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We know Spock at some point in the 2270s or early 2280s became emperor of the empire through the help of the tantalus field technology he acquired from marlena Monro from the enterprise.

Spock cause reforms that basically left the empire defenseless through demilitarization which basically allowed the Klingons and cardassians to steamroll the Terran empire/Republic.

Spock said in mirror mirror they the empire will collapse in 240 years under the best estimates so If nothing else change the empire would last all the way up to 2507 before it implodes (but obviously a empire declines decades well before it totally collapses)but we see the Klingons and cardassians were a powerhouse by the 24th century early 2370s when we see the ds9 crew crossover.

My question is if Spock never attained power and destroyed the empire, against the might of the Klingons and cardassians union how long could the empire have held out? What do you think?

It is hard to believe that Earth became a technological powerhouse comparable to Vulcan only a few years after First Contact.

How many decades did the Cold War between Earth and Vulcan last?

Been watching Picard Season 3. And everyone seems to have got a lot more disintegration happy all of a sudden.

But even the kill setting seems like a war crime in itself.

It is not allowed to cause unnecessary harm in a war. And several weapons have been banned that cause wounds that are hard to treat such as bayonets with serrated edges, as these are hard to stitch. You're also only supposed to do enough damage to remove someone from the battle and not do excessive damage to someone.

Well the phaser on the kill setting is literally an "off" button as soon as it hits, killing instantly it seems. Wouldn't such a devastating weapon be banned under the same logic? Since it causes so much devastation to the target there's 0 chance of being treated by a medic and recovering.

Then there's the disintegrate setting which seems like a "desecrate corpse" setting. Under the Geneva convention corpses are protected and desecrating them is a war crime. I think vaporizing something counts as desecration.

There's also several instances where members of Starfleet kill an enemy with another weapon, and then shoot the corpse to disintegrate it. If that was a dead corpse they have just desecrated it and committed a war crime. If that enemy was still alive, they have just performed a killing blow on a down enemy, also a war crime.

How did an "enlightened" Federation approve of such a weapon?

So I know the Prophets have a policy of non-interference when it comes to "corporeal" affairs, with Bajor being the exception, but let's say that they stopped the Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar fleet from invading and they revealed it was a trap laid by the Dominion to destroy both organizations. But they have decided to bring both sides to the negotiating table. How would things play out differently in DS9 seasons 4-7?

I'm guessing that at the very least:

A. The Founders continue their espionage efforts and as a result the Starfleet coup arc and the events of the Adversary and Broken Link play out pretty much in the same manner as they did in canon. And they might provide covert support to the Maquis to destabilize the Alpha Quadrant.

B. The Obsidian Order would use the changelings as an excuse to discredit and suppress the dissident movement.

What I am not sure about though is what role the Klingons will play in seasons 4-7, because without the dissident uprising, they would not have any excuse to invade the Cardassian Union, and subsequently go to war with the Federation. So what role would they play in seasons 4-7?

This is a good idea for a several reasons.

-It gives the static base the ability to handle most significant mobile threats without the need of calling on ship(s) or needing the enemy to attack the base itself. In areas with few star ships, this would project considerable power and give utility for other emergencies.

-It greatly enhances base defense.

-Low cost in the greatest expense the Federation faces, personnel. Defiant only needs 50 crew. DS9 had 300 personnel. So 250 or more should be able to spare enough 50 crew.

-Excellent for training command, bridge officers, and some department heads. Obviously, awesome experience for the station commander doing short missions while in command of a ship. The station commander shouldn't always be the one commanding the ship during standard missions. Sometimes the first or even the second officer will be given the mission. Similarly, it won't always be the best doctor, chief engineer, helmsmen, operations, or tactical officer sent on a patrol or mission. Worf in TNG was 4th in command structure but in the 7th season 2 parter ep with the pirates, he and Data were in command of the ship. Worf struggled to be a good First Officer to Data. Yes, partly this was because both Picard and Riker had been kidnapped, the 2 people Worf was closest to on the ship, but also it wasn't an experience he was use to. Short missions and patrols would be very useful learning experiences for those 3rd and 4th in command.

-It would attract higher quality applicants for station commander and even senior officers of stations. So many top officers chase the command chair and many never become even 1st officer. I'm sure some end up burning out when they realize they are unlikely to ever get command. This would give some officers another avenue to advance their career and gain relevant experience.

How it should be done

Obviously the stations need to be large enough to support the ship, its crew, and their needs while still operating the station.

I would only station the defiants at first on stations with the most dangers or remote. I would imagine whenever the Federation gains a new stretch of space they would deter those looking to take advantage of such circumstances by stationing a defiant. Or when neighboring power is at war or just ended one. Chaos breeds violence, so get a defiant as a deterrent.

So what are your thoughts?

EDIT:

DS9 according memory Alpha DS9 had at one time or another 16 runabouts assign to it. Some were destroyed. It had 12 docking bays in the outer ring. I believe some/all of them could take 2 shuttles at once. I would assume at the very least 6-12 Runabouts. They use 3 in the first battle against the Dominion.

