Starfleet Design Bureau

[Raw90]

I helpfully highlighted and underlined your putting words in my mouth, since you felt the need to flanderize what I said to fit your argument.

My argument was the Starfleets actual factual budget is SET BY THE FEDERATION COUNCIL, of whom currently all or near all member are from the core Federation members who, living in the core systems of the Federation, never see any of the shit happening on the frontier unless they explicitly go looking for it. Nothing about "hard choices, like building warships, instead of "bread and circuses" for the core worlds" I specifically said STARSHIPS in general, please take the time to read before altering what was said.

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You quite explicitly used the phrase "bread and circuses", and that "core world elected officials" who "have not known hardship" are making our budget decisions. Frankly, your ultimate point here, that the Council just can't make the tough choices to do military spending instead of "bread and circuses", remains the same, whether you used the word warship or not. I am not going to pretend that I don't understand the thrust of talking about how weak elected officials from the core only care about bread and circuses for themselves. As you did not, in fact, use the term warship, I will withdraw that word in relation to your post, however.

Edit:

That was a joke vote.

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It was a joke vote that immediately accrued a bunch of sympathy and a fair amount of couched support along the lines of "no, but clearly we have to strong arm the council".

 

[gamer50018]

Ugh. I finally get unbanned, and it's for this.

I agree with @CuriousRaptor and everyone else who's pissed at how insanely incompetent the Federation is and their apparently ontological inability to comprehend the idea that having a military is a good idea. I don't care enough at the moment to really want to try and debate the matter and get accused of being a fascist in "oh you know what you rEaLlY mEaNt" like the posts above, sorry.

 

[Lohjak]

Who the hell is advocating for a coup?!?? And one of the problems I have is Like by the the navy leadership either didn't stop the colonizing over expansion even when they knew they couldn't protect much of it if a war actually happened, or they somehow believed they could protect it with so few ships.

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But like
That's just how war works?

Unless you have a starbase at each system you're never going to be able to defend each one. You have fleets of ships, and hopefully your enemy can be convinced that those will be enough to make any conquest temporary. In this case, the Klingons thought that they could take our shit and keep it, and apparently they were wrong. Starfleet's response was also dulled by the fact that they weren't actually prepared to go to war with the Klingon empire, and evidently once they get their shit together the Klingons can't just roll over us.

It's reasonable to say that Starfleet wasn't really set up to protect a bunch of fringe colonies, but then why would they be? A more reasonable criticism is that they lost Arcadia, but the Klingons lost twenty ships taking that world and it wasn't even an especially important one.

I helpfully highlighted and underlined your putting words in my mouth, since you felt the need to flanderize what I said to fit your argument.

My argument was the Starfleets actual factual budget is SET BY THE FEDERATION COUNCIL, of whom currently all or near all member are from the core Federation members who, living in the core systems of the Federation, never see any of the shit happening on the frontier unless they explicitly go looking for it. Nothing about "hard choices, like building warships, instead of "bread and circuses" for the core worlds" I specifically said STARSHIPS in general, please take the time to read before altering what was said.

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Okay, but where do you think the budget for ships comes from? Should the council allocate more funds to build a war fleet that can challenge the Klingon Empire, which was not a realistic threat to the Federation until the 2230's, or should they spend those resources to improve the lives of those poor frontier worlds?

It's not as if they neglected our military capabilities. Our ships were by and large enough to defeat birds of prey, and while they were outclassed by the D6 the Klingons were hardly going to send a bunch of D6 to attack us for no reason. In 2225, the same year that the second interregnum began, they ordered the Exalibur from the design bureaus, and that was the first sign that anybody had that maybe we'd have to start worrying about the Klingons more seriously.

My complaint is pretty simple, we keep getting increase obligations and responsibilities due to the actions of the Federation gov, without corresponding increased budget and infrastructure to actually service said responsibilities and obligations. Instead we have an multiplicatively expanding area of responsibility with mostly linear growth in ability to do so.

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???
Pharos? Newton? Archer? These guys can't stop ordering more engineering cruisers. Like, what, do you think that an Excalibur and a Cygnus cost the same to build or something?

Starfleet straight-up defeats the Klingon empire. We already know that they do not achieve any strategic goals, the ruling house probably loses power, and they lose huge amounts of materiel. Like, what, do you want Starfleet to be a peer power to the Klingon military? How would that even work? They're a significantly older and more advanced power. Our economic strength and the ability to pump out ships that make up for inferior technology with raw mass is the only reason we win this.

