That goes without saying when applied to a large number of contemporary humans (but not everyone) and the world in which we live in. But Trek and it's humans were portrayed a tad differently. They were showed on several occasions they did in fact learn from past mistakes. And all of them admitted the Borg are not something to be taken lightly or ignore. I mean, we are talking about a race (the Borg of course) that has the capability to traverse galactic distances in weeks/months (during TNG) and proved that only 1 ship is a nuisance to take down with a fleet of SF ships. They knew the Borg will be coming and could send a ship at any given time. If anything, SF would place ALL of their ships to undergo system upgrade as much as possible after Wolf 359 to counter a possible Borg threat in the future, and putting the Defiant in 'cold storage' would never happen. They would also build a whole fleet or two consisting out of the Defiant class that would deal with such potential threats in the future (they would also in essence prove to be an asset for border patrols). Any Admiral that proposes a delay in the project which purpose is to defend against the Borg using the argument: 'They are not an immediate threat' (in a non joking manner) should be fired from their respective position. They practically proposed an idea which toys with the security of billions. There is one thing if the design completely fails and blows up in their faces (after doing it for a few times, as trying only once and giving up after that sounds idiotic for them since they have resources to do experiments safely), but since that didn't happen, the argument as was presented was weak/stupid.
Since we saw no ships in the fleet that would have fired pulse phasers or quantum torpedoes, save for the Defiant and the Enterprise, respectively, I'd say this is a given. There may have been all sorts of gradual upgrades, but clearly Starfleet did not consider it worthwhile to pursue pulse phasers or quantum torpedoes further. And probably justly so, since apparently those didn't make a difference in the battle against the Borg. "Regular" weapons did, either thanks to sheer quantity or then to evolutionary rather than revolutionary improvement in quality. Assuming, of course, that Starfleet could come up with any such technologies. From the looks of it, they all proved to be duds. Except for those that cannot be visually discerned, that is; no doubt something like phaser retuning could have been done with us none the wiser. Why not? Apparently, she was too worthless to even be recycled into raw materials. For all we know, O'Brien merely slapped a "do not exceed warp eight" limiter on the failed engines. Sisko naturally wouldn't want to admit that the ship they had received was a dud. But Kira saw through all the bluff and bluster right away, taking in Sisko's "positively construed" expressions, chewing them up, and spitting them out with a dismissive "This is what Starfleet gives us?!". Naah. Just a conservative application of tried and proved stuff like strip phasers, photon torpedoes, standard warp engines etc. For the same reason they didn't create any ship class for that purpose? Because it would have been futile and useless? You can't "send" anything to fight the Borg: the Borg decide where and when they fight. And you certainly shouldn't weaken your star empire by dedicating major resources to a project that is of little use in protecting said empire from the usual threats. Developments after "Q Who?" indeed showed that firepower was no solution against the Borg, so it would make sense to keep constructing a balanced fleet rather than a mostly useless arsenal of superweapons. The nascent United States navy didn't go all Monitor after this narrow-scoped design had showed some promise in special circumstances against an exceptional adversary, either. But what good would that have done? The ship was a failure as a concept, not just because the engines didn't work. She had no special powers over the Borg in ST:FC, so why insist on building sisters to the strange design when (at least) equally useful standard starships could be constructed? Apart from the initial contrast between the Odyssey firepower in "Jem'Hadar" and the Defiant firepower in "The Search" against the standard Dominion battlebug, the Defiant type didn't seem to enjoy any particular advantage against the Dominion, either. All Federation ship designs were shown adept at blowing up small Dominion vessels in the later battles. Curiously, none were shown capable of blowing up the larger vessels for good, least of all the Defiant; in a strange choice of VFX, the best results achieved by Starfleet starships against Dominion capital ships seemed to be harmless fireballs against their hulls. Sez who? Sounds unlikely that anything as big as Sovereign could be designed in such a short time. And all the ST:FC ships seemed to