Guide:2340-2360 - The Restless Borders

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2340-2360 - The Restless Borders

The relative peace between the known Alpha Quadrant empires was a delicate equilibrium, a historical oddity that could not exist for long – this was agreed on by all Federation historians. However, the same historians firmly believed that no aggression could ever rise from within the Federation, despite its countless internal differences and multiculturalism. There was therefore no need for a warfleet that could patrol the whole of the Federation. Concentrated defense forces were maintained near the borders of the Empires, and large ‘reserves on assignment’ could be reassigned from exploration duty and deployed either inward to protect the core worlds or outward to fend off an unpredicted intruder.

This doctrine of mobile defenses, ironically created in the aftermath of the internal troubles of the 2250s and only briefly abandoned during the hawkish years preceding Khitomer peace, was indeed an economically and politically viable system for the first half of the century – perhaps because it was not tested until the 2350s when the fringe interests of the Federation and the Cardassian Union finally conflicted in a bloody way.

The Cardassian war began quite like a classic Star Fleet wargame scenario. At first, throughout the early decades of the century, several commercial and exploration ships mysteriously disappeared, just as had happened in the Romulan war which still greatly influenced all Star Fleet strategic thinking. The next logical step, that of reconnaissance strikes against outlying Federation colonies and outposts, was taken in 2347-2349 when Cardassian forces attacked, bombarded and overran a number of Federation settlements in sectors 21505 and 21506. The Cardassians were already intimately familiar with the Federation through several decades of profoundly insincere peaceful coexistence, whereas Star Fleet intelligence on the Union was severely lacking; here, too, the Romulan crisis was mirrored. Before Cardassian forces could take the final step leading to full-scale war, that of open assaults on key colonies and preemptive strikes against Fleet support installations, Star Fleet initiated counteroperations carefully practiced for two centuries.

It was already known that Cardassians held a medium-sized empire somewhere deep in Alpha Quadrant, conquered by rather primitive warp-powered warships and empty promises in the preceding century; now it was realized that this empire was at odds with the expansion and exploration projects of the UFP, and on a rampage to further increase its own territories. To scout out the enemy positions, several scientific expeditions covertly practiced long range scanning and signals intelligence gathering. As these missions proved insufficient, dedicated scoutships were also dispatched, and reconnaissance drones were covertly deployed into Cardassian space.

In contrast, the insertion or drafting of field operatives proved virtually impossible, thanks to the tightly knit, state-controlled society of the Union. Local races sympathetic to the Union, like the Kressari, Klaestron or Xepolites, formed an uncooperative buffer zone between the Union heartland and the UFP core. A crucial breakthrough was later made through first contact with the Yridian League of Trade, an organization of information merchants with detailed -if very expensive- information on the affairs of the Cardassians and their allies. This also provided the first semi-reliable information channel on the Ferengi and the Breen, the other powerful but enigmatic players in the local field. In the prewar years, however, the Yridians appear to deliberately have shirked from contact with the Federation, possibly to avoid compromising their neutrality.

Even without inside information channels, it soon became evident that the Cardassian military was geared toward a continuing war of conquest to feed its resource-poor core world, and was prepared to assault key Federation colonies including the Minos Korva, Volon, Alpha Solarion and Umoth Nat systems. The obvious immediate strategic goal was to take control of the region of space between Chin’toka and Aldebaran, a sore wound in Cardassian flesh after a prolonged conflict with the Klingon Empire there. With the Federation pushed away, a new path of attack could be opened towards the Klingon heartland, with untold repercussions if the war escalated. Lacking a clear picture of the strength of the threat forces, Star Fleet saw no alternative but to move significant defensive forces to these areas of space.