Saber class ships use 40 crew.

Miranda uses 220 crew.

Space stations have science facilities as good as the best starships. They have superior engineering dept. What they lack is mobile weapons. So a ship with lots of science labs is largely a waste for a space station. Defiant only has 2 labs.

1. I am sure others have thought of this before, but I have never read it an any of the forums I have read.
2. There is a lot of new Trek I have not seen, and a lot of old I have forgotten. So maybe my points have already been addressed.

Casual viewers will often ask, "If the Federation is made up of so many different species, why is Starfleet mostly Human?" There are good lore explanations as to why Starfleet is mostly human, but in-the-know fans will be quick to point out that there are ships that are predominantly crewed by other species. We just don't see them very often as the viewer, and this gives us an exaggerated sense of the Human majority. The examples I know of are The USS Intrepid (TOS: "The Immunity Syndrome"), The USS Hera (TNG: "Interface"), and The USS T'Kumbra (DS9: "Take Me Out to the Holosuite"). In all cases, these were crewed mostly (if not all) by Vulcans. Although I have no proof, I would say there are probably ships with majority crews of Andorians, Tellarites, and other long term Federation members.

But then the question is why would Starfleet crew ships in this manner. Some might would say it stinks of segregation and is against Federation values. The most popular explanation I have come across is climate preferences. Andorians like their ships cold, Vulcans hot, Tellarites don't like humidity, etc. This explanation works fine enough, but I would like to offer an alternative that I think has merit.

Imagine a Starfleet ship with a diverse crew, has just been engaged in battle. And for whatever reason, the universal translators stop working. The Bolian captain asks for a damage report but can not understand the Caitian Chief Engineer. The captain orders shields to be raised, but the Human officer does not understand Bolian. It would be crippling.

To avoid situations like this, I believe Starfleet command creates crews that mostly share a common language. This is why we see crews of mostly one species. To support this argument; the few important non-Humans we do see serving with majority Human crews are ones that would have been raised bi-lingual.

• Spock - Human mother
• Worf - Adopted by Humans
• Troi - Human father
• Nog - Jake was teaching him how to read and write when they were kids, and I doubt Jake was teaching him Ferengi.

Are there exceptions? Yes. Does Starfleet command see this as a hard set rule? Well, I doubt anyone is worried that the Bolian barber will not be able to communicate during an emergency. (HAHA He is actually a civilian. Does not count.) I am also sure there are species that do not have enough members in Starfleet to crew an entire ship, and have to be spread out.

This argument also assumes that Humanity mostly speaks one common language at this point in the future. Similar to how Vulcans speak Vulcan, Andorians speak Andorian, etc. I think there is some evidence of this. I believe there is an episode of TNG where data refers of French as an obscure language. IRL French is in the top 20 most spoken languages. So if it went out, I suspect many others fell into obscurity as well.

Well, those are my thoughts. Thanks for reading.

I was rewatching First Contact this morning and something Geordi says in it struck me as odd.

LAFORGE: I've tried to reconstruct the intermix chamber from what I remember at school. Tell me if I got it right.

COCHRANE: School? You learned about this in school?

LAFORGE: Oh yeah. 'Basic Warp Design' is a required course at the Academy. The first chapter is called 'Zefram Cochrane'.

To some extent it makes sense that Cochrane's development of warp drive should be the one that looms largest in Federation history, with Earth-Vulcan first contact being the inciting incident of the process that ultimately led to the formation of the Federation. But I think it's peculiar that it also seemingly looms large in Federation science and engineering. Why study Cochrane and not say, the first Vulcan or Bolian or Trill warp-capable ship-- ships that were presumably much more purpose-built rather than jury-rigged from an ICBM? Why use his name as a unit of measurement? Is it purely a matter of popular history, or is there perhaps something about Phoenix's design particularly illuminating?

I imagine that with money being more or less a thing of the past, entertainers would do it for genuine love of the craft rather than paychecks or fulfilling some bottom line or quota. Though, I wonder how they'd get the word out about their work, since their world doesn't have the same bombardment of ads we have IRL, plus some more cynical people would call the entertainment industry as a whole bad and only a distraction from the real things that matter in life. But, with most of our current problems solved in their world, and the fact that money is gone and no one has to really work for their basic needs, people need SOMETHING to do all day.

For the last couple years, I have been doing a systematic rewatch of TNG while doing the rowing machine. I have watched most episodes multiple times before, but there is something unique about giving it my undivided attention, since I can't wander off or look at my phone or anything like that. And I have noticed that once the show really hits its stride in season 3 or so, there is almost a default "template" to most episodes. First, a problem presents itself. Second, Picard delegates the issue to the appropriate member(s) of the ensemble cast to deal with. Finally, when things are really coming to a head and getting serious, Picard himself becomes directly involved and brings the situation to a satisfactory resolution. Not every episode is like this, obviously, but once you notice this rhythm, it's unmistakable that this is the most comfortable formula for a TNG episode.

