Saucer separation. How does it work exactly?

[David cgc]

I just remembered it was "The Best of Both Worlds" where I recall hearing about the impulse engines. Riker is reluctant to separate the ship because he felt they might need power from the impulse engines to fight the Borg.

Of course they did do just that, and in a bit of irony I guess, they do it so both sections can fight the Borg. Not exactly what the designers had in mind I guess . But then they had a specific plan with that and times were desperate so

Implicitly, the very reason Riker separated the saucer is because he'd ruled it out so vehemently within earshot of Picard earlier, so the Borg wouldn't be expecting it. But, then, that's just because Riker's opinion would be expected to count for more because he was the captain, it doesn't actually tell us much about if saucer separation was an appropriate tactic objectively.

No, the Sov's about the same size. It's significantly longer and somewhat flatter.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/ndeuf.jpg

Only from the side. From the top or front, you can see the Sovereign is significantly smaller than the Galaxy by volume.


Galaxy model by Prologic9, Sovereign by Alexander Klemm

But then I'm not sure what set they would've used as an alternative for Ten Forward for Guinan's scenes. Cargo bay redress?

The rim of the engineering hull has similar window banks to the rim of the saucer. I'm not sure exactly how they might communicate that this wasn't Ten-Forward, it was Thirty-Eight-Starboard (or whatever), but it's theoretically practical (come to think of it, I'm not sure they ever redressed Ten-Forward as anything else, outside of the President's Office in TUC).

 

[Tomalak]

Yes, the Sovereign is a shade longer, but by no other metric could be said to be "the same size".

 

[Tomalak]

Is it possible that in the alternate reality the ship wasn't designed to separate? I mean, it's possible it wasn't designed for that there. In that reality the ships were designed for combat so the thought processes might be totally different in that ship's design.

Perhaps, but actually I think the Galaxy-class was already in development at the time of the Narendra III incident when the timelines diverged.

There's also no suggestion that the outbreak of war was immediately after that in this timeline, so it could be that the Galaxy design proceeded along the same lines until it was too late to change. But as we've seen in the prime timeline, Galaxies were perfectly capable in wartime.

Picard talks about 22 years of war, but it wasn't necessarily a 22 year total war. I imagine it would have started with smaller border skirmishes before escalating, similar to what we saw in TOS/Errand of Mercy.

 

[Damian]

Yes, but that perception only exists because we so rarely saw the ship separated in TNG. The only reason it seems abnormal to us is because the show made it abnormal. The original intention was that it would be used often enough that we'd get used to seeing it when the ship went into action, that we'd automatically associate a separated stardrive section with stuff getting dangerous. In that alternate reality, it would seem strange to us to see an intact Galaxy going into battle, as strange as someone going into a swordfight without unsheathing the sword.

Which circles back to the real world reason probably being budgetary and difficulty. So we are left back with trying to offer up in-universe explanations as to why it rarely happened.

Sometimes you are just left with an imperfect explanation. In reality it may not be logical or make a lot of sense. It's also one thing I like reading novels for. Sometimes they try to offer up explanations for things like that--at least in a way that makes some sense from a narrative point of view if not totally logical. Enough so that it helps the suspension of disbelief enough that you 'sort' of buy it at least enough to move the story forward.

And sometimes, at least for the writers, having an impact becomes more important than how realistic it is, like in "The Jem'Hadar." Seeing an Enterprise-like ship destroyed the way it was, and kamikaze style, had the right impact and the audience. The Dominion is probably the greatest threat to the Federation other than maybe the Borg. That scene spelled that out pretty graphically. So in that case I can see why the showrunners would prefer to destroy the entire ship, and not just the drive section (even taking out budgetary considerations).

Perhaps, but actually I think the Galaxy-class was already in development at the time of the Narendra III incident when the timelines diverged.

Well, it's probably safe to assume that the two ships were closely related (or at least I gather that's what the writers intended as the fundamentals of the two ships are similar, even if the details are altered). A major thing like saucer separation would probably be a feature of the alternate ship as well.

But it's at least possible it wasn't part of the alternate ship. There's nothing in the episode that actually indicates one way or another as it never came up.

Another possibility is that it too can separate, but maybe the circumstances and reasons for doing so are different. There are no families on that ship so protecting civilians would not be an issue. So other factors may come into play there. And obviously in that universe there is an ongoing war where attacks can happen at anytime. So short of parking the saucer somewhere for the long term, probably years, it probably made more sense just to keep the ship intact and you can imagine the saucer was probably used to house troops.

 

[Tomalak]

Yeah, I just have to go back to Occam's Razor for an in-universe explanation - if we rarely see these ships separating, it's because it's rarely advantageous.

