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It's why you don't see a Miranda with like, Galaxy-Class nacelles. It would be way too much work to overhaul the ship for that. You DO have the Frankenstein ships that can be a mishmash, but in that case I would assume that much of the ship was build around the warp core/drive system. Starfleet is like "We have a bunch of Excelsior drive systems built, what the hell do we do with them?" then they realize another shipyard built a bunch of hull pieces of some other design, and some engineer was like "hold my raktajino."
i'm not sure that it was a case "we have this and they have that" so much as "we have a design contract for a new ship for [role]"
"we're already building Miranda's and excelsiors, use as much of those systems and components as you can, so we don't have to retool anything too much"
Yes, this too. I never got any sort of vibe that the Constellation-Class was ever considered to be a top of the line vessel, which may also be a reason we don't see them particularly often in the TNG+ era. Miranda's were seemingly a top of the line ship, at least when originally produced, as were Excelsiors. Constellation-Class ships were probably more similar to like, a California-Class. They're fine. They work. But they're nothing special.
My theory as to why we didn’t see much of them was because they were built for deep space exploration rather than staying around Federation space.
And if my theory (not really a theory... it's all documented, it's just if you choose to ignore said documentation) is correct that the Constellations were built over a fairly long period of time, it makes more sense that there may be something of a blending of tech. They'll have some older systems, some newer systems, and they may vary in model as time goes on. They're using the same spaceframe and general specs, but bits and pieces get upgraded.
The issue wasn’t the length of time Constellations were built or in service. The issue was the obviously wrong commissioning date of the Stargazer, based on evidence such as registry numbers and level of technology shown.
It’s why you don't see a Miranda with like, Galaxy-Class nacelles. It would be way too much work to overhaul the ship for that. You DO have the Frankenstein ships that can be a mishmash, but in that case I would assume that much of the ship was build around the warp core/drive system. Starfleet is like "We have a bunch of Excelsior drive systems built, what the hell do we do with them?" then they realize another shipyard built a bunch of hull pieces of some other design, and some engineer was like "hold my raktajino."
The thing is, the nacelles would be the easiest thing on a starship to replace or upgrade in-universe. They’re just the housings for the warp engines. The reason why we didn’t see Mirandas with Galaxy nacelles was because there was no reason for the VFX people to mess with (and possibly damage) the expensive Reliant studio model.
The issue wasn’t the length of time Constellations were built or in service. The issue was the obviously wrong commissioning date of the Stargazer, based on evidence such as registry numbers and level of technology shown.
As noted several times, the registry numbers are unreliable at best. There may sometimes be a rough correlation but they are by no means a solid indicator. Level of technology shown is something subjective as well... we don't know the specifics of how everything works, and "having some physical buttons" I don't think is anything clearly out of place.
Directly comparing the bridge of Hathaway and Stargazer, it is clear that there were some different production runs, or at least differences, in Constellation-Class ships. Hathaway has a different bridge configuration than Stargazer. Also like... is it REALLY "less advanced", given the Enterprise-D uses almost literally the same bridge as their battle bridge?
And even if the Stargazer didn't have the most up-to-date, cutting edge, 2326 technology is that actually a problem? Not every ship is going to be a bleeding edge, high tech powerhouse. Sometimes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is fine. We know they're still in service by the 2360's, although being phased out. If we consider the Stargazer to be among the last-run of the Constellation-Class ships, and figuring it was never lost, that still gave it a 40-ish year long service life... even with (supposedly) outdated technology. That's almost roughly on par with the Constitution-Class...
I just really don't understand why this is such a sticking point.
The thing is, the nacelles would be the easiest thing on a starship to replace or upgrade in-universe. The reason why we didn’t see Mirandas with Galaxy nacelles was because there was no reason for the VFX people to mess with (and possibly damage) the expensive Reliant studio model.
Would they though? The warp drive is easily the most advanced and delicate system on the ship, and just slapping different nacelles on a ship isn't going to work (or, work well). It would be like... strapping a V12 Lamborghini motor onto a Ford Fiesta and not changing the tires, suspension, brakes, etc. and expecting it to just... work fine. (It... would not.)
