An Estimate of the size of Federation Uniformed Services

[spyone]

Canon sources (DS9) point to a population figure that exceeds 1 trillion. The supergeniuses that tried to sabotage the Dominion war predicted more than a trillion casualties for the Federation. I was using a low-end estimate. I was actually trying to minimize population and uniformed personnel numbers.

Was that for just the Federation, or for the Alliance?
I suspect the Klingons would take heavier casualties than the Federation, just because being a live prisoner is not a good option in their culture.

Which brings in other questions without canon answers: How many Klingons are there? How many Romulans?

[LUGTrekGM]

10 billion per world I think is Excessive.

5 billion, tops.

Also your analogy of Semi-modern US and Roman, those might be good examples, but it neglects consideration for all the other countries with a tiny, or no military.

If you are gonna go that route, please take all of earth population, then take the militaries of US, NATO, Russia and China, plus Pre-1991 Iraq, and then you got the ratio for Earth, alone, which might be extrapoloated as your %age. Because it is not US as Starfleet it's Earth, as a whole, if you are gonna base it on real world examples.

Since some member worlds are gonna be pacifistic, use half that number as a raw average, X your 100 or 140 or 150 worlds, since I think it's obvious that as Spock says, Earth has an Agressive culture with many bloody wars.

That being said Starfleet's paradigm IS like the US, with the TOS Klingons like Soviet Cold War Russia, in that Starfleet goes for less ships, more tech, higher accuracy and the Klingons seem to go for numbers, throwing them into battle.

Post-NG and Dom War, I have no clue, I hardly watched any DS9.

I am of the belief agreed, that Starfleet Academy is the source for all officers. Some of fandom says that there is more than one Academy. I really don't see it.

The use of the 40 year career, and 1/40th ratio, all of that is good to great stuff.

I do not think starbases are numbered consecutively. Seems like in TOS era there were maybe 20-30 starbases, tops, each with a handful of cruisers (plus destroyers, heavier stuff we might not have seen etc.), that were responsible for a sector, back in the day.

With faster ships post Next Gen and the warp recalc, you can have a more or less same number of ships patrol more sectors per ship. Seems like Picard and crew flew aroundf the whole darn galaxy, pretty near. Kirk did too, but, just seems like Picard and those people went to see more, farther, faster, plus since their series lasted longer.. you get the idea.

This might indicate (at least to me) TOS Era fleet of 100+- ships per starbase/Fleet, 20 +- fleets.

Maybe Near Earth and Andor an extra fleet (one for sector 001, one extra for Andor since they love to scrap)



This is also the thing.. Roddenberry said each Constitution class were all officers. I personally object to that, but whatever, I'm just another voice in the darkness.

But, if Starfleet Academy has all officers per ship, and no enlisted (which we later see Chiefs and such in Next Gen, hey cool) then that's your numbers for the SFA right there, I think.


Okay so TOS era, I'd say:
22 fleets +-, total perhaps 2200 ships, average crew per ship 400-500

For Next Gen / DS9
Would Starfleet have one fleet per Member world? Maybe. I really don't think so.

Maybe 50-75 fleets, and I'm more towards 50, IF that.

Really, I think it should be about 35 (at a high limit) fleets. maybe 150 ships per fleet tops. Dominion War, sure, up the numbers, a bit, maybe 200 ships per. Again, I never saw any Dominion War episodes, did not see a lot of DS9 at all except the first few.

Call it 5000-7000 ships (not all of those captial ships, either), X 400-500 crew per ship, for the Starfleet, on ships. so 2 million to 3.5 million.

X 8 or ten for all of those for logistical support, fuel carriers, starbase personnel, etc etc = 16 million to 35 million, roughly.

Anything about marines and all of that, make up what you want, depending on how militaristic your own brand of fandom is. But that still seems to be a lot.

About 20 fleets/bases, 100 ships per fleet, = 2000 ships, 400-500 per ship average crew number, with big ships more and smaller ships less, averaging it out.

This gives me 1 million fleet , with a logistical base of another 10 million to support that, = 11 million.

