How would you prepare?

[McAvoy]

How would prepare the Federation for a possible war with the Dominion? It is after the events of The Search. You don't have the benefit of what we know in the future. But you know soon or later there is a strong possibility of a war with Dominion.

How would you prepare the fleet? What ships would you build? Politics? Resources?

[katefan]

I wold collapse the wormhole. There, no more threat of war.

[Graham Kennedy]

I wold collapse the wormhole. There, no more threat of war.

Sounds about right. I suppose the Bajorans would take it really hard - probably end any alliance or friendship, let alone any chance of them joining the Federation. But screw that, the Federation was getting along just fine without them.

Assuming that was out, I'd have reinforced Deep Space 9 properly. Putting the Defiant there was nice, but it's one ship. I'd have made DS9 a fleet base and moved at least a couple of hundred ships there permanently.

[Deepcrush]

I wold collapse the wormhole. There, no more threat of war.

Kind of defeats the point of the question. Also, there's nothing to say that the Bajorans would take that idea to kindly without there being a war to justify it.

How would you prepare the fleet? What ships would you build? Politics? Resources?

First off, before anything I'd throw into shipyards. There are far to few IMO for the UFP to call on during wartime. I see no reason not to rush production of shipyards and this allows some edging that might have been difficult in the pre-DS9 hippie era of the UFP. There's nothing to say that building shipyards is an arms build up, but they'll be ready when you need them.

Second isn't just ships but the defense and supply of the UFP for a war. Building ships is fine, but doesn't help if their base of operations is months away. DS9 showed it could be built up well for battle conditions, and while I wouldn't just copy a CU design. Something similar to a Ramilies design but scaled down by 1:2. These can be pretty heavily armed and armored, able to dock any size UFP ship in service and still be passed off as anything but Star Forts.

The types of ships for me would be simple, for both mass production and upkeep reasons. My new standard capital ship would be the Nebula Class with QTL weapon pods filling in my Heavy Cruiser slot. Light Cruiser/Skirmisher would be the Akira Class. Seeing the Dominion's love of small attack ships, my primary close combatant would be the Defiant Class. While the UFP may not want a warfleet per say, both the Neb and Akira can be written as long range exploration cruisers. The Defiants would just be toggled as escorts for these, build a small squadron per Neb or Akira and just keep them under the radar.

For the politics, I'd play up the Borg card and the dangers of long range exploration. The need for better defended borders and push the ideas of expanding colonization. People are generally okay with more warships, if those ships are only there because of the much larger explorers and colony ships they are escorting. The Dominion is such an unknown that a lot of people in the UFP may believe that war is unlikely with them, so its best not to lay the expansion of arms at their feet.

Lastly resources. A major unknown with ST as we really don't hear much to the cost of building ships or the time required for ships that aren't prototypes. Though given the size of the UFP the resources required to build a fleet to match the Dominion's shouldn't take long. The UFP's problem during the war was logistics and not battle oriented. If the UFP has four years of prep-time then all that would be needed is to pick when and where to kick a war off.

[Captain Seafort]

Kind of defeats the point of the question.

Why? Dominion is going to have a hard time beating the Federation if they can't even reach it.

[Deepcrush]

The question was "to prepare for war" not "avoid it".

[Lt. Staplic]

I'd follow a similar path to Deep.

So everything is kicking off in 2371, assuming this is a few months to a year before the prototype USS Sovereign is commissioned so work on the craft is well underway, and the Borg threat is still a very real and tangible thing to the people of the Federation. (it'll get even more so in 2 years when the Borg invade again in the events of First Contact).

Politically I create an initiative to re-gear Starfleet toward greater defense against a possible future borg invasion. This initiative would include funding to construct and maintain a large fleet of ships, it would also include funding to provide updating to many starbases and allow them to assist in the defense of systems and better service large fleets of ships. DS9 would receive major attention in this regard, as would other neglected stations to create deniability in doing this as an act against the Dominion.

I am also politically going to be in the ears of the Romulans and Klingons consistently. We know that around this time relations between the Federation and the two powers are on fairly good terms so I'm going to work to keep them there, keep us friendly so that when the time comes we don't need "Pale Moonlight" style tactics to get everyone on board. We're all on the same page and willing to walk the hard line when the Dominion starts pouring through.

I then build fleets around the Nebula, Akira, Defiant, Intrepid, and Sovereigns. Nebula, Akira, and Intrepid Class ships call all pass as exploration vessells and during the next few years that's what they would be used for short range scientific and exploration missions. When war comes along we replace the exploration pod with a Quantum Torpedo Weapons Pod in the Nebula making it a heavy cruiser. the Akira already comes with high rate of fire QTL's and the Intrepids would be used mostly for scouting for major fleets and could be packaged in with the larger ships to protect against the Dominion Attack Ships. Defiants and Sovereigns could be labeled as "escorts" and "Deterrance Explorer" like we see; however beyond the bullshit, we simply package them off as the heavy hitting backbone of any defense fleet against a borg invasion.

Meanwhile I also start recalling a lot of the current fleet. We leave less military capable ships like Nova's out, as well as GCS. assuming I have enough time to get a significant number of Nebula's ready and Sovereigns built, the number of GCS's there are won't make that much of a difference; however given what the quadrant knows about them, they can go a long way to easing everyone's potential fear about arms build up if their left to deep space exploration.

