posted
"I think you might be putting too much emphasis on the "shooting" part of the term "troubleshooting". Troubleshooting takes many forms, from diplomatic squabbles to potentially hostile situations. However, in general, Galaxy Class firepower was not required for most of the troubleshooting situations we saw the Galaxy Class engage in.
One thing is pretty clear: if the Enterprise-D is any indication of what the Galaxy Class was often up to, then exploration of the distant reaches was often not their primary role. "
Ah a'grey. The Ent-D was a flagship likewise, always there to make an statement by appearing, a bit like the aircraft carriers today. But then, that was also the mission of the Constitutions -- patrol work and exploring (if you read The Making of Star Trek). Troubleshooting doesn't make these lesser explorers, though if you call a ship a "Troubleshooter" instead of "Explorer", it's clear you're leaning more towards the patrol ship side of the job.
"In any case, though, the notion of Intrepids as "super-warships" makes no sense, at least not as you've described it thus far. Besides which, if the Intrepids are the Federation's troubleshooters (which suggests that they'd be relegated to duties within or very near the Federation), then when war came they'd still be troubleshooting, a la Picard and the E-E in Insurrection. Indeed, they'd have to be doing *more* troubleshooting, since other starships that often got troubleshooting duties were now taking on Dominion warships."
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily make them less armed or capable of defending themselves. Ok, I'll concede that "superwarship" is a bit too informal; how about "extremely well armed"? I suggested in an earlier post that they might be used for special purposes because they're so few in number. Similarily, we haven't seen much of the Defiants in the war, although they can be built fairly quickly. Starfleet is likely to want to hold on to these for special missions.
As for the discussion about weaponry, while the Intrepid does store fewer torpedoes at a time, it's also storing tricobalt devices, as you've mentioned, while the torpedoes can be replenished onboard. In general, comparing the exact counts and numbers doesn't help us because the Intrepid could easily have more advanced torpedoes and phasers (we've heard something of 80 isoton or 200 isoton torpedoes on the show). If the official article says it has weaponry "at least equal to the phaser and photon torpedoes of the Galaxy-class", I see no reason not to believe it -- it's a pretty strong statement to compare its weaponry to that of GCS to the first place, and then it simply uses the word "equal" instead of "equal in type" or "equal in number." If someone says that the white man is equal to the black man, I wouldn't interpret this as "equal in height". The word "equal" is much more encompassing.
And as for giving the Galaxy tricobalts -- where are they? The Defiant is firing quantum torpedoes all the time during battles, but no other ships are except for the Lakota and the Ent-E. These weapons are probably as scarce as the ships they're used on.
Timo: I agree about the way things are in the real world, but let's keep in mind that Starfleet is experiencing a bit of a technology boom. The computer storage has suddenly jumped from kiloquads to teraquads (see Bernd's page), the isolinear gel packs are there, the Intrepid uses a transporter effect seen nowhere else. Hence, if we apply this to the weaponry likewise (torpedoes with isoton ratings exceeding quantum torpedoes in the DS9TM!) it probably needs to sacrifice very little.
Boris
[ May 02, 2002, 06:38: Message edited by: Boris ]
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I'll give you a real life example, South Dakota battleships are the best Treaty battleship ever built. She had a length comparable to a World War I battleship during a time when length was better for higher speed. The previous class, the North Dakota was longer, had less armor (there is a simple reason for this, but check at www.warships1.com for more info). The Sodak was speicifically designed to withstand her own guns go almost the same speed as the Carolina, and had the same guns on board. Now the only weakness she had was that she was cramped. Obviously for a ship being smaller, and being more powerful than her larger counterpart, she had advanced (for the times) technology.
If I were to compare the Intrepid to the Galaxy, it would be to a battecruiser to a battleship. Same firepower, but more speed and less protection. Though doe we know if the Intrepid has as powerful sheilds as the Galaxy class?
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While we're at it we might suppose that the Defiant class is obsolete after the war.
I was pondering this thread and wondered what the design process for the Defiant was - how do you come up with a design to work against a "super-threat" like the Borg. "Hmm - we've been building large ships that can't move real well. Maybe a small agile ship ship with non-conventional weapons." OK they tried that, we really didn't get a very clear picture in First Contact of how it worked for them - but Defiant did survive which is a vote in favor of success. However by their very nature the (non-voyager) Borg adapt. Old (once used) techniques won't work in the future. So the Defiant is no longer a good novel weapon against the Borg - its designed purpose.
The class was used in a more conventional role during the DW - and seemed to have done well acting as sort of a UFP BOP. However, with the Dominion tucked back in the G quad do they still need BOP's?
