From what I can tell, Defiant wasn't introduced as an "escort" type until the 3rd season of DS9 or at the start of the Dominion War. Voyager's computer probably last synced prior to Defiant's introduction to DS9 so it's likely we're seeing Defiant's original designation as a "battleship". It would explain the difference in designation.
Dreadnought
- Thread starter Transk53
- Start date
Or, better yet... just accept that NO ONE WAS EVER EXPECTED TO SEE THAT FRAME. Someone... likely an "intern"... was asked to create some quick graphics to flash, one-per-frame, on screen.
Nobody bothered to check it because IT WAS INVISIBLE WHEN WATCHING THE EPISODE.
The first time we ever saw the Defiant was when the Defiant was first put into service. It was the first ship of it's class. It had been designed by a team led by Benjamin Sisko. Benjamin Sisko gave the first and ONLY "canon" description of the ship's designation.
Anyone running short on memory and want to read the script, here it is:
http://www.st-minutiae.com/academy/literature329/447.txt
Well, there is more to that story since it is not the first time the Defiant came out to play:
SISKO: Desperate times breed desperate measures, Major. Five years ago, Starfleet began exploring the possibility of building a new class of starship.
This ship would have no families, no science labs, no luxuries of any kind. It was designed for one purpose only, to fight and defeat the Borg.
The Defiant was the prototype, the first ship in what would have been a new Federation battle fleet.
...
SISKO: The Borg threat became less urgent. Also, some design flaws cropped up during the ship's shakedown cruise, so Starfleet decided to abandon the project.
In other words, five years prior, the Defiant prototype was up and running before it was shelved. It could very well be explained that someone typed in "Battleship" (part of a "battle fleet") just to fill in a data field on a form and it wasn't changed to "Escort" until "The Search". This ship would have no families, no science labs, no luxuries of any kind. It was designed for one purpose only, to fight and defeat the Borg.
The Defiant was the prototype, the first ship in what would have been a new Federation battle fleet.
...
SISKO: The Borg threat became less urgent. Also, some design flaws cropped up during the ship's shakedown cruise, so Starfleet decided to abandon the project.
It's like someone putting in filler data or "Lorem Ipsum" as text on a web site that isn't ready for production. If Voyager's computer had that as it's last entry and they never got the latest refresh from Starfleet, it'd explain the difference in designations without the need to go retconning the visual away.
I wasn't going to get in on this one, but...
There's one issue with that theory. The Defiant isn't the only ship shown in those frames. Every other ship in there is using a designation that is accepted canon.
If they just made some stuff up, to handle a set of frames never meant to be seen, why get all of the other ships right, but do something wonky with the Defiant and only the Defiant?
Of course, there's also an issue with this. The Jem'hadar Battleship is in those files, and IIRC, that wasn't encountered before Defiant's deployment. This begs the question of how Voyager had this data at all.
On balance I have to the Defiant is as much a Battleship as it is a Destroyer Escort. Which is to say, it isn't.
Defiant is Starfleet's only dedicated warship (and given her considerable science mission capacity, Starfleet did a bad job dedicating her). She was, until the dominion war broke out and the Enterprise E arrived, the "most powerful ship in the quadrant." Her designation is "escort" because starfleet doesn't build warships, and therefore doesn't the institutional structure in place to classify warships. Starfleet does not want to build warships, so they don't want to add those classifications.
It is possible that the Defiant was meant to be a battleship. At the time of her design, and commission she was "the most powerful ship in the quadrant." Size doesn't matter. Some of the United States' current cruisers are larger than WWI battleships. It is just as likely that Defiant would never have been classified a battleship by Starfleet. Institutional inertia is bitch.
The question, then, is how would threat forces classify the Defiant. Remember the Connie, Ambassador, Akira and Sovereign classes are all "heavy cruisers" in Starfleet terms. But Klingons have habit of referring to them as "battlecrusiers" and "battleships."
What would a Klingon call U.S.S Defiant?
@Maverisms - Hmm that does beg the question on how they got the Jem'hedar battleship in "Drone". The "Pathfinder" project happens almost 2 seasons after "Drone". Perhaps Starfleet sent an update with the EMH in "Message in a Bottle" that occurs in the season before "Drone"?
I have some major concerns about some of the assertions in this thread.
