Trek Fleet counts

[Wyrm]

I return.

Only Rabid Warsies screech "VOYAGER IS THE FASTEST!!!" I myself fucking debunked that in this very thread and have been using the statistical median on ALL FUCKING MAXIMUM WARP VALUES in my calcs.

Which agrees with my point that 1000 c is not the fastest a Federation ship can go under the time constraints of the Dominion war, and that starships can go faster if they have access to the full infrastructure of the Federation. As you admonish other people, "learn to read."

Your median (which comes to ~7716.5 c) for maximum warp gives you only a statistical value for maximum warp, not cruising warp. Now, I've looked through this thread, trying to find where you derive your 1000 c typical sustained warp speed figure, and I don't see it anywhere. Maybe I missed it, but as far as I can tell, you pulled this number out of your ass.

You have yet to demonstrate that even ONE colony that needs to be defended is several years away from Earth by warp drive. You have fuck all to say otherwise.

How do you explain Picard's 8000 light year statement? (note I'm working on a side post exploring alternative interpretations right now)

Just because they claimed it doesn't mean that they can back it up. Remember Turkana IV, Tasha's homeworld (Legacy)? Early on in season 4 (which started with BOBW), the Enterprise paid a visit to this planet, implying that it is very close to Earth, well within half a year via warp drive of the core of the Federation and the Enterprise's usual stomping grounds. Furthermore, Wesley was scheduled to return to Earth not soon after due to an opening at Starfleet Academy (Final Mission). The events of Data's Day places it within a month or two of the Romulan Neutral Zone, which we know is quite close to Earth. All in all, the timing of the episode in relationship to where we know the Enterprise to be both earlier and later gives it maybe 3 months away via warp away from the Federation core, and certainly not more than 1/2 year away.

Turkana IV is a Federation protectorate that broke off relations after a civil war lasting 20 years. The Federation did not swoop in to stabilize the situation. It was left to rot for a good thirty years. Spare me the excuses that it was an "internal affair", because people were actively rescued from the internal strife (Tasha Yar being one). It's rarely the case that protectorates have pratical autonomy, as if they did, they wouldn't be protectorates. Also, the Federation has an interest in keeping good relations with such protectorates and keeping strife to a minimum, as they are potential member worlds.

I'm beginning to suspect that, in fact, the Federation can't patrol all the territory that it has explored. If the Federation cannot even interceed in a civil strife well within its own territory, it has no business spreading out further.

So you admit your entire analysis is based on nothing. Consession accepted.

Yup, same shit I always deal with from you fucktards. I've provided canon quotes and situations, then math based on those quotes, but you look for the slightest crack and dismiss everything else.

The point of this reply obviously sailed right above your head. The point is that, yes, nobody talked about the Cardassians in TNG until almost the very end, but once thier existence was established in continuity, they became a real threat and a credible concern for the Federation and thus a viable point of debate. If the Cardassian concept was scrapped before writers could write them in, we would never know about them, nor would they even be a consideration.

You said, and I quote, "For all you know, there's all kinds of shit over there, but since the show follows the Enterprise, we never see it." According to this asinine logic, the rest of Starfleet's tens of thousands of starships are off dealing with the threat of the Invisible Pink Unicorn Empire, the mechinations of the Noodly Appendages of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the menace of Bertrand Russel's Grand Armada of Intergalactic Teapots, because none of the TNG shows never talks about them either. A threat that doesn't exist in the first place will also never get talked about or seen on a show following the Enterprise, and as such it is impossible to distinguish from threats there but not talked about or seen. Until you establish these "other threats to the Federation" with some positive evidence, they are as imaginary as Prince Pigmot's Nipple Pibblies.

[Kythnos]

Here's the script excerpt from "When it Rains" (DS9), which is a season 7 episode - part of the final arc of the series. Relevant parts bolded.

(NOTE: The Defiant has yet to be replaced.)

2 INT. WARDROOM


SISKO
But one didn't -- a Bird of Prey
called the Ki'tang.

Ross and the Romulan perk up at hearing this.
Martok -- having already been briefed on the subject
-- lets them ask the questions.

ROSS
Why, what was different about the
Ki'tang?

O'BRIEN
We're not exactly sure. The only
thing we can figure is that right
before the engagement, her Chief
Engineer adjusted the tritium

intermix to compensate for a
containment problem in the warp
core.


[... snip his tech explantion ...]

SISKO
Thank you, Chief.

O'Brien nods and EXITS. A beat, then Ross turns to
the others.

ROSS
Well, Gentlemen, it would seem
that the Klingon fleet is the
only thing standing between us
and the Dominion.

ROMULAN
(under his breath)
What have we come to... ?

Martok shoots him a look

MARTOK
By tomorrow, we'll have eleven
hundred Klingon vessels ready for
deployment.

I want to thank you for this, I have watched the episode many times but it was a long time ago.
It seems that the total Klingon fleet at this time was 1,100 ships. I had always assumed that this was only the maximum number of ships that could be "refit" in a day, the first phase of many days each adding 1,100 ships. The dialog proves me wrong however as only a "adjustment" was needed to make Klingon ships proof of the Breen weapon.
This almost completely removes the possibility of 30,000 Dominion ships, as they have no compulsions against killing there own to kill the enemy as seen in the case of the Odyssey. If they out numbered their opponents by so much then just have 1/10 of your fleet ram the enemy and the space war is over. Since the Jem'Hadar would have no problems dying for their gods, even when they are winning.

[Wyrm]

You say this like I don't know that. I've been using 5000c for the "fast response" number to derive the ship density. The 1000c only comes in for a many month/years journey, which is based on Voyager. There's plenty of examples of "cruising speed" being quite a bit less than that: viewtopic.php?p=3420027#p3420027

Nine of those examples of them are from Voyager, which we know represents "gently" treated warp engines. Four are from Enterprise (NX-01), which we know was initially not even capable of warp factors that later era starships cruised at. Only eight are from TNG, the modern era, and adding in the grossly outlying TOS figure, that brings us up to a grand total of nine figures (out of twenty one) that represent a warp drive as normally used in the Federation. Do you not see how this figure would be biased to slower speeds?

