WOW. I made it through the thread from my last post on page 13.
Lots of good arguments and a lot of people that know their Trek.
I'll start with fantasies here. I'm hoping that the Season 10 sector walls coming down is a prelude for an exploration revamp. I'm hoping that as mentioned before, with Delta bringing the T6 Intrepid, that Season 10 or something soon after, will bring a Tier 6 Galaxy. For the record Geordi LaForge commanding the Challenger is Temporal Canon. In the Voyager episode Timeless, directed by Levar Burton, the ship that went after Kim and Chakotay to keep them from violating the Temporal Prime Directive was the Galaxy class USS Challenger commanded by Captain LaForge. So a Tier 6 Galaxy with a Command hybrid seat would be perfect for me.
My hopes extend to a Tier 6 Sovereign and corresponding storyline as well, hopefully with the fully updated Nemesis configuration, which is beautiful...hopefully made so it integrates well with the Noble. And a Tier 6 Defiant later on just to be fair. Maybe a time travel mission. I would imagine these things would coincide with Cryptic actually getting the corresponding Captains or crew to sign on. Brent Spiner or (dare I hope) Sir Patrick Stewart for the Enterprise-E to answer what happened to her outside of Kestrel's writings, or perhaps Avery Brooks for the Defiant. Though if they want to stick with Kurland I'd be fine. The Defiant is iffy though since they've already gone full canon on it with The 2400 feature episode series and the Belfast.
As for the Galaxy's position. I look to the Nimitz class which I served on. First commissioned in 1975 they've undergone constant upgrades adding technology as they move along. They ceased production in 2003 but with the last two built were constructed with a completely different new steel alloy for better protection. Drastically advanced over the course of each individual ship's life time AND over the production period for the ship.
The Excelsior class was 90 years old by the end of DS9. At the age of 86, the Lakota was upgraded to be a legitimate threat to Starfleet's premier pocket battleship. And if not for some of Captain Sisko's undocumented upgrades the Defiant would've lost. The idea that the Galaxy could not be upgraded similarly is slightly ridiculous.
The Intrepid is an interesting case. It's only a decade younger than the Galaxy but the Voyager specifically was still quite advanced due to specific upgrades made to her in the Delta Quadrant. That's the reasoning behind a Tier 6 Voyager. The fact that one of Starfleet's most illustrious engineers commands the Challenger could be a good reason that she would still be top tier. Uniqueness does count.
There's no reason why a Galaxy couldn't remain at the top of the game even fifty years later. It's modular and designed to be regularly updated and upgraded. It's enormous even now, only the Odyssey is more massive. You can fit anything inside of it with ease. Power requirements. Pursuant to her size, she can be fitted with any warp core if there's an instance where she's become underpowered. The Enterprise-D was upgraded several times over the course of her time on screen. The Bynars upgraded her computer core. Her Warp core was upgraded and Geordi made his own brand new parts (mid phase adjuster to the Power Transfer Conduit). Between All Good Things and Generations the bridge was upgraded with new functionality. And a Galaxy built in 2405 would not be the same spec as a Galaxy built in 2360.
Is it superceded in its long range super explorer role by the Odyssey? Yes. But for the same reasons of, its huge and takes a lot to build, the Galaxy will continue on at the frontlines for decades to come still while the Oddy inventory builds up.
The Nebula was a downsized Galaxy with the swappable mission module so that it could take on different functions. In my eyes a direct successor to the Miranda. The Galaxy by contrast was the full size version. It didn't need to have a module because it could carry ALL the different mission required equipment at the same time. If this game was set in the 2360s with canon in mind, then the Galaxy would have a Sci Com, Tac Com, and Eng Com for its day. That would likely translate to a LtCdr all in 2310, or for balance sake, a LtCdr universal.
The one thing that wouldn't change though is speed. The Constitution in the person of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 was the fastest ship in the fleet for about 20 years. Captain Stiles was talking about breaking the Enterprise's speed records. For half of the ship's design lifetime it was the fastest ship in the fleet. Ship speed is tied heavily to design. We've always seen that the ships can be pushed to the points where they start to literally fly apart and lose structural integrity unless they're using exotic propulsion like Transwarp and Quantum Slipstreams. And even the Voyager was physically strained to the limit using Slipstream. Of course you can push a few more points on the warp factor scale, an incremental boost, but you can't alter the spaceframe (Though the Galaxy X retrofit was clearly faster for obvious reasons.). But things like combat capability and exploration capacity can always be updated. Starfleet has shown willingness in the past to rebuild a ship from the frame out as with the Connie.
I don't mind the T'Varo still being viable. I had a headcanon that it was a temporally displaced Romulan ship myself. She just looked too good for the 22nd century. I don't know what the producers were thinking. Unless the Romulan who designed it was just doing it for the art. But regardless the Republic doesn't really have extensive shipbuilding facilities, so them going full on Pimp My Ship with every intact hull in Romulan Space and using new tech to revamp old favorites makes perfect sense. I bet if you rebuilt the SR-71 with modern materials and avionics she would still be a beast. An expensive beast, but still.
thats basically just the ambassador layout, it shouldn't just duplicate that.
what exactly is its competition? the galaxy didn't stay in 2363 form, it was upgraded constantly, and no tech advances till the end of cannon in 2379 would be enough to make up the size and scale difference between it and its competitors anyway.
the sov? less then half its size, in every way scaled down. none of its tech wouldn't fit on a refit galaxy
nebula? surely slightly inferior tactically
the prometheus? i doubt in combined form it was any more powerful then an intrepid. packed in its interior is 3 ships worth of systems
defiant? its a glorified corvette. very powerful, FOR ITS SIZE only
I disagree on the Sovereign and the Prometheus.
The Sovereign was supposed to be a throwback to the Constitution. Optimized exploration, tactical capability, and high speed, perfectly balanced at its size. Speed, science, and firepower. A true battle cruiser, fast enough to evade strong enough to hit hard. Basically the Galaxy without all of the city-ship accommodations. And with the latest technology. As technology goes on, things get smaller. With bioneural gel packs you don't need computers as big as the Galaxy for instance.
I'd say the Prometheus was way more powerful than the Intrepid, it was a purpose designed assault ship. If anything that's the true Assault Cruiser. Starfleet's own F-22. It walked all over a Nebula and a D'Deridex. The only damage it took was due to the two Doctors ignorance of how to actually fly a starship. It was even more of a little monster than the Defiant.
And even the Nebula was depicted as a beast. The Phoenix demolished two Galor class cruisers which had entered the codes to drop her shields. On that note, the Galor was pretty consistently depicted as a heavy Frigate at best.
So if Galaxy is so all fired amazing, why did they ever stop making them and why did they ever make anything else? Clearly, they felt something had to be lacking as they made Sovereign, Odyssey, Avenger, Eclipse, and Guardian since then. All of which, especially the latter four, should be markedly better than Galaxy being some 50 years newer.
The production schedule has been addressed.
The Sovereign has a different function, one that is more Strategic Deterrent. I love the fluff and backstory on it and I wish they had canonized it on screen. Basically the Sovereign was a running battlecruiser that they had in the Advanced Starship Design Bureau in case a war popped off, they would have an up to date, designed, super ship ready to go. But it was put on the back burner after the Battle of Narendra because the cold war with the Klingons became friendly relations. Then the Borg showed up with entirely new needs and they weren't up to date designs anymore. So they made the Defiant while they perfected the Sovereign.
The Odyssey, Avenger, Noble, Eclipse, and Guardian were all made 40 to 50 years later and technological advances that needed new hulls to try out.
In my headcanon, Voyager is a bad joke that should be paid as little attention to as possible, rather like Enterprise (TV series). If I want to imagine a dignified duty for the Con-R as a pure science vessel --not an explorer, a pure rear-line science vessel-- then so be it as I can imagine whatever I damned well please.
Of course, in STO canon the class isn't retired at all and is available to fly as the T2 Cruiser. Yes the Nova is better as a T3 C-store ship, but the Con-R still flies.
Well yes you can do as you please in your head canon.
The Tier 5 Nova as personified by Endgame Harry Kim's Rhode Island, also has a nice story.
The Nova design was one of the prototype designs for the Defiant. Replace the Secondary Deflector with a Torpedo Bank up front. The Defiant's compact design one out, and that was repurposed as the Nova science ship.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
i don't do this often, id much rather find in canon explanations, but the tvaro being in enterprise and sto, and in both places being apparently a regular modern ship, is hard to justify.
in my head canon, those bops in enterprise were actually some tal'shir experimenting with borg temporal tech, and are actually from the 25th century. the NX-01 just happened to blunder into them and got chased off.
the dev's should make a mission were you follow them back in time and stop them from changing history, in those oh so important pre earth/romulan war years.
of all of enterprise's canon assassination moments, that episode was one of the worst. first of all a cloak? a ship looking that 24th century modern? it should be some antiquated fusion powered TRIBBLE box with mainly nukes for weapons.
