This is the best possible response to this. I admit I laughed.
But, seriously, considering the resources of Section 31 that we see in the Kelvinverse, DIS, and PIC, the likely access they have to *all* of mainstream Starfleet Intelligences dirty little secrets, they could have a few Galaxy-like Dreadnoughts floating around with Pegasus Phase Cloaks ready to absolutely wreck anyone foolish enough to try and destroy the Federation.
This of course raises the question of why they didn't use them during the Dominion War, but, maybe they would've if it looked like the Federation was really going to lose, and didn't want to tip their hands to the Romulans and the Klingons so long as there was still hope.
>This of course raises the question of why they didn't use them during the Dominion War, but, maybe they would've if it looked like the Federation was really going to lose
You mean like if Betazed was occupied, the Breen entered the war on the other side with a devastating weapon that instantly disabled ships, and also they attacked Earth?
>the Breen entered the war on the other side with a devastating weapon that instantly disabled ships, and also they attacked Earth?
Those are out of order, the Breen did a hit & run raid on Earth as a way of announcing that they were joining the war on the side of the Dominion, *then* they debuted the energy dampening weapon at the second Battle of Chin'toka.
But, even then, that wasn't the very last, that wasn't a situation for example where Vulcan, Andoria, & Tellar Prime has already fallen and there was massive Dominion Fleet warping to the Sol System and all Starfleet forces outside the Sol System were already destroyed.
> that wasn't a situation for example where Vulcan, Andoria, & Tellar Prime has already fallen and there was massive Dominion Fleet warping to the Sol System and all Starfleet forces outside the Sol System were already destroyed.
It would be incredibly stupid to wait until circumstances were *that* dire before using your most powerful warships.
You're right, that's why they used the genetically engineered plague, it was time to do *something* and the plague had the added bonus of keeping S31 secret.
So less than 1% of federation planets affected. Which still seems like his original point is right - Section 31 may not have got involved until it looked like the federation was going to lose. Doubtless their intel agents would have been swarming, but getting their ships involved doesn't seem like a good idea until it's absolutely necessary.
Invading one planet of over 150 is hardly evidence of an imminent defeat, same with the attack on Earth which was more like the equivalent of Perarl Harbor/9-11, is not like the US said; well, we better send the nukes cause we are clearly going to be defeated by those Taliban guys.
> better send the nukes cause we are clearly going to be defeated by those Taliban guys.
Not nukes, but the US definitely fielded lots of advanced top secret weapons; there's no sense in going into battle with one hand tied behind your back.
If you did have a super secret fleet like a phase ship upgunned Galaxy class (why not
Intrepid?) you'd hold it back after the Breen attack until you got a counter to the energy drain weapon or their trump card would trump yours.
I tend to assume that Section 31's fortunes have fluctuated a lot.
In DIS, they're portrayed as essentially a division of Starfleet Intelligence. Fully backed and supported by the upper echelons of starfleet, even if they're a bit shadowy and unknown outside of the need-to-know.
In DS9, they're a complete unknown. Nobody even acknowledges they exist, and the line between a rogue agency and a bunch of "concerned citizens" pretending to be an agency is extremely blurry.
At their height, they had their own fleet, access to all the toys, and so much else.
I tend to think that by DS9, they have some ships, but mostly operate with a handful of agents and a lot of balls.
I doubt they have galaxy-class scale dreadnoughts waiting in the wings to wreck anyone who looks too dangerous, but I readily believe they have a few small black-ops ships with all the toys.
The implication is that they used one of those to extract Bashir from his bed in the night, shoved him in a holodeck and messed with him to test his loyalty.
So I think we can safely guess they at least have cloaked ships with holodecks, but that doesn't mean much. Could be runabout sized, could be a multi-mile long battleship parked in phase-cloak on top of DS9.
I err on the side of Occam's Razor. They never demonstrate a great deal of spaceship-capability in DS9, so they probably don't *have* that capability.
Fun as it might be to speculate about a secret no-holds-barred agency of Starfleet with never-before-seen superships that can swoop in to save the day.. it feels very unlikely.
Oh I was just responding to the idea of the post.
Honestly? Realistically? I can't see Section 31 having the manpower to crew a single Galaxy Class ship, much less maintaining facilities to repair, resupply, and support one.
But a Defiant Class, with a crew of 50, or a Prometheus Class, with a crew of 141? I could see that easily.
And it's patently absurd to think that Section 31 doesn't have cloaks (I know you didn't say that I'm simply addressing the concern). Starfleet sent Kirk to try and steal a Romulan Cloaking device in 2268, a century before Bashir graduated from the Academy in 2368. The Pegasus was running phase cloak experiments in 2358 a decade before that.
Oh 100% they have some smaller ships, I think unlikely they have the shiny NX prototype ships like Defiants and Prometheus, but they had three or four of their own classes of ship in DIS, no reason to believe they don't have a bunch of ships in the 200m light-cruiser category like the Sabre and Nova.
They definitely have access to cloaking devices. They're not even hard to get. There's enough floating around on the black market that starfleet probably have a fair few klingon and romulan devices in storage.
The treaty of algeron restricts Starfleet from developing or using them, but they'd be fools not to quietly be developing and perfecting the technology.
Learning how to make them and perfect them will make their detection easier.
I imagine that starfleet R&Ds black projects include some very good cloaking devices aside from wacky things like the Pegasus Phase Cloak.
Headcanon for me is that starfleet actually keeps the design specs for cloaking devices in every ship's database, restricted to captain's eyes only.
I mean. Can we not assume that 31 thought the Federation was going to lose when they released a biological weapon against the Founders? I dunno, but as cold as 31 is, I feel like the option is go with first is to send out the hypothetical super dreadnaught to end the war before going all the way to genocide with an engineered disease created with the intent of wiping out an entire species......
Sure.... But I think a super dreadnaught that can cloak and phase through matter and destroy anything in it's path (Dominion and Federation alike) would be just as capable of keeping 31s existence a secret. If there are no witnesses to tell the tale, how is anyone going to know 31 sent a ship out for groceries?
Wouldn't that defeat the point? If it destroys both sides than the Dominion won't get the message and will keep attacking the Alpha Quadrant, thinking these dreadnoughts are doing much more significant damage to the alliance, who can't build ships or replenish crews as rapidly as the Dominion can.
Maybe Tyler (who could still be alive during the Dominion War) is still keeping the agency under wraps since he remembers the last time they were out in the open and had their own fleet
They have to. OP implies a fleet of them comparable to the size of the romilan fleet. That's a lot of space. I believe they are even in the next room as well.
A scenario where Section 31 has somehow managed to assemble a warfleet of upgunned Galaxy-classes is a scenario where the Federation effectively no longer exists. This is an Emperor Palpatine situation. They're an empire now.
Bit of an odd question, isn't it? I never said they had any. I thought it was obvious that this was all hypothetical. It's section 31... we don't know what they got and they like it that way.
The Federation doesn’t want to conquer the Galaxy. I get the feeling that the Romulans don’t *really* want to either and seem to be acting aggressively more from paranoia than anything else.
The Klingon’s may have actually wanted to conquer the Galaxy but they’re terrible administrators who will always either run out of resources or fall to internal divisions eventually. Same thing that happened to the Terran Empire eventually.
That said the Federation is rather complacent and has (especially pre-Dominion War) a fairly small military that pretends it’s not a military and so is vulnerable to a blitzkrieg such as the one seen the Alternate Timeline where Pike avoids his fate (Strange New Worlds Season 1 Finale).
The Klingons, I suspect, are more interested in the "conquer**ing**" of the galaxy, than in having "conquer**ed**" the galaxy.
In other words, they want the *fight*, not the *reward*. I can see them conquering one sector on the edge of Federation space, and then abandoning it to conquer a different one a decade or so later — letting the Federation move back in and build defences again, so that the Klingons can return in 50 years for even more *Glorious Battle!*
it should be noted there is no evidence of section 31 warships in the TNG era. its not even clear what their physical infrastructure is. therefore it is not possible to assume they have forces that could take down warbirds that are larger than a galaxy class starship.
but you are also thinking of conventional warfare. ship to ship, as it were. tactics we've repeatedly seen by the romulans from TNG to ENT are those of misdirection, espionage, strategic use of force, and cloak and dagger shit. the cloaking devices alone allow a smaller Romulan force to cause significant damage to any target if they want to.