 

[Christopher]

The rim of the engineering hull has similar window banks to the rim of the saucer. I'm not sure exactly how they might communicate that this wasn't Ten-Forward, it was Thirty-Eight-Starboard (or whatever), but it's theoretically practical (come to think of it, I'm not sure they ever redressed Ten-Forward as anything else, outside of the President's Office in TUC).

The windows aren't the issue. It's more a question of the extravagant usage of interior space. Ideally it would've been replaced with a set more like a military mess hall.

Yes, the Sovereign is a shade longer, but by no other metric could be said to be "the same size".

Okay, it's a bit smaller, but I wouldn't say it's much smaller. It's much closer to the Galaxy's size than something like a Constitution or Intrepid.

Perhaps, but actually I think the Galaxy-class was already in development at the time of the Narendra III incident when the timelines diverged.

Per the TNGTM, development began in 2343, only a year before Narendra III, and the Enterprise wasn't commissioned until 2363. There would've been plenty of time to refine the design to a more combat-oriented focus.

But as we've seen in the prime timeline, Galaxies were perfectly capable in wartime.

It's one thing to take a ship designed in peacetime and adapt it to war. It's another thing to design something as a warship practically from the ground up. I still say that, if they hadn't been hampered by TV budgetary and logistical limits, they probably would've offered up a significantly different ship design. I bet the design team would've welcomed the challenge of designing and building an alternate-universe Enterprise from the ground up.

Which circles back to the real world reason probably being budgetary and difficulty. So we are left back with trying to offer up in-universe explanations as to why it rarely happened.

And as I've said, in three decades I've never heard one I found convincing. It's just one of the many frustrations I have about the formative ideas behind TNG being lost in the shuffle of the chaos in the writers' room. There's just such a clumsy fit between the original intentions and the way the later writers ignored or changed them. Like how the E-D was supposed to have a bunch of civilian scientists onboard, but later seasons assumed the only civilians were Starfleet families or support staff like Guinan and Mot. Or like how Geordi's VISOR and Picard's artificial heart implied that bionics and transhumanism were commonplace, but later TNG and DS9 assumed that human augmentation was vanishingly rare or even illegal. (Though Lower Decks has fixed this a bit by showing other VISOR wearers in Starfleet.)

And sometimes, at least for the writers, having an impact becomes more important than how realistic it is, like in "The Jem'Hadar." Seeing an Enterprise-like ship destroyed the way it was, and kamikaze style, had the right impact and the audience.

Again, that's because of what we'd gotten used to over the intervening years. What I'm saying is that if they'd kept saucer separation as a regular thing over the previous seven years instead of abandoning it early on, we'd have different expectations. We'd be in the habit of seeing a separated stardrive section as a capable combat craft in its own right, rather than merely "half a ship." We'd be used to seeing separation as the point where the gloves come off, where things get serious. So that would make its defeat in combat more impressive.

 

[Damian]

Again, that's because of what we'd gotten used to over the intervening years. What I'm saying is that if they'd kept saucer separation as a regular thing over the previous seven years instead of abandoning it early on, we'd have different expectations. We'd be in the habit of seeing a separated stardrive section as a capable combat craft in its own right, rather than merely "half a ship." We'd be used to seeing separation as the point where the gloves come off, where things get serious. So that would make its defeat in combat more impressive.

Well, saucer separation was one of those things I never really expected to see a lot of. I was actually surprised they did it twice in the first season because I thought it was something that would only be done under rare circumstances. So from the beginning it wasn't something I expected to see happen a lot.

And the focus of TNG was a lot different. There are really only a few times during the series run that I could think of where it might make sense to do. In TNG the Federation was generally more peaceful and most episodes didn't seem to hint at any danger where they'd leave the saucer behind. Saucer separation seemed to be something they would do prior to a battle usually, or when they were knowingly going somewhere extremely dangerous. The focus of TNG was more peaceful exploration/diplomacy so the chances to see separation would be a lot less.

That changed with DS9 obviously, with more conflict overtaking the quadrant and eventually war. But during TNG I just didn't see a lot of opportunities to take advantage of saucer separation.

 

[Christopher]

Well, saucer separation was one of those things I never really expected to see a lot of. I was actually surprised they did it twice in the first season because I thought it was something that would only be done under rare circumstances. So from the beginning it wasn't something I expected to see happen a lot.

But that's the point -- that it would be saved for the most serious crisis situations, so that when it happened, you'd know it was time to play hardball. As I already said, I never wanted it to happen constantly -- the problem is that it was abandoned completely. If it had been used about twice a year as in season 1, then by the time TNG ended, we would've seen it maybe 14-15 times over seven years, and we'd know it was a big, important deal when it happened. Instead, since they completely abandoned it, the audience had largely forgotten about it by the time "The Jem'Hadar" came along.

That changed with DS9 obviously, with more conflict overtaking the quadrant and eventually war. But during TNG I just didn't see a lot of opportunities to take advantage of saucer separation.

