Galaxy class a failure?

[Praetor]

I do think the Galaxy class will see it's 100 year life, hell we have B-52's that are knocking on 60 years now. lol

A very good real-world example. While starships might undergo much greater strains than aircraft, when you account for the materials improvement, the durability should be ultimately comparable. And what are starships if not aircraft/seacraft analogues?

There's also the funny assumption that every ship in a single class is built the same. Internal arrangement and equipment loadout is going to differ from ship to ship and the designs will be updated as built. If the ejection system is flawed - well that's fixed now, and its implemented in all new-build ships and retrofitted to all old-build ships.

Or are Starfleet's Excelsior-class ships all tooling around with their original (now substandard) equipment?

I think Sternbach, Okuda or Probert could attest that while the Galaxy is meant to withstand extreme scenarios, its not its standard mission envelope. I doubt anyone had shield-penetrating weapons or advanced-as-fuck Iconian technology in mind when they designed her (With regards to security architecture... that virus screwed up the Romulans. Considering their usual paranoid attitude, I'd expect them to be stuffed to their eyebrows in security and firewalls. I doubt sincerely that stronger computer security would have helped against the Iconian... stuff). And nothing is going to survive a full-impulse ramming from a fully-fueled ship.

Very well said, Jitty. I hadn't even thought to mention the specific mission load-out capabilities as such.

Of course, enterprise D, odyssey and yamato were depicted as weak for dramatic reasons. But this depiction, unlike behind the scenes minutiae, is part of canon, and has to be considered valid - the trekverse is an fictional universe, after all.

I do agree.

In TNG, the heroes' ship always failed, and its crew always managed to fix the situation despite that. Enterprise D was depicted as being faulty.

Again, agreed, but I take that with a grain of salt because I know the "real" reason it was depicted as faulty.

In DS9/Voyager, we have images that can be interpreted differently - due to scarcity of information.
One could theorise that the galaxy class received a major redesign and overhaul, that its performance improved greatly.
One could say that the galaxy class was a failure in the dominion war (based on information from TNG), and we don't know due to lacking screentime.
How one interprets the information is up to the individual star trek fan, in the end.

We reach.

And nothing is going to survive a full-impulse ramming from a fully-fueled ship.

Except the Narada...

Sorry, couldn't resist... :-)

Only because Robau's corpse was aboard!

Sorry, wrong thread.

About "Generations":
In TNG, we always saw the ship fail and the crew saving the day.
That's why I think that enterprise's destruction in "Generations" should be interpreted as failure of enterprise's power grid or shield emitters (at the BOP's first shot) and not as Worf/Geordi making a stupid mistake that even a first year cadet wouldn't make.

See, with that I disagree, because we don't know that it's a power system failure per se. Those first shots might have damaged the ship's equipment without there actually being an inherent failure. Alternatively, the crew possibly didn't think to rotate the shields, which I think is, as you say, less credible because on the series the crew almost always figured out how to save the day. Overall, it just wasn't spelled out. And, of course, again we know the real reason why it was destroyed.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm not talking about non-canon stuff like books, I'm talking about where there is absence of information. If the ship was working perfectly, it wouldn't be as dramatic. Thus, all the non-dramatic stuff happens when the camera isn't pointed at the crew. You can't make assumptions based on what's on screen without acknowledging that, in the Trek universe, there's the possibility of off-screen stuff that would refute what you say.

I'll have to rewatch Generations to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you see more than one torpedo go through the shields of the ship, so it makes it pretty clear that it's not that the BoP hit something, it's that they're being bombarded by shots through the shields.

 

[Xerxes1979]

Why are we not talking about two other serious failings of a Federation ship onscreeen, both possibly greater than any Galaxy class issue?

The Intreprid class has extremely vunerable computer subsystems located close enough to the outer hull that serious damage can completely disable the self-destruct proceedure allowing capture of the ship. Presumably this area of the ship could very well be damaged unintentionally during battle with or without Seska's inside information.