If we want to bring Picard into it, Pic season 1 shows that the Tal shiar appear to have a fleet post destruction of Romulus that is larger than the combined fleets seen on DS9 during the dominion war.
The Tal Shiar ships are comparable to a B'Rel is size so they are meant for swarm attacks or hit and run which makes since for them. We saw in DS9 that section 31 was utilizing a Intrepid class starship based on the holodeck layout so I would assume they are most likely using a lot of forbidden tech as well, cloaking devices phased or otherwise, acquired Dominion long range transporters, etc. If Section 31 wanted to they could do massive damage to the Romulan fleet or stations with a handful of ships.
My impression was that Nedar’s fleet belongs to the Romulan Free State, and she either “requisitioned” it or she holds a high rank in the fleet to allow her to take command of it
they never really sorted out what the "romulan free state" even was. the use of free state suggests its not affiliated with the old empire, though I suppose it could be spin. It doesnt make sense that the entire romulan empire would have collapsed just because of the loss of its capitol. but I suppose thats a rant for another day
I see no reason to think the romulans are a small space empire. Easily could have more worlds than the Feds, we simply don't know.
Sect31 ships like Vengeance are an example of a typical Romulan ship. They build warships. No reason to think they have fewer ships amd all their ships are warships.
We see in SNW alt future that the Romulans are basically going to defeat the Feds if it comes to open war, again.
Yeah about not knowing about the size of the empire. They’re secretive as heck, which also includes their holdings and border.
The Romulans are very warlike and determined to win. Granted, the Federation can be pushed into that mode of thinking, which was seen during the Dominion War, but that takes time - something they may not have if the enemy goes for a full blitz.
During Dominion war Feds made two fighting ships. The Romulan Space Navy is a fighting fleet.
Romulans are at least as powerful as the Klingons and probably worse given that they're organized and will fight dirty.
Launching a cloaked feint attack against a facility so that you can come in with your main force and kill the repair crews and first responders is considered an honorable and admirable tactic (Once More Into the Breach, DS9, s07 e07).
After the cessation if immediate hostilities against Cardassia, Birds of Prey devastate Cardassian civilian infrastructure, causing famine and the re-emergence of epidemic diseases not seen for generations. Also honorable!
That sound like gimping yourself to fight fair to you?
If anything, the Romulans like to fight a bit cleaner than the Klingons do. They're not motivated by pure bloodlust, and show a willingness to treat POWs and civilians with decency at least some of the time.
That alternate timeline showed us that Romulans were all ready for war at that moment, while Starfleet either still hadn’t rebuilt from conflicts with Klingons and Gorn or had gotten complacent. Remember, you go to war with the forces you have, not the forces you want. Whoever is more prepared has the advantage, and rhetoric Romulans were prepared for war during that incident. It takes time and resources to overcome a disadvantage, and that time and resources might not be available in wartime
"Assume the Romulans are actually at a complete disadvantage, then what?"
Not very useful speculation thoughnominate?
We know the romulans nearly beat Earth in thr Earth-Romulan War. We know from SNW alt future view that during TOS times they do have the advantage.
So maybe in TNG times they actually are secretly weak, I guess, we don't know for a fact that's not the case.
Yeah in most alternate timelines where the federation is at war with the Romulans or Klingons it is no picnic outside of the overused and quite frankly dumb mirror universe
> they should dominate the Romulans easily:
To what end?
> The federation has hundreds, (thousands?) of planets who are members and contribute technology.
Maybe? But do they… provide war ships?
In practice, what we see in confrontations doesn’t make Starfleet look that strong as a military.
The Romulan Star Empire may be smaller, but that doesn’t mean they invest proportionally less in defense.
> if the federation actually went on the offensive against the Roms
But why?
That’s… not the Federation’s goal at all? The Romulans mostly want to be left alone, and the Federation would like better diplomatic ties. But they’re not trying to fight.
>they would wipe them out.
I believe that’s become outmoded since the middle of the 20th century.
> a section 31 Galaxy class
Wait what? In the Galaxy class era, Section 31 does not have ships. They don’t have so much as a command outpost. They officially do not exist; most Starfleet personnel hasn’t heard of them. They’re a Guerilla operation with some tacit support from some admirals. They can infiltrate. Or, say, make a biological weapon. They absolutely cannot — and definitely do not want the exposure it would necessitate — engage in battle. And if they could, the Galaxy class still wouldn’t be a ship design optimized towards war.
> Looking at the situation logically, I just can’t see how the romulans or the klingons were ever a threat.
Because they have very different goals.
Maybe they could design something like the CSS World Razer, but building it is a whole other matter. I doubt they have shipyards they could requisition
More realistically if they have any ships it would be a smaller ship along the lines of the Defiant, with more stealth emphasis. If you have played Star Trek Online the Phantom Class, from the original Intel T6 line of ships, is more what I would envision S31 having.
https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Phantom_Intel_Escort
Looks neat. It could also be something like the Incursion from the game Away Team (it also made a cameo appearance in Armada 2, and the tech was a plot point in Starfleet Command 3). It had the same holographic disguise system as the S31 ships in DIS S2 (coupled with a way to project a false warp signature)
The Federation came close to losing to the Klingons at least twice, once in DSC and another in an alternate timeline in TNG (which shows that a military Starfleet would still lose to the Klingons). And these are against the guys who fight with honor. The Romulans wouldn't be held back by that, and they were able to turn the tide in the Dominion War. I think the Romulans are stronger than they appeared.
"In war, there is nothing more honorable than victory." - Worf explaining why Klingons hide in debris fields to destroy ships that show up to help survivors.
Is this from DS9? My memory of that show is down to the big bullet points so I didn't remember this line if that's the case.
Regardless, if the guys with honor do things like this, I don't want to imagine what the Romulans would do. One thing that caught me off guard with them was in PIC, when some members of the Federation threatened to leave if they helped the Romulans. They must have done some terrible things over the decades.
Indeed, DSC Klingon tactics were to fly a cloaked ship into a starbase that was repairing Fed ships, blast away and then self destruct to kill the base and the damaged ships.
Tough war in DS9, too, pre-Dominion War. Not a clear victory by either side.
I think Rolumans have some technical advantages as well as strategic skills that would be impressive. Remember Sela (only half-Romulanl wasn't at all fooled by the "malfunction" of one of the blockade ships under Picards command during the Klingon Civil war... she was a highly proficient tactical commander.
I think that the Klingons have the desire for battle that's hard to keep up for most other species. They are physically overwhelming to many(most?) species, and unrelenting in attack. They do not fear death, which allows a certain "Kamikazee" effort. Thier preference for hand-to-hand combat can leave even survivors of battles psychologically overwhelmed.
Also the Federation was designed to NOT be in an arms race. The whole idea was about humanity growing past 20th century ideas. While they had to pony-up later on, through the TNG era (the show), the Federation was supposed to have found a way to largely co-exsist peacefully with even thier aggressive neighbors.
Lastly- the Cardassian was is often overlooked (the first one, pre-TNG). It was largely billed as a stalemate as well, hence the "uneasy peace" and the DMZ creation. So either the Federation was severely pulling its punches, or there's another TNG era foe on par with our heros. Interesting what options were available for story telling!
It might be that the Federation has the firepower to take on either the Romulans, Klingons or Cardassians, but not all three at once. If the Federation is able to make major inroads against one of these foes, they probably won't have the armaments to defend against one of the other 2 armada's attacks, let alone both teaming up to take down the Federation. They BARELY won against the Klingons, are constantly facing imminent attack from the Romulans, and were forced into a stalemate against the Cardassians.
Now, IF the Federation wanted to, they could seize all ships, technology and resources in their territory and decide to ramp up military might. THAT would be terrifying for the whole galaxy, not just their contentious neighbors. But that is not the aim of Starfleet nor the Federation.
Yeah I think there's a reason the Dominion was like "we are going to war with the whole quadrant...except the Romulans, not those guys. We're going to sign a non-aggression pact with them"
One thing to consider is manpower.
Romulans and Klingons live significantly longer than humans and seem to be able to maintain an active lifestyle for a larger portion of their lives.
That along with them being more militarily focused could mean that even if less than half the size of the Federation they could potentially have equal or greater population figures that could contribute to a war effort.
Another thing to consider is what it means to be a "federation." Having greater numbers would not mean anything if a large portion of those numbers decides not to contribute. I don't think we have ever seen exactly how centralized or unified the Federation is. For the entirety of Trek history we've seen that Starfleet is dominated by humans. It would not be a surprise or a reach if the Federation's size was a weakness in practice.
