Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Phasers on the Olympic Class?

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :

I just found this image of the Olympic model, and noticed two features on the spherical hull that look suspiciously like phaser strips. Does anyone else have more info on this?
http://titan.spaceports.com/~nzcabac/Federation/StarFleet/Olympic04.htm

I'd always figured that the ships were unarmed since they're medical ships.

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Posted by Shipbuilder (Member # 69) on :

Wasn't there some mention of phasers on the Pasteur in AGT? When the ship was attacked I thought I remembered something about "no phaser power" etc.

They certainly are the same gray concrete color as all the other known phaser strips on Starfleet ships. Maybe they claim to use them as anti-debris systems

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least rudimentary phasers on every Starfleet vessel.

They look like hull lines to me though. You're talking about the ones that go all the way around the sphere right? One close to the top and one close to the bottom?

The blue thingy is the navigational deflector.

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :

Right, that's what I'm talking about. There are two dark grey strips that look suspiciously like the Galaxy-class phaser arrays.

But medical ships aren't supposed to be armed (at least, not in this era).

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Different era

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Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :

Certainly a wolf in sheepsclothing, sneakily armed with type XII phaser arrays

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Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

And who says all Olympics are medical ships? I don't think the Nobel was, was it?

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Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :

Today's med ships are not armed, but then nobody can claim that they don't know what they are, all (or at least most) countries agree to respect each other's medical facilities, including ships. Now it doesn't always work out that way (hospital ships were targeted and sunk in WWII for instance).

However, in Trek times those new aliens you just met aren't likely to know what a red cross means. Also pirates (or whatever) might like to get their hands on the medical equipment and drugs, etc.

You'd either need to arm them or always escort them, cheaper to arm them. So, maybe just enough phasers to let them run away?

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TK

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

"These weapons are no match for their shields."
-Governor Worf, AGT...

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well how'd you like that?
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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :

Aha! So they DO have a few weapons...

Those are probably just little phasers, maybe Type-8 or -7 or something, not the big ass-kickers that the Galaxy carries.

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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Well not necessarily.
Not even Voyager's phasers would stand much of a chance against a Voodieh(Negh'Var) class battlecruiser. Remember, only the Defiant, with her superpowered phasers, managed to get a Negh'Var on her knees, and that was after, like, 20 volleys...

I think the Olympic class could stand her own, like a Miranda.

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Posted by BRUTUS on :

A good medical ship would need phasers for space baby cesarian sections.

Remember that TNG episode.

Besides, all Federation craft need defensive capabilities...I've never questioned that before in ST...I don't think present day ships should be pointed at to cite mistakes or oversights on ST ships. Some things have just been established differently between the two.

[This message has been edited by BRUTUS (edited March 24, 2001).]

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

The mirror Negh'Var that faced the Defiant was hardly typical, given that it was about twice as big as they are typically represented.

The real tactical capability of the class strikes me as a bit unclear. I mean, in the future they couldn't be such hot shit if the E-D refit could kick their ass so effortlessly. Was the E-D refit even the best Starfleet had in that future, given the fact it was bound for the decommisioner's yard no too long before?

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"Ring a bell, and I'll salivate...
well how'd you like that?
Dr. Landy, please tell me
I'm not just a pedagogue..."
-Brian Wilson, The Barenaked Ladies

[This message has been edited by The_Tom (edited March 24, 2001).]

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Of course, the Neg'hvar in AGT had their attentions focused on the Pasteur, so the Enterprise's attack probably took them by complete surprise. You have to wonder if the Klingons had all their shields up, or just the ones that would sustain an attack by the Pasteur, aka:

Klingon Commander: Raise foreward shields. We won't need the others.

Also, if the Enterprise was somehow able to channel more energy to the phasers -- ?

But, I'd also that the future Enterprise was much more powerful than the one we saw in The Next Generation. Makes sense, right? You'd keep your starships upgraded, and with an operational lifetime of 100 years, the Galaxy-Class starships would be kept primed and ready.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Yes. But what I think Tom is wondering about is this: if the Enterprise, just barely saved from the scrap heap, could do that, what could a top-of-the-line Starfleet ship from the era do?

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :

::drool::

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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Well, I guess it depends on the factors. That's assuming that:

1) the Enterprise-D hasn't been upgraded to be one of the top Starfleet ships ...

2) the Klingons weren't at full defensive/offensive capability fighting the Pasteur

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

If it was possible to upgrade the ship so radically, why would she have been in danger of being decommissioned? (Of course, the D would not be the first Enterprise to recieve a radical refit. But then, that Enterprise was quickly relegated to trainee duty.) At any rate, I imagine a new ship designed around those technologies would probably be more capable than a refitted older ship.

