What ships SHOULD they have used in the Dominion War?

[Dukhat]

Due to budget reasons it is also entirely possible that those older starships did have exterior changes but couldn't be depicted in the cgi or blue screen shots of the 80s and 90s.

There were actually two IRL reasons why we didn't see any exterior modifications to all of the TOS-movie ships (Excelsior, Reliant, Grissom, Klingon BoP, etc.):

1. Any modifications made to those models to show that they were upgraded over time would have had to be removed whenever those models would be reused for future TOS films. Remember, the idea at the time was that TNG would be running concurrently with Kirk and co.'s movies, which they planned on continuing to make for the foreseeable future. That was too much of a pain to deal with and could have potentially damaged the models, so they went unchanged. So instead they just gave the impression in TNG that these ships were old with some interior upgrades (by using the Enterprise-D sets.)

2. Several times when we saw older designs in TNG (BoP, Spacedock, Regula One, K'T'ingas, etc.), they were just stock footage from the films.

My head canon is that there's a cut-off that decides whether a ship can be usefully upgraded into the 24th century, but it's not particularly related to the spaceframe or the drive systems. It's isolinear vs duotronic-based computers.

That's why we don't see Connies, but we do see Mirandas and Excelsiors usually with higher registry numbers. These are early-mid 24th century new builds with isolinear tech built-in, and therefore they support the latest LCARS systems.

Other systems are simple enough to upgrade, but you need to have the right computer framework to support them.

This is pretty much what I think as well. Using my Soyuz analogy, the 2XXX Excelsiors in TNG were the original duotronic-based ships, while the 4XXXX Excelsiors were the isolinear-based ships, despite the exteriors looking the same. Same with the 1XXX Mirandas and the 3XXXX Mirandas. During the period from the 2290's to the 2340's, it was probably easier to just use the same spaceframe with interior upgrades, rather than designing and building new spaceframes (at least until the 2350's when it appeared that Starfleet started making the new Galaxy-family-style designs.)

On a side note, I was looking forward to possibly seeing some Starfleet vessels in the Section 31 movie, considering that it took place in the 2320's, but that didn't happen. All things considered, it's probably a good thing in retrospect that they didn't have any, since the producers are nowhere near as anal-retentive about starship design lineages as I am, and I'm sure I would have been disappointed.

 

[Tomalak]

IIRC there's also the happy coincidence that the 2XXX Excelsiors seen in TNG are prior to the model's modification for TUC, so they have exterior features of older ships too.

And on the subject of Soyuz, the Star Trek version was deemed obsolete despite despite looking outwardly similar to the Miranda, perhaps due to those outdated computer systems.

 

[Dukhat]

IIRC there's also the happy coincidence that the 2XXX Excelsiors seen in TNG are prior to the model's modification for TUC, so they have exterior features of older ships too.

And on the subject of Soyuz, the Star Trek version was deemed obsolete despite despite looking outwardly similar to the Miranda, perhaps due to those outdated computer systems.

I was actually referring to the irl Russian Soyuz spacecraft, not the Soyuz class starship, lol. But on that note, Greg Jein replaced the original Reliant bridge module with a different one reminiscent of TOS/Phase II. A nice touch on his part.

 

[Tomalak]

I was actually referring to the irl Russian Soyuz spacecraft, not the Soyuz class starship, lol. But on that note, Greg Jein replaced the original Reliant bridge module with a different one reminiscent of TOS/Phase II. A nice touch on his part.

Ha, yeah I know, that's why I said "the Star Trek version"!

I thought the bridge module was a great touch too. Although ironically the bridge set looks super advanced for 2278 with the TUC style graphics on the consoles.

 

[Ithekro]

Would have liked to see more early to mid 24th century starships. However it is quite possible that most of those were destroyed in the opening months of the war, in addition to those lost fighting in the Cardassian Border Wars, the short war with the Klingons, and both the Battle of Wolf 359 and the Battle of Sector 001 with the Borg.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Would have liked to see more early to mid 24th century starships. However it is quite possible that most of those were destroyed in the opening months of the war, in addition to those lost fighting in the Cardassian Border Wars, the short war with the Klingons, and both the Battle of Wolf 359 and the Battle of Sector 001 with the Borg.

That's ALOT of Wars to survive! The odds are against them to survive compared to late 24th century ships.

