Since you keep assuming that an ad-infinitum repetition of an argument makes it valid somehow, we're just going to keep going on and on, aren't we?
tharkûn wrote:1. How big is the UFP population? Mike says 150 planets with billions of inhabitants each. That gives us 300,000,000,000 as our lower limit. If you have a better estimate than Mike's ... please say why it's better.
The population density of the UFP is not the issue here —except where you use it to invoke your Bullshit Ratio Rule to "prove" the "legions of suicidal nutjobs" who will fight for the Sacred Cause of Federation to the death.
However, as long as you're determined to play these ridiculous number games, roll this one around in your head: the Galactic Empire has at least one million core systems (Gov. Tarkin's quote in the ANH novelisation). Using the same standard Mike used to give us a low-end estimate of Federation population, the lower limit of Imperial population works out to about 2,000,000,000,000,000. Plenty of people from which to draw for military manpower.
2. How many of those will be resistors? I'm using 1 in 10,000 as my benchmark.
Nevermind that there is no validity to your Bullshit Ratio Rule —especially given the rather inconvenient evidence of Betazed's pacification by the Dominion and the passive acquiescence of the population of Earth to Adm. Layton's dictatorship in DS9.
Let's look at the Phillipines. Here is a case with no hope of winning (the US out numbers, out guns, and can out spend the rebels), US morale is high (having just beaten the Spanish, and there is no outside support of the rebels (at least not such as I know of). In 1899 there were roughly 8 million Fillapinos, in that same year 16,000 died in insurgency against the US, while the actual number of guerillas was unknown, using the dead as a benchmark ... we have 1.6% of the population resisting. Please note this under the conditions that most of you say rebellions don't happen:
No outside help
No hope of winning
High morale for the enemy
Increasing quality of life for the natives
And what happened? The native Filipino rebels never got anywhere with their uprisings —all of which were brutally crushed by the American colonial forces. The U.S. wasn't pushed out until the Japanese invaded in 1941 and the Philippines won an independence the United States had already agreed to before the outbreak of the Second World War. The Filipino guerilla resistance received American aid and intelligence and even then they were operating under the tacit understanding that their role was to harass the Japanese until the eventual American liberation. Their actions however did little to nothing to dislodge the Japanese occupation.
As far as observed rebels against an occupying force in Star Trek, you have at least 20 observed in:
"Caretaker"
"Preemptive Strike"
"The Maquis"
"For the Uniform"
"Learing Curve"
"Repression"
"Investigations"
"Extreme Risk"
All of whom were for the most part ineffectual and certainly not any band of suicidal nutjobs willing to do anything to advance the Glorious Cause. The Maquis, in the end, were crushed out of existence. I'm sorry if that doesn't suit you.
And yes that is excluding the Bajorans, and others who would not be feddie citezens. Some people have said that these people were rebelling against the federation, however it is explicitly stated they are rebelling against the Cardassian occupiers, notice how the only time they target the Feddies is to get at the Cardassians (ref. "For the Cause", "For the Uniform") ... they may steal supplies from the UFP, but they primary targets are always the occupiers. Others have said this was "colonial worlds only", however we have examples of numerous people from the core worlds rebelling for whatever reason. Despite the fact that the whole situation was voluntary numerous people went to fight because the federation left the DMZ.
Unfortunately, there were no core world rebellions from the Federation in
Star Trek. Colonial populations in ST tend to be small, not even in the millions of citizens on any given world, and that means a much smaller pool of manpower from which to draw a resistance to begin with.
For all the Maquis wrought, their overall effectiveness was negligible. They were indeed fighting the Federation as well as the Cardassians and for the reason that the Federation was determined to put down the Maquis to satisfy their own galactipolitical aims. When Sisko poisoned an entire planet simply to get at Eddington, he and his cel, along with the colonial population, surrendered en-masse. There was no "suicidal nutjob" resistance to the death. Once the Dominion came into the picture, the remnant of the Maquis resistance was doomed, and they were crushed.
