Thoughts on the Maquis raider?

[Blip]

I don't remember anything in the displays that suggested Starfleet origin. It certainly didn't seem to have a modern LCARs system, but even that wouldn't indicate much since those same LCARs displays are sometimes seen in civilian facilities as well.

It had movie-era (and still in use some twenty-odd years prior to TNG) Starfleet LCARS.

I believe it was, mainly because it doesn't really fit in the lineage of what we tend to think of as standard Starfleet designs. We've seen most types of shuttlecraft and runabouts embarked on starships, but we've never seen anything of a similar class or size of the Maquis raider in the fleet.

On one hand I do agree on this, as it's certainly not within the usual lineage, but then on the other:
1) We haven't seen anything much in the way of craft this size from TMP through TNG so we don't have a lineage to work from.
2) It's not the first time we've seen slightly oddball, unconventional Starfleet ships in general (I'm looking at you, Grissom!)
3) The impulse and warp fields, hull colour, and navigational lights are seemingly intentionally colored the same as most Starfleet vessels.
4) The torpedo launchers quite clearly appear to be Starfleet design (I know you'll argue they're a retrofit! )

Mostly I just acknowledge that the studio re-used an existing model and badly upscaled it; resulting in a very much non-conventional design. I'd like to think that given a do-over, the Raider would be represented with a much more SF aesthetic!

We've seen lots of alien ships in a similar class -- Baran's pirate vessel, for example -- with the implication that most of these ships are privately owned or owned by small-time operators/corporations/governments and not part of a formal fleet.

True, but never any indication that they were not at some point built by one race or another's space navy - and possibly used for similar policing duties as the original Raider might have.

They're part of the actual hull NOW, but we have no idea what the hull would look like without all that stuff added on.

You're automatically proceeding from the assumption that those larger hull forms were not already there; I suspect the opposite is true (see previous comments about having existing interior volume for the crew, which would be difficult and time-consuming for the Maquis to bother retrofitting into the hull). I can see how there may be additional plating and bracing laid over the hull in some areas though...

Again, most of the "doodads" are literally glued onto the actual model from bits and pieces of other model kits. Note the original design lacks alot of those extra bits:

So in-universe, the same could easily be true of whatever the Raider was originally modified from. Being a larger ship than the fighter, the difference is likely even more noticeable.

Now see, I consider the opposite to be true - the bigger the vessel the more time consuming and (needlessly?) expensive it would be to make these out to be scaled-up additions over a civilian craft. If it were an existing Starfleet design though? Less need for additions to the hull, and easier to re-purpose for Maquis aggression!

Obviously I'm not talking about the outboard pods -or maybe even the wings- here, as I coud see these being subsequent additions along with the smaller doodads and greeblies.

Look at it like this: You're better off converting an ex-Army Land Rover for the zombie apocalypse than you are a Prius (unless you want to get into the subject of fuel efficiency )

Nice image by the way, I don't recall seeing that one before! *clicks save*

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It had movie-era (and still in use some twenty-odd years prior to TNG) Starfleet LCARS.

So did the Xhosa and the Norkova, neither of which were ever Starfleet ships.

1) We haven't seen anything much in the way of craft this size from TMP through TNG so we don't have a lineage to work from.

Sure we have. Baran's pirate ship is a similar size, as are its various redresses over the years (The Miradorn raider, for example). The smaller wedge-shaped freighter we encounter in TNG and parts of Deep Space Nine are also approximately this size, though it suffers from scaling issues and it's hard to tell for sure. The most famous of course is the Merchantman from TSFS, as its original size was similar to that of the raider; since then has been rescaled and redressed and tinkered with a billion times, but the original ship was probably a breathtakingly common civilian design and likely the Raider's spiritual predecessor:

As we can gather from the many MANY redresses of this design, it wouldn't be that hard to convert this freighter into a plausible warship in such a way that it looks like it ALWAYS looked this way and you wouldn't know it looked any different unless you saw the original version first. I suspect the same is true of the Maquis Raider.

But far more importantly: most of the ships we've seen in the 60m to 90m range have all been civilian ships or military ships used by very primitive species. Talarian and Lysian warships tend to be about this size, as is Okona's freighter and the Ornaran ship in "Symbiosis."

The impulse and warp fields, hull colour, and navigational lights are seemingly intentionally colored the same as most Starfleet vessels.

That sort of begs the question of whether or not CIVILIAN ships would have the same coloring in the Federation. We haven't actually seen a lot of ships that were definitively built by Federation civilian manufacturers; for all we know, the warp nacelles are blue because that's the General Electric's trademark feature ("Happy blue glow means all systems go!")

4) The torpedo launchers quite clearly appear to be Starfleet design (I know you'll argue they're a retrofit! )

Of course they're a retrofit. They had to buy them from Quark.

True, but never any indication that they were not at some point built by one race or another's space navy - and possibly used for similar policing duties as the original Raider might have.

You could potentially say that for Baran's pirate vessel and possibly even the Miradorn ship. The same cannot be said for the many freighters we've seen over the years of approximately the same size. They're identified in dialog as "freighters" to be sure.

You're automatically proceeding from the assumption that those larger hull forms were not already there

I'm assuming that because that's basically how the MODEL was built. They added components to it when they scaled it up.

IOW I'm assuming it was a much more streamlined designed before it was retrofitted for use as a combat vessel. Form took a back seat to function, which is why the raider looks so weird.

