I believe that most people here can agree on the Defiant being starfleets meanest "war" ship (as opposed to starship) sporting the most firepower relative to cost...
And just considering it's size starfleet should be able to produce a great number of these ships.
But we dont see great fleets of just Defiant's. Not even squadrons or smaller detachments (for a lack of better words).
Now why is that?
Im thinking this is more of a political and economical decision within Starfleet / federation.
Starfleet would not wanna end up with hundreds or thousands of a single purpose class like the Defiant after the war. Their normal starships being better suited for the peace-time allround duties.
The Federation as a whole dont want to provoke other powers like say the klingon empire or the romulans into even a relatively peacefull armsrace. (Dont wanna militarize the alpha / beta quadrant)
Are these reasons any good or do you think my braincells are lacking oxygen?
In either case post ur oppinion Posted by Snay (Member # 411) on :
Lacking oxygen.
In answer to your question, I must go with !. If pressed, I suppose ? might be appropriate.
To actually answer your question, Starfleet's production capabilities were probably hampered quite a bit by the war -- more stuff they gotta produce then starships, y'know, and they probably don't have any shipyards specificly configured to construct Defiant-class. So the ships of that class they WERE able to build were probably spread around through the combat fleets.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well... six of one...
Several things to keep in mind about the Defiant Class:
1) It was originally intended specifically to fight the Borg. It was borne out that it didn't do so well at that (see First COntact).
2) We've seen fleets with several Defiant Class ships in the background of various wartime fleet shots. Are they all Defiant's... well, no... of course not. There would be very little point in assembling a fleet entirely composed of one class of ship. MOstly because those ships were probably scattered throughout the Federation. The fleets were probably assembled from ships that happened to be in the area. Later in the war, they may have done some strategic movement of resources, but why consolidate all your Defiants in one place?
3) During Wartime, I seriously doubt that the Federation was all that concerned with being politically correct in the view of their enemies. They would've mobalized whatever the heck they felt like. In the wake of the war, the Defiant Class ships could be given escort or patrol duty.
Posted by 78stonewobble (Member # 922) on :
Well the Defiant class did fare somewhat better than the other federation ships in STFC. But youre right... It wasnt exactly whoopin borg a** either :/
Maybe the mental image of fleets of defiants was wrong. I do know that most fleet tactics of the 20th century (probably 24th too) uses different classes for different combat tasks. EG. DDG's for asw, aegis CG's for AAW, and a combination of surface and airborne assets for asuw... And so on...
And allthough fleets like the 9th are mentioned in the dominion war they werent acting as whole combat elements. Eg. scripts mention's only parts of fleets.
I agree that in wartime the federation would disregard ethics (they were in an alliance with both the Klingons and the Romulans too).
But when hostilities ceased they would cut severely back on production of such an aggressive class(IMHO). Maybe even in time mothballing Defiant's and from time to time upgrading them.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
quote:Originally posted by 78stonewobble: I agree that in wartime the federation would disregard ethics
I don't think there's anything unethical about constructing warships to fight a war. You were talking about the political ramifications of building tons and tons of warships. That's different from ethical considerations. DS9 showed us that even the *warship* Defiant could serve a number of roles including limited scientific missions. I doubt that the Defiant class would ever be mothballed to fit political concerns, especially not so soon after a sustained conflict and with so many on-the-fence neighbors in an uncertain position. It's possible that, in time, the Defiants would be refit to suit a more varied mission profile... but I doubt they would be mothballed so quickly.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
To have an entire fleet of Defiant class ships even for war makes the fleet horribly out of balance. For a full fledge war like the Dominion war, you need troop transports, flagships, supply ships, escorts, smaller ships for less noteworhty duties. The Defiant is overpowered to be a mere escort for a few freighters that's on the other side of the Galaxy.