Further one should note:
a. The Maquis had no outside support until the Klingons came to fight.
b. Cardassian Morale is not known to be suffering at this point.
c. They have no hope for military victory, the Cardassians are a major military power with hundreds of capital ships and millions of soldiers (as seen later in the series). They will be outgunned and outmanned at all times ... and the Cardassian technology is more modern than theirs.
And yet, the Maquis lost. How could this have been possible?!?
Now how many feddie citezens do we witness in all of Star Trek? 100,000? 200,000? In either event the NUMBER OF REBELS ON SCREEN vs the number of citezens on screen is in line with my numbers.
What utter bullshit! That's like saying that you can "prove" the total population of any given city by observing the crowd in a football stadium. The only reason why these numbers (never quantified) "agree" with your numbers is because of the wholly arbitrary set of assumptions you put forth to begin with.
Using my numbers you get 30,000,000 rebels spread over 150 worlds.
This is of course assuming that your Bullshit Ratio Rule is akin to a set-in-concrete scientific law applicable in all situations among all populations in all times. History disproves you repeatedly on this time and time and time again, whether you elect to acknowledge it or not.
Using Patrick's number of .00027% (which I regard as invalid for reasons I will discuss below) we get 810,000 rebels.
It matters not one jot whether you regard the number as invalid or not. And you are quoting out-of-context: the percentage involved was derived from the number of officers and pilots of the Kamikaze Corps in World War II in comparison to the overall Japanese population. At least one example from history which calls your Bullshit Ratio Rule into question.
3. How many troops will be required to hold feddie territory? Historically occupation armies need to be about 100 soldiers per civvies. This does not stop terrorism. Places like Israel/Palestine and Kashmir have a MUCH higher ratio and they still don't stop all the terrorists. This means that there will be 3 Billion Imperial troops needed to be stationed in the former UFP.
And this is based upon...? You've already conceded the Japan example as one instance in which a country was held under occupation without an inordinately large number of troops. On worlds which surrender without a shot and seek to reach an accomodation with the Imperials (such as Vulcan is likely to be and Betazed
was with the Dominion), a very minimal Imperial presence will be required. Control of ex-UFP spacelanes can be effectively exercised to isolate any worlds still in rebellion —along with their "legions of suicidal nutjobs", until the starve and surrender. Which, BTW, was the strategy we employed to take whole Japanese field armies out of the war in the Pacific. Rome is another example in history of an empire which was held with a relatively minimal military force and for 500 years.
The lowest number put forward has been the American prescence in Japan (which was only possible because the US opted for the client state route). This is a 400 civvies:soldier ratio. This would require 750 million troops.
An option we had because the Japanese were cowed into utter submission from our having flattened all their cities and nuked two in the end. As I said, overwhelming force tends to foster cooperation and acquiesecence. And ST has shown us a Federation population more than willing to cooperate and acquiesce. Once more, I am sorry if this does not suit you.
The highest number put forward is from Kashmir which is 4 civvies per soldier. This would require 75 billion troops to be deployed.
This is assuming a population of lions instead of sheep, which we certainly do have in the form of the UFP, and the Kashmir example is not a valid indicator given that it does not fit the parametres of a complete national conquest with zero external support for a revolutionary movement.
I have stated on numerous occassion that occupation will require billions/hundreds of millions of soldiers, I stand by that estimate given historical precedence.
And by ignoring historical examples which destroy your argument in toto and by invoking your Bullshit Ratio Rule as if it was scientific law.
4. How much does this cost the Empire? No one has answered this yet. Undoubtedly the Empire has more troops than this, however how many of those are redeployable indefinately? The United States has roughly 1 million men in service, however numerous of these are not readily redeployable. Many are garrisoned in Korea, Germany, Japan, etc. and cannot be sent out in occupation. Indeed when the US wants to take out comparitively small countries like Iraq or Afghanistan they call up the reserves to cover these previous commitments so they can deploy troops afeild.
An empire which already controls one to twelve million star systems is not going to be overly stressed by the control of an additional 150.
Does the Empire have billions of soldiers laying around that they can deploy indefinately? No one has shown they do.
With control of spacelanes and overwhelming firepower at their command, plus the fact of a generally compliant population, excessively large troop deployments will not be necessary.