 

[Manowl]

You quite explicitly used the phrase "bread and circuses", and that "core world elected officials" who "have not known hardship" are making our budget decisions. Frankly, your ultimate point here, that the Council just can't make the tough choices to do military spending instead of "bread and circuses", remains the same, whether you used the word warship or not. I am not going to pretend that I don't understand the thrust of talking about how weak elected officials from the core only care about bread and circuses for themselves. As you did not, in fact, use the term warship, I will withdraw that word in relation to your post, however.

Edit:

It was a joke vote that immediately accrued a bunch of sympathy and a fair amount of couched support along the lines of "no, but clearly we have to strong arm the council".

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I don't remember seeing anything about strong arming anyone.

 

[KleverKil'Vanya]

You quite explicitly used the phrase "bread and circuses", and that "core world elected officials" who "have not known hardship" are making our budget decisions. Frankly, your ultimate point here, that the Council just can't make the tough choices to do military spending instead of "bread and circuses", remains the same, whether you used the word warship or not. I am not going to pretend that I don't understand the thrust of talking about how weak elected officials from the core only care about bread and circuses for themselves. As you did not, in fact, use the term warship, I will withdraw that word in relation to your post, however.

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Flamebaiting is against the rules, want me to link them?

Anyway ignoring the guy trying to argue that wanting more ships is equivalent to being a "hard man, making hard decisions, while hard"
Can we all atleast agree that current policy of "To Late, To Few" isn't a great idea for valid reasons?

 

[uju32]

Like it's spelled right out in the update.

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Point of order:
That citation says the number of D7s available, not the number of D7s produced. D7s assigned to border patrol or core protection would not be available for offensive operations.

Given as the Klingon Empire explicitly have other hostile nations like the Tholians on their borders in addition to subjugated worlds to control, its not likely the Great Houses stripped their core territories and borders of starships. Not to mention that their known logistical issues would have affected their ability to support more warships outside their territory.

So even that massive Klingon task force cannot represent the totality of D7s built.
A majority, sure, but not likely a vast one.

THE KLINGONS ARE NOT PEER OPPONENTS. The Klingons are overwhelmingly superior opponents. We are the scrappy underdogs here and we would be even with a reasonable defense budget because the Empire is just THAT MUCH older, better, and BIGGER than us.

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Can I get a citation for this? Because thats not at all the impression we got.
The Klingon Empire have limited areas of superiority, explicitly weapons and power generation, but we have rough parity.
Their warp tech is no better than ours, and might actually be worse than our state of the art.

The D6 is apparently an entirely domestic design, but the D7 was explicitly a Klingon collaboration with Romulan ship designers, and we did beat the Romulans sufficiently to force them to terms, while establishing that their technological base wasnt much better than our own.

Certainly, pre-war Starfleet has not been behaving as if they had a technologically superior hostile state on their border.
It hasnt been spending that way, it hasnt been deploying forces that way.
It hasnt been disciplining people that way either; the episode with Captain Paulson's command does not suggest that they think the forces at Arcadia were facing a force that was both numerically and technologically superior.

I mean...

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I know humor doesnt always translate well over the Internet, but as far as I can tell thats pretty obviously a joke vote.
Like when people vote for Ice cream machines during build votes.

 

[Sayle]

There's an element of truth to the accusation that Starfleet was grotesquely unprepared for an all-out conflict with the Klingons. It's also true if you know there's going to be a war soon you change your procurement priorities. But the drive behind the Excalibur was much the same as the logic that if someone is building a battleship with 16" guns you better have something capable of fighting it or they might get Ideas.

But Starfleet's planning was based around the idea that the Klingon Empire was the Holy Roman Empire of space and therefore permanently involved in fractious internal politics, and also that in the event a central political power happened that it would at least operate rationally. Starfleet can read a map: the Federation is too big, the prizes on the border or within range too small, and by their calculations they could make themselves far more trouble than they were worth.

Unfortunately, Karhammur's decisionmaking was completely rational, except it was driven by internal politics rather than the metric of a 'beneficial' war. The Klingon penchant for irrationality on that front is perfectly demonstrated by the Klingon-Federation War instigated by Gowron.

