Canon TOS/TMP Starships-of-the-line

[Crazy Eddie]

The one variable wrt Pearl Harbor and the like is that the US was at peace that day. Is Starfleet ever at peace?

Starfleet is basically always at peace, even when it's not. That's probably why they have such a hard time mobilizing a coherent defense when Big Bads show up on their doorstep unexpectedly.

Also, I believe the "fleet in being" concept is nonsensical in this concept since Starfleet's most powerful ships are almost always designed to act as long-range exploration platforms. By analogy: if the U.S. Navy had that kind of exploration initiative in 1941, all of their "battleships" would have been away exploring the antarctic or conducting geographical surveys of the ocean floor when the Japanese attacked, and Pearl Harbor would have been filled with submarines and destroyer escorts that hadn't built for long-term endurance and therefore had to put in to port between patrols.

Can it counter even devious Klingon plans, let alone those of the resurgent Romulans, if its battleships (Federation class dreadnoughts, whatever) remain idled at Pearl Starbase?

Starfleet officers are a group of warrior-scientists who depend more on cleverness and technology than firepower or numbers. In the event of Romulan resurgence or Klingon deviousness, their immediate response is to send a shipload of their smartest officers to sneak up to the enemy's supreme commander and tie his shoelaces together.

 

[Timo]

Starfleet is basically always at peace, even when it's not. That's probably why they have such a hard time mobilizing a coherent defense when Big Bads show up on their doorstep unexpectedly.

Yup, that's what I mean - even peacetime keeps them extremely busy. And maximally distributed, with quite a bit of difficulty in concentrating the forces if something capable of opposing a single starship pops up. Extensive port time for entire formations sounds pretty unlikely in such circumstances.

Also, I believe the "fleet in being" concept is nonsensical in this concept since Starfleet's most powerful ships are almost always designed to act as long-range exploration platforms.

Then again, what we see are long-range exploration platforms. Perhaps the battlewagons indeed stay in port, invisible to the audience and to Klingons and Romulans, to keep the adversaries guessing as to the design, numbers or even the very existence of these deterrent ships?

Could Star Trek strategic combat be conducted with ships that are exploration-incapable? That is, cumbersome, short-ranged but invincible floating fortresses of some sort? The fact that TNG era battles are point blank slugfests sort of suggests that this is tactically viable. But strategically, you need to deploy your point blank fleet to that point in time...

Starfleet officers are a group of warrior-scientists who depend more on cleverness and technology than firepower or numbers. In the event of Romulan resurgence or Klingon deviousness, their immediate response is to send a shipload of their smartest officers to sneak up to the enemy's supreme commander and tie his shoelaces together.

I've never seen it better put!

Of course, it could again be that the warhawks stay in their bunkers, playing endless wargames until called to action. In TOS, we never saw what the actual Starfleet response was in "Errand of Mercy" - more explorers summoned to point their épées at the Klingons, or clone warriors with Gatling phasers launching a penetration raid against Qo'noS to strike fear in the hearts of the enemy populance?

TNG makes it rather clear there are no militant reserves waiting for their turn. But TMP backstage material still played with the idea of Arcturan fighting clones and whatnot...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

There is no real-world fleet doctrine exactly comparable to what Starfleet's doing, because many of their most serious threats -- the most serious, usually -- are largely unknown and unforeseen. If the old British navy exploring the seas had repeatedly met, say, steampunk war machines that were trying to blast their colonies off the map, we might have seen something similar evolve, with exploration and frontier patrol ships being as powerful as those of the battle fleet.

