Mike DiCenso wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:24 am
Further, nothing anyone has said that this is an alternate timeline or universe ala the Paramount Kelvin Timeline. It's the Prime Timeline. The same one we saw in TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY.
So far, my general stance on these matters has basically been "it may suck, but that doesn't mean it isn't canon," but I thought I heard something about the show runners themselves making noise about DISCO departing from the "real" timeline? Admittedly I haven't been paying much attention, maybe that was only in reference to the Discovery itself after disappearing into the void, or the future or whatever. Perhaps I got my information garbled.
That said, from what I've seen DISCO hasn't committed any canon violations that haven't already been done before, particularly in ENT. The main differences seem to be that these continuity gaps seem bigger and more flippant than before, though I'd say past transgressions were a bit more than "minor imperfections" too. Beyond that, the show itself doesn't seem as well liked in general, leaving the old vanguard of 'Trek fans less likely to turn a blind eye or put the effort into finding solutions to shoe horn things into a tidy "canon" package.
Running with the current information though, the line about "7000 active ships in Starfleet, all reliant on the chain of command" doesn't strike me as being that problematic, all things considered. The registry numbers indicating fleet size for TOS era did seem a bit too low (especially with the downward trend in FTL speeds as the franchise wore on), there's also the sudden jump in NCC numbers that appeared to spike around the turn of the twenty-third century. No gradual increase in production, and no continued growth after, just a sudden spike in the average number of NCC numbers per year, that tends to strike me as being more indicative of an organizational change than an industrial one. 2046's site touches on that idea here as well:
LINK.
We also see the relative fleet densities seem to change surprisingly little between Archer's time and Picard's, indicating that the Federation's fleet growth is only barely keeping pace with its territorial expansion. Consider ENT S:4E:13 "United" where a fleet of 128 was assembled in just three days time, when drawing from future Federation members, including what was apparently a disappointingly few 23 vessels from the Vulcans, while an unknown number of human vessels were weeks distant. Compare to a similar detection fleet roughly two centuries later in TNG S:5E:1 "Redemption pt. 2" where established Federation forces, while stated to be stretched thin in the region, still only put together a meager 23 vessels in roughly a day for a similar operation.
Also consider TNG S:4E:1 "BoBW" where Starfleet assembled roughly 40 ships to intercept the Borg in about six days time, with Klingon ships on their way, though apparently not arriving in time. Roughly seven years later, another Federation fleet of apparently comparable, though probably greater size engaged another Borg cube in ST:9 "First Contact" within roughly a day, remember this was amid growing tensions with the Dominion as well however.
Then Discovery premiers with the impromptu Battle of the Binary Stars which sees about one and two dozen Federation and Klingons ships respectively, gather within a span of what, several hours to perhaps a day was it? I also notice that the actual NCC registries are still staying under the 1700 mark, while maintaining distinctly human designs in the fleet composition.
Parallel registries to NCC like the NC, NAR and VS makes sense, especially looking at the similarities of Spock's long range shuttle seen in TMP, registry # VS-5047-61192259584-5, compared to the role filled by runabouts in the twenty-fourth century which were assigned NCC numbers. Something else that sticks in my mind is a line from DS9 S:5E:10 Rapture: "Bajor's admission is only the beginning. Now comes the hard part. Federation council members have to be chosen,
the Bajoran militia has to be absorbed into Starfleet." While the idea of alien fleet absorption has come up, I don't think it has been given as much consideration as it deserves. Given the number of obvious parallels between UFoP and the modern UN, I'm sure Starfleet also has something like a STANAG system in place, and presumably many newer member worlds would opt to simply follow preexisting Federation technology going forward than try to build their own, unless they wanted to maintain private assets for some reason. Which brings us back to the formation of the Federation in 2161. The humans were lagging quite a ways behind their neighbors, but gaining quickly. Right after the Federation's formation, I wouldn't be surprised if they were fielding one or two thousand ships between these major groups, though human built NCC registered vessels undoubtedly made up the smallest portion. It probably would take time for human influence to significantly exceed that of the larger, more established neighbors. The general longevity of 'Trek vessel lifespans would likely be another factor for many years.
Throughout the rest of the franchise however, NCC registered Federation vessels appear to be of distinctly Terran design and are predominantly crewed by humans. Many larger sovereign members would likely be more inclined maintain their own assets, the Andorians in particular struck me as being highly unlikely to delegate fleet management to UFoP in San Francisco, and stop building and maintaining their own ships, though as Federation members, those assets would still require some connection to the Starfleet.
The Vulcans are known to maintain their own ships all the way through the twenty-fourth century, including the Apollo class which even appear to have something like the ENT era warp rings. But we also see cases like USS Intrepid from TOS S:2:S19 "The Immunity Syndrome," and the USS T'Kumbra from DS9 S:7E:04 "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" where typical, NCC registered Federation vessels were crewed entirely by Vulcans. I wonder if this represents the Vulcan government contracting human shipbuilders to fill potential obligations to the UFoP Starfleet. Meanwhile, private human vessels obviously exist, but by TNG in particular, Earth doesn't appear to have an established "fleet" of its own outside of Starfleet, which again appears to be comprised primarily of conspicuously human designs.
If a significant number of smaller member worlds relied increasingly on human shipyards, and especially if a large faction such as the Vulcans opted to use Terran designs and shipyards to fill their obligations to the Federation fleet toward the end of the twenty-second century, this, along with the inclusion of smaller, formerly separate vessels like runabouts being included in the same registry could contribute to a sudden swell of NCC numbers without requiring such a sudden, unusual jump in ship production coming out of nowhere.
Also, considering the context of Control's statement in the DISCO episode, it seems that it was referencing the size of the bureaucracy involved for it to infiltrate and manipulate towards its ultimate goals, rather than indicating the size of fleet it could field militarily. This would leave plenty of room for including registries outside of NCC, and could even include alien vessels operating under Federation jurisdiction. I don't really see this tidbit of information as particularly problematic.
Also, regarding the fleet sizes estimated at st-v-sw.net circa the Dominion War, while those numbers are undoubtedly sound, the context there
is more likely referencing the number of combat ready star ships operating at the Dominion front. I believe you've said before 2046, that you did at times use more conservative estimates for Star Trek in anticipation of detractors claiming inflation on your part. In this case, I'm sure Federation wouldn't have simply dropped patrols and supply runs for regions away from the conflict, meaning that estimate could well be a bit lean. There's limits of course, I doubt the number would double or anything, but I still wouldn't be surprised if the Federation as a whole
possessed a few thousand more ships than the 8-10,000 estimate you had for the Dominion War. All in all, this particular piece of information doesn't strike me as necessarily being horribly inconsistent, whether DISCO is "real" Star Trek canon or not.