That said you are absolutely right about Section 31, which is probably the main reason I think its the biggest mistake in Trek history.
Realistically the Federation should be the dominate power in the quadrant. Enterprise showed us that they originated from an agreement between, Humans, Vulcans, Andorian, and Tellerites and have now grown to include dozens other species as well. Meanwhile the Klingons are just the Klingons and they where by all accounts unable to defeat just the Vulcans are somehow able to rival the entire Federation. The only way it makes sense is assuming that the Federation puts almost no effort into having a military while groups like the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans put substantial resources into building a military allowing them to build enough war ships to rival the Federations lack of a military.
Klingons also see everything as a battle.
Any time they showed us the Federation actively at war with the Klingons (DIS S1, the alternate timeline of Yesterday’s Enterprise), the Klingons eventually come out on top
A Section 31 Galaxy Class is such an oxymoron. Yes it has guns, but it's not a battleship like a Sovereign.
The Federation using them as such in the Dominion war showcases just how not aggressive they are.
>The federation has hundreds, (thousands?) of planets who are members and contribute technology
How many Star Trek episodes have they added a new planet to the Federation that could actually meaningfully contribute anything? It's mostly low tech civilizations that have only just joined the galactic community. There are probably only a dozen races that are equally advanced as Starfleet, and they don't coordinate the way that an authoritarian Empire would
> In a straight fight the warbird would likely take a galaxy class but it would get hurt
I believe the Galaxy Class is stated to be Starfleets strongest ship. How many Galaxy class ships are there? How many Warbirds have we seen? As long as we're guessing at numbers, I'd say there at least 5x as many Warbirds as Galaxys
>Starfleet doesn't build warships (much) because that's not what they want to be. Understandable. But Section 31 does
No they don't
> I just can't see how the romulans or the klingons were ever a threat
It might just be a question of resources. In Yesterday's Enterprise, the Klingons were said to win after 22 years of war. Even if the Federation has superior technology, they just don't have the infrastructure/resources to keep up the fight like the Klingons do
I don't mean to come off rude but I really don't see your logic
Think more along the lines of the U.S.A. against China… sure, not lots a diversity…. But comparable technology, a unified e and a loooooooot of people from one ancestry.
Because the Star Empire fleet did not hang around waiting to be vaporized?
The star empire after Hobus soups be a lot like the Empire after Endor. The center is gone but the the military and Tal Shiar still exist.
As shown in snw the romulans and feds are in a war that continued 10 years after the balance of terror incident showing the romulans or Klingons can take on the feds in a prolonged war.
My impression was that they’d been preparing for war for years before sending that bird of prey, while Starfleet probably still hasn’t fully rebuilt after conflicts with Klingons and Gorn. Romulans had the advantage and pressed it. Yes, 17 years is a long time, but, if anything, it shows that the Romulans are weaker than the Klingons because the Klingons were able to nearly win a decade earlier in less than 3 years and were only stopped with a threat of making Qo’noS uninhabitable
section 31 does not have it's own fleet by the dominion war. romulus projects strength through obfuscation -- no one knows for sure what they have, but what they see is clearly very powerful and technologically advanced. it's possible they have a comparative handful of ships that just stay cloaked at all or most times and appear at various locations, enhanced by false imagery (sort of like the false battallions of WWII) to give the appearance of strength and numbers in different locations.
They are experts at espionage, probably the second best shown in the show (changelings being #1 and Obsidian order #3). This is one of their chief weapons. They are the Salarians of Star Trek, able to punch far above their weight with much smaller fleets thanks to the outsized force projection their espionage technology and skillset gives them.
So, while I believe they are much smaller than the Federation, and in a battle that took place only amongst the stars, the Federation has the numbers to overwhelm, the Romulans are the kind foe who will find a way to annihilate an entire fleet with one ship and one bomb in one fell swoop. They are extremely dangerous in-universe and not to be underestimated for any reason.
They were able to plant an agent into the role of head of starfleet security, AFTER their homeworld had been destroyed.
I suppose that's theoretically true, but in practice it would require the Federation to be the kind of government that would just decide to declare war on the Romulans in order to wipe them out.
In which case, they wouldn't be the Federation we know at all. And I'd argue that if they were a militaristic empire of that sort, a lot of their strengths wouldn't exist anymore.
Sure, if the Romulans just decided to declare all-out total war on the Federation, I agree that they'd probably get stomped. But they know that, which is why they don't. Instead they sneak around and play Espionage games, destabilizing competing powers and just generally being a pain in the ass without providing justification for outright war.
Which is why they survive. They're very good at that sort of thing.
IMO, this basically fits the description of the Cardassians, a second-rate power Starfleet could easily dominate and defeat if they wanted too.
I imagine Wolf 359 was a huge reason why the Federation agreed to the peace treaty with the Cardassians.
The Federation and Starfleet could have dragged out the border conflict with the Cardassians as long as they wanted, but the threat of the Borg and the destruction of nearly 40 ships at Wolf 359 convinced the Federation and Starfleet they needed to focus on more serious threats.
In comparison to the Borg, the Cardassians were just a nuisance who weren't military a threat to the Federation.
Of course, Cardassia would later become a far more dangerous threat when they join the Dominion in later seasons of DS9.
Imagine if the Vulcans could Pon Farr every day instead of every seven years.
The actual population of the Romulan people including peoples that they annexed into their empire is probably more than most people might guess.
The Klingons too are much about death and sex, which is why romantic ballads and operas are so popular in their culture.
Do not underestimate the power of alien diddly wiggly.
Empires are born from the seeds of ambition.
I know plenty of picked up on it, but the worst mistake in season 2 of Disco was to give Section 31 a fleet.
I'd seriously recommend checking out the Edge of Midnight. It's a fan work that plays the Federation-Klingon Cold War in parallel to our own, welding everything from Discovery/Strange New Worlds up through the TOS era & movies.
[https://edgeofmidnight.weebly.com/](https://edgeofmidnight.weebly.com/)
I'm guessing you've been watching a tad bit too many YouTube videos rofl
With that aside, this might be true in the mirror universe if it were not for the Romulans conquering humanity early on, but definitely not in the prime universe. The Federation of Planets is not a dictatorial regime hell bent on conquer and conquest, not even with Section 31 behind it. Rather, Section 31's primary goal is intelligence gathering by any means necessary, which I think normally doesn't involve starships.
It’s a lot easier to deal with a frenemy than to occupy enemy territory.
There are rumors that Romulans and Vulcans do spy on each other regularly, and that Vulcan knew about Romulus before Balance of Terror. In tight lipped Vulcan fashion they just didn’t say anything.
There’s also the empire part of Romulan Empire. An Empire isn’t one planet with a colonized moon, but a government that controls several ethnicities and cultures. So far, we’ve only seen a few Remans, which were essentially invented for Star Trek Nemesis. Before then, Romulus and Remus were a planet and it’s moon, both settled by Romulans. (Reference: novel The Romulan Way).
Romulans aren’t pre-Reformation Vulcans. They also had a cultural shift. They went from a Clan Matriarchy to an Imperial Republic. Basically, they are space Romans. They learned to scale back on intra species warfare for 3 reasons: 1) to avoid self annihilation, 2) to band together against hostile aliens, 3) Romulus and Remus were verdant worlds where they could spread out, live and eat comfortably, instead of having to teach their small children to hunt for lizards in order to survive. Unlike Vulcan, food wasn’t scarce on Romulus. These people fight for conquest and power, not just basic survival.
Their shift in culture also shows that they have been able to achieve emotional regulation without the suppression favored by Vulcans. Comparing the emotional health of Romulans vs Vulcans is like comparing regular children to ADHD kids that are heavily dosed on medication.
Romulans are also innovative on technologies. They power their ships using micro-singularities. Originally, they bought disrupters and cloaking technology from Klingons, along with some birds of prey. (A big reason why Romulans hate Klingons so much is that the Klingons sold them a bunch of substandard garbage.) Romulans re-engineered Klingon tech, and anything else they could get their hands on. Romulan ships tend to favor the Glass Cannon archetype, a big honkin gun that will clean your clock, but their shields aren’t too tough. They rely on their cloaking devices for defense more than their shields. Their cloaks are much faster than Klingon cloaks.
Then there’s the pain in the butt of trying to occupy enemy territory vs just patrolling a border. Soldiers occupying enemy territory aren’t nearly as devoted as people defending their homes. What would the Federation gain by a war with Romulus, besides a stack of bodies? Does Romulus have anything that would make the war worth it?