Alarmingly, unrest sparkled in other fronts as well. The Talarians were quick to take advantage of the withdrawal of Star Fleet units from their borders, and made their territorial claims known once again. Star Fleet was forced to reactivate some mothballed light forces and deploy older ship types to this secondary front until the 2354 showdown at Galen IV. The Tholian Assembly saw a perfect moment to reopen a long-term border dispute; faithful to their uncompromising nature, they opened the discussion with a provocative assault on star station Salem One in the narrow UFP phalanx between Cardassian and Tholian holdings, continuing with strikes against two starbases and six trading posts in the border sectors. The coinciding conflicts left the UFP interior somewhat short of starship reserves, since the ships deployed to the Talarian and Tholian fronts were in general too slow to be rapidly redeployed for core world defense. However, the doctrine of mobile defenses was flexible enough to allow for ingenious rotation of battlefleets, local forces and explorers-in-transit so that the homeworlds were never in real danger of being left alone.

By late 2354, Star Fleet had lost half a dozen vessels to what were suspected to be Cardassian forces. But it had also gathered sufficient intelligence to mobilize its forces for retaliation. Despite vocal protests by Cardassian diplomats, Federation Council in March 2355 officially held certain individuals and ships of Cardassian origin but not necessarily associated with the government of the Cardassian Union responsible for “unprovoked acts of terror and piracy” in connection with the disappearances of UFP vessels and the raids on UFP settlements. The Council authorized a limited Star Fleet response of five observer ships to be sent to the region. Cardassia immediately declared war for the intrusion of space claimed by the Union. As the observer ships attempted diplomatic contact, they were attacked and forced to leave Cardassian space. This gave Star Fleet a perfect excuse to launch massive counteroffensives against all frontline Cardassian units, with the aim of depriving the Union of forces gathered for attacks on the key Federation colonies.

In the eyes of some, Star Fleet was guilty of entrapment and excessive use of force. The disappearances of starships, while statistically frequent enough not to be the result of natural occurrences, might have been due to forces not connected with the Cardassian Union. Only three incidents could be directly connected to Cardassian warships or other forces. And Star Fleet had dealt with greater finesse with the Tholian and Talarian border conflicts in the recent past. It appears that a major role was played by Cardassian arrogance that led to a breakdown of diplomatic negotiations, and by Star Fleet insecurity in face of multiple simultaneous conflicts. The Admiralty simply dared not risk engaging in a prolonged low-level war on a third front when the possibility of swiftly ending the threat at one stroke did exist.

Most Cardassian ships with their primitive compression-wave phasers weren’t actually a major threat to their Star Fleet counterparts. But the battles against them were fought far away from the core of the UFP – often, single Federation vessels were caught by surprise attacks. As the war escalated, Cardassian ships also attacked Federation colo¬nies perhaps foolhardily founded in the area. Federation warships sent to the theater soon found out that wargames didn’t prepare for everything: while defending planets, Star Fleet ships were unable to use their warp speed advantage or torpedo weaponry superiority, and fell prey to the heavy phaser fire of Akril, Regar and Galor class cruisers. Several elderly ships like Constellations, and even two Excel¬siors, were lost in battles against seemingly underpowered adversaries.

There was a definite shortage of affordable defense starships that could operate in the distant theater for extended lengths of time. Fortunately, several next-generation shipbuilding programs reached production phase during the conflict. More of the rapidly aging Miranda units were moved to the Cardassian theater to “hold the fort” as the heavy New Orleans frigate design was being introduced. Fast and powerful, yet relatively affordable modern scoutships of Challenger and later Zodiac class were also fielded to address severe reconnaissance shortcomings. Older deep space explorers were recalled for combat duty even though it would take several years for the most distant of them to get back to the war zone. Supply ships were convoyed for protection and given frigate or light cruiser escorts. Dedicated armed supply ships were also utilized, some converted from aged Miranda frigates. The massive buildup ground the Cardassian offensive to a halt, and at last Star Fleet could organize offensive fleets that would hunt down and destroy the main Cardassian forces.

Heavy starships and massive numbers of rapidly produced destroyers finally brought the Cardassians to their knees in late 2359. A vast volume of Cardassian space was carved away, right up to Koralis on the doorstep of Cardassian core regions. Yet the diplomats of the UFP made clear that the Federation never intended to conquer Cardassian space and only wanted to protect the colonies and local sys¬tems allied under its aegis. They also skillfully ensured that Romulan assistance to Cardassia was terminated, and a rift of distrust generated between the Cardassians and their potential allies in the highly anti-Federation Miradorn and Tzenkethi regimes.