Replacing/upgrading the warp drive system would be a much larger operation. You would have to redo the whole entire system. It's possible, but it's like a Constitution-Refit level operation.
Would they though? The warp drive is easily the most advanced and delicate system on the ship, and just slapping different nacelles on a ship isn't going to work (or, work well). It would be like... strapping a V12 Lamborghini motor onto a Ford Fiesta and not changing the tires, suspension, brakes, etc. and expecting it to just... work fine. (It... would not.)
Replacing/upgrading the warp drive system would be a much larger operation. You would have to redo the whole entire system. It's possible, but it's like a Constitution-Refit level operation.
Depends on how you designed the Warp Drive System inteface.
- Are they always going to use the same physical size Warp Core? Y/N?
- Are the Warp Plasma Conduit's going into the Warp Nacelle Pylons over-specced with room to deliver more Plasma than default (for future upgraded use?) Y/N?
- Are the Warp Nacelles mating interface to the Wrap Pylon standardized enough? Y/N?
- Are the Electronic Controls to the Warp Nacelles using a standard StarFleet interface, protocol, & control logic like modern day Engines FADEC's? Y/N?
If all those are Yes, then it should be modular enough that you can plug & go.
Then perform compatibility testing & validation.
Then you can perform fleet wide upgrades.
But that requires VERY long term planning from early on in the vessels development life-cycle for future updates.
It also require Over-Speccing certain things to allow future technological updates like new Warp Nacelles using a standardized interface & mount.
It's very much possible, but it requires StarFleet to have planned for specified Engine upgrades.
Instead of just redoing everything from scratch every single generation.
You notice how modern Airliners have engine upgrades every few decades, it's kind of a similar deal, you have to have designed the mount/interface to allow for it.
Warp Nacelles are one of those things that I think that past a certain point, StarFleet will standardize on the mount and even allow for future in-field quick Docking/Seperation for battlefield replacements.
Similar to a Saucer Seperation, but a Warp Nacelle Seperation to chuck off the damaged unit and let a tug crew take back the damaged Warp Nacelles and get a fresh new Warp Nacelle in a matter of minutes, similar to a Tire Change.
If all those are Yes, then it should be modular enough that you can plug & go.
Then perform compatibility testing & validation.
Then you can perform fleet wide upgrades.
But that requires VERY long term planning from early on in the vessels development life-cycle for future updates.
It also require Over-Speccing certain things to allow future technological updates like new Warp Nacelles using a standardized interface & mount.
I see what you're going for there and sure, if all those criteria are met... but it seems more likely than not that that would be uncommon, or at least uncommon through different generations. Sure something the Galaxy and Nebula could swap around parts, but probably less so far an Excelsior and a Galaxy.
Even just the Constitution refit, where they expressly DID replace these things, was a MAJOR operation.
I see what you're going for there and sure, if all those criteria are met... but it seems more likely than not that that would be uncommon, or at least uncommon through different generations. Sure something the Galaxy and Nebula could swap around parts, but probably less so far an Excelsior and a Galaxy.
Would that have been a problem?
With superluminal computing, adaptive/predictive algorithms that are capable of whipping up solutions by just giving the computer simple prompts... downsizing or modifying existing Galaxy or even Defiant class tech to fit into something like the Excelsior wouldn't exactly be a challenge.
In fact, I would imagine that the Lakota upgrades signified this is probably what took place. They likely took the Defiant which had an overpowered Warp core for the frame and thought, 'hey, this core is small so we could fit it in Mirandas and Excelsiors' - then all we need to do is modify the power transfer conduits, replace the shield generators, upgrade the warp coils, etc.
Since the Lakota didn't have any external changes to it at the time we saw it in Paradise Lost, I would imagine that all of the changes to the ship were internal. SF probably just beamed out the older warp coils, shield generators, and power conduits, disassembled them int the matter stream, rearranged this matter in an industrial replicator to modern equivalents and then just reinstalled them back into the ship).
The Torpedoes would be dead easy to upgrade since the Lakota could carry both photon and Quantum torpedoes, so there's that (even VOY's launchers were said that they can be modified to support launch of Quantums).
But going from TOS Connie to Refit Connie, that might've been during a time of major technological revolution.
Look at the late 24th century / early 25th century.
