Why I think UFP longer number big starships

[User1356]

I take it as unlikely that 900 billion deaths come mostly from planetary bombardments.

They have to come from somewhere, they obviously dont have 900 million ships

[Jedi Master Spock]

I take it as unlikely that 900 billion deaths come mostly from planetary bombardments. First the Dominion toke Betazed with very few deaths if any. The fact the Romulanplan using a 2,000 soldiers take Vulcan give hint that Dominion could us smell force like that do the same. It is most likely that most worlds would have fallen with out any planetary bombardments being done. While yes the Dominion talk about doing something like that to Earth. I think Earth only real planet planing doing to.

Earth is probably the only planet we know beforehand would face bombardment. However, it is quite likely that other planets would face heavy casualties.

The thing is this. We know precisely what kind of starships the Federation uses, and what sort of crew totals they have. (Generally 100 to 1,000). We also have a very good idea how many starships are in the fleet total at this point in time - there were ~30,000 Dominion ships in the quadrant as of "When it Rains," about 2,000 Klingon ships ready on the front lines, Federation ships/casualties generally were outnumbered 2:1 in major battles throughout the war, the NCC registries tally into the 70,000s.

Granted, not all of Starfleet was engaged directly in the Dominion War. Some ships were on long range exploration missions. Some were patrolling other borders, putting out brushfires elsewhere. Some ships needed to be refit in order to make them war-worthy. Still, we wouldn't be looking at more than 30,000 starships unless we started to count shuttles, civilian freighters, etc.

All things considered, the number of crew serving aboard starships is unlikely to be more than 10 million. Even considering duty rotations and logistical support, Starfleet's total roster is very likely less than 100 million, and certainly less than a billion. It could be as little as 10 million total, as self-sufficient as ships seem to be. If there's anywhere we could rack up the casualty counts in the military column, it's in planetary militias putting up a hard fight and getting massacred, or private ships being armed and considered ad hoc military forces.

Knowing what we know about the extent of the Federation - 150 members, thousands of colony worlds, most not that heavily populated - 900 billion represents serious civilian casualties. That's an average of 6 billion per member world - the population of Earth today. The Jack Pack's projection of generations to rise back up suggests to me that a noticeable percentage of the overall population dies in this projection.

[Jasonb]

What about foot soldiers and Space Stations could longer number deaths come from there.

[Roondar]

Generally speaking, from a real world perspective, you can reasonably argue the following:

The bigger a country, the smaller the percentage of people involved in it's military and the smaller the percentage of other resources involved in the military.

I'd say that people arguing for billions upon billions of groundtroops are not being very realistic. By comparisom, the major (and I do mean major as in big) battles on Earth numbered into the low millions at it the high end. Heck, modern warfare seems to use less manpower rather than more.

By extension, I don't feel that the people starbases or plain old foot soldiers are going to be the bulk of the casualties. We saw what the Dominion did to Cardassia and in what timeframe. They obviously used high end weapons to achieve that (800 million dead in what, an hour or less?), but it still gives a reasonably idea of what happens once the Dominion lands on your doorstep - you suffer.

Looking at it that way, I'd say that 900 billion is a realistic number. Although I'm pretty damned sure that any sane leader would have surrendered way before that.

After all, there comes a time when you have to admit that living in servitude to the Dominion is a heck of a lot better than having (basically) everyone die.

[Mike DiCenso]

I take it as unlikely that 900 billion deaths come mostly from planetary bombardments.

They have to come from somewhere, they obviously dont have 900 million ships

Welcome to SFNJ. Most people here would not seriously argue that Starfleet and the Federation as a whole has that many armed starships, starbases, outposts and so on to account for those kind of casualty numbers. As JMS points out, it's highly unlikely in a Federation where the average member population is somewhere over 6 billion (confirmed by Vulcan's population as given in ST 2009), that there are more than a billion personel total serving in all of Starfleet. So most of the other causalties have to come from other means, such as occupation attrocities and planetary bombarment.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

By extension, I don't feel that the people starbases or plain old foot soldiers are going to be the bulk of the casualties. We saw what the Dominion did to Cardassia and in what timeframe. They obviously used high end weapons to achieve that (800 million dead in what, an hour or less?), but it still gives a reasonably idea of what happens once the Dominion lands on your doorstep - you suffer.

