Had the saucer section not crashed in Generations...

[Praetor]

It's a clever idea, really. One probably reason why not, though: budget.

Besides, separation was originally supposed to be much more commonplace, but IIRC it was felt it slowed the plot too much so any desire to show other "mission modules" probably would have went out the door with that.

 

[thedude]

Agreed.

I remember reading somewhere in a production notes book that one of the major reasons they never did a lot of seperation episodes was that it was ridiculously expensive to film more effects shots with one of both of the sections of the ship, which is why the EaF footage was consistently reused for the seperation sequence itself.

Some of my favorite episodes involved the "Battle Bridge" set, and honestly... if I was on that ship, all I would want to do is be on the "Battle Bridge." Battle Bridge > Sissy Bridge (I mean come on, look at the wood thing...). hehe.

Anyway, it'd be neat to see some fan fic or canon novels talk about this... it's pretty common in actual naval fleets to have multi-purpose ships that can be quickly refit to serve multiple purposes... pretty much every vessel in the past 10 years has been built on a modular platform... maybe we can attribute that design to more Trek-related tech?

 

[Praetor]

I remember reading somewhere in a production notes book that one of the major reasons they never did a lot of seperation episodes was that it was ridiculously expensive to film more effects shots with one of both of the sections of the ship, which is why the EaF footage was consistently reused for the seperation sequence itself.

Yeah, I think the problem with that was that they had to use the six-foot model for that, since it was the only one that could separate, and I think there was a push to get the four-footer built because the VFX people didn't like how big/heavy the six-footer was.

I can only imagine what it might have been like if they'd gone with Mr. Probert's concept for having the forward top part of the saucer "lift off" to become the battle section... it's actually a pretty cool idea, leaving behind the "bulk" of the rest of the ship for something more agile.

Some of my favorite episodes involved the "Battle Bridge" set, and honestly... if I was on that ship, all I would want to do is be on the "Battle Bridge." Battle Bridge > Sissy Bridge (I mean come on, look at the wood thing...). hehe.

Wood paneling doesn't mean "sissy," it just means "80s." I like the "Sissy Bridge" anyway, though. I must admit, they did a relatively decent job disguising the fact that the Battle Bridge set was built from the leftovers of the TMP bridge sections.

Anyway, it'd be neat to see some fan fic or canon novels talk about this... it's pretty common in actual naval fleets to have multi-purpose ships that can be quickly refit to serve multiple purposes... pretty much every vessel in the past 10 years has been built on a modular platform... maybe we can attribute that design to more Trek-related tech?

I think that TNG-era Trek ships at least are pretty internally reconfigurable, with switchable room modules described in the TNG TM, even if the big hull modules can't be easily swapped out. I believe the DS9 TM noted that a lot of the Galaxys launched during the Dominion War were mostly "hollow" because they only put in the "essentials." Of course, I think it's also been speculated the Nebula "AWACS pod" could be easily swapped out for another, and it's possible the Miranda roll bar might be just as modular given that we've seen some with and some without... and there are just so dang many of them!

 

[thedude]

I can only imagine what it might have been like if they'd gone with Mr. Probert's concept for having the forward top part of the saucer "lift off" to become the battle section... it's actually a pretty cool idea, leaving behind the "bulk" of the rest of the ship for something more agile.

If I remember, wasn't this the plan for the Ent-E as well? I thought I remember reading something about how they planned for that ship to separate similarly to what you described as well... I think it was on the ex-artis-scientica site somewhere.

 

[Praetor]

I can only imagine what it might have been like if they'd gone with Mr. Probert's concept for having the forward top part of the saucer "lift off" to become the battle section... it's actually a pretty cool idea, leaving behind the "bulk" of the rest of the ship for something more agile.

If I remember, wasn't this the plan for the Ent-E as well? I thought I remember reading something about how they planned for that ship to separate similarly to what you described as well... I think it was on the ex-artis-scientica site somewhere.

Hm, I'm not sure I've heard of that. I know that John Eaves made a drawing that showed the ship separate pretty much where you might think it would, along the fold line between the secondary hull/deflector cowling and the saucer. The separated secondary hull was very pointed.

 

[thedude]

From ex astris scientia:

2) Pre-production drawings of the Sovereign class show a saucer separation. In separated mode, the quantum torpedo tube/captain's yacht is still connected to the engineering hull. This configuration is also reproduced in the parts of the AMT/Ertl model kit. It is unlikely, however, that the ship is actually separable.

Also, there's a thread on here about it:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=34436

 

[Praetor]

^Yep, that's it. I had that kit. But the saucer doesn't split in two like Probert had worked out for the D, it just leaves that cowling/torpedo launcher behind on the secondary hull.

 

[thedude]

Anyway, back to the question at hand...

Depending on the situation, the saucer of a Galaxy class ship MAY of actually been relegated to freight duty/running supplies to the front lines if it were war time. Warp nacelles could most likely have been retrofitted to the saucer, making it capable of at least low factor warp flight, and the ship could have been significantly gutted to allow for additional storage of deuterium, weapons, troops, supplies, etc. Most likely it would have been given a new registry, and assigned to a battle group with a Defiant or Akira-class escort ship.