The ships looks like they're all made on standardized modular platforms and less "Be-Spoke" designs.
The 25th century ships on the other hand feature a lot of 23rd century ones which were upgraded. The most tell-tale sign of this were the nacelles (same ones seen on the Titan-A were present in many other refitted ships).
The more modern ship designs of the late 24th century had their own distinct looks and more advanced version of their nacelles - similar to a Sovereign class, like the ENT-F.
The Ross class had more Nemesis style nacelles similar to the ones on the shuttles from the ENT-E as seen in Insurrection movie.
There are varying levels of designs, but I would imagine that most 23rd century class ships are recognizeable by the fact they all sport the same (ugly) nacelles like the Titan-A.
The only exception to that was the Excelsior II design which was an external overhaul of the design, so it underwent modifications - but it definitely seems to follow the Obena Class in terms of scale, being more Oval shaped - the major exception are the nacelle pylons - similar to the original Excelsior they are more angular - while the Obena had a straight Sovereign copy/paste approach for the pylons and the nacelles.
Would that have been a problem?
With superluminal computing, adaptive/predictive algorithms that are capable of whipping up solutions by just giving the computer simple prompts... downsizing or modifying existing Galaxy or even Defiant class tech to fit into something like the Excelsior wouldn't exactly be a challenge.
Depends on the tech and if it's worth the labor to "Retrofit" vs make a new class, even if it looks similar that is designed for the tech from the get go.
Look at the Refit Connie and how we didn't exactly see too many of those vs having the Excelsior outright replace it.
In fact, I would imagine that the Lakota upgrades signified this is probably what took place. They likely took the Defiant which had an overpowered Warp core for the frame and thought, 'hey, this core is small so we could fit it in Mirandas and Excelsiors' - then all we need to do is modify the power transfer conduits, replace the shield generators, upgrade the warp coils, etc.
The Lakota was definitely a StarFleet Hot-Rod upgrade program.
They were lucky on the miniaturization of the M/A-M reactor that happened to fit in pre-existing reactor sizes.
At that point, it's making sure the Plasma conduits are up to snuff or if replacements need to be installed along with other computer upgrades.
The Shield Generators / Warp Coils would also need to be rated to handle the higher power output.
But it seems like it was effective w/o any major structural or cosmetic changes.
Since the Lakota didn't have any external changes to it at the time we saw it in Paradise Lost, I would imagine that all of the changes to the ship were internal. SF probably just beamed out the older warp coils, shield generators, and power conduits, disassembled them int the matter stream, rearranged this matter in an industrial replicator to modern equivalents and then just reinstalled them back into the ship).
If it was that easy, they wouldn't have the large orbital shipyard docks for assembly, I don't think it's that simple.
But it shouldn't take that long for them to take apart and retro-fit either.
Not every part is going to be industrial replicator-able.
Otherwise things like Warp Nacelles would've been easily replace-able in battle, but those aren't parts that seem to be easy to battlefield replace.
Remember Voyager had to land planet side and perform Shuttle manuevers to replace large Warp Coils.
The Torpedoes would be dead easy to upgrade since the Lakota could carry both photon and Quantum torpedoes, so there's that (even VOY's launchers were said that they can be modified to support launch of Quantums).
Those are the easiest things to upgrade as long as the casing specs didn't change, which they seem pretty consistent in the late 23rd too early 24th century.
The 25th century ships on the other hand feature a lot of 23rd century ones which were upgraded. The most tell-tale sign of this were the nacelles (same ones seen on the Titan-A were present in many other refitted ships).
They seem pretty happy with that Retro-Futuristic Nacelle that had elements of Old/New.
The more modern ship designs of the late 24th century had their own distinct looks and more advanced version of their nacelles - similar to a Sovereign class, like the ENT-F.
The Ross class had more Nemesis style nacelles similar to the ones on the shuttles from the ENT-E as seen in Insurrection movie.
Yup, the Ross Class was also interesting in that it was the first StarFleet StarShip with Dual Reactors.
That made it VERY interesting, especially in terms of enhanced combat output.
There are varying levels of designs, but I would imagine that most 23rd century class ships are recognizeable by the fact they all sport the same (ugly) nacelles like the Titan-A.