If I figure that the officer ratio is at an average about 5%, then that would be 550,000 officers.

30 year career = 18,000 and some change per graduating class of officers at Starfleet Academy campus (Which I consider to be spread out among Earth, Luna, Mars, Jupiter's moons maybe, Saturn's moons/rings, Pluto, etc, really, with the main admin buildings at San Francisco.)

I still think that is really really high, as a number.

Future Eras, like Next Generation, the ships are faster, larger, and go farther, so the numbers would be about the same, each ship covering more than one sector, but more likely arranged along fleet lines. Maybe a bit more since there is more territory to cover. Still seems like a whole lot of people.

I read Eric R's post just prior to this, and agreed with it, as far as the numbers go, using his reasoning. I don't agree with the numbers personally, but those are to me, more realistic than the rest of the offerings.

That being said, I think Eric R is right in there at about, I think he said 12 million total, if I use 20 fleets.


My flavor, for my gaming:

The Canon, the fandom, and the games all say Starfleet is the best of the best of the best. You are not gonna get that kind of near-genius, high initiative, courageous, and morally straight, go get 'em kind of person in 1 in 1000 people. Walk around your own home town/city to see this in effect.

I am REALLY more of the mind that Each year, the Starfleet Academy has 100,000 applicants, with about 75,000 of those coming from Earth alone with an acceptance of new midshipmen equal to a graduating class of 2500, those being roughly 2000 Human, 500 other races combined.

That makes it twice the size of Annapolis. A bit more for Next Gen.

We see more of the humans in the crews than 80% because most of the non-human officers go back to their home sector fleets.

I can believe 3,000 souls graduating each year as Starfleet Academy Officers are the best the Federation has to offer. Even in the Next Gen era.

Maybe 5,000 ships total, with perhaps 35-40 starbases for Next Gen.

3,000 ships, with 20 starbases/fleets for TOS.

My numbers are what I have used for over 15 years of gaming (Mostly FASA)

[spyone]

Some more real-world reference data:
2500 is the size of the freshman class at the University of Connecticut in 1987. It was the result of a clerical error that sent out more acceptance letters than they intended, coupled with a higher than predicted number of accepted applicants not going somewhere else: apparently the normal freshman class of the time was more like 1500-2000.

In 1974, the nation with the highest percentage of its population in the military was the United Arab Emirates, at 56 soldiers per 1000 population. The least was Niger, at 0.45 soldiers per 1000 population.

Nations that, in 1974, has 2.5 of fewer soldiers per 1000 population included: Japan, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Phillipenes, Mexico, Brazil, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Haiti, and about half of Africa.
Nations that had over 5.1 soldiers per 1000 population included all of Europe except Ireland and Czechoslovakia, as well as the entire Middle East except North Yemen.

Australia had more than 15 soldiers per 1000 population.

Shifting dates to 1977, Mauritius spent the least on it's military by 2 different methods: 0.2% of GNP or 0.5% of government income. The UAE, Oman, and Israel were the only nations spending over 20% of their GNP on the military.


I agree that certain powers are going to be over-represented in Starfleet, and others are going to be under-represented. Agressive races will join in large numbers, while pacifistic races will hardly join at all. But this will all average out if you look at the Federation as a whole.
I doubt Starfleet asks member worlds to contribute a specific number of officers: instead, Starfleet figures out how many officers it needs, and selects the very best candidates from all applicants. The fact that members of agressive races will be more likely to apply doesn't change the fact that the bill, paid by the Federation government, will be shared proportionately by all Federation members (by whatever method the Federation uses to collect taxes).

Another thing worth noting is that Star Trek ahs given us a few good reasons why it seems like most folks in Starfleet are human.
1) The Preservers scattered human settlements on many worlds during pre-history, so a lot of the inhabited worlds in this neck of the woods have a native human population. Thus, it is likely that several of the 140 Federation members are populated by humans.
2) As Wesley showed during one of his Academy tests, there are a number of alien races that are only subtly different from humans: extra webbing on their fingers, odd wrinkling on the bridge of the nose, spots around the hairline (and elsewhere ). So a lot of the crew who look human might be aliens of a more subtle sort.