First major concern: We can assume that the TMP reference to the "dreadnought Entente, NCC-2120" was indeed throwing a bone to FJ's tri-nacelled bad-ass big battle-starship. However…
If we're going to give that much weight to TMP's spoken background dialogue, with no visuals in the movie to back it up, then why don't we quote an even more authoritative source? Namely, why don't we refer to Mr. Roddenberry's direct meditation on the subject of Federation battleships, as written in his novelization of TMP, page 115…
The following is Mr. Rodenberry's own words, quoted from the "scene" in which Spock's Vulcan warp-courier approaches the Enterprise while in deep space:
This would seem to make it "official" (canon?) that the Enterprise herself is the "dreadnought", if the Federation employs any such hardware to match what the "dreadnought" moniker implies. Perhaps we should also consider that the Federation-class tri-nacelled dreadnoughts mentioned in FJ's 1975 Tech Manual were depicted by an outline (dotted line) on the fleet configuration page of that manual, denoting the class was "under construction". It could be logically assumed that the tri-nacelled design was scrapped and that the new Entente is a prototype much like the refit Enterprise, undergoing testing or other trial runs.
Second major concern: I know that there are differing "world views" of the STAR TREK Universe, and that these views are informed by diverging interests (gaming, fan fiction, canon designs/artwork, etc.), but I do not understand the fascination with, and support of, the "Federation battleship" concept. If we assume that FJ's other designs did make it off the drawing board and that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of those Hermes- and Saladin-class uni-nacelled scouts and destroyers flying about, in addition to over 100 Connies supposedly in flight as well, why would the Federation need to build any tri-nacelled battlewagons at all? If the calling card of a "dreadnought" of any era is power/firepwer, these other classes would seem to deliver all that would be needed in smaller, more easily-maintained configurations. Why deploy three Federation-class ships when it would obviously be more efficient to deploy ten or more Saladin-class ships? (That would also give the Klingons or the Romulans more targets to worry about.)
Third major concern: a recurring theme in FJ-derived "dreadnought" designs appears to be kitbashing existing hull components and matching them with multiple nacelles, usually three or four Connie-style engine pods. This is obviously an homage to FJ's original design, but it seems to fly in the face of what was seen as far as starships underway in the movies. If three nacelles is the way to space-naval power, why didn't the refit 1701 get a third nacelle? The number three never seemed to be applied to Excelsior, as Excelsior and all of her kin are much larger than the Connie, and yet all two-nacelled ships.
Note that Sisko pegs his Defiant as the Federation's only ("unofficially") class of warship. This appears to dovetail perfectly with Roddenberry's TMP novelization. How many "nacelles" does Sisko's Defiant employ? Two.
Why not just build these supposed battlewagons, each with only two nacelles, albeit significantly larger engines? If size and nacelle mass are that important, why not simply uses fewer, larger pods?
Fourth major concern: The whole point of showing the refit in TMP was twofold: (1: refreshing the Enterprise's "look" to boost her as a full-fledged cinematic hero ship (with an unfortunate but obvious dose of "star destroyer envy" added for good measure), and (2: to show Roddenberry's vision of how the Federation would advance the technology and power of its starships to meet all of its goals, both benevolent and defensive. Roddenberry wrote in the novel, and Berman and company clearly carried on with the notion, that refits result in better defensive abilities most of the time. And when a dedicated warship becomes the order of the day, we see a small escort/destroyer-type craft based on a simple utilitarian design instead of suped-up battlewagons.
So if we accept that there is a "dreadnought Entente, NCC-2120" in flight in TMP, for all we know she could look like the two-nacelled Endeavour-type ship shown in Vance's schematics. This would make her an earlier version of the same unnamed prototype class that Kirk's refit Enteprise represents in TMP. That would make at least as much sense.
First major concern: We can assume that the TMP reference to the "dreadnought Entente, NCC-2120" was indeed throwing a bone to FJ's tri-nacelled bad-ass big battle-starship. However…
If we're going to give that much weight to TMP's spoken background dialogue, with no visuals in the movie to back it up, then why don't we quote an even more authoritative source? Namely, why don't we refer to Mr. Roddenberry's direct meditation on the subject of Federation battleships, as written in his novelization of TMP, page 115…
The following is Mr. Rodenberry's own words, quoted from the "scene" in which Spock's Vulcan warp-courier approaches the Enterprise while in deep space:
This would seem to make it "official" (canon?) that the Enterprise herself is the "dreadnought", if the Federation employs any such hardware to match what the "dreadnought" moniker implies. Perhaps we should also consider that the Federation-class tri-nacelled dreadnoughts mentioned in FJ's 1975 Tech Manual were depicted by an outline (dotted line) on the fleet configuration page of that manual, denoting the class was "under construction". It could be logically assumed that the tri-nacelled design was scrapped and that the new Entente is a prototype much like the refit Enterprise, undergoing testing or other trial runs.