 

[Tomalak]

Not really, the Border Wars was more a long-running period of skirmishes rather than all-out war, and the Klingon trouble was a similar and much briefer period. Wolf 359 was an acute crisis that involved a relatively small number of ships, and leaves Shelby rather untroubled, promising to replace them within a year.

 

[Dukhat]

Would have liked to see more early to mid 24th century starships.

As would I. But that would have been asking the impossible of the producers.

However it is quite possible that most of those were destroyed in the opening months of the war, in addition to those lost fighting in the Cardassian Border Wars, the short war with the Klingons, and both the Battle of Wolf 359 and the Battle of Sector 001 with the Borg.

I dunno. The fleet seen in 'A Call to Arms',' which was before the war started, consisted of the exact same ships seen in the fleets during the war itself. So we were supposed to believe that these types of ships represented the bulk of Starfleet's forces even before the conflict began.

As for previous battles such as the Cardassian War, etc., it's not logical to assume that entire specific classes of ships were destroyed while other specific classes of ships remained relatively unscathed. That doesn't really make much sense. It makes more sense to assume that the newer types of ships simply were outnumbered by 70 years of production of older ships like the Excelsior and Miranda, which would explain why there were so many of them in the fleets.

The problem, of course, was the in-real-life decisions about which ships to use for the Dominion war fleets. Logically, it would have made more sense to use the Sovereign, Intrepid, Prometheus, and Nova class physical/CGI models along with the three FC background ships. All these ship classes represented the newest vessels in Starfleet (especially the Prometheus which was designed specifically to fight the Dominion), but instead David Stipes was hamstrung because they didn't want certain ships used because they thought it would confuse the audience, because they thought the audience were morons.

 

[B.J.]

David Stipes was hamstrung because they didn't want certain ships used because they thought it would confuse the audience, because they thought the audience were morons.

Just had a thought.... You don't suppose they had the Pakled in LD call all the ships Enterprise because of this?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Unfortunately, the Harriman-class Kiss, Myas, and Limeball were unavailable, as they were all on shakedown.

 

[David cgc]

Due to budget reasons it is also entirely possible that those older starships did have exterior changes but couldn't be depicted in the cgi or blue screen shots of the 80s and 90s.

The execution was wonky, but I did like how the first-generation STO models of the Constitution and Miranda and so on changed up the windows, added phaser strips, and had other cosmetic differences to suggest they’d been upgraded.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

The engines CANT be upgraded? Why is that? All the TMP era/ similarly shaped engines have only 1 generation and no improvements are possible within the same housing? Where did you get that from? Why cant they be upgraded?

If Starfleet is flying around fleets full of these "old" ships to fight a ruthless enemy, there's a reason for that

Why would the shape be a factor in this case?

So they upgraded the Excelsiors and Mirandas internally from 2293 to 2350, but did little to no external upgrades. Also, they started building Ambassadors.

In my view, I don't think this is a real world issue as much as it is a "show" issue. There is significant evidence, due the way that models were rendered, and new classes were made through kitbashing that the Excelsior-era modules are scalable in-universe. The Galaxy-class modules almost certainly must be scalable in order for the New-Orleans, Cheyenne, and others to work. However, if we start to assume that the Excelsior components are scalable (which I would really like to do), then there is almost no way to know how big the Centaur and Curry are.

In a similar fashion, if we start to assume that a Miranda-class ship can look essentially identical but have a totally different onboard system, it is hard to really know what we are seeing onscreen in terms of the fleet. Would NCC-1899 and NCC-47258 be similar or different if they both use the same Miranda-class model? Sure, you could believe you could put a newer warp-drive system into the same nacelles, but then that brings up whole new questions about what happened during the TMP refit. It's hard to imagine that would NOT be significant upgrades to the Mirandas in DS9, and there were some very minor differences, but I don't think that we should assume they can be brought or Galaxy, or even Excelsior capabilities, as that breaks the ability of the audience to know the power levels of what they are looking at.

If it were not a show, meant to convey a story, the above paragraph might be fine, but it confuses the story when there are no present day ships of that exact kind to compare with. The same idea done with a war using current military equipment would not have that problem.

Due to budget reasons it is also entirely possible that those older starships did have exterior changes but couldn't be depicted in the cgi or blue screen shots of the 80s and 90s.

