(Possibly dumb) timeline--balance of power question

[Cepstrum]

This might have been asked before or be a dumb question, but I'll risk asking it anyway.

When Voyager returned in Endgame, it came back with highly advanced technology and the knowledge of even more that it got from the future Admiral Janeway (from both natural evolution from Starfleet scientists and Voyager's collection from its lengthy trip home).

We saw how this technology gave Voyager a huge advantage against the Borg. Now that Starfleet possesses all this, wouldn't it have a huge advantage against its contemporary powers? I know that its relations with the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians, but tensions remained, and were other enemies, such as the Breen. So wouldn't Starfleet be in a position of considerable dominance over its neighbors? How would that work? It seems it would shake things up quite a bit.

 

[Kai Winn]

we never see the gadgets again, no transphasic torpedoes and hull plating in insurrection and nemesis. the enterprise-e didn't even have quantum torpedoes, but the good ole photon war heads. my theory is that the time watchers from the future dropped in and confiscated the toys, but the voyager crew got away with the timeline violation because it had no bad consequences. wouldn't it be to easy if anyone can go into the future and obtain a crucial piece of technology? even a by design quite peaceful power like the federation might be tempted to drop a few ideals, like your post demonstrates.

 

[propita]

And the fact that they never bothered with whatshisface from Future's End tells me that that portion was a part of the timeline that culminated in the Relativity-group. They won't allow anything that will cause themselves to not exist.

 

[Cepstrum]

Yeah, I figured the Temporal Police might interfere. It's probably better not to think too hard about the TP but just take comfort knowing they always tidy up things like this.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Oh really! And here I thought that Starfleet did what was obviously the proper thing and locked it all away in a vault until they managed to develop it on their own!

*snort*

 

[Deks]

The temporal agents would probably not interfere.
We do not know if Endgame was a predestination paradox or not.
However, what we do know is that since the timeline has been altered, the one from which future admiral Janeway came from doesn't exist anymore, therefore, not using the tech seems a bit contra-dictionary.

I would argue though that SF would probably not utilize these technologies unless presented with a serious threat (such as the Borg again).

Though, one can also surmise that since the Borg were exposed to the tech in question, and managed to assimilate the deployable armor, SF would be idiotic not to pursue scientific research with say 7 of 9 and adapt the technology so it would be resistant to Borg weapons again (because the Collective may have lost their entire TW network and hubs, but sans their Unimatrix 01, they still have plenty of ships remaining, so that might result in the Borg that are just bidding their time to rebuild).

The Transphasic torps are fine for now since the Collective never managed to adapt to them, although modifying those as well just to be sure would be prudent.

It's entirely possible that SF would on the other hand deploy these technologies immediately on ships that are on deep-space exploratory assignments for better protection and to the rest of the fleet in times of war.

Although to be frank, SF can already gain a significant edge in virtually all areas without Voyager's technology and knowledge from the future ... the writers are simply the kind of people who use a specific tech one time and conveniently forget it in the next episode.

If we are to talk in some kind of a logical sense, SF would likely pursue research with the new knowledge and tech available and just proceed from there to try and make something better.

The Enterprise-E btw, WAS equipped with quantum torpedoes.
They just never used them in Insurrection (FC and Nemesis though, they were).

I suppose the writers cannot really come up with interesting stories with technologies as advanced (which is just an excuse of course because we know it can be done) so they periodically dumb everything down.

 

[SpyOne]

Time police might have confiscated the stuff. I kinda like that.

But big picture: 30 years advances isn't that big a deal.
We've seen Starfleet using ships that are 100 years old (although probably with some refits in there). Geordi told Scotty that Impulse Engine design hasn't changed in over 100 years. The Federation seemed to be a bit ahead of the Klingons, and the Romulans were a bit ahead of the Feds, and the Dominion was a lot ahead of all of them, so the Dominion War introduced more new-and-potentially-destabilizing tech than Voyager did.
The Federation seems pretty technologically static, really. I mean, they are getting better stuff all the time, but ... in less time than passed from TOS to TNG, we invented the car to replace the horse carriage, invented the airplane, put a man on the moon, and built the Space Shuttle! A WWII Battleship would crush the ships of WWI, and they were obsolete by 1950 or so.
And even so: if I took some state-of-the-art military gizmos (say, the brand new aircraft carrier George HW Bush with it's magnetic catapults) and gave it to an industrialized nation in 1980, would that tip the balance of power significantly? Would Australia be the dominant Superpower in the world today?

The main reason I want Temporal Investigations to take all the gizmos is so that I never ever see another starship with the Batmobile armor.