Would the UFP join the Republic, or vice versa?

[LaCroix]

Well, having a pre-scient General is the mother of all force-multipliers, isn't it?

[The Romulan Republic]

It could certainly be highly useful, but of course, Jedi precognition is highly imperfect.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It would be useful, but IIRC outside of immediate close-combat precog it requires meditation and more than one Jedi (or one very powerful one). Useful before a battle, sure, but during large-scale combat while you're trying to command forces? Not so much. Now if you had the Jedi be an adviser to the General, that would be more effective.

[The Romulan Republic]

Attach a Jedi advisor to every Starfleet admiral?

[BabelHuber]

Yeah, that makes sense.

And frankly, its a point that's often overlooked in Star Trek vs. Star Wars debates. I remember people saying stuff like one star destroyer could conquer the Federation. Whereas my attitude is basically "Yeah, maybe it could beat the fleet, if it didn't get devoured by some random super being or anomaly, but how the hell is it going to occupy all that territory?"

Iraq should have taught people that their's a world of difference between defeating the government/military of a country in battle and successfully occupying the territory afterward.

The single Star Destroyer wouldn't necessarily need to occupy all territory, depending on the type of the empire you want to build.

You can as well use the Star Destroyer as a Death Star-like weapon: You just fly to a system and collect taxes. Just tell them to pay, or else.

Then you don't have a centralized empire like the Roman Empire was, it's more like the Golden Horde or the Aztec Empire. For thes types of empires, it is not necessary to establish a bureaucracy in all provinces.

Of course still a single Star Destroyer would be hard-pressed to achieve this, a few of them would be much better. But then it would be relatively easy for some mercenaries to create a mini-empire somewhere in the Milky Way. You just need a few powerfull ships and a remote area you can control/terrorize.

Of course the "taxes" you collect would have to have some worth in the Star Wars galaxy, so you can supply your ships with fuel, ammunition and spare parts.

[The Romulan Republic]

Personally I think that practically speaking, you'd be hard-pressed to control the Federation's space even in that scenario with less than dozens of ships.

Let's see:

1. You need to guard any wormhole. This force has to be big enough to stop an intrusion from the Star Wars side, like a group of Mon Calimari cruisers full of X-wings.

2. Ships to enforce your taxation. I say "ships" because for one ship to collect taxes from 150+ worlds is going to take time.

3. Your ships and crews will need down time, meaning that you'll need to have some ships off-duty or rotate vessels in and out.

4. If you're smart, you'll have a strategic reserve in case something unexpected happens. Like Q obliterating a squadron of ships or the latest anomaly sending one back in time. Now, granted, that doesn't have to be deployed permanently to the Federation- you could just rush reinforcements in from the home galaxy if they were needed. But the willingness and ability to send reserves still has to exist.

Of course, in my opinion using ISDs at all might be a mistake. They're overkill for most of what you'd be facing in this scenario. I'd go for a fleet of smaller but still turbolaser equipped frigates, perhaps. But still, the fleet is probably going to need to number in the dozens, minimum.

Edit: Of course, if the objective was simply genocide, it wouldn't take nearly as many ships. But I can't recall even the Empire exterminating the population of hundreds of worlds in one go, and their's not much profit in doing so.

[The Romulan Republic]

That said, while all this is interesting and might affect the ability and willingness of a Star Wars faction to afford to actually accomplish an occupation of, say, all of the Federation, it doesn't change the fact that a handful of mercenary ships could hold a few systems easily enough against anything the Federation has, using ICS numbers.

Fortunately, like I said before, that is a problem Jedi negotiators are very suitable for handling.

[BabelHuber]

Personally I think that practically speaking, you'd be hard-pressed to control the Federation's space even in that scenario with less than dozens of ships.

I'm not talking about controlling space, I'm talking about collecting taxes from time to time.

See, when talking about interstellar empires, most people envision something like the Roman Empire in space. This is an empire which controls its provinces directly via some bureaucrazy, it applies forces to the provinces to keep them under control, controls trade routes etc.

But empires can take on different forms. You can e.g. imagine an "empire" which just collects taxes from time to time. Between two tax visits, such an empire wouldn't give a shit about what is happening in this province. Of course, not paying taxes would be the unwise thing to do.

Let's see:

1. You need to guard any wormhole. This force has to be big enough to stop an intrusion from the Star Wars side, like a group of Mon Calimari cruisers full of X-wings.

Plus one ship which collects taxes from time to time...

2. Ships to enforce your taxation. I say "ships" because for one ship to collect taxes from 150+ worlds is going to take time.