Actually you don't really need any of that head-canon. What I do is just observe the things as they are - TOS was a show that aired in the sixties of the last century, ENT is a show that aired at the beginning of this century. That's really all there is to it - technology evolves. I'm sure TOS was something *boom* to the people in the sixties, just as ENT looks very modern, advanced and streamlined from current perspective.
You can't really expect them to make ships look like old relics of another era in a brand new show, just to be analogous to the one filmed some 40 years before. And no, before someone rabidly jumps on me, I'm not saying TOS is TRIBBLE - the Connie is one of my favourite, if not favourite ST ships - what I'm saying is that I understand why they went with the advanced looks in ENT. They had much better tech at their disposal to make things look better. That's all there is to it.
Heck, it's not just the T'Varo that looks more advanced than the T'Liss. The NX looks much more advanced than the Constitution. Compared to that ugly Vulcan....thing from DS9, the D'Kyr is like a Lamborghini next to a Yugo.
It's just the way the ball rolls.
Pst... a galaxy was destroyed in the Dominion war... that ship that the crazy vulcan who went on a gun-tooting rampage served aboard was a galaxy.
If you are referring to the USS Odyssey, it was detroyed BEFORE the Dominion War by a kamikaze attack. Before that, it was holding its own pretty well considering its shields were almost useless.
And what does Chu'lak have to do with the capabilities of the Galaxy class?
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
Also, the Enterprise D's destruction was nonsense. They couldn't think of a good way to do it so they Deus Ex Machina'd it. The punishment the Odyssey takes without shields and the punishment the Galaxy class ships take in various battles throughout the Dominion war kinda demonstrates the the Ent-D went out in kitten mode
Although, the Ent-D got sucker punched. The Odyssey and other Galaxy ships during the Dominion War were prepared for combat.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
The Sovereign was supposed to be a throwback to the Constitution. Optimized exploration, tactical capability, and high speed, perfectly balanced at its size. Speed, science, and firepower. A true battle cruiser, fast enough to evade strong enough to hit hard. Basically the Galaxy without all of the city-ship accommodations. And with the latest technology. As technology goes on, things get smaller. With bioneural gel packs you don't need computers as big as the Galaxy for instance.
I'd say the Prometheus was way more powerful than the Intrepid, it was a purpose designed assault ship. If anything that's the true Assault Cruiser. Starfleet's own F-22. It walked all over a Nebula and a D'Deridex. The only damage it took was due to the two Doctors ignorance of how to actually fly a starship. It was even more of a little monster than the Defiant.
And even the Nebula was depicted as a beast. The Phoenix demolished two Galor class cruisers which had entered the codes to drop her shields. On that note, the Galor was pretty consistently depicted as a heavy Frigate at best.
the sov is a great ship, in its size class its pretty much without peer. big enough to undertake just about any mission, probably even relatively short term long range exploration, in the 5 year range. i think the borg and threats from the gamma quadrant probably led to a bit of a beef up of its arsenal in the last stages of its development, but otherwise it doesn't strike me as anything to out of the ordinary as far as jack of all trade starfleet cruisers go. if anything, the akira is much more tactical packed then the sov is.
the galaxy is simply in another size tier, can do everything the sov can, yet have twice as many science labs/modular space, could carry the crews immediate family, stock supplies and fuel for MUCH longer exploration assignments, and thanks to its overall heft mount weapons to quite a bit larger scale then smaller ships could.
both ships are great, but there's a considerable scale difference between them, and that determines capabilities. they are both made from the exact same parts bins, its the same tech in different sized packages.
the promethius's performance often gets over estimated, like the defiant's does, what exactly did it accomplish in that episode? first, the Prometheus is the fastest ship in the fleet, capable of warp 9.99. the nebula/galaxy was only ever rated at about 9.9 max under normal circumstances, there stopped being a show about one so we don't know for sure if they could get those classes to go much faster. i think its a pretty safe bet they were able too though, at least incrementally.
look at this chart, the extra .09 might not sound like much, but 9.99 is more then TWICE as fast as warp 9.9! the prometheus was stolen, and being pursued, it was probably going about as fast as it could, and somehow a nebula class ran it down. there were shots fired, and the nebula couldn't maintain pursuit, so the prometheus kept running. all it had to do was knock it out of warp, a ship that must have been overloading it's engines far beyond any reasonable safety limit, that was no doubt in a fragile state, to 'win' the fight. if the 2 ships actually fought at impulse, the prometheus would have got wrecked. the 3 sections it separates into would have to have weapons and shields more then twice as powerful as anything else to not immediately get squashed like a bug here, and thats just not likely. surly its systems were incrementally superior sure, but it was facing a beast of a starship 8 times its size.
the d'deridex that got destroyed had been pounded on by an akira and 2 defiant class for several minutes before the prometheus fired on it, and d'deridex's aren't known for their durability. more of a sneak attack ship, not a ship of the line meant to participate in long battles.
i think its godship status is pretty dubious at best. more like the defiant, thats really powerful, for its size. and they have to cram inside a ship basically the size of an intrepid, 3 ships worth of basic systems and warp cores and impulse drives, etc, so each section can be at least semi autonomous.
Actually you don't really need any of that head-canon. What I do is just observe the things as they are - TOS was a show that aired in the sixties of the last century, ENT is a show that aired at the beginning of this century. That's really all there is to it - technology evolves. I'm sure TOS was something *boom* to the people in the sixties, just as ENT looks very modern, advanced and streamlined from current perspective.
You can't really expect them to make ships look like old relics of another era in a brand new show, just to be analogous to the one filmed some 40 years before. And no, before someone rabidly jumps on me, I'm not saying TOS is TRIBBLE - the Connie is one of my favourite, if not favourite ST ships - what I'm saying is that I understand why they went with the advanced looks in ENT. They had much better tech at their disposal to make things look better. That's all there is to it.
Heck, it's not just the T'Varo that looks more advanced than the T'Liss. The NX looks much more advanced than the Constitution. Compared to that ugly Vulcan....thing from DS9, the D'Kyr is like a Lamborghini next to a Yugo.
It's just the way the ball rolls.
the NX01 manages to look like a 'new' design out of universe, without actually looking newer in universe then the constitution class. its just MUCH higher detail and fleshed out. the tvaro looks like a ship from the post nemisis era, period. there's a big difference between the 2 here.
Although, the Ent-D got sucker punched. The Odyssey and other Galaxy ships during the Dominion War were prepared for combat.
Actually - outside the Odyssey - there isn't a confirmed Galaxy kill for the entire Dominion War. The crazy Vulcan was on an excelsior class and the Galaxy - which was seriously damaged at Chintoka - was later seen on a tac display in Nemesis. I'm sure a Galaxy or two were lost - but there isn't proof of it.
I always felt the Prometheus was too small for its size relative to its function. I would have expected it to at least have been Sovereign sized, if not Galaxy sized.
If you are referring to the USS Odyssey, it was detroyed BEFORE the Dominion War by a kamikaze attack. Before that, it was holding its own pretty well considering its shields were almost useless.
And what does Chu'lak have to do with the capabilities of the Galaxy class?
people don't give the galaxy much credit in that odyssey fight, it was actually a pretty surreal situation.
as we come to find out, as in, its explicitly explained to us later on, the federation had been infiltrated by changeling pretty much immediately after the wormhole was discovered. imagine you're the solid-phobic founders and suddenly there's a door into the heart of an area of space containing 4+ LARGE empires in a state of relative peace and are all quite stable in their own ways. oh, you know they made sizeing them up their number 1 priority, what an incredible threat they could be. also, they were careful to have zero contact with anyone from the other side of the worm hole, until a very particular time of their choosing. that episode was the first time you see jemhadar, vorta, and bug ships. this is key to the covert operation that was revealed at the end of that episode.
the federation didn't know the vorta were actually the officer corps of the dominion, as far as sisko was concerned she was a damsel in distress to be rescued wile they escaped. the dominion thought they could fool the federation into giving protection to this double agent, who would surly give them all sorts of bad intel about the dominion. great plan.
the 'rescue mission', that included a GCS, was attacked until sisko and the others managed to make their escape, and then the federation's biggest stick was to be executed to intimidate the federation and everyone else in the alpha/beta quadrant. it was all an elaborate plan, only foiled by quark examining the tech in the collar the vorta wore to see if it was worth anything. she was then misteriously transported away, they couldnt even track it and never found her. they were compromised out the TRIBBLE, its absurd.
now, as for the battle itself, the odyssey went in blind to a fight with opponents that have had years to gather every scrap of intel on federation starships, their weapons and defenses. so, as it should be no surprise to anyone reading this post, the dominion have weapons tuned to be totally immune to federation shields, wile also tuning their shields to be pretty much totally immune to phasers. despite this no win situation, the odyssey hull tanked the 2 bugships for up to 10 minutes, suffering little more then superficial hull damage. it was going to get away under its own power, and they simply could not allow that, so one of the bugs had to ram it to actually destroy it. the conventional weapons on those bug ships simply weren't up to the task of doing any real harm to a GCS's armor, at least not without overwhelming numbers. i think this says a lot, a lot of positive things, about a galaxy class's blameworthiness. in a similar situation next episode, the defiant didn't even last 2 minutes, and was boarded and captured.
obviously later the whole shield/poloron weapon thing got solved, and everybody's weapons were actually able to damage each other 3 or 4 years later when the war started.
generations cant be rationalized and explained though, its just BS. that single phaser blast should have 1 shot that bop. then it can go ahead and have the warp core breach because of those 2 torp strikes, whatever.
the battle should have been vs a vorcha, they should have been returning fire the whole time, someone should have said remodulating wasn't working, and the convoluted plan should have ended an attack like this when their shields got dropped. that would have been a worthy end or the enterprise D.