You can quote ISD troop compliments (hundreds of thousands), or Death Star compliments (millions), however those troops already have a defined role ... deploying them indefinately as occupation forces means they can no longer their previous role. How much will that void cost the Empire? How much will it cost to fill it?
You keep pretending that this is a challenge to an empire which already controls 1-12 million star systems. An additional 150 will not be any sort of burden on the resource base of the Empire.
Even if the Empire gets billions of soldiers in place, you still have to pay for the cost of billeting them. What is the economic cost of billeting these troops for occupation?
The GDP of an entire galaxy will not be overly stressed at the costs of controlling an additional 150 star systems. An imperial population which numbers in the hundreds of trillions has more than enough manpower reserves from which to draw upon if needed.
5. What economic gain does the Empire get from occupation? Does the federation hold stores of Tibanna gas? Spice? Technology? Slave labor?
Already asked and answered. Whatever the precise nature of tibana gas may be, it can be presumed that it is based upon elements and minerals which are universal. If the stuff exists on worlds within the Empire, it will exist on worlds (likely gas giants) to be found within the Federation galaxy. Raw minerals always are in demand by any industrial society, and an industrial population of billions is in and of itself a prized economic asset —particularly where they represent new markets and sources of production. And your continual invocation of the Worthless Federation Territory Argument is a red herring fallacy. I will state this one more time: this thread is assuming an Imperial conquest as fact, executed for reasons of definable material gain. For you to constantly call into question the basic assumption of this entire debate is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty.
Again no one has quantified the resources the empire would gain and their worth.
This is because your repeated invocation of this point is a red-herring, designed solely as an artificial mechanism to exessively disadvantate the Empire and create maximal advantage for your Mystical Heroic Revolutionary Terrorist Brotherhood.
Many people have tried to state that the Empire would only conquest if they were assured of economic gain. However:
a. We have seen the Imperials overestimating their capabilities and underestimating their opponents strength on several occassions.
Where? At Yavin? Sorry, but take away Han Solo intervening with the
Millenium Falcon just as Darth Vader is about to shoot down Luke's X-wing, and Yavin-D is reduced to a ragged band of radioactive asteroids. Gov. Tarkin had not overestimated his enemy in that instance; sheer luck saved the Rebellion. Endor? Watch ROTJ; until the Rebels managed to bring down the shield bunker on the surface of the sanctuary moon, the Rebel Fleet was being plucked out of the sky like clay pigeons, and this only because the garrison commander on the ground was stupid enough not to remain buttoned-up behind his heavy blast doors. Palpatine had not overestimated his enemy, but he did lose sight of his primary goal. Hoth? The Empire won there and overwhelmingly.
b. There is a chance that Palpatine is just outright insane and would do it for the hell of it (as he did when conducting the Battle at Endor).
In a word, bullshit. Palpatine's greatest error was in losing sight of his main goal and that only in the last moments. For the most part, his strategy was working: the Rebel Fleet was being massacred ship by ship. The Rebels had indeed fallen into a trap. Palpatine was not insane; he was in full control of his faculties and had formulated a winning strategy which fell only due to the incompetence of the garrison commander on the ground at Endor. And as the EU clearly shows, the victory at Endor was by no means the end of the Empire.
c. Something akin to Mike's scenario might occur.
Are you referring to his fanfic? Sorry, but at the end of that work, if you had read all the way through, a Milky Way Empire with Admiral Kanos at its head was established and replaced the United Federation of Planets. The Death Star was damaged but remained firmly in Kanos' control and was repairable, and the balance of Kanos' military forces remained intact. Kanos decided to liberalise his administration, setting up his government along the lines of Emperor Solo's —which included an Imperial Senate.
6. What are the effects of feddie WMD's?
From what we see, fairly pathetic.
Each major Feddie ship carries enough anti-matter to build 96,000,000 kilotonne anti-matter bombs (as per Mike, assuming 5 grams of anti-matter in a bomb). Due to the nature of anti-matter these bombs would be little more than a containment vessel with anti-matter inside. When the vessel is broken ... the antimatter annihilates with the surrounding matter and goes boom.
Then why aren't these already in the Starfleet arsenal?
