What if "First Contact" was the first time we ever saw the Defiant?

[Admiral Archer]

As a kid, I had no idea that the Defiant originated on Deep Space Nine, or that it featured heavily on that show, as I was a TOS/TNG only fan who thought a show about any ship other than the Enterprise was sacrilege. While that changed as I grew up, I realized when I first bought the Star Trek Encyclopedia as a teen (still having not seen a single DS9 episode at that point) that Worf was not in command of his own little ship, that the Defiant was not as small as I thought, and that GASP it was actually originally from one of the two Trek shows that I believed to be apocryphal. Which brings me to my point: What if the first appearance of the Defiant was in a brief scene in 'Star Trek: First Contact'?

Pretend for a moment that you are a diehard TNG fan who resents DS9. You've never seen it, so you assume after 'Star Trek: Generations' that Worf got his own little ship, the USS Defiant, which he commands for a year or two until the Borg invade Earth. You don't know that Worf got a transfer to DS9, you don't know that Sisko is the Captain, you know none of that. How would that shape the course of Star Trek history? Granted, as a TNG fan you would still watch 'Insurrection' a couple years later, and catch the line Picard says to Worf about "I don't know how they do it on Deep Space 9, but..." and discover that at some point prior to that film Worf was on DS9, but imagine that perhaps after First Contact the Defiant docked at DS9 for repairs or whatever, and that Worf accepted a transfer to the station. It actually begins to come into clear focus, for those of us who hadn't seen DS9 concurrently to the TNG films that Worf and the Defiant could have had their own little adventures for some time between Generations and First Contact.

So what do you think? Let's speculate!

 

[E-DUB]

The "Defiant" would have been just another "First Contact" ship, like the Akira and...what were those others?

 

[Farscape One]

Steamrunner, Sabre, and Norway were the other new ship classes for that battle.

 

[The Wormhole]

The whole main point of the Defiant scene is "oh hey, look, that ship from the other show." If it hadn't been seen before, it would not have been featured in the movie. In the event they still wanted Worf commanding his own ship which got crippled resulting in him getting beamed onto the Enterprise, his ship would almost certainly have been one of the other ship designs seen in the battle. Most likely an Akira class, since that was the only other one at the battle besides the Enterprise and the Defiant to have a full proper CG mesh done up for it, the others are "CG dummies" that weren't meant to stand up to scrutiny. And its bridge likely would have been the same set as the Enterprise's, just trashed and heavily damaged.

 

[ALF]

It was quite fitting that they added The Defiant to First Contact's battle with the Queen's Borg ship because The Defiant class was specifically designed with fighting the Borg in mind. And all that backstory comes from TNG.

"Development on the Defiant began around 2366 in response to the Borg threat to the Federation." http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Defiant_(2370)

Given that The Defiant is never used to fight the Borg in DS9, I find the appearance of the ship in the battle of First Contact to be very satisfying... even if the ship only fulfills it's design function once!

So what do you think? Let's speculate!

So to summarize, you want us to speculate what if Worf had command of the Defiant independently of DS9? I.e. a "Captain Worf" series?

 

[The Wormhole]

Given that The Defiant is never used to fight the Borg in DS9, I find the appearance of the ship in the battle of First Contact to be very satisfying... even if the ship only fulfills it's design function once!

Well, the Defiant itself might only get the opportunity to fight the Borg once, but a Defiant class ship at least is part of the fleet in Endgame.

 

[Farscape One]

That's true. Given the small size of the Defiant class ship, I'm surprised more weren't produced during the Dominion War.

I know the real life reason, but it would have been nice to hear of a Defiant class wing or squad in dialogue somewhere. I found it ironic that we saw more Defiant class ships in VOYAGER than on DS9. (Two in "MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE", at least one in "ENDGAME".)

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

In the event they still wanted Worf commanding his own ship which got crippled resulting in him getting beamed onto the Enterprise, his ship would almost certainly have been one of the other ship designs seen in the battle. Most likely an Akira class

I'd suspect he'd get a Sabre-Class, the Akira is a little too larch for a newly promoted lieutenant commander with little command experience behind him. The Sabre's smaller size and comparable crew to the Defiant would be a better fit for him.

 

[The Wormhole]

I know the real life reason, but it would have been nice to hear of a Defiant class wing or squad in dialogue somewhere. I found it ironic that we saw more Defiant class ships in VOYAGER than on DS9. (Two in "MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE", at least one in "ENDGAME".)

There were also two Defiants in the fleet at the end of Call to Arms, and the Star Trek Encyclopedia claims there's a half-constructed Defiant seen at Utopia Planitia in the opening shot of Relativity.

I'd suspect he'd get a Sabre-Class, the Akira is a little too larch for a newly promoted lieutenant commander with little command experience behind him. The Sabre's smaller size and comparable crew to the Defiant would be a better fit for him.