Well that's the thing; it tries to be a micro fleet unto itself; yet individually, it's more or less 3 Defiants, rather than being 3 thin Sovereigns.
I still love the ship and its separation ability (and wish for a proper cruiser-sized one or dreadnought such as the Jupiter splitting into 3 large cruisers), but the size always weirded me out.
I'd like to add that at no point did we ever see a Galaxy Class getting whomped after Generations and the Odyssey.
In fact the Galaxy's we saw did 2 things:
- Tank everything thrown at them.
- CHARGE into enemy formations, Arrays blazing, torpedos roaring. Starfleet took the ships, put em in as mob and let that mob smash in faces.
Lets remember here that the Phaser arrays on these ships are pure murder.
All this talk of the Galaxy makes we wish for a new movie or series using the Odyssey class. If only because it's even larger and more menacing with all that flexibility it's bound to have.
And it still looks much better than that fugly Enterprise-J monstrosity; which I hope gets retconned into something better-looking (even though it's as futile).
the sov is a great ship, in its size class its pretty much without peer. big enough to undertake just about any mission, probably even relatively short term long range exploration, in the 5 year range. i think the borg and threats from the gamma quadrant probably led to a bit of a beef up of its arsenal in the last stages of its development, but otherwise it doesn't strike me as anything to out of the ordinary as far as jack of all trade starfleet cruisers go. if anything, the akira is much more tactical packed then the sov is.
Starfleet likes it's jack of all trade cruisers to be the top tier frontline ships as well though. Also the Sovereign has a more advanced based to work with is all. Faster more maneuverable, better weapons. Quantum torpedoes standard, Mk XII phasers, native rapid modulation shields, bio neural gel integrated computer. The latest and greatest. I think in a straight fight a Sovereign can take a Galaxy, but it's not like it's gonna be a curbstomp. It's one of those things where the captain's skill can elevate either ship.
the galaxy is simply in another size tier, can do everything the sov can, yet have twice as many science labs/modular space, could carry the crews immediate family, stock supplies and fuel for MUCH longer exploration assignments, and thanks to its overall heft mount weapons to quite a bit larger scale then smaller ships could.
To a degree you're absolutely right, but I think you're placing just a little too much emphasis on the length of the phaser array. Keep in mind the power of the emitters also plays a role. A shorter array with better emitters can make up the difference, and I think in any event the Sovereign has superior shields. A lot of that is that while its smaller, the warp cores are easily comparable and the Sovereign has just as much if not more power devoted to protecting a smaller cross section.
both ships are great, but there's a considerable scale difference between them, and that determines capabilities. they are both made from the exact same parts bins, its the same tech in different sized packages.
Over time. Yes. When the Sovereign first came out it had the edge, but it's only twelve years younger. By 2410 they'd be working from pretty much the same tool kit definitely.
the promethius's performance often gets over estimated, like the defiant's does, what exactly did it accomplish in that episode? first, the Prometheus is the fastest ship in the fleet, capable of warp 9.99. the nebula/galaxy was only ever rated at about 9.9 max under normal circumstances, there stopped being a show about one so we don't know for sure if they could get those classes to go much faster. i think its a pretty safe bet they were able too though, at least incrementally.
look at this chart, the extra .09 might not sound like much, but 9.99 is more then TWICE as fast as warp 9.9! the prometheus was stolen, and being pursued, it was probably going about as fast as it could, and somehow a nebula class ran it down. there were shots fired, and the nebula couldn't maintain pursuit, so the prometheus kept running. all it had to do was knock it out of warp, a ship that must have been overloading it's engines far beyond any reasonable safety limit, that was no doubt in a fragile state, to 'win' the fight. if the 2 ships actually fought at impulse, the prometheus would have got wrecked. the 3 sections it separates into would have to have weapons and shields more then twice as powerful as anything else to not immediately get squashed like a bug here, and thats just not likely. surly its systems were incrementally superior sure, but it was facing a beast of a starship 8 times its size.
I'm fully aware of the speeds involved. Don't forget that the Prometheus was also designed to cruise at Warp 9.9, which is frankly stupid for the time. That's incredible endurance. The Galaxy by contrast had a cruise at Warp 6 and a max at warp 9.6, the Sovereign cruises at Warp 9 and tops out as I understand it at Warp 9.95 or 9.97. The Intrepid had that top speed of Warp 9.975, but it couldn't hold it for long periods like the Prometheus.
The Prometheus more than anything was a fast deploy attack ship. The Defiant had a top speed of 9.6, but she was an in close ship, not designed for long range deployment. The perfect ship to guard a Starbase like DS9 or a star system.
the d'deridex that got destroyed had been pounded on by an akira and 2 defiant class for several minutes before the prometheus fired on it, and d'deridex's aren't known for their durability. more of a sneak attack ship, not a ship of the line meant to participate in long battles.
i think its godship status is pretty dubious at best. more like the defiant, thats really powerful, for its size. and they have to cram inside a ship basically the size of an intrepid, 3 ships worth of basic systems and warp cores and impulse drives, etc, so each section can be at least semi autonomous.
I honestly think you're underplaying her. The thing is we didn't really see her in heavy combat. I'm thinking she's at least as tough as the Defiant, with better fire power. However I agree with you that the Defiant isn't the monster that people think either.
The Prometheus to me is designed to punch above her weight class. The Multi Vector Assault Mode allowing her to turn a one on one that she would lose, into a three on one that she can dissect an opponent with. Which is what happened to the D'Deridex. As for the Nebula, knocking it of warp wasn't exactly a small task.
I like the warp cores. She has one warp core and then one warp core that divides into two. So in her combined configuration, two of her warp cores function as one, providing power on par with a standard larger one like a Sovereign, and then divides into two which are more like a Defiants. While the core in the saucer is one smaller one. And yes independent impulse drives on each section.
She was presented as a testbed and the next big thing. I figure she's designed for the space between a Defiant and a Sovereign.
the NX01 manages to look like a 'new' design out of universe, without actually looking newer in universe then the constitution class. its just MUCH higher detail and fleshed out. the tvaro looks like a ship from the post nemisis era, period. there's a big difference between the 2 here.
Agreed.
I like what they did in In a Mirror Darkly. The Terran ENT crew was looking at it like it was so much more advanced. But the thing was, that because of how technologically now, and nuts and bolts the NX-01 looked and how everything looked exposed, the super smooth put together Defiant really did look advanced. The NX-01's bridges has support struts everywhere and you can see the wires sometimes. The Constitution looks almost streamlined, things are put away, it's more spacious, support struts are in the walls and unnoticed.
The T'Varo is just sleek and sexy. She looks like the 24th century empire's response to the Defiant. The Drone ship was much better. In fact the T'Varo looks like a perfect companion ship to the Valdore/Norexan (I refuse to call it a Mogai, that word sounds Ferengi).
people don't give the galaxy much credit in that odyssey fight, it was actually a pretty surreal situation.
as we come to find out, as in, its explicitly explained to us later on, the federation had been infiltrated by changeling pretty much immediately after the wormhole was discovered. imagine you're the solid-phobic founders and suddenly there's a door into the heart of an area of space containing 4+ LARGE empires in a state of relative peace and are all quite stable in their own ways. oh, you know they made sizeing them up their number 1 priority, what an incredible threat they could be. also, they were careful to have zero contact with anyone from the other side of the worm hole, until a very particular time of their choosing. that episode was the first time you see jemhadar, vorta, and bug ships. this is key to the covert operation that was revealed at the end of that episode.
the federation didn't know the vorta were actually the officer corps of the dominion, as far as sisko was concerned she was a damsel in distress to be rescued wile they escaped. the dominion thought they could fool the federation into giving protection to this double agent, who would surly give them all sorts of bad intel about the dominion. great plan.
the 'rescue mission', that included a GCS, was attacked until sisko and the others managed to make their escape, and then the federation's biggest stick was to be executed to intimidate the federation and everyone else in the alpha/beta quadrant. it was all an elaborate plan, only foiled by quark examining the tech in the collar the vorta wore to see if it was worth anything. she was then misteriously transported away, they couldnt even track it and never found her. they were compromised out the TRIBBLE, its absurd.
now, as for the battle itself, the odyssey went in blind to a fight with opponents that have had years to gather every scrap of intel on federation starships, their weapons and defenses. so, as it should be no surprise to anyone reading this post, the dominion have weapons tuned to be totally immune to federation shields, wile also tuning their shields to be pretty much totally immune to phasers. despite this no win situation, the odyssey hull tanked the 2 bugships for up to 10 minutes, suffering little more then superficial hull damage. it was going to get away under its own power, and they simply could not allow that, so one of the bugs had to ram it to actually destroy it. the conventional weapons on those bug ships simply weren't up to the task of doing any real harm to a GCS's armor, at least not without overwhelming numbers. i think this says a lot, a lot of positive things, about a galaxy class's blameworthiness. in a similar situation next episode, the defiant didn't even last 2 minutes, and was boarded and captured.
obviously later the whole shield/poloron weapon thing got solved, and everybody's weapons were actually able to damage each other 3 or 4 years later when the war started.
