I guess it is okay for going camping or taking the old RV out for a spin to visit some little tourist site, but I was never really crazy about them. What are your feelings on the matter? I was very glad when they got the Defiant.
What did you think of the runabout
- Thread starter broberfett
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Nice for what they were-- long distance shuttles for two or three characters. Certainly no substitute for the Defiant or the Rotarran once they showed up.
Interestingly, the early plans for the Defiant called for an uber-Runabout. The sketches of that concept look bizarre and Frankensteinian. Thankfully they went with the full Starship.
On a side note, did anybody else find it odd that the only time we saw the rear compartment of a Runabout was on a different series?
Interestingly, the early plans for the Defiant called for an uber-Runabout. The sketches of that concept look bizarre and Frankensteinian. Thankfully they went with the full Starship.
On a side note, did anybody else find it odd that the only time we saw the rear compartment of a Runabout was on a different series?
Yeah, that was strange. You would think we would have seen them use the back for all sorts of different purposes. The back could have been a mobile hospital, used for supplies, or used to add some sort of weaponry to the vehicle.
Many a story might have benefited from the creation of an expanded runabout set, yeah. It's too bad that all they did was tinker with the forward cabin - which created a lot of silly problems, such as there sometimes being no door that would lead to the rear compartments...
I never liked the exterior design, as it lacked in elegance but didn't look suitably "frontier-ruggerized" either. The concept of such a vehicle was IMHO very good for DS9 storytelling, though. It would have been a bit of a mistake to give our lowly Commander hero an entire starship in addition to giving him this space station and a slice of godhood. And splitting up the already small group of heroes was good form, too - stories told aboard a larger starship would not have differed enough from stories already told aboard the station.
IMHO, introducing the Defiant without introducing several new permanent characters was a grave mistake. Had, say, Worf come aboard at the same time and been clearly tasked with handling the midget starship, the pseudomilitary organization would have made much more sense - and there would also have emerged a nice, sharp contrast between the original heroes on the Cardassian-Bajoran station who had more or less "gone native", and the new, clean and uptight Starfleet folks who stayed on the piece of Starfleet hardware and maintained their stuffy ways.
Timo Saloniemi
I never liked the exterior design, as it lacked in elegance but didn't look suitably "frontier-ruggerized" either. The concept of such a vehicle was IMHO very good for DS9 storytelling, though. It would have been a bit of a mistake to give our lowly Commander hero an entire starship in addition to giving him this space station and a slice of godhood. And splitting up the already small group of heroes was good form, too - stories told aboard a larger starship would not have differed enough from stories already told aboard the station.
IMHO, introducing the Defiant without introducing several new permanent characters was a grave mistake. Had, say, Worf come aboard at the same time and been clearly tasked with handling the midget starship, the pseudomilitary organization would have made much more sense - and there would also have emerged a nice, sharp contrast between the original heroes on the Cardassian-Bajoran station who had more or less "gone native", and the new, clean and uptight Starfleet folks who stayed on the piece of Starfleet hardware and maintained their stuffy ways.
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps, but there's no point in bringing in the Defiant if it's not crewed by Sisko and company.
If some random group of new characters manned the Defiant, what would that have meant for the established characters? They'd be left behind during all of the Defiant missions that didn't directly involve them. So what does that leave? Should DS9's officers go with the new crew on their missions? If so, than why bother having a redundant new crew?
Realism be damned in this situation. It had to belong to Sisko and his crew.
They did get some mileage of the "visiting starship doesn't bend over backwards to help Sisko" plotline in "Second Sight". Having a ship that's there to assist, but with a commander who's at least initially at odds with Sisko (an alternate take on Worf, perhaps), would have had its dramatic upsides...
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Runabouts were cool. If only they came up with the Delta Flyer... (Alpha Flyer maybe?) that woulda been better. I think the Delta Flyer is more advanced also.
I thought the runabouts were cool, except that they never explained or demonstrated the expanded capacities of the runabout, leaving us to think that they were little more than large shuttles. Pleasure boats. They should have been a little meaner, like mini destroyers. Torpedoes! Firepower!
And the Defiant, thanks to the PTB, left the ship open to interpretation as to size and power, compared to the Galaxy class ships. This was a ship that was supposed to have 'TEETH,' tough enough to battle the Borg with state of the art advances in weapons and armor. Stripped of amenities like science stations and crew quarters it should have been smaller, but was occasionally shown to be flea size by comparison, to other ships. Bizarre.
And the Defiant, thanks to the PTB, left the ship open to interpretation as to size and power, compared to the Galaxy class ships. This was a ship that was supposed to have 'TEETH,' tough enough to battle the Borg with state of the art advances in weapons and armor. Stripped of amenities like science stations and crew quarters it should have been smaller, but was occasionally shown to be flea size by comparison, to other ships. Bizarre.
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I had hoped that during the Dominian War, Starfleet would've modified two runabouts. With the Defiant busy in battle under the command of Sisko, the pair of runabouts could've been responsible for protecting DS9, Worf commanding one and Dax the other. SFC could've removed the warp drive, improved the impulse engines, improved shielding, and installed a phaser cannon (a la AGT Enterprise) and a quantum torpedo launcher. These would've been high-powered short-distance fighters.
I always liked the runabouts. Seemed more realistic than the boxes they used to fly around in on TNG. I especially loved it when they used to go on long away missions in the TNG boxes... they sure had to hold it for a long time since there were no restrooms!! That is unless the pilot seat doubled as a toilet!!
To be sure, even the Defiant never quite managed to protect the station. It was vice versa: the station did all the heavy fighting, thus keeping the vulnerable Defiant protected. I doubt any sane commander would have allowed runabouts to go "outside" and try their mettle at defense if an enemy worth the name really was at the gates.
Timo Saloniemi
Didn't we see just that when the Dominion fleet first came through the wormhole?
I liked the runabouts. They had a rugged look to them, and the modularity was a good design choice, albeit never mentioned or really shown.
My brother and I figured that DS9 didn't have the budget to build the additional runabout sets, so TNG story was set on one. We expected to see the new sets on DS9 after that. If we'd thought to keep an eye out for it we would've been surprised.
I remember they used the aft compartment set for crew quarters on starships in DS9, but never as an actual part of the runabout.
I agree. I too liked that they were modular.
I really like the Runabouts. I never saw them as RV's for pleasure cruises, but as more of a workhorse / utility vehicle or something along those lines. It's pretty much my favorite Star Trek shuttle period.
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