But like I said, the only ships to get full detailed CG meshes for First Contact were the Enterprise, Defiant and Akira class. Plus, everyone is fond of the Akira, that's kind of why it kept being featured so prominently in DS9 and even Voyager, and why the NX-01 is based on it. If there were no Defiant in the movie but we see Worf commanding a ship anyway, it would have been Akira class. Assuming DS9 doesn't exist in this hypothetical scenario (or at the very least, Worf never joined the show), we could just have the situation re-written so that Worf was actually the ship's XO, but the captain was killed, thus explaining why he's now in command despite his rank.

 

[Tim Thomason]

If DS9 never existed, Worf would've stayed on the Enterprise-E as security chief. They had to come up with convoluted reasons (and then just stopped trying) to explain his presence in the TNG films.

 

[PureCrimson]

The "Defiant" would have been just another "First Contact" ship, like the Akira and...what were those others?

This is all I thought it was too my first time, since I never saw DS9.
I was also confused on why Worf wasn't on the Enterprise, but for the ship, it had no real meaning for me... nor is it that integral to the plot either.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'm always a little disappointed seeing the Defiant in action in FC compared to DS9. In the series she has a far more impressive weapons burst than what was shown in the film, which belittles how the ship was designed for fighting the Borg in the first place.

 

[Farscape One]

To be fair, at the point we see her in action in FIRST CONTACT, her weapons were already just about gone and the ship itself had massive damage. And they were fighting the Borg for an extended period of time.

Any ship that can fight and survive the Borg for as long as that earns the right to be called 'Sisko's Motherf*cking Pimp Hand'.

 

[The Wormhole]

If DS9 never existed, Worf would've stayed on the Enterprise-E as security chief. They had to come up with convoluted reasons (and then just stopped trying) to explain his presence in the TNG films.

I don't know, I can see them maybe toying with the idea that someone on the ship wanted to move on with their career. It'd basically be a similar situation to having Chekov serving on the Reliant in TWOK, only more pointless here since it would just be one scene that wouldn't really mean much to the plot, other than showing Worf now has command experience, which is kind of what makes the whole blow-up between him and Picard later in the movie work.

Granted, in this scenario, Insurrection would have just had him back as part of the Enterprise crew as chief of security and pretended that was always the case, as Nemesis actually did.

 

[ItIsGreen]

pretended that was always the case, as Nemesis actually did.

I never got that impression. I always thought he was just there for the Trois' wedding.

 

[The Wormhole]

I never got that impression. I always thought he was just there for the Trois' wedding.

They ignored the fact he's supposed to be an ambassador now, put him back in Starfleet uniform, and had him at the tactical post on the bridge, and he even accompanied Picard and Data in their dune buggy trip.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Also, Worf was wearing red in Nemesis, so whatever he was doing, it wasn't operations-based.

 

[ItIsGreen]

They ignored the fact he's supposed to be an ambassador now, put him back in Starfleet uniform, and had him at the tactical post on the bridge, and he even accompanied Picard and Data in their dune buggy trip.

As I recall they were on their way to Betazed for the naked portion of the wedding when the events of the movie were set in motion, so Worf was caught aboard for the ride. He may have decided - or been asked by Picard - to do some duty shifts, I imagine Worf is the kind of person who enjoys work. He did the same while explicitly visiting the Enterprise in Insurrection.

They do ignore the whole 'ambassador' thing, or rather they never address it... it appears that he did return to Starfleet for whatever reason between the end of DS9 and NEM, but we don't know for sure what happened there, or where he's stationed. Or perhaps he kept his Starfleet commission while also serving as an ambassador.

 

[Qonundrum]

It was quite fitting that they added The Defiant to First Contact's battle with the Queen's Borg ship because The Defiant class was specifically designed with fighting the Borg in mind. And all that backstory comes from TNG.

"Development on the Defiant began around 2366 in response to the Borg threat to the Federation." http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Defiant_(2370)

Given that The Defiant is never used to fight the Borg in DS9, I find the appearance of the ship in the battle of First Contact to be very satisfying... even if the ship only fulfills it's design function once!



So to summarize, you want us to speculate what if Worf had command of the Defiant independently of DS9? I.e. a "Captain Worf" series?

I would LOVE to see a Captain Worf series. It helps when one pretends that the script that became filmed as "First Contact" was never scripted like that in the first place...

The only problem is, the ship - intended to be a single-purpose ship to fight the Borg - is given a complement of no-name fast food workers (but at least Worf is in charge) and Worf is seeing the tiny little anti-Borg ship almost destroyed by the big Borg cube (so what good was it if it fails so quickly?) and promptly woofs "Today is a good day to die!" just before they get beamed to the Enterprise (with shields up, whoops!) so he could then ask of the ship was destroyed?!

So pretend FC never happened (good acting isn't saving the underlying plot) since Worf comes across a lot better in DS9 where they usually spent more time writing thoughtful stories instead of hole-ridden "epic spectacle" that one could ram a dozen Doomsday Machine weapons through... they really should have turned the novel "Vendetta" into a feature film instead... oh well...

 

[MadeIndescribable]

The nice thing/basic requirement is that it had to work for the FC audience who had never seen DS9, but also make sure that a DS9 audience who wouldn't see FC wouldn't be missing out on anything as well. The original plan was to destory the Defiant which would never have worked and created something that would have taken a whole load more than "something we don't discuss with outsiders" to explain away...