Starfleet Capital ships
- Thread starter cwl
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In light of STXI's reverse-continuity additions of much larger vessels 25 years prior to TOS (the USS Kelvin and kitbashes), I'm not so sure the TOS/TMP Constitutions would count as capital ships. I think they were more like Voyager's Intrepid class - smaller (yet equally capable) versions of unseen-until-now larger craft.
I don't think people take that into account...for good reason. Its not compatible.
^Go back to 1979 and people were saying the same about TMP, with it's completely new look and entirely different Klingons.
The Akira might also qualify.
I guess the criteria would go more or less like this:
1) Identify a really big ship (say, Galaxy)
2) Identify all other ships that feature the same "design aesthetics" (say, Nebula and Akira)
3) Compare the sizes of these "similar" ships to that of the benchmark big ship
4) Unless the "similar" ships diverge too much towards smaller size, declare them capital ships
5) Repeat for some other big ship that does not feature the same "design aesthetics", and thus might be the capital ship benchmark for some different era...
That way, the Galaxy, Nebula and Akira are probably capital ships for one era, while New Orleans and Springfield are not. The Ambassador and Excelsior (plus potentially some barely glimpsed kitbashes made in the style of the latter) are capital ships for a slightly earlier era, and the apparently fairly small USS Centaur is not.
For the TOS movie era, things get a tad more difficult, because all the known ships from that era are approximately of the same size (if we discount the Excelsior which ushers in a new era). Was there some larger ship in that design style that simply went unseen? The novel/fanfic/RPG/computer game realm certainly insists that there were several, and I'm not talking about the itty bitty dreadnoughts but about ships with saucers the size of the Ambassador ones...
We might ignore that realm, though, since there's no canon appearance of such a behemoth. But the rough TOS era features the already mentioned giants from STXI, and if we accept those as part of the "capital ship canon", then it would be a bit implausible to see a temporary notch in capital ship size during the TOS movie era. Also, if STXI is capital ship canon (at least for the pre-2233 era), then the Constitution and her sizemates cannot be capital ships.
Timo Saloniemi
1) Identify a really big ship (say, Galaxy)
2) Identify all other ships that feature the same "design aesthetics" (say, Nebula and Akira)
3) Compare the sizes of these "similar" ships to that of the benchmark big ship
4) Unless the "similar" ships diverge too much towards smaller size, declare them capital ships
5) Repeat for some other big ship that does not feature the same "design aesthetics", and thus might be the capital ship benchmark for some different era...
That way, the Galaxy, Nebula and Akira are probably capital ships for one era, while New Orleans and Springfield are not. The Ambassador and Excelsior (plus potentially some barely glimpsed kitbashes made in the style of the latter) are capital ships for a slightly earlier era, and the apparently fairly small USS Centaur is not.
For the TOS movie era, things get a tad more difficult, because all the known ships from that era are approximately of the same size (if we discount the Excelsior which ushers in a new era). Was there some larger ship in that design style that simply went unseen? The novel/fanfic/RPG/computer game realm certainly insists that there were several, and I'm not talking about the itty bitty dreadnoughts but about ships with saucers the size of the Ambassador ones...
We might ignore that realm, though, since there's no canon appearance of such a behemoth. But the rough TOS era features the already mentioned giants from STXI, and if we accept those as part of the "capital ship canon", then it would be a bit implausible to see a temporary notch in capital ship size during the TOS movie era. Also, if STXI is capital ship canon (at least for the pre-2233 era), then the Constitution and her sizemates cannot be capital ships.
Timo Saloniemi
He might mean more that the bigger ships of ST Eleven are kind of stuck in a alternate realm.
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I never really considered the Constitutions to be capital ships. If you think about it, the TOS prime Enterprise was not a big glamor ship, but more of a older work horse. They kind of got the little shit jobs in a lot of episodes,
shlepping around government officials,
delivering drugs to various places,
delivering brides between planets,
picking up cargoes at penal colonies,
routine medical examination of archaeologists,
looking after science outposts.
Can you imagine a present day American super-carrier being assigned to the same missions?
Don't get me wrong, they did their share of exploration and first contacts too. But a surprisingly large number of the prime Enterprise's missions were inside the federation itself.
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The Enterprise being referred to as a heavy cruiser came from published works starting in the mid-seventies, having her be a type of cruiser is a good fit (IMHO). Novels in the eighties spoke of Starfleet having some ships up to a mile long, that were contemporaries to Kirk's Enterprise.
Gene Roddenberry, in his own novel, said the Enterprise was a cruiser (of some sort), but should have been considered a battleship owing to the refits new technology. An interesting idea that a capital ships would be not the biggest, but the ships in the fleet with the most advanced tech.
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Today, many ships have frigates or destroyers as their de facto capital ships. Several others operate nothing heavier than a corvette, but that ship type is already plenty enough for a decisive naval force in that particular theater of operations.
It's far from said that cruisers couldn't be the capital ships of Starfleet. But it's IMHO more interesting to assume that the classic "shit jobs" assigned to Kirk's ship reflected her status as a de jure cruiser, a second-rate vessel that allowed the real battlewagons to be kept in constant anti-Klingon battle readiness.
Timo Saloniemi
It's far from said that cruisers couldn't be the capital ships of Starfleet. But it's IMHO more interesting to assume that the classic "shit jobs" assigned to Kirk's ship reflected her status as a de jure cruiser, a second-rate vessel that allowed the real battlewagons to be kept in constant anti-Klingon battle readiness.
Timo Saloniemi
You've been watching too much trek. Time travel isn't possible.
And yeah, I just thought your whole post was so besides the point! "Guys, those aren't capital ships because in Trek XI we saw a bigger, hugely disproportionate ship". That doesn't gel with me and it seems like a completely out of place comment TBH. Almost like someone coming along and ruining the party.
Personally, I think the majority of starships seen in Trek classify as capital ships or frontline vessels, with the exception being those rarely seen support ships like tankers, freighters, supply ships, etc.
Not quite the same thing. Front line ships will often be destroyers and frigates, because there are so many of them (comparable), and they are, well, less valuable.
I guess you didn't notice that I didn't say they were the same thing...Not quite the same thing. Front line ships will often be destroyers and frigates, because there are so many of them (comparable), and they are, well, less valuable.
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