Galaxy class a failure?

[Captan_Picard]

In a space of 6 years Starfleet witnessed 3 leading ships of the fleet (Including the flagship) lost. The destruction of the Yamato(2365) & Odyssey(2370) was catastrophic. Starfleet's great humiliation was the destruction of the Enterprise(2371) when an obsolete BoP mortally wounded it. Fortunately the saucer section survived intact.

so was the galaxy class a failure?

I can say for sure that 2 of the 3 WAS not the ships fault.

The Yamato, became infected with a virus which fucked up its systems. That would have happened to any ship. This virus was a deadly virus that had never been encountered before.

The Enterprise-D was destroyed because when the klingons kidnapped goardi they took advantage of rigging his visor, so when they returned him they waited for Goardi to GO to engeneering, where they waited for him to reset the sheilds harmonic frequencies. This would HAVE happened to any starship.

Thats 2 of 3 explained.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Was there in TNG an AI or computer virus or unknown alien that actually had problems infiltrating/disabling the enterprise? If yes, what's the ratio between the efficient threats and the inefficient ones?

And the galaxy class was defeated not only by these exotic apparitions. A faulty BOP was sufficient to destroy it. 3 dominion bugs were overkill.

Embarassing.

You could also make the case that the Enterprise-D had a 100% ratio of purging said viruses and aliens, meaning it has the best anti-virus software ever. Only one other Galaxy was shown infected in such a destructive way, after all. And when would there ever be an "inefficient threat?" If the threat is inefficient, it ain't a threat! (and no threat = no drama)

If you prefer you can substitute "threat" with 'apparition".

And, yes, from an exploration POV, Enterprise was a resounding success. But that was because of its crew - they were the ones who dealt with the various apparitions - the ship itself never once worked with them, always broke down.

About the odyssey - could the doctrine of the crew contribute to its failure? Possibly. And in the dominion war, could a different philosophy make the galaxies more dangerous? Again, possibly - but I bet, the crews of those galaxies had to work twice as hard as the norm to keep their frail ships together.

And what happenned in "Generations" is inexcusable. Period.

BTW, the galaxies were shown in DS9 for 5 minutes - give or take; in Voyager - once.

About spies - only Riker II managed to covertly capture the defiant. How many times was the enterprise taken over that way? The bynars, Moriarty - twice; even Data once assumed control of the ship - in about 5 minutes. And I doubt these are the only examples.

It's not that the enterprise was overwhelmed; it's that it was overwhelmed over and over again.
Even Voyager has a better track record - despite the famous "voyager technobabble".

And about enterprise and the "plot gods","the writers who want something on the ship to fail and who'll certainly find a way":
The galaxy class is a fictional construct. It is what it is shown to be in canon. If it is consistently shown to be a death trap, then it is a death trap!

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I'm reminded of TOS, how every Starfleet ship that was wrecked or destroyed was a Constitution class. Every ship. Yet not only was the Constitution seen fit for long-term duty, but it remains Starfleet's most iconic design, one that inspired generations of ship designs. By the logic of the prior examples, the Constitution is a catastrophic failure, far worse than the Galaxy, and yet the class achieved unprecedented success time and again.

You do remember that the Connie was totally redisigned between the end of TOS and TMP, and occurding to what Decker was saying was probably stripped completely down and rebult from scratch right. That kind of shows someconcern about the ship design fron Starfleet.

 

[hyzmarca]

The problem is the Federation's obsession with centralized computer integration. Any sane ship designer would have made designed the critical safety systems to function totally offline, without interfacing with anything else on the ship. Physically isolating critical systems and networks is the gold standard in security. No matter how advanced a virus is, it can't infect your computer if your computer isn't pluged into anything else.

Sure it can if it's a super duper Iconian virus that is to anything you're thinking of as a nuclear aircraft carrier is to a wooden branch floating on water. They were lucky shutting everything down worked, that the ship didn’t become sentient and started demanding pancakes. I'm being funny here but there's a point I'm trying to make that I think you and the guy below aren't getting…

No, a computer virus can't violate the laws of physics, not even a super Iconian one. The fact remains that the engineers who designed the Galaxy class were so confident in the ship's capabilities that they failed to include the most basic failsafes on many systems, both critical and non-critical. Some of this is due to lack of imagination, others due to lack of historical understanding, but most due to arrogance.

