Specialist Ships in Starfleet

[Shamrock Holmes]

For understandable reasons, the majority of the "hero ships" in Starfleet are multi-role platform (the only partial exception to this is the Defiant, but even that can do some limited recon, priority courier and (very limited) diplomatic hosting at pinch), however we have occassionally seen examples of ships that were either built as specialist platform or were relegated to secondary roles (in peace time) as they got older.

The earliest (retconed) example of this would be the Antares from Charlie X (later reused as the Woden), although it's still dual-purpose as although it's primarily a cargo transport, some hulls have also been fitted out as a civilian surveyor. The Erewhon-class appears to have been a/the 24th successor to this design and may have been inspired by the UESF/ECS Conestoga-type colony ship.

The Hiawatha-type is apparently a dedicated medical ship (oddly a frigate, which is normally a warship, but may refer to size/tonnage/speed), as is the later Olympic-class vessel, which at least in TrekLit was potentially going to be replaced with the Galen-class

Spoiler: Spoiler for latest Voyager book

though with the loss of the prototype this may now be in doubt

.

Some Miranda-class vessels were also relegated to civilian supply or surveyor duties, though this seems to have been on a case-by-case basis as of the three oldest 24th C hulls (Antares, Lantree and Trial), only Lantree is suggested as being demilitarized, though most of the others were used in taskforces and fleets suggesting that unlike their larger Excelsior cousins, they couldn't keep place with the requirements of a solo starship into the 24th Century.

However, my favourite "single purpose" ships are Full Circle's support vessels - Achilles, Galen and Demeter - particularly the first as I think it has a lot of potential as effectively a "mobile starbase" and if constructed in bulk (tricky given it's vast size) could easily serve as a flagship for it's own fleet of runabouts, surveyors and escorts and is probably the closest to a modern (super)carrier of anything that we'veseen in Star Trek outside of the games (the Akira-class is more of an "aviation (battle)cruiser" given that it sits within the normal size range and is heavily armed in addition to (theoritically) carrying fighters/tactical shuttles.

Any thoughts

 

[Unicron]

Jackill has the Niffen class buoy tender, which is specialized for maintaining the huge numbers of sensor arrays and buoys that are essential within Federation space. Its hull design is shared with the Gregory class, which is a specialized explorer. The updated art has some extra dishes on the ventral saucer, for mapping the surface features of planets and similar bodies.

There's probably a few more I can think of, but my brain is tired at the moment. I know Jackill also has a few dedicated vessels for hauling deuterium and similar fuels.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

But Jackill is merely fanfic. The short answer is that Starfleet ships are multipurpose if the budget calls for model reuse, which is less needed in the CGI era.

 

[Timo]

The "medical frigate", of Star Wars infamy originally, might be considered a repurposing. On screen, we don't know that the medical transport Fleming ("Force of Nature") and the equally unseen light cruiser Drake ("Arsenal of Freedom") would be of the same class - the class identity of both is a background book thing. But it could be a Starfleet thing, too, with tired old multipurpose ships settling on a narrower job description for their final decades.

The Hiawatha might have been a fighter back in her day, even though the CGI is devoid of phaser banks. She's quite bulky, though, quite possibly besting the big Shenzhou there. So the "frigate" part remains dubious - regardless of whether Starfleet uses it as a synonym for cruiser (as 19th century naval history or certain pre-1970s USN practices would have it) or as a designation for lesser vessels (as per the Royal Navy redefinition of the term for WWII).

We might of course argue that the ship was leaner originally, a flying spine attached to the bow half-saucer, and gained the boxy lateral bays when she gained the modern square nacelles...

The many Miranda repurposings would nicely fit this picture. Starfleet might be much like the Soviet navy, eternally starved of ships and thus keeping the old ones serving till the last hull plate rusts out and the fifteenth pierside sinking no longer warrants a refloating. The fortunate few would get a refit to better match their new special jobs; most would simply rely on the design excellence of the original multipurpose identity, merely losing a few weapons and internal bulkheads and whatnot.