Don't forget that the Dominion has other ways than simply running around with ground troops. As we saw in "The Quickening", the "Blight" biowarefare virus that was inflicted on the Teplan peoples for resisting the Dominion, and who knows how many generations of Teplans died and by what number (millions, billions?). So yeah, imagine the Dominion doing that sort of thing to uppity Federation planets it conquers and occupies.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

What about foot soldiers and Space Stations could longer number deaths come from there.

Cardassian Orders run in the general neighborhood of a million troops. Put one of those on each Federation member world and their five most important colonies and you get in the neighborhood of a billion groundpounders. You're not going to see more than a billion or so professional soldiers on active duty; you might see several tens of billions of de facto militia forces offering armed resistance.

We have a good idea of how many Starbases there are, since Starbases tend to also be numbered; there are perhaps a thousand of them. These are larger than ships, but even so, you'd have to be averaging ~1,000,000 personnel per active starbase to reach a billion in Starfleet.

I can believe ten times as many people work on board starbases as aboard ships; I can believe equal numbers. There's a lot of room for flexibility in the figures - but not that much room.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The facts that in Star Terk Statistical Probabilities talk about lose 900 billion people in Dominion war. Make me think Federation even has longer numbers starship like Galaxy class or longer numbers of fighters. Because can not see space stations and ground fights put together lead that many deaths.

1. What is STSP? Is that an(in universe group?

2.a. If the 900 billion is the same figure projected by Bashir's think tank, I may just point to a series of posts where I gave my opinion on why this needs not to represent the snapshot estimation of the total population of the UFP at a given moment.

2.b. The number could include that planet which was cramped with almost human people (TOS), in the hundred billions or more, iirc. They were not part of the UFP, but it seems they could have had, after partaking the legal procedures to join the Feds.

[Mike DiCenso]

This has been argued before. However, one-hundred and fifty member worlds with an average population each of 6 billion accounts for at least 900 billion. Add in the thousands, if not tens of thousands of colonies, and you can get past a trillion in population easily.

As for Gideon, the introduction of Vegan choriomeningitis makes it unlikely to have the kind of ridiculous population seen in TOS' "The Mark of Gideon".
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

This has been argued before. However, one-hundred and fifty member worlds with an average population each of 6 billion accounts for at least 900 billion. Add in the thousands, if not tens of thousands of colonies, and you can get past a trillion in population easily.

Certain member worlds have really low ball populations. It's hard to work with generalities considering the so numerous cultures and different metabolisms.

As for Gideon, the introduction of Vegan choriomeningitis makes it unlikely to have the kind of ridiculous population seen in TOS' "The Mark of Gideon".
-Mike

The vegan what?

[The Dude]

The vegan what?[/quote]

Vegan choriomeningitis, a disease Kirk was exposed to as a child and the Gideons intended to use as a means to reduce their population.

[The Dude]

I take it as unlikely that 900 billion deaths come mostly from planetary bombardments. First the Dominion toke Betazed with very few deaths if any. The fact the Romulanplan using a 2,000 soldiers take Vulcan give hint that Dominion could us smell force like that do the same. It is most likely that most worlds would have fallen with out any planetary bombardments being done. While yes the Dominion talk about doing something like that to Earth. I think Earth only real planet planing doing to.

Just to touch on the invasion of Vulcan a bit. There had to have been something going on behind the scenes there, the 2000 was likely just a vanguard or a force intended to take and hold something important (like the government) in preparation for forced unification. It utterly destroys SoD to believe that 2000 troops could conquer a world like you suggest, that isn't enough to hold a moderate sized town, let alone a planet.

[Jasonb]

Also according to Star Terk "Statistical Probabilities: Sarina try to commit treason to lower cost down just two billion lives. How do you explain that much lower death total lose people come from Military part Starfleet. Sarina done what said was going to do to force Federation to surrender.

[Mike DiCenso]

Um, what was it that Sarina or the rest of the Jack Pack was going to do that would force the Federation and allies to surrender soon enough to keep the causalties down to 2 billion?
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Certain member worlds have really low ball populations. It's hard to work with generalities considering the so numerous cultures and different metabolisms.

What low-ball populations are you refering to exactly for Federation member worlds? What evidence do you have for unusual metabolisms that would effect the equation so drastically beyond simple hand-waving? We already know that Vulcan in 2250's had a population over 6 billion as per ST 2009, and Earth seems to match or exceed that by itself, never mind the Lunar and Mars colonies.
-Mike