test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
The size of the Federation.
rustiswordz
Member Posts: 824 Arc User
OK what is the official size of the Federation? Same with the Klingon and Romulan empires.
I was watching ST: Generations movie, the stellar cartography scene as Data and Picard tracked the ribbons course. It occurred to me that the federation must contain hundreds if not thousands of unexplored starsystems within its own borders. You also look at a lot of 'official' star maps in books and magazines and the size of the federation varies from a huge chunk of the galaxy to just a few light years depending on the publication.
Our own local group of stars you only have to travel out a dozen light years or so and there are over a hundred stars just as our nextdoor neighbours!
Why bother with expanding the federation borders when there are hundreds of not thousands of systems uncharted in Federation space alone!
What do you think!
I was watching ST: Generations movie, the stellar cartography scene as Data and Picard tracked the ribbons course. It occurred to me that the federation must contain hundreds if not thousands of unexplored starsystems within its own borders. You also look at a lot of 'official' star maps in books and magazines and the size of the federation varies from a huge chunk of the galaxy to just a few light years depending on the publication.
Our own local group of stars you only have to travel out a dozen light years or so and there are over a hundred stars just as our nextdoor neighbours!
Why bother with expanding the federation borders when there are hundreds of not thousands of systems uncharted in Federation space alone!
What do you think!
Monkey see, Monkey do. Monkey flings Feathered Monkey poo...
Post edited by rustiswordz on
0
Comments
This is a good overview: http://www.sttff.net/images/AST_MAP0012.jpg
They are capable of knowing if a system is 'dead; or not so they probably wont do much exploring of them in any great detail. there may be a few things hidden in there that are of some interest if they took the time but by an large the galaxy is more empty than populated.
This shows up as early as the original series - the star Deneb (roughly 1600 light years away) is a well-known regular port of call, whereas Pollux (roughly 34 light years from Earth) is unexplored territory beyond the frontier. Yes, it's possible, but it makes the Federation a very peculiar shape.
The problem is illustrated beautifully in the old Franz Joseph Technical Manual, which at one point presents a scale map of the galaxy, with various points on the Enterprise's five year mission marked... and also gives the original equation for warp speed (c times the cube of the warp number). Exercise in simple maths: assuming an average speed of warp six, and going by the map, how many decades would that five year mission have lasted?
I'm afraid any attempt at establishing a canonical size for the Federation is going to run into anomalies and contradictions like this....
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
While I could see a shattered Cardassia rebuild into something that the Federation would adopt, I cannot see racial Klingon pride bowing willfully to another's yoke. A strong and lasting alliance, yes. Splinter groups and individuals joining the Federation, yes, but it would take a powerful persuasion (read "decimation") other than the Feds for Klingons to see the Federation as their hope for survival. Even the Praxis event didn't achieve that.
That said, and in contrast to my thinking, didn't Daniels mention something to Archer about the Klingons eventually joining the Federation? If so, I don't remember if a timetable was mentioned or not.
Although I personally find it intriguing, I'm not certain the Romulan Republic will be canon when the Prime Universe TV shows and movies begin again.
Also, it's good to remember that the Federation charts are compiled from maps created by dozens of races. Each of the source maps has it's own peculiarities and gaps. I suspect that this is where some of the episodes about exploring areas near fed space are about. Filling in the numerous gaps in the federation star charts.
My character Tsin'xing
I don't need to tell STO players this, but on the off chance that a scriptwriter for Trek is reading this: the nearest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, somewhat over four light years away.
I think one semi-official publication, the star charts book, tried to paper over this hole by invoking some magic subspace transit corridor or something, which allowed the NX-01 to take a sort of short-cut to Qo'nos... but which was never mentioned again, ever, at all.
(What bugs me most, of course, is that in that opening episode they give a correct time for travel at warp between Earth and Neptune....)
Any attempt at mapping the Trek universe has to contend with problems like this. Eventually, I think you just have to give up.
Why is the Klingon Empire or the Romulan Empire even a threat?
