You asked if the Defiant class should still be in service; I said that it shouldn’t be since production processes should be designed around creating new designs. If the production sets up a rule whereby no Defiant shall appear in any situation whatsoever, then it follows that they shouldn’t be in service, otherwise the viewer would ask why they don’t appear in situations that would be perfect for them.
Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard
- Thread starter pst
- Start date
You asked if the Defiant class should still be in service; I said that it shouldn’t be since production processes should be designed around creating new designs. If the production sets up a rule whereby no Defiant shall appear in any situation whatsoever, then it follows that they shouldn’t be in service, otherwise the viewer would ask why they don’t appear in situations that would be perfect for them.
DEWLine isn't asking for a meta answer. They're asking for a story answer. And that answer, in my opinion, is that it depends. The existence of the Sao Paulo and the Valiant seemed to indicate that the Defiant design had been picked up as a class of ship. In which case, yes, probably. However, we know that the design was flawed, so they may have only been rushed out for the war effort, and once the war was over, a new design based on Defiant but with improvements and corrections might have been what actually became a fleet staple. Now, whether that class would LOOK pretty much identical or not might make that moot for purposes of what we see on a show. But I'd rather see them look more like the Vigilant or Valiant variants from STO: enough like the Defiant to honor her lineage, enough different to indicate that some time has passed, and also to maybe leave the Defiant as a distinct hero ship if she ever shows up.
G
Gonzo
Guest
@DEWLine
The short answer is yes, its highly likely that the Defiant class (or subclass) is still in service in 2399 as the design isn't really that old.
They may or may not be launching any new ships though if they have more advanced designs available.
We could see one in Picard but it is far more likely to be a new class instead.
The short answer is yes, its highly likely that the Defiant class (or subclass) is still in service in 2399 as the design isn't really that old.
They may or may not be launching any new ships though if they have more advanced designs available.
We could see one in Picard but it is far more likely to be a new class instead.
That's totally not what he was asking. I'm not sure why you can't seem to see beyond production assets when @DEWLine was just asking the question from an in-universe point of view. So what if the production doesn't want to make a new CGI Defiant class? That doesn't mean that in-universe, there aren't Defiants flying around just outside of your viewing screen.
Now, if I may try to answer Dewline's question in a rational way: I think that the newest ship classes as of the 2370's are still in service (i.e. the Intrepid, Prometheus, Sovereign, Nova, and Defiant), but I think most if not all ships prior to that date were either decommissioned or lost in the Dominion war. Now to play devil's advocate with Boris Skrbic's comments, I also don't think that the VFX personnel for PIC are going to make a new CGI model of an older class of ship unless the script specifically calls for one (i.e. the dream sequence Enterprise-D). Even the only other Starfleet vessel that we (somewhat) know the design for, the ibn Majid, was still commissioned after the Sao Paulo and was a new design. And with John Eaves as the head ship designer for PIC, I'd rather not see anything he designs as an 'older' Starfleet ship, if the example of the Leondegrance is any indication.
Last edited:
If pre-TOS tugs and Shran-type ships are still being used in 2385 as per "Children of Mars", then yes there could well be Defiants flying around in 2399.
And probably Mirandas and Excelsiors still. Just like all those cool TMP and Disco aliens are just off camera in TOS.
And probably Mirandas and Excelsiors still. Just like all those cool TMP and Disco aliens are just off camera in TOS.
But those ships weren't DSC Magee and Zimmerman class ships. They were late 24th century ships that just coincidentally looked the same.
That just isn’t satisfying as a retcon because it requires in-canon frequencies of appearance to be biased in favor of real-world production limitations, as opposed to the simple conclusion that if we’re not seeing something, then it just isn’t around in that entire time period or area of space, not that it’s merely offscreen.
Therefore, if PIC has no plans to feature a Defiant-class starship, then it’s best for that class to be gone from active service, which isn’t hard to believe since a formerly-abandoned prototype was always more likely to be used as inspiration for brand-new solutions (despite the Valiant, the new Defiant and a few other examples we’ve seen), especially after the war.
Unless they were. Canonically, we don't have anything that says one way or the other, and lacking that, Occam's Razor comes into play: those duck-looking things are very likely to be ducks.
Sorry, I'm not buying your logic. Out-of-sight-out-of-mind usually never works as a viable solution in real life.
If those ships were really that old, why would they be taking up valuable space at Utopia Planitia when the entire facility was being used to build those Wallenberg rescue ships? Unless they were being taken apart to use their parts?
Occam's Razor actually tells me that in the absence of a large enough budget to create new production assets for this one particular Short Trek in the time available, then the simplest solution was to use the assets you already have and pretend they're something new.
