Starfleet vs. Klingons (who wins)
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yes 2500 Klingon ships against what was it 30000 dominion/breen and cardassian ships. I think this amount was overstated as no way could 2500 stand against 30000 the Dominion would and should steam roll them by sending 7500 ships after them and the rest of the fleet into Federation/Romulan space war should have been over.
That was a big issue with that episode it over sized the Dominion Alliances fleet or undersized the Klingon one.
would have more sense if they said we'll have 2500 Klingon ships to engage the Breen and hold that front whilst you guys find a counter measure to the energy draining weapon.
Anyway back on track Klingons may have dealt the Federation its own Pearl Harbour but it was far more successful than the real one and did cripple the Federation war effort to the point where all Starfleet could do was fight a defensive war and never take the offensive against the Klingons. Allowing the Klingons to slowly push the Federation back deeper and deeper into their own space.
That was a big issue with that episode it over sized the Dominion Alliances fleet or undersized the Klingon one.
would have more sense if they said we'll have 2500 Klingon ships to engage the Breen and hold that front whilst you guys find a counter measure to the energy draining weapon.
Anyway back on track Klingons may have dealt the Federation its own Pearl Harbour but it was far more successful than the real one and did cripple the Federation war effort to the point where all Starfleet could do was fight a defensive war and never take the offensive against the Klingons. Allowing the Klingons to slowly push the Federation back deeper and deeper into their own space.
Would Starfleet have fared any better in their position?
Come to think of it... how did Klingon shields fare against Dominion weapons between seasons 3-5? Starfleet shields were no match for the type of weapons employed by the Dominion until they were able to make some adjustments to their shield tech sometime in late season 5. By the visuals, the Romulan/Cardassian fleet in "The Die Is Cast" didn't seem to be doing too well either, in that department.
True. I think that this points to the priorities and techniques of ship construction between the two powers, though, more than anything else. Compare the destruction of the Odyssey in "The Jem'Hadar" after being rammed by a bug, to the destruction of the Vor'Cha in "Tears of the Prophets", also to ramming (specifically, the second Vor'Cha to go down, the one that gets hit straight on, not just clipped in the wing pylon). Clearly, a Galaxy class is a hell of a lot more durable without shields than a Vor'Cha.
I only recall two ships lost: one shot down by a Galor early on (legit), and then one to hold off the pursuing Jem'Hadar at the end (Kor's fault). Other than that first ship, most of the damage/casualties suffered by the Klingons was a result of Kor's senior moment, not Martok's plan.
How do we know that? In the entirety of filmed Trek canon, we have seen exactly two Klingon military leaders: Gowron and Martok. We saw both of them during the same conflict - the Dominion War - and we know that the former was ineffective as a military leader due to having let his ego overtake his sense, and that the latter was highly effective. The former was removed due to said ineffectiveness - though the reluctance of Martok and the other Klingon leaders to do anything about him, the fact that it took Worf, and prodding from a non-Klingon, to actually take care of the problem, does point to some serious flaws in Klingon society, particularly with respect to their leaders. So the phrase "the Klingons have a leadership problem" is correct, but there is no evidence that - as a rule - their military leadership and strategic capabilities, specifically, are deficient. At least, not compared to anyone else in the Trekverse (more on that in a minute...)
There's no solid evidence for that, actually, aside from Picard's line in "Peak Performance". I disregard it, because that entire scene is ridiculous, and the attitudes presented by Riker and Picard are contradicted by the actions of everyone involved in the war games (including themselves) later in the very same ep. Don't wanna get too deeply into this specific topic, though, because it has the potential to derail into its own huge discussion (see: the massive thread on it from a while back that I posted a bunch of times in.
). On the other side of the coin, Nog mentions the word "soldier" in reference to himself and Starfleet officers in general a number of times, and no one ever reacts to it.While I agree that the weird, thumb-trigger phasers are pretty silly, and wish they had never been invented (at least the curved version in DS9 is better than the ORIGINAL phasers from season 1 TNG, which really did look like dustbusters!), I don't see how that really affects anything. They were perfectly good weapons, despite looking stupid. Unless you are just joking here, in which case, ignore this.
Now, as I mentioned above, more on this issue of tactical effectiveness of one military vs. another... Rojixus and Wonderer both mentioned that Starfleet's performance was "less than stellar". But here's a question: whose performance was "stellar"? Nobody's, really. Not Starfleet, not the Klingons, not the Dominion... Trek writers just aren't that good when it comes to military tactics. Consequently, if you take everything on screen at face value, it would seem that all of the major powers employ poor tactics and inefficient strategy left and right, and it's only the "least bad" (or sometimes, "most lucky") that wins. I tend to look at these things and say, well, these tactics are awful because it's a TV show that wants to be dramatic. If it were "really happening", the tactics would be better. (It's the same with hand-to-hand combat: going strictly by what's on screen, EVERYONE in the Trek universe is terrible at it).