sport low registries that would suggest older vessels. There was no particular dramatic need in ST:FC to show "new" designs, really. It was an opportunity to show that Starfleet had "always" featured lots of different ships, an opportunity that did not exist back when TNG lived ona television budget. Why? The Trek universe is full of diverse threats, the Borg being one of the less often encountered ones. Starship firepower had repeatedly proved useless in resisting this enemy, while other weapons and tactics such as hacking had shown promise. When tanks appeared on the battlefields for the first time, the answer wasn't to upgun the cavalry and infantry everywhere to countermand the threat with counterattacks. Rather, increase in quantity for conventional light artillery solved the problem nicely (or would have, had the Germans had the industrial capacity to provide that quantity). Special antitank units were developed and deployed, too, but there was no point in sending those everywhere in huge quantities: deploying them where actual tank attacks were performed was the sensible thing to do. Similarly, when submarines threatened British shipping in the two wars, attempts were made at advanced antisubmarine weapons - but the idea of going hunting for submarines with these silver bullets proved disastrously inefficient, while the idea of just convoying everything and waiting for the subs to strike, then retaliating with fairly conventional weapons, proved to be the efficient solution. Superweapons sound cool as a concept, but are seldom the right way to proceed - both because they are usually failures, at least initially, and because even functional ones typically only detract from the task of winning the war. Unless the Feds could come up with something as radical as the A-bomb was in the 1940s, they shouldn't have bothered. Timo Saloniemi
Frankly, if the Borg wished it they could have just swamped the Federation and assimilated them all. But since that would end the show, that aspect was never shown. Instead, the writers ensured one cube was always sent because that was the only force the Federation could reasonably handle. Then again, if the Federation has the technology of Species 8472 and could destroy a Cube in one shot, there would be nothing for the Borg to "learn" from (as they would have no information to relay back to the Collective to study) so they'd never be a threat.
<<But she was a failed design. Her propulsive systems did not work: she nearly tore herself apart on trials.>> Which O'Brien fixed. The Defiant then was able to destroy/damage/disable numerous ships thoroughout is run. ("The Defiant" "The Die Is Cast", The Way Of The Warrior, Sacrifice Of Angels, Shattered Mirror, etc.,) Even Gul Dukat said that the Defiant was one of the most powerful warships in the quadrant. <<Her other assets did not appear decisive, as the pulse disruptors of a Bird of Prey could do the same job as her pulse phasers (remember the ambush in "Time to Stand"?)>> Rewatch "The Way of The Warrior" and "Shattered Mirror". The Defiant mopped the floor against the BOP's and the Negh'Var. And we have never been shown single BOP's being able to destroy mulitple ships with their pulse disruptors as the Defiant has with it's pulse phasers. <<and the quantum torpedoes never featured much in the fight against the Dominion.>> But they were featured in other episodes, such as "The Defiant" and was able to cause signifcant damage to the Cardassian ship. One Q torp <<Why mass-produce a failed silver bullet when something like Saber, apparently with tried and true solutions, might be mass-produced in its stead, probably in greater numbers for the lower unit price?>> With all of its successes in DS9, clearly the Defiant was not a "failure".
<<But she was a failed design. Her propulsive systems did not work: she nearly tore herself apart on trials.>> Which O'Brien fixed. The Defiant then was able to destroy/damage/disable numerous ships thoroughout is run. ("The Defiant" "The Die Is Cast", The Way Of The Warrior, Sacrifice Of Angels, Shattered Mirror, etc.,) Even Gul Dukat said that the Defiant was one of the most powerful warships in the quadrant. <<Her other assets did not appear decisive, as the pulse disruptors of a Bird of Prey could do the same job as her pulse phasers (remember the ambush in "Time to Stand"?)>> Rewatch "The Way of The Warrior" and "Shattered Mirror". The Defiant mopped the floor against the BOP's and the Negh'Var. And we have never been shown single BOP's being able to destroy mulitple ships with their pulse disruptors as the Defiant has with it's pulse phasers. and the quantum torpedoes never featured much in the fight against the Dominion. Why mass-produce a failed silver bullet when something like Saber, apparently with tried and true solutions, might be mass-produced in its stead, probably in greater numbers for the lower unit price?
