posted
I have been thinking about this for awhile. In the Dominion War, all we see is thr Galaxy class, Nebula class, Excelsior class, Miranda class, Akira class, Sabre class, Defiant class, and sometimes we see the Steamrunner.
It has me wondering (besides real life Trek) how successful are these classes where in all the major battles they are seen the most. For instance, the Ambassador class was perhaps designed to replace the Excelsior class, yet we see the Excelsior class more. Hell for class reputed to have less that twelve ships, the Galaxy class is seen alot. Yet we do not see any of the Ambassador class, nor any of the other classes.
So what if those classes are we do not see often are failures? I mean, Starfleet had years to prepare the fleet for an upcoming war with either the Borg or the Dominion, so all the ships that were sent on the oposite of Federation territory should at leats show themselves at least once.
Thoughts?
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I've thought about the Ambassador class's limited number, and came up with three theories. One, as the most advanced and largest explorer of her time, the majority of the class was sent on long range exploration missions. They're still out there. Two, there was a serious mistake in the design specification phase. The program staff underestimated the potential of the threat force the Ambassador was going to encounter, the result being an under-gunned, under-protected vessel, with limited tactical value, at least against ships its own size. Three, the Ambassador was built based on refined and matured technology based on the Excelsior class period. However mature that technology was, it was already being superceeded by new technology which was to eventually be incorporated into the Galaxy and Nebula class, making it economically efficient for a large production run of the Ambassador class only to be replaced short after.
Dominion War report card: Galaxy: Did quite well, despite what people say about her. Only two were lost on screen. One was the Odyessy, the other was when the Breen unleashed its energy dampeners.
Nebula: There were Nebulas in DW?
Excelsior: Everyone's b!tch, gets no respect, despite being the bulk of the Federation Fleet, along with the Mirandas. We see quite a few get destroyed or damaged, but there were a lot of them to begin with.
Miranda: Same as above.
Akira: Gets more credit than it deserves. We don't see that many to begin with, but we saw at least two getting destroyed. One in the invasion by the Allies on Chintaka, and one when the Breen unleashed their energy dampeners. Consider there weren't many to begin with, losing two does not speak well for it. Heck, we probably saw more Galaxies than Akiras.
Saber: Didn't see any in action, AFAIK.
Defiant: We saw three, two was lost.
Steamrunner: None seen in action, again.
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posted
I must echo Matrix's comment about a preoccupation with blowing shit up. That's in all likelihood not what dictates whether a ship was a success or failure.
But, on the subject of things that go boom...
quote:Originally posted by David Templar:
Dominion War report card: Galaxy: Did quite well, despite what people say about her. Only two were lost on screen. One was the Odyessy, the other was when the Breen unleashed its energy dampeners.
No Galaxies were destroyed in SoA. The Odyssey and Galaxy appeared in TotP, the latter being severely damaged but neither was conclusively destroyed. One ship we're pretty sure is a Galaxy was seen destroyed in TCFoE.
quote: Nebula: There were Nebulas in DW?
They didn't appear in battle scenes until either TotP or TCFoE, although that may only have been in fleet-at-warp shots. In the general vicinity of the theatre we saw the Honshu and the T'Kumbra, plus the nameless one at DS9 at the end of SoA.
quote: Excelsior: Everyone's b!tch, gets no respect, despite being the bulk of the Federation Fleet, along with the Mirandas. We see quite a few get destroyed or damaged, but there were a lot of them to begin with.
Miranda: Same as above.
Akira: Gets more credit than it deserves. We don't see that many to begin with, but we saw at least two getting destroyed. One in the invasion by the Allies on Chintaka, and one when the Breen unleashed their energy dampeners. Consider there weren't many to begin with, losing two does not speak well for it. Heck, we probably saw more Galaxies than Akiras.
Saber: Didn't see any in action, AFAIK.
There were Sabres in SoA and TCFoE, though I can't recall any being destroyed.
quote: Defiant: We saw three, two was lost.
