Maybe a 24 century Excelsior still packs a lot of firepower?

[Matt4511]

I've been watching some DS9 again, and it's occurred to me how many Excelsiors Starfleet seems to operate.

I know they've viewed as old ships, and I don't want to get into a registry number analysis thing here, but rather than viewing them as obsolete, old designs, maybe Excelsiors (far more than Mirandas, which do seem to explode a lot) were so ahead of their time in the late 23rd century that, if properly modernized, they remain fully modern and competent frontline ships right up through the Dominion War?

It seems to me that Starfleet is missing a technological "generation" that would be in the first third of the 24th century or so. Given that the Romulans were in isolation, the Klingons peaceful and rebuilding and the Cardassian Wars still to come, perhaps when the first batch of Excelsiors were aging, Starfleet looked at them, decided they were still more than capable of service, and modernized the existing hulls while building a new batch. They could have done that three or four more times throughout the 24th century.

A relatively small number of Ambassador-class ships might be been fielded to make sure that Starfleet still had a premier class of ship that could go up against the very best any competitor power could field, but it's entirely possible that it isn't until the 2350s or so that advances in technology require Starfleet to begin rolling out ships in the Galaxy-class design family, with Excelsiors still being entirely respectable ships.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I always believed that both the Miranda- and Excelsior-classes remained in service for so long because they were workhorses able to keep up with newer designs.

But I also think that space is a pretty big place. The Ambassador-class (and perhaps the Constitution-class for that matter) may still be very much in service, but in other parts of the Galaxy our heroes aren't. Conversely, in those other distant regions, people may have yet to see a Galaxy-class starship to this day.

 

[tafkats]

It's also possible that there were simply more Excelsiors built in the first place.

Or that Starfleet simply continued to build ships with the same external appearance for 50 years or so after the Excelsior was first designed. Even among 20th and 21st century vehicles, some designs stick around longer than others ... you can easily tell the difference between a brand-new Toyota Corolla, one from the mid-'90s and one from the mid-'80s, but if you look for a UHaul-style box truck, chances are the external appearance hasn't changed very much in 30 years.

 

[T'Girl]

Possibility of lots of modernization throughout the years. The ship itself might be considered by Starfleet to be little more but a empty box for them to load things in to. Things like weapons, sensors, warp coils, new warp cores every few decades.

Like putting new tires on your car.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I've always liked how the Excelsior-Class became the backbone of the fleet. It's a solid design, capable of handling a wide assortment of missions over the years.

With the proper refits and updates I don't see why they wouldn't continue to serve until the end of the 24th century.

 

[Knight Templar]

The most recent B-52s rolled off the Boeing assembly line 50 years ago and might well stay in servive for another 28 years.

Seventy eight years of service. So the Excelsior is not unprecedented.

Or the U.S.S. Enterprise CVN-65 staying in service (and constant use) for 50 years.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Trek's always been a contradictory about how long ships should be in service. The very first starship, Enterprise NX-01, was seen to still be spaceworthy after 100 years in "E2", yet it was retired to the fleet museum after a mere ten. The 80 year old Hathaway was spaceworthy, too. Yet, in STIII, the "20 year old" (actually at least 27) Enterprise is set to be decomissioned.

The Klingons have been using the same designs of ships, the D7 battlecruiser and a (virtually identical) bird of prey, for 225 in-universe years. And, they were old rustbuckets in their earliest appearences.

IMO with Trek's advanced technology, their ships should last a century or more, easily. Thats less than half a Vulcan lifespan. Yet the writers retire them after 10 or 20 years. They give old Excelsiors high code numbers, indicating they're much newer than Sulu's one.

Stargate certainly built their ships to last. Trek's tech should allow for similar insane starship lifespans.

 

[Kirby]

With the proper refits and updates I don't see why they wouldn't continue to serve until the end of the 24th century.

Agreed. In Homefront, the upgraded Lakota almost took out the Defiant. Certainly a formidable ship regardless of it's age as long as it's properly equipped.

 

[Knight Templar]

Trek's always been a contradictory about how long ships should be in service. The very first starship, Enterprise NX-01, was seen to still be spaceworthy after 100 years in "E2", yet it was retired to the fleet museum after a mere ten. The 80 year old Hathaway was spaceworthy, too. Yet, in STIII, the "20 year old" (actually at least 27) Enterprise is set to be decomissioned.

The Klingons have been using the same designs of ships, the D7 battlecruiser and a (virtually identical) bird of prey, for 225 in-universe years. And, they were old rustbuckets in their earliest appearences.

IMO with Trek's advanced technology, their ships should last a century or more, easily. Thats less than half a Vulcan lifespan. Yet the writers retire them after 10 or 20 years. They give old Excelsiors high code numbers, indicating they're much newer than Sulu's one.

