Rick Berman said there could be over 30,000. What's your take on this?
Number of Starfleet vessels?
- Thread starter Captain Zog
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Based on what we've seen onscreen, I would say that there were between 600 and 1,000 Starfleet vessels on active duty at the time of Wolf-359 which is what made the loss of 39 of those vessels at one time such a big deal.
In all likelihood, thousands of more Starfleet vessels were inactive or in reserve fleets that take time to reactivate and make usable for service.
This would account for how Starfleet was able to bring massive fleets into existence during the two years of the Dominion War despite their shipyards being severely damaged
The problem with nailing down a set number of ships for Starfleet is
1) If you have too few ships it
A) Is not realistic
B) Limits future storytelling prospects.
2) If you have too many ships it makes the fate of a single starship or a small fleet of them far, far less important.
Say that it was stated at the time of The Best of Both Worlds that Starfleet had 30,000 ships.
What then would've been dramatic about the loss of 39 ships at Wolf-359?
i said about 5.000 with 150 words the fed have bye
Not to seem cold, but what's so dramatic about losing 3,000 people in a nation of a thousand times that number?
It's not the proportion of the fleet, but how many were lost at once, for so little effect. I doubt that they'd ever gathered that many ships for a single battle before, and to lose such a 'large' fleet seemed to hurt them psychologically, if not in 'reality.'
At least, that's the impression that I get. Though this only works if you assume, as I do, that they'd never fought a war on anywhere near the scale of the Dominion War before.
Plecostomus
Commodore
The loss was very close to home as well, almost right on the doorstep as it were.
It'd be the same as having a carrier battle-group get nuked 75 miles from the Florida coast with a total loss of crew and equipment. The US Navy would survive the loss of one battle-group, but the political effects and the moral effects would be devastating.... and being that close to home it would magnify those aspects.
It'd be the same as having a carrier battle-group get nuked 75 miles from the Florida coast with a total loss of crew and equipment. The US Navy would survive the loss of one battle-group, but the political effects and the moral effects would be devastating.... and being that close to home it would magnify those aspects.
Thousands of Starfleet vessels does not necessarily equal thousands of hundred-man-crew starships. Maybe he was accounting for all the little shuttle craft and work bees around the space docks, space stations, and fleet yards.
Yes. When you take into account the mass-production of runabouts and "Data's Insurrection scoutships" (for lack of a better term to call it), with each ship having its own registry number akin to the larger starships, then 30,000 is definitely realistic.
It would also explain the drastic inflation of hull numbers from the 2290s to the 2310s (going up from around NCC-2XXX to NCC 1XXXX). At a guess, Starfleet decided to include Runabouts and Insurrection-type Scouts in the registry around the turn of the 24th century, at least if you accept this. That's always bugged me, how they went from NCC 17XX to NCC-2XXX from 2240-ish to 2280-ish, but suddenly hit 5 digits in the 24th century.
As for the overall size of Starfleet, I prefer 4-6k vessels (as opposed to Runabouts and Scouts) in peacetime, and maybe 8-10k during the Dominion War. That's the most reasonable way that I can make the sizes of the various fleets and the number of fleets in the war work.
The Federation has about 150 member worlds. In sci-fi, it's easy to forget just how large a single planet is. You can have 100 ships per planet and it would still be very much on the low end of the scale. Even assuming that being a Federation member doesn't equate to being a contributer to Starfleet, I can easily see ten-thousand ships being operated by Starfleet at any given time. Not including the scouts and runabouts.
Now one could surmise that Starfleet is basically akin to a small "UN" force while all other member worlds have their own fleet, which would account for a much smaller number. But then there's the problem of never seeing any evidence of that on screen.
Now one could surmise that Starfleet is basically akin to a small "UN" force while all other member worlds have their own fleet, which would account for a much smaller number. But then there's the problem of never seeing any evidence of that on screen.
What we don't see on screen is indeed the most decisive issue here, I'd say.
We don't see a Starfleet big enough to respond to peacetime crises in a timely manner: within a day or two, only a single starship can reach a crisis area, and only a few dozen warships at best can be summoned for a military operation that takes place within a week.
If the member worlds indeed sported significant local forces, one would expect to see signs of this in the storylines. But one would also expect to see fewer "our heroes are the only ones in range" episodes if there were several tens of thousands of ships available.
Perhaps Starfleet is best compared to the military of a modern western European nation: while the nation could raise an army of millions, it is much more sensible to only maintain an elite force of a few hundred thousand at most, and to rely on technological superiority, even when this means that one has to give most military crises a pass, and that one risks succumbing to an invasion by a primitive mass army.
Timo Saloniemi
We don't see a Starfleet big enough to respond to peacetime crises in a timely manner: within a day or two, only a single starship can reach a crisis area, and only a few dozen warships at best can be summoned for a military operation that takes place within a week.
If the member worlds indeed sported significant local forces, one would expect to see signs of this in the storylines. But one would also expect to see fewer "our heroes are the only ones in range" episodes if there were several tens of thousands of ships available.
Perhaps Starfleet is best compared to the military of a modern western European nation: while the nation could raise an army of millions, it is much more sensible to only maintain an elite force of a few hundred thousand at most, and to rely on technological superiority, even when this means that one has to give most military crises a pass, and that one risks succumbing to an invasion by a primitive mass army.
Timo Saloniemi
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Timo, you also have to remember that those ships are spread out over 100s of thousands of cubic light years in peace time. They don't mass up into big fleets without a reason. During the DW, they had that reason. During previous incidents (Borg Incursion, Klingon Border Interdiction) they were on "peacetime" status, and thus had to scramble to put together a sizeable force.
Picard once said the Federation was spread out "over a thousand light years". Assuming that was the "diameter", then the Federation would encompass an area of ~523,598,775.6 cubic light years.
