Drones are already part of swarm attack planning in the 21st century, so I was happy to see these phaser drones being used as a nod to less "ship-of-the-line" battle tactics we often see in Trek. Yes, the spheres are active, reusable drones, they are an integrated weapon system!
...But does the sphere get reused? That is, can we see it redocked? (It's the portside one, apparently, and thus the camera-side one, too - but alas, the bow is pointed away from the camera most of the time.)
I've contended online that if they had the Vengeance or Vengeance style weapons, mainly these drones, the battle against the Krall swarm may have gone a bit differently. One of my favorite lines in any Trek movie was Spock saying "we are not equipped for this manner of engagement" in Beyond. Yes indeed Spock , you are correct.
How would drones help in fighting drones? This is not a capacity currently being considered. If anything, an attacking drone swarm would benefit from the defender inserting its own drones and thus making the swarm bigger and more difficult to destroy!
In any case, flying drones are part of the "air force" doctrine where small things can carry weapons of decisive oomph. Star Trek has never been a practitioner of that doctrine: there's no 2,000 lb armor-piercing bomb for sinking battleships, or a ship-killing missile you can hang on a wing pylon. Instead, Star Trek small craft are boats, capable of carrying fewer and smaller bronze phaser cannon than the big ships, and generally also capable of much lower speeds when raising warp-sail (even if perhaps more agile when impulse-rowed). And the drones we see in DSC are smaller boats still, minuscule fire ships that are at best igniting a few planks on the sides of the boats that row out to meet them.
The Khan-influenced lump of a drone here is likely to be another boat, a floating battery with big cannon, and as such a deadly threat to a ship of the line if she's fighting at anchor or without wind. But one sinks those the same way one sinks ships of the line. And a floating battery isn't particularly good at countering a thousand miniature fire ships.
Oooo. I really like this idea! It's also consistent with Burnham's dialogue in S1 encouraging Tilly to keep working on the training program so she could get posted to a Constitution-class ship. The line doesn't make much sense if the Crossfield class is the newest class of ship -- but if she's an older ship that's been dragged out of mothballs and refitted with the spore drive, that opens up the door to her still having the newest tech even though the Constitution is still the prestigious posting.
Or then the best way up is getting aboard those old and crappy
Constitutions where competition is not fierce, and shining all the brighter for that.
The original
Crossfield could be well in Burnham's distant past, and the refitted and polished flying labs could then still be far from cutting edge, never explicitly exceeding warp five in any of the adventures, say. Any transfer might be a step up. But a step up might not be the best way to climb, and Burnham's advice would be all the more sage for it, worth giving to Tilly who might have other ideas for being clever but not wise.
My personal headcannon is that the Inquiry class incorporates advanced technology brought back to the Federation by Voyager, allowing them to be faster and more powerful than older ships and to pack a bigger punch in a smaller, harder-to-hit package.
The class also follows a trend where the "saucers" blend more and more with the "cigars" and become more elongated. Perhaps Starfleet would be headed this way in any case, always miniaturizing as much as it can? And perhaps the ultimate starship is a mere smooth spindle, with nacelles bolted on. Or with a ring bolted on, as with the Vulcans, who have had a long time to refine their designs. (The advanced Eymorg also had a spindle with a ring of nacelles...)
Timo Saloniemi
