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Daedalus Class in the 2260's
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: [QB] I've always figured that there were originally some national space navies. Even though the UN has the Treaty on Outer Space (aka the [URL=http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SpaceLaw/outersptxt.htm]Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies[/URL]) which forbids the militarization of outer space -- or even claiming extraterrestrial territory for any nation -- the trend even today is towards placing weapons beyond Earth's atmosphere. To weave a bit of today's events with Trek history, I would speculate that as the satellite-based missile defense systems grew in size and prominence, there was a need to find a way to combat them. Ground-based lasers work to some extent, but having an armed spaceship in orbit to take out enemy satellites -- or even to shoot down defensive missile interceptors -- would bring about the beginnings of national space militaries for patrolling Earth orbit. IMO, space travel wasn't unheard of by the time of "First Contact" -- when the Borg started firing on Cochrane's missile silo, they figured it was ECON, suggesting that attacks launched from orbit had happened in the past, probably during World War III. Later, as Humans started to spread out into space, they'd begin to consider the need for self-defense. The speciesist attitude we've seen in ENT would suggest that Humans would want to have a military to protect their own planet(s) -- no matter if their slow, popgun-equipped barges wouldn't stand up to any Klingon or other alien ships. And so after First Contact, nations built their own navies for their defense and the furtherance of their own national interests in interstellar space, but at the same time the trend towards global unification led to the creation of the United Nations Starfleet. (Or whatever the name of the global government is in ENT.) And by the time the Enterprise had launched, pretty much all of the official Earth space navy had been brought under the banner of Starfleet. There's no doubt in my mind that there were at least a handful of Earth Starfleet ships in service before Enterprise. First off, it would make no sense for everyone to sit on their hands and wait for the magical benefits of the Warp Five Engine -- especially because warp drive [i]itself[/i] was already a giant leap for Mankind. And so even though Starfleet would have been seriously restricted in range, they'd still send out ships. I'd compare the pre-ENT Starfleet to basically a coast guard-type outfit; they have ships enough to manage their domestic affairs within the Sol system and send out a few expeditions to the nearest stars, but nothing near enough to make them an interstellar power. (Which is basically what "Enterprise" is showing -- Humans becoming an interstellar power.) Consider that the NX-01 can reach Warp 4.5 quite easily; that's 91 times the speed of light. If the fastest earlier Earth ships could make at best Warp 3, then the NX-01 can still go THREE TIMES AS FAST as the next-fastest Earth ship. They're completely on their own, really. (Yes, that's a cliched assertion, but still true.) So that's why we don't even get a hint of any other nearby Earth ships. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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