The war planning for Starfleet isn't irrational. For them the war had entered a 'trade territory for time' phase since day one, and they were very happy with the result of the Pharos battles where they stalled out the Klingon war machine. There's a new build of Excaliburs on the way with superior strategic and tactical maneuverability. The rest of the fleet is retrofit with harder-hitting weapons or being recovered and repaired. The places the Klingons were going to attack if they weren't literally going for a do-or-die attack for apparently No Reason were becoming so heavily fortified that they were going to be Arcadia all over again.

As for this idea that if Starfleet just had more budget? It's not about budget. You can't just dig up some iron and coal for your steel manufacturing. It's all about strategic resources. The SDB Federation has greater resource-flows than the OTL Federation, so can build more ships. Duranium, tritanium, dilithium, parsteel, all these things are limited by extractive industry and natural supply, not money.

 

[Lohjak]

Flamebaiting is against the rules, want me to link them?

Anyway ignoring the guy trying to argue that wanting more ships is equivalent to being a "hard man, making hard decisions, while hard"
Can we all atleast agree that current policy of "To Late, To Few" isn't a great idea for valid reasons?

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But that's not the policy?

They ordered the Excalibur class as soon as the technology was available to build a "next gen" warship, and they explicitly wanted it designed to be as producible as practical while maintaining tactical capability. They also ordered thirty fucking newtons, a full twenty percent of all ships that Starfleet operated in 2240. In fact, of the 150 starships operated by Starfleet at the onset of the war, 68 were built in the prior 15 years, and 34 were refit in that time. There was pretty clearly a significant effort to expand and modernize Starfleet after the failed Klingon invasion of the Tholian Assembly, and seeing as how Starfleet defeated a Klingon invasion, it apparently worked.

Can I get a citation for this? Because thats not at all the impression we got.
The Klingon Empire have limited areas of superiority, explicitly weapons and power generation, but we have rough parity.
Their warp tech is no better than ours, and might actually be worse than our state of the art.

The D6 is apparently an entirely domestic design, but the D7 was explicitly a Klingon collaboration with Romulan ship designers, and we did beat the Romulans sufficiently to force them to terms, while establishing that their technological base wasnt much better than our own.

Certainly, Starfleet has not been behaving as if they had a technologically superior hostile state on their border.

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As stated in the last couple updates, the Klingon empire was not expected to attack the Federation until very recently due to a variety of mostly political factors. The QM has said that the Klingons have "nakedly superior" weapons and shields, and our ships are only competitive statwise because they're comparatively massive. Tonnage wise, iirc, an Excalibur is over twice the tonnage of a D7. Were the Klingons to build a 200,000 ton warship, it'd likely overmatch Excaliburs the way Excaliburs overmatch D6.

And I mean, the military force they can send out to invade a distant neighbor is equivalent to our entire military in terms of numbers, and probably has more firepower to boot. We're a near-peer at best, in the modern day sense.

 

[Silvis]

The SDB Federation has greater resource-flows than the OTL Federation

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I'm curious. Why is that?

 

[Captainwolf]

I'm curious. Why is that?

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It expanded faster/has more colonies.

 

[NSMS]

I'm curious. Why is that?

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We designed a bunch of economy-boosting ships, basically.

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

I will say it does feel weird that Starfleet isn't going to be ordering any more than the noted 14 Callies, what with the massive hull casualties we've been taking. I suppose they could continue plugging the gaps with Newtons, but that feels like poor decision-making when Newtons are verging on tactically obsolete and this war isn't going to neatly button up all the reasons we need fighters for. Like, sure we need raw coverage, but it would be nice if the ships we send out (and the extremely mortal crews aboard them) are less likely to get creamed by a modern peer opponent.

 

[Chronic]

That's not entirely fair or true though, while we have made sub-optimal combat designs for a while, the Klingons have straight up better military technology, and the ships they're sending are modern warships. Didn't Sayle say they have ~6x our industrial power? So their modern warships are going up against a mix of our modern warships and various flavours of utility ships or outright antiques (I'm once again looking at you, Cygnus-class).

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If the Klingons actually have six times the Federations industrial power it would be a miracle if the Federation survives this war. Those are Japan vs USA before WW2 numbers; with us in the role of Japan. Only the political fracture of the Klingons would save the Federation from conquest.

 

[MightbeaMimic]

I will say it does feel weird that Starfleet isn't going to be ordering any more than the noted 14 Callies, what with the massive hull casualties we've been taking. I suppose they could continue plugging the gaps with Newtons, but that feels like poor decision-making when Newtons are verging on tactically obsolete and this war isn't going to neatly button up all the reasons we need fighters for. Like, sure we need raw coverage, but it would be nice if the ships we send out (and the extremely mortal crews aboard them) are less likely to get creamed by a modern peer opponent.