Some people have asked why didn't they use these bombs before?
A valid question you refuse to face.
For instance during the Maquis rebellion. There are numerous possible answers:
a. They are too stupid to think of this.
In which case, the ineffectiveness of the Maquis is only underlined in brutally stark contrast.
b. The Maquis were using their anti-matter for something else ... like perhaps running their ships so they could attack Cardassian ships, and not just target lightly defended facilities. This is not an issue against the empire ... your ships cannot destroy Imperial warships nor likely transports.
But they must remain mobile and may have to escape their pursuers. In any case, not being able to employ them because of fuel limitations points to the lack of materiél argument.
c. The Maquis preferred to use bioweapons as seen in "For the Uniform".
And the bioweapon employed by the Maquis only rendered the planet uninhabitable; it did not inflict casualties. This means their bioweapon was of very limited utility, and the intended effect points to a decided unwillingness to inflict large numbers of casualties to achieve their goals —such squeamishness not only undermines your entire "legions of suicidal nutjobs" determined to fight for the Cause to the bitter bloody end, it shows that the resistance you hope will somehow dislodge the Empire have had Federation conditioning so deeply ingrained into their basic thinking that they will certainly not do whatever is necessary to win, heedless of civilian casualties or collateral damage. Thank you for providing the example that demonstrates that the Federationists are milksops whom the Empire will have no real trouble with.
Likewise the Federation does have a stock of bioweapons
An assumption contraindicated by the actual canon evidence. The bioweapon employed by Section 31 had to be created from scratch and was not produced in quantity, and the Federation outlawed bioweapons, which is why they are obtainable only on the black market from foreign sources. And we know how seriously the Federation takes agreements to outlaw certain classes of weapons or other forms of military technology.
some in stock on the Defiant, as seen in "For the Uniform".
That was a chemical weapon employed to poison a planetary biosphere and a slow-acting one to allow the inhabitants time to evacuate.
Further they have labs capable of genetic manipulation on most ships (those wonderful science bays). These could be deployed against the Empire.
Naturally, the Empire will not have science labe available to it and will be utterly incapable of coping with the slow-acting and nonlethal-to-humans chem and bioagents cooked up by Federationists.
Some have said this will likely result in the infection of the UFP:
a. The resistance might not care. Historically resistors have done all manner of acts which directly lead to civillian deaths. {snip inapplicable historical examples}
Unfortunately for you, you chose a canon example which demonstrates conclusively that even a Federationist resistance movement does not have the will to deploy a truly destructive bioweapon
b. The resistance might be selective about whom to infect and attempt to get an outbound soldier so that he is not contagious while in the UFP, but will be so once he gets back to his home galaxy, by the time the vector propogates back to AQ, countermeasures and quaruntine will be in effect.
Again, this depends upon a whole host of asusmptions in order to work: that the initial target selection will be accurate; that the target in question will be rotated back to his home galaxy without first moving amongst the AQ populations first, that he will not be subject at any point to medical examination, that the disease he will be infected with will fulfill the mutually exclusive goals of slow incubation but fast transmissibility and outbreak, that in said event, the Imperial medical establishment will somehow not notice the appearance of a new disease, will not analyse it, will not track the vectors of infection, and will not impose quarantine (all of which are perfectly within the capability of our own Department of Health and Human Services in the United States). It requires us to ignore that slow-acting diseases do not act fast enough to wipe out whole general populations (see AIDS) and that fast-acting diseases act so quickly that the infected host dies before general transmission to a large population can be effected (see Ebola). Finally, it asks us to ignore the fact that we have seen the Federationists being quite squeamish about employing a truly destructive WMD. (see "For The Uniform").
c. The weapon might be deployed, and its deployment announced. This will result in few casualties, but if you make a habit of it you can do what the IRA always enjoyed ... false alarms. The IRA would often announce bombings so buildings could be evacuated, thus minimizing deaths. This also allowed them to call in false threats and still shut down economic centres.