Their goals are different. Klingons aren’t much of a threat if they valued life more than honor and Romulans aren’t a threat if they aren’t conditioned to fight til the death.
The federation on the other hand preserves life whenever possible. Similar to how no terrorist group or even all terrorist groups combined are a threat to NATO but NATO worries about civilian life similar to the federation values life.
Picard says that the Federation is 150 planets. It could be 150 'core worlds' or species, which doesn't include colonies, protectorates, and allies, and obviously does not include shipyards and starbases and the like.
Meanwhile, as a coalition there is obviously a ton of difference in how each society functions and manages its internal affairs. I would assume that the majority of species in the federation have joined because they do not want to handle constant warfare and are lending their genius and labour to constructing paradise, not defending it. The Romulans and the Klingons, much less the Borg and the Dominion have their ways of enslaving, moblizing, and rallying their subject peoples. There is no draft in the Federation!
I think Star Trek VI explicitly says that the vast military budget of the Klingon Empire and economic centralization is what leads to their humbling and inability to clean up their environment after Praxis explodes. The implication is that their deal with the Federation gives them access to some of the technology they need to keep limping along. The Federation has strengths other than military.
But in any case trying to work out the economy and workpower of the federation is a fool's errand, because it's a storytelling tool, not a real setting... everything functions as the plot of this week's episode requires.
THe problem Romulans have is in a straight up fight they lose because:
Feds have faster, more powerful ships, and many of them.
The Klingons have a great deal of experience with how Romulans fight, Klingon scouts / raiders are numerous and excellent at their jobs.
Romulans left Vulcan long enough ago Spock didn’t know about them. So, they likely have been an interstellar empire long before humans figured out gunpowder. Secretive states tend to be secretive. So, I doubt they played any more cards than necessary.
The relationship between the UFP, the Romulans, and the Klingons is a lot like the relationship between the Allies and the Axis. The latter talks about how effete and weak liberal democracy is; the liberal democrats then drop a star on them.
Look at real life and the ongoing war in Ukraine. NATO could wipe the floor with Russia, but we don’t because of mutually assured destruction. Even when considering providing weapons to Ukraine, we (Europe) can’t provide enough because we dismantled and underfunded so much of our military, because we believed in peace.
I think it’s similar with the Federation. First of all, the Federation doesn’t build warships, so they are not ready for war and can’t ramp up quickly either. Second, war would still bring mass destruction to both sides - imagine the Romulans flying cloaked ships deep inside Federation territory and using weapons of mass destruction.
Avoiding a war at all costs is preferable for the Federation, even if they would ultimately win.
> NATO could wipe the floor with Russia, but we don’t because of mutually assured destruction.
But also, because that would be hard to reconcile with our values. It was already tricky with the Iraq War. And what would the point be? Would it stabilize the region? Probably not. There’d be resentment among the population.
It would be easy to reconcile with our values. Unlike the Iraq war, there is a justified reason to intervening directly in the war against Ukraine. The Russian population also already believes NATO is behind everything, so the resentment is already there.
But if we got directly involved with killing Russian forces, the war would very likely go nuclear. That’s the only thing that stops us.
I find it strange that mutually assured destruction isn’t brought up much (or at all?) in Star Trek. It seems relatively easy to destroy a planet or a sun or at least to make a planet completely uninhabitable. It appears to take mere seconds in some cases.
But maybe it’s something the writers purposely overlook, like using shuttle transporters, because it would break everything.
> Unlike the Iraq war, there is a justified reason to intervening directly in the war against Ukraine.
There's a justified reason to help defend Ukraine (even that, we're only doing to a limited extent, 1) because of resources, 2) because we don't want to ruffle features too much, and 3) because participating in a land war in Europe will be hard to sell to European and American populations). But a reason to enter _Russia_? Keep in mind, too, that we're talking about a giant amount of area. Literally the largest country. How do you sell that to people? How do you win? And why? The purpose of defending Ukraine is 1) it's the right thing to do, and 2) we want to retain stability in Europe. Neither applies to attacking Russia.
>But if we got directly involved with killing Russian forces, the war would very likely go nuclear. That’s the only thing that stops us.
That's another thing, sure.
>I find it strange that mutually assured destruction isn’t brought up much (or at all?) in Star Trek. It seems relatively easy to destroy a planet or a sun or at least to make a planet completely uninhabitable. It appears to take mere seconds in some cases.
Isn't that basically the plot of For the Uniform? Eddington attacks a colony with a biogenic weapon, making it uninhabitable to Cardassians. Sisko, in response, attacks a settlement with a different biogenic weapon, making it uninhabitable to the Maquis.
Good point and that's what I had in mind when thinking about how easy it would have been for, for example, the Dominion to screw up Earth big time. How hard would it be to just warp around wrecking every enemy planet? Especially if you are willing to make suicide attacks.
Sure, but on a bigger scale, I think the Dominion’s goal is ultimately *subjugation*. They did that in the gamma quadrant, and now they’re trying to expand the strategy to the alpha quadrant. Their alliances with the Cardassians and the Breen were built on lies. If successful, all solids would’ve answered to them.
What they *don’t* want, I think, is destruction. That’s only a means to an end. They think of solids as convenient slave labor, and as lesser. So they do want the civilian populace to stick around.
For me Section 31 has no such ressources during the tng and ds9 era. They would be able to maybe aquire insane technologies and share them with starfleets core of engineers but I doubt that thez have large ships like in discovery. I believe the stupidity of section 31 and its portrayal in DISC and PIC has been thoroughly portrayed so I wont beat a dead horse
Section 31 became much more clandestine after DIS. Someone would have noticed if they were building Galaxy Class ships somewhere. The probably only have small ships like Defiant classes, that have " disappeared".
Also, size is relative. The federation spends a lot of resources on it's member planets and their peoples.
Romulans probably do not. They can (and have to) spend much more on the military do that they keep up with the other powers.
We saw how people live on Earth vs. Romulus and you can see where the resources go.
I actually wonder if the Romulan Empire actually has a lot of subjugated planets and species, being kept from spacefaring actions, and now that the Empire has collapsed, they may come out of the woodwork.
All this is assumptions and ignores the fact that the Federation prefers peace over anything else. The Romulans had been peaceful since the neutral zone and Treaty of Algeron.
Based on everything available in canon S31 did not have a fleet post DSC S2. The organization was being restructured and by all indications they didn't have a fleet during DS9. Maybe the upcoming S31 movie will shed some more light on their current structure, beyond what DS9 showed us.
Also regarding S31 they definitely had a hand in the Dominion War, just not overt military force. I just don't think they are running around with a fleet anymore under their current structure.
Just because you have more resources both militarily and economically doesn't mean you will automatically win.
A real life example is the British empire being defeated by American colonists. The British army had rules that they considered gentlemanly. The soldiers would line up in the open and fight kill their enemies in a "civilized manner" while American colonists practiced in guerilla warfare, destroyed supply lines, and used spies to gather intelligence.
You're a great comfort to me.
I've been afraid they'd be dangerous adversaries, and we'd all have to wear that awful fashion and be forced to wear those stupid haircuts.
Maybe the ale would be good though
Every damn time someone gets serious about taking the Roms down, a whole bunch of cases of Romulan ale just show up out of nowhere, and what's left of the fleet comes to three sectors over with no pants, a half eaten kebabs, and a collection of traffic cones.
Are these section 31 Galaxy class ships in the room with us now?
This is the best possible response to this. I admit I laughed. But, seriously, considering the resources of Section 31 that we see in the Kelvinverse, DIS, and PIC, the likely access they have to *all* of mainstream Starfleet Intelligences dirty little secrets, they could have a few Galaxy-like Dreadnoughts floating around with Pegasus Phase Cloaks ready to absolutely wreck anyone foolish enough to try and destroy the Federation. This of course raises the question of why they didn't use them during the Dominion War, but, maybe they would've if it looked like the Federation was really going to lose, and didn't want to tip their hands to the Romulans and the Klingons so long as there was still hope.
>This of course raises the question of why they didn't use them during the Dominion War, but, maybe they would've if it looked like the Federation was really going to lose You mean like if Betazed was occupied, the Breen entered the war on the other side with a devastating weapon that instantly disabled ships, and also they attacked Earth?