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Agreed. Hopefully the lack of additional Excaliburs is an indication that Starfleet orders a design of generalist/tactical or patrol cruisers post war, potentially with the new nacelles and then orders a shitload of them instead (which would probably be better than just more Excaliburs)

 

[Godwinson]

If the Klingons actually have six times the Federations industrial power it would be a miracle if the Federation survives this war. Those are Japan vs USA before WW2 numbers; with us in the role of Japan. Only the political fracture of the Klingons would save the Federation from conquest.

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That's with the effect of the loot they're pouring into their industry, which isn't a permanent improvement, instead being from their stockpiled resources from previous raids and conquests.

 

[uju32]

As for this idea that if Starfleet just had more budget? It's not about budget. You can't just dig up some iron and coal for your steel manufacturing. It's all about strategic resources. The SDB Federation has greater resource-flows than the OTL Federation, so can build more ships. Duranium, tritanium, dilithium, parsteel, all these things are limited by extractive industry and natural supply, not money.

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Thank you for the clarifications. They have been illuminative.

Given as you do need a minimum cost in strategic materials to build an effective starship/warship, the marginal cost of designing a larger hull to squeeze in additional capabilities and weapons economically pushes Starfleet towards larger, multipurpose vessels as opposed to smaller specialists, whether its tactical or economic.

It does also underline the importance of science ship capabilities with regards to finding exploitable deposits of strategic materials.

---

As stated in the last couple updates, the Klingon empire was not expected to attack the Federation until very recently due to a variety of mostly political factors. The QM has said that the Klingons have "nakedly superior" weapons and shields, and our ships are only competitive statwise because they're comparatively massive. Tonnage wise, iirc, an Excalibur is over twice the tonnage of a D7. Were the Klingons to build a 200,000 ton warship, it'd likely overmatch Excaliburs the way Excaliburs overmatch D6.

And I mean, the military force they can send out to invade a distant neighbor is equivalent to our entire military in terms of numbers, and probably has more firepower to boot. We're a near-peer at best, in the modern day sense.

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I have done a quick search, and the QM has used the phrase "nakedly superior" four times, none of them in relationship to describing the Klingon techbase with regards to the Federation.
All I can find is this:

Into this time of instability came the Romulan Star Empire, who as the conflict entered its sixth year saw an opportunity to intervene in the fractious state of Klingon politics to place a candidate into power that was amenable to deeper relations with Romulus. Several shipwrights and tactical advisors were dispatched to the House of Duras and the intelligence network of the Tal Shiar allowed their leader Karhammur to consolidate a decisive advantage. The competition was eventually reduced to only the House of Mogh and House of Duras, with both forces evenly matched.

Then in 2232 construction began on the D7 battlecruiser, a ship that combined Romulan experience with their heavyweight warbirds and more advanced Klingon weapon and power-generation technology. The result was a vessel that combined a powerful plasma torpedo system with a pair of wing-mounted disruptors that were able to carve through the existing D6 and Birds-of-Prey used by Duras' opposition. By sharing the design with aligned houses Karhammur was successful not only in his attempt to be acclaimed Chancellor by much of the Empire but also forged a powerful bloc of Great Houses that supported his policies.

With authority restored the Klingon Empire entered a period of renewed shipbuilding, with the D7 being constructed in the dozens to make up the bulk of House Fleets by mass in 2240. Karhammur was faced with a choice of targets at which to direct the revitalised might of the Great Houses. Compared with the enigmatic Breen, the isolationist Tholians, or the now friendly Romulans? The Federation was ripe for conquest. Instead of a slowly growing power that could potentially match the full might of the Klingon Empire, Karhammur accurately saw a Federation that was overstretched and understrength.

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You have no information about what shape a new Klingon warship will be like. However the D6 uses twin disruptor beams on par with the new Mark II Phaser as of two decades ago, along with a bow disruptor cannon. Defenses strong enough to hold off a Sagarmatha while burning through its shields with superior weapons. Advancements could be more powerful beam weapons or added torpedo systems, as well as stronger shields and armor.

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Better weapons, better power generation.
Defenses that are at least peer-equivalent. That appears to be where the Klingons have an advantage.

The assertions of general Klingon technological superiority appear to be unfounded.
And the theories of additional D7s back in Klingon territory appear to have textual backing.

