what if the Enterprise-D was destroyed during early season six?

[Satyrquaze]

Not all of what I posted was canon.

Sovereign in mothballs:
This is stated in the Game Bridge Commander.

Not canon. May as well be fanfic in video game form.

The vessel was part of the same project as the Defiant and Prometheus. Sovereign was part of the "new class" or new fleet of ships aimed at replacing the aging Fleet.

Actually the Sovereign was borne out of the same design projects as the Defiant and Prometheus: with anti-Borg warfare in mind according to most of the ST:FC related official material I've found. Which you are correct in that the Sovereign was built to replace the aging Fleet... post-Wolf 359.

The low warp speed of Sovereign is observed by logical deduction in Nemesis...

Two experimental ships, Scimitar and Sovereign class Enterprise have an encounter.

Shinzon knows he can out run the Enterprise
Picard knows the Scimitar can out run the Enterprise.

-This means that Sovereign is not boasting a faster than normal top speed. aka 9.6 +

-In the Past Warbirds top speed was warp 9 with 9.6 damaging the engines. It's possible they have exceeded warp 9.6 with the 3 Singularity Cores to stabalize the ships SIF as well as maintaing power for speed and cloak. Essentially a core for each system. If this was the case then it would be much like a borg cube just funneling power enmass instead of using power efficient methods, like hull geometry for stable fields.

There's a flaw in your logic here, you're forgetting that the Scimitar was a Dreadnaught. Not "just" a battleship. And not "just" a Dreadnaught, but a Dreadnaught that would give a traditional Borg Cube or the Dominion Battleship a run for their money.

The fact that the Remans were able to build this monstrosity right under the Romulans noses defies all everything we had come to learn about Romulan Intelligence and the Military since the Romulan's re-introduction in TNG. Was the Tal Shi'ar on a coffee break for the years it took to build her? Were the Romulan Praetor and Senate blatantly ignoring the obvious?

It should be pretty obvious just from watching Nemesis that comparing the Enterprise-E and the Scimitar is basically comparing an Apple to a brick. I mean, the Scimitar is a single ship that can take out not only the Federation Flagship, but two Warbirds at the same time, all while travelling faster than one of the fastest classes in the Federation fleet.

It's a broken comparison.

Just because the Enterprise-E is apparently slower than a Dreadnaught that makes absolutely zero sense, doesn't mean that her max speed isn't in excess of warp 9.975 as it says it is on Memory-alpha.

-Sovereign's weapons shortcommings were obvious before the refit.

Why, because the Enterprise-E turned the tide at the battle of 001 and dealt the killing blow to not only the cube, but also the sphere? Because the E-E destroyed one Son'a battleship and crippled another in quick succession before disabling a Son'a crusier?

 

[Galileo7]

I believe we would have got another Galaxy-class Enterprise-E within six or eight episodes. It would either have been a renamed existing Galaxy-class vessel or one commissioned after the Enterprise-D.

They (the art department) would have changed the interior to reflect that it was a different ship, but the exterior would have been the same (it would allow the show to continue to use stock footage of the Enterprise-D, since the hull registry tends to be difficult to see in all but close-up shots).

Agree, as Kirk & crew got another refit Constitution class 1701-A in VOYAGE HOME, Picard & crew would have got another Galaxy class 1701-E(then the Sovereign in FIRST CONTACT would have been 1701-F).

 

[YARN]

what if the Enterprise-D was destroyed during early season six, but luckily all of her crewmembers escaped in escape pods and shuttlecrafts? Then the crew will have the Sovereign class Enterprise-E very earlier.

What would've happened?

They would've had to dump a ton of money to develop a new model to be featured prominently in the many FX shots of the show. You'd lose all the expensive stock shots you'd done before and you'd have to relearn the optimal lighting set ups and best angles for the model all over again

You'd slightly complciate the episodic nature of the show in syndication as many people, recognizing the episode as "Season 7" by the design of the ship might tune away early.