A nuclear aircraft carrier is a good example. An aircraft carrier's reactor canot be compromised by a computer virus, and even if it were it has purely mechanical failsafes that would kick in if the electronics were to fail. It was designed explicitly to not melt down, and to contain all radioactive materials even in the event of the total destruction of the ship. Federation warp cores, particularly of the TNG era, aren't so robust. They're neither fail-safe nor fault tolerant. Part of this comes from the extreme difficulty of safely handling antimatter, but most of it is due to an arrogant and wrongheaded design philosophy that failed to even consider the possibility of certain types of critical error.

The Galaxy class, didn't have an antimatter venting system with no connection to the centralized computer, because the designers failed to even contemplate the possibility that the computer could fail or be compromised. And this design failure is the ultimate cause of the Yamato's destruction. I imagine that after the incident it was addressed by safety inspectors and at some point a robust and independent venting system was implemented. I would certainly hope so.

 

[Xerxes1979]

The Iconian virus did a number on that warbird as well. Centralized computer systems are a fact of life for many space faring races. You can't have a Battlestar Galatica approach to controlling the massively complex structural integregity fields, warp field geometry, etc.

Again the Galaxy is no worse than other contempory vessels in this regard. Even Data was affected, so that hardly proves it was a Galaxy class software flaw.

Which warp capable ships don't rely on computers? I can only think of Tin Man and Sisko's solar ship.

 

[hyzmarca]

Centralized computing in general is understandable. It is probably even necessary. Centralized non-redundant safety-critical systems are not understandable. Good engineering practices require the use of redundancy in safety-critical systems. The central computer is a single point-of-failure for the entire ship, faults in the computer can compromise everything. For this reason, every safety-critical system must have at least one offline backup, so that central computer failure does not destroy the entire ship.

 

[Praetor]

No, they're not. Just because something is built to the same blueprints does not make it completely identical to another thing. There are a myriad of industrial reasons how and why the D could be the exception rather than the rule.

We saw other Galaxys doing fine in combat on DS9 during the Dominion War.

What industrial reasons are you referring to?
The Federation is a replicator based economy. The galaxy class ships are made from parts identical to the molecular level.

That doesn't mean that they were assembled the same way. Parts have to be assembled, usually by or under the supervision of human beings, and even 24th century human beings are not perfect, despite what the Federation might have you believe. Then, take into account that said technology is programmed, tested, and maintained by these same imperfect human beings.

Besides, do we truly know that replicated parts are completely in every way perfect, or identical? Picard seemed to think real caviar was a little better than replicated caviar.

And, in DS9, how much of the galaxies did we see?
No more than 5 minutes, in my opinion. We know next to nothing about the galaxies' performance during the dominion war - not enough to form a justified conclusion, in any case.
In TNG, on the other hand, we saw hundreds of hours of enterprise D.

You're just jumping to conclusions to support your own hypothesis without really thinking this through.

We saw five minutes of Galaxys on DS9 doing damn fine in combat. Just because we didn't see Galaxys exploding left and right doesn't mean that they did off screen somewhere. The idea that somehow the Enterprise-D can be representative of her whole class, if we even accept that the extraordinary scenarios in which the D was ludicrously bested were characteristic of her design, is flawed. You are judging the whole class based on your perceptions of the Enterprise, and it's not a fair assessment.

Imagine if you had driven a certain type of car for most of your life. This car, early on, was plagued by certain defects that were a result of manufacturing errors, not design failures - a short in the wiring or a bad battery. Maybe you have a little accident in the car and after it's repaired it never behaves quite the same way. The handling isn't as smooth, the engine runs hot. As a result, you think that all the cars of this specific make and model suffer the same flaws. But really, are these unique circumstances a product of a failure in design? I think not. More like "bad luck." You bought a car where the quality assurance wasn't quite up to par, you happened to get a battery that had a bad cell, you happened to get hit by a guy that ran a stop sign. It's not the car's fault.

 

[Tom]

Talk about safty, what about all those computer stations that would zap you with 50,000 volts during a few episodes. We know they use fiber optic data transfer but they should be low voltage as well . Also they should have non-conductive casings to stop any voltage from an external source to pass through the terminals and zap someone.

 

[Hoshi fan]

YES and NO. As a surveyor she was a great addition to starfleet exploration division. I had to laugh when Picard said in the 1st Season
"Where NO One Gone Before" that starfleet could send back a PURE science vessel to explore the sector they were thrown into!!!! What does he think hes in command of!!!!!!!

