posted
It was mentioned in a DS9 episode that Ben was working on the Defiant Class Project during his three year stay at Utopia Planitia. It's also mentioned in the Encyclopedia II.
------------------ "Women feel the emotions of happiness, hatred, anger, helplessness, and desire.
Men on the other hand feel the guy version, Horny."
posted
Perhaps Sisko was designing the Defiant from behind a desk on Mars, sending specs and blueprints to engineers working on the real ship on Antares or "Bajor Sector"?
Or the ship could have been later deployed to Antares for testing its supersecret weapons and systems away from the prying eyes of the resident Romulan spies at Utopia Planitia.
Then again, the DS9 TM stardate for commissioning seems to predate the Dominion crisis, yet postdate the Borg one. Did Starfleet intend to use the ship for Gamma quadrant recce even before Sisko asked for it? This could be why the finishing work was done in "Bajor Sector". In other words, a lucky coincidence. Or then Starfleet Intelligence knew more about the Dominion than we are led to believe...
posted
See, I think its mentioning of Bajor Sector means that what Sisko bought in The Search 1 was an unfinished ship - with some major defects... O'Brien and the DS9 engineering crew - basically gave the ship a 'refit'
------------------ "Remove your hand or I will remove your arm!" - 7 of 9
posted
I suppose that the "Antares - Bajor Sector" from the Defiant plaque was chosen without any deliberation, since it is obvious that the ship was designed and commissioned (and probably built) in the Sol system. The Prometheus plaque, on the other hand, contains a deliberate in-joke, but there's no reason to deny the existence of Beta Antares. Why should Kirk invent the planet? Would he show so much creativity? ;-)
So we have possibly three Antareses (plural?):
1. The real star Antares: some 400-500 ly from Earth, possibly too far from Earth and too far in the Beta Quadrant, almost definitely not close to Bajor.
2. The Beta Antares ship yards in the Antares sector, possibly identical to 1., maybe there is a second star Beta Antares in this sector, while the main star Antares doesn't have inhabitable planets. This does not comply with the present day astronomical numbering schemes, but once a sector is given a name the stars might be numbered in a similar manner as the Bayer (Greek) latters for the stars visible from Earth. We have to keep in mind that the majority of stars even doesn't have a Bayer letter, but only a number in a star catalogue. Once a star becomes important (and planets are inhabited), they are likely to be given a real name, Beta Antares, for instance.
3. The Antares ship yards in the Bajor sector. Maybe it's really a company name, although this was not the original intention (if there was any). However, why does the Defiant plaque show this name, and why wasn't the fleet yards ever mentioned in DS9, although it's only a few ly away?
------------------ "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." A somewhat different Janeway in VOY: "Living Witness" Ex Astris Scientia
posted
Can someone explain to me why everyone believes that SF employs private contractors when everything we've ever seen of Starships in construction or refit shows nothing but SF personnel working on and designing them? (ST:TMP - refit of original Ent., "Family" and "All Good Things..." - Ent-D in orbit at McKinley station. "Relativity" - Voyager in Space Dock; the only exception that I can think of is Leah Brohms in "Booby Trap" but even that appears to be a SF facility with her serving as desing consultant).
Just curious.
------------------ Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
posted
Still none of you can disprove that SF employes private contractors. I have seen many US Navy personel on site of non-goverment construction yards. If a organization is not able to have thier people repair thier own vehicles, it would be expensive and slow to keep returning them to the actual builders.
In refit and repair, we've ONLY seen SF personnel on SF facilities. The only yards we ever saw was utopia, which is a SF Facility.
I believe that Private contractors are used for mass produced ships like the Nebula and Miranda, And design help for complicated designs.
As for design, most starships are designed be the ASDB which is an agent of the UFP, but not directly attached to SF. The only starship i belive were designed directly from SF were all runabouts, and the Defiant
posted
We can't disprove it but we certainly can't prove it either. I'm not saying it's implausible just that we don't have any real evidence to back it up and the complications and extra questions that it raises make a good case for sticking with the simple solution until we have reason to think otherwise.
------------------ Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
Jim Phelps
watches Voyager AFTER 51030
Member # 102
posted
Wouldn't it be a real fortunate coincidence to have the Defiant built in the right place (i.e. Bajor Sector) from the very beginning?
It is more likely, in my opinion, that the Borg-phase of the design was conducted elsewhere (Utopia Planitia? Antares Ship Yards, some-other-sector?), and that the ship was subsequently hauled over to Bajor Sector in anticipation of the Dominion threat (Quark was trading with the Karemma early in 2370, and became aware of the Dominion right then - why not Starfleet?).
But as Bernd said, why haven't we ever heard of the yards? Maybe we just missed it, but perhaps this portion of the Antares Ship Yards is merely responsible for ships traversing the Bajor Sector, and not really located in the immediate vicinity. Just a thought.
Boris
------------------ "Wrong again. Although we want to be scientifically accurate, we've found that selection of [Photon Energy Plasma Scientifically Inaccurate as a major Star Trek format error] usually indicates a preoccupation with science and gadgetry over people and story."
---a Writers' Test from the Original Series Writer's Guide
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