NationStates Jolt Archive

I disagree on both.

Well, you can disagree on the Enterprise being ugly, but regardless of what type of game you like, immersiveness seems to be the holy grail for games designers these days. More and more games are using a first-person perspective, even platformers (http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/927/927781p1.html). It's not just that graphics are flashy, it's a change in priorities when it comes to game design.

Considering how profitable space would be for the harvesting of resources, not to mention how beneficial to all sorts of scientific fields--and don't forget all the moolah involved--I don't see why we wouldn't, unless we'd rather screw ourselves over entirely.

In which case we might as well push the buttons and let the nukes fly now.

For space to be profitable in terms of resource harvesting, we need a better way of getting off planet that doesn't involve sitting on top of a glorified firecracker.

Death to JJ Abrams. And not one of the fast, painless, dignified deaths, one of the slow, painful, disgusting deaths.

Death to JJ Abrams. And not one of the fast, painless, dignified deaths, one of the slow, painful, disgusting deaths.
Like a transporter accident?

For space to be profitable in terms of resource harvesting, we need a better way of getting off planet that doesn't involve sitting on top of a glorified firecracker.

I am aware of this. We'll develop it. But we need to use that technology to get to where we can develop it first.

And I'm serious. If we're not going to bother with space for its resources, then let's just all kill ourselves now, because the species will be over.

The should have put massive wheels on it and called the film Star Truck.

They don't anticipate a lot of things, given how both ship and crew stumble from disaster to disaster, saved only by the plot.

I think it's fair to say that the ships only get in such bad shape because of the plot too. It's not as exciting if the ship just gets a little knock. There's no drama. The ships have to get really badly beat up, because of the main characters being on it. Sure, the plot is what saves them, but it's also what gets them in the mess in the first place. So I'd call that a null point.

Fail fairly often actually. The structure is still a poor design.

Sometimes the shields fail instantly, other times, they are quite resilliant. It depends on the plot. A similiar argument came up in the Star Wars vs. Star Trek thread, where someone said that you can't say Stormtroopers have no accuracy because they always miss the heroes, because Obi Wan himself said something to the effect of precision fire being done by stormtroopers. So, again, it's not that the shields are flimsy, it's that the plot demands they fail, just as the plot demands the Stormtroopers miss quite frequently.


One thing I'd like to note is that Romulan Warbirds have a similiar nacelle layout to most Federation ships - in that they keep them far away from where the crew live and work. It's possible that the radiation produced by the engines has long-term effects, which is why they are kept nice and far away. But in warships, the strategic advantage of having the engines nicely tucked away proves more beneficial than the crews long-term health.

At any rate, there are plenty of canonable explainations for why the nacells are not kept within the ship most of the time.

At any rate, there are plenty of canonable explainations for why the nacells are not kept within the ship most of the time.

I have no support for this statement, but I vaguely recall some passing mention somewhere along the franchise's line that the nacelles had to be positioned a certain way in order to properly form the warp field needed. So, perhaps, they are they way they are because that's the only way they would work. I want to say that it was Voyager that mentioned it, because of how their engines would do that stupid folding thing when the ship would go to warp.

Don't quote me on this, but it's a possible explanation.

It's basically the difference between a 55 Chevy pickup and a GMC of the same year. Not a lot.

Exactly.

they were not part of the original constitution class starships. ;)

I swear I wasn't trying to match you geek-out for geek-out. I just remember ship names for some reason. I don't remember many classes or which ship goes where. You are made of teeny-tiny little bits of win.

... this is Captain Temple of the Federation Starship Lollipop. Our 5 yr mission, to find the center and to see how long it takes to get there... :D

Let's find out. One, a-two-hoo, thrrree *BOOM* Three warp coils.

Could one not argue that the 'trashing' wasn't in terms of cash, but of credibility?

Just as surely as we could argue that credibility can't buy a thing, and doesn't get sequels made so that you can buy more things. We get your point. It's just that, in comparison to the earnings, it's ultra-moot.

Considering how profitable space would be for the harvesting of resources, not to mention how beneficial to all sorts of scientific fields--and don't forget all the moolah involved--I don't see why we wouldn't, unless we'd rather screw ourselves over entirely.

In which case we might as well push the buttons and let the nukes fly now.

Wow. So needlessly fatalistic. Seems to me that once we figure out how to live together on the rock we've got, we can then spend money on trying to leave before the sun goes red giant in 5 BILLION years.

What moolah are you talking about, by the way? Unless you've invented the transporter, resources from space? Yeah, WAY too damned expensive.

What makes you think that the cheesiness of TOS isn't part of what the true fans cherish?

I know I do, that's why I really enjoy watching the old episodes.

You can make something with astounding special effects and nothing that comes across to the viewer.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Or you can have something like old special effects that somehow connect with the audience.

Doctor Who.

Thou sayest -- but I can't see how it can be afforded, or even if it matters anymore.

I'm sorry, but I just have to answer this.

Space travel is something we can easily afford. NASA's budget is an insignificant percentage of the total US budget (I heard its less than one percent). Besides, their are other ways. In his book Entering Space, Robert Zubrin discussed the possibility of offering massive government prizes to companies for reaching goals in space exploration. Very much like the idea put in to practice with the X-prize. Offer say, 20 Billion dollars to the first company that builds a ship to reach Mars. The government sets the guidelines, and gives the reward, but hardly any government money need be spent until results have been achieved.

As for weather it matters, I could simply direct you once again to the works of Robert Zubrin, but that would be lazy.;) So here's a brief, but by no means complete, list of the reasons to explore and colonize space.

1. Because being restricted to one planet increases the risk of extinction through war, disease, asteroid impact (impossible to protect against without a space program beyond what we currently have)

2. Because space exploration can unite people around a common goal and provide inspiration

3. Because space is full of valuable resources (metal from asteroids, nuclear fuel from gas giant atmospheres, solar power)

4. The possibility of discovering alien life, even bacteria, could revolutionize our understanding of biology and our place in the universe

5. Space exploration acts as a catalyst for technological development.

6. A lot of our economy and infrastructure is already based on space (like satalite communications, weather predictions, environmental studies, spy satalites).

7. Research (particularily environmental research) conducted in space, or using orbital satalites. See above point.

Wow. So needlessly fatalistic. Seems to me that once we figure out how to live together on the rock we've got, we can then spend money on trying to leave before the sun goes red giant in 5 BILLION years.
Actually, we only have about a billion years before the Suns continuing expansion makes the climate too harsh for human life as we currently know it.

Not the point.

I'm talking about being able to continue civilization as it is now. We are dangerously running low on a lot of precious minerals, such as platinum, and silicon. We're even finding it hard to find new quality iron deposits and such.

We need all kinds of resources that we can get from space. I'm not just talking about dinky little bases on the Moon or Mars. I'm talking about harvesting asteroids, comets, and all sorts of different bodies out there.

Plus, think of the benefits of ensuring that no NEOs could ever impact Earth again. With enough technological development we could easily do that. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?

And there are lots of other benefits too, as I'm sure you're aware.


What moolah are you talking about, by the way? Unless you've invented the transporter, resources from space? Yeah, WAY too damned expensive.


At the moment only because we haven't been putting enough money towards developing technology the way we ought to have. Space exploration and such has so far been limited to pissing contests with the Russians, and then just tossing up satellites in orbit and such. Which, I point out, have been extremely beneficial in all kinds of ways.

Look at this way. Technology right now that is commonplace used to be incredibly expensive to produce. Think about how often people have said "Oh, this is impossible, this can't be done" or "This will never be mass produced or widely used!" Yet it's been proven untrue again and again.

And the simple fact is, we NEED to do this. It's not optional. It's not something we can put off. We need to do this NOW. It's going to take a lot of time and effort to bring costs of space travel, mining, and so on down to the point where it becomes quite profitable and such, and if we don't start doing it now while we still have the resources to accomplish it easily, we're going to have gigantic problems later on.

I know, I'm sounding alarmist and fatalistic here, but I'm just trying to get people motivated into it. Space is more than just a playground for a few scientists and for people to dream about science fiction. It is the next frontier. Of everything.

And yet Obama's space plan, unlike just about everything else, is "more of the same." Ironic, isn't it? Of all the places where my favorite candidate had to screw up, it just had to be this.:headbang:

I'm talking about being able to continue civilization as it is now. We are dangerously running low on a lot of precious minerals, such as platinum, and silicon.


bolded, On Earth, silicon is the second most abundant element (after oxygen) in the crust, making up 25.7% of the crust by mass. we aren't going to run out of it anytime soon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon

On point:
What did they do to the enterprise!1!1!1!! o wait this is the really old, campy version, carry on (always liked next generation more)

bolded, On Earth, silicon is the second most abundant element (after oxygen) in the crust, making up 25.7% of the crust by mass. we aren't going to run out of it anytime soon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon

But is it in an easily accessable form? I have no idea, I'm just wondering.

bolded, On Earth, silicon is the second most abundant element (after oxygen) in the crust, making up 25.7% of the crust by mass. we aren't going to run out of it anytime soon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon

On point:
What did they do to the enterprise!1!1!1!! o wait this is the really old, campy version, carry on (always liked next generation more)

Well, the point is, we're still running low on resources we could get lots more of elsewhere, and for lots of money to boot, once it's worked on.

It just takes the effort put into it first. Unfortunately, people are too short-minded.

Well, the point is, we're still running low on resources we could get lots more of elsewhere, and for lots of money to boot, once it's worked on.

It just takes the effort put into it first. Unfortunately, people are too short-minded.

This is one instance, and I say this as a liberal/borderline socialist, that the private sector needs to take the lead. Tax payers are never going to accept a real space program during a depression. Last I heard, Obama's planning cuts.

The government just needs to lay out the guidelines, and provide a prize for the first company to build a ship to reach Mars. The beauty being that no money is spent until results are achieved.:)

well, *NO BOOBIES for you . at least there's a lot of action. oh, previous page has a new watchmen trailer *squeeee

edit: can someone find a diff site with it so that link can be deleted. I consider it PG but whatever

another edit: also naked chick so link deleted. find it or tg

That is why your first act is to slice off the nacelles, which given the design style, is incredibly easy to do if you have anything decent for a weapon. An immobile ship is a doomed one.

Those pylons may look thin, but they're still around 40 feet thick and strengthened by the structural integrity field.

I have no support for this statement, but I vaguely recall some passing mention somewhere along the franchise's line that the nacelles had to be positioned a certain way in order to properly form the warp field needed. So, perhaps, they are they way they are because that's the only way they would work. I want to say that it was Voyager that mentioned it, because of how their engines would do that stupid folding thing when the ship would go to warp.

Don't quote me on this, but it's a possible explanation.

That is one thing. Also, on the older ships, at least, (if memory serves) any living entities directly between the nacelles would be crispy critters.

Personally, I like that fan CGI a lot better than the movie ship.

That's Titan, not Orion. The USS Titan.

D'oh!
You are right. My bad.
Orion was a different situation.
:)

I'm surprised you weren't turned on by Entente. That was only mentioned by name on a transmission from The Motion Picture. But yeah, that list exhausts most of my ST geek cred.
Wow, it was that long ago. Good choice. *bows*

We were SUPPOSED to get this:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a377/jusenkyoguide/USS_Enterprise_NCC-1701_ENT.jpg

What we are getting is this:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a377/jusenkyoguide/enterprise579_l.jpg

Oh, and a boob grabbing Kirk, but somethings never change. :D

Alright fellow Trek fans, here's the new and 'improved' Enterprise, what's your take on it?

I like the new Enterprise, although it does look a bit too much like a Soverign-class from Next Generation.
Kirk is a giant perv. :tongue:

I like the new Enterprise, although it does look a bit too much like a Soverign-class from Next Generation.
Kirk is a giant perv. :tongue:

What? It looks very little like a Sovereign, at least no more than any other typical Federation design. Going from memory, I'd say it looks more like the Ambassador Class, but I may be wrong.

I'm sorry, but I just have to answer this.

Space travel is something we can easily afford. NASA's budget is an insignificant percentage of the total US budget (I heard its less than one percent). Besides, their are other ways. In his book Entering Space, Robert Zubrin discussed the possibility of offering massive government prizes to companies for reaching goals in space exploration. Very much like the idea put in to practice with the X-prize. Offer say, 20 Billion dollars to the first company that builds a ship to reach Mars. The government sets the guidelines, and gives the reward, but hardly any government money need be spent until results have been achieved.

As for weather it matters, I could simply direct you once again to the works of Robert Zubrin, but that would be lazy.;) So here's a brief, but by no means complete, list of the reasons to explore and colonize space.

1. Because being restricted to one planet increases the risk of extinction through war, disease, asteroid impact (impossible to protect against without a space program beyond what we currently have)

2. Because space exploration can unite people around a common goal and provide inspiration

3. Because space is full of valuable resources (metal from asteroids, nuclear fuel from gas giant atmospheres, solar power)

4. The possibility of discovering alien life, even bacteria, could revolutionize our understanding of biology and our place in the universe

5. Space exploration acts as a catalyst for technological development.

6. A lot of our economy and infrastructure is already based on space (like satalite communications, weather predictions, environmental studies, spy satalites).

7. Research (particularily environmental research) conducted in space, or using orbital satalites. See above point.

Actually, we only have about a billion years before the Suns continuing expansion makes the climate too harsh for human life as we currently know it.

Not the point.

I'm talking about being able to continue civilization as it is now. We are dangerously running low on a lot of precious minerals, such as platinum, and silicon. We're even finding it hard to find new quality iron deposits and such.

We need all kinds of resources that we can get from space. I'm not just talking about dinky little bases on the Moon or Mars. I'm talking about harvesting asteroids, comets, and all sorts of different bodies out there.

Plus, think of the benefits of ensuring that no NEOs could ever impact Earth again. With enough technological development we could easily do that. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?

And there are lots of other benefits too, as I'm sure you're aware.



At the moment only because we haven't been putting enough money towards developing technology the way we ought to have. Space exploration and such has so far been limited to pissing contests with the Russians, and then just tossing up satellites in orbit and such. Which, I point out, have been extremely beneficial in all kinds of ways.

Look at this way. Technology right now that is commonplace used to be incredibly expensive to produce. Think about how often people have said "Oh, this is impossible, this can't be done" or "This will never be mass produced or widely used!" Yet it's been proven untrue again and again.

And the simple fact is, we NEED to do this. It's not optional. It's not something we can put off. We need to do this NOW. It's going to take a lot of time and effort to bring costs of space travel, mining, and so on down to the point where it becomes quite profitable and such, and if we don't start doing it now while we still have the resources to accomplish it easily, we're going to have gigantic problems later on.

I know, I'm sounding alarmist and fatalistic here, but I'm just trying to get people motivated into it. Space is more than just a playground for a few scientists and for people to dream about science fiction. It is the next frontier. Of everything.

Pretty words. Meaningless and empty, but very, very pretty.

What? It looks very little like a Sovereign, at least no more than any other typical Federation design. Going from memory, I'd say it looks more like the Ambassador Class, but I may be wrong.

I think it looks like a Soverign, but I haven't watched any of the shows since Enterprise ended. Might need to brush up a bit. :rolleyes:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Although that had Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie in it. That's good for my eyes at least.

Although that had Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie in it. That's good for my eyes at least.

and P40s

well. seems the studio has an iron grip on that trailer. so either look for leaks like on that deleted site or wait a few days.
car chase, explosions, Uhura taking her top off, more explosions

Pretty words. Meaningless and empty, but very, very pretty.

Why? Surely you can come up with a more informative response than that?

Though frankly this is off-topic. I'm thinking someone should open a sepperate topic for discussing real life space travle if this goes on much longer.

Well, the point is, we're still running low on resources we could get lots more of elsewhere, and for lots of money to boot, once it's worked on.

It just takes the effort put into it first. Unfortunately, people are too short-minded.

The one resource which we really really need is energy.

With enough clean energy everything else can be recycled. Transmutation even, for those rare elements we might need which are only available in space. The limit of direct warming of the planet from waste heat is orders of magnitude higher than greenhouse effects.


Let's face it, you're just angling for your own command in thirty years, and you know that nobody is going to be fighting a war from a seagoing vessel any more. :tongue:

Cerean;14214886']and P40s

well. seems the studio has an iron grip on that trailer. so either look for leaks like on that deleted site or wait a few days.
car chase, explosions, Uhura taking her top off, more explosions
She's in her mid-70ies! The only thing that would explode is my head.

Why? Surely you can come up with a more informative response than that?

Though frankly this is off-topic. I'm thinking someone should open a sepperate topic for discussing real life space travle if this goes on much longer.

Fuck yeah. Reality is toxic to ST canon.

She's in her mid-70ies! The only thing that would explode is my head.

You do know this is a reboot with a new cast, right?

Pretty words. Meaningless and empty, but very, very pretty.

I am astonished by the depth of your counterargument. You have truly swayed me to your side.

I am astonished by the depth of your counterargument. You have truly swayed me to your side.

There's something about your childish enthusiasm for space that makes ME want to troll you too.

With or without the facts on my side.

She's in her mid-70ies! The only thing that would explode is my head.
Prude. *tsk*

The one resource which we really really need is energy.

With enough clean energy everything else can be recycled. Transmutation even, for those rare elements we might need which are only available in space. The limit of direct warming of the planet from waste heat is orders of magnitude higher than greenhouse effects.
Clean energy would be fantastic, certainly. But recycling can only get you so much, and--while it should be pursued--it won't get us enough. We'll need more, and space is where we get that more.


Let's face it, you're just angling for your own command in thirty years, and you know that nobody is going to be fighting a war from a seagoing vessel any more. :tongue:

I have no idea what you're talking about. :wink:

There's something about your childish enthusiasm for space that makes ME want to troll you too.

With or without the facts on my side.

Wait, what? Childish? How is it childish?

There's something about your childish enthusiasm for space that makes ME want to troll you too.

With or without the facts on my side.

One, its not trolling to disagree with you. Two, your admitting you want to troll someone without evidence because you consider them childish (no reasons provided). Three, your a jackass.

I am aware of this. We'll develop it. But we need to use that technology to get to where we can develop it first.

And I'm serious. If we're not going to bother with space for its resources, then let's just all kill ourselves now, because the species will be over.

The species is over. As you can see, as a species, we are too short sighted and too greedy. Easier and quicker to beat your neighbor over the head and take his stuff than to spend more and go out into richer pastures. See how the space program languished after a few measly lunar missions?

By the time it gets to the point where we must go beyond the biosphere to gain necessary resources, we'll have too little to spend to go out, and the "profit here and now" mentality will be stronger than over.

It's why if you really want to get to space in an appreciable amount of time, you need an iron fisted dictatorship with long term vision. Anything less, democracy among them, is too stymied by short sighted bickering and squabbling who will burn their future to the ground for dividends now.

That is one thing. Also, on the older ships, at least, (if memory serves) any living entities directly between the nacelles would be crispy critters.


Then why the hell does the shuttle bay eject right in between them?

The species is over. As you can see, as a species, we are too short sighted and too greedy. Easier and quicker to beat your neighbor over the head and take his stuff than to spend more and go out into richer pastures. See how the space program languished after a few measly lunar missions?

Its always easier to curl up in defeat than try to improve the world isn't it?

By the time it gets to the point where we must go beyond the biosphere to gain necessary resources, we'll have too little to spend to go out, and the "profit here and now" mentality will be stronger than over.

Which is why we should be pushing space exploration now.

It's why if you really want to get to space in an appreciable amount of time, you need an iron fisted dictatorship with long term vision. Anything less, democracy among them, is too stymied by short sighted bickering and squabbling who will burn their future to the ground for dividends now.

Democracy is not the problem. A pitiful public relations job by NASA and rampant public ignorance on the issue is. Democracy works best in concert with an educated public. If people understood the issue, we could make more progress.

Pretty words. Meaningless and empty, but very, very pretty.

This is the sort of short minded thinking that is going to extinguish humanity as a species.

Forget a billion years from now before the expansion of the sun swallows Earth up. We're not likely to even make it a hundred years as a civilization if we keep the oil addiction, which we're not likely to overcome anytime soon.

Going to space will at least open up the possibility of more abundant energy sources.

This is the sort of short minded thinking that is going to extinguish humanity as a species.

Forget a billion years from now before the expansion of the sun swallows Earth up. We're not likely to even make it a hundred years as a civilization if we keep the oil addiction, which we're not likely to overcome anytime soon.

Going to space will at least open up the possibility of more abundant energy sources.

We don't actually need space travle to solve the energy crisis. We do need investment in alternative energy, and fortunately we're begining to make progress on that politically. In the long term, though, our energy needs are likely to continue to grow, so its definately a good idea to be looking ahead.

Its always easier to curl up in defeat than try to improve the world isn't it?


The world can be improved, certainly, but not the way things are running right now. In fact, we're having a championship race to see who can ruin it fastest.


Which is why we should be pushing space exploration now.


Absolutely.


Democracy is not the problem.


Please. Democracy panders to the lowest common denominator, and before the economic crash, that was Survivor, American Idol and petty little pursuits.

The Germans were closest to space travel before they got trashed, and it was the Russians who first went to space. The democratic world only got it's ass into gear when they decided to join the pissing match of building a bigger and better firecracker and once they had a lead, then what? Decay and neglect. Budget slashes for a shinier toy for the military or adventures in Asia.

You want to get into space? You want to make real gains beyond the biosphere? You run roughshod over the lowest common denominator. They don't have vision. They have petty, mewling needs and will never see that truck barreling down on them while they whine on the highway.


A pitiful public relations job by NASA and rampant public ignorance on the issue is. Democracy works best in concert with an educated public. If people understood the issue, we could make more progress.

People don't want to understand the issue. People will pick the easiest to digest, simplest view. An enlightened, forward seeing people is nice, but a dream unfortunately.

You do know this is a reboot with a new cast, right?
No! :eek: Really? :rolleyes:
Prude. *tsk*
Okay, maybe I'll also explode in my pants a little.

After all, Nichelle still looks very attractive. (Even though she might not exactly be in the age range I usually aim for.)

Please. Democracy panders to the lowest common denominator, and before the economic crash, that was Survivor, American Idol and petty little pursuits.

This is where we disagree. In a dictatorship, you have no say in what the dictator prioritizes. He might choose to pump money into space travle, but more likely he'll fund the crap out of the secret police and the military. Or perhaps he'll put it all into making a giant gilded statue of himself. You have no say. Democracy is what lets you and me come here and argue for what we believe in without fear of persecution.

The electorate is uneducated. Change that, and then we'll talk.

You want to get into space? You want to make real gains beyond the biosphere? You run roughshod over the lowest common denominator. They don't have vision. They have petty, mewling needs and will never see that truck barreling down on them while they whine on the highway.

You are making generalizations. Their is no reason why an educated ellectorate cannot be rallied around the right causes.

A democracy (at least a constitutional one, which is what we currently have) gives everyone a chance to make their voice heard. What wins, unfortunately, is the slickest presentation. So what do you do? You make damn sure you're side has the slickest presentation. You don't abandon the system. You learn to make it work for you.

People don't want to understand the issue. People will pick the easiest to digest, simplest view. An enlightened, forward seeing people is nice, but a dream unfortunately.

When the public is uneducated, you try to educate them. I can do that in a democracy. I could not in a dictatorship.

download here (http://rapidshare.com/files/164080407/123.flv)
wonder what that big creature is. Non-humanoid aliens:eek:

When the public is uneducated, you try to educate them. I can do that in a democracy. I could not in a dictatorship.I'm sorry, what?

I'm sorry, what?

:rolleyes: If you want a better responce, give me something to respond to.

:rolleyes: If you want a better responce, give me something to respond to.I was wondering what you meant by the personal reference. How does your ability, specifically, to do things affect other peoples' ability to do that specific thing.

In other words, does it really matter that you cannot? I don't meant to be offensive or anything, but that just sort of stuck out to me.:(

This is where we disagree. In a dictatorship, you have no say in what the dictator prioritizes. He might choose to pump money into space travle, but more likely he'll fund the crap out of the secret police and the military. Or perhaps he'll put it all into making a giant gilded statue of himself. You have no say. Democracy is what lets you and me come here and argue for what we believe in without fear of persecution.

So you've pointed out the weakness of a dictatorship. Idiot leaders. Democracies are hardly immune to that. Smart leaders, or at least visionary ones in a democracy will be stymied by the political machine that panders either to the lowest common denominator or special interest groups.

An observant dictatorship on the other hand, can get things done without being bogged down by politics.


The electorate is uneducated. Change that, and then we'll talk.


And uneducated is where the electorate will remain. It's not a question of lack in the education system. People just aren't interested. When it has no direct, highly visible, impact on their lives, most will just brush through it and then decide on their gut.

Brainwashing might get a more thorough education, but you'd be opposed to that too.


You are making generalizations. Their is no reason why an educated ellectorate cannot be rallied around the right causes.


And the generalizations, because we are talking about a general mass of humanity here, are accurate.


A democracy (at least a constitutional one, which is what we currently have) gives everyone a chance to make their voice heard. What wins, unfortunately, is the slickest presentation. So what do you do? You make damn sure you're side has the slickest presentation. You don't abandon the system. You learn to make it work for you.

In other words, the best conman wins. Not the ones who has the best ideas, or the ones who have forward vision. No, just the demagogues.


When the public is uneducated, you try to educate them. I can do that in a democracy. I could not in a dictatorship.

That depends entirely on what sort of dictatorship.

So you've pointed out the weakness of a dictatorship. Idiot leaders. Democracies are hardly immune to that. Smart leaders, or at least visionary ones in a democracy will be stymied by the political machine that panders either to the lowest common denominator or special interest groups.

God knows this thread can't get much more off topic.

Yes, their will be stupid leaders in both systems. In a dictatorship, however, their would be no check on their stupidity, or insanity. Imagine Bush, for example, with no check whatsoever on his actions.

An observant dictatorship on the other hand, can get things done without being bogged down by politics.

You'd think that. In truth, however, there is in-fighting in a dictatorship. Stalin's purges, which weakened the strength of the Soviet army, come to mind.

And uneducated is where the electorate will remain. It's not a question of lack in the education system. People just aren't interested. When it has no direct, highly visible, impact on their lives, most will just brush through it and then decide on their gut.

My experience of public schools is that they are stupid and boring largely because they are full of stupid, unqualified, incompetant people. And because indoctrination takes precidence over education.

Brainwashing might get a more thorough education, but you'd be opposed to that too.

Yes, I would. I find it ironic that you seem to have intended that as an insult.

And the generalizations, because we are talking about a general mass of humanity here, are accurate.

Their have been times when the masses of humanity have rallied for the common good.

In other words, the best conman wins. Not the ones who has the best ideas, or the ones who have forward vision. No, just the demagogues.

Just because a good presentation wins doesn't mean the best conman has to win, or that being a conman and having good ideas are mutually exclusive. The right ideas can win in a democracy. And frankly I'd choose being run by conmen over being run by the SS.

That depends entirely on what sort of dictatorship.

Name a dictatorship in recent history that has done its people more harm than good?

One, its not trolling to disagree with you. Two, your admitting you want to troll someone without evidence because you consider them childish (no reasons provided). Three, your a jackass.

All three of your opinions are noted.


I referred to Intangelon's trolling of Kyronea. That I disagree with Kyronea is irrelevant.
I provided a reason, which you manage to reference twice in one sentence before denying that it exists.
I am indeed a sterile male, so a mule rather than an ass, and I Hee-Haw! in your general direction.

All three of your opinions are noted.


I referred to Intangelon's trolling of Kyronea. That I disagree with Kyronea is irrelevant.

A missunderstanding on my part. I thought you were calling Kyronea a troll. Though I don't recall any trolling by Intangelon either.:confused:

I provided a reason, which you manage to reference twice in one sentence before denying that it exists.

What reasons for trolling did you give, besides " I think you're childish?" That's not much of an argument in and of itself. Its just an unsupported spouting of your opinion. Why do you disagree with him, and how does his opinion or behavior justify wanting to troll him?

I am indeed a sterile male, and I Hee-Haw! in your general direction.


Very funny. Doesn't excuse your foolishness however.

And my apologies to the mods. I know this thread is grossly off topic, and I am only responding at this point to posts directed towards me.

I was wondering what you meant by the personal reference. How does your ability, specifically, to do things affect other peoples' ability to do that specific thing.

In other words, does it really matter that you cannot? I don't meant to be offensive or anything, but that just sort of stuck out to me.:(

I may not be posting as high quality a response as would be ideal, as it is early morning here and I haven't slept all night.

I think I was reffering both to myself and to people in general having the right to argue in favor of their views and philosophies in a democracy. If I worded my post badly, I apologise.

One more fanboy point: Why did they use the Romulans as the bad guys? By the time of the TOS episode "Balance of Terror" (obviously AFTER the movies time frame) the Romulans hadn't been seen for a hundred of years or so.

Then why the hell does the shuttle bay eject right in between them?
Uh... it doesn't?

I may not be posting as high quality a response as would be ideal, as it is early morning here and I haven't slept all night.

Go to bed. Seriously, two hours sleep is better than none at all.
This thread has shown remarkable longevity, it won't die while you catch some shuteye.

Go to bed. Seriously, two hours sleep is better than none at all.
This thread has shown remarkable longevity, it won't die while you catch some shuteye.

Well, I really have no firm schedual right now, as the TAs on my campus are striking. But I should probably sleep soon, if only because exaustion is probably hurting the quality of my posts.

One more fanboy point: Why did they use the Romulans as the bad guys? By the time of the TOS episode "Balance of Terror" (obviously AFTER the movies time frame) the Romulans hadn't been seen for a hundred of years or so.

One: its a reboot.

Two: I thought the Romulans were time travlers, which means they may have a different villain in the TOS time period.

I just hope they don't screw up the Romulans. They are my favorites along with the Borg (should be obvious given my name;)).