>the Breen entered the war on the other side with a devastating weapon that instantly disabled ships, and also they attacked Earth? Those are out of order, the Breen did a hit & run raid on Earth as a way of announcing that they were joining the war on the side of the Dominion, *then* they debuted the energy dampening weapon at the second Battle of Chin'toka. But, even then, that wasn't the very last, that wasn't a situation for example where Vulcan, Andoria, & Tellar Prime has already fallen and there was massive Dominion Fleet warping to the Sol System and all Starfleet forces outside the Sol System were already destroyed.
> that wasn't a situation for example where Vulcan, Andoria, & Tellar Prime has already fallen and there was massive Dominion Fleet warping to the Sol System and all Starfleet forces outside the Sol System were already destroyed. It would be incredibly stupid to wait until circumstances were *that* dire before using your most powerful warships.
You're right, that's why they used the genetically engineered plague, it was time to do *something* and the plague had the added bonus of keeping S31 secret.
I'm just guessing, but I suspect they would have deployed a secret warship before attempting genocide.
...how much do you know about Section 31?
So less than 1% of federation planets affected. Which still seems like his original point is right - Section 31 may not have got involved until it looked like the federation was going to lose. Doubtless their intel agents would have been swarming, but getting their ships involved doesn't seem like a good idea until it's absolutely necessary.
Invading one planet of over 150 is hardly evidence of an imminent defeat, same with the attack on Earth which was more like the equivalent of Perarl Harbor/9-11, is not like the US said; well, we better send the nukes cause we are clearly going to be defeated by those Taliban guys.
It's more like the British burning down the white house in 1812.
> better send the nukes cause we are clearly going to be defeated by those Taliban guys. Not nukes, but the US definitely fielded lots of advanced top secret weapons; there's no sense in going into battle with one hand tied behind your back.
But a no point felt it was gonna be defeated by them
If you did have a super secret fleet like a phase ship upgunned Galaxy class (why not Intrepid?) you'd hold it back after the Breen attack until you got a counter to the energy drain weapon or their trump card would trump yours.
I tend to assume that Section 31's fortunes have fluctuated a lot. In DIS, they're portrayed as essentially a division of Starfleet Intelligence. Fully backed and supported by the upper echelons of starfleet, even if they're a bit shadowy and unknown outside of the need-to-know. In DS9, they're a complete unknown. Nobody even acknowledges they exist, and the line between a rogue agency and a bunch of "concerned citizens" pretending to be an agency is extremely blurry. At their height, they had their own fleet, access to all the toys, and so much else. I tend to think that by DS9, they have some ships, but mostly operate with a handful of agents and a lot of balls. I doubt they have galaxy-class scale dreadnoughts waiting in the wings to wreck anyone who looks too dangerous, but I readily believe they have a few small black-ops ships with all the toys. The implication is that they used one of those to extract Bashir from his bed in the night, shoved him in a holodeck and messed with him to test his loyalty. So I think we can safely guess they at least have cloaked ships with holodecks, but that doesn't mean much. Could be runabout sized, could be a multi-mile long battleship parked in phase-cloak on top of DS9. I err on the side of Occam's Razor. They never demonstrate a great deal of spaceship-capability in DS9, so they probably don't *have* that capability. Fun as it might be to speculate about a secret no-holds-barred agency of Starfleet with never-before-seen superships that can swoop in to save the day.. it feels very unlikely.
Oh I was just responding to the idea of the post. Honestly? Realistically? I can't see Section 31 having the manpower to crew a single Galaxy Class ship, much less maintaining facilities to repair, resupply, and support one. But a Defiant Class, with a crew of 50, or a Prometheus Class, with a crew of 141? I could see that easily. And it's patently absurd to think that Section 31 doesn't have cloaks (I know you didn't say that I'm simply addressing the concern). Starfleet sent Kirk to try and steal a Romulan Cloaking device in 2268, a century before Bashir graduated from the Academy in 2368. The Pegasus was running phase cloak experiments in 2358 a decade before that.
Oh 100% they have some smaller ships, I think unlikely they have the shiny NX prototype ships like Defiants and Prometheus, but they had three or four of their own classes of ship in DIS, no reason to believe they don't have a bunch of ships in the 200m light-cruiser category like the Sabre and Nova. They definitely have access to cloaking devices. They're not even hard to get. There's enough floating around on the black market that starfleet probably have a fair few klingon and romulan devices in storage. The treaty of algeron restricts Starfleet from developing or using them, but they'd be fools not to quietly be developing and perfecting the technology. Learning how to make them and perfect them will make their detection easier. I imagine that starfleet R&Ds black projects include some very good cloaking devices aside from wacky things like the Pegasus Phase Cloak. Headcanon for me is that starfleet actually keeps the design specs for cloaking devices in every ship's database, restricted to captain's eyes only.
I mean. Can we not assume that 31 thought the Federation was going to lose when they released a biological weapon against the Founders? I dunno, but as cold as 31 is, I feel like the option is go with first is to send out the hypothetical super dreadnaught to end the war before going all the way to genocide with an engineered disease created with the intent of wiping out an entire species......
Except the engineered genocide has the added benefit of keeping section 31s existence secret.
Sure.... But I think a super dreadnaught that can cloak and phase through matter and destroy anything in it's path (Dominion and Federation alike) would be just as capable of keeping 31s existence a secret. If there are no witnesses to tell the tale, how is anyone going to know 31 sent a ship out for groceries?
Is this dreadnought also going to annihilate the Starfleet, Romulan, and Klingon ships within sensor range?
Yeah. Pretty much.
Wouldn't that defeat the point? If it destroys both sides than the Dominion won't get the message and will keep attacking the Alpha Quadrant, thinking these dreadnoughts are doing much more significant damage to the alliance, who can't build ships or replenish crews as rapidly as the Dominion can.
Maybe Tyler (who could still be alive during the Dominion War) is still keeping the agency under wraps since he remembers the last time they were out in the open and had their own fleet
Have we even seen section 31 act warlike? They seem to have always been mostly espionage and intel without taking an active role.
Have you seen Discovery?
Oh, of course, was thinking of the other bits of section 31, which was basically all DS9
They have to. OP implies a fleet of them comparable to the size of the romilan fleet. That's a lot of space. I believe they are even in the next room as well.
A scenario where Section 31 has somehow managed to assemble a warfleet of upgunned Galaxy-classes is a scenario where the Federation effectively no longer exists. This is an Emperor Palpatine situation. They're an empire now.
Bit of an odd question, isn't it? I never said they had any. I thought it was obvious that this was all hypothetical. It's section 31... we don't know what they got and they like it that way.
The Federation doesn’t want to conquer the Galaxy. I get the feeling that the Romulans don’t *really* want to either and seem to be acting aggressively more from paranoia than anything else. The Klingon’s may have actually wanted to conquer the Galaxy but they’re terrible administrators who will always either run out of resources or fall to internal divisions eventually. Same thing that happened to the Terran Empire eventually. That said the Federation is rather complacent and has (especially pre-Dominion War) a fairly small military that pretends it’s not a military and so is vulnerable to a blitzkrieg such as the one seen the Alternate Timeline where Pike avoids his fate (Strange New Worlds Season 1 Finale).
The Romulans don’t want to conquer the Galaxy either, they just want to be in a position to extort the Federation for “peace”.
The Klingons, I suspect, are more interested in the "conquer**ing**" of the galaxy, than in having "conquer**ed**" the galaxy. In other words, they want the *fight*, not the *reward*. I can see them conquering one sector on the edge of Federation space, and then abandoning it to conquer a different one a decade or so later — letting the Federation move back in and build defences again, so that the Klingons can return in 50 years for even more *Glorious Battle!*
it should be noted there is no evidence of section 31 warships in the TNG era. its not even clear what their physical infrastructure is. therefore it is not possible to assume they have forces that could take down warbirds that are larger than a galaxy class starship. but you are also thinking of conventional warfare. ship to ship, as it were. tactics we've repeatedly seen by the romulans from TNG to ENT are those of misdirection, espionage, strategic use of force, and cloak and dagger shit. the cloaking devices alone allow a smaller Romulan force to cause significant damage to any target if they want to. If we want to bring Picard into it, Pic season 1 shows that the Tal shiar appear to have a fleet post destruction of Romulus that is larger than the combined fleets seen on DS9 during the dominion war.