The one that I have a concern with, other than the nacelles, is the phaser design. The yellow ball turrets look like weapons from the movie era. If they had been able to add phaser strips it would make the idea that these are upgrade ships more plausible.

Then there is the question of whether the Mirandas and Excelsiors are old ships still in service or new ships built from an old design, but with upgrades. I like the idea that many Excelsiors were built, but Ambassadors were a version with updates, and that is why we see few of them, even though they are a design that I very much like. The Mirandas would have a similar history: many, many of them were made, and Centaurs were only made as they needed replaced, so not many Centaurs got built until the Nebula was put into service, and so on.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The one that I have a concern with, other than the nacelles, is the phaser design. The yellow ball turrets look like weapons from the movie era. If they had been able to add phaser strips it would make the idea that these are upgrade ships more plausible.

Remember in the late 24th century & early 25th century, they have BOTH "Phaser Arrays" & "Ball Turrets.

So there's no reason why multiple Weapon types can't co-exist.

Each one must be good for a specific type of combat doctrine & enemy type.

 

[David cgc]

There's also the fact that in some cases, like "Emissary," phasers weren't being fired from the turrets, but from the bottom dome (TNG-era stop depicting movie era VFX as TOS era VFX challenge).

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

There's also the fact that in some cases, like "Emissary," phasers weren't being fired from the turrets, but from the bottom dome (TNG-era stop depicting movie era VFX as TOS era VFX challenge).

But wasn't firing from the bottom or top dome a TOS style weapon emplacement?

 

[David cgc]

But wasn't firing from the bottom or top dome a TOS style weapon emplacement?

Sorry, it was a memetic phrasing to suggest they were not, in fact, doing what I challenged them to do. While they used the sets, models, and costumes, they seemed to prefer to visually reference TOS rather than the movies (which makes sense, having more nostalgia for the movie-era than the TOS-era is something for a younger generation).

 

[Tomalak]

It was just a VFX goof, like the Farpoint phaser firing from the captain's yacht. Or the infamous Darmok mistake.

Both corrected for TNG-R of course. I wonder if they would fix that Emissary shot if DS9 ever got remastered?

 

[Arpy]

Engine upgrades are also done, while keeping the same shape in older aircraft, ships and land vehicles as well. Dramatic improvements in performance. Looks very much the same. This is just not understanding engineering in the real world in any way at all. Not even a little. This "shape is same, so upgrade is not possible" is as flatly wrong as it is possible to be. You can read yourself about decades old ships, planes and vehicles and how, in what ways and why they have received dozens of upgrades over many years. The real world settles this, and you're wrong. I dont know how else to say that.

No. It depends on the types of upgrades being made. Again, the Excelsior was a testbed of a whole new kind of engine -- transwarp -- that could go a lot faster than anything before. The most distinct feature of the Excelsior nacelle is that it's about twice the size of a Miranda nacelle. You're suggesting that that's merely an esthetic choice. That you can stick the upgraded warp coils in anything as long as they're the new ones. I disagree. I think the Excelsior's transwarp engines made both it and subsequent starships, per Janeway, twice as fast. You can't stick a hotrod engine in a Model T without changing its appearance, its shape. You can upgrade it, that is engineering, but you will likely need to make choices esthetically. Form follows function. On LD, where budget hasn't been an issue, you do see these choices being made -- e.g. Miranda with glowing red Bussard collectors.

You're also probably underplaying the narrative aspect; the story in Sacrifice of Angels is of a hopelessly outmatched Federation fleet that has been hastily cobbled together. They don't stand a chance. Having a bunch of older ships helps sell this.

Some fans, and it varies from board to board, have come up with that narrative to make the cost-saving effects palatable for themselves, but we don't know that this is the case in-universe. Certainly it was never stated that that's why so many older ships were being used or in what capacity -- e.g. that the Mirandas were drone ships. Well, if we're making shit up as we go along, I think it's best we allow for more than one interpretation to what's on screen. Often when we've returned to older periods we've seen very new ships than those we'd seen before. Including on DS9, DSC, ENT, SNW, the TOS remaster, and likely more to come. I think the idea that other ships we'd seen before were in fact there just offscreen makes more sense to me -- Norway, Intrepid, Sovereign, Cheyenne, Apollo, etc.