And this brings me to "I, Borg." There is obviously a ton to say about this episode from a lot of different perspectives. But what was new for me this time around was my awareness of The Template, and that made the episode new for me. On a superficial level, "I, Borg" hits all the plot beats. The presenting problem is that they've beamed up an injured Borg. Picard delegates the problem to Geordi and Crusher, primarily. And when push comes to shove, Picard has a decisive conversation with Hugh that informs him about how to resolve the issue.

There are two key twists here, though. The first is that Picard is not just "delegating" -- he is actively refusing to engage with Hugh because of his traumatic experience with the Borg. And this means that, by the end of the episode, the real "problem" is not Hugh so much as Picard himself. By outsourcing Hugh to his crew, he is depriving himself of the information he needs to understand what is really going on -- leading him to embrace the morally reprehensible plan to commit genocide against the Borg. Only once he confronts Hugh as a person does he realize that the real solution is to respect Hugh as an individual. He isn't saving the day in any simple sense -- if anything, he is creating more danger for everyone involved. But he is saving himself from his worst impulses.

What do you think? Have you noticed this basic pattern? Are there other particularly clear examples, or other episodes where they seem to be toying with the formula?

So apparently in the Star Trek universe there are a number of transcended civilizations that usually have a non-interference clause in regards to "lesser" beings. The exceptions to this rule are the Organians who intervened in the Federation-Klingon conflict and the Prophets the "Gods" of Bajor. In DS9 the Dominion-Federation conflict is one of the main plot points and the only time the transcended aliens intervened was when they destroyed the Dominion fleet in "Sacrifice of Angels". But what if they had done more to that? What if one of the transcendent civilizations like the Organians or the Prophets pulled off a "Third Party Stops Attack" trope ,on the joint Cardassian-Romulan fleet, and brought the Dominion and Alpha Quadrant powers to the negotiating table. Similar to what the Organians did in the TOS episode "Errand of Mercy". Would it lead to cooler relations between the Alpha Quadrant powers and the Dominion? And how would members of the Dominion, specifically the Jem'Hadar and Vorta react to meeting members of these advanced civilizations? Would it lead to a divide in the Dominion over whether the founders really are gods, compared to transcendent beings, perhaps even a civil war?

like we saw it able to rebuild the discovery from 2258 configuration and refit to match 3188 starfleet specs.

if i took the nx-01 and send it to 3188 could they use programmable matter to refit it to 3188 starfleet specs too?

or how about sending a 2375 galaxy class to 3188 refit it with progrmamable matter?

what do you think ?

Why is it that everyone in the utopian world of Star Trek is a brave pioneer exploring the stars or some highly intelligent matured human specimen?

What about lazy people in Star Trek? People who aren’t good at things? The socially awkward? Those who are imperfect and don’t fit into the whole “matured human species” mold?

I’ve known many people who lack social skills, a healthy lifestyle, people who live for nothing but junk food and VRchat and never tried to succeed or go to college or anything.

What happens to people like that?

Are there a bunch of holodeck entertainment modules with IV drip fed people under the sunny skies of federation planets?

I’m confused and this thought nags as I watch the show, thank you.

I was curious if I missed any answer (or if there are any theories) about what powered Arturis's original drive. We know that it doesn't seem to use matter/antimatter reactions based on initial comments on the drive when the first board the ship. We also know the drive can be partially recreated using the power from the warp core instead, as seen with Voyager's recreated drive.

Book's comment in Discovery on using the drive can also be read to suggest the drive operates without need of a warp core as the power source anymore. However, it could also be read as saying he simply wouldn't need any more dilithium than what he has already.

I think that fusion reactors like those found in the impulse engine/drives could be an interesting alternative. They produce plasma, which would mean something like an EPS grid could still be used to power the ship. However, I am not sure if there is any source that says whether or not these would have enough power to independently power a whole vessel long term. And it seems unlikely to me that this would be the source of power in Arturis's drive. Any other ideas on what kind of system would be the alternative power generation in place of matter/antimatter? Or answers that I might have missed in the show?

We know that transporter clones are identical in every way, including lived experiences.

Say the "original" copy committed some sort of heinous crime that came to light after the transporter incident and the "original" will be charged and found guilty.

Is the copy also guilty of this crime? They physically didn't exist at the time it was committed but they possess all of the memories and lived experiences of the original, as if they themselves had physically been present for the act. As a society, what would the likely response to the situation be; to punish both the original and the clone or just the original?

So assuming Lakota blew up the Defiant and they never were able to prove that he sabotaged Earth's light switch, how would the other 149 planets respond to the Human military seizing control of Earth?

Would other planets follow suit, seize control and just fortify their home planets or would the other planets violently respond and overthrow King Leyton?