I never thought about how the intel would have affected it, as my assumption was just that Alpha Quadrant shields were transparent to Phased Polarons until they figured out how. We know Starfleet was very heavily invested in shields that could rapidly rotate shield modulation due to the Borg. It seemed to me to be a technological blind spot in the technology, similar to how it took a while for Romulans to overcome Tachyon grids vs cloaks. A blindspot that was rapidly covered when Sisko brought a Jem'Hadar scarab home.
On the hull tanking that highlights something that only Tech Manual readers like us would know that is plainly seen in that fight. The Galaxy class was one of the first ships in the fleet equipped with Ablative Armor. (Page 23)
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual also suggests that the Galaxy-class was fitted with an ablative hull layer, with "the outermost hull layer...composed of a 1.6 cm sheet of AGP ablative ceramic fabric chemically bonded onto a substrate of 0.15 cm tritanium foil. This material is formed into segments of approximately 3.7 m2 and is attached to the radiation attenuation layer by a series of duranium fasteners, which allows individual segments to be replaced as necessary."
Ablative Armor is also what allowed the Defiant to tank...well a lot of different ships.
generations cant be rationalized and explained though, its just BS. that single phaser blast should have 1 shot that bop. then it can go ahead and have the warp core breach because of those 2 torp strikes, whatever.
the battle should have been vs a vorcha, they should have been returning fire the whole time, someone should have said remodulating wasn't working, and the convoluted plan should have ended an attack like this when their shields got dropped. that would have been a worthy end or the enterprise D.
Like I said that was an intel thing.
When you can fire through someone's shields under most circumstances that's the end of the game. There was no shield modulation they could run since Lursa and B'Etor would automatically see the new modulation through Geordi's VISOR.
Also the phaser modulation has to be compatible with the shields in order to fire outbound, so knowing their shield frequency also helps them to adjust their own shields.
Well ships like the Promethious is specifically designed around Tactical systems. So science labs are left to a minimum.
Now it makes up for its "lack of size" by having more redundancy than a typical cruiser.
In fact it's more like a Borg ship when you think about it...3 ships locked together. ..3 main power sources...3 more of all the redundant systems. ..Resilient!
Sovereign is a slimmed down Galaxy but without the long legs. Not meant for long multi year missions and less science labs. But still packing many labs and other equipment.
The Galaxy packed over 100 Science labs and a dolphin tank. On top of that extra facilities for civilians. So after the Galaxy has been deployed for a few years Starfleet starts to see what the crew uses most of the time and what equipment is not necessary. We know that many times pure science ships would come into a location after the Ent-D had cleared the area. So eliminate what is not needed and leave what's essential for vast majority of missions the Galaxy undertook.
Basically. Starfleet is quite into specialization. The explorers the Constitutions, Excelsiors, Ambassadors, Galaxies, Sovereigns, these are ships that Starfleet wants out their pushing the borders making first contacts and ensuring that it's safe out there. Then they send in a Nova/Oberth to sit on a planet for eight months studying the local life forms. Not that the Enterprise didn't or couldn't do that. For instance in Pen Pal (the episode with Sarjenka as played by an adorable young Nikki Cox) they were doing that planetary survey for six weeks before Data got caught. The Intrepid was supposed to be in-between able to get out far, fast to then begin in depth scientific studies where it isn't completely safe.
The Voyager for all the TRIBBLE it went through, was tactically a frigate or a light cruiser. It had great tech, like adaptive shielding, and the variable geometry warp nacelles, the Aeroglider, etc.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Except those inconsistencies you mention are the very arguments people throw against the Galaxy. It doesn't matter what the developers intend - it's what's shown on screen that's canon. So people need to pick and choose - we can either talk about the ships the way they were supposed to be portrayed or we can use 'writing inconsistency' as the guiding argument.
Well, my choice is to say that both ships were fairly powerful ,and what people cite as inconsistencies (while they maybe it) also usually come with special scenarios.
A Bird of Prey manages to blow up the Enterprise? Well, it could ignore the ship's shields. That normally doesn't happen.
A Jem'Hardar ship blows up the Odysse? Come on, it crashed into it, after several minutes of exchanging fire with multiple ships that could ignore its shields. (There is the big inconsistency here, by the way - a BOP could ignore shields and blow the Enterprise up, but the Jem'hardar couldn't? Either case is a bad example of the Enterprise being weak, but how strong it really is also remains unclear).
The Lakota vs Defiant fight is a pointless example, in a way, because neither side really wanted to kill the other. The Lakota took the first shots before Worf decided to fire back, and it lost more crew then the Defiant, however, and the Defiant didn't look like it was losing that fight.
I think a significant difference between many scenarios is - are we in full-on war mode and have no trouble killing the other side, or are we still trying to save lifes on the other ships? (he Vor'Cha incident in the Way of the Warrior, for example. The Federation wasn't at war with the Klingons, and didn't want one, either.
The Valiant was crewed by a bunch of cadets. There must be a reason why cadets usually (barring people named Kirk in alternate timelines) are not given immediately command of a starship.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
even in generations, the bop wasn't dealing that much damage to the enterprise. the bop's guns appear to be a bit stronger the the beam bank on a bug ship, but it was still just superficial hull damage mostly.
a torp crit, in the opening salvo eventually just caused a core breach after the battle, geordi even said so.
heck looking at the scene it almost looks like the torp hit the main impulse engine on the neck. depending on the damage to the reactor i could see that causing issues with containment if the systems operation was disrupted
but i am just guessing as i hate that whole point of the movie that whole scene was cheap BS. literally they reused the bop explosion form the undiscovered country for crying out loud only reason i think they used a BOP in the first place was to reuse footage.
actually 90% of the bop footage from generations was copy paste from undiscovered country
heck looking at the scene it almost looks like the torp hit the main impulse engine on the neck. depending on the damage to the reactor i could see that causing issues with containment if the systems operation was disrupted
but i am just guessing as i hate that whole point of the movie that whole scene was cheap BS. literally they reused the bop explosion form the undiscovered country for crying out loud only reason i think they used a BOP in the first place was to reuse footage.
actually 90% of the bop footage from generations was copy paste from undiscovered country
Now that the spite is out of the way,I'll list my points.
1)People are talking about the odessey fight,but I think you guys missed an important point:When the fight started,the captain ordered the shields to be switched off.Not put at minimum.Switched off.Now,star trek ships have a very bad way of blowing up left and right when the shields go down.The fact that the odessey survived a full-scale phaser fight without shields and was only gimped,not destroyed,I think that alone is a testament to its engineering. Also,if that Vulcan had had any presence of mind,the shields would have been put at minimum,and that alone may have given the crew more time to escape the subsequent ramming attack.So,in no way is a galaxy a "gimped titanic".
2)Starfleet didn't lose a single galaxy in the dominion war,while excelsiors were blowing up left and right.In one scene in Sacrifice of Angels,when the defiant gets mobbed by 4 bugships,guess which ship sisko chose to hide behind?Was it an Excelsiors?a sovereign?a redshirt Miranda?Nope,it was two galaxies,who from the following shot were pretty much kicking sh*t.
3)In the episode where Picard first meets the Borg,the Enterprise D's first volley destroyed 20% of the Borg cube.If Picard hadn't been so committed to peace,even with guinan telling him the Borg was bad news,he could have destroyed that cube.That same cube from a race that pretty much roflstomped through the delta quadrant.