One: its a reboot.

Reboot: meaning we can't come up with anything original, so we'll just screw up Roddenberrys work, in hopes of making an assload of money off the fans.

Two: I thought the Romulans were time travlers, which means they may have a different villain in the TOS time period.

Possible, but then again, with time-travel, anything is. I've always thought that adding time-travel to an existing Sci-fi universe was just a cop-out. See my comment on lack of creativity above.

I just hope they don't screw up the Romulans. They are my favorites along with the Borg (should be obvious given my name;)).

Agreed. The Romulans always were the best bad guys in Trek. To bad the Klingons got all the press.

Then why the hell does the shuttle bay eject right in between them?

Maybe it was meant to be an engine too, but some dumbfuck decided that angular momentum didn't matter.

Three "impulse engines" in a triangle gives you steering in two dimensions. But bugger that, who needs it aye?

NCC 1701 is a miracle of futuristic engineering. A flying boat crossed with a flying saucer. It would probably actually work as a boat, but not actually fly on account of a strong tendency to flip over forwards, plus the danger of hitting a seagull and breaking into bits.

Reboot: meaning we can't come up with anything original, so we'll just screw up Roddenberrys work, in hopes of making an assload of money off the fans.

Ideally they would make it an alternate timeline, allowing them to explore their own themes and settings without infringing on existing continuity.

Possible, but then again, with time-travel, anything is. I've always thought that adding time-travel to an existing Sci-fi universe was just a cop-out. See my comment on lack of creativity above.

Time travel has been a part of Trek almost from the begining. But yes, its very hard to do time travel well. The main reason I like Terminator, for example, is that it's one of the few movies that does a decent and intelligent time travel plot. Trek, however, has had an unfortunate tendency to use temporal technology or effects as a reset button.

Agreed. The Romulans always were the best bad guys in Trek. To bad the Klingons got all the press.

The Romulans always seemed one of the more competant, or at least menacing. They were always lurking out of sight, forever testing the Federation's defenses without pushing it to a total war. Willing to ally when it was in their interests, with powerful weapons and a strong intelligence organization.

Is this from the one where Spock telekinetically slices Kirk's skull and cannibalize his brain, realizing that Khan is actually an ancient regenerating superman, not a genetocratic dictator?

Come on, snap out of the denial.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a377/jusenkyoguide/enterprise579_l.jpg

You know the new Enterprise looks better.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a377/jusenkyoguide/enterprise579_l.jpg

You like it. You want it.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a377/jusenkyoguide/enterprise579_l.jpg

It's better, it looks more stylish, it's sleeker and meaner. You like it.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a377/jusenkyoguide/enterprise579_l.jpg

Just admit it.
ehh...I'm still not sure. I like the first two, definitely but am cool on the third one and absolutely hate the last pic you posted!

http://img.trekmovie.com/images/st09/kelvin2wide.jpg
wtf is the giant eyeball doing in the middle of the Kelvan?

http://img.trekmovie.com/images/st09/kelvin2wide.jpg
wtf is the giant eyeball doing in the middle of the Kelvan?

It is quite clearly staring.

How dare they update!

You think the Federation haven't anticipated that? Their shields would probably be strongest around there to stop just that sort of thing from happening. Moreover, I remember seeing phasers fired from just that area on a Soverign class ship. And any angle required for attacking the nacells is covered by either torpedos or phasers.

Actually, the Klingon Bird of Prey that attacked Enterprise in Generations fired on the nacelles after its first torpedo penetrated the shields. I recall seeing the disruptor hitting shields then.

One more fanboy point: Why did they use the Romulans as the bad guys? By the time of the TOS episode "Balance of Terror" (obviously AFTER the movies time frame) the Romulans hadn't been seen for a hundred of years or so.
considering that it was Spock only who served under Pike... I suspect alot of TOS information will be ignored and changed.

like Cochrane being from earth instead of alpha centari. :rolleyes:

Uh... it doesn't?
yep. it's below the nacells and behind the engineering section.

unless the person is thinking of Enterprise D where it does eject behind the Primary Hull (saucer section.)

Uh... it doesn't?

Shuttle bay is in the engineering section, and launches rearwards. It's also set in the "neck" of the engineering section IIRC. So, yes, it does.

Shuttle bay is in the engineering section, and launches rearwards. It's also set in the "neck" of the engineering section IIRC. So, yes, it does.
No, it doesn't. Enterprise 1701, A, B, C, and E all have shuttle bays set below the nacelles. The D had three bays that launched well above the nacelles.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Galaxy_class_aft.jpg

No! :eek: Really? :rolleyes:

Okay, maybe I'll also explode in my pants a little.

After all, Nichelle still looks very attractive. (Even though she might not exactly be in the age range I usually aim for.)
That's the spirit!
Now, do you mean a matter-antimatter explosion, an overcharged phaser explosion, a decompressed shuttle bay explosion, or an EPS conduit explosion?

yep. it's below the nacells and behind the engineering section.

unless the person is thinking of Enterprise D where it does eject behind the Primary Hull (saucer section.)
Below and aft is the main point on the 1701 and 1701-A, not right in between the nacelles.

As for the 1701-D: Only the primary shuttle bay is in the saucer section. Secondary and tertiary shuttle bays are in the engine section right above the main impulse drive. (red circles)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/1701D_2.jpg

Oh, and for those who think it's a good idea to attack a Galaxy class from the stern: There are phaser arrays (blue circles) left and right where the engine section attaches to the saucer section, as well as on both sides of the backwards torpedo launcher (green circle) on the top side.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/1701D_1.jpg

Their counterparts can also be found on the bottom side, and additional phaser arrays are on the outside of both pylons (blue circles).

That's the spirit!
Now, do you mean a matter-antimatter explosion, an overcharged phaser explosion, a decompressed shuttle bay explosion, or an EPS conduit explosion?
I was thinking along the lines of an exploding gel pack for a start. :eek2:

It is quite clearly staring.Sorry .... the drummer poked himself in the eye with a coke spoon. Now it's frozen open.

I was thinking along the lines of an exploding gel pack for a start. :eek2:
Good one.
Would be a double, or triple, perhaps, if i knew if she had silicone help.

German Nightmare: you scare me. YOU KNOW TOO MUCH!

German Nightmare: you scare me.
Good. :tongue:
YOU KNOW TOO MUCH!
One can never know too much. One can only reveal too much knowledge. Knowledge is power - guard it well...

Just you be glad I didn't use the schematics. I have those files. And books. And models. Okay, now I'm starting to scare myself. :$

Let's just say I've grown invisible pointy ears over the last 25+ years, ever since I first saw TOS and the rest.

German Nightmare: you scare me. YOU KNOW TOO MUCH!
And not even unleashing, as of yet, the arsenal of SMILIES.
*nods*

Below and aft is the main point on the 1701 and 1701-A, not right in between the nacelles.

As for the 1701-D: Only the primary shuttle bay is in the saucer section. Secondary and tertiary shuttle bays are in the engine section right above the main impulse drive. (red circles)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/1701D_2.jpg

Oh, and for those who think it's a good idea to attack a Galaxy class from the stern: There are phaser arrays (blue circles) left and right where the engine section attaches to the saucer section, as well as on both sides of the backwards torpedo launcher (green circle) on the top side.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/1701D_1.jpg

Their counterparts can also be found on the bottom side, and additional phaser arrays are on the outside of both pylons (blue circles).

Thank you!

Good. :tongue:

One can never know too much. One can only reveal too much knowledge. Knowledge is power - guard it well...

Just you be glad I didn't use the schematics. I have those files. And books. And models. Okay, now I'm starting to scare myself. :$

Let's just say I've grown invisible pointy ears over the last 25+ years, ever since I first saw TOS and the rest.

dude, i didn't know you knew so much about ST! :eek:

* +1000 awesome points*

*snip image*

Based on your image, it would appear that the best approach of attack would be lower stern. That is where the least amount of weaponry is located. If the torpedoes can be contended with, then dead astern, since based on the location of the rear saucer phaser arrays/banks/etc, they shouldn't be able to fire at any angle lower than level with the saucer, meaning there would only be two phaser arrays and one torpedo bay.

Not a total vulnerability as I had suspected at first, I admit, but definitely the weakest point in its defensive array.

Based on your image, it would appear that the best approach of attack would be lower stern. That is where the least amount of weaponry is located. If the torpedoes can be contended with, then dead astern, since based on the location of the rear saucer phaser arrays/banks/etc, they shouldn't be able to fire at any angle lower than level with the saucer, meaning there would only be two phaser arrays and one torpedo bay.

Not a total vulnerability as I had suspected at first, I admit, but definitely the weakest point in its defensive array.

However, it is not much of a weakness, when you consider the strength of the shields and the manuevereability of the ship. If you were attacking from that angle, you would only get one torpedo shot in before the ship has angled itself to attack your ship with a more devastating array of torpedos and phasers.

Star Wars is better.

You can actually see where the gun is without being told.

Nah, it really doesn't matter. Both are great examples of sci-fi.

Star Wars is better.

You can actually see where the gun is without being told.
You mean the ones that seemingly either do broadsides (God I laughed myself silly at THAT stupid scene) or only fire down the bow of the ship?

Star Wars is better....I wish you luck, my friend!

Don't judge my preference, and I won't judge yours. Personally, I prefer SW, and I am going to leave it at that; I will give neither reasons for nor against, for that would cause strife....I actually like Star Wars more. -_-' (Clone Troopers, ftw.)
I was saying that that particular comment could have ominous consequences in a thread based on Star Trek. :p

Oh, okay. Makes sense.

I'ma retcon now... 'd 'ppreciate you doin' the same?

However, it is not much of a weakness, when you consider the strength of the shields and the manuevereability of the ship. If you were attacking from that angle, you would only get one torpedo shot in before the ship has angled itself to attack your ship with a more devastating array of torpedos and phasers.

The entire point of the exercise was that you would take advantage of the really thin structural supports and slice off the nacelles with your opening salvos, immobilizing the ship. After that, it's just a question of putting yourself where the least enemy weapons coverage is available and pounding away.

Relying on energy based structural integrity fields to hold the ship in place in exchange for good physical structural integrity is bad engineering practice. It's like relying on airbags to absorb the force of a car crash and then foregoing things like crumple zones, seatbelts or heck, treated windows that won't shatter into dozens of jagged shards rather than blunt cuboids.

You mean the ones that seemingly either do broadsides (God I laughed myself silly at THAT stupid scene) or only fire down the bow of the ship?

Generally, it's good war machine design to present a small profile where you have the most weapons coverage. That way you present a small target but can maximize your firepower.

Are you supporting SW or ST, here?

Are you supporting SW or ST, here?

I'm supporting good engineering principles. ST (Federation at least) has bad hull design principles. SW also had some bad hull design principles, but from an interior design, they sucked. There's a good reason why warships from the 70s have both a normal viewing bridge and a battle bridge which is buried deep inside the hull once electronics made remote C&C easier.

Wow

Federation ships are designed for very different things than Star Wars Imperial ships, in general. Most Imperial ships are dedicated warships, while most Federation ships, at least during the TNG era, were hybrid mobile colonies/mobile research facilities with some weapons slapped on.

Of course, one could argue that the multi-purpose designs are a flaw themselves, given that generalized designs will probably be less effective at any one of there wars than a dedicated design. But if you want to compare the competancy of the military designs, compare a Defiant to a Star Destroyer, not a Galaxy.

Of course, one could argue that the multi-purpose designs are a flaw themselves, given that generalized designs will probably be less effective at any one of there wars than a dedicated design.

Who makes multi-purpose ships these days anyway? Cargo ships are cargo ships, science vessels are science vessels, etc, etc. Sure, you could argue that most ships you'd make should carry some weapons complement. Contested space is dangerous. Fine. Armed ships that are purpose built for other jobs is perfectly alright. But making a jack of all trades capital class ship/mobile colony is the kind of decision I'd expect from a committee who diddled and fiddled their way with the original design document until it became a hodge podge Frankenstein horror with too much vested interest to kill.


But if you want to compare the competancy of the military designs, compare a Defiant to a Star Destroyer, not a Galaxy.

Given the operational doctrine and size, I'd say the Defiant is closer to a light cruiser or frigate class of ship than a combination standoff carrier/battleship.

The entire point of the exercise was that you would take advantage of the really thin structural supports and slice off the nacelles with your opening salvos, immobilizing the ship. After that, it's just a question of putting yourself where the least enemy weapons coverage is available and pounding away.
Ignoring the difficulty in getting past the sensors and shields to do enough damage... slicing off the nacelles would not immobilize the ship. It would knock out the warp drive, yes, but impulse would still function.

Given the operational doctrine and size, I'd say the Defiant is closer to a light cruiser or frigate class of ship than a combination standoff carrier/battleship.Does ST have any sort of star dreadnought class ship?
Or is that a SW-specific class?

Generally, it's good war machine design to present a small profile where you have the most weapons coverage. That way you present a small target but can maximize your firepower.
And you can have your engines shot off and your bridge taken out by a fighter. :tongue:

Who makes multi-purpose ships these days anyway? Cargo ships are cargo ships, science vessels are science vessels, etc, etc. Sure, you could argue that most ships you'd make should carry some weapons complement. Contested space is dangerous. Fine. Armed ships that are purpose built for other jobs is perfectly alright. But making a jack of all trades capital class ship/mobile colony is the kind of decision I'd expect from a committee who diddled and fiddled their way with the original design document until it became a hodge podge Frankenstein horror with too much vested interest to kill.
It makes a lot of sense when the Federation, excepting Borg invasion or the Dominion War, does spend most of its time in scientific exploration. It also makes sense when you look at the fact that a Galaxy class starship was designed to operate at long range away from the bulk of the Federation and its support services. You need a jack-of-all-trades ship because chances are your ship would be doing everything. Over the course of TNG we've seen the Enterprise-D operate as first contact vessel, patrol, cargo, colonization, rescue, evacuation, exploration, science vessel, and, yes, as a battleship.
Sometimes all in the same episode. ;)

And given how the original Star Trek was conceived as a Wagon Train to the Stars or as a space age Horatio Hornblower, whom operated on the far side of the world long out of contact with the Admiralty, it really does make sense.

Does ST have any sort of star dreadnought class ship?
Or is that a SW-specific class?
Depends upon whom you ask.

And you can have your engines shot off and your bridge taken out by a fighter. :tongue:Mon Cal cruisers, for the win.

Forget the ISDs, I'll take an MC90 any day. :p

Depends upon whom you ask.Does ST have any ships that are over nineteen kilometers design-size? :p

Does ST have any ships that are over nineteen kilometers design-size? :p

The Eclipse was useless. Just admit it.

Who makes multi-purpose ships these days anyway? Cargo ships are cargo ships, science vessels are science vessels, etc, etc. Making a jack of all trades capital class ship is the kind of decision I'd expect from a committee who diddled and fiddled their way with the original design document until it became a hodge podge Frankenstein horror with too much vested interest to kill.

Indeed. It took the Borg to shake the Federation out of that stupid mindset. Pity it cost them tens of thousands of lives first.

Given the operational doctrine and size, I'd say the Defiant is closer to a light cruiser or frigate class of ship than a combination standoff carrier/battleship.

Though I'm by no means an expert on navel terminology, I think I have some of the basics outlined. I hope someone will correct me if I screw this up.:)

Frigite: In the days of sail, I believe this term reffered to a lighter armed, faster warship, as opposed to a ship of the line.

Destroyer: A comparatively small, fast escort ship. Originally refered specifically to a submarine destroyer.

Cruiser: a fast but fairly powerful ship capable of operating alone or in groups. May be used to escort the true Battleships.

Battlecruiser: Battleship level weapons, but trades heavy armor for speed.

Battleship: A powerful ship with heavy guns and armor.

Now, this is complicated by the fact that Star Destroyers are also carriers, but their aren't a lot of dedicated carriers in Star Wars. So I prefer to judge these ships by the role they fill.

A Star Destroyer is a fairly small and common warship by imperial standards. However, it is powerful enough to dominate most other ships, and can opperate alone for some time. We see it act independently in remote areas, but also as an escort for heavier warships like the Executor. Thus, I would call it a cruiser.

A Defiant Class was officially classed as an "escort", and is quite small and fast. This suggests a destroyer. However, in a Deep Space 9 Episode the Defiant took on an Excelsior Class, which I would consider a cruiser. The two vessels were fairly evenly matched, I believe, so I would probably call the Defiant a very heavy destroyer, near cruiser strength. In fact, given it's use on solo missions into dangerous areas, and its role as a command ship in fleet combat, I may have to call it a cruiser, if a light cruiser.

Does ST have any sort of star dreadnought class ship?
Or is that a SW-specific class?

Not by that name. However, the Scimitar from Nemesis or a Federation Sovereign Class most likely fill the same role.

Here's my main source for the previous post, by the way. Just giving credit where credit is due;).

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/warships.html#nomenclature

The Eclipse was useless. Just admit it.Not talking about that ship. The Lusankya actually filled a very important role in her final battle, and she was a Star Dreadnought. And the Guardian was the chauffeur for Omas during the Vong War. Protecting the head of state of a government that rules half the known galaxy isn't useless. I think. :p

Not by that name. However, the Scimitar from Nemesis or a Federation Sovereign Class most likely fill the same role.Thanks.

Not talking about that ship. The Lusankya actually filled a very important role in her final battle, and she was a Star Dreadnought. And the Guardian was the chauffeur for Omas during the Vong War. Protecting the head of state of a government that rules half the known galaxy isn't useless. I think. :p

As was the Executor, Lord Vader's personal command ship. And before anyone mentions the fighter in the bridge again, that was after the shields were down.

That said, these ships probably weren't the best investment for the Empire. Their was little that could challenge them in conventional warfare, so their main problem was policing a vast area of space against pirates and covert rebel groups. What they needed was lots of smaller, long range ships that could function independently. The ISD was very good for this role, so its a good thing it seems to be the main large imperial war ship.

Thanks.

No problem.:)

Does ST have any ships that are over nineteen kilometers design-size? :p
Well, if you count the energy cloud the largest ship in the ST universe was over 2 AUs in diameter.

Whoops, GF! I just noticed the size. You were talking about the Executor.

Sorry! Yeah, then yes, they served very important roles.

Well, if you count the energy cloud the largest ship in the ST universe was over 2 AUs in diameter.

True. Their's a huge disparity between the strongest and weakest civilizations in Trek. And one end of the scale of interstellar powers you have nobodies like the Kazon, and at the other you have the bloody Q.

As was the Executor, Lord Vader's personal command ship. And before anyone mentions the fighter in the bridge again, that was after the shields were down.

That said, these ships probably weren't the best investment for the Empire. Their was little that could challenge them in conventional warfare, so their main problem was policing a vast area of space against pirates and covert rebel groups. What they needed was lots of smaller, long range ships that could function independently. The ISD was very good for this role, so its a good thing it seems to be the main large imperial war ship. The Star Dreadnought class was built to "display the might of the Empire", and there were very few of them. They were more for prestige than actual effectiveness, I'm assuming. And the ISD is definitely the prevalent battle ship. What with there being over 25,000 of them. :p


Well, if you count the energy cloud the largest ship in the ST universe was over 2 AUs in diameter.That's ridiculous, but, then again, maybe not so ridiculous. :tongue:

How big are Vong Worldships, again?

True. Their's a huge disparity between the strongest and weakest civilizations in Trek. And one end of the scale of interstellar powers you have nobodies like the Kazon, and at the other you have the bloody Q.
There's a huge disparity in real life as well. I mean, who in their right mind would bet on The Congo, say, in an all out war against the US?

Of course there are a lot of gods wandering around the ST universe (The Q might not even be the most powerful), but then again, not only to they make good villains in the dramatic sense, but they do cut down humans to size.

Whoops, GF! I just noticed the size. You were talking about the Executor.The Executor was the lead ship for the Star Dreadnought size, yes. :p

How big are Vong Worldships, again?One or two are said to be twice the size of the Death Stars. One of the Lah's Worldships is that size.

By the way, how would you classify a Constitution Class ship like the original Enterprise? I'm thinking either heavy cruiser, given the types of missions they preform, or battleship, given their the most powerful Fed ships of their time we know of.

That's ridiculous, but, then again, maybe not so ridiculous. :tongue:
No, the ridiculous bit was the original line that had it at over 82 AUs in size. That stood till someone pointed out that would mean that if V'Ger was sitting where the Sun is, it would stretch out beyond the orbit of Neptune.

By the way, how would you classify a Constitution Class ship like the original Enterprise? I'm thinking either heavy cruiser, given the types of missions they preform, or battleship, given their the most powerful Fed ships of their time we know of.
They have been classified in universe as both battleships and heavy cruisers. Heavy cruiser is the most accepted classification though.

No, the ridiculous bit was the original line that had it at over 82 AUs in size. That stood till someone pointed out that would mean that if V'Ger was sitting where the Sun is, it would stretch out beyond the orbit of Neptune.That's simply ridiculous. It would end up getting sucked into a black hole, or incinerated by a blue giant. How would it even maneuver? That's just...wow.

They have been classified in universe as both battleships and heavy cruisers. Heavy cruiser is the most accepted classification though.

Makes sense. So:

Light Cruiser: Defiants

Heavy Cruisers: Constitutions, Excellsiors (basically an improved Coni).

Battlecruisers: Galaxy (isn't that what the Klingons in Generations said? Also, it was very fast when it first launched right, also quite powerful, but took critical damage easily.)

Dreadnaughts: Sovereign. Biggest, best ship they possess. The Enterprise E is a flagship. Its speed and smaller size compared to a Galaxy Class makes this an awkward classification, but its combat power makes anything else difficult.

Sorry if this is off-topic. But since we're on the topic of comparing ships, I thought I'd see how the Enterprise fits in with the rest of the ships.

Makes sense. So:

Light Cruiser: Defiants
Escort technically, but acceptable.

Heavy Cruisers: Constitutions, Excellsiors (basically an improved Coni).
A given.

Battlecruisers: Galaxy (isn't that what the Klingons in Generations said? Also, it was very fast when it first launched right, also quite powerful, but took critical damage easily.)
A Galaxy class is considered an Explorer class vessel. The battle cruiser designation came from an alternate time line (Yesterday's Enterprise).

Dreadnaughts: Sovereign. Biggest, best ship they possess. The Enterprise E is a flagship. Its speed and smaller size compared to a Galaxy Class makes this an awkward classification, but its combat power makes anything else difficult.
Sovereign class is a heavy cruiser in universe. The Federation just does not like using the term battleship or dreadnought. :p

Escort technically, but acceptable.

I thought the "escort" label was just political BS. I don't give a hoot about Federation labels. I'm trying to use the correct terminology.

A Galaxy class is considered an Explorer class vessel. The battle cruiser designation came from an alternate time line (Yesterday's Enterprise).

Again, I'm talking about its military performance specifically. It most closely fits a battlecruiser role. Also, the Klingons in the movie Generations called it a battlecruiser, as I recall.

Sovereign class is a heavy cruiser in universe. The Federation just does not like using the term battleship or dreadnought. :p

Yup. Peaceniks:D.

Again, I'm talking about its military performance specifically. It most closely fits a battlecruiser role. Also, the Klingons in the movie Generations called it a battlecruiser, as I recall.


The Klingons, and in fact virtually every warlike alien race in Star Trek, always refer to the Enterprise as a "battlecruiser" (e.g. "Federation battlecruiser dead ahead!") - I think it is just supposed to suggest their warlike world view as contrasted to the Federation's.

[QUOTE=NERVUN;14222068A Galaxy class is considered an Explorer class vessel. The battle cruiser designation came from an alternate time line (Yesterday's Enterprise).[/QUOTE]

It was actually called a battleship in Yesterday's Enterprise, not a battlecruiser.

I know the Federation is loath to refer to their ships as dreadnaughts, battleships or battlecruisers, but in wartime, they'll do what they have to do.

Though I'd have thought their shields would have been a LOT better in that alternate timeline when they were at war with the Klingons.

Who makes multi-purpose ships these days anyway? Cargo ships are cargo ships, science vessels are science vessels, etc, etc. Sure, you could argue that most ships you'd make should carry some weapons complement. Contested space is dangerous. Fine. Armed ships that are purpose built for other jobs is perfectly alright. But making a jack of all trades capital class ship/mobile colony is the kind of decision I'd expect from a committee who diddled and fiddled their way with the original design document until it became a hodge podge Frankenstein horror with too much vested interest to kill.

Observe the Romulan Warbird, for a long time the height of Romulan military engineering:

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/0/0c/D%27deridex_class.jpg

Note the location of the warp engines - far away from the living/working areas of the ship, and barely held on the ship. Very similiar design to Federation ships. The Memory-Alpha article on them states that "Warp 9.6 causes irreparable damage to the propulsion systems". Compare this to the Enterprise D, which can travel at "Warp 9.6 (12 hours)" and "Warp 9.8 (Possible at an extreme risk)".

Galaxy Class ships and D'deridex class Warbirds have a similiar layout for nacelles, with Galaxy class ships having a slightly more "risky" layout, but a more effective layout for warp speeds. Given that the Federation is more about exploration than combat, this becomes quite obvious.

Let's also look at...

The Vor'cha
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/3/36/Vor%27cha_class%2C_profile.jpg

The Jem'Hadar battle cruiser
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/1/1c/JemHadarBattlecruiser.jpg

The Jem'Hadar battleship
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/7/74/Dominion_battleship_(aft).jpg

Romulan Valdore type warbird
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/4/45/Valdore.jpg

Klingon D7 class battlecruiser
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/a/a1/D7_battlecruiser.jpg

Klingon D5 battlecruiser
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/2/2b/D5_class_battlecruiser.jpg

All battleships by major powers. All have the same "two-nacelles away from the living/working areas of the ship" layout. The Dominion and Klingon ships of course take slightly more precaution, but at some loss no doubt.

Let us also observe the practical uses of nacelles in this layout, and their scientific and tactical uses...

Bussard Collectors! (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bussard_collector)

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/d/d2/Crimson_force_field.jpg

Here we see a Galaxy class ship using it's bussard collectors to expel gases.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/4/4a/Sovereign_bussard_collector.jpg

Here we see a Sovereign class ship using it's "ramscoop" to collect metreon gas which was used to badly damage two Son'a ships.

Such operations would be much more difficult, were the nacelles not located where they are. Another reason to have the nacelles nice and far away from the hull.

We can then take a look at Sovereign class ships, whose maximum warp has never been stated on-screen, but by most sources, has a maximum warp of 9.99. According to Star Trek Dimension (http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/IntroTools.htm), the Sovereign's estimated maximum warp is 9.95 (the most conservative estimate I've seen). Clearly the particular nacelle layout prefered by Starfleet is very good at attaining high speeds.

Moreover, as has been pointed out, those are only the warp engines. Your idea of "slicing" off the warp engines won't stop the ship from using it's impluse engines to swing around and kick your ass.

Also...

Nacelles are usually separated from the main structure of the ship because of radiation generated by the nacelles; when at optimal levels, the radiation could be deleterious to the safety of ship and crew. (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Nacelle)

And...

"... However, vessels can operate with one nacelle disabled, but at reduced warp speeds."

So your idea of slicing off the nacelles so the ship couldn't move is also flawed, as you would have to slice off both before the ship could warp away, and you haven't disabled the impulse engines, so there is nothing from stopping the ship from swinging around before you managed to "slice" through the second nacelle.

It seems clear that the positioning of the nacelles which you have criticised is not due to bad engineering by Starfleet, but by necessity. Since Starfleet ships are designed for long-range missions, the radiation from the nacells would cause great harm to the crew.

Ultimately, there are countless reasons to explain why many of the major powers in the Star Trek universe have their nacelles far from the rest of the ship, and thus counter your claim that it is "bad engineering".


Also, I apologise to other posters for the extensive use of images.

Ignoring the difficulty in getting past the sensors and shields to do enough damage... slicing off the nacelles would not immobilize the ship. It would knock out the warp drive, yes, but impulse would still function.

If the nacelles are solely responsible for warp speed, then where the heck is the impulse drive? A ship that size doesn't turn around on magic pixey dust or gathering their crew to one side of the ship and all exhaling pretty hard.

And you can have your engines shot off and your bridge taken out by a fighter. :tongue:

The former, I've not seen in ST, the latter, is why I said they sucked in terms of warship interior design. An observation bridge in a modern warship is comparatively exposed yes, but that's why the C&C is buried deep in the hull and the command staff holes up there during combat.

The Galactic Empire had combat doctrine made of fail.

It makes a lot of sense when the Federation, excepting Borg invasion or the Dominion War, does spend most of its time in scientific exploration. It also makes sense when you look at the fact that a Galaxy class starship was designed to operate at long range away from the bulk of the Federation and its support services. You need a jack-of-all-trades ship because chances are your ship would be doing everything. Over the course of TNG we've seen the Enterprise-D operate as first contact vessel, patrol, cargo, colonization, rescue, evacuation, exploration, science vessel, and, yes, as a battleship.
Sometimes all in the same episode. ;)

Hence that's why I said it's a Frankenstein of a design. The only difference between Frankenstein and the Enterprise is that at least Frankenstein was decent at smashing things. The Enterprise even has a nursery for crying out loud. Putting an everything in one design is the stupidest engineering decision you could make because the function of one will degrade the performance of other functions.

From a design standpoint, the Enterprise is a stupid design.


And given how the original Star Trek was conceived as a Wagon Train to the Stars or as a space age Horatio Hornblower, whom operated on the far side of the world long out of contact with the Admiralty, it really does make sense.


Sure, but Wagon Trains were originally set up by small concerns or families and were mostly about colonization with some level of defense against the natives. You didn't see wagon trains with armstrong cannons and hand cranked gatling guns, or heck, iron plated wagons. At best, they had revolvers, rifles, and canvass/fiber tops.