My point was that you were arguing that, in-universe, old spaceframes couldn't be upgraded internally, and I gave you three examples where they did that exact thing.

There must have been a miscommunication somewhere as I don't think they couldn't be upgraded internally. I think I was talking about the show not rebuilding previously seen interiors to match the reused exteriors because they were not going for technical accuracy, which would have been more expensive. Given the choice they did something new and as a lucky accident we can write the new interiors as more advanced for this more advanced 24th Century.

ARPY is wrong BOTH WAYS on this. Both in universe AND in real life. LOL.

Omg whatever shall I do?

IIRC the TOS movie Enterprise bridge was redressed as the ENT-D battle bridge and the ENT-D battle bridge was then further redressed to be the Lantree bridge set. So no they didnt "rebuild" a set from the TOS movie. They didnt have to. They just continued reusing and redressing those same old sets for many years to save money. The set used for the Lantree bridge IS the set used for the Reliant bridge. That's the real world.

The Relaint was a redress of the Enterprise bridge. I don't know about the battle bridge; it is the one used for the Lantree, but it's a much smaller set. Anyone know?

Every time we see a Miranda bridge, it's a different configuration. Different bridge modules? Sure....why? If you can just fit every upgrade into whatever existing casing, why need to swap them out at all?

Again, every time they can, they change what they can. I look forward to replacing all the reused and outdated fleet ships the moment the AI's offer the option. If we see old holos of the Battle of Wolf 359 in the upcoming ACA, expect new ships there too.

Due to budget reasons it is also entirely possible that those older starships did have exterior changes but couldn't be depicted in the cgi or blue screen shots of the 80s and 90s.

Yeah, this is what I'm saying. To the extent that I keep some of them in my AI remaster, I'm at least adding new touches to them -- phaser strips, shield grids, maybe new engines...here's some great fan art of a Curry Class starship with period accurate nacelles.

 

[Tomalak]

I think the idea that other ships we'd seen before were in fact there just offscreen makes more sense to me -- Norway, Intrepid, Sovereign, Cheyenne, Apollo, etc.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. They were doubtless in the 1st Fleet with the Enterprise and were always involved in other battles we never happened to see. DS9 only shows us a snapshot of the war, although Sisko is involved in the most important episodes.

 

[Dukhat]

There must have been a miscommunication somewhere as I don't think they couldn't be upgraded internally. I think I was talking about the show not rebuilding previously seen interiors to match the reused exteriors because they were not going for technical accuracy, which would have been more expensive. Given the choice they did something new and as a lucky accident we can write the new interiors as more advanced for this more advanced 24th Century.

Fair enough. Bridge interiors matching starship exteriors have never been really consistent unless it's the same type of ship (Ent-D bridge was the same as the Nagilum Yamato bridge, etc.) They just use what they have available.

The Reliant was a redress of the Enterprise bridge. I don't know about the battle bridge; it is the one used for the Lantree, but it's a much smaller set. Anyone know?

The Lantree's bridge was the Ent-D battle bridge set, turned around so that the viewscreen was behind the bridge crew acting as a rear display screen. Keep in mind that, as was mentioned before, the battle bridge was constructed from the older TMP Enterprise bridge, which was also used for the Stargazer bridge.

Every time we see a Miranda bridge, it's a different configuration. Different bridge modules? Sure....why? If you can just fit every upgrade into whatever existing casing, why need to swap them out at all?

Different bridge modules is fine, but I doubt that an older starship would have a newer bridge module but zero upgrades to the rest of the ship.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. They were doubtless in the 1st Fleet with the Enterprise and were always involved in other battles we never happened to see. DS9 only shows us a snapshot of the war, although Sisko is involved in the most important episodes.

Here's where I disagree, but not because I'm happy with that we got. Far from it. But logic dictates that the starships we saw in all the different fleets, both in DS9 and the end of Voyager, which show only the Galaxy, Nebula, Excelsior, Miranda, Defiant, Akira, Saber and Steamrunner classes (with a Prometheus thrown in in Endgame), represent the bulk of Starfleet's active vessels. Sure, we could postulate that some Cheyennes, Ambassadors or Renaissance class ships were just 'offscreen,' but that's not really realistic. There's no reason why those ships wouldn't have been equally interspersed with all the other vessels on screen. Logic dictates that those ships were simply not available, for whatever reason.