posted
maybe this is a lil too cynical...but the realworld reason [now humor me lol] is that a bigger ship = bigger explosion = happy fanboys... entertainment is a business and thats what they're doing.....
neway..i reckon the Galaxy-Class has excelled in its role....and combat-wise, werent the galaxy class meant to act like battleships anyway giving great f***off broadsides? And well thats waht the Galaxies did in SoA. IIRC
and i wholly agree wit David Templar and EdipisReks.
Perhaps if we had 'documentation' of a wider range of classes then we might see that other ships had worse track records than the galaxy did in combat.
Buzz
-------------------- "Tom is Canadian. He thereby uses advanced humour tecniques, such as 'irony', 'sarcasm', and werid shit'. If you are not qualified in any of these, it will be risky for you to attempt to decipher what he means. Just smile and carry on." - PsyLiam; 16th June
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
But look at it, the battleship was obsolete when the aircraft carrier came into the scene of war. Planes costing a mere fraction and very cheap weapons can sink a battleship than another battleship of similar size and cost.
The Galaxy class is powerful and nice to look at but in reality, there are several ships on the top of my head that have similar power to the Galaxy class. Also if you remove the extra room the Galaxy class has, you'd get a ship at the most the size of the Ambassador class or smaller.
In fact the Sovereign appears to be around that size and Sovereign is only larger than the Galaxy class in length only.
The Defiant has shown to be more effective at what it does, as a warship, the Oberth class must be effective at what it does otherwise I doubt it would be in the vast numbers and service lifetime it has now. Now the Excelsior in my opinion if the ship was ever upgraded like the Lakota, I'd think those ships would be far better than the Galaxy ever was.
Think about it, if all the same technology was given to lets say the Excelsior class, do you seriously think that the Galaxy class is still superor?
Also, families on board? I will be going into the Navy in September. I will be expecting to be away from home for at least several months. Also I expect when I go into port it will not be home port. If I do have a family, their is a two word saying "Navy Needs". They will try to get me as close as possible to where my family is, but if they can't it comes down to the "Navy Needs".
You are serving your country not your family when you join a service. So a massive ship twice as large on the waves just because you don't want to be alone on your journey makes no sense.
-------------------- Matrix If you say so If you want so Then do so
Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by CaptainMike: U.S.S. Galaxy: Didnt it get a big hole in it in that battle? U.S.S. Enterprise: Destroyed by BOP U.S.S. Odyssey: Destroyed by Jem-Hadar fighter U.S.S. Yamato: Destroyed by software weapon
USS Galaxy - yeah, but that was beacuse the Cardassian defence platforms were really powerful and overpowered its shields - it's still active.
USS Enterprise - it had it's sheilds bypassed or counteracted therefore making it's hull vulnerable to weapons.
USS Odyssey - pretty much the same as the Enterprise - weapons of the Dominion went through the shields rendering them useless.
USS Yamato - well you can't guard against everything, especially when you don't have important characters that need to survive for more than two seasons.
The Galaxy-class starship is still a bloody decent ship, despite all you critics thinking otherwise. Although I have to agree that having families is stupid.
-------------------- If you cant convince them, confuse them.
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Akb1979! You just wrote what I posted! Great minds think alike.
As to Matrix and all the Galaxy class "bashers," I shall attempt to address each issue pitted against the large vessel.
First off, yes, the ship is huge. Yes, the reason it is huge is because it houses family, but if you check out the TNG Blueprints or dialogue from the TNG episodes directly, you understand the Galaxy class is more than just a "flying hotel." Its large size is dictated by its several roles.
Explorer Matrix, you wrote about the Navy and its several months service. However, the Galaxy was designed for years of exploring and not turning around back to Earth. Picard frequently mentioned that he tried to get back to Earth only when he could.
In fact, if you actually think about it, the ship is like a moving starbase. In one episode, some aliens describe it as a "city in space."
Also, Matrix, you never answered my question. Would you honestly want to serve on a starship for several years with no family on board?