 

[Wingsley]

Suffice it to say that the United Federation of Planets has a much larger fleet than just a bunch of ships stopping at Starbase 11 in "Court Martial". If you took TOS in isolation, there were (misleading) suggestions that there was only one class of Federation starship and that there may have been only 12 or 13 in that class. If you accept the background chatter and graphics in the early movies, it would seem to be an endorsement (repudiated by Mr. Roddenberry) that there were other starship classes and that the Constitution-class (including subsequent subclasses) were much larger. (Of course, the whole premise of the Federation as presented in FJ's Tech Manual had the Federation being founded much more recently, at the time of Axanar, and that the Constitution-class and her contemporaries were the very first Federation starships ever; all thoroughly contradicted by subsequent canon.) With TMP2, canon showed us the first non-Constitution-class starship-of-the-line, the Reliant, and TMP3 showed us a smaller starship, the Grissom. So obviously "twelve like it in the fleet" ("Tomorrow is Yesterday") was not a reference to a starship class.

Note that none of these references touches upon that well-established canon history that asserts: (1: the Federation wasn't founded in James T. Kirk's lifetime, but instead, was formed about 105 years before TOS, and (2: the Federation Starfleet employed starships for generations before the first Constitution-class vessel was built or deployed. We've heard of vague references for vessels dating back 50 to 100 years before TOS, which FJ's Technical Manual never mentioned because the premise of the Technical Manual asserted there was no Federation then.

 

[blssdwlf]

Suffice it to say that the United Federation of Planets has a much larger fleet than just a bunch of ships stopping at Starbase 11 in "Court Martial".

You could take the same idea and then just multiple the number of starbases times a bunch of ships to get a minimum estimate of starfleet fleet size...

 

[Wingsley]

^ Not as bad idea, really. If only we knew how many central "home port" bases (like 11) were operational during the TOS/TMP era.

 

[T'Girl]

(2: the Federation Starfleet employed starships for generations before the first Constitution-class vessel was built or deployed. We've heard of vague references for vessels dating back 50 to 100 years before TOS

But were not ALL of those reference to Earth ships and Earth Expeditions?

 

[Timo]

Difficult to tell. In "A Piece of the Action", the Horizon is not stated to be a starship or a Starfleet vessel, but Kirk associates her with the Federation. For simplicity, or because it was true? Spock later claims the UFP is (legally? morally?) responsible for whatever the Horizon did - directly, or because the UFP has inherited the responsibilities of United Earth?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Albertese]

Indeed, perhaps the Federation considers itself responsible (to varying degrees) for all the legacy operations of their member worlds, regardless of how many decades prior to the founding of the UFP those operations took place.

--Alex

 

[T'Girl]

Difficult to tell. In "A Piece of the Action", the Horizon is not stated to be a starship or a Starfleet vessel, but Kirk associates her with the Federation.

Just watched the episode again, and Kirk really doesn't link the Horizon with the Federation.

USS Valiant which went to Eminiar Seven over fifty years before, was on a Earth expedition. The SS Columbia went to Talo eighteen years before seems to have been a civilian Earth ship. The starship Archon went Landru's planet a hundred years before, perhaps prior to the Federation's existence.

 

[Dukhat]

Difficult to tell. In "A Piece of the Action", the Horizon is not stated to be a starship or a Starfleet vessel, but Kirk associates her with the Federation.

Just watched the episode again, and Kirk really doesn't link the Horizon with the Federation.

USS Valiant which went to Eminiar Seven over fifty years before, was on a Earth expedition. The SS Columbia went to Talo eighteen years before seems to have been a civilian Earth ship. The starship Archon went Landru's planet a hundred years before, perhaps prior to the Federation's existence.

However, all of these ships were probably retroactively made into Federation Starfleet ships (with the exception of the Columbia, which was not Starfleet) once the terms "Federation" and "Starfleet" were finally established as the Enterprise's operating authority in ST, and the Enterprise was no longer just an "Earth" ship.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

There is no real-world fleet doctrine exactly comparable to what Starfleet's doing, because many of their most serious threats -- the most serious, usually -- are largely unknown and unforeseen. If the old British navy exploring the seas had repeatedly met, say, steampunk war machines that were trying to blast their colonies off the map, we might have seen something similar evolve, with exploration and frontier patrol ships being as powerful as those of the battle fleet.

