Originally Posted by
Skroe
When the Borg returned a year after the Enterprise-E's activation (Star Trek First Contact), they fought in the Solar System in the Battle of Sector 001. The Borg faced a fleet largely composed of post-Borg contact ships (in reality, this is because ILM made new ships for the movie), but also faced some pre-Borg contact ships as well. These ships were either part of (just) pre-Dominion War Solar System defense fleet and/or were in various stages of construction / maintenance when the Borg arrived. There is at least 40-50 ships, and while around 20 were lost, they had a decisive victory this time, as with the arrival of the Enterprise E (hero ship ofc!), they managed to militarily destroy the Borg cube. This implied that the Federation's military build up since Wolf 359 had been overwhelmingly successful. But again, none of these ships had families, so losses were far lighter than Wolf 359. This Battle took place in the closing months of the Dominion-Federation Cold War. The Dominion War, the largest war in galactic history (by a lot) was on the horizon about 3 months later.
On the eve of the Dominion War, the fleet inside Federation space has probably quadrupled in size (or more) in the past few years as old ships were reactivated, new post-Borg ships were mass produced, and deep space ships were recalled for potential combat duty. In contrast to the 40-ship fleet at Wolf 359, Dominion War engagements see Federation fleets with 100-400 starships. Many of these are Excelsior class, Miranda class and post-Borg battlefleet classes. The "Combat-grade" final 6 Galaxy class also fight often in the war, in a dreadnought role. No ships at this point have any families. That is out of Starfleet policy, as their focus right now is on security, not exploration.
After two and a half brutal years of war, the Alpha Quadrant alliance wins the Dominon War, but Section 31st post-war projection turns out to be on point. The Klingon Empire took the worst of the war, and it will be a generation before they rebuild. The Federation took heavily losses, but (like the United States after World War II) ended the war with the largest most powerful and capable "military" it ever had... the clear superpower of its time. The Romulan Star Empire entered the war very late, and its losses were comparatively light. The post-Dominion War political situation sees a Federation that won the war, and ended strong, but also incurred severe damage and loss of enormous resources, competing against the Romulan Star Empire that is flush with new post-war ships (the Valdore-type) in anticipation of a new Federation-Romulan Cold War. The subsequent coup against the Romulan Senate by Shinzon of Remus, the success the Enterprise-E had in stopping the Reman attack on the Federation, and then, in 2387, the destruction of Romulus when the Hobus Star went Supernova, evidently ended the threat of new Federation-Romulan Cold War.
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So now there you have the "real world" and the "fictional" versions. Let's kind of put them together.
Aside from Rick Berman, Star Trek between around 1989 and 2006 went through a lot of hands. A lot of writers and a lot of producers. The original TNG staff all kind of quite in disgust for one reason or another, but the season 3-7 staff was kind of a Dream Team. The DS9 staff took half the dream team, and was allowed to do its own thing in syndicated TV land, while the flagship show on UPN, Voyager, took the other half, and brought new people in. Enterprise in the end, kind of was the Voyager production crew with some new people.
Star Trek never really had any "plan" because of how many hands its been through. The internal consistency was owed to long term production staffers, usually on the visual side, and Rick Berman (Executive Producer). But not really the writers, who didn't really carry over show to show. A lot of the "rationalizations" that are in the fictional version above is one such writer (arguably the best) filling in a the blanks between a lot of competing motivations and episodes and lines over 600 episodes of TV that never had any kind of "master plan" to it.
Case in point, Rodennberry's original ideas about the "world" of TNG - highly philosophical stuff - also would have made for bad TV. The enormous fleets of the Dominon War? Those were done by the visual artists contracted out to produce them, because the scripts imagined far smaller fleets. And they were only made possible because Deep Space Nine's last three seasons arrived EXACTLY when it became economical to do CG like that for television (compare to TNG season 4 space combat).
Families, much like the Hotel Lobby look of the Enterprise D bridge, was a Roddenberyism the production staff was stuck with, that they abandoned as soon as they could make their own shows set in the Starfleet Universe. One look at the Voyager bridge shows you exactly how staffers thought a "Star Trek" show could look better on TV visually. As soon as they could change it, they did.
There is so many aspects this is the case. Nobody ever really even loved the design of the Galaxy-class. It's an odd looking ship. Not to mention it's sheer volume is such that the show never really captured it (unlike the NX-01, where it felt like we've seen basically every room of it). As soon as the staff could go smaller and sleeker they did.
I do think Ron Moore's fictional history of "how families happened" is pretty great though. It's entirely consistent with TNGs portrayal of the 2360s Starfleet Admiralty too, which is to say, highly incompetent, terrible at everything, and regularly caught with their pants down. There is a kind of a real world analog, (though in subsequent years) with how defense professionals and experts convinced themselves and our elected leaders after 9/11 that US security needs henceforth would be "counter-terrorism" and things of that nature, and there wouldn't be a need anymore for Cold War style forces. And now where we are, 18 years later, and we can't build ships, missiles and warplanes fast enough, due to the threat of Chinese expansionism. The more accurate historical analog, one Ron Moore probably was referencing (he's a history buff) was how US disarmament after World War II was rapidly reversed when the threat of the Soviet Union became more manifest, but it took years to reverse.
In short, I think the issue of families on the Enterprise, is a fascinating way to look at the disorganized, but strangely cohesive in the end, the Rick Berman era of Star Trek came to be, and also a fascinating way to look at the Federation and Starfleet's fictional history.