Did the Galaxy Class get Upgraded in the mid-late 2370's?

[Infern0]

You know, for the Dominion war etc.

It makes sense to me to upgrade those ships with quantams, better Phasers, engines, shields and stuff like that. They could even replace the isolinear chips with the gel packs off Voyager.

Couldn't have hurt right, to upgrade those ships would be pretty useful rather than the cost of building more Soverign's from scratch.

 

[RyuRoots]

They could even replace the isolinear chips with the gel packs off Voyager

Oh, that's brilliant. Let's make it so that some of the toughest ships in the fleet can be rendered helpless by cheese.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

It can be logically inferred that Starfleet vessels undergo regular upgrades as part of their normal lifespan. Real navies practice this, and the 1701, 1701-D, Defiant and NX-01 all underwent internal changes over the course of their particular series, indicating some kind of work had been done.

And a point - you're making the assumption that the Galaxy and Sovereign fill the same role in the fleet.

 

[SG-17]

What gel packs are you talking about? I barely watched any of Voyager.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Memory Alpha, to the rescue.

They strike me more as a supplementary system, rather than the main processors.

 

[nx1701g]

According to the DS9 Technical Manual both the Galaxy and the Nebula Class starships were refitted for the Dominion Wars. We also saw a similarly upgraded USS Venture (simply because they couldn't remove the phaser blisters on the nacelles from AGT).

 

[C.E. Evans]

I tend to think the Galaxy-class was designed to incorporate new technologies as they came along and that its ability to be constantly upgraded will keep the design in service well into the 25th-Century. Fifty years from now, the last batch of Galaxy-class ships may retain only the basic shape of the original batch that the Enterprise-D belonged to, IMO...

 

[Deks]

I wouldn't say the shape of the Galaxy class would change so much as the interior would along the technology in use.

We do know that the Constitution class underwent changes in design/shape ... however, this doesn't necessarily hold true for designs in the 24th century or all designs that would fulfil their original operational lifespan.

In an alternate timeline on Enterprise where the Enterprise-J made an appearance for example, the Prometheus class ship was seen as essentially identical in shape/design from the late 24th century, while we can argue it still underwent a lot of internal changes for example.

We know design changes ensued from TOS to the movies due to them being too 'bland' for the movies.

However, the Miranda class or the Excelsior classes that came after the Constitution class (for all we know) underwent only minor changes such as the Miranda incorporating the blue glowing nacelles on the internal side, and the Excelsior class receiving an upgrade when it comes to impulse engines and an extra addition to the secondary hull.
These changes retained the shape and other things were only added to the existing design, changing little in appearance.

 

[Forbin]

They could even replace the isolinear chips with the gel packs off Voyager.

Wouldn't that entail completely gutting every electronic system on the ship and replacing them with entirely different systems? on a ship the size of a Galaxy class, it sounds like that would take longer than building the whole damn ship from scratch!

When the Iowa class BBs went to war during Desert Storm, they still used the the 1940s mechanical fire control computer to aim the guns. It worked fine, and there was no point in taking the time, trouble and expense to replace it.

 

[Timo]

One might also assume that Starfleet wouldn't refit ship classes as much as it would constantly refit individual ships. The Galaxy might be fitted with new fire control sensors that were the hottest hot in November, 2373, while the Challenger might have a different model that was created in February, 2374, yet neither would have enough spare time to get the 2371-model new warp core that the Royal Oak now proudly carries. And so forth.

Pulling a major part of the fleet in for upgrades would be a bad thing. Moreover, installing the same sort of hastily developed and untested upgrade on a large number of ships might backfire badly. Since the fleet is already very diverse, perhaps there'd never be a serious effort to commonalize during the war, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS KG5]

Almost certainly, if you use the real-world navies as an example, an average Galaxy class probably spends about half it's life having some work or other done, just like real warships.

If Starfleet prefers a fleet availability of somewhere higher than 50% (very good for a real navy) then they would do more work "in theatre", but we have to assume they need a lot of work on a regular basis, especially as they get shot at a lot.

Starfleet vessels like Voyager do however seem to have an amazing ability to self-repair (assuming the week between each Voyager episode is not spent solely on cosmetic repairs) so there must be some kind of nanobot or similar coating on the hull which rebuilds minor damage itself in the 24th century.

 

[Timo]

(assuming the week between each Voyager episode is not spent solely on cosmetic repairs)

It has sometimes been argued that cosmetics are a vital resource for starships - that the ships are streamlined for a reason, and loss of that streamlining will make them perform in a markedly inferior fashion. A bit like a seagoing ship getting barnacles, or a sub losing acoustic tiles, or even a space shuttle losing thermal protection tiles. Thus, a lot of effort might indeed be put into repairing the hull, and then spraying some sort of functionally important finish on it, with the coincidental side effect of making the ship look pretty.

Many of the systems upgrades performed on our hero ships seemed like jobs that could be completed in a matter of hours, or at most days - or at least the ship could make advance preparations so that the physical components could be dropped in place in hours, and then sail out while onboard personnel hooked the things up.

Probably not possible with extra phaser strips on the nacelles or that sort of thing. But evidently possible with some pretty extreme things, such as the Defiant ventral shuttlebay (according to some interpretations anyway).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

I wouldn't say the shape of the Galaxy class would change so much as the interior would along the technology in use.

