Does Starfleet only use Galaxys Now?

[C.E. Evans]

The Galaxy-class has been in service for some twenty-five years now. The Enterprise-D is likely from the first block of these ships, with another block or two built after "Encounter At Farpoint." But in a navy presumably as big as Starfleet--consisting of hundreds if not thousands of starships--even two or three dozen Galaxy-class ships isn't that big of a number. Still, it would make the design no longer a rare sight within the Starfleet by the time TNG ended its television run and perhaps one that would be frequently called upon for certain kinds of deep-space missions, IMO...

 

[ProwlAlpha]

According to the episode's script, Admiral Hanson's ship at Wolf 359 was also Galaxy-class (and his message during the battle was filmed on the Enterprise battle bridge set).

IIRC, the Trinculo didn't appear on screen.

Actually, it is still up for debate since one of the models appeared to have been labelled as the Trinculo. It could have possibly been in one of the background fleets.

 

[Jono]

Thats what I got in my list. Actually, it seemed like the 90s Trek books were handing out Galaxies.

It might be due to the lack of well known modern Starfleet designs during the early to mid-90s. Apart from the Galaxy you really only had the Miranda, Oberth, Excelsior and Ambassador, all seemingly much older designs. Plus bunch of wrecks in BOBW but I'm not sure how well known they would have been to writers since they were just background flotsam.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Well, they had a number of designs to work with, like the Cheyenne, Nebula, New Orleans, Constellation, Olympic and Soyuz. So, it wasn't like there wasn't any and besides its not too hard to invent a new class. I have seen a number of 90s Trek novels that would describe a different class but not name it.

 

[Technobuilder]

I would enjoy knowing that eventually enough Galaxy Class ships (as well as other classes) were produced to serve and support the massive scientific, exploration, & defense commitments that an interstellar organization like the United Federation of Planets (under the auspices of Starfleet) would be likely and expected to maintain...

But I really never understood this idea that Starfleet was such a small organization that they would only plan for 12 Galaxies initially. That would hardly make a dent in any exploration effort.

If the plan was to utilize the first 6 as testbed, and shakedown however, for the eventual workhorse of the fleet then by all means, it would certainly make sense that the Galaxy-Class became the "new" Excellsior-Classes of the late 24th/early 25th century. Ships projected to be viable for 100-120 years with regular upgrades and refit.

Evidence supporting this idea as likely can even be found in the almost-future of the Starship Challenger on ST:Voyager.

 

[Sxottlan]

Even though it makes sense to have many Galaxy-class starships, for some reason I still hold on to this old romantic notion of there just be six or twelve. I just think it would make them more special. It's just unfortunate that canon has shown them to be taken down pretty easily.

I even still hold out some ridiculous hope there will be a day they can follow up in the literature on that old snippet from the TNG Manual about six Galaxy class ships scattered and hidden throughout the galaxy waiting for the day they can be used. Or something to that effect (waits for when he'll be corrected).

 

[C.E. Evans]

But I really never understood this idea that Starfleet was such a small organization that they would only plan for 12 Galaxies initially. That would hardly make a dent in any exploration effort.

I think it's standard practice to have a small initial order of any new starship design. After seeing how effective (or ineffective) the design is after a few years in service, Starfleet can always later either order more ships or end its production run in lieu of developing another design.

As far as the exploration effort, its unlikely that Starfleet depended solely on the Galaxy-class for that. They used other designs to explore space too, with the Galaxy-class just being the newest in their inventory, IMO.

 

[David cgc]

Even though it makes sense to have many Galaxy-class starships, for some reason I still hold on to this old romantic notion of there just be six or twelve. I just think it would make them more special. It's just unfortunate that canon has shown them to be taken down pretty easily.

A lot of the background material about the Galaxies being the biggest, most ambitious starships ever did give the impression that they were something like the giant "Explorer" ships in Babylon 5: You'd be lucky to see just one in person in your life.

 

[Christopher]

A lot of the background material about the Galaxies being the biggest, most ambitious starships ever did give the impression that they were something like the giant "Explorer" ships in Babylon 5: You'd be lucky to see just one in person in your life.

Right. They weren't meant to be "workhorse" ships; the original concept was that they were whole communities in space, vast research vessels dedicated to extended deep-space exploration, spending years or decades away from civilization. Unfortunately, the rapid turnaround of production staffers during the first season meant that the original intentions behind the ship were quickly abandoned.

 

[Mage]

You do realize that most of the Galaxy's in that list are from the Star Trek games and have been added to Memory Beta by fans who insist that they are now canon somehow?