It's all moot anyway; even at the fastest sustainable speed presented (~3000c, "Q Who?", "Hope and Fear") traveling 4000 light years, outskirts to center if the length is 8000, is still over a year one way - half the length of the war, and leaving those areas without a ship to support them for over two years.

Are you saying that the Federation's starfleet is so thinly spread out that they cannot even cut fleet numbers across their territory by some percentage to fight a war that does promise to be a sustained conflict, which would easily net them thousands of ships? The Federation has no business at all spreading out so thinly, as a major attack by one of these fringe major threats you fantasize about would cripple Federation coverage at that point and leave them basically undefended to a follow-up wave. You cannot hold territory against active major threats with such a tenuous fleet. You have to have reserves.

And anyone with a shred of sense would realize that alpha-striking the Changling's homeworld would invite the Jem'Hadar and Vorta to exact bloody revenge for killing their gods. That attack would not destroy the Jem'Hadar or Vorta hatcheries, the actual muscle of the Dominion. Under no circumstances would the Federation try such a tactic unless they knew they could endure the fallout.

That's a completely different beast than the kind of things starships handle. The whole planet had gone to hell - it would have required a lot of ground troops to fix up which the Federation likely doesn't have.

You yourself said "people were actively rescued from the internal strife" - that's the kind of thing a visiting starship could do. 300 goldshirts couldn't possibly restore order on a planet - that'd take a huge ass army.

But they had twenty years to round up a "huge ass army" to quell the unrest before the fall of the government they were dealing with. The Federation had plenty of time to get their act together, and the fact that one starship was not enough to quell the unrest is irrelevant.

Let's examine some of the missions that the Enterprise had to conduct:

The Jarada (The Big Goodbye): The whole premise that it is Picard that must give the greeting is silly on its face. Even if a commanding officer must give the greeting, wouldn't appointing a temporary captain who was thoroughly practiced at the Jaradan language to a starship and give the greeting be much more sensible than sending in a captain who had to memorize the greeting by rote? The only reason they use the Enterprise is that, yes, they are that poor in ships, and yes, it did take this long to do something that they should have done at the first opportunity.

Angel One (Angel One): A world within the usual stomping grounds of the Federation, and they don't even have an extradition treaty with Angel One. If they did, the Angelites could stuff it in Picard's face and say, "get Ramsey and the others off our planet!" Because one of the first things you establish in formal relations is how to handle outsiders who aren't welcome for one reason or another. This is another thing that the Federation should have done long ago if it was really spread out over one warp-year, but didn't.

The Daledians (The Dauphin): Formal relations aside, knowing that one of the species within easy reach of the Federation are shape-shifters is a rather important thing to miss about a species for a civilization founded upon cultural understanding and science.

Angosia III (The Hunted): A candidate for entry into the Federation, yet no one knew that the penal colony their moon held not inmates but veterans of one of their wars, considered unfit for reentry into society. Wouldn't the Federation check to see if the colony was actually holding proper convicts, rather than (potentially) political prisoners?

Ventax II (Devil's Due): Although no one on Ventax II thought the ancient legend important before pseudo-Ardra's arrival, Picard saw the fundamental flaw easily enough: someone can masquerade as the entity Ardra and effectively seize control of the planet and all its assets. There's also the point that under no treaty would a planet simply be allowed to seize a starship that happens to be orbiting the planet just because some law originating on the planet tells them they could — "Federation starships are the exclusive property of the Federation, and no law made by the Ventaxian government laying claim to one will be recognized." Under any sane treaty, Ardra wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on in claiming the Enterprise. After all, this his hardly the first time that the Federation has encountered species who have tried to apply their laws on starships that were never a part of them. The only reason Ardra would be able to succeed is if no formal treaty exists and thus the only remedy is to prove that pseudo-Ardra was indeed pseudo by arbitration.

Melona IV (Silicon Avatar): Why are they only getting around to colonizing this place now, if it is within easy reach of the Enterprise (having visited the outskirts of Cardassian territory with a Bajorian refugee camp on it just the episode before)? And they knew there was a life-sucking crystal buzzing about and able to eat life on an entire planet, and no one thought that it might attack again?

Lyaarans (Liaisons): Again, easy reach of the Enterprise, yet the Federation doesn't even know basic things about their psychology.

Kesprytt (Attached): The Kes got this far into the Federation membership process and no one noticed their rampant racial paranoia?

This all stinks of the frontier, where even basic knowledge of the societies and cultures under the care of the Federation is severely lacking. Either that, or they are only now getting around to establishing relations with these worlds recently (as aluded to by the Romulans talking about Federation expansion). Everything I see screams that the frontier is within half a warp year of the Federation core. One would think that proximity to the core of the Federation would mean better protection, but half a warp year seems to be the limit of "fast response," as responding to threats that are known about are missed out here with embarassing regularity. The Federation has no business at all extending beyond that.

Indeed, that's quite reasonable. This is Star Trek we're talking about - that kind of stuff shows up every other week! Often brand new aliens that we've never heard up until now too; hell, they are brand new almost every week too. Some of those aliens prove to be a serious threat one week, but we rarely, if ever, hear of them again. Do they just pop up once then hide for the rest of eternity? Or do they pop up, but far from our main characters (who have moved on to new things), or are kept at bay by threat of Starfleet?

Bollocks. The difference is that every one of those threats actually have some evidence that they exist: they popped up at least once. The number of threats that might exist but don't is very very much larger than those that do. Under NO theory of evidence do I have to accept the existence of things that do not have a shred of evidence supporting their existence, no matter how powerful those that do turn up turn out to be.