If it were peace time, I would imagine it would scrapped out, especially considering the advancement in starship design at the time... or it could have been made into a museum like the original Enterprise ;-)

Either way, I highly doubt it would retain the original registry.

 

[Praetor]

You're probably right on all counts there.

I'm still slightly fond of the idea that the two blue windows on the back of the saucer were actually some type of mini-warp engines.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Had the ship not been utterly destroyed in Generations, TPTB would still mandate that the Enterprise be redesigned to be kewler and sleeker for the next film, so we'd end up with a taffy-stretched Enterprise-D with triangles all over it.

 

[Praetor]

Had the ship not been utterly destroyed in Generations, TPTB would still mandate that the Enterprise be redesigned to be kewler and sleeker for the next film, so we'd end up with a taffy-stretched Enterprise-D with triangles all over it.

QFT. "Pimp my Starship," anyone?

 

[NTRPRZ]

...would Starfleet have constructed a new battle section?

Nah...they would have just waited for another Galaxy class ship that had major saucer damage and then used its stardrive section to mate to the Enterprise's saucer section.

I'm sure they still have bean counters in the future.

In a world without money?

Maybe they don't have money, but I hope they still have beans!
Yum!

 

[tharpdevenport]

Geordi made a lot of adjustment and changes to systems all over the ship and Engineering. The two sections wouldn't mess and it would take quite some time to redo thsoe adjustments. In time a new Stardrive section could be recallibrated, but I imagine simply having a new ship would be easier, especially since the crew of the Enterprise are the Flagship of the Federation.

 

[Squiggy]

Still a class that lasts a hundred years even with major overhauls seems a little bit unrealistic...after all a hundred years ago we were still making the leap to metal-armoured battleships...

Ah, but the real USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is approaching 50 years old and still in service, and it's not even built out of 24th century materials!

It's also not flying through space.

 

[Forbin]

Still a class that lasts a hundred years even with major overhauls seems a little bit unrealistic...after all a hundred years ago we were still making the leap to metal-armoured battleships...

Ah, but the real USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is approaching 50 years old and still in service, and it's not even built out of 24th century materials!

It's also not flying through space.

Flying thru space is harder on a vessle than 50 years in the ocean?

 

[Squiggy]

When it's getting shot at by Klingons, Borg, and Romulans...yeah.

 

[Myasishchev]

The Galaxy classes were probably built a lot in the Dominio War, just shit like nurserys and stuff were removed for troops/weapons/supplies. I could see Galaxy class ships built for war rather than exploration being awesome, like the one we saw in TNGs alternate timeline.

Yesterday's Enterprise was on last night, and I had this same thought--the Federation's been at war for twenty years, a period that would have encompassed the entire development cycle of the Galaxy class, and yet the Enterprise is basically entirely unchanged (except they can no longer afford light bulbs, since 60 watts = extra phaser power, apparently ). One can suppose that if the Galaxy class looks identical in a world at war, the Trek-Prime universe's Galaxy class was built as powerfully as technologically and economically possible, and the high-minded mission statements and such are hype. It's a warship called an explorer.

Then again, they call birds of prey battlecruisers so it's anyone's guess how close the visuals represent reality there.

 

[Praetor]

Yesterday's Enterprise was on last night, and I had this same thought--the Federation's been at war for twenty years, a period that would have encompassed the entire development cycle of the Galaxy class, and yet the Enterprise is basically entirely unchanged (except they can no longer afford light bulbs, since 60 watts = extra phaser power, apparently ). One can suppose that if the Galaxy class looks identical in a world at war, the Trek-Prime universe's Galaxy class was built as powerfully as technologically and economically possible, and the high-minded mission statements and such are hype. It's a warship called an explorer.

That would indeed be my take on it, too. Starfleet took a lesson from the cold war with the Klingons and realized that building uberbattleships with multiple nacelles that had little to do without an actual war except schlepp here and there and take up space while little bugs like the Oberth get routinely blasted to bits on science missions was wasteful.

It's all rather Orwellian, really. Maybe the Klingons were right.

 

[Nebusj]

Still a class that lasts a hundred years even with major overhauls seems a little bit unrealistic...after all a hundred years ago we were still making the leap to metal-armoured battleships...

Ah, but the real USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is approaching 50 years old and still in service, and it's not even built out of 24th century materials!

And for that matter a P&O ship built before steam power was all that common was still doing useful work for the Royal Navy when called into service for World War II. (Admittedly, just as a minor freighter, and after a lot of refitting; but that's still a single ship being in service, intermittently, for near a full century.)

 

[nx1701g]

Some of my favorite episodes involved the "Battle Bridge" set, and honestly... if I was on that ship, all I would want to do is be on the "Battle Bridge." Battle Bridge > Sissy Bridge (I mean come on, look at the wood thing...). hehe.

In fanon it's suggested that Captain Keogh of the Odyssey used the Battle Bridge as his command center instead of the Main Bridge. I think it's also in The Brave and the Bold.

Of course this is only to explain why they used the Nebula Class Bridge (which was smaller and built from the remains of the movie era TOS bridge) for his command center in the episode The Jem'Hadar.