The 23rd century Nacelles are more Refit Connie like.
It's the 25th century Nacelles that seem to be it's own unique Kitbash of Past/Future elements that we see on the Titan-A and other ships.
The only exception to that was the Excelsior II design which was an external overhaul of the design, so it underwent modifications - but it definitely seems to follow the Obena Class in terms of scale, being more Oval shaped - the major exception are the nacelle pylons - similar to the original Excelsior they are more angular - while the Obena had a straight Sovereign copy/paste approach for the pylons and the nacelles.
The Excelsior II definitely deserved more screen time, it was truly a beautiful update.
I still prefer the flair-outs of the Enterprise-B, I wish that made it to the Excelsior II's StarDrive section.
I think that ships can be upgraded and refit to a point without an absolutely major operation which may not worth it in the long run.
There's almost certainly an upper limit on what can more easily be replaced and upgraded before it the effort becomes less attractive to just building a new ship.
Some ships might be more adaptable than others. Excelsiors, for example, may be so well designed at the core that they are more easily upgraded. Something like a Galaxy-Class may pose more of an issue... they were already incredibly overengineered, messing with anything is likely to cause all manner of problems. We get the general idea that the Enterprise-D is an incredibly delicate collection of machinery and requires around the clock maintenance to keep it going.
There's even a lore reason why Excelsiors may not have this issue... given Star Trek 3. The whole drive system may have been redesigned and reengineered after Scotty mucked it up, and the result was a "bulletproof" warp core that could run through anything to the point that (metaphorical) duct tape could hold it together and be fine.
1. The Stargazer has always been consistently described as an old ship. In Relics, Picard described it as 'an overworked, underpowered vessel, always on the verge of flying apart at the seams.' If the ship was commissioned in 2326 and lost in 2355, the ship would only have been 29 years old at the time of its loss. That is not an old ship, or at the very least not old enough to have all the problems that Picard described it as having.
2. You are (either intentionally or unintentionally) not giving enough credit to registry number information. If registries didn't have any meaning, then we would be getting ships with registries like NCC-D34TK89, or NCC-12/4S, or some such. For you to say that registries are 'unreliable at best' completely ignores the quite clearly chronological numbering system that Michael Okuda, Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, and all the other Art Department people working on TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT for collectively almost 20 years came up with, and is more or less being followed by DSC, SNW, PIC, PRO and LDS. Is it 100% accurate? No. I'd say it's about 90% accurate, which is still quite a far cry from 'unreliable at best.'
3. And on that note, the only other Constellation class ships we ever saw on screen were the Hathaway (NCC-2593) and the Victory (NCC-9754). The former was commissioned in 2285. The latter was a reuse of stock footage of the Stargazer. In both instances, they have the same damage and wear that the Stargazer did (because they were reuses and stock footage of the same model.) The former had been described as 'obsolete,' and while both its sister ships the Stargazer and the Victory were still active-duty ships, there seemed to be no difference between them at all. There is no logical reason not to assume, based on both registry numbers and the visual state of the vessels, that they were constructed around the same time as the Hathaway.
4. Even old ships like the Lantree had been updated internally by the late 24th century. Based on the bridge of the Stargazer (which was a modification of the Enterprise-A bridge), one would think that by 2326, it would not look like the interior of a 2280's bridge, or at best would have been upgraded in the intervening time before its loss in 2355. The most logical conclusion is that the ship's bridge looks like a 2280's-era ship's bridge because it is a 2280's-era ship.
5. Information on background plaques, charts, etc. which aren’t even remotely readable on screen can always be taken with a grain of salt. If the only evidence that the Stargazer was launched in 2326 was on an illegible plaque, rather than, say, being spoken aloud in dialogue, then IMHO it should be freely ignored in lieu of any better evidence.
If it was that easy, they wouldn't have the large orbital shipyard docks for assembly, I don't think it's that simple.
But it shouldn't take that long for them to take apart and retro-fit either.
Not every part is going to be industrial replicator-able.
Otherwise things like Warp Nacelles would've been easily replace-able in battle, but those aren't parts that seem to be easy to battlefield replace.
