Back bone of the fleet?

[GalaxyClass1701]

In the 24th century the Excelsior class starship seemed to be the back bone and bulk of the fleet, with Galaxy being the new state of the art.

Fast forward to last season of DS9 ant post Nemisis era. Would you consider the Galaxy class to be the backbone of the fleet and Excelsior starting to be phased out, With Soviern as the new State of the art?

 

[Timo]

I'd think that for any given era, the "backbone" ship is the second-largest, not the largest. Affordability issues, quantity over quality, that sort of thing.

For the era when Ambassadors rule, Excelsior is the workhorse. For the Galaxy era (which has barely begun in TNG and only goes full throttle in DS9), something like Akira might be the ascending workhorse instead - it's pretty numerous, at any rate.

The Sovereign might be the next big ship, and might then gain a smaller workhorse companion at some point. Or then the Sovereign could indeed be a successor to Excelsior and the Akira - and perhaps Starfleet would introduce something even bigger than the E-E as the new kingpin ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

I'd think that for any given era, the "backbone" ship is the second-largest, not the largest. Affordability issues, quantity over quality, that sort of thing.

For the era when Ambassadors rule, Excelsior is the workhorse. For the Galaxy era (which has barely begun in TNG and only goes full throttle in DS9), something like Akira might be the ascending workhorse instead - it's pretty numerous, at any rate.

The Sovereign might be the next big ship, and might then gain a smaller workhorse companion at some point. Or then the Sovereign could indeed be a successor to Excelsior and the Akira - and perhaps Starfleet would introduce something even bigger than the E-E as the new kingpin ship.

Timo Saloniemi

Wouldn't that be the Galaxy?

 

[barnaclelapse]

I would say Galaxy then, yes.

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

I would say Galaxy then, yes.

That is what I have always thought. Just like Excelsior replacing Constitution.

I imagine the NX class was the work horse once the Dadelus class came out.

 

[CoveTom]

Affordability issues, quantity over quality, that sort of thing.

We're not supposed to believe that there are such things as affordability issues. Resources are supposed to be infinite, as ridiculous as that concept is.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always kind of figured that the backbone of the fleet was also its primary workhorse, a mass-produced ship design you would see more commonly than any others. Larger, more complex ships would be more like the jewels of the fleet, perhaps...

 

[Anwar]

I'd assume that by the time TNG was starting, the Ambassador would take over as the "backbone" ship from the Excelsior but it seems they stuck with the Excelsior as the show went on. By DS9 we still saw Excelsiors but the Akira class and Galaxy class both saw more action in greater numbers.

The Sovereign's design does make it look like the successor to the Excelsior, but I'm not sure that means it would take over as the next "backbone" vessel.

 

[Timo]

Wouldn't that be the Galaxy?

The ship smaller than Sovereign, the workhorse? I doubt it. After all, Galaxy is a lot bigger than Sovereign!

I imagine the NX class was the work horse once the Dadelus class came out.

But NX was supposedly retired in 2161, or at least NX-01 was. A pathfinding prototype like that might be so full of faults that it would do no good as a production vessel.

And I like to think that Daedalus was a lot older than NX-01, and a lot weaker. That's how the novels treat that class, anyway.

We're not supposed to believe that there are such things as affordability issues. Resources are supposed to be infinite, as ridiculous as that concept is.

But Starfleet is explicitly always short on resources: it never has enough ships to do its job. Only a single starship arrives to deal with the crisis of the week, sometimes in the nick of time, sometimes a bit too late. If Starfleet could build more ships, it would. But either shortage of resources or some sort of a malevolent treaty prohibits it from doing so - and I'm betting on shortage here, as Starfleet could probably squirrel its way out of interstellar arms limitation treaties by building "humanitarian-only" ships in quantity.

I'd assume that by the time TNG was starting, the Ambassador would take over as the "backbone" ship from the Excelsior

It rather seems to me (YMMV) that there's always a smaller and a larger ship in each generation, the smaller (Excelsior/Akira) built in great quantity and the larger (Ambassador/Galaxy) built in very low numbers. There might simply not be enough Ambassadors around to draft as the next workhorse, even if they no longer are the biggest and best around; the same fate would probably befall the Galaxy class eventually.

Timo Saloniemi