Size and Strength of Empires

[I am not Spock]

The Federation would have to be the biggest 'empire' in the Alpha Quadrant, at least.

The Klingons and Cardies wouldn't come close.

Has there ever been any indication how big Dominion and Borg space is?

 

[StarryEyed]

How do you know? That we never saw more than a few Klingon designs canonically (and the YE BOPs seemed pretty powerful) doesn't mean the Klingons couldn't build ideal warships in sufficient numbers. The alternate Galaxy seemed reasonably powerful too, naturally being a battleship in YE. While I agree that the Feds would have built more dedicated warships like the Defiant during the war, I also think they would have continued to use modified versions of a lot of the common designs, as they did during the Dominion War. I tend to think that Starfleet has a handful of Defiant type designs in peacetime, but can produce more as needed for wartime. The bulk of their ships are capable of doing both, though not necessarily excelling at war functions.

I don't KNOW but the on-screen evidence strongly suggests it. The Klingons are proud, tenacious warriors but they are not technical innovators. They use relatively simple, spartan ships that produce the most bang for the resources expended. That's the smartest way to go during warfare. But we also see on-screen that the Federation can do the same thing when they feel they have to and they can do it better.

The Klignons are one race. The Federation is 150 races - with an environment that encourages intellect rather than individual fighting prowess.

The only hope the Klingons would have against the Federation would be a swift, wide-scale surprise attack that causes wide-spread damage which the Federation could not recover from. A quick victory. If they don't achieve that, the Federation brings its considerable resources to bear and the Klingons don't stand a chance. The longer the war, the greater the advantage for the Federation.

 

[Myasishchev]

Considering how easy it is for rampaging aliens to penetrate deep into the heart of Federation space with only a handful of starships to intercept them, I'd say they ARE pretty bad at it. Imagine of V'ger had been a flotilla of Klingon battleships and not a Borgified NASA science project; Enterprise is still the only starship that stands in its way.

Well, that's possible. But I chalk that up to dramatic concerns more than anything else. At least in BoBW and First Contact, attempts were made to staunch the enemy, although the cubes were faster than virtually any ship, and stronger than basically all put together, and hence interception was going to be dicey. I am open to the possibility that the Starfleet of the 23d century was extremely wimpy, and that its deterrent strategy relied fundamentally on its second strike capability instead of active defense.

The Dominion managed to invade Betazed and even bomb the piss out of Starfleet Headquarters. Again: their defenses aren't all they're cracked up to be, but they seem more than adequate.

The Dominion managed to take a great deal--the Dominion was stronger than the Federation. Or, at least their free counters from the Gamma Quadrant were at first more numerous and permitted great offensive operations until the Feds and Klingons got their shit together, and the Romulans came into the war. As for the Breen attack on Earth, it wasn't exactly very successful. Personally, I wouldn't call any attack that didn't kill half the population of the planet and blot out its sun very successful, though, so ymmv...

OTOH, the NATO comparison doesn't exactly fit. Some Federation members are separated by hundreds of light years; I don't think "collective" defense is even possible at this scale.

The USSR was weeks across, but that didn't prevent resources and soldiers from beyond the Urals from assisting in its defense.

I don't think there was, mainly because the Dominion never bother to actually declare war on people, they just show up one day and start bombing you and they don't stop until you die.

Even if a formal declaration was made, I'm reasonably sure it takes a majority vote by Federation members to declare war or a peace treaty in either case, and all members have to abide by either decision. They would all probably coordinate through the Federation Council, but there's no reason for every ship in every fleet to contain representatives from every planet.

Actually, even NATO members don't do this. They use standardized ammunitions and radio codes--the English-speaking ones, anyway--but the British Army is still the British Army, the French Navy is still the French Navy; even in time of war, they don't get their orders from the Pentagon.

That's true. My point isn't that the UFP is like NATO (that's your point )--my point was that even NATO is legally bound to help defend any other NATO member if they are attacked within the geographic area delineated in the NATO charter. Each NATO member has already made a democratic decision to fight a war against any aggressor (i.e., Russia) on the European or North American continents. It's factually the case that any given NATO member, for argument's sake the United States, could have cowarded its way out even as T-80s rolled into the FRG, but any administration that did so would be doing so illegally, as the NATO treaty is our own law.

The population... of the Federation?

That Earth could economically, militarily, culturally and demographically dominate 149 others is not a "United Federation," but is essentially a benevolent Earth Empire.