Announcing the deployment of a bioweapon will only put the Empire on alert to the fact of bioterrorism and watchful for any sign of a new disease. We are already doing that in response to possible bioterrorism in the present day. Furthermore, a bioweapon strike will never have the disruptive effect short-term that a false bomb-threat will have, as we have also already seen with the anthrax scares post 9-11. False bioterrorism warnings will only reduce the chance of pulling off a real bioterrorism strike in future. And in terms of the scale we're talking about in regards to the Imperial economic base, shutting down an entire planet would have about the same effect as shutting down a whole small village.
d. Eventually the empire is going to allow former UFP citezens to travel to the rest of the empire on passenger ships. When this happens you can then smuggle your weapon deep into the Empire and then deploy. This will likely be years/decades after conquest so it depends on how long the rebellion can be sustained and how long until passenger service to and from the conquested territories begins.
One more time: a slow-acting disease will not spead out quickly into a general population. A fast-acting disease will appear so quickly and with such virulence that the affected zone will be quarantined off. In either case, the bioagent in question will not be beyond medical analysis.
Some people have stated that the Empire can quickly and easily counteract bioweapons:
a. When the Krytos Plague hits they can do little.
A Krytos Plague, even according to the novel you cite as your example, does not spread out into the general galactic population before the inhabitants of the hot zone are annihilated and the afflicted zone cordoned off.
b. Until patients begin showing symptoms ... the health care system can do nothing.
I see... and there is no such thing as regular medical checkups, blood-workups, antigen scans, etc...
c. Even once the bioweapon can be quaruntined and the infected individuals treated ... the economic disruption has already occurred.
We don't even see that occurring in our own society today. What makes you think any advanced society will be so utterly incapable of coping with the appearance of a new disease? The United States was not paralysed by the appearance of AIDS in 1979 and is not subject to any sort of economic disruption from flu outbreaks or the present spread of West Nile virus. The last mass plague to hit the U.S. was the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1919, and even with one million deaths, the country did not suffer any sort of socioeconomic disruption beyond what was already occuring with the Post World War I depression. Your entire argument is defeated by real world examples where disease outbreak is not resulting in general chaos in any advanced society.
7. Imperial response. What does the Empire do about terrorists? Their current modle is to inflict mass civillian casualties as deterance (Alderaan)
Incorrect analogy. Alderaan was a military action targeted at discouraging the Galactic Rebellion. It is more akin to the burning of Atlanta and Sherman's March to the Sea, or the firebombing of Dresden, and was certainly not aimed at any one insignificant terrorist band.
The Russians shelled Grozny to hell and back ... and the Chechyan rebels still were recruiting. Likewise Nazi efforts in Greece lead to even more people joing EDES/ELAS.
The Russians are presently crushing the Chechen rebels. The Greek anti-Nazi resistance never grew beyond a few thousand and, short of the Allied victory, came nowhere near breaking the Nazis iron grip on the country. without the prospect of external military assistance, the EDES/ELAS would never have stood a chance of winning and thus constitutes another invalid example.
Some have suggested BDZ's. This, however, is stupid. Allegedly this is economic conquest. The whole point of the BDZ is to render the planet economically worthless.
No, the point of a BDZ is an exercise in sheer military terror. Like Dresden.
The more you BDZ, the less and less you are getting in return from your conquests.
After two or three planets are subjected to a BDZ attack (or even a focussed gigaton-level bombardment to achieve mass-destruction effect and planetary depopulation), civilian populations on remaining worlds will not tolerate the presence of rebel elements which may result in their own worlds being destroyed. Military exercises in mass destruction have historically been very effective in fostering submission of surrounding cities and nations. And even worlds subjected to a BDZ attack can be strip-mined for their minerals, which shall certainly still exist within the stricken planet.
Others have suggested inflitration, bribery, and negotiation. However the events of ANH and TESB suggest this is not the Empire's strong suit.
Their control of Tattooine was aided by a network of informers, as we saw with the one who shadowed Luke and Ben. The Empire certainly did not need to employ any mass-destruction efforts to win at Hoth or seize control of Bespin.
Despite having thousands of troops on Yavin the Empire did not have a single mole who could tell where the base is.
Um, Yavin-D was the
Rebel base, and they managed to capture a major representative of the Rebellion and used her as an indirect means to sneak a tracking device onto a ship inevitably bound to the world where the hidden Rebel base was located. The Death Star wound up at Yavin that same day.