Also, a "serious threat" that you foil once and never hear of again is a contradiction in terms. A real serious threat would affect Federation policy in noticeable ways. Take the Conspiracy aliens: infecting the core of the Federation, yet after Conspiracy no one ever hears of them again. We get no indication of their true strength, and no one hears of them again even to the end of DS9. For all we know, they blew their wad trying to infiltrate the Federation (the biggest boy in the neighborhood) and got thoroughly smacked down into obscurity. They give every indication of being no longer a major threat. The Borg, on the other hand, is a real major threat because we actually get some idea of how large their territory is, how strong they are, and they attack multiple times. Its presence spawned the development of the Defiant class. But we don't get frequent neck checks to guard against the Conspiracy aliens. If the Borg were similarly one-shot, then I would similarly suspect that the Borg were in fact nothing special that did not constitute an actual major threat, but more a bogeyman.

There's hundreds of them. Take your pick.

And most of them seem to not even have spaceflight. They pose no significant threat to a spacefaring civilization spread across hundreds of worlds. Don't pull this "hundred races" nonsense on me, show that the Federation has had to deal with major threats to Federation interests outside the Enterprise's or the Defiant's stomping grounds, the kind of threats that justify your large numbers.

[Kythnos]

You say this like I don't know that. I've been using 5000c for the "fast response" number to derive the ship density. The 1000c only comes in for a many month/years journey, which is based on Voyager.

You know I think you have, almost completely, disproved the idea that the Federation has a diameter of 8,000 light years. Unless you can point me to dialog to the contrary. After all how much can one ship protect look at the Enterprise for example and both Survivors and the Neutral Zone they arrive at dead worlds to investigate. (I could go on and on with those examples)

Think about it it must have taken the Enterprise 3.5 year to reach Farpoint, and in stead of exploring new worlds they must have turned around and started right back to earth so it could be there for Wolf359 a few years later. Although it fits the events in TNG well it would not make the Enterprise an explorer ship.

To start it would have been almost impossible for the Federation to grow in a "prefect" sphere or circle, when their expansion was blocked by borders of other civilizations or even by the edge of the Galaxy. Trying to figure out how both can be true and I do have several ideas.

1) To start Picard was talking to Lily who if she had an accurate map of the galaxy, it would have been 2D, he might have been giving her the total "square" light years. So when she looked at her map she could measure out 90 lightyear by 90 lightyears with Earth in the center and know that everything inside was part of the Core of the Federation. Again this is referring to the member worlds not the small colones which would spread out but only in areas not claimed by others.

2)It could be a modified "Cubic Lightyear" system, before you start screaming that is only 20LY cubed hear me out. If you are expanding why would you count territory of no use, aka the vast distances between stars. (Example: when people consider the size of a country they don't count parts of the ocean between their islands they just count the land mass.) So just to plug in some numbers the Oort cloud is about 1 LY from the sun that would make Earth system about 8 cubic LYs making the Federation about 1000 systems. Although it could be closer to 8000 systems or anywhere in-between. This has the added benefit of not including territory that does not belong to you like systems to primitive to approach, systems that just don't wish to join, and hostile powers you have engulfed.

Personally I would use system 2 and it is partially backed up by canon, one of the maps show cubes marking off the systems.

[Junghalli]

Think about it it must have taken the Enterprise 3.5 year to reach Farpoint, and in stead of exploring new worlds they must have turned around and started right back to earth so it could be there for Wolf359 a few years later. Although it fits the events in TNG well it would not make the Enterprise an explorer ship.

I always figured that the Federation had territories spread over thousands of light years, but not everything in that volume was Federation territory.

Wasn't the exact wording in the movie something like "over 150, spread across 8000 light years"? Simply being spread across a certain volume doesn't necessarily imply that you control the entire volume.

Even if you went purely by terrestrial thinking, you could say the US was spread over the distance between Florida to Alaska, but that doesn't mean it owns a circular chunk of the planet with that diameter. It gets even more complicated in space where you have three dimensions to consider and really the whole idea of terrestrial-style borders and territories might not even make much sense.

Edit: although you have a point about the Farpoint thing because as I recall it was explicitly the most distant outpost, wasn't it?

[seanrobertson]

Think about it it must have taken the Enterprise 3.5 year to reach Farpoint, and in stead of exploring new worlds they must have turned around and started right back to earth so it could be there for Wolf359 a few years later. Although it fits the events in TNG well it would not make the Enterprise an explorer ship.

I always figured that the Federation had territories spread over thousands of light years, but not everything in that volume was Federation territory.

Wasn't the exact wording in the movie something like "over 150, spread across 8000 light years"? Simply being spread across a certain volume doesn't necessarily imply that you control the entire volume.

That's true. I think a bunch of episodes bear this out, too. For example, the Briar Patch was inside Federation space, but they didn't control the Ba'ku planet.

Even if you went purely by terrestrial thinking, you could say the US was spread over the distance between Florida to Alaska, but that doesn't mean it owns a circular chunk of the planet with that diameter. It gets even more complicated in space where you have three dimensions to consider and really the whole idea of terrestrial-style borders and territories might not even make much sense.

Edit: although you have a point about the Farpoint thing because as I recall it was explicitly the most distant outpost, wasn't it?

I'm playing catch-up on the thread (which is outstanding, btw ... thanks to all participating!), but I'm at a bit of a loss on the Farpoint Station point. I'm reading the script at Trekcore and, thus far, I'm at a bit of a loss how it being on the Federation frontier disproves anything. More on that later.

[Kythnos]

"This rotation would explain why the ships are able to explore strange new worlds one week and visit a Federation colony next week, but it is rarely the same worlds or colonies twice a year."

A rotation finding strange new worlds nearby is completely understandable, and, in fact, expected. How long does it take to survey a star system? How long to get details? TNG "First Contact" implies it is a process that takes several years, but they don't necessarily need a ship there for much of the time. A starship moves on to a strange, new world each week. They can't spend that much time getting details.

There's 1 star per 50 cubic light years. At 3000c for 2 weeks travel time a starship could get to any one of 6 million cubic light years.

That's 100,000 stars. If they spent a total of two weeks at warp for their entire 5 year mission, and one week at each star checking it out, that's (5 years - 2 weeks) / 1 week that's about 300 stars explored, or 99,700 left unexplored for the next ship to take a look at.