Why? By your logic, the United States of America would be fairly categorized a "white empire," since a majority of people here are European in descent. I don't think that holds for the U.S., and I don't think it would hold for the Federation, especially when the human population is at best a plurality, not a majority.

Further, there has to be some species that is the most populous in the Federation. Why not humans, the ones that to every appearance do form a substantial if not predominant population bloc in the Federation?

Regarding 150 worlds, I'm not personally convinced that every one of those worlds is a homeworld. I think the designation of inhabited planets as planets in the legal sense, with full membership rights and responsibilities, was done relatively ad hoc, with some planets (like Alpha Centauri) acquiring the legal status of "planet" despite probably having no aboriginal sapients of its own, only immigrants. For a more theoretical example, imagine Romulus requesting admission to the Federation. While this is kind of absurd, the absurdity increases by an order of magnitude to think that Romulus would accept a legal status as a Vulcan colony--even though it is in fact a Vulcan colony. To compare it to something more concrete, the United States isn't going to join United Earth as a legal subject of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I reckon that stuff like that happened on a smaller scale during the Federation's formation--planets that had developed independent governments were admitted as full members. It's entirely possible that dozens of UFP legal planets are dominated by their original immigrant populations of human, Vulcan, Tellarite, Deltan or whatever.

Anyway, I would estimate the population of the Federation were 1.5 to 2 trillion, based on the death toll projections from "Statistical Probabilities." A human population of 150-200 billion would represent a sizeable if not dominating faction, in the depressing event that political issues revolved around species identification at all.

I see no reason why the human population be that great, either. The natural restraints on growth, and the artificial ones Western culture place on it and the legal ones places like China attempt to place on it, aren't really present under the United Earth. Even with a billion down in the 2050s, that leaves probably six or seven billion remaining to spread out among the stars and multiply.

Between human fecundity and increased lifespans, 150-200 billion humans in 2375 is not an outrageous proposition. I did some quick and dirty math, assuming a 25% increase from 6 billion every 20 years, and that yields a population of 170 billion.

Indeed, we might have started off demographically far more robust than our alien friends. Even with the difficulties pon farr cycle put aside, Vulcan doesn't seem like a place capable of naturally supporting even the present human biomass at our standard of living--even our average human standard of living. Nor does Andor (and this is assuming Andor is Earth-sized, when all we know for sure is that Andor has roughly Earthlike gravity). We could have easily started off into space with a great many more individuals than they did, and with a higher proclivity toward fruitfulness.

What the hell does naval tradition have to do with it? Even Starfleet draws on naval tradition by analogy only; it has no historical ties to ANY naval organization, and appears to evolve from civilian space exploration agencies like NASA and Roscosmos.

Of course, we know the Vulcans had a space service of their own in the mid 2150s, and we know this service was already hundreds of years old when humans were playing with the first chemical rockets. The Andorian space service is at least as old, and until relatively recently in galactic history was technologically more advanced and better organized than Starfleet. I find it extremely hard to believe that either organization would simply capitulate the bulk of their operations to a brand new alien organization run by a race that had only recently discovered warp drive, whose crews had no deep space experience and whose vessels had to borrow technology from other races just to be competitive. The only way this could be logically justified is if every other Federation member had their space services totally decimated by someone or something in such a way that they were never able to rebuild it and were so demoralized that they never had a reason to do so again for two hundred years.

Which, again, is not the United Federation of Planets, it's just a polite version of the Earth Empire.

I was just sayin' that we might have more names for ships, is all.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Why? By your logic, the United States of America would be fairly categorized a "white empire," since a majority of people here are European in descent.

Pretty much, yes. The term "manifest destiny" used to be very popular in American historical mythos. It denotes the fact that the country has the form it does today because one ethic group violently subjugated dozens of others, marginalizing their cultural and religious traditions in favor of the dominant system. A more brazen example would be the path of Hawaii to U.S. Statehood, over the extremely vocal objections of what was (at the time) the legitimate native government.

I don't think it would hold for the Federation, especially when the human population is at best a plurality, not a majority.

Most especially since cultural/military domination is invariably performed by more advanced civilizations against more primitive ones, and in this case it is abundantly clear that Earth is NOT the most advanced civilization in the Federation.

Further, there has to be some species that is the most populous in the Federation. Why not humans, the ones that to every appearance do form a substantial if not predominant population bloc in the Federation?