For my money, a major reason why Earth Humans are over-represented in Starfleet is that nobody else has been quite so enthusiastic about joining the Federation.
I mean, if there are Earth Defense Forces we haven't seen them, even when the Borg were barrelling straight into the atmosphere. And when was the last time you heard about the United Earth Republic? It seems like most of the governing of Earth is done by the Federation, not the UER.
Not only are most major Federation facilities on Earth (the Council, Starfleet HQ, Starfleet Academy), but San Francisco appears to have been completely turned over to Starfleet for whatever facilities it thinks it needs. Starfleet can just plunk a museum piece down on the Presidio if it wants.
Starfleet Academy has many athletic teams that have been mentioned, but has there ever been mention of them competing against another earth-based learning institution? Heck, with the exception of Dax mentioning having known Leonard McCoy at the University of Mississippi, has any earth university other than SFA ever been mentioned?
Federation members send "Ambassadors" to represent them on the Federation Council. Ever hear about the Ambassador from Earth? In "Journey to Babel", was there any Earth representative other than Kirk? (there might have been, but if so he wasn't memorable).

Earth didn't just join the Federation, it volunteered to be assimilated by it. Vulcans think of themselves as citizens of Vulcan, which is a member of the United Federation of Planets. Earthers think of themselves as citizens of the United Federation of Planets.
YMMV.

[LUGTrekGM]

Again, it's all a case of make up whatever numbers fit each ref's own personal concept.

Obviously Paramount's writers did that, per episode.

I am sure my numbers won't fit for a lot of those here. But this is an interesting discussion to see all of thesereal-world facts. I have been to the UAE, I never would have guessed those percentages.

[spyone]

Re: 1 in 1000 is "too militaristic"
As of Oct 31, 1999 there were 2.5 full-time police officers in the US for every 1000 inhabitants. Adding civilian employees raised the number to 3.6 per 1000. Even given better technology and a lower crime rate due to the end of poverty, 1 in 1000 seems low for including police, and doubly so if it is intended to include firefighters and rescue personnel.


I think you have overestimated the size of some of the relevant forces. The Planetary Forces will quite likely be smaller than your estimates (which of course, means the Federation forces can be larger).

Planetary ground forces will have basicly nothing to do. There is the National Guard-style disaster relief, but with weather control and such that won't be used much, and apparently nobody on a core Federation world has worried about being invaded since Kirk signed a treaty with the Klingons. So, any "Planetary Ground Forces" are going to be tiny. Perhaps a few hundred per member world.

Planetary Fleets, similarly, will be smaller than you suggest, as most of the work of a Coast Guard is handled by Starfleet. These guys are the Harbor Patrol, with a nod towards being a militia for self-defense. Some races may take that duty more seriously than others, but .... Did you know that one of the first strong arguements for abolishing the requirement that every able-bodied American turn out one day each month to drill as militia was that, as war was becoming a distant memory, it was mostly an occasion for armed men to get drunk (on their militia rum ration)?
Again, these forces will tend to be small.


Lastly, your Spaceborne Planetary Service, the Federation's ground-pounders, have one major problem: nothing to do.
The Federation doesn't spend a lot of time sending "peacekeeping forces" around the galaxy; they have a clearly expressed policy of letting other people solve their own problems. And while there is the occasions war with the Cardassians or someone, the Federation is mostly concerned with holding onto the territory it has, or at most re-taking what it has lost. This means that, prior to the Dominion War, there was not a need for a truly large force dedicated to ground warfare, (Certainly not one half the size of Starfleet!).
Worse, if such an organization existed, ... someone would notice. They're all on the government payroll, and they aren't doing much of anything; some Senator would try to find something useful for them to do. At first it might just be providing security for new colonies, or scientific outposts. Soon they would be applied virtually anywhere that organization was helpful to solving the task at hand. Their list of duties would grow and grow, and eventually ... you'd have something that looks a whole lot like Starfleet. Science, diplomacy, exploration, administration, and .. oh, we do "defense" too.

