The majority seems to assume that Lakota was in fact some super-Excelsior with lots of new stuff, ablative armor nd other advanced systems. Where does this "urban legend" originate?
As far as I'm concerned Lakota was just a E-B subtype. First of all the sub-class is nearly as old as Excelsior herself, furthermore the fact that we just saw 2 of them (E-B and Lakota) doesn't mean there are just a few of them. The old Ambassador-paradox: just because we didn't see them during the war doesn't mean they are not longer part of the fleet.
And from the dialogue we just have Benteens astonished line about the Defiant's secretly upgraded systems but nothing about Lakota herself. I tend to say there's not a single point of evidence the ship was upgraded in any way.
Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :
When the Lakota fired quantum torpedoes at the Defiant O'Brien made some comment along the lines of 'those aren't standard fit on an Excelsior class'. He was clearly surprised that the Lakota had them.
And the Lakota fired several phaser beams from locations where there are no emitters on the E-B model, and from where no other Excelsior has ever fired phasers.
No idea about ablative armour though.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
I believe the episodes said something about the Lakota undergoing some sort of warp engine refit. Nothing about weapons, though, apart what Identity Crisis just said.
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
The Quantums could have been part of a general fleet upgrade. (roughly one year later E-E and others had the new torpedos, too) It has been a long time but I remembered Benteens line about the Defiant. Not sure about the other things like engines though. And phasers coming from strange spots is not that uncommon; we've seen E-D fire phasers from the neck torpedo launcher before. (And this was a totally new kind of battle - the top-down-thing had never been done before, so they probably weren't sure where to place the phasers).
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
When the Lakota fired phasers against the Defiant, O'Brien said "somebody's been upgrading the Lakota's weapons. That's an awful lot of firepower for an Excelsior Class ship."
The idea of trying to escape was discussed aboard Defiant, and someone said something to the effect of "if they've upgraded the weapons, who knows what they've done to the engines?"
She'd been heavily upgraded in the weapons department, and managed to fight a Defiant Class starship to a stalemate, at least. While she may not have been some sort of uber-ship, she had certainly been rendered helluva-tough.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
It's likely that the Lakota was more powerful than your average 24th century Excelsior, but I doubt that had much (or even anything) to do with her being of the Ent-B sub-type. I also think the Lakota's improvements/upgrades would have been relatively minor. For example, I highly doubt they made such radical changes as to add ablative armour.
Posted by O Captain Mike Captain (Member # 709) on :
like mr. t, that lakota was hella tough
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The Lakota never fired Quantum torpedos, though dialogue suggests she did carry them as a part of her refit. The idea was not that she was a regular Excelsior that they put to E-B spec as part of the refit; as far as I'm concerned, she was already part of that subtype.
The upgrade itself supposedly got her a bunch of upgraded phaser mounts in place of her regular mounts (and in numerous other places), quantum torpedos, and upgraded shields. The result was that the Lakota would be able to stand toe to toe with a Defiant for an extended period of time, assuming their crews were roughly equal. In that engagement, both ships were fighting to disable, not to destroy, and the implication is that if either side used q-torps, the fight would be over rather quickly.
By the end of the fight, dialogue stated that the Lakota was worse off, and one good hit from the Defiant could have finished them. They had had about two dozen casualties, where the Defiant had about a quarter that with two dead.
Fandom analyses conclude that the Lakota upgrade was not necessarily done fleet-wide... If an upgraded Excelsior is only as good as a tiny (but modern) Defiant, better to build a Defiant (or refit a smaller ship) for a similar amount of resources. On the flipside, they seem to have managed to refit the Lakota in a matter of weeks, which is ceertainly less time than it takes to build a new ship keel-up. They may have had field refit packages for lots of ships as part of the build up to the Dominon War, though not necessarily fleet-wide.
Mark
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
My pet theory is that Lakota was part of a project to consolidate all the different modifications individual Excelsior crews have made to their respective ships. Lakota would be the testbed vessel for all the Ent-B varients, with another vanilla Excelsior running around for regular Excelsior mods. Of course, I have nothing to support this.
Slightly off topic, can anyone tell me what the heck was the Hood firing in "CFoE"? Her phaser beam differed from those seen from the Lakota, it was a lot thicker and yellower, IIRC. She could also take out an unshielded Cardassian OWP with one shot, when even the Defiant couldn't claim the same.
Maybe we owe the ol' Excelsiors more credit than we thought.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Two shots, no? In any case, Methinks the Hood secured at least a couple of the upgraded phasers designed for the Lakota...
Mark
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
If I remember correctly the Hood "Tears of the Prophets" (that's the episode with the cardie weapon platforms) accidentialy bore Lakota's regitry. So if we were able to see the registry but not the name, we should argue about the Lakota being refitted to standard-Excelsior some time before the episode rather than about a phaser upgrade for Hood.
OK, OK, I shut up. Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
i see no reason why the Lakota type upgrades couldn't have been applied to the other Excelsior class ships as they went in for their reguraly scheduled maintenance. as was stated, these upgrades seemed to have only take a couple weeks and probably could have been done at an extended lay over. the upgrades certainly didn't make the ship super powerful, or anything, but it would have greatly increased the overall fleet strength (since the Excelsior class ships made up such a large proportion of the overall fleet). if anything, i think that the Lakota shows that at least some Excelsior class ships were hardly on their last legs, and it begs the question of how powerful other aging ships like the Ambassador class must be after having been upgraded over their lifespans.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
(Lots of nodding and grunting in agreement.)