A wagon train to the stars would be about as lightly armed and armored, focusing mostly on going to a set destination, not going all over the place.

And a colony ship, that's one of the worst things you can put on a multi-purpose vessel with combat expectations. New colonies need a ton of resources to get a kick start, even if it is a green world. Specialized resources that a warship/science vessel/explorer/cargo ship wouldn't be carrying. And that's not even counting that colony ships tend to sit down for the long term once colonization starts, usually lasting years or decades.

Oh wait. I know what the colony purpose is for! Red shirt replacement!

:p

If the nacelles are solely responsible for warp speed, then where the heck is the impulse drive? A ship that size doesn't turn around on magic pixey dust or gathering their crew to one side of the ship and all exhaling pretty hard.

An image was posted earlier in this thread showing precisely where the impulse engines on a Galaxy class cruiser are.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/2/21/Galaxy_class_impulse_engines.jpg

The impulse engines on a Galaxy class cruiser. Notice that they are right near the rear torpedo bays.

Hence that's why I said it's a Frankenstein of a design. The only difference between Frankenstein and the Enterprise is that at least Frankenstein was decent at smashing things. The Enterprise even has a nursery for crying out loud. Putting an everything in one design is the stupidest engineering decision you could make because the function of one will degrade the performance of other functions.

From a design standpoint, the Enterprise is a stupid design.

The Galaxy class was designed (as has been stated in TNG) as an exploration vessel. It accommodates families, as it would undoubtedly be much better for the scientists aboard to live with their families during the deep space missions. Every part of it's design is in keeping with the idea of exploration. It just so happens that it was also fitted with the latest federation weapons technologies, which just so happened to make the Galaxy class a formidable foe to most ships in the quadrant, despite it's primary focus not being on combat.

The Galaxy class is not a "jack-of-all-trades" ship. It is an ace of exploration, with up-to-date Federation weapons technology, which does give it very good military capabilities, but those are just a result of the ship having the latest in Federation weapons, not because it was designed for offense.

An image was posted earlier in this thread showing precisely where the impulse engines on a Galaxy class cruiser are.

The impulse engines on a Galaxy class cruiser. Notice that they are right near the rear torpedo bays.

What is it, the red oblong blob?


The Galaxy class was designed (as has been stated in TNG) as an exploration vessel. It accommodates families, as it would undoubtedly be much better for the scientists aboard to live with their families during the deep space missions.

Given the practices of today's, and histories, exploratory vessels, no, not really. It wasn't uncommon for unattached people to sign up for journeys lasting years exploring the world when all they had were wooden sailboats.


Every part of it's design is in keeping with the idea of exploration.


Unless you're a colony ship, you don't carry children or non-essential crew. Barbers (why did Picard even have one anyway), and children are not essential to the idea of an exploratory vessel unless it was also a colony ship, in which case it would be setting down as soon as it found a suitable planet.

And are you seriously telling me that all these non-coms signed up for a trip around the universe while getting shot at?


The Galaxy class is not a "jack-of-all-trades" ship.


The composition of it's crew, their functions, and what they use the ship for, say otherwise.

In fact, can someone explain to me why the captain of an exploratory vessel gets flagged for a black ops commando raid in enemy territory?

The Galaxy class was designed (as has been stated in TNG) as an exploration vessel. It accommodates families, as it would undoubtedly be much better for the scientists aboard to live with their families during the deep space missions.

Sucks for the children who die every time one gets destroyed though.

The Galaxy class is not a "jack-of-all-trades" ship. It is an ace of exploration, with up-to-date Federation weapons technology, which does give it very good military capabilities, but those are just a result of the ship having the latest in Federation weapons, not because it was designed for offense.

You don't send a ship full of kids into combat, and you don't waste space for state of the art weapons on a civilian ship.

What is it, the red oblong blob?

That's the one!

Given the practices of today's, and histories, exploratory vessels, no, not really. It wasn't uncommon for unattached people to sign up for journeys lasting years exploring the world when all they had were wooden sailboats.

Your point?

When the technology exists to keep families together for scientists, and when science is praised above all else in your culture, why wouldn't you do all you could to make the scientists lives as comfortable as possible?

Unless you're a colony ship, you don't carry children or non-essential crew. Barbers (why did Picard even have one anyway), and children are not essential to the idea of an exploratory vessel unless it was also a colony ship, in which case it would be setting down as soon as it found a suitable planet.

And are you seriously telling me that all these non-coms signed up for a trip around the universe while getting shot at?

You're just not getting it. The Galaxy class was the first Federation ship to carry entire families. It is virtually a small city. How can you have a long term exploration mission without a barber? And what about children? If officers must be seperated from their children for several-year long missions since both parents happen to be officers, then how do you think that would affect the children?

Again, the Galaxy class ship was meant to be the pinnacle of space-exploration starships for the Federation, not a war machine. People like to have nice haircuts when out in space for several years.

The composition of it's crew, their functions, and what they use the ship for, say otherwise.

You mean a crew of scientists, necessary officers for maintaining and running the ship, and some civillians to accommodate the luxurious lifestyle with which the Galaxy class was designed to embrace?

The Enterprise D was the flagship of the Federation. The fact that it was clearly and inarguably an exploration vessel, gives the image that the Federation is more about exploration and peace (which is certainly true) than about military conquest. The fact that the ship has some muscle is meerly a result of good design, in that it could accommodate all that high-tech Federation weaponry without any detriment to the exploration facilities.

In fact, can someone explain to me why the captain of an exploratory vessel gets flagged for a black ops commando raid in enemy territory?

Because it was a trap designed to lure him in? A trap set up such that it would utilise a technology which said captain is the foremost starfleet expert in? This was a stupid question for you to ask.

Sucks for the children who die every time one gets destroyed though.

Which is why when The Odyssey went into the Gamma quadrant to confront the Jem'Hadar and rescue Sisko and co., it left it's civillian personnel at DS9.

You don't send a ship full of kids into combat, and you don't waste space for state of the art weapons on a civilian ship.

No, you don't. Show me when a Galaxy class ship has been sent into combat with a shipload of civillians, when said civillians could be dropped off somewhere safe, or when there was another, more equipped ship around to do the job better but wasn't chosen for some stupid reason. Federation ships only engage in combat when necessary, and only engage in combat when they have civillians board when absolutely necessary.

But for planned offensive missions, Defiant and Excelsior ships are used due to their negligible civillian population. Yes, Galaxy class ships are also used (primarily for their muscle), but when they are used, they drop off their civillians before going into combat.

Again, the muscle of the Galaxy class ship is meerly a result of starfleet ingenuity. They managed to find a way to create an exploration vessel that could also handle a nice armament of weapons. The Galaxy class is an amazing design in that respect, that it allowes exploration vessels to defend themselves without aid when in deep-space missions, as was done in TNG numerous times.

And of course, they weren't going to risk life and limb of the crew just to bring the nacelles a little closer to the hull to make them a little more protected and, evidently, a little less efficient.

If the nacelles are solely responsible for warp speed, then where the heck is the impulse drive? A ship that size doesn't turn around on magic pixey dust or gathering their crew to one side of the ship and all exhaling pretty hard.
Depends on the class. Galaxy class have three impulse drives, one on the star drive section and two on the saucer section. Federation ships also have maneuvering thrusters to steer by.

Hence that's why I said it's a Frankenstein of a design. The only difference between Frankenstein and the Enterprise is that at least Frankenstein was decent at smashing things. The Enterprise even has a nursery for crying out loud. Putting an everything in one design is the stupidest engineering decision you could make because the function of one will degrade the performance of other functions.
I noticed that you didn't bother addressing the point that the Enterprise is meant to handle all of those so it needs it. One DS9 ep notes that Defiant, wonderful warship that it is, lacks a lot of the standard science arrays that any other Starfleet ship would carry and that caused a problem for the crew at the time because they really needed those nice sensor suites.

Starfleet DOES have dedicated classes, BTW, which are not jack-of-all-trades ships. But, like some of the frigates of old who did do a lot of different things because they were the ONLY ship in the area, Enterprise was designed with the idea of finding out what was around the corner.

And a colony ship, that's one of the worst things you can put on a multi-purpose vessel with combat expectations. New colonies need a ton of resources to get a kick start, even if it is a green world. Specialized resources that a warship/science vessel/explorer/cargo ship wouldn't be carrying. And that's not even counting that colony ships tend to sit down for the long term once colonization starts, usually lasting years or decades.

Enterprise (various ones) have transported colonies from time to time, usually as the start up ship with more dedicated ships following along.

An image was posted earlier in this thread showing precisely where the impulse engines on a Galaxy class cruiser are.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/2/21/Galaxy_class_impulse_engines.jpg

The impulse engines on a Galaxy class cruiser. Notice that they are right near the rear torpedo bays.
Er, those are the shuttlebays.

Unless you're a colony ship, you don't carry children or non-essential crew. Barbers (why did Picard even have one anyway), and children are not essential to the idea of an exploratory vessel unless it was also a colony ship, in which case it would be setting down as soon as it found a suitable planet.

And are you seriously telling me that all these non-coms signed up for a trip around the universe while getting shot at?
In all honesty, even the producers of Star Trek have since recanted the families aboard ship thing.

Regarding the presence of families on starships, Ronald D. Moore commented "Perhaps [still] on some Galaxy-class ships, but I think this was an experiment that failed." "I think that the "family friendly" starship notion was an interesting idea, but one that didn't pan out. There was always something awkward about Picard ordering the ship into battle situations with kiddies running through the corridors. And no matter how much lip service we paid to the "our families are part of our strength" concept, it never seemed very smart or very logical to bring the spouse and kids along when you're facing down the Borg, or guarding the Neutral Zone, or plunging the ship into uncharted spatial anomalies."
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Galaxy_class#Crew_support

As for having a barber though... Have you looked at what a modern aircraft carrier has aboard?

In fact, can someone explain to me why the captain of an exploratory vessel gets flagged for a black ops commando raid in enemy territory?
Because Picard is one of, if not the, best and most experienced captains in Starfleet.

Which is why when The Odyssey went into the Gamma quadrant to confront the Jem'Hadar and rescue Sisko and co., it left it's civillian personnel at DS9.

No good if the ship is an explorer going into unknown areas, where it might encounter a hostile at any time.

No, you don't. Show me when a Galaxy class ship has been sent into combat with a shipload of civillians, when said civillians could be dropped off somewhere safe, or when there was another, more equipped ship around to do the job better but wasn't chosen for some stupid reason. Federation ships only engage in combat when necessary, and only engage in combat when they have civillians board when absolutely necessary.

Again, you don't always have time to unload. And the Enterprise D at least was the God damn flagship. When would it not be going into battle?

For fuck's sake, all their worst enemies have cloaks.

But for planned offensive missions, Defiant and Excelsior ships are used due to their negligible civillian population. Yes, Galaxy class ships are also used (primarily for their muscle), but when they are used, they drop off their civillians before going into combat.

Galaxy ships are often sent into battle. And they are classed as "explorers", which likely means they'll be going into dangerous areas.

Again, the muscle of the Galaxy class ship is meerly a result of starfleet ingenuity. They managed to find a way to create an exploration vessel that could also handle a nice armament of weapons. The Galaxy class is an amazing design in that respect, that it allowes exploration vessels to defend themselves without aid when in deep-space missions, as was done in TNG numerous times.

And the fact they are going into unknown and potentially hostile space with children aboard is sickening.

And of course, they weren't going to risk life and limb of the crew just to bring the nacelles a little closer to the hull to make them a little more protected and, evidently, a little less efficient.

They did with the Defiant. And on their shuttle craft.

When the technology exists to keep families together for scientists, and when science is praised above all else in your culture, why wouldn't you do all you could to make the scientists lives as comfortable as possible?


Do you think it would be a good idea to have children on a military base? Or in the same level 5 biological hazard research facilities?


You're just not getting it. The Galaxy class was the first Federation ship to carry entire families. It is virtually a small city.

Hence why it sucked from a design perspective. A mobile colony? Fine. But then it had better not be exploring the fringes of known space or be pulled into combat situations like it so often was. Or maybe you thought the Mayflower was sent to explore the Americas first?

You do not involve non-commissioned people in potentially risky operations. Not unless you want them to be underfoot, and maybe add to the KIA list when something goes south.

In which case, the Federation knowingly sends civilians to their potential deaths in high risk exploratory tasks, and even better, knowingly puts them directly in harms way everytime they task the Enterprise with combat operations. And certainly children are not in the legal capacity to agree to being sent into combat.

So which one is it? Incompetence? Or callous malice?

And no, don't try to make the "They could have offloaded everyone" defense. They've not done that at any one point of time except when they were abandoning ship. The rest of the time, the only place they could have offloaded anyone was into space.


How can you have a long term exploration mission without a barber?


Picard's bald. Why does he need a barber?


And what about children? If officers must be seperated from their children for several-year long missions since both parents happen to be officers, then how do you think that would affect the children?

The same way children are affected by parents who have jobs that require them to travel far from home. And maybe, that's a good thing when their jobs are potentially high risk.

Children and untrained personnel have no place for deep recon in potentially dangerous places. Even if they thought the universe was all sunshine and puppy dogs when they first set out, the Klingon conflict and subsequent fights should have told them what a stupid idea it would be to send civilians on border fringe exploration.


Again, the Galaxy class ship was meant to be the pinnacle of space-exploration starships for the Federation, not a war machine. People like to have nice haircuts when out in space for several years.

It was the pinnacle of diddling with design requirements and blatant god modding the way it simply tramples over practical design sense.


You mean a crew of scientists, necessary officers for maintaining and running the ship, and some civillians to accommodate the luxurious lifestyle with which the Galaxy class was designed to embrace?


The crew was hardly entirely made of commissioned officers, scientists and camp follower type personnel. The most obvious of this case are children, who get roped into combat every time Starfleet command feels the need for the Flagship to show up for some combat.


The Enterprise D was the flagship of the Federation. The fact that it was clearly and inarguably an exploration vessel, gives the image that the Federation is more about exploration and peace (which is certainly true) than about military conquest.

Which is why the Federation has no qualms about throwing civilians and children into harms way everytime they have conflict...


The fact that the ship has some muscle is meerly a result of good design, in that it could accommodate all that high-tech Federation weaponry without any detriment to the exploration facilities.

Armed science vessel. Fine. Armed exploratory vessel. Fine. Armed science/exploratory/colony vessel. Stupid.


Because it was a trap designed to lure him in? A trap set up such that it would utilise a technology which said captain is the foremost starfleet expert in? This was a stupid question for you to ask.

So Albert Einstein and the rest of the top research staff for the Manhattan Project was sitting in the Enola Gay when it dropped the atomic bombs? Was Robert Goddard the first astronaut? Are you that silly?

You don't put your supposed experts in high risk operations they aren't even trained for (crash courses do not count!) when they can brief professional commandos on the task at hand. And even worse, you don't treat them as disposable if you are somehow stupid enough to put them in harms way and they do get harmed.

This is either blatant stupidity or they thought Picard was not valuable enough to rank him above "disposable the first sign there is trouble".

Depends on the class. Galaxy class have three impulse drives, one on the star drive section and two on the saucer section. Federation ships also have maneuvering thrusters to steer by.

That doesn't tell me where exactly it's located though.


I noticed that you didn't bother addressing the point that the Enterprise is meant to handle all of those so it needs it. One DS9 ep notes that Defiant, wonderful warship that it is, lacks a lot of the standard science arrays that any other Starfleet ship would carry and that caused a problem for the crew at the time because they really needed those nice sensor suites.

The Defiant's a warship, fine, it looks like it was built for the job. The Enterprise on the other hand, looks aside, has too many design tasks for it to effectively do any of them. Generic designs will always lose to specialized ones in both effectiveness and cost. If you don't learn that by the time you get around to building the 4th generation ship, you're in a rut.


Starfleet DOES have dedicated classes, BTW, which are not jack-of-all-trades ships. But, like some of the frigates of old who did do a lot of different things because they were the ONLY ship in the area, Enterprise was designed with the idea of finding out what was around the corner.

If the Enterprise was designed solely as an armed exploratory and science vessel, I would have less of an issue with it than the "everything in one" design the show portrayed.


Enterprise (various ones) have transported colonies from time to time, usually as the start up ship with more dedicated ships following along.

It can't be anywhere as effective as a proper purpose designed colony ship. And that would go against the entire concept of an exploratory vessel.


In all honesty, even the producers of Star Trek have since recanted the families aboard ship thing.

It was a stupid decision the moment they decided that the Enterprise could have offensive rather than purely defensive roles, or for that matter, roles that would knowingly put it directly in harms way.


As for having a barber though... Have you looked at what a modern aircraft carrier has aboard?

It was more of Picard personally who had a barber than the barber itself.


Because Picard is one of, if not the, best and most experienced captains in Starfleet.

By that reasoning, the captain of the USS Kennedy would make an excellent Delta Force operative? Come on NERVUN, you're smarter than that.

No good if the ship is an explorer going into unknown areas, where it might encounter a hostile at any time.

Which is why the ship was equipped with enough muscle to defend itself with minimal harm to the crew.

Again, you don't always have time to unload. And the Enterprise D at least was the God damn flagship. When would it not be going into battle?

For fuck's sake, all their worst enemies have cloaks.

And when you don't have time to unload, and there is no way to get out of combat, you just suck it up and go into combat hoping for the best. What more can you expect?

Galaxy ships are often sent into battle. And they are classed as "explorers", which likely means they'll be going into dangerous areas.

Which is why they are equipped with the means to defend themselves, as they have done many times. How many times has the Enterprise D been just out exploring and not been able to defend itself? Off the top of my head, just once. And that was Q's fault, with the point being that they aren't equipped to handle all of what is out there. Which, in a roundabout way, kind of proves my point.

And the fact they are going into unknown and potentially hostile space with children aboard is sickening.

Hence why probes and scans are used before the ship actually enters the space. So any reasonable risk to the ship and its crew can be determined.

But the children are aboard so they can grow up WITH their parents, who usually both serve on the ship. Or also when the children have no one but their parents. So, if a crewmember feels comfortable leaving their child with the childs grandparents or something, they can choose to do that. Or the crewmember can choose to play an immediate part in their childs upbringing, while not giving up their career, and accepting the risks involved. We saw in TNG that Worf thought it best for his son to live with his grandparents, and when that was no longer possible, his son came back to live with him. Worf knew the risks, and accepted them.

If anything, you should be blaming the parents. It's their choice whether they bring their families with them or not. Starfleet does not force you to bring your children with you. Sure, the Galaxy class may be somewhat encouraging you to do that, do you think any starfleet officer brings their kids aboard, being completely ignorant of the risks involved?

They did with the Defiant. And on their shuttle craft.

Shuttlecraft are not designed for prolonged usage, as starships are. No one expects someone to be in a shuttlecraft for a year. They are for short-range missions (back and fourth between systems, stations, ships etc.).

And the Defiant? Well, that was a necessary risk. The Defiant is, by all accounts, a Federation warship. It was designed for combat, often heavy combat (hence the ablative armor). The Federation likely worked to reduce the ratiation damage from the warp engines as much as possible (why it took so long for a Federation ship of this design perhaps?), but also accepted some exposure as being inevitable.

Moreover, Defiant class ships are not meant for long term missions, often docking at starbases or outposts when not on a mission (as we saw in DS9 during the Dominion war). The exception to this is the Valiant, which was meant to circle the entire Federation and come back home. But since it was never meant to be travelling into combat or attaining high-warp speeds for any period of time, it seems reasonable for it to have been used for a mission such as this.

Do you think it would be a good idea to have children on a military base?
Er... lots of bases, at least US ones, do indeed have children on the base.

That doesn't tell me where exactly it's located though.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Impulse_drive

The Defiant's a warship, fine, it looks like it was built for the job. The Enterprise on the other hand, looks aside, has too many design tasks for it to effectively do any of them. Generic designs will always lose to specialized ones in both effectiveness and cost. If you don't learn that by the time you get around to building the 4th generation ship, you're in a rut.

If the Enterprise was designed solely as an armed exploratory and science vessel, I would have less of an issue with it than the "everything in one" design the show portrayed.
What part of 'Only ship in the area' (And that goes doubly with Enterprise) is not registering here? Come on, we've explained this over and over again and you've yet to address the point.

It can't be anywhere as effective as a proper purpose designed colony ship. And that would go against the entire concept of an exploratory vessel.
Which is why it was never a primary mission. It DID do it a number of times, usually within an emergency situation.

It was more of Picard personally who had a barber than the barber itself.
Mot was not Picard's personal barber. Besides, Picard does have SOME hair. :tongue:

Actually, IIRC, during Unification, it was stated that one of Mot's duties (And the reason why Picard went to see him) was that he created hair pieces for crew members who needed them for missions.

By that reasoning, the captain of the USS Kennedy would make an excellent Delta Force operative? Come on NERVUN, you're smarter than that.
No, the simple explanation is that Picard had the knowledge and experience needed for the mission. You send the person who will best do the job.

Er... lots of bases, at least US ones, do indeed have children on the base.


Poor example on my side. I should have specified naval vessels. Or front line military bases.


What part of 'Only ship in the area' (And that goes doubly with Enterprise) is not registering here? Come on, we've explained this over and over again and you've yet to address the point.

Isn't it odd that for a supposedly deep space exploratory vessel, it keeps happening to be the only one in the area when federation interests require military presence? I could understand if you chalked the first few times up to coincidence and poor planning, but if the Federation was that slow on the uptake, the Klingons would have beaten them to a pulp ages ago.

At the very least, they could have called in the Enterprise for refit and reassignment.


Which is why it was never a primary mission. It DID do it a number of times, usually within an emergency situation.

The presence of children, non-officer permanent staff and even facilities for children like a nursery already makes it a colony ship in a fashion.


Mot was not Picard's personal barber. Besides, Picard does have SOME hair. :tongue:

Actually, IIRC, during Unification, it was stated that one of Mot's duties (And the reason why Picard went to see him) was that he created hair pieces for crew members who needed them for missions.

I've never seen Picard wearing a wig. Ever.


No, the simple explanation is that Picard had the knowledge and experience needed for the mission. You send the person who will best do the job.

Supposedly Picard had knowledge about technology. But Picard had absolutely no special forces training whatsoever. Even if you included the crash course training, he and Beverly were not anything approaching commandos. Them flubbing the mission would be almost guaranteed if there were halfway competent guards even if it wasn't a trap.

Come on, the job called for trained operatives capable of a quick and stealthy insertion into hostile territory, objective capture or destruction, and extraction all without being detected.

And seriously, are you telling me that of every single Starfleet officer available, Picard, a ship captain with no background training as an infantryman, much less special operations, is the one who has the most knowledge of infantry based stealth operations?

Poor example on my side. I should have specified naval vessels. Or front line military bases.
Granted.

Isn't it odd that for a supposedly deep space exploratory vessel, it keeps happening to be the only one in the area when federation interests require military presence? I could understand if you chalked the first few times up to coincidence and poor planning, but if the Federation was that slow on the uptake, the Klingons would have beaten them to a pulp ages ago.

Thus you run straight into the dramatics of the situation. Unfortunately, since it was Star Trek, it followed the crew of the Enterprise, not everyone one else. But, if you are going to hold that against every single work of fiction... you're gonna run out of fiction really quickly. :p

The presence of children, non-officer permanent staff and even facilities for children like a nursery already makes it a colony ship in a fashion.

Except for any breeding going on, it wasn't acting like a colony, more like a mobile base.

I've never seen Picard wearing a wig. Ever.

I give you http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:PicardDataRomulus.jpg

Supposedly Picard had knowledge about technology. But Picard had absolutely no special forces training whatsoever. Even if you included the crash course training, he and Beverly were not anything approaching commandos. Them flubbing the mission would be almost guaranteed if there were halfway competent guards even if it wasn't a trap.

Come on, the job called for trained operatives capable of a quick and stealthy insertion into hostile territory, objective capture or destruction, and extraction all without being detected.

And seriously, are you telling me that of every single Starfleet officer available, Picard, a ship captain with no background training as an infantryman, much less special operations, is the one who has the most knowledge of infantry based stealth operations?
All Starfleet officers are trained as infantrymen and can act in that regards. That's been addressed any number of times in ST. As for Picard, obviously his knowledge of the technology was considered necessary for that mission.

Thus you run straight into the dramatics of the situation. Unfortunately, since it was Star Trek, it followed the crew of the Enterprise, not everyone one else. But, if you are going to hold that against every single work of fiction... you're gonna run out of fiction really quickly. :p

Reality and dramatics tend not to go together very well like that. But the whole point of this argument began when reality began asserting itself anyway.


Except for any breeding going on, it wasn't acting like a colony, more like a mobile base.

Which still sort of goes against the idea of deep space exploration really (when you build nurseries as part of the ship, you're expecting kids), but even the writers admitted that it was a dumb idea, so we'll leave it at that.


I give you http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:PicardDataRomulus.jpg


Ah, so I see.


All Starfleet officers are trained as infantrymen and can act in that regards.


That seems a bit silly. You can't give them all equal amounts of training and you'd be throwing out specialization if they were all trained equally. For that matter, you might as well not have security officers then. What would be the point?


That's been addressed any number of times in ST. As for Picard, obviously his knowledge of the technology was considered necessary for that mission.

Which begs the question. If his knowledge was that vital, couldn't he have briefed specially trained commandos on what to do and expect rather than risk his mediocre trained butt?

Or is this sort of like CSI where the investigators jealously keep all evidence of a crime to themselves and then go on to bust the criminal rather than letting the prosecutors and detectives do their jobs?

Do you think it would be a good idea to have children on a military base? Or in the same level 5 biological hazard research facilities?

But it isn't a military base, or a biological hazard research laboratory. It is an exploration vessel. It's ongoing mission was to seek out new life and new civilisations. The families on board showed civilisations with whom first contact was going to be made, that they are not hostile. Whilst the Galaxy class ship is equipped for combat very well, the fact that they bring their children sends an inarguable message that offense is not what they want (who would want to start a war when their children could get killed?).

The Galaxy class epitomises what starfleet is about - peaceful exploration. It is the perfect ship for exploring the unknown. What sends a better message to a newly encountered, slightly untrusting alien species - a heavily armed war-designed dreadnought, or an able-to-defend-itself "colony ship", as you so wrongly called it?

Moreover, the Galaxy class is not a dedicated scientific study vessel. It is an exploration vessel. It is meant to encounter new things, assess them, and then call for the specialised ships to complete the job. When has the Enterprise dived straight into an unknown anomaly, when it could have called for a science vessel to come and study it in detail? Cite me one episode where the Enterprise does that.

As for all the dangerous crap that just suddenly pops up in space, that is just an acknowledged risk of space travel.

Hence why it sucked from a design perspective. A mobile colony? Fine. But then it had better not be exploring the fringes of known space or be pulled into combat situations like it so often was. Or maybe you thought the Mayflower was sent to explore the Americas first?

You do not involve non-commissioned people in potentially risky operations. Not unless you want them to be underfoot, and maybe add to the KIA list when something goes south.

In which case, the Federation knowingly sends civilians to their potential deaths in high risk exploratory tasks, and even better, knowingly puts them directly in harms way everytime they task the Enterprise with combat operations. And certainly children are not in the legal capacity to agree to being sent into combat.

So which one is it? Incompetence? Or callous malice?

Neither. It is parents assessing the value vs. cost of having their families aboard ship with them. The presence of families is entirely up to them. No civillian is forced onto the ship, and no family is forced to stay on the ship. It is entirely their choice, and they accept it KNOWING the risk.

Picard's bald. Why does he need a barber?

He doesn't, Worf does.

The same way children are affected by parents who have jobs that require them to travel far from home. And maybe, that's a good thing when their jobs are potentially high risk.

Children and untrained personnel have no place for deep recon in potentially dangerous places. Even if they thought the universe was all sunshine and puppy dogs when they first set out, the Klingon conflict and subsequent fights should have told them what a stupid idea it would be to send civilians on border fringe exploration.

I've already adressed all this earlier in my post.

It was the pinnacle of diddling with design requirements and blatant god modding the way it simply tramples over practical design sense.

And yet there are countless canon explainations for why it is a practical design. Nice of you to ignore them in one of my earlier posts (the one with all the pretty images).

The crew was hardly entirely made of commissioned officers, scientists and camp follower type personnel. The most obvious of this case are children, who get roped into combat every time Starfleet command feels the need for the Flagship to show up for some combat.

Right... so... starfleet just sends the Enterprise out to combat on a whim? I've already addressed this in an earlier post. Galaxy class ships are only sent into combat with full civillian compliment when ABSOLUTELY necessary. Tell me, when Picard headed a blockade against the Romulans at the Klingon border, did the Enterprise have it's full civillian compliment? Or were they dropped off at a nearby starbase beforehand?

The Enterprise is only sent into combat with civillians on board when it absolutely has to.

Which is why the Federation has no qualms about throwing civilians and children into harms way everytime they have conflict...

Except this is completely false, and has already been proven false.

Armed science vessel. Fine. Armed exploratory vessel. Fine. Armed science/exploratory/colony vessel. Stupid.

Nope. And already countered.

So Albert Einstein and the rest of the top research staff for the Manhattan Project was sitting in the Enola Gay when it dropped the atomic bombs? Was Robert Goddard the first astronaut? Are you that silly?

You don't put your supposed experts in high risk operations they aren't even trained for (crash courses do not count!) when they can brief professional commandos on the task at hand. And even worse, you don't treat them as disposable if you are somehow stupid enough to put them in harms way and they do get harmed.

This is either blatant stupidity or they thought Picard was not valuable enough to rank him above "disposable the first sign there is trouble".