Not in a manner superior to more conventional starships, though. And the engines that O'Brien "fixed" continued to underperform, as we see in "The Sound of Her Voice" where anything beyond warp 9 requires spit, bale wire and prayers (the latter being something of a problem in the secular 24th century). Any ship (except a Galaxy class vessel named Enterprise) can make short work of a Klingon BoP. And the Mirror Universe Klingons were an artificially weakened adversary - the regular brand have never suffered from targeting problems like the ones that protected the Defiant in that episode. The destructive abilities of the BoP and the Defiant appear identical in "A Time to Stand" where Martok's ship ambushes that single Jem'Hadar vessel. It's just that we didn't follow the adventures of Martok as much as we did those of Sisko, so we didn't see all those glorious BoP victories over the apparently weaker Jemmie bugships. Frankly, I'd have trusted it more if Garak said it. And that's saying something. Timo Saloniemi
Quote: Which O'Brien fixed. The Defiant then was able to destroy/damage/disable numerous ships thoroughout is run. <<Not in a manner superior to more conventional starships, though. And the engines that O'Brien "fixed" continued to underperform>> Clearly it was superior, as a Warship, not as a spped cruiser. And please listen to want was said in the series. Some of the warp power was usually diverted to the Structual Integrity Field (SIF) in order for the ship not to suffer structual damage since it was way overpowered and and overgunned for a ship of that size. ("The Search", "The sound Of Her Voice" & Deep Space Nine Tech manual). This appearently had the effect of lowering the ships maximum speed, but increasing it's durability. Also, please name any other Federation ship througout all Star Trek series that have destroyed as many ships (at once) at any given time as the Defian has. <<as we see in "The Sound of Her Voice" where anything beyond warp 9 requires spit, bale wire and prayers (the latter being something of a problem in the secular 24th century).>> Again, you're still talking about speed. But in terms of sheer firepower, the Defiant was clearly a success. Quote: Rewatch "The Way of The Warrior" and "Shattered Mirror". The Defiant mopped the floor against the BOP's and the Negh'Var. <<Any ship (except a Galaxy class vessel named Enterprise) can make short work of a Klingon BoP.>> Please name the episodes in which this happened. <<And the Mirror Universe Klingons were an artificially weakened adversary - the regular brand have never suffered from targeting problems like the ones that protected the Defiant in that episode.>> Where was it stated in that episode the the adversaries were "artificially weakened"? And the "targeting problems" that you are referring was also seen in "The Die Is Cast" where the Defiant is avoiding the bugships weapons fire because of its speed and agility, as it did in "Shattered Mirror". The Negh'Var didn't have "targeting problems" as you have suggested,it's just that the Defiant was going too fast for it to target (as stated in the episode) In the TNG episode "Arsenal of Freedom" the Ent-D was getting severely pounded by a smaller, faster target by just attempting to fire at it with phasers. They couldn't hit it. In "Journey To Babel" the Enterprise was taking a beating from a faster ship that it kept missing with its phasers shots. So if a target is fast enough, there is preceedent in the Star Trek universe to have the ability to dodge weapons fire. Quote: And we have never been shown single BOP's being able to destroy mulitple ships with their pulse disruptors as the Defiant has with it's pulse phasers. <<The destructive abilities of the BoP and the Defiant appear identical in "A Time to Stand" where Martok's ship ambushes that single Jem'Hadar vessel. It's just that we didn't follow the adventures of Martok as much as we did those of Sisko, so we didn't see all those glorious BoP victories over the apparently weaker Jemmie bugships.>> Let see. In "The Way of The Warrior", the Defiant went head to head with a BOP, shot three volleys of the pulse phasers, two of which missed, and not only penetrated the BOP shields, but caused significant damage to the BOP, and then the Defiant finished it off. All of this is done in under 15 seconds. It's first shot clealy did more damage to a BOP than the Ent-D first shot did to the Duras sisters ship. Quote: Even Gul Dukat said that the Defiant was one of the most powerful warships in the quadrant. <<Frankly, I'd have trusted it more if Garak said it. And that's saying something.>> Actualy it's not saying a lot. By delibretely or selectively picking and choosing dialog based on your own subjective criteria is a fallacious argument. If you watch the episode, the Cardassian Central Command was also greately concerned aboutt the Defiant being out there, and their fears turned out to be valid, as the Defiant made shot work of one of their ships. Additionally, when Gul Dukat made this comment, Sisko didn't argue against or downplay Dukat's assessment. No offense, but you seem to have a bias against the Defiant that is not substantiated by the evidence that you have cited in the episodes.
