What If: The Klingon-Federation war continued?

[Emperor Norton]

In "Errand of Mercy" the UFP and Klingon Empire finally went to war. This war lasted maybe a couple days at most (though, even in that time, it seems like there'd be a lot of death and devastation given the size and strengths of the two nations) before the Organians ended it.

But what if the Organians didn't intervene, either because they just decided not to, or because things just lined up so that neither Kor nor Kirk paid any attention to them, and therefore did not make them involved or perhaps even aware of it? What if the war was permitted to continue?

 

[Rulius]

Well as Ayelborne said, yes there would have been peace but only after millions had died...

 

[Gov Kodos]

Some might call peace war by other means.

 

[Emperor Norton]

Well as Ayelborne said, yes there would have been peace but only after millions had died...

Well, that would be the issue. But just how devastating would it be? Such war was, after all, like the USSR and USA going to war during the Cold War; the two greatest powers unleashing everything. They didn't have a galactic equivalent of atomic weapons, but such a war would have to be devastating. I'm unsure just how devastating it could be, though.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Well as Ayelborne said, yes there would have been peace but only after millions had died...

Well, that would be the issue. But just how devastating would it be? Such war was, after all, like the USSR and USA going to war during the Cold War; the two greatest powers unleashing everything. They didn't have a galactic equivalent of atomic weapons, but such a war would have to be devastating. I'm unsure just how devastating it could be, though.

One might ask the question of Europe after the the wake of everything from resurgent nationalism of the 19th century to 1945 whether things might have been better with an outside power imposing peace. We might think so, but as Kirk said as a player, the call to war still beckons. Changing actions is not just a matter of policy, but of changing cultural weltanschaung.

 

[Ronald Held]

With the Romulans starting in first on the weaker one, it might be that all three political entities would cease to exist as such.

 

[Knight Templar]

If you read the details in the novel "My Enemy, My Ally" the Federation clearly had the upper hand in the conflict.

Personally, I always thought the idea of the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Tholians or all of those combined defeating the Federation was a joke.

Given that the Federation has the best of Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, Rigel and a host of other worlds plus their colonies.

 

[T'Girl]

Personally, I always thought the idea of the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Tholians or all of those combined defeating the Federation was a joke.

My thought is that the Federation never brought it's full military force against the Cardassians in the years prior to Journey's End. If a force equal to what we saw during the Dominion War was used, the Cardassian Union all by it's lonely would have swiftly collapsed.

The Klingon Empire, certainly during TOS, were depicted as the equals of the Federation. Immediately prior to TNG (according to Yesterday's Enterprise) the Empire was something to be militarily respected.

I never saw the Romulans as more than a loud dog behind a chain link fence.

 

[Knight Templar]

[

I never saw the Romulans as more than a loud dog behind a chain link fence.

Indeed.

Remember Admiral Haden in "The Defector"?

"No one wants a war. But we are prepared to take them on."

Seems at least until the Borg attack, the Federation was pretty cocky about taking on the Romulans.