What ships SHOULD they have used in the Dominion War?

[B.J.]

And I wish we had more alien names among the fleet/classes, as most of these are predominantly of Earth origin. Maybe some species are more humble than others but the Andorians and Tellarites especially might want greater representation. Glad to see the Surak in there though, and nods to “Antares” and “Rigel” at least.

But yeah, a ship named after the Andorian capital or their largest colony, a Tellarite mythological beast, the Vulcan word for grace, the legendary battle that brought peace to the skies of Aurelia, the legendary expedition that first connected the mysteriously populous Rigel system, the Nasat captain who saved their ship from the ambush that started the first Cardassian War, the Deltan Federation President who brought peace to the last Tzenkethi War, the Ancient Tkon credited with discovering artificial gravity, and the Ancient Aldean prayer that parents across the Galaxy still send their children to bed with telling them to explore the stars within as well as those without. And more.

Getting a bit off topic here (see this thread for more), but that's basically a result of poor world-building. It would be nice to have non-terran names, but at some point you're just throwing a jumble of letters at a ship without any background behind it. We need better world/universe building, which leads to more non-Terran names to choose from. For example, for a founding Federation member, we know practically nothing about Tellar Prime.

There are 18 conjectural Starfleet classes from the ST Encyclopedia. At least 5 of them are canon based on their class names being listed on Okudagrams (Apollo, Bradbury, Korolev, Merced and Renaissance.)

There's also the various "types" that don't have a canonical class name (ex: Yeager type). Some of those could possibly be matched up with the conjectural class names, but nothing in canon or background info has done so at this point.

 

[Arpy]

Getting a bit off topic here (see this thread for more), but that's basically a result of poor world-building. It would be nice to have non-terran names, but at some point you're just throwing a jumble of letters at a ship without any background behind it. We need better world/universe building, which leads to more non-Terran names to choose from. For example, for a founding Federation member, we know practically nothing about Tellar Prime.

I think there’s a skill in creating names for foreign, or in our case human, ears that sound both alien and memorable-interesting-pleasant enough to work, even without any further background information. And of course, the more you throw in a scene or a line or a display explaining the name, the easier understanding it gets, especially for hyper detail oriented fans like those of us here trying to make sense of fuzzy background displays or model ship markings. You could still have a proportionately greater amount of human names but without it being as stark and incongruous and unimaginative as it is now.

Plus, even with Earth names they’re often proper names or foreign words that need further explanation the first time you hear them — e.g. Chimera, Rigel, Brattain, Clavyn.

And sometimes how strange and a jumble a word sounds is the fun of it — e.g. Rumpelstiltskin, Mxyzptlk.

Tipping my cap to the Surak, T’Plana-Hath, Gorkon, and T’Kumbra.

Plenty of other words Trek that could get starships. ShiKahr, Seleya, Andoria, Kumari, Zhian'tara, Tagua, Dathan, R'uustai, etc… Can you think of any?

 

[Dukhat]

There's also the various "types" that don't have a canonical class name (ex: Yeager type). Some of those could possibly be matched up with the conjectural class names, but nothing in canon or background info has done so at this point.

I thought about trying to link the Centaur, Curry and Raging Queen to the conjectural classes, but in the end I felt that it wasn't really in line with Okuda's idea that the conjectural classes really weren't meant to have designs associated with them. The whole point of why he came up with them was because he wanted to show that Starfleet had many more diverse ship classes than just the few recycled movie models they kept using. Trying to link them to some hastily-thrown-together kitbashes would be contrary to this idea. We're really supposed to believe that classes like the Apollo, Renaissance, Andromeda, etc. are supposed to be unique and different from what we've seen before.

Of course, all of this was before DS9's Dominion war, which showed us the complete opposite of this line of thinking, due to time and budget concerns.

At this point, I don't see anyone coming up with canonical designs for Okuda's conjectural classes. It's been decades since the Encyclopedia was published, Okuda doesn't work for CBSTrek, and the current producers probably don't care or even know about them. Case in point: An LCARS display in PIC showed the USS ibn Majid as an Apollo class starship despite the fact that there was already an older canon Apollo class during the 2320's in TNG (luckily this display either wasn't seen on screen or was completely unreadable.)

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

An LCARS display in PIC showed the USS ibn Majid as an Apollo class starship despite the fact that there was already an older canon Apollo class during the 2320's in TNG (luckily this display either wasn't seen on screen or was completely unreadable.)

There also seems to be some disagreement on that anyway.

Michael Chabon indicated on social media that it was actually a member of the Curiosity-class (which may be at least somewhat related to the Inquiry-class), whereas Dave Blass appears to endorse fan art that describes it as Apollo-class.

 

[Dukhat]

There also seems to be some disagreement on that anyway.

Michael Chabon indicated on social media that it was actually a member of the Curiosity-class (which may be at least somewhat related to the Inquiry-class), whereas Dave Blass appears to endorse fan art that describes it as Apollo-class.

It wasn't actually fan art. TrekBBS member Suricata was actually hired to make that LCARS display, although it wasn't his choice to make the class Apollo. And to add even more confusion, there is also concept art of the ibn Majid labeling it a Sovereign II class.

 

[David cgc]

The ibn Majid silhouette also looks rather like the Jein class John Eaves painted for a recent SotL calendar, so there’s another possibility in the mix.

 

[Dukhat]

The ibn Majid silhouette also looks rather like the Jein class John Eaves painted for a recent SotL calendar, so there’s another possibility in the mix.

Actually, it's been confirmed that the ibn Majid is the same ship as the USS Emmett Till as seen in the DS9 documentary "What You Leave Behind," only with two nacelles instead of four. The Jein is a similar but smaller ship.

USS Emmett Till

The USS Emmett Till was a Federation starship in Starfleet service, launched in the late 24th century. (DS9 reference: What We Left Behind) The vessel was designed by John Eaves. [1] In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left BehindMA, the writers established that the Emmett Till...

memory-beta.fandom.com

 

[publiusr]

One question I’d like to pose—after the Dominion War—how few TMP era ships were left?

I have this idea that Ambassador class ships were meant to last longer than Excelsior or Miranda’s

Galaxy/Narendras got some love—but I could see Ambassadors still being made into the PICARD era.

 

[Ithekro]

Closest we see are Excelsior IIs that have registry numbers from what would be around the same time as the second major batch of Ambassador-class starships (NCC-42xxx era)

 

[Mage]

Closest we see are Excelsior IIs that have registry numbers from what would be around the same time as the second major batch of Ambassador-class starships (NCC-42xxx era)

Personal head canon; the Excelsior classes we saw during TNG are actually Excelsior II classes from Picard. They worked out better than the Ambassador classes and were build at around the same time. With the Excelsior II class outperforming the Ambassador class, production on the latter was stopped.

This will no doubt be a very unpopular piece of head canon, but meh, it works for me.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Personal head canon; the Excelsior classes we saw during TNG are actually Excelsior II classes from Picard.

Not always, but at least a few of them probably were.

The Excelsior II (which might actually have been the third ship of that name) had a registration in the 42xxx series, so any Excelsior-class with a registration above that (Mestral, Eureka (registration swapped with Excelsior), Archer, Atlantis, Cairo, Charleston, Crazy Horse, Fredrickson, Gorkon, Hood, Lakota, Melbourne and Valley Forge) are (via retcon) likely to be Excelsior IIs, any hulls with registrations in the 10000s but below the 42000s might not be Excelsior IIs but probably have at least