Because they needed an expert there to be able to determine whether the weapon was actually being built or not, and if it was, to be able to safely dismantle it. Only the most absolute of retards would send a bunch of commandos in to dismantle a weapon they cannot possibly know anything about. It would have been harder to make the commandos experts in the technology being investigated, than giving a seasoned veteran a crash-coarse in commando training.

Which is why the ship was equipped with enough muscle to defend itself with minimal harm to the crew.

If they knew it would be going into dangerous areas, it should not have had children aboard.

And when you don't have time to unload, and there is no way to get out of combat, you just suck it up and go into combat hoping for the best. What more can you expect?

All true, which is why you don't put kids on ships that are likely to end up in combat fairly frequently.

Which is why they are equipped with the means to defend themselves, as they have done many times. How many times has the Enterprise D been just out exploring and not been able to defend itself? Off the top of my head, just once. And that was Q's fault, with the point being that they aren't equipped to handle all of what is out there. Which, in a roundabout way, kind of proves my point.

Come on. How many episodes has some energy being or subspace distortion made the Enterprise its plaything? Often with little or no warning.

Hence why probes and scans are used before the ship actually enters the space. So any reasonable risk to the ship and its crew can be determined.

Ever heard of cloaks? Or unknown phenomina that your sensors can't detect?

But the children are aboard so they can grow up WITH their parents, who usually both serve on the ship. Or also when the children have no one but their parents. So, if a crewmember feels comfortable leaving their child with the childs grandparents or something, they can choose to do that.

Or the crewmember can choose to play an immediate part in their childs upbringing, while not giving up their career, and accepting the risks involved. We saw in TNG that Worf thought it best for his son to live with his grandparents, and when that was no longer possible, his son came back to live with him. Worf knew the risks, and accepted them.

Its a shitty parent who needlessly takes the kids into a war zone so they can spend more time together.

If anything, you should be blaming the parents. It's their choice whether they bring their families with them or not. Starfleet does not force you to bring your children with you. Sure, the Galaxy class may be somewhat encouraging you to do that, do you think any starfleet officer brings their kids aboard, being completely ignorant of the risks involve

Star Fleet allows for and encourages this nonsense during the TNG era. Its part of government's role to put safety regulations in place. But yes, I do also blame the parents, as I said above.

Shuttlecraft are not designed for prolonged usage, as starships are. No one expects someone to be in a shuttlecraft for a year. They are for short-range missions (back and fourth between systems, stations, ships etc.).

Fair enough. Though you accumulate a lot of time in them if you serve long enough.

And the Defiant? Well, that was a necessary risk. The Defiant is, by all accounts, a Federation warship. It was designed for combat, often heavy combat (hence the ablative armor). The Federation likely worked to reduce the ratiation damage from the warp engines as much as possible (why it took so long for a Federation ship of this design perhaps?), but also accepted some exposure as being inevitable.

The Defiant was a dedicated warship. The Galaxy was not. Fine, so why was it routinely sent into battlegrounds?

Moreover, Defiant class ships are not meant for long term missions, often docking at starbases or outposts when not on a mission (as we saw in DS9 during the Dominion war). The exception to this is the Valiant, which was meant to circle the entire Federation and come back home. But since it was never meant to be travelling into combat or attaining high-warp speeds for any period of time, it seems reasonable for it to have been used for a mission such as this.

It was stupid to assign a Defiant to that mission. It doesn't have the research facilities, the size, or the speed. So not only does Star Fleet build generalized designs that routinely fail, it also treats its dedicated ships as generalized designs. Lovely.

All true, which is why you don't put kids on ships that are likely to end up in combat fairly frequently.

In seven years, how often did we see the Enterprise end up in serious combat? Couple of times against the Borg. Maybe once or twice against the Klingons. Never really against the Romulans. All in all the Enterprise had quite a dull seven years.

Come on. How many episodes has some energy being or subspace distortion made the Enterprise its plaything? Often with little or no warning.

Either we deduce that these are common occurrences in space and cannot be helped, and are part of the risks taken, or they are freak occurrances that happen only to the Enterprise because plot demands it.

Ever heard of cloaks? Or unknown phenomina that your sensors can't detect?

Yeah, and they can't be helped. But they aren't as common as you'd like us to believe.

Its a shitty parent who needlessly takes the kids into a war zone so they can spend more time together.

Your opinion maybe. Perhaps the actual parents determine it as being better for the kids to be with them, despite the risk, than any alternatives (as Worf did).

Star Fleet allows for and encourages this nonsense during the TNG era. Its part of government's role to put safety regulations in place. But yes, I do also blame the parents, as I said above.

They do put safety regulations in place, and they also leave it up to the parents. It is ultimately the parents fault, not Starfleets.

The Defiant was a dedicated warship. The Galaxy was not. Fine, so why was it routinely sent into battlegrounds?

In seven years, how often did we see the Enterprise sent into battle? And I mean actually sent. Not just "hey, you're the only ship that can make it there in time, and if you don't, bad things happen, so, get your ass out there" occurences.

It was stupid to assign a Defiant to that mission. It doesn't have the research facilities, the size, or the speed. So not only does Star Fleet build generalized designs that routinely fail, it also treats its dedicated ships as generalized designs. Lovely.

It does seem like a stupid idea to assign the Valiant to that mission, but it is the only instance we have of Starfleet using a dedicated ship for a general purpose.

That seems a bit silly. You can't give them all equal amounts of training and you'd be throwing out specialization if they were all trained equally. For that matter, you might as well not have security officers then. What would be the point?
Why not? The current structure of the US Naval Academy runs more or less the same way. The cadets are expected to know enough basics to actually fight, run various kinds of ships, and then go into whatever it was they were planning on as a career. Starfleet Academy does take four years after all. It's not a boot camp and then out.

Which begs the question. If his knowledge was that vital, couldn't he have briefed specially trained commandos on what to do and expect rather than risk his mediocre trained butt?

Or is this sort of like CSI where the investigators jealously keep all evidence of a crime to themselves and then go on to bust the criminal rather than letting the prosecutors and detectives do their jobs?
Given that this was a throwaway line in the ep, all that was stated was while captain of the Stargazer, Picard gained a lot of knowledge of theta-band radiation. What kind of knowledge, and if this knowledge could be imparted in a timely manner, we just don't know.

Given that this was a throwaway line in the ep, all that was stated was while captain of the Stargazer, Picard gained a lot of knowledge of theta-band radiation. What kind of knowledge, and if this knowledge could be imparted in a timely manner, we just don't know.

As I said, the knowledge was probably so specialised that it would have been easier to train a grizzled veteran like Picard how to sneak around, than give a group of commandos a crash course in metagenic weapons.

But it isn't a military base, or a biological hazard research laboratory. It is an exploration vessel.


With a track record of coming into contact with many potentially ship destroying threats. You'd think that maybe with a pair of neurons to rub together would realize it would be a bad idea to keep non-coms and civilians on a ship that keeps running into these problems but nooooooo, nobody in Starfleet has a pair of neurons to rub together it seems.

And as NERVUN points out, even the writers admit it was a dumb decision. A family friendly high risk combat facing vessel is stupid, unless you mean family friendly in the "Everyone in the family has an equal chance of dying horrible deaths" sense.


Whilst the Galaxy class ship is equipped for combat very well, the fact that they bring their children sends an inarguable message that offense is not what they want (who would want to start a war when their children could get killed?).

Pfft, ahahahahahahahaha. That's a stupid question if you bothered to look out the window and read the news.


What sends a better message to a newly encountered, slightly untrusting alien species - a heavily armed war-designed dreadnought, or an able-to-defend-itself "colony ship", as you so wrongly called it?

Or maybe, you know, an actual exploratory vessel and not a jumbled mishmash of tasks with a kindergarten thrown in.


As for all the dangerous crap that just suddenly pops up in space, that is just an acknowledged risk of space travel.

What has higher risks? A trip on a highway, or the unmapped depths of the Amazon? Would you bring children and untrained people on a trip to the latter?


Neither. It is parents assessing the value vs. cost of having their families aboard ship with them.

Then this is a failure of Starfleet. Stupidity on their part for allowing distractions on board that would threaten dedication to duty of family having personnel.


The presence of families is entirely up to them. No civillian is forced onto the ship, and no family is forced to stay on the ship. It is entirely their choice, and they accept it KNOWING the risk.

Children are generally not accorded the same rights as adults.


I've already adressed all this earlier in my post.


No, you danced around it by pretending that risk acknowledgment and prevention don't exist.


And yet there are countless canon explainations for why it is a practical design. Nice of you to ignore them in one of my earlier posts (the one with all the pretty images).

The only explanations I've seen from you regard the apparent (not really, Borg for example), universality of warp nacelle locations.


Right... so... starfleet just sends the Enterprise out to combat on a whim? I've already addressed this in an earlier post.


Starfleet, or the captain of the Enterprise.


Galaxy class ships are only sent into combat with full civillian compliment when ABSOLUTELY necessary.

There's no evidence of this. And there's no evidence that it never has anything but a full civilian complement except when in dock for refit either.


The Enterprise is only sent into combat with civillians on board when it absolutely has to.

Enterprise E. Against orders, Picard went into combat without dropping his civilian crew anywhere, dooming most of them to borgification.


Except this is completely false, and has already been proven false.


You've proven.... nothing. You've made assertions, but no circumstantial evidence to back it up.


Because they needed an expert there to be able to determine whether the weapon was actually being built or not, and if it was, to be able to safely dismantle it. Only the most absolute of retards would send a bunch of commandos in to dismantle a weapon they cannot possibly know anything about. It would have been harder to make the commandos experts in the technology being investigated, than giving a seasoned veteran a crash-coarse in commando training.

Because nobody in Starfleet trains for bomb/hazardous weapons disposal. Nobody at all.

And because nobody in Starfleet considers a team of crack commandos worth sending along either in a deep op as necessary muscle.

Why not? The current structure of the US Naval Academy runs more or less the same way. The cadets are expected to know enough basics to actually fight, run various kinds of ships, and then go into whatever it was they were planning on as a career. Starfleet Academy does take four years after all. It's not a boot camp and then out.

The current structure of the US Naval Academy however, does not have the same standards and level of training for its cadets as say, Delta Force or even Navy SEALS has. You'll never get that level of specialization with basic training, and the need for that kind of specialization won't go away just because you have fancy space ships.


Given that this was a throwaway line in the ep, all that was stated was while captain of the Stargazer, Picard gained a lot of knowledge of theta-band radiation. What kind of knowledge, and if this knowledge could be imparted in a timely manner, we just don't know.

Any officer in capacity generally keeps a log of activities and occurrences. Are those locked only to the officer who writes them? That can't be, since then nobody would have known what he knew. If his knowledge was based on research and sensor readings, then the ship would have kept a much more detailed log in the database to further build on it which Starfleet intelligence officers would surely have looked over.

Frankly, the only thing that makes sense as to why Picard was chosen, why he was sent with a token security detail, and why nobody else could have done the job better was because the plot demanded it. There's no other logical conclusion.

And not even unleashing, as of yet, the arsenal of SMILIES.
*nods*
So true! http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/beam.gif
Thank you!
You're welcome.
dude, i didn't know you knew so much about ST!

* +1000 awesome points*
Oh, I'm a nerd alright. :tongue:
Based on your image, it would appear that the best approach of attack would be lower stern. That is where the least amount of weaponry is located. If the torpedoes can be contended with, then dead astern, since based on the location of the rear saucer phaser arrays/banks/etc, they shouldn't be able to fire at any angle lower than level with the saucer, meaning there would only be two phaser arrays and one torpedo bay.

Not a total vulnerability as I had suspected at first, I admit, but definitely the weakest point in its defensive array.
You wouldn't want multiple torpedoes launched at you while even "only" a couple of phaser arrays open fire on you.
Besides, when you go lower, you're again in the vicinity of the bottom phaser array as well...

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/Phasersbottom.jpg

Star Wars is better.
It's different and cannot be compared in my book.

As for bringing it up in a Star Trek thread - "Don't make me destroy you!"
You can actually see where the gun is without being told.
Really? Then pray tell where exactly those visible guns you allude to are on an Imperial Star Destroyer, eh?
Nah, it really doesn't matter. Both are great examples of sci-fi.
That I can agree on.
The entire point of the exercise was that you would take advantage of the really thin structural supports and slice off the nacelles with your opening salvos, immobilizing the ship. After that, it's just a question of putting yourself where the least enemy weapons coverage is available and pounding away.
Those "thin" structures you allude to are among the most stable in the whole ship since they don't need to be as hollowed out. Plus, they are the part that connect the warp drive to the rest of the ship, hence structural integrity is highly valued there.

Who makes multi-purpose ships these days anyway? Cargo ships are cargo ships, science vessels are science vessels, etc, etc. Sure, you could argue that most ships you'd make should carry some weapons complement. Contested space is dangerous. Fine. Armed ships that are purpose built for other jobs is perfectly alright. But making a jack of all trades capital class ship/mobile colony is the kind of decision I'd expect from a committee who diddled and fiddled their way with the original design document until it became a hodge podge Frankenstein horror with too much vested interest to kill.
Seeing as the Galaxy class was to operate independently for a longer period of time, it does make sense to include transport capacities, science and exploration facilities and a serious punch combined in one ship rather than splitting them up and then having to worry about defending a fleet of single-purpose ships should trouble come along.
Ignoring the difficulty in getting past the sensors and shields to do enough damage... slicing off the nacelles would not immobilize the ship. It would knock out the warp drive, yes, but impulse would still function.
And seriously piss of the captain, too!
Does ST have any sort of star dreadnought class ship?
Or is that a SW-specific class?
Not in the sense Star Wars has them.

There are designs of a Federation dreadnought, namely a refit constitution class with three warp nacelles and improved weapons systems.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/FederationDreadnought.gif

However, they'd better be categorized as a super-heavy cruiser.

The ship design using three warp nacelles - much like the earlier designs only including one which can be found in the times of TOS - were discontinued "for reasons of warp-field stability" or something like that. Riker's Enterprise in "All Good Things..." seems to be an exception. Ships with four warp nacelles like the Constellation class apparently don't have this problem.
It makes a lot of sense when the Federation, excepting Borg invasion or the Dominion War, does spend most of its time in scientific exploration. It also makes sense when you look at the fact that a Galaxy class starship was designed to operate at long range away from the bulk of the Federation and its support services. You need a jack-of-all-trades ship because chances are your ship would be doing everything. Over the course of TNG we've seen the Enterprise-D operate as first contact vessel, patrol, cargo, colonization, rescue, evacuation, exploration, science vessel, and, yes, as a battleship.
Sometimes all in the same episode. ;)
Exactly. Sometimes including a little bit of everything is the best choice after all.
Mon Cal cruisers, for the win.

Forget the ISDs, I'll take an MC90 any day. :p
They're doing a mighty fine job for a civilian pleasure cruiser turned warship indeed!
Does ST have any ships that are over nineteen kilometers design-size? :p
No. And they don't need to. Even the borgs' cubes ain't that big and the Federation usually doesn't run into anything too big to handle "out there".
(V'ger and the Whale probe or a crystalline entity set aside)
By the way, how would you classify a Constitution Class ship like the original Enterprise? I'm thinking either heavy cruiser, given the types of missions they preform, or battleship, given their the most powerful Fed ships of their time we know of.
They're "officially" classified as heavy cruisers.
They have been classified in universe as both battleships and heavy cruisers. Heavy cruiser is the most accepted classification though.
Yup.
The Klingons, and in fact virtually every warlike alien race in Star Trek, always refer to the Enterprise as a "battlecruiser" (e.g. "Federation battlecruiser dead ahead!") - I think it is just supposed to suggest their warlike world view as contrasted to the Federation's.
Either that, or they don't have an equivalent in their languages, or - what I'd wager - they mistake size for might.
What is it, the red oblong blob?
Yes. You've found it!
Given the practices of today's, and histories, exploratory vessels, no, not really. It wasn't uncommon for unattached people to sign up for journeys lasting years exploring the world when all they had were wooden sailboats.
And given the nature of the Federation who have a different approach on the matter, it's different.
(Doesn't mean that Picard is happy with kids on board.)
Unless you're a colony ship, you don't carry children or non-essential crew. Barbers (why did Picard even have one anyway), and children are not essential to the idea of an exploratory vessel unless it was also a colony ship, in which case it would be setting down as soon as it found a suitable planet.
They are considered essential to the well-being of the crew. And the Enterprise is not a colony ship.
And are you seriously telling me that all these non-coms signed up for a trip around the universe while getting shot at?
Hell yeah!
In fact, can someone explain to me why the captain of an exploratory vessel gets flagged for a black ops commando raid in enemy territory?
Best man for the job. Plus, Picard in action = golden moments! ("How many lights, Captain?")
Sucks for the children who die every time one gets destroyed though.
True, but then again, growing up on a space ship is the shit!

Besides, how many Galaxy class ships have been destroyed or lost with a total loss of lives? I can only think of one. (Apart from the 1701-D being crashed)
You don't send a ship full of kids into combat, and you don't waste space for state of the art weapons on a civilian ship.
Galaxy class ships do not seek combat, and the Enterprise is not a civilian ship.

The changes you call for are all present in "Yesterday's Enterprise".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday%27s_Enterprise_(TNG_episode)

"This episode shows several pronounced changes from the normal way of life in the Federation. The first noticeable change is that the bridge changes from the bright and open bridge of a Galaxy-class starship into a dark, military bridge with multiple tactical-control panels and security personnel. Military dress differs, also. Enlisted crewmembers wear white/silver belts and sashes over a uniform similar to that seen in the standard timeline of Season 3, but with a closed, rather than open, mandarin collar that peaks at the nape of the neck, and black cuffs on the sleeves. The whole crew wear phasers as standard-issue equipment (a chrome one, in Picard's case). In this episode, the ship is referred to as a warship, "capable of transporting over six thousand troops": the legendary "Captain's Log" and "Stardate" are replaced by "Military Log" and "Combat Date", respectively. Another noted difference is that there are no children present on the ship."
When the technology exists to keep families together for scientists, and when science is praised above all else in your culture, why wouldn't you do all you could to make the scientists lives as comfortable as possible?
Beats me.
You're just not getting it. The Galaxy class was the first Federation ship to carry entire families. It is virtually a small city. How can you have a long term exploration mission without a barber? And what about children? If officers must be seperated from their children for several-year long missions since both parents happen to be officers, then how do you think that would affect the children?
Let alone children being born while on a long-term mission...
Again, the Galaxy class ship was meant to be the pinnacle of space-exploration starships for the Federation, not a war machine. People like to have nice haircuts when out in space for several years.
Exactly.
The Enterprise D was the flagship of the Federation. The fact that it was clearly and inarguably an exploration vessel, gives the image that the Federation is more about exploration and peace (which is certainly true) than about military conquest. The fact that the ship has some muscle is meerly a result of good design, in that it could accommodate all that high-tech Federation weaponry without any detriment to the exploration facilities.
I agree!
Show me when a Galaxy class ship has been sent into combat with a shipload of civillians, when said civillians could be dropped off somewhere safe, or when there was another, more equipped ship around to do the job better but wasn't chosen for some stupid reason. Federation ships only engage in combat when necessary, and only engage in combat when they have civillians board when absolutely necessary.

But for planned offensive missions, Defiant and Excelsior ships are used due to their negligible civillian population. Yes, Galaxy class ships are also used (primarily for their muscle), but when they are used, they drop off their civillians before going into combat.

Again, the muscle of the Galaxy class ship is meerly a result of starfleet ingenuity. They managed to find a way to create an exploration vessel that could also handle a nice armament of weapons. The Galaxy class is an amazing design in that respect, that it allowes exploration vessels to defend themselves without aid when in deep-space missions, as was done in TNG numerous times.
This!!!
And of course, they weren't going to risk life and limb of the crew just to bring the nacelles a little closer to the hull to make them a little more protected and, evidently, a little less efficient.
Nah, that'd be kinda pointless!

Do you think it would be a good idea to have children on a military base? Or in the same level 5 biological hazard research facilities?
Kids do live on military bases. And there are many areas on a Galaxy class that have restricted access only. No kids allowed...
Hence why it sucked from a design perspective. A mobile colony? Fine. But then it had better not be exploring the fringes of known space or be pulled into combat situations like it so often was. Or maybe you thought the Mayflower was sent to explore the Americas first?
The Enterprise is neither a mobile colony, nor is it a colony transport.
You do not involve non-commissioned people in potentially risky operations. Not unless you want them to be underfoot, and maybe add to the KIA list when something goes south.
People aboard the Federation vessels are well aware of the risks involved and yet they sign up. Funny that, eh?
In which case, the Federation knowingly sends civilians to their potential deaths in high risk exploratory tasks, and even better, knowingly puts them directly in harms way everytime they task the Enterprise with combat operations. And certainly children are not in the legal capacity to agree to being sent into combat.
Calculated risks that they are willing to accept in a ship more than capable of taking care of itself and its crew, mind you.

However, you disregard one mayor feature of the Enterprise that deals with exactly that: Saucer seperation!

Which, if I'm not completely mistaken, serves the purpose of separating the civis and science nerds and their families from the military personal.

Saucer takes off, Engine section goes fighting.

Armed science vessel. Fine. Armed exploratory vessel. Fine. Armed science/exploratory/colony vessel. Stupid.
It's not a colony vessel.

And seeing how the Federation exploratory and science vessels fair in combat (they usually blow up, mind you!), I'd rather be aboard a Galaxy class.

Which is why the ship was equipped with enough muscle to defend itself with minimal harm to the crew.
And when you don't have time to unload, and there is no way to get out of combat, you just suck it up and go into combat hoping for the best. What more can you expect?
Which is why they are equipped with the means to defend themselves, as they have done many times. How many times has the Enterprise D been just out exploring and not been able to defend itself? Off the top of my head, just once. And that was Q's fault, with the point being that they aren't equipped to handle all of what is out there. Which, in a roundabout way, kind of proves my point.
I fully agree!
Hence why probes and scans are used before the ship actually enters the space. So any reasonable risk to the ship and its crew can be determined.

But the children are aboard so they can grow up WITH their parents, who usually both serve on the ship. Or also when the children have no one but their parents. So, if a crewmember feels comfortable leaving their child with the childs grandparents or something, they can choose to do that. Or the crewmember can choose to play an immediate part in their childs upbringing, while not giving up their career, and accepting the risks involved. We saw in TNG that Worf thought it best for his son to live with his grandparents, and when that was no longer possible, his son came back to live with him. Worf knew the risks, and accepted them.

If anything, you should be blaming the parents. It's their choice whether they bring their families with them or not. Starfleet does not force you to bring your children with you. Sure, the Galaxy class may be somewhat encouraging you to do that, do you think any starfleet officer brings their kids aboard, being completely ignorant of the risks involved?
Only if you're a red-shirt in TOS - and they left their children behind. Literally!

And the Defiant? Well, that was a necessary risk. The Defiant is, by all accounts, a Federation warship. It was designed for combat, often heavy combat (hence the ablative armor). The Federation likely worked to reduce the ratiation damage from the warp engines as much as possible (why it took so long for a Federation ship of this design perhaps?), but also accepted some exposure as being inevitable.
The Defiant defies typical Federation ship design because it's whole design was aimed at ass-kickery, and nothing else.
Moreover, Defiant class ships are not meant for long term missions, often docking at starbases or outposts when not on a mission (as we saw in DS9 during the Dominion war). The exception to this is the Valiant, which was meant to circle the entire Federation and come back home. But since it was never meant to be travelling into combat or attaining high-warp speeds for any period of time, it seems reasonable for it to have been used for a mission such as this.
I concur. Do I spot pointy ears on you?
Supposedly Picard had knowledge about technology. But Picard had absolutely no special forces training whatsoever. Even if you included the crash course training, he and Beverly were not anything approaching commandos. Them flubbing the mission would be almost guaranteed if there were halfway competent guards even if it wasn't a trap.
How much exactly do you pretend to know about Starfleet officer's training?
Come on, the job called for trained operatives capable of a quick and stealthy insertion into hostile territory, objective capture or destruction, and extraction all without being detected./[QUOTE]
And? They had the best (close) combat expert with them (Worf), their best medical officer with them (Crusher), and leading them was the most experienced Captain (Picard). Makes sense to me.
[QUOTE]And seriously, are you telling me that of every single Starfleet officer available, Picard, a ship captain with no background training as an infantryman, much less special operations, is the one who has the most knowledge of infantry based stealth operations?
Every Starfleet officer undergoes infantry and close combat training. Only that they rarely have a chance to shine.
I give you http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:PicardDataRomulus.jpg
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as science grows it
His hair!
All Starfleet officers are trained as infantrymen and can act in that regards. That's been addressed any number of times in ST. As for Picard, obviously his knowledge of the technology was considered necessary for that mission.
Besides, who knows what kind of stunts Picard has pulled before he got the Enterprise - which, mind you, he wouldn't get if he was only commanding his desk.

Not wading through all this, just thought the piccy'd be answer enough:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/18/article-0-0282E80A000005DC-237_634x303.jpg

Young Spock and Kirk.

And the article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1086917/TRAILER-Star-Trek-gets-sexy-makeover-new-film-love-scenes-motorbikes-hunky-stars.html) from whence that came had some interesting screen shots.

Uhuru fan service looks like win... :tongue:

(I expect this has come too late in the thead - looks like geekhalla's begun...)

Not wading through all this, just thought the piccy'd be answer enough:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/18/article-0-0282E80A000005DC-237_634x303.jpg

Young Spock and Kirk.

And the article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1086917/TRAILER-Star-Trek-gets-sexy-makeover-new-film-love-scenes-motorbikes-hunky-stars.html) from whence that came had some interesting screen shots.

Uhuru fan service looks like win... :tongue:

(I expect this has come too late in the thead - looks like geekhalla's begun...)

The more I see of the new Star Trek movie... the less I want to watch it in the theatres...

The more I see of the new Star Trek movie... the less I want to watch it in the theatres...
Likewise here.

They're doing a mighty fine job for a civilian pleasure cruiser turned warship indeed! The MC90 was the first design built specifically for warfare. The Mon Cal answer to the ISD. :p

No. And they don't need to. Even the borgs' cubes ain't that big and the Federation usually doesn't run into anything too big to handle "out there".
(V'ger and the Whale probe or a crystalline entity set aside)Alrighty. Once again, I think it's the Emperor's obsession with having bigger "toys". But the Lusankya and Guardian did fufill their actual goals.

They're "officially" classified as heavy cruisers. Peace-oriented classification?

The MC90 was the first design built specifically for warfare. The Mon Cal answer to the ISD. :p
Oh! I didn't know that. :eek:
Alrighty. Once again, I think it's the Emperor's obsession with having bigger "toys". But the Lusankya and Guardian did fufill their actual goals.
Yeah. Palpatine really must have had the smallest dick ever!
Peace-oriented classification?
Uhm... huh?

Sorry, I don't even know what that means. It's Starfleet's classification.

Oh! I didn't know that. :eek: Not many do. The Viscount-class Star Defender was the Mon Cal answer to the Imperial Star Dreadnought. 17 KM in legnth, and over 4,000 wepons systems. Big ship.
The MC90 was more along the lines of the star destroyer. Circa 1,250 meters in length, equal armarment to the star destroyer.

Yeah. Palpatine really must have had the smallest dick ever!Yeah, he needed the Death Star to feel secure. ;)

Uhm... huh?

Sorry, I don't even know what that means.I meant that the Federation didn't want to classify their ships as "battleships". As in to include things that directly involved war. :p
I could be wrong, though. By no means am I an ST expert.

I meant that the Federation didn't want to classify their ships as "battleships". As in to include things that directly involved war. :p
I could be wrong, though. By no means am I an ST expert.
The Defiant is the only "Warship" in the Federation, and it's classed as an "Escort". Federation ships tend toward scientific exploration with weapons secondary. They don't even have very many ships. A large fleet in the Dominion War (such as that which retook DS9) was less than 1500 ships.

Not many do. The Viscount-class Star Defender was the Mon Cal answer to the Imperial Star Dreadnought. 17 KM in legnth, and over 4,000 wepons systems. Big ship.
The MC90 was more along the lines of the star destroyer. Circa 1,250 meters in length, equal armarment to the star destroyer.
My biggest problem with those vessels is that they resemble each other way too much - I can never tell them apart.
Yeah, he needed the Death Star to feel secure. ;)
Two, to be precise. Small dick and two huge spheres... :$
I meant that the Federation didn't want to classify their ships as "battleships". As in to include things that directly involved war. :p
I could be wrong, though. By no means am I an ST expert.
Oh, okay.
The Defiant is the only "Warship" in the Federation, and it's classed as an "Escort". Federation ships tend toward scientific exploration with weapons secondary. They don't even have very many ships. A large fleet in the Dominion War (such as that which retook DS9) was less than 1500 ships.
Then what about the Akira Class gunships?
And aren't there war configurations of the Nebula Class equipping it with more firepower?

My biggest problem with those vessels is that they resemble each other way too much - I can never tell them apart.

Two, to be precise. Small dick and two huge spheres... :$

Oh, okay.

Then what about the Akira Class gunships?
And aren't there war configurations of the Nebula Class equipping it with more firepower?

Akira class wasn't a warship, though it certainly was better armed than most Federation ships. It's also a child of the Berman era, which you can generally write off.

The current structure of the US Naval Academy however, does not have the same standards and level of training for its cadets as say, Delta Force or even Navy SEALS has. You'll never get that level of specialization with basic training, and the need for that kind of specialization won't go away just because you have fancy space ships.
We are talking about the basics of infantry here. Worf went along as the convert ops man.

Any officer in capacity generally keeps a log of activities and occurrences. Are those locked only to the officer who writes them? That can't be, since then nobody would have known what he knew. If his knowledge was based on research and sensor readings, then the ship would have kept a much more detailed log in the database to further build on it which Starfleet intelligence officers would surely have looked over.
See throwaway line. We just don't know. All we know is that he studied them while captain of the Stargazer. What kind of study, we don't know. What kind of experience, we don't know. Given that the war was on at the time, Picard could have first hand knowledge of enemy weapon systems. We just can't tell from one line.

