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In DITLs artical section Graham did a write up about the size of Starfleet. He showed that in the few times all available ships have been gathered in a matter of a few hours/days they get quite a few.

No doubt. However, as has been said, "space is big." I still can't imagine that there is a Starfleet vessel within hours of every populated system or trade route at all times.

But shown evidence would seem to point to there is being ships near anything of note.

Teaos wrote:But shown evidence would seem to point to there is being ships near anything of note.

What is the native language in New Zealand, anyway?

Yes, but "of note" is a very subjective term; and no matter how you take that, it still doesn't include having SF vessels within a few hours' travel of every single inhabited system and civilian travel route.

Maybe the just depend on system defense craft......like those drones on BoBW. Colinies are likey just screwed

Yep - system defense craft or (like I said - nudge, nudge) propietary vessels of the parent world.

By TNG do the member worlds have any individual military or defence ships?

No idea for the majority, but the Vulcans at least have their own classes - see TNG: "Unification."

I thought those were civillian ships.

All I know about them is that they were Vulcan - but not Starfleet - designs.

We can comfortably assume that not every Federation planet has a ship guarding it just because of the number of times we've seen planets attacked without mention of such ships.

For instance the Borg destroyed that colony world in Best of Both Worlds, no mention of a ship. In TOS parasites infested an entire major, heavily populated planet and Starfleet didn't know what happened until considerable time later. In fact think of every time the Enterprise has ever been sent anywhere as an emergency response; no ship there already. And we all know of all those occasions when even at Earth the Enteprise is the only ship around to handle a crisis.

But as noted earlier, even in peacetime Starfleet is able to gather significant forces quite quickly. In Redemption for instance a single Starbase had some 20+ ships on hand. Wolf 359 had 40 ships gathered in the space of perhaps a few days.

I'd say that in TNG colonies generally wouldn't expect to have ships on hand, but that they would expect ships to be available within the space of a few days or so. In TOS ships seemed rarer that that, and planets could go months or even years before a response came even to a distress call.

Perhaps major planets, such as Earth, have their own dedicated defence force, with smaller and less important colonies having to rely on a shared group of ships that patrols a certain region of space covering a dozen or colonies?

That would explain why no ships are mentioned when colonies are attacked, yet they're still able to muster a small fleet fairly quickly with some warning.

I'd say that it's mostly moot for most worlds, as the majority of UFP planets would be isolated from any hot spots. I could see keeping a presence near any politically or strategically important targets, with those culturally-specific types of PDF's or coast guards for anyone who wants to have their own little navy.

Rochey wrote:Perhaps major planets, such as Earth, have their own dedicated defence force, with smaller and less important colonies having to rely on a shared group of ships that patrols a certain region of space covering a dozen or colonies?

Sounds reasonable, and the force that showed up in Redemption would likewise make sense, given that the station in question was very close to the Romulan/Klingon border (and therefore presumably also very close to the neutral zone.