Star Trek

Why does everyone call the Terran Empire the Terran Federation? It screws the whole thing up, if you ask me.

You missed the point. Why is there even a Terran Federation As we saw in DS9, the Terran Empire self destructed long go.

My believe is that by calling it the Terran Federation, they mean to say this is not the Terran Empire we all know, but something similar. Makes sense if you think about it. Though a good idea at the time for DS9, destroying the Terran Empire ruined the continued posibilities we could get out of that. I personally got bored with Smiley O'Brian in no time.

I think the implication is that the Empire came back after the Terran Rebellion defeated the Alliance. And I agree, they shouldn't have killed off the Terran Empire for DS9. The Klingons and the Cardassians were the villains throughout all of DS9 in the Prime Universe, then the only real unique power we saw in the Mirror Universe got replaced with...more Klingons and Cardassians.

That may also be a decent explanation. I wasn't even aware of this Terran Federation till I last played on Sunday, and before that I hadn't logged on in at least 3 weeks.

In Deep Space 9, didn't the Humans have an alliance with the Klingons and Kardassians?  Maybe it developed into a loose federation.

The Klingons and the Cardassians had an alliance, but the Terrans were a slave caste. DS9 follows their fight for freedom and independance.

Apparently, they succeeded and reformed their Empire. My guess is that the Terrans needed to make a bunch of alliances to win the rebellion, and once they had won they had to solidify those alliances to keep from being reconquered by somebody else. Terrans are still the primary species, but the Empire is now less discriminatory.

Still, "Terran Federation" doesn't sound as ominous as "Terran Empire". I wish they'd change it.

No, the Humans were slaves to the Klingon and Cardassian alliance

Along with the Vulcans.

It also makes sense to the fact that the Terran Federation is the second coming of the Terran Empire. Maybe a little more peaceful but the humans are always referred to as Terrans.

I could explain it away by saying that the newly freed Terrans used Smiley O'Brain's Transporter trick to raid other universes and build their own forces, but that just emphasizes why I grew sick of DS9's use of the Mirror Universe.