Agreed. Hopefully the lack of additional Excaliburs is an indication that Starfleet orders a design of generalist/tactical or patrol cruisers post war, potentially with the new nacelles and then orders a shitload of them instead (which would probably be better than just more Excaliburs)

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We were given the opportunity to modify the later stages of Project Darwin to address this issue with the Arboretum vote.
The majority of people voted specifically to leave it unaddressed. Trees were considered a higher priority than a cargo capacity, despite it being obvious to everyone that Starfleet was going to need a new Warp 8 light cruiser design to mass produce post-war.

So when we talk about ideological purity being an issue with Starfleet?
We, the voter base, are part of that problem. Deliberately so.
Its faithful roleplaying, at least

That's with the effect of the loot they're pouring into their industry, which isn't a permanent improvement, instead being from their stockpiled resources from previous raids and conquests.

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There is, as far as I can tell, no indication this is true.
In fact, Starfleet Intelligence reporting when we began designing the Excalibur indicates the opposite; I quote:

Enter the Heavy Cruiser Project. This is a cooperative project with San Francisco, with your teams liaising with each other to increase pace and reduce delivery time. Starfleet has issued a challenging brief for Project Constitution, a heavyweight cruiser capable of going toe-to-toe with the threats of the modern era. The Klingon D6 has long been an awkward measuring stick to match ships like the Newton or Kea against, and with signs of increased resource flows to the Klingon interior there are concerns that there has either been a major uptick in production of an already tactically problematic design or even a new and more dangerous vessel.

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Im afraid that the Klingon buildup wasnt from some stockpile of resources that were expended and have to be rebuilt, but from their ongoing, active resource flows.

 

[Lohjak]

Agreed. Hopefully the lack of additional Excaliburs is an indication that Starfleet orders a design of generalist/tactical or patrol cruisers post war, potentially with the new nacelles and then orders a shitload of them instead (which would probably be better than just more Excaliburs)

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Seeing as how Starfleet still operates 22 Cygnus despite also having 30 Newtons and 22 Archers, they're probably going to want a current-gen engineering cruiser sooner rather than later.

The majority of people voted specifically to leave it unaddressed. Trees were considered a higher priority than a cargo capacity, despite it being obvious to everyone that Starfleet was going to need a new Warp 8 light cruiser design to mass produce post-war.

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From a practical standpoint, dedicating more production to a biosciences ship with a cargo bay is just worse than building a proper engineering ship, preferably with new nacelles. A biosciences ship isn't going to help us rebuild after the war. Specializing the ship that the design brief specifically said should be specialized is not an issue.

I have done a quick search, and the QM has used the phrase "nakedly superior" four times, none of them in relationship to describing the Klingon techbase with regards to the Federation.

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Apparently the actual quote is "nakedly better", but the point remains:

Really though, the D7 isn't a heavy ship. I'd be surprised if it breaks 100kt. It's just Klingon weapon and shield tech is nakedly better than yours.

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[Godwinson]

There is, as far as I can tell, no indication this is true.

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A post on the subject of the Klingon economy:

As for the Klingon shipbuilding capacity it should be mentioned that the Klingon economy isn't exactly smooth in the way of a free-movement-of-goods-and-capital model. You can't just buy a lot of the things you need from somewhere else - it essentially runs on pure protectionism and ahem... alternative income sources for each individual House. Loot then burn, and so forth.

Such a system is very capable of piling up a big pile of non-perishable loot over a prolonged period of time and then spending it very quickly. If the the Moon blew up tomorrow and ecologically devastated Earth the Federation would probably have an economic slump for a decade and some major relocation projects. When Praxis blows in the 2290s, the Klingon economy disintegrates. They go from being a peer threat to the Federation to gasping for Federation-senpai to give them foreign aid.

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[Shard]

I mean, I would have preffered another module with more science on the Darwin as opposed to aft torpedoes..

 

[uju32]

From a practical standpoint, dedicating more production to a biosciences ship with a cargo bay is just worse than building a proper engineering ship, preferably with new nacelles. A biosciences ship isn't going to help us rebuild after the war. Specializing the ship that the design brief specifically said should be specialized is not an issue.

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Disagree strongly.

Its a Warp 8 ship. Only the second Warp 8 design that we have, and one thats pretty respectably armed at that.
The Federation will need Warp 8 ships ASAP in the war's aftermath. The geopolitical situation that existed at the beginning of the ship design process has changed radically, and we were given opportunities to address that.

