Indeed. The modern United States has about 200 ambassadors or so right now; are we to believe that the Alpha and Beta Quadrant geopolitical (galactopolitical?) sphere is only about 60x the size of the planet Earth?
There might be 300 million habitable planets in the Milky Way; if we assume that even just a tenth of those are inhabited by a society eligible for contact under the Prime Directive (IRL this would probably be a massive overestimation, but in Trek I think it’s generally a decent estimate as I’d guess about a tenth of episodes involve contact with a new, never-before-seen alien), and that a tenth of those are in range of regular diplomacy with the Federation such that a standing ambassadorial appointment is necessary, and wildly overestimate that half of all those in range are members of the Federation, that still means that the Federation would need 1.5 million ambassadors solely for external affairs.
I think this meme is off by three orders of magnitude.
My first thought was ONLY 12,000?
Indeed. The modern United States has about 200 ambassadors or so right now; are we to believe that the Alpha and Beta Quadrant geopolitical (galactopolitical?) sphere is only about 60x the size of the planet Earth?
There might be 300 million habitable planets in the Milky Way; if we assume that even just a tenth of those are inhabited by a society eligible for contact under the Prime Directive (IRL this would probably be a massive overestimation, but in Trek I think it’s generally a decent estimate as I’d guess about a tenth of episodes involve contact with a new, never-before-seen alien), and that a tenth of those are in range of regular diplomacy with the Federation such that a standing ambassadorial appointment is necessary, and wildly overestimate that half of all those in range are members of the Federation, that still means that the Federation would need 1.5 million ambassadors solely for external affairs.
I think this meme is off by three orders of magnitude.