failed, losing the war.

So:
The federation still looks pathetic - that's because the creativity of its famed engineers that could turn 'rocks into replicators' proved inferior to the breen's/dominion's. It got bitch slapped on its own claimed turf.
 
I didn't say the Americans entered WWI before anyone else, maybe you should get some glasses, I said once they arrived, they did really well in preventing Germany from winning the war.

No, you didn't.

kgartm1185 said:
And they kicked butt - much like the Americans.

That's what you said. I said the Americans prevented Germany from winning the war. I think you're the one who needs glasses (you could use an ass-whipping, too).

--Sran

Really, your going to stoop down that low, I thought you'd be a little more mature considering you're an adult and that maybe your parents taught you manners. You really don't have to use language like that.

Saying that they "kicked butt" could mean anything, like that the Americans prevented Germany from winning the war.
 
Russia was the main reason the axis lost the war.
Even a cursory look over the number of divisions the germans had deployed - AND were destroyed - on the eastern front and the western front (FAR fewer on the latter); over the losses suffered by the russians and by UK+USA shows this.

As for the outcomes - UK was the great loser of the war - as long term consequences go. It started the war as a great empire; by the time it was over, UK - USA's adjutant - was transformed into and remained a second rate power.
 
^That was more largely down to the UK being broke. Massive devestation at home. The US mainland never eally suffered any signfignat damge from bombs being droppped on it. And thus never had to rebuild it's towns and cities.
 
Really, your going to stoop down that low, I thought you'd be a little more mature considering you're an adult and that maybe your parents taught you manners. You really don't have to use language like that.

You're whining about my use of the term ass-whipping? After you copped an attitude because I called you out about your questionable wording of an earlier post? Give me a break! You're welcome to post here as long as you like, but if threat of an ass-whipping is enough to send you over the edge, you should probably spend your time elsewhere.

kgartm1185 said:
Saying that they "kicked butt" could mean anything, like that the Americans prevented Germany from winning the war.

Precisely my point. You need to be clear in what you say. Your may think the meaning of your statement is implicit, but as someone who isn't familiar with your jargon or how you word sentences, I'm not guaranteed to understand the point you're making, nor is anyone else. Maybe I'm at fault for perceiving an ambiguity in what you said, but I don't think it's too much to ask that you clarify what you're trying to say.

--Sran
 
I didn't say the Americans entered WWI before anyone else, maybe you should get some glasses, I said once they arrived, they did really well in preventing Germany from winning the war.

No, you didn't.

kgartm1185 said:
And they kicked butt - much like the Americans.

That's what you said. I said the Americans prevented Germany from winning the war. I think you're the one who needs glasses (you could use an ass-whipping, too).

--Sran

Over this discussion? Oh I think not. Yank it back a tad, says a Yank.
 
It would be really neat if some of DS9's battles were reimagined with modern SFX if the series ever goes HD. They really struggled to make a reasonable TV space war with models and early CG. I'd like shields instead of the seemingly flammable kerosene filled hulls too. :)

Won't happen-the most that we could hope for is an upgrade in picture quality just like TNG and nothing more than that-a CGI upgrade of everything on the show would make the DVD cost $400.00 bucks (for Blu-Ray) on top of the special features.
 
I didn't choose the Dominion because 1) They were defeated so obviously they weren't the best and 2) The Jem'Hadar were dependent on the White to stay alive.
 
Really, your going to stoop down that low, I thought you'd be a little more mature considering you're an adult and that maybe your parents taught you manners. You really don't have to use language like that.

You're whining about my use of the term ass-whipping? After you copped an attitude because I called you out about your questionable wording of an earlier post? Give me a break! You're welcome to post here as long as you like, but if threat of an ass-whipping is enough to send you over the edge, you should probably spend your time elsewhere.

kgartm1185 said:
Saying that they "kicked butt" could mean anything, like that the Americans prevented Germany from winning the war.

Precisely my point. You need to be clear in what you say. Your may think the meaning of your statement is implicit, but as someone who isn't familiar with your jargon or how you word sentences, I'm not guaranteed to understand the point you're making, nor is anyone else. Maybe I'm at fault for perceiving an ambiguity in what you said, but I don't think it's too much to ask that you clarify what you're trying to say.

--Sran

I think you misunderstood me completely. I never copped an attitude with you at all. And I wasn't sent over the edge by your threat. I just didn't understand why what I said in my first post was so bad.

