Mark Twain realised the ugly truth even if Picard and crew did not ....
The 23rd Century - Starfleet at it's peak?
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Mark Twain realised the ugly truth even if Picard and crew did not ....
On the topic of if the 23rd Century was when Starfleet was at its peak or not, I immediately think of this quote of Kirk's from "Metamorphosis":
I also have a memory of reading in one of the TNG magazines at the time of that show's premiere that Starfleet had mapped only 4% of known space in the TOS era, but by the TNG era it was up 11%. So they've doubled and nearly tripled their mapping of known space by the 2360s. That works for me.
In the TNG era, sure, I can believe that Starfleet's that big. In the TOS era, I have trouble believing that they had 700 ships total, let alone 7000. I'd probably put it at closer to 100-200 ships total, counting things like freighters and transport vessels in addition to starships.
So Starfleet and the UFP have begun to spread out and expand and map the territory of known space, but they've seen enough to know that they've still only seen a fraction of what's out there, with lots more to discover.
I also have a memory of reading in one of the TNG magazines at the time of that show's premiere that Starfleet had mapped only 4% of known space in the TOS era, but by the TNG era it was up 11%. So they've doubled and nearly tripled their mapping of known space by the 2360s. That works for me.
That sounds WAY too huge to me, and I have trouble reconciling it with what we hear about the Federation and Starfleet in TOS, what with Kirk's "There are only 12 like it in the fleet" comment about the Enterprise in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and the fact that most Starbases we hear mentioned are only in the single or double digits. (There's a mention of a "Starbase 200" in "The Alternative Factor", but as that's such an odd episode in nearly every aspect I have no problem dismissing it as an outlier.)
In the TNG era, sure, I can believe that Starfleet's that big. In the TOS era, I have trouble believing that they had 700 ships total, let alone 7000. I'd probably put it at closer to 100-200 ships total, counting things like freighters and transport vessels in addition to starships.
Yeah, it's just a nonsense number that some shithead scriptwriter had Cornwell say just to make Starfleet sound badass, but doesn't really make any logical sense. All they had to do was know that the highest NCC number at the time was 1701, and just say that Starfleet had 1,700 ships. But apparently the scriptwriters were not that smart.
Either that, or this is yet just another example of how the Discoverse is not the prime universe.
I've always figured the big expansion happens in the period of the Enterprise-B and C. Post Khitomer, there was probably more freedom to pivot back around to exploration and expansion, without the ever looming presence of the Klingons (who were now allies and needed to rebuild anyway) or Romulans (who went back into isolation for a long while).
From an in universe perspective 23rd century Starfleet operated a human male dominated club, even 100 years after the UFP was formed. Not good optics.
Starfleet may have been more of a collection of ships running through their member world's operating authority's at the time. The Vulcans had at least one all-Vulcan ship, and Enterprise was a UESPA operated ship. It stands to reason there were Tellarite ships, etc. It might have been easier logistically to provide for member nation's needs on most of the ships, (comfortable gravity, lack of smelly humans, no Andorrians messing with the thermostat). Some species might just prefer not to be as involved in that capacity.
Shenzou certainly appeared to be a MOSTLY human ship. Discovery has a more varied crew and a specialized mission. It might be a purely starfleet ship, and not running under the auspices of the Vulcan Expeditionary group or UESPA.
I honestly haven't decided if I think that DSC can fit into the Prime Timeline or not. I'm still making my way through season 2 (just finished off episode 3 last night), so I'm going to have to see what they end up doing with Pike, Spock, and Number One before I know how I feel about it. But right now, it seems like most of their problems could've been avoided if they'd just set the show further into the future rather than 10 years before TOS.
I'd say 7,000 ships is close to the lower limit of the plausible for "active" ships, if the idea is to provide a NCC-registered starship at each "quadrant", of which there would presumably be four per "sector", of which there in turn don't appear to be an insignificant number in TOS - and then all the Antareses to keep those NCC ships working.
The heroes being in the only starship in the quadrant is typically worth commenting on - not as a rarity, but not as the default assumption, either. Starfleet is admittedly piss-poor at coordinating, neither Kirk nor his bosses really knowing where the Exeter or the Constellation might be, and allowing Kirk's mission to stupidly overlap theirs. But the very overlaps we witness suggest truly vast numbers of vessels; in light of this, "Only 12 like her" is likely to be a boast of the uniqueness of the uniqueness against a background of non-uniqueness, of dozens of ship classes dozens strong being the norm from which Kirk's type deviates.
I'm not sure there's any need to assume an explosion of ship numbers. Rather, the UFP itself would be likely to grow exponentially if its method of expansion is the one uniquely its: peaceful annexation. A conquest would slow down as the radius of the sphere of your Star Empire increased. But if you incite neighbors to join, and they get their neighbors to join, and they theirs... Such a sphere would expand so rapidly that ship construction would have to be exponential to keep apace. And the resources for construction would also increase, nicely enough, since a planet would be annexed with its dockyards and mines intact and willing to help, rather than in ruins.
I'd expect the growth of growth to continue in PIC as well. Which is why a fleet of more than a hundred identical ships isn't particularly out of place, while an industrial project for building 10,000 ships getting halted at the first setback because one needs the capacity for 10,000 other ships seems reasonable, too.
Timo Saloniemi
The heroes being in the only starship in the quadrant is typically worth commenting on - not as a rarity, but not as the default assumption, either. Starfleet is admittedly piss-poor at coordinating, neither Kirk nor his bosses really knowing where the Exeter or the Constellation might be, and allowing Kirk's mission to stupidly overlap theirs. But the very overlaps we witness suggest truly vast numbers of vessels; in light of this, "Only 12 like her" is likely to be a boast of the uniqueness of the uniqueness against a background of non-uniqueness, of dozens of ship classes dozens strong being the norm from which Kirk's type deviates.