Frankly, the only thing that makes sense as to why Picard was chosen, why he was sent with a token security detail, and why nobody else could have done the job better was because the plot demanded it. There's no other logical conclusion.
Well, yes. Again, see the point that this is a TV show. It makes as much sense as sending up a farm boy whose piloting skills were in a speeder to fight the Death Star or sending a general who used to be a smuggler for a small convert ops mission.

We are talking about the basics of infantry here. Worf went along as the convert ops man.

Which is why it's really funny. One guy as the only one as an actual professional combatant. The other two are essentially an armed technician and a medic for the purposes of the deployment. Even for a covert op, that's incredibly light in manpower terms.


See throwaway line. We just don't know.


Well, it had to be written down somewhere at some point, otherwise how would anyone know he would be the best for the job?


Well, yes. Again, see the point that this is a TV show. It makes as much sense as sending up a farm boy whose piloting skills were in a speeder to fight the Death Star or sending a general who used to be a smuggler for a small convert ops mission.

Which is why reality and similar concerns are toxic to both. :p

My biggest problem with those vessels is that they resemble each other way too much - I can never tell them apart.You can always tell by the engines. :p
I'm too lazy to look up the technical terms, but the engine design is always different on each class.

Except for the Viscount Class(Mon Cal) and Executor class(Imperial/New Republic/Galactic Alliance) both have the same engine design, but that may be because of their size.

You wouldn't want multiple torpedoes launched at you while even "only" a couple of phaser arrays open fire on you.


Torpedoes are physical objects, we get to see one a few times in the show before they're launched. That means they can be intercepted.


Besides, when you go lower, you're again in the vicinity of the bottom phaser array as well...

Dead astern, not lower quadrant.


Those "thin" structures you allude to are among the most stable in the whole ship since they don't need to be as hollowed out. Plus, they are the part that connect the warp drive to the rest of the ship, hence structural integrity is highly valued there.

That's horrible engineering design then. How would anyone perform maintain if they can't get to the nacelles without doing a spacewalk? Or for that matter, how would anyone control anything since it's a solid block of metal? No control conduits remember? Or power lines either.

Logic dictates that the thin structures are hollowed out for maintenance access, power, communications and control lines and similar concerns.

And the rest of the ship isn't hollow either, unless you're saying that aside from the outer hull, there's no internal load bearing structure, which would be really, really, silly.


Seeing as the Galaxy class was to operate independently for a longer period of time, it does make sense to include transport capacities, science and exploration facilities and a serious punch combined in one ship rather than splitting them up and then having to worry about defending a fleet of single-purpose ships should trouble come along.

What you get out of this sort of design philosophy is a ship that does everything poorly. A purpose built exploratory ship would be fitted with deep fuel and expendables stores, and bristling with surveillance gear. A purpose built cargo ship would be huge and bulky to accommodate it's massive cargo. A purpose built warship would have less exploding control consoles every time someone sneezed at the ship and be built without presenting such a huge profile.

Trying to fit everything in one and doing it well is like trying to get a car with the internal space and luxury of an 8 wheeled limousine, gets 1000km to the liter, has the horsepower of a Ferrari, a top speed of 400km/h and can traverse rough terrain like an ATV.

What you get instead is a box on wheels with cushy seats but cramped space, that maybe would get you a dozen kilometers to the liter, the horsepower of an SUV, might get 100km/h going downhill, and would topple over when driving over a field.


And given the nature of the Federation who have a different approach on the matter, it's different.

So the Federation is perfectly fine with sending off kids who aren't old enough to be considered adults to fight and die along with their parents whenever they need the parents to fight and die. Now where did I see that... oh! I know!

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/army_holds_annual_bring_your


They are considered essential to the well-being of the crew. And the Enterprise is not a colony ship.

No, it's a hodgepodge.


Best man for the job. Plus, Picard in action = golden moments! ("How many lights, Captain?")

Sooooo.... because dramatics demands it. Logic, common sense, ability, all that flies out the window. Seriously, even if you needed to bring specialized talent along with you on a covert operation deep in enemy lines, you don't just send a token force as muscle. You attach the talent you need to an established and well trained commando team, not build one from scratch.


Kids do live on military bases. And there are many areas on a Galaxy class that have restricted access only. No kids allowed...

Not front line military bases, no. How many kids live in the American run front line bases say, in Iraq or Afghanistan?


People aboard the Federation vessels are well aware of the risks involved and yet they sign up. Funny that, eh?

So once you're born, you're legally an adult?


Calculated risks that they are willing to accept in a ship more than capable of taking care of itself and its crew, mind you.

However, you disregard one mayor feature of the Enterprise that deals with exactly that: Saucer seperation!

Which happens exactly how many times versus the times the Enterprise is in combat or facing some dangerous ship destroying anomaly?


And seeing how the Federation exploratory and science vessels fair in combat (they usually blow up, mind you!), I'd rather be aboard a Galaxy class.

You mean one without Picard and his main character aura of indestructibility? Doesn't matter, his crew still die somewhat often under him.

The rest is mostly a rehash of what we've covered, so that should do it I think.

My biggest problem with those vessels is that they resemble each other way too much - I can never tell them apart.

http://www.dan-dare.org/FreeFun/Images/CartoonsMoviesTV/StarTrekWallpaper3800.jpg

I count 13 ships with a round fuselage and engine nacelles. More if you include oblong bodies or round fuselage with other engine types.

@ GF and GN, both:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/63/MonCalline.jpg


From top to bottom (not to scale): a Viscount-class Star Defender, MC80 Home One type and Liberty type Star Cruisers, and a Recusant-class light destroyer.

*snip image*

I count 13 ships with a round fuselage and engine nacelles. More if you include oblong bodies or round fuselage with other engine types.

@ GF and GN, both:

*snip image*

From top to bottom (not to scale): a Viscount-class Star Defender, MC80 Home One type and Liberty type Star Cruisers, and a Recusant-class light destroyer.I was talking about the Mon Cal cruisers only. You can tell the difference in the drive nacelles on each ship.
And the Recusant-class is an extreme deviation in design, as well.

I was talking about the Mon Cal cruisers only. You can tell the difference in the drive nacelles on each ship.
And the Recusant-class is very different in designs, as well.

Those are all MC ships. Or are you talking about the difference between, say, two Viscounts, the RSS A and the RSS B (Rebel Super Ship).

Or, by cruisers, do you mean the MC80, 80A, 80B, 90, etc?

Those are all MC ships. Or are you talking about the difference between, say, two Viscounts, the RSS A and the RSS B (Rebel Super Ship).

Or, by cruisers, do you mean the MC80, 80A, 80B, 90, etc?Cruisers only.
I used the Viscount as an example because it's still along the same design, just enlarged to titanic proportions.

In seven years, how often did we see the Enterprise end up in serious combat? Couple of times against the Borg. Maybe once or twice against the Klingons. Never really against the Romulans. All in all the Enterprise had quite a dull seven years.

Well the first encounter with the Borg was Q's fault, but they were basically the first response ship in The Best of Both Worlds, and engaged the Borg on several occasions. They also engaged a Borg splinter group under Data's "brother" late in the series. They never really fought the Klingons to my knowledge, since the Klingons were allies. They did confront the Romulans on at least three or four occasions I'm aware of: at the end of season one, on the word of a defecting Romulan Admiral (turned out to be a trap), and leading a blockade to keep the Romulans from reinforcing Klingon rebels, and I think also when they stopped an intended Romulan invasion of Vulcan.

The worst examples would be the first two I mentioned, as the Enterprise was sent to investigate possible Romulan hostilities. The first incident was the Enterprise conducting reconissance of possible Romulan attacks alone after decades of no contact. The second incident actually lead to the Enterprise being fired upon by two Romulan ships, and it would have been captured or destroyed had Picard not brought along cloaked Klingon support. However, it is possible that they could have unloaded civilians before hand for these incidents.

However, the Enterprise was the bloody flagship and frequently was sent to war zones, to conduct reconissance, and to make First Contact. Unless they routinely unloaded the children (rather inconvieniant) then they were sending them into dangerous situations. Which they did anyway every time they explored unknown space.

Either we deduce that these are common occurrences in space and cannot be helped, and are part of the risks taken, or they are freak occurrances that happen only to the Enterprise because plot demands it.

Yes, they are part of the risks. IEDs are part of the risk in Iraq. Clouds of hot ash raining down on you are part of the risk of Volcanology. Falling to your death is part of the risk of climbing Mt. Everest. Which is why you generally don't bring children along.

Your opinion maybe. Perhaps the actual parents determine it as being better for the kids to be with them, despite the risk, than any alternatives (as Worf did).

I know if I had a kid I wouldn't expose them to life threatening situations needlessly.

They do put safety regulations in place, and they also leave it up to the parents. It is ultimately the parents fault, not Starfleets.

Regulations like not having children in a f***ing warship?
It is the parent's fault, but its also the government's fault for not properly enforcing safety on its ships, and keeping children off front line combat ships.

In seven years, how often did we see the Enterprise sent into battle? And I mean actually sent. Not just "hey, you're the only ship that can make it there in time, and if you don't, bad things happen, so, get your ass out there" occurences.

If the Enterprise is going to be needed for such missions (makes sense since its the, um, flagship), then their shouldn't be kids on board. And if Star Fleet has a shortage of ships, they should expect such situations.

And while I'm not sure weather their were other ships available in such circumstances, I gave a partial list of the times the Enterprise D was sent into battle.

It does seem like a stupid idea to assign the Valiant to that mission, but it is the only instance we have of Starfleet using a dedicated ship for a general purpose.

Fair enough, unless their are others of which I'm unaware.

With a track record of coming into contact with many potentially ship destroying threats. You'd think that maybe with a pair of neurons to rub together would realize it would be a bad idea to keep non-coms and civilians on a ship that keeps running into these problems but nooooooo, nobody in Starfleet has a pair of neurons to rub together it seems.

And as NERVUN points out, even the writers admit it was a dumb decision. A family friendly high risk combat facing vessel is stupid, unless you mean family friendly in the "Everyone in the family has an equal chance of dying horrible deaths" sense.

Civilians were allowed to hold varying positions in the science division aboard the Galaxy-class. (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Galaxy_class#Crew_support)

The civillians had services to render to the ship as well. They weren't just there for the ride.

And, as was pointed out to you, the Galaxy class, in all its majestic perfection (I don't even like the ship myself), can seperate it's saucer section, where all the living, research and recreational facilities are, from its drive section, so that the civvies in the saucer can drift off home, while the drive section can warp into combat. This was done many times (notably in the first season of TNG). In "The Arsenal of Freedom", what was done as soon as it was realised that the Enterprise and its crew might be in danger from the planets defences? Why, oh my gosh, they seperated the saucer a safe distance away with all the civvies and children on board so the Enterprise could tackle the problem without the risk of civillian life! OMGITSBRILLIANTWHYDIDNTSTARFLEETTHINKABOUTITOHWAITTHEYDID!

Have you EVER actually watched an episode of TNG? Everything you've been saying about the Galaxy class has been refuted in canon on the show.

Pfft, ahahahahahahahaha. That's a stupid question if you bothered to look out the window and read the news.

Okay, let's put it a different way.

You're driving your family somewhere. You have two paths, a short, dangerous one, or a longer, safer one. Do you want to risk the safety of you and your family just for the easy way out? Are you going to take risks when childrens lives are at stake? Well, you may have to, but if you can avoid it, you will.

Or maybe, you know, an actual exploratory vessel and not a jumbled mishmash of tasks with a kindergarten thrown in.

Thanks for ignoring all the posts I made contradicting this.

The Galaxy class starship is not a "mismash of tasks", nor is it a jack-of-all-trades. It is a ship equipped with numerous science facilities and laboratories, numerous sensor arrays, and, where there was room, weapons to defend itself. It is not equipped with the specific equipment to study a spatial anomoly in great detail, that is for science vessels. It's job is to explore. To find the anomolies, to make first contact, to find colonies in need of assistance, to find things. Once it has found those things, it then sends for the specialists. Since it doesn't know what it finds, it is equipped to deal with all things it may encounter, to the best of its ability.

The Galaxy class has been perfectly designed for EXPLORATION. In case you missed the point. Which you clearly have. It is not a war vessel. Though its weapons compliment makes it a foe to be feared in any dogfight. It can handle anything it encounters (as we saw in Next Generation in, oh, I don't know, EVERY SINGLE EPISODE).

It would be absolutely stupid of the Federation to take your advice and send out fleets of specialised ships, in case they encounter an enemy, or a nebula, or a new species, or anything like that. No, instead, they jam all they can into one ship, and what came out was a pinnacle of engineering. A fast, powerful ship with many scienctific facilities, as well as large cargo holds and the ability to transport large numbers of people, as well as powerful computer facilities, as well as large sensor arrays, as well as numerous other things. It may seem too good to be true, to have everything you need for exploration in one ship, but you've got it. The king of exploration. But it isn't the cheapest ship to build, which is why compromises like the Nebula class were made, which sacrificed some things the Galaxy class had, in exchange for more specialised things in other areas. Cheaper, but more specialised in some areas, and not as good in others (such as speed, in the case of the Nebula class), which is not what you want for exploration. You want a ship that can handle everything as best as possible, and that is the Galaxy class starship. END OF STORY.

What has higher risks? A trip on a highway, or the unmapped depths of the Amazon? Would you bring children and untrained people on a trip to the latter?


Then this is a failure of Starfleet. Stupidity on their part for allowing distractions on board that would threaten dedication to duty of family having personnel.

You do know that you're more likely to die in a car crash than in a plane crash. You also know that you're more likely to commit suicide than be killed in a terrorist attack. In fact, driving comes with a high statistical probability of accident (well, comparitively high). Have you ever taken your family out for a drive? If your answer to this is yes, then you are a grossly negligent parent and stupid for driving with your children in the car. They would be much safer left inside for the entirity of their lives. Letting them go outside, or go near the christmas tree, or operate the stove, or drive down to the store with them, or let them play with the dogs comes with a decent risk of injury. By your logic, the children are to be kept inside at all times, and kept away from anything at all.

But of course, you dismiss that because it is "unreasonable" to do that to your children. It is culturally acceptable for your child to scrape their knee while riding a bike, and risk getting killed in a car crash, and risk drowning at the beach. It's a cultural thing, the analysis of risk. You do not live in the culture in Star Trek, so you are not fit to make a judgement as to whether it is "stupid" for parents to keep their children with them.

The only explanations I've seen from you regard the apparent (not really, Borg for example), universality of warp nacelle locations.

Borg technology >> Federation technology. There have been numerous canon explainations for how the Borg travel effectively without having the nacelles on the outside of the ship.

We can also observe that the Borg seem somewhat immune to radiation. That little unprotected spacewalk they did in First Contact kinda proved that.

Starfleet, or the captain of the Enterprise.

Show me one episode where the Enterprise was sent into combat when alternatives were available where there were civillians on board.

Enterprise E. Against orders, Picard went into combat without dropping his civilian crew anywhere, dooming most of them to borgification.

The Enterprise E had no civillian crew. You've never actually seen any Star Trek before have you? You're just reciting what you've read. Because there is no way you could miss something like that unless you're just reading blurbs and guessing. The Sovereign class was designed in a time when the Borg and the Dominion were a threat to the Federation. It was not meant to be a perfect exploratory vessel. It made compromise in it's exploratory abilities in exchange for more military might.

You've proven.... nothing. You've made assertions, but no circumstantial evidence to back it up.

Aside from citations of episodes? Right...

Because nobody in Starfleet trains for bomb/hazardous weapons disposal. Nobody at all.

And because nobody in Starfleet considers a team of crack commandos worth sending along either in a deep op as necessary muscle.

You never actually saw the episode, did you?

It was NOT a bomb, nor was it ordinary hazardous material. It was hazardous material few people know much of anything about, and knowledge of the material is not accessable to commandos being given a crash course in science. Picard was chosen because he was the best officer in starfleet to deal with the hazardous material, and of course, given the time constraints, it would have been impossible for anyone else to be trained to deal with it. So it was deemed much easier to make a few experienced starfleet officers have two intensive days of brushing up on what they had already learned, than to give a bunch of bonehead commandos a decade of scientific knowledge in two days. Capiche?

You might want to try watching the episodes before you try and quote them next time. It makes your arguments look very weak.

Well the first encounter with the Borg was Q's fault, but they were basically the first response ship in The Best of Both Worlds, and engaged the Borg on several occasions. They also engaged a Borg splinter group under Data's "brother" late in the series. They never really fought the Klingons to my knowledge, since the Klingons were allies. They did confront the Romulans on at least three or four occasions I'm aware of: at the end of season one, on the word of a defecting Romulan Admiral (turned out to be a trap), and leading a blockade to keep the Romulans from reinforcing Klingon rebels, and I think also when they stopped an intended Romulan invasion of Vulcan.

The worst examples would be the first two I mentioned, as the Enterprise was sent to investigate possible Romulan hostilities. The first incident was the Enterprise conducting reconissance of possible Romulan attacks alone after decades of no contact. The second incident actually lead to the Enterprise being fired upon by two Romulan ships, and it would have been captured or destroyed had Picard not brought along cloaked Klingon support. However, it is possible that they could have unloaded civilians before hand for these incidents.

However, the Enterprise was the bloody flagship and frequently was sent to war zones, to conduct reconissance, and to make First Contact. Unless they routinely unloaded the children (rather inconvieniant) then they were sending them into dangerous situations. Which they did anyway every time they explored unknown space.

And if worst came to worst in any of those seperations... saucer seperation!

Also, since the Enterprise was sent to investigate possible Borg goingons, and since we saw no children on board during TBOB (except for boy-wonder Wesley Crusher, who has proven time and time again that having children on board has been more helpful to the Enterprise than detrimental), we can assume they dropped the kids off somewhere safe before going out.

Yes, they are part of the risks. IEDs are part of the risk in Iraq. Clouds of hot ash raining down on you are part of the risk of Volcanology. Falling to your death is part of the risk of climbing Mt. Everest. Which is why you generally don't bring children along.

And there are risks that some drunk idiot will rear-end you while your kids are in the backseat, killing them and maiming you. Which is why you generally don't drive anywhere with kids in the car, right? Oh wait...

I know if I had a kid I wouldn't expose them to life threatening situations needlessly.

Your choice. Those starfleet officers, who are more in the know than you when it comes to the situation, choose otherwise.

If the Enterprise is going to be needed for such missions (makes sense since its the, um, flagship), then their shouldn't be kids on board. And if Star Fleet has a shortage of ships, they should expect such situations.

And while I'm not sure weather their were other ships available in such circumstances, I gave a partial list of the times the Enterprise D was sent into battle.

Of the times the Enterprise was sent into battle when it wasn't absolutely necessary, how many of those times do you know for a fact that children were on board, and that the civvies weren't dropped off somewhere before hand?

Fair enough, unless their are others of which I'm unaware.

I don't think so.

Civilians were allowed to hold varying positions in the science division aboard the Galaxy-class. (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Galaxy_class#Crew_support)

The civillians had services to render to the ship as well. They weren't just there for the ride.

So civilians who have signed up for the ride. Fair enough. Sign your indemnity form, and you're in. But unless adolescents and children are legal adults in the world of Star Trek, they don't sign squat.

As has been pointed out to you, even the writers of the series admitted it was a dumb idea. Why do you keep on beating the drum that it's not?


Have you EVER actually watched an episode of TNG? Everything you've been saying about the Galaxy class has been refuted in canon on the show.


Watched plenty. Also saw plenty of stupid assumptions that they magicked plausibility for by saying "The plot demands it!"


Okay, let's put it a different way.


Let's not, because that would be changing the goal posts then, especially since your example doesn't even follow a basic parallel.


Thanks for ignoring all the posts I made contradicting this.


What's visible in the series does contradict what you say, given how often it's used for things other than exploration, as well as what it's equipped with, as well as its crew complement. Too big, and too generalized, to be an exploratory ship. But whatever. This argument is getting stale.


It would be absolutely stupid of the Federation to take your advice and send out fleets of specialised ships, in case they encounter an enemy, or a nebula, or a new species, or anything like that. No, instead, they jam all they can into one ship, and what came out was a pinnacle of engineering.


You don't talk to many engineers do you?

As for stupid, well, I'm not one to advocate building a fleet of sub-par, do a bunch of things ships when I can have a fleet of specialized ships for much less cost.

Oh, and didn't you just say:


It is not equipped with the specific equipment to study a spatial anomoly in great detail, that is for science vessels

Wanting your cake and eating it hmmm?


It may seem too good to be true,


And it always is. Reality is like that. That's why I've said it not once, but twice, that reality is toxic to shows like these.


But it isn't the cheapest ship to build, which is why compromises like the Nebula class were made, which sacrificed some things the Galaxy class had, in exchange for more specialised things in other areas. Cheaper, but more specialised in some areas, and not as good in others (such as speed, in the case of the Nebula class), which is not what you want for exploration. You want a ship that can handle everything as best as possible, and that is the Galaxy class starship. END OF STORY.

And of course, you don't see the logical disconnect. Oh no. Not at all.


You do know that you're more likely to die in a car crash than in a plane crash. You also know that you're more likely to commit suicide than be killed in a terrorist attack.

Statistical probability questions now hmm? That's easy. How many commercial aircraft (anything more than a 6 seater) crashes are there to date? Hmmm, according to the ACRO, 164 in 2006 worldwide. Just Changi Singapore International Airport alone on the other hand, handled 214,000 flights in 2006. Multiply that by the total number of high traffic international airports all over the world, and the percentage of a crash is minute.

The statistical probability of me dying in a plane crash is to say the least, statistically insignificant. Fatal car crashes, the statistics are presumably similar percentage wise.

Whereas it is reasonable to say that during the service life of the Enterprise, in the series at least (half of them or greater), it has encountered a higher percentage of ship and crew endangering problems than fatal car accident ratios.


But of course, you dismiss that because it is "unreasonable" to do that to your children.


If you had children, do you think it would be reasonable to house them in say, one of the front line American bases in Afghanistan?

Yes or no. It's a simple question.


Show me one episode where the Enterprise was sent into combat when alternatives were available where there were civillians on board.


Unless the civilians were specifically disembarked, we can safely say there were always there. As to one episode, why, one simple one would be oh, I don't know, the one where Picard got turned into Locutus. One would think they'd call ahead to Starfleet with the plan of operation, have specially trained boarding troops prepared for the job at hand, and intercept the cube.

But oh no, can't take away the spotlight from the main cast here. That would be bad TV ratings.


The Enterprise E had no civillian crew.


This is not affirmed or denied when it was first shown. And there's little reason to believe Starfleet had rescinded their silly, family friendly ship expecting hazardous encounters.


You've never actually seen any Star Trek before have you?


Your deductive abilities in this situation are rather appalling, but understandable. The answer to your question is negative, of which, in grammatical and mathematical terms, becomes a double negative, resulting in a final answer of yes, I've seen Star Trek, and yes, I've seen quite a lot of it.


You never actually saw the episode, did you?


No I didn't, I'm picking out the details of the episode from your brain with my long range psionic scanner.

Don't be silly.


It was NOT a bomb, nor was it ordinary hazardous material.


Not your ordinary hazardous material... what a silly argument. Unless it would morph a hand on it's own and smack the first person who touched it, it doesn't change the fact that containment, maybe even disarmament, measures would be the same.


It was hazardous material few people know much of anything about, and knowledge of the material is not accessable to commandos being given a crash course in science.


And so a crash course in commando operations is more easy to understand and absorb than one in how to identify an object based on sensor/visual observations and how to disable it? Especially those who are trained in disabling similar objects? Pfft. Starfleet must be composed of people with Down's syndrome and learning disabilities then.

Here's a basic question. Which would you rather lose in the event of a flub? A qualified starship captain with supposedly rare and unique knowledge of a weapon, or a group of commandos with nothing special other than their ability to get the job done competently?

Dead astern, not lower quadrant.

You'd need the ST:TNG Tech Manual I posted a link to earlier for the technical details, but...

(Thanks to GN for the piccy)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/Phasersbottom.jpg

All five of those phaser arrays are capable of firing dead astern, as well as the two matching small arrays on the dorsal side near the aft torpedo bay. Noting this, dead astern is probably the best protected area of the ship.

The only real gap in the phaser coverage on a Galaxy class is actually the 180 foward facing degrees of the saucer section in the deck sections between the main phaser arrays on the top and bottom of the saucer section. To exploit this gap, the attacking ship's shield envelope would have to be less than 20 decks in height. There are very few ships in ST that are this small (Klingon Bird's-of-Prey and Dominion fighters being notable exceptions), and after the Federation adapted to Dominion weapons technology, no single ship of that small a size had the weapons capacity to disable the Galaxy class by exploiting that gap before the Galaxy could reposition for a significant counter barrage...short of plot necessity (ie Generations)

Let's not, because that would be changing the goal posts then, especially since your example doesn't even follow a basic parallel.

Not at all. It's still putting children at risk by your own choices. Maybe you bring them in the car out of necessity. Maybe the officers on the Enterprise bring their children on board out of necessity too.

What's visible in the series does contradict what you say, given how often it's used for things other than exploration, as well as what it's equipped with, as well as its crew complement. Too big, and too generalized, to be an exploratory ship. But whatever. This argument is getting stale.

That's the great thing about it! It's an exploratory ship primarily, but it's generality means it can be used for numerous other tasks, should the need suddenly arise. Time's a factor? Need a strong ship to escort someone important from one system to another without letting anything happen to them? There are only two ships in the area, a dedicated science vessel, and a Galaxy class ship. I wonder which would be the better choice for this mission...

Or, say long-range sensor arrays have detected and unknown something of tactical value in a system quite far away? Need a fast ship able to defend itself against the two Warbirds already on their way? A military ship certainly sounds like the thing to send out. Only thing is, it's a deep space mission, and there are no military ships able to make it there in time. Fortunately, the Enterprise is out that way, and is faster than Warbirds, and can hold it's own against them. Having a big strong fast exploratory vessel out there has certainly proven handy. But, yes, you might argue that a military vessel would still better. However, what you didn't consider, and what starfleet did, is that once securing the something, the military vessel would have very poor ability to study it. Given the time constraints, you may want to send out a dedicated scientific vessel too. Only, they don't go very fast. Oh well. Epic fail for dedicated ships.

You wanna know the name of that episode? Tinman.

You don't talk to many engineers do you?

Only one today. Which is somewhat below the average, but eh.

As for stupid, well, I'm not one to advocate building a fleet of sub-par, do a bunch of things ships when I can have a fleet of specialized ships for much less cost.

Oh, and didn't you just say:

So, you advocate sending five ships to do a slightly better job than one ship can do?

You encounter a spatial anomoly which sucks the whole fleet of specialised ships in. Two of them are destroyed due to weak structural integrity because they were not designed for combat, they were dedicated science vessels. The dedicated military ship doesn't have the sensors to study the anomoly, so it is destroyed too, the other two ships barely escape.

Or

The Galaxy class ship is sucked in, but because of its sturdy design and numerous sensors and scientists aboard, it can escape safely.

Shall we have another hypothetical?

The fleet of five ships encounters a pair of hostile Warbirds. The one or two military ships in the fleet begin to attack the Warbirds, but not before the Warbirds get a shot in and easily destroy one of the science vessels while they clumsily attempt to turn around and escape. The other two non-military ships manage to escape, but barely. Then it becomes a two-on-two fight, with already one ship destroyed. The two military ships barely manage to defeat the two Warbirds, but are badly damaged and have to limp home. Casualties are enjoyed on both sides.

Or

The Galaxy class ships enters the wrong system, and finds a pair of Warbirds decloaking and wanting to throw a punch or two. Fortunately, the Galaxy class has time to raise shields and defend itself with phaser fire whilst taking a few brutal hits while it turns around and warps out with minimal casualties and damage since the shields are strong enough to take the damage during the short time.

Another?

The fleet of five ships encounters a new advanced species. The species sees five ships invading its territory, two of them being heavily armed warships. Threat much? Intergalactic war is the worst case scenario from this, mistrust for decades is the best the Federation could hope for.

Or

The Galaxy class ship comes accross a new species. They are cautious at this big ship invading their territory, but thanks to some smooth talking from the captain, the reasonable worst case is they are asked to leave (has happened a few times in both TOS and TNG), the best case is a strong new alliance.

Can you find for me a single example where a small fleet of dedicated ships is more useful than one ship finding things then sending for a dedicated ship should the need arise? Certainly, for fuel comsumption alone, it is much more sensical to have the single ship, calling for dedicated ships only when necessary.

Wanting your cake and eating it hmmm?

It is an exploratory vessel. It finds the anomalies, scans and assesses them, studies them a bit, then moves on, sending for a dedicated science vessel to come out and study it. The reason dedicated science vessels aren't sent out in the first place is because you didn't know you were going to encounter an anomoly. You might have encountered a new species, or a Romulan battleship. Were it the latter, the Galaxy class is a much better stand-off against the Warbird than the less militarily capable Nebula class.

And of course, you don't see the logical disconnect. Oh no. Not at all.

The Nebula class sacrificied weapons and speed for better scanning abilities. The downside is that when faced with a hostile threat in an exploratory mission, it will be less likely to hold it's own in a battle or escape than a Galaxy class would. So, whilst the Nebula class was cheaper to make, it was not as good an exploratory vessel as the Galaxy class.

If you had children, do you think it would be reasonable to house them in say, one of the front line American bases in Afghanistan?

Yes or no. It's a simple question.

Let's look at your pathetic little analogy you keep trying to put up.