I can understand where most would get the idea to have a really large fleet of Defiants. I once figured out that a perfect fleet (single fleet like the 9th fleet) would have been a few lagre ships like the Galaxy class, a single flagship type like the Sovereign, with escorts surrounding theose large ships, like the Defiant class, and possibly the Miranda class. Here's an example:
1 Sovereign (Lead ship, in the center of the fleet) 9 Galaxy class (Surrounding the Sovereign class, also flagships for 9 smaller fleets within the main fleet) 36 Akira class (4 per Galaxy wing) 180 Defiant class (10 per Galaxy wing) 270 Sabre class (15 per Galaxy wing)
Tagging along in the back somwhere would be a mass of secondary ships composed of transports, freighters, science ships to support the main fleet. Possibly even a carrier or two for fighter support.
Just an example. When you look at the DS9 battles, there's no real formation except that the largest ships would be in the center. I'm sure there is, but the real world answer is basically the SFX guys have no clue what they're doing in fleet formations. I'll admit neither do I, but I am basing it all off the US Navy fleet formations. All based around the carriers.
Posted by 78stonewobble (Member # 922) on :
*me swears at his english teacher...*
I just mean that IMHO you dont see many Defiants on screen compaired to how many that starfleet could build.
Cant agree more with you matrix on the mixed fleet thing.
Problem is... we dont really know which classes go where in trek... or any tactics offcourse.
Since it's a 3d environment maybe they use some kind og wingman approach. Most starships have their weapons fore and I guess they would cover each other from aft (or try to).
Shields are another thing... Maybe they overlap or atleast help cover some areas when they put the most valuable assets in the center?
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
The problem I have with Starfleet's fleet is the many classes of ships they have. We can all guess what their roles are, but if each single class Starfleet has is for a different role in the fleet, then I can understand what they were trying to do with the Galaxy class, put most of those roles into a single class, or group of classes.
It's also 400 years from now, so a battleship could mean the same thing as a warship. A frigate could mean the same thing as a destroyer and so forth. Remember the 1800's with ships like the USS Constitution was called a frigate, but was one of the first cruisers. 20th century frigate term came from the US Destroyer Escort from WWII.
What I am trying to say is that without a spoken or written paper on each class and ship's role is in Starfleet, we can not really make a good formation or fleet. In the most likely case, Starfleet needs every single ship in the fleet, 120 years old or 120 hours old.
Posted by Boris (Member # 713) on :
Good question.
First, we know that a Defiant can be built in a year or less by a total stranger to the concept ("Shattered Mirror"), and that it is allegedly also the most powerful ship in the quadrant ("Defiant"). On the other hand, we never saw the planned fleets of Defiants -- suggested by Sisko's "new Federation battle fleet" comment in "The Search, I" -- where they were most needed, although we have seen a couple here and there.
Possible explanations (all of them could be part of the reason):
1) The Defiants use either rare and expensive materials or large quantities of regular materials -- hence, Starfleet doesn't have enough for an entire fleet of Defiants.
2) The Defiants are difficult to render operational. Both the Sao Paulo and the Valiant needed adjustments to make them more like the original Defiant, meaning that O'Brien isn't keeping Starfleet up-to-date on everything (he didn't tell them about the ablative armor either). The other Defiants could well be inferior to the original one.
3) The aforementioned political reasons -- a low Defiant production rate might have been a prerequisite for the alliances with the Klingons and the Romulans, although I don't believe that Starfleet would agree to this unless the alliances brought in more firepower than would be achievable by building a fleet of Defiants.
I don't think that Starfleet would spread out its Defiants to satisfy fleet formation requirements, especially not in the final WYLB battle where we've seen only one.
Boris
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
we have no fucking idea how much the Defiant class costs to build, so i can't agree with the statement that the ship class has the best firepower to cost ratio.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Indeed. As Edy pointed out, we not only have no idea how much a Defiant costs, we actually have no fucking idea how much one would cost. That makes all the difference.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Boris: I think Dukat said that the Defiant was "one of the most heavily armed ships in the quadrant"... not the most powerful. I don't know if that makes any differece in the discussion since it obviously turned out to be untrue anyway. The Defiant had troubles with Breen ships, Cardie ships, and Klingon ships.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
All this said, it might also be that the Defiants are invisible not because they are rare, but because...