Why would collecting taxes necessarily take time? You can as well put the burden on the system, e.g. by just telling them you expect a few freighters at time X at the point Y with goods Z. In case these freighters don't appear, just pay the system a visit.

3. Your ships and crews will need down time, meaning that you'll need to have some ships off-duty or rotate vessels in and out.

See above. My ship could simply only visit system which don't pay. If my ship is on maintenance, I just visit violators next month.

4. If you're smart, you'll have a strategic reserve in case something unexpected happens. Like Q obliterating a squadron of ships or the latest anomaly sending one back in time. Now, granted, that doesn't have to be deployed permanently to the Federation- you could just rush reinforcements in from the home galaxy if they were needed. But the willingness and ability to send reserves still has to exist

The GE could send in another ship if something like this happens.

Of course, in my opinion using ISDs at all might be a mistake. They're overkill for most of what you'd be facing in this scenario. I'd go for a fleet of smaller but still turbolaser equipped frigates, perhaps. But still, the fleet is probably going to need to number in the dozens, minimum.

Edit: Of course, if the objective was simply genocide, it wouldn't take nearly as many ships. But I can't recall even the Empire exterminating the population of hundreds of worlds in one go, and their's not much profit in doing so.

You don't need to apply genocide, you do it like the Golden Horde:

You just pay a visit to a planet and declare yourself as new overlord. If the planet doesn't cooperate, you BDZ it. If the planet does cooperate, you just expect taxes every year. The planet can keep its government, laws, religion etc. They just need to pay.

I doubt that lots of planets would resist: You BDZ one or two, then the next one tries to cooperate. As soon as the other planets see that you keep your word, why would they risk destruction? They can just pay taxes and wait for an opportunity to get rid of you, this is better then being destroyed.

[BabelHuber]

That said, while all this is interesting and might affect the ability and willingness of a Star Wars faction to afford to actually accomplish an occupation of, say, all of the Federation, it doesn't change the fact that a handful of mercenary ships could hold a few systems easily enough against anything the Federation has, using ICS numbers.

Fortunately, like I said before, that is a problem Jedi negotiators are very suitable for handling.

Jedis could be a problem, or not.

Let's assume we have some mercenaries who can stomach the upfront cost of such an endeavor. What would they need?

I'd say they need a base in the area they govern. This is the central hub to store the collected "taxes", to import/export goods to the GE/Republic and perhaps to do some maintenance on the ships needed.

This base would need protection, like a shield (theater shield like on Hoth or - much better - a planetary shield), a few guns for defenses and some generator.

Then you need a handfull of ships to threaten the local systems into paying taxes.

If you set up a mini-empire like this far away from the wormwhole (and the Borg), probably nobody would be really interested. After all these ar just a few unimportant planets far away in some corner of the Galaxy.

Even if some Jedis would show up a few years later, you could already be in the profit-zone.

As a sidenote, this could make an interesting piece of fiction: At the mercenaries' base, you could have prostitution, gambling, crime, traders who want to conduct business with the empire, criminals which seek a shelter, resistance fighters from the local planets and whatnot...

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm not talking about controlling space, I'm talking about collecting taxes from time to time.

Obviously, one must have some control over the territory to collect fucking taxes from it.

See, when talking about interstellar empires, most people envision something like the Roman Empire in space. This is an empire which controls its provinces directly via some bureaucrazy, it applies forces to the provinces to keep them under control, controls trade routes etc.

Their are other models one can use than the Roman Empire, but "empire" does generally imply some degree of control over foreign territories.

But empires can take on different forms. You can e.g. imagine an "empire" which just collects taxes from time to time. Between two tax visits, such an empire wouldn't give a shit about what is happening in this province. Of course, not paying taxes would be the unwise thing to do.

An empire which pays no mind to what is happening in its provinces is apt to lose those provinces.

Plus one ship which collects taxes from time to time...

One ship is bare bones, and while perhaps feasible, is inadvisable.

Why would collecting taxes necessarily take time? You can as well put the burden on the system, e.g. by just telling them you expect a few freighters at time X at the point Y with goods Z. In case these freighters don't appear, just pay the system a visit.

I didn't think of that. Pretty clever. Still, depending on how much you're collecting, it might take more than one ship to haul it (presuming physical loot rather than cash).

See above. My ship could simply only visit system which don't pay. If my ship is on maintenance, I just visit violators next month.

See above.

The GE could send in another ship if something like this happens.

Of course. But the point is, you could lose ships to chance incidents and would have to be ready to replace them, driving up the cost of the operation.