Eh, not quite. The Klingon fleet didn't just go toe-to-toe with "the whole Dominion". They were simply able to hold a defensive line, taking the brunt of attacks, and try to keep the Dominion from pressing its numerical advantage. This was Martok's goal with all the hit-and-run raids and whatnot, to keep them off balance and prevent them from committing to any major, concentrated offensives until the Federation and Romulan fleets could be protected against the Breen weapon. Plus, the Dominon's major advantage during that period was entirely dependant on Breen ships being present and able to us their dampening weapon effectively. In any engagement where that wasn't the case, the field was once again even.
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The Dominion was by far the most effective military during the war:
A dominion expeditionary force (2800 ships short of the total number of ships the Dominion could spare, as established in 'Sacrifice of Angels'), with only a few months time to rebuild a run-down power, second-rate even in its glory days (the cardassians) came very close to overwhelming the federation and the kingdoms while allied - and, almost certainly ('Statistical probabilities'), it would have conquered the alphans, had Sisko not pulled a romulan rabbit out of the hat in 'In the pale moonlight'.
The obvious conclusion is that this dominion expeditionary force could have conquered easily the federation alone or the klingons alone.
And, of course, at the end of the war, the Dominion territory was unscathed and its expeditionary force retreated to the gamma quadrant with, at most, acceptable losses; the alphans, on the other hand, were seriously weakened by the war - especially the klingons, as mentioned by Sloan and confirmed by Bashir ('Inter arma enim silent leges').
Not very flattering for the federation, the klingons or the romulans - on a galactic scale, they themselves proved to be, at best, second-rate powers.
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It was even fewer number if I recall correctly; the Klingons had only 1,500 ships against 30,000. Insane.
I had a hard time buying that one. I thought they should have scaled back that number just a little.
There should be no reason the Dominion was retreating back into their own space with that kind of firepower. But perhaps it IS possible;
History-wise, 300 Spartans defended a mountain pass against a much larger Persian army-simply because they knew how to fight.
The Klingons come off as reckless but quite a few times they demonstrate they have a pretty disciplined military.
They knew exactly how to collapse DS9's shields and boarded the station, something even the Dominion didn't get to do.
Add cloaked ships that can fire, laying cloaked mines- they're formidable.
They seem to have a "get the job done" style of fighting.
I had a hard time buying that one. I thought they should have scaled back that number just a little.
There should be no reason the Dominion was retreating back into their own space with that kind of firepower. But perhaps it IS possible;
History-wise, 300 Spartans defended a mountain pass against a much larger Persian army-simply because they knew how to fight.
The Klingons come off as reckless but quite a few times they demonstrate they have a pretty disciplined military.
They knew exactly how to collapse DS9's shields and boarded the station, something even the Dominion didn't get to do.
Add cloaked ships that can fire, laying cloaked mines- they're formidable.
They seem to have a "get the job done" style of fighting.
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I think we could all agree ST doesn't do "military" well for anyone....
The Jem'Hadar always seemed to me to be the most "military" looking and acting force.
Cardassians don't count?
And the Klingons at least Try.
And the Klingons at least Try.
Did you even read the section of my post that you quoted? I never said the Dominion wasn't winning till the Romulans joined the fight, or that they weren't superior to any one of the three major AQ powers in sheer numbers. I was talking about military tactics. In terms of what we saw on screen, ALL of the players - Federation, Klingon, Cardassian, Romulan, Dominion, Breen - employ tactics ranging from very basic to downright poor. I was not addressing who was more powerful than who with that passage, I was addressing the fact that Trek is not that great with tactics, and battles/wars seen IN Trek are, consequently, poorly thought out in that regard.
I even said that I don't think any of these powers "really" would be so incompetent, that it only appears that way because it's a TV show created by real human writers/producers. If it were "reality", I have no doubt that all sides would have exhibited better military capabilities.
And it's more than 2800 ships, since that was the reinforcements; that would have been added to the assets they already had in the AQ. There are also other circumstances contributing to the lopsided nature of the conflict early on, as well as a lack of concrete evidence establishing just HOW much bigger the Dominion (by itself, without the Cardies or Breen) is compared to the Federation (also by itself, no allies). There are other issues I have with some of what you said as well, but that's all pretty far off-topic.
Yeah, they are reckless, but it doesn't seem to hinder them all that much, heh. It's very "all-out", they don't hold anything back.
