Me either.
Miranda Class in the Dominion War.
- Thread starter ash's boomstick
- Start date
For which we should all be eternally grateful.
It was so ugly it was cute! 
If you think the Elkins and some of her DS9 classmates were bad, you should be glad they never fielded the Merced-class USS Trieste. Now THAT thing...
If you think the Elkins and some of her DS9 classmates were bad, you should be glad they never fielded the Merced-class USS Trieste. Now THAT thing...
I've had a similar idea:
- We know that the Miranda-class has a similar volume to the Constitution-class refit and so it's likely it has a similar overall crew size in the 2280s (between 200-400), but by the 2360s we're given very small sizes for Miranda-class crew sizes – 26 for the Lantree, 35 for the Brattain.
- We also know from the Enterprise-D technical manual and can infer from her crew density, which is around a tenth of the Constitution-class Enterprise, that automation has significantly increased and improved between the 2280s and 2360s – if a Miranda-class ship had the same crew density as the Enterprise-D, they would number just 38. We know the Lantree was a supply ship so may have been converted for cargo duty only (its lack of a weapons pod roll bar would agree with this), and the Brattain was a science ship and may have had more sensors or computers than a stock Miranda, thus having less room/need for crew. Of course, it could also be that the Miranda is simply a more basic, less complex ship than the Galaxy, and therefore is easier to automate.
- We see Miranda-class ships in the Dominion war being so much cannon fodder, being taken out in a single hit. But we also see them fighting, dodging, and weaving right alongside the Defiant, and they're certainly going to be more nimble than much larger ships like the Galaxy, Nebula, or even Excelsior.
- We see a Miranda variant in the Dominion war that we never see anywhere else, with a large delta-shaped dorsal pod of unknown purposes and, possibly, photon torpedo launchers mounted on the upper hull (the Antares variant). Some sources describe this as a "tactical frigate":
So I like to think that the Mirandas we see in Dominion war fleets are unmanned drones slaved to a larger ship, because they were hopelessly outclassed and outgunned by Dominion ships but every phaser and torpedo launcher helped, and at the very least they could provide a physical fighter screen for other ships. My headcanon is that the Antares-style "tactical frigates" had a long-range high-bandwidth subspace tranceiver array in the dorsal pod and so could be operated at a substantially greater range than a regular Miranda drone, such as from a starbase or a ship not actually in the immediate vicinity. Perhaps they also worked as signal boosters for the other unmanned Miranda drones.
Edited for clarity and grammar.
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It was so ugly it was cute!
If you think the Elkins and some of her DS9 classmates were bad, you should be glad they never fielded the Merced-class USS Trieste. Now THAT thing...
IIRC, it was supposed to be a part of the tachyon web fleet designed to reveal cloaked Romulan ships along the neutral zone in “Unification”. My guess is that those were supposed to be high powered tachyon emitters to be used at the core of the fleet.
For my part, I don't mind how the Soyuz wound up using them. Far less confident in the wonky Trieste design.
That one was always my favorite Miranda mod. The Soyuz, not the Trieste.
I'm in two minds about the above, but really hope that the "Starfleet fighter wings" that appear during the same period are set up this way, and that the Maquis equivalents are retrofitted with a cockpit for their purposes.
As far as I know, no model of the Merced was made at the time of TNG. Later a kitbash was made for DS9, given the name Merced, and a registry of four, rather than the previous five digits (from the tachyon web display screen)
But the model was never used. And frankly... good thing!
It may not be the Keith-class (see FASA) but - gawds. Fugly.
As for remote Mirandas - interesting idea. Still, ships need crews to fully fulfil a variety of duties.
Including unforeseen problems or complications.
I've seen worse.
Honestly, it was a half-decent design if the nacelles were attached to the upper part of the hull near where the saucer and the secondary hull. No "hero ship" quality maybe, but good enough for a "guest supporting ship".
I am sorry but the term, tactical frigate, is nonsense. What would make it tactical in comparison to the regular frigates? Given that the ship has oversized weapons, I would say monitor or local area (in lieu of coastal) defense ship, something that doesn't go beyond the tactical range of the local defense platforms or substituted as one before a more permanent base can be fully operational. Given that sensors play a big part in Star Trek, in my head canon, The Nebula-class Phoenix was a large AWACs-style platform and the smaller Antares-class filled similar roles but as a less-expensive version.
The Dominion War-era Mirandas could have sacrificed shields for maneuverability to emulate the Jem'Hadar attack ship's maneuverability. Given the problems with the Defiant, the Miranda and the Centaur was refitted to counter them.
The Dominion War-era Mirandas could have sacrificed shields for maneuverability to emulate the Jem'Hadar attack ship's maneuverability. Given the problems with the Defiant, the Miranda and the Centaur was refitted to counter them.
Actually, it turns out that the registry was five digits on the underside, and correctly matches the registry for the Trieste in the "Redemption" tachyon grid display. So somebody did their homework:
https://forums.scifi-meshes.com/discussion/10001031/u-s-s-trieste-ds9-kitbash
Wow… I had no idea that ship had smaller nacelles and gun turrets underneath. Never seen those top/bottom photos before. I might have to go back and update my old schematics. Thanks for posting this.
The ventral nacelles kind of remind me of the oddball mini-nacelles on the proto-Nebula version of the Melbourne. Kind of glad we didn't really see those intact, honestly.