From on screen evidence it would seem they would make lousy peacetime patrol ships. They seem to be high maintenance and very uncomfortable for the crew - by SF standards anyhow. Perhaps if we were to be able to see the post-war era we'd find the Defiants becoming hanger queens - those that aren't put into mothballs outright.
Of course that presumes a post-war peace....I guess we'll see in the next movie(s).
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One thing to be careful about: the Borg can't adapt to EVERYTHING. Can they adapt to Q? There are some things even Borg can't survive, and once the Federation hits upon them, they could well be done with.
Also, the Defiant was designed to work within a fleet of Defiants, not as a single ship ("The Search"). I agree about the comfort issues, but who knows? The Defiants seem ideal for long range, dangerous exploration missions (as opposed to freely risking all those children on Galaxy class ships full of children). Maybe a couple of them could go together, staffed with more adventurous people than the usual Starfleet stock.
[ May 02, 2002, 11:06: Message edited by: Boris ]
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I agree that the Defiant was designed to be along with other Defiants, like fighters for support. Nah, in terms of patrol ships, they would make good patrol ships being stationed near stations like the Defiant at DS9. That could be their peacetime role.
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quote:Originally posted by Boris: Also, the Defiant was designed to work within a fleet of Defiants, not as a single ship ("The Search"). I agree about the comfort issues, but who knows? The Defiants seem ideal for long range, dangerous exploration missions (as opposed to freely risking all those children on Galaxy class ships full of children). Maybe a couple of them could go together, staffed with more adventurous people than the usual Starfleet stock.
Too bad she's as small as hell, and doesn't pack any specialized sensors or labs. What's she going to explore with? Phaser cannons?
We know that most Starfleet torpedoe launchers are single fire types, the only ones that are capable of firing multiple torpedoes at ones are several times the size of a runabout. Does Voyager look like she has enough space for those? Maybe beside the infinite capacity computer core, or the really big shelf full of Janeway's wigs?
There are no evidence in support of Voyager packing more fire power than the Galaxy, unless you want to count "Endgame", in which Voyager packed more heat than god himself.
[ May 02, 2002, 18:51: Message edited by: David Templar ]
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Just to add to the length of the thread, I'll contest the claim that the Defiant was supposed to operate in swarms of her sister ships.
All "The Search" claims, as I see it, is that the Defiant was to herald an era where the ships in Starfleet would be capable of taking on the Borg. The Defiant would be the first ship in this new Starfleet. She wouldn't necessarily be any more dependent on swarm-style "fleet operations" than other starships would, however - all Sisko is saying is that she would be part of the (Star-)Fleet of tomorrow.
Perhaps she'd be a silver-bullet part specializing in solo operations; perhaps a regular ship that sometimes flies in formation with other ships; or perhaps she would indeed be operated in swarms. But this wasn't clear from Sisko's statement at all, and what Starfleet really intended to do with the ship remains mere guesswork.
What the Fleet ended up doing with the ship was probably utterly unrelated to the pre-"The Search" plans. Save for the one botched assault in "Valiant", or the alt-universe sally against the Regent's mega-battlewagon, the ships of this class were never really operated against enemies comparable to the Borg. NX-74205 mostly preyed on small opponents, sometimes taking on a Galor or a Keldon but rarely approaching a full-sized Dominion warship.
My guess is that Defiant and any proposed sisters for the anti-Borg role were intended to simply inflict as much initial damage as possible in a hope that the more conventional ships could then finish the cube off. Remember all SF really knew was that Enterprise had had initial success in their first meeting (and Picard had failed to finish them) then in BOBW they were able to carve through a whole fleet. They needed something to slow them down at least long enough to concentrate all available firepower - which is perhaps what happens in First Contact. Whatever they did apparently worked as when the E-E showed up they were damaged and vulnerable.
Maybe the Defiants were even to ram it - what is that funky module for in the nose for? I've heard detachable warhead - but do we know if that is "official".
As for future roles: exploration - see above, the ships are not well equipped for that and have little room for upgrades. Also - do they have the range?
Patrol - what does a patrol ship do in peace time? Most likely what a coast guard cutter does now - interdiction of illegal vessels, resource protection, and search and rescue. Seems a Nova could likely do those just as well if we assume lightly armed (or unarmed) smugglers. I'd suspect the more run-of-the-mill Nova's to be easier to operate than the cutting edge Defiants.
Post WWII - even with a potentially greater threat in store from the Soviets (which was realized at the time) many of the "cutting edge" ships (and other weapons) were placed into storage or scrapped. I think a democracy (or post-modern whatever that the UFP is) can't maintain a "war surge" economy without an obvious immediate threat.
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"Five years ago Starfleet began exploring the possibility of building a new class of Starship, this ship would have no families, no science labs, no luxuries of any kind."
