They walked in without even so much as a disguise, simply declaring themselves to be Romulans who wanted to see the ship. Starfleet was so wary and obsessed with the possibility they could be shapeshifters that they entirely forgot real Romulans are dangerous too. So they gave them access to the ship after the blood samples came back negative, and then the Romulans started shooting. Easy as pie.
TNG, DS9 & VOY era Military Powers
- Thread starter EmoBorg
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They walked in without even so much as a disguise, simply declaring themselves to be Romulans who wanted to see the ship. Starfleet was so wary and obsessed with the possibility they could be shapeshifters that they entirely forgot real Romulans are dangerous too. So they gave them access to the ship after the blood samples came back negative, and then the Romulans started shooting. Easy as pie.
I don't know where you get the idea that Warbirds could knock out the Galaxy class with relative ease. I'd have said that a Galaxy had the edge in that comparison, though not by all that much.
Good points all. We really don't know how big any of the fleets are for sure.
I tend to think that was a matter of lead time.
We know the Federation is big, with ships often operating months away from others (See The Icarus Factor, where it would take Riker months at high warp to get to his new command). So for most situations we see in TNG, there was simply no time to gather any kind of force. That's why the Wolf 359 fleet only had 40 ships, IMO - the Borg only spent two days or so playing around with the E-D, and 40 ships were all they could gather in that time.
Similarly, in Redemption Picard could gather only 20 or so ships, because that's what was within a day's travel of one Starbase.
But as soon as we see the Dominion war, with a run-up lasting many months, we see fleets of hundreds or even thousands of ships - because for the first time Starfleet has the time to recall all those forces from all over the Federation and concentrate them.
Also, it's very likely that Starfleet reactivated large numbers of mothballed ships and called up reserve crews to man them. Which would neatly explain why we saw so many Miranda and Excelsior classes during the war.
Also throw in that Starfleet ships are normally filled with holodecks, science labs, etc. IIRC behind the scenes sources indicated that Federation ships built before and during the Dominion war omitted most of those - the suggestion was that the "War Galaxies" were built with as much as 30-50% of their spaceframes empty, to reduce build time and increase speed and agility.
So combine the reactivation of mothballed ships, putting production onto a wartime footing, and the time needed to concentrate all of that into very large fleets. To me, that serves very well to explain how we are suddenly seeing fleets 10+ times larger than anything seen before.
That was The Defector, and it was two Warbirds firing on the E-D simultaneously.
It's worth noting that Picard often declined to fire back when people shot up his ship. It's a very different situation than one where both sides are out to do in the other.
I suspect the Romulans would have been rather more surprised if they'd tried that approach on somebody like Sisko or Kirk.
You're forgetting that the only reason the Jem'Hadaar managed to destroy a galaxy class ship was because the Dominion acquired intel on the Federation covertly practically since the wormhole was opened by Starfleet.
The Jem'Hadaar also admitted to destroying various SF ships and Bajoran colonies - but they also likely took prisoners and examined their technology.
So, I'd wager the Dominion weapons weren't always effective against AQ shields... the Intel they gathered from Federation and other expeditions sent into the GQ were likely overpowered by numbers... boarded the ships, took prisoners and their database, took some time to reverse engineer it, destroyed the Bajoran colonies and any other expeditions into the GQ.
As for Post-Dominion War ships being far more effective...
The Prometheus was stolen by the Romulans while the Dominion War was in full swing (and just before the Romulans joined the Alliance).
However, the Prometheus was designed for deep space tactical assignments. Essentially, its a larger Defiant class that's much faster (capable of sustained Warp 9.9, or 21 473 times C), capable of dishing out heavy firepower with state of the art weapons (and anti-borg technology most likely) and it had Ablative hull armor too... all that with multi-vector assault mode allowing the ship to be separated into 3... and still dish out same firepower.
Designed at a different time with a different purpose.
When most ships in the Federation were upgraded prior to or during the Dominion War, their offensive/defensive capabilities grew accordingly.
The USS Lakota was an 80 year old Excelsior class ship upgraded before the Dominion War... it basically matched the Defiant (a state of the art warship).
That's fair. DS9 does show Galaxy class ships engaged throughout the war.
Technically the 70+ year old USS New Jersery could be eqipped with railguns and combat lasers with enough powerplant generation, and sent back into service. Probably not a good idea for many reasons, but in space there's no corrosion, no hydrodynamics or aerodynamics, cavitation issues. As long as there's no metal fatigue, why not. They must have made a bazilllion Mirandas and Excelsiors compared to other classes. Makes sense to keep them running if they can find a roll for them.
DC3's some of them D-Day Veteran C47's, still fly passenger and cargo traffic in Peru.