Edit at the top just to get it out of the way; the logical answer is Star Fleet is lying about what Navigational Deflectors are for and its the same as when they say nuclear bombs are for national defense. That thing vaporizes cities my guy, it aint for 'defense'

If we take it as written that shields and phasers are the equivalent of IRL hypothetical interstellar asteroid defense for ships in transit; what use is a Navigational Deflector/why is it so big and bulky?

In theory Deflector Shields would protect the ship from kinetic impacts on its hull during voyages; and it secondarily acts as a defensive shield in combat. Similarly, phasers are point defenses for incoming objects, and simply have a secondary function to act as weapons.

This, in principle, is Gene's take on 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic/and also indistinguishable from a weapon'.

We arent soldiers, these arent weapons. We are astronauts on some sort of star trek with tools. Form followed function on these ships and by god that Deflector Dish served a function.

OK, so the Navigational Deflector must be the forward shield? Right?

We have 6 shield directions, Fore, Aft, Starboard, Port, Dorsal, and Ventral. Surely the Deflector Dish and as such the main Navigational Deflector is the forward shield generator doing dual focus jobs, pushing asteroids and also being a shield in combat?

But then why is it so big? It may be stronger shielding fore of the ship than aft; but so much difference that the fore shield has a highly visible dish and no other one does? Shield generators are well established to be different things from this dish, and seem capable of protecting the ship well enough in other areas without taking up anywhere near as much space or material to construct.

We see it used as a point defense tool ,beaming energy at say, Borg Cubes; we know it logically does some amount of kinetic shielding based on its name (i dont think we ever really see it act as a shield). But we also know StarFleet saw fit to use other tools for those same tasks; better and more powerful tools.

So if the Navigational Deflector is simply to push asteroids...well, is it just a Tractor Beam? we again, see purpose built devices for these, Star Fleet again decided they didnt really need this Navigational Deflector to actually *do* anything, or whatever it is doing; based on its scale; must be a *very* important task we are otherwise not made privy to in dialogue.

So, what is it doing, why is it so big, and why is it so out in the open and exposed compared to devoted phasers, shields, and tractor beams?

I think the galactic-level threats we keep seeing in NuTrek make sense in the context of 90’s Trek and are an inevitable consequence of the events of those shows.

First the context. When the Enterprise launches under Picard, this is near the end of decades of peace and prosperity following the Khitomer Accords. The Federation faced border conflicts but got fat and lazy as a regional power with no real rivals, being allied to Klingons and with the Romulans in isolation. This was when it could barely rouse itself to fight the Cardassians, hardly a peer competitor.

Then, over the course of the three shows from 2364 to 2378, we watch the Federation transition from a regional power to a galactic one. Its rivals go from local ones to the Borg and Dominion, arguably the two most powerful factions in the galaxy (at least in a conventional sense as I’m not including the Q, Prophets, or similar).

The Borg are key here because the Federation left a power vacuum when they knocked off their galactic hegemony. This is similar to the chaos that happened after Rome fell and suddenly there’s no central response to foreign invasions or even anyone maintaining the roads.

I think the Borg were dealing with galactic-level threats and this is why we never saw their full force, they were busy keeping the galaxy safe and maintaining the roads (transwarp conduits in this case).

With them gone and the Dominion turned inward, it’s now up to the Federation to deal with the 1-2 galactic threats that pop up each year.

Also, this is except for SNW.

Do cars still exist?

I've recently started rewatching TNG, starting mid-season 2 and hopping around a bit, now halfway through season 3, and already there has been a steady stream of interstellar incidents, many of which could have easily qualified as a provocation of war?

Particular highlights:

* A Matter of Honor: a Klingon ship initiates an (unsuccessful) attack run against the Enterprise, while participating in an officer exchange program with said ship.

* Contagion: the Yamato explicitly trespasses in the Romulan Neutral Zone and is destroyed with all hands, immediately followed by the decloaking of a Romulan Warbird. Although the Romulans are eventually found to have had nothing to do it, wars have certainly been started over less!

* Peak Performance: a completely unprovoked Ferengi attack on two Federation ships in what appears to be firmly within Federation space.

* The Price: Ferengi negotiators open fire upon the object of negotiations/wormhole in a (debatably genuine?) attempt to destroy it, which would have stranded a Federation shuttle halfway across the galaxy, and only prevented by the Enterprise's quick destruction of said missile.

* Tin Man: the Enterprise-D deliberately travels beyond Federation-explored space into Romulan-claimed (although seemingly unoccupied) territory to investigate an unknown life form. They are attacked by a Romulan warship, which is subsequently destroyed at the urging of a Federation representative (while the Romulans probably weren't aware of the specifics, I don't think it unreasonable that they would blame the Enterprise for one reason or another, and they wouldn't be wrong...).

And those are just the episodes I've hit thus far - based on the episode descriptions, The Enemy, The Defector, and Ménage à Troi all seem likely to add to the list!