The Enterprise is NOT a front line military base. It is an exploratory vessel. Every instance in TNG where it was sent to the front line involved it not having a civillian crew involved, or, was ready for saucer seperation should the need to get them to safety arise. Read my reply to The Romulan Republic.

So, no, it is not a good idea to keep children on a front line military base. However, as the show itself has said, the Enterprise is an exploratory vessel. The Defiant is a front line military vessel, the Enterprise is not.

Unless the civilians were specifically disembarked, we can safely say there were always there. As to one episode, why, one simple one would be oh, I don't know, the one where Picard got turned into Locutus. One would think they'd call ahead to Starfleet with the plan of operation, have specially trained boarding troops prepared for the job at hand, and intercept the cube.

But oh no, can't take away the spotlight from the main cast here. That would be bad TV ratings.

I already addressed this in my reply to Romulan Republic. They had a specialist transfered over, and we never saw any children aboard, so it is reasonable to assume that, since they had the chance, they left most of their civvies somewhere else.

Moreover, since the Enterprise was the only Federation ship documented to have encountered the Borg at that time, there really was no such thing as a more qualified team to handle the situation. But, they also sent a specialist along, just for good measure.

This is not affirmed or denied when it was first shown. And there's little reason to believe Starfleet had rescinded their silly, family friendly ship expecting hazardous encounters.

It seems that Sovereign-class starships do not have the extensive provisions for civilian personnel that her Galaxy-class predecessors were designed with, as we have yet to see any civilians on board. Married personnel, however, are permitted to share quarters. (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Sovereign_class#Crew_support_systems)
Ronald D. Moore commented that, as of First Contact, the Enterprise-E "definitely" had no children aboard. (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701-E)#Technical_info)

I guess that ends that then.

Your deductive abilities in this situation are rather appalling, but understandable. The answer to your question is negative, of which, in grammatical and mathematical terms, becomes a double negative, resulting in a final answer of yes, I've seen Star Trek, and yes, I've seen quite a lot of it.

Yet you keep missing things shown in the shows which contradict your arguments.

No I didn't, I'm picking out the details of the episode from your brain with my long range psionic scanner.

Don't be silly.

:p

Not your ordinary hazardous material... what a silly argument. Unless it would morph a hand on it's own and smack the first person who touched it, it doesn't change the fact that containment, maybe even disarmament, measures would be the same.

The point was that Picard was one of the few people who had any idea how you might disable the kind of weapon being developed, since said weapon had never been developed before. Did you even watch the episode where they stated this on screen that Picard was the only person in the Federation who had any hope of knowing how to safely disarm such a dangerous weapon?

And so a crash course in commando operations is more easy to understand and absorb than one in how to identify an object based on sensor/visual observations and how to disable it? Especially those who are trained in disabling similar objects? Pfft. Starfleet must be composed of people with Down's syndrome and learning disabilities then.

Here's a basic question. Which would you rather lose in the event of a flub? A qualified starship captain with supposedly rare and unique knowledge of a weapon, or a group of commandos with nothing special other than their ability to get the job done competently?

See what I said above. Picard was the only available person in the Federation with the knowledge necessary to work out how to safely dismantle such a weapon.

Not at all. It's still putting children at risk by your own choices. Maybe you bring them in the car out of necessity. Maybe the officers on the Enterprise bring their children on board out of necessity too.


You're still switching goalposts and pretending it's the same thing.


That's the great thing about it!


A bloody waste of resources and increased risk from a diddled design is great? I suppose it looks that way, if you lacked understanding of efficient and practical design principles.


There are only two ships in the area, a dedicated science vessel, and a Galaxy class ship. I wonder which would be the better choice for this mission...

You'd have a lot more ships on hand if you didn't bloody waste the resources to build general purpose "do everything half heartedly" ships.


Only, they don't go very fast. Oh well. Epic fail for dedicated ships.


Epic fail on design planners if they can't be arsed to make fast recon or intelligence ships.


You wanna know the name of that episode? Tinman.


The episode is pointless as a reference since Federation policy is to make generic ships and not put resources into sufficient amounts of dedicated ones.


So, you advocate sending five ships to do a slightly better job than one ship can do?

Assuming equal technology and resource levels, dedicated ships don't do a "slightly better" job than general purpose ships. They do a vastly better job. An F-15 is light years better as an air superiority fighter than a multi-role F-18 for example. A B-52 on the other hand can bring more ordnance to bear than either of the two, while all three have pathetic radar compared to an AWACS.

And if you had five purpose dedicated ships, you might even *gasp* have joint force training so they don't step all over their feet.

But you know, you could always just close your eyes to proven concepts, proven effectiveness, and say "magic pixey dust will do it better!"


You encounter a spatial anomoly which sucks the whole fleet of specialised ships in.

Because they all blindly charged in...

You're assigning human stupidity to overcome good design practices. If that's the case, even the Enterprise is doomed. Engineers try to build a better idiot proof item, and the universe always produces a better idiot.


The fleet of five ships encounters a pair of hostile Warbirds. The one or two military ships in the fleet begin to attack the Warbirds, but not before the Warbirds get a shot in and easily destroy one of the science vessels while they clumsily attempt to turn around and escape.


Why would there always be these five ships puttering around places doing things where they have no mission roles? Proper tactical doctrine is to scout out an area first with light, fast scout ships before you send anything else. Just because you don't have an inkling about tactics and strategy doesn't mean I lack it.

And in regards to your scenario...

Because you know, they'll all line up nice and slow for a duck shoot, the science vessels have no shields at all, and everyone is asleep on the switch while only Galaxy class ship crews will turn them on in time before the first shot lands...

And let's not forget that instead of one target, they have multiple targets to worry about, most of which can shoot back.

And are you seriously telling me that one Galaxy class ship is equal to five dedicated ships of equal technology and tonnage? That's some impressive god modding you're doing there.


The fleet of five ships encounters a new advanced species. The species sees five ships invading its territory,

Because you know, nobody else bothers to have border guards, sentry posts or other things like that to stop and challenge (i.e. who the hell are you?) newcomers.


two of them being heavily armed warships.


As opposed to one capital class, heavily armed, warship...


The Galaxy class ship comes accross a new species. They are cautious at this big ship invading their territory, but thanks to some smooth talking from the captain, the reasonable worst case is they are asked to leave (has happened a few times in both TOS and TNG), the best case is a strong new alliance.

This is Kirk's "smooth talking"

"Hi there! We're friendly people. Draw!" *blam blam blam*

And again you're talking as if in all of Starfleet, only diplomatic captains get assigned to generic purpose ships.


Can you find for me a single example where a small fleet of dedicated ships is more useful than one ship finding things then sending for a dedicated ship should the need arise?

Easy. Your above examples, because they were made of fail the way you kept stacking unrelated factors in your argument. Strip out those factors, and you'll find that dedicated ships do better.


Certainly, for fuel comsumption alone, it is much more sensical to have the single ship, calling for dedicated ships only when necessary.

If you drive an SUV everywhere, don't be surprised that a hybrid and lorry (used where applicable of course) use less petrol combined for weight carried and distance traveled.


The reason dedicated science vessels aren't sent out in the first place is

That in a sensible world, you would send armed scouts out into the fringes of the galaxy, able to put up a fight if needed, but better equipped to run away faster than trouble it can't fight.

The Galaxy class is not an armed scout, and if you insist it is, then it's a colossal squandering of resources.


because you didn't know you were going to encounter an anomoly. You might have encountered a new species, or a Romulan battleship. Were it the latter,


And were it a sensible universe, the armed scout would be running off, calling in enemy positions for dedicated warships to deal with.

The doctrine, designs and operational rules of the Starfleet suggest that not one of them have had any combat experience at all, have no one with strategic sense, were all raised to be peacenik hippies (hippies with guns?), and if there was anyone with a grain of sense, they were removed in a purge of competent officers.

This is hardly surprising, given the views espoused by Gene Roddenberry about how Federation society worked.


Let's look at your pathetic little analogy you keep trying to put up.

I wouldn't use this one if you had bothered answering the one about the safety of a trip down a highway or a trek down the uncharted expanses of the Amazon. And for extra fun, uncharted expanses with incidents of hostile natives who somehow have an astonishing arsenal of modern and future weaponry far in excess of what you can bring.

Would you still bring your children to the Amazon? Well?


It is an exploratory vessel.


With a high dangerous incidence ratio, something you simply refuse to acknowledge.


They had a specialist transfered over, and we never saw any children aboard, so it is reasonable to assume that, since they had the chance, they left most of their civvies somewhere else.


Where hmm? Out of the airlock maybe?


Moreover, since the Enterprise was the only Federation ship documented to have encountered the Borg at that time, there really was no such thing as a more qualified team to handle the situation.

So you're retconning the war between the Federation and Klingon Empire?


I guess that ends that then.


I will concede this point.


Yet you keep missing things shown in the shows which contradict your arguments.

I don't miss them so much as you avoid the flaws and argue around them.


The point was that Picard was one of the few people who had any idea how you might disable the kind of weapon being developed, since said weapon had never been developed before.


And how does he know? Because he studied theta radiation as an officer? Then his logs and notes should have been open for any team to study. And no matter how advanced a weapon is, it still operates under basic rulesets. Either it is a directed weapon (you point it or throw it at something), or it is a bomb. It will still have conventional control circuits and mechanisms critical to, but not related to, the payload.

And if Starfleet is that critically short on qualified electrician equivalents and data specialists, why not simply just slap a high yield bomb next to it hmm?

Do you know how the bomb squad disables an explosive they aren't certain they can disarm safely? They detonate it in a safe place with remote drones and high powered rifles.


See what I said above. Picard was the only available person in the Federation with the knowledge necessary to work out how to safely dismantle such a weapon.

No. The plot demanded it. There are dozens of ways it could have been done without Picard, and by better qualified personnel trained in infiltration, sabotage and demolitions.

*snip*
Ya know, for all your arguments, you keep making one simple mistake. That's assuming that a Federation that spans light years and has an operating range of half the galaxy (More if you count forays into both the Delta and Gama Quadrants) would still find current strategic and tactical doctrines based upon one planet applicable.

Ya know, for all your arguments, you keep making one simple mistake. That's assuming that a Federation that spans light years and has an operating range of half the galaxy (More if you count forays into both the Delta and Gama Quadrants) would still find current strategic and tactical doctrines based upon one planet applicable.

And this is different from tactical and strategic doctrines of continent hopping empires with month long communications lag in history how? In fact, Starfleet seems to have real time communications across the span of many light years, which would up their response doctrines much closer to those in play for naval fleets in the last 50 years.

The tools may have changed over the years, but tactical and strategic concerns remain the same unless something truly paradigm changing shows up like time travel as a weapon, which it did, but nobody wanted to because of the horrible mess it would create.

It's not like Sun Tzu's Art of War was obsoleted with the advent of battlefield communications, air power, cruise missiles, or even nuclear weapons.

A bloody waste of resources and increased risk from a diddled design is great? I suppose it looks that way, if you lacked understanding of efficient and practical design principles.

Here's a thought! Why don't you actually explain to me how the Galaxy class ships designs flaws which you claim are numerous, has caused troubles for the Enterprise and her crew in canon Star Trek. Give me just a couple of examples of where the Enterprise's "diddled design" has been a detriment to the ship and her crew. I've given examples of where it's design has indeed saved the crew and the ship numerous times (see: buzzard collectors, saucer seperation). So, if the design is so flawed, surely there must be at least one canon example of where the design failed.

You'd have a lot more ships on hand if you didn't bloody waste the resources to build general purpose "do everything half heartedly" ships.

The Cardassians proved that more ships =/= big win. One Galaxy class could take on three Galors, and requires less fuel usage than three Galors, and requires the maintenance of only one ship, instead of three.

The episode is pointless as a reference since Federation policy is to make generic ships and not put resources into sufficient amounts of dedicated ones.

That one went right over your head.

Try and explain to me how the episode would have panned out better, with a small fleet of specialised ships instead of one Galaxy class ship.

Assuming equal technology and resource levels, dedicated ships don't do a "slightly better" job than general purpose ships. They do a vastly better job. An F-15 is light years better as an air superiority fighter than a multi-role F-18 for example. A B-52 on the other hand can bring more ordnance to bear than either of the two, while all three have pathetic radar compared to an AWACS.

And if you had five purpose dedicated ships, you might even *gasp* have joint force training so they don't step all over their feet.

But you know, you could always just close your eyes to proven concepts, proven effectiveness, and say "magic pixey dust will do it better!"

So, what is better than... five bomb experts all crowding around trying to disable one bomb, or one bomb expert trying to disable one bomb?

And your citation of RL things to try and compare to sci-fi is laughable. I think I'll do a comparison of my own.

The X-Wing is the Rebel Alliances jack-of-all-trades fighter. It is fast, but the A-Wing is faster. It is powerful, but the Y-Wing is more powerful. Yet the X-Wing was the ship that destroyed the deathstar, while the Y-Wings failed. It was the X-Wing and the Millenium Falcon that destroyed the second death star, while the A-Wings, B-Wings and Y-Wings were fumbling about with those tie fighters. Yes, truely, the jack-of-all-trades X-Wing is the ship of choice for destroying death stars, therefore all jack-of-all-trades ships are best.

See what I did there?

Because they all blindly charged in...

You're assigning human stupidity to overcome good design practices. If that's the case, even the Enterprise is doomed. Engineers try to build a better idiot proof item, and the universe always produces a better idiot.

It's not so much that they blindly charge in, but that the thing blindsights them without any way for them to anticipate it (see: Disaster, Time Squared, Where Silence Has Lease, to name a few). So that mutes your point.

Why would there always be these five ships puttering around places doing things where they have no mission roles? Proper tactical doctrine is to scout out an area first with light, fast scout ships before you send anything else. Just because you don't have an inkling about tactics and strategy doesn't mean I lack it.

And in regards to your scenario...

Because you know, they'll all line up nice and slow for a duck shoot, the science vessels have no shields at all, and everyone is asleep on the switch while only Galaxy class ship crews will turn them on in time before the first shot lands...

And let's not forget that instead of one target, they have multiple targets to worry about, most of which can shoot back.

And are you seriously telling me that one Galaxy class ship is equal to five dedicated ships of equal technology and tonnage? That's some impressive god modding you're doing there.

A Galaxy class is more efficient than five dedicated ships. Rather than fight and face casualties, it can defend itself and make a safe escape, where five ships would not.

Moreover, your criticism of the positioning of the nacelles has been shown to have an effect on the overall speed of a ship. So, the dedicated military ships would be slower because of their protected nacelles. Where the Galaxy class is not burdened by this, it can escape much easier.

Because you know, nobody else bothers to have border guards, sentry posts or other things like that to stop and challenge (i.e. who the hell are you?) newcomers.

Right...

The best we've seen in Star Trek are occasional outposts which still let ships slide by all the time.

As opposed to one capital class, heavily armed, warship...

For a long time, the Galaxy class was the Federation's capital class heavily armed ship. It just so happened that it wasn't even designed for that. It was as powerful as the Romulan's best ship (the Warbird), more powerful than the Klingon's best ship (the Vor'cha), and more powerful than three of the Cardassians battleships (the Galor). All this, and it wasn't even designed with combat as its primary purpose. The weapons were simply put on the ship because they could be put on without any sacrifice to the sensors and science facilities.

This is Kirk's "smooth talking"

"Hi there! We're friendly people. Draw!" *blam blam blam*

And again you're talking as if in all of Starfleet, only diplomatic captains get assigned to generic purpose ships.

Who said I was talking about Kirk?

[QUOTE=Non Aligned States;14226284]If you drive an SUV everywhere, don't be surprised that a hybrid and lorry (used where applicable of course) use less petrol combined for weight carried and distance traveled.

But the Galaxy class is inherrently very efficient with it's fuel expendature, given that one of it's design purposes was deep space missions.

That in a sensible world, you would send armed scouts out into the fringes of the galaxy, able to put up a fight if needed, but better equipped to run away faster than trouble it can't fight.

The Galaxy class is not an armed scout, and if you insist it is, then it's a colossal squandering of resources.

Because armed scouts are perfectly capable of detecting cloaked ships, and the Federations enemies would never find out this tactic of deploying scout ships first, so they would always decloak to attack the scout ships, not realising that they were just scout ships.

And were it a sensible universe, the armed scout would be running off, calling in enemy positions for dedicated warships to deal with.

The doctrine, designs and operational rules of the Starfleet suggest that not one of them have had any combat experience at all, have no one with strategic sense, were all raised to be peacenik hippies (hippies with guns?), and if there was anyone with a grain of sense, they were removed in a purge of competent officers.

This is hardly surprising, given the views espoused by Gene Roddenberry about how Federation society worked.

And we have clearly seen in TNG, and, more importantly, DS9, that this is just not the case. The Federation proved it had more muscle than most would have guessed when the Dominion came on the scene.

I wouldn't use this one if you had bothered answering the one about the safety of a trip down a highway or a trek down the uncharted expanses of the Amazon. And for extra fun, uncharted expanses with incidents of hostile natives who somehow have an astonishing arsenal of modern and future weaponry far in excess of what you can bring.

Would you still bring your children to the Amazon? Well?

So you're comparing space exploration to literally cutting your way through thick Amazon flora? And you accused me of moving the goalposts.

A much better, and indeed, an actually valid analogy, would be to look at sea exploration. You have a ship with the offensive capabilities of a battleship, the housing and recreational facilities of a luxury liner, the manueverability of a speedboat, research facilities galore, large cargo holds, and the crew and weapons to defend itself against anything from a group of pirates to a nuclear submarine. Sound like god modding? Well, it's canon to Star Trek. Get over it.

So, given that you have a ship like that, would you bring your children with you on your long sea voyage, knowing that they were very well protected, wouldn't get bored, and very well looked after, knowing that if you didn't bring them with you, they would be away from their parents for the duration of your trip (2+ years)?

With a high dangerous incidence ratio, something you simply refuse to acknowledge.

A couple of incidents per year. How many dangerous incidents did we have per season in TNG, where the ship and crew were at risk WITH civvies and children on board? Maybe a couple of times per season. Subtract a bit for the heroes needing to be put in danger once in a while or else you don't have a show, and you can estimate that a ship encounters a great risk to all aboard once every few years. Not that high risk, considering.

Where hmm? Out of the airlock maybe?

Or maybe to the ship that transfered the specialist over?

So you're retconning the war between the Federation and Klingon Empire?

What?

And how does he know? Because he studied theta radiation as an officer? Then his logs and notes should have been open for any team to study. And no matter how advanced a weapon is, it still operates under basic rulesets. Either it is a directed weapon (you point it or throw it at something), or it is a bomb. It will still have conventional control circuits and mechanisms critical to, but not related to, the payload.

And if Starfleet is that critically short on qualified electrician equivalents and data specialists, why not simply just slap a high yield bomb next to it hmm?

Do you know how the bomb squad disables an explosive they aren't certain they can disarm safely? They detonate it in a safe place with remote drones and high powered rifles.

Because he had personal first hand experience with it. Very few people have that kind of experience, and it was just that kind of experience that would have been necessary on the mission. Would you trust someone who has had two days to study in detail the workings of a game of baseball over someone who has had years of experience playing baseball? Picard was chosen because he was an expert in the stuff, he was nearby, and he is starfleet trained, which means he has to know at least the basis of covert op missions. Worf along just completed that.

The weapon was not a conventional weapon. It could not be disarmed in the same way you would disable a bomb. It needed to be dismantled and destroyed properly. One wrong slip, and the consequences would be immensely dire. Which is why only three people were sent in, and one of them was an expert in what was being used.

Moreover, all starfleet personnel have to take basic engineering, which would at least give them a rudimentary knowledge of how to dismantle a bomb. With Worf there, Picard had even more knowledge. Crusher was chosen because it was a biological weapon, and she is a doctor with years of experience in that sort of stuff.

No. The plot demanded it. There are dozens of ways it could have been done without Picard, and by better qualified personnel trained in infiltration, sabotage and demolitions.

The infiltration had no hiccups at all (except that it was an ambush, but that would have happened to your "qualified personnel" too). The sabotage required an expert in metagenics to be able to dismantle the weapon and destroy it. Since Picard was starfleets resident expert in it, he was chosen, as he was the best person in starfleet to sabotage and destroy the weapon being created.

Here's a thought! Why don't you actually explain to me how the Galaxy class ships designs flaws which you claim are numerous, has caused troubles for the Enterprise and her crew in canon Star Trek. Give me just a couple of examples of where the Enterprise's "diddled design"


Are you ignoring how this whole argument started?


has been a detriment to the ship and her crew.


A car without seatbelts, airbags or crumple zone isn't to the detriment to its driver either, until it runs into a brick wall.


I've given examples of where it's design has indeed saved the crew and the ship numerous times (see: buzzard collectors, saucer seperation).


Your examples have nothing to do with specialized function design.

So, if the design is so flawed, surely there must be at least one canon example of where the design failed.


The Cardassians proved that more ships =/= big win.

And how does this, in any way, prove that equal tech levels and resources would produce higher numbers of purpose specific ships that are more effective in that purpose than generic purpose ships built using the same tech and resource amount?

Or are you saying the Cardassians contracted Federation shipyards to build their ships hmmm?

Stop using red herrings. It's annoying.


That one went right over your head.

Try and explain to me how the episode would have panned out better, with a small fleet of specialised ships instead of one Galaxy class ship.

Define "better". Are we talking practical results or pandering to dramatics?


So, what is better than... five bomb experts all crowding around trying to disable one bomb, or one bomb expert trying to disable one bomb?


What is better? You try to argue my points as they are presented, or you make up straw men to knock down?

Or maybe I should ask. Which one is more honest?


And your citation of RL things to try and compare to sci-fi is laughable.


Heaven forbid real life things like logic, common sense and practical issues ever come into contact with science fiction. Of course that is the purpose of this argument to begin with.

That you say it is laughable is an admittance on your side that your science fiction doesn't need to pay attention to boring little matters of reality and can present whatever it likes so as to tell a better story.

So, will you stop trying to insist that it's a logical, perfectly sensible design choice then?


I think I'll do a comparison of my own.

By comparing sci-fi to sci-fi from another universe. An excellent way to fail in comprehending why the argument began to begin with.


It's not so much that they blindly charge in, but that the thing blindsights them without any way for them to anticipate it (see: Disaster, Time Squared, Where Silence Has Lease, to name a few). So that mutes your point.

It would still be blindly charging in, unless you're saying your example of five ships all occupy the same space and time or are clustered together so closely, whatever happens to the lead ship instantly happens to the rear ship.


A Galaxy class is more efficient than five dedicated ships. Rather than fight and face casualties, it can defend itself and make a safe escape, where five ships would not.

Pfft. Ahahahahahahaha. Redshirts anyone? I guess they don't count. Hull breaches? Maybe Trekkies don't need air (shields take time to close over them apparently).


Moreover, your criticism of the positioning of the nacelles has been shown to have an effect on the overall speed of a ship. So, the dedicated military ships would be slower because of their protected nacelles. Where the Galaxy class is not burdened by this, it can escape much easier.

So if it's a fundamental nature of the way the engine works, why do you still need a huge capital class ship if you want fast ships? An oversized shuttle with really long extensions for the warp nacelles could easily do the job then.



Right...

The best we've seen in Star Trek are occasional outposts which still let ships slide by all the time.

Then your argument about the whole "beware! invasion!" cry, simply doesn't apply. It doesn't matter if it's a small fleet of ships, some of which have no combat purpose, or one capital class ship that shows up in orbit above your capital. They'll have an equal chance of being seen the same way.


For a long time, the Galaxy class was the Federation's capital class heavily armed ship. It just so happened that it wasn't even designed for that. It was as powerful as the Romulan's best ship (the Warbird), more powerful than the Klingon's best ship (the Vor'cha), and more powerful than three of the Cardassians battleships (the Galor). All this, and it wasn't even designed with combat as its primary purpose.

Suuuuuure. And the Federation had collective amnesia about the whole Klingon war.


Who said I was talking about Kirk?


Who's the captain in TOS? And you didn't address the rest of my rebuttal.


But the Galaxy class is inherrently very efficient with it's fuel expendature, given that one of it's design purposes was deep space missions.

And this is proven.... where?


Because armed scouts are perfectly capable of detecting cloaked ships, and the Federations enemies would never find out this tactic of deploying scout ships first, so they would always decloak to attack the scout ships, not realising that they were just scout ships.

So? The scouts don't even have to be manned, and expendable probes are even used by the Enterprise, so you don't have any cause for complaint for slightly more expensive and advanced probes.


And we have clearly seen in TNG,

That this is absolutely true. That's what I've been basing my argument on. You keep dancing around the issue saying "nuh uh, gobbleygook science means we don't need real life concerns like common sense."


So you're comparing space exploration to literally cutting your way through thick Amazon flora? And you accused me of moving the goalposts.


Both involve exploring unknown territory with both known and unknown threats. The examples are perfectly comparable. Your examples don't even have the same basic conditions.

And I note you didn't answer the question either.


A much better, and indeed, an actually valid analogy, would be to look at sea exploration. You have a ship with the offensive capabilities of a battleship, the housing and recreational facilities of a luxury liner, the manueverability of a speedboat, research facilities galore, large cargo holds, and the crew and weapons to defend itself against anything from a group of pirates to a nuclear submarine. Sound like god modding? Well, it's canon to Star Trek. Get over it.


Ahh, the canon argument. As if that has any weight against boring things like reality and good design philosophies.

If Picard had one day sprouted butterfly wings, wore a pink tutu and had an afro wig in the shows, while Worf bounced up and down on the outer hull of the Enterprise in a togo going "I'm Batman, I can breathe in space" that would be canon too. But it wouldn't have made a whit of sense.


So, given that you have a ship like that, would you bring your children with you on your long sea voyage, knowing that they were very well protected, wouldn't get bored, and very well looked after, knowing that if you didn't bring them with you, they would be away from their parents for the duration of your trip (2+ years)?

Better than sucking on vacuum, or falling halfway through the floor before it materializes, or having display consoles explode in their faces, or having random gods decide it'd be fun to turn them into cabbages, or having them being munched by collapsing alternate universe bubbles, or being turned into soulless cyborg drones.



A couple of incidents per year. How many dangerous incidents did we have per season in TNG, where the ship and crew were at risk WITH civvies and children on board? Maybe a couple of times per season. Subtract a bit for the heroes needing to be put in danger once in a while or else you don't have a show, and you can estimate that a ship encounters a great risk to all aboard once every few years. Not that high risk, considering.


"Sorry kids, but you've got to die a horrible, burning death as our captain wants to go do some fighting again this week and this deck is now on fire. Again."


Or maybe to the ship that transfered the specialist over?


A shuttlecraft?


What?


Are you saying that in the period of war between the Klingons and the Federation, there has not been one instance of the two meeting face to face in combat?


Because he had personal first hand experience with it. Very few people have that kind of experience, and it was just that kind of experience that would have been necessary on the mission. Would you trust someone who has had two days to study in detail the workings of a game of baseball over someone who has had years of experience playing baseball? Picard was chosen because he was an expert in the stuff, he was nearby, and he is starfleet trained, which means he has to know at least the basis of covert op missions. Worf along just completed that.


Take away his support cast magic aura, and you'll find he's woefully inadequate. He'd be just another redshirt equivalent, and those die quite regularly.


The weapon was not a conventional weapon. It could not be disarmed in the same way you would disable a bomb. It needed to be dismantled and destroyed properly. One wrong slip, and the consequences would be immensely dire.

Like blowing up the planet? If you can't be pinned with the deed and can get well away before it does, cheerio I say! And there is nothing that cannot be dismantled with sufficient application of explosive force.

And again, you ignore the fact that if Picard had gained any such special knowledge in his time as an officer, it would have been in his logs and ship database as well. The knowledge is there for any personnel with sufficient clearance to brief themselves on.


The infiltration had no hiccups at all (except that it was an ambush, but that would have happened to your "qualified personnel" too).


Who would be better trained to deal with an ambush to begin with. We are talking about specialists in covert wetwork operations after all.

Torpedoes are physical objects, we get to see one a few times in the show before they're launched. That means they can be intercepted.
Multiple targets on multiple vectors approaching your ship fast?

Good luck on that. My money is on your ship going kaput.
Dead astern, not lower quadrant.
Which again forces you to face the rear torpedo launcher and up to four phaser arrays. Your ship either is so small that those arrays won't all come into play - but that means your ship is too small to dish out serious damage. Or it is big enough to dish out the damage - then it can be targeted by phasers as well because of its size, "dead astern" really means "astern overlapping other regions".
That's horrible engineering design then. How would anyone perform maintain if they can't get to the nacelles without doing a spacewalk? Or for that matter, how would anyone control anything since it's a solid block of metal? No control conduits remember? Or power lines either.
Logic dictates that the thin structures are hollowed out for maintenance access, power, communications and control lines and similar concerns.