Stargate certainly built their ships to last. Trek's tech should allow for similar insane starship lifespans.

Lots of things to consider though.

In regards to registry numbers, organizations can really screw with the registry numbers of ships for some truly ridiculous reasons. For example the Seawolf class U.S. attack submarines were "SSN-21", numbers completely out of sync with the rest of the U.S. submarine fleet.

Why? Because it was the design that was supposed to take the U.S. submarine fleet into the "21st century" so "SSN-21" ....get it?

Now in regards to lifespans of ships, even today the service lives of naval ships and air force aircraft can vary greatly depending on where and how they are used.

I would imagine that a starship that takes a near constant beating for five years from various enemy forces and natural dangers in space will age much, much faster than a starship that spends 20 years doing little more than flying, routinely between starbases or hanging around in orbit.

Remember in "Tin Man" where Captain DeSoto of the Excelsior class U.S.S. Hood said that about all he did anymore was "dragging my butt back and forth to starbase".

 

[The Dominion]

I space the external design of the ship presumably wouldn't mean much, so long as the technology running them is kept updated. Probably the designs that have been around for so long have proven to be very structurally sound for what they do, and Starfleet hasn't found need to overhaul them.

 

[Knight Templar]

I space the external design of the ship presumably wouldn't mean much, so long as the technology running them is kept updated. Probably the designs that have been around for so long have proven to be very structurally sound for what they do, and Starfleet hasn't found need to overhaul them.

I remember one Star Trek technically oriented website from about a decade ago had writeups on all the ships.

I remember the entry on the Excelsior class ships was that they were still in production (during the Dominion War) but equipped with "Galaxy class warp cores, the latest photon torpedoes, advanced computers" and other improvements.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Sigh, I'd really love another TV series set after Voyager to see what kind of ship designs they'd come up with next...

 

[T'Girl]

Why? Because it was the design that was supposed to take the U.S. submarine fleet into the "21st century" so "SSN-21" ....get it?.

Kind of like when the Israeli Defense Forces gave their troops the TAR-21?

Tavor Assault Rifle - 21st Century.

 

[YARN]

It's also possible that there were simply more Excelsiors built in the first place.

It's a model they'd already built (saving $$$). You couldn't use the Constitution models since those are what everyone recognizes as the Enterprise. Ditto for the Miranda. I don't think that we're supposed to be paying too much attention to those background models -- much as people have obsessed over the debris at Wolf 359, it's not a detail that matters.

 

[Timo]

In-universe, we might also argue that there simply isn't anywhere for phaser technology to go any more, not with hundreds of UFP member cultures already having spent hundreds or thousands of years perfecting the stuff. All the improving that was possible by mere mortal means was already done when these member cultures got together and shared their best tech and then went the one possible extra mile; from there on, it has been extremely slow going.

Thus, an Excelsior and a Galaxy have the same level of firepower, because there is no technological breakthrough that would make phasers better than they were in, say, 2251. And we already know that it doesn't help if you merely install more phasers, because a starship only ever fires one weapon at a time, for the insurmountable, carved-in-diburnium-osmium-alloy technology reason X. Ten emitters per saucer surface on the Excelsior is simply silly overkill, or an attempt to improve coverage...

Starships from the 23rd century thus won't get outdated in terms of firepower until a new weapons technology is discovered, quite possibly no sooner than the 99th century or something considering not even Captain Braxton had anything particularly powerful to show. They will get outdated in other ways, tho, not to mention rusting out or wearing down, so Starfleet will keep on designing and building new models.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[YARN]

In-universe,

In universe there isn't much to say.

There were a lot of these ships that we saw, so we must conclude:

1. They must've have been built pretty well to have stuck around so long.

and/or

2. They must have made a lot of them.

and these two bases have already been covered.

Apart from that, it's all speculative. The modularity argument (i.e., they just update systems), for example, does not explain why THIS design survived since this argument would hold true for any starship.

Seeing as how the out-of-universe answer is pretty obvious (i.e., this was not an intentional feature that we were really meant to notice, but rather they were recycling models and shots), and as how there is no particularly interesting in-universe explanation for this feature (it is a truism that things that are around for a long time are well-made and/or made in large quantities), the best conclusion to draw here is no conclusion.

 

[Knight Templar]

Ten emitters per saucer surface on the Excelsior is simply silly overkill, or an attempt to improve coverage...

Or for redundancy. To have phaser banks available in case some are knocked out in combat.

Look at weapons technology today.

How long have U.S. fighters been using the M-61 rotary 20mm cannon? How long will they continue to do so?

IIRC, it was first mounted on U.S. fighters in the 50s and the F-22 Raptor still uses it. And beyond that the rotary cannon is based on 19th century technology!!