I do see your point with this but a have a few problems with the concept, and I also acknowledge the historic presidents. (IMO exploration should be more methodical than "oohh look a hill what is on the otherside." The most resent SW maps show the same problems)
I do have a small problem with your numbers and the conclusion you have reached here:
If you factor in the Time they have explored and the number of ships they have sent out your number no longer show what you are trying to prove. (Example: If exploration truly started 100 years ago and only half of that time was spent exploring that equals about 3,000 stars explored now add in if they only had 100 ships exploring, which no one believes they only have 100, and you get 300,000 stars.) Explored before TNG even begins, add in the Borders will prevent you from proceeding in certain directions and you focus the ships in certain directions, not counting gaps between the arms or large empty zones. After all the Borders of the Klingon Empire had to be "set" over 300 years before TNG started. And the civilizations that join yours and share their knowledge to yours.
My rant over, I do concede it is possible.

Remember they went back to earth in season 1 "Conspiracy" too.

Ok correct me if I am wrong here but wasn't Farpoint station at the edge of explored space?
(I must be using the Warp Calculator wrong because it is telling me that if Farpoint was only 1000 LYs from earth then it would take a year at warp 7 to get back) Personally I was thinking Farpoint around 3000lys, or at least 2000, and the rest was added during the 7 years of TNG.

This would be really bizarre because they don't use Oort clouds in Star Trek - if this was the measure being used, it'd make more sense to just stick to the number of worlds.

No I agree, I was just throwing numbers out there. Thinking that the Oort cloud might represent what could be called the farthest point of a system, kind of like the 2 miles limit for international waters. A single cubic lightyear persystem is much more reasonable.

Those cubes are 20x20x20 light year sectors according to supplemental information. The scale is all wrong for being 1x1x1 light year anyway.

Ok I did not know that. But if you look at the map it does not form an exact grid pattern, a few of the cubes are higher than others and there seems to be cubes missing in spots near the center, as if those did not belong to the Federation. It also could imply a way of thinking that might be carried to a smaller system, like not measuring things that are not yours or not important.

[Junghalli]

I do have a small problem with your numbers and the conclusion you have reached here:
If you factor in the Time they have explored and the number of ships they have sent out your number no longer show what you are trying to prove. (Example: If exploration truly started 100 years ago and only half of that time was spent exploring that equals about 3,000 stars explored now add in if they only had 100 ships exploring, which no one believes they only have 100, and you get 300,000 stars.)

Remember that the number of stars in a given region of space scales up by r^3 until you hit the edges of the galactic disk, and then by roughly r^2, so you get really big numbers pretty fast. By the time you get to radii of thousands of light years you're talking about tens of millions of stars in that volume.

[Kythnos]

Wasn't the exact wording in the movie something like "over 150, spread across 8000 light years"? Simply being spread across a certain volume doesn't necessarily imply that you control the entire volume.

The main discussion is about distance, and how far is the edge of the Federation is not really how much volume. That is part of the debate of a possible reinterpretation of the line of dialog and it's possible meanings.

Remember that the number of stars in a given region of space scales up by r^3 until you hit the edges of the galactic disk, and then by roughly r^2, so you get really big numbers pretty fast. By the time you get to radii of thousands of light years you're talking about tens of millions of stars in that volume.

To start with I think the federation is already at the edge if the Galaxy width wise so expansion would main be in the other directions. If memory severs the Romulans "control" the visible beta quadrant limiting growth in that direction. That is a bit of a misconception as just because a ship explores a system it does not make it theirs but I think that most "Empires" would not agree with that.

[Junghalli]

To start with I think the federation is already at the edge if the Galaxy width wise so expansion would main be in the other directions.

If the Federation is roughly centered on Earth, then according to the first estimate I found (a sourced statement on Wikipedia) Earth is 15-100 light years from the central plane of the galaxy's disk, which puts it close to the center of the disk (that being 1000 light years thick). At any rate, either way if the disk is 1000 light years thick a 4000 or 8000 light year territory would encompass it's entire thickness and resemble a fat cylinder on these scales, so it doesn't really make a big difference.

If memory severs the Romulans "control" the visible beta quadrant limiting growth in that direction.

Yeah, this is what I've been suggesting; the Federation is spread over 8000 light years but that doesn't mean it controls and has thoroughly explored an 8000 light year circular slice of the galaxy.

[Kythnos]

Yeah, this is what I've been suggesting; the Federation is spread over 8000 light years but that doesn't mean it controls and has thoroughly explored an 8000 light year circular slice of the galaxy.

It is kind of funny but this supports my point too. Why would you send a ship 4000lys in one direction when there is systems much closer that is unexplored.

My problem, well one of them, is that it would be better to make the ships at the frontier. Really would you bother if there was systems you have yet to explore that are much closer? If we say that each "tour of duty" lasts seven years then ships from earth would have to turn back 500lys from the edge of know space so they could get back in time to end their tour. That trip does not include stopping for any reason.

[Big Phil]

To start with I think the federation is already at the edge if the Galaxy width wise so expansion would main be in the other directions.

If the Federation is roughly centered on Earth, then according to the first estimate I found (a sourced statement on Wikipedia) Earth is 15-100 light years from the central plane of the galaxy's disk, which puts it close to the center of the disk (that being 1000 light years thick). At any rate, either way if the disk is 1000 light years thick a 4000 or 8000 light year territory would encompass it's entire thickness and resemble a fat cylinder on these scales, so it doesn't really make a big difference.

The problem is assuming the Federation is "centered" on Earth. No maps (canonical or otherwise) place Earth at the geographical center of the Federation, but rather quite close to the border with the Romulan and Cardassian (and possibly the Klingon) empires. It's actually a bit like the United States, where Washington DC is on the East Coast, not Nebraska.

[seanrobertson]

I want to thank you for this, I have watched the episode many times but it was a long time ago.
It seems that the total Klingon fleet at this time was 1,100 ships. I had always assumed that this was only the maximum number of ships that could be "refit" in a day, the first phase of many days each adding 1,100 ships. The dialog proves me wrong however as only a "adjustment" was needed to make Klingon ships proof of the Breen weapon.

Kythnos,

First, it's actually fifteen hundred ships, not 1,100. Either J.G. Hertzler misspoke or the writers changed their minds.