Even accepting a higher-than-usual tolerance for danger and misunderstandings that seem to accompany interstellar exploration, it's somewhat hard to believe the number of times rival powers have gone so far as to openly fire on the flagship of the Federation fleet, seemingly without consequence! Or that the Federation's regular trespassing of against major treaties and designated Neutral Zones doesn't drag them into conflict with every major power around!

EDIT: to clarify a bit, I don’t think it’s at all surprising that the Federation frequently chooses to overlook various incidents, that’s one of their defining values. However, given that many of their neighbors are characterized by much less pacifistic values, the Federation seems surprisingly willing to push, if not outright violate, boundaries in ways that could easily be construed as provocation. The Romulans are presented as a powerful, secretive empire, with hawkish factions known to be attempting to incite conflict, and that the Federation is said to have relatively little insight into - all of which seems like it would take for a particularly dangerous and uncertain relationship.

Edit - fixed pic links BEFORE: Federation HQ in distortion field generation mode & AFTER: Federation HQ in warp-capable/starship mode

On rewatching, I noticed something strange about Federation Headquarters (FHQ) in Discovery Season 4. We are first introduced to FHQ as a glowing cocoon-shaped spindle, connecting an energy web to produce a distortion field. But in the finale episode, when it is dramatically revealed to be a warp-capable starship/starbase, it suddenly gains additional structures. Three habitable rings encircle the spindle, two at the top and a larger one around its middle. And around all of that, is a series of ten large, curved struts (like meridians) arranged halfway around forming the shape of a cone seashell.

Has this been noted anywhere? I don't think this was discussed in the dialog. What piques me is where would the three rings have been in the hidden base? (Were they parked in the rainforest ship?) Do they get suddenly reconstituted somehow? And presumably those huge seashell struts are the warp nacelles, but then maybe not. I just thought this was an interesting detail since there was a lot going visually in the season finale, and would be curious if anyone had ideas.

Update Just noticed the big cone-shell pylons have a similar design to the pylons/struts in the 32nd-c. Courage-class starship, see upper-right ship in this chart 32nd Century Starship chart, speculatively maybe they have the same functionality…

TOS "City at the Edge of Forever" and DS9 "Past Tense" both regularly top lists of "Best Star Trek Episodes Ever." The former showed that Star Trek could present profound tragedy, while the latter is one of the most prophetic social critiques Star Trek has ever done. (The fact that the state of California is in the process of forcibly clearing homeless encampments in literally the same then-future year in which "Past Tense" was set is almost too on the nose, honestly.)

A comparison suggests itself because both of them exemplify one of the most distinctive Star Trek tropes -- going back in time, accidentally messing up the future, and figuring out a way to set things right to prevent the future from being overwritten. More than that, both center on an activist on behalf of the less privileged.

But in a crucial way, the two episodes take opposite paths. In one, our heroes must replace the activist to make sure his positive activities happen as scheduled. In the other, they must ensure the activist dies on schedule so that she doesn't have a positive influence that turns out to be perversely dangerous.

If you were told about these two stories and that they were in the same franchise, but didn't know which came first, I think everyone would assume that the version from "Past Tense" came first. It is more straightforward, more natural. The plot of "City at the Edge of Forever," by contrast, sounds more "meta," as though it is subverting a familiar trope -- the exact kind of "darker grittier" move we're familiar with from contemporary franchises. It's undoubtedly a great episode with a huge emotional impact, but it is also deeply cynical in a way I have never felt completely comfortable with.

According to the information I can find in [Memory Alpha](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense,_Part_II_(episode\)), the writers of "Past Tense" did not set out to echo "City at the Edge of Forever" -- it appears that they only belatedly realized the parallel and even inserted an Easter egg to mark the similarity in the late stages of production. Nonetheless, it's hard for me to imagine that Star Trek writers are going to do the "oops, we messed up the past and need to fix it" trope without having the first instance in their mind in some way. More than that, whatever the intentions of the authors, their inclusion in the same fictional canon invites us to think of them together.

And when we do think about them together, "Past Tense" seems very much like a correction of the cynicism of "City at the Edge of Forever." Where the earlier episode is all about the unintended consequences of good motives, the dangers of being "right at the wrong time," the message of "Past Tense" is much simpler: doing good things is good. Standing up for justice is not going to backfire and end the world as we know it -- it's actually necessary to get to the optimistic Star Trek future.

From this perspective, the fact that the Star Trek timeline is so much more developed by the time DS9 airs actually reinforces this message. We know from franchise lore that World War III is going to happen mere decades after the Bell Riots, and it's hard to imagine that shifts in US policy toward the homeless would make a long-term historical difference in that context. By asserting that this seemingly minor or marginal quest for justice did make a huge, history-altering difference, the writers are making a strong statement that everything we do in service of justice contributes to a better future -- even if they seem to be swamped by later negative developments.

