Lots of beam spam from the Enterprise, no doubt.
Galaxy class a failure?
- Thread starter cwl
- Start date
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
You missed quite a few episodes - off the top of my head, 11001001, Arsenal of freedom, Ship in a bottle. Then there are my previously shown examples:
You can add to these the episodes from your quote.
And the list is, most likely, not exhaustive.
As for your justifications for enterprise's failures - they change nothing. Enterprise (galaxy class) is still a ship that can be overwhelmed by just about anyone - I mean, ferengi who don't know what a computer is? Really?
Defiant, Sovereign and even Voyager proved they are much better ships.
About your excuse for "Generations":
The Duras sisters knew the shield frequencies throughout the battle only if
-Worf didn't change shield modulation; this makes him an idiot;
-Geordi sat in front of one console during the entire fight; that's a huge stretch - when, in TNG, sat Geordi in front of one console during an entire battle (when he was in engineering)?
Not that it really matters; it wouldn't matter if the Duras sisters were dressed like clowns and fired with water pistols at the enterprise.
The "flagship of the federation" was destroyed by a 20 year old BOB plagued by significant design flaws - a huge embarassment.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
True.
But, as I said before:
"The galaxy class is a fictional construct. It is what it is shown to be in canon. If it is consistently shown to be a death trap, then it is a death trap!"
It's hard to argue against the notion that for T.N.G, it had a more utopian attitude, and a lot, maybe too much, devotion was given to exploring and scientific discovery.
I think that lead to being naive, and that lead in turn to being overconfident.
First, in the beginning it was made to look as if there were only about 50 ships defending the entire Federation.
After the Borg attack, they began work on the Defiant, and even then they hesistated to call it a warship, but instead refered to it as an escort.
Later, they decided that the Borg threat had become 'less urgent' and stopped the whole Defiant project because of a few flaws that were later easily corrected???
I think both bravery and overconfidence was shown when they sent the Odessey alone (excusing the runabouts) through the wormwhole to investigate.
It was as if they assumed their ship would solve the problem in a few minutes and rescue everybody, and everything would return to normal.
Dax had already made an overconfident statement by saying 'you're not going to stop us from coming through the wormhole'...
And that was the scene that got us - seeing our Gaxy class ship destroyed like that especially when we started taking it for granted after so much time..
When the Odessey got destroyed, things started to change- it got scary because if the Dominion came through the wormhole early there would be little starfleet ships could do, because at the time, Dominion weapons went right through their shields.
We get the Defiant, and we love seeing it in action, making the other ships, 'boring'...
We started getting references to there being more ships in the fleet. We finally saw it "Call to Arms". Shielding against Dominion weapons were improved. Weapons system on DS9 were upgraded.
So when we see some Galaxys again, we see them in fleet formation in "Favor the Bold", and it was awesome to see, because they were like large support ships.
And then the scene- where the Galor class ships are firing and taking out federation ships passing through at will; one stops firing and seems confused because it discovers it just got outflanked, and two Galaxys do a beautiful pass by strike that makes short work of it in less than 5 minutes...
I think that lead to being naive, and that lead in turn to being overconfident.
First, in the beginning it was made to look as if there were only about 50 ships defending the entire Federation.
After the Borg attack, they began work on the Defiant, and even then they hesistated to call it a warship, but instead refered to it as an escort.
Later, they decided that the Borg threat had become 'less urgent' and stopped the whole Defiant project because of a few flaws that were later easily corrected???
I think both bravery and overconfidence was shown when they sent the Odessey alone (excusing the runabouts) through the wormwhole to investigate.
It was as if they assumed their ship would solve the problem in a few minutes and rescue everybody, and everything would return to normal.
Dax had already made an overconfident statement by saying 'you're not going to stop us from coming through the wormhole'...
And that was the scene that got us - seeing our Gaxy class ship destroyed like that especially when we started taking it for granted after so much time..
When the Odessey got destroyed, things started to change- it got scary because if the Dominion came through the wormhole early there would be little starfleet ships could do, because at the time, Dominion weapons went right through their shields.
We get the Defiant, and we love seeing it in action, making the other ships, 'boring'...
We started getting references to there being more ships in the fleet. We finally saw it "Call to Arms". Shielding against Dominion weapons were improved. Weapons system on DS9 were upgraded.
So when we see some Galaxys again, we see them in fleet formation in "Favor the Bold", and it was awesome to see, because they were like large support ships.
And then the scene- where the Galor class ships are firing and taking out federation ships passing through at will; one stops firing and seems confused because it discovers it just got outflanked, and two Galaxys do a beautiful pass by strike that makes short work of it in less than 5 minutes...
