Strength of Star Trek Powers

[Nightdiamond]

The Dominion and Borg are totally different animals when it comes to power.

Because of the way they work, the Dominion is able to set up a humongous military/industrial base in weeks where it would take an ordinary power months or years to do the same.

They turned a few hundred ships carrying supplies into thousands of ships/shipyards and bases and probably millions of soldiers.


I think the Klingon had a deceptively powerful military,

In "The Visitor", tensions between the Federation and the Klingons grew to the point where they had to turn over the station to the Klingons.

This suggests that the Klingons had the power to force the Federation out of the Bajoran sector.


To add some other things to the mix-the Ferengi are supposed to be the financial leaders of the AQ, as far as business dealings, investments and economics go.

That would mean Ferengnar holds a lot of wealth as far as trade, economic and liquid assets.

They would be a tempting target so they must have a capable militarily capable of defending it.

 

[Annorax849]

Sorry to bump, but I just wanted to say I disagree with the idea that the Cardassians were that much weaker than the other three. Weaker, yes, but there's still dialogue in DS9 that implies there's a "big four" situation in the Alpha Quadrant. I guess it's possible that was omitting the extremely xenophobic powers like the Sheliak, but we don't know for sure. My AQ(/BQ) rankings circa 2370 would be:
1. Federation
2. Romulans
3. Klingons
4. Cardassians
5. Breen
6. Tholians
Others

Ferengi are hard to rank. For all we know, they might just be one system, but like people stated above, they have a big presence.

 

[varek]

One of the advantages of the Federation is its numbers: the large number of member-races and planets. The Klingons and others were tough, but there were not as many of them as Federation forces.

 

[Destructor]

I always got the impression that the Federation was like the US during the Cold War- more militarily powerful, but because they were a democracy, less likely to want to go to hot war.

The Klingons are like the Soviets- over-invested in military resources, caring little for the general populace (compared to the US), viewing the US as weak, but so invested in war that they were a legitimate threat.

The Romulans were like China- basically isolationist, strong policing of their own peoples, keeping their heads down but building quite a bit of strength behind them, should they ever need it.

Not really sure there was a analogue for Cardassia- Germany, I guess. I got the impression they were a second-rate power after they got their asses kicked by the Federation, then withdrew from conquered worlds like Bajor, then got their asses kicked again by the Klingons and reverted to a paranoid security state, desperate for power.

Dominion was not meant to have a modern-day analogue. They were meant to be like Rome, or a dark mirror to the Federation.

Borg are awesome because they can be a metaphor for anything, but 'assimilation' is a bit of a keyword for what the British did to the Southern hemisphere.

 

[QuarkforNagus]

Based on my viewings of the show, it seems to me like the Q Continuum is the most powerful organization in the series. The Q dwarf all other civilizations.

And I think that the Klingons are not really like the Soviets. They're much more like the Vikings, with their emphasis on warfare. The Soviets were much more interested in intelligence gathering and obtaining scientific/technological advantages than simple combat. The Klingons are really just out for the glory of battle.

 

[Destructor]

Based on my viewings of the show, it seems to me like the Q Continuum is the most powerful organization in the series. The Q dwarf all other civilizations.

And I think that the Klingons are not really like the Soviets. They're much more like the Vikings, with their emphasis on warfare. The Soviets were much more interested in intelligence gathering and obtaining scientific/technological advantages than simple combat. The Klingons are really just out for the glory of battle.

Yes, my analogy only extended as far as their power relative to the Federation. Like, during the Cold War itself it was believed that the US and Russia were roughly equivalent- it's only looking backward after the Cold War that it seems obvious that the US was always economically, militarily and ethically superior.

 

[Annorax849]

Yeah, I always got the impression that TOS created the two main enemies as a sort of hybrid of modern (1960s) nations and ancient empires. The Klingons were the Soviets and Mongolians, while the Romulans were China and the Romans.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

And I think that the Klingons are not really like the Soviets. They're much more like the Vikings, with their emphasis on warfare. The Soviets were much more interested in intelligence gathering and obtaining scientific/technological advantages than simple combat. The Klingons are really just out for the glory of battle.

In TOS they're more like the Soviets. TNG made them into more like Vikings.