I mean, it seems to me, they're already beaten. The Federation is over a hundred worlds. How can one expanding world pose any kind of real threat to them?
Seems like the Federation wouldn't consider the Romulans or the Klingons any kind of a serious threat, yet they are.
You also don't need to be huge to be a threat. Germany took us into 2 World Wars, but as a country is about half the size of Texas.
I just find it odd because I've never seen an episode of any series or on any movie where any other race was serving aboard a Klingon or Romulan ship. And I've never seen an episode where any Federation ship engaged with a Klingon Empire vessel that wasn't exclusively Klingon.
Also, German, Italy, and Japan took us into WWII. Germany alone wouldn't have been nearly as successful.
Based on the STO mapping system, and taking canon information from Memory Alpha, and analyzing not only each episode...but the actual logical chronological order of the episodes in the lives of the characters (their "voyage" if you will) then applying that to real life star positions.
This means assessing the "reality" of the situation and arriving at the "real" solution in an attempt to eliminate the inconsistencies that arrived through the writing and production...basically if canon fits the real life star layout, then we use canon...if canon does not then we figure out what does.
http://malsmaps.wordpress.com/real-sector-maps-for-star-trek/
I also post updates in Ten Forward to this thread: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=770151
So far in my project I'd arrive at a Federation size during TOS/TAS (and this meaning the main bulk of the Federation) as being approx. 160 LY along the alpha/beta quadrant axis and between 60-80 LY to either side depending on location. (See the "TOS/TAS Voyages" map to get an idea there.)...I also go into a theory about the apparent expansion of the Federation between ENT and TOS/TAS and TNG, why the Federation appears to have focused so much on the Beta Quadrant early on.
I'm currently working on the ENT series voyages and those are proving interesting so far also as they'll illustrate the extant of the Federation at it's earliest.
edit: typo 30-40 to 60-80
Even Shinzon was able to work himself up from slave to General in the Romulan Empire - and eventually become Emperor.
Well, to be fair, Italy did bumpkiss in WWII. The whole reason for Germany's African Campaign was because Italy started an invasion, got their hind ends kicked, and Germany had to go rescue them. That's what ultimately led to the Axis defeat, too many theaters of operation. Or, as one of my favorite fictional characters put it, "Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts. And only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts."
As for non-Klingons on ships, the Original Series novels and other supplementary material (such as Star Fleet Battles) talk about Klingon ships having essentially slave races on board to crew nonvital systems, and sometimes be sent into battle as cannon fodder. This seem to have been voided by later Star Trek showing exclusively Klingon crews, however, the Klingon Empire is routinely referred to as the Klingon Empire, and when you have FTL travel, one world does not an Empire make. There are Klingons on many worlds and colonies, and while the overall population may be lower (speculation), they place a higher value on the warrior ethos, giving them a much larger percentage of their population in their fleet compared to the Federation Starfleet (speculation.) Combined with their trigger-happy nature, this makes the Klingons a threat to the Federation. While the Klingon Empire may not be able to conquer or destroy the Federation, they could still inflict considerable damage, something the Federation is eager to avoid.
As far as the Romulans go, according to non-canon novels, when they were first encountered by the Federation, they quickly realized that there were other powers in the galaxy, that they must be threatening (the original Vulcan/Romulan schism was due, in part, to Vulcan's first contact with an alien species. . . Orion pirates saying "We come in peace. . . shoot to kill"), and the Romulans had to defend themselves. They quickly and aggressively expanded, conquering, annexing, and settling worlds near Romulus and Remus and driving up production of warships to be able to defend themselves from Federation aggression. Then they met the Klingons, and realized that there were more hostile species, they were technologically outclassed, and they needed advantages if they were going to survive. . . hence the development of cloaking technology and For Massive Damage plasma torpedoes.
Enterprise casts a slightly different light, showing the Romulans being spacefaring and having at least a moderate Empire when humanity first encountered them. Still, being rather xenophobic, Romulans aggressively defend themselves from anything they perceive as "other," and upon seeing the expanding Federation and Klingon Empires, knew they had to expand themselves to avoid becoming overwhelmed by their enemies. The treaty between the Romulans and Klingons that granted Romulans Klingon ships (and presumably led to Klingons getting cloaking technology from the Romulans) can be seen as a sort of 'Warsaw Pact' to counter the Federation's NATO.