OTOH, most freighters of that size are just as ugly and asymmetrical, so that might just be what "retro-industrial" looks like in the 24th century.

Now see, I consider the opposite to be true - the bigger the vessel the more time consuming and (needlessly?) expensive it would be to make these out to be scaled-up additions over a civilian craft. If it were an existing Starfleet design though? Less need for additions to the hull, and easier to re-purpose for Maquis aggression!

I'm not sure what you're suggesting then; are you thinking the design looks the way it does because they REMOVED parts of it that weren't needed? That seems to make even less sense.

It wouldn't take a lot of work to add some of the components we're talking about. It would be the 24th century equivalent of converting a basic Honda Civic into a drag racer:

Or, if you prefer, converting a Ford Pickup Truck into an infantry fighting vehicle:

The key point is the Maquis keep having to buy and steal weapons from other people for use on their ships and demonstrate a remarkable knack for modifying their systems and tactics. If they had the capacity to actually acquire Stafleet hardware on that regular of a basis, we'd be seeing a lot more actual starships (at the very least, a few Mirandas and Oberths) in their employ.

Look at it like this: You're better off converting an ex-Army Land Rover for the zombie apocalypse than you are a Prius (unless you want to get into the subject of fuel efficiency )

Which, while true, doesn't guarantee you have access to an Army Land Rover. You might only have access to a used Ford truck with a crappy engine because that's all you can find or afford, and then what do you do?

You pimp that sucker out and bolt some guns on it. It may not be especially practical, but then neither are the Maquis.

 

[publiusr]

The large-looking aft torpedoes don't look like add ons. If this thing was an armed freighter, I can see it having more powerful armaments to the rear.

 

[David cgc]

The real question in my mind is why the Maquis never helped themselves to the old mothball ships at Qualor-II like the Romulans did in "Unification." There bound to be lots of junked Miranda and Constitution class starships they could renovate to turn into proper starships. I assume this is either because the Raiders got them a better economy of scale (the mods were easy to mass produce and slap onto the hull) or because they just didn't think they could afford to hide or maintain anything bigger.

I'd think it's the latter. It's hard to be sure how many of the, say, 430 people on a Constitution are operating the ship versus the "payload" (scientists, security officers, medical staff), or how many shifts there are. Dividing by three and then assuming half of those are nonessential (which doesn't really make sense because you don't really need three A&A officers or historians to give you 24-hour coverage, but let's figure it all averages out), that's still 72 people just to operate the starship at all. Chakotay's ship had around half that, and it could probably support 24 hour operation.

And that's with Starfleet computers, communications, weapons, engines. It's likely a lot of the high-grade components would have been removed and would have to be replaced. Even if a civilian computer from the 2370s could match or exceed the performance and capabilities of the 2280s system the ship was built for, integrating the system would still be tricky, and it's probably buggy as hell (not unlike a Hackintosh computer). Operating a stolen, half-restored surplus ship would probably look a lot like when the Defiant when the computer was wiped, so it could take three or four hundred people to crew the ship even without scientists taking up space.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Operating a stolen, half-restored surplus ship would probably look a lot like when the Defiant when the computer was wiped, so it could take three or four hundred people to crew the ship even without scientists taking up space.

Interestingly, operating a stolen Defiant only took about a dozen people, so a small starship with its computers intact probably wouldn't be that big a headache.

It needs to be said that in the real world, most of the crew capacity needed on warships is basically manual labor for things like machinery, loading and unloading of torpedoes, babysitting sensitive electronics that might break down, and so on. Alot of those functions are already automated and humans are in the loop less out of necessity and more out of a warship being completely fucked if something goes even slightly wrong with those systems at a critical moment. Operators who don't care about that sort of thing -- pirates, for example -- are able to operate with much smaller crews and only need manpower to carry more assault rifles on their raids.

 

[Timo]

The large-looking aft torpedoes don't look like add ons. If this thing was an armed freighter, I can see it having more powerful armaments to the rear.

I guess that's a continuity issue first and foremost: if the Maquis ships had these weapons from the get-go, it then follows the Maquis did not have these ships back in DS9 "The Maquis" where Hudson's two Starfleet attack craft were stated to be the only Maquis vessels capable of carrying the armaments required for Hudson's mission of destruction.

It might take more effort for the insurgents to grab large "armed freighters" than small "attack craft", for whatever reasons. Both could be restricted military hardware originally, as we know the attack craft were yet the Maquis still gained access to them. Both could be neutered military hardware originally, though, as Hudson did feel the need to purchase weapons for his attack craft from an outside agent. Perhaps Starfleet yanked out something even more sinister from between the impulse engines of the Raider before releasing it to the civilian market, allowing Torres and her friends to install relatively harmless stock torpedo launchers in the space later on?

In any case, the sweet spot in the spacecraft size spectrum could well lie between the smaller and larger incarnations of the Raider - both for Maquis insurgency operations and for private trading, prospecting, what-have-you. Smaller than the small Raider and you have no payload space and no crew endurance booster facilities. Larger than the large Raider and you're a big fat target, for pirates or law enforcement. Or whatever. The rationale is for us to work out, the Trek reality is suggestive in its own right. Kasidy Yates has the biggest "private" vessel around (perhaps excluding the opulent yacht of Kivas Fajo), and she's (at least originally) working for others rather than tramping around on her own.

Timo Saloniemi