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Rank the 2nd and 3rd rate powers of the AQ/BQ

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Photon

Photon

Commodore
Commodore
We know the big dogs
1)Feds
2) Klingons
3) Romulans
Then the next tier....4) Cardassians
What about the others? Tholians, Gorn, Miradorn, Breen, Tzenkethi, Talarians, others?

Sidebar: Fed engineers and engineering will keep them ahead of the 2 and 3. Notice how quick the Fed engineers got their ships up to snuff versus the formerly superior Jem Hadar war ships
 
Here is my ranking, it is based on their technological capabilities, still some of these species have never been given much screen time so it is just a rough guess.

1. Tholians
2. Breen
3. Tzenkethi (they have never been on screen so it is based on what I have read in the books)
4. Gorn
5. Talarians
6. Miradorn
 
I'd put the Tholians, Breen and Gorn at "second rate" and Talarians and Miradorn at "third rate". I'd put pre-war Cardies at second rate. They probably were in a worse shape after the war...
 
There's also those super-powerful ones that aren't considered threats because they're isolationist. Zalkonians, Sheliak. Powers who seem like they'd easily destroy the Federation if they chose to and just don't care to invade anyone. Zalkonians win the battle by strangling the entire crew with their minds before taking a shot.
 
I'd say the Orion Syndicate was probably up there somewhere. Didn't operate the same way as the governments but I got the impression that they were more than just an annoyance to the Federation.
 
I wouldn't be sarcastic about the Ferengi. Their ships are mentioned to be as powerful as anything that Starfleet can muster. They don't have civil wars, and they do have pirates with the tactical acumen to capture the Enterprise.
 
Only because in one episode a writer decided the Enterprise had inept security. Any other episode they don't surrender the ship because one man had a gun to his head.

Did we ever observe their ships to be as powerful as anything in Starfleet? They said they were in Last Output, but no Ferengi ship has ever has ever seriously threatened a fully powered Enterprise.
 
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Beyond Dana's tactical analysis? Not that I know of. But the Ferengi are easily stronger than the Talarians and their tier.
 
Surely it's advantageous to let your enemy think your ships are more powerful than they actually are. If you believe the Ferengi vessels are as powerful or more powerful than your own would you risk testing that belief?

Whilst the Federation Starfleet ships might not look powerful most races who know of the Federation know it is unwise to enterstimate how powerful their ships are.
 
For a science and expl. ship the E-D and esp the E-E could kick some serious butt. Really would have like to see the Ent-E vs Jem Heavy Battleship, or did we see that ship heavily moded in Nemesis?
 
MacLeod said:
Whilst the Federation Starfleet ships might not look powerful most races who know of the Federation know it is unwise to enterstimate how powerful their ships are.
Click to expand...
Well, at least the current hero ship, other Starfleet vessels not so much.


=
 
I guess I'd go with Finn's list, but drop the Cardassians down to third rate before the Dominion pact. Their ships were impotent against Starfleet ones, their conflict with the UFP essentially forgotten even when it was still ongoing, and their full military might soundly defeated by a lowly Starfleet Commander and his three runabouts for the first two years of DS9.

Since they supposedly still went toe-to-toe with the Breen, I'd drop those guys down a notch, too: they could be all smoke and mirrors (and helmets), appearing scary until they actually entered a conflict and had to show their hand. Starfleet feared their alliance with the Dominion at the time it was made, but the Breen subsequently kept to being scary rather than powerful (suicide strikes, exotic superweapons rendered harmless after the first few uses).

Timo Saloniemi
 
I would place Starfleet and the KDF in the first tier, modern equivalent would be the US Navy. Only the Klingons possess the ability to destroy or conquer the entire Federation, with the reverse being true..

The Romulans and the Cardassians are second tier, equivalent to the Russian Navy and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (China). Their ships can stand toe to toe with majority of Starfleet vessels, but their forces are smaller, maybe a third the size. Either could seriously damage the Federation, but unlikely either could destroy or conquer it, in it's entirety. The Romulans are superior to the Cardassians, but still on the same tier.

The Breen and the Tzenkethi are in the third tier, equivalent to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and the Royal Navy (UK). The Tzenkethi have fought (successfully?) one or more wars with the Federation and the impression I have is that Starfleet takes them seriously. The Breen also have in some fashion built a reputation as a people who you don't casually mess with.

The Miradorn and the Talarians are forth tier, equivalent to the Brazilian or the Indian Navy. Their starships are (perhaps) of foreign construction and are tasked with self protect and defending their economic exclusion zones. The Talarians did fight (successfully?) the Federation, and Miradorn were enough of a power for the Dominion to bother signing a nonaggression pact with them.

The Ferengi are the wild card, I wouldn't be surprised if their "warships" and fleets are each privately owned, and I could see their abilities varying widely. Some would be technological battle show pieces that could stand against the best the Federation or Klingon Empire had to offer.

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1. Breen- They were a silent, secretive power, all along they were hiding some advanced bio-technological and energy dampening technology.
2. Tholians- Hard to tell but they don't seem very numerous, but they are powerful for their size.
3. Gorn- The Gorn were aggressive but probably not bad guys in the 24th century. The Federation was actually in the wrong in "Arena". Their ship was losing before the Metrons took over.
4. Tzenkethi- All 3rd hand information on them but they apparently gave the UFP a tough time.
5. Talarians- probably a 4th rate power.
 
The Organians basically disappeared immediately after we first meet them, by the 24th century (which we seem to be speaking of) the Organians haven't been heard of in a century.

In my mind, the Borg collective was completely destroyed at the conclusion of End Game and are no long an issue.

The Q are a tough one to categorize, it's unclear how many there were originally, and there must be fewer after their civil war. Quinn said they're not actually as powerful as they make themselves out to be, and as many have noted Q himself was obviously afraid of Guinan. Could the Federation devise a technological defense for the Q?

You can't really say no.

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Sorry to bump, but this is something I've always found interesting.
Since this is about "other powers," I'll just say UFP, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians are the top four. Not equal at all, but top four. I'd put Breen fairly close behind Cardassians, since they were implied to be pretty powerful.

Next would probably be Tholians, but there's also the Tamarians. Picard said they occupied a region of space, and their ships were more powerful than a Galaxy class. There's the Sheliak too, but they might be so isolationist that even other species have no idea how strong they are. The Ferengi might be around this level, too. They were retconned a lot, but they were implied to be a significant rival in early TNG.

Under that I would probably put Talarians, Gorn, and Tzenkethi. Talarians and Gorn have pretty much the exact same background in that they attacked colonies they found intrusive. The Tzenkethi might be a bit stronger, but I'm not sure. They're never mentioned in these discussions (edit: surprisingly, they were here), but there's also the Zalkonians from "Transfigurations." At least at the time of the episode, they seemed pretty formidable.

I guess after that would be the Orions, Pakled (they controlled at least one other system), and finally the Son'a. I don't know of other races that had significant influence beyond their homeworld.
 
I think the Tzkenethi might actually be stronger than the Cardassians b4/after the war.
 
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