The Enterprise-E while at high warp with full shields and additional shielding around the warp core was disabled with single shot that did no visable damage to the warp nacelles and did not completely destroy the remaining shield strength. This is a massive tactical vulnerablity. Without warp your adversary can easily retreat or bypass you in an important battle. I have never seen this one shot vulnerability in any other vessel.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

I'm not talking about non-canon stuff like books, I'm talking about where there is absence of information. If the ship was working perfectly, it wouldn't be as dramatic. Thus, all the non-dramatic stuff happens when the camera isn't pointed at the crew. You can't make assumptions based on what's on screen without acknowledging that, in the Trek universe, there's the possibility of off-screen stuff that would refute what you say.

I'll have to rewatch Generations to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you see more than one torpedo go through the shields of the ship, so it makes it pretty clear that it's not that the BoP hit something, it's that they're being bombarded by shots through the shields.

In TNG, one season equates roughly one year trekverse time. So in one year, enterprise was being trashed 10 times (give or take) - almost once a month. NOT a good performance record.

In "Generations" - I think, too, that we see enterprise's shield later in the battle; But it does nothing because it's at 5-10%, due to power grid failure, for example. Still easier to accept than an monumentally idiotic course of action from Worf/Geordi/the entire crew.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

I do agree.

Again, agreed, but I take that with a grain of salt because I know the "real" reason it was depicted as faulty.

We reach.

Cool.

 

[captcalhoun]

in the novels, there's two Galaxy class ships tooling around and whooping ass post Dominion War: Excalibur-A, my ship, and my wife's former command, the Trident.

New Frontier series. and the Excal-A is far from standard as it has a mini-warp sled on the saucer section for when it's seperated.

 

[Praetor]

Why are we not talking about two other serious failings of a Federation ship onscreeen, both possibly greater than any Galaxy class issue?

The Intreprid class has extremely vunerable computer subsystems located close enough to the outer hull that serious damage can completely disable the self-destruct proceedure allowing capture of the ship. Presumably this area of the ship could very well be damaged unintentionally during battle with or without Seska's inside information.

The Enterprise-E while at high warp with full shields and additional shielding around the warp core was disabled with single shot that did no visable damage to the warp nacelles and did not completely destroy the remaining shield strength. This is a massive tactical vulnerablity. Without warp your adversary can easily retreat or bypass you in an important battle. I have never seen this one shot vulnerability in any other vessel.

Man, the whole fleet's starting to look like lemons. Scotty was right: "The more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

In all seriousness, it could be that these ships are just so incredibly complex that any one thing could be potentially fatal. Sadly, we know this is true of modern air and space travel, so why not future space travel too?

 

[Major Chord]

There's also the funny assumption that every ship in a single class is built the same. Internal arrangement and equipment loadout is going to differ from ship to ship and the designs will be updated as built. If the ejection system is flawed - well that's fixed now, and its implemented in all new-build ships and retrofitted to all old-build ships.

Exactly. The Galaxy could have a part...lets say strut A in the port nacelle pylon, that has been deemed ineffective, or faulty, but no danger to ship function. When the Enterprise was built, they replaced Strut A with Strut B. The next time the Galaxy goes in for an overhaul, or refit, the strut will get replaced. This may not be for another 10 years, for all we know. As long as it's not going to lead to the ship's destruction, it is fine where it is. Same goes with the interior. I wouldn't be surprised if the final Galaxy built looks nothing like the USS Galaxy...just due to design improvements, and such. And, until the Galaxy goes into a major refit cycle, her internal arrangement will stay the way it is. Heck, there's not much reason for the internal arrangement to change at all, unless there's really something that innovative about the internal specs of the newer ships of the class.

 

[Xerxes1979]

I seem to recall the Enterprise-D installed a brand new warpcore in 2370 in the episode Phantasms, so the evolution and upgrading of major components and systems may be more rapid then we think.

 

[Cyke101]

I'm not talking about non-canon stuff like books, I'm talking about where there is absence of information. If the ship was working perfectly, it wouldn't be as dramatic. Thus, all the non-dramatic stuff happens when the camera isn't pointed at the crew. You can't make assumptions based on what's on screen without acknowledging that, in the Trek universe, there's the possibility of off-screen stuff that would refute what you say.