Second major concern: I know that there are differing "world views" of the STAR TREK Universe, and that these views are informed by diverging interests (gaming, fan fiction, canon designs/artwork, etc.), but I do not understand the fascination with, and support of, the "Federation battleship" concept. If we assume that FJ's other designs did make it off the drawing board and that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of those Hermes- and Saladin-class uni-nacelled scouts and destroyers flying about, in addition to over 100 Connies supposedly in flight as well, why would the Federation need to build any tri-nacelled battlewagons at all? If the calling card of a "dreadnought" of any era is power/firepwer, these other classes would seem to deliver all that would be needed in smaller, more easily-maintained configurations. Why deploy three Federation-class ships when it would obviously be more efficient to deploy ten or more Saladin-class ships? (That would also give the Klingons or the Romulans more targets to worry about.)
Third major concern: a recurring theme in FJ-derived "dreadnought" designs appears to be kitbashing existing hull components and matching them with multiple nacelles, usually three or four Connie-style engine pods. This is obviously an homage to FJ's original design, but it seems to fly in the face of what was seen as far as starships underway in the movies. If three nacelles is the way to space-naval power, why didn't the refit 1701 get a third nacelle? The number three never seemed to be applied to Excelsior, as Excelsior and all of her kin are much larger than the Connie, and yet all two-nacelled ships.
Note that Sisko pegs his Defiant as the Federation's only ("unofficially") class of warship. This appears to dovetail perfectly with Roddenberry's TMP novelization. How many "nacelles" does Sisko's Defiant employ? Two.
Why not just build these supposed battlewagons, each with only two nacelles, albeit significantly larger engines? If size and nacelle mass are that important, why not simply uses fewer, larger pods?
Fourth major concern: The whole point of showing the refit in TMP was twofold: (1: refreshing the Enterprise's "look" to boost her as a full-fledged cinematic hero ship (with an unfortunate but obvious dose of "star destroyer envy" added for good measure), and (2: to show Roddenberry's vision of how the Federation would advance the technology and power of its starships to meet all of its goals, both benevolent and defensive. Roddenberry wrote in the novel, and Berman and company clearly carried on with the notion, that refits result in better defensive abilities most of the time. And when a dedicated warship becomes the order of the day, we see a small escort/destroyer-type craft based on a simple utilitarian design instead of suped-up battlewagons.
So if we accept that there is a "dreadnought Entente, NCC-2120" in flight in TMP, for all we know she could look like the two-nacelled Endeavour-type ship shown in Vance's schematics. This would make her an earlier version of the same unnamed prototype class that Kirk's refit Enteprise represents in TMP. That would make at least as much sense.
If there really were hundreds of destroyer/scouts, then building a few dreadnoughts would not seem out of the question, at least as experimental ships for the purpose of racking up some star-miles on the design. If we can conclude three nacelles was a failure (except in some alternate future in which Picard and Beverly finally get down and tie the knot), then it's not unreasonable to assume it was a failure because the design was actually tried out.
On paper, the FJ dreadnought has tactical properties that no other ship has, that it can get from point A to point B faster than any other ship, and that it can carry more firepower individually than any other ship while doing so. That offers some options beyond those one could get by concentrating the firepower of numerous lighter vessels.
On paper, the FJ dreadnought has tactical properties that no other ship has, that it can get from point A to point B faster than any other ship, and that it can carry more firepower individually than any other ship while doing so. That offers some options beyond those one could get by concentrating the firepower of numerous lighter vessels.
Terms synonymous with heavy cruiser: attack cruiser, battle cruiser, battle ship, combat cruiser, space cruiser, star cruiser, warbird.
Terms synonymous with explorer: battleship.
A ship can be called both a heavy cruiser and battle cruiser in one film, or a battle cruiser and a warbird in one episode.
This is from watching the shows and reading the official licensed publications (TMP novelization, STDS9: Tech Manual).
Terms synonymous with explorer: battleship.
A ship can be called both a heavy cruiser and battle cruiser in one film, or a battle cruiser and a warbird in one episode.
This is from watching the shows and reading the official licensed publications (TMP novelization, STDS9: Tech Manual).