...Well, because the few times a Defiant actually made a difference, it was performing a solo mission (or at most pairing with a BoP). Perhaps a large percentage of the ships are actually fitted with cloaks for solo special ops? Or perhaps they are good for that use even without cloaks?
It might be that Starfleet simply found out that it's a phenomenally bad idea to make a Defiant part of a big fleet. Not that the Defiant is a bad ship. Just that it's a bad fleet ops ship.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
...Except for when Sisko inappropriately uses it as his flagship in those big fleet scenes.
Mark
Posted by Shipbuilder (Member # 69) on :
I believe the DS9TM states that only the Defiant had the cloaking system. No other ships of the class were fitted with one.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Not officialy, anyway.
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
the DS9TM ain't exactly the most correcto mungo book ever written. i would take the statements about the cloak with a big fat non-canon grain of salt.
Posted by Shipbuilder (Member # 69) on :
Well it would seem pretty logical that only the Defiant be cloak capable for reasons other than going by what the DS9TM says.
It doesn't appear that the Defiant class ships were designed to use a cloaking system to begin with because the Federation used a ROMULAN cloaking system. Why would you design a warship that relied on obtaining a critical piece of equipment that only a defacto enemy possessed? (begs another question, why not use a Klingon cloak? Maybe not compatible for some technobabble reason?) Other onscreen evidence suggests it was a hassle to get the thing from the Romulans and use it, first only in the Gamma quadrant, and then limited use in the Alpha quadrant during the Dominion war. Even though TPTB quickly phased out the Romulan officer to look after the cloaking system, it proves that the Federation had to make some concessions to obtain and use it. All of this suggests a very "one time" agreement and it looks doubtful that any Romulan would agree to mass produce cloaks for a Federation vessel.
What about a Federation cloak for each new Defiant? Maybe, but we would be violating a treaty and that doesn't seem very Federation-esque, and besides the fact that we have never seen any proof of another cloak being used on a Defiant class ship.
I think the DS9TM got this one right.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
The reason the Federation didn't use a Klingon cloaking device needn't be technobabble. Just political. It's the treaty with the Romulans that bans some specific group of technologies that can collectively be called a "cloaking device," not the Klingons.
Posted by Shipbuilder (Member # 69) on :
Good point Sol, I should have pushed that note down into the paragraph about the treaty. Could've answered my own question. My mistake.
That just shows that the Federation firmly intended to abide by the Treaty of Algeron and we saw no obvious proof that the Romulans agreed to inclusion of cloaking systems into further Defiant class ships.
I have another question though, did we ever see the Defiant II (Sao Paulo) using a cloaking device? That might throw a wrench into the works, but it could be explained that the "Defiant" was still the only ship with a cloak.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
No, it didn't ever use one, and I don't recall any implication it ever had one.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Who's cloak was used on the Holoship!?! - another big-arsed continuity fuck-up? Or something edited out of the movie?
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
i think it belonged to the orion syndicate.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Well, gee... since the "Insurrection" example was the result of a conspiracy -- that is, people who were breaking the rules -- then they wouldn't necessarily care about breaking the Treaty of Algeron in order to achieve their goals.
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Besides, I would suspect that the Son'a wouldn't have a problem with getting a cloaking device from the Romulans. After all, if a Romulan cloaking device can be installed in a Federation Defiant Class starship, it wouldn't be hard to install another cloaking device onboard another Federation vessel.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
Considering the widely varying sizes and performances of cloaking devices we've seen, especially in DS9, you can probably take a cloaking device off a Vor'Cha, hook it up to your toaster, and render your street block invisible.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
One of the bigger questions ot that question is what if Starfleet really did have a large fleet of Defiant class ships? Remember we only seen part of Starfleet. Perhaps most of the Defiant class ships could have been on the front lines. I mean think about it, would you put all or most of your heavy hitters on the front lines? I wouldn't send all the Miranda class ships to defend the borders while keeping all the Defiant class ships inside the territory. But that's just me.