 

[Rarewolf]

I agree with C_Miller and with all the other Ent-D fans here. The loss of the Enterprise-D was a bad call in my opinion as well. It's not that I don't like the E, but the D would have made a much deeper impact because, just like the original 1701, it had already become a stand-alone character in the Trek universe. For people like me who grew up on TNG, it was just as emblematic for Star Trek as I assume the 1701 was for those who were around for TOS. I mean, I had feelings for that ship... To see it destroyed in the very first movie was rather traumatic. They should have done the same thing they did with the TOS Enterprise, replace it with a similar ship.

That's just it though when the 1701 was replaced with an identical ship, there were no other ships to compare it to. Once the linage evolved - Constitution, Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, it would have been a mistake to stop that evolution. The movies had a chance to take things forward and go in their own direction, we knew the Galaxy too well. We got to see it on the big screen - souped up - without it staying its welcome.

I grew up with TNG too - the original Enterprise's loss meant nothing to me for years at that scene was the first of it I ever saw of it.

The E we never saw her maiden voyage, or day to day adventures, just its highlights.

 

[Saquist]

Not canon. May as well be fanfic in video game

I really don't care.
In the absent of information I'm willing to allow the non official at least as speculation.

Actually the Sovereign was borne out of the same design projects as the Defiant and Prometheus: with anti-Borg warfare in mind according to most of the ST:FC related official material I've found. Which you are correct in that the Sovereign was built to replace the aging Fleet... post-Wolf 359.

And as you've seen Defiant was in moth balls, and had a problem with high warp
Prometheus wasn't successful at high warp and had a problem with high warp.
Sovereign was insufficiently armed and like the speed at high warp.

Sisko said the project was "mothballed" because of the declined Borg threat so if one was then likely all were mothballed. All of them were Warships...

There's a flaw in your logic here, you're forgetting that the Scimitar was a Dreadnaught. Not "just" a battleship. And not "just" a Dreadnaught, but a Dreadnaught that would give a traditional Borg Cube or the Dominion Battleship a run for their money.

I'm sure I'm getting your point on this.

The fact that the Remans were able to build this monstrosity right under the Romulans noses defies all everything we had come to learn about Romulan Intelligence and the Military since the Romulan's re-introduction in TNG.

Cloaking devices?

Was the Tal Shi'ar on a coffee break for the years it took to build her? Were the Romulan Praetor and Senate blatantly ignoring the obvious?

This isn't part of the logic. This is just loose ends. Anything could explain it. I'm not sure that it's important at all.

Just because the Enterprise-E is apparently slower than a Dreadnaught that makes absolutely zero sense, doesn't mean that her max speed isn't in excess of warp 9.975 as it says it is on Memory-alpha.

Taking into account Star Trek technobbable:

Stable High speed warp fields are made possible by field geometry, SIF power, or high energy warp fields. This presumes the saucer design of Federation ships is condusive to defeating temporal field stress. This also means that designs such as the Klingons and Romulans which have shown to be inferior to Federation speeds suffer because they choose less temporal dynamic hulls.

The Scimitar is such a ship.
Yet the only ship we've seen maintain warp 9.6 vs a Federation Galaxy class starship is the Borg Cube which has numerous decentralized power systme spread through out the ship, yet the Scimitar is not the size of Borg Cube nore does it boast the power of a Borg Cube.

Because the Romulans have shown the ability to at least reach 9.6 the Scimitar giving chase and it's commander knowing the Enterprise could do no better suggest that the Scimitar was capable of warp 9.7 or 9.75

certainly nothing suggest the Scimtar was more than 3x as fast as the Galaxy like the Intrepid at warp 9.975. That nothing of the Scimitar's hull geometry attempts to be temporally conservative suggest that this is a case of an over powered ship designed to withstand the rigors of the unstable fields at that speed.

Why, because the Enterprise-E turned the tide at the battle of 001 and dealt the killing blow to not only the cube, but also the sphere? Because the E-E destroyed one Son'a battleship and crippled another in quick succession before disabling a Son'a crusier?

Those are counter claims and do not support my claims.
In fact...the Sovereign did nothing spectacular against any of those ships. The weapons were quantum torpedos and have nothing to do with the ship itself. It's destruction of the Son'a battleships have nothing to do with the Sovereign's Firepower. The third ship was of unknown designation thus it's effectiveness in battle is unknown.

