|
(Note: From the Episode: A Call to Arms and before it.) Star Fleet is now having serious difficulties due to this Incident. Star Fleet had been gathering tactical information from secret sources within Cardassia Prime before the mayor mobilization of Dominion ships to take DS9 took place. They were well aware of the possibilities of an attack. They were able to assemble a massive Fleet that had more than 600 ships to battle the blasted Dominion. That is a major reason that they refused to send many ships to aide it and only sent 12 ships. It was presumed that many new starships would be brought up from production to handle the threat of another super power in the Alpha Quadrant. It has been noted by many that quite a number of Starships were seen in the Battle Fleet at the End of a Call to Arms. In addition to this it is supposed that there was more than one battle fleet. However, lets look at this subjectively for a moment. How many ships came from the Dominion through the Wormhole? 40 plus reinforcements - about 200 Jem'Hadar warships. This, lets say gives the Cardassian / Dominion Fleet a total of 300 starships, remembering that Cardassia was practically crippled by the Klingons during the Way of the Warrior and later episodes and also their abortive attempt at Destroying the Dominion back in season Three. During that episode there were probably around 50 ships lost to the Klingons which should be around 250 warships. Who is involved? The Klingons and Federation have joined together in a fleet. Lets just say that there are 1000 starships in this fleet. The Fleets in the Alpha Quadrant are in shambles. The Klingon taskforce had been reduced from 650 ships down to nearer 300 due to skirmishes with the Federation, Romulan, Bree, Cardassian and more recently the Dominion Fleets. The Romulans set up an non-aggresion pact with the Dominion. This meant that they were neither going to attack or defend them. They were free to do as they wished as long as no one or nothing from the Romulan Star Empire was hurt. The abortive attempt at destroying the Founders homeworld was the start of a spiraling loss of Starships. Other incidents include border wars with the Klingons, 14 Warbirds lost at the J'Kor system while staging a pre-emptive strike at the incoming Borg vessel which later ignored the Romulan Empire in favor of the Federation (the Sector 001 incident) and also several internal power struggles which were quashed. This accounts for the usual Romulan Policy as they have signed a none aggression pact with the Dominion. When the fighting is over the Romulan Empire will yet again walk away with no damage, ready for the Dominion. The number of Federation vessels capable of battle (which in essence mean Retrofitted Excelsior Class upwards and does not include Miranda or Oberth class ship etc) is now over 1000 vessels at the point of A Call to Arms. Ships have been taken out of mothballs and retrofitted to higher standards (refer to the amount of ships seen at Qalor 2) and in addition the Federation has been pushing the development of smaller, easy to build warships such as the Defiant, Steamrunner and Norway classes. Overall the Federation could mass a fleet of over 10000 starships if necessary, however a number of ship have been held back as a second line of defense. These figures are taking into account the fact that the Federation cannot pull every starship available to join the Task force. Ships must still patrol the Neutral Zone, the Sencathi border, and a whole host of other areas. Tensions are still running high after the Sector 001 Borg Incident with a fleet of 30 Starships ready to move in sector 001 if the need arises. It seems that also that Star Fleet have also pulled Starships from none essential sectors to rendezvous with the Task Force. This could in theory bring the official figures up to nearly 1000 federation vessels ready to take on the Dominion if necessary. Deep Space Nine weathered well against the Onslaught of the Dominion Cardassian Union. With it's upgraded Defensive and Offensive capabilities, it is truly amazing at how hard the Star Fleet Corps of Engineers worked to bring such as succesfull system on one of the most important space stations in Federation Control. One can see how Star Fleet technology has been improved greatly to sucessfuly fend off Borg, Dominion, et al weapons leaving at times minor damages. One can use the incident in the Gamma Quadrant were the Galaxy-Class Explorer, U.S.S. Odyssey, was destroyed by a Jem'Hadar Kamikaze run to its Navigational deflector which destroyed the ship minutes by three Jem'Hadar Fighters. Where as before the Jem'Hadar Fighters seemed near impervious to anything other than the Defiant's Weapons systems now they are impervious to Star Fleet Weapons systems. Where as before the Standard Federation Shields were useless against the Jem'Hadars phased poloron beams, Star Fleet has created a new kind of adaptive shielding. It took over 100 Starships of varying size and power to take DS9 And Fifty ships were destroyed in the Process. A couple of things interesting to see was the new Cardassian Fighter which even though looks impressing cannot stand up to Federation technology nearly as good as Galor or Kelvin Class Warships. Something else was to see the ship bouncing off the shields of DS9 leaving DS9 with very minor damage. Again, those Federation Engineers have done their homework correctly. |
|
|