"Most populace" and "majority" are two different things. Humans are too strongly over-represented in Starfleet for that organization to be representative of the Federation population as a whole and it probably better indicates the population of Earth.

Indeed, we might have started off demographically far more robust than our alien friends.

But not culturally or technologically, which would be required for the kind of dominance you propose. OTOH, if this is the trend that follows in the Federation it's possible that a hundred years from now Starfleet Headquarters will be on Deep Space Nine and the President's office will be on Bajor.

I don't KNOW but the on-screen evidence strongly suggests it. The Klingons are proud, tenacious warriors but they are not technical innovators.

And yet we know from ENT that the Klingons were already considerably more advanced than humans in the 22nd century; the first time we see them, they're reading an intelligence report encoded in a messenger's DNA. They also possess shields and transporter technology decades before Starfleet ever develop either technology, and it is implied that they also acquire advanced technology from the Xyrilians that the more peaceable Starfleet is unable to... er... appropriate from them.

This gives the Klingons AT LEAST 50 years head start over the Federation, probably far more than that considering they'd been in space for several centuries already. They may not boast of their innovativeness the way Starfleet does, but they've been in space alot longer than Starfleet has, and that has to count for something.

The only hope the Klingons would have against the Federation would be a swift, wide-scale surprise attack that causes wide-spread damage which the Federation could not recover from. A quick victory. If they don't achieve that, the Federation brings its considerable resources to bear and the Klingons don't stand a chance. The longer the war, the greater the advantage for the Federation.

False analogy: you're thinking Imperial Japan vs. United States in 1945. The cards do not fall nearly so neatly since, in the first place, the Klingon Empire is--again--much older than the Federation and with a much broader range of colonies and outposts, some of them hundreds of years old. In the second place, the Federation is not the United States of America; we know that Earth is a wealthy planet with alot of resources, but we do not know the status of most other worlds and their military/industrial capacities. Even if they do contribute to Starfleet directly--which is not at all certain as this discussion shows--it has not been established that all or even most of those 150 worlds even have ship-building capacity that would be of any use to the war effort.

And again, the fact that Klingon technology is probably somewhat more advanced than Federation tech; their weapons and shield systems are probably a bit more powerful, and while Starfleet sensors are more sophisticated, Klingon targeting sensors--specifically optimized for combat--would be faster and more precise. Circumstantial evidence for this: Romulan technology may be more or less on par with Starfleet, but they evidently felt it was worth their while to borrow Klingon designs to get an advantage over Starfleet. This makes the most sense if the Romulans knew the Klingon D7 was in some way superior to anything they could have produced themselves, which in turn would be gauranteed superior to anything in use by Starfleet.

 

[Timo]

Well, we were watching it from the perspective of a single Federation starbase in the Bajor sector. It's entirely possible that most of the Vulcan and Andorian fleets fought enormous pitched battles in totally different sectors, especially since most of the DS9 crew was mainly focussed on the area around Cardassia and DS9, "front and center" as it were. I figure the Andorians and Tellarites probably fought alot more of the defensive actions of the war close to Federation space, since their fleets don't do a whole lot of deep space exploration and were probably geared mostly towards energy exploration in near space.

While this is theoretically possible for part of the war, the DS9 theater of operations saw involvement of a fleet that was specifically tasked with protecting Earth previously; it sounds unlikely that Andorian or Tellarite forces would be considered sacrosanct from such significant redeployments... And when the Dominion effected its massive withdrawal to the Cardassian home system, Starfleet would assuredly have taken every element of its forces to join the chase and the final showdown - at gunpoint if necessary. The total absence of "ethnic" starship types from such key battles seems proof enough that "ethnic" starships don't exist. However, admittedly it is no proof that "ethnic" Starfleet elements utilizing generic ships wouldn't exist, and possibly be present in those battles.

Actually, it's even likely that the Cardassian front was only PART of the conflict, a part which Starfleet happened to be majorly involved in

Or perhaps a part which Starfleet happened to be minorly involved in. Klingons had a greater interest, being older enemies of the Cardassians, and having shortly had actual real estate in the region, which is more than the Federation could ever claim. And after "Sacrifice of Angels", DS9 became a strategic backwater for all the parties: worthless as a wormhole terminal now that the wormhole no longer worked, and probably hopeless as an approach route to Cardassia because of its great proximity and subsequently permanently heavy defenses. (The latter is something we have to handwave somehow, because there really was conspicuously little action around DS9 outside "Sacrifice" - a bit like the seeming lack of action between Washington and Richmond in the Civil War, probably.)