The nature of the threat environment the Federation has to cope with usually suggests that specialized weapon systems (e.g. "antiship" or "anti-missile" systems) have fairly limited utility. Even a well-understood and conventional threat may come at you in a poorly-understood or unconventional way, or may pose a threat that has nothing to do with their weapons. Unconventional threats are also looming everywhere; one may encounter an alien species that uses a type of weapon you've never even heard of, or a predatory alien life form that uses no weapons and all but is otherwise totally impervious to yours.

In almost all of those cases, the Starfleet crew has to rely on the disciplined analysis of its science officers to figure out 1) what the hell is going on and 2) what the hell are we supposed to do about it. Probably the archetypical example of this is "The Voyage Home" where Starfleet's most advanced defenses were neutralized before they could ever get into firing range. The defense strategy that wound up working against the probe turned out to be a long and complicated experiment in temporal mechanics and a bit of interspecies diplomacy. A purely tactical solution would have failed miserably.

Galactic history being what it is, I'm pretty sure that this is hardly the first time something like this has happened, and it surely won't be the last. Starfleet is as effective as it is because it is staffed by people who look at even the most intractable problem and say "Everyone stand back! We're going to try science!"

Indeed, perhaps the Federation considers itself responsible (to varying degrees) for all the legacy operations of their member worlds, regardless of how many decades prior to the founding of the UFP those operations took place.

That's the implication in "The Masterpiece Society." The prime directive doesn't apply to them simply because the colony was founded by Earthlings and Earth is a Federation member. The actual reason is probably more complicated than that (otherwise it's just more of the semi-racist gibberish that pervades most of TNG) but it suggests that Federation jurisdiction ext ends to all of its member worlds and all of its colonies, past and present, even unknown ones.

 

[Wingsley]

^ This is exactly what I read into "The Tholian Web". Forget all that retconned intrigue about alternative-universe Tholians trying to steal the Starship Defiant. The whole premise of that story was that the technology of Federation starships and the mental health of starship personnel (the "tactical" component) were ineffective and it took McCoy, Scott and Spock using science (not overwhelming force) to rescue the boarding party and find an escape for the Enterprise. The "region of space" in which the Enterprise discovered the vanishing Defiant was unstable, resulting in technological and mental instability, an occupational hazard of deep-space explorers. The Enterprise's senior officers had to "think outside the box", fast-tracking their scientific learning curve to find an innovative way to survive and escape.

 

[Timo]

^ What does this mean in terms of starship construction, though? If the solution to the appearance of the Giant Space Gerbil is to shake the nearest star so hard that it makes the Gerbil tickle, Starfleet better be stocked with the firepower needed to shake stars. If the solution is to Swiss cheese the universe with a thousand subspace holes to lure the beast away, Starfleet needs a thousand ships. Etc. Flexibility calls for diversity and volume...

Just watched the episode again, and Kirk really doesn't link the Horizon with the Federation.

"We represent the Federation."
"Are you from the same outfit as the Horizon?"
"Yes."

It's clearly linked in Okmyx' mind now, regardless of whether Kirk was speaking the truth or lying.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Galactic history being what it is, I'm pretty sure that this is hardly the first time something like this has happened, and it surely won't be the last. Starfleet is as effective as it is because it is staffed by people who look at even the most intractable problem and say "Everyone stand back! We're going to try science!"

One wonders how the other major powers like the Klingons, Romulans, etc get by without resorting to science... They probably forward all their problems to the Federation

 

[Wingsley]

Thanks to Mytran for bringing up an important point...

In the remastered version of TNG's "The Naked Now", Data discovers the Psi 2000 water/intoxication sickness (TOS' "The Naked Time") while performing a search in the Enterprise-D's database. When Data reports the discovery, the updated data graphic is not of the refit NCC-1701 Enterprise, but of the original (TOS) Enterprise. This seems to put TNG-R in the awkward position of shoe-horning-in a retcon that establishes the TOS Enterprise as a Constitution-class vessel.