Perhaps surprisingly, then, Deep Space Nine -- which is often credited with introducing darker and less optimistic themes into Star Trek -- actually winds up making a more optimistic rejoinder to one of the greatest Original Series episodes, and in the process created an episode that is an unforgettable classic in its own right. We hear a lot about how franchises hold back storytelling, but this is a clear case where the broader franchise context made it possible to tell a different kind of story and make a different kind of intervention than would have been possible with a stand-alone concept.

But what do you think?

TOM PARIS: If Voyager was never sweeped into the Delta Quadrant, he would have been "cut lose" after capturing Chakotay and left to wonder on his own and I believe he would have eventually would have joined Nick Locarno and his crew and destroy his life further.

HARRY KIM: He would have been promoted after four years in an Alpha Quadrant starship, however, he would never have the life and death experiences he witnessed in the Delta Quadrant that prompts him to create and innovate.

DOCTOR: He would have been replaced by the MK2, MK3 and MK4. Luis Zimmerman would have died without the Doctor's treatments he developed in the Delta Quadrant from studying Borg nanoprobes.

CHAKOTAY, B'LENNA and the MAQUIS CREW: They would have been captured by Voyager. After capture, the Cardassians would have attempted for the Federation to hand the Maquis crew over, and if that would have happened, the Maquis crew, minus Seska, would have been tried and killed in a Cardassian court.

TUVOK: Nothing much changes for him. He continues to be Janeway's friend and advicer and probably becomes Janeway's first officer in Voyager's later years serving missions across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

SESKA: Nothing much happens to her. After the Maquis is captured and killed, she is either assigned to infiterate after Maquis crew or she is assigned to another assignment. She lives the life of a Cardassian solder/spy.

KES: She would have been beaten to death or beaten hard enough for her powers to manifest and kill all her Kazon oppresors. She would have lost control of her powers, making the other Ocampa fearful of her, or the Caretaker would have selected her as his replacement.

NEELIX: He would have never have left his junkyard. His relationship with Kes would never go anywhere.

SEVEN OF NINE: Nothing much happens to her, she would have lived the life of a Borg drone until she expires in an accident and is discarded by the Borg or she lives forever, never knowing the taste of freedom.

JANEWAY: She would have lived the life of a starship captain and married Mark after the Badlands mission. She would have mission after mission, adventures in the Alpha and Beta Quadrant, have experienced the Borg invasion of Sector 001, but other than that, nothing much happens to her until the Supernova on Romulus and the Attack on Mars, maybe we leaves Starfleet because of this like Picard did.

So one of the more curious events in Star Trek astro-politics is why the Romulan Star Empire attacked the Klingon Empire in 2344 at Narenda III. Worf stated in the episode "The Neutral Zone" that the Romulans attacked the Klingons at Khitomer when the two powers were allied. It is likely that Worf was slightly mistaken there since the attack on Khitomer occurred two years after the attack on Narenda III (it doesn't seem likely that the Klingons would ally with the Romulans after an attack on Narenda III only to then have the Romulans immediately attack the Klingons again), but I doubt Worf was wrong about the Romulans having attacked the Klingons while the two parties were allied, so I'm going to assume that the Romulans broke the alliance in 2344 when they attacked Narenda III.

So the question is why would the Romulans void such a strategically useful alliance just to attack a couple of border outposts? One possible answer is that the Romulans were afraid the Klingons were about to ally with the Federation (it's mentioned in Yesterday's Enterprise that the Federation was negotiating a peace treaty with the Klingons when the Enterprise C left on its mission), but that answer seems insufficient to me. (If the Romulans were worried about a possible Federation-Klingon alliance then attacking the Klingons seems like the worst move the Romulans could possibly make at that would likely make the Klingons more open to such an alliance.)

So what else might have caused such a drastic action by the Romulans? My theory is that it relates to something that was mentioned by Garak in the Deep Space Nine episode The Way of the Warrior, a previously unknown conflict between the Klingons and Cardassians called the Betreka Nebula incident. We don't know exactly when this conflict occurred, but we do know that it lasted 18 years. It's estimated that the Federation-Cardassian War started sometime around 2347. I doubt the Cardassians would pick a fight with the Federation while they were fighting the Cardassians, so it's likely the Betreka Nebula Incident occurred before 2347, which means it certainly could have been resolved sometime in the mid 2340s (around the same time of the Romulan attack on the Klingons.)