Sisko starts off by talking about a single starship class, as opposed to a set of classes.
"It was designed for one purpose only: To fight and defeat the Borg."
Its purpose is being defined.
"The Defiant was a prototype, the first ship in what would have been a new Federation battlefleet."
Now here's where things get tricky -- is she a prototype for a single class or a set of classes? The reference to a new "class" of starship at the beginning suggests the former. Otherwise, why didn't Sisko broaden the scope in his opening by referring to "new classes", and "these ships"?
In any case, it would make sense that Starfleet was planning to send more than one of these ships against the Borg. The one cube was defeated almost through sheer luck; hence, the assumption was probably that in the next attack, the Borg would merely send two or three cubes (and we know they were only able to spare one in the next attack likewise).
Now, considering that a Defiant takes a year to build by someone who doesn't know anything about it ("Shattered Mirror") and the number of shipyards within the Federation, once the design is completed they could be churned out in numbers. This construction time suggests that Starfleet was planning to have a lot more than one Defiant per cube, which is probably why it wasn't designed to face large warships on its own.
Besides, the main issue that bothered it was structural integrity. Nobody ever complained about its weapons efficiency.
Toadkiller: the warhead wasn't designed for ramming. It detaches from the main body with several torpedoes inside, and is only to be used in an emergency.
The Defiant could explore in the sense of making first contact with potentially dangerous civilizations. However, I agree that it's a bit too powerful for peacetime. It could be a border patrol ship, like the Hideki, attached to several starbases in the area. However, that's just speculation.
Boris
[ May 03, 2002, 05:01: Message edited by: Boris ]
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"Toadkiller: the warhead wasn't designed for ramming. It detaches from the main body with several torpedoes inside, and is only to be used in an emergency."
Begs the question why Worf didn't use it thus in First Contact though, huh? I would assume that he'd not care about the production costs for the filmmakers! If that is what it is for then it must render the ship less capable in some way or it would be used right away, while you still could. Also - is that in some way more dangerous than simply firing the torps normally? If it just a chunk-o-antimatter in the front, then you'd best fire that puppy right away before the bad guy shoots it. It would have made more sense to have it be an escape pod allowing you to "fire" the rest of the ship into the cube and still get away. Maybe it can easily be filled with anti-matter if you get to the point that you need to use it - sort of the fire ship idea.
"The Defiant could explore in the sense of making first contact with potentially dangerous civilizations."
Not a very Star Trek/UFP approach however to conduct diplomatic meetings with custom built warships. Picard would never approve....
What I was going for in my first point was that if I were making an anti-Borg ship long term use would not be a primary concern of mine as I would figure that it/they would either all be assimilated or we would succeed and we'd have to come up with a new idea anyhow to fend off the next wave. I don't think "winning" was the design objective - just survival.
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I do not find it hard to believe that the Defiant can be built in such large numbers that regardless of the ship, those 'swarms' of Defiants could take down any Cube or Dom. battleship/dreadnought.
Imagine if Starfleet did in fact built large numbers of Defiants. SofA, instead of a wide range of classes, the fleet could consist of a few Galaxys and Akiras but mostly made of Defiants. Do you really think (assuming that a Defoant equals a Galaxy in battle), Dominion and Cardassian fleets would be a match for 600+ Defiants? It's a dream, but thats what would be their best role.
Peacetime, a few stationed near stations prtecting the station itself and patroling for some hostile aliens. Yes, the Nova could be used for some undergunned 'pirates' and so forth. But thats not really what they were designed to do.
Nova: Undergunned Defiant: Overgunned
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Actually, bearing in mind the similarity of the Nova to the Defiant pathfinder I wonder if the two were designed at roughly the same time, perhaps as some kind of 'small ships modernization program'. Perhaps using the excuse of needing a small 'escort' to squeeze a replacement for the Oberth out of the Federation Council; or maybe to balence the science/ military aspects of the fleet.
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One wonders what other classes might be part of this "battlefleet." It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that the Prometheus class was designed towards that end. Both the Intrepid and Sovereign classes would seem to predate Wolf 359 by a fair bit, but perhaps they were tweaked afterwards as a result? A fleet composed of those four classes sounds pretty formidable.
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![[Smile]](smile.gif)
The Ent-D was a flagship likewise, always there to make an statement by appearing, a bit like the aircraft carriers today. But then, that was also the mission of the Constitutions -- patrol work and exploring (if you read The Making of Star Trek). Troubleshooting doesn't make these lesser explorers, though if you call a ship a "Troubleshooter" instead of "Explorer", it's clear you're leaning more towards the patrol ship side of the job.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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