Last edited:
Again, no. If they sent the Defiant, then IT would have been blown up, and the producers would have had to introduce yet another new ship the following season's season premiere. See, this is what I mean about it being a TV show and it's folly to try to apply reason to FX shots or careless battle dialogue.
Sure it can if it's a super duper Iconian virus that is to anything you're thinking of as a nuclear aircraft carrier is to a wooden branch floating on water. They were lucky shutting everything down worked, that the ship didn’t become sentient and started demanding pancakes. I'm being funny here but there's a point I'm trying to make that I think you and the guy below aren't getting…
Okay, 1) that's a metaphor. And 2) only because the lame ass producers never got 7 years with it…have we forgotten how shitty the show became at the end?
What admirals are you talking about? There ARE no admirals. There is no "obsession with centralized computer integration." Starfleet didn't design the Galaxy Class. Andy Probert did - the outside anyway, with direction from Gene Roddenberry et al. Its performance was dictated by the story idea. "Hey wouldn't it be cool if" ...This week it's killer nanites, next week its Romulan warbirds, the following it's Q and the Borg. If the ship wasn't in serious shit, if the crew never needed fear for its safety, this site to which we allocate our time and effort into discussing this TV show, this "entertainment franchise" (blech) would not exist.
What I see here is fans who don't like the stories told as much as…no that's not it either…they're here because they like the stories but want more, they want to see these spaceships kicking ass and taking numbers, and they cling to whatever ship "class" had the most FX shots doing that. Then they go back miffed at the other ships and come up with all these biased arguments trying to sway others to follow their literal-minded madness neglecting likely facts about these spaceships (i.e. the Federation's flagship is, um, tough) because they didn't get enough space battles! Good grief!
And then they feel persecuted when fans of the ship THEY're attacking argue back. Especially with that sin of internet jerk sins: reality.
Agreed. But I still don't see proof that the class was a deathtrap. The Enterprise-D, maybe, but not the whole class.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
The galaxy class ships are virtually identical - the same blueprint, the same construction methods. Enterprise, odyssey, etc are virtually identical - except for some bridge aesthetics.
If enterpride D is faulty, all galaxies are faulty.
No, they're not. Just because something is built to the same blueprints does not make it completely identical to another thing. There are a myriad of industrial reasons how and why the D could be the exception rather than the rule.
We saw other Galaxys doing fine in combat on DS9 during the Dominion War.
We saw other Galaxys doing fine in combat on DS9 during the Dominion War.
See now he's got you doing it. By that logic the only way to solve this issue is to give every other starship in the galaxy a 7 year TV contract and then compare how many dozens of times each one was near total annihilation. In contrast you'd be much safer aboard the Love Boat - that baby made it 10 seasons on the open seas and never so much as got hijacked by a Somali pirate. Sucker'd survived WWIII against the Soviets.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Arpy, you speak as if you're so cool and detached. Your attitude speaks differently:
"Then they go back miffed at the other ships and come up with all these biased arguments trying to sway others to follow their literal-minded madness neglecting likely facts about these spaceships (i.e. the Federation's flagship is, um, tough) because they didn't get enough space battles! Good grief!" So cool and detached!
I'll repeat myself again - maybe you'll actually read my post this time:
"The galaxy class is a fictional construct. It is what it is shown to be in canon. If it is consistently shown to be a death trap, then it is a death trap!"
This means that the trekverse is fictional, not real. It means that this fictional universe is populated with fictional naive admirals and fictional starships.
And some fictional starships were depicted as being cool - for example, Defiant, who successfully engaged multiple dominion ships on many occasions. Other fictional starships were depicted as being pathetic - the galaxy class, for example.
It also means that if you want to have fun diiscussing star trek (and you're not interested in behind the scenes minutiae) you'll have to play in this fictional universe, discussing fictional characters and settings.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
What industrial reasons are you referring to?
The Federation is a replicator based economy. The galaxy class ships are made from parts identical to the molecular level.
And, in DS9, how much of the galaxies did we see?
No more than 5 minutes, in my opinion. We know next to nothing about the galaxies' performance during the dominion war - not enough to form a justified conclusion, in any case.
In TNG, on the other hand, we saw hundreds of hours of enterprise D.
Last edited:
But you see it wasn't. It was a given that it's a superior ship, so that's why it was okay to knock it to hell and back week after week. I'm not saying I didn't feel giddy as a schoolgirl seeing it kick ass during the Dominion war, but that's the fault of the producers not giving fans more of that great stuff, not evidence of anything in-universe.
At the end of the day, man, you're going to see what you want to see.
