Alternate Universe: No Federation

[mactavish]

So what would the Star Trek universe look like if the Federation - for whatever reason (pick your poison) - never formed?
I have postulated, on several occasions, what might have happened if the Xindi destroyed Earth, or if Khan's reign didn't end in the exile of the Augments (among others), but I've never really looked closely at what could have happened if the United Federation of Planets never formed.
I would be interested in your input, as I am planning a new Series with a new group, and I would like to introduce a new alternate reality (instead of "Khan Ascendant" or the Mirror Universe). So, if you have an idea, or a seed of an idea, please post it here.
Thanks a bunch in advance.
mactavish out.

[Owen E Oulton]

I once ran a scenario where the Intrepid class USS Challenger followed the Enterprise-E into the Borg temporal portal from Star Trek First Contact. There was a battle going on in Engineering with a couple of Borg drones causing the ship to lose warp power when the Borg-ified Earth was still on screen, and they didn't actually travel back to 2063, but instead fell into a Sector 001 where the Federation never rose as Cochrane's intial flight had been prevented. Rather, there was a loos resistance of sevearl species fighting the Borg, who had overrun Federation space 3 centuries earlier. The Vulcans had been assimilated, and the resistance was basically the Andorians, the Tellarites, the Romulans and the Klingons (the Star Empire and the Klingon Empire both lay in ruins). Basically it was very Star Wars-ish in tone, crossed with classic Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek Voyager. The Challenger was the most powerful non-Borg ship in the Quadrant and played a key role in uniting the resistance powers.

[WaveMan]

Are you refering to this http://forum.trek-rpg.net/showthread...Khan-Ascendant ?
I really like the idea of taking the Federation in a completely different path like I did in Khan Ascendant, with them embracing transhumanism and realizing the human potential. You could also do Khan Ascendant verbatim from Star Trek Alternative Universe on page 34 of All Our Yesterdays, rather then using my version.

With out the stabilizing influence of the Federation one of the other galactic powers would be in control of the quadrant, most likely either the Klingon's or the Romulan's. Another possibility would be the Dominion (they come through the worm hole and without the Federation to oppose them they would quickly take the Quadrant). The Borg scenario has been done before.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

• Klingon empire and allies driving into buffer zone of Romulan-controlled puppet states.

• Vulcans remove Romulan infiltrators in government, and establish a more proactive 'defense in depth' strategy against the Romulans by providing materiel and 'advisors' to various planets across the quadrant. Romulan-Vulcan proxy conflicts engulf local space.

• Klingons conquer everybody, and then their empire splits into competing interstellar-polity-sized alliances centred around particular Houses.

• Humans conquer everybody, and then their empire splits into competing interstellar-polity-sized alliances.

• Romulans conquer everybody, and then the dissemination of Vulcan ideas within their society leads to the Time of Awakening conflict between the Surakite religion and fascist ideologues playing out again, this time on an interstellar scale.

• Nobody conquers anybody, but Surakite religion, associated as it is with Vulcan technological advancement and associated wealth and power, becomes both a means for non-Vulcans to critique their own societies and also as a status symbol for self-described converts. Eventually a strain of non-Vulcan Surakism develops into a full-blown interstellar religious movement, creating a non-governmental interstellar body of communication and interrelationship.

Unfortunately, ENT establishing that everybody and their dog has warp drive means that some interesting alternatives—like warp drive failing to be developed pretty much everywhere and a warpless Federation like the Ekumen developing—are off the table, unless you posit that pretty much everything in ENT is the result of temporal interference and that the Enolians, Mazarites, etc didn't have warp drive until contacted by the Fed or developed it later.

[mactavish]

All good suggestion so far, but I am looking for something a little more specific.
My question should have been, "What if the United Federation of Planets had never formed in 2161?"
In this scenario, humanity still achieved warp capabilities in 2063, still encountered the Vulcans, and still worked through all of the events depicted in Star Trek Enterprise. I'd go so far as to say everything happened up to and including the final drafting of the UFP charter, but - for some reason - things just fell apart. How would things proceed?
For argument sake, say the Andorians and Vulcans had a last-minute conflict that led to the Andorian withdrawal. Without Andoria, the Tellarites are unconvinced that the UFP wouldn't simply turn into a Vulcan-led hegemony. Two of the four founding races back out at the eleventh hour, and now Earth adn Vulcan are standing there holding the bag.
What, in that scenario, happens next? Alliance of Earth and Vulcan? Klingons conquering Tellar Prime? Romulans courting the Andorians?
mactavish out.

[Owen E Oulton]

How about: The Romulans won the Earth-Romulan war and made Earth part of the Romulan Star Empire. This put the Star Empire on Vulcan's doorstep. having been brought together by John Archer, the Andorians and the Vulcans banded together. Although many Humans resisted the Romulans under the label of Maquissards, most of them became accustomed to their new overlords and assimilated, Earth Starfleet becoming a branch of the Star Nay. The quadrant fell into a cold war between the Star Empire, the Vulcan/Andorian/Tellarite Tripartite Pact and the Klingon/Orion/Gorn alliance. The Cardassians also became a major player, allied loosely with the Romulans against the Klingons. There were several flare-ups into full fledged war in various places along the borders on the various factions.

Is that specific enough for your tastes?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

The key question here is when, in this new timeline, are your PCs going to be interacting with it? Is it during or immediately after 2161? A hundred or two hundred years later?

A secondary but important question: Is the divergence should be a 'natural' one, or one caused by temporal agents?

[mactavish]

Owen: You are, without doubt, reading my mind from afar. That is certainly specific enough for my tastes, so thank you. That gives me a great platform for adding some alternate reality goodness to my upcoming Series.
TTK: Well, it's funny you should ask. I've been looking at a Series at the dawn of the 23rd century - specifically 2199 - as the jumping off point. That is, the first generation born into the United Federation of Planets. And, as the PCs will be interacting with the alternate as just that - an alternate - it is simply a natural variation of their own universe.
I have a couple potential alternates of my own, so I'll post them here in the coming days.
mactavish out.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

While the Mirror Universe has oscillated between being a semi-plausible regular-alternate-history with weird parallelisms (Mirror, Mirror and Crossover) to gonzo action-comedy (everything after that), you could take the basic premise—that humans form the core of an anti-federation of defeated planets—and run with that. (Removing the 'evil mirror' versions of PCs and the ostentatious eeeevil aspects should be enough to distinguish a new human-imperial timeline, I think.) The divergence point in "Demons [ENT]" is obvious enough. You could also have something like the duel between Sheras Endilev and Rexar Kor going the other way, leading to a continuation of the Andorian Empire as an expansionist, aggressive neighbour of the fledgling Federation (giving hawkish Federation members more cause to change the Federation into an empire-in-all-but-name). That alliance could have fractured by 2199, or a specific planet taken steps to dominate the alliance. Or, you could have a Federation that seeks to expand too fast; maybe they papered over the differences that kept the Coalition of Planets members from joining in 'normal' 2161, leading to unaddressed contradictions of intent or exploitable weaknesses in the Federation's charter which pulled the Federation apart shortly thereafter. This last option gives you an interesting possibility: that characters from the alternate universe where the Federation existed and failed look at the PCs as foolish ideologues, who's smaller alliance will no doubt fracture too. They might try to 'help' the PCs by encouraging them to act aggressively to protect their own planet's interest.

Relatedly, I have some notes on using the Rigelians as a kind-of-adversary during the early Federation period I need to write up.

[Mr_Tricorder]

I would recommend checking out the Myriad Universe books for Federationless alternate universe story ideas.
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/St...riad_Universes