Non sequitur. The page header on Memory Beta explicitly says "Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki." The welcome text on the front page says "Memory Beta is a wikipedia-style database for licensed Star Trek works, including novels, comic books, RPG sourcebooks, video games and any other licensed works." It's not meant to represent an authoritative continuity, but simply to be an index of information from any and all licensed tie-ins, regardless of their mutual inconsistencies.

You are right ofcourse. However, putting every ship mentioned or listed in a game like ArmadaII seem a bit like overkill to me.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, it says games are one of the things the site is meant to cover. And it's the job of a Wiki to be as thorough as its editors can make it. (It would be nice if there were clearer distinctions drawn among the sources of information on Memory Beta, though.)

 

[BrotherBenny]

^I wished that for years as I wrote my fan fiction since I wanted to stay consistent with the novels and often had a difficult time determining where certain ships came from (and it was time consuming to click on every ship page to learn the answer).

Is it really plausible, even for a ship the size of the Galaxy-class, to be exploring the great unknown for "years or even decades" ?

Eventually they would run low on supplies and either have to (1) return to the nearest starbase, (2) find a warp-capable species to trade with, or (3) find an uninhabited planet and pick up edible foodstuffs or raw materials for the replicators.

I don't believe that replicators are the super machines they were depicted as being at times because people still preferred eating real rather than replicated food.

 

[Section 31]

C.E. Evans wrote:
I think it's standard practice to have a small initial order of any new starship design. After seeing how effective (or ineffective) the design is after a few years in service, Starfleet can always later either order more ships or end its production run in lieu of developing another design.

As far as the exploration effort, its unlikely that Starfleet depended solely on the Galaxy-class for that. They used other designs to explore space too, with the Galaxy-class just being the newest in their inventory, IMO.

That's generally true of the production runs of most sophisticated vehicles in the real world (ships, airplanes, etc.). I could buy that Starfleet procured an initial 6 (with options for another 6) as essentially a low-rate initial production batch, then followed on with an order for a few dozen. Thus, Galaxy (70637) was the "prototype", Challenger (71099) was an LRIP example, and Yamato (71807), Odyssey (71832), Venture (71854) and Trunculo (71867) were from the full-rate production batch. This is all guesswork, of course, but makes sense based on observable patterns in the real world.

Totally agreed that the Galaxy class is only one of many platforms used in exploration, probably even to this point (2381). Even if the Galaxy class is the latest & greatest, most capable platform for deep space exploration, it doesn't mean that Nebula class or older Ambassador and Excelsior class starships are suddenly ill-suited for the mission.

David cgc wrote:
A lot of the background material about the Galaxies being the biggest, most ambitious starships ever did give the impression that they were something like the giant "Explorer" ships in Babylon 5: You'd be lucky to see just one in person in your life.

A lot of that was also underscored by what I undertand to have been an intentional decision on the producers' part to not show many Galaxy class ships prior to the Enterprise-D's destruction in Generations so as not to confuse the audience visually that the ship depicted was the Enterprise if it was not.

Christopher wrote:
Right. They weren't meant to be "workhorse" ships; the original concept was that they were whole communities in space, vast research vessels dedicated to extended deep-space exploration, spending years or decades away from civilization. Unfortunately, the rapid turnaround of production staffers during the first season meant that the original intentions behind the ship were quickly abandoned.

Some possible in-universe explanations could be that the original mission envisioned was overcome by subsequent events that caused the design's intended mission priorities to change. Real-world history is rife with examples of a naval vessel or combat aircraft that was designed for one purpose, but was re-roled to one or many other missions that it was also well-suited to perform. Factors that could have affected mission priorities early in the Galaxy class design life include the Cardassian Wars, the re-emergence of the Romulans after "The Neutral Zone" and the discovery of the Borg.

Also, there's the possibility that the original Galaxy class concept was the brainchild of a particular Starfleet commander or Federation administration. Once those officials left office, the following commander or administration might have shifted priorities (possibly based on the factors above or other political motivations). The Galaxy class is a large multi-mission platform whose resources are applicable to multiple mission sets. Once in service, the powers that be might have seen fit to diversify its mission priorities.

Sxottlan wrote:
Even though it makes sense to have many Galaxy-class starships, for some reason I still hold on to this old romantic notion of there just be six or twelve. I just think it would make them more special. It's just unfortunate that canon has shown them to be taken down pretty easily.

That's a natural and understandable fan tendency. Think of it this way: in a fleet that appears to have a few thousand ships in active service, 5 or 6 dozen Galaxy class starships would be a relatively small percentage of the whole. So in relative terms, they are still fairly unique and special.

 

[Christopher]

Is it really plausible, even for a ship the size of the Galaxy-class, to be exploring the great unknown for "years or even decades" ?