And even then, they are not THAT reckless: "Sons and Daughters", "Soldiers of the Empire" and "Once More Unto the Breach" showed Klingon soldiers at their best. It was almost contradictory to some of their previous appearances; earlier shows made them appear more simple minded, but in those eps, we saw calculated risks, deliberate actions taken for a reason, and - when the situation called for it - all-in, charging, sword-waving offense. Late DS9 contains by far the best incarnation of Klingons in the entirety of filmed Trek, IMO.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at, really. There are a lot of things that one can wonder about the military forces in Trek (bad tactics? no body armor? phasers/disruptors that supposedly have all these capabilities yet are almost never used for anything other than straightforward, one-shot-at-a-time frontal assaults? personal force fields?). I enjoyed the war story and battle scenes despite these things, but there certainly are some issues that are hard to explain away.
Cardassians do look and act quite military - and not just the actual military, but a lot of civilians, too. Still, one of the best "badass soldier" showings in all of Trek belongs to... Starfleet. "The Siege of AR-558." That was the episode that really showed that when their back is to the wall, they can hang with anyone in terms of determination, ferocity, and endurance on the battlefield. With that episode in mind, it's interesting to think about how some of the last-ditch efforts to hold the line might have gone in the YE war: even if the Klingons were well on their way to "winning the war", and would ultimately claim victory overall, they might have gotten more than they bargained for during the last several months...
I just rewatched that episode. Its interesting how typical it is for one side to turn the others assests to their own interest, given enough time of course. That indeed is how the war was won. When the dominion grabbed a few planets, they shot all the way to earth basically. Again when Fed takes back said planets they can eventually blast the dominion and only really worry about carassians/breen. Now lets carry this over to the Klingons. they HAVE done this before, Genesis ofc, but they usually rely on numeric advantage and "bravery" to win through, with a little treachery on the side. That treachery may be the deciding factor in a proposed Klingon vs Fed war. Do the mass-producing Feds or the "spartan" klingons win? As Ive said before, the Fed would get tired of the fight and make a device to win the war which the Klingons would steal.
I think the Klingons would win initially due to their brutality. They would annihilate a few planets or a few fleets, taking the time to clean the planet clean of humans and leaving no ship even somewhat intact and this would demoralize the Feds but the Klingons would lose momentum after time. They go in 'whole-hog' or nothing.
What was shown on-screen often displayed poor tactics, yes, but it was intended to be only a small part of war, and often, was due to lacking fight coreography/ship movements FX rather than the characters' command decisions.
I look at the situation metatextually.
PS - The Dominion expeditionary force was not superior to the alphans in sheer numbers. The sides were ~equally matched in numbers; at least, this seemed to be the writers' intent.
Also, the Federation/Klingons/Romulans kept up with the Dominion ship-building speed, if only barely - as per Worf's statement.
I said:
"A dominion expeditionary force (2800 ships short of the total number of ships the Dominion could spare, as established in 'Sacrifice of Angels'), with only a few months time to rebuild a run-down power, second-rate even in its glory days (the cardassians) came very close to overwhelming the federation and the kingdoms while allied[...]"
2800 were missing; the dominion expeditionary force was most likely intended to number ~10000-15000 ships.
The gamma quadrant Dominion contributed nothing to the war beyond the initial expeditionary force.
And whatever strategic/tactical advantages the Dominion expeditionary force had, they were of its own doing; no one 'cheated' by giving them to the Dominion.
The Federation/Klingons, for example, never thought of building their own monster sensor array.
The Federation never thought of using the multitude of exotic weapons we know it encountered previously - and which were, potentially, far more effective than polaron weapons.
Also, in a galaxy were powers such as the borg (which, as per 'Scorpion', has MILLIONS of cubes) and the Dominion (its military prowess was proven, regardless of its size) exist, the Federation/Klingons/Romulans ARE second-rate powers - at best.
As per the subject of this thread: at the end of the Dominion War, the Federation would win easily a war against the Klingons:
Sloan directly said the klingons were the most affected by the war and won't be a threat to anyone significant for the next decade or so - Bashir confirmed this statement - 'Inter arma, enim, silent leges'.
Odo said the klingons and romulans would be in no position to conquer anyone for some time to the female founder, who all but confirmed this statement by not contradicting it, despite her paranoia - 'What you leave behind'.
Yep. It's the only way I can swallow it too.
As a lone exception, I think Balance of Terror managed to do a pretty good job of presentation with the tools at its disposal. However, one should remember that it was adapted from a very specific source depicting a destroyer against a submarine, something whose tropes, at the time, were both fairly elaborate and also well understood given the history and popularity of World War II films.
Yes, it's often because of choreography, special effects, etc.; yes, I look at things out-of-universe (the fact that the show is produced by real, fallible humans) as explanations, rather than assuming the people in universe are idiots. I've said so, twice, so I don't see what point you are trying to make here, since we seem to agree on this particular aspect.