So why would a Klingon-Cardassian border conflict cause the Romulans to break their alliance with the Klingons? Well my thinking is that the Romulans would be concerned that the Klingon-Cardassian conflict was going to escalate and if that happened it would inevitably lead to the Klingons conquering the Cardassian Union. The Romulans would regard that as a nightmare scenario, because while they might be allied with the Klingons, they don't trust them, and thus are terrified of the prospect of the Klingons growing more powerful than them (at which point the Klingons might very well turn on them.) The Klingon and Romulans were probably fairly evenly matched at this time, but if the Klingons conquered the Cardassian Union, making the industrious and warlike Cardassians a subject race, then that would make the Klingons more powerful than the Romulans. Thus, the Romulans decided that the Klingon conquest of Cardassia had to be prevented. They probably would have preferred for the Federation to be the one to intervene and keep the Klingons in check, but because the Cardassians were probably very unpopular with the Federation at this time (due to the occupation of Bajor), the Romulans probably knew they could not count on the Federation to intervene to help the Cardassians. I imagine the Romulans also probably made overtures to the Klingons to see about dividing the Cardassian Union between them (and thus maintaining the balance of power between the two empires), but the Klingons (who would be confident they could beat the Cardassians on their own) would probably tell the Romulans to pound sand as they aren't going to want to share their conquest.

Thus, the Romulans decided that the only way to prevent the Klingons from conquering the Cardassians was a series of military strikes on Klingon territory. Those attacks would draw the Klingons away from the Cardassians (they aren't going to commit to a major war against the Cardassians if they are having to defend their own territory from the Romulans), and the Romulans figured they could probably do this without provoking a full scale war with the Klingons since the Klingons would be reluctant to fight a potential Romulan-Cardassian alliance. In that sense the Romulan gambit did succeed as they prevented a Klingon conquest of Cardassia without getting into a full scale war with the Klingons, though at the cost of pushing the Klingons into an alliance with the Federation.

So what do you all think? Does that seem plausible? Or is there some other explanation for the Romulan attack on their Klingon allies?

(Edited to correct a couple of typos as to dates.)

Given the age of sail inspiration of Star Trek, it seems surprising that I can't recall any parallels to Charles Darwin's famous science voyage as a civilian naturalist on the HMS Beagle.

Whether civilians or full Starfleet scientists, it seems likely Starfleet would want to have people to explore and document the life and ecology found across newly discovered planets, at least when there's no developing civilisation to interfere with.

Perhaps some ships would be dedicated to such missions? I could potentially see a ship such as a science California-class being used for long-term second contact missions studying planetary ecology. Or maybe observation stations are constructed above wild planets?

Have there been any comments across the series about crew or ships dedicated to studying the biology of new worlds? Is this something that Starfleet even does?

Edit: I’ve probably seen about 50% of Star Trek episodes (TOS, TNG, most of DS9, LDS, SNW, season 1 of PRO).

While I’m aware Starfleet visits alien worlds in search of new life, I must’ve missed when they stick around for long-term missions to actually document the life on these planets in detail? When our hero ships seem to be visiting a new planet every week, it doesn’t leave much time for dedicated long-term studies.

The Next Generation Episode “Tin Man” is an underrated gem and one of the best to introduce potential new fans to the series. It’s not usually highlighted as one of the standouts of the series, but its got a tense, compelling plot and Tam Elbrun is one of the most interesting and complex one-episode characters in the show. What’s more is it’s a standalone episode, and one that features a lot of the diverse themes and tropes that exemplify what it means to be Star Trek. This lets new viewers get a taste of the withe offerings of franchise without needing a lot of background to enjoy. Consider that it has a healthy dose of:

• Boldly Going – It’s an episode that truly feels like it takes place at the edge of the final frontier, “beyond our furthest manned explorations”
• Core Star Trek Values – Trying to make peaceful first contact with Gomtuu to save it and learn from it
• Political Space Opera – The imminent threat of the Romulans and the potential shift in the balance of power that could shift if they secure Gomtuu first
• Grounded, Science-Based, ‘Hard’ SciFi – Much of the tension is set against imminent threat of the astrophysical phenomena supernova
• Fantastical, Far-Out ‘Soft’ SciFi – The space-faring Gomtuu is a wild concept, and Tam’s ESP connection over lightyears to it is a pretty fantastical
• Character Development – The episode delves into Troi’s past as Tam’s former therapist
• Interpersonal Conflict – Riker & Tam’s animosity over the Ghorusda disaster create another layer of tension in addition to the Supernova and the Romulans
• Philosophical introspection – Data and Tam muse on the purpose of existence

I can't think of another episode that features so many core bits of Star Trek so well and prominently. What do you think are other episodes that might cover such a wide range of themes and tropes?

Hello!

As I’ve been watching LDS, PIC, and even PRO, I’ve noticed something: there are a lot more Sovereign class starships flying about in the galaxy.  They’ve been a part of large fleet engagements and become a part of various events, whether it is to stop rampaging drones or fight baddies in a simulated adventure.

That leads me to my question: Is the Sovereign class now the workhorse of Starfleet post-Dominion War a la the Excelsior or other such rank-and-file vessels?  By at least PRO and PIC, they’re outmatched to some degree by more cutting-edge designs, but they’re nevertheless deployed in wide numbers to deal with those show’s threats.

To stimulate discussion, I came up with more questions.  Feel free to take the conversation however you wish though:

-Is the Sovereign effective in its role as a workhorse or is this a mismatch of its capabilities?