In Combat In the hands of a very capable commander and tested crew I feel any Galaxy could hold her own in a fight.

I remember CAPT DeSoto in "Tin Man" teasing Riker about the ENT-D being a Cruise ship! Or did he say Liner???

The Class does have that look of a cruise ship! The way the saucer section is designed and meition 10-forward which is the ulimate Officers club!

Good ship overall!

 

[ProtoAvatar]

What industrial reasons are you referring to?
The Federation is a replicator based economy. The galaxy class ships are made from parts identical to the molecular level.

That doesn't mean that they were assembled the same way. Parts have to be assembled, usually by or under the supervision of human beings, and even 24th century human beings are not perfect, despite what the Federation might have you believe. Then, take into account that said technology is programmed, tested, and maintained by these same imperfect human beings.

Besides, do we truly know that replicated parts are completely in every way perfect, or identical? Picard seemed to think real caviar was a little better than replicated caviar.

We know that replicated parts are identical to each other. And they're assembled by robots. The difference between one galaxy and another is neglijable.

The fault lies in the design made by "imperfect human beings". You mentined programing flaws - considering the ease with which practically anyone could take control of its computers, that's a given.

And, in DS9, how much of the galaxies did we see?
No more than 5 minutes, in my opinion. We know next to nothing about the galaxies' performance during the dominion war - not enough to form a justified conclusion, in any case.
In TNG, on the other hand, we saw hundreds of hours of enterprise D.

You're just jumping to conclusions to support your own hypothesis without really thinking this through.

We saw five minutes of Galaxys on DS9 doing damn fine in combat. Just because we didn't see Galaxys exploding left and right doesn't mean that they did off screen somewhere.

Just because we didn't see galaxies blowing up left and right - in 5 minutes of footage - doesn't mean they didn't, either. And, considering enterprise's performance - detailed in 180+ hours - it's very likely the galaxies did explode. My perception of the enterprise D - of the galaxy class - is based on these canon facts - for example, extraordinary circumstances were not required to best the enterprise.

And was somewhere - anywhere in star trek - hinted at that enterprise D was damaged and then never fully repaired, never quite like at the beginning?
Poor Geordi - what a bashing fe's getting.

 

[Praetor]

I'm a little sick of running in circles here. So, let's summarize.

We have three members of the Galaxy class that we know were destroyed. We have the Enterprise-D that's maybe a lemon based on certain writing concessions on TNG and was ultimately destroyed via a loophole in technology. We have two sister ships (Yamato and Odyssey) that were destroyed due to non-design related issues (computer virus and kamikaze).

We have at least nine other members of the Galaxy class that we saw fighting the Dominion. We don't know how well or how poorly those nine did, because we only saw them for roughly five minutes of screen time, but in that time we didn't see any shredded the way we saw Excelsiors or Mirandas shredded. We also know that at least five Galaxys were still around by the time of VGR's "Endgame" (and all in the Sol Sector, no less.) We also don't have a class that can be proven to be a literal replacement for the Galaxy class either.

So, still, all we have is one ship (Enterprise) that might have been a lemon but which we know in the real-world to be the victim of "convenience writing" on TNG and whose destruction was the result of the producers desire to destroy it, another (Yamato) that was killed due to a computer virus, and another (Odyssey) that was killed by kamikaze for the real-world reason of making a dramatic statement on DS9. We also know that, out of a possible minimum of twelve that might have been built, and an at least nine that survived, at least five survived the Dominion War. (There were a lot of ships sunk in WWII, by the way, that weren't considered "failures.")

Consequently, there's no proof that the class was an absolute success or a failure. An absence of proof of success is not proof of failure, and vice versa. We just don't know. Personally, I don't buy into most of the evidence of the class beng a failure because we know it has real-world dramatic reasons behind it.

I'm also inclined to believe that having five of them in the same place in "Endgame" is proof of something - either that those five were getting major overhauls (perhaps being finished, as part of those six that were rush-constructed to fight in the war with a lot of their volume empty), or that Starfleet built more than those "other nine."

 

[Cyke101]

I'm reminded of TOS, how every Starfleet ship that was wrecked or destroyed was a Constitution class. Every ship. Yet not only was the Constitution seen fit for long-term duty, but it remains Starfleet's most iconic design, one that inspired generations of ship designs. By the logic of the prior examples, the Constitution is a catastrophic failure, far worse than the Galaxy, and yet the class achieved unprecedented success time and again.

