User blog comment:Tanooki1432/The Questions of the Age (Warning! May result in Nerd Rage!)/@comment-774818-20100819144202

@SpartHawg948 I'm going to have to disagree about the Enterprises going down to a Reaper (and perhaps subsequently the Federation, but I'll cover that further down)... I've alway interperted that Kinetic Barriers are designed to stop incoming solid objects which most of the ME unniverse weapons are: solid objects being propelled at high speeds. While these are effective against the mass accelerator weapons, it states in the Codex that they are entirely inept at blocking energy weapons like lasers, and phasers are energy weapons.

As for the Federation, I think the problem we face here is we have no idea just how large the Federation, Starfleet and the Reapers are (in terms of numbers). In TNG, it seems that Wolf 359 was counted as a devestating loss to Starfleet with 39 of 40 ships lost and the Galaxy Class is a one of a kind ship, while in DS9, Starfleet is capable of massing armadas hundreds of ships in size with "Galaxy Wings" in their fleets, yet by the time Voyager has returned to the Alpha Quadrent, Starfleet seems to be quite tiny. This of course might just be the difference between wartime and peacetime. Look at the US Navy today and the US Navy in World War II. While a Los Angeles class sub (the standard US Navy attack sub, compare to the Ohio class which carries ICBM nukes) could probably sink a Gato class sub with little to no problem, the US Navy was massive in World War II.