You don't need to apply genocide, you do it like the Golden Horde:

You just pay a visit to a planet and declare yourself as new overlord. If the planet doesn't cooperate, you BDZ it. If the planet does cooperate, you just expect taxes every year. The planet can keep its government, laws, religion etc. They just need to pay.

I'd say a BDZ on an inhabited world counts as genocide.

I doubt that lots of planets would resist: You BDZ one or two, then the next one tries to cooperate. As soon as the other planets see that you keep your word, why would they risk destruction? They can just pay taxes and wait for an opportunity to get rid of you, this is better then being destroyed.

That gives you only one option. No flexibility.

What happens if the planetary government is willing to pay but local resistance fighters are sabotaging their ability to do so? Does the Empire exterminate them despite their sincere efforts to comply? Do it accept that they can't pay? Or does it deploy troops?

However, all this is only tangentially related to the original topic, except insofar as such considerations might factor into the Federation's decision about weather to join with the Republic.

[The Romulan Republic]

That said, while all this is interesting and might affect the ability and willingness of a Star Wars faction to afford to actually accomplish an occupation of, say, all of the Federation, it doesn't change the fact that a handful of mercenary ships could hold a few systems easily enough against anything the Federation has, using ICS numbers.

Fortunately, like I said before, that is a problem Jedi negotiators are very suitable for handling.

Jedis could be a problem, or not.

Let's assume we have some mercenaries who can stomach the upfront cost of such an endeavor. What would they need?

I'd say they need a base in the area they govern. This is the central hub to store the collected "taxes", to import/export goods to the GE/Republic and perhaps to do some maintenance on the ships needed.

This base would need protection, like a shield (theater shield like on Hoth or - much better - a planetary shield), a few guns for defenses and some generator.

Then you need a handfull of ships to threaten the local systems into paying taxes.

If you set up a mini-empire like this far away from the wormwhole (and the Borg), probably nobody would be really interested. After all these ar just a few unimportant planets far away in some corner of the Galaxy.

Even if some Jedis would show up a few years later, you could already be in the profit-zone.

As a sidenote, this could make an interesting piece of fiction: At the mercenaries' base, you could have prostitution, gambling, crime, traders who want to conduct business with the empire, criminals which seek a shelter, resistance fighters from the local planets and whatnot...

If a band of mercenaries or pirates tried to set up their own mini-Empire in Federation territory, for example, the Federation could appeal to the Republic/Jedi for help. So the mercenaries would have more to concern themselves with than a random group of Jedi coming along.

This kind of thing, dealing with asshole criminals threatening some backwater world, is classic Jedi business, and something they are entirely capable of quickly resolving.

This might provide an incentive for the Federation to join, or at least ally with, the Republic. Do the Jedi have the authority to interfere in such matters outside the Republic?

[BabelHuber]

Obviously, one must have some control over the territory to collect fucking taxes from it.

No I don't. I just need to be able to get to the system. As soon as I get there, I collect my taxes. I don't necessarily have to be interested in anything else.

Their are other models one can use than the Roman Empire, but "empire" does generally imply some degree of control over foreign territories.

I do have some control when I can force somebody to pay taxes.

As far as I know, the Aztec Empire sometimes did the same: They just sent some tax collectors to some kingdoms to collect tribute, but they didn't necessarily have any other local presence there. If somebody didn't pay, he'd get a visit from the Aztec Army.

An empire which pays no mind to what is happening in its provinces is apt to lose those provinces.

Let's say somebody is cracy enough to attack such a province. All the empire would need to do is to pay the attacker a visit. That'l teach others that there are easier targets out there.

One ship is bare bones, and while perhaps feasible, is inadvisable.

I totally agree. My point is simply that it is possible to do this with a single ship in theory, not that this would be a good strategy.

I didn't think of that. Pretty clever. Still, depending on how much you're collecting, it might take more than one ship to haul it (presuming physical loot rather than cash).

Yes, of course. You could simply force the systems to actively bring the stuff to them. Whether they need one or multiple ships is unimportant.

Of course. But the point is, you could lose ships to chance incidents and would have to be ready to replace them, driving up the cost of the operation.

Yes.

I'd say a BDZ on an inhabited world counts as genocide.

I'd say this is mass-murder. It's only genocide if a species is only living on a single planet. But note that such strategies did exist and where executed in our history, albeit on a city-scale.

That gives you only one option. No flexibility.

What happens if the planetary government is willing to pay but local resistance fighters are sabotaging their ability to do so?

Too bad for the local population...

[BabelHuber]

If a band of mercenaries or pirates tried to set up their own mini-Empire in Federation territory, for example, the Federation could appeal to the Republic/Jedi for help. So the mercenaries would have more to concern themselves with than a random group of Jedi coming along.