The Galaxy class ship is also a flying science station with labs, etc. It was meant to go out into space, do the exploring, and research at the same time. In the TNG TM, it states that the Galaxy is designed to replace the Oberth and Ambassador. My guess is that the Ambassador would go out, map, and find a planet. Later an Oberth would be sent to do a more detailed survey. The Galaxy class on the other hand was supposed to do both jobs. It finds the planet/nebula/whatever and does the survey and then continues on to the next object. The Enterprise seems to be an exception since it was the flagship and was always sent running around interior Federation space.
Combat
As people have said before, big ships are a staple of Star Trek combat. Matrix and several others seem to suggest that the Galaxy class fails in combat compared to smaller ships like the Klingon Bird-of-Prey and the Defiant class. However, they fail to realize the true role the Galaxy class ship has in combat (and this was shown in DS9).
If any of you guys have a model, toy, etc. of the E-D (come on, you know you do!), pick it up in one hand. Now, take your other hand and make a fist. Move your fist around the ship, above it, below it, etc. Without moving the model, you will notice that at every point you position your fist, phaser arrays, torpedo launchers, or a combination of both can still hit your fist. That is how the ship is supposed to fight (and that is what we did see in DS9). Yes, it does strafing runs like with the USS Galaxy, but as you can see, it doesn't have to worry about "getting out of the way" like the Defiant. Smaller ships need to dodge and position themselves well to attack, while the Galaxy class can simply move in a certain path and fire along at enemies without changing its course. Look at the USS Odyssey. It failed because its weapons had no effect (regardless of class, this would be a problem), but its phaser did hit the attack fighters.
And, as EdipisReks stated, the whole point of the smaller ships is to screen the larger ships. The aircraft carrier is a good comparison to the Galaxy class, but it should be noted that Star Trek never values tiny fighters (remember the begining of "SoA"?), so Matrix's analogy that, like the battleship, the Galaxy is obsolete because of cheaper "planes" doesn't really work. The ships are flying fortresses.
Hmmm, this would be easier if I had a checklist of where, exactly, the Galaxy class "fails." Akb1979 and I have both pointed out why each ship that was lost does not represent anymore of a failure than the Defiant getting destroyed by the Breen weapon. So, if you guys who feel the Galaxy is a failure would write a little list of points, I, and probably others here, would be happy to respond to them.
Now, as to the original topic, yes I agree that the Galaxy, Nebula, New Orleans, etc. are all part of the same family. The Akira could be part of the same family, or it just might be part of the "Sovereign" family along with the other FC ships, the Nova, etc. It's just that we didn't see this family as much. Wouldn't it have been interesting of the USS Equinox had been a New Orleans class? Of course, I also like the Nova class, so I don't know...
posted
Star Trek is not Star Wars, we all can agree on that. If not then leave the board.
Granted the Galaxy class is powerful and can handle herself in most situations. Smaller ships have to position themselves to get to their areas. But lets assume for a minute that the Defiant and the Galaxy class both have same shield power (we seriously don't know if they do but should be similar), now we all know that Defiant has the capability to dodge attacks, but the Galaxy class can't. In fact the Galaxy class has to planet herself and fire away, hoping that the shields hold. Yes that is a good thing only if the Galaxy class has shields that can withstand that. The Defiant class can dodge those attacks, and survive with less damage then if the Galaxy class did a similar run.
The Galaxy class was designed as a command ship, a ship to sit behind and command the ships, but at the same time be a battlecruiser or a battleship.
Now for a command ship, families on board is ok, but being a flyimg apartment does not. To answer a few questions, if you are stationed on a ship, the most likely case is that you will not see your family for at leas a year. However very few months you might be close enough to your family where they can visit you or you can visit them. That is how it really works.
Name how many times the Enterprise in her 7-8 years of service that she was at Earth, other than for a crisis, or close to Earth within a day or two distance travel?
-------------------- Matrix If you say so If you want so Then do so
Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Now for a command ship, families on board is ok, but being a flyimg apartment does not. To answer a few questions, if you are stationed on a ship, the most likely case is that you will not see your family for at leas a year. However very few months you might be close enough to your family where they can visit you or you can visit them. That is how it really works.
Name how many times the Enterprise in her 7-8 years of service that she was at Earth, other than for a crisis, or close to Earth within a day or two distance travel?
EXCEPT...