4)Let's move on to in game data,darthmeow,I know you've been here pretty long.Remember the HOSE screwup?For those that weren't here,I'm talking about the unimatrix ships seeing through your cloak and one shotting you.Until the devs fixed it,there was pretty much only one strategy for completing that mission.And I'm not kidding about only one strategy(I remember several people here trying to make it work with other ships,only to fail).And the ship that made the strategy work?Yep,you guessed it,a GCS.(specifically,the strategy was to send in a galaxy player as a meat shield as galaxies were the only ships surviving the initial plasma lances,then everyone full impulses their way under the Borg queen.)This would not have been possible,if it had been a " gimped titanic."
Now that the spite is out of the way,I'll list my points.
1)People are talking about the odessey fight,but I think you guys missed an important point:When the fight started,the captain ordered the shields to be switched off.Not put at minimum.Switched off.Now,star trek ships have a very bad way of blowing up left and right when the shields go down.The fact that the odessey survived a full-scale phaser fight without shields and was only gimped,not destroyed,I think that alone is a testament to its engineering. Also,if that Vulcan had had any presence of mind,the shields would have been put at minimum,and that alone may have given the crew more time to escape the subsequent ramming attack.So,in no way is a galaxy a "gimped titanic".
The Odyssey's captain shut down their shields because they were useless against Polaron weapons. He orders shield power transferred to weapons and the sif. So a ship with no shields, improperly tuned weapons, and still being Starfleet and 'holding back' fought 3 bugships to a standstill and was capable of a tactical withdraw - and the Jem-Hadar had to suicide run to bring it down.
That's pretty damned impressive in my books.
And in Way of the Warrior - a KDF fleet of over 200 ships stands down because a taskforce of 9 ships led by a Galaxy is about to show up. Granted - DS9 gave them a hell of a pounding, but until Sisko mentions the Venture and her battlegroup were about to arrive - and were going to come in shooting - Gowron was perfectly willing to keep fighting.
And in Way of the Warrior - a KDF fleet of over 200 ships stands down because a taskforce of 9 ships led by a Galaxy is about to show up. Granted - DS9 gave them a hell of a pounding, but until Sisko mentions the Venture and her battlegroup were about to arrive - and were going to come in shooting - Gowron was perfectly willing to keep fighting.
Geez, I didn't even remember that one. And that was Klingon fleet with a Negh'Var in it, the ship that was basically meant as the Klingon answer to the GCS in the first place.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
In another thread, someone complained about the Galaxy class in game being a "gimped Titanic" and wanted a better one. That sentiment is one I've seen a lot, with people who grew up on TNG having an attachment to that ship and wanting it to be made as a viable endgame ship if not THE main flagship as it was lo those decades ago when TNG was still on the air. My reply to him was as follows:
Now I won't deny I hate the Galaxy and have from the first moment I laid eyes on it in 1987. I feel it's hideously ugly and the design principles both inside and out were misguided at best. I grew up on TOS, but I immediately recognized the Constitution refit as vastly superior to the original and the Excelsior as better still. I fell in love with the Sovereign at first sight as it corrected virtually every design mistake made with Galaxy and restored grace and beauty to the Enterprise line.
But even if the Galaxy was an amazing ship, she's still vastly outdated just like my beloved Refit Enterprise from TMP and TWOK. Time moves on and beloved ships get outdated and replaced by modern designs. That's how it works. It happens to cars too. Why can't some people accept that and move on from the Galaxy, especially when the Guardian exists to represent the Ambassador / Galaxy design lineage in the modern setting?
The Galaxy was designed for a long service life of individual hulls, and possible future upgrades to the Class in mind. Much like any class of Starfleet vessel cooked up from the 2270's onward. It's just that the Galaxy Class was the end result of decades worth of data acquired from previous, long lived classes of starships (many of them still in service), and the ultimate expression (up to that point) of said data.
Age of design really doesn't have much of an influence after a point. It's what's under the skin that matters. All of those older classes of vessels were using modern technology "under the hood". during the Next Generation era. The U.S.S. Lakota was a clear demonstration of what Starfleet engineers were capable of doing with an older design when allowed to go "hog wild". Now, take the Galaxy Class, a class of starship designed to make those kind of upgrades EASIER. One can well imagine that the Galaxy Class would continue to be a potent, flexible workhorse well into the next century. Even if it isn't the pinnacle of starship design any longer.
The Galaxy would still be an excellent vessel in 2410, based on lore. That should be reflected in the game. Whether or not that is the case is up for debate.
even in generations, the bop wasn't dealing that much damage to the enterprise. the bop's guns appear to be a bit stronger the the beam bank on a bug ship, but it was still just superficial hull damage mostly.
a torp crit, in the opening salvo eventually just caused a core breach after the battle, geordi even said so.
Indeed, the Bird of Prey was firing away and not doing too much. But it wasn't completely negligible.
She managed to get in a lot of shots to the warp nacelles sending a lot of feedback damage into the warp core. The main engine room was suffering from interlocks (magnetic containment) destabilizing throughout the battle.
Even then she didn't live to see the Enterprise go down. If you compare, they got in tons of shots on the E-D's unprotected hull and the Enterprise killed her off with a single high yield torpedo to the warp core. Literally one shotted when it was put in the same position.
There's reasons for this of course. The Enterprise-D has like a quarter of the engineering hull between the skin and the warp core. Even from the top you'd have to shoot through the entire deuterium tank to get to the warp core. Even the Borg cutting in with the the KCB took time. If the Duras sisters were competent commanders then they would've tried to shoot her from the underside, as the thinnest amount of ship to get through is the ventral of the Stardrive where the Anti Matter tanks and injector are. Though that's not exactly safe.
All in all the Enterprise-D blowing up was a freak accident. From the Watsonian perspective.
And she still had overwhelming crew survival thanks to the Saucer section. Honestly I can't imagine the engineers who designed her being any more pleased.
Geez, I didn't even remember that one. And that was Klingon fleet with a Negh'Var in it, the ship that was basically meant as the Klingon answer to the GCS in the first place.
Actually as I understand it the Vor'cha is the Klingon answer to the Galaxy. Which might I add is saying something. The Vor'cha is the first new Klingon design in what? 200 years? Klingon Battlecruisers have had the same basic D-5 and so on plan form since the days of the NX-01.
Between technology sharing when the alliance was formed and the Galaxy, the Klingons introduced the first all new Cruiser design in at least 200 years.
I'd say the Negh'var is their answer to the Sovereign.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
In that scene Martok was very insistent that the Klingon force would still win. Even with the Venture on its way.
It was Sisko's persuasion that had the fighting continue the Klingons would face a war on 2 fronts with the Cardassians AND the Federation.
Not "Hey a Galaxy's large phaser array is inbound. And they're carrying Tribbles in their large cargo bays! You scared brah????".
I probably am reading more into the scene then it deserves - but the Venture was the ship name dropped. And the KDF might have still won - but that's what the Dominion wanted in the first place.
The simple fact is - the Galaxy isn't a paper tiger. When not being plot whipped or portrayed by Cryptic - she is/was one of the Federation's most powerful ships. And the plain simple fact is - we're playing a video game, lots of players WANT a Galaxy class that doesn't suck - and it hurts our enjoyment of the game that something we want is the worst cruiser in the game.
Can it be made usable? Absolutely. Can it get good dps numbers? In very strict and nearly fudged circumstances, yes. Can any other endgame cruiser in the game do more damage and tank just as well in an identical situation? That's the problem.
Comments
Lots of good arguments and a lot of people that know their Trek.
I'll start with fantasies here. I'm hoping that the Season 10 sector walls coming down is a prelude for an exploration revamp. I'm hoping that as mentioned before, with Delta bringing the T6 Intrepid, that Season 10 or something soon after, will bring a Tier 6 Galaxy. For the record Geordi LaForge commanding the Challenger is Temporal Canon. In the Voyager episode Timeless, directed by Levar Burton, the ship that went after Kim and Chakotay to keep them from violating the Temporal Prime Directive was the Galaxy class USS Challenger commanded by Captain LaForge. So a Tier 6 Galaxy with a Command hybrid seat would be perfect for me.
My hopes extend to a Tier 6 Sovereign and corresponding storyline as well, hopefully with the fully updated Nemesis configuration, which is beautiful...hopefully made so it integrates well with the Noble. And a Tier 6 Defiant later on just to be fair. Maybe a time travel mission. I would imagine these things would coincide with Cryptic actually getting the corresponding Captains or crew to sign on. Brent Spiner or (dare I hope) Sir Patrick Stewart for the Enterprise-E to answer what happened to her outside of Kestrel's writings, or perhaps Avery Brooks for the Defiant. Though if they want to stick with Kurland I'd be fine. The Defiant is iffy though since they've already gone full canon on it with The 2400 feature episode series and the Belfast.
As for the Galaxy's position. I look to the Nimitz class which I served on. First commissioned in 1975 they've undergone constant upgrades adding technology as they move along. They ceased production in 2003 but with the last two built were constructed with a completely different new steel alloy for better protection. Drastically advanced over the course of each individual ship's life time AND over the production period for the ship.
