What's the point of building bigger and bigger ships?

[USS Belmont]

The Galaxy-class is not indestructible for obvious reasons. The bigger ships are not used as transport either. Seeing how the Mirror Defiant takes on the Klingon NegV'ar just tell me bigger is not always safer or stronger. So, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have bigger ships? The Enterprise in Beyond just proved this point in a way as well...

Aside from looking cool and intimidating, what good are they for? Do they serve any real purpose? Do you really need 1,000+ people in a ship to get the job done when a crew of 300 or less can do basically the same work?

So my question is 2 part, 1) what good is a bigger ship? 2) what good is a bigger crew?

 

[C.E. Evans]

A bigger ship allows more mission options. It basically turns a ship into a mobile starbase, capable of carrying out pretty much any mission that Starfleet may require of it. A ship the size of the Galaxy-class can also serve as a big transport ship, carrying thousands of personnel to wherever they need to go for a specific mission or evacuating thousands of refugees from a disaster area during a rescue operation. Rather than send multiple smaller ships, one big ship can do it. This capability becomes rather crucial in the more remote regions of space, where Starfleet's presence may be limited and there may only be one ship in range of a particular area.

 

[The Wormhole]

Star Trek ships are actually pretty small compared to ships of other franchises. Even the ridiculously oversized ships in the Abrams movies are only a fraction of the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

 

[Mojochi]

It's pimp

 

[Tenacity]

The Defiant might be just wonderful at shooting things up, but my impression is that there's a lot that it can't do. It seemingly needs to operate out of a station or maybe a starbase, even medium duration missions would be difficult for the crew.

So going from mission to mission to mission continuously for months on end might be out of the question.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Enterprise-D was envisioned to have far more to it than we saw. But even from what they showed us, the crew had their families on board (admittedly a poor idea putting them squarely in the path of danger), where they went to school and even had on-board field trips. The idea was that it could fit all that stuff on top of endless science labs etc.

You can't do all that with the Defiant.

 

[Forbin]

The producers think we're easily impressed children, and bigger, meaner ships and more explosions will hold our attention better.

 

[Vandervecken]

If it's just mobile weaponry that's wanted I'd have to agree--the space-guns of the Minosians (Arsenal of Freedom) would be a better way to go.

 

[NaughtyTrekkie]

more gadgets

 

[jamestyler]

more gadgets

^ Thats my thought. And it makes perfect sense to me.

Looking at the Prime and Kelvin Constitutions as one example, the original Enterprise didn't have as much room to allow for pieces of technology or equipment, sensor arrays, thrusters, storage units, recreational facilities (five years in space - you're gonna want more than a single cabin!).

People mock the massive shuttle bay of the Kelvin universe, but look at what it holds and what it's capable of! The extra supplies, extra space and extra equipment is going to be very, very valuable when your mission is going to leave you in deep space without much backup or chance to resupply. Extra room for extra tech also makes your ship far more scientifically capable of completing it's mission.

When it comes to the Enterprise D, it's set up could have set it up to go out for much more prolonged periods of time without tweaking or resupplying. It was capable of looking after itself. If Voyager was having issues (as downplayed as they were in the show) I imagine life on the Defiant would become a struggle after a few months.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

If Voyager was having issues (as downplayed as they were in the show) I imagine life on the Defiant would become a struggle after a few months.

It would be interesting to see a fairly small Starfleet ship undergo a massive visual refit at an alien port to make it bigger and better visually as well as technically.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The reason Galaxy class ships were bigger (In-world) is that they wanted it to be like a mobile community with families and civilians.

Out of world reason is related to one-upmanship syndrome. The next big thing must be bigger and meaner than the last thing. The same reason in the new Star Wars they went out of their way to make a point that the new space station was much bigger than the Death Star. It's not really more scary, the Death Star could equally destroy planets. But nope, the new thing had to be bigger and scarier than the last thing, so they had to make that point about relative size.

It makes sense if your goal is for the ship to be a mini-civilization and cultural hub, but from a military standpoint the only reason you'd really want a larger ship is to deploy smaller ships.

 

[USS Triumphant]

So going from mission to mission to mission continuously for months on end might be out of the question.

Well, the Valiant did that, but, it was running more or less the same mission over and over, and they were operating under hardship conditions, so I'd still say your point is made - just wanted to remind everyone that there was Defiant-class that operated on a more extended basis.

from a military standpoint the only reason you'd really want a larger ship is to deploy smaller ships.

Or to carry super-big weapons (like battleships), or to deploy a large ground force (like troop transport ships). Or possibly, with Starfleet, then as Diane Duane's Defender-class was described as doing, to carry members of bigger species.

 

[Seven of Five]

Different strokes for different folks.

I remember thinking how novel it was to have the crew's family aboard the Galaxy-class ships, and so I thought it was reasonable to be so big. But then the Sovereign-class came along, which was bigger again, but with no families aboard. That I found confusing.

Perhaps there is some unknown new tech aboard that takes up a lot of room?

I also didn't like the look of the Enterprise-J, whichever class that was in ENT. I think starships getting flatter and flatter isn't very appealing to me. I suppose the way technology works at the moment, things get smaller and more powerful.

 

[The Old Mixer]

But then the Sovereign-class came along, which was bigger again

The Sovereign measures a little longer, but is actually smaller than the Galaxy volume-wise.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Big ships look cool, that's all. What other reason do we need?

 

[Seven of Five]

The Sovereign measures a little longer, but is actually smaller than the Galaxy volume-wise.

Oh okay.

Big ships look cool, that's all. What other reason do we need?

Precisely.

Now I think about, didn't the Ent-D have a whale or dolphin onboard? You need plenty of space there.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ There was a Cetacean Ops, yeah. But we never saw it, so we don't know if there's like a whole dolphin crew in there or if it's just one.

 

[USS Triumphant]

^ There was a Cetacean Ops, yeah. But we never saw it, so we don't know if there's like a whole dolphin crew in there or if it's just one.

Or, if it's a department crewed by humanoids that do something that involves cetaceans. Perhaps after the whalesong probe incident, ships above a certain size or that specialize in science have all started carrying Cetacean Ops personnel who are trained in the various methods Starfleet has come up with to try to make contact, should they come across another one of those probes or the species that built it.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Or to carry super-big weapons (like battleships), or to deploy a large ground force (like troop transport ships). Or possibly, with Starfleet, then as Diane Duane's Defender-class was described as doing, to carry members of bigger species.

Yeah, but not for space combat is my point.