That's why you have drydocks... they are large enough to sport industrial grade replicators and pattern buffers which can be used for exactly the kind of scenario I described (aka, beaming out parts, recycling them in the matter stream and replacing them with state of the art ones by beaming them back into place).
Its still a process since it would seem that MOST ships in the fleet do NOT in fact have industrial grade replicators at their disposal.
To our knowledge, they DID transport them from one place to another, but otherwise, ships by themselves had regular replicators (which can probably be used to perform various upgrades and replacements of a variety of parts on the go - but this method would be relatively power intensive, which is why most of them would go back to a drydock/starbase to get most of the major systems done there).
In fact, even with regular replicators, nothing is technically stopping the crew from making smaller modular bits of various large hw, recycle the old, and just add a bit of power and/or matter to supplement for inefficiencies (loss of energy/matter) and that's it.
The good thing about SF tech is that its modular so this is actually doable... and most smaller refits/upgrades can be done by crews in deep space anyway. Major ones would require same procedures in the absence of a starbase/drydock, in which case, the ship would need to park itself in a solar system for a bit do an overhaul.
Remember Voyager had to land planet side and perform Shuttle manuevers to replace large Warp Coils.
I do, but still they were able to do it. Perform maintenance, upgrades and replacements of ship parts. In fairness, the ship had to be stationary and most powered off to get all of this done properly... and as we saw, majority of these were repairs (and probably some upgrades that SF sent over the MIDAS array). They still had to get the parts from somewhere... and I suspect that the crew likely traded for needed materials, and/or recycled the old/damaged hw and replicated replacements/upgrades when needed.
Btw in terms of upgrading the Excelsiors, instead of using the Defiant Warp core, they probably could have used Intrepid class Warp cores because the ships are somewhat more similar in size.
The Miranda's on the other hand might have used Defiant class warp cores, and associated upgrades to power conduits, shield generators, weapons, etc.
They seem pretty happy with that Retro-Futuristic Nacelle that had elements of Old/New.
I hated them... mainly because they look so thin. Yes I know that they are more like an update of the Constitution class nacelles, but even 23rd century ships had some variation in nacelle design...
What the 25th century refits of 23rd century classes seemed to lack on their nacelles was THICKNESS... it just threw everything off aesthetically for most designs (but that could be because I grew accustomed to wider 24th century style nacelles).
Yup, the Ross Class was also interesting in that it was the first StarFleet StarShip with Dual Reactors.
That made it VERY interesting, especially in terms of enhanced combat output.
Not sure I recall this particular specification.
The Intrepid class (namely VOY) was inferred that it could use two warp cores, or that it had a spare one... but this was never used.
The Excelsior II definitely deserved more screen time, it was truly a beautiful update.
I still prefer the flair-outs of the Enterprise-B, I wish that made it to the Excelsior II's StarDrive section.
I was a bit disappointed with its overall design. I think at least more Galaxy class like pylons could have worked better than angular ones.
The more Oval lines/design flow of how the Obena class worked for it, but then the nacelles/pylons just seemed kinda 'meh' (at least to me).
That's why you have drydocks... they are large enough to sport industrial grade replicators and pattern buffers which can be used for exactly the kind of scenario I described (aka, beaming out parts, recycling them in the matter stream and replacing them with state of the art ones by beaming them back into place).
Not ones with size capabilities that you're thinking of. Giant chunks of hull are still assembled in space.
Just like modern 3D printers have size limits based on bed space, there might be size limits for Industrial replicators based on whatever factors.
To our knowledge, they DID transport them from one place to another, but otherwise, ships by themselves had regular replicators (which can probably be used to perform various upgrades and replacements of a variety of parts on the go - but this method would be relatively power intensive, which is why most of them would go back to a drydock/starbase to get most of the major systems done there).
But most of those parts were far smaller items, usually stuff that humans can easily move around.
Giant things like Warp Coils are FAR larger and complex then the stuff most people replicated, like "Lunch".
In fact, even with regular replicators, nothing is technically stopping the crew from making smaller modular bits of various large hw, recycle the old, and just add a bit of power and/or matter to supplement for inefficiencies (loss of energy/matter) and that's it.
That's what's been shown, but most of that stuff is small enough to fit in most modern day tool boxes.
