Have a look at the 'Starfleet Academy training bases and annexes' section, here. Those are just what has been mentioned in screen canon, but nothing has said that there aren't more, and as I said above, I believe you are correct.
The Federation's man power advantage
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
There's really no reason at all either the Klingons or the Romulans should have too much difficulty matching the Federation. They're both significantly older than the Federation. Since the Federation mostly seems composed of single worlds plus whatever colonies Federation members have founded AFTER joining the Federation, it's fairly likely that the Klingon and Romulan empires both contain far more Klingon/Romulan majority colonies than the Federation contains Human/Vulcan majority colonies. Add to that the fact that both species live much longer than humans and, as far as I can tell, most other Federation species, with the major exception of Vulcans.
It's also very much a mistake to focus entirely on military manpower. The military manpower is only made possible by the underlying infrastructure, and all the evidence in the series points toward the idea that the Federation focuses the vast majority of its manpower towards that infrastructure and civil society, whereas the Empires are almost entirely devoted to warfare. On top of which comes the fact that nearly the entire Klingon or Romulan population is probably available for military/political service, with the majority of lower ranking infrastructure/social positions being shoved off on the conquered peoples who compose the lower classes.
The only real problem here is Cardassia, which supposedly didn't even start expanding until relatively recently (within the lifetime of the Federation, I think). Part of that could be explained with a high number of children in families (I don't recall if there's any evidence for that). Otherwise, I would guess the only reason the Federation had any trouble in the Cardassian War is probably because they couldn't devote the full force of Starfleet to the war at all (or they would open themselves to attack from other warlike empires, like the Klingons/Romulans). And maybe the Cardassians had some very useful technology or really good tacticians.
It's also very much a mistake to focus entirely on military manpower. The military manpower is only made possible by the underlying infrastructure, and all the evidence in the series points toward the idea that the Federation focuses the vast majority of its manpower towards that infrastructure and civil society, whereas the Empires are almost entirely devoted to warfare. On top of which comes the fact that nearly the entire Klingon or Romulan population is probably available for military/political service, with the majority of lower ranking infrastructure/social positions being shoved off on the conquered peoples who compose the lower classes.
The only real problem here is Cardassia, which supposedly didn't even start expanding until relatively recently (within the lifetime of the Federation, I think). Part of that could be explained with a high number of children in families (I don't recall if there's any evidence for that). Otherwise, I would guess the only reason the Federation had any trouble in the Cardassian War is probably because they couldn't devote the full force of Starfleet to the war at all (or they would open themselves to attack from other warlike empires, like the Klingons/Romulans). And maybe the Cardassians had some very useful technology or really good tacticians.
If you go (as I sometimes do) by the old FASA books and games, the majority of the work aboard a Klingon warship is actually done by subjugated species, engineers, technicians, specialists, cooks.
The Klingons themselves were the officers, supervisors and provided security. This isn't completely in conflict with what we saw in the different series because the non-Klingons would have been "below deck."
Despite the Romulan and Klingon Empires having been in existence longer, I fail to see how this translates into greater manpower. Surely subjugated species would have low quality of life, and thus less incentive to reproduce. Compare that to the Federation, which has a living standard on par with Heaven. Even further, the Federation has hundreds of different species reproducing and providing additional manpower. The economic prowess that comes with the Federation's focus on civil development over military production would benefit the Federation in the long term. I believe that Starfleet's focus on science and exploration is due in part to the Federation's economic power, which serves as a sufficient deterrent to aggression, similar to the pre-WWII United States. The Federation's economic power and innovative capabilities would turn the Federation into a military power, which is essentially what the Federation is morphed into post-Dominion War.
In regards to Starfleet's seemingly Earth-centric crews, I believe that has nothing to do with canon and the writer's intentions. It was most likely the result of budgetary constraints preventing the display of many aliens, especially as simple extras. Newer series, with better CGI, would most likely have significantly more diverse crews.
In regards to Starfleet's seemingly Earth-centric crews, I believe that has nothing to do with canon and the writer's intentions. It was most likely the result of budgetary constraints preventing the display of many aliens, especially as simple extras. Newer series, with better CGI, would most likely have significantly more diverse crews.