But more to the point, Starfleet is NOT a military organization. Their ships are (not always) armed and their personnel trained to defend themselves and Federation citizens, but Starfleet is not a military, in the sense that its primary reason for existing is not to engage the enemies of its parent government. Starfleet is an exploratory and scientific endeavor, and so is simply not on the same footing as "true" military organizations like the Klingon and Romulan fleets. There's also the matter of logistics. . . if the Federation is indeed larger, in terms of populated star systems, than the Klingon and Romulan Empires, that gives the Federation more territory to defend, spreading their forces more thinly and having longer supply lines to maintain their military units, which are disadvantages an enemy can exploit. History is littered with similar cases, where larger governments have been defeated by numerically inferior forces because they simply couldn't overcome their own inertia. The Roman Empire and the American Revolution are two of the most well-known instances.
One of my favorite bits of non-canon world-building, right up there with John Ford's version of the Klingons (in his novel The Final Reflection, the word "Klingon" is expressed as a compound word - "klin", meaning "the warrior principle", and "-gon", a suffix indicating the embodiment of a concept. This also led to the language, "Klingonaase", where "-aase" is a suffix indicting a tool used for manipulating something, in this case the tool used to manipulate Klingons).
My character Tsin'xing
I hate to tell you this but Starfleet is the UFP's military. While we only see exploration in many episodes, however the majority of the intra-UFP what see is a military. We see peacekeeping missions, we see humanitarian missions, we see border patrols, we see anti-piracy patrols, we see showing the flag, and ultimately we see Starfleet fighting to protect the UFP and its allies. All definitions of a military.
While the old one was simple it only really SOUNDS fast.
Moving at 64 times the speed of light it would still take months to get anywhere. It'd take a full year to go 64 light years. Considering the distances involved, that's pathetically slow.
My character Tsin'xing
It's pretty clear from "Broken Bow" that they are using the old warp scale. (At least, that's the way my back-of-envelope calculations panned out.)
@jonsills - frankly, I much preferred John M. Ford's take on the Klingons to the plastic Hollywood samurai we got instead. Can you imagine modern Klingons playing klin zha? I have a feeling they'd just eat the pieces.
No, actually, it isn't. A military is established specifically for the purpose of defeating its parent government's enemies in war. Starfleet exists primarily for scientific, humanitarian, and exploratory reasons. Gene Roddenberry himself refused to allow Starfleet to be called "the Federation military." Admittedly, the distinction is slim, but it is there.
I agree it's not a military as we see the military today, but it's pretty much perceived as one, even among members of Starfleet.
At least it was in Kirk's day.
In Star Trek VI, when the Starfleet execs had the meeting regarding the fall of the Klingon Empire, they started discussing what it would mean to have peace with the Klingons. One of the admirals there said, "Are we talking about mothballing Starfleet?"
Another answered along the lines of, "Our exploration divisions would remain intact."
If Starfleet wasn't a military organization, why would they talk about mothballing it because of the end of a war?
My character Tsin'xing
Exactly my point.
Starfleet is a military space navy with multiple missions that include the scientific and humanitarian amongst the shooting of phasers and torpedoes. Every starfleet captain knows at least one "attack" pattern rather than an evasive one. It was done that way because writing about a warship on patrol can get kind of boring if that's ALL you do. They wanted to be able to do a lot of things on the TV shows so Starfleet is a lump sum of everything you do in a space ship.
It's gotten kind of silly over the years though. The writers wanted to play down space fights for budget and other higher ideal themes but the ratings always sent them back to blowing stuff up because that's what people bought into. So we supposedly have all these exploration ships littered with bowling alleys and universities fighting wars while mounting these rather extensive weapons systems the equal of every other space empire. Then claiming oh we are just peaceful explorers fighting every war in the galaxy... It all falls apart logically now.