To add to that, the Enterprise-D could be unique simply because of the kinds of adventures that ship has. I'm willing to bet that not alot of other Galaxies have saved the Federation as often, gone up against mad scientists as much, or discovered new things like the Enterprise has. That is, a lot of these mishaps tend to be circumstantial and not anything that any designer or engineer could have foreseen, or that Fed tech was simply too inferior. In either case, there's no fault of design.
If we substitute the E-D for the Defiant, I agree that the same glitches would happen. The only reason why the Defiant never had as many of those glitches is b/c she was bred for combat and not for encountering ancient computer programs, unknown aliens, and investigative missions.
First lets properly look at the section you quoted. I bolded the section of your post I was commenting on
Now let's look at your reply.
The ships power systems were never in any danger. That would have been bad for the Binar's plan. Picard and Riker set the ship to self destruct to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
Again no power system failures. The 1701D did fairly well agains the Echo Papa Drone. It left orbit to get the civilians out of danger.
Moriaty, a sentient version of the ships computer, took control. The power systems were in no danger unless the crew did not comply.
As for the rest of your examples, you've shown no contradictory evidence to my responses.
As can any ship. Thomas Riker took the Defiant, right out from under O'Brien, who should have known something was up. "I think you know why." is as easily a pathetic way to get rid of someone, and commandeer a ship as is stupid Ferengi.
Look at my arguments. LaForge doesn't have to sit and stare at one station. Any glance to any station showing the shield frequency gave it to the Duras Sisters. Worf, or LaForge or maybe both were rotating frequencies. Sometimes the 1701D had big hits, as would be expected from a ship with useless shields, and other times it didn't. Looks like the Duras Sisters had to wait from time to time until they got a new view of the ships shield frequency.
Remember that to fire through your shields your weapons must match your own shields frequency. That being the case, the 1701D's phaser hit would have hit the BoP, but it didn't. The Klingons comment that their shields are holding, again showing the 1701D is firing back. The Klingons fire in bursts, again showing they are waiting for their next view of the 1701D's shields.
Now I am no fan of the loss of the 1701D, and it was handled poorly on screen, but the evidence would show that there was an exchange of fire and a change of shield frequencies on both parts.
The Galaxy isn't a failure. It survived 3 encounters with the Borg, it survived the Q's attempt to destroy humanity (with Q's help), it survived Booby traps, Cardassian attacks, Q's interference, the loss of its CO and XO, an encounter with Lore's Borg, and the Crystalline entity. It can't be a failure.
Now let's look at your reply.
The ships power systems were never in any danger. That would have been bad for the Binar's plan. Picard and Riker set the ship to self destruct to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
Again no power system failures. The 1701D did fairly well agains the Echo Papa Drone. It left orbit to get the civilians out of danger.
Moriaty, a sentient version of the ships computer, took control. The power systems were in no danger unless the crew did not comply.
As for the rest of your examples, you've shown no contradictory evidence to my responses.
As can any ship. Thomas Riker took the Defiant, right out from under O'Brien, who should have known something was up. "I think you know why." is as easily a pathetic way to get rid of someone, and commandeer a ship as is stupid Ferengi.
Look at my arguments. LaForge doesn't have to sit and stare at one station. Any glance to any station showing the shield frequency gave it to the Duras Sisters. Worf, or LaForge or maybe both were rotating frequencies. Sometimes the 1701D had big hits, as would be expected from a ship with useless shields, and other times it didn't. Looks like the Duras Sisters had to wait from time to time until they got a new view of the ships shield frequency.
Remember that to fire through your shields your weapons must match your own shields frequency. That being the case, the 1701D's phaser hit would have hit the BoP, but it didn't. The Klingons comment that their shields are holding, again showing the 1701D is firing back. The Klingons fire in bursts, again showing they are waiting for their next view of the 1701D's shields.
Now I am no fan of the loss of the 1701D, and it was handled poorly on screen, but the evidence would show that there was an exchange of fire and a change of shield frequencies on both parts.
The Galaxy isn't a failure. It survived 3 encounters with the Borg, it survived the Q's attempt to destroy humanity (with Q's help), it survived Booby traps, Cardassian attacks, Q's interference, the loss of its CO and XO, an encounter with Lore's Borg, and the Crystalline entity. It can't be a failure.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Vanyel
Look at my entire quote:
Riker II took control of the Defiant? There's a big difference between a perfect spy + the Maquis and a bunch of idiot ferengi or a 20 year old BOP.
I did not respond to your post? But I did:
That doesn't excuse the galaxy's poor performance. Consistent bad luck equals a badly designed ship.
