StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The second thread with a divulgent path. My stuff in italics, Ted's in bold.

Earthbound Communication Relay #54
Communication #2833759
Sent from Residence 5501 LVT, San Fransico at 12:02 AM
Activated at Residence 9921 XIC, Paris at 5: 38 PM
Communication Approved by the United Federation of Planets

To My Esteemed Fellow Servant, Councilman Braithe;
I am transmitting this communication in order to update you on the upcoming debate. I know we're not on the best of terms but I didn't want my bill to take you by surprise, nor did I want you to, in ignorance of my motives, lash out at it irrationally.

I imply nothing.

As soon as the Council session is called to order, I will be bringing up the Federation Armed Forces bill for immediate discussions. I know your outspoken views on the matter, but please consider my thoughts. I am not advocating a mandatory draft, selective service, or anything of the sort. Further, your concerns about my budget requirements are needless. I will not take any money away from your precious Federation Transportation Fund.

I must impress upon you that this is a needed and necessary measure. A full ground army with offensive capabilities is not required- simply a strong internal garrison to defend our major planets and colonies from potentional invasion. Three hundred Starfleet ensigns, five dozen phaser rifles and a few lightly armored vechicles does not a garrison make, and on my tour of the Federation it became apparent that the garrisons of outlying worlds are even worse.

I hope I can count on your support- or, at least, your indifference.

Sincerely,
Councilman Orlani

Earthbound Communication Relay #54
Communication #2834281
Sent from Residence 5501 LVT, San Fransico, at 6:22 PM
Activated at Reisdence 9921 XIC, Paris, at 5:21 PM
Communication Approved by the United Federation of Planets

To My Fellow Servant, Councilman Braithe;
Your rather outrageous tirade against my proposal was completely unnecessary. My budget is not bloated, anymore than your Transportation Fund is. Nine hundred billion credits for maintence of a small army and garrison force is extraodinarily reasonable. The Transportation Fund is what, four times that? Keep in mind that the goal of the bill is to recruit nearly sixty million servicemembers, as well as provide for the maintence of equipment and parts. In order to preform the latter a large number of credits must be transformed into latinum, and with rates the way they are nine hundred billion credits can be considered a shoestring budget. The sixty million members must have their needs tended to as well. Think, Braithe! Had we but a hundred thousand men on Vulcan, the attempted Romulan invasion would never have taken place. Think of this not as force to conquer and destroy, but rather a deterrant. The concept is simple enough.

Further, the six hundred billion for research and development is absolutely critical! I am agast at your knee-jerk reaction to the suggestion. Our armed forces rely on one weapon- the phaser! I have made a point of studying ancient Earth warfare, Braithe. I know you shudder at the thought but there was a time when the common defense was adequetly provided for. Indirect weapons, armor, air support- the entire military philosophy of combined arms has been lost to the Federation, mostly due to the efforts of men like you, and it is sheer luck that neither the Romulans nor the Klingons nor the Dominion has possessed the ingenuity necessary to reconstruct it. A dune buggy is not an armored vehicle, Braithe. A shuttle with twin phasers is not a dedicated atmospheric fighter, and fifty ensigns with phaser rifles is not a crack infantry unit!

Think, Councilman! Weigh your actions not against the opinion of the masses, but of the future of the Federation!

With hope,
Councilman Orlani

Earthbound Communication Relay #54
Communication #2833759
Sent from Residence 9921 XIC, Paris at 9:07 PM
Activated at Residence 5501 LVT, San Fransico at 9:33 AM
Communication Approved by the United Federation of Planets

To My Noble-But-Deluded Colleague, Councilman Orlani;

Surely you realize that we cannot possibly afford to maintain standing armies of the size you are proposing. What on Earth (or any of our other member worlds) do you think you are going to do with a grounded force of that size? In the event of an attack, all you can possibly do is make targets of them, as they will be wiped out from orbit if an enemy like the Jem'Hadar successfully gains space supremacy, and they are completely unnecessary if an aggressor can't achieve space supremacy.

I appreciate your concern for our citizens, but their safety depends on our superiority in SPACE, not on the ground. If we can't stop our enemies in space, we can't stop them at all. That is why the Transportation Budget, which includes funding for STARFLEET is so essential.

With understanding,
Councilman Braithe

Earthbound Communication Relay #54
Communication #284833
Sent from Residence 5501 LVT, San Fransico, at 4:23 AM
Activated at Residence 9921 XIC, Paris, at 7:14 PM
Communication Approved by the United Federation of Planets

To Councilman Braithe;
Ah, yes, but you must realize that they are not vunerable if stationed in urban and developed areas- areas the enemy must seek to occupy, rather than destroy, if they are to garner any use from the occupied territory. Further, there are numerous tricks an army can employ to force an enemy into an even fight; you will notice that in my proposed budget money is allotted to the creation of wide-band transporter distortors and portable shields, as well as sensor disruption devices incorporating ion particles and iron ores from around the galaxy.

Further, a spaceship cannot hold terrestial territory. If any enemy can achieve space superiority, they still must send down troops to hold the planet, and if we posisition our forces in heavily fortified military zones and urban areas we will render the threat of orbital bombardment to a relatively harmless level as well as force enemy combatants into a siege or a pitched battle, thus buying more time for additional reinforcemets.