I'm not sure there's any need to assume an explosion of ship numbers. Rather, the UFP itself would be likely to grow exponentially if its method of expansion is the one uniquely its: peaceful annexation. A conquest would slow down as the radius of the sphere of your Star Empire increased. But if you incite neighbors to join, and they get their neighbors to join, and they theirs... Such a sphere would expand so rapidly that ship construction would have to be exponential to keep apace. And the resources for construction would also increase, nicely enough, since a planet would be annexed with its dockyards and mines intact and willing to help, rather than in ruins.
I'd expect the growth of growth to continue in PIC as well. Which is why a fleet of more than a hundred identical ships isn't particularly out of place, while an industrial project for building 10,000 ships getting halted at the first setback because one needs the capacity for 10,000 other ships seems reasonable, too.
Timo Saloniemi
Didn't Kirk tell Cochrane in "Metamophosis" that "We're on a thousand worlds". That implies a thousand Earth colonies, plus all the other planets of Federation members. I note that the main planets and star systems in the Federation are likely to have planetary defenses systems to defend against attacking fleets. But that would leave hundreds of human colonies alone that were too small to have impressive planetary defense systems and which would need warships to come to their aid when attacked. Thus the UFP might need tens or hundreds of space warships. presumably belonging to Starfleet, to defend the frontier areas and small colony planets. Since a starship was a very special type of ship in TOS, not all the Federation's warships would be starships, so possibly there would be a small number of starships, perhaps even as low as the 13 mentioned by Kirk. But there should be hundreds of warships of some type for the purpose of defending the Federation, and presumably they would be in Starfleet..
The colony aspect of the TOS UFP was ridiculous, there is no reason for 1000 Earth colonies if they each have around 20 people on them as revealed to the audience. Even the TNG colonies were stupidly small in population. It would take what three generations for them all to be inbred if no one migrates.
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I got the dialogue directly from Star Trek Script Search.
not really, we know from the example of spock's mother that humans are on vulcan. that would be one of the "we're on." in addition to human colonies, there are other species (fed members and non-members) home worlds, their colonies, worlds being studied/explored, worlds being mined, etc..
humans can be on a world without it being a human colony.
...The one thing the writers have kept nicely consistent is that the human presence on Orion is an "outpost" or a "colony", and one where the humans come to interact with other cultures and species. Even DSC has such a reference.
It would be fun to eventually get to see such a meeting place (like we saw an Orion presence on Qo'noS). When the average human colony shown is a single village of a few hundred settlers, the average alien planet probably could accommodate several of those from every UFP species, providing both cultural privacy and the occasional forum for interaction. Might be there's more blending in the 24th century, but in the 2250s and 2260s we still have Orion.
Timo Saloniemi
It would be fun to eventually get to see such a meeting place (like we saw an Orion presence on Qo'noS). When the average human colony shown is a single village of a few hundred settlers, the average alien planet probably could accommodate several of those from every UFP species, providing both cultural privacy and the occasional forum for interaction. Might be there's more blending in the 24th century, but in the 2250s and 2260s we still have Orion.
Timo Saloniemi
denava had a population of a million, can't recall if it was referred to as a colony. it might have been a independent world which would explaining why starships don't visit. if a million human settled world is more typical that a half dozen humans nearly a billion humans might make their homes off earth.
the billion would include the hundreds of thousand living on other people's worlds.
one of my favorite lines. from tos was when miranda Jones commented that she's never been to earth. it made the tos universe wonderfully bigger.
earth is the human species home world. while at the same time maybe earth wasn't all that important to a large number of humans.
its "the old country."
the billion would include the hundreds of thousand living on other people's worlds.
one of my favorite lines. from tos was when miranda Jones commented that she's never been to earth. it made the tos universe wonderfully bigger.
earth is the human species home world. while at the same time maybe earth wasn't all that important to a large number of humans.
its "the old country."
The peak is the years directly before the Dominion War.
I'd say the 'peak' was probably the early 2360s - the Galaxy-class development appears to be such a bold statement of intent, such resources thrown at creating this colossal new explorer etc.
It seemed to have been a period of peace, following the Cardassian border skrimishes, an end to hostilities with the Klingons after Narendra 3, pre-Borg and re-emergence of The Romulans. Probably a good time for development, growing the fleet etc.
It seemed to have been a period of peace, following the Cardassian border skrimishes, an end to hostilities with the Klingons after Narendra 3, pre-Borg and re-emergence of The Romulans. Probably a good time for development, growing the fleet etc.
Galaxy Class Starships - When Hotels Go To Space for TNG reminds me of French Pre-Dreadnoughts - When Hotels Go To War by Drachinifel. The Federation HQ is located in Paris, France, so, maybe history is repeating itself.
The Galaxy Class was designed to be a detachable liner/hotel section plus a battle section. Supporting the liner/hotel section wasted power and resources when in battle environments. In the big battle scene in DS9 where we see several Galaxy Class ships in combat, I'm surprised that they didn't dump their saucers prior to the battle.
In the big battle scene in DS9 where we see several Galaxy Class ships in combat, I'm surprised that they didn't dump their saucers prior to the battle.
Don't forget that the Galaxy-class saucers are home to (by far) the two largest phaser arrays on the ship, allowing a massive arc of fire. The saucer is also home to two impulse engines to provide additional power and allow the ship to manoeuvre just as well if the secondary hull's single impulse engine is damaged in battle.
I don't think separating the saucer makes the ship better able to fight in and of itself - the separation is a means by which families and non-essential crew can be offloaded.
I'd say the ship is probably more formidable remaining as a single unit.
