Time Travel is again another of those technologies that we know so little about (or may be open to interpretation in various ways) that it is just begging to be abused. I mean if you were going to use that as a benchmark for power and capability, then one could argue that the Federation coudl demolish the Culture effortlessly (and some HAVE argued that I should add, citing Time Travel as the reason because Banks IIRC says no time travel exists in the Culture universe.) and tell suspension of disbelief to fuck off. But again, that's comic book tactics and I'd prefer staying away from comic book tactics unless we can come up with a workable model for time travel in Trek (multiple, slightly differing continuities existing even within the series? Maybe thats why time travel seems to flip flop between different ideas.)
Even if we allow for some arbitrarily omnipotent time travel ability, whose to say those factions who watch over the continuity and make sure it does't get fucked up would even LET that happen? The Q come to mind, but the Federation (esp in the future itself as well as the present) have organizations dedicated to preventing fuckups in time and space. And Given the Federation's attitude towards super weapons (they seem to not like using them, even if the situation is serious) I'm pretty sure they would not want time travel being used (That would probably qualify as a WMD/superweapon type thing.) for various reasons (MAD, ethics, etc.) Hell, I'd bet the "arbitrarily powerful time travellers" of the future would be more likely just to alter things so that a "other universe vs Trek" setup simply did not occur (obliterate the wormhole) rather than just wipe the other side off the face of the map. Again "Time travel = Win" argument seems to be more of something a comic bookish fanboy type would come up with rather than a genuine, legitimate tactic.
Destructionator XIII wrote:I don't know though, everything about the Empire just screams "WASTE" to me. Look at the gigantic walkers they have. The enormous Death Star. Ridiculously big capships.
All of them are much bigger than they really need to be to make a statement.
Yep. Lots of stuff in Star Wars is larger, less efficient, and generally more convoluted than it needs to be. Of course, given the nature of the universe (EG no real threats up until the Vong showed up, and even that's debatable) I'd say they can get away with that (in-universe at least.) Given how much economics and politics dictates everything in star wars (including the military) I doubt it would be any other way (mass produced Inter-Galactic Ballistic Missiles are a bad thing, IMHO.) Hell think of the parallels to the US and real life in that (wasteful of resources, obsessed with capitalism, many facets of society driven by politics and economics, etc.)
Hell, if anything that's probably an advantage for the Federation. From the Empire's POV the FEderation si likely to be a sector or a cluster of sectors in terms of size/scope and potential power. When you have potentially thousands of such sectors, why would you obsess over a fraction of that? Hell, if SW gained access to the ST galaxy, its more likely Palpatine would AVOID demolishing it all in short order simply to milk it politically for all its worth ("Hey look we found a new galaxy, and its full of possible scary bogeyman threats. Give me more money and power to vanquish this threat." Does that tactic sound familiar?) so we can virtually guarantee that the Empire is unlikely to swiftly or effortlessly crush the SW galaxy even if they could do so in theory.
And if THAT wasn't enough, there's also the fact that the economic and mercantile/corporate interests in SW would likely want to get in on the action with the ST galaxy as well (a whole new market to break into, take over, etc.) You can't do that if you're going around conquering and obliterating 90% of the galaxy now, could you?
It's a much more complex scenario, but also one which gives the Federation more of a chance than the usual vs "stand up fight to the death for no apparent reason."