A sane mercenary would use the speed of hyperdrive to set up his mini-empire in a remote location of the galaxy, where it doesn't draw too much attention.

This kind of thing, dealing with asshole criminals threatening some backwater world, is classic Jedi business, and something they are entirely capable of quickly resolving.

Somehow the Jedi's didn't deal with the Hutts, despite of crimes like slavery. So I'd say the criminals do have a chance.

This might provide an incentive for the Federation to join, or at least ally with, the Republic.

Absolutely. If criminals from the SW-galaxy are running rampant in the Milky Way, the Republic could even see it as its duty to help.

Do the Jedi have the authority to interfere in such matters outside the Republic?

Good question. Also, do they have the resources?

[Welf]

Personally I think that practically speaking, you'd be hard-pressed to control the Federation's space even in that scenario with less than dozens of ships.

Let's see:

1. You need to guard any wormhole. This force has to be big enough to stop an intrusion from the Star Wars side, like a group of Mon Calimari cruisers full of X-wings.

2. Ships to enforce your taxation. I say "ships" because for one ship to collect taxes from 150+ worlds is going to take time.

3. Your ships and crews will need down time, meaning that you'll need to have some ships off-duty or rotate vessels in and out.

4. If you're smart, you'll have a strategic reserve in case something unexpected happens. Like Q obliterating a squadron of ships or the latest anomaly sending one back in time. Now, granted, that doesn't have to be deployed permanently to the Federation- you could just rush reinforcements in from the home galaxy if they were needed. But the willingness and ability to send reserves still has to exist.

Of course, in my opinion using ISDs at all might be a mistake. They're overkill for most of what you'd be facing in this scenario. I'd go for a fleet of smaller but still turbolaser equipped frigates, perhaps. But still, the fleet is probably going to need to number in the dozens, minimum.

Edit: Of course, if the objective was simply genocide, it wouldn't take nearly as many ships. But I can't recall even the Empire exterminating the population of hundreds of worlds in one go, and their's not much profit in doing so.

I think that would work only a certain time. The ST universe is unlike the SW not caught in permanent technological stagnation. Sooner or later the vassals would learn how to build their own star destroyers or whatever is needed to get rid of the mercenaries. At least in the Alpha and Beta quadrant this I would expect. In the gamma quadrant the Founders would quickly infiltrate the mercenaries and take over. in the delta quadrant however they might rule for quite a time.

Also, I think the contact with the Federation would throw the Galactic Republic in some serious turmoil. The Federation has the replicator technology, making gold and other storages of value much less valuable. It also makes smuggling less profitable, since you can create the goods locally. I wonder how many innocent crime syndicates will be destroyed by this.

I general I think the Federation wouldn't join the Galactic Republic. Their values are too different, and the Federation is a much better place to live. And the Galactic Republic can't join the Feds because they wouldn't fulfil the requirements with all that corruption. Not that they would have a reason considering the size difference.

[Lord Revan]

I dunno how it's with the disney-canon but in the old canon SW powers did in fact develop new technologies and improve on the old ones, it's not like major SW powers are utterly incapable of developing new tech.

It's just done slowly and it's not like there's been drastic changes in ST tech over the time 230 or so years we see with the exception of the Cloaking Device and possibly the Plasma Torpedo. Phasers and photon torpedos pre-date the federation and while TNG era torpedos and phasers are probably more powerful and advanced then ENT era ones the basic tech is still the same. Oh and if you want to be really anal about it while Earth used Phase weapons and photonic torpedos, those are really just early phasers and photon torps.

[Lord Revan]

Ghetto EDIT:it should be noted though that mercs, pirates or a small "official" taskforce would probably not have much of R&D capability due to their nature.

[Welf]

From ENT to VOY there aren't any completely new technologies, but they managed to perfect them and bring it to a new quality. And if you look at the whole timeline, Earth manages to from contemporary technology to warp 9 capability in 400 years, and will achieve time travel technology by the 29th century. That is over 900 years, but still much faster than the Star Wars universe, that is more or less stable over 20.000 years.

[Lord Revan]

Welf you do realize we have no idea how long it took for SW powers to develop to that level. And while it was not mention in canon directly, legendaries did have low level temporal manipulation tech in form of stasis technology.

Oh and you do realize that after the founding of the Federation Earth most likely boosted to equilevent tech level with Andorians and Vulcans and there's no "earth" tech after the UFP was found either just federation tech.