And about "Generations":
First - apparently, I have to repeat myself:
Worf should remodulate shields continuously - meaning, the shield frequency should change every milisecond. If Geordi looked at the shields console every 20 seconds, and the Duras sisters managed, by some miracle, to modulate their weapons in that instant, then the klingons would have had a few moments to fire every 20 seconds. That's not what we see onscreen.
And in order for you to fire through your shields your weapons don't have to match your own shields frequency. The shields are antigravity-based (their gravitational nature is established in many episodes). They don't let stuff in, but they let stuff out.
Look at my entire quote:
I did say: the numerous episodes where enterprise's power grid or warp core seem to want desperately to fail, and do so as often as possible. But I also said: The warp core was vulnerable, the nacelles were vulnerable, the power system was vulnerable, etc. Notice the "etc". They didn't know what a firewall was on the enterprise.
Riker II took control of the Defiant? There's a big difference between a perfect spy + the Maquis and a bunch of idiot ferengi or a 20 year old BOP.
I did not respond to your post? But I did:
In essence, you only said that the Defiant was lucky, Voyager was lucky and Enterprise was consistently unlucky.As for your justifications for enterprise's failures - they change nothing. Enterprise (galaxy class) is still a ship that can be overwhelmed by just about anyone - I mean, ferengi who don't know what a computer is? Really?
That doesn't excuse the galaxy's poor performance. Consistent bad luck equals a badly designed ship.
And about "Generations":
First - apparently, I have to repeat myself:
Second - your apologetic rationalization is unconvincing.
Worf should remodulate shields continuously - meaning, the shield frequency should change every milisecond. If Geordi looked at the shields console every 20 seconds, and the Duras sisters managed, by some miracle, to modulate their weapons in that instant, then the klingons would have had a few moments to fire every 20 seconds. That's not what we see onscreen.
And in order for you to fire through your shields your weapons don't have to match your own shields frequency. The shields are antigravity-based (their gravitational nature is established in many episodes). They don't let stuff in, but they let stuff out.
Last edited:
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Was there in TNG an AI or computer virus or unknown alien that actually had problems infiltrating/disabling the enterprise? If yes, what's the ratio between the efficient threats and the inefficient ones?
And the galaxy class was defeated not only by these exotic apparitions. A faulty BOP was sufficient to destroy it. 3 dominion bugs were overkill.
Embarassing.
But that's also along the lines of some of the examples you yourself stated. The Bynars were, for all intents and purposes, spies. Moriarty is one of the classic definitions of spying as well.
The point is, no matter what in-story reason leads up to it, if the writers want something on the ship to fail they'll certainly find a way.
I would argue that Voyager suffered even worse luck more consistently (the show's entire premise began with being at the wrong place at the wrong time, for starters) but I can't recall anyone bringing up the Intrepid as an example of bad engineering.
This is what I don't like about fictional hindsight as opposed to real life; the situation that leads to such events tend to be heavily heavily manufactured by the plot gods, which makes hindsight kind of useless.
I bring this up because you could apply that kind of hindsight to any situation in fiction, really: the Defiant should have let other ships go first so that it could see/analyze the Breen energy weapon in action (and the Defiant is almost never the first ship to go into battle anyway); Voyager shouldn't have let that Kazon sabateur in a cell by a major power conduit; the Enterprise-E's engines should have been modified with equipment to handle the Briar Patch, etc. etc. But in no way are those considered "design flaws."
You could also make the case that the Enterprise-D had a 100% ratio of purging said viruses and aliens, meaning it has the best anti-virus software ever. Only one other Galaxy was shown infected in such a destructive way, after all. And when would there ever be an "inefficient threat?" If the threat is inefficient, it ain't a threat! (and no threat = no drama)
As for the 3 dominion bugs, as others have said, it was also a battle of philosophy; not once did the Odyssey try to fire torpedoes b/c Starfleet never goes that far. Contrast that to the Dominion War, in which we see the Galaxies dish out but never go down. If you're in a major battle, you've got a lot more to worry about than 3 ships of any class, nevermind the bugs.
Again, as others have said, Star Trek could come up with the fanwankiest design ever, with the best of shields and software and weapons littered about, but it's still going to fall to the whims of fiction and manufactured plot-driven drama. And if the Galaxy was so embarrassing, it would not pop up nearly as much as it did in DS9 and Voyager.
I'm reminded of TOS, how every Starfleet ship that was wrecked or destroyed was a Constitution class. Every ship. Yet not only was the Constitution seen fit for long-term duty, but it remains Starfleet's most iconic design, one that inspired generations of ship designs. By the logic of the prior examples, the Constitution is a catastrophic failure, far worse than the Galaxy, and yet the class achieved unprecedented success time and again.
Similar threads