It's not a solid piece of metal. It includes Jefferies tubes, power conduits and such - but it's not "open spaces" or "compartments" like the rest of the ship - it's way more solid and thus more dense than other parts of the ship.
And the rest of the ship isn't hollow either, unless you're saying that aside from the outer hull, there's no internal load bearing structure, which would be really, really, silly.[QUOTE]
Talking about dense and hollow - you don't really want to understand the Enterprise's design, do you? Otherwise you would take a good look at what information is available on the net instead of nitpicking here.
[QUOTE]What you get out of this sort of design philosophy is a ship that does everything poorly. A purpose built exploratory ship would be fitted with deep fuel and expendables stores, and bristling with surveillance gear. A purpose built cargo ship would be huge and bulky to accommodate it's massive cargo. A purpose built warship would have less exploding control consoles every time someone sneezed at the ship and be built without presenting such a huge profile.
What you get is a Galaxy class ship with its main purpose being exploration, also fitted out to perform other tasks without having to change much, including enough defensive capabilities to handle itself quite nicely.
Trying to fit everything in one and doing it well is like trying to get a car with the internal space and luxury of an 8 wheeled limousine, gets 1000km to the liter, has the horsepower of a Ferrari, a top speed of 400km/h and can traverse rough terrain like an ATV.
That's the Galaxy class for you designed by Starfleet's most brilliant engineers.
What you get instead is a box on wheels with cushy seats but cramped space, that maybe would get you a dozen kilometers to the liter, the horsepower of an SUV, might get 100km/h going downhill, and would topple over when driving over a field.
That's what you get when you let the Pakled design your ship.
So the Federation is perfectly fine with sending off kids who aren't old enough to be considered adults to fight and die along with their parents whenever they need the parents to fight and die.
First of all, the kids don't need to fight. It's not like they get a phaser and go hunting baddies. They're only along for the ride.
And while you might disagree with it, obviously the Federation and its employees don't.
Sooooo.... because dramatics demands it. Logic, common sense, ability, all that flies out the window. Seriously, even if you needed to bring specialized talent along with you on a covert operation deep in enemy lines, you don't just send a token force as muscle. You attach the talent you need to an established and well trained commando team, not build one from scratch.
It is a TV show after all...
Not front line military bases, no. How many kids live in the American run front line bases say, in Iraq or Afghanistan?
The Enterprise is more like a university campus - with guns.
So once you're born, you're legally an adult?
Since when don't your parents get to make decisions for you until you are considered an adult, eh? If I'm not mistaken, that's even common today.
Which happens exactly how many times versus the times the Enterprise is in combat or facing some dangerous ship destroying anomaly?
More often than you'd think. Besides, what we see in the show is not everything that happened to the Enterprise. It's more or less the exciting parts with the long safe and secure stretches in between left out.
You mean one without Picard and his main character aura of indestructibility? Doesn't matter, his crew still die somewhat often under him.
It's still better than being a red shirt under Kirk, mind you!
I count 13 ships with a round fuselage and engine nacelles. More if you include oblong bodies or round fuselage with other engine types.
Yeah, well, what can I say? I can keep those apart way more easily than the ones from SW.
From top to bottom (not to scale): a Viscount-class Star Defender, MC80 Home One type and Liberty type Star Cruisers, and a Recusant-class light destroyer.
Although I do have the SW technical manuals somewhere, I've always preferred the ST ones and probably spent 3-4 times more time with them.

It's still better than being a red shirt under Kirk, mind you!


True that. Kirk's henchmen had a significantly higher loss rate, due probably to the quantum fluctuations in subspace caused by the enormous girth of Kirk's character shield. Picard's was good enough to keep him alive (note: alive, but he still gets tortured and beaten by occasional bad guys, unlike Kirk who at most, only gets a ripped shirt), but Kirk's had to be good enough to save his ego as well.

Also, Picard was more equal opportunity, as around him you had the same chance of dying whether you were a red shirt, gold shirt or blue shirt.

EXPLORATION
I bet that's the main reason why Starfleet's motto is "Ex Astris, Scientia" and not "In Astra, Bellum".
True that. Kirk's henchmen had a significantly higher loss rate, due probably to the quantum fluctuations in subspace caused by the enormous girth of Kirk's character shield. Picard's was good enough to keep him alive (note: alive, but he still gets tortured and beaten by occasional bad guys, unlike Kirk who at most, only gets a ripped shirt), but Kirk's had to be good enough to save his ego as well.
Don't forget the pain rays that Kirk encountered various times. It almost seems that those were forgotten in Picard's time.
Also, Picard was more equal opportunity, as around him you had the same chance of dying whether you were a red shirt, gold shirt or blue shirt.
True dat.

Multiple targets on multiple vectors approaching your ship fast?If we, low tech as we are compared to ST, can develop a system designed to intercept multiple ballistic missles and destroy them during flight, I'm sure that someone from the ST universe could design a defense system that intercepts torpedoes, as well. :p

If we, low tech as we are compaared to ST, can develop a system designed to intercept multiple ballistic missles and destroy them during flight, I'm sure that someone from the ST universe could design a defense system that intercepts torpedoes, as well. :p

Well, those torps are moving faster over larger distances, but then again Star Fleet has FTL sensors.;)

An interesting point is the possibillity of dedicated escort ships in Star Fleet. This was the Defiant's technical designation after all.

Consider the prevellance of cloaked ships, the use of long range torpedos, and the fact that big cruisers have taken damage from just a few hits, with shields still up. All this means that for task forces, fleets, or big ships opperating solo near hostile or unexplored space, having smaller dedicated escorts could be quiet valuable. These escorts would be fast, manuverable, and would trade powerful weapons for more sensors. And if worst came to worst, they would be more expendable. Needless to say, their would be no children on board.;)

Not sure how this relates to your post, except that your comments on intercepting torpedos reminded me of this concern. So if you do have dificulty stopping torpedos (especially from cloaked ships), why not dedicated escorts analagos to destroyers?

If we, low tech as we are compaared to ST, can develop a system designed to intercept multiple ballistic missles and destroy them during flight, I'm sure that someone from the ST universe could design a defense system that intercepts torpedoes, as well. :p

Well, those torps are moving faster over larger distances, but then again Star Fleet has FTL sensors.;)

An interesting point is the possibillity of dedicated escort ships in Star Fleet. This was the Defiant's technical designation after all.

Consider the prevellance of cloaked ships, the use of long range torpedos, and the fact that big cruisers have taken damage from just a few hits, with shields still up. All this means that for task forces, fleets, or big ships opperating solo near hostile or unexplored space, having smaller dedicated escorts could be quiet valuable. These escorts would be fast, manuverable, and would trade powerful weapons for more sensors. And if worst came to worst, they would be more expendable. Needless to say, their would be no children on board.;)

Not sure how this relates to your post, except that your comments on intercepting torpedos reminded me of this concern. So if you do have dificulty stopping torpedos (especially from cloaked ships), why not dedicated escorts analagos to destroyers?

If we, low tech as we are compaared to ST, can develop a system designed to intercept multiple ballistic missles and destroy them during flight, I'm sure that someone from the ST universe could design a defense system that intercepts torpedoes, as well. :p
First off, I have yet to see those systems do what they were intended to do properly. So far it seems most systems have a huge problem with high velocities, no?

Secondly, photon torpedoes (in the scenario we're talking about: dead astern attack vector) are fired in the vacuum of space, hence speed plays a major role. And as soon as the target is fired upon, it can and will change it's position, hence rendering your element of surprise and attack vector to nothing as again you're facing your targets weapons systems.

Plus, the Galaxy Class is equipped with Burst Fire Mk. III Photon Torpedo Launcher Tubes which can fire up to ten torpedoes every five seconds.

That's pretty bad for you if you snuck up close to get into the blind spot.

Thirdly, I'm sure that you could target and destroy said torpedoes with e.g. your phasers or disrupters - but if you do, you won't be able to attack your main target at the same time (unless you use torps yourself which then meet the shields first).

Plus, the torpedoes used by the Galaxy Class are Warp capable and can reach 110% of Warp factor the firing vessel is moving at, or they speed up to 175% of the velocity the ship moves at with Impulse Drives in sublight use. That makes them pretty darn fast, and each one is equipped with 1.5kg of matter/antimatter. (That's a 60+ megaton yield!) Fire upon them, and you'll still get the explosion at your front door.

And you can't target them exiting the tube either because the targets' shields are in the way, hence you'd have to wait till the torps leave the protective bubble - which brings them up to speed and much, much closer to your ship!

First off, I have yet to see those systems do what they were intended to do properly. So far it seems most systems have a huge problem with high velocities, no?Not so. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defense_System#FTM-11_.28retest.29) :p

Secondly, photon torpedoes (in the scenario we're talking about: dead astern attack vector) are fired in the vacuum of space, hence speed plays a major role. And as soon as the target is fired upon, it can and will change it's position, hence rendering your element of surprise and attack vector to nothing as again you're facing your targets weapons systems.

Plus, the Galaxy Class is equipped with Burst Fire Mk. III Photon Torpedo Launcher Tubes which can fire up to ten torpedoes every five seconds.

That's pretty bad for you if you snuck up close to get into the blind spot.

Thirdly, I'm sure that you could target and destroy said torpedoes with e.g. your phasers or disrupters - but if you do, you won't be able to attack your main target at the same time (unless you use torps yourself which then meet the shields first).

Plus, the torpedoes used by the Galaxy Class are Warp capable and can reach 110% of Warp factor the firing vessel is moving at, or they speed up to 175% of the velocity the ship moves at with Impulse Drives in sublight use. That makes them pretty darn fast, and each one is equipped with 1.5kg of matter/antimatter. (That's a 60+ megaton yield!) Fire upon them, and you'll still get the explosion at your front door.

And you can't target them exiting the tube either because the targets' shields are in the way, hence you'd have to wait till the torps leave the protective bubble - which brings them up to speed and much, much closer to your ship! Right, but whoever made the torpedoes could undoubedly make a smaller, shorter range intercept torpedo that could actually accelerate to faster speeds?
It's doesn't make any sense to not proprerly develop the defense along with the offense.

Not so. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defense_System#FTM-11_.28retest.29) :p
I'd still wager that it'll fail as soon as something depends on it succeeding.
Right, but whoever made the torpedoes could undoubedly make a smaller, shorter range intercept torpedo that could actually accelerate to faster speeds?
It's doesn't make any sense to not proprerly develop the defense along with the offense.
Those are called shields and phasers?

Those are called shields and phasers?Right, but your post said that the explosion would still reach the ship, and that you wouldn't be able to engage the opponent. Thirdly, I'm sure that you could target and destroy said torpedoes with e.g. your phasers or disrupters - but if you do, you won't be able to attack your main target at the same time (unless you use torps yourself which then meet the shields first).

Plus, the torpedoes used by the Galaxy Class are Warp capable and can reach 110% of Warp factor the firing vessel is moving at, or they speed up to 175% of the velocity the ship moves at with Impulse Drives in sublight use. That makes them pretty darn fast, and each one is equipped with 1.5kg of matter/antimatter. (That's a 60+ megaton yield!) Fire upon them, and you'll still get the explosion at your front door.Just doesn't make any sense to me. :p

Here's a thought! Why don't you actually explain to me how the Galaxy class ships designs flaws which you claim are numerous, has caused troubles for the Enterprise and her crew in canon Star Trek. Give me just a couple of examples of where the Enterprise's "diddled design" has been a detriment to the ship and her crew. I've given examples of where it's design has indeed saved the crew and the ship numerous times (see: buzzard collectors, saucer seperation). So, if the design is so flawed, surely there must be at least one canon example of where the design failed.

The one that stands out is the way the suffer warp core breaches from comparatively little damage. Plus theones common to all Federation ships (holodeck malfunctions, transporter malfunction, computer security breaches, exploding consols).

The Cardassians proved that more ships =/= big win. One Galaxy class could take on three Galors, and requires less fuel usage than three Galors, and requires the maintenance of only one ship, instead of three.

Don't the Cardassians have inferior tech? Could that account for their defeat instead?

Besides, the Galaxy may only take the maintanance of one ship, but with all that stuff crammed in its a much bigger ship. Hence, it will require more maintanence. By way of example, compare the size of a Galaxy, with the combined size of a Defiant (combat ship), an Oberth (wasn't that a dedicated science ship? I don't know), and smaller transport ship (does Star Fleet even have transports?).

The X-Wing is the Rebel Alliances jack-of-all-trades fighter. It is fast, but the A-Wing is faster. It is powerful, but the Y-Wing is more powerful. Yet the X-Wing was the ship that destroyed the deathstar, while the Y-Wings failed. It was the X-Wing and the Millenium Falcon that destroyed the second death star, while the A-Wings, B-Wings and Y-Wings were fumbling about with those tie fighters. Yes, truely, the jack-of-all-trades X-Wing is the ship of choice for destroying death stars, therefore all jack-of-all-trades ships are best.

The Death Stars were unusual missions, and the pilots in those X-wings were some of the best the Rebels had. Not a fair example. An A-wing took out the Executor, and B-wings formed the defenses of Mon Calimari (a major star ship producer).

A Galaxy class is more efficient than five dedicated ships. Rather than fight and face casualties, it can defend itself and make a safe escape, where five ships would not.

If generalized ships are so superior, why have militaries thourough history used combined arms tactics with dedicated units?

Moreover, your criticism of the positioning of the nacelles has been shown to have an effect on the overall speed of a ship. So, the dedicated military ships would be slower because of their protected nacelles. Where the Galaxy class is not burdened by this, it can escape much easier.

You could have a dedicated warship that was built for speed but was more fragile that a true battleship. Its called a battle cruiser.

And it would still be better in a battle than a transport/science ship/ luxury liner/ explorer/ battleship.

For a long time, the Galaxy class was the Federation's capital class heavily armed ship. It just so happened that it wasn't even designed for that. It was as powerful as the Romulan's best ship (the Warbird), more powerful than the Klingon's best ship (the Vor'cha), and more powerful than three of the Cardassians battleships (the Galor). All this, and it wasn't even designed with combat as its primary purpose. The weapons were simply put on the ship because they could be put on without any sacrifice to the sensors and science facilities.

Because the Feds had excellent tech. Doesn't mean it was the best application of that tech. They almost got stomped by the Borg, after which, guess what? They adopted dedicated warships. Just in time to save them (barely) from the Dominion.

But the Galaxy class is inherrently very efficient with it's fuel expendature, given that one of it's design purposes was deep space missions.

Prove it.

Because armed scouts are perfectly capable of detecting cloaked ships, and the Federations enemies would never find out this tactic of deploying scout ships first, so they would always decloak to attack the scout ships, not realising that they were just scout ships.

It is possible to detect cloaked ships. Merely difficult.

So you're comparing space exploration to literally cutting your way through thick Amazon flora? And you accused me of moving the goalposts.

I'd think the former is probably more dangerous. Though perhaps less physically strenuous.;)

A much better, and indeed, an actually valid analogy, would be to look at sea exploration. You have a ship with the offensive capabilities of a battleship, the housing and recreational facilities of a luxury liner, the manueverability of a speedboat, research facilities galore, large cargo holds, and the crew and weapons to defend itself against anything from a group of pirates to a nuclear submarine. Sound like god modding? Well, it's canon to Star Trek. Get over it.

Star Fleet has superior tech. Big deal. Against an enemy with the same tech who built dedicated warships, they'd be slaughtered. And the exposed nacels, at least, have reduced its durabillity.

A couple of incidents per year. How many dangerous incidents did we have per season in TNG, where the ship and crew were at risk WITH civvies and children on board? Maybe a couple of times per season. Subtract a bit for the heroes needing to be put in danger once in a while or else you don't have a show, and you can estimate that a ship encounters a great risk to all aboard once every few years. Not that high risk, considering.

"I only put children in deathly peril twice a year! That makes it ok!"

Right, but your post said that the explosion would still reach the ship, and that you wouldn't be able to engage the opponent.
Just doesn't make any sense to me. :p
Just how many targets do you think a single phaser array can attack at the same time?

The way it works is multiple single short bursts at different targets or one prolonged burst at one target.

So, you either attack your main target and get hit by the torps, or you target the torps one after the other - which again would give your main target ample time to change position and fire back.

But to destroy the torps, you'd either have to bring down the main targets shields first (time...) or wait till the torps leave the shields of your main target, then attack those, while in the mean time your enemy has changed position again to strike back.

So, let's say you wait and the torps are not within the shield anymore and have not yet reached yours - when you destroy'em then, they're still gonna explode because of the way the photon torpedoes are designed: Multiple matter and anti-matter capsules within a magnetic field. Disrupt the field, matter and anti-matter get together and they'll go off.

Might not destroy your ship, but it's still not good. And you haven't really achieved anything so far - except give your enemy time to react.
The one that stands out is the way the suffer warp core breaches from comparatively little damage. Plus theones common to all Federation ships (holodeck malfunctions, transporter malfunction, computer security breaches, exploding consols).
Just shows you how complex a system a Galaxy Class starship is - but other designs ain't much better, even if they are aimed at warfare first and foremost.
By way of example, compare the size of a Galaxy, with the combined size of a Defiant (combat ship), an Oberth (wasn't that a dedicated science ship? I don't know), and smaller transport ship (does Star Fleet even have transports?).
The Defiant is a rather short-ranged design, and the Oberth Class (Scout and Science vessel) is not fit for combat. And yes, Starfleet does have transports - but you rarely see'em because they're even more vulnerable.
The Death Stars were unusual missions, and the pilots in those X-wings were some of the best the Rebels had.
The adventures shown in ST-TNG are unusual missions, and the personnel on the Enterprise is some of the best the Federation has.
If generalized ships are so superior, why have militaries thourough history used combined arms tactics with dedicated units?
Because they're stuck on the relatively small oceans and don't have to be prepared for whatever the universe might throw at you?
You could have a dedicated warship that was built for speed but was more fragile that a true battleship. Its called a battle cruiser.
Which is exactly what the Starfleet Dreadnought designs are supposed to be.
And it would still be better in a battle than a transport/science ship/ luxury liner/ explorer/ battleship.
And it would suck big alien balls to be aboard one of those for years and years to come.
Prove it.
"The antimatter is kept contained by magnetic conduits and compartmentalized tankage while aboard the fueling facility. Early starships were also constructed with compartmentalized tankage in place, though this method proved less desirable from a safety standpoint in a ship subjected to high stresses. During normal refueling, antimatter is passed through the loading port, a 1.75 meter-wide circular probe-and-drogue device equipped with twelve physical hard-dock latches and magnetic irises. Surrounding the antimatter loading port on Deck 42 are thirty storage pods, each measuring 4x8 meters and constructed of polyduranium, with an inner magnetic field layer of ferric quonium. Each pod cnotains a maximum volume of 100 mE3 of antimatter, giving a 30-pod total starship supply of 3000 mE3, enough for a normal mission period of three years. Each is connected by shielded conduits to a series of distribution manifolds, flow controllers, and electro plasma system (EPS) power feed inputs. In rapid refueling conditions, reserved for emergency situations, the entire antimatter storage pod assembly (ASPA) can be drawn down on jackscrews and replaced in less than one hour.."
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/5407/warp04.htm
Star Fleet has superior tech. Big deal. Against an enemy with the same tech who built dedicated warships, they'd be slaughtered. And the exposed nacels, at least, have reduced its durabillity.
The Federation has faired pretty well considering their approach on matters. But they're not a static institution that isn't able to adapt.
"I only put children in deathly peril twice a year! That makes it ok!"
"I'm on a multiple-year journey into outer space and won't be able to see nor raise my children, but they're safe at home, unless, of course, something major happens to the planet they're residing on."

Life ain't safe no matter where you are. Children today are exposed to higher risks each and every day while participating in regular traffic than when aboard a Galaxy Class.

The only example that I'd definitely consider "high risk" and wouldn't condone were the Hansons taking their daughter Borg-watching. However, their Raven Class ship was civilian and tiny, they didn't follow orders and protocol, and they left the beaten path. That called for trouble...

Just how many targets do you think a single phaser array can attack at the same time?

The way it works is multiple single short bursts at different targets or one prolonged burst at one target.

So, you either attack your main target and get hit by the torps, or you target the torps one after the other - which again would give your main target ample time to change position and fire back.

But to destroy the torps, you'd either have to bring down the main targets shields first (time...) or wait till the torps leave the shields of your main target, then attack those, while in the mean time your enemy has changed position again to strike back.

So, let's say you wait and the torps are not within the shield anymore and have not yet reached yours - when you destroy'em then, they're still gonna explode because of the way the photon torpedoes are designed: Multiple matter and anti-matter capsules within a magnetic field. Disrupt the field, matter and anti-matter get together and they'll go off.

Might not destroy your ship, but it's still not good. And you haven't really achieved anything so far - except give your enemy time to react.So, you're given no choice but to take the hit, and go on the offense?
Ugh, I hate slugging matches.

Multiple targets on multiple vectors approaching your ship fast?

Good luck on that. My money is on your ship going kaput.


I point you to the following. PHALANX AMS, Goalkeeper AMS, RAM interceptor missiles on the defending side, SS-N-22 Sunburn, P-270 Moskit and oh, the Exocet on the offensive side.

Doctrine of use for offense is multiple launches from multiple flights against fleet assets from multiple vectors. Design specifications involve terminal approach supersonic violent maneuvers.

I suppose you should tell the US, British and Russian navies to scrap their missile interceptors and AEGIS (for the Americans) tracking systems hmmm?

If you can track it, you can shoot it.


Which again forces you to face the rear torpedo launcher and up to four phaser arrays. Your ship either is so small that those arrays won't all come into play - but that means your ship is too small to dish out serious damage. Or it is big enough to dish out the damage - then it can be targeted by phasers as well because of its size, "dead astern" really means "astern overlapping other regions".

USS Cole. When there's a will, there's a way.


It's not a solid piece of metal. It includes Jefferies tubes, power conduits and such - but it's not "open spaces" or "compartments" like the rest of the ship - it's way more solid and thus more dense than other parts of the ship.


Fair enough.


What you get is a Galaxy class ship with its main purpose being exploration, also fitted out to perform other tasks without having to change much, including enough defensive capabilities to handle itself quite nicely.

The only time that has happened was when they faced technologically far inferior opponents. Everytime there was an even match in tech and weapons, or when they were outmatched, they had to magic up a solution via the plot.

And frankly, if you were using the plot? Then it wouldn't have mattered if all Picard had was a piece of string and a rowboat.


That's the Galaxy class for you designed by Starfleet's most brilliant engineers.

If by brilliant, you mean consoles that explode violently when someone sneezes as the ship, transporters that don't work when there's a light rain, holodecks that can hold the crew hostage, warp cores that suffer a breach with only a few hits, sure, "brilliant".


That's what you get when you let the Pakled design your ship.


The who?


First of all, the kids don't need to fight. It's not like they get a phaser and go hunting baddies. They're only along for the ride.
And while you might disagree with it, obviously the Federation and its employees don't.

"Join the Federation! We let you bring your kids to face deathly peril only twice a year!"


It is a TV show after all...


Hence why when good sense and dramatics come to a head, good sense loses.


The Enterprise is more like a university campus - with guns.


An armed university campus that gets occasionally overrun by a hostile army when it's not busy putting it's nose in someone else's cupboard while not realizing the owner is right behind them and is carrying a very big gun.
Since when don't your parents get to make decisions for you until you are considered an adult, eh? If I'm not mistaken, that's even common today.


More often than you'd think. Besides, what we see in the show is not everything that happened to the Enterprise. It's more or less the exciting parts with the long safe and secure stretches in between left out.

And how long did Picard tenure as captain before it went boom?


It's still better than being a red shirt under Kirk, mind you!


And you don't think that kind of mortality rate might have affected recruitment and the idea of a "family friendly" ship?

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/5407/warp04.htm


The link appears to be fan written. It's canonicity is in doubt. Can you provide any backing that it is canon?

Are you ignoring how this whole argument started?

Actually, I was asking you to cite canon instances where the design of the Galaxy class starship has proven detrimental in a lethal way to the ship and crew. Namely, the layout of the nacelles. You have not come up with a single canon example.

A car without seatbelts, airbags or crumple zone isn't to the detriment to its driver either, until it runs into a brick wall.

So, again, cite me an example of where the Galaxy class's design has proven detrimental to the ship and its crew. Otherwise your claims are just a load of bullshit.

And how does this, in any way, prove that equal tech levels and resources would produce higher numbers of purpose specific ships that are more effective in that purpose than generic purpose ships built using the same tech and resource amount?

Or are you saying the Cardassians contracted Federation shipyards to build their ships hmmm?

Stop using red herrings. It's annoying.

You want ships with equal tech levels to the Galaxy class, but specialised? There has to be compromises. You can't have equal tech levels. If you want the same speeds, you have to have the same engine configuration. If you want the same scanners, you have to have the same sacrifice in weapons. If you want more weapons, you have to have the same sacrifice in scanners. Sure, you could have a didicated warship, but its scanning facilities would be inferior to the Galaxy class, which would prove a detriment in most exploratory situations.

Define "better". Are we talking practical results or pandering to dramatics?

Practical results.

Heaven forbid real life things like logic, common sense and practical issues ever come into contact with science fiction. Of course that is the purpose of this argument to begin with.

That you say it is laughable is an admittance on your side that your science fiction doesn't need to pay attention to boring little matters of reality and can present whatever it likes so as to tell a better story.

So, will you stop trying to insist that it's a logical, perfectly sensible design choice then?

I'm just saying that to compare technologies now to technologies in the Star Trek universe is stupid. You can't say "well if we can't do it, they musn't be able to", because that can just be explained away by saying "the technology arose to allow us to do it". It is science fiction after all.

Moreover, in the Star Trek universe, the Galaxy class is a logical, perfectly sensible design, as we saw in just about every single episode of TNG. You can't compare what makes sense now, to what would make sense in a science fiction show based in the future. The technologies are vastly different, and clearly, your understanding of the technologies in Star Trek is very poor.

It would still be blindly charging in, unless you're saying your example of five ships all occupy the same space and time or are clustered together so closely, whatever happens to the lead ship instantly happens to the rear ship.

No, it is not blindly charging in. It is just minding your own business when all of a sudden this big tear in the universe pops up right in front of you and you don't have the capacity to escape it. It also just so happens that this tear is two au in size, so, unless the fleet were so drastically spread out as to not really be a fleet at all, the entire fleet would be sucked in.

Pfft. Ahahahahahahaha. Redshirts anyone? I guess they don't count. Hull breaches? Maybe Trekkies don't need air (shields take time to close over them apparently).

And just how many redshirts died in TNG?

So if it's a fundamental nature of the way the engine works, why do you still need a huge capital class ship if you want fast ships? An oversized shuttle with really long extensions for the warp nacelles could easily do the job then.

That shuttle would not be able to defend itself, and it's scanning facilities would be vastly inferior, and it's ability to house a large science crew for many years at a time would be dramatically inferior to that of the Galaxy class ship.

And it's not about having longer exensions, it's about having the right distance to create and sustain a warp field.

Then your argument about the whole "beware! invasion!" cry, simply doesn't apply. It doesn't matter if it's a small fleet of ships, some of which have no combat purpose, or one capital class ship that shows up in orbit above your capital. They'll have an equal chance of being seen the same way.

Sending out a small fleet of ships with no combat purpose into the unknown is just stupid. There would, as you yourself said, need to be at least one or two dedicated military vessels to defend the fleet. One or two military vessels and a few other ships is a lot more threatening than one big exploratory ship.

Suuuuuure. And the Federation had collective amnesia about the whole Klingon war.

What the hell does the Klingon war have to do with this discussion?

Who's the captain in TOS? And you didn't address the rest of my rebuttal.

What does TOS have to do with this discussion for that matter.

And this is proven.... where?

Talk to German Nightmare.

But I'm pretty sure I've heard Geordi mention something along the lines of fuel efficiency being good in a Galaxy class ship at least a few times during the show.

So? The scouts don't even have to be manned, and expendable probes are even used by the Enterprise, so you don't have any cause for complaint for slightly more expensive and advanced probes.

So why would a couple of cloaked Warbirds want to interfere with an expendable probe when they know that the fleet will be coming soon? You completely missed the point. Do you think the enemy would never cotton on that Federation fleets always send unmanned expendable probes into a system before they themselves go into the system?

Both involve exploring unknown territory with both known and unknown threats. The examples are perfectly comparable. Your examples don't even have the same basic conditions.

And I note you didn't answer the question either.

One involves exploring unknown territory with known threats, using the most primitive of gear, the other involves exploring unknown space with unknown threats in the best technology available.

How long do you think a team could trek through the Amazon before one of them gets bitten by a snake or something like that? Compare that with how long starships can be out in space eventlessly. You might get a couple of weeks in the Amazon, at best. Whereas you get one or two things per year in space, if you're unlucky.

Ahh, the canon argument. As if that has any weight against boring things like reality and good design philosophies.

If Picard had one day sprouted butterfly wings, wore a pink tutu and had an afro wig in the shows, while Worf bounced up and down on the outer hull of the Enterprise in a togo going "I'm Batman, I can breathe in space" that would be canon too. But it wouldn't have made a whit of sense.

The canon argument is valid because it is science fiction. If they want to do something like make a starship invisible, they can invent a technology to do it. You can't look at a childrens cartoon and say "dinosaurs can't talk because they didn't in real life". It's... get this... MADE UP.

Better than sucking on vacuum, or falling halfway through the floor before it materializes, or having display consoles explode in their faces, or having random gods decide it'd be fun to turn them into cabbages, or having them being munched by collapsing alternate universe bubbles, or being turned into soulless cyborg drones.

Which happened to the civillian crew of the Enterprise how many times during it's seven years in operation?

"Sorry kids, but you've got to die a horrible, burning death as our captain wants to go do some fighting again this week and this deck is now on fire. Again."

Picard never wanted to enter combat unless absolutely necessary. Why do you ignore this fact?

A shuttlecraft?

Actually it was an Excelsior class ship.

Are you saying that in the period of war between the Klingons and the Federation, there has not been one instance of the two meeting face to face in combat?

I never said that. But why you keep bringing up the Klingon war is still unknown.

Take away his support cast magic aura, and you'll find he's woefully inadequate. He'd be just another redshirt equivalent, and those die quite regularly.

He's an excellent fighter and hunter, he is more skilled than any starfleet officer the show has ever seen in hand-to-hand combat and close-quarters combat. He has better smell than any starfleet officer, and can detect an ambush better because of it.

Like blowing up the planet? If you can't be pinned with the deed and can get well away before it does, cheerio I say! And there is nothing that cannot be dismantled with sufficient application of explosive force.

And again, you ignore the fact that if Picard had gained any such special knowledge in his time as an officer, it would have been in his logs and ship database as well. The knowledge is there for any personnel with sufficient clearance to brief themselves on.