The Enterprise was on red alert and it was heavily damaged by a compromised Warbird in Tin Man. There's no way a Galaxy class had the edge on a Warbird during the tenure of TNG, lol.
The only way the Warbird was compromised was in running the engines too hot and damaging them :
Data : "According to my sensor readings, the warbird has exceeded maximum engine output by thirty percent. They seem to have irreparable damage to their warp coils."
There's nothing to suggest anything else suffered.
As for the fight, the Warbird flew past the Enterprise and fired several shots at it. The Enterprise did nothing to fire back - Picard had a habit of sitting and letting people take potshots at him. I'll happily concede that a Warbird can destroy a Galaxy class if the Galaxy simply lets it fire at will during the engagement without returning fire. Which is what I meant when I said the Romulans might get a surprise if they tried that with somebody like Sisko or Kirk.
So this encounter really tells us nothing about how the two would fare if they just slugged it out with one another. And that's before we get to the fact that the Enterprise is faster, or who has the better sensors, etc. Factors that don't apply to an encounter like this but would in one where combat was the aim. on both sides
The badly damaged Warbird hit the Enterprise causing it significant damage whilst on a brief passing run. The Romulan attack was a mere deterrent. We can see from this that the Warbird has the edge over the Galaxy on a ship per ship basis over the period of TNG.
I've already proven that the Warbird was not in fact "badly damaged" in any way that would affect firepower.
Firing a few shots at a stationary target which chooses not to fire back demonstrates nothing of the sort. For all you know Picard could have chosen to fire back and obliterated the Warbird entirely with the same amount of hits. Hell, for all you know he could have done that before the Warbird could even close enough to get a shot off.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, about this scene that indicates that Warbirds are superior in any way.
Nope. You haven't proven anything, lol. It remains unstated what effect it has on their weapons. We do know that the Warbird was compromised to the degree that it was a one way mission and it was a compromised Warbird that attacked the Enterprise causing significant damage.[
The compromised Warbird briefly attacked a full shielded Enterprise as a deterrent and went off to chase down Tin Man. The Enterprise was significantly damaged because of this. It's pretty obvious that the Warbird has an edge on a Galaxy class ship at least during the TNG run.-[
Because it has no effect on their weapons to have damaged warp coils.
You keep saying the same thing when it's been proven to be wrong. I can only think you are committed to your point of view for reasons other than the facts. As such, it seems that further discussion would be pointless.
So, the established facts are that the Warbird is never seen to be any more powerful than a Galaxy class starship. And indeed the indicators are the the Romulans themselves want a 2:1 advantage to consider it decisive.
Unless anybody has anything further in the way of actual facts, there it remains.
Yes, but SF would also likely upgrade the older ships outer hulls with newer materials.
Its would be a simple matter of transporting it all out, use the said energy to reconfigure it on a subatomic level to match the new hull materials and then transport it back into place.
A simple shipyard with large enough pattern buffers, transporters and replicators tied together throughout the yard would be able to do it in what... a minute (I know transportation process usually lasts about 5 seconds, but when you're reconfiguring something on the go - usually with a person - it takes longer - about 30 seconds... but for a starship, lets double that).
A dedicated shipyard (like a docking facility for repairs, etc.) in the 24th century would likely implement a large network of transporters and industrial grade replicators (with suitably large pattern buffers as well) spread through its innards ... and getting power from the star itself (they might use fusion as auxiliary energy sources, but I doubt M/AM reactors would be used on such stations - especially if they are in a solar system with access to a massive star that radiates ridiculous amounts of energy that can be used for anything).
As for the 70+ year old New Jersey... same principle, just without the replicators.
Existing outer hull and various innards could be harvested for raw materials, recycled, and used to create new superior synthetic materials that can be made in sustainable abundance.
That is if people running the show had any sense in doing things like this, but since they don't they would sooner harvest 'fresh' resources, process them into contemporary (aka, monetarily cheap) alloys and then use them on new ships.
Heck, we piled up enormous amount of trash on the planet... instead of tapping into that for raw materials (and the excessive continent of trash floating in the oceans), we stupidly continue to mine the Earth.
We could easily return 80% of the trash on the planet (or more) back into the Earth in most usable form to repair the damage we caused and still be left with enormous amount of raw matter to work with.
Starfleet however is not that stupid.
That might depend on the context:
WORF: Romulan warbird closing. They are arming main disruptors, Captain.
PICARD: Go to Red Alert. Shields to maximum.
RIKER: Arm photon torpedoes and stand by, Mister Worf.
WORF: Aye, sir.
RIKER: I thought you said the Enterprise was faster than this Romulan.