Last edited:
honestly.. In universe answer maybe that the defiant class was a limited production run, maybe a few hundred maybe less, and they might have had a high attrition rate during the dominion war, so a good number may have been destroyed.
The remaining may have remained in service for 5-10 years after, but Starfleet is not a military, and a dedicated warship wouldn't be needed, plus, the design wasn't streamlined, so for example, like early Jet aircraft, there time in service was probably limited due to better designs being made. Could a number be in a "Boneyard" mothballed and recalled if something happned? maybe, but after 30 years, I doubt the class would be in active service, except maybe as a system patrol ship in a frontier region or unstable border.
Now a newer class that was made that has a design lineage.. sure. They will always need border patrol, quick response fleet etc. so the roll of the ship still exists in a way.
But, the guy who made the Tng Hd Enterprise D did make a Defiant, so there is a high quality defiant out in the wild they can use.
The remaining may have remained in service for 5-10 years after, but Starfleet is not a military, and a dedicated warship wouldn't be needed, plus, the design wasn't streamlined, so for example, like early Jet aircraft, there time in service was probably limited due to better designs being made. Could a number be in a "Boneyard" mothballed and recalled if something happned? maybe, but after 30 years, I doubt the class would be in active service, except maybe as a system patrol ship in a frontier region or unstable border.
Now a newer class that was made that has a design lineage.. sure. They will always need border patrol, quick response fleet etc. so the roll of the ship still exists in a way.
But, the guy who made the Tng Hd Enterprise D did make a Defiant, so there is a high quality defiant out in the wild they can use.
If you create a documentary series which just happens to catch a lot of people’s phones onscreen, and you’re extremely hard pressed to find an ancient Nokia, then you can be reasonably sure that just about nobody is using one — not that the footage has been edited so that Nokias are deleted.
Now apply that to footage capturing starships of a semi-military organization such as Starfleet, especially in encounters with the Borg or similar battle situations. What we’ve seen on PIC is that Starfleet has moved beyond the “ragtag” approach of ancient Mirandas and Excelsiors towards purpose-deployed, “boring” near-uniform fleets of recent design. Should there be a fleet of Defiants in that case? I’m not seeing it: the production should come up with something more advanced but equivalent, like a swarm of disposable, specialized, unmanned weapons platforms deployed against particular enemies like the Borg. At best, a Defiant appearance would be one-off fan service in a limited context (museum? civilian use?), nothing that would qualify as “active service”.
Meaning no disrespect, I think you missed while writing that that your justification for a newer class with lineage from the Defiant also works as a justification for continuing the Defiant class itself. And regarding not needing a dedicated warship: I don't think I've ever heard of a military force (and let's face it, Starfleet is one, even if only as one of its duties) that when given cool guns said, no, we don't want these cool guns anymore.
There's always justifications and legitimate reasons for keeping them: escort missions, border patrol, piracy determent, etc.
First of all, we've only seen one fleet in PIC. Yes, they were composed of all the same ship classes, but that doesn't negate other older ship classes still being in service. They just weren't a part of that particular fleet. They were off on other missions doing other things.
If it looks like a duck...
By that same reckoning, none of the Oberth, Miranda or Excelsior-class ships we saw in TNG/DS9 were of those outdated classes, either.
Because they're armed enough (especially after maybe having weapons and shields upgraded) to serve as escorts for the rescue ships (which are presumably being built for maximum people transport), and their older engines and spaceframes wouldn't be a problem since the people movers aren't going to be trying to set any speed records anyway?
And if we were to start putting our camera randomly into the areas where those other missions are taking place, we would (and should) see these and more brand-new designs from PIC artists, not older ones analogous to the era when production limitations dictated reuse of motion-control models, with the ragtag CGI fleet simply following suit.
How is it more satisfying a retcon to say that the entire Star Trek universe is biased in favor of real-world production limitations rather than whatever fraction of a fraction of it we see in a given TV episode? That's the kind of over-fitting that leads to fainting, stupid memes like "The Federation is racist because only humans are assigned to the best starships" and "World War III killed everyone in Asia and Africa, that's why Star Trek is so disproportionately white," or, everyone's favorite, "People on Star Trek don't ever poop." Assuming things make more sense when you include the parts we don't see on TV is a feature, not a bug.
Last edited:
Totally different since including older ship classes is an artifact of legacy production precisely like the ones you just described (“must reuse expensive physical models”), not the desired state as we move into the future where older CG assets are hard to reuse and creating new ones is almost always required, which also makes it possible to create ship designs for a new era.
