I ment, the Enterprise J is the exception. Starship design is going towards smaller again. The F and J are not the norm.
Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard
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I ment, the Enterprise J is the exception. Starship design is going towards smaller again. The F and J are not the norm.
Pfft, it's the green one.Find the outlier
Unless whoever is deciding on ship designs for future shows decides to "go big or go home".
I don't think we really need a visual indication of what ship is "better", which is an incredibly vague term anyway. Better at what? Is a Sovereign-Class "better" than an Intrepid-Class?
I would imagine they're all equal.
The one at the head of the round table.But who is first among equal?
So then... it brings me back to a circle of why would we need a visual indicator of "better" when "better" isn't actually a thing?
Who knows? Same reason we need to rate things out of 10, compare things, and pick favorites.
Doesn't it actually make it BETTER for that if there's not a clear, visual indicator of what one is "best"?
I just... yeah I just never understood the obsession with "the only way to show better is to go bigger".
I think by and large, Star Trek ships tend to be too big especially for the stated crew numbers. Like the aforementioned E-D being just obnoxiously large for the amount of people on it.
I don't understand an obsession with making something better. It's not something I parse very well.
That's also valid to an extent, although I think just in general it's natural to improve on things as time goes on. "Better" being a somewhat subjective word.
It would be a bit weird if Starfleet was like, "Well, these Galaxy-Class ships are really great. For our next line of ships, let's make something nowhere near as good as those."
In my head canon, the Galaxies were just far too time- and resource-intensive to build. They were products of an era in Starfleet when they could focus on more exploratory-centric mission profiles, becoming arguably complacent in their peacetime "utopia".
Then the Borg. Then the Dominion.
Starfleet needed to push out smaller, more agile and combat-oriented ships and refit other existing vessels quickly. The Galaxy platform simply didn't do itself any favors in those areas. So the Sovereign and her FC "classmates" were born - smaller and more powerful. The larger E-F was built after the Dominion War ended and after Janeway ostensibly defeated the Borg in "Endgame". Conflict in the A&B Q's subsided and things got back to relative normalcy, and they once again embarked on a more exploratory footing. Based on Doug Drexler's description of the immense E-J, this was also the result of a renewed push in the future for intergalactic exploration and colonization (hence the name "Universe-class").
in fine, ship size is really nothing more than a reflection of the times in which the Federation finds itself, resulting in a change of focus of the kinds of missions they choose to deploy their vessels. If war comes along again, they go smaller again. Rinse and repeat.
Then the Borg. Then the Dominion.
Starfleet needed to push out smaller, more agile and combat-oriented ships and refit other existing vessels quickly. The Galaxy platform simply didn't do itself any favors in those areas. So the Sovereign and her FC "classmates" were born - smaller and more powerful. The larger E-F was built after the Dominion War ended and after Janeway ostensibly defeated the Borg in "Endgame". Conflict in the A&B Q's subsided and things got back to relative normalcy, and they once again embarked on a more exploratory footing. Based on Doug Drexler's description of the immense E-J, this was also the result of a renewed push in the future for intergalactic exploration and colonization (hence the name "Universe-class").
in fine, ship size is really nothing more than a reflection of the times in which the Federation finds itself, resulting in a change of focus of the kinds of missions they choose to deploy their vessels. If war comes along again, they go smaller again. Rinse and repeat.
The Galaxy class should have been kicking ass in the Dominion War battle scenes, despite being shown meandering through those battles, firing the occasional phaser. They are capable of even more than we saw Beverly do to the Borg uber-cube in the PIC S3 finale.
But again, that wasn't even their original purpose.
I feel like that's barely even headcanon. It's more just... observation.
The Galaxy-Class in particular is unique. MOST Starfleet ships aren't designed as like, space hotels.
And then in the specific case of the Titan/E-G, no the Titan isn't the biggest, baddest, most advanced ship in the fleet. It's a science ship. If not for circumstances, it would not have been an Enterprise. But at the end of the day, the Enterprise is the "flagship" of the Federation. People often confuse that term. I don't believe it's used in a modern naval sense. It's not the command ship for the Federation. It's used in a more colloquial sense. It's the flagship, the ship that represents the Federation. And in the early years of the 25th century, after a long period of wars and struggles, Starfleet is getting back to its original core mission of exploration... what would be a better symbol of the Federation than a science ship that played an instrumental part in saving Earth.
The Federation spent most of the period between 2350 and 2400 embroiled in conflicts. The Cardassians, the Talarians, the Tzenkethi, the Borg, the Dominion, the Changeling-Borg remnant alliance.The ships largely reflected the need for more stripped-down, to-the-point armed starship classes that could at least attempt to hold their own in battle and didn't feel luxurious and relaxed.
See, it seems to me like each of those could have had 4+ beams firing at one time (possibly at multiple targets), especially if they'd been outfitted with more emitters in the rings.
They had the best shot of the whole damn war.