Eventually they would run low on supplies and either have to (1) return to the nearest starbase, (2) find a warp-capable species to trade with, or (3) find an uninhabited planet and pick up edible foodstuffs or raw materials for the replicators.

I don't believe that replicators are the super machines they were depicted as being at times because people still preferred eating real rather than replicated food.

I don't see what preference has to do with functionality. There's no reason why replicators couldn't be used to replace any expended resources or worn components, drawing on raw materials gathered from asteroids and comets (Trek is far too fixated on planets -- most of the accessible resources in the universe are found in moons, asteroids, comets, etc. and are far easier to obtain from them, since you don't have to dig as deep or fight a planet's gravity). Even aside from replicators, when you've got a ship as big as a whole village, there could be built-in industrial capability for refining and forging metal, manufacturing polymers, growing plants hydroponically, etc. Much smaller sailing ships in centuries past were able to spend years away from home ports by relying on stored supplies, food and materials obtained through trade, etc. I'm sure plenty of sailors would've preferred eating home cooking to shipboard rations or exotic foodstuffs gained in trade, but that doesn't mean they couldn't survive long journeys.

Voyager managed to survive fairly well, and it wasn't even designed for long-term missions in the "wilderness." The Galaxy class, as originally conceived, was tailored specifically for extreme long-term missions. That's why they had families onboard -- because you couldn't ask people to commit to spending decades away from their loved ones. The whole idea was to make each ship a self-sustaining biosphere and community in its own right -- at least for the 15 years of the originally conceived mission profile.

Christopher wrote:
Right. They weren't meant to be "workhorse" ships; the original concept was that they were whole communities in space, vast research vessels dedicated to extended deep-space exploration, spending years or decades away from civilization. Unfortunately, the rapid turnaround of production staffers during the first season meant that the original intentions behind the ship were quickly abandoned.

Some possible in-universe explanations could be that the original mission envisioned was overcome by subsequent events that caused the design's intended mission priorities to change. Real-world history is rife with examples of a naval vessel or combat aircraft that was designed for one purpose, but was re-roled to one or many other missions that it was also well-suited to perform. Factors that could have affected mission priorities early in the Galaxy class design life include the Cardassian Wars, the re-emergence of the Romulans after "The Neutral Zone" and the discovery of the Borg.

Way ahead of you. I offered a similar explanation in Orion's Hounds over five years ago.

 

[Section 31]

Way ahead of you. I offered a similar explanation in Orion's Hounds over five years ago.

Gotcha. Sorry if I forgot - it's been a while since I read that book, and I've lived a lot of life since then. Nice to know I was on the right track, though.

 

[Technobuilder]

But I really never understood this idea that Starfleet was such a small organization that they would only plan for 12 Galaxies initially. That would hardly make a dent in any exploration effort.

I think it's standard practice to have a small initial order of any new starship design. After seeing how effective (or ineffective) the design is after a few years in service, Starfleet can always later either order more ships or end its production run in lieu of developing another design.

As far as the exploration effort, its unlikely that Starfleet depended solely on the Galaxy-class for that. They used other designs to explore space too, with the Galaxy-class just being the newest in their inventory, IMO.

Oops, I should of said TOTAL, not initially.

Again, I get the fan tendency to treat them as "special" can be strong, but at this point, I think that we could also say with a certain degree of rationale that the Galaxy-Class has grown beyond it's total of 12 projected ships tasked as D.S.E. vessels into more of the (if not "workhorse" then) "backbone" for the Federation's Starfleet.

They're multi-role long, range starships, tried & tested, with a tremendous degree of realitive autonomy and perfect for always being "the only ship in range"

That said, if the Galaxy's (despite original intentions to be these leviathan superships of rarity) have grown past their projected purpose, how many roughly could their be?

More than 12, less than 100?

This whole discussion has taken me back to the old debate over the size of Starfleet in total hulls of various mission types.

40 ships at Wolf 359 seemed like a lot, but again, all starships are not created equal either.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Thus, Galaxy (70637) was the "prototype"

Was it, outside of the technical manuals? Didn't "Encounter at Farpoint" and "Yesterday's Enterprise" say that the Enterprise-D was the first Galaxy-class starship?

 

[KJbushway]

The galaxy class ins't the cheapest.

 

[Idran]

Thus, Galaxy (70637) was the "prototype"

Was it, outside of the technical manuals? Didn't "Encounter at Farpoint" and "Yesterday's Enterprise" say that the Enterprise-D was the first Galaxy-class starship?

While I can't remember the Farpoint quote you're referring to, I'm not sure you can count anything Yesterday's Enterprise said as applying to the normal universe, to be fair.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I could be wrong about "Farpoint". I haven't seen it in years. I might be mentally mashing in lines from "The Search" when Defiant (which definitely was the first of it's type) showed up.