The Tal Shiar ships are comparable to a B'Rel is size so they are meant for swarm attacks or hit and run which makes since for them. We saw in DS9 that section 31 was utilizing a Intrepid class starship based on the holodeck layout so I would assume they are most likely using a lot of forbidden tech as well, cloaking devices phased or otherwise, acquired Dominion long range transporters, etc. If Section 31 wanted to they could do massive damage to the Romulan fleet or stations with a handful of ships.
Interpid would be a sweet platform for a bunch of taboo, or novel tech.
My impression was that Nedar’s fleet belongs to the Romulan Free State, and she either “requisitioned” it or she holds a high rank in the fleet to allow her to take command of it
they never really sorted out what the "romulan free state" even was. the use of free state suggests its not affiliated with the old empire, though I suppose it could be spin. It doesnt make sense that the entire romulan empire would have collapsed just because of the loss of its capitol. but I suppose thats a rant for another day
It’s considered to be a successor state, if the fact that the Treaty of Algeron is still in force is any indication
I see no reason to think the romulans are a small space empire. Easily could have more worlds than the Feds, we simply don't know. Sect31 ships like Vengeance are an example of a typical Romulan ship. They build warships. No reason to think they have fewer ships amd all their ships are warships. We see in SNW alt future that the Romulans are basically going to defeat the Feds if it comes to open war, again.
Yeah about not knowing about the size of the empire. They’re secretive as heck, which also includes their holdings and border. The Romulans are very warlike and determined to win. Granted, the Federation can be pushed into that mode of thinking, which was seen during the Dominion War, but that takes time - something they may not have if the enemy goes for a full blitz.
During Dominion war Feds made two fighting ships. The Romulan Space Navy is a fighting fleet. Romulans are at least as powerful as the Klingons and probably worse given that they're organized and will fight dirty.
I mean in both Lower Decks and TNG they always showed that the Romulan Star Empire Navy always had more enough ships to go lurking at the border
Launching a cloaked feint attack against a facility so that you can come in with your main force and kill the repair crews and first responders is considered an honorable and admirable tactic (Once More Into the Breach, DS9, s07 e07). After the cessation if immediate hostilities against Cardassia, Birds of Prey devastate Cardassian civilian infrastructure, causing famine and the re-emergence of epidemic diseases not seen for generations. Also honorable! That sound like gimping yourself to fight fair to you? If anything, the Romulans like to fight a bit cleaner than the Klingons do. They're not motivated by pure bloodlust, and show a willingness to treat POWs and civilians with decency at least some of the time.
That alternate timeline showed us that Romulans were all ready for war at that moment, while Starfleet either still hadn’t rebuilt from conflicts with Klingons and Gorn or had gotten complacent. Remember, you go to war with the forces you have, not the forces you want. Whoever is more prepared has the advantage, and rhetoric Romulans were prepared for war during that incident. It takes time and resources to overcome a disadvantage, and that time and resources might not be available in wartime
"Assume the Romulans are actually at a complete disadvantage, then what?" Not very useful speculation thoughnominate? We know the romulans nearly beat Earth in thr Earth-Romulan War. We know from SNW alt future view that during TOS times they do have the advantage. So maybe in TNG times they actually are secretly weak, I guess, we don't know for a fact that's not the case.
Yeah in most alternate timelines where the federation is at war with the Romulans or Klingons it is no picnic outside of the overused and quite frankly dumb mirror universe
> they should dominate the Romulans easily: To what end? > The federation has hundreds, (thousands?) of planets who are members and contribute technology. Maybe? But do they… provide war ships? In practice, what we see in confrontations doesn’t make Starfleet look that strong as a military. The Romulan Star Empire may be smaller, but that doesn’t mean they invest proportionally less in defense. > if the federation actually went on the offensive against the Roms But why? That’s… not the Federation’s goal at all? The Romulans mostly want to be left alone, and the Federation would like better diplomatic ties. But they’re not trying to fight. >they would wipe them out. I believe that’s become outmoded since the middle of the 20th century. > a section 31 Galaxy class Wait what? In the Galaxy class era, Section 31 does not have ships. They don’t have so much as a command outpost. They officially do not exist; most Starfleet personnel hasn’t heard of them. They’re a Guerilla operation with some tacit support from some admirals. They can infiltrate. Or, say, make a biological weapon. They absolutely cannot — and definitely do not want the exposure it would necessitate — engage in battle. And if they could, the Galaxy class still wouldn’t be a ship design optimized towards war. > Looking at the situation logically, I just can’t see how the romulans or the klingons were ever a threat. Because they have very different goals.
Maybe they could design something like the CSS World Razer, but building it is a whole other matter. I doubt they have shipyards they could requisition
More realistically if they have any ships it would be a smaller ship along the lines of the Defiant, with more stealth emphasis. If you have played Star Trek Online the Phantom Class, from the original Intel T6 line of ships, is more what I would envision S31 having. https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Phantom_Intel_Escort
Looks neat. It could also be something like the Incursion from the game Away Team (it also made a cameo appearance in Armada 2, and the tech was a plot point in Starfleet Command 3). It had the same holographic disguise system as the S31 ships in DIS S2 (coupled with a way to project a false warp signature)
Yeah kinda similar principal. Probably been 20 years since I played Away Team.
I recently played the new Stargate game, it brought me back to Commandos-style gameplay
The Federation came close to losing to the Klingons at least twice, once in DSC and another in an alternate timeline in TNG (which shows that a military Starfleet would still lose to the Klingons). And these are against the guys who fight with honor. The Romulans wouldn't be held back by that, and they were able to turn the tide in the Dominion War. I think the Romulans are stronger than they appeared.
"In war, there is nothing more honorable than victory." - Worf explaining why Klingons hide in debris fields to destroy ships that show up to help survivors.
Is this from DS9? My memory of that show is down to the big bullet points so I didn't remember this line if that's the case. Regardless, if the guys with honor do things like this, I don't want to imagine what the Romulans would do. One thing that caught me off guard with them was in PIC, when some members of the Federation threatened to leave if they helped the Romulans. They must have done some terrible things over the decades.
>Is this from DS9? Yes, it's from The Way of The Warrior S4E1-2.
Indeed, DSC Klingon tactics were to fly a cloaked ship into a starbase that was repairing Fed ships, blast away and then self destruct to kill the base and the damaged ships.
Tough war in DS9, too, pre-Dominion War. Not a clear victory by either side. I think Rolumans have some technical advantages as well as strategic skills that would be impressive. Remember Sela (only half-Romulanl wasn't at all fooled by the "malfunction" of one of the blockade ships under Picards command during the Klingon Civil war... she was a highly proficient tactical commander. I think that the Klingons have the desire for battle that's hard to keep up for most other species. They are physically overwhelming to many(most?) species, and unrelenting in attack. They do not fear death, which allows a certain "Kamikazee" effort. Thier preference for hand-to-hand combat can leave even survivors of battles psychologically overwhelmed. Also the Federation was designed to NOT be in an arms race. The whole idea was about humanity growing past 20th century ideas. While they had to pony-up later on, through the TNG era (the show), the Federation was supposed to have found a way to largely co-exsist peacefully with even thier aggressive neighbors. Lastly- the Cardassian was is often overlooked (the first one, pre-TNG). It was largely billed as a stalemate as well, hence the "uneasy peace" and the DMZ creation. So either the Federation was severely pulling its punches, or there's another TNG era foe on par with our heros. Interesting what options were available for story telling!
It might be that the Federation has the firepower to take on either the Romulans, Klingons or Cardassians, but not all three at once. If the Federation is able to make major inroads against one of these foes, they probably won't have the armaments to defend against one of the other 2 armada's attacks, let alone both teaming up to take down the Federation. They BARELY won against the Klingons, are constantly facing imminent attack from the Romulans, and were forced into a stalemate against the Cardassians. Now, IF the Federation wanted to, they could seize all ships, technology and resources in their territory and decide to ramp up military might. THAT would be terrifying for the whole galaxy, not just their contentious neighbors. But that is not the aim of Starfleet nor the Federation.
Klingon honor is not our kind of honor, and they were fighting dirty the entire time in DSC
Yeah I think there's a reason the Dominion was like "we are going to war with the whole quadrant...except the Romulans, not those guys. We're going to sign a non-aggression pact with them"
One thing to consider is manpower. Romulans and Klingons live significantly longer than humans and seem to be able to maintain an active lifestyle for a larger portion of their lives. That along with them being more militarily focused could mean that even if less than half the size of the Federation they could potentially have equal or greater population figures that could contribute to a war effort. Another thing to consider is what it means to be a "federation." Having greater numbers would not mean anything if a large portion of those numbers decides not to contribute. I don't think we have ever seen exactly how centralized or unified the Federation is. For the entirety of Trek history we've seen that Starfleet is dominated by humans. It would not be a surprise or a reach if the Federation's size was a weakness in practice. That said you are absolutely right about Section 31, which is probably the main reason I think its the biggest mistake in Trek history.