Quote: Which O'Brien fixed. The Defiant then was able to destroy/damage/disable numerous ships thoroughout is run. <<Not in a manner superior to more conventional starships, though. And the engines that O'Brien "fixed" continued to underperform>> Clearly it was superior, as a Warship, not as a spped cruiser. And please listen to want was said in the series. Some of the warp power was usually diverted to the Structual Integrity Field (SIF) in order for the ship not to suffer structual damage since it was way overpowered and and overgunned for a ship of that size. ("The Search", "The sound Of Her Voice" & Deep Space Nine Tech manual). This appearently had the effect of lowering the ships maximum speed, but increasing it's durability. Also, please name any other Federation ship througout all Star Trek series that have destroyed as many ships (at once) at any given time as the Defian has. <<as we see in "The Sound of Her Voice" where anything beyond warp 9 requires spit, bale wire and prayers (the latter being something of a problem in the secular 24th century).>> Again, you're still talking about speed. But in terms of sheer firepower, the Defiant was clearly a success. Quote: Rewatch "The Way of The Warrior" and "Shattered Mirror". The Defiant mopped the floor against the BOP's and the Negh'Var. <<Any ship (except a Galaxy class vessel named Enterprise) can make short work of a Klingon BoP.>> Please name the episodes in which this happened. <<And the Mirror Universe Klingons were an artificially weakened adversary - the regular brand have never suffered from targeting problems like the ones that protected the Defiant in that episode.>> Where was it stated in that episode the the adversaries were "artificially weakened"? And the "targeting problems" that you are referring was also seen in "The Die Is Cast" where the Defiant is avoiding the bugships weapons fire because of its speed and agility, as it did in "Shattered Mirror". The Negh'Var didn't have "targeting problems" as you have suggested,it's just that the Defiant was going too fast for it to target (as stated in the episode) In the TNG episode "Arsenal of Freedom" the Ent-D was getting severely pounded by a smaller, faster target by just attempting to fire at it with phasers. They couldn't hit it. In "Journey To Babel" the Enterprise was taking a beating from a faster ship that it kept missing with its phasers shots. So if a target is fast enough, there is preceedent in the Star Trek universe to have the ability to dodge weapons fire. Quote: And we have never been shown single BOP's being able to destroy mulitple ships with their pulse disruptors as the Defiant has with it's pulse phasers. <<The destructive abilities of the BoP and the Defiant appear identical in "A Time to Stand" where Martok's ship ambushes that single Jem'Hadar vessel. It's just that we didn't follow the adventures of Martok as much as we did those of Sisko, so we didn't see all those glorious BoP victories over the apparently weaker Jemmie bugships.>> Let see. In "The Way of The Warrior", the Defiant went head to head with a BOP, shot three volleys of the pulse phasers, two of which missed, and not only penetrated the BOP shields, but caused significant damage to the BOP, and then the Defiant finished it off. All of this is done in under 15 seconds. It's first shot clealy did more damage to a BOP than the Ent-D first shot did to the Duras sisters ship. Quote: Even Gul Dukat said that the Defiant was one of the most powerful warships in the quadrant. <<Frankly, I'd have trusted it more if Garak said it. And that's saying something.>> Actualy it's not saying a lot. By delibretely or selectively picking and choosing dialog based on your own subjective criteria is a fallacious argument. If you watch the episode, the Cardassian Central Command was also greately concerned aboutt the Defiant being out there, and their fears turned out to be valid, as the Defiant made shot work of one of their ships. Additionally, when Gul Dukat made this comment, Sisko didn't argue against or downplay Dukat's assessment. No offense, but you seem to have a bias against the Defiant that is not substantiated by the evidence that you have cited in the episodes.