Hopefully all of this will be done by ~2373 a year till war breaks out and we have the events of First Contact, which blow the hell out of the assembled fleet. I now justify the creation of fleets with strategic basing in order to prevent such a scramble for a defense fleet from occurring again. We then are able to distribute and assemble a fair number of ships out of every fleet at strategic systems throughout Federation Space, with the ability to recall the rest of the ships to their key location within a matter of weeks to months as war gets ever closer.

Hopefully now when war rolls around in late 2373 the Federation will be ready to go with fleets in position, the strategic positions fortified, and large numbers of capable ships in use rather than the large numbers of called up mothball ships.

[McAvoy]

This is how I would do it:

1. Resources: Any untapped or producing below maximum yield natural resource the Federation has will be used as soon as possible. As well as manning, providing incentives to mine those resources. I always felt the Federation was not as large as it potentially could be from a limit on yearly resources (even WW2 US had a steel shortage) and manpower. Next would be opening up the floodgates for Starfleet recruits, enlisted and officer. Industry will be expanded to build new ships and equipment.

2. Ships and Shipyards: Producing shipyards in other key systems including Earth, Vulcan and so forth. Any large ship like a Sovereign or a Galaxy class or even Nebula class will be finished but another one will not be laid down afterwards. Smaller ships with the largest being the Akira class will be built. Defiant class ships will be built in numbers, perhaps even to a modifed design if it can be produced in larger numbers. The Defiant class would useful because they are small and require little crew and would be an excellent counter to the Dominion attack ships.

3. Starbase and planetary defenses will be upgraded or augmented with whatever resources are available.

4. All ships capable of combat will be recalled and modified if needed to join the rest of the fleet.

5. Station a permanent fleet near or in Bajoran space if given permission. Have the Klingons join in with the defense of DS9 when the time comes. Court the Romulans in an eventual alliance or even a limited one with them in case of Dominion invasion. Same goes for any other power.

6. Selected older Excelsior class ships will be taken on a one for one basis to be upgraded to the Lakota specs. If the Miranda class can be done similarly, then they will too. I do not think all ships can be upgraded this way, but if given the specs to some of the upgrade they can do themselves while underway, then that is almost as good.

[Deepcrush]

The Akira isn't exactly a small ship, just a point of note.

[McAvoy]

Smaller than a Galaxy class and a Nebula class. Nebula class may have a similar length, but much more massive overall.

[Deepcrush]

Minus the Neb's pods, they're about the same size. But I was just pointing out that they aren't by means small ships. Most of your overview is pretty good, #5 involving the courting of relations with the RSE is a bit touchy. I would reach out more to the CU personally if allies were the key. CU production has been shown as rather impressive and they are easier to keep in line then the RSE.

[McAvoy]

Never hurts to try. Forgot about the Cardassians.

I mean the Akira being the largest being built after the above plan would be put into motion. Taking a quick look at Volumetrics, while you can make a case for being suspect, does show the difference between the Akira and a Nebula with a pod. A full 3,000,000 m^3 difference, doubt the pod would make the difference.

The other thing too is while dangerous is encourage at least the Klingon Empire expand their shipbuilding capability, whether through Federation help or on their own. Also cross traing with each other, whether being on ships or fleet exercises to fully mesh with each other. Gowron permitting of course.

[Deepcrush]

The Klingons aren't really the risk, its how other people respond to the Klingons that generally presents the problem. Gowron is a politician at heart, thus it shouldn't be hard to gain favor with him if you have to. However I don't think you would need to. Given a four year grace, the UFP could easily match what we saw the Dominion bring to the war. Allowing for a build up of force without involving other powers would be of more benefit as it would surprise the hell out of everyone.

As to the STvSW volume, while its nice that someone went through the effort of trying to figure one over the other. Its still nothing but a guess. The Akira on screen isn't that much smaller then the Neb so I trust the canon screen more then I do someone's guessing. However that's a personal choice.

[katefan]

A key step in preparation for war is defense. And one of the greatest defenses is distance from enemy forces; it was one of the reasons the Americans managed to win their Revolutionary war against one of, if not the greatest standing armies on Earth at the time, with Great Britain having to ferry troops and supplies across the Atlantic. So I stand by my statement that collapsing the wormhole would be the single best preparation for the Dominion War. It would just be a war in name only.

[McAvoy]

The Klingons aren't really the risk, its how other people respond to the Klingons that generally presents the problem. Gowron is a politician at heart, thus it shouldn't be hard to gain favor with him if you have to. However I don't think you would need to. Given a four year grace, the UFP could easily match what we saw the Dominion bring to the war. Allowing for a build up of force without involving other powers would be of more benefit as it would surprise the hell out of everyone.

As to the STvSW volume, while its nice that someone went through the effort of trying to figure one over the other. Its still nothing but a guess. The Akira on screen isn't that much smaller then the Neb so I trust the canon screen more then I do someone's guessing. However that's a personal choice.

From what I understand he uses the best CGI models he can find to make the calculations for volume. Granted he could be using a bad model of the Akira or the Nebula, but it shouldn't be off by that much.



I found these two pictures off Drex's site and then made a side by side view. I looked up Ex Astris Scientia for lengths on both. It appears on average the Akira class is longer than the Nebula than by a couple dozen meters or so. Interestingly, the window sizes, phaser strips, and lifeboats match up but for all we know those can be of a different size than the Nebulas. Though the bridge modules don't as the Akira's is larger than the Nebulas.