I refer you to the Battle of AR-558, where a small number of security force attempted to hold a relay against numerically superior Jem'Hadar fighters. My personal opinion on this travesty is well-known; however, had we had a proper military machine to defend this relay, with proper military equipment, not only would we have easily taken it but any further Jem'Hadar attacks would have been crushed with ease.

You also notice that I have added a clause referencing the creation of a Starfleet Marine Corps. The current security forces aboard a typical Starfleet ship-of-the-line are woefully inadequate; the stationing of up to 1,000 additional soldiers is quite possible onboard our Galaxy-class vessels if we decrease the size of the crew quarters and remove the civilian baggage from our ships, and up to 5,000 additional soldiers could be stationed in or around our major spaceports. A dedicated Marine Corp would enable us to board and capture enemy vessels and spaceborn assets and allow defend our own vessels and spaceborn with much greater ability than if they are protected only by a small number of inadequetly trained security officers.

Earthbound Communication Relay #54
Communication #2833759
Sent from Residence 9921 XIC, Paris at 9:07 PM
Activated at Residence 5501 LVT, San Fransico at 9:33 AM
Communication Approved by the United Federation of Planets

To Councilman Orlani;

Please, Councilman, you cannot force an enemy with air and space superiority into an even fight. Large-area surface shields have been tried numerous times, and despite over a century of research we have never been able to duplicate the alien technologies that have successfully protected cities or even planets from attack. Sure, we can deny them the ability to use transporters, but we can't stop a phaser barrage, and you know as well as I that shipboard phasers on stun settings can easily incapacitate troops over a wide area without causing significant collateral damage. You might be able to hide troops in hardened locations, but the moment they show their faces to engage the enemy they'll be unconcious.

And of course this is all a moot point because even our own Galaxy-class starships can at best transport a couple of thousand troops even after being refitted for that purpose, and quite frankly you know as well as I that they fight like drunken cattle. Sure, they have the sheer power to overwhelm a Cardassian cruiser, but not a Klingon attack cruiser, let alone a Romulan Warbird. That's why they're being phased out in favor of more efficient ships like the Defiant and Sovereign classes, which don't have all those caverns of wasted space inside.

Need I reiterate the desperate need to rebuild the fleet following the losses sustained in our war with the Dominion? With a strong fleet of dedicated fighting ships there will be no need to saddle our member worlds with 400,000 dedicated combat troops each.

And the "stealth invasion" scenario you mentioned. The "Romulan Invasion Fleet" consisting of a couple of obsolete Vulcan transports and a couple of thousand Romulan troops? I have no idea what the Romulan High Command was thinking, but that was a plan that was obviously going nowhere; they apparently took all the Vulcan dogma about pacifism far too seriously, since a Vulcan will tear your head off in a second if he thinks it's the logical thing to do.

The AR-588 incident is just another example of insufficient starship support. Did you fail to note that a tiny force of Starfleet security personnel held that facility for weeks against a numerically superior Dominion force? It's ludicrous to think we need hundreds of thousands of troops to defend a city against grounded invaders. They need only hold out until Starfleet arrives to lend support, anyway, and if the enemy has ships in orbit, they might as well surrender to protect civilian lives as well as their own.

Stationing large garrisons on ships is a similar waste. Enemy troops won't get on board unless the shields fail, and if the ship's condition is that bad it's time to either flee or scuttle and abandon it. The ships with which we're rebuilding the fleet don't have those vast quantities of excess space in which to house troops, anyway.

It's abundantly clear, Councilman, that your proposal is an absurd waste of resources that could be put to use building effective defenses for our member worlds in the form of fighting starships. Stop tilting at windmills and start thinking about your constituents.

Best regards,
Councilman Braithe

Earthbound Communication Relay #54
Communication #2834161
News Release from the Federation Council
Communication Approved by the United Federation of Planets

Headline: Federation Armed Forces Bill Defeated

SAN FRANCISCO - After a heated debate in the Federation Council, the Federation Armed Forces Bill, which would have raised a standing army of 60 million soldiers, was defeated by a vote of 85 to 61, with 12 members voting "present" and 14 absent.

Councilman Orlani, sponsor ofthe bill, called it a defeat for Federation security. "The Dominion War showed just how badly we need a standing army of our own. We had to get the Klingons to supply all of the ground troops during the war, and now they're claiming many Cardassian worlds as their own as a result. We can expect them to get the lion's share of Cardassian reparations, reconstruction contracts, and post-war trade agreements."

Councilman Braithe, a lead opponent of the bill, had this to say, "The Armed Forces Bill called for a standing army of 400,000 soldiers on every Federation member world. It was a totally unnecessary expense in an era where invading armies have to arrive by starship and seldom exceed a few thousand in number. Starfleet is where we need to put our defensive investment so we can keep those armies from ever getting near our planets. Need I remind everyone that the Breen attack was carried out by starships in orbit, and it would never have occurred if we'd had sufficient fleet assets to garrison our homeworlds?"

Whether the Council will follow Braithe's advice remains to be seen; the Council votes on the Transportation Appropriations Bill, which includes funding for Starfleet, next month.

Eeek. Sorry I forget about this.