You do remember that the Connie was totally redisigned between the end of TOS and TMP, and occurding to what Decker was saying was probably stripped completely down and rebult from scratch right. That kind of shows someconcern about the ship design fron Starfleet.

However, the Constitution was first launched in the 2240s, twenty years before TOS, roughly thirty years before the refit and 40 years before we saw one decommissioned due to age. Compare that to the conditions of this thread, in which a series of comparable mishaps occurred within the Galaxy's first decade. If anything, the refit version in TMP perhaps was not for problems with the vessels, but to upgrade an aging but classic class into a more competitive ship alongside a new generation of ship design.

After all, in TOS, every Starfleet ship was saw was a Connie. Whatever the backstage reason was, on screen and in dialogue, the Connies were established to be the primary workhorse/backbone of Starfleet.

*****

To note, the Constitution and the Galaxy both encountered problems that Starfleet had never before faced, a series of exotic problems, and the two Enterprises pretty much overcame most if not all of them, as if they were built to overcome any problem they came across. How can one predict a design flaw when nothing comparable happened before? I've never heard a real-life review board for aircraft accidents (military or civilian) operate in such a way that depended so much on circumstantial evidence.

 

[JohanKoch]

Yes. It was a ship designed for a perceived semi-safe golden age that was never quite reality. It ended up too bulky with too many weaknesses.

I think it was distinctly possible that the Galaxy class was not so much a failure, but perhaps represented a certain design- and operational-philosophy that, for whatever reason, Starfleet soon abandoned.

After all, we can say two things with near certainty. First is that the whole idea of "families on the ships" seems to have been abandoned very quickly, or at least de-emphasized. Second is that ships the size of the Galaxy class seem to be the exception, and not the rule. Even the more-advanced Sovereign is smaller than the Galaxy (it's longer than the Galaxy, but with less displacement).

None of this means the Galaxy is a failure. It is still likely one of the most powerful, fastest, most versatile ships in the fleet. It's just Starfleet may have changed their design philosophy.

And the destruction of three (or more) Galaxy class ships means nothing in itself. That could simply mean that, since the Galaxy class is the best in the fleet, they would always get sent off on the most dangerous assignments.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

ProtoAvatar, while it of course makes sense to use the show as evidence for what happens in a fictional universe, you can't assume it's the only things that happen in a fictional universe. If you wish to dismiss the fact that Galaxy classes seemed to be effective in the Dominion War because it was such a limited amount of screentime, it means the best you can say is that you don't know whether or not the Galaxy class was a failure. This fictional universe is built with assumptions that it is ongoing even when things aren't on screen. During this time, any number of things could have happened. Starfleet could have lost a 130 Nebula class ships, for example (which would be worse than the 3-4 Galaxies).

You also have an odd habit of equating crew error with a ship flaw. Generations seems to me to be a crew error (I don't think they changed shield frequencies, even though it should have been the obvious thing to do).

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

YOu guys have run in circles, but no the class was not a failure in my view. The death fo the D was just bad writing IMHO, but in real life (meaning real history) the uderdog can win given the right circumstances.

I will have to go back and see the DS9 and VOY Galaxy class ships fights as I pretty much avoided most of those.

Like anythign made there are always things that could and should be done better.

I do think the Galaxy class will see it's 100 year life, hell we have B-52's that are knocking on 60 years now. lol

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

There's also the funny assumption that every ship in a single class is built the same. Internal arrangement and equipment loadout is going to differ from ship to ship and the designs will be updated as built. If the ejection system is flawed - well that's fixed now, and its implemented in all new-build ships and retrofitted to all old-build ships.

Or are Starfleet's Excelsior-class ships all tooling around with their original (now substandard) equipment?

I think Sternbach, Okuda or Probert could attest that while the Galaxy is meant to withstand extreme scenarios, its not its standard mission envelope. I doubt anyone had shield-penetrating weapons or advanced-as-fuck Iconian technology in mind when they designed her (With regards to security architecture... that virus screwed up the Romulans. Considering their usual paranoid attitude, I'd expect them to be stuffed to their eyebrows in security and firewalls. I doubt sincerely that stronger computer security would have helped against the Iconian... stuff). And nothing is going to survive a full-impulse ramming from a fully-fueled ship.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

I'm a little sick of running in circles here. So, let's summarize.