Now...Sovereign's lackings in offense has nothing to do with firepower but weapons coverage and is definitely inferior to the Galaxy and Intrepid in phaser coverage and previously in torpedo coverage aswell.

The design itself has a load of other lacking aswell. But these are the major ones.

 

[CaptainStoner]

QUOTE=CaptainStoner;4546832]The AGT story still would have worked with Picard not starting out on the D, plus we would have gotten to see her again right after losing her, adding a whole dimension of emotion to that.

The AGT story would have needed some rewriting, because this idea would've precluded an Enterprise-D in the anti-time future.

Oh, I agree it would require a lot of rewriting and tweaking. My only point was that the story could still work if the "present" timeline didn't begin on the Ent-D.

[...] (probably w/Marqui) [...]

It's Maquis, not "Marqui."

Whoops. There's a hint of a soft "r" in the "q" when some people say it.

 

[BillJ]

That's just it though when the 1701 was replaced with an identical ship, there were no other ships to compare it to. Once the linage evolved - Constitution, Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, it would have been a mistake to stop that evolution.

I didn't have an issue with moving on from the Galaxy class. Problem is that the Sovereign class took a complete left turn from the developing design lineage.

It looked like they took elements from the Constitution-refit, Excelsior and Intrepid classes mixed them together and then stomped on it.

The Sovereign class design represented everything that was going wrong with Modern Trek, stale and over-dependent on past successes.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I believe we would have got another Galaxy-class Enterprise-E within six or eight episodes. It would either have been a renamed existing Galaxy-class vessel or one commissioned after the Enterprise-D.

They (the art department) would have changed the interior to reflect that it was a different ship, but the exterior would have been the same (it would allow the show to continue to use stock footage of the Enterprise-D, since the hull registry tends to be difficult to see in all but close-up shots).

Agree, as Kirk & crew got another refit Constitution class 1701-A in VOYAGE HOME, Picard & crew would have got another Galaxy class 1701-E(then the Sovereign in FIRST CONTACT would have been 1701-F).

Losing two Enterprises in the span of two years?

 

[Galileo7]

I believe we would have got another Galaxy-class Enterprise-E within six or eight episodes. It would either have been a renamed existing Galaxy-class vessel or one commissioned after the Enterprise-D.

They (the art department) would have changed the interior to reflect that it was a different ship, but the exterior would have been the same (it would allow the show to continue to use stock footage of the Enterprise-D, since the hull registry tends to be difficult to see in all but close-up shots).

Agree, as Kirk & crew got another refit Constitution class 1701-A in VOYAGE HOME, Picard & crew would have got another Galaxy class 1701-E(then the Sovereign in FIRST CONTACT would have been 1701-F).

Losing two Enterprises in the span of two years?

Maybe, it would have been better to keep the Galaxy class through all the NG movies, as Kirk always had the Constitution class(albeit refit in the movies).

 

[C.E. Evans]

Agree, as Kirk & crew got another refit Constitution class 1701-A in VOYAGE HOME, Picard & crew would have got another Galaxy class 1701-E(then the Sovereign in FIRST CONTACT would have been 1701-F).

Losing two Enterprises in the span of two years?

Maybe, it would have been better to keep the Galaxy class through all the NG movies, as Kirk always had the Constitution class(albeit refit in the movies).

Yeah, I think they would have had a Galaxy-class Enterprise-E (narrowly) survive Generations, but perhaps be extensively repaired and upgraded into a Galaxy-class refit for First Contact. It probably wouldn't have been redesigned into the three-nacelled Galaxy-class seen in "All Good Things...," but maybe a slightly sleeker Galaxy-class ship with new nacelles and different-angled pylons perhaps...

 

[Galileo7]

Losing two Enterprises in the span of two years?

Maybe, it would have been better to keep the Galaxy class through all the NG movies, as Kirk always had the Constitution class(albeit refit in the movies).

Yeah, I think they would have had a Galaxy-class Enterprise-E (narrowly) survive Generations, but perhaps be extensively repaired and upgraded into a Galaxy-class refit for First Contact. It probably wouldn't have been redesigned into the three-nacelled Galaxy-class seen in "All Good Things...," but maybe a slightly sleeker Galaxy-class ship with new nacelles and different-angled pylons perhaps...