Or Sidewinder air to air missiles? Sure, fire control and things like that have been improved but these are all "inside the airframe" improvements that are not readily visible.

And think about ship propulsion?

In World War II, U.S. Navy ships could make 30+ knots.

In the 21st century, U.S. Navy ships can make.....30+ knots....despite some real changes in powerplant design.

Sure, there have been numerous experiments over the years with 100 knot ground effect ships, but there hasn't been anything really practical for production.

Which helps explain why during the post ST:TNG era starships are still tooling around at Warp 9.5 or so.

 

[Timo]

Seeing as how the out-of-universe answer is pretty obvious (i.e., this was not an intentional feature that we were really meant to notice, but rather they were recycling models and shots), and as how there is no particularly interesting in-universe explanation for this feature (it is a truism that things that are around for a long time are well-made and/or made in large quantities), the best conclusion to draw here is no conclusion.

To the contrary, I'd argue the out-universe explanation is both the uninteresting and the unworkable one. After all, the early reuse of the Excelsior model was the defining step in creating the TNG universe, as far as starships and their operating practices go. It was then followed by an extensive reuse of other ILM models from the movie era; not "background" or "intended to go unnoticed", but really and unapologetically in-your-face.

The longevity of military hardware in the real world or lack thereof is always jam-packed with interesting background and side issues and whatnot - one may learn a lot about history just by seeing how fast certain types of weaponry go out of fashion and are replaced. We already have plenty of interesting "transition points" in the Trek pseudohistory that stem from the changes in the inflow of funds with the various movie projects and whatnot. These certainly deserve pseudohistorical rationales, at least as much as the pseudohistories of the characters themselves do. That's the bread and butter of what the Star Trek universe consists of, after all: the untold stories that are required to put together what miserly budgets and uncoordinated writers once left full of exciting holes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Knight Templar]

The longevity of military hardware in the real world or lack thereof is always jam-packed with interesting background and side issues and whatnot - one may learn a lot about history just by seeing how fast certain types of weaponry go out of fashion and are replaced.

Right.

Just compare the differences in how long the B-52 bomber has remained in service compared to the "advanced & futuristic" B-58 bomber.

 

[YARN]

To the contrary,

Timo? Contrary? Really?

I'd argue the out-universe explanation is both the uninteresting and the unworkable one. After all, the early reuse of the Excelsior model was the defining step in creating the TNG universe, as far as starships and their operating practices go.

More like they already had existing models of the Excelsior (one of them was 7.5 feet long), which they had already spent gobs of money to build.

Memory Alpha reports:

In 1987 the model was again at ILM, as the company was contracted to compile a library of stock footage for TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint". ... The stock footage shot at ILM for the episode was extensively used throughout the entire run of the series and no new footage was ever shot for The Next Generation.

It was then followed by an extensive reuse of other ILM models from the movie era; not "background" or "intended to go unnoticed", but really and unapologetically in-your-face.

LOL, they occasionally needed a ship that's "Not-the-Enterprise" for a shot and they had stock footage of the Excelsior. The math isn't that hard.

You're going to have work a little harder to muddy the waters on this point.

The longevity of military hardware in the real world or lack thereof is always jam-packed with interesting background and side issues and whatnot - one may learn a lot about history just by seeing how fast certain types of weaponry go out of fashion and are replaced.

Star Trek isn't real history. Start treating it as real history and you become the equivalent of a Biblical Fundamentalist who insists that there is NOTHING figurative, mistaken, exaggerated, or poetic about the Old Testament. The point is not the names and dates and ships - the point is THE STORY. Unlike the Bible, however, Star Trek is accepted by even it's most devoted followers to be a fiction, so there is no need (or excuse) for us to paint ourselves into such corners.

We already have plenty of interesting "transition points" in the Trek pseudohistory that stem from the changes in the inflow of funds with the various movie projects and whatnot. These certainly deserve pseudohistorical rationales, at least as much as the pseudohistories of the characters themselves do.

In this case, no such justification is on offer. Maybe it is waiting in the wings, but it is not here yet.

We have the obvious external explanation for this ship appearing. (1)It was already "there." (2) There were several models including a very large and detailed model. (3) It was cheaper to use than building a new model. (4) It was a Federation design which was easy to distinguish from the classic TMP and TOS Enterprise. (5) It was a design that followed the TMP design, it was an evolutionary step forward, so it made more sense to use it - the Enterprise D was the latest and the greatest, so a sister ship should look somewhat dated, but (!!!) (6) this was the future relative to TMP, so it needed to look more advanced than TMP.

Add this up, and it was basically inevitable that this model would be used.

The internal psuedo-history, however, only offers the solid ground of what is obvious (good design and mass production).