The Excelsior class was 90 years old by the end of DS9. At the age of 86, the Lakota was upgraded to be a legitimate threat to Starfleet's premier pocket battleship. And if not for some of Captain Sisko's undocumented upgrades the Defiant would've lost. The idea that the Galaxy could not be upgraded similarly is slightly ridiculous.
The Intrepid is an interesting case. It's only a decade younger than the Galaxy but the Voyager specifically was still quite advanced due to specific upgrades made to her in the Delta Quadrant. That's the reasoning behind a Tier 6 Voyager. The fact that one of Starfleet's most illustrious engineers commands the Challenger could be a good reason that she would still be top tier. Uniqueness does count.
There's no reason why a Galaxy couldn't remain at the top of the game even fifty years later. It's modular and designed to be regularly updated and upgraded. It's enormous even now, only the Odyssey is more massive. You can fit anything inside of it with ease. Power requirements. Pursuant to her size, she can be fitted with any warp core if there's an instance where she's become underpowered. The Enterprise-D was upgraded several times over the course of her time on screen. The Bynars upgraded her computer core. Her Warp core was upgraded and Geordi made his own brand new parts (mid phase adjuster to the Power Transfer Conduit). Between All Good Things and Generations the bridge was upgraded with new functionality. And a Galaxy built in 2405 would not be the same spec as a Galaxy built in 2360.
Is it superceded in its long range super explorer role by the Odyssey? Yes. But for the same reasons of, its huge and takes a lot to build, the Galaxy will continue on at the frontlines for decades to come still while the Oddy inventory builds up.
The Nebula was a downsized Galaxy with the swappable mission module so that it could take on different functions. In my eyes a direct successor to the Miranda. The Galaxy by contrast was the full size version. It didn't need to have a module because it could carry ALL the different mission required equipment at the same time. If this game was set in the 2360s with canon in mind, then the Galaxy would have a Sci Com, Tac Com, and Eng Com for its day. That would likely translate to a LtCdr all in 2310, or for balance sake, a LtCdr universal.
The one thing that wouldn't change though is speed. The Constitution in the person of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 was the fastest ship in the fleet for about 20 years. Captain Stiles was talking about breaking the Enterprise's speed records. For half of the ship's design lifetime it was the fastest ship in the fleet. Ship speed is tied heavily to design. We've always seen that the ships can be pushed to the points where they start to literally fly apart and lose structural integrity unless they're using exotic propulsion like Transwarp and Quantum Slipstreams. And even the Voyager was physically strained to the limit using Slipstream. Of course you can push a few more points on the warp factor scale, an incremental boost, but you can't alter the spaceframe (Though the Galaxy X retrofit was clearly faster for obvious reasons.). But things like combat capability and exploration capacity can always be updated. Starfleet has shown willingness in the past to rebuild a ship from the frame out as with the Connie.
I don't mind the T'Varo still being viable. I had a headcanon that it was a temporally displaced Romulan ship myself. She just looked too good for the 22nd century. I don't know what the producers were thinking. Unless the Romulan who designed it was just doing it for the art. But regardless the Republic doesn't really have extensive shipbuilding facilities, so them going full on Pimp My Ship with every intact hull in Romulan Space and using new tech to revamp old favorites makes perfect sense. I bet if you rebuilt the SR-71 with modern materials and avionics she would still be a beast. An expensive beast, but still.
I disagree on the Sovereign and the Prometheus.
The Sovereign was supposed to be a throwback to the Constitution. Optimized exploration, tactical capability, and high speed, perfectly balanced at its size. Speed, science, and firepower. A true battle cruiser, fast enough to evade strong enough to hit hard. Basically the Galaxy without all of the city-ship accommodations. And with the latest technology. As technology goes on, things get smaller. With bioneural gel packs you don't need computers as big as the Galaxy for instance.
I'd say the Prometheus was way more powerful than the Intrepid, it was a purpose designed assault ship. If anything that's the true Assault Cruiser. Starfleet's own F-22. It walked all over a Nebula and a D'Deridex. The only damage it took was due to the two Doctors ignorance of how to actually fly a starship. It was even more of a little monster than the Defiant.
And even the Nebula was depicted as a beast. The Phoenix demolished two Galor class cruisers which had entered the codes to drop her shields. On that note, the Galor was pretty consistently depicted as a heavy Frigate at best.
You didn't know about the head?
The production schedule has been addressed.
The Sovereign has a different function, one that is more Strategic Deterrent. I love the fluff and backstory on it and I wish they had canonized it on screen. Basically the Sovereign was a running battlecruiser that they had in the Advanced Starship Design Bureau in case a war popped off, they would have an up to date, designed, super ship ready to go. But it was put on the back burner after the Battle of Narendra because the cold war with the Klingons became friendly relations. Then the Borg showed up with entirely new needs and they weren't up to date designs anymore. So they made the Defiant while they perfected the Sovereign.
The Odyssey, Avenger, Noble, Eclipse, and Guardian were all made 40 to 50 years later and technological advances that needed new hulls to try out.
Well yes you can do as you please in your head canon.
The Tier 5 Nova as personified by Endgame Harry Kim's Rhode Island, also has a nice story.
The Nova design was one of the prototype designs for the Defiant. Replace the Secondary Deflector with a Torpedo Bank up front. The Defiant's compact design one out, and that was repurposed as the Nova science ship.
Actually you don't really need any of that head-canon. What I do is just observe the things as they are - TOS was a show that aired in the sixties of the last century, ENT is a show that aired at the beginning of this century. That's really all there is to it - technology evolves. I'm sure TOS was something *boom* to the people in the sixties, just as ENT looks very modern, advanced and streamlined from current perspective.
You can't really expect them to make ships look like old relics of another era in a brand new show, just to be analogous to the one filmed some 40 years before. And no, before someone rabidly jumps on me, I'm not saying TOS is TRIBBLE - the Connie is one of my favourite, if not favourite ST ships - what I'm saying is that I understand why they went with the advanced looks in ENT. They had much better tech at their disposal to make things look better. That's all there is to it.
Heck, it's not just the T'Varo that looks more advanced than the T'Liss. The NX looks much more advanced than the Constitution. Compared to that ugly Vulcan....thing from DS9, the D'Kyr is like a Lamborghini next to a Yugo.
It's just the way the ball rolls.
If you are referring to the USS Odyssey, it was detroyed BEFORE the Dominion War by a kamikaze attack. Before that, it was holding its own pretty well considering its shields were almost useless.
And what does Chu'lak have to do with the capabilities of the Galaxy class?
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Although, the Ent-D got sucker punched. The Odyssey and other Galaxy ships during the Dominion War were prepared for combat.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Two episodes is not "all the time."
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
the sov is a great ship, in its size class its pretty much without peer. big enough to undertake just about any mission, probably even relatively short term long range exploration, in the 5 year range. i think the borg and threats from the gamma quadrant probably led to a bit of a beef up of its arsenal in the last stages of its development, but otherwise it doesn't strike me as anything to out of the ordinary as far as jack of all trade starfleet cruisers go. if anything, the akira is much more tactical packed then the sov is.
the galaxy is simply in another size tier, can do everything the sov can, yet have twice as many science labs/modular space, could carry the crews immediate family, stock supplies and fuel for MUCH longer exploration assignments, and thanks to its overall heft mount weapons to quite a bit larger scale then smaller ships could.
both ships are great, but there's a considerable scale difference between them, and that determines capabilities. they are both made from the exact same parts bins, its the same tech in different sized packages.
the promethius's performance often gets over estimated, like the defiant's does, what exactly did it accomplish in that episode? first, the Prometheus is the fastest ship in the fleet, capable of warp 9.99. the nebula/galaxy was only ever rated at about 9.9 max under normal circumstances, there stopped being a show about one so we don't know for sure if they could get those classes to go much faster. i think its a pretty safe bet they were able too though, at least incrementally.
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs38/f/2008/343/8/1/Star_Trek_Warp_Chart_by_omegadjin.jpg
look at this chart, the extra .09 might not sound like much, but 9.99 is more then TWICE as fast as warp 9.9! the prometheus was stolen, and being pursued, it was probably going about as fast as it could, and somehow a nebula class ran it down. there were shots fired, and the nebula couldn't maintain pursuit, so the prometheus kept running. all it had to do was knock it out of warp, a ship that must have been overloading it's engines far beyond any reasonable safety limit, that was no doubt in a fragile state, to 'win' the fight. if the 2 ships actually fought at impulse, the prometheus would have got wrecked. the 3 sections it separates into would have to have weapons and shields more then twice as powerful as anything else to not immediately get squashed like a bug here, and thats just not likely. surly its systems were incrementally superior sure, but it was facing a beast of a starship 8 times its size.
the d'deridex that got destroyed had been pounded on by an akira and 2 defiant class for several minutes before the prometheus fired on it, and d'deridex's aren't known for their durability. more of a sneak attack ship, not a ship of the line meant to participate in long battles.
i think its godship status is pretty dubious at best. more like the defiant, thats really powerful, for its size. and they have to cram inside a ship basically the size of an intrepid, 3 ships worth of basic systems and warp cores and impulse drives, etc, so each section can be at least semi autonomous.
the NX01 manages to look like a 'new' design out of universe, without actually looking newer in universe then the constitution class. its just MUCH higher detail and fleshed out. the tvaro looks like a ship from the post nemisis era, period. there's a big difference between the 2 here.