Still, there's little excuse for the "ethnic" fleets not to take part in whatever action did happen at DS9: all of it would have been large-scale, preplanned stuff, from the initial "Call to Arms" synchronized mining-and-raiding to the retaking of the station to the use of the station as a staging point for the Chin'toka attack to the final invasion of Cardassia. Not local defending, but massive campaigning involving a broad selection of assets.

if you're watching a movie about WWII that only focussed on the Pacific Front, you might not be aware that halfway around the planet the Red Army had fought a long and brutal holding action against the Nazis in which twenty million of their own soldiers were killed.

Quite true - but then again, we did see action corresponding to the Eastern Front before Pearl Harbor, or to the Pacific theater after V-E day (or after the final landings against Fortress Europe, meaning the British and French navies would have operated almost solely in the Pacific). The absence of "ethnic" forces from that sort of action would be strange to the extreme, unless we postulate really major alternative action we never heard of.

The only hope the Klingons would have against the Federation would be a swift, wide-scale surprise attack that causes wide-spread damage which the Federation could not recover from. A quick victory.

Playing of strategy games such as Civilization suggests that this could well have the evidenced outcome. Strike against a technologically superior (computer-run and thus somewhat complacent) enemy with audacity that brings his R&D centers and key resources to ruin, and you don't gain a swift victory. Instead, you gain a prolonged yet inevitable one. Your own production is hopelessly outmatched, so you can't recover from your early losses, the ones that guaranteed you your victory. But the enemy is hopelessly disorganized, and you have every chance to defeat him in detail, fighting local actions everywhere so that he cannot regroup, not without exposing yet another flank to a swift suicide attack.

At the end of such a war, decades down the line, your army is completely depleted, while elements of his might remain - but his empire lies in ruins, and the best the enemy army can hope for is join forces with a third party and carry on the fight from there. The stupid computer adversaries rarely do that, but then again, real world losers usually don't find warm welcome abroad, either. And what known player in Star Trek would really ally with the UFP at a moment of defeat?

IMHO, there are many enjoyable parallels between the Klingon/UFP confrontation and a round of Civilization where your Napoleonic culture challenges a truly industrial one... The goal of the war wouldn't be a "conventional" one, such as confiscating a key resource or location, or forcing a desired political change - but a cold and calculated plan of ruining the enemy's day, pure and simple, at whatever cost. No mercy, no stopping after initial victories, no counting of own losses, because the reward would only come at the total ruination of the enemy, at which point your own relative ruination would no longer matter.

Have there ever been such wars in real history? They go totally against the Western mindset, but then again, the Klingons don't possess that mindset.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

While this is theoretically possible for part of the war, the DS9 theater of operations saw involvement of a fleet that was specifically tasked with protecting Earth previously

Exactly. The Earth branch of Starfleet is all we ever saw in DS9, sort of like how the U.S. Navy and a handful of Australians is all you ever see in "PT-109".

it sounds unlikely that Andorian or Tellarite forces would be considered sacrosanct from such significant redeployments...

What redeployments? We never got to witness any significant fleet actions near Andor OR Telar or any of their colonies, bases, outposts or interests. In fact, what little we do see outside of the Bajor/Cardassia sectors takes place in the Argolis Cluster and and occasional jaunts to Klingon and Romulan space (which we hear about only because Our Heroes happen to be involved).

And when the Dominion effected its massive withdrawal to the Cardassian home system, Starfleet would assuredly have taken every element of its forces to join the chase and the final showdown - at gunpoint if necessary. The total absence of "ethnic" starship types from such key battles seems proof enough that "ethnic" starships don't exist.

Not at all. We do not know from where else the Dominion were retreating FROM, nor what a Dominion retreat actually looks like. Consider, for example, the total lack of U.S. tanks when the Soviets captured Warsaw; does this mean that non-soviet tans don't exist? Or conversely: the lack of Soviet warships at the battle of Okinawa; does this mean that non-American warships don't exist?

However, admittedly it is no proof that "ethnic" Starfleet elements utilizing generic ships wouldn't exist, and possibly be present in those battles.

No, I doubt they were present at all. It was, after all, a pretty big war. Besides, I don't recall seeing many Romulan ships at the Battle of Cardassia either...