Even when deprived of its main offensive forces, Cardassia steadfastly refused a peace treaty and fortified its inner systems heavily against Federation attacks. The Union had to give up its ambitious plans to expand further antispinward: the Federation now solidly held all Aldebaran space, including the symbolically important Raknal system the Klingons had lost in the Betreka conflict. Yet Cardassia still controlled the acquisitions of greatest practical significance, including Bajor, Kora and Chin’toka. Thus, despite the truce, the Union very much remained a strong opponent and a continuing threat to Federation interests in the area.

Only a handful of Cardassian systems or planets were taken by the Federation, and only minimal changes were made to the pre-war border agreements – a region of Cardassian influence still protruded towards the UFP core worlds, even though now cordoned by Star Fleet forces. Negotiations aimed at creating a static, easily fortifiable Neutral Zone around the region were making slow progress because of the fact that both sides had established numerous colonies in the volume of space, so intermingled that no practical border surface could be drawn to separate the two sides. Neither side was ready to risk a renewed military conflict over these basically worthless colonies, yet any sort of compromise over the geometry of the border surface would have meant a fatal sign of weakness in the Cardassian negotiation culture. Ultimately, negotiations converged on the solution of enclosing colonies of both sides inside a wide Demilitarized Zone, a region of partially Cardassian, partially UFP space where civilian traffic would be allowed but military presence strictly limited.

No major inventions or technology breakthroughs accompanied this war on the Federation side, although the advanced FN, LF and GN series warp engines were introduced. These designs fought for dominance for a while until settling for a division of labor: Shuvinaaljis’ LF would become the favored heavy duty, low performance engine family for Marine and transport vessels, Leeding’s GN would propel the high performance deep space types, while Cochrane Warp Dynamics’ FN would be used on some medium ship types until bowing out. None of the types would quite attain the near-monopoly status of the CWD LN-64 family of the past century. Nor did the introduction of the technology result in upgrading of existing designs via engine refitting, save for some experiments performed on the Niagara class.

On the other hand, the Cardassian military acquired significant new technology when it obtained its first effective antimatter torpedoes and high powered phaser weapons. While reverse-engineering of captured Star Fleet and Klingon equipment played a role, Cardassia also received covert technological support directly from the Romulans and indirectly through the Ferengi. Rising rapidly from the dense ranks of second-rate space nuisances to the more exclusive group of UFP arch-enemies, the Cardassians would feature prominently in Alpha Quadrant politics from the 2350s to the mid-2370s.

From a doctrinal viewpoint, the war did not challenge the Federation belief in mobile defenses, nor did it result in restructuring of Star Fleet in any major way. However, ground combat was a factor in war for the first time in some two centuries, and Marine tactics and equipment evolved greatly in the conflict. Thus, several Marine assault and transport vessel types are listed in this chapter. This is not to say that such types would have been unknown in other eras, although admittedly they had not been present in such numbers and variety before. The 2340s did represent a boom in construction of special planetary assault ships, compared with the 23rd century where most of the assault support tonnage had come from regular transports of Star Fleet or Federation origin.

The following list of starships dating from this period includes not only dedicated warships (even though these vessels officially sport multi-mission equipment), but also exploration, humanitarian and transport designs only indirectly related to the war. This spectrum of ships very well illustrates Star Fleet’s attitude towards the Cardassian war: despite the fighting at the distant border, the homefront dedicated itself to goals other than mere support of combatants. To outside observers, the war proved that the Federation now could respond to multiple conflicts of varying intensities, from random provocations to full-scale military offensives, without being significantly overtaxed. This conclusion may have been the most important factor in maintaining the peace between the major powers from the 2350s to the early 2370s.

2340-2360 - The Ships


Updated to April/May 2016 version
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