I can see a number of instances where it would've made sense. For instance, "Contagion" opens with the ship "running a grave risk" by entering the Romulan Neutral Zone in response to a distress signal. That's a case where they know going in that they're taking the ship into deadly peril. That's exactly the kind of situation where it would've made sense to open the episode with the ship already separated and the stardrive section going in alone. It's the kind of scenario separation was meant for. Indeed, it's the kind of situation where it seems grossly irresponsible not to separate the saucer and leave the civilians safely behind, since they had plenty of advance warning.

There are various other episodes where the ship is specifically assigned a military mission or sent into a probable combat situation, e.g. hunting Maxwell in "The Wounded" or blockading the Klingon border in "Redemption." Like I said, it wasn't meant to be a routine thing -- otherwise they would've just built the whole ship for combat -- but it should have happened in those specific situations where it made sense, however infrequent they were.

 

[Damian]

I do recall reading an original series novel recently from the 1980s that featured the saucer separating (Mutiny on the Enterprise was it?) Whichever novel it was did note they needed to be towed to a Starbase to be put back together and they would need extensive repairs.

 

[Damian]

Instead, since they completely abandoned it, the audience had largely forgotten about it by the time "The Jem'Hadar" came along.

I have to admit I wouldn't have thought of it myself, except for Dax's line to Keogh about leaving non-essential personnel on the station. That was the one thing that made me think "hmm, wouldn't it be easier just to leave the saucer section behind?" If it weren't for that I probably wouldn't have thought much about it.

You're right about "Contagion"--that probably would have been an obvious case for separation (except the way they wrote it the saucer may have been at grave risk from the Iconium program--we have no way to know how that would have affected the saucer and possibly caused some separate overload that destroyed that section).

In "Redemption" you could argue the ship wasn't actually expected to go into battle. While the Romulans were stoking the Klingon civil war, it seemed generally clear they weren't prepared to actually go into battle with Starfleet. Things there seemed to indicate that if they were exposed they would withdraw without firing any shots. So you could argue there was minimal risk in that case.

"The Wounded" was probably another example where separation was advisable, though again, how much risk was there really to the Enterprise? Not from the Cardassians since Gul Macet was aboard and they were helping, and while Maxwell could have duped his crew into attacking Cardassian ships, it seems highly unlikely they would agree to attack a Starfleet vessel without provocation, especially to the point of actually taking lives.

So in some cases there are probably workarounds to explain why it wasn't done. You could present good arguments I think for and against. "Contagion" was probably one where there are few arguments that can be made for keeping the ship intact. And there may be a few others out there where the benefits of separation made more sense.

 

[Christopher]

You're right about "Contagion"--that probably would have been an obvious case for separation (except the way they wrote it the saucer may have been at grave risk from the Iconium program--we have no way to know how that would have affected the saucer and possibly caused some separate overload that destroyed that section).

But the saucer would've been light years away back in Federation space, so it wouldn't have been affected by the Iconian virus in the first place. That's the whole point -- to leave it behind before you go in, so that it's never placed in danger.

 

[Damian]

But the saucer would've been light years away back in Federation space, so it wouldn't have been affected by the Iconian virus in the first place. That's the whole point -- to leave it behind before you go in, so that it's never placed in danger.

But they became infected when they downloaded the Yamato's logs, which would have likely been before they would have thought of separating. At that point they didn't know there was any danger. Only that their sister ship was having some issues. There's be no reason yet to split the ship up. So they would have left an infected saucer section behind.

That being said, there are still good reasons to leave the saucer behind, unless they feared separating would cause the same thing to happen to them somehow.

 

[Christopher]

Okay, maybe I don't remember the specifics of every case, but that doesn't mean there are zero cases where it would've made sense to leave the saucer behind if the miniature had just worked the way it was supposed to.

 

[Damian]

Okay, maybe I don't remember the specifics of every case, but that doesn't mean there are zero cases where it would've made sense to leave the saucer behind if the miniature had just worked the way it was supposed to.

You make good points. "Contagion" is one of those cases you can make where separating the ship makes a lot of sense, even if it's infected (or at least had they thought of that and wanted to keep the ship intact the writers could have written in a reason for not separating, such as the computer virus simply preventing them from doing so safely).

And there are others where a good case can be made where it should have at least been considered. There are arguments you could make in some cases for and against. In "The Pegasus" for example you could make a very good argument for separating, esp. when they go inside the asteroid (though before obtaining the illegal cloak). Separating the ship there would not only have protected the civilians in the saucer, logistically it would have made it a lot easier for the ship to get into the asteroid. Even if they didn't have the Romulans in the neighborhood, it would make the ship easier to fit (though I guess you could make an argument that had the Romulans noticed a disembodied saucer it would have given them away so there's that I suppose).