I'll have to rewatch Generations to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you see more than one torpedo go through the shields of the ship, so it makes it pretty clear that it's not that the BoP hit something, it's that they're being bombarded by shots through the shields.

In TNG, one season equates roughly one year trekverse time. So in one year, enterprise was being trashed 10 times (give or take) - almost once a month. NOT a good performance record.

But what do we have to frame that number by? We can't use real life because even US Naval battle ships don't have that many hostile encounters in modern times anymore, even including the Gulf and piracy. Let's remember that the E-D, like many hero ships, would go out of their way to encounter the next episode's problems, as opposed to being very by-the-book and mission-centric like most of the US Navy (and I presume, Starfleet).

If we hear of another Starfleet vessel engaging in as much action as the E-D, then we'd have something to compare it with. But the show states that the ship often and frequently got the most dangerous or the most sensitive of missions repeatedly.

 

[judge alba]

I wouldnt say the galaxy class is any more a failure then the constitutions were.
I read/ saw somewhere that in five years starfleet lost all but one of the original 12 built, the enterprise was the only one left to be refit to tmp status. I think the galaxies were considered the optimum starfleet ship design before the soveriegns and defiants came along and so it was more dramatic to see a galaxy blow up.
the main thing that i personally didnt like too much was the hotel with engines look of them, that and having famlies on baord when going into the unknown though it makes sense that the crew wouldnt want to be without thier families for years on end.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

About "Generations":
In TNG, we always saw the ship fail and the crew saving the day.
That's why I think that enterprise's destruction in "Generations" should be interpreted as failure of enterprise's power grid or shield emitters (at the BOP's first shot) and not as Worf/Geordi making a stupid mistake that even a first year cadet wouldn't make.

See, with that I disagree, because we don't know that it's a power system failure per se. Those first shots might have damaged the ship's equipment without there actually being an inherent failure. Alternatively, the crew possibly didn't think to rotate the shields, which I think is, as you say, less credible because on the series the crew almost always figured out how to save the day. Overall, it just wasn't spelled out. And, of course, again we know the real reason why it was destroyed.

As I said, in "'Generations" the enterprise was critically damaged by the klingons' first shots. It could have been a design flaw or a klingon lucky shot - that's uncertain.
As we agree, the above mentioned scenario is much more likely than a crew error.
About the "behind the scenes reason" for enterprise's destruction - the producers might have intended to make enterprise D a tough ship, but that's not what we see onscreen - not in TNG, not in Generations.


About Defiant and Voyager - the ships are not perfect. But they have moments in which they shine - Defiant against the dominion and Voyager against the borg.
Enterprise - when did it shine?
In TNG:The Defector, fighting 2 romulan ships was considered suicide. Defiant/Voyager were sometimes vastly outnumbered and they emerged victorious.

 

[Praetor]

And I'll again reiterate: because I know the reason the vast majority of the depiction of the Enterprise-D was lackluster was due to dramatic concessions that in-universe we can't definitely chalk up to a specific technical failure, I take those failures with a grain of salt.

It's also worth warranting that one Romulan warbird has twice the size and perhaps twice the capablity of a single Galaxy class ship, making an engagemewent with two of them essentially outnumbered 4:1. The Defiant's whole shtick was that she was designed to fight, so that's not a big deal. I mean, she even had a cloak. Most Starfleet ships were multi-purpose, after all. And finally, many people are still annoyed the Voyager was depicted to survive the Borg so easily, in many ways via dramatically convenient deus ex machina type situations, and one could easily attribute other victories to her crew and the knowledge of a certain ex-drone.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

in the novels, there's two Galaxy class ships tooling around and whooping ass post Dominion War: Excalibur-A, my ship, and my wife's former command, the Trident.

New Frontier series. and the Excal-A is far from standard as it has a mini-warp sled on the saucer section for when it's seperated.

Sigh I miss the old Excalibur it was vintage.

 

[Hyper]

About Defiant and Voyager - the ships are not perfect. But they have moments in which they shine - Defiant against the dominion and Voyager against the borg.
Enterprise - when did it shine?