While this may have been the case when the Federation-class dreadnoughts were (supposedly) proposed in the TOS era, it seems that the refit Enterprise was imbued with all those capabilities and perhaps more. So perhaps the advent of linear warp drive spelled the death knell for designs like the Federation class before it even got to fly. We'll newer know.
One other thing: the OP in this thread asked the question about dreadnoughts in a canon context. Since the FJ designs are not explicitly canon, perhaps they should not be construed in absolutely literal light. So the designs seen in the Tech Manual and the obvious concepts behind them don't have to be taken literally.
Well, not really.
The designations represent a silly hodgepodge of systems. The Galaxy and Sovereign are lazily designated "class starship", which is inconsistent with the Defiant being "battleship". The TOS Romulan vessel from "Balance of Terror" is lacking a national identifier (and is given the designation Bird of Prey which certainly is not canon), yet the corresponding TNG villain vessel is called "Romulan Warbird". The Cardassian or Klingon military transport vessel silhouette (the graphic seems to be malfunctioning, we only see part of the Cardassian color scheme there) is called "military freighter", even though militaries only have transports, not freighters.
Basically everything there was wonky - and in a way that makes it look like the art was created or at least labeled by a committee.
Quite so. Much of it might be Borg data, of course; after all, the premise of the episode was that a Borg juvenile was trying to represent the best of both worlds. Later in the episode, One was getting his priorities hopelessly confused. This could also be reflected in the strange labeling, which could be taken to reflect One's growing confusion rather than any author intent let alone the in-universe official views of Starfleet.
Not really. Sisko simply says she is a warship. Nothing about "only" there.
I see no evidence that the E-E would have altered the situation in any way. If the Defiant outpowers the Galaxy, why should she not outpower the Sovereign as well? The E-E was never said to be particularly powerful - merely "the most advanced" in ST:FC, and that's a title that any number of ships can hold simultaneously, depending on which fields of advancement one wants to boast on.
Whether the Defiant really outpowers a Galaxy is another matter The statement above might be just
1) a truncation of "the most powerful ship for her size in the quadrant",
2) an indication that the ship's unique abilities give her great operational powers despite her carrying weak armaments and weak shields in comparison with proper large warships,
3) an indication that there weren't too many warships in that particular quadrant of the Bajoran Sector, or
4) a flat out lie to impress Riker.
Pure speculation. And as far as we can tell, "escort" is a pure warship, because escorting is a pure wartime mission without any civilian tint to it.
How so? Starfleet explicitly has an institutional structure in place that features numerous warship classifications, including dreadnought, cruiser, destroyer, frigate and escort - that's all in the dialogue. We haven't heard of a Starfleet battleship so far in dialogue, but we have heard our Starfleet heroes give the designation to enemy spacecraft, to wit, huge Jem'Hadar things that outclass anything Starfleet has ever fielded and perhaps indicate that Starfleet just hasn't gotten around to building any battleships yet.
Why should we think that this is true? Because Kira jokes about it in a tense moment?
Naah. The Constitution and Ambassador are. The other two are unknown.
Timo Saloniemi
I'll give you Romulan Bird of Prey, but the rest of that is thin. The Romulan Warbird is what that ship is called. Yes, it has a class name, but that's still a Warbird. The idea that "militaries" only have "transports" is trying to force "Real world" terms into Star Trek. Canon doesn't work that way. To paraphrase a great thinker, it rejects your reality and substitutes its own.
Starfleet does not build warships. That's dialog canon. Yet Defiant is a warship, and Sisko spends time explaining the circumlocutions Starfleet went through to classify the ship. Given the competing concepts, that a warship exists, and that Starfleet doesn't do warships, it isn't a reach to say that Defiant is Starfleet's only warship class. Beyond that, canon designates no other Starfleet ships as warships.
Canon is canon. Speculation is speculation. Most of this is speculation. If the "most powerful ship in quadrant" line was a truncation, you need to provide evidence to support it. After all, I could reject your characterization of the statement refering to a sector, and point out the word was "quadrant." So, the most powerful ship in the Alpha quadrant. THAT would be pure speculation.
I don't claim that the Enterprise E is more powerful than Defiant. I simply allow that the designers tend to lean on fan expectations. Fans expect the Enterprise to be the newest, biggest, fastest, bestest. The production may be simply implying these features, or it may intend them. That is, as far as I'm aware, unknown. As far as I'm aware. Allowing the E-E as "better" than Defiant was simply a way of disposing of that potential objection.