Regardless, in the aired episode, there's no mistaking what the Chancellor actually said. The relevant dialogue begins almost immediately in this video.

Besides, 1,100, 1,500 or whatever's irrelevant; I think you're moving from a somewhat overly generous interpretation of the dialogue to the other extreme -- and then some, actually. Several reasons come to mind, which I'll [at least try to***] touch on in a moment.

***Apologies in advance if I space out and/or run off on an irrelevant tangent. I'm taking extreme pains to ensure that's not so, but I have seriously strained or possibly have torn something in my upper back; as such, I'm medicated and might not make the sort of sense I really want to. I've considered whether or not I should even post. The coin-flip says, more or less, "Meh. Go ahead."

This almost completely removes the possibility of 30,000 Dominion ships, as they have no compulsions against killing there own to kill the enemy as seen in the case of the Odyssey. If they out numbered their opponents by so much then just have 1/10 of your fleet ram the enemy and the space war is over. Since the Jem'Hadar would have no problems dying for their gods, even when they are winning.

Recall that the 30,000 figure was based on the 1,500-strong Klingon fleet being outnumbered 20-1 -- and not solely by the Jem'Hadar. The Romulan general clearly said, "With the Breen, the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar, you're still outnumbered twenty to one."

When this subject came up in the past, some people were quick to dismiss the Romulan's statement as hyperbole, an outright lie and all other varieties of nonsense. Frankly, those objections were knee-jerk reactions -- carryovers from the Wars v. Trek debate, perhaps -- and all were ultimately a bit stupid.

Someone can cry all he wants but, immediately after the Romulan's statement, Martok barks, "I am aware of that, General!"

That a crystal-fucking clear acknowledgment of the Romulan's claim to me. Unless someone can cite proof to the contrary, I find it something less than sane to treat the 20:1 ratio as for appears to be: a simple statement of truth.

Back to 1,500 ships representing the entirety of the Klingon fleet ...

Apart from the final Dominion War's projections, perhaps (something I'll have to touch on in another post; I'm waning by the minute), assuming the Klingons were limited to 1,500 ships is simply impossible.

Yes, Martok said that, "By tomorrow, we'll have fifteen-hundred ships ready for deployment."

And after the failed Chin'Toka invasion, the warship Ki'Tang would most likely have returned to DS9, which is the "most fortified position between [Cardassian space] and the Klingon Empire" (Sisko, "By Inferno's Light").

This indicates at least most Klingon space is rather far from DS9 -- something corroborated by the faux Martok's talk of a "long journey [from Klingon space to reach DS9]" ("Way of the Warrior").

Klingons are all but masochists; to even mention need of shore leave or a "long journey" entails more than a day or two's travel. How much is reasonable ... a week? Two? A month? We can't say for sure. However, assuming Founder Martok's fleet sustained 1000c for, say, just under a week (we'll call it exactly 6 days), that'd put Klingon space facing the Cardassian front over 15.5 ly from DS9, minimum IMNSHO.

More to the point:

We do not have to guess that, since the Federation's pretty big, so, too, might Klingons' territory be. "Firstborn" clearly establishes that subspace messages from a Klingon outpost to a Klingon colony (which, incidentally, was never said to be at the outermost reaches of their territory) would take at least two days to receive:

K'MTAR: I'll send Kurn a message telling him what happened, but it will be days before he receives it -- he's gone to the Hitora colony as Gowron's representative.

Unless Klingon subspace messages are faster than Starfleet's, two days minimum translates to almost exactly 45 ly.

In that light, after the Chin'Toka massacre, Chancellor Martok's contingent could only "get the word out" as fast as the Chancellor could reach the entirety of the Imperial fleet. From what I've cited, it'd probably take many hours at least for the whole "hey, the Ki'Tang survived; change your warp core blah-intermix like-blah-blah this" to reach even the closest Klingon territory from DS9. And it could well take days, if not more, to spread the word to the entire Imperial fleet.

Moreover, since it'd be utterly insane for the Klingons to not hold ships in reserve to protect key worlds, only a psycho would assume their entire fleet is on the Cardassian front, "ready for deployment" -- that is, in to protect the Federation, Klingon and petaQ Romulan fronts -- as the Chancellor all but indicated.

Anyone object? If I weren't suffering (stupid rotator cuff pains), I'd go ahead and show all my cards. As-is, this will have to do for now. We've not even touched on the last battle in the Dominion War ... yet.

-Sean

[Kythnos]

First, it's actually fifteen hundred ships, not 1,100. Either J.G. Hertzler misspoke or the writers changed their minds.

I full except the new numbers, I was just working from the information given.

Besides, 1,100, 1,500 or whatever's irrelevant; I think you're moving from a somewhat overly generous interpretation of the dialogue to the other extreme -- and then some, actually. Several reasons come to mind, which I'll [at least try to***] touch on in a moment.

I agree with this also to a degree, I did post that originally I thought more ships would be modified but the dialog suggested differently. (more about that in a moment)

***Apologies in advance if I space out and/or run off on an irrelevant tangent. I'm taking extreme pains to ensure that's not so, but I have seriously strained or possibly have torn something in my upper back; as such, I'm medicated and might not make the sort of sense I really want to. I've considered whether or not I should even post. The coin-flip says, more or less, "Meh. Go ahead."

Thanks for working through the pain here, and I really hope you feel better soon.

Recall that the 30,000 figure was based on the 1,500-strong Klingon fleet being outnumbered 20-1 -- and not solely by the Jem'Hadar. The Romulan general clearly said, "With the Breen, the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar, you're still outnumbered twenty to one."

When this subject came up in the past, some people were quick to dismiss the Romulan's statement as hyperbole, an outright lie and all other varieties of nonsense. Frankly, those objections were knee-jerk reactions -- carryovers from the Wars v. Trek debate, perhaps -- and all were ultimately a bit stupid.

Someone can cry all he wants but, immediately after the Romulan's statement, Martok barks, "I am aware of that, General!"