DATA: In fact, we are, Commander. However
PICARD: Evasive, Mister Crusher. Hailing frequencies.
TAM: I guarantee that they don't want to talk to you, Captain.
(Weapons hit, and the lights dim. The Romulan makes a strafing run then heads for the star)
WORF: The Romulan has passed us.
PICARD: Damage report.
WORF: Casualties reported. Seventy percent loss to the shields.
TAM: Their attack on us was incidental, Captain.
PICARD: Incidental?
TAM: Yes. To delay us.
DATA: Captain, it would appear that the Romulan's intent is to contact Tin Man first, at any cost. According to my sensor readings, the warbird has exceeded maximum engine output by thirty percent. They seem to have irreparable damage to their warp coils.
RIKER: So they kept up with us by sacrificing their ability to re-enter Romulan space.
The Warbird's disruptors managed to deplete the Enterprise-D shields by 70% in that attack... but given that the Romulans overloaded their engines in the process, its possible they did something similar to their weapons. As mentioned by Data, it was a delaying tactic.
If the Warbird really had the capacity to destroy the Enterprise-D in a few shots... you would think they would do that.
But then again, the Romulans DO use a forced quantum singularity as a power source... I wonder why the Federation doesn't use this kind of technology as it seems more efficient than using M/AM generation?
The Federation should be more advanced after all given it combines almost 150 member worlds by that time who share knowledge and resources - but they also do share various scientific findings with other species - still, if it occurred to the Romulans, then why not the Federation too?
Apart from that, There were 2 Romulan Warbirds that faced off the Enterprise-D in The Defector episode with Admiral Jarok.
Anyway, when the Enterprise crossed the neutral zone, it made sure to have several K'Vort class Birds of Prey with them.
WORF: Two Romulan warships uncloaking. Coordinates
(He's interrupted by impacts to the shields)
WORF: Shields holding.
RIKER: Damage?
LAFORGE [OC]: Minor damage in the secondary hull.
[Engineering]
LAFORGE: Power transfer fields may be pinched off.
[Bridge]
LAFORGE [OC]: I'm working on it.
WORF: Captain!
PICARD: Not yet, Mister Worf. This is just a tap on the shoulder, or we wouldn't be here talking about it.
So, on one hand, the Romulan attack did nothing of note to the shields, and on the other, Picard says its a 'tap on the shoulder' - probably because both ships didn't fire continuously on the Enterprise until it was destroyed.
Other episodes, (especially of note would be the one with Deanna on board a Romulan Warbird pretending to be a Tal Shiar operative) indicate that attacking the Enterprise with its shields on would not be a particularly clever thing to do.
They usually wait for an opening to present itself so they can deal a killing blow.
Otherwise, if the Romulans were more powerful, you'd think they would have beaten the Federation before this long and wouldn't engage in prolonged coy stunts.
Or, at the very least, the Romulans might have taken advantage of the Federation by attacking it when the Dominion attacked (Granted, they stole the Prometheus, and might have been successful if Voyager's EMH hadn't intervened - you're welcome Starfleet - a lone EMH from a starship 60 000 Ly's away managed to bring back your stolen ship).
How the heck did the Romulans managed to get a hold of the Prometheus in the first place?
The ship was supposedly 'top secret' and only 10 people in the entire SF knew how to operate it (which suggests high levels of automation - finally).
But for the Prometheus to be stolen by several Romulans in the middle of the Dominion War?
That's... unlikely.
That plot point about the Romulans taking the ship always bugged me. But given how much fun "MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE" is, I still overlook it to this day.
Starfleet seems to have piss-poor security anyway. Remember, the Enterprise D was once taken over by a bunch of squabbling Ferengi.
I think the episode was really structured poorly to give 'the kids' a time to shine, when realistically, SF ships would easily have the capability to automatically quarantine intruders with forcefields and then implement dampening fields inside those fields to nullify their technology.
There's that and the fact that a Galaxy class supposedly has a large manned security force too... were they all sleeping during this engagement?
Funny we've never seen any do that.
Actually, we have.
Every starship in the Federation is capable of generating forcefields in virtually every junction.
The USS Voyager developed a similar technology to automatically trap subspace aliens anywhere on the ship that were attacking them and the Equinox... and even then it was weird as to why they had to make the field generator because we've seen SF ships previously quaranteening alien life or their own crews in corridors.
Upon entering some alien ships, SF officers were sometimes isolated with forcefields.
This is (or should be) a standard feature on Federation ships as part of security.
Sure we have seen forcefields used to contain people such as in this sequence from TNG's "Brothers"
Then all you do is flood that area with Anesthisine or beam the occupants directly to the brig.
And yet, starships continue to be taken over by enemies on a disturbingly regular basis.
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