Full Disclosure: The exact line is "one of the most heavily armed ships in this quadrant," and is delivered by Dukat to Sisko, so it definitely wasn't a means of sucking up to Riker. The main reason for noting that line was to point out that Cary's logic for claiming the Defiant was not a battleship was flawed. As one of the most heavily armed ships in the quadrant, Defiant meets one of the definitions of "battleship."
It's bad form to engage in a behavior and then turn around a chide the opposition for the same thing. Smacks of politician's think. Fortunately, I didn't do any "pure speculation," there.
Starfleet is a semi-military organization. I don't see anything civilian about the canon designation "heavy cruiser." Again, you are injecting "real world" logic into Star Trek. We don't know the complete classification scheme for the Starfleet. So the tint of a term is irrelevant. An Escort can easily be a purely defensive ship, and thus "not a warship." While this runs into the realm of speculation, it is speculation supported by the canon assertion that Starfleet does not build warships.
Escorting is not a purely wartime mission. You assume the only kind of raiding that ever happens is commerce raiding conducted by a government during a war. Ever heard of piracy? There are pirates in Trek canon. Piracy suppression can be, and is, a peace time mission. The United States is not at war with Somalia, yet is engaged--right now--in suppression ops against Somali pirates.
So while it is speculation, it is not "pure." It is a combination of known facts.
The Central Intelligence Agency classifies operatives employed by foreign powers as "spies." But it calls it's own "agents" or "field officers." Spies don't like to be called spies. It sounds dirty. They don't mind using dirty words on their enemies.
Starfleet can easily call a threat vessel a battleship if that is what it is. If they wanted to, they could also classify it as duck. What they call enemy ships is not indicative of what they call their own.
At what point, and where, has Starfleet called any of its own ships "destroyers, battleships, etc?" The only case where this comes close to happening is the mention of fighters during the dominion war. I'll leave it as an issue for the reader to decide if a fighter is ship. (IMO, it isn't.)
That's just my opinion, but it still canon that Starfleet doesn't build warships. Dialogue, and the distinct lack of any Starfleet references to Federation warships aside from Defiant.
Why should we take Kira's statement to be joke?
Did you read that link? Soft canon is still canon until it is contradicted by hard canon. The DS9:TM is soft canon. Sternbach's statements are soft canon. They stand until hard canon contradicts them. Given the current direction of franchise, it seems unlikely that that is gonna happen.
I don't like playing rules lawyer with canon. It is, ultimately, a fool's game. Canon contradicts itself, often and viciously. But there's been no definitive canon worthy statements of Federation destroyers, battle cruisers, battleships, dreadnoughts, monitors, stay-puft-marshmellowmen, or MOABs. And if we one day learn that Mr. Stay-Puft is the lynch pin of Sector 001's defenses, I'll have to eat my hat. But until that day, I'm going to stand behind the "no warship" theory because anything else is just an attempt to shoe horn wet-navy logic into Trek at the expense of one of the core ideals of the franchise--that the United Federation of Planets, and humanity by extension, has grown beyond that whole war business.
Just a couple of thoughts:
I agree with Wingsley, the mention of "dreadnought Entente" does seem like an intentional shout-out to FJ, especially since we rarely hear that type-plus-name formation; nobody says "cruiser Enterprise." But exactly the characteristics of that unseen ship will have to remain unknown. It sound like it should be bigger and badder than the Constitutions, but who can say for sure?
As for naval terminology: About the only thing you can consistently say about naval ship types is they are inconsistent. Destroyers have gone from being one of the smallest surface warships to the largest. Corvettes went from the very capable medium cruiser to the small, merchantman-based, wet and un-loved anti-sub escort. WW2 "light" cruisers could be bigger than "heavy." US cruisers went extinct, but the name came back as variation of destroyer. Including the ones that used to be frigates. "Escort battleship"? It sounds wrong on the face of it, but that's basically the role the US fast battleships had in WW2, escorts to carrier groups. And what of the sloop? The type-name of the Napoleonic-era commerce raider par excellence died out after the WW2 RN Black Swans. Maybe it just doesn't sound cool enough anymore. So I make no assumptions about what a Starfleet ship "should" be like relative to today's terminology.