That a crystal-fucking clear acknowledgment of the Romulan's claim to me. Unless someone can cite proof to the contrary, I find it something less than sane to treat the 20:1 ratio as for appears to be: a simple statement of truth.

LOL, it is kind of funny you should mention that about 5 pages back or so I ask for peoples opinion about that very line listing pros and cons for both sides. No one responded, you should be able to find it easily, and I would like your opinion on it. I could add the General's reply to the pros side.

I am going to lump a few of your comments together here for a few reasons but mainly by point I wish to address.

Back to 1,500 ships representing the entirety of the Klingon fleet ...
Apart from the final Dominion War's projections, perhaps (something I'll have to touch on in another post; I'm waning by the minute), assuming the Klingons were limited to 1,500 ships is simply impossible.

Too start it was a bit of a typo on my part I was referring to Klingon ships on this part of the war front, I would have edited that when I saw my mistake but lack that ability. Not the sum total of ships in the Klingon Empire and it is backed up by your own data that there was no other Klingon ship with in 10 days, or so, of high warp travel as he must have known no other ship would be able to make that adjustment in 24 hours. Destructionator XIII has been pointing out the same argument that you are that it is not possible at warp travel for them to "gather the fleet". Still the Klingons would be in a much better position even after the war against the Cardassians as they started the war and had to prepare for that. Also their Empire places such a high value on the arts of war that "drafting personal" for ships would be much easier for them than the Federation. (Which in my opinion would be the greatest limiting factor in the Federation's mass-production of warships.)

Anyone object? If I weren't suffering (stupid rotator cuff pains), I'd go ahead and show all my cards. As-is, this will have to do for now. We've not even touched on the last battle in the Dominion War ... yet.
-Sean

I do look forward to seeing what new information you can bring to this discussion or at least new looks at old points.

[Baffalo]

Hello everyone, must say most of this debate is over my head, so I'm going to stick with what I feel I can contribute and continue on. Oh, and if I'm beating a dead horse, please let me know.

First of all, I know nothing of actual deployments and the like by the US Navy so I'll stay away from that. But I do know a bit about three-dimensional physics and coordinate systems so I'll start there. In theory, empires would expand in three dimensions spherically in all directions. This is of course only logical, given that systems are arrayed in all directions around one another. However, at a certain point, expansion no longer becomes a matter of expansion spherically, but rather cylindrically.

The Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 lightyears in diameter and approximately 1000 lightyears thick[1]. Given that most of these discussions regard the Federation being a minimum of 1,000ly in diameter, it's not unreasonable to therefor say that the Federation has colonies located at the 'top' and 'bottom' of the galactic plane. So anywhere beyond 1000ly would be in a more rounded cylinder expansion, rather than strictly spherical.

However, even this is not entirely accurate, as stars often form in clusters, separated by vast distances. Also, to further complicate things, the stars tend to form along the galaxy's arms and spurs, thus meaning that expansion would tend to congregate along these arms at a much higher rate, simply due to the proximity of the local stars. The image below is an artist rendering of the Milky Way.



While stars will certainly exist between the spurs, their frequency will probably be drastically lower than that of the arms. What am I getting at? Well, I'm building up to the concept of strategic stars and planets. The US Navy, after the Spanish-American War, was eager to get a base at Cuba, the Philippines and Guam because of coal and later oil, which could be stored at these bases and used to extend the fleet's range.

I'm not suggesting that starships need to refuel every time they come in to port, since nuclear warships don't need to everytime they come in, but fuel isn't the only limiting factor. There's also shoreleave, fatigue, maintenance, etc. that has to be worked on. And all this means that ships will tend to be stationed near important assets, such as a star they obtained on a class M world close to a rival power. It would be logical to place a starbase there to nail down an important strategic location before the enemy can, which gives you a springboard for future operations.

So you have starbases and colonies spread up and down the arms of the galaxy with a few scattered about beyond the arms into the void of space between. If you have a starship, and you know you need to get from a base far away from Earth back to the Earth itself, you choose to navigate along the established routes between bases if at all possible. This makes sense from the point of view that on the unlikely chance you have something go wrong (like a warp core failure), you won't be stuck somewhere trying to get help. Someone might just come along and lend a hand.

So what does this imply? It means that any commander worth his pips is going to send his ship(s) along a route where assistance isn't too difficult to obtain if necessary. However, doing so might require that you travel along a path that isn't a straight line, but rather an arc that might add several more lightyears to your journey. Sure, you're adding time to your voyage, but you're significantly lowering the risk that you and your crew get stranded in the middle of nowhere with no help.

A good real life example would be if you had to travel from Florida to say... Oklahoma. There's no straight-line path there by car (we're going to ignore planes for this example), so you need to find a route there. You could take some highways and go on a more straight line path, or take the interstate. If you take the interstate, you can stop more often along the way if you want, or just keep going. The amount of traffic means that if you break down, odds are someone, either another motorist or police officer, might pull over to assist, or at least finding you will be easier if you call for assistance.



The point I'm making is that expansion isn't strictly spherical. More often than not, it's by the most convenient routes available to the people who have to travel. Any starship that has to travel signifigant distances will try to take a route that has heavier traffic just for the sake of convenience and safety, and this will in turn affect how the Federation expands. And if you have to start looking at it from anything from a straight-line run from one end to the other, then it might add considerable length to what someone would consider.

Remember, Picard is a military strategist who came up with the entire defensive plan against the Cardassian Union[2] so he should be aware of most of the routes to and from the outer reaches of the Federation. So he might have been thinking how far a fleet would travel from one end to the next. And that 150 number might refer to the number of worlds deemed to be of significant strategic value, or worlds that are very important to the overall security of the Federation.

That's just my thinking on the matter. Feel free to dice it apart, since I'm sure someone's going to find an error in my logic, and if you can correct me, please do so.


[1] Wikipedia Entry: Milky Way
[2] Chain of Command Part II

[Junghalli]

The problem is assuming the Federation is "centered" on Earth. No maps (canonical or otherwise) place Earth at the geographical center of the Federation, but rather quite close to the border with the Romulan and Cardassian (and possibly the Klingon) empires. It's actually a bit like the United States, where Washington DC is on the East Coast, not Nebraska.