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

The E-D refit was probably done just to keep Admiral Riker happy - it would have been a pet project, ostensibly perhaps to test some new technologies, but basically just intended to keep an old ship in semi-useful condition because this influential admiral insisted so.

Anyway, the two future ships apparently weren't of Negh'Var class. Apart from the fact that they had no underwing pods (which housed the most devastating weapons of the actual Negh'Var in "Way of the Warrior"), they seemed to be of significantly smaller size in comparison with the Pasteur. Possibly another scaled-to-fit-the-mission design, like the Bird of Prey. The CCG called these the Voodieh class, didn't it?

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

quote:
why would she have been in danger of being decommissioned?

What? When was the E-D in danger of being decomissioned?

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

It's said in "AGT" that Admiral Riker saved the ship from the scrapheap.

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

The only thing I can think of is that the ship got herself in a scrape, and instead of spending the time to refit her, Starfleet decided to scrap her.

The Galaxy-Class has a 100-year operational lifetime, so the Enterprise must've been destined for a scrapheap after a big battle, IMHO.

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Timo: Read my first post, man.
The Voodieh also has "fangs" which the other didn't. Meant to look scary, I'll bet they're given some token Treknobabble-function so the klingons won't look like complete morons.

"That? Uuuh, docking clamps for special klingon starbases! Yes, they sink their teeth in the docking port!"

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

I have to concur with Jeff. There's no way they'd be scrapping Galaxies after only a few decades even if they were no longer the biggest and best. I mean, The Pasteur was evidently built before the Ent D and she was obviously still around. Must've been just the Enterprise.

Posted by Mikey T (Member # 144) on :

I think that out of the surviving Galaxy Class starships in that timeline, the Enterprise took more structural damage and weapons fire. Perhaps that is why the ship was nearly decomissioned.

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Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :

In regards to the "scrapped" issue.
No matter how long the ship is designed to be functional, that is assuming the ship has had an optimal mission history. Mission damage to the hull plating and/or weapons can be easily repaired/replaced in spacedock during a refit. Any mission)s) which caused severe structural damage (bent or twisted spaceframes), could retire a ship posthaste.

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Just reguarding the "like phasers on a medical ship" issue...

Phasers could also be used on such ships to destroy asteroids... clear away debris to gain access to wounded... drill holes into planets to beam up trapped miners... etc. etc.

I reckon phasers would be one of those "Don't leave spacedock with out them" sort of things.

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

"The Pasteur was evidently built before the Ent D and she was obviously still around."

Evidently? Specify.

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Well, there's the flamewar-inducing argument about registry numbers (E-D is 71000 or so, 'xept she has that honorary 1701-D, while Pasteur is a lowly 58925).

The Pasteur also features the squarish lifeboat covers familiar from the E-D and the E-C, but that's not a good indicator of ship age since the low-registered Steamrunners and Akiras have the "modern" triangular pods.

Furthermore, the Pasteur has E-D-style LCARS displays on the bridge, and not the more complex (and IMHO more primitive-looking) E-E style - while at least one future timeline ("The Visitor") suggests new and modern ships of the "AGT" future era should have "non-2D" controls.

It's still difficult to watertightly establish the Pasteur as an older type. But we do know semicanonically that ships of that class did operate back in the TNG era ("Interface"), so at least the Pasteur should not be radically newer than the E-D.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Semi? Is Interface a book? Then I wouldn't put much cred there. I've always thought the Pasteur really looked futuristic, with that nicely shaped engineering section and such.

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Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

No, Interface is a TNG episode. In this episode the USS Nobel, along with the USS Excelsior, took part in a search-and-rescue mission for the USS Hera (the ship of Geordi's mother). According to the Encyclopedia the Nobel had the registry NCC-55012 and was an Olympic-class vessel.

BTW: Was the Pasteur really an Olympic-class ship? An early version of the dedication plaque says Hope-class. Does anyone know, if this was changed and why?

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[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited March 27, 2001).]

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Difficult to say if the plaque was changed, but at least the last digit of the registry was, from 8 to 5...

Personally, I'm not happy with the Nobel and the Pasteur sharing a class. Who would send a hospital ship to perform a SAR mission, as in "Interface"? Hospital ships probably would have inferior sensors and inferior speed, hampering the search efforts. They would also be poorly equipped to cope with whatever had resulted in the loss of the Hera in the first place. The only plus side would be if the Hera was found relatively intact and there were massive yet rescueable casualties aboard - then the medical facilities of the hospital ship would come in handy.