Give it a hundred years, and your Spaceborne Planetary Service will have evolved into something that looks a lot like Starfleet Security. (And this from a die-hard "pro-" on the issue of Starfleet Marines.)
I do believe in a Federation force dedicated to ground combat, but not making up 33% of the Federation forces. More like 1%-5%.

But, as has been said, that's my opinion. YMMV.

[spyone]

I suppose I should go on record with my opinion of Starfleet's size: While I do not favor a truly huge Starfleet (with billions of members), I favor a big one versus a small one. Thousands of ships.

However, I thought of one good arguement in favor of a really big Starfleet like the one described in the original post: it explains where all the ships went.

There is plenty of evidence that Starfleet is issuing the NCC numbers for starships in something like sequential order: small numbers indicate older ships.
There is also a lot of evidence that some very old ships are still in service with Starfleet: even discounting the ships at Wolf 359 (which may have been retired and pressed into service) and time travel, TNG featured active ships with numbers as low as 2544, and DS9 went back to NCC-1974.
But USS Excelsior NCC-2000 was new in 2285, and in 2371 the brand-new USS Voyager was NCC-74656. That's 72656 ship numbers used in 86 years!

Even if you decide that some numbers represent ships that never got built (say, Starfleet decides it wants 100 Miranda class vessels, to be NCC-2100 through -2199, then decides to cancel the order and build 100 Excelsior Class instead, so the numbers 2100 through 2199 get skipped), that's a whole lot of Starfleet ships.

One of the big problems facing a "Small Starfleet" arguement is accounting for all those ships, but if Starfleet has around 65,000 ships on active duty, then only 7-8,000 have been skipped, retired, or lost.


Of course, you still have the question of why the explosive growth? I mean, if you take the dates from the Encyclopedia as canon, then Starfleet built NCC-1700 84 years after being founded (roughly 20 per year), and NCC-2000 40 years after that (roughly 7.5 per year), but had built NCC-19386 53 years after that (the ship that discovered Data in 2338) (roughly 328 per year!), and NCC-70637 26 years after that (USS Galaxy) (roughly 1970 ships per year, or about 868 per year since Excelsior), then built around 1000 per year over the next 5 years.

Why, in the immediate aftermath of the peace accords with the Klingons, did Starfleet dramaticly increase ship production?

[Phoenix]

The Snowball effect.
After Khitomer Starfleet started intense exploration efforts again, found more allies, had more territory to patrol, creating more places to explore, found more allies, and on and on. That's one possible explanation for your "explosive growth"

[Balok]

In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" (TOS episode where the Enterprise visits 1969 and abducts John Christopher) Kirk tells Christopher there are only "twelve like it in the fleet" when discussing the Enterprise. And yet there were registry numbers for Constitution class vessels that spanned a greater range than 12. So I think there could easily be holes. Maybe a lot of holes.

As for an increasing number of ships: the volume of the Federation expands at a approximate the cube of the radius from core to frontier (approximately allows for the fact that Federation space is far from spherical). So the number of ships needed to explore and hold that territory would expand. In addition, a huge growth might have occurred after the discovery of replicator tech, which doubtless *greatly* simplified manufacture of ships (I'm not suggesting they were replicated, but a lot of the parts could be - and it's far, far easier to build prototypes with such tech, since failed prototypes can be recycled for minimal cost).

[Cpt. Lundgren]

I don't think that the registration numbers are for Starfleet ships only, but for all Federation ships. A good example of this would be the Odin
Odin, S.S Federation freighter craft, NGL-12535.

Then not all ships are "Combat ready" as we can see with the Langtree. This ship is old, but there could easily be more modern ships with low level armaments.
Langtree, U.S.S, NCC-1837, Miranda-class, class-6 supply ship, class-3 defensive armaments, Crew: 26

Both of these are freighters, but with replicators available, the need for them might not be that great. But someone have to haul all of those civilians around. So most of those gaps are probably filled with space liners.