My mistake, I did misread that part of your post. I thought you were referring to the fact that 2800 ships were being looked at as a turning point; both sides acknowledged what a disaster it would be for the Fed alliance if those reinforcements came through. I see now what you meant, so my response that you quoted there should be disregarded.
That said, as to the rest, it's turning into a larger and larger tangent on the particulars of the Dominion War, which is a pretty major derail for this thread, thus I'm not going to engage in it.
Yeah, it seems that the implication was that the UFP was in perhaps the best shape out of the three when the dust had settled. Which is a bit odd, considering that the Romulans really didn't suffer THAT much in terms of personnel and ships lost to the war, compared to the Klingons and the Federation...
What's really weird to me is the "what you see is what you get" approach. I've seen many people say this regarding some of Trek's recurring flaws, that they treat the shows like "documentary footage." If something happens that makes no sense, an in-universe explanation is the only acceptable one (so if Data gets a math problem wrong, then Data's programming is bad, and no one else on the bridge caught it; if the hand-to-hand combat looks bad, then it really IS bad, and the playing field is simply kept level by the fact that everyone else in the galaxy seems to be as bad at it as the Feds are, etc). I really don't understand this mentality, as if I say to myself "I am watching a show about idiots", then it really takes away from my ability to take the show seriously. And it ISN'T a documentary of real-life events; if it were, the tactics wouldn't have been devised by a television producer, they would have been devised by a tactician.
Yeah, that was pretty good actually, at least in the context of its time. Despite my preference for the 24th century shows in general, I'd have to say that TOS might even have been a little better in that area overall, not just in that ep. Of course, some of it is for reasons other than intentionally "getting it right": for example, the classic Trek problems of ships firing at each other from very close ranges (instead of from very far away, which they are supposedly capable of doing), and of friendly ships being bunched WAY too close together when advancing on an enemy formation, are neatly dodged by the fact that the TOS budget and available techniques/technology made it too difficult to show other ships in that way. If they'd had the ability to show fleets and battles the way DS9 did, would those problems have surfaced? We may never know.
This is how I look at it. Knowing how the Klingons are, I think it is safe to assume if they were strong enough to defeat the Federation they would have at least tried.
Since they did not, I think it is safe to say that at the very least, THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE they could defeat the Federation.
Since they did not, I think it is safe to say that at the very least, THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE they could defeat the Federation.
I didn't take the time to take the entire thread, but here's my take on it.
I always had the feeling that in Archer's time, the Klingons were superior to Earth, and perhaps even to Vulcans in terms of sheer military force, that in Kirk's time the Federation and the Klingons were about evenly matched, and in Picard's time that the Federation had become distinctly stronger than the Klingons, but that the Klingons were still one of the major powers, just not quite as powerful as the Feds. This is just the general "feeling" I got from the different series.
And I think it would be logical that way. A single monolithic society, even when it spends a lot of resources on the military, would probably be outcompeted by a solid alliance of dozens of races and worlds, all with different aptitudes, doing research in different directions in the long run.
I'll admit that it's rather hard to reconcile the events in Yesterday's Enterprise with this view, especially as I suppose these two universes were identical up until the point of divergence 20 years prior.
I always had the feeling that in Archer's time, the Klingons were superior to Earth, and perhaps even to Vulcans in terms of sheer military force, that in Kirk's time the Federation and the Klingons were about evenly matched, and in Picard's time that the Federation had become distinctly stronger than the Klingons, but that the Klingons were still one of the major powers, just not quite as powerful as the Feds. This is just the general "feeling" I got from the different series.
And I think it would be logical that way. A single monolithic society, even when it spends a lot of resources on the military, would probably be outcompeted by a solid alliance of dozens of races and worlds, all with different aptitudes, doing research in different directions in the long run.
I'll admit that it's rather hard to reconcile the events in Yesterday's Enterprise with this view, especially as I suppose these two universes were identical up until the point of divergence 20 years prior.
The first post in this thread mentioned Section 31 could create a virus to kill all Klingons like they did the Changelings. Problem with Section 31 is anything underhanded they might try, the Klingons, Romulans, and others might also. And those guys have the full resources of their respective governments backing them. Section 31 only works when you don't think about it too hard.
What's that smell? Oh, this thread was dead for five years.
@Scott Houghton , I can appreciate that you're trying to get into the Halloween spirit, but we generally discourage bumping threads that have been inactive for more than a year. Feel free to start a new one.
Thanks.
@Scott Houghton , I can appreciate that you're trying to get into the Halloween spirit, but we generally discourage bumping threads that have been inactive for more than a year. Feel free to start a new one.
Thanks.
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