Another parallel that perhaps shouldn't be drawn too closely to real navies concerns Starfleet's force structure. The 19th century Royal Navy seems like a great match in roles and missions, with a balance of national defense, exploration, charting and surveying, and colonial patrol/policing. But the old-school RN could concentrate the big, expensive battle fleet where it would do the most good to counter an enemy, and use more numerous, smaller, lightly armed and cheaper cruisers for patrol/policing. But Starfleet's greatest threats are just as likely to come unannounced "out of the black." So it makes sense for them to put their most militarily-capable vessels on the front lines, exploring and patrolling. With that in mind, a Starfleet "battle fleet" could well look like a big collection of cruiser groups like the one seen in "The Ultimate Computer." Having a fleet (or fleets) of big ships in reserve somewhere might work to deter the Klingons or Romulans, but the Planet Killers, Space Amoebas and V'gers of the galaxy don't seem to care.
--Justin
I agree with Wingsley, the mention of "dreadnought Entente" does seem like an intentional shout-out to FJ, especially since we rarely hear that type-plus-name formation; nobody says "cruiser Enterprise." But exactly the characteristics of that unseen ship will have to remain unknown. It sound like it should be bigger and badder than the Constitutions, but who can say for sure?
As for naval terminology: About the only thing you can consistently say about naval ship types is they are inconsistent. Destroyers have gone from being one of the smallest surface warships to the largest. Corvettes went from the very capable medium cruiser to the small, merchantman-based, wet and un-loved anti-sub escort. WW2 "light" cruisers could be bigger than "heavy." US cruisers went extinct, but the name came back as variation of destroyer. Including the ones that used to be frigates. "Escort battleship"? It sounds wrong on the face of it, but that's basically the role the US fast battleships had in WW2, escorts to carrier groups. And what of the sloop? The type-name of the Napoleonic-era commerce raider par excellence died out after the WW2 RN Black Swans. Maybe it just doesn't sound cool enough anymore. So I make no assumptions about what a Starfleet ship "should" be like relative to today's terminology.
Another parallel that perhaps shouldn't be drawn too closely to real navies concerns Starfleet's force structure. The 19th century Royal Navy seems like a great match in roles and missions, with a balance of national defense, exploration, charting and surveying, and colonial patrol/policing. But the old-school RN could concentrate the big, expensive battle fleet where it would do the most good to counter an enemy, and use more numerous, smaller, lightly armed and cheaper cruisers for patrol/policing. But Starfleet's greatest threats are just as likely to come unannounced "out of the black." So it makes sense for them to put their most militarily-capable vessels on the front lines, exploring and patrolling. With that in mind, a Starfleet "battle fleet" could well look like a big collection of cruiser groups like the one seen in "The Ultimate Computer." Having a fleet (or fleets) of big ships in reserve somewhere might work to deter the Klingons or Romulans, but the Planet Killers, Space Amoebas and V'gers of the galaxy don't seem to care.
--Justin
Maverisms,
I have, on occasion, been frustrated by Timo's tendency to argue (even against positions he seems to agree with sometimes!), but in this case, I think he's right, and I think you're really flailing here.
The diagrams seen in "Drone" were NEVER INTENDED TO BE SEEN IN THE DETAIL WE ARE TREATING THEM HERE. Each of those was on-screen for how long, again? One frame?
They were sloppy, and it was fine for them to be sloppy, too. To say that anything ever created in Trek is "canon" is just wrong. Unless you really believe that Dr. Crusher's sickbay monitors track "remaining insurance" as one of their features (yes, the TNG biobeds have an indicator for that!)
These images were, at best, intended to give a subliminal impression that "One" was reviewing Trek materials, rather than, say, the latest issue of "Sports Illustrated." They did what they were intended to do.
Don't emphasize something which was never intended to be really seen over, say, on-screen dialogue.
It's fair to say that the "voiceovers" in TMP talking about dreadnaughts and scouts were similar... not "primary dialogue." But they're more relevant than the "Drone" images, because an audience member would be expected to hear those voiceovers without having to deviate from the film. NO ONE could have been expected to see those frame without stopping playback and going frame-by-frame.
But no matter WHAT, primary dialogue takes precedence over EITHER background dialogue or background art. We KNOW that the Defiant is an "escort," officially, but is not like a standard Starfleet escort (which, presumably, were equipped to serve in both combat and non-combat roles).
We know that because, unlike the other "background" things we're talking about, this reflected CLEAR PRODUCTION INTENT. A diagram error can slip through and never even be noticed by the senior level folks. A dialogue error cannot.
