posted
the Galaxy class were being left unfilled to expedite completion for the war. they were to be completed as soon as possible. it wasn't a design philosophy change.
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posted
That's not even close to what he was talking about. In "Liaisons" (long before the Dominion War was anywhere near beginning), Troi tells one of the ambassadors that there are portions of the ship which are unfinished so that they can add in quarters or whatever as needed.
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
except that he says "doesn't the tech manual state" which in this case seems to be referring to the DS9 tech manual, which states that some Galaxy class ships have incomplete sections in the saucer. seems to me he is talking about exactly the same thing as what i was talking about. unless, of course, Troi wrote a technical manual.
in terms of the E-D, i don't believe that there were any sections that were "unfinished". there were unfilled parts that were cordoned off for future expansion, but they were hardly "unfinished". is your closet unfinished just because it's empty?
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posted
Indeed. No possible way he could be referencing some sort of mythical "TNG" technical manual.
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
the TNGTM does not talk about anything being "unfinished". it talks about the ship being modular, but not "unfinished". the DS9TM, on the other hand, does talk about the Galaxy class ships being left unfinished. logically, that means that PsyLiam was talking about the DS9TM. unless he just doesn't quite remember what it is exactly that he is talking about. but no, that's never happened before, has it?
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posted
Why cant we go by what the creators of the ship intended it to be?
The most powerful and advanced ship in Starfleet as of 2372.
I dont understand how all of you are trying to draw these incredibly long lines. It is stated that the Enterprise-E was the most advanced ship in the fleet. In no novelization, script, or even film do I see that LaForge was making a huge exageration when he said that.
We all know the Promethous is the most powerful and advanced right now, but its still a buggy prototype with Andy Dick as a EMH.
The Enterprise is the 'starring' ship of the Trek franchise for one reason -- it is supposed to be the most special and intresting ship in the fleet. We shouldnt need to have on-screen dialoug telling us that the Ent-E is the flagship. It goes without saying. Every Enterprise has been the Flagship. This is what the creator, writers, producers, ship designers intended.
Registered: Aug 1999
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I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
ok my two cents, give or take a dollar.
The Sovereign is the most advanced starship of 2372. Obviously.
But ships come in different types. The Prometheus is smaller, and designed for a lot of fucked up features that have little practical use outside of combat. Why anyone would assume this is naturally 'better' than a Sovereign or Galaxy, i don't know. Its a ship with a much different mission profile.
The same comparison goes forth for the Sovereign versus Galaxy argument. The Sovereign seems to be a cruiser, but the case might still be made for it as an explorer. Its fast, long range, well-armed but seems to be able to fulfill a wide range of exploratory and science endeavors. It doesnt seem to have the crew capacity, cargo capacity, embarked craft capacity of the larger Galaxy, but i believe it has more in the way of firepower and speed. probably, the Sovereign is designed to fulfill the fleet's cruiser requirement while the Galaxys are continuing their long range explorer designation.
on the question of succession, Starfleet probably has some ways of reclassifying ships for new purposes too. Many sources of semi-canon info (DS9 TM i believe) call the Excelsior an explorer, a mission type defined in the TNG TM. Ambassadors fall under the same classification of explorer. But by the time of TNG, at least in the altered timeline, an Ambassador is referred to as a cruiser in "Yesterday's Enterprise" dialogue. And the Excelsior certainly seems to not be in its explorer role, both visibly during the war, and in dialogue, like "Tin Man" where the Hood 'isn't one of the Galaxy boys, it hauls its butt back and forth between starbases' to paraphrase. The inference is that the Excelsiors have been relegated to patrol with the advent of new longrange explorers. i would definitely consider Excelsiors to be cruisers, Ambassadors and Galaxys to be explorers and Sovereigns to be heavy cruisers in the current fleet makeup.
btw, the "Liaisons" quote (not understanding your confusion there.. the source is the "Liaisons" episode, and the TNG TM is the tech manual Liam refers to..), IMO is referring to modular capability of the Galaxy, it can be outfitted with numerous different layouts that allow for adaptable mission profiles, this only makes sense for a ship with a 100-year design lifetime. it would be foolish to assume you would never need to add anything to that design.
as for the matter of the flagship: thats a political matter, it hardly has anything to do with the ships design. NX-01 was a scout almost, maybe a cruiser when they added the weapons, 1701 was a heavy cruiser, and the other E's seem to all be cruisers or explorers (depending on your source). you dont have to have a certain type of ship or meet a certain 'powerfulness quota' to be a flagship, you just are.
and of course the Galaxy program is continuing, the ships are 18 years out of the gate, and each spaceframe has a 100 year design lifetime. Just because they don't have an Enterprise among their ranks anymore doesnt mean anything about the class going away.
oh yeah, the TNG TM controversy about the 'next explorer' class.. they called it the Nova-class in the book, but i believe the chapter started off by saying the ASDB was a long way off from finalizing any plans for the next explorer class, so theres no reason accepting that name was assigned to a new class of plucky scoutship. onto their designs: people are saying they trashed them all to make the Sovereign.. i think the opposite. i think the design's philosophy presented in the TNG TM is proof that the Sovereign in NOT an explorer and has nothing to do with the explorer program. obviously, a 2372 launch date would need to allow for a decade or so R & D. i think the Sovereign was Starfleet's long awaited new cruiser class, and as such, got no mention in the TM's summary of the future of the explorer program. and those explorer ships types remain on the drawing board, probably in a preliminary stage at this point, with their new design objectives: smaller than the Galaxy, and more modular. and with a different name.