I'm not even going to bother. You keep ignoring facts stated within the actual episode. Go watch it again and them come back. Otherwise, shut up.

And, again, who is more equipped to play a life-or-death game of baseball - someone who has played the game for years, or someone who has had a two-day crash course in the previous persons field notes on the game?

Who would be better trained to deal with an ambush to begin with. We are talking about specialists in covert wetwork operations after all.

And these specialists, when they finally came accross the device, would have no idea how to safely dismantle it, as no one in the Federation had that knowledge, and the only person with an intimate enough knowledge of the stuff to be able to WORK OUT how to disable it, is Captain Picard.

The one that stands out is the way the suffer warp core breaches from comparatively little damage. Plus theones common to all Federation ships (holodeck malfunctions, transporter malfunction, computer security breaches, exploding consols).

Every ship in the Star Trek universe has exploding consoles. Maybe a fuse just isn't possible because of the technology differences between real life and the science fiction series, and an exploding console is just a risk you take.

Transporters have been stated on the show as being amazingly safe. I've gone through a list of transporter accidents in TNG, DS9 and VOY that were a fault of the technology, and not some external cause like an ion storm or sabotage.


During Chakotay's Starfleet career, he was involved in a transporter malfunction. His uniform ended up in the pattern buffer and he materialized wearing only his combadge. (VOY: "In the Flesh")
Materialising nude? Worse things have happened when driving down the street.

That's it. Only one transporter accident documented throughout all 21 seasons of TNG, DS9 and VOY that wasn't the fault of some spatial anomoly or energy cloud or odd thing being transported or sabotage or whatever. Only one documented fault in transporter technology throughout all of TNG, DS9 and VOY, and it wasn't even a bad fault.

"It should be noted that by the mid-24th century, there were only an average of two or three transporter accidents a year across the Federation, yet millions of people were transported every day." (TNG: "Realm of Fear")

I guess that closes that door now.

Don't the Cardassians have inferior tech? Could that account for their defeat instead?

Besides, the Galaxy may only take the maintanance of one ship, but with all that stuff crammed in its a much bigger ship. Hence, it will require more maintanence. By way of example, compare the size of a Galaxy, with the combined size of a Defiant (combat ship), an Oberth (wasn't that a dedicated science ship? I don't know), and smaller transport ship (does Star Fleet even have transports?).

The Galaxy has more firepower and stronger shields than a Defiant, and in a one-on-one battle, the Defiant would have to do something pretty monumental (like have a hero on board) to defeat the Galaxy class without suffering major damage.

If generalized ships are so superior, why have militaries thourough history used combined arms tactics with dedicated units?

Simply because the technology to build amazingly efficient generalised ships DOES NOT EXIST now. But it does in the Star Trek universe.

You could have a dedicated warship that was built for speed but was more fragile that a true battleship. Its called a battle cruiser.

And it would still be better in a battle than a transport/science ship/ luxury liner/ explorer/ battleship.

But it would be a stupid design because the nacelles would be so vulnerable :rolleyes:

Because the Feds had excellent tech. Doesn't mean it was the best application of that tech. They almost got stomped by the Borg, after which, guess what? They adopted dedicated warships. Just in time to save them (barely) from the Dominion.

And when they needed dedicated warships, they postponed their exploratory efforts and refitted most of their ships, at cost to the science facilities of those ships. As such, Galaxy class ships gained even more brunt, but lost some of their exploratory ability.

Prove it.

Didn't Geordi say something to that effect in that season 7 TNG episode where warp capable ships were restricted to warp 5?

It is possible to detect cloaked ships. Merely difficult.

You need big big sensor arrays. Or you need intricate scanners. Either way, it's not plausable for a small expendable probe.

I'd think the former is probably more dangerous. Though perhaps less physically strenuous.;)


I disagree. I think you're more likely to have something bad happen to you in two weeks of Amazon trekking than in a year of space exploration.

Star Fleet has superior tech. Big deal. Against an enemy with the same tech who built dedicated warships, they'd be slaughtered. And the exposed nacels, at least, have reduced its durabillity.

And yet they weren't! The Dominion had better tech, and dedicated warships. The Romulans had similiar technology to the Federation, and built "jack-of-all-trades" Warbirds, comprable to the Galaxy class starship. Klingons had inferior technology but dedicated warships. Who won that war?

And this is different from tactical and strategic doctrines of continent hopping empires with month long communications lag in history how? In fact, Starfleet seems to have real time communications across the span of many light years, which would up their response doctrines much closer to those in play for naval fleets in the last 50 years.

The tools may have changed over the years, but tactical and strategic concerns remain the same unless something truly paradigm changing shows up like time travel as a weapon, which it did, but nobody wanted to because of the horrible mess it would create.

It's not like Sun Tzu's Art of War was obsoleted with the advent of battlefield communications, air power, cruise missiles, or even nuclear weapons.
Ah, I see. That is true, after all, navies today still lead with battleships, draw up in the lines to exchange large broadsides until someone strikes their colors. Of course, there are times when a large chunk of the crew will, once the ships are grappled, swing over and attempt to take the ship using cutlasses...

Er... wait a moment...

There have been rather large, very large changes in naval doctrine since WWII, WWII also unleashed rather large changes and there is no reason to believe that the Federation, operating in a largely unexplored galaxy, would be any different than England in the age of exploration. Which, BTW, is what Starfleet is all about. Seek out new life and new civilizations. Explore strange new worlds. Ring a bell?

And yet they weren't! The Dominion had better tech, and dedicated warships. The Romulans had similiar technology to the Federation, and built "jack-of-all-trades" Warbirds, comprable to the Galaxy class starship. Klingons had inferior technology but dedicated warships. Who won that war?I never heard. Did it finally end?

I never heard. Did it finally end?

The Dominion lost. But the real winners were the viewers, who got to see a monumental end to a great show.

The Dominion lost.
Gee, that's a shock :p
But the real winners were the viewers, who got to see a monumental end to a great show.
I did like DS9. I only stopped watching because I stopped watching television in general, for whatever reason, just got out of the habit.

Ah, I see. That is true, after all, navies today still lead with battleships, draw up in the lines to exchange large broadsides until someone strikes their colors. Of course, there are times when a large chunk of the crew will, once the ships are grappled, swing over and attempt to take the ship using cutlasses...

Er... wait a moment...


Yes, silliness, especially when used to illustrate out of context examples, takes a while to process.


There have been rather large, very large changes in naval doctrine since WWII,

Have the fundamentals changed? Or have they simply adopted new tools and tactics to supplement the fundamentals?

And you've yet to refute Sun Tzu's art of war, the principles which still apply today even if no one uses swords and bows anymore, and which I believe is also still recommended reading in the United States officer corps.


WWII also unleashed rather large changes and there is no reason to believe that the Federation, operating in a largely unexplored galaxy, would be any different than England in the age of exploration.

England built a great many ships in the age of exploration. They also had them built for a great many different purposes and specializations, from cutters, sloops and frigates to man of wars. Notice how their biggest ships were warships? England might not have been all about fighting their superpower neighbors in a game of everyone loses, but they knew enough not to waste resources on exploration ships when there were potentially unfriendly people with big sticks just across the channel.

Actually, I was asking you to cite canon instances where the design of the Galaxy class starship has proven detrimental in a lethal way to the ship and crew. Namely, the layout of the nacelles. You have not come up with a single canon example.

This is a stupid request. It assumes that the plot writers are constrained by anything even remotely resembling stupidity. If the show had Picard in bathrobe on a rowboat floating about in space, would you be demanding canon instances of how being exposed to hard vacuum is detrimental to your health?


Otherwise your claims are just a load of bullshit.


This is reality calling. They said your check bounced.


You want ships with equal tech levels to the Galaxy class, but specialised? There has to be compromises. You can't have equal tech levels.

If they're the same builders who built the Galaxy class, why the hell not? Did they forget the tech they were using when they built the Galaxy class?


If you want the same speeds, you have to have the same engine configuration. If you want the same scanners, you have to have the same sacrifice in weapons. If you want more weapons, you have to have the same sacrifice in scanners.


Here you demonstrate the inability to differentiate between technology levels and performance.


Practical results.


For practical results, you would first secure the area with fast military assets, and no you can't pretend that they can't be made, which would be able to at least make a preliminary analysis while the slower, escorted, science vessels arrive on location to perform a full analysis.

And why would they be slower anyway? You insisted that the warp nacelle locations had to do with crew safety, speed and efficiency. Why can't a science vessel have the same placement? Political lobbyists? The committee of aesthetics?


I'm just saying that to compare technologies now to technologies in the Star Trek universe is stupid.

Who the hell is comparing the technology? I am comparing good design philosophy to bad design philosophy, which will always be present no matter how far in the future you go. That I pointed out existing technology as an example has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that it is good design philosophy, no matter the technology level.

You could probably build a toaster with an arc welder or laser cutting machine, but it's still a horribly inefficient and impractical way of going about making a toaster. That's bad design sense.


You can't say "well if we can't do it, they musn't be able to", because that can just be explained away by saying "the technology arose to allow us to do it". It is science fiction after all.

No matter how advanced your technology, it doesn't mean you can do away with common sense.

And if you get to the point where not only is it uncommon, but it's spread across the entire species, there's probably a species sized Darwin Award in it for you.


Moreover, in the Star Trek universe, the Galaxy class is a logical, perfectly sensible design, as we saw in just about every single episode of TNG.

No. It is a horrible choice that was only saved from disaster time and time again by convenient last minute technobabble, usually spouted from the youngest, least experienced, trainee engineer who could have easily found work on another, more practically designed ship.


You can't compare what makes sense now, to what would make sense in a science fiction show based in the future.

Is it sensible to stick your bare hand in a fire? No? Would it be sensible to stick your bare hand in a fire 20,000 years from now? No?

Your assertion fails.


No, it is not blindly charging in. It is just minding your own business when all of a sudden this big tear in the universe pops up right in front of you and you don't have the capacity to escape it. It also just so happens that this tear is two au in size, so, unless the fleet were so drastically spread out as to not really be a fleet at all, the entire fleet would be sucked in.

A light second? That's not really far apart at all for a ship with FTL drives.


And just how many redshirts died in TNG?


Meh, I lost count. At least almost one every two or three episodes. Maybe more. TNG took a more equal opportunity death application and spread it out to yellow and blue shirts than TOS.


That shuttle would not be able to defend itself, and it's scanning facilities would be vastly inferior, and it's ability to house a large science crew for many years at a time would be dramatically inferior to that of the Galaxy class ship.

So? The purpose of the shuttle would be scouting and exploration, nothing more. The science/intelligence vessels would only show up if there was something interesting enough to take a look at.

As for defending itself, why would it need to? The purpose of the scout is to find something, and then report back. If it finds something it can't fight, it's supposed to run away, not putter around going *pew* *pew* *die*.


And it's not about having longer exensions, it's about having the right distance to create and sustain a warp field.

So?


One or two military vessels and a few other ships is a lot more threatening than one big exploratory ship.

One big exploratory ship, with big weapons. Most well armed of the Federation too! Less threatening. Riiiiight.

Logical disconnect much?


What the hell does the Klingon war have to do with this discussion?


The fact that a war was fought between the two should have drilled some hard lessons in the Federation about, oh I don't know, the value of commando teams, specialized ship to ship boarding teams, maybe even ground forces for when the Klingons launch ground invasions on Federation holdings or stations.


What does TOS have to do with this discussion for that matter.


You mentioned it in the same breath you said TNG and "smooth talking captains".


So why would a couple of cloaked Warbirds want to interfere with an expendable probe when they know that the fleet will be coming soon? You completely missed the point. Do you think the enemy would never cotton on that Federation fleets always send unmanned expendable probes into a system before they themselves go into the system?

Why, that's why you build good sensor arrays to go with the probes. The cloaks aren't infallible after all, and you can build a huge sensor array with cheap, expendable probes rather than sending in a big ship like a blundering cow begging to be shot at.


Both involves exploring unknown territory

Fixed.


with unknown threats,


Fixed. I didn't specify where and what the tribes would be after all, or even what they would be carrying exactly. You know they could be out there, and that's it. Much like knowing an advanced hostile species could be out there once you know there's life out there.


using the most primitive of gear,


Adding conditions outside of the test scenario? Nice try. Play the victim much?


best technology available.

Still inferior to some potential, but not identified threats.

The example still works, quite handily. You're trying to make distinctions that aren't there and adding weighted conditions that were never there either.

Bias, or deliberate dishonesty I wonder?


How long do you think a team could trek through the Amazon before one of them gets bitten by a snake or something like that?


Replace team with ship, Amazon with deep space, and bitten by snake with "destroyed by random spacetime event/torpedo/enemy ships/intelligent missiles/angry god".

No practical difference really. Stop trying to pretend there is.


The canon argument is valid because it is science fiction. If they want to do something like make a starship invisible, they can invent a technology to do it. You can't look at a childrens cartoon and say "dinosaurs can't talk because they didn't in real life". It's... get this... MADE UP.

And that's why since it's made up, arguments that it's canon automatically fail when trying to persuade others that "it's sensible/logical".


Which happened to the civillian crew of the Enterprise how many times during it's seven years in operation?

How do you distinguish between the adult civilian crew and officers when they're not at their jobs?


Picard never wanted to enter combat unless absolutely necessary.

So what?


He's an excellent fighter and hunter, he is more skilled than any starfleet officer the show has ever seen in hand-to-hand combat and close-quarters combat.

Worf is one man. One. 1. Un. Ein. There is a practical limit to what he can do and carry, and he does not have eyes in the back of his head nor does he have four sets of hands. You'll never find any special forces team in the world that consists of one point man and a pair of tag alongs for a damned good reason.


He has better smell than any starfleet officer


Why is that, Starfleet doesn't believe in showers? :p


and can detect an ambush better because of it.


Only if he's upwind of the ambush.


I'm not even going to bother. You keep ignoring facts stated within the actual episode.

You mean throwaway lines about how there's only one person in the whole wide galaxy that knows how to disarm a weapon and pretending that things like man portable demolition charges don't exist?


And, again, who is more equipped to play a life-or-death game of baseball - someone who has played the game for years, or someone who has had a two-day crash course in the previous persons field notes on the game?


An example that does not even count the factors straight, and deliberately slants them in favor of only one interpretation. And it's sidetracking the argument anyway.


And these specialists, when they finally came accross the device, would have no idea how to safely dismantle it, as no one in the Federation had that knowledge, and the only person with an intimate enough knowledge of the stuff to be able to WORK OUT how to disable it, is Captain Picard.

So you're saying that unless dismantled in a specific way, the device is absolutely indestructible, and no amount of explosives or energy weapons fire would destroy it? Wow, those Romulans should ditch their shields and plate their ships with these super indestructible devices. Even the Borg would tremble before these indestructible devices.

Well NAS, I'm not going to bother anymore. You continue to make assertions without backing them up with canon references in the show, and you keep getting contradicted by your assertions. Particular about the Picard commando team thing, in which you are completely wrong on all counts and would know this were you to watch the actual episode.

Your assertions that the Galaxy class starship is of horridly poor design are also not supported by the shows canon, and are therefore not relevant to any discussion of the show, and when asked to give in-show support for your claims, you cannot. The fact remains that the Enterprise D went through hell, and still managed to keep intact for seven years of adventure, excitement, battles and exploration of the unknown. And when it was ultimately destroyed, by a flaw in shield technology inherrent to shield technology of all the major players in the Alpha quadrant, the crew and the ships civillian population survived by a brilliant piece of design pioneered by the Galaxy class, in that it could seperate the saucer from the drive section, and thus allowed the entire crew and civvies on board to survive the warp core breach.

Your lack of in-show support for your arguments just means that your arguments, whilst based on reason, what you know, and basic engineering and military principles of today, are not valid when contradicted by the show, in discussion of the show. If you say something is a bad design, and the show says it is a good design, the show is right. If you try and follow that same design in real life, the show might be wrong. But for the universe within the show, the show is right, and you are not. Get over it.

Well NAS, I'm not going to bother anymore.

I suppose we can say it is inevitable, when fans and reality collide like that.


You continue to make assertions without backing them up with canon references in the show, and you keep getting contradicted by your assertions.


Do you even know what the word "contradict" means?


Your assertions that the Galaxy class starship is of horridly poor design are also not supported by the shows canon,


Canon, canon, canon. You still cleave to that like it means anything, in an argument about sensible things, avoiding the question I asked about the tutu wearing Picard or Worf sucking on hard vacuum and not dying, insisting that it's perfectly logical and sensible.


But for the universe within the show, the show is right, and you are not. Get over it.

Answer me this, don't avoid it. Would you accept it as sensible if the canon had Picard dancing naked on the surface of the sun without being instantly vaporized? Forget everything else I've asked. Just answer this one question.

Getting back to the original topic (Anyone actually remember the original topic?), here's a run down of the new trailer with more Enterprise images.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/11/19/trekmovie-star-trek-trailer-analysis/

Do you even know what the word "contradict" means?

So, give me ONE, just ONE, example of where your assertions that the Galaxy class ship is a poor design is shown in the show. Otherwise, the show does clearly contradict your claim that it is a poor design, as they have said on the show that it is a remarkable design. The show CONTRADICTS you. Given that we are talking about the show, and not you fantasy world, if something is true in the show, and you say it isn't, you are wrong.

Canon, canon, canon. You still cleave to that like it means anything, in an argument about sensible things, avoiding the question I asked about the tutu wearing Picard or Worf sucking on hard vacuum and not dying, insisting that it's perfectly logical and sensible.

Why don't you try telling George Lucas that the death star wasn't the size of a small moon, but is actually just three kilometers across. Building a station that big isn't the best idea, so it must be wrong.

Whether you like it or not, what the show says is what happens in the show. You can't say something happens in the show, when the show flat out contradicts you.

Answer me this, don't avoid it. Would you accept it as sensible if the canon had Picard dancing naked on the surface of the sun without being instantly vaporized?

It would be canon for the show. It wouldn't make sense. It would contradict what we know about the sun, humans, and indeed, a lot of physics. But it would still be canon for the show. I wouldn't like it, and would probably feel a little disheartened at the abandonment of believability (the difference being that believability does not equate to realism, only the illusion of realism). But then, I'd probably take it with a grain of salt.

It would be canon for the show. It wouldn't make sense.

Annnnd, that's all I needed.

I point you to the following. PHALANX AMS, Goalkeeper AMS, RAM interceptor missiles on the defending side, SS-N-22 Sunburn, P-270 Moskit and oh, the Exocet on the offensive side.

Doctrine of use for offense is multiple launches from multiple flights against fleet assets from multiple vectors. Design specifications involve terminal approach supersonic violent maneuvers.

I suppose you should tell the US, British and Russian navies to scrap their missile interceptors and AEGIS (for the Americans) tracking systems hmmm?

If you can track it, you can shoot it.
Nothing of this was left after WWIII - and when Starfleet came along, they opted for a different approach on matters. Like it or not, that's the way things are in Star Trek.
USS Cole. When there's a will, there's a way.
Yeah, you could probably try and ram the enemy or set off an explosive device. You're gonna bounce off the hull with your little ship and then your pieces will make a nicely colored small nebula.
The only time that has happened was when they faced technologically far inferior opponents. Everytime there was an even match in tech and weapons, or when they were outmatched, they had to magic up a solution via the plot.
Simply not true.
If by brilliant, you mean consoles that explode violently when someone sneezes as the ship, transporters that don't work when there's a light rain, holodecks that can hold the crew hostage, warp cores that suffer a breach with only a few hits, sure, "brilliant".
Yeah. Like I said: Brilliant.
The who?
I rest my case. You don't even know enough about Star Trek to talk about its shortcomings.
And how long did Picard tenure as captain before it went boom?
Watch the show.
The link appears to be fan written. It's canonicity is in doubt. Can you provide any backing that it is canon?
My books. *points to official Star Trek Technical Manual*
Actually, I was asking you to cite canon instances where the design of the Galaxy class starship has proven detrimental in a lethal way to the ship and crew. Namely, the layout of the nacelles. You have not come up with a single canon example.
Because he can't. There ain't any.
So, again, cite me an example of where the Galaxy class's design has proven detrimental to the ship and its crew. Otherwise your claims are just a load of bullshit.
That they are.
Moreover, in the Star Trek universe, the Galaxy class is a logical, perfectly sensible design, as we saw in just about every single episode of TNG. You can't compare what makes sense now, to what would make sense in a science fiction show based in the future. The technologies are vastly different, and clearly, your understanding of the technologies in Star Trek is very poor.
Seems to be!
And just how many redshirts died in TNG?
Seeing how security detail now wears gold and the red shirts are command officers - not too many!
Talk to German Nightmare.
Actually, please don't! I've done enough talking already.
The canon argument is valid because it is science fiction. If they want to do something like make a starship invisible, they can invent a technology to do it. You can't look at a childrens cartoon and say "dinosaurs can't talk because they didn't in real life". It's... get this... MADE UP.
And not only made up, it's... and now get this... enjoyable, too!!!
Every ship in the Star Trek universe has exploding consoles. Maybe a fuse just isn't possible because of the technology differences between real life and the science fiction series, and an exploding console is just a risk you take.
I'm fairly sure that today's technology would fail even more easily. Sure, you have sparks in ST. But just drop your mobile phone or your HDD and it doesn't even spark. It's just broken. Sparks tell the audience that something's going on. Nothing more, nothing less.
During Chakotay's Starfleet career, he was involved in a transporter malfunction. His uniform ended up in the pattern buffer and he materialized wearing only his combadge. (VOY: "In the Flesh")
Materialising nude? Worse things have happened when driving down the street.
Yeah! No combadge...
The Galaxy has more firepower and stronger shields than a Defiant, and in a one-on-one battle, the Defiant would have to do something pretty monumental (like have a hero on board) to defeat the Galaxy class without suffering major damage.
A suicide run is the only thing that would accomplish a feat like that.
Didn't Geordi say something to that effect in that season 7 TNG episode where warp capable ships were restricted to warp 5?
That had to do with high warp speeds warping space so much that the structural integrity of space became unstable.
Hence maximum cruising speeds were reduced to Warp 5 whereas you could still go faster in a case of emergency.
And yet they weren't! The Dominion had better tech, and dedicated warships. The Romulans had similiar technology to the Federation, and built "jack-of-all-trades" Warbirds, comprable to the Galaxy class starship. Klingons had inferior technology but dedicated warships. Who won that war?
The viewer!

Nothing of this was left after WWIII


And yet, someone managed to find themselves a fully functional ICBM, and enough parts to turn it into a viable spacecraft, build and fit it with an experimental FTL drive system. Curious how "nothing of this was left" hmm?

As for WWIII, there appears to have been remarkably little environmental devastation for that matter.


Yeah, you could probably try and ram the enemy or set off an explosive device. You're gonna bounce off the hull with your little ship and then your pieces will make a nicely colored small nebula.

That's what the people on the Cole thought too, more or less. Too bad for some, it was their last thought. But just keep thinking that.


Simply not true.


Hmm? Can you name me one fight of technological parity that did not involve using the environment or clever little tricks that couldn't have been replicated on any other ship design?


Yeah. Like I said: Brilliant.


So I take it you would opt to replace your computer monitor with one that explodes violently in your face if there is a power surge then?


I rest my case. You don't even know enough about Star Trek to talk about its shortcomings.

I've seen enough of the technology, the use, and the tactics behind it to make a fair analysis from a strictly doctrinal and design philosophy perspective. If you want to declare that "it's not enough", that is your prerogative. It will hardly change existing real world design philosophy to match yours.


My books. *points to official Star Trek Technical Manual*


And are you expecting me to buy it? You have a camera, do you not? But nevermind anyway.

Fonzica has admitted to accepting canon, no matter how ridiculous (Picard dancing naked on the sun) it may turn, and has also admitted that it wouldn't be sensible.

I just need you to make a similar admittance that something being canon would not necessarily be sensible, and I would be quite content with that.

Fonzica has admitted to accepting canon, no matter how ridiculous (Picard dancing naked on the sun) it may turn, and has also admitted that it wouldn't be sensible.

I just need you to make a similar admittance that something being canon would not necessarily be sensible, and I would be quite content with that.

You missed the point with what I was saying then.

I said that Picard dancing naked on the sun would not be believable, but it would be canon, disappointingly so (unless the Roddenberry estate said it was not canon, as Roddenberry did with Star Trek V). But the Galaxy class ship being a perfect design for an exploratory vessel is also canon, and believable, since the episodes show that it is.

If you tried to build something similiar to design in real life, it might not be that great. However, if you had the same technology that the Star Trek universe has, and used those technologies like the Federation did, to build the ship, then it would be great.

Your arguments that the ship is a poor design do not hold, because everything in the show contradicts you. You have produced no evidence whatsoever to support your arguments, so, of course, your arguments do not hold. When asked to provide canon evidence for your arguments (the only kind of evidence that would hold in this kind of discussion), you have not been able to, at all.

Your arguments that the ship is a poor design do not hold, because everything in the show contradicts you.

If you want canon that badly, how's this? Exploding control consoles, holodecks taking crew hostage, shields that fail every so often, a warp core that breaches even without being directly damaged and teleporters that fail to work in a light rain.

Since this Star Trek timeline looks more action-oriented, is it possible that they will fix some of the more glaring design flaws in terms of safety/durabillity? Though TOS Federation was always more military-minded.

The problem you get into when analyzing the continuity/canon of Star Trek is exactly the same problem you get when trying to compare the tech and equipment between Star Wars and Star Trek.

Star Trek is, and always has been, a vehicle for telling stories. Listen, listen carefully. It is NOT a set of historical documents. Most Star Trek scripts, especially in TOS and TNG, started out as completely unrelated stories that were modified to work with the Star Trek characters and universe. Each episode is meant to be taken as a single Sci Fi story, using familiar and established characters and settings. Continuity isn't NECESSARY because the stories aren't meant to relate to one another (Except in obvious longer term arcs, as in DS9 and Enterprise.)

It's like comparing Star Trek to Babylon 5. It's non sequitur. Babylon 5 was conceived as a 5 season arc and necessarily required internal consistency (and was very good at it.) Trek just isn't like that.

And you know what? That's perfectly okay. I find I enjoy Star Trek MORE when I keep these things in mind. Who cares if Betazoids are able to sense Ferengi emotions one minute and can't the next? It doesn't matter AT ALL. The point is the story itself. Remember what makes SciFi so beautiful... It makes a real point or explores real issues using a fantastical setting to escape the bonds of reality. What does the episode mean? What message am I getting form it? THAT is what makes the difference between a good episode and a "meh." one.

So yes, continuity is nice if it helps the suspension of disbelief, and yes, blatant continuity errors to tend to cause distraction, but overall if you're spending too much time on worrying about continuity, you're missing the point.

I love the bitter smell of fanboys arguing in the early evening... it smells like failure.

If you want canon that badly, how's this? Exploding control consoles, holodecks taking crew hostage, shields that fail every so often, a warp core that breaches even without being directly damaged and teleporters that fail to work in a light rain.

And absolutely none of those are unique to the Galaxy class ship, or even unique to Federation starships. Exploding control consoles happen on Dominion, Klingon, Cardassian, Romulan, and Federation ships. So that argument becomes void. Transporters work well until the plot demands that they don't, and happen to fail just as often for non-Federation ships as they do with Federation ships. Null point. Warp core breaches seem to be inevitable, and the Galaxy class took this into account by being the first Federation starship to allow saucer seperation which would allow the crew and half the ship to survive a worp core breach. +1 to the awesomeness of the Galaxy class, -1 to your argument. Shields fail whenever the plot demands it, for both Federation and non-Federation ships. Null point. Holodecks work fine most of the time, and frack up for more than just Galaxy class starships. Null point.

You were asked to point out specific examples of where the Galaxy class ship was a bad design, and all you gave were examples of where starships from all races in general are of seemingly bad design, but probably just result from the technologies and their requirements. But you did give a point which further proved the Galaxy class's awesomeness.

So, canon example of where the Galaxy class's design specifically is at fault.

The problem you get into when analyzing the continuity/canon of Star Trek is exactly the same problem you get when trying to compare the tech and equipment between Star Wars and Star Trek.

Star Trek is, and always has been, a vehicle for telling stories. Listen, listen carefully. It is NOT a set of historical documents. Most Star Trek scripts, especially in TOS and TNG, started out as completely unrelated stories that were modified to work with the Star Trek characters and universe. Each episode is meant to be taken as a single Sci Fi story, using familiar and established characters and settings. Continuity isn't NECESSARY because the stories aren't meant to relate to one another (Except in obvious longer term arcs, as in DS9 and Enterprise.)

It's like comparing Star Trek to Babylon 5. It's non sequitur. Babylon 5 was conceived as a 5 season arc and necessarily required internal consistency (and was very good at it.) Trek just isn't like that.

And you know what? That's perfectly okay. I find I enjoy Star Trek MORE when I keep these things in mind. Who cares if Betazoids are able to sense Ferengi emotions one minute and can't the next? It doesn't matter AT ALL. The point is the story itself. Remember what makes SciFi so beautiful... It makes a real point or explores real issues using a fantastical setting to escape the bonds of reality. What does the episode mean? What message am I getting form it? THAT is what makes the difference between a good episode and a "meh." one.

So yes, continuity is nice if it helps the suspension of disbelief, and yes, blatant continuity errors to tend to cause distraction, but overall if you're spending too much time on worrying about continuity, you're missing the point.

I'm just gonna say that I don't care too much about canon. I can watch TOS and get just as much enjoyment out of it despite the glaring inconsistencies. But when NAS spurts out a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit, and I've got nothing better to do after spending all night playing Mario Kart with my wife, I'll humour him by refuting his poorly constructed and invalid points.