So, either Sisko was wrong (about a ship that HE LED THE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF, remember!), or he was lying (but why would he do that?), or he was right.
I honestly can't believe we're still debating this. There are lots of things that can be debated, including whether or not starfleet has dreadnoughts, but there is NO DEBATE about what the Defiant was. We were told, unambiguously, what the Defiant was the first time the ship was introduced.
I have, on occasion, been frustrated by Timo's tendency to argue (even against positions he seems to agree with sometimes!), but in this case, I think he's right, and I think you're really flailing here.
The diagrams seen in "Drone" were NEVER INTENDED TO BE SEEN IN THE DETAIL WE ARE TREATING THEM HERE. Each of those was on-screen for how long, again? One frame?
They were sloppy, and it was fine for them to be sloppy, too. To say that anything ever created in Trek is "canon" is just wrong. Unless you really believe that Dr. Crusher's sickbay monitors track "remaining insurance" as one of their features (yes, the TNG biobeds have an indicator for that!)
These images were, at best, intended to give a subliminal impression that "One" was reviewing Trek materials, rather than, say, the latest issue of "Sports Illustrated." They did what they were intended to do.
Don't emphasize something which was never intended to be really seen over, say, on-screen dialogue.
It's fair to say that the "voiceovers" in TMP talking about dreadnaughts and scouts were similar... not "primary dialogue." But they're more relevant than the "Drone" images, because an audience member would be expected to hear those voiceovers without having to deviate from the film. NO ONE could have been expected to see those frame without stopping playback and going frame-by-frame.
But no matter WHAT, primary dialogue takes precedence over EITHER background dialogue or background art. We KNOW that the Defiant is an "escort," officially, but is not like a standard Starfleet escort (which, presumably, were equipped to serve in both combat and non-combat roles).
We know that because, unlike the other "background" things we're talking about, this reflected CLEAR PRODUCTION INTENT. A diagram error can slip through and never even be noticed by the senior level folks. A dialogue error cannot.
So, either Sisko was wrong (about a ship that HE LED THE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF, remember!), or he was lying (but why would he do that?), or he was right.
I honestly can't believe we're still debating this. There are lots of things that can be debated, including whether or not starfleet has dreadnoughts, but there is NO DEBATE about what the Defiant was. We were told, unambiguously, what the Defiant was the first time the ship was introduced.
False.
The only dialogue even skirting on the issue features the phrase "I thought Starfleet didn't believe in warships?", with question mark and sarcasm, by an alien terrorist who fought in a war where Starfleet warships spectacularly failed to even attempt to liberate her home planet. Our Starfleet representative doesn't even deign to address the remark.
Curiously, nothing Sisko says really explains why the ship is considered an Escort.
Yet many Starfleet ship designs carry far more martial designations than "escort" - destroyers and frigates are dialogue canon. Thus, the argument that Starfleet is toying with euphemisms doesn't really carry - and the speculation that Starfleet doesn't do warships because those sound less than nice certainly doesn't carry.
But taken to its conclusion, it would also mean that the E-D and the Voyager are better than the Defiant, to please the fans of those ships.
Really, if the E-E outpowers the Defiant in some sense, then so does the E-D, by every conceivable standard. Including the dramatic-convention ones.
Obviously not - "most heavily armed" is a relative rather than absolute term. And it doesn't take much to outgun a Cardassian cruiser.
Why should you? Just like basically every other Starfleet designation for a starship type, it's a military one. Just like frigate, destroyer and escort, all of which are part of the verbalized onscreen canon.
Starfleet does speak of surveyors and explorers and science vessels. But nothing indicates Starfleet would shy away from classic military terminology. "Escort" is not that sort of a dodge. Sisko suggests it is a dodge of some sort - but clearly it does not hide the "warshipness" of the Defiant in any way. It merely tries to belittle its firepower or something.
That's a novel definition of warship, I grant you that. When did you come up with it?
Destroyers are referred to in "Sacrifice of Angels". Frigates are mentioned in "Conspiracy". Escorts are mentioned in "The Search". And Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers and Cruisers crop up in various episodes. Nowhere is Battleship used in dialogue to refer to a Starfleet vessel, though.
What "statement"? She posed a question!
And the answer to that apparently was "Yes, Starfleet does very much believe in warships", even if Sisko didn't use quite that many words.
There's just canon - the thing that is seen and heard in Star Trek the television and movie franchise.