Possibly, but there are enough differences in the graphic that TNG-R uses compared to the actual ship we saw on TOS (a horizontal line on the rim of the saucer, window arrangement on the dorsal, etc) that I do not feel bound to take that evidence as conclusive. The ship Data is looking at in TNG-R may be Constitution Class, but that doesn't mean the original Enterprise is

It wasn't just that. It was what Picard said, apparently reading from the computer-archive report on "The Naked Time" incident:

U.S.S. Enterprise, Constitution class

And when Scotty visits the holodeck in "Relics", Picard does it again, looking around at the holographic recreation of the TOS Enterprise bridge and pronouncing: "Constitution class" and "This was your Enterprise".

 

[Mytran]

Actually, the scene in Relics is a good one to add weight to the argument that by the 24th Century all Enterprise-style vessels of the previous century had been recategorised into "Constitution Class" regardless of what they have been called originally. After all, Scotty strolls up to the Holodeck control panel and demands to see his old ship:

SCOTT: The Enterprise. Show me the Bridge of the Enterprise, you chattering piece of -
COMPUTER: There have been five Federation ships with that name. Please specify by registry number.
SCOTT: NCC One Seven Oh One. No bloody A, B, C, or D.
COMPUTER: Programme complete. Enter when ready.

The bridge he sees roughly resembles the Enterprise Bridge of TOS production run (I'm assuming Scotty is too drunk not to notice the differences in platform height, stair design, carpet, railings etc). However, the NCC-1701 had a different bridge for Pike in The Cage, for Kirk in WNMHGB and finally post-refit in TMP with further changes in TWOK before its final destruction. However, this version is apparently the only one in the holodeck data banks. For Scotty's nostalgia, that sure was a stroke of luck!

The oddity about why there is only one 1701 bridge in the holodeck files may be partially explained by Picard's actions as he views the recreation of this old ship:

PICARD: Constitution class.
SCOTT: Aye. You're familiar with them?
PICARD: There's one in the Fleet museum...

So, it seems that there's a Constitution class ship in the fleet museum and the bridge module is that which Scotty called up to view. I'm assuming that due to the retrospective reclassification of all starships of a certain period into the general class of "Constitution" and since the Enterprise is included in that batch, then any casual request to see "the bridge of the Enterprise NCC-1701" will result in the default Constitution class bridge being displayed. The same may be true of the image on the file header that Data calls up in TNG-R's The Naked Now.

To me, this speaks of a wide scale generalisation attitude on behalf of the holodeck programmers (as possibly Starfleet in general) with regard to ships of the previous century. Maybe no-one is interested enough in touring the past for programmers to bother with any other options?

 

[Avro Arrow]

Galactic history being what it is, I'm pretty sure that this is hardly the first time something like this has happened, and it surely won't be the last. Starfleet is as effective as it is because it is staffed by people who look at even the most intractable problem and say "Everyone stand back! We're going to try science!"

One wonders how the other major powers like the Klingons, Romulans, etc get by without resorting to science... They probably forward all their problems to the Federation

Yup. That's why the Klingon Empire was supposedly going to die out after Praxis, until they turned to the Federation for help.

And the Romulans were apparently equally helpless against the Supernova of Doom in ST09, even though the Federation had something that could save them. (It just didn't arrive in time.)

 

[Timo]

...In both cases, a supposedly unprecedented calamity of surprising magnitude took out the empires. Which makes one wonder if those weren't "artificial" attacks rather than mere accidents or natural phenomena. All the three parties involved have dabbled in nova-bombing one way or another, and all would supposedly know how to sabotage a high-strung power production facility like Praxis.

Somehow, though, both the evil empires have survived this far. Do they exist in volumes of space that Space Amoebae and Doomsday Machines avoid? Or are these empires simply so much more compact than the easygoing, carelessly expanding UFP that they hit fewer snags out of sheer statistic necessity?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JES]

They seem to hit whatever snags that the plot deemed necessary. Which unfortunately for Romulas meant a world-ending snag.