[biostem]

Even the Warp 5 engine from Enterprise was constructed with Vulcan oversight - it may not have been a direct copy of Vulcan tech, but they were present during pretty much all phases of its development.

[Lord Revan]

Even the Warp 5 engine from Enterprise was constructed with Vulcan oversight - it may not have been a direct copy of Vulcan tech, but they were present during pretty much all phases of its development.

wasn't one of Archer's main character traits (such as they were) that he hated Vulcans for not sharing enough of their tech during the development of the Warp 5 engine implying that even then there was some degree of tech sharing just not as much as some people wanted.

[biostem]

Even the Warp 5 engine from Enterprise was constructed with Vulcan oversight - it may not have been a direct copy of Vulcan tech, but they were present during pretty much all phases of its development.

wasn't one of Archer's main character traits (such as they were) that he hated Vulcans for not sharing enough of their tech during the development of the Warp 5 engine implying that even then there was some degree of tech sharing just not as much as some people wanted.

Well, I interpreted that as basically the Vulcan's worked to *slow* Earth's advancements, and held back simply giving them the working designs/fixes when it didn't suit the Vulcan's desired rate of progress. There was that series f crashes with the Warp 3 prototype, IIRC, that was due to the human development team taking lots of risks and/or pushing the envelope...

[Purple]

Well, I interpreted that as basically the Vulcan's worked to *slow* Earth's advancements, and held back simply giving them the working designs/fixes when it didn't suit the Vulcan's desired rate of progress. There was that series f crashes with the Warp 3 prototype, IIRC, that was due to the human development team taking lots of risks and/or pushing the envelope...

There could also be a non malign explanation for their lack of full tech sharing. Maybe the Vulcans simply wanted to have humanity as an independent entity as opposed to a dependent colony. Had they simply handed over the finished designs that would have denied humans the experience and institutional knowledge that comes with designing your own. Thus humanity would have been unable to develop and improve their own warp drives in the future. On the other hand by providing limited support they could easily ensure that humanity develops their own independent technology base.

[biostem]

Well, I interpreted that as basically the Vulcan's worked to *slow* Earth's advancements, and held back simply giving them the working designs/fixes when it didn't suit the Vulcan's desired rate of progress. There was that series f crashes with the Warp 3 prototype, IIRC, that was due to the human development team taking lots of risks and/or pushing the envelope...

There could also be a non malign explanation for their lack of full tech sharing. Maybe the Vulcans simply wanted to have humanity as an independent entity as opposed to a dependent colony. Had they simply handed over the finished designs that would have denied humans the experience and institutional knowledge that comes with designing your own. Thus humanity would have been unable to develop and improve their own warp drives in the future. On the other hand by providing limited support they could easily ensure that humanity develops their own independent technology base.

Was there a stated reason why the Vulcans couldn't simply educate humans in Warp technology/theory, similar to how I presume new cadets would be taught? You don't need to just hand them a working warp drive, but the Vulcans also seemed to let the humans make their mistakes in the theory/development stages as well.

[FaxModem1]

Was there a stated reason why the Vulcans couldn't simply educate humans in Warp technology/theory, similar to how I presume new cadets would be taught? You don't need to just hand them a working warp drive, but the Vulcans also seemed to let the humans make their mistakes in the theory/development stages as well.

Mostly because we scared the crap out of them. It's mentioned in the Vulcan three parter in season 4 by Ambassador Soval that the Vulcan High Command doesn't really know what to do with humans because of our ability to not fit into a nice little box like every other Star Trek race. In the episode "The Forge", Soval and Admiral Forrest have this conversation:

"We don't know what to do about Humans. Of all the species we've made contact with, yours is the only one we can't define. You have the arrogance of Andorians, the stubborn pride of Tellarites. One moment you're as driven by your emotions as Klingons, and the next you confound us by suddenly embracing logic!"
"I'm sure those qualities are found in every species."
"Not in such confusing abundance."
"Ambassador... are Vulcans afraid of Humans?"
(Soval answers with a slight nod)
"Why?"
"Because, there is one species you remind us of."
"Vulcans."
"There are those on the High Command who wonder what Humans would achieve in the century to come, and they don't like the answer."
"We're not the Klingons. We only want to be your partners, to do what the nations of Earth have learned to do: to work together in common cause."

Running into a species that seem like yours when you were more barbaric and were quickly advancing, the option to take regarding this would be to try and buy time and get them to advance socially, which is what the Vulcans seem to be doing over the course of Enterprise.

[biostem]

Wait... were the Vulcans technologically advanced *before* embracing logic? I thought there was a 1000 year period where they were purely barbaric, which culminated in them embracing logic, and *then* making all the advances...