Actually, it's even likely that the Cardassian front was only PART of the conflict, a part which Starfleet happened to be majorly involved in

Or perhaps a part which Starfleet happened to be minorly involved in. Klingons had a greater interest, being older enemies of the Cardassians, and having shortly had actual real estate in the region, which is more than the Federation could ever claim. And after "Sacrifice of Angels", DS9 became a strategic backwater for all the parties: worthless as a wormhole terminal now that the wormhole no longer worked, and probably hopeless as an approach route to Cardassia because of its great proximity and subsequently permanently heavy defenses. (The latter is something we have to handwave somehow, because there really was conspicuously little action around DS9 outside "Sacrifice" - a bit like the seeming lack of action between Washington and Richmond in the Civil War, probably.)

Indeed... it's possible the Dominion were only using Cardassia as their main base and had actually launched major occupations on several strategic worlds near Federation space. Removing them might be almost as tricky as capturing Cardassia.

Still, there's little excuse for the "ethnic" fleets not to take part in whatever action did happen at DS9: all of it would have been large-scale, preplanned stuff, from the initial "Call to Arms" synchronized mining-and-raiding to the retaking of the station to the use of the station as a staging point for the Chin'toka attack to the final invasion of Cardassia. Not local defending, but massive campaigning involving a broad selection of assets.

But if those fleets all operate independently, the planning session would delegate individual assignments to different fleets. DS9 and a few other sectors would be assigned to Earth Branch, with their own internal command structure to hammer out the details. Other valuable fronts would be assigned to the fleets of different worlds who likewise are responsible for handling the details on their own. Again, not unlike WW-II where multiple fronts are handled by different commands--sometimes in different countries--that coordinate their efforts through higher offices but don't actually meld into each other.

Quite true - but then again, we did see action corresponding to the Eastern Front before Pearl Harbor, or to the Pacific theater after V-E day

Such action would--in DS9--be equivalent to a Dominion/Cardassian attack on a Federation ally with diplomatic/military ties to Andor or Telar. We did not see or hear anything about that, and I doubt we would unless it affected Sisko and Company directly.

In the afterwards, again, we saw very little that affected any other Federation world other than Earth and Betazed. Indeed, even the Breen only joined the Dominion because they specifically wanted to conquer Earth for some reason; suppose some other AQ race joined the Dominion with an axe to grind against the Bolians or the Xindi? We probably wouldn't have heard about them, but the Andorian and Bolian fleets would have a hell of a time containing their fleets, hundreds of light years away from Cardassia.

 

[DevilEyes]

That's the chief reason I don't like Yesterday's Enterprise. I cannot suspend disbelief. There is no way the Klingons would have a prayer against the Federation - especially in a long war.

That said, the Klingons and Romulans dedicate much more of their resources (percentage-wise) to military purposes (during peacetime) than the Federation does. This makes them dangerous opponents.

The Soviet Union devoted a lot more of its resources to the military then the U.S. did, but they still lost the cold war. I think militaristic societies tend to have diminishing returns because so much of their resources go into non-renewable items.

And that has what exactly to do with the military...? The Soviet Union did not lose a war, it fell apart on its own because of its internal weaknesses, its economic and political system and its bureacracy. Nothing to do with USA, and certainly not a result of any kind of military conflict with another country.

 

[Myasishchev]

the lack of Soviet warships at the battle of Okinawa; does this mean that non-American warships don't exist

Foul. The USSR was not at war with Japan during Operation Iceberg, and so I would not expect to see any Soviet combatants involved in the fighting for Okinawa. Interestingly, the Commonwealth was heavily involved, with Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada's combined Task Force 57 providing considerable power to the naval and air components of the battle.

Anglo-American joint action was a commonplace, almost universal feature of the European war (Overlord, Market Garden, the Battle of the Atlantic, the air offensive), and not alien at all even in the Pacific. And this was from countries not formally united in peacetime as a federation.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

the lack of Soviet warships at the battle of Okinawa; does this mean that non-American warships don't exist

Foul. The USSR was not at war with Japan during Operation Iceberg, and so I would not expect to see any Soviet combatants involved in the fighting for Okinawa. Interestingly, the Commonwealth was heavily involved, with Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada's combined Task Force 57 providing considerable power to the naval and air components of the battle.

