Why was the USS Oddessy so useless?

[Infern0]

I know what they were trying to do, show the Dominion easily destroy a ship "like the enterprise"

but from what we know of the Galaxy class, didn't it go down a bit too easily?

We have seen how much firepower those ships can put out, and its impressive, more than enough to cripple a couple of small dominion ships i'd say, and yet all the oddessy does is sit there firing the odd phaser burst and getting torn to shreads by these smaller ships.

this is the same vessel that could survive a borg cube for a few minutes, and yet the dominion ships rape it.

a bit unrealistic?

 

[Dream]

It's because the USS Oddessy's captain was no Kirk, Picard, Riker, or Sisko.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The only thing wrong with the ship was its captain was an idiot.

 

[Infern0]

It's because the USS Oddessy's captain was no Kirk, Picard, Riker, or Sisko.

Ah, the "hero crew"

but seriously, what would of made more sense to me would be that the oddessy destroys one of the attacking ships, cripples another, then they turn to leave and THEN the third launches the suicide run.

 

[-Brett-]

but from what we know of the Galaxy class, didn't it go down a bit too easily?

Not at all.

Look at all of the various alternate realities in which the Enterprise is destroyed. Look at the time the Enterprise is actually destroyed. The Odyssey's performance was pretty consistent.

Besides, this was before those Dominion ships got defanged. It's a little unfair to judge that sequence by later standards.

 

[Jono]

Unrealistic? I'd say no.

If you take what we saw in Generations and The Way of the Warrior starships are extremely vulnerable without shield to protect the hull and the systems and people within. Dax didn't think the Defiant, which is a heavily armoured ship could take just over 2 minutes of pounding without shields before it was destroyed. And in Generations the Enterprise was getting trounced by a much smaller and older starship because the BoP could get past the Enterprise's shields whereas the Enterprise had to batter down the other ship's shields.

As for destroying any of the attack ships, given that the other two seemed to have disappeared at the end of the battle maybe the Odyssey did destroy two ships, forcing the last ship into its suicide run instead of retreating as the crew of the Odyssey would expect.

So the Odyssey lasted several minutes without shields against several vessels, in my mind I don't think that makes it useless, it speaks to the quality and durability of the design.

 

[Timo]

Having Picard in command wouldn't have helped the ship any, either. Keogh did everything the same way as Picard would have: he protected the helpless, he stayed when he could have fled, he tried technobabble solutions such as shield rotation, and he yielded to the inevitable in what seemed like the nick of time.

He was also at odds with a character who from his perspective was the episode's annoying guest sidekick - Lieutenant Dax - while being sympathetic towards the guest stars - Kira and Sisko.

Even Picard's hero status wouldn't have protected the ship here, because this was DS9: the writers would probably just have broken into an evil laugh and written a scene where Picard tries to have some profound last words when a falling beam splits his bald head in two.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Valin]

Even Picard's hero status wouldn't have protected the ship here, because this was DS9: the writers would probably just have broken into an evil laugh and written a scene where Picard tries to have some profound last words when a falling beam splits his bald head in two.

Timo Saloniemi

No, the writers would have probably revealed that he was actually a Cylon, ...er...I mean, a Founder.

 

[Photon]

Simple: at that point Dominion tech was superior to SF.

Dominion built warships
SF built exploration ships

Dominion had strange tech, that SF eventually adapted. The Defiant got banged around good in The Search but she adapted and never lost another battle until the Breen's uber energy weapon.

 

[Marie1]

^ Exactly. And they hadn't come against the Dominion, they were not prepared to go against their ships, even tho by that time the Dominion knew about them, and had prepared accordingly.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Having Picard in command wouldn't have helped the ship any, either. Keogh did everything the same way as Picard would have: he protected the helpless, he stayed when he could have fled, he tried technobabble solutions such as shield rotation, and he yielded to the inevitable in what seemed like the nick of time.

With one significant difference: They made it pretty obvious Keogh had an inflated estimation of his ship and its crew's capabilities. It was also clear that he assumed the Jemmies were technologically on par with those in the Alpha Quad. He took an offensive position when he should have gone defensive and approached the situation differently.

In other words: he was an idiot.

But of course, the writers made him as such as a means to a thematic end.

 

[Praxius]

I know what they were trying to do, show the Dominion easily destroy a ship "like the enterprise"

but from what we know of the Galaxy class, didn't it go down a bit too easily?

We have seen how much firepower those ships can put out, and its impressive, more than enough to cripple a couple of small dominion ships i'd say, and yet all the oddessy does is sit there firing the odd phaser burst and getting torn to shreads by these smaller ships.

this is the same vessel that could survive a borg cube for a few minutes, and yet the dominion ships rape it.

a bit unrealistic?

Not at all.... the Borg used different combat tactics, which was to drain shields and power and then carve them up like a roast..... but the Dominion used conventional weapons which apparently federation shields had no resistance to... and being the bigger ship, most of the dominion ships focused on the Odyssey which got pummeled by direct hits to it's hull and systems (might as well have had the shields down for all the good they were doing)

And while the Odyssey was beaten pretty good, they were still intact and in one piece as they were making it back to the worm hole.... and it wasn't until the Dominion sent a ship on a collision course with the Odyssey that it actually blew up.

If the same thing happened to the Enterprise, I imagine it'd blow up just as easily.