I suppose that makes sense, given how all those borders never seem all that far from Earth, and they had been in contact with those races for a long time. It doesn't really matter as far as limiting their territory goes, because if we credit the 8000 light year estimate it's big enough to cover the entire 1000 light year thickness of the disk whatever its origin point within it. Unless maybe some of those empires are "over" or "under" it and cut off its access to the lower or upper part of the disk.

Come to think of it, if Earth is actually close to the edge of the Federation that might explain the Farpoint thing Kythnos brought up.

[Wyrm]

I don't even know what your point is. It seems like you're nitpicking just because you can.

This is not a nitpick. This is a common statistical blunder. A stastistic tells you something about a population. As such, if you want to have a statistic tell you something about the speeds of 24th century Federation ships inside Federation space, the data had better come from 24th century Federation ships inside Federation space. The data, however, is tainted by points not from the population we're interested in. You either have to exclude the tainted points, or correct for the bias. Obviously, neither has been done.

Kirk is the only thing between Romulan or Klingon or Gorn invasions of the week. Picard is the only thing standing between the Romulan Empire and the Federation core.

Bollocks. A major conflict with major powers is going to last the substantial part of a year at least with the kind of speeds they get from their ships. The fact that one starship is able to defuse a situation within the space of one episode or two is on its face evidence that the conflicts are not major.

Often, it is implied that the failure of our heroes would mean bad things for the local area, which may spread to the Federation as a whole.

That's when to bring in the fleet. That's when a conflict turns major and you start drawing on reserves instead of relying on patrol ships and ships "just happening by."

They didn't. That was a secret mission of the Romulan and Cardassian intelligence services. The Federation just looked the other way and hoped for the best.

So they still expected a conflict, perhaps an extended one, and as such no excuse not to call in the reserves.

One week, of course, is scarcely enough time to get the details on a world too. Even if it was briefly explored, they probably don't know every little fact about their penal colonies or what the fuck the difference is between a fork and a salad fork. Later follow ups need to reveal these things, which is what we often see the Enterprise carrying out.

You're pretending that the Federation ships will not prioritize their missions. Specifically, normalizing relationships with the inhabited planets in their territory. If the Federation has really spread out to over 1 warp year, then they've had over a century to do that with any inhabited planet within 1/2 warp year.

In other words, this observation still leaves you with the problem that you're claiming that there are planets well within nominal Federation borders that the Federation knows very little about, and has very little in the way of treaties with, even though they've had plenty of time to correct that situation. It's still a frontier, no matter how you look at it. The Federation may claim to have ownership and control of it, but (for instance) a foreign entity having any legal standing to take control of a Federation ship by way of local planetary law means that in fact they don't have control of that space.

Every fucking week, the ships we watch encounters something new, in whatever quadrent of the galaxy they happen to be in this time. What are the odds of that? Certainly much better if the whole galaxy teeming with life than not, no?

Ho, ho! Destructionator thinks that, just because they encounter something new every week, that this justifies that there are major powers unheard of and produce no major effect on Federation policy just waiting in the shadows, like the Invisible Pink Unicorn Empire!

Again, NO sane rules of evidence requires me to accept the existence of any entity absent any evidence whatsoever — such entities are entirely indistinguishable from entities that do not exist at all. Produce direct, positive evidence of a major threat that the Enterprise does not deal with directly and we'll talk. Otherwise, take your bullshit and shove it.

God, you're so fucking stupid I can't even stand it anymore. You listed off a dozen things the Enterprise had to do, but you can't see how other ships might be doing the same thing.

Yes, they may be doing the same thing, but they are discovering no new major threats. Otherwise, they would have to be considered along with the Borg ("Why didn't we get better ships to fight the Borg?" "Because we need to mind the Nipple Pibblies on the other side of the Federation."). If no new major threats are mentioned or even felt, then they are indistiguishable from threats that don't exist at all.

[Kythnos]

The problem is assuming the Federation is "centered" on Earth. No maps (canonical or otherwise) place Earth at the geographical center of the Federation, but rather quite close to the border with the Romulan and Cardassian (and possibly the Klingon) empires. It's actually a bit like the United States, where Washington DC is on the East Coast, not Nebraska.

I realize this is not the best source but the maps in "Star Trek Starfleet Technical Manual" do show Earth as the "center" of the Federation at least in Kirk's time, which is the area for when the book was made. Considering the time that has past and the fact they they where boxed in from expanding in 3 directions that would no longer be true. The Federation during Picard's time should be Oval or Triangular in shape with earth much farther from the "unexplored" area than ever.

Come to think of it, if Earth is actually close to the edge of the Federation that might explain the Farpoint thing Kythnos brought up.

No I think it makes it much much worst from my point of view.
Ex: If we use the USA for an example. The Capital is in "Maryland" on the eastern coast, not exactly like the Federation but close enough for this example. Your farthest outpost is ST. Louis when you have not explored Ohio or Kentucky? Where I concede it is possible it is highly improbable . The only reasons that the Mississippi River was explored faster than overland routes is that it was easier to travel by water than walk over mountains but that would not be true of Warp drive. More importantly why am I building ships to explore the Missouri River in Maryland when New Orleans would take less time and avoid a dangerous sea voyage?

[Baffalo]

From what I remember of a particular Star Wars book (The name eludes me at the moment, though I think it was the first book of the Jedi Academy trilogy), a vessel was surveying planets on behalf of the New Republic. They would send a ship to a system and map the system's location, number of planets, basic composition and any inhabited worlds. This makes sense to me, since you want to know the basics of each system in your territory, such as class M worlds suitable for colonization. Worlds that are less suitable for colonization (such as Mars) are more suitable for mining and whatnot.

The point I'm making is that the Enterprise was often seen going to worlds where a species was identified or there was a problem. They don't often show the survey ships that spend almost their entire time flying out to new systems and mapping them. It's slow, tedious work, but you don't want to send your most important ship on the most boring task in the fleet when a smaller ship (such as an Excelsior class or even smaller) can do the job and allow larger elements to handle other situations.