We do know that the Constitution class underwent changes in design/shape ... however, this doesn't necessarily hold true for designs in the 24th century or all designs that would fulfil their original operational lifespan.

I think the Galaxy-class could be one of those designs that undergoes a redesign at some point. It may not be a static configuration. I mean they're already adding phaser arrays to the nacelles and there's always the possibility it can go the "All Good Things..." route.

There could also be several Galaxy-class variants in the future, with some ships remaining in the original configuration. If we go with the idea that actual production of Galaxy-class starships stops soon (or has already stopped maybe), then a few decades from now, many of the remaining ships could vary slightly in appearance from one another.

 

[USS KG5]

It has sometimes been argued that cosmetics are a vital resource for starships - that the ships are streamlined for a reason, and loss of that streamlining will make them perform in a markedly inferior fashion.

Possibly - or be more likely to fall to bits in the NEXT fight, possibly a big concern for a trouble-prone ship like Voyager!

Many of the systems upgrades performed on our hero ships seemed like jobs that could be completed in a matter of hours, or at most days - or at least the ship could make advance preparations so that the physical components could be dropped in place in hours, and then sail out while onboard personnel hooked the things up.

As I said I get the impression just from what is on-screen that Starfleet ships need a lot of work, certainly they stop at starbases a lot.

This is logical, they are after all massive unbelievably complicated machines. It is also logical to make this work as simple as possible.

Probably not possible with extra phaser strips on the nacelles or that sort of thing. But evidently possible with some pretty extreme things, such as the Defiant ventral shuttlebay (according to some interpretations anyway).

Well why not? After all although on here we like to rationalise things down to our "real world" we are talking about a fiction here where people are amazingly advanced, a little bit of major construction on the fly might be an easy job with replicators and advanced tools.

 

[Myasishchev]

They could even replace the isolinear chips with the gel packs off Voyager

Oh, that's brilliant. Let's make it so that some of the toughest ships in the fleet can be rendered helpless by cheese.

You know, this was actually something I thought was kind of cool about Voyager, giving us a rather plausible computational liquid, but then they messed it up by having no proper, separate, prepared backups for the fragile bubble of life the ship maintains light years away from safety. I mean, Starfleet didn't learn its lesson from "Contagion"? Multiple computer backups and mechanical safeguards, damn it.

Of course, iirc, this was the same episode that the manual override for a door didn't work because of the computer malfunction.

Additionally, and this is a nitpick, it was kind of silly that an alien virus managed to infect the... cells, I guess... of the gel-comp. Quite a fortuitous mutation, to say the least--that's an evolutionary leap that makes "Threshold" look like a hop. They could've left it at an alien bacteria, which could consume the gel packs, although I would hope such an important system would have an exquisitely crafted, virtually intelligent immune system.

At the same time, I'm possibly being too harsh on an episode whose B-plot was meant to be good, goofy fun.

I agree with Timo's reasoning on "when-possible" upgrades for the Galacies. I'd imagine a lot of upgrades occurred following severe damage, and we see a few get (at least) severely damaged, and can easily assume that many if not most of the Galaxies wound up getting sent to a repair yard sometime during the course of the war, given their preeminent position in the Starfleet battle line, since apparently the Sovereigns were too valuable to risk.

 

[T'Girl]

Many of the updates would arrive over subspace communications, in the form of software packets. The Enterprise would then replicate the components and the engineering crews would install the updates themselves. In addition to the small replicator alcoves we've seen, the ship should have some large "industrial" size replicators as well. Modifications of this sort can be made without taking the ship off the line. A special repair ship (flying drydock) could be sent forward near the the "front" to keep ships from returning to a starbase. Some changes might require Picard to take the Enterprise to a quiet place, maybe under escort, if major systems need to be off line.

Major structural alterations would still require a starbase layover.


T'Girl

 

[Myasishchev]

Many of the updates would arrive over subspace communications, in the form of software packets. The Enterprise would then replicate the components and the engineering crews would install the updates themselves. In addition to the small replicator alcoves we've seen, the ship should have some large "industrial" size replicators as well. Modifications of this sort can be made without taking the ship off the line. A special repair ship (flying drydock) could be sent forward near the the "front" to keep ships from returning to a starbase. Some changes might require Picard to take the Enterprise to a quiet place, maybe under escort, if major systems need to be off line.

Major structural alterations would still require a starbase layover.


T'Girl

Good point--I think Insurrection (bleah ) mentioned some industrial replicators aboard the E-E...

And I'd have loved to have seen some support ships in DS9... flying drydocks, antimatter and hydrogen and bulk matter replenishment ships, fighter-tenders (if not outright carriers), and the like.

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

They could even replace the isolinear chips with the gel packs off Voyager

Oh, that's brilliant. Let's make it so that some of the toughest ships in the fleet can be rendered helpless by cheese.

Maybe they could use the bio-chip fluid and the cheese to cool the warp core as the "toughest ships" would overheat at the slightest hint of an enemy ship.

 

[I am not Spock]

I think the Galaxy class, designed in the 2360s, is good for another 50 years, at least. SF no doubt upgrade the systems every few years or so. 'You know engineers, they love to change things'.

Starfleet used the Miranda, Excelsior, and Oberth classes for more than 80 years, remember. I'm sure the 24th century versions looked completely different on the interior.

 

[USS Excelsior]

Same goes for the Constellation Class which started in the 2270s.