Added:

Though if the Enterprise was hit with a dominion ship on TNG, rather then DS9, at the most, they'd lose their barber shop.

 

[indolover]

The in-universe explanation is the it was first official contact between the Federation and the Dominion. So Starfleet had now knowledge of Dominion tech until then, leading to Jem'hadar weapons penetrating their shields.

The real reason was that at that time, the Galaxy class was most powerful in all of Starfleet. it took a just few small fighters to destroy the Federation's highest quality class of ship.

 

[Cyke101]

Having Picard in command wouldn't have helped the ship any, either. Keogh did everything the same way as Picard would have: he protected the helpless, he stayed when he could have fled, he tried technobabble solutions such as shield rotation, and he yielded to the inevitable in what seemed like the nick of time.

To further add to this point, the battle was also fought in a rather TNG-sort of way, single phaser blasts while the ship remained largely stationary (at least when compared to the speeding runabouts and enemy fighters all around), the way the E-D would usually do battle. I believe that after this fight, we saw Starfleet ships (at least in the Alpha Quadrant) adjust their tactics a bit for more running and gunning, ie most other DS9 battles, the battle in ST: First Contact, Nemesis, and more. Really, I don't think we saw Galaxy class ships simply stand still and blast away anymore, except for the final battle of the Dominion War (and even then I would think the Galaxy was providing cover fire for weaker vessels).

At the same time, I doubt that change of tactics was an outright intent of the writers, BUT space battle scenes became more dynamic; more than likely real-world technology had a hand, but it plays well with what we see on screen, imo.

Also to note: if Keogh hadn't rerouted shield power to the phasers (another technobabble attempt at a solution), perhaps the fighter's suicide run wouldn't have damaged the Odyssey so badly.

Jono also implies a good point: do we know how long the battle lasted? There were cutaways to Jake and Nog, for example.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

The writers wanted to blow her up and didn't want to use a creative solution.

Riker would have unleashed the Alpha strike, annihilating at least two of those little 50-meter bugs in a single volley.

 

[nx1701g]

Watching it the Odyssey did seem to last a long time with her shields being completely useless. The truth was that the Federation wasn't prepared for the Dominion and their weapons. The Polaron weaponry of the bugships was unlike anything previously encountered and did massive damage to the Odyssey. Making matters worse we do know (well it was implied at least) that the Dominion knew of the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant races. It could be assumed that the Dominion knew where to hit to cause the most damage. Plus, as we've seen in the past, hits to the nacelles are usually always a death blow and the Odyssey was worse off because it's engineering section too massive damage.

 

[DonIago]

Keogh may have been overconfident, but given how we saw the Enterprise fare in TNG I'd say as a captain of a Galaxy-class ship he had sufficient reason to be. Really, did anyone watching the episode unspoiled expect the Odyssey to go down like that? If the Jem'hadar hadn't suicided they would have gotten away with severe damage, which sounds more typical of TNG.

How anyone could call him an idiot when he did evacuate civilians and non-essential personnel and ordered a retreat when he realized the battle was rapidly going south and other tactics weren't working is beyond me. The idiotic thing to do would have been to stay or keep completely ineffective shields up.

The Odyssey might have survived as well if the Dominion ship had impacted the hull in a different location. It's entirely possible, if not likely, that the ship's hit to the engineering section was no accident.

I haven't seen an in-universe reason why Enterprise would have fared any better.

 

[Cyke101]

The writers wanted to blow her up and didn't want to use a creative solution.

Riker would have unleashed the Alpha strike, annihilating at least two of those little 50-meter bugs in a single volley.

Or Riker could have used what author Phil Farrand coined the Riker Maneuver (and not that insipid Insurrection move):

1. Shields up
2. Get shot dozens of times
3. Damage Report
4. Get shot dozens of times
5. Order fancy flying maneuver
6. Get shot dozens of times
7. Return fire once
8. Get shot dozens of times

See: Generations, Rascals

(Before anyone jumps the gun, I'll cite him once more: "All nitpickers shall perform their duties with lightheartedness and good cheer")

Really, did anyone watching the episode unspoiled expect the Odyssey to go down like that?

To this very day I spit on the would-be graves of whoever edited that Next Time preview trailer for this episode.

 

[Sci]

For the record, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, Ira Steven Behr reports that they specifically cast an actor who looked like Patrick Stewart to play Keogh because Keogh and his crew were supposed to be TNG archetypes of sorts. It was Behr's intent that the crew of the Odyssey be a crew that was just as famous, just as accomplished, just as talented, just as good as the TNG crew. They were the Enterprise's equals, and Behr said that if it had been Captain Picard and the Enterprise assigned to rescue Sisko, the Enterprise would have been the one destroyed rather than the Odyssey.

 

[Cyke101]

For the record, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, Ira Steven Behr reports that they specifically cast an actor who looked like Patrick Stewart to play Keogh because Keogh and his crew were supposed to be TNG archetypes of sorts. It was Behr's intent that the crew of the Odyssey be a crew that was just as famous, just as accomplished, just as talented, just as good as the TNG crew. They were the Enterprise's equals, and Behr said that if it had been Captain Picard and the Enterprise assigned to rescue Sisko, the Enterprise would have been the one destroyed rather than the Odyssey.

...the only difference being that the Enterprise would enter a time loop, get blasted repeatedly for three weeks straight, then manage to escape thanks to Riker's pips.

Okay, maybe I retract my earlier post about Riker!