I also personally believe that the bulk of Starfleet personnel belongs to the medical and scientifical branch. Besides working on starships, starbases and outposts can they work on a member world, colony or even on a planet the Federation only have a treaty with (the typical planet where the only known cure for the dreadful plague X exists ). They are just not in the focus that much. After all, how interesting would 7x22 episodes of a real archeology team be (hm... maybe not the best question, as I love the shows "Time team" and "Wreck Detectives" from Discovery channel ).

[JALU3]

Remeber, as well . . . regarding your arguement of non-combat non-starfleet ships. As with the US Navy, not all ships in the US Naval Registrar are part of the "battle fleet". Recently there has been a big push to take logistic vessels off of the roles of the US Navy, but keep them within the Naval Registrar, being operated by other government agencies.

Therefore, you can have vessels who have registries that were previously NCC . . . being changed to non-starfleet, but federation-government agencies. This can explain why certain federation vessels have registry numbers, and others do not.
----
Regarding the role of Starfleet . . . the question is how extensive does the central/Federation government is in the daily operations of the Federation itself? How much autonomy does each member world have? Are there areas of government and non-government services, that the Federation is restricted from carrying out? Furthermore, how much of it is done by starfleet? What is the extent of the size of non military-like agencies within the central government? Or is Starfleet the end all, be all regarding Federation agencies?

Are there agencies such as the US Public Health Service, that are uniformed services, not part of Starfleet, but often seen with (@ BAMC we had several USPHS public servants on staff (wearing Navy like uniforms))? If so, what can they be modelled after?

Starfleet need not be as large as some describe . . . if member planets/systems have an extensive network to provide for their own services. Of course, some newer member planets or colonies, may rely on more services provided by the Central Government as compared to more established planets/sytems. For instance, the stop over of the HMS Bounty to Vulcan seemed to be one that did not happen often . . . thus why Starfleet never sent a ship out, or had a ship there, to take the Enterprise Command Staff into custody (beginning of ST: IV).

[spyone]

In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" (TOS episode where the Enterprise visits 1969 and abducts John Christopher) Kirk tells Christopher there are only "twelve like it in the fleet" when discussing the Enterprise. And yet there were registry numbers for Constitution class vessels that spanned a greater range than 12. So I think there could easily be holes. Maybe a lot of holes.

The usual explanation for that is a high attrition rate among Constitution Class vessels, and/or a few batches of them. That is: perhaps only 12 were built originally, and more were built after the first refit/upgrade, so only 12 were of the oldest version like Enterprise, or perhaps at that point only 12 remained.

On the flip side, since Enterprise underwent frequent upgrades (between "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" the phasers replaced lasers, between seasons one and two the look of Main Engineering changed dramaticly), perhaps Enterprise was one of only 12 that had had the very latest refit.

IIRC, FASA put forth the notion that, by the time of TWoK, Enterprise was the only surviving Constitution Class vessel from the pre-TMP era. And I have heard it suggested that the Enterprise-A may have been the last surviving member of the class.
Of course, Picard said he's seen a Constitution Class ship in the Fleet Museum, and he recognized it from a look at the TOS-era bridge, suggesting it was not the Enterprise-A but rather a vessel that did not undergo a refit. In my world, I chose the USS Excalibur for that role: Badly damaged in the M5 test and most if not all of its crew killed, Starfleet could well have decided it was cheaper to replace than fix, and given the wreck to the museum.

Another thing: If you check, even the Encyclopedia admits that the matching of hull numbers to Constitution Class vessels is mostly conjecture, and largely borne from a list of registry numbers shown on a wall in a Commodore's office at a Starbase (in "Court Martial"), then matching those numbers to nearly every ship ever mentioned on screen. If you just go by what's on screen, it is highly doubtful that a lot of those vessels were even Constitution Class, and iffy which numbers go with what ship.
For instance, in "Court Martial" we learn Kirk formerly served aboard USS Republic, but does it say anywhere in the episode that it was a Constitution Class ship?