If we take "soft canon" into account, then FASA and Starfleet Battles and all the licensed computer games are it, too. And Starfleet has sixteen varieties of battleship. But that's uninteresting, because we don't take that into account. It's not "real", not in-universe.
At the end of the day, nothing onscreen has ever established a lack of Starfleet warships. One computer graphic has referred to the existence of Starfleet battleships. And that's all that is relevant in terms of facts. The rest is speculation - even if you prefer to call it "a combination of facts".
Well, yeah, it's not as if I actually care about the end result. It's the process that intrigues me.
The one loophole we have left here is that Starfleet may designate its dedicated anti-Borg vessels "battleships" in a clear break from naval tradition because the designation is otherwise in disuse and free for grabs.
Although personally I'd most closely equate Borg-fighters with icebreakers and dredges. Such ships fight against forces of nature, after all, not against military opponents!
Timo Saloniemi
My interpretation was always that the designation of Defiant as an "escort" was a euphemism. 
Regarding the "Canonicity" of brief, on-screen image flashes...
This image is one which Data saw during "The Naked Now" in a similar "flashing" sequence.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/thegreatbird-thenakednow.jpg
This is "the great bird of the galaxy" and is a bird with Gene Roddenberry's head on it.
So, does this mean that it is canon that there's a giant bird in the Star Trek universe with Gene Roddenberry's head?
Similarly, does the Enterprise REALLY have a giant rubber duck aboard?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/entd-msd-injokes.jpg
OR, look at the last line of this engineering log:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/display-hbo-galaxyschild.jpg
Check the detailed text of this image out:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/assay-list-asimpleinvestigation.jpg
For that matter, did you know that Dax apparently used to raid arks?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/indiana-jones-fertility-idol-dax.jpg
Or that sith lords and time traveling teens have graves side by side?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/mcfly-vader-subrosa.jpg
Did you know it's "canon" that the Millennium Falcon survives until the time of the Federation?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/milleniumfalcon-firstcontact.jpg
And how many of you found thing on your BD of ST'09?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/r2-d2-stxi.jpg
How about this one? Kira was obviously Ginger Grant with an attitude...
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/monitor-justsitrightback.jpg
This image is one which Data saw during "The Naked Now" in a similar "flashing" sequence.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/thegreatbird-thenakednow.jpg
This is "the great bird of the galaxy" and is a bird with Gene Roddenberry's head on it.
So, does this mean that it is canon that there's a giant bird in the Star Trek universe with Gene Roddenberry's head?
Similarly, does the Enterprise REALLY have a giant rubber duck aboard?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/entd-msd-injokes.jpg
OR, look at the last line of this engineering log:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/display-hbo-galaxyschild.jpg
Check the detailed text of this image out:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/assay-list-asimpleinvestigation.jpg
For that matter, did you know that Dax apparently used to raid arks?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/indiana-jones-fertility-idol-dax.jpg
Or that sith lords and time traveling teens have graves side by side?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/mcfly-vader-subrosa.jpg
Did you know it's "canon" that the Millennium Falcon survives until the time of the Federation?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/milleniumfalcon-firstcontact.jpg
And how many of you found thing on your BD of ST'09?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/r2-d2-stxi.jpg
How about this one? Kira was obviously Ginger Grant with an attitude...
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/curiosities/monitor-justsitrightback.jpg
Last edited:
But did you read the real-world definitions of these terms which I posted earlier in this thread? The Defiant fits, TO A T, the definition of an "escort destroyer." In terms of its design, its combat role, its requirements for support, etc, etc.My interpretation was always that the designation of Defiant as an "escort" was a euphemism.
The issue Starfleet not building (or believing in) warships is a non-starter as far as I am concerned. It is clear from TOS on through every other series that the Federation is prepared for the eventuality of fighting wars, and has ships that are intended to do the fighting. That makes them warships by any commonly-understood definition. Trying to deny that is like saying the Korean "police action" wasn't a war.
I'd say "escort" is so vague it doesn't even need "defending." US "destroyer/ocean escorts" formed a pretty consistent category, but destroyers, cruisers and battleships have all been used as escorts to merchant convoys in both world wars, as well as escorting carrier groups and troop transports.
--Justin
I'd say "escort" is so vague it doesn't even need "defending." US "destroyer/ocean escorts" formed a pretty consistent category, but destroyers, cruisers and battleships have all been used as escorts to merchant convoys in both world wars, as well as escorting carrier groups and troop transports.
--Justin
