Hi everyone. I am just getting into Star Trek. I recently saw the new movie, and have since watched Nemesis and First Contact, and I've started to watch Next Generation. Does any of the movies or series have huge battles between hundreds of ships, fleet against fleet? (also ground battles are cool too.) If so, could you guys name the movies/ episodes? I probably will not skip to those episodes but I wanna know when I am in store for a treat.
Huge Battles?
- Thread starter SarYehudah
- Start date
Deep Space 9 is your best bet for full-scale space battles. I don't know of any series that features ground battles, aside from the DS9 episode "The Siege of AR-558," which takes place in the series' seventh season.
--Sran
exaggerated?
The federation is meant to be HUGE. So starfleet I always thought must of been pretty big.
The wolf 359 was only as small as it was in my opinion beacuse the federation got caught by surprise and underestimated the borg.
Plus the battle I dont think was in TNG only its aftermath. The battle was only shown in the first episoide of DS9.
DS9. The Way Of The Warrior had a real sense of frenzy - a good mix of model work and CGI. Call To Arms is another solid entry. Sacrifice Of Angels takes it to another level. Other notable entries include Tears Of The Prophets, Changing Face Of Evil, and about 1/5 of the new footage from the series finale.
Wolf 359 was a desperate sling together of available ships for a sudden Borg intrusion- the Dominion Wars in DS-9 were much different. There Starfleet was deliberately assembling fleets to fight for it's own survival in planned battles.
Also note worthy the fleet was composed of both recognizable canon ships and 'Frankenships' pieced together from parts of other vessels (the DS-9 Technical Manual shows a number of these). It was also mentioned that the Galaxy class ships were put into the field without being completed- large volumes were empty. It was mostly a matter of getting as many guns mobile as possible.
Also note worthy the fleet was composed of both recognizable canon ships and 'Frankenships' pieced together from parts of other vessels (the DS-9 Technical Manual shows a number of these). It was also mentioned that the Galaxy class ships were put into the field without being completed- large volumes were empty. It was mostly a matter of getting as many guns mobile as possible.
I suspect the difference is in the time for preparation, particularly for very different situations.
The Borg pretty much walked right up to the Federation's front door, and the fleet was caught out of position. The Federation's starships are apparently off doing their own things usually, if the Enterprise's missions in TNG are anything to go by. So the whole fleet is spread throughout the Federation and the frontier typically, and gathering over three dozens ships in one place at short notice has to be difficult. Consider that after the crisis is over, Shelby is confident that they'll have the fleet back up to strength in a year or so - that's after losing 39 starships. It would seem, then, that 39 ships aren't a significant fraction of the fleet, if they're able to replace them that fast. The Federation may be building that many ships a year anyway.
During DS9, there was a cold war with the Dominion; tensions were building up and the Federation had time to recall ships and redeploy entire fleets to protect worlds. If it took some far-flung starships a few months to return to Federation space, well, that's all right, because the shooting hadn't started yet and hopefully wouldn't happen. The admiralty had hundreds of ships ready when the shooting started, though.
If I remember correctly, "The Best of Both Worlds" included dialogue suggesting that the Federation wasn't expecting a Borg invasion so soon after the encounter at J-25: as they thought they would have more time, it's not surprising that the Borg were able to get past the assembled fleet at Wolf 359.
Pavonis said:
Also consider that the looming threat of the Borg forced the Federation to focus on building escort vessels like the Defiant. Not only were there more ships availible, but most of the newer vessels were intended to be fighting in combat rather than conducting long-range exploratory missions. Starfleet also had assistance from the Klingons after Chancellor Gowron agreed to reinstate the Khitomer Accords following the treaty between Cardassia and the Dominion.
--Sran
Of course. Let me rephrase. In part because of budget, we never saw more than a handful of ships at once in TOS and TNG and the movies. However, the mention of only a handful of ships throughout Trek and right up until that DS9 episode (Sacrifice of Angels) at least gives the impression that the big starships are few and far apart.
Of course, logically since the Romulans, Cardassians, Klingons etc. are military empires, you'd expect them to have large fleets and therefore the Federation to also have large numbers of ships to keep the balance of power.
But 1200+ ships on one side of one battle ? That's like two orders of magnitude bigger than the next biggest battle prior to that.
Par for the course for Star Trek: there's only ever one ship ready to answer any crisis, anywhere, and that's always the Enterprise.
The Federation had never been at war for an extended period during a TV series before Deep Space 9. There was never a need to show that many ships. It also didn't hurt that computer technology had progressed enough by 1997 that using digital technology to insert ships into battle scenes was possible. Had the Dominion War happened during The Next Generation, it's doubtful a large-scale battle could have been filmed.
--Sran
When you have a domain that spans near a thousand odd light years 1200 ships is a pretty measly number.
That is a handfull.
Par for the course for Star Trek: there's only ever one ship ready to answer any crisis, anywhere, and that's always the Enterprise.
It actually made sense for the Enterprise to be there in "The Best of Both Worlds." She was the Federation flagship and was also the only vessel known to have survived an enounter with the Borg. Sending any other ship didn't make sense.
--Sran
Being the Borg it would have made sense that the Enterprise and 200 ships be avaliblePar for the course for Star Trek: there's only ever one ship ready to answer any crisis, anywhere, and that's always the Enterprise.
It actually made sense for the Enterprise to be there in "The Best of Both Worlds." She was the Federation flagship and was also the only vessel known to have survived an enounter with the Borg. Sending any other ship didn't make sense.
--Sran
Being the Borg it would have made sense that the Enterprise and 200 ships be avalible
As I said, they weren't expecting the Borg so soon. The Federation fleet was scattered throughout the quadrant, so there wasn't enough time to gather that many ships in one place.
--Sran
Par for the course for Star Trek: there's only ever one ship ready to answer any crisis, anywhere, and that's always the Enterprise.
True, while it's dramatically serendipitous that an Enterprise is always the only ship that's available to answer the call, it is also apparently quite the effective strategy. An Enterprise at the scene never fails to save the day.
Makes you wonder why Starfleet doesn't name all their ships Enterprise.
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