The good thing about SF tech is that its modular so this is actually doable... and most smaller refits/upgrades can be done by crews in deep space anyway. Major ones would require same procedures in the absence of a starbase/drydock, in which case, the ship would need to park itself in a solar system for a bit do an overhaul.
Yup, that's why good engineering is necessary to make everything that modular and upgrade-able.
I do, but still they were able to do it. Perform maintenance, upgrades and replacements of ship parts. In fairness, the ship had to be stationary and most powered off to get all of this done properly... and as we saw, majority of these were repairs (and probably some upgrades that SF sent over the MIDAS array). They still had to get the parts from somewhere... and I suspect that the crew likely traded for needed materials, and/or recycled the old/damaged hw and replicated replacements/upgrades when needed.
You generally don't want to replace parts that conduct electricity when the power is on.
That's true in modern day electronics / computers, that'll probably be true in the future.
Certain parts are of course "Hot Swappable", but not everything.
Btw in terms of upgrading the Excelsiors, instead of using the Defiant Warp core, they probably could have used Intrepid class Warp cores because the ships are somewhat more similar in size.
The Miranda's on the other hand might have used Defiant class warp cores, and associated upgrades to power conduits, shield generators, weapons, etc.
Whatever M/A-M reactor you can get to fit and function, I'm sure they have standardized sizes across the fleet.
I hated them... mainly because they look so thin. Yes I know that they are more like an update of the Constitution class nacelles, but even 23rd century ships had some variation in nacelle design...
What the 25th century refits of 23rd century classes seemed to lack on their nacelles was THICKNESS... it just threw everything off aesthetically for most designs (but that could be because I grew accustomed to wider 24th century style nacelles).
Isn't that kind of the point of modern tech, to make things "SMALLER" & more efficient?
The Galaxy Class Nacelles were weird in that they were wider in the aft end and narrower in the front.
The new 25th century class Nacelles seem to reverse that with smaller in the back and thicker in the front, but still smaller than the old 23rd century Nacelles.
Part of technology improvements is shrinking of tech or more efficient versions of tech of the same size.
Not sure I recall this particular specification.
The Intrepid class (namely VOY) was inferred that it could use two warp cores, or that it had a spare one... but this was never used.
The Intrepid Class had a "Spare Warp Core" in a dedicated storage spot.
The Ross Class has 2x Warp Cores, one in the StarDrive, one in the Saucer.
The Saucer can finally go to Warp on it's own, and not rely on Warp Coasting.
I still prefer the Galaxy Class Deflector Dish, not a fan of the circular one on the Ross Class.
I was a bit disappointed with its overall design. I think at least more Galaxy class like pylons could have worked better than angular ones.
The more Oval lines/design flow of how the Obena class worked for it, but then the nacelles/pylons just seemed kinda 'meh' (at least to me).
The Excelsior Mk.2 class has near exact copies of the Galaxy pylons general shape.
It's swept back from the top ortho, but angled forward from the sides.
That's basically the Galaxy Style Warp Nacelle Pylons, the only difference is how stubby they are due to the shorter arm lengths.
One of my main issues is that the Saucer should've been pushe forward past the oval's center point, the neck interfaces with the saucer way past the center point.
And I want a longer StarDrive section so it can house more stuff, but I also prefer the "Trident Arse" shape that the Intrepid Class USS Voyager brought to the design and I want to push that to it's logical extreme.
Using my own rough and ready registry / production span interpretation, the Victory would have been launched somewhere between 2303-2313, quite likely. And assuming new ranges of numbers were rapidly becoming available.
Stargazer, Hathaway, and Magellan all were likely launched in the 2280s, maybe 90s at outside.
Whilst the Constance would be in service maybe in the late 2310s. All quite speculative, of course.
Not seeing the latter ship, we can't tell if it got substantial upgrades, or a refit, though (beyond 'the lifedeck' Shaw spoke of?)
One question would be, why was the Hathaway decommissioned? Also when? It seemed to have a sort of cobbled together nature to it. Like the ship had not really been upgraded much from the late 23rd century, and Starfleet kind of tacked on some 24th century systems just for the War Games. But it is also possible that they did update the ship to Early 24th century standards (Ambassador-class era), but in a odd way, and the bridge seems to have a little haphazard in placement of stations compared to most Starfleet vessels.