We have three members of the Galaxy class that we know were destroyed. We have the Enterprise-D that's maybe a lemon based on certain writing concessions on TNG and was ultimately destroyed via a loophole in technology. We have two sister ships (Yamato and Odyssey) that were destroyed due to non-design related issues (computer virus and kamikaze).

We have at least nine other members of the Galaxy class that we saw fighting the Dominion. We don't know how well or how poorly those nine did, because we only saw them for roughly five minutes of screen time, but in that time we didn't see any shredded the way we saw Excelsiors or Mirandas shredded. We also know that at least five Galaxys were still around by the time of VGR's "Endgame" (and all in the Sol Sector, no less.) We also don't have a class that can be proven to be a literal replacement for the Galaxy class either.

So, still, all we have is one ship (Enterprise) that might have been a lemon but which we know in the real-world to be the victim of "convenience writing" on TNG and whose destruction was the result of the producers desire to destroy it, another (Yamato) that was killed due to a computer virus, and another (Odyssey) that was killed by kamikaze for the real-world reason of making a dramatic statement on DS9. We also know that, out of a possible minimum of twelve that might have been built, and an at least nine that survived, at least five survived the Dominion War. (There were a lot of ships sunk in WWII, by the way, that weren't considered "failures.")

Consequently, there's no proof that the class was an absolute success or a failure. An absence of proof of success is not proof of failure, and vice versa. We just don't know. Personally, I don't buy into most of the evidence of the class beng a failure because we know it has real-world dramatic reasons behind it.

I'm also inclined to believe that having five of them in the same place in "Endgame" is proof of something - either that those five were getting major overhauls (perhaps being finished, as part of those six that were rush-constructed to fight in the war with a lot of their volume empty), or that Starfleet built more than those "other nine."

A fair analysis, Praetor. I agree with most of it.

Of course, enterprise D, odyssey and yamato were depicted as weak for dramatic reasons. But this depiction, unlike behind the scenes minutiae, is part of canon, and has to be considered valid - the trekverse is a fictional universe, after all.

In TNG, the heroes' ship always failed, and its crew always managed to fix the situation despite that. Enterprise D was depicted as being faulty.

In DS9/Voyager, we have images that can be interpreted differently - due to scarcity of information.
One could theorise that the galaxy class received a major redesign and overhaul, that its performance improved greatly.
One could say that the galaxy class was a failure in the dominion war (based on information from TNG), and we don't know due to lacking screentime.
How one interprets the information is up to the individual star trek fan, in the end.

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

And nothing is going to survive a full-impulse ramming from a fully-fueled ship.

Except the Narada...

Sorry, couldn't resist... :-)

 

[Hartzilla2007]

And nothing is going to survive a full-impulse ramming from a fully-fueled ship.

Except the Narada...

Sorry, couldn't resist... :-)

And the Narada is just a mining ship (I don't want to hear any of that upgraded with Borg Tech stuff its ridiculous and not mentioned in the movie so I'm ignoring it)

 

[ProtoAvatar]

ProtoAvatar, while it of course makes sense to use the show as evidence for what happens in a fictional universe, you can't assume it's the only things that happen in a fictional universe. If you wish to dismiss the fact that Galaxy classes seemed to be effective in the Dominion War because it was such a limited amount of screentime, it means the best you can say is that you don't know whether or not the Galaxy class was a failure. This fictional universe is built with assumptions that it is ongoing even when things aren't on screen. During this time, any number of things could have happened. Starfleet could have lost a 130 Nebula class ships, for example (which would be worse than the 3-4 Galaxies).

You also have an odd habit of equating crew error with a ship flaw. Generations seems to me to be a crew error (I don't think they changed shield frequencies, even though it should have been the obvious thing to do).

I used canon to judge the galaxy class because its the only reliable information we have. Of, course, the trekerse is built with assumptions that it is ongoing even when things aren't on screen, but we have no ideea what these things are.

I value canon not because the star trek producers said that it's "safe" information, but because the filmed trek is known by a large number of people - virtually everyone on this board, in any case. That can't be said about star trek books, games, etc.

About "Generations":
In TNG, we always saw the ship fail and the crew saving the day.
That's why I think that enterprise's destruction in "Generations" should be interpreted as failure of enterprise's power grid or shield emitters (at the BOP's first shot) and not as Worf/Geordi making a stupid mistake that even a first year cadet wouldn't make.