A sector (generally accepted as 20ly across) would encompass ~33510.32 cubic ly and the Federations would hold ~15,625 sectors. At medium warp speeds (TNG WF5), it would take a ship `34 days to cross a sector.
Picard once said the Federation was spread out "over a thousand light years". Assuming that was the "diameter", then the Federation would encompass an area of ~523,598,775.6 cubic light years.
A sector (generally accepted as 20ly across) would encompass ~33510.32 cubic ly and the Federations would hold ~15,625 sectors. At medium warp speeds (TNG WF5), it would take a ship `34 days to cross a sector.
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Which brings in the aspects of distance and speed. It appeared to take two years to get the dispersed ships into a wartime footing in DS9. Yet the Enterprise evidently zipped across the entire Federation several times per season, visiting the homeworlds of adversaries on one side, and the unexplored depths on the other, of the UFP core regions. How many ships could have been on assignments more distant than those of the Enterprise? How big a portion of the fleet can have been that severely unavailable?
Again, the less ships there are overall, the better this peacetime-dispersed, wartime-massed model works.
Timo Saloniemi
Again, the less ships there are overall, the better this peacetime-dispersed, wartime-massed model works.
Timo Saloniemi
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
There are just so many factors to consider, really. How many OPERATIONAL ships are there out of the total at any one time? How many "capital" ships are there out of that total? Question upon question.
How would YOU divide this up? How many total? How many ACTIVE? etc?
I'd go for a "starship" fleet numbering somewhere below 10,000, with most of the auxiliaries coming in addition to that, but with large noncombatants also included in the 10,000. There would be a dozen combat fleets of, say, 500 ships each in the projected wartime strength, but the fleet structure would not exist at all during peacetime; all the ships would be dispersed, save for a mothball fleet of designs that were unsuited for anything but combat, and the fleets would be gathered of what was available, rather than what was listed in some dusty file.
Starfleet would IMHO strive to keep at least 80% of its ships active at all times, there being no major difference between wartime and peacetime footing. There would also be very little difference between wartime and peacetime shipbuilding, as the dockyards would always be stretched to their maximum in trying to provide sufficient ships for maintaining the peacetime Federation.
Clearly, the various shows prove that the peacetime UFP was not yet sufficiently maintained: the cavalry often arrived too late. So there would be little reason for the dockyards to slow down before the 2370s, and thus little chance for them to speed up once the war began. Indeed, we don't see any verifiably new ships during the war, save possibly for the replacement Defiant...
Timo Saloniemi
Starfleet would IMHO strive to keep at least 80% of its ships active at all times, there being no major difference between wartime and peacetime footing. There would also be very little difference between wartime and peacetime shipbuilding, as the dockyards would always be stretched to their maximum in trying to provide sufficient ships for maintaining the peacetime Federation.
Clearly, the various shows prove that the peacetime UFP was not yet sufficiently maintained: the cavalry often arrived too late. So there would be little reason for the dockyards to slow down before the 2370s, and thus little chance for them to speed up once the war began. Indeed, we don't see any verifiably new ships during the war, save possibly for the replacement Defiant...
Timo Saloniemi
They may have a fairly large 'mothball fleet'; ships that sit in dock most of the time, and take a few weeks to launch. They probably have a huge stockpile of Mirandas sitting somewhere, which they can call upon whenever they need them.
On the other hand, the Federation may take a somewhat defensive stance when it comes to battle. Rather than building huge fleets of ships they just heavily fortify all their important planets. This is actually pretty logical and may explain why Earth barely ever seems to have more than a few ships "in range" at any time.
So while the Romulans are building a huge fleet of warbirds, starfleet is making a planetary shield generator. Like the 'grid' in DS9.
On the other hand, the Federation may take a somewhat defensive stance when it comes to battle. Rather than building huge fleets of ships they just heavily fortify all their important planets. This is actually pretty logical and may explain why Earth barely ever seems to have more than a few ships "in range" at any time.
So while the Romulans are building a huge fleet of warbirds, starfleet is making a planetary shield generator. Like the 'grid' in DS9.
Ron Moore once said he figured there were between five and eight thousand ships in the Starfleet, and while he was not usually the go-to guy for this sort of thing (...[TECH]), this feels right to me.
This number would not include certain kinds of ships (science ships, freighters, etc.) that might receive numbers in the registry scheme but are not Starfleet ships of the line. That leaves us plenty of wiggle room.
I think the number should be kept relatively low, because the ships seem to operate independently so often and I really can believe Starfleet is spread somewhat thin sooner than I can believe the opposite, because it seems to have taken some significant time to assemble fleets, and because the loss of 40 at Wolf 359 was evidently significant. I think maybe seven or eight thousand ships before the Dominion War and perhaps somewhat fewer afterward feels right.
He said "eight thousand light years," and since this really gets hard to think about, that's got to be like two "pseudopods" or separated "enclaves" of Federated worlds that are really far away from one another. The Federation "inner perimeter" seems to be only a couple of hundred light years across.
This number would not include certain kinds of ships (science ships, freighters, etc.) that might receive numbers in the registry scheme but are not Starfleet ships of the line. That leaves us plenty of wiggle room.
I think the number should be kept relatively low, because the ships seem to operate independently so often and I really can believe Starfleet is spread somewhat thin sooner than I can believe the opposite, because it seems to have taken some significant time to assemble fleets, and because the loss of 40 at Wolf 359 was evidently significant. I think maybe seven or eight thousand ships before the Dominion War and perhaps somewhat fewer afterward feels right.
He said "eight thousand light years," and since this really gets hard to think about, that's got to be like two "pseudopods" or separated "enclaves" of Federated worlds that are really far away from one another. The Federation "inner perimeter" seems to be only a couple of hundred light years across.
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