The Federation used to be pretty small and relatable to the real world in space. A handful of earth, Vulcan, and selected other species colonies akin to the US and allies. Only able to field a few ships comparable to the US ability to field aircraft carriers in TOS. But this was too limiting to the writers who wanted huge battles onscreen to make money so the numbers got poofed up over time.
In spite of the rhetoric, don't let any one tell you Starfleet isn't a military organization any more than you would let them tell you that the Klingon Defense Force is a purely defensive fleet. No one wants to admit what they are to avoid offending the liberal minded viewers so instead they preach one thing and show another. Pfft...
Reboot the franchise.
A military isn't only established for times of war. A military is also established to "prevent" war by threat of force.
If you were to take your empire to war against someone for whatever gains it may be, and 2 rivals have something you want, which would you attack?
The one with a large, established, and well kept military?
Or one with nonexistent or small military force?
Now, some powers (to include real life history) choose to keep a small military and ramp it up in preparation for war. But that doesn't help you if someone comes crashing through your door, surprising you, guns blazing before you're ready to beef up your defenses.
Also, Starfleet very much is a military force. Even the Federation's own population sees it as that. I'd like to point to Wrath of Khan, where Federation Scientists under Dr Carol Marcus were suspicious of Starfleet's application of the research they were doing. There was a scene where they were literally raging about Starfleet as the big, bad, evil military. Even her son seemed to have hidden hatred of Starfleet because it was the military and uses new research and technology for war.
Which was kind of funny because Starfleet is one of the more benign, major military organizations in all of Star Trek.
http://www.chartgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/star-trek-map.jpeg
Anyway there are several reasons why a multi-species Federation does not equal automatic victory. There are several factors to be considered.
Time: The Klingons have had roughly 1,000 years to expand, found colonies and fill up those planets...and we know that Klingons mature much faster than several other species which means a faster breeding cycle (not sure if that's the proper word, if not my apologies).
Romulans had probably more time than the Klingons but we don't know whether the slower aging means they mature much slower too, like with a life expectancy beyond 200 pureblood Vulcanoids don't hit puberty at 20 or so...
Which leads to population density per planet: we don't know how well Klingons and Romulans thrive on alien worls, but given their resilience I'd wager pretty well...
We've also got to consider that some of the more remote Federation colonies tend to have some couple hundread colonists on them and that's it.
Planet desity: we don't really know how many planets there are in the Klingon and Romulan territories. Naturally they're not listed on the charts because there's so little we know about them. We also don't know how many useful resources those planets have.
We do know the Klingons tend to exploit the resources they have to the point of...exploding a moon. We also know the Romulans will ruthlessly exploit a planet by ruthlessly exploiting its population.
Military budget: we know from Star Trek 6 that the Klingons had a mighty big one. Once again we're in the dark about percentage of the annual overall budget.
So my guess is the Romulans and Klignons throw a much larger percentage of their budget into military than Starfleet gets.
And in Starfleet's case a lot of that budget probably goes into ships with a....limited military value like Novas and Olympics while the other pour a lot more into their pure warships.
And at least with Klingons we know they usually don't have any shortage of new recruits to staff their ships and bases.
Purpose of "science" ships:
We do know Romulans have science ships and we also know the Klingons have scoutships.
These ships are big enough they need a docking port instead of a landing padd (and the crew is big enough to have Odo worried) and they use these for exploration/science purposes but it's probably much more limited than Starfleet. If we use the Hayne's Manual for the Klingon Bird of Prey as a source, scout ships are also more used for intelligence missions while Starfleet sends their ships on missions whole military usefulness is more limited.
(sorry, but there's not very little info on Romulans on that particular subject)
Production time for ships, number of shipyards
Again very much unknown. We do have some bits and numbers here and there but without any reasonable numbers to compare them to they're pretty much useless.
We do know the Enterprise-D took a bit less than a decade to build [TNGTM] and we also know the Klingons have a production rate of 230,000 standard Photon Torpedoes per year [Hayne's Manual]...but is that useful? I don't think so
So a lot of IF and MAYBEs...