Actually - outside the Odyssey - there isn't a confirmed Galaxy kill for the entire Dominion War. The crazy Vulcan was on an excelsior class and the Galaxy - which was seriously damaged at Chintoka - was later seen on a tac display in Nemesis. I'm sure a Galaxy or two were lost - but there isn't proof of it.
people don't give the galaxy much credit in that odyssey fight, it was actually a pretty surreal situation.
as we come to find out, as in, its explicitly explained to us later on, the federation had been infiltrated by changeling pretty much immediately after the wormhole was discovered. imagine you're the solid-phobic founders and suddenly there's a door into the heart of an area of space containing 4+ LARGE empires in a state of relative peace and are all quite stable in their own ways. oh, you know they made sizeing them up their number 1 priority, what an incredible threat they could be. also, they were careful to have zero contact with anyone from the other side of the worm hole, until a very particular time of their choosing. that episode was the first time you see jemhadar, vorta, and bug ships. this is key to the covert operation that was revealed at the end of that episode.
the federation didn't know the vorta were actually the officer corps of the dominion, as far as sisko was concerned she was a damsel in distress to be rescued wile they escaped. the dominion thought they could fool the federation into giving protection to this double agent, who would surly give them all sorts of bad intel about the dominion. great plan.
the 'rescue mission', that included a GCS, was attacked until sisko and the others managed to make their escape, and then the federation's biggest stick was to be executed to intimidate the federation and everyone else in the alpha/beta quadrant. it was all an elaborate plan, only foiled by quark examining the tech in the collar the vorta wore to see if it was worth anything. she was then misteriously transported away, they couldnt even track it and never found her. they were compromised out the TRIBBLE, its absurd.
now, as for the battle itself, the odyssey went in blind to a fight with opponents that have had years to gather every scrap of intel on federation starships, their weapons and defenses. so, as it should be no surprise to anyone reading this post, the dominion have weapons tuned to be totally immune to federation shields, wile also tuning their shields to be pretty much totally immune to phasers. despite this no win situation, the odyssey hull tanked the 2 bugships for up to 10 minutes, suffering little more then superficial hull damage. it was going to get away under its own power, and they simply could not allow that, so one of the bugs had to ram it to actually destroy it. the conventional weapons on those bug ships simply weren't up to the task of doing any real harm to a GCS's armor, at least not without overwhelming numbers. i think this says a lot, a lot of positive things, about a galaxy class's blameworthiness. in a similar situation next episode, the defiant didn't even last 2 minutes, and was boarded and captured.
obviously later the whole shield/poloron weapon thing got solved, and everybody's weapons were actually able to damage each other 3 or 4 years later when the war started.
generations cant be rationalized and explained though, its just BS. that single phaser blast should have 1 shot that bop. then it can go ahead and have the warp core breach because of those 2 torp strikes, whatever.
the battle should have been vs a vorcha, they should have been returning fire the whole time, someone should have said remodulating wasn't working, and the convoluted plan should have ended an attack like this when their shields got dropped. that would have been a worthy end or the enterprise D.
I still love the ship and its separation ability (and wish for a proper cruiser-sized one or dreadnought such as the Jupiter splitting into 3 large cruisers), but the size always weirded me out.
In fact the Galaxy's we saw did 2 things:
- Tank everything thrown at them.
- CHARGE into enemy formations, Arrays blazing, torpedos roaring. Starfleet took the ships, put em in as mob and let that mob smash in faces.
Lets remember here that the Phaser arrays on these ships are pure murder.
And it still looks much better than that fugly Enterprise-J monstrosity; which I hope gets retconned into something better-looking (even though it's as futile).
at least in my eyes i never saw a ship half the volume as the galaxy as a replacement
Starfleet likes it's jack of all trade cruisers to be the top tier frontline ships as well though. Also the Sovereign has a more advanced based to work with is all. Faster more maneuverable, better weapons. Quantum torpedoes standard, Mk XII phasers, native rapid modulation shields, bio neural gel integrated computer. The latest and greatest. I think in a straight fight a Sovereign can take a Galaxy, but it's not like it's gonna be a curbstomp. It's one of those things where the captain's skill can elevate either ship.
To a degree you're absolutely right, but I think you're placing just a little too much emphasis on the length of the phaser array. Keep in mind the power of the emitters also plays a role. A shorter array with better emitters can make up the difference, and I think in any event the Sovereign has superior shields. A lot of that is that while its smaller, the warp cores are easily comparable and the Sovereign has just as much if not more power devoted to protecting a smaller cross section.
Over time. Yes. When the Sovereign first came out it had the edge, but it's only twelve years younger. By 2410 they'd be working from pretty much the same tool kit definitely.
I'm fully aware of the speeds involved. Don't forget that the Prometheus was also designed to cruise at Warp 9.9, which is frankly stupid for the time. That's incredible endurance. The Galaxy by contrast had a cruise at Warp 6 and a max at warp 9.6, the Sovereign cruises at Warp 9 and tops out as I understand it at Warp 9.95 or 9.97. The Intrepid had that top speed of Warp 9.975, but it couldn't hold it for long periods like the Prometheus.
The Prometheus more than anything was a fast deploy attack ship. The Defiant had a top speed of 9.6, but she was an in close ship, not designed for long range deployment. The perfect ship to guard a Starbase like DS9 or a star system. I honestly think you're underplaying her. The thing is we didn't really see her in heavy combat. I'm thinking she's at least as tough as the Defiant, with better fire power. However I agree with you that the Defiant isn't the monster that people think either.
The Prometheus to me is designed to punch above her weight class. The Multi Vector Assault Mode allowing her to turn a one on one that she would lose, into a three on one that she can dissect an opponent with. Which is what happened to the D'Deridex. As for the Nebula, knocking it of warp wasn't exactly a small task.
I like the warp cores. She has one warp core and then one warp core that divides into two. So in her combined configuration, two of her warp cores function as one, providing power on par with a standard larger one like a Sovereign, and then divides into two which are more like a Defiants. While the core in the saucer is one smaller one. And yes independent impulse drives on each section.
She was presented as a testbed and the next big thing. I figure she's designed for the space between a Defiant and a Sovereign.
Agreed.
I like what they did in In a Mirror Darkly. The Terran ENT crew was looking at it like it was so much more advanced. But the thing was, that because of how technologically now, and nuts and bolts the NX-01 looked and how everything looked exposed, the super smooth put together Defiant really did look advanced. The NX-01's bridges has support struts everywhere and you can see the wires sometimes. The Constitution looks almost streamlined, things are put away, it's more spacious, support struts are in the walls and unnoticed.
The T'Varo is just sleek and sexy. She looks like the 24th century empire's response to the Defiant. The Drone ship was much better. In fact the T'Varo looks like a perfect companion ship to the Valdore/Norexan (I refuse to call it a Mogai, that word sounds Ferengi).
I never thought about how the intel would have affected it, as my assumption was just that Alpha Quadrant shields were transparent to Phased Polarons until they figured out how. We know Starfleet was very heavily invested in shields that could rapidly rotate shield modulation due to the Borg. It seemed to me to be a technological blind spot in the technology, similar to how it took a while for Romulans to overcome Tachyon grids vs cloaks. A blindspot that was rapidly covered when Sisko brought a Jem'Hadar scarab home.
On the hull tanking that highlights something that only Tech Manual readers like us would know that is plainly seen in that fight. The Galaxy class was one of the first ships in the fleet equipped with Ablative Armor. (Page 23)
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual also suggests that the Galaxy-class was fitted with an ablative hull layer, with "the outermost hull layer...composed of a 1.6 cm sheet of AGP ablative ceramic fabric chemically bonded onto a substrate of 0.15 cm tritanium foil. This material is formed into segments of approximately 3.7 m2 and is attached to the radiation attenuation layer by a series of duranium fasteners, which allows individual segments to be replaced as necessary."
Ablative Armor is also what allowed the Defiant to tank...well a lot of different ships.
Like I said that was an intel thing.
When you can fire through someone's shields under most circumstances that's the end of the game. There was no shield modulation they could run since Lursa and B'Etor would automatically see the new modulation through Geordi's VISOR.
Also the phaser modulation has to be compatible with the shields in order to fire outbound, so knowing their shield frequency also helps them to adjust their own shields.
