posted
Maybe the shuttles weren't aboard. The bays could've been used to store extra supplies, weapons for instance. The shot that took out the Defiant was even aimed at the shuttlebay.
posted
1 - The escape pods are probably flight-ready (especially during a red alert) - just climb in, close the door and punch a button. A shuttle has to be pre-flighted, the hangar doors have to be opened - that could take up to 5 minutes - time a soon-to-detonate ship doesn't have.
2 - As soon as the destruction of the Chaffee was reported, another fresh-off-the-line shuttle was probably given its name. Tradition.
3 - What secret project? Everyone knows what I'm up to.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
According to the DS9TM, the nose is a detachable unit with a command center and a small impulse engine. It contains the navigational deflector for the ship and well as a huge photon warhead.
Now... I don't necessarily mind this idea. If I was building a ship that was going to be seeking out and destroying Borg... I'd want a sure fire way to destroy the ship if my butt was about to be assimilated.
My guess is, in First Contact, when Worf ordered Conn to prepare for ramming speed... this is what he had in mind. The ship was probably built to be the best weapon it could be in a situation where the only thing left to do was ram the Borg.
posted
Yeah but don't you get relativistic effects by doing that?? Forgotten my year 12 physics - but your time slows down and theirs speeds up? Relatively.
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posted
It's not canon, but Nog (smart little monkey) used th warhead to scrag a Jem Hadar attack ship in one of the recent books. ...although, I guess everyone ouuld have had to be beamed off the Defiant as the docking port is in the warhead....
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
The hatch between the main part of the ship and the warhead probably serves as the gangway hatch in case the warhead was separated. I'd also put in a secondary deflector in the area is well.
But I'd always thought that putting the main hatch in the nose was stupid. It's not visible on any model and if it were, where would you put it. The whole front is dedicated to the main deflector and the torpedo/probe launcher/phaser bank. You could place it a little further up in the nose under some protective hull plating, but it wouldn't work with how they dock the Defiant to DS9, because that area would still be exposed to space.
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Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I know it doesn't quite mesh with where it looks like the ship docks at DS9, but the Defiant's deck 3 floorplan indicates there are two gangways side by side. They'd be partially beneath the sandy colored details on the nose of the Defiant just above the registry. They'd have to slide open at an angle the same way the hallway between the Galaxy Class saucer and stardrive sections.
It doesn't really matter that the Defaint has the retracting doors as detail on the outer hull...after all, look at the shot of the escape pods hatches opening to either side of the nose in "Valiant"...the hatches don't correspond to actual hull details from the outside.
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