One question would be, why was the Hathaway decommissioned? Also when? It seemed to have a sort of cobbled together nature to it. Like the ship had not really been upgraded much from the late 23rd century, and Starfleet kind of tacked on some 24th century systems just for the War Games. But it is also possible that they did update the ship to Early 24th century standards (Ambassador-class era), but in a odd way, and the bridge seems to have a little haphazard in placement of stations compared to most Starfleet vessels.
Good question. The circumstances surrounding the Hathaway’s decommissioning are left ambiguous. She has major internal and external damage (the latter because the model was a reuse of the Stargazer which was purposely built to look somewhat damaged from the battle of Maxia.) Since both the Victory and the Constance were still on active duty in the 2360’s, it stands to reason that the Hathaway could still have been operating for at least that long, but the episode gives the impression that the ship had been decommissioned and sitting around for the past 70 years.
Another factor is that the Victory and the Constance both have much higher registry numbers than the Hathaway (9XXX and 1XXXX rather than 2XXX), so the former two ships might have been later builds and younger than the latter, which is also a factor as to why the Stargazer with its 2XXX registry should logically have been built in the 2280’s rather than 2326.
Good question. The circumstances surrounding the Hathaway’s decommissioning are left ambiguous. She has major internal and external damage (the latter because the model was a reuse of the Stargazer which was purposely built to look somewhat damaged from the battle of Maxia.) Since both the Victory and the Constance were still on active duty in the 2360’s, it stands to reason that the Hathaway could still have been operating for at least that long, but the episode gives the impression that the ship had been decommissioned and sitting around for the past 70 years.
Another factor is that the Victory and the Constance both have much higher registry numbers than the Hathaway (9XXX and 1XXXX rather than 2XXX), so the former two ships might have been later builds and younger than the latter, which is also a factor as to why the Stargazer with its 2XXX registry should logically have been built in the 2280’s rather than 2326.
We can use real-world instances on why certain members of a class gets left behind. In the 1950s, when the Essex-class carriers were being upgraded, the newer ones were the last to be upgraded, and even then they weren't given the angled deck treatment. So in the late 70s, when the Essex-class were being retired, we had ships that looked similar to modern carriers to ones that still had looked like WWII carriers (they were converted to helicopter carriers). My guess is that the early Constellations and they systems were not easily upgradeable while the Victory and Constance were built with more modular systems; so the Hathaway was used until it became easier just to retire it and let it sit in a mothball yard. I wonder if the Stargazer was on that road but the Ferengi retired it for Starfleet.
One question would be, why was the Hathaway decommissioned? Also when? It seemed to have a sort of cobbled together nature to it. Like the ship had not really been upgraded much from the late 23rd century, and Starfleet kind of tacked on some 24th century systems just for the War Games. But it is also possible that they did update the ship to Early 24th century standards (Ambassador-class era), but in a odd way, and the bridge seems to have a little haphazard in placement of stations compared to most Starfleet vessels.
One idea I've occasionally pondered is whether, in the wake of major political shifts like the Khitomer Accords (making the Klingons into more of a potential ally than a traditional enemy) and the Tomed Incident (which prompted the Romulans to become isolationist and unseen for half a century), the Federation might have pursued something similar to the Washington Naval Treaties of the 1920s. A system that would have altered the production and deployment of Starfleet assets for some degree of time, and perhaps resulted in larger groups of older designs being decommissioned, reassigned or scrapped (or possibly sold to allies, with the appropriate modifications, for local defense fleets).
Starfleet could have then put a broader focus on building more of the newer designs available, like the Excelsior family as described by fan works like Jackill, while keeping some of the older vessels in reserves as needed like the Mirandas. Just one possibility.
Two pseudo-OT things that I'd like to add to the ongoing discussion...
It was once suggested that the Constellation class might be TMP-era tech taken to extreme; that is, it's the final "hurrah" of that level of tech, pushed as far as it could go almost to a cartoonish extent. The four nacelles and pseudo-kitbash nature of the ship, replete with greebles here and there, combined with Picard's lines about it being an "overworked, underpowered vessel" would seem to agree with this thought and I agree. Just as Miranda class ships are still valid in the 24th century, there could likely be found good reasons why the Constellation's niche would still render them useful. (Indeed, Starfleet seemed to be big on "we got 'er, let's use 'er" when it came to ships.) I would also agree with the notion that the Constellation was some kind of deep space cruiser/explorer.