This assumption is entirely backwards. High standards of living reduce levels of reproduction, not the other way around. That's why developed countries today are shrinking or growing at a snail's pace while countries like China, India, Brazil, etc are bursting at the seams.
And this is where the older age of the Klingons and Romulans comes in. Sure, the Federation has more species, but the Klingons and Romulans have had several more centuries worth of time in order to found colonies of their own as well as conquer other races. There is absolutely no reason to assume the Federation has considerably more or more heavily populated planets than either Empire.
Economic progress does not automatically grant a manpower advantage... And the Romulans, at least, are certainly no technological slouches - just because their research is militarily motivated doesn't invalidate it.
There are plenty of things that might have been different if there had been more budget, but that doesn't make them canon. If TOS had been high budget, the Federation would probably not have transporters, but clearly they do. Plus there have already been leaps and bounds of improvement in that sort of thing, and it has still not brought significantly increased diversity to any shown starfleet crew.
If you go (as I sometimes do) by the old FASA books and games, the majority of the work aboard a Klingon warship is actually done by subjugated species, engineers, technicians, specialists, cooks.
The Klingons themselves were the officers, supervisors and provided security. This isn't completely in conflict with what we saw in the different series because the non-Klingons would have been "below deck."
If the numbers in DS9 are to be believed the Klingon Fleet appears to be only on a par with the WW2 US Navy, meaning I don't think they would even need ANY non-Klingons. There should be more than sufficient Klingons to fully staff their tiny fleet. Same goes for the Federation. It's fleet is also a Lilliputian-sized WW2 navy. Staffing should be no problem.
Why they cant build far larger fleets is a mystery. Maybe there are limiting factors like anti-matter production that limit how many ships can operate at any one time. In any case the general trend in the real world is toward ships with smaller crews and greater automation. That serves to substantially cut down on the number of people needed to crew the ships. There would be no need to have lots of captive crew members "below deck".
To follow up with this point, historically we've seen that subjugated populations are often forced to breed more precisely to provide more manpower for farming, building, etc. In societies where slaves were bought, forcing or coering them to breed was seen as an investment so as not to incur the cost of buying additional slaves. Unfortunately, this practice continues to this day in many parts of the world.
Star Trek fleets are so tiny that manning the ships is childs play. We don't have to invent hundreds of worlds never seen in Star Trek that are teeming with Klingon slaves to crew their ships. We are only talking about little mini-fleets of several hundred to a few thousand ships. It doesn't take a lot of people to man these fleets that are not a whole lot bigger than Earth Navies.
Sure, I can go with that. However, by that logic of what's onscreen, we'd have to go with factual onscreen depiction that Starfleet is *vastly* human at almost all levels and branches, then.
At least we know the Romulans had the Remans as slave labor, however.
No, I mean their fleets are so small, that there is no reason to do it. It wouldn't be hard to fully many every Klingon warship with Klingons. There are so few ships, it should be easy. And we know the reason so many humans are seen: it saves money and time on make-up.
One could argue that Starfleet/the KDF are similarly so small despite the vast area of space they both cover because it saves time and money on SFX, though, using that same logic. You can't explain one side of the coin with canon and the other with behind the scenes logistics (I guarantee you, the "saves money and time on make-up" reason has never ever been said by any character in the franchise ever). That's not consistent; hypotheticals and conjecture are fine -- lord knows I've done that in this thread -- but use the same line of reasoning throughout. After all, have we ever gotten a hard number of the size of their total fleets? No, even at the height of DS9, we only had a few fleets, with other fleets mentioned off-screen. We don't know what "small" means, the extent of that definition, and what it compares to in that universe. On the other hand, there's nothing that contradicts Starfleet being primarily human -- even the Klingons, the Ferengi, and other races make note of it; besides, four crews over four TV shows (not counting Enterprise, of course), and we're told over and over again that they represent Starfleet, from technology to exploration to philosophy, including the others in their own fleet whom they come across in their adventures -- only a handful of times were other ships mentioned as having non-human primary crews, and the exception does not make it the rule.
Last edited:
O RLY?? Let's look at some math, shall we?
We saw, what, a total of like 15 possible Galaxys, right? OK, 15 x 1000 = 15,000.
Numbered starbases: about 630. Give each starbase about 1500 personnel. 630 x 1500 = 945,000.