Exactly, since the Constitution class was the trademark of Kirk's era , the Galaxy class should have remained the trademark of Picard's era.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

IIRC, the saucer crash in GEN was originally conceived as a gag in the season 6 finale, "Descent" (hence the title). The first idea for the finale had the Enterprise-D being recalled home to be transformed into a museum ship. The crew was also to be reassigned.

There would be some sort of conflict during the return trip to Earth, the saucer would separate and then crash with the stardrive destroyed.

In the end, the saucer would be put atop a new stardrive and the Enterprise-D would be able to continue its mission. Had that happened, as other posters suggest, we would've probably gotten a slight modification of the existing sets — especially since construction for new starship sets would have been too costly for a series entering its final season.

Although, I thought taking the TNG cast and putting them into movies was a mistake, especially on the heels of the series ending. There was no time for nostalgia such as with the TOS cast, nor were the TNG characters as iconic.

TNG could've continued on past season seven by changing up the cast and making modifications to the sets. That may have been more interesting than VOY, or TNG lite. (Then again, the writing may have been the same.)

 

[Saquist]

Generations should have seen the end of Riker as first officer...plain and simple.
That the producers couldn't see that is why all the TNG movies were failures.

 

[BillJ]

Generations should have seen the end of Riker as first officer...plain and simple.
That the producers couldn't see that is why all the TNG movies were failures.

Riker as first officer was a pretty bad joke post-Best of Both Worlds.

 

[Stephen!]

That the producers couldn't see that is why all the TNG movies were failures.

First Contact generally seemed to be quite successful.

 

[BlastHardcheese]

That the producers couldn't see that is why all the TNG movies were failures.

First Contact generally seemed to be quite successful.

Successful yes, but that didn't necessarily make it a good movie...

 

[thepatagonian]

Think about this folks....

I'd love to see the 1701-D in as much detail as they gave JJ's ship. Seems to me 1701-D did gain detail over the years, particularly there was some ribbing on the phasers and the lifeboats got labelled,...but that's what I mean. Give it to us on the silver screen in hi-def, with mindblowing realism, rooms and people seen through row after row of windows...

The closest I think I'll ever come to that fly-by is the one they gave us in Vegas in the Klingon Encounter.

 

[Saquist]

That the producers couldn't see that is why all the TNG movies were failures.

First Contact generally seemed to be quite successful.

Who told you that lie?
First Contact

$30,716,131 on the first weekend isn't good.
92 million gross domestic isn't good at all.
146 million world wide.

Trek fans look at it as the better runs...but it was still pathetic. It's not uncommon for movies to do 30 million in one day...let alone an entire weekend.

Generations should have seen the end of Riker as first officer...plain and simple.
That the producers couldn't see that is why all the TNG movies were failures.

Riker as first officer was a pretty bad joke post-Best of Both Worlds.

...not too much...
It works after BoBW...but just barely.
The punch line drops after the Saucer crash because it's clear he's never going to get that ship...SO....why are you still there another 6 years?

 

[BillJ]

That the producers couldn't see that is why all the TNG movies were failures.

First Contact generally seemed to be quite successful.

Who told you that lie?
First Contact

$30,716,131 on the first weekend isn't good.
92 million gross domestic isn't good at all.
146 million world wide.

Trek fans look at it as the better runs...but it was still pathetic. It's not uncommon for movies to do 30 million in one day...let alone an entire weekend.

Context is everything...

Star Trek: First Contact was the seventeenth highest grossing (domestic total) film of 1996:

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1996&p=.htm

Its' opening weekend gross of $30 million put it in the top 10 opening weekends.

It brought the studio probably $75 million in revenue on a production budget of $46 million. That doesn't count home video and TV rights revenue.

I'd say First Contact would qualify as a 'moderate' financial success to say the least... and I'm not a big fan of the film.

 

[Saquist]

It was a minor financial success like all of the Star Trek Movies before.
Star Trek XI was the moderate success of the franchise scoring good in the box office but on the major stage of SUCCESS in general it wasn't anything particularly memorable but it had it's run.

Major successes...are Avatar, Star Wars, DarkKight to which no Trek Film has come remotely close to.