Enterprise shined during the entire seven year run. She consistently overcame adversity time and time again. It doesn't matter the circumstances. We saw many other starships going through similar amazing adventures, even if only for a single episode. The logical conclusion is that these sort of things were happening to other starships besides just the Enterprise. I don't think the class involved would have made any difference, except perhaps to make it even harder to get out of the situation. Another class of ship might have ended its journey halfway through Season 1.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

About Defiant and Voyager - the ships are not perfect. But they have moments in which they shine - Defiant against the dominion and Voyager against the borg.
Enterprise - when did it shine?

Enterprise shined during the entire seven year run. She consistently overcame adversity time and time again. It doesn't matter the circumstances. We saw many other starships going through similar amazing adventures, even if only for a single episode. The logical conclusion is that these sort of things were happening to other starships besides just the Enterprise. I don't think the class involved would have made any difference, except perhaps to make it even harder to get out of the situation. Another class of ship might have ended its journey halfway through Season 1.

NO. The enterprise did not overcome adversity time and time again. The crew overcame adversity again and again - despite the fact that their ship broke down every single time, that every alien species or phenomenon was able to trash the enterprise D.

 

[Cyke101]

About Defiant and Voyager - the ships are not perfect. But they have moments in which they shine - Defiant against the dominion and Voyager against the borg.
Enterprise - when did it shine?

Enterprise shined during the entire seven year run. She consistently overcame adversity time and time again. It doesn't matter the circumstances. We saw many other starships going through similar amazing adventures, even if only for a single episode. The logical conclusion is that these sort of things were happening to other starships besides just the Enterprise. I don't think the class involved would have made any difference, except perhaps to make it even harder to get out of the situation. Another class of ship might have ended its journey halfway through Season 1.

NO. The enterprise did not overcome adversity time and time again. The crew overcame adversity again and again - despite the fact that their ship broke down every single time, that every alien species or phenomenon was able to trash the enterprise D.

A ship is only as good as her crew?

I'm reminded of Starship Mine, when the Enterprise needed a stronger-than-usual Baryon sweep to clean her because she spent more time at warp in five years than most ships did in ten. Considering how often Starfleet depended on her, surely they didn't think the Galaxy was a failure.

But what episode did we see other starships going through similar amazing adventures? Voyager's a special case because she's the only ship in the Delta Quadrant, and the Defiant never took on nearly as many investigative or scientific missions than either vessel. Almost any other vessel in TNG that went through a unique phenomenon or attack was destroyed or disabled in the process.

You make the E-D seem like a vessel falling apart at the seams, akin to the E-A in The Final Frontier. After 7 years, I hardly think the crew kept the ship together with duct tape and MacGuyvered rigs.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

A ship that always breaks is a bad ship, regardless of the valor of its crew. And an "unique phenomenon" is not necessary in order to disable enterprise. Fedengi in old BOPs suffice.

Defiant and yes, even Voyager (can you beleive it?) behaved much better during the many dangerous situations they went through.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

If it was a bad ship, Starfleet would never ever field it. These are the guys who build backups for the backups and run simulations of things before they actually build them. Do you honestly think these same guys would invest in a bunch of big, expensive duds?

They've got the mental capacities and knowledge of hundereds of worlds. If the Galaxy turned out to be a dud, it would have been scrapped in the design phase in favor of the Kumari-class or the Fanboi Battlewagon-Class.

 

[captcalhoun]

I wouldnt say the galaxy class is any more a failure then the constitutions were.
I read/ saw somewhere that in five years starfleet lost all but one of the original 12 built, the enterprise was the only one left to be refit to tmp status. I think the galaxies were considered the optimum starfleet ship design before the soveriegns and defiants came along and so it was more dramatic to see a galaxy blow up.
the main thing that i personally didnt like too much was the hotel with engines look of them, that and having famlies on baord when going into the unknown though it makes sense that the crew wouldnt want to be without thier families for years on end.

that's complete BS. we only saw 2 Constitutions lost; Defiant and Constellation. the others in The Ultimate Computer were intact and repairable and the Exeter only lost its crew. It's not canon that the Intrepid was a Connie.