Basically. Starfleet is quite into specialization. The explorers the Constitutions, Excelsiors, Ambassadors, Galaxies, Sovereigns, these are ships that Starfleet wants out their pushing the borders making first contacts and ensuring that it's safe out there. Then they send in a Nova/Oberth to sit on a planet for eight months studying the local life forms. Not that the Enterprise didn't or couldn't do that. For instance in Pen Pal (the episode with Sarjenka as played by an adorable young Nikki Cox) they were doing that planetary survey for six weeks before Data got caught. The Intrepid was supposed to be in-between able to get out far, fast to then begin in depth scientific studies where it isn't completely safe.
The Voyager for all the TRIBBLE it went through, was tactically a frigate or a light cruiser. It had great tech, like adaptive shielding, and the variable geometry warp nacelles, the Aeroglider, etc.
Well, my choice is to say that both ships were fairly powerful ,and what people cite as inconsistencies (while they maybe it) also usually come with special scenarios.
A Bird of Prey manages to blow up the Enterprise? Well, it could ignore the ship's shields. That normally doesn't happen.
A Jem'Hardar ship blows up the Odysse? Come on, it crashed into it, after several minutes of exchanging fire with multiple ships that could ignore its shields. (There is the big inconsistency here, by the way - a BOP could ignore shields and blow the Enterprise up, but the Jem'hardar couldn't? Either case is a bad example of the Enterprise being weak, but how strong it really is also remains unclear).
The Lakota vs Defiant fight is a pointless example, in a way, because neither side really wanted to kill the other. The Lakota took the first shots before Worf decided to fire back, and it lost more crew then the Defiant, however, and the Defiant didn't look like it was losing that fight.
I think a significant difference between many scenarios is - are we in full-on war mode and have no trouble killing the other side, or are we still trying to save lifes on the other ships? (he Vor'Cha incident in the Way of the Warrior, for example. The Federation wasn't at war with the Klingons, and didn't want one, either.
The Valiant was crewed by a bunch of cadets. There must be a reason why cadets usually (barring people named Kirk in alternate timelines) are not given immediately command of a starship.
a torp crit, in the opening salvo eventually just caused a core breach after the battle, geordi even said so.
but i am just guessing as i hate that whole point of the movie that whole scene was cheap BS. literally they reused the bop explosion form the undiscovered country for crying out loud only reason i think they used a BOP in the first place was to reuse footage.
actually 90% of the bop footage from generations was copy paste from undiscovered country
name a star trek movie without a bop in it
protip: you cant
/sarcasm
Galaxy class Battlestar.
Galaxy class Command Battlestar.
Galaxy class Federation Command Battlestar
Galaxy class Federation command battlestars blowing up tac cubes.
:cool:
Flagship - N.C.C.-99635-A U.S.S. Asterion
I support playable Typhoon class!!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1)People are talking about the odessey fight,but I think you guys missed an important point:When the fight started,the captain ordered the shields to be switched off.Not put at minimum.Switched off.Now,star trek ships have a very bad way of blowing up left and right when the shields go down.The fact that the odessey survived a full-scale phaser fight without shields and was only gimped,not destroyed,I think that alone is a testament to its engineering. Also,if that Vulcan had had any presence of mind,the shields would have been put at minimum,and that alone may have given the crew more time to escape the subsequent ramming attack.So,in no way is a galaxy a "gimped titanic".
2)Starfleet didn't lose a single galaxy in the dominion war,while excelsiors were blowing up left and right.In one scene in Sacrifice of Angels,when the defiant gets mobbed by 4 bugships,guess which ship sisko chose to hide behind?Was it an Excelsiors?a sovereign?a redshirt Miranda?Nope,it was two galaxies,who from the following shot were pretty much kicking sh*t.
3)In the episode where Picard first meets the Borg,the Enterprise D's first volley destroyed 20% of the Borg cube.If Picard hadn't been so committed to peace,even with guinan telling him the Borg was bad news,he could have destroyed that cube.That same cube from a race that pretty much roflstomped through the delta quadrant.
4)Let's move on to in game data,darthmeow,I know you've been here pretty long.Remember the HOSE screwup?For those that weren't here,I'm talking about the unimatrix ships seeing through your cloak and one shotting you.Until the devs fixed it,there was pretty much only one strategy for completing that mission.And I'm not kidding about only one strategy(I remember several people here trying to make it work with other ships,only to fail).And the ship that made the strategy work?Yep,you guessed it,a GCS.(specifically,the strategy was to send in a galaxy player as a meat shield as galaxies were the only ships surviving the initial plasma lances,then everyone full impulses their way under the Borg queen.)This would not have been possible,if it had been a " gimped titanic."
Lol,it a trope,look it up,the battlestar
Flagship - N.C.C.-99635-A U.S.S. Asterion
I support playable Typhoon class!!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The Odyssey's captain shut down their shields because they were useless against Polaron weapons. He orders shield power transferred to weapons and the sif. So a ship with no shields, improperly tuned weapons, and still being Starfleet and 'holding back' fought 3 bugships to a standstill and was capable of a tactical withdraw - and the Jem-Hadar had to suicide run to bring it down.
That's pretty damned impressive in my books.
And in Way of the Warrior - a KDF fleet of over 200 ships stands down because a taskforce of 9 ships led by a Galaxy is about to show up. Granted - DS9 gave them a hell of a pounding, but until Sisko mentions the Venture and her battlegroup were about to arrive - and were going to come in shooting - Gowron was perfectly willing to keep fighting.
Geez, I didn't even remember that one. And that was Klingon fleet with a Negh'Var in it, the ship that was basically meant as the Klingon answer to the GCS in the first place.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis.
Even though you were being sarcastic, I thought I would list them to pad the ol' post count.
The Galaxy was designed for a long service life of individual hulls, and possible future upgrades to the Class in mind. Much like any class of Starfleet vessel cooked up from the 2270's onward. It's just that the Galaxy Class was the end result of decades worth of data acquired from previous, long lived classes of starships (many of them still in service), and the ultimate expression (up to that point) of said data.
Age of design really doesn't have much of an influence after a point. It's what's under the skin that matters. All of those older classes of vessels were using modern technology "under the hood". during the Next Generation era. The U.S.S. Lakota was a clear demonstration of what Starfleet engineers were capable of doing with an older design when allowed to go "hog wild". Now, take the Galaxy Class, a class of starship designed to make those kind of upgrades EASIER. One can well imagine that the Galaxy Class would continue to be a potent, flexible workhorse well into the next century. Even if it isn't the pinnacle of starship design any longer.
The Galaxy would still be an excellent vessel in 2410, based on lore. That should be reflected in the game. Whether or not that is the case is up for debate.
Indeed, the Bird of Prey was firing away and not doing too much. But it wasn't completely negligible.
She managed to get in a lot of shots to the warp nacelles sending a lot of feedback damage into the warp core. The main engine room was suffering from interlocks (magnetic containment) destabilizing throughout the battle.
Even then she didn't live to see the Enterprise go down. If you compare, they got in tons of shots on the E-D's unprotected hull and the Enterprise killed her off with a single high yield torpedo to the warp core. Literally one shotted when it was put in the same position.
There's reasons for this of course. The Enterprise-D has like a quarter of the engineering hull between the skin and the warp core. Even from the top you'd have to shoot through the entire deuterium tank to get to the warp core. Even the Borg cutting in with the the KCB took time. If the Duras sisters were competent commanders then they would've tried to shoot her from the underside, as the thinnest amount of ship to get through is the ventral of the Stardrive where the Anti Matter tanks and injector are. Though that's not exactly safe.
All in all the Enterprise-D blowing up was a freak accident. From the Watsonian perspective.
And she still had overwhelming crew survival thanks to the Saucer section. Honestly I can't imagine the engineers who designed her being any more pleased.
Oldravenman beat me to it.
Actually as I understand it the Vor'cha is the Klingon answer to the Galaxy. Which might I add is saying something. The Vor'cha is the first new Klingon design in what? 200 years? Klingon Battlecruisers have had the same basic D-5 and so on plan form since the days of the NX-01.
Between technology sharing when the alliance was formed and the Galaxy, the Klingons introduced the first all new Cruiser design in at least 200 years.
I'd say the Negh'var is their answer to the Sovereign.
I probably am reading more into the scene then it deserves - but the Venture was the ship name dropped. And the KDF might have still won - but that's what the Dominion wanted in the first place.
The simple fact is - the Galaxy isn't a paper tiger. When not being plot whipped or portrayed by Cryptic - she is/was one of the Federation's most powerful ships. And the plain simple fact is - we're playing a video game, lots of players WANT a Galaxy class that doesn't suck - and it hurts our enjoyment of the game that something we want is the worst cruiser in the game.
Can it be made usable? Absolutely. Can it get good dps numbers? In very strict and nearly fudged circumstances, yes. Can any other endgame cruiser in the game do more damage and tank just as well in an identical situation? That's the problem.