AFAIK, the only Constitution Class ships we got numbers for were USS Constitution NCC-1700 (shown in a manual of Scotty's in "Space Seed"), USS Enterprise NCC-1701, and USS Constellation NCC-1017. We got the names for a bunch of others, but their numbers were never mentioned. We certainly never saw the numbers on another Connie in TOS, since USS Constellation (in "The Doomsday Machine") is the only one that wasn't represented by the same model as the Enterprise.

I know this discussion is about how things were in canon (plus some logical extrapolation and conjecture), but I gotta say: one of the first changes I make to the Trek universe for a roleplaying campaign is to fix that pesky "typo" and make USS Constellation NCC-1710.

[spyone]

I don't think that the registration numbers are for Starfleet ships only, but for all Federation ships. A good example of this would be the Odin
Odin, S.S Federation freighter craft, NGL-12535.

This is a pretty good idea, but still begs the question of why the sudden jump in numbers?

Still, there is some evidence to support the idea that the numbers include non-starfleet ships. SS Vico was NAR-18834, and the T'Pau was NSP-17938. These either represnt other, parallel numbering systems, or there is one set of numbers with different prefixes to indicate classifications. Sort of like the DMV and License Plates: there are Commercial plates and Passenger plates, and the question is: do they use the same list of numbers, or seperate lists? Can 2 vehicles ever have the same number, just different types of plates?
For our purposes: Does SS Vico mean there isn't an NCC-18834 out there somewhere?
Could be. In fact, probably true, IMO.

I also personally believe that the bulk of Starfleet personnel belongs to the medical and scientifical branch. Besides working on starships, starbases and outposts can they work on a member world, colony or even on a planet the Federation only have a treaty with (the typical planet where the only known cure for the dreadful plague X exists ). They are just not in the focus that much. After all, how interesting would 7x22 episodes of a real archeology team be (hm... maybe not the best question, as I love the shows "Time team" and "Wreck Detectives" from Discovery channel ).

And yet, most of the dedicated scientists we've seen on the shows sere non-Starfleet. They may have been working for Starfleet at the moment, but they didn't wear a uniform or have a rank.

And something else I've noticed: in TNG, most of the professional diplomats we see are Starfleet (several are Admirals), but in TOS they were all civilians: either Kirk was to do the negotiating, or there was a civilian there who Kirk was to deliver and then keep safe. Shift in Federation policy, or just odd samples?

[Cpt. Lundgren]

This is a pretty good idea, but still begs the question of why the sudden jump in numbers?

Might be a simple change in policy. That Non-StarFleet ships didn't have a registration number originally, or maybe it was on a voluntary basis. But after the war, they had time to think things over add made the registration mandatory (or just mandatory for newly built ships). Just speculation, but it would explain a huge jump.

Are there agencies such as the US Public Health Service, that are uniformed services, not part of Starfleet, but often seen with (@ BAMC we had several USPHS public servants on staff (wearing Navy like uniforms))?

Another variant on this, if I recall correctly, the US military have had surgeons working on civilian hospitals (I won't dwell deeper into that, as I feel it could turn political, and it would feel strange if I would have to ban myself )

But one question I have, is Starfleet originally a military organisation that have been taking on so many new roles that it has become the Para-military organisation we know? Or is it originally a civilian organisation, that had to take on a military doctrine to handle certain encounters, so it grew into a para-military organsation?

Or it might have been that the individuals in charge of StarFleet, during a sensitive moment, had an inclination in one direction. Just as a comparison; In some nations are the police force and the fire fighting force organised and drilled in a military fashion, but in other nations do they have a much more civilian approach.

[JALU3]

Might be a simple change in policy. That Non-StarFleet ships didn't have a registration number originally, or maybe it was on a voluntary basis. But after the war, they had time to think things over add made the registration mandatory (or just mandatory for newly built ships). Just speculation, but it would explain a huge jump.

Or these vessels, who do have registry numbers, could be civilian vessels which have voluntarily choosen to place themselves on an auxilary list. I know that it is not a requirement for civilian vessels to be part of the merchant marine fleet . . . however, some elect to be for whatever reason.