The Galaxy-class was ORIGINALLY planned to operate on exploration missions much longer than originally planned. They were going to be sent on five- or ten-year missions away from the Federation. Even longer away from home than Kirk's Enterprise was.
However, things changed. Mainly because of a certain group of aliens called the Borg. The Enterprise (and likely other ships) got held in closer to the Federation for defensive purposes. This also translated into a more diplomacy-oriented duty as well.
The bottom line: the role the Enterprise-D fulfilled in TNG was not exactly the same role that the Galaxy-class was originally designed for.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Also, I think that the E-D's role was different from most of the other Galaxy class ships because she was the flagship and had to ferry around the Federation to show its presence.
As for families, Tom Riker said after 6 months of service on the USS Gandhi [Edit: This sentence has been rewritten for clarity], he could bring family onboard. This seems to imply that assignments of 6 months or less do not allow families while longer missions do.
There is proof of missions lasting several years. The USS Olympia in "The Sound of Her Voice" was on an eight (8) year mission of exploration. Can you imagine eight years without stopping for port and without family?
Your argument about the Defiant vs the E-D falls short when you consider that the USS Valiant (a Defiant class vessel) fought a much larger Jem'Hadar Dreadnought (said to be 2x as big as a Galaxy class vessel) yet that ship was unable to "dodge" the attacks. Unless you think the targeting accuracy of the Type X phaser is really poor, I'm confident that the Galaxy can hold its own.
Remember the USS Lakota, an Excelsior class ship? The Defiant herself didn't dodge most of those phaser attacks (from emitters!), and the idea of using quantum torpedoes against the Defiant seemed to scare Sisko back on Earth.
quote:As for families, Tom Riker said after 6 months of service on a ship, he could bring family onboard. This seems to imply that assignments of 6 months or less do not allow families while longer missions do.
There is NOTHING in that line of dialogue to assume he was speaking of the ship's length of assignment duty or mission. I would imagine the six-month period might be a "probation" of sorts relating to extended duty service aboard the ship in question ... perhaps due to lack of space for families, and the high rates of transfer/promotion/re-assignment found in any quasi-military service.
"...might be a "probation" of sorts relating to extended duty service aboard the ship in question..."
Isn't that what I said with, "seems to imply that assignments of 6 months or less do not allow families while longer missions do"? Doesn't the line "after serving onboard for 6 months, I can bring family, etc." mean that if you serve on a ship for less than 6 months, no family, but after serving for 6 months (and continuing on) you can bring family on board?
Or are you saying that this "prohibition" is only for the USS Gandhi? Did the E-D have any sort of requirement?
When I wrote "6 months of service on a ship" I meant "6 months of service on the USS Gandhi." I just didn't bother to write the specific ship name in the last post. I have edited the previous post to avoid further confusion.
posted
I would imagine the ships that would be traveling across the 8,000+ light years, of Federation space without stopping into port is a voluntary job. Think about it, submarines are voluntary work, though very safe today, and not widow makers like they were years ago, it is still lonely being underneath the ice caps for 5-8 months. My guess is that long journeys like 8 years or so is voluntary.
Galaxy class was perhaps designed so that it didn't have to be voluntary. Its not that I have a problem of having civilians on board when you are in safe Federation territory, I have a problem of having families on board in unsafe unexplored reaches of the galaxy.
The Defiant in FC was able to dodge Borg beams in a damaged state. Now if you think the superior Borg technology can not come up with a good targetting system in which should from at least 1 species out of the hundreds of thousands of species that the Borg assimilated from, then something is clearly wrong. Blame the special effects all you want, but clearly as much as some of you hate it, the USS Defiant is able to dodge energy beams and torpedoes.
I know that the phaser arrays are almost exact, but clearly in the case of the Valiant, the Lokota and such those ships did miss, either due to misses or dodging, it has been shown that ships can miss their targets.
The Galaxy class is very large, and in the case which I said in a previous post, the Galaxy class will sustain more damage then the Defiant will in a similar run if their shield strength is similar.
Also I love the Galaxy class and all but in tactical sense, having a ship that large even if it was designed for families makes no sense.
Registered: Jul 2000
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