Anglo-American joint action was a commonplace, almost universal feature of the European war (Overlord, Market Garden, the Battle of the Atlantic, the air offensive), and not alien at all even in the Pacific. And this was from countries not formally united in peacetime as a federation.

Actually, I was referring to the MOVIE portrayal of such events. Something tells me if we were actually witnessing the events as a historical documentary there would be a few dozen Andorian and Telarite vessels present at the Battle of Chin'toka and a few other campaigns.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

That's the chief reason I don't like Yesterday's Enterprise. I cannot suspend disbelief. There is no way the Klingons would have a prayer against the Federation - especially in a long war.

That said, the Klingons and Romulans dedicate much more of their resources (percentage-wise) to military purposes (during peacetime) than the Federation does. This makes them dangerous opponents.

The Soviet Union devoted a lot more of its resources to the military then the U.S. did, but they still lost the cold war. I think militaristic societies tend to have diminishing returns because so much of their resources go into non-renewable items.

And that has what exactly to do with the military...? The Soviet Union did not lose a war, it fell apart on its own because of its internal weaknesses, its economic and political system and its bureacracy. Nothing to do with USA, and certainly not a result of any kind of military conflict with another country.

That was my point. Societies that devote so much of their resources to the military tend not to be strong expansionist powers, but weak societies with a crumbling infrastructure.

 

[Timo]

The Earth branch of Starfleet is all we ever saw in DS9

We don't know that - all we know is that one fleet formerly tasked with Earth protection (and by no means established as part of an "Earth branch") was among the many elements present in the DS9 battles. We saw parts of at least four numbered fleets, and all of them relied on generic Starfleet hardware. We also only heard of about a dozen fleets ever, suggesting the four were a good sample of those (it would be statistically unrealistic to think that there were fifty fleets if we got all the numbers from 2 to 10 but nothing higher). Our only remaining option seems to be to think that only Earth numbers its fleets; otherwise, we have to accept that we already see good enough a sample to exclude the possibility of "ethnic" hardware.

What redeployments?

Elements of three fleets were to be moved to Bajor in "Favor the Bold", and only one was identified with a previous mission relating to Earth; one was apprently commanded by a Vulcan, one by a human. None were implied to have been part of the DS9 theater of operations previously, and indeed the implication was the opposite. So Starfleet does move its numbered fleets around, making it a bit weird if no "ethnic" elements ever came in contact with our DS9 heroes.

We do not know from where else the Dominion were retreating FROM, nor what a Dominion retreat actually looks like. Consider, for example, the total lack of U.S. tanks when the Soviets captured Warsaw

Yet the Dominion withdrawal was explicitly stated to be total. There would be no battles elsewhere at all - or if there were, Starfleet could concede those to the Dominion outright and send its forces to Cardassia where they mattered. And there was certainly time to do so; if significant forces elsewhere were available for redeployment, they would have been discussed before Ross, Martok and Sisko entered the final fray. So once again, "ethnic" forces would seem to be marginalized; if they did exist, they were not considered worth utilizing or mentioning.

Besides, I don't recall seeing many Romulan ships at the Battle of Cardassia either...

To better facilitate the use of "segregated" stock footage, the writers did suggest that the three different nationalities would play different parts in the combat plans. But again, this dialogue didn't mention "ethnic" fleets, assign the Tellarites the left flank or the Andorians the rear guard, even when Klingons and Romulans (and later Cardassian turncoats) were given specific tasks.

Indeed... it's possible the Dominion were only using Cardassia as their main base and had actually launched major occupations on several strategic worlds near Federation space. Removing them might be almost as tricky as capturing Cardassia.

There certainly were major "maneuver arrows" on the maps far away from Cardassia for much of the war. But supposedly the Dominion was already in retreat before they managed to secure the Breen help. The total withdrawing of all Dominion forces was expressly commanded, and apparently did take place so that those forces got to Cardassia before the UFP/KE/RSE fleet did - suggesting there would have been no major off-Cardassia holdings of the Dominion at the time of the withdrawal.

Indeed, even the Breen only joined the Dominion because they specifically wanted to conquer Earth for some reason

Hmh? They wanted to conquer Cardassia, their old enemy. They had to pay an entrance fee for that privilege, and it was an attack against Earth. Where would they have expressed any desire to conquer Earth?

