So the Defiant was built specifically to fight the Borg, right?

I get that it's fast and very agile, which is great! But as we saw in First Contact, that meant very little since that Borg cube crippled it and left it adrift. So didn't that show that the ship was ineffective against the Borg?

Also, was it ever explained just how exactly it would counter the Borg's ability to adapt to the Defiant's weapons?

 

Lil Defiant disabled by Borg cube... not sure if I'd call that a failure, since our heroes did damage and survived when so many others did not. "Best of Both Worlds" showed that a mix of large ships and small ships (even shuttle-sized) could put the Borg off-balance with the right tactics, so I'm sure it was meant to fit into the armada in its own way, not 1-vs-1.

 

Wow, you are completely wrong.

Watch First Contact again, but listen to the radio chatter. The Defiant was engaging the cube, along with the rest of the fleet, from the beginning of the invasion.

 

i'd imagine with it's small size it would likely be deployed in wolf packs and swarm an enemy. As we saw during the Dominion War she wasn't really a match for other powers capitol ships other than Cardassians one on one.

In the prime universe Vor'cha's, Dominion Cruisers/Battleships and D'Deridex's were out of her weight class

 

In First Contact, when the Defiant makes a run on the Cube she causes more damage than most ships, but she is one solitary warship--as @doylem1 says, if working with a squadron of others then I suspect that the story would be quite different.

I've always assumed that the pulse-phasers were designed to fire a different frequency with every pulse, so that in one burst the Borg wouldn't be able to adapt to all of the incoming fire. I don't know if that was in the specs for the weapons, but in my head canon that would make the most sense for the new weapon design.

 

The Defiant was in that battle from start to finish, and survived longer than a LOT of other ships. Just being able to do that says a great deal about her abilities.

 

“The Defiant was the prototype… the first ship in what would've been a new Federation battle fleet.” There is no reason to believe it was ever supposed to take on a cube alone, merely participate with maximum shields and weaponry handled by as few people as possible.

 

The Defiant wasn’t defined by its strength as much as it’s status as a warship. It stands in contrast with other ships that were also meant for science, diplomacy, exploration, and so on.

No holodeck. No family quarters. Basically just weaponry, much like a modern naval unit. That makes it more agile, means it can operate without a large crew, and presumably means it can be built relatively fast and cheaply compared to a traditional Federation ship with comparable offensive capabilities. I’m also guessing it would be harder to hit since it’s so small.

I don’t think it’s as much a weapon to exploit Borg weaknesses as much as one that would be needed in the event of an all out war. Remember, Q’s original point with the Borg was that the Federation has become a little bit too cozy after not really encountering a serious threat for some time.

 

We also have no idea how much the Borg may have improved their tactical systems since Defiant was incepted. Let's not forget that in "Q Who" the E-D might have taken out a Borg cube single-handedly if they hadn't given the Borg time to adapt and regenerate.

 

Starfleet would know from "BoBW" that any weapon only works against the Borg once. So building an invincible war machine would be wasted effort, and perhaps the Defiant always was: "threat becoming less urgent" would be an euphemism for "it failed utterly, totally and fundamentally, and the designers were idiots to begin with", the need for the chaste turn of phrase implicit in that it was one of the said idiots speaking...

On the other hand, a flexible platform would be great. Pulse phasers that can try out all sorts of weird frequency or flavor combos would work well, I suppose - well enough for Starfleet to be able to take this ship to battle several times. And the design certainly appears modular and malleable - you can see the seams! Perhaps the idea always was to change that bow section and those cheek modules when the previous anti-Borg systems within ceased to be effective.

As for "the start of a new battlefleet", that doesn't necessarily mean either that multiple ships of this type would have been built for swarm action, or even that the new fleet would feature any Defiant type ships. Rather, this would be the proof of the concept, the weirdo prototype, the first-ever submarine or jet, barely combatworthy but nevertheless a necessary first step.

But "the only warship in Starfleet" doesn't even deserve the scowl that Sisko gives to Kira for that cruel bit of mockery from the embittered freedom fighter who never got help from said Starfleet when her planet most needed it. Of course every Starfleet ship is a warship - even the runabouts can go toe to toe with enemy battlewagons, as seen. It's just that Starfleet seldom sees the need to skimp with other attributes, so their ships tend to be aces of all trades, while this proof of concept leaves many superfluous (and equally many vitally important) things ashore to hasten the prototyping process. The result is a fairly poor starship, one that Starfleet thinks appropriate for a suicide mission in "The Search", and one that severely underperforms, barely making warp 9 even with modifications to those poorly designed engines that threaten to do damage to the ship when used.

That Sisko makes some mean hooch out of that lemon is more the story of Sisko than of the ship that Sisko built. But being actually designed to fight the Borg must be an immense help in ST:FC, even if it is a potential handicap in other types of fight (surely the phasers must suffer from having their frequency unnecessarily rotated, say). Survivability is certainly a forte of the design!

Timo Saloniemi

 

I had the exact same thought!

 

The Defiant's poor performance in "First Contact" was due entirely to its faulty plot armor, which hadn't yet been refitted by Sisko and O'Brien.

 

Don’t forget but the Defiant was also overpowered and over gunned for its size and in both the prime and mirror universes it nearly tore itself when the engines were at full power and it was only because O’Brien overhauled the structural integrity field that they were able to solve the design flaw.

But in the episode “Defiant” Dukat calls the Defiant the most heavily armed warship in the quadrant.

 

But it didn't perform poorly in FC relative to many other ships...

 

It didn't. It was on the battle from the very start to almost its end.

 

The Defiant wasn't designed specifically to fight the Borg so much as the Borg threat was what made Starfleet decide they needed a purely combat oriented starship.

 

The reason we didn't see the Defiant actually doing anything of real value save one puny strafing run at the Cube was simply due to budget constraints. They didn't have the dough for a better space battle and, sadly, it shows.

Yes, one can imagine that the Defiant did a lot (it's already heavily damaged when we first see it and, yeah, there are references to it attacking in the fleet audio), but, on screen, it's hard to argue that she did a whole lot on camera.

Even Ron Moore later admitted to feeling disappointed by it.

 

Ben Sisko would disagree with you --

"...it was designed for one purpose only -- to fight and defeat the Borg."

 

The Defiant was never ment to take out a Borg Cube by itself, as mentioned there would be several of them.

I mean, look at her size and the amount of heavy weapons she packs. You might be able to build 5 or 6 of her for every one Galaxy. Now instead of sending three Galaxy's on a Borg cube, you can now send 15-18 Defiants after it. Coming on from multiple vectors. All of them making sure phasers are modulating on mulitple frequencies.

 

Or you could fly a 4-5 dozen Miranda's or Excelsior's into a Cube, plenty of them to spare