...Why would the Woden design be considered a civilian surveyor? The UE Science Probe Agency vessel Antares doesn't become all that civilian for sharing an operating authority with Kirk's vessel ("Charlie X" vs. "Tomorrow is Yesterday"), her registry remains a Starfleet one, her crew wears Starfleet uniforms (and we never quite learn that civilian ones in Trek would look, or be allowed to look, identical to Starfleet ones, even if that is a real-world thing) and her mission is described in terms of "transport", "cargo" and scheduled runs.

The rendezvous with the Antares does set up a precedent for our generic explorer heroes meeting specialist ships, which then makes it all the odder that so few specialist ships are subsequently met. We know of tugs, tenders, tankers, surveyors and a range of transports and their civilian counterparts the freighters, even if we haven't seen all of these on screen. Is the lack of sightings only due to the subsequent heroes sailing deeper into the unknown (and with Archer doing that, too, for slightly different reasons)? Or does later (and earlier) Starfleet outsource non-generic missions more than the Kirk- or Pike-era one?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Was there any shots of the Hiawatha that was in it's complete uncrashed state?

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

...Why would the Woden design be considered a civilian surveyor? The UE Science Probe Agency vessel Antares doesn't become all that civilian for sharing an operating authority with Kirk's vessel ("Charlie X" vs. "Tomorrow is Yesterday"), her registry remains a Starfleet one, her crew wears Starfleet uniforms (and we never quite learn that civilian ones in Trek would look, or be allowed to look, identical to Starfleet ones, even if that is a real-world thing) and her mission is described in terms of "transport", "cargo" and scheduled runs.

I admit "civilian" isn't necessarily the right term I admit, but the Antares is clearly more "ECS cargo ship that does some surveying on the side"-type scenario [Think a hybrid of the USNS Oceanographic Survey and Dry Cargo Ships], than say the Nova-class which is a surveyor, but usable in a military scout ship as part of the fleet [more like a corvette or offshore patrol boat].

 

[Timo]

Possible, certainly. Then again, one transport brought Charlie Evans to a seldom-visited desert planet, another took him away from there. Neither action thus need involve any surveying - it appears there's a route that transports ply past Thasus, which perhaps is a cheap refueling spot or a scenic view to impress paying passengers with.

Doesn't mean UESPA wouldn't get to bolt some instrumentation to the transport ships. Or then they just want to keep their actual surveyors stocked with fresh fruit, so they send the Antares.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[David cgc]

Was there any shots of the Hiawatha that was in it's complete uncrashed state?

It's seen on a computer display.

 

[Timo]

...Which would be fun to see in focus. Very little of the text in DSC displays is empty lorem ipsum or Okudaic number strings, although some of it may be 2001 style nonsense TLAs or inappropriate quoting from all the wrong Memory Alpha pages.

The view reflected from the viewscreen-windshield of the hero ship shows pretty much the entire vessel, just as in the computer display, even if she's broken in two places.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Possible, certainly. Then again, one transport brought Charlie Evans to a seldom-visited desert planet, another took him away from there. Neither action thus need involve any surveying - it appears there's a route that transports ply past Thasus, which perhaps is a cheap refueling spot or a scenic view to impress paying passengers with.

Doesn't mean UESPA wouldn't get to bolt some instrumentation to the transport ships. Or then they just want to keep their actual surveyors stocked with fresh fruit, so they send the Antares.

Timo Saloniemi

From Charlie X:

Captain's Log, star date 1533.6. Now manoeuvring to come alongside cargo vessel Antares. Its Captain and First officer are beaming over to us with an unusual passenger.

Captain's Log, star date 1535.8. UESPA headquarters notified of the mysterious loss of science probe vessel Antares.
ANNOTATION: (Kirk and Spock are playing 3D chess)
SPOCK: Your mind is not on the game, Captain. Check. The Antares?
KIRK: A survey ship with twenty men aboard lost. No reason. Obviously, Captain Ramart was not aware of any trouble. I can't figure it.

What - if any - the difference there is between a 'science probe vessel' and a 'survey vessel' is unclear.