Really, the Dominion was a point threat initially and in the bitter end, radiating out of Cardassian space. Countering it with segregated action would make little sense. There would have been fighting everywhere at some stages of the war, but the plots explicated a point threat at the start and end of the war. The "ethnic" forces, if they existed, would probably have insisted on being present at the end, as the endgame was well defined and enacted on Alpha rather than Dominion initiative.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

There are a couple of things to bear in mind about Starfleet.

Plenty of folks are operating on the assumption that we've seen a representative sample of what Starfleet's general composition is like. I don't accept that assumption at all. The Federation has over 150 worlds across thousands of light-years, and has numbered fleets that each have hundreds of starships. In Star Trek, we've gotten an up-close look at exactly four Federation Starfleet crews.

That is not a large enough sample for us to know what most of Starfleet is like.

There's no reason at all to think that Humans dominate Starfleet just because we've seen Human-dominated crews.

 

[Timo]

We have seen plenty of guest starships, though. None of them have supported the contrary hypothesis that human ships would be in a minority. Instead, save for two ships, all have either featured mixed crews or been captained by a human. Of those two ships, one was in every way indicated to be generic Starfleet, just with a fully Vulcan crew. Another had a Vulcan crew although wasn't 100% explicitly called Starfleet or anything else.

If we argue that there is a hidden "ethnic fleet" somewhere out there, it is really hiding very well. Apart from the four hero ships, we have seen hundreds of other vessels on the outside, none with an obvious "ethnic" nature. We have looked at the skippers of dozens upon dozens of ships, and seen some of the other crew of half a dozen vessels. That's already a surprisingly representative sample, even if we assume the total fleet is some 10,000 ships strong.

Moreover, the sample has been taken without a bias. Our hero ships have visited a great variety of targets within and outside the UFP. There really aren't too many nooks and crannies where the "ethnic" ships could hide. Not unless we specifically postulate that they are hiding - that Starfleet rules or local customs forbid all interaction...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RAMA]

My power ranking, circa the end of the Dominion war, from 1-10:

1. Dominion-9 Depleted but still strong
2. UFP-7.5 Re-armed for war but also heavy losses
3. Romulans-7 Lost a fleet but took less drastic losses than the Klingons.
4. Klingons-6 Battle happy Klingons took heavy losses despite probably having numerical superiority in ships over the UFP
5. Breen-4 Still allied with Dominion?
6. Tholians-4 Neutral but still a small force
7. Cardassians-1 Not so good

 

[Sci]

We have seen plenty of guest starships, though. None of them have supported the contrary hypothesis that human ships would be in a minority. Instead, save for two ships, all have either featured mixed crews or been captained by a human. Of those two ships, one was in every way indicated to be generic Starfleet, just with a fully Vulcan crew. Another had a Vulcan crew although wasn't 100% explicitly called Starfleet or anything else.

If we argue that there is a hidden "ethnic fleet" somewhere out there, it is really hiding very well. Apart from the four hero ships, we have seen hundreds of other vessels on the outside, none with an obvious "ethnic" nature. We have looked at the skippers of dozens upon dozens of ships, and seen some of the other crew of half a dozen vessels. That's already a surprisingly representative sample, even if we assume the total fleet is some 10,000 ships strong.

Moreover, the sample has been taken without a bias. Our hero ships have visited a great variety of targets within and outside the UFP. There really aren't too many nooks and crannies where the "ethnic" ships could hide. Not unless we specifically postulate that they are hiding - that Starfleet rules or local customs forbid all interaction...

Timo Saloniemi

I'm not arguing for the existence of an "ethnic fleet" -- I'm arguing that Starfleet is a generally mixed-species organization that may practice species segregation on the basis of humanoid vs. non-humanoid, but in which no one species is pre-eminent.

And I would certainly argue that Earth does not wrangle other Federation Members into sending forces to a given conflict. That decision is clearly made by the Federation President and Council, not the Earth government, and not the other Member governments.

 

[Myasishchev]

My power ranking, circa the end of the Dominion war, from 1-10:

1. Dominion-9 Depleted but still strong
2. UFP-7.5 Re-armed for war but also heavy losses
3. Romulans-7 Lost a fleet but took less drastic losses than the Klingons.
4. Klingons-6 Battle happy Klingons took heavy losses despite probably having numerical superiority in ships over the UFP
5. Breen-4 Still allied with Dominion?
6. Tholians-4 Neutral but still a small force
7. Cardassians-1 Not so good

Hey, I like this concept. I wanna do my own...