-Do you think the Sovereign would achieve longevity as long as workhorses of the past: the Miranda and Excelsior, to name two examples?

-Where does that leave traditional workhorses like the Excelsior (LDS like the Obena and PIC as the Excelsior II) in Starfleet?

-If you were a Starfleet captain, would you fly a Sovereign-class?

Considering what happened when Dr. Daystrom installed his M-5 supercomputer into the Enterprise and allowed an artificial intelligence to control the Enterprise and caused the deaths of hundreds of officers. Also, as Kirk experienced in his 5-year mission with the Enterprise, he had to deal with various AIs that took control of planets and doomed their worlds.

Since AIs have been known to cause damage when they take over or command of something, shouldn't Starfleet have a AI ban like the Augment ban?

With all of this, why would Starfleet allow Data to attend Starfleet Academy and possibly become a Captain and take command of a starship?

According to the TNG technical manual, dilithium crystals are actually a mineral made of a very complex compound of hypersonic element Dilithium, atomic number 119 according to beta canon.

So in theory, wouldn't it be possible for Starfleet scientists to crush and refine the pink crystals into pure elemental dilithium?

I imagine it would be a very dense metal similar to our actinides, and radioactive too.

Wouldn't elemental Dilithium be better for warp cores instead of the less pure pink mineral?

For example, being a metal, it could be molten and worked with, and starfleet could make the entire center of the warp core out of Dilithium.

This week, I decided to do a rewatch of the original cast films. Now that Discovery and Strange New Worlds have made "The Cage" and "The Menagerie" so central to contemporary Trek, I couldn't help but notice certain telltale parallels between Spocks' trajectory in WOK and SFS and Pike's in "The Menagerie." The most obvious parallel is their self-sacrifice. Pike and Spock both sacrifice themselves to save others -- in fact, both sacrifice themselves to save their students. But already two major differences present themselves. While Pike sacrifices himself only to save cadets and winds up grievously handicapped, Spock sacrifices himself to save both cadets and his closest colleagues and friends, and he winds up dead. In both cases, the stakes and the consequences are greater.

That sets up a similar parallel with a difference in the next stage of the story. As we know, in "The Menagerie," Spock risks everything to steal the Enterprise and deliver Pike to Talos IV, where he can live a full life within the Talosians' illusion. In SFS, Kirk and the rest of the original cast ensemble risk everything to deliver Spock's katra to the Genesis planet and raise Spock from the dead. And unlike with Pike, this entails being able to return to his old life in its fullness, not just live out a fantasy.

The pattern seems clear to me: Spock's fate in WOK and SFS echoes Pike's, but then amplifies it. Spock is like Pike, but moreso. And this fits, I think, with the more familiar reading of WOK as the movie that makes Kirk face the consequences of his past actions (in marooning Khan, in getting Carol Marcus pregnant, in accepting promotion, etc.) For the first-time viewer of TOS, what is most striking about "The Menagerie" is that it gives Star Trek a sense of history. Most other episodes are fully self-contained -- this one shows that Spock had an entire life separate from what we see on TOS, with loyalties so important he is willing to risk his career and even his life. Prior to "The Menagerie," Star Trek could feel like a series of disconnected Twilight Zone-style plots. After, it feels like a real world. TOS never really develops much continuity or serialization in the contemporary sense, but when it does, it follows the lead of "The Menagerie" -- it's always about Spock.

Hence it fits that the movie that is about dealing with consequences, the movie that takes the past of Star Trek seriously in a way that can even feel shocking, would echo the plot of "The Menagerie" -- placing Spock in the place of Pike as the mentor and friend who sacrifices himself and is then redeemed by his loyal friends.

What's interesting to me, from a contemporary viewers' perspective, is how much work DIS s2 and SNW are doing to underwrite "The Menagerie" (and implicitly set up WOK/SFS). In the original sequence, we are told that Pike is special to Spock, but the more recent episodes show us how important that relationship is. More than that, they seem to up the stakes even further. Pike sees his future in the time crystal that will allow the Discovery crew to thwart Control and save all sentient life. And in turn, when Pike wonders about averting that fate, his alternate-future self convinces him that he needs to stay on his self-sacrificial path -- so that Spock can connect with Kirk and play his unique role in the history of the Federation. In a way, then, DIS and SNW complete the loop, retroactively making Pike's sacrifice a sacrifice for Spock.

But what do you think? Are there other parallels I'm missing? Do you see other common Star Trek tropes echoed in WOK and SFS? How else do DIS and SNW cause us to see "The Menagerie" and Spock's resurrection arc differently?

So, many times on screen, Dilithium is shown to look like earth's rose quartz.

A pink crystalline element thats used in the core of warp reactors to regulate their matter/antimatter reactions.

But it appears there are other colors as well?

TOS dilithium is yellow-orange. TNG's is the familiar pink.

But also on TOS we see Elaan of Troyus wearing a pink dilithium necklace.

Is pink supposed to be the refined, pure stuff?