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My question is this:

Galaxy class is, in the TNG time, the best Federation can offer. And yet it is time an time again matched by vessels from little known civilizations (for example Zalkonian, Tamarian). So, if their vessels are so powerful, why aren't they present in the galactic power struggle?

One possibility is that the Federation's ships aren't as powerful on a ton for ton basis, (the Galaxy class had part of its volume left empty for future upgrades), plus the Federation is devoting more of its efforts to exploration, while other nations are a bit more cautious about expanding.

So think of it as a British exploration ship, vs another empire's close in warship.

The empires are powerful in a local sense, but not in a galactic sense. Think the German High Seas fleet, vs the British fleet. The German fleet is powerful in its area, but the British fleet had to be powerful in lots of areas. If a German ship got loose into the ocean (Bismark) it would cause trouble, but the larger British fleet eventually hunted it down.

Probably lack of numbers. Take the early 20th century as a comparison - plenty of countries had Dreadnought-type battleships, but only a few of them could be counted among the great powers. Having one or two made counties like Turkey, Brazil and Argentina important regional powers, but there's no way they could challenge powers like the UK or Germany which could field dozens.

And they could be relatively recent in developing these ships.

I see where are you going with the comparisons, but wonder why the best ships of the great powers (Romulan, Cardassian, Klingon) are somewhat inferior to a GCS and those of (very) minor powers are better.

unic wrote:I see where are you going with the comparisons, but wonder why the best ships of the great powers (Romulan, Cardassian, Klingon) are somewhat inferior to a GCS and those of (very) minor powers are better.

I don't think that's true. I wouldn't call the Cardassians a great power, merely an ongoing irritant that later found themselves on the doorstep of the most important strayegic point in the quadrant. The Klingons seemed to be caught at a point of unusual technological disparity during TOS (both the K't'inga and Negh'var seemed capable of matching their Fed equivalents) and the D'Deridex, while it's defences seem a bit sub-par, has an alpha strike that can seriously damage a GCS.

There's also another angle; intent. While the Klingons may want to go kill everything and the UFP may want to go give everything a hug, a lot of the civilizations want to be pre-Pearl Harbor U.S. The Tamarians, to use one of your examples, seemed precious little interested in meeting anyone, and the fact of their level of technology just means that they are that much better at keeping things that way.

I'd say Seafort got it right saying anyone can build a couple of powerful ships, Lots of armor and a big power supply... not exactly advanced tech. but to feild a fleet of them...

Also as I said having heavy armor and guns are one thing, but these ships could very well have shit sensors and computers.

In a true war if the Federation had superior sensors and targeting they could move their ships around and strike where the enemy had none. Sure in a one on one head to haed figth they would get a bloody nose. But the federation can run in with a quick kidney shot.

And against some of these powers win on numbers.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:And against some of these powers win on numbers.

Exactly!
Look at what happened during the Dominion War...
Once the Feds adapted to the Polaron beams, the Dominion, while their main ships (the bugs) weren't an equal match to any Fed ship one on one, were very dangerous due to the number of ships they fielded...
Even after a long war, when the Feds and allies were getting low on ships, the Dominion still had 2800 ships it could throw in the fight...
If the Wormhole aliens had allowed it, the Dominion would have won on pure numbers...

Captain Seafort wrote:Probably lack of numbers. Take the early 20th century as a comparison - plenty of countries had Dreadnought-type battleships, but only a few of them could be counted among the great powers. Having one or two made counties like Turkey, Brazil and Argentina important regional powers, but there's no way they could challenge powers like the UK or Germany which could field dozens.

Which makes sense in the way Star Trek portrays ships and their captains. Even a hundred years ago captains fielded a lot of power when far from home ports.

I also agree the numbers mean more than the power individual ships. Magine be a small power within a solar system With only the resources of that system compared to the federation which has several dozen or even hundreds of planets.

The Federation does seem to be very sparse though. There is also the possibilitty of powers only having 3-4 systems but having them be massivly developed.

Power in trek seems more based on how driven a race is vs how many systems they have. The UFP has 180 systems but their fleet was only equal to the Klingons who have only a single heavily populated world to call their own. The Romulans seem to be the flip side on the Klingons, being that with a similar empire they are rather weak outside of having a few powerful ships. The Federation's fleet is a speck next to what it should be, there's no reason that the UFP doesn't field a hundred ships for every ship the KDF or RSN can support. The arrival of the Dominion should have been more of an annoyance then a war. (Though this of course makes for a very boring show)

Deepcrush wrote:Power in trek seems more based on how driven a race is vs how many systems they have. The UFP has 180 systems but their fleet was only equal to the Klingons who have only a single heavily populated world to call their own.

So? The Federation, to all intents and purposes, is the same, given the massive centralisation around Earth.

The Romulans seem to be the flip side on the Klingons, being that with a similar empire they are rather weak outside of having a few powerful ships.

Really? When was the size of the Romulan fleet ever specified, or even hinted at?

The Federation's fleet is a speck next to what it should be, there's no reason that the UFP doesn't field a hundred ships for every ship the KDF or RSN can support. The arrival of the Dominion should have been more of an annoyance then a war. (Though this of course makes for a very boring show)

And this is supported by what evidence exactly?

Klingon and the Romulans could very possibly have slave worlds to do their hard labor. Freeing up the Klingon and the Romulans to man their ships.

As far as the Federation, anyone could make up numbers to show the potential industrial strength of the Federation. But really we have only seen a small part of it. It could very well be that the Federation could field tens of thousands of ships or maybe part of making the ship requires a special and extremely rare ore or element that limits their ability to build the amount of ships per year.

Or the Federation is just too pacifist to build a fleet that makes the all the powers look like backwater empires.