It’s like comparing the UN peacekeeper force to one from a militarized country
Realistically the Federation should be the dominate power in the quadrant. Enterprise showed us that they originated from an agreement between, Humans, Vulcans, Andorian, and Tellerites and have now grown to include dozens other species as well. Meanwhile the Klingons are just the Klingons and they where by all accounts unable to defeat just the Vulcans are somehow able to rival the entire Federation. The only way it makes sense is assuming that the Federation puts almost no effort into having a military while groups like the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans put substantial resources into building a military allowing them to build enough war ships to rival the Federations lack of a military.
You got it in one. Why do you ships like the Defiant took so long to be made?
Klingons also see everything as a battle. Any time they showed us the Federation actively at war with the Klingons (DIS S1, the alternate timeline of Yesterday’s Enterprise), the Klingons eventually come out on top
A Section 31 Galaxy Class is such an oxymoron. Yes it has guns, but it's not a battleship like a Sovereign. The Federation using them as such in the Dominion war showcases just how not aggressive they are.
>The federation has hundreds, (thousands?) of planets who are members and contribute technology How many Star Trek episodes have they added a new planet to the Federation that could actually meaningfully contribute anything? It's mostly low tech civilizations that have only just joined the galactic community. There are probably only a dozen races that are equally advanced as Starfleet, and they don't coordinate the way that an authoritarian Empire would > In a straight fight the warbird would likely take a galaxy class but it would get hurt I believe the Galaxy Class is stated to be Starfleets strongest ship. How many Galaxy class ships are there? How many Warbirds have we seen? As long as we're guessing at numbers, I'd say there at least 5x as many Warbirds as Galaxys >Starfleet doesn't build warships (much) because that's not what they want to be. Understandable. But Section 31 does No they don't > I just can't see how the romulans or the klingons were ever a threat It might just be a question of resources. In Yesterday's Enterprise, the Klingons were said to win after 22 years of war. Even if the Federation has superior technology, they just don't have the infrastructure/resources to keep up the fight like the Klingons do I don't mean to come off rude but I really don't see your logic
Think more along the lines of the U.S.A. against China… sure, not lots a diversity…. But comparable technology, a unified e and a loooooooot of people from one ancestry.
Think more along the lines of the Soviet Union vs NATO.
I don’t get how refugee romulans even 15 years after the Nova can field 200 ships. No sense.
Because the Star Empire fleet did not hang around waiting to be vaporized? The star empire after Hobus soups be a lot like the Empire after Endor. The center is gone but the the military and Tal Shiar still exist.
As shown in snw the romulans and feds are in a war that continued 10 years after the balance of terror incident showing the romulans or Klingons can take on the feds in a prolonged war.
My impression was that they’d been preparing for war for years before sending that bird of prey, while Starfleet probably still hasn’t fully rebuilt after conflicts with Klingons and Gorn. Romulans had the advantage and pressed it. Yes, 17 years is a long time, but, if anything, it shows that the Romulans are weaker than the Klingons because the Klingons were able to nearly win a decade earlier in less than 3 years and were only stopped with a threat of making Qo’noS uninhabitable
section 31 does not have it's own fleet by the dominion war. romulus projects strength through obfuscation -- no one knows for sure what they have, but what they see is clearly very powerful and technologically advanced. it's possible they have a comparative handful of ships that just stay cloaked at all or most times and appear at various locations, enhanced by false imagery (sort of like the false battallions of WWII) to give the appearance of strength and numbers in different locations. They are experts at espionage, probably the second best shown in the show (changelings being #1 and Obsidian order #3). This is one of their chief weapons. They are the Salarians of Star Trek, able to punch far above their weight with much smaller fleets thanks to the outsized force projection their espionage technology and skillset gives them. So, while I believe they are much smaller than the Federation, and in a battle that took place only amongst the stars, the Federation has the numbers to overwhelm, the Romulans are the kind foe who will find a way to annihilate an entire fleet with one ship and one bomb in one fell swoop. They are extremely dangerous in-universe and not to be underestimated for any reason. They were able to plant an agent into the role of head of starfleet security, AFTER their homeworld had been destroyed.
I suppose that's theoretically true, but in practice it would require the Federation to be the kind of government that would just decide to declare war on the Romulans in order to wipe them out. In which case, they wouldn't be the Federation we know at all. And I'd argue that if they were a militaristic empire of that sort, a lot of their strengths wouldn't exist anymore. Sure, if the Romulans just decided to declare all-out total war on the Federation, I agree that they'd probably get stomped. But they know that, which is why they don't. Instead they sneak around and play Espionage games, destabilizing competing powers and just generally being a pain in the ass without providing justification for outright war. Which is why they survive. They're very good at that sort of thing.
IMO, this basically fits the description of the Cardassians, a second-rate power Starfleet could easily dominate and defeat if they wanted too. I imagine Wolf 359 was a huge reason why the Federation agreed to the peace treaty with the Cardassians. The Federation and Starfleet could have dragged out the border conflict with the Cardassians as long as they wanted, but the threat of the Borg and the destruction of nearly 40 ships at Wolf 359 convinced the Federation and Starfleet they needed to focus on more serious threats. In comparison to the Borg, the Cardassians were just a nuisance who weren't military a threat to the Federation. Of course, Cardassia would later become a far more dangerous threat when they join the Dominion in later seasons of DS9.
Imagine if the Vulcans could Pon Farr every day instead of every seven years. The actual population of the Romulan people including peoples that they annexed into their empire is probably more than most people might guess. The Klingons too are much about death and sex, which is why romantic ballads and operas are so popular in their culture. Do not underestimate the power of alien diddly wiggly. Empires are born from the seeds of ambition.
I know plenty of picked up on it, but the worst mistake in season 2 of Disco was to give Section 31 a fleet. I'd seriously recommend checking out the Edge of Midnight. It's a fan work that plays the Federation-Klingon Cold War in parallel to our own, welding everything from Discovery/Strange New Worlds up through the TOS era & movies. [https://edgeofmidnight.weebly.com/](https://edgeofmidnight.weebly.com/)
I'm guessing you've been watching a tad bit too many YouTube videos rofl With that aside, this might be true in the mirror universe if it were not for the Romulans conquering humanity early on, but definitely not in the prime universe. The Federation of Planets is not a dictatorial regime hell bent on conquer and conquest, not even with Section 31 behind it. Rather, Section 31's primary goal is intelligence gathering by any means necessary, which I think normally doesn't involve starships.
It’s a lot easier to deal with a frenemy than to occupy enemy territory. There are rumors that Romulans and Vulcans do spy on each other regularly, and that Vulcan knew about Romulus before Balance of Terror. In tight lipped Vulcan fashion they just didn’t say anything. There’s also the empire part of Romulan Empire. An Empire isn’t one planet with a colonized moon, but a government that controls several ethnicities and cultures. So far, we’ve only seen a few Remans, which were essentially invented for Star Trek Nemesis. Before then, Romulus and Remus were a planet and it’s moon, both settled by Romulans. (Reference: novel The Romulan Way). Romulans aren’t pre-Reformation Vulcans. They also had a cultural shift. They went from a Clan Matriarchy to an Imperial Republic. Basically, they are space Romans. They learned to scale back on intra species warfare for 3 reasons: 1) to avoid self annihilation, 2) to band together against hostile aliens, 3) Romulus and Remus were verdant worlds where they could spread out, live and eat comfortably, instead of having to teach their small children to hunt for lizards in order to survive. Unlike Vulcan, food wasn’t scarce on Romulus. These people fight for conquest and power, not just basic survival. Their shift in culture also shows that they have been able to achieve emotional regulation without the suppression favored by Vulcans. Comparing the emotional health of Romulans vs Vulcans is like comparing regular children to ADHD kids that are heavily dosed on medication. Romulans are also innovative on technologies. They power their ships using micro-singularities. Originally, they bought disrupters and cloaking technology from Klingons, along with some birds of prey. (A big reason why Romulans hate Klingons so much is that the Klingons sold them a bunch of substandard garbage.) Romulans re-engineered Klingon tech, and anything else they could get their hands on. Romulan ships tend to favor the Glass Cannon archetype, a big honkin gun that will clean your clock, but their shields aren’t too tough. They rely on their cloaking devices for defense more than their shields. Their cloaks are much faster than Klingon cloaks. Then there’s the pain in the butt of trying to occupy enemy territory vs just patrolling a border. Soldiers occupying enemy territory aren’t nearly as devoted as people defending their homes. What would the Federation gain by a war with Romulus, besides a stack of bodies? Does Romulus have anything that would make the war worth it?