Registry numbers, for me, exist somewhere between a ship hull number and an aircraft tail number, best thought of as a "license plate." They were indeed kept quite organized in the TNG era but I have come to suspect there was an amount of intentional complication to their otherwise linear pattern. Take for example the Constitution class Eagle (NCC-956) and Constellation (NCC-1017) both being alleged contemporaries of NCC-1701. To me, one is special but two could form a pattern, and Eagle's registry was as far as I know, purely invented by Mr. Okuda. (I believe we have other incidences of lower registry ships being launched later than we think.) I suspect that Mr. Okuda and team, when possible, created and perpetuated oddities such as this just enough to give the writers room to establish whatever they wanted to about when a ship was ordered, launched, refit, and so on. The Tsiolkovsky would be an exception caused by production complications and there were likely others of this type, but Mr. Okuda almost certainly had his own internal logic for why there were so many NCC-4xxxx Excelsiors, for example.
Now to the original topic, I agree with others that the Miranda class probably represented a sort of peak or ceiling for its design lineage. Assume for a moment that they're frigates; they may have been the best frigate Starfleet ever produced in terms of durability and reliability. Attempts to replicate or replace it (of which perhaps the Centaur class was one) came up short for whatever reasons. When repeated efforts failed, Starfleet just kept building more Mirandas. Newer built ships would have continued service, while older ones would have been retired and relegated to surplus yards. As others have noted, it appears that automation allowed the vessels to carry much smaller crews than originally intended, freeing up that space and power that would have otherwise been used for crew accommodation for other goodies. It's likely that that ships we saw in the Dominion War were a combination of active ships and ones that were pulled from mothballs to act as gunboats and then probably retired again if they survived the war.
Regarding the Jeep Wrangler analogy that someone mentioned earlier, I'll relate the somewhat apocryphal story of the Jeep Cherokee. Allegedly, the old Cherokee was built so well (and people so fond of them) that Jeep silently quit building them and replaced it with the Jeep Liberty because it was staying on the road so long and keeping people from buying new vehicles. Flip that around a little and militarize it, and we could see why a Miranda class starship just couldn't be killed without a lot of effort.
Are they more dangerous than other ships? I'd firmly say no.
^^^ Agree with everything above except the final sentence.
I've always considered the Mirandas considerably more dangerous than Connies and other contemporaries. Despite what we saw in ENT's "In a Mirror, Darkly", there is no evidence of rear-facing photon torpedo tubes on anything from the 23rd century other than Mirandas (and later, the Excelsiors). Just ask the USS Grissom! The Miranda has a slightly less number of ball-mounted phaser banks than the Connie (don't forget the two below the impulse engine assembly), but makes up for that deficit with the rollbar-mounted "megaphasers" which, on screen, looked far more devastating than Enterprise's traditional phasers in TWOK. Miranda also doesn't have to worry about its neck being cut off, like the E's almost was in TWOK and actually was in Beyond. Easily a more tactically and strategically sound design and quite versatile in its mission profiles compared to the Connie, as evidenced by the multitude of Miranda-based variants we've seen across the decades.
Many of these reasons are also why I love the Akiras so much. That weapons pod has 12 launch tubes alone, not including the launchers scattered around the saucer. That thing is a highly aggressive sleeper-killer and should be able to easily make any Klingon shit his spacesuit. So, too, with the Mirandas of the previous generation.
The Miranda has a slightly less number of ball-mounted phaser banks than the Connie (don't forget the two below the impulse engine assembly), but makes up for that deficit with the rollbar-mounted "megaphasers" which, on screen, looked far more devastating than Enterprise's traditional phasers in TWOK. Miranda also doesn't have to worry about its neck being cut off, like the E's almost was in TWOK and actually was in Beyond. Easily a more tactically and strategically sound design and quite versatile in its mission profiles compared to the Connie, as evidenced by the multitude of Miranda-based variants we've seen across the decades.