Likewise at Hoth the Empire cannot find the base with humint.
The Empire did not need spies to find Hoth. Military scouting is also a valid means for finding enemy concentrations, whether conducted with humans or probedroids. Invalid analogy.
Others have just suggested they kill the resistors ... the problem is the resistors have the option of melting into the civillian population. Without inordinate troops on the ground you will have a helluva time sorting resitor from civillian.
After the example of one or two worlds hosting terrorist groups among their populations being subjected to BDZ or even a minimal but depopulating orbital bombardment, the populations of other worlds will not be willing to risk the presence of rebel/terrorist cels on their own worlds and will enlist their own police/security forces to aid the Empire in tracking them down. There was something to the Crusaders' brutal admonition to "kill them all; God will Know His Own".
All told I think the most viable option is the client state. The Empire comes in, props up a feddie government who is Imperially sympathetic. Secures whatever resources it deems valuable, and then bribes the populace with periodic Borg target shooting expeditions. Some troops my be left on the ground, for instance on Earth and near important resources; however the vast majority of UFP citezens will not see Imperial soldiers in their daily lives. The UFP will be allowed to continue its own government, after adopting certain constitutional changes as dictated by the Imperial liason.
In which case, the Empire has conquered.
In short it will be like the US presence in Japan. Rather than landing soldiers in mass, small troop contigents will be sent to specific locations. weapons stockpiles will be dismantled or deported, strict orders regarding Imperial conduct amongst the UFP citezens will be instituted. The promise of self government will be put forward ... with a mandatory plebiscate about Imperial annexation in several years. And a limited Marshall type plan.
In which case, the Empire has conquered.
Patrick tells us that one could cheaply occupy countries against their will, he sites Japan as an example. Even though from the outset the independance of the Japanese was assured. Even though US bribed the masses with anti-elite acts. Even though the US was spending 1 million dollars a day. In short about .16% of Japan's GNP per day.
The U.S. occupation entailed a complete top-to-bottom reordering of Japanese society, and their cooperation was certainly fostered by our having nuked two of their cities —something they knew they could never cope with. And the achievement of a completely pacified client state is conquest.
The UFP will enjoy few of these. The federation is largely godless ... no way to use the local religion to your favor.
The Empire needs only convince UFP citizens that it is, for all practical purposes, the equivalent of God. A Death Star attack or two will certainly achieve this effect.
You are explecitly rejecting a client state so there will be no Imperial backing for an Independant UFP
Lie. Several of my posts do indeed suggest the client state model following an Imperial conquest. And a pacified Imperial satellite fulfills this model in the same way as East Europe under the Soviet Union.
land reform is not a massive issue as the concept of land ownership is likely gone ... Picard can't even understand investments.
Then the challenge for the Empire is to eliminate the Federation's present communist system in favour of capitalism. Economic reform.
In short you are left with economic investment ... which may have minimal effect on people conditioned not think about money. In any event this will not be cheap. So let's see some *numbers*. You say the UFP is worth conquesting ... how many Imperial credits per annum do you get out? You say the cost of deploying hundreds of millions/billions of troops is low? How many credits per annum? You say economic investment ... how many credits per annum?
Now you're engaging in a
reducto ad absurdum argument, requiring me to prove every last tiny point to justify an argument which has already been demonstrated as valid except for your refusal to recognise it. I will state this once more: this entire thread is assuming in advance an Imperial conquest of the UFP, executed for valid material reasons, as fact.
Deal with it.
I apologize for the length. So please pick your most pressing issues and have *one* guy respond. If you really feel the need to debate something else, then bring it up. If its not directly related to the question Coyote posed ... feel free to start another thread.
I suspect that you hope to exhaust me with the length of your increasingly nitpicky arguments, requiring me to prove every last tiny shred of a point. In the course of this effort, you have taken to repeating the same points ad-infinitum as if that confers validity to them instead of demonstrating why the rebuttals fail. I've already dealt with this sort of tactic from DarkStar and am more than up to the game for as long as you wish to play it.