But now I understand what I did. I wasn't clear on what I meant. I should have said that the Americans came in far too late in the war and finally helped to stop the Germans.:)
 
1 The dominion and the breen both came up with weapons the federation proved unable to counter - because it needed direct access to to them in order to even understand them properly.

Nope. The Dominion and the Breen both came up with weapons the Federation proved fully able to counter - they simply needed direct access to them, as is usual in most "countering".

Of course, this also highlights how Starfleet was utterly superior in the art of capturing enemy hardware intact and putting it to good use. That's another field where the Dominion and especially the Breen show their impotence: we learn that capturing of ships (or making them disappear, which may or may not amount to same) is bread and butter for both these powers before the war, but it appears to give them zero advantage (and indeed appears to cease happening!) once the war gets going.

Starfleet has nothing even resembling such technologies to bring to bear (or do you count S31 as starfleet?).

Supposedly, Starfleet Medical came up with the bioweapon, as per Bashir's investigations. Also, Starfleet personnel studied Odo, and they thus were the ones to infect him with the weapon. Whether S31 even exists, let alone is responsible or can be held responsible for anything, is quite doubtful.

Despite your semantic hair-splitting

You mean pointing out that you don't have the faintest idea of what the big words you use actually mean?

Anyway, the score still is at very best Breen 1, Dominion 1, Federation 2. Nothing the enemy had millennia to prepare for was to last for more than a few years - or, in the Breen case, more than a few weeks - against the utterly superior UFP R&D machine. That's pathetic showing for the other powers.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Despite your semantic hair-splitting
You mean pointing out that you don't have the faintest idea of what the big words you use actually mean?

Ad personams as well, I see, Timo.
Your hypotheticals have no support in canon whatsoever*; and your semantic hair-splitting is irrelevant.
As such, your dictums - for example "utterly superior UFP R&D machine" are without value. Deal with it.

The dominion/the breen remain able to come up with weapons the federation can't understand properly without capturing the weapon.
The federation is not able to come up with any such weapon; the dominion/breen didn't need to capture starfleet ships to properly counter its weapons.

And there are other examples of federation creative impotence:
The dominion had the antiproton scan that could see through cloaks; then it came up with the long range tachyon scan.
The federation proved unable to reliably see through romulan/klingon cloaks despite its best efforts (see the whole of TNG). Again, pathetic.

*BTW, as per Bashir, quite a few S31 people worked on the virus. He never even came close to speculating Starfleet Medical created it.
 
Much like the British.

They turn up late to the fight in "Sacrifice of Angels" - much like the Americans ;)
And they kicked butt - much like the Americans.;)

Wow - just came back in here, for a "wink wink" exchange of banter that got serious real quick!

In WW2 an alliance of great nations, including the USSR, USA and GB but also Canada, Australia, Brazil, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia etc. co-operated to defeat two evil aggressive empires and create a relative peace that has lasted for 70 years.

As for the Trekverse, and on-topic, I'd have to say the Federation emerged from the Dominion War with extreme power and influence.
 
As for the Trekverse, and on-topic, I'd have to say the Federation emerged from the Dominion War with extreme power and influence.

As per DS9 the series, yes, the predictions are in this direction.
If one considers the trek literature continuity (continuing after the series/movies) - ouch. Being a federation citizen looks like a losing proposition.
 
Ad personams as well, I see, Timo.

Ah, debating rules - the last refuge of the dimwitted.

When you waste twenty lines posting irrelevant insults and claiming that the other poster has "no substance", you merely repeat a familiar pattern. Have no fear, we already know you for the empty barrel you are. Can we now get on with the actual subject matter?

The dominion/the breen remain able to come up with weapons the federation can't understand properly without capturing the weapon.

Perhaps they "remain able" to do so, but that cannot be confirmed as they never actually do so. That is, they never come up with anything new once their pre-existing trump card is rather swiftly and effortlessly trumped.

In any case, it's still Federation matching the two other powers blow for blow, so your pretense of "Breen superiority" or "Dominion superiority" always was fundamentally unfounded. If those other powers have a reaction time at all, it's glacial; the Federation solves problems typically within an episode and even in the worst cases within a season or two.

BTW, as per Bashir, quite a few S31 people worked on the virus. He never even came close to speculating Starfleet Medical created it.

Ah, but there are no other S31 people besides Sloan (and a few nameless background extras in "Inquisition", seen only on a holodeck and thus perhaps not extant for real). Bashir traced down the virus to Starfleet Medical, then contacted Starfleet Medical about "having found a cure", and was treated to the Sloan response. Everything else was just talk, mostly by the fundamentally untrustworthy Sloan.

Timo Saloniemi
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top