Unnumbered starbases (DS9, K-7, etc.), outposts, planetary facilities: figure about 1 million personnel assigned to them.
Ships...well, we're working with small fleet numbers here (I'm a large-fleeter, my own self), so let's say 7000 starships of all types, with an average crew of 500. 500 x 7000 = 3,500,000.
3,500,000 + 1,000,000 + 945,000 + 15,000 = 5.46 million active personnel at a conservative estimate just for Starfleet, using small-fleet numbers & not taking into consideration reservists, inactive or otherwise. This would make Starfleet nearly 2½ times the size of the PLA (the largest army currently on the planet); 3.8 times the size of the US military; 7.12 times the size of the Russians. (NOTE: for current armies, I used only active military numbers)
Well it doesn't take too much money or time to say that there are 50,000 or 500,000 or 1,000,000 ships in Starfleet. They just have to say it in dialogue. Instead they said far smaller numbers. The total fleet size is never said but we are dealing with several hundred to a few thousands at the most. That's tiny considering the populations in question.
There would be no need to imagine that non Klingons are needed on any of their ships. Even if one tenth of 1% of the Klingon population was available for manning the ships, that would be more than enough to fully staff thousands of Klingon ships.
Why these fleets are so tiny is a separate question.
And no I don't buy that 149 member worlds spend decades sitting around saying, "Gee, I hope the humans can defend us all against the Klingons, Romulans, Borg, Breen, Cardassians and Gorn! Otherwise all our civilizations could be assimilated, conquered or annihilated!" There is no way in the world that would happen, I don't care what is said or shown on screen. "On screen" only means "what the English and Fine Arts majors who make the show decided to put there".
I suppose if each Federation home world, particularly those far from the core worlds, had its own "self defense force" that could absorb some off the discrepancy.
And with regard to the tiny fleet question, it may be to build a ship capable of traveling greater than Warp 4-5 requires some precious resource that limits production of a large number of ships. I don't really remember how civiilan ships were portrayed in TNG, but in the original show it seemed like Warp 2-3 was pretty much about the fastest any civilian ship ever went.
And with regard to the tiny fleet question, it may be to build a ship capable of traveling greater than Warp 4-5 requires some precious resource that limits production of a large number of ships. I don't really remember how civiilan ships were portrayed in TNG, but in the original show it seemed like Warp 2-3 was pretty much about the fastest any civilian ship ever went.
Yes, you have to assume that some limiting factor exists. Anti-matter production would make sense because that actually is an issue with anti-matter. Producing, stabilizing and safely storing anti-matter in large quantities is a huge challenge. It might be that the production rate will not sustain a Star Fleet of millions of ships, even if sufficient personnel exists to man them. Perhaps there is only enough to keep a few thousand operating at any one time, aside from civilian needs.
With the non-human issue, the only in universe explanation that makes any sense is that the individual member worlds have retained their own independent Armed forces, Fleets and defenses. That is not really a completely satisfying answer when you look over whats been shown in ST over the years, but it's something.
After commonly depicting Starfleet as relatively small, suddenly in the Dominion War we saw and heard of these fairly huge fleets of ships fighting. I think what happen is the individual member's "home fleets" started showing up.
Would be one explanation.
We can say that most ships in Starfleet are more or less species specific with some exceptions. It's unlikely that every one of the 150 member worlds is the precise mass of the Earth. We have seen in exo-planets that some potential terrestrial worlds are significantly larger than Earth. So perhaps some species like the "gravity plating" set to something higher than humans would find comfortable.
Likewise, slightly different atmospheres and temperatures would be a factor. Andorians may like the settings colder than humans would prefer whereas the Vulcans prefer it hotter.
Last edited:
The American shipyards builds naval vessels for a lot of countries, and we've been know to sell our older vessels on the international markets (only to nice nations though).
I could see starships built in orbit of Mars and Earth being sold all over the Federation to other Member worlds. And starships deliberately built with "lesser" engine, weapons and sensors sold outside of the federation too.
An Andorian galaxy class, built with their particular specifications in mind? Sure, why not.
I could see starships built in orbit of Mars and Earth being sold all over the Federation to other Member worlds. And starships deliberately built with "lesser" engine, weapons and sensors sold outside of the federation too.
An Andorian galaxy class, built with their particular specifications in mind? Sure, why not.
Similar threads