The only concession we had to make in the design was to include the Cargo Bay, and it would have had a respectable ability to pinch hit as a utility cruiser to help accelerate the Federation's post-war recovery.


Its worth remembering that new ship designs do not materialize instantly. Cooking up a new Warp 8 design for, say, an engineering ship will take most of a decade to do. For reference, it took 8 years, 2226 to 2234, to design the Excalibur, and 2 years to build the first tranche. It took 8 years, 2216 to 2224, to design the Archer, and the first ships went into service in 2225.

The Federation cannot afford to wait that long for new Warp 8 ships after the war.

We knew this. The QM gave us the information, and even hinted that we might want to alter some choices.
But we wanted to build a pure biosciences cruiser and have chosen to ignore anything that distracted us from that goal.
Even if the house was literally on fire.


Like I said, ideological purity is as much an issue with the voter base OOC as it is with Starfleet IC.
Which is at least faithful roleplaying, but it does make it for an awkward look when we complain about the Admiralty.

Apparently the actual quote is "nakedly better", but the point remains:

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Thank you for the citation.
As it is, it points not at general Klingon superiority. Just better weapons and defenses.
So its an edge, but we're not looking at the Borg as neighbors.

A post on the subject of the Klingon economy:

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Thank you for the citation.
I dont know if thats what is happening here, especially with the explicit Starfleet intelligence dump that appears to say otherwise, but its something to keep in mind.

I mean, I would have preffered another module with more science on the Darwin as opposed to aft torpedoes..

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Current events have made it pretty clear that those elements are, or should be, non-negotiable.
Military capability is not an optional feature, and the relative paucity of strategic materials suggests a need to design in a pretty robust combat capability because it will invariably be sent into harms way.

If we want additional modules, spec for a bigger design from the beginning.

 

[Godwinson]

I dont know if thats what is happening here, especially with the explicit Starfleet intelligence dump that appears to say otherwise, but its something to keep in mind.

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That intelligence quote very easily reads as the process of the Klingon Empire mobilizing its caches of loot to expend them for industrial efforts.

 

[uju32]

That intelligence quote very easily reads as the process of the Klingon Empire mobilizing its caches of loot to expend them for industrial efforts.

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I....dont think so?

Given how the political structure of the Great Houses is decentralized, their shipbuilding capacity and their caches would be decentralized as well. We wouldnt have seen any such mobilization of strategic materials because they would be already next to the House shipyards, in the heart of House territories.

Not to say that the Klingons did not draw on any strategic reserves they may have, mind.
But I dont think thats what Starfleet Intelligence was detecting in that quote.

 

[Candesce]

I have literally no idea where this comes from either-

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I assume it comes from this line, which is describing the Federation pre-war:

Pharos and K-series stations supported Starfleet deployments even within the borders, acting as required refuelling and resupply stops for a fleet that was too slow and too thinly spread to truly control the vast area that was now occupied by dozens of small settlements. Not for nothing was the 23rd century considered the Golden Age of Orion Piracy, where criminal extortion was common and sometimes the orbits were contested not by criminals and Starfleet but criminals and other criminals.

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But calling this (certainly not a good situation) slavery is a hyperbolic overstatement.

Parsing this, what occasionally happens is two different pirates show up at the same colony and fight for the privilege of looting it, but it's not implied this is more common than the Federation showing up in defense.

 

[Sayle]

That intelligence quote very easily reads as the process of the Klingon Empire mobilizing its caches of loot to expend them for industrial efforts.

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They were picking up the period of increased building related to Karhammur's ascendance. OOC it's because I hadn't sat down and figured out the metrics/nature of Klingon economy and shipbuilding capacity yet. It sufficed as a warning that there was a buildup, that's all.

 

[Sayle]

I assume it comes from this line, which is describing the Federation pre-war:

But calling this (certainly not a good situation) slavery is a hyperbolic overstatement.

Parsing this, what occasionally happens is two different pirates show up at the same colony and fight for the privilege of looting it, but it's not implied this is more common than the Federation showing up in defense.

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We don't really have experience in the modern world of extra-territorial criminality like the Orion Syndicate. Everybody short of rebellion on Earth had a lockdown on the use of military force. If TOS is the Age of Sail, then the Orion Syndicate are the Barbary Pirate States. It's difficult to overstate their terror on Spain and the southern Mediterranean. They even raided England and Iceland for slaves - quite a way to go from North Africa. Absent an actual counter-force present, nobody local is stopping them.