Just a question thats been on my mind after watching First Contact and seeing ships being blown up... how many starships are in Starfleet?
Thanks!
Thanks!
How many ships in Starfleet?
- Thread starter Lucy of Nine
- Start date
Only one of the shows so far has bothered to examine the issue, really. In TOS, TNG and VOY, we watched tiny fractions of Starfleet in action, sometimes just one ship. DS9 featured massive fleets, though, and we get some numbers that might or might not be helpful.
For one, we learn that there are perhaps a dozen formations called "Fleets", each with combat ships numbering in the hundreds. The figures given make it unlikely that there would be more than a dozen of the Fleets, or that they would at any time have ships numbering in the thousands. So Starfleet combat strength might be something like 5,000-10,000 ships. Comparisons with adversary strenghts might support this as well: Klingons are quoted with multi-hundred-ship fleets as well, and they can throw some 1,500 ships against the Dominion at the end of the war.
Of course, much smaller formations are shown in the other shows that take place in peacetime. So we might assume that Starfleet prefers to spread out its ships when there is no need to concentrate them for combat (or for other such missions), and that it takes at least weeks to gather dozens of ships, and perhaps years to gather hundreds or thousands.
Timo Saloniemi
For one, we learn that there are perhaps a dozen formations called "Fleets", each with combat ships numbering in the hundreds. The figures given make it unlikely that there would be more than a dozen of the Fleets, or that they would at any time have ships numbering in the thousands. So Starfleet combat strength might be something like 5,000-10,000 ships. Comparisons with adversary strenghts might support this as well: Klingons are quoted with multi-hundred-ship fleets as well, and they can throw some 1,500 ships against the Dominion at the end of the war.
Of course, much smaller formations are shown in the other shows that take place in peacetime. So we might assume that Starfleet prefers to spread out its ships when there is no need to concentrate them for combat (or for other such missions), and that it takes at least weeks to gather dozens of ships, and perhaps years to gather hundreds or thousands.
Timo Saloniemi
One would probably also think that there are lots of ships - probably whole classes - that would not be considered appropriate for combat duty. Danube-Class Runabouts, for example, each of which have their own registry number and counts as a starship, would probably not be considered ships of the line unless things got pretty darned desparate.
I generally choose to take the NCC numbers fairly literally - the Excelsior, NCC-2000, brought Starfleet's numbers to 2000, not counting addendums to previous Naval Construction Contracts, like the 1701 A,B, etc, or ships that had been destroyed or decommissioned. The Intrepid-Class Voyager would have brought the numbers to 74,656, with the same exceptions.
Right off hand, I'd estimate the whole active fleet circa ST:VI to be somewhere between 1500 - 1700 ships, and circa the beginning of the Dominion War to be between 50,000 and 60,000. And I think I more or less agree with Timo's estimate of combat strength, but would place it at the higher end of his estimate.
I generally choose to take the NCC numbers fairly literally - the Excelsior, NCC-2000, brought Starfleet's numbers to 2000, not counting addendums to previous Naval Construction Contracts, like the 1701 A,B, etc, or ships that had been destroyed or decommissioned. The Intrepid-Class Voyager would have brought the numbers to 74,656, with the same exceptions.
Right off hand, I'd estimate the whole active fleet circa ST:VI to be somewhere between 1500 - 1700 ships, and circa the beginning of the Dominion War to be between 50,000 and 60,000. And I think I more or less agree with Timo's estimate of combat strength, but would place it at the higher end of his estimate.
There was a pretty big thread about this recently. You might find it interesting: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=76216
The DS9 writers appear to have settled on somewhere between five and eight thousand frontline ships in the Starfleet. I'll take it. The registry system has room for all the other kinds of ships.
The DS9 writers appear to have settled on somewhere between five and eight thousand frontline ships in the Starfleet. I'll take it. The registry system has room for all the other kinds of ships.
I will go for 8000
As many as plot requires.
337,800
What is "Wolf 359", Alex?