Another variant on this, if I recall correctly, the US military have had surgeons working on civilian hospitals (I won't dwell deeper into that, as I feel it could turn political, and it would feel strange if I would have to ban myself )

Wont be political, if only stating fact. And fact is that some Army Doctor's internship is spent in civilian hospitals that see a high rate of trauma, especially gunshot wounds. Particularly I have heard of doctors being sent to Miami and Houston. That tells you something no? Never hear of an Army doctor being sent to Boise.

But one question I have, is Starfleet originally a military organisation that have been taking on so many new roles that it has become the Para-military organisation we know? Or is it originally a civilian organisation, that had to take on a military doctrine to handle certain encounters, so it grew into a para-military organsation?

Good question . . . or it is a blending of a military and a non-military organization . . . back during a consolidation period.

[spyone]

But one question I have, is Starfleet originally a military organisation that have been taking on so many new roles that it has become the Para-military organisation we know? Or is it originally a civilian organisation, that had to take on a military doctrine to handle certain encounters, so it grew into a para-military organsation?

That's a pretty big question, and bound to be a contentious one.
Since we know that Starfleet was one of the first things the Federation did, it ties in to what sort of organization the Federation is.

Some options:
A Mutual Defense Pact: the Federation was an organization to provide for joint defense. In this case, a military service is one of the first things it would need.

A Trade Organization: the Federation was created to promote and regulate trade among its members. In this case, a police force is one of the first things it would need.

A Sharing of Technology: the Federation was created to reduce the amount of redundant research being done by sharing all scientific data. In this case, one of the first things it would need is an orgaization to oversee and coordinate research.

A Dispute Resolution Forum: the Federation was created as a forum to air and resolve disputed between members without resorting to violence. One of the first things it would need is an organization to enforce its decrees.

An Economic Peace-Making Alliance: the Federation was created to promote peace between its members by increasing their economic ties. One of the first things it would need is an economic market the members felt in their best interest to participate in.

A Unified Diplomatic Front: the Federation was created as a single clearinghouse for treaties and diplomacy between members and non-members. One of the first things it would need would be an organization of professional diplomats.

A Loss-Distributing Partnership: the Federation was created to insure Federation members against catastrophic losses in their exploration fleets by pooling profits and loss, much as insurance was invented for ocean-going shipping on Earth. One of the first things it would need would be a jointly owned exploration agency.

I've seen a few attempts at a Federation Charter by fans, and many of them wind up unsatisfactory because they fail to address the issue of basic initial goals.
Simply taking the US Constitution, or the UN Charter, and putting the word Federation in instead will only work if the Federation was founded for similar reasons.
Here's why the US Constitution won't work: the opening line is "We, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, ...."
The key words are more perfect: we already had a "union", under the Articles of Confederation, and we found it to be deeply flawed. The US Constitution addressed the lack of effectiveness by creating a much stronger central government, something the Federation does not appear to have.

Similarly, the UN was never intended to create any kind of "central government". While troops from member nations do go work for the UN on specific missions, the idea of the UN itself having a military is somewhat ridiculous. Also, the UN is not really set up to deal with anyone who is not in the UN.

The European Union has a lot of similarities to the Federation: respect for national identity and soverignty, while providing for economic unification, mutual protection, free travel between members, etc. The major down-side is that the EU was created mainly not to protect from an outside threat, but to prevent the members from going to war with each other. It was a conscious move to creating the kinds of ties with your neighbor that make it harmful to you to attack him.
The Federation, as far as we know, did not face these concerns, and so is unlikely to have used the same methods to establish its alliance.


Were the founding members of the Federation allies from the war against the Romulans hoping to maintain their alliance in case the threat resurfaced? Were they corporate partners entering business together? Were they establishing a forum to resolve disputes among themselves?

Form follows function, and what the organization was originally intended to do will be apparent in the mechanisms created by it. Starfleet is old enough that its original goal would have to be part of the original reason for creating the Federation in the first place.