Posted by Daryus Aden (Member # 12) on :
Exactly. The war was fought along a huge front, the Defiants would have been spread all over the place. I've always felt that (for instance) in WYLB there would have been multiple taskforces hitting the Cardies from every direction, not just the 9th fleet.
In addition, there may be another reason there weren't heaps of these vessel: A lack of officers to command them. Say you can produce 6 defiant class ships to every galaxy. (Using the same resources). And that each defiant class ship has 50% of the overall firepower of a galaxy class vessel. It would be logical in terms of bang for bucks to have 6 defiants to one galaxy as you'd be putting 3 times the effective firepower on the frontline. And barring the really big battlecruisers the defiant seems to be able to take on almost anything. However where are you going to find the 6 captains to command these ships. And 6 CMO's chief engineers etc. It may simply be a manpower shortage.
Another possibility is that there isn't the industrial infrastructure in place to maintain a fleet of Defiant class ships, afterall having a handful of prototypes (or whatever) is a long way from having the production lines created to mass produce and maintain the ships, even if we do assume that many Federation componenets are modular.
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Federation technology does seem modular from what the TNG and DS9 Tech Mans say. But it just might be a shortage of officers that could be the problem.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
Not really. It has been shown that you can have a Lt.Com. in command of a Nebula class ship. Even Sisko was a Commander when he first got the Defiant.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Actually, Lieutenant Junior Grade.
But that's just so crazy that smoke eminates from my ears, so let's ignore it, eh?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Although in all fairness, the poor Junior was never explicitly addressed as the captain of the vessel. For all appearances, he was merely the officer in charge for the time being.
As for where the putative "real captain" would have been at the time, your guess is as good as mine.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
It could have been a ship where the commanding staff had been sent on R&R while the juniors got to stay behind and work. And instead of having them do nothing, Starfleet assigned them to DS9's little mission. Thus, Sisko kinda got command Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The R&R idea is a bit odd in light of
a) DS9 being out in the sticks and thus an odd errand for an "off-duty" ship - unless the top brass was actually having its R&R at DS9, and
b) it being explicit that the R&R did NOT take place at DS9, since in fact nobody, save nobody, left the vessel during her stay at the station!
It is also possible (if not all that likely) that Seyetlik himself carried rank in Starfleet, and was the captain of the vessel. He just didn't like to wear the usual uniform.
Still, my personal favorite is that the real captain couldn't work in the same environment as the rest of the crew, but was a telepath who could interact through Lt(jg) Piersall.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Everyone was in sickbay following one of Nidell's suppers.
I believe that it was mostly an FX goof, and that the Prometheus was not SUPPOSED to be a Nebula-class ship. In addition to Piersall, O'Brien was speaking of modifying the Prometheus' engines to hit high warp - would a Nebbie NOT be able to achieve that sort of speed on its own, or with its own engineer?
I think the Prometheus was supposed to be an Oberth or some ship class that was small and could be commanded by a mere lieutenant. Unfortunately, we'll never know the real intent, other than to allow Sisko and company not to be upstaged by a REAL captain.
Mark
Posted by SoundEffect (Member # 926) on :
Captain's have to sleep sometime. Perhaps the lieutenant was in charge of the night shift and had command duty at the time Sisko and Seyetik were on the bridge. Ens. Kim of Voyager had charge of the bridge during some night shifts.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Oh, grand. So Seyetik stealing the mission shuttle, ramming it into a dead star, and igniting it is NOT cause to rouse the captain and command crew? I think not.
Mark
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
Bajor is always a nice camping spot at that time of year, and it's close to DS9.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
To swing briefly back on-topic...