But, but... Where do we get the information that the Lakota was recently refitted? Couldn't those modifications have been in place for several months or even years already?
It's not very plausible for our favorite DS9 noncom engineer to be constantly aware of the bigger picture of Starfleet's superweapon programs. Just because the Lakota came as a surprise to him doesn't mean it would have surprised, say, LaForge.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by iam2xtreme (Member # 836) on :
quote:Originally posted by David Templar: Slightly off topic, can anyone tell me what the heck was the Hood firing in "CFoE"? Her phaser beam differed from those seen from the Lakota, it was a lot thicker and yellower, IIRC. She could also take out an unshielded Cardassian OWP with one shot
ok i know this isn't the technically answer you were hoping for but..... we only see the most dramatic bits of the battle. Its no fun if for the first few minutes of the battle we watch the shields of all the ships holding is it? Plus the fact that the episode only lasts 45mins and the battles are supposed to last hours. So theres nothing to say that the platform the hood destroyed wasn't hit a number of times before, we just never saw it.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Maybe the whole Lakota being super-duper was part of Admiral what's his face's attempt at taking over Earth/Starfleet.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The Lakota's refit was mentioned in dialogue, within the context of the first episode I believe.
Mark
Posted by O Captain Mike Captain (Member # 709) on :
well theres your answer.
who'd've thunk it.. the rumor of the refit originated because they said quite plainly it was being refit in dialogue in both episodes.
time to dance!
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
i choose break dancing. where did my parachute pants get to?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Maybe the whole Lakota being super-duper was part of Admiral what's his face's attempt at taking over Earth/Starfleet.
This was likely the first step in upgrading all the Excelsior class ships for the looming war with the dominion and the Admiral was using the Lakota as his personal scalpel when trying to seize power. That would also explain the Hood's firepower and give a good reason for an 80 year old design still serving as a large part of the fleet. The Miranda had likely undergone a simmular upgrade and had the phasers in the saucer installed as well as those in the rollbar upgraded.
...the ablative armor comment was directed towards the Defiant by Benteen. The lakota had no armor. Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
quote:he Miranda had likely undergone a simmular upgrade and had the phasers in the saucer installed
the Miranda class has always had phasers on the saucer section. they simply weren't used in tWoK.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: [QUOTE]Originally posted by AndrewR: [qb]...the ablative armor comment was directed towards the Defiant by Benteen. The lakota had no armor.
No ablative armor, she might have a few extra feet of duranium/tritanium alloy plating here and there. People seems to think that no Starfleet armor existed, or was effective, before the ablative armor rolled around.
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
If the ship was refitted, this took place some time before the episodes. Sisko and Odo took the ship to travel from DS9 to earth, meaning she had been in space for some time at that point.
At least the fatal "only ship in the area"-illness is not Enterprise-specific. When Leyton said Lakota was the only ship in orbit, no one even thought about all those ships at Utopia. They just relied on Lakota's transporter to gain control over earth. On the other hand, maybe all those officers Leyton transferred here and there were part of the plan to disable Utopia's help somehow, too (maybe he put someone in command of UP and that guy managed to disable the facilities, something like that).
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
IIRC it was implied that after the Lakota got back to Earth, the refit started.
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
Which doesn't leave much time for potential upgrades. How long was Sisko on earth? Between a week and a month, I'd say. So either the upgrades were not that important or large at all or they had already started to work on the ship before she left earth to DS9. (If this is the case I wonder why they sent the ship to DS9 at all.)
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
It also depends on the type of upgrade. The yard could have completed components and just did a total whatever swap out when the Lakota arrived. All she had to do was is to make sure everything fit, system check, and so forth. The fittings of a Type VIII Mod8 phaser emitter can't be that different from a Mod11, right?
Maybe the upgrade was more of a test for the yard, to see how fast they can rewire an old Excelsior into a new Excelsior. You know, in case war breaks out, and upgunned ships are needed.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I've checked the dialogue. Commander Benteen mentions in "Paradise Lost" that the Lakota was undergoing her refit, and would be finished on the 14th - when she would take command. Incidentally, the Lakota was dispatched to stop the Defiant BEFORE this date. As such, it's possible that she could have been incomplete...
Mark
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
So what date was the battle?
Posted by O Captain Mike Captain (Member # 709) on :
even if a refit was only partially complete, some of the new junk would probably have been operational. when they launched the 1701 early in TMP everything new worked except the transporter and the warp drive.
BTW, most of the ships at UP are under construction.. theres a good reason that they cant do anything.. they dont have like, engines or complete hulls and stuff, yo.
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Utopia Planitia also refits ships, so there would have been functional vessels available. Or at least shuttles or runabouts.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Actually, there isn't clear proof that the Lakota would have been the only starship in the vicinity.
All that is stated is that Leyton ordered the Lakota specifically to assist during the power failure. Perhaps this was simply a command decision, and not an indication that other ships wouldn't have been available.
And the engagement between the Lakota and the Defiant could have taken place far away from Earth, so that Leyton wouldn't have to factor the other ships in Sol system in his plans in any way. Half a dozen "legit" starships could have been orbiting Earth at the time, waiting for orders from Leyton and only idly wondering why the Lakota just left orbit.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
(And this was a totally new kind of battle - the top-down-thing had never been done before, so they probably weren't sure where to place the phasers).
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
People seems to think that no Starfleet armor existed, or was effective, before the ablative armor rolled around.