Please explain. Superior to what? The Defiant never observably achieved anything the more conventional starship types would not have. Sure, we saw her blow up a lot of ships - but only because she happened to be the hero ship in the only Trek show to depict a war. Humbler vessels, like the tiny Excelsior-style USS Centaur, managed to hurt Jem'Hadar battlebugs. Heck, even a runabout could blow up one ("Treachery, Faith and the Great River")! It obviously is not a matter of firepower, but of proper firing opportunities and a great deal of luck. So the end result still is a slower than average vessel that burns power in an application that better ships don't even need. And the durability isn't demonstrably greater than that of regular vessels, either. The Voyager or E-D typically took more hits than the Defiant did, thanks to their won't-fire-first policies, and survived. That BoPs were blown up in no time flat? Let's see... Against shielded BoPs - ST6:TUC; takes four torpedo shots or so. "Way of the Warrior"; single phaser blasts blow up numerous BoPs. And everybody on both sides agrees the BoP in TNG "A Matter of Honor" wouldn't have stood a chance. Against shieldless BoPs - TNG "Redemption"; one blast from Vor'Cha. ST:GEN; a single torpedo. Undecided - DS9 "Return to Grace"; goes nearly helpless from a single disruptor shot. It's not in-universe, it's in-writing. Andf it's very blatant. Name just one instance where Klingons would have shown such crappy shooting in the regular universe. The hit rate of a Vor'Cha is 100% against the wildly maneuvering Defiant in "Way of the Warrior" until they do the tractor beam trick. Granted that much. Then again, bugships don't have very good aim - they seem to favor the spray'n'pray approach that Klingon BoPs also use. A fair match for the Defiant in that sense. (All these three ship types also seem to have mechanically steered guns, the Jemmies as per "The Ship", versus the phased arrays of standard 24th century starships.) But such dodging isn't the sole privilege of the Defiant. Even a Miranda dodged at the conclusion of the big battle in "What You Leave Behind", just before the Breen and the Jem'Hadar withdrew. Not a matter of maneuvering (which the drone never did much), but of cloaking. 23rd century targeting systems. Doesn't apply to TNG era any more, it seems, not with the demonstrated 100% hit rates of capital ships there. But the Duras ship was super-Durable anyway - thanks to Soran, perhaps? The twisted sisters themselves were surprised and elated that their shields would really hold against enemy fire, suggesting an El-Aurian upgrade. But again, that would be true of any Starfleet ship playing rough in the Cardassian sandbox. Especially a ship equipped with a cloak, the main reason the Defiant was a threat in that episode. My point isn't that the Defiant is weak. The point is that the Defiant, the real rather than the originally dreamed-of one, is no stronger than conventional types as such. She enjoys some advantages that are not specific to its design at all: cloak, ablative armor, heavy armament. She suffers from some disadvantages that are equally unrelated to her strong points. Why not install the pulse phasers and armor on a Miranda, a ship of similar size but no known shortcomings? Or, better still, on a 24th century design that does not suffer from mis-rigged engines and needlessly cramped interiors? As for bias, I just want to point out that the audience, and to lesser degree the writers, seem enamored by the design for all the wrong reasons. Kira in "The Search" knew better: he understood that Sisko's praise in fact condemned the original design. What we see the ship do is so-so, not "superb". Yet so-so carries the day, and so-so is what the lowly Commander Sisko has available to him at first, and what the only slightly more influential Captain Sisko later wields. Storywise, the main asset of the Defiant is not her combat prowess, but her crampedness, which allows for stories to be told with the DS9 main cast... Timo Saloniemi
