Alpha Quadrant...Empires?

[Founder]

Romulan and Klingon space is pretty big, close to the size of the Federation. The UFP, however, expanded through peace and through a myriad of joining. My question is...can the two empires be that big without absorbing others? Neither seem very peaceful and would care to have others willingly join. Did the Klingons and Romulans conquer other species? If that is the case...doesn't it seem strange that the Fed. would make..."peace" with them?

[Arellia]

The Klingons very regularly conquer other planets... and then don't really do much with it. A lot of the Klingon Empire is Empire in name only. They go in, subdue the planet, and add it to their collection. They call the inhabitants of their acquisitions "jeg'pu'wI," and treat them almost like slaves. Some of them work on ships, cooks and kind of like janitors, and are lower on the chain of command that the beqs (essentially enlisted men) by far. The Klingons, however, are not entirely unintelligent... I think the reason they treat the Federation not as another acquisition but as an ally because they know a war would be far more damaging than helpful. It would be very long, and they would risk losing parts of their own empire... while they might be self-important honor-hounds, I think they can see a tactical mistake. Since they're reasonable (usually) with the Federation, and I don't think the Federation really wants to provoke a war with the Klingons because they disagree with their tactics, the Klingons and the Federation are at peace.

...I don't know about Romulans. Romulans are spinless. I have ridges, not pointed ears.

[Lord Borg]

Hey! Don't be dissing the ears! Some non Romulans have the ears! Meanie! Yes I said it!

I agree with what Syd says, and if the Fed allied themselves with the Klingons they are able to either look past it, or the Klingons shaped up thier act. Or something...

[lionhead]

The romulans are a lot like the klingons. They too enslave the inhabitants of a planet they conquer.

There was a long and violent war against the Romulans. But the federation only wants peace so once they have it they intend to keep it that way.

over time relations with the empires become better and chances of keeping peace grow even bigger and bigger and the federation will make sure it does.

The Federation would never start or provoke a war either. Even if that species enslaves other species(klingons, Romulans, Orion, Borg) or treats other species like scum(Cardassians and Dominion)

There are however some extreme cases(besides an act of war) in which the federatino won't see any other choice but to start a war, but such situation have luckily never occured(like genocide)

[Founder]

Good posts everybody.

I understand why the Federation doesn't just rush to war and liberate those species, but it seems strange that they sit back and allow it. They did the same thing with the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor. They didn't want a war with them and simply allowed it.

[Lord Borg]

I don't think they allowed it per se, I think that its viewed as a situation that falls under the prime directive, and with many people conquring all the time, thats all the fed would do, warp around and say "Na uh! I dont think so"

[La Forge]

I don't think the Prime Directive should have anything to do with the Bajoran Occupation (the Bajoran civilization which has been around for far longer than the human race and managed to create sailships which could take them all the way to Cardassian space centuries ago). Tens of millions were killed by a warp-capable species outside of the natural order on Bajor. The Federation just didn't want to get into a war with the Cardies, so soon after the Cardassian Wars. And, yes, the Federation allowed it. If the Federation hadn't allowed it, something would've been done about it.

[cmdrFelix]

America is sort of the same way. Its all politics really. We invade Iraq because they are being oppressed by an evil dictator, and yet we are allied with the Saudis' who are just the same. I know there are other issues (oil and the supposed WMDs) but Bush has spouted out a lot of that spreading democracy stuff. Anyway, all I'm saying is that the Federation is just like that.

[Founder]

[Scapegoat Bob]

ITS ALL A CONSPIRACY! DAMN THOSE CATS

[cmdrFelix]

[Scapegoat Bob]