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Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
It's been a long while since I read the TNG tech manual, so I misremembered it as being "unfinished" rather than "left empty for future expansion". Woo, it has PCI slots.
But to rephrase my original argument, perhaps a few years they actually realised that all that extra space they'd left in the Galaxy just in case was a waste. After all, Excelsiors seem to manage fine with the same amount of space they had 100 years ago (less, if we add in the Enterprise-B) design. The refit Connie wasn't significantly bigger than the original. In fact, the only real instance I can think of of refitting resulting in a bigger ship is the not-real "All Good Things" Enterprise, and that was only done because TPTB wanted a big fuck-off gun on it.
There's also the chance that maybe, during the development of the Galaxy, Starfleet learned how to miniturise better. Certainly the Intrepid seems capable of most things that a Galaxy can do, with size being the only notable difference seen in 7 years of Voyager. By taking that into account, it's perfectly feasable that the Sovereign is just as powerful and capable as a Galaxy (however you quantify that) while still being a bit smaller.
As a side note, does anyone know why TPTB made the Sovereign smaller? They've usually stuck to a "bigger is better/newer" before, and I'm curious to know why that changed.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
without the tech manuals the only info we have on these ship classes is that they are big and have lots of windows.
get over it.
i didnt bring the TMs into the discussion.. i just picked up the thread.
besides the basic argument can be made without the assistance or interference of the tech manuals. Galaxy & Sovereign = Two Different Ships. The Sovereign does not seem intended to be the same thing as the Galaxy. Similar, yes, in that the ships are multipurpose: fit the 'does pretty much everything' requirement of the fact that they are Enterprises. but not the same. they rethought a few things along the way.
Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:Originally posted by O Captain Mike Captain: without the tech manuals the only info we have on these ship classes is that they are big and have lots of windows.
That's quite simply BS.
quote:i didnt bring the TMs into the discussion.. i just picked up the thread.
I never said you did. My last post wasn't specifically directed to you.
quote:besides the basic argument can be made without the assistance or interference of the tech manuals. Galaxy & Sovereign = Two Different Ships. The Sovereign does not seem intended to be the same thing as the Galaxy. Similar, yes, in that the ships are multipurpose: fit the 'does pretty much everything' requirement of the fact that they are Enterprises. but not the same. they rethought a few things along the way.
Well, yes, I already agreed to that earlier in the thread.
I'm just sick of comments like "a Galaxy-class ship is built to last a 100 years" and "it took 20 years to design the Galaxy-class" and all other such "facts" that are pulled from the Tech Manual's arses, yet are inconsistent with actual canon.
posted
Holly SHIT you are putting way too much into it. I am looking at this from a realisitic stand point. The Enterprise-E is the HERO SHIP. I can do anything a script calls for. Including exploring, fighting, and so on.
The fact that its the flag ship has nothing to do with its strength, it has to do with the fact that the show is ABOUT this ship. The movies are based around this ship. Tech manuals have obviously clouded any conclusions you can draw about the entire point.
The fact is. The Enterprise-E is THE starship of Star Trek TNG right now. Its the Enterprise. THE Enterprise. It can do anything the story wants it to.
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Generally, though, I'd say a starship is better story material if it's defined by what it *cannot* do... If it cannot defeat an enemy of size X or armament Y, if it cannot infiltrate territory Z, if substance A is beyond its scanning abilities, if pursuit speed B is the absolute maximum, etc.
So far, few things have been beyond the abilities of any of the hero ships. Top speed is always topped when need be. Weapons, shield or sensor efficiency can be raised by a trick-of-the-week. It gets pretty tiresome eventually.
And the "the E can do anything and everything" rule also makes the original question of this thread irrelevant. No matter whether Picard flew the E-D, the E-E or the NX-01, or the CV-6 for that matter, he'd be equally capable of defeating the Borg. If despite everything the ship *cannot* outgun or outrun the enemy, then the enemy will have a fatal weakness tailored so that that the ship *can* exploit it.
I for one would like to see a plot where technology utterly fails our heroes, and where the enemy triumphs because of it. Space is big, there's room for setbacks there. Losing isn't the end of everything. As far as we aren't speaking of the Borg.
quote:Originally posted by Dax: I'm just sick of comments like "a Galaxy-class ship is built to last a 100 years" and "it took 20 years to design the Galaxy-class" and all other such "facts" that are pulled from the Tech Manual's arses, yet are inconsistent with actual canon.
exactly which of those are inconsistant with the canon? did braga write an episode of TNG that was entitled Lets Fuck the Technical Manuals that i missed?
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