I've always (well, ever since we first saw more of them) maintained that the Defiant class was intended to serve as fleet/task force escort in squadrons of four, or to escort one or two larger ships in elements of two.
Best example of this is in "A Call to Arms". At the very end, the Defiant swings around into formation with the Federation fleet/task force -- of all possible positions -- right next to the only other Defiant-class ships in the shot. Of which, there were three. The Defiant made four.
Then in "Message in a Bottle", there are two Defiants escorting the Akira.
Yes, I know one or two instances do not a law of nature make, but it's a good starting point, and we have seen nothing to contradict.
--Jonah
Posted by Boris (Member # 713) on :
Good observation -- I noticed that too. If a viewer sees only one Defiant, the immediate conclusion is that it's The Defiant because it's still fairly unique. Showing a couple at a time is a simple way of avoiding that.
I researched a bit and found that Ron D. Moore stated during the season six/seven hiatus that he thinks there are "at least a few dozen" Defiants at that point, and that they are in production. That's as authoritative as we're going to get on the issue, given that he created the ship's backstory.
As for their placement, the Defiants, Intrepids, and Sovereigns, along with perhaps Ambassadors, Constellations, Oberths, Novas and a few other classes were probably tasked with the following:
1) Protecting the borders left vulnerable by the absence of the regular Federation fleet (especially the first three extra-powerful designs).
2) Executing scientific and diplomatic missions in support of the war effort. Do you really want to lose Picard in a battle, or do you want him to keep talking his way out of difficult situations?
Boris
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Well, Picard could of course be reassigned to an Oberth class vessel...
Two potentially novel explanations:
It might be that ships in the Dominion war did not loiter far from the areas where they wee at the beginning of hostilities. There could have been raiding Dominion fleets all over the quadrant, moving fast and unpredictably, so the Feds couldn't afford even a week-long transfer run that would have kept the ships out of action. Thus, save for the few offensive formations the Feds managed to throw together, the ships would stay in their "natural environments". Which for the slow and short-legged Defiants would be somewhere near Mars (or the Beta Antares shipyards, wherever those are).
Or then Starfleet ships are distributed according to the capabilities of starbases. Perhaps there was no yard in the DS9 region capable of processing an Intrepid or an Ambassador, but several optimized for Mirandas and Nebulas?
In any case, the uneven distribution of ship types in the Dominion war is an annoying artifact that will continue to bother us for a long time!
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Boris (Member # 713) on :
It's pointless to stick to your pre-war formations if you're about to be conquered. This was a war, not a crisis, and one would hope that Starfleet eventually moved every ship to where it would be most useful, rather than made sure that no captain feels homesick. Especially since the main fighting occured around Bajor, and wasn't evenly distributed throughout the Federation.
As for the second one, it's not something we've ever seen evidence for, and certainly not something that the VFX people would want to be bound by in the future. The Enterprise-D can dock in the old spacedock if needed, and DS9 seems to be able to accomodate every possible ship. That's not to say it cannot technically happen, but it cannot be a major concern either.
Boris
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I'd say mabye a dozen Defiant class ships at the war's official declaration. By war's end there was probably two-three dozen Defiant class ships produced with several having been destroyed in action. If I was in charge of a shipyard, and the war was going badly, I'd be building several Defiant class ships for every one Galaxy. The construction time, materials involved and crew compliments likely work out to a 6:1 ratio. I'd build 6 defiants to patroll my boreders waaay before building a lone Galaxy or Nebula class. Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
Asssuming of course that a Galaxy is worth 6 Defiants.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Based on the glowing performance-and subsequent debris field- of the Odyssey, I'd say not. I was speaking of overall mass of materials and crew requirements. ....but, on the other hand, I can't remember seeing any galaxy's being destroyed after that. Mabye they really upgraded them after that.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
It's not all about the power of the ships but actually building them. It's all good that you can produce a small ship equal to the larger ship but if that smaller ship takes six times the resources as the bigger ship, it's all good.
I don't think a Galaxy is worth 6 Defiants inresources.
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