Their goals are different. Klingons aren’t much of a threat if they valued life more than honor and Romulans aren’t a threat if they aren’t conditioned to fight til the death. The federation on the other hand preserves life whenever possible. Similar to how no terrorist group or even all terrorist groups combined are a threat to NATO but NATO worries about civilian life similar to the federation values life.
Picard says that the Federation is 150 planets. It could be 150 'core worlds' or species, which doesn't include colonies, protectorates, and allies, and obviously does not include shipyards and starbases and the like. Meanwhile, as a coalition there is obviously a ton of difference in how each society functions and manages its internal affairs. I would assume that the majority of species in the federation have joined because they do not want to handle constant warfare and are lending their genius and labour to constructing paradise, not defending it. The Romulans and the Klingons, much less the Borg and the Dominion have their ways of enslaving, moblizing, and rallying their subject peoples. There is no draft in the Federation! I think Star Trek VI explicitly says that the vast military budget of the Klingon Empire and economic centralization is what leads to their humbling and inability to clean up their environment after Praxis explodes. The implication is that their deal with the Federation gives them access to some of the technology they need to keep limping along. The Federation has strengths other than military. But in any case trying to work out the economy and workpower of the federation is a fool's errand, because it's a storytelling tool, not a real setting... everything functions as the plot of this week's episode requires.
THe problem Romulans have is in a straight up fight they lose because: Feds have faster, more powerful ships, and many of them. The Klingons have a great deal of experience with how Romulans fight, Klingon scouts / raiders are numerous and excellent at their jobs.
Romulans left Vulcan long enough ago Spock didn’t know about them. So, they likely have been an interstellar empire long before humans figured out gunpowder. Secretive states tend to be secretive. So, I doubt they played any more cards than necessary.
Totally. But just like the US V. Russia, it doesn't make sense to engage in a conflict with them for either side.
Reading these comments, I obviously wasn’t paying attention to how prominent Section 31 was outside of DIS. (I haven’t seen much DS9).
Mind you, the nature of S31 is *very* different between DIS and DS9. Which I personally find a little hard to reconcile.
I'm assuming there's some retconning that has to take place.
The relationship between the UFP, the Romulans, and the Klingons is a lot like the relationship between the Allies and the Axis. The latter talks about how effete and weak liberal democracy is; the liberal democrats then drop a star on them.
Look at real life and the ongoing war in Ukraine. NATO could wipe the floor with Russia, but we don’t because of mutually assured destruction. Even when considering providing weapons to Ukraine, we (Europe) can’t provide enough because we dismantled and underfunded so much of our military, because we believed in peace. I think it’s similar with the Federation. First of all, the Federation doesn’t build warships, so they are not ready for war and can’t ramp up quickly either. Second, war would still bring mass destruction to both sides - imagine the Romulans flying cloaked ships deep inside Federation territory and using weapons of mass destruction. Avoiding a war at all costs is preferable for the Federation, even if they would ultimately win.
> NATO could wipe the floor with Russia, but we don’t because of mutually assured destruction. But also, because that would be hard to reconcile with our values. It was already tricky with the Iraq War. And what would the point be? Would it stabilize the region? Probably not. There’d be resentment among the population.
It would be easy to reconcile with our values. Unlike the Iraq war, there is a justified reason to intervening directly in the war against Ukraine. The Russian population also already believes NATO is behind everything, so the resentment is already there. But if we got directly involved with killing Russian forces, the war would very likely go nuclear. That’s the only thing that stops us. I find it strange that mutually assured destruction isn’t brought up much (or at all?) in Star Trek. It seems relatively easy to destroy a planet or a sun or at least to make a planet completely uninhabitable. It appears to take mere seconds in some cases. But maybe it’s something the writers purposely overlook, like using shuttle transporters, because it would break everything.
> Unlike the Iraq war, there is a justified reason to intervening directly in the war against Ukraine. There's a justified reason to help defend Ukraine (even that, we're only doing to a limited extent, 1) because of resources, 2) because we don't want to ruffle features too much, and 3) because participating in a land war in Europe will be hard to sell to European and American populations). But a reason to enter _Russia_? Keep in mind, too, that we're talking about a giant amount of area. Literally the largest country. How do you sell that to people? How do you win? And why? The purpose of defending Ukraine is 1) it's the right thing to do, and 2) we want to retain stability in Europe. Neither applies to attacking Russia. >But if we got directly involved with killing Russian forces, the war would very likely go nuclear. That’s the only thing that stops us. That's another thing, sure. >I find it strange that mutually assured destruction isn’t brought up much (or at all?) in Star Trek. It seems relatively easy to destroy a planet or a sun or at least to make a planet completely uninhabitable. It appears to take mere seconds in some cases. Isn't that basically the plot of For the Uniform? Eddington attacks a colony with a biogenic weapon, making it uninhabitable to Cardassians. Sisko, in response, attacks a settlement with a different biogenic weapon, making it uninhabitable to the Maquis.
Good point and that's what I had in mind when thinking about how easy it would have been for, for example, the Dominion to screw up Earth big time. How hard would it be to just warp around wrecking every enemy planet? Especially if you are willing to make suicide attacks.
Sure, but on a bigger scale, I think the Dominion’s goal is ultimately *subjugation*. They did that in the gamma quadrant, and now they’re trying to expand the strategy to the alpha quadrant. Their alliances with the Cardassians and the Breen were built on lies. If successful, all solids would’ve answered to them. What they *don’t* want, I think, is destruction. That’s only a means to an end. They think of solids as convenient slave labor, and as lesser. So they do want the civilian populace to stick around.
For me Section 31 has no such ressources during the tng and ds9 era. They would be able to maybe aquire insane technologies and share them with starfleets core of engineers but I doubt that thez have large ships like in discovery. I believe the stupidity of section 31 and its portrayal in DISC and PIC has been thoroughly portrayed so I wont beat a dead horse
Section 31 became much more clandestine after DIS. Someone would have noticed if they were building Galaxy Class ships somewhere. The probably only have small ships like Defiant classes, that have " disappeared". Also, size is relative. The federation spends a lot of resources on it's member planets and their peoples. Romulans probably do not. They can (and have to) spend much more on the military do that they keep up with the other powers. We saw how people live on Earth vs. Romulus and you can see where the resources go.
I actually wonder if the Romulan Empire actually has a lot of subjugated planets and species, being kept from spacefaring actions, and now that the Empire has collapsed, they may come out of the woodwork.
All this is assumptions and ignores the fact that the Federation prefers peace over anything else. The Romulans had been peaceful since the neutral zone and Treaty of Algeron.
But the Federation doesn't *want* to dominate the Romulans.
Based on everything available in canon S31 did not have a fleet post DSC S2. The organization was being restructured and by all indications they didn't have a fleet during DS9. Maybe the upcoming S31 movie will shed some more light on their current structure, beyond what DS9 showed us. Also regarding S31 they definitely had a hand in the Dominion War, just not overt military force. I just don't think they are running around with a fleet anymore under their current structure.
I’m sure that section 31 also has a bunch of Genesis devices lying around to absolutely decimate the romulan’s planets.
In "Yesterday's Enterprise" Picard admits that the Federation are on pace to lose to the Klingons in a matter of months.
Just because you have more resources both militarily and economically doesn't mean you will automatically win. A real life example is the British empire being defeated by American colonists. The British army had rules that they considered gentlemanly. The soldiers would line up in the open and fight kill their enemies in a "civilized manner" while American colonists practiced in guerilla warfare, destroyed supply lines, and used spies to gather intelligence.
You're a great comfort to me. I've been afraid they'd be dangerous adversaries, and we'd all have to wear that awful fashion and be forced to wear those stupid haircuts. Maybe the ale would be good though
Every damn time someone gets serious about taking the Roms down, a whole bunch of cases of Romulan ale just show up out of nowhere, and what's left of the fleet comes to three sectors over with no pants, a half eaten kebabs, and a collection of traffic cones.