From the perspective of a civilian, I can't exactly comment on military matters, but common sense tells you that you don't send a battleship to do the same job a frigate can do. You keep that battleship in reserve for the jobs that only a battleship can do.

[Big Phil]

The problem is assuming the Federation is "centered" on Earth. No maps (canonical or otherwise) place Earth at the geographical center of the Federation, but rather quite close to the border with the Romulan and Cardassian (and possibly the Klingon) empires. It's actually a bit like the United States, where Washington DC is on the East Coast, not Nebraska.

I realize this is not the best source but the maps in "Star Trek Starfleet Technical Manual" do show Earth as the "center" of the Federation at least in Kirk's time, which is the area for when the book was made. Considering the time that has past and the fact they they where boxed in from expanding in 3 directions that would no longer be true. The Federation during Picard's time should be Oval or Triangular in shape with earth much farther from the "unexplored" area than ever.

Go back a couple of pages in the thread. I posted several semi-canonical maps of TNG Federation.

Come to think of it, if Earth is actually close to the edge of the Federation that might explain the Farpoint thing Kythnos brought up.

No I think it makes it much much worst from my point of view.
Ex: If we use the USA for an example. The Capital is in "Maryland" on the eastern coast, not exactly like the Federation but close enough for this example. Your farthest outpost is ST. Louis when you have not explored Ohio or Kentucky? Where I concede it is possible it is highly improbable . The only reasons that the Mississippi River was explored faster than overland routes is that it was easier to travel by water than walk over mountains but that would not be true of Warp drive. More importantly why am I building ships to explore the Missouri River in Maryland when New Orleans would take less time and avoid a dangerous sea voyage?

You do realize that the US had major settlements in California well before it had settlements in Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Nebraska, etc., or did you forget about that? It actually makes complete sense for a civilization to rapidly expand its borders but less rapidly fill in what's left.

[Kythnos]

You do realize that the US had major settlements in California well before it had settlements in Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Nebraska, etc., or did you forget about that? It actually makes complete sense for a civilization to rapidly expand its borders but less rapidly fill in what's left.

Of course that is why I added:

The only reasons that the Mississippi River was explored faster than overland routes is that it was easier to travel by water than walk over mountains but that would not be true of Warp drive.

Without the "Safer & Faster" water ways, do you really think that it would still be so?
There would be no "natural boarders" in space to grow towards, no manifest destiny, so that does not fit well either. Not saying that a space-fairing civilization would not try and expand as fast as possible, but the Federation does not seen to have an Imperialistic bend. That said they would grow where it was beneficial toward needed resources just like every other civilization.

[Baffalo]

Of course that is why I added:

The only reasons that the Mississippi River was explored faster than overland routes is that it was easier to travel by water than walk over mountains but that would not be true of Warp drive.

Without the "Safer & Faster" water ways, do you really think that it would still be so?
There would be no "natural boarders" in space to grow towards, no manifest destiny, so that does not fit well either. Not saying that a space-fairing civilization would not try and expand as fast as possible, but the Federation does not seen to have an Imperialistic bend. That said they would grow where it was beneficial toward needed resources just like every other civilization.

I'm sorry but you're wrong. There are natural barriers in space, mostly in the form of large expanses of empty space, nebulas, and other large phenomena that can and will impede space travel. Certain nebulas will impede communication, shields, or just cause other unpleasant problems for starships that make the regions more difficult to explore and more dangerous. While I'm certainly not saying that a nebula will form entire borders between space-faring civilizations, they will affect local areas of space.

And given that my post earlier explained how travel and expansion would be limited by the clustering of stars, it's certainly more than likely that expansion will tend to occur along the arms of the galaxy rather than simply expanding in all directions. While it's true that if another empire forms a barrier the Federation has to squeeze around to continue to expand, they'll tend to grow into less-than-optimal regions, but that expansion will be slower than if there was a large cluster of stars readily available to explore and move into.

[Junghalli]

No I think it makes it much much worst from my point of view.
Ex: If we use the USA for an example. The Capital is in "Maryland" on the eastern coast, not exactly like the Federation but close enough for this example. Your farthest outpost is ST. Louis when you have not explored Ohio or Kentucky?

What I'm thinking is that if Earth isn't the center of the Federation maybe Farpoint is the farthest point from the center of the Federation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's far from Earth.

Basically I'm thinking the situation might look something like this:



Perhaps the Federation is centered on members that have been spacefaring longer than Earth, and hence have had more time to explore and colonize.

[Baffalo]

While it's true that the Vulcans, Andorians, and other members have had warp travel for longer than Earth, we see in Star Trek VI that Starfleet is mostly human. While I'm not saying that the Vulcans and others didn't have colonies (in Enterprise, they are even said to have some), it's pretty clear that humans breed like horny rabbits compared to the other races. Also, from what we saw of the Vulcans and Andorians, they prefer worlds that sit just outside the human ideal, with Vulcans preferring deserts and the Andorians preferring balls of ice. Jesus, imagine how frigid their women are *bah-dum tsh*

So with humans not only possessing a strong desire to explore the stars but also expanding rapidly, the center of the Federation would no doubt have started with the older races and slowly shifted over time to somewhere between Earth and other major worlds, depending on how the population shifts and adjusts. Since the Romulans, Klingons and other races are fairly close to Earth in some manner, expansion will be limited and growing in certain directions, thus keeping Earth anchored on one end of the Federation. But that's just my take on the situation.

[Kythnos]

Basically I'm thinking the situation might look something like this:

Perhaps the Federation is centered on members that have been spacefaring longer than Earth, and hence have had more time to explore and colonize.

Yes I knew what you where thinking but that does not fact the facts provided.
Earth is the Headquarters of the UFP, and the driving force behind it.
Vulcan is about a dozen LYs from earth, and I do believe that it was said they did not explore as much as you would think, if not the series implied it massively.
Andoria could not be much farther, putting the 3 main parts of the federation within 20lys of Earth. (although it has not been said to be such look at the flag or seal of the federation in the old books that could be used as a map)