DS9: Prodigal Daughter

[McAvoy]

Just think of some of the actual numbers involved. The Federation sounds absudly large (thousands of light years, although my quick Googling seems to be a bit confused about whether that's across or cubic light years). That'll contain many tens of thousands of stars, maybe even millions. How's a border supposed to work with that?

Assuming it's a diameter it's way way more than that. As you brought up, Elite Dangerous has a generally accurate representation of star density for the Milky Way. The Bubble, centered on Earth is roughly 200-250ly in diameter depending on which angle you're looking at, and contains over 50,000 star systems. Scale that up to a state spanning thousands of light years and it would likely contain hundreds of millions to billions of star systems depending on the shape. Add in the fact that Voyager can piddle across the galaxy at only 2-3 light years per day and still come across new sentient species almost every week and you're looking at a density of intelligent civilizations in the Federation's territory alone probably numbering in the millions.

There is the possibility that Starfleet is just the biggest and official fleet of the Federation but there are member world fleets too. Like a Vulcan or Andorian fleet for example, that could operate outside their own systems in mutual defense.

It was definitely the idea in TOS that Starfleet had layers to it as the Enterprise came under something called UESPA (United Earth Space Probe Agency) which sounds like the ''five year mission to explore strange new worlds'' arm. In the episode with the Romans the traitor captain that Kirk went to stop was directly stated to be part of the ''Merchant.'' I suppose we should also throw in the likes of ENT and ''The Undiscovered Country'' where MACOs and space marines are a thing.

Later Trek seemed to be just one big unrealistic ''we do everything'' fleet - and mad scientists like the Hansens.

Obviously that's just TOS writers trying to figure itself out. I guess IU, you could say those are just departments in Starfleet and they got renamed later on.

Like the Hansen's could be whatever version of UESPA is in the 24th century. There could be MACOs in the 24th century but called something different since they predate the Federation. Maybe they are just called Marines.

100 or 200 years more than enough time to rename departments.

[hammerofglass]

I remember the third Kelvin movie it was a plot point that the MACOs were folded into Starfleet after the Romulan war.

[McAvoy]

I remember the third Kelvin movie it was a plot point that the MACOs were folded into Starfleet after the Romulan war.

Well yeah. The Big Bad Villian was a former MACO who got forced into doing peaceful stuff if I recall.

[CrypticMirror]

I remember the third Kelvin movie it was a plot point that the MACOs were folded into Starfleet after the Romulan war.

Well yeah. The Big Bad Villian was a former MACO who got forced into doing peaceful stuff if I recall.

Not forced, he was offered the choice of joining Starfleet but found he was epically mentally unsuited for it and decided to blame everyone but himself for his not being up to it. His ambition outstripped his abilities, a pretty classic villain trope.

[Deledrius]

There's a lot of meat in that, and unfortunately the film left it almost entirely unaddressed since it kept that entire aspect a secret for a final-act reveal. I liked that film, but this was its biggest weakness. It's really too bad.

[Nobody700]

There's a lot of meat in that, and unfortunately the film left it almost entirely unaddressed since it kept that entire aspect a secret for a final-act reveal. I liked that film, but this was its biggest weakness. It's really too bad.

Yeah no idea why it was a twist, just show it was humans from the start instead of the 'we got changed cause stuff' and focus more on that, have the guy interact with a Kirk who is losing his faith in Starfleet and this guy reinforces it, only for Kirk to see he's NOT this monster and his belief and value in what Starfleet does is revived because he is bridging gaps with others and aiding them with diplomacy and thinking over crude violence. Shame, cause Beyond IS a good film despite it's flaws.