Mike DiCenso wrote:
The Federation also has time travel, though of a more limited capability then the Daleks and Time Lords of the Doctor Who universe.
Narsil wrote:
A few hundred years in either direction for the Federation. The Daleks and Time Lords can go from one end of time to the other without so much as a drain on the fuel tanks.
Fuel has never really been stated to be a concern for 23rd and 24th century time travel, either, though time travel techniques can have a detrimental effect on things like the low-quality dilithium crystals used in Klingon ships of the 23rd century [ST4:TVH].
In theory, there's no special reason why a Federation starship of the 23 or 24th century could not travel back or forth to any time period as they please, other than maybe the Temporal Prime Directive.
Other special considerations would include the use of artifacts such as the Guardian of Forever, and the Orb of Time.
Also, the 29th and 31st century Federation have (will have?) very sophisticated time ships, which have the ability to transport anyone or anything anywhere and when in the Galaxy.
They haven't gone more than a few thousand years in either direction if I remember correctly, but the Daleks and Time Lords have battled across millions upon millions of years in the same sort of fight. It's a bigger fish entirely.
No one from either the 29th or 31st centuries ever stated their full capabilities. We might guess at it from the timeline seen correcting itself in ST:ENT's "Stormfront, Part II", which indicates at
least thousands of years of Earth's history. But the really impressive abilities are the demonstated capability to literally transport anywhere and when with what appears to be no more than a transporter in addition to timeships.
So the Daleks being a major time travel-based power might attract the attentions of those time frames of the Federation, as well as the other Temporal Cold War factions. Things could get very messy as a result.
It's quite possible, but the Daleks did beat down several other time-travel capable organisations on its way up the ladder. The Sontarans, Rutans and Autons all showed some impressive time travel capabilities; the Daleks on the other hand were a match for an organisation that rewrote the laws of physics on a whim.
Er, the Rutans and the Sontarans were at war with each other for millions of years apparently, so I don't know if that is a good example of their true capabilties.
As for those factions being "beat down", are you sure you're not mistaking the Constructors of Destiny (The Mad Mind, in particular) for the Daleks in the Millenium War?
The Galactic Empire, for all that Wars fans like to wank it ship number and power-wise, has a distinct lack of temporal travel capability, which puts them at a significant disadvantage here.
They do have it. By standing in one place for two seconds, they've travelled two seconds forwards in time. :P But that's just a joke, really; they have no real temporal capacity unless you just remove the temporal limiters on their ships which turn hyperdrives into time machines due to the ICS being allowed in this debate.
As the rest of the EU, never mind the movies and their novelizations never really mention the possibility of time travel, then it has to be excluded. This does not mean, however, that the GE couldn't learn to make use of the 24th century Federation time travel techniques.
If that is not enough, then certainly other much greater powers in the Milky Way won't care much for the Daleks showing up on their turf. The Voth and Borg among them. So if this conflict flares out into a true galactic conflict, things most definitely will get messy.
-Mike
The Voth and Borg are nothing compared to the Daleks. The Daleks have canonically conquered an entire galactic cluster, destroyed a whole galaxy and done lots of non-temporal damaging stuff that makes them a force to be reckoned with. Hell, the Dalek ships have primary weapons that can destroy planets with single shots. (Dalek Empire, War of the Daleks.)
The Voth have shown some fairly impressive capabilities, such as being able to use a transporter on such a large scale that it can be considered a weapon in it's own right, and their soldiers use personal phase-cloaks that largely render them immune to direct attacks and observation. That is a capability that neither the Borg, nor the Daleks possess.
Also, the Daleks are not without their weaknesses, which was amply demonstrated during their long stalemate with the Movellans, and the Movellans were able to create a virus that could penetrate the Dalek casings (at least those particular models of Dalek), and kill significant numbers of them in the process.
It'll be messy, but it's heavily stacked in favour of the Daleks due to their very nature.
The Dalek's "nature", is not as completely wanked out as you make it out to be. The only war where the Daleks even seems to be that powerful is the as yet unseen war between them and the Time Lords.
-Mike