 

[Destructor]

Yeah, I always got the impression that TOS created the two main enemies as a sort of hybrid of modern (1960s) nations and ancient empires. The Klingons were the Soviets and Mongolians, while the Romulans were China and the Romans.

Great point- I never thought of that but it makes sense.

=In TOS they're more like the Soviets. TNG made them into more like Vikings.

Well, in fairness there was a lot of that in ST3, which more or less invented the modern Klingon. TNG simply extrapolated what was evident from that culture into the one we saw in TNG (and again, there's no reason that Klingon culture couldn't have actually changed over the century between those points)

 

[HIjol]

Independent thinking
Critical thinking
Problem-Solving Abilities
Outside-the-Box thinking
Strategic thinking
Flexible thinking
Royal Kick-Ass Weapons
Diverse Population
Insanely Cool Techno-Babble and Jargon
Compassion and Grace Under Fire
A Whole Slew of TV Shows About Itself...wait...no, um...skip
Proven Track Record of Bending and/or Breaking Every Known Law of Physics
...and some that are still unknown
Data
Holodeck Tech
The Enterprise

...I give you The Universe's Daddy, and Strongest of Them All...

THE FEDERATION

 

[HIjol]

Independent thinking
Critical thinking
Problem-Solving Abilities
Outside-the-Box thinking
Strategic thinking
Flexible thinking
Royal Kick-Ass Weapons
Diverse Population
Insanely Cool Techno-Babble and Jargon
Compassion and Grace Under Fire
A Whole Slew of TV Shows About Itself...wait...no, um...skip
Proven Track Record of Bending and/or Breaking Every Known Law of Physics
...and some that are still unknown
Data
Holodeck Tech
The Enterprise

...I give you The Universe's Daddy, and Strongest of Them All...

THE FEDERATION

Plus the holy trinity, best to third: Mister Scott, Mister Spock, and flying-leg-kick guy.

"Flying-Leg-kick-guy".

 

[Xerxes1979]

Cardassia is necessarily weak owing to small interstellar volume.

Bajor a planet outside its space is said to be a days travel from Cardassia Prime. That is not much to work with. It's not as though it DS9 is part of a extreme salient into Cardassian territory, if that were the case the Cardassians could simply envelop the territory around Bajor and restrict trade. This is never seen.

The Best of Both Worlds Part 2 mentions Wolf 359 which is a real star of a known distance and more or less on Earth's doorstep at eight LY distant. Vulcan is widely considered to be 15-20 LY from Earth. With these types of distances even pre-Federation human space would seemly be much larger than contemporary Cardassian space.

If the Cardassians were able to expand in any meaningful way in the direction of the Federation they would have do so in the past as many of the DMZ/border worlds were only settled a few decades prior.

 

[Annorax849]

Cardassia is necessarily weak owing to small interstellar volume.

Bajor a planet outside its space is said to be a days travel from Cardassia Prime. That is not much to work with. It's not as though it DS9 is part of a extreme salient into Cardassian territory, if that were the case the Cardassians could simply envelop the territory around Bajor and restrict trade. This is never seen.

The Best of Both Worlds Part 2 mentions Wolf 359 which is a real star of a known distance and more or less on Earth's doorstep at eight LY distant. Vulcan is widely considered to be 15-20 LY from Earth. With these types of distances even pre-Federation human space would seemly be much larger than contemporary Cardassian space.

If the Cardassians were able to expand in any meaningful way in the direction Federation they would have do so in the past as many of the DMZ/border worlds were only settled a few decades prior.

Cardassia being close to Bajor doesn't necessarily mean they're small, though. The impression is that Kronos and Romulus are both close to Federation space, it's just that there's a lot of territory on the other side of those planets, the same could be true for Cardassia.

 

[Xerxes1979]

The thing about Romulus however is that we know it is on the otherside of the neutral zone, and we know the neutral zone is directly stated to be 1 LY across originally.

One LY is a considerable distance for speeds at the lower end of the warp scale.

The implied spatial configuration of the various capitals is very problematic save Earth.

Cardassia just seems like it resembles Byzantium during its last days as opposed to when it was founded to help centrally administer a huge empire.

I give the Romulans some credit. Their capital could be St. Petersburg with the Baltic states being the neutral zone. The vast landmass of Asia would be the space in the direction of the delta quadrant.