<<The Defiant never observably achieved anything the more conventional starship types would not have.>> Please provide examples. <<Sure, we saw her blow up a lot of ships - but only because she happened to be the hero ship in the only Trek show to depict a war.>> Then by this logic, all Star Trek series ships are equal, since they are "hero" ships. <<Humbler vessels, like the tiny Excelsior-style USS Centaur, managed to hurt Jem'Hadar battlebugs. Heck, even a runabout could blow up one ("Treachery, Faith and the Great River")!>> But it quickly fled when several more ships showed up. Unlike the Defiant, it could not handle more than one bugship. <<It obviously is not a matter of firepower, but of proper firing opportunities and a great deal of luck.>> So by your logic, a shuttlecraft could get "lucky" enough to take out a Borg cube. <<So the end result still is a slower than average vessel that burns power in an application that better ships don't even need. And the durability isn't demonstrably greater than that of regular vessels, either. The Voyager or E-D typically took more hits than the Defiant did, thanks to their won't-fire-first policies, and survived.>> Please name the episodes where Voyager was able to withstand the firepower of three ship while the shields are down. <<Against shielded BoPs - ST6:TUC; takes four torpedo shots or so.>> Please state the dialog in the movie where it states that they had shield capability while cloaked. Being able to fire while cloaked is not the same thing as being able to have shild while cloaked. <<"Way of the Warrior"; single phaser blasts blow up numerous BoPs. And everybody on both sides agrees the BoP in TNG "A Matter of Honor" wouldn't have stood a chance.>> I don't understand your point. <<The hit rate of a Vor'Cha is 100% against the wildly maneuvering Defiant in "Way of the Warrior" until they do the tractor beam trick.>> The hit rate was because they were trying to rescue the counsel members from being captured from the damaged Cardassian ship, not executing evasive manuevers. Again no offense, but you seem to be conveiently leaving out important points of the different episodes (Way of The Warrior), minimizing what you don't like (Gul Dukat's comment from "The Defiant"), and adding facts that were not established either on-screen or in any of the tech manuals (ST6). If you are going to argue these points without the correct or proper facts as they are laid out in the episodes, <<Granted that much. Then again, bugships don't have very good aim - they seem to favor the spray'n'pray approach that Klingon BoPs also use.>> Here we go again. Other than the Defiant, please name the episodes where the bugships missed their targets. <<But such dodging isn't the sole privilege of the Defiant. Even a Miranda dodged at the conclusion of the big battle in "What You Leave Behind", just before the Breen and the Jem'Hadar withdrew.>> Maybe using your own logic, they just got "lucky"? <<Not a matter of maneuvering (which the drone never did much), but of cloaking.>> Please rewatch the episode again. <<23rd century targeting systems. Doesn't apply to TNG era any more>> Why not? <<But the Duras ship was super-Durable anyway - thanks to Soran, perhaps?>> Where in the dialog was this stated? <<But again, that would be true of any Starfleet ship playing rough in the Cardassian sandbox. Especially a ship equipped with a cloak, the main reason the Defiant was a threat in that episode. >> So a cloaked shuttle would have had the same effect? <<As for bias, I just want to point out that the audience, and to lesser degree the writers, seem enamored by the design for all the wrong reasons. Kira in "The Search" knew better: he understood that Sisko's praise in fact condemned the original design.>> Where in the episode did she say this? <<What we see the ship do is so-so, not "superb". Yet so-so carries the day, and so-so is what the lowly Commander Sisko has available to him at first, and what the only slightly more influential Captain Sisko later wields. Storywise, the main asset of the Defiant is not her combat prowess, but her crampedness, which allows for stories to be told with the DS9 main cast...>> Wow, your bias appears to be so great that it borders on remarkable. You discount dialog and scenes from the series and movies, while inserting your own interpretations as "facts", and you seem to invent scenes, dialog and motivations that were not shown in these episodes. How come?
