'Yesterday's Enterprise' nit

[Tyyr]

I'd create two seperate services much like Tyyr has done. one for science and exploration, and one for beating the f**k out of whomsoever makes an attack.

I think the period in time right after the Dominion war and Shinzon's bullshit is the time that if it's going to happen it'll happen. In about a decade you've got two Borg incursions, the Dominion war, and Shinzon trying to kill everyone on Earth. If that doesn't convince them to get serious about things nothing will.

[Sionnach Glic]

Aye, I'm hoping all that chaos would have beaten some sense into them.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Well I've been busy lately but indeed Rochey couldn't have said it any better.

As to the OP, I've wondered about this myself. It occurred to me that some part of the strength of the UFP in the TNG era (in the normal timeiline) would have resulted from their very alliance with the KE. However, referring to Rochey's post, I can also speculate that if the Klingons had Vor'Cha cruisers by the time of the Narandra III they would have had a sizeable advantage over what the Federation had then. I can take it further by speculating that ongoing tensions between the KE and RSE had led (perhaps in either timeline) to a remilitarization of the KE (so they'd have something whether Vor'Cha or not) after STVI while the UFP took a laissez-faire attitude; in the normal timeline the RSE would have backed off in the face of the alliance while in the YE timeline they would have bided their time and waited for an opportunity. In this case, the Klingons would have had an opportunity to strike hard, early, at a weak UFP at the very time when the UFP was living on borrowed time.

Now, following Martok's statement, we can conclude that Earth/Sol would have remained safe and become fortified as Deep indicates. This would then result in Deep's war of attrition after the early strike by the KE severely weakened the peripheral UFP systems. This goes on for 20 years with the Federation unable to recover from the early losses but the Klingons unable to penetrate the core of the UFP until the Federation Council starts to break down.

Speculation on my part but it seems to fit the facts.