Other cases you could make an argument for and against. "Redemption" and "The Wounded" for instance. Is it safer just to leave the saucer behind? Or do they deem it unnecessary. As I said, with "The Wounded" the actual risks to the Enterprise probably aren't that great. The Cardassians wouldn't attack as long as Gul Macet was aboard and Picard was helping them, and I can't imagine Maxwell's crew obeying an order to actually harm a sister ship (and I'm not sure Maxwell would go through with that anyway). And perhaps time is a factor. They probably had no idea in "Redemption" how long they would be there for. Maybe being without the saucer section for lengthy periods is inadvisable. If you're talking weeks or months maybe that becomes a problem. That might be why once war broke out with the Dominion that the ships were left intact. You could go short periods without the saucer but not for weeks or months.

In some cases you could probably come up with explanations why it wasn't done that make some sense. But I think you are right that there are some where it should have been done (or at the very least considered and maybe explained in story why it wasn't done).

 

[Timo]

Deep down, though, saucer separation just plain isn't a particularly good way to protect the civilians. It amounts to their one and only armed escort waving them goodbye in the middle of nowhere, after all.

If a true safe haven can be found for the civilians, there's no good reason to saw the starship in half for them. Just offload them the usual way. It's not as if the saucer is civilian-only: military personnel always have to abandon their saucer posts first in order to effect the separation. The time spent reshuffling the personnel could be better sent beaming and shuttling the civilians down!

If there is no true safe haven available, there is no reason to separate, unless the ship was built all wrong and can't fight unless separated. Perhaps Starfleet thought that way at first and then got wiser. Perhaps it never thought that way, and Worf lied to the enemy agents in "Heart of Glory" or spoke out of his Klingon ass for other reasons. That issue remains separate from the "Oh, the humanity!" aspect of evacuation, though.

In the end, we really don't need an explanation for why the ship didn't separate more. We only need an explanation for why the capacity was built in in the first place. Every usage witnessed or suggested was an exception and a matter of debate among the heroes, after all, and doesn't invite us to believe in standing Starfleet procedure or preference towards separation. It's just the presence of the seemingly useless machinery that calls for rationalizing. And there we can plead verisimilitude: most gimmicks ITRW are flops, later welded shut or locked in place or ripped out altogether.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

Well, I might think to have Marines in place of the family units…and to use that large saucer hanger for a staging area, perhaps evacuation for victims.

They were jumped so fast there wasn’t even time to separate. I’m thinking that later on, the whole hanger bay may have been filled with batteries/power generators. Like the hoplite shield that Curry mentioned you can’t even see the star drive in front and above. Necessity is the mother of invention. The saucer goes from being a lifeboat left behind in battle to empty crush space to soak up hits and protect the star drive

 

[Timo]

All hero starships throughout Starfleet history look like the Galaxy, scale and minor detail notwithstanding. Supposedly having families aboard does not influence the general design much, then. As far as we know, she's designed exactly right for waging a decades-long war for survival, like any other starship, and incidentally is able to do some exploration, diplomacy and kindergartening on the side. Just like all sailing ships of yore, really.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

I think we just have to assume that while saucer separation seemed like a great idea when the ship was being designed, and perhaps functionally it theoretically should be a great idea, in real-world scenarios it turned out not to hold up as well as expected, for whatever reason.

"Galaxy's Child" does have the moment in the Jeffries Tube when Brahms is calling out Geordi for some of the modifications he's made, and he replies, reasonably (I think), that the way the ship was designed in theory wasn't as optimal as it could be in practice.

Now, whether it's realistic to assume that such things would happen in the 24th century, or with regards to as key a feature as saucer separation, is probably a matter of opinion.

Or, maybe Picard (and others) should have been separating the ship more, and there's room for a story in which his judgment is called into question regarding his unwillingness to do so.

 

[Christopher]

I think we just have to assume that while saucer separation seemed like a great idea when the ship was being designed, and perhaps functionally it theoretically should be a great idea, in real-world scenarios it turned out not to hold up as well as expected, for whatever reason.

"For whatever reason" is the problem. I'm the sort of person who likes to know the reason, and I've never found an explanation for this that holds together logically.

And that's because it's an artificial change imposed as a result of external factors, i.e. the problems with the miniature, rather than something arising organically within the narrative. So it's arbitrary and senseless, much like, say, Molly O'Brien magically turning into a 3-year-old less than a year and a half after she was born. You can understand the real-world reason why it had to happen, but it's still dumb as hell within the story.

 

[DonIago]

I get it Christoper. It vexes me too, much as it might if all of the families on the ship suddenly disappeared (which arguably they do unless they're needed for the plot). I just try to accept that it's an unavoidable product of real-world considerations and move on.

Do you have an explanation for why the broadly-defined scope of the E-D's mission seems to have changed? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity, not trying to bait you or anything.