My favorite explanation would be if the Pasteur was of a Hope subclass of the Olympic class, almost as extensively modified from the original Olympic design as the Soyuz was from the Miranda design. Perhaps the original Olympic even had a saucer hull instead of a sphere..? At the very least, the Olympic should have been optimized for a different mission featuring more plausible SAR capabilities.

Hmmm... OTOH, perhaps the definition of a hospital ship in Trek does include superfast speed and high-class sensors? Perhaps the idea is not to deliver a hospital to the battlefield, but to use the ship as a combined SAR chopper and ambulance that collects casualties from all over the battlefield, AND then treats them. Such a concept is alien to today's navies, since ships are too slow to act as ambulances, and hospital ships are too cumbersome to perform SAR.

Plus, having SAR-enabling sensors would be uncomfortably close to having the hospital ships armed, which is a strict no-no today but obviously accepted in Trek. I mean, those big Marine Tarawas and Wasps double as hospital ships, with extensive medical facilities, but they are free game regardless since they are heavily armed. There would be no point in painting red crosses on parts of those ships and saying that these are off limits. A hospital ship featuring search helos and radars would arouse certain suspicions...

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Re: The Pasteur being older than the Ent-D...Yah, what they said.

The Olympic class was originally the Hope class, but it was never identified as such on screen or in any other canon or semi canon source that I know of. The only evidence appears to be the plaque, and unless you want to accept the canonicity of a Skywalker Division...I don't tend to count that.

I think the ship "looks" older too. I guess I've always assumed that it was their intention to make the ship a bit less sophisticated. It has obvious harkenings to the Daedalus Class...

Perhaps not all Olympics are hospital ships. Perhaps they perform a variety of similar functions. But I still think they all have phasers as standard equipment.

Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

I definatly would go with Hope Sub-Class for the Pastuer, since "Nobel" isn't exactly a name you'd expect to see on a Hospital Ship.

Something weird though: The US Navy only has 2 (yes, count them, 2!) hospital ships. They are heavily converted Tankers to form the Mercy Class, and the names of the two ships are USNS Mercy T-AH-19 and USNS Comfort T-AH-20

I wonder why the Pastuer had no hospital symbols on her whatsoever...

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Posted by Shipbuilder (Member # 69) on :

She did have symbols...the winged staff and snake symbols on the saucer and warp engines.

Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

Oh.....duh, my bad

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"No, 3 & 6 are mandatory, so you only have to do them if you want"

Alex, fellow classmate, trying to explain an assignment (2/2/01)

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

It would make sense that Olympics are "behind-the-lines" ships & that some of them may indeed be outfitted for ESAR ops; this is somewhat analogous to the days in the 70s when several of the USN Iwo Jima-class LPHs were outfitted to act as "sea control ships" by embarking a flight of Marine "Harriers" on them.

There's the thought that perhaps you don't want your best hospital ships running through a battle evacing wounded, especially in a conflict like the Dominion War where the opponent doesn't give a rat's ass about not attacking the helpless & wounded. On the other hand, you don't want them hanging around & waiting until the battle's over, either.

Yes, I've given this a lot of thought. I used it as the basis for the history of my M'Benga-class fleet medical ship. Yeah, I stole the names from FASA & redid the design, even though I really like their design.

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Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

With the Klingons its different, there is no honor in attacking a ship full of injured people. I would only imagine IF the Olympic did have phasers then its for pirates or Ferengi who would like to steal the ship or something. Not powerful enough to engage capital ships but to engage smaller commercial ships.

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Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Keep in mind that the Pasteur was described as a medical ship, not a hospital ship. There could be a difference...

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"Ring a bell, and I'll salivate...
well how'd you like that?
Dr. Landy, please tell me
I'm not just a pedagogue..."
-Brian Wilson, The Barenaked Ladies

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Indeed. And the Fleming was a medical transport. Perhaps there's a wide spectrum of "mercy ships", ranging from disaster-relief vessels equipped with huge replicators, to special Mobile Starfleet Surgical Hospitals.

As for Klingons not attacking the wounded... I dunno. They *are* supposed to slay the wounded to save the honor of the said wounded, as per some dialogue in e.g. "The Ship" IIRC. They also did attack the hospital in "Nor the Battle...".

Whether they would actively attack a hospital ship is another matter, but they could be pragmatic about it: what easier way to lower the numbers of enemy soldiers than kill them when they cannot fight back? it's THEIR dishonor for getting into a state where they are helpless, not the attackers' dishonor! The Klingons themselves don't get wounded - they triumph, or they die, thanks to their redundant physique and primitive medicine.

Timo Saloniemi