How did TOS Enterprise store food and the other supplies that the crew might need on long missions? How long could TOS Enterprise go without resuppling at a starbase? JDW
While my sense of schadenfreude is enjoying watching Timo take the piss out of the Defiant there definitely appears to be a betrayal of bias in his posts that makes me curious.
The cargo area can be filled up to it's full capacity for one thing and the containers can probably keep the food fresh for long periods of time. Another thing you have to take into consideration is the fact that there are plenty of uninhabited star systems that have planets with food and/or materials that can be processed by the ships technology. Even Archers Enterprise had the ability to use recycling to make food ... so they probably have facilities onboard (albeit limited) to make essential items.
That's your job. Show how the Defiant achieved more than conventional starships (eventually) did. Such as, was better against the Borg. Or was better against Dominion bugs. Or was better against Klingon BoPs. My point throughout is that the Defiant was good, but never exceptionally so. the idea that she would be better than competition is fan bias, admittedly welcomed by writers but not actually supported by what ended up on screen. Please explain? Although it should be pointed out that the Defiant was a rather exceptional hero ship in that she was dramatically entitled to actually lose some battles, and even to eventually perish, as she wasn't the only (dramatic) vehicle available to the heroes. Say, the fights with such multi-ship opponents as the Ramura or the Swarm aliens. However, the Defiant never withstood the firepower of three ships while her shields were down. Or can you suggest an example? (No, the three BoPs in "Way of the Warrior" didn't collectively fire at her. And by the time the Vor'Cha showed up, and she lowered her shields for transport, only one BoP was left.) (And no, she didn't withstand the firepower of the the three plus three ships in "The Search" - she succumbed to it.) There is no known limitation to being shielded while cloaked. Indeed, shields are explicitly commanded up while the ship is cloaked in "A Matter of Honor". Only the Duras ship in ST:GEN seems rigged so that cloaking automatically drops shields - perhaps a Romulan influence, considering their poliltical leanings and supposed sources of tech support? But that's neither here nor there, as the pertinent fact in ST6 is that Chang's ship survived Kirk's first torpedo just fine. She was visibly perfectly intact when Sulu's and Kirk's subsequent joint volley hit her, and then blew up. Umm, what? Evasive maneuvers were both stated in dialogue and shown on screen. We'd never seen such violent maneuvering in Star Trek before, in fact! The tractor beam trick then reduced the efficiency of the disruptor hits, but didn't seem to do much to prevent the hits from taking place. Say, the runabouts in "Valiant" and "Treachery, Faith and the Great River". It's not so often in DS9 that the villains would target a vessel other than the Defiant. But note that the asteroid defense guns in "Tears of the Prophets" keep missing the escorting Excelsior and Miranda in addition to the Defiant; Dominion aim is generally a tad less perfect than Starfleet aim. Although one has to admit that some of the good rep of Starfleet aim comes from "peacetime" engagements, as opposed to the unholy furballs of the actual war. Dominion guns might perhaps aim straight in such more controlled battles. You'll have to do better than that, darling. So? The drone never dodges a beam or a torpedo. It merely pops up at an unexpected location, and then cloaks again before Worf has time to adjust his aim. Worf then tries to guess on the next pop-up but keeps failing miserably. Why would 23rd century evidence be relevant in the 24th? The weapons of the previous century are no longer used in the TNG era - even the phaser beams from the familiar TOS movie ships look completely different now. Kirk couldn't always aim straight. But Archer couldn't dent shields with his spatial torpedoes. Does that by your logic mean that every instance of torpedoes actually working against shields is in violation of canon and logic because it contradicts 2150 technological reality? In Kirk's time, maneuvering clearly mattered, which makes one wonder why they didn't have fightercraft back then. In Picard's time, we see no clear-cut advantage to maneuvering, except against certain special opponents who compensate for their poor aim with generous volumes of fire. And the advantage there is not unique to the Defiant, or even to the still more maneuverable and smaller runabouts or fightercraft. Big starships have equal (lack of) success in Dominion beam avoidance. Perhaps in the part where the BoP doesn't blow up when subjected