Steamrunner: None seen in action, again.[/qb]
At least one Steamrunner in action in SoA and it survived.
[ April 27, 2002, 16:23: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
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quote:Akira: Gets more credit than it deserves. We don't see that many to begin with, but we saw at least two getting destroyed. One in the invasion by the Allies on Chintaka, and one when the Breen unleashed their energy dampeners. Consider there weren't many to begin with, losing two does not speak well for it. Heck, we probably saw more Galaxies than Akiras.
I beg to differ in that we actually do see as many Akiras as Galaxies.
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Either way, an Akira class vessel was destroyed quite easily by a Cardassian Orbital Weapons Platform while the USS Galaxy survived a hit to her engineering hull. Yet, of course, many still feel the Akira is cooler (and thus better) than the Galaxy...
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Regarding the "Galaxy" in TCFoE, I wholeheartedly believe it's a blown-up Nebula instead - the pylons and such do not mate with the secondary hull where they should, and the hull itself looks fatter and rounder than it should.
posted
Well that Akira...well those two Akiras that I saw blow up/taken out of action could have already been more damaged than the Galaxy because they had reeived more simultaneous hits. Just because I see a ship get blown up sooner than another ship doesn't mean that the earlier ship was weeker in terms of shield power or hull strength. Besides that also doesn't mean than an Akira was destroyed before a Galaxy was. A Galaxy could have been destroyed earlier on off screen before the first Akira.
BTW, I agree with Mark on the destroyed Galaxy/Nebbie. That episode was the first to use a CGI Nebbie in the fleet. It would have been easy to just rip apart one of the CGI Nebbies. That and I don't recall any new CGI Galaxy appearance in the fleet other than stock footage.
[ April 27, 2002, 21:32: Message edited by: Dat ]
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posted
It's the old off screen argument. Off screen, there could have been an army of space bunnies flanking the Federation Fleet, only to be defeated at the last moment by a crazy woman on a Vispa. We have to go with what's on screen in this case. I really wish I had CFoE on tape, though, I don't feel any better relying on pure memory nowadays.
[ April 28, 2002, 01:21: Message edited by: David Templar ]
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Basically we need that one thing we're never going to get; a definitive, official list of all Federation starships (with general specifications) along with what exactly they were doing during the DW and their status by the end of it.
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posted
I do not see where I said anything about 'blowing shit up'. Care to explain?
I was not talking at all about whether the ships were good combat ships or good peace making ships. What I am talking about is whether these ships are successful. Obviously the Miranda and the Excelsior were extremely successful to the point where we see dozens of them in a single fleet.
So if the class is successful in their mission, obviously Starfleet would like to build more of these ships because it would not make sense to use older less efficient ships or design a whole new class to replace the current one.
So are ships that we do not see unsuccessful, (except for the classes specifically designed for exploration, with little to no weapons.)
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"Blowing shit up" was extracted from the following mangling of the English language:
quote:Originally posted by Matrix: It has me wondering (besides real life Trek) how successful are these classes where in all the major battles they are seen the most. .... I mean, Starfleet had years to prepare the fleet for an upcoming war with either the Borg or the Dominion
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Ok, then what this means all the ships that we that fight in the war are only combat capable and the rest in mothballs waiting for peace? So that means the New Orleans, Cheyenne, Ambassador, Nova, Oberth and etc are useless in a war?
But then again we see that the Excelsior is not useless in a peacetime and to a lesser extent the Miranda.
[ April 28, 2002, 13:19: Message edited by: Matrix ]
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I'd bet that those other classes you mentioned were still serving the fleet at the time. One possible reason we don't see these ships as much (besides the real world reason of CGI and limited models supply) is that certain ships replace others. After the Ambassador served for more than 30 years, the new Galaxy class could take over its role and so production was stopped. It looks like the Nova is a possible Oberth replacement. Cheyenne, New Orleans, etc. might have had roles not seen in the major battles such as border patrol, shipping patrol, etc.
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In the end, no matter what we come up with, the real story is that they simply didn't have the time or budget to put all those missing classes on screen.
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