1. Federation-9: more militarily powerful and interventionist than it has ever been before. Dozens of worlds that it would have never have contacted before have been ravaged by Dominion occupation, turning them into de facto Federation protectorates and prospective Fed members, including Cardassia itself; the fleet is larger and better armed than ever; politically and socially, the Federation is prepared to remake the Alpha Quadrant in its own image and to maintain the new status quo. They lose a point because of the depletion of Starfleet's pool of experienced, trained personnel in the war.

2. Romulans-7: the other big winners of the war, they gained the most for the least invested. No doubt they occupied large swathes of Breen and Cardassian space. Even after the Reman coup, actual damage to the Romulans' productive capacity is small. They would score higher, but before the war they probably would have ranked 5 relatively. They've gone up.

3. Tholian Assembly-6/7?: gut feeling. No involvement during the war. Neither gains nor losses.

4. Ferengi Alliance: 6/7: positive social and economic change during the war, no losses (or virtually no losses) due to the war, and relatively weakened neighbors means the Ferengi might be the only major power left other than the Federation and Romulans.

5. Klingon Empire-4: virtually broken by the war. Structural problems in their political and military systems were exposed by the war, and I suspect internecine fighting is going to reduce the Klingons' relative power even more. They've been going downhill since Praxis. The Dominion just pushed them into the ditch.

6. Gorn Hegemony-3/4 (?): almost impossible to rate the Gorn due to lack of info. Non-canon has them as a Fed ally. I never presumed they were particularly powerful, but it looks like they were worthwhile enough to try to dragoon into the war. Their participation was likely rewarded with enhanced prestige and perhaps some physical concessions from the Federation and Klingons. They could be a breakout power in the post-war world.

7. Cardassian Union-1.5: unconditionally surrendered, homeworld half-vaporized, but in the unique position of having the Federation's sympathy, despite the fact they basically started the war. The Feds will probably rebuild Cardassia on Federation terms. I'd expect a request for Federation membership in the next several decades.

8. Breen Confederacy-1: I suspect they unconditionally surrendered. No sympathy from the Federation, less from the Romulans and Klingons. At the mercy of their conquerors.

9. Dominion-0: unconditionally surrendered and dissolved. The war doesn't really end justly if the Dominion continues to exist in its pre-war form, dominated by the Founders. I assume it was dismantled, with the Founder, Vorta, Jem'Hadar populations relegated to Federation protectorate status.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

My power ranking, circa the end of the Dominion war, from 1-10:

1. Dominion-9 Depleted but still strong
2. UFP-7.5 Re-armed for war but also heavy losses
3. Romulans-7 Lost a fleet but took less drastic losses than the Klingons.
4. Klingons-6 Battle happy Klingons took heavy losses despite probably having numerical superiority in ships over the UFP
5. Breen-4 Still allied with Dominion?
6. Tholians-4 Neutral but still a small force
7. Cardassians-1 Not so good

The only difference I would have with you you is I would put the Breen in a lot better position. They were still militarily very strong having joined the war so late. If they found a way to tweak their dampening weapon again they'd be a major threat to the Romulans and the Federation. And just because they were allied with the Dominion doesn't mean they'd let the victors run over them post war. In fact if there was any post DS9 Trek I would have bet on the Breen to be the major adversaries.

 

[Anwar]

[

9. Dominion-0: unconditionally surrendered and dissolved. The war doesn't really end justly if the Dominion continues to exist in its pre-war form, dominated by the Founders. I assume it was dismantled, with the Founder, Vorta, Jem'Hadar populations relegated to Federation protectorate status.

It didn't end justly then, because what we saw just basically said that they went back to the Gamma Quadrant and that was it.

 

[Hofner]

Here's my ranking:

Federation-12 inches long, 2 inches thick.
Dominion-10 inches long, 1.5 inches thick.
Romulans-7 inches long, 1 inch thick.
Klingons-6 inches long, 0.75 inch thick.
Cardassians- stubby pencil.

This IS what it all boils down to isn't it?

Robert

 

[Myasishchev]

[

9. Dominion-0: unconditionally surrendered and dissolved. The war doesn't really end justly if the Dominion continues to exist in its pre-war form, dominated by the Founders. I assume it was dismantled, with the Founder, Vorta, Jem'Hadar populations relegated to Federation protectorate status.

It didn't end justly then, because what we saw just basically said that they went back to the Gamma Quadrant and that was it.

I don't think it says one way or the other. Let me have my victory for good.