Star Trek writers are guilty of underusing the Replicator technology. My own pet theory is that during peacetime, there are actually few capital ships flying about, maybe a few hundreds or a thousand at most. However, when hostilities are imminent, Starfleet activates giant orbiting replicators that materialises ships whole cloth, or at least in big modular parts, thus the huge number of ships seen in DS9. So, you say, where is Starfleet going to find people to crew them? Well, during war, the ships will probably have a skeleton crew, just enough to fight. For example, the Galaxy class ships have a large complement of civillians and non-essential personel onboard during peace time. Also, from what we have seen of Star Trek, there seems to be an unusually large ratio of commissioned officers (ensigns) to non-coms. I believe that this is a deliberate policy of Starfleet so that during war, these ensigns could be rapidly promoted to command the newly replicated ships. Also lets not forget that the Federation consists of hundreds(?) of worlds. Surely there will be enough people to draft and crew the ships. At the end of hostilities, the ships could be mothballed or dematerialised again.
Star Trek writers usually ignore the technological capabilities of the Federation and dumb it down for the sake of drama, instead of adapting the drama to accommodate the highly advanced technology.
My personal estimate would essentially be that SF would probably have about 8 000 to 10 000 combat ready ships at their disposal in the 24th century.
Given the vastness of the Federation and it's population though, the numbers would HAVE to be much higher.
If we factor in warp drive limitations, SF has to have over 10 000 ships alone for border patrols and everything to cover 8 000 ly's of space after all.
This is why I found the Dominion fighting 3 AQ major powers unrealistic for Trek terms and that 2500 ships would be enough to conquer them ALL.
Give me a break.
Drama ... dumb down technology/capability and display SF as utterly unprepared and stupid organization to be effective at any kind of combat.
The Dominion should have gone alone against the Feds (which should have been able to take them on).
What we saw on screen was a dumb down version of events.
It's ALWAYS the heroes that get to do the most important things making the rest of the 'fleet' superfluous and that 1 ship can handle virtually anything.
I don't negate the fact that 1 ship CAN make a difference, but doing it all the time is getting old/tiresome/unintelligent.
My personal estimate would essentially be that SF would probably have about 8 000 to 10 000 combat ready ships at their disposal in the 24th century.
Given the vastness of the Federation and it's population though, the numbers would HAVE to be much higher.
If we factor in warp drive limitations, SF has to have over 10 000 ships alone for border patrols and everything to cover 8 000 ly's of space after all.
This is why I found the Dominion fighting 3 AQ major powers unrealistic for Trek terms and that 2500 ships would be enough to conquer them ALL.
Give me a break.
Drama ... dumb down technology/capability and display SF as utterly unprepared and stupid organization to be effective at any kind of combat.
The Dominion should have gone alone against the Feds (which should have been able to take them on).
What we saw on screen was a dumb down version of events.
It's ALWAYS the heroes that get to do the most important things making the rest of the 'fleet' superfluous and that 1 ship can handle virtually anything.
I don't negate the fact that 1 ship CAN make a difference, but doing it all the time is getting old/tiresome/unintelligent.
No, none of that really gibes with what we saw on screen, especially the part about replicating ships "whole cloth".
Moreover, in the entirety of DS9, we never really saw a ship constructed during or for the war. All the vessels appearing on screen had registries lower than the known prewar Voyager. So perhaps we should argue the exact opposite of the above: perhaps it is impossible with 24th century technology to build a starship in anything shorter than four years?
But that's the thing: Starfleet doesn't cover this. All the shows stand testimony to the fact that Starfleet doesn't have enough ships to control the Federation borders, or to respond to crises within its own territory with more than one starship at a time, or even to make sure that even this one ship gets to every crisis spot in time.
And this in turn further reinforces the impression that starships are really, really difficult and slow to build. Starfleet in peacetime is already woefully short of ships - so it doesn't make sense that UFP industry in wartime would suddenly be capable of cranking up the production speed. It's probably turned to the max in peacetime already, and still fails to provide for the demand.
Timo Saloniemi
But that's the thing: Starfleet doesn't cover this. All the shows stand testimony to the fact that Starfleet doesn't have enough ships to control the Federation borders, or to respond to crises within its own territory with more than one starship at a time, or even to make sure that even this one ship gets to every crisis spot in time.
And this in turn further reinforces the impression that starships are really, really difficult and slow to build. Starfleet in peacetime is already woefully short of ships - so it doesn't make sense that UFP industry in wartime would suddenly be capable of cranking up the production speed. It's probably turned to the max in peacetime already, and still fails to provide for the demand.
Timo Saloniemi
If one does believe their technology can churn out ships but is disturbed they do not, one can always fall back to the psychology of the users. Doesn't matter what the technology can do if, for one reason or another, the users don't use it that way.
One way of getting around it is to put it down to Starfleet suffering from extremely limited manpower. If people aren't joining up (use psychology!) there's no reason to have so many ships or to maintain the capability to churn them out.
Which really isn't so bad in the long run. If they're not losing bundles of ships in peacetime, slow and steady is enough to build that huge reserve fleet they can dig into in times of crisis. Which, as Timo points out, seems to be what happened.
One way of getting around it is to put it down to Starfleet suffering from extremely limited manpower. If people aren't joining up (use psychology!) there's no reason to have so many ships or to maintain the capability to churn them out.
Which really isn't so bad in the long run. If they're not losing bundles of ships in peacetime, slow and steady is enough to build that huge reserve fleet they can dig into in times of crisis. Which, as Timo points out, seems to be what happened.
It does stretch credibility, though, that one couldn't find enough people to crew a hundred thousand starships. That would only be a hundred million if each ship was a Galaxy-class giant, plus perhaps the same number ashore for support operations. The UFP population seems to be in the trillions, judging by some casualty estimates such as in "Statistical Probabilities". So the crews would represent just 1/100,000 of the population or so.
Compare to Earth: 1/100,000 of us would be just 60,000. There are easily 60,000 unpaid volunteer workers doing shitty jobs in the United States alone, and vastly more people working on sub-minimum wages on even worse jobs...
The Starfleet we see, of just about 10,000 ships that are smaller than Galaxy in general, would be kept up and running with the equivalent of 5,000 Earth people. The Salvation Army could run that sort of organization, on zero pay!
Timo Saloniemi
Compare to Earth: 1/100,000 of us would be just 60,000. There are easily 60,000 unpaid volunteer workers doing shitty jobs in the United States alone, and vastly more people working on sub-minimum wages on even worse jobs...
The Starfleet we see, of just about 10,000 ships that are smaller than Galaxy in general, would be kept up and running with the equivalent of 5,000 Earth people. The Salvation Army could run that sort of organization, on zero pay!
Timo Saloniemi
I've started wondering how the different class ships are split up, like how many ships would be in each class. Obviously all ships are explorers first regardless of type but classes like Excelsior, Miranda, Ambassador, Galaxy, Intrepid, Oberth, Nova and Nebula are all ideal for science and exploration missions and would probably consist of the majority of Starfleet with Excelsiors and Mirandas making up the bulk of that due to there age. But what about ships like the Defiant, Akira, Sabre, Steamrunner, Prometheus and Sovereign, how many ships of these classes would we have in peace times and what would there primary missions be?
I agree that they should be able to get that many volunteers, but that's only because I'm optimistic about at least part of humanity. Because the alternative for them in the 23rd/24th century doesn't seem to be working a crappy job for too little pay. It seems to be sitting at home, having anything you want from your wall replicator.
I suspect that outright war - especially a war for the survival of the Federation - would help a little. Sitting at home, having anything you want from the replicators, while being bombarded from orbit, has a little less appeal.
Somehow I don't think that "doing something" equates automatically to "joining Starfleet". Anybody capable enough to join Starfleet is probably in demand by a healthy number of non-Starfleet organizations. I mean, those science stations and ships our heroes are constantly rescueing or finding dead have to get people from somewhere, yes?
So Starfleet having a manpower shortage need not be caused by people not wanting to get off their butts, but rather competition for qualified personnel is hell.
So Starfleet having a manpower shortage need not be caused by people not wanting to get off their butts, but rather competition for qualified personnel is hell.
Similar threads
- Poll