to fire that on previous TNG episodes had demolished or crippled similar or larger vessels? The only way you can wiggle out of this one is to say that the Galaxy (or at least the Enterprise) consistently portrays an inability to hurt BoP-style targets with her regular beams. But the evidence is the opposite: in TNG, Galaxy main guns are potent, and only the mightiest enemies in the largest ships are at times immune to their pounding. The Defiant pulses may do equally well, but they don't do markedly better. And certainly not against Klingon BoPs other than the Duras sisters one. If they suspected Tom Riker of being a suicide bomber, yes. Again you try to argue that since the Defiant wasn't declared the wimpiest of all spacecraft in dialogue, she therefore has to be the most powerful of them all. But she never demonstrated potency in her titular episode. It took four of her quantum torpedoes to give no visual damage to that Keldon; a Galaxy could and did cripple similar ships with one of her phaser beams in TNG. That's not Defiant superiority, that's Defiant parity at best. And while the Defiant was being hunted to extinction by more than a dozen Cardassian cruisers, the Enterprise-D in "Chain of Command" prepared to triumph against such a number. The Defiant is a good little ship, but she is not the better of her bigger sisters. DS9 characters seldom baby-talk, so I see you might miss this one. But I have to say it's quite difficult to mistake Kira's for praise. Indeed, the contempt in Kira's voice is marked in the shooting script already, at least if the Trekcore version holds true. It is blatant that Kira understands the inferiority inherent in the failed prototype ship, while the Starfleet heroes either stay politely quiet or are all too willing to believe in their commander's ability to carry the day. Wow, your bias appears to be so great that it borders on remarkable. You discount dialog and scenes from the series and movies, while inserting your own interpretations as "facts", and you seem to invent scenes, dialog and motivations that were not shown in these episodes. How come? Timo Saloniemi
Eighteen years (proper time, presumably) according to the producers as noted in this post by aridas sofia. TGT
...Which means that, when those supplies are divided between two people in "The Mark of Gideon", they should last for 3,870 years sharp. Unless Kirk decides to play it safe and eat Odona. Timo Saloniemi
That may very well be the case, but I have about as much interest in Fred Freiberger's interpretation of TOS as I do Harve Bennett's, Leonard Nimoy's or J.J. Abrams'. Fuck 'em all. Be aware that TrekBBS.com is bursting at the seams with oversexed losers - such as moi - who may be inclined to intentionally misunderstand this sentence. TGT
Did replicator technology come into use during the Enterprise-A's final years of service or long after her decommissioning? How did the Enterprise-D store food and other supplies? JDW
It seems likely that "replicator technology" slowly emerged decades before it began to be called replicator technology. Archer may have had the first applications aboard already, and the system aboard the E-A need not have been that radically different from the one aboard the E-C. Certainly I'd prefer to have some sort of application of transporter technology on quick manufacturing in the TOS era already, even if it isn't yet the preferred means of making hot meals. But Janeway was probably referring to "modern replicators" when she said the ST6:TUC era did not yet feature "replicators" - just like there weren't "modern holodecks" even though there probably (and if we accept TAS "Practical Joker", then certainly!) was lots of less advanced VR entertainment. I sort of like the idea that reasonably high quality holodecks (possibly complete with some replicator features) appeared right after TUC, and that they would feature in the prologue of Ashes of Eden and Harriman's Captain's Table E-B adventure. Those noncanon romps aren't too much out of line with canon, and they rather nicely suggest a transition between technological eras. As for storage facilities aboard the E-D, they really looked more primitive than the holds we have today. Plastic barrels on open shelves are state of the art in the 2360s, it seems. I see no evidence that major consumables would be stored in a high tech manner (say, transporter pattern buffer), although I can accept the idea that the ship stores very basic raw matter instead of complex produce such as eggs or carrots or chicken wings. The E-D probably isn't a good example, though, as that design has internal volume to burn. If a more compact starship were to attempt multi-year endurance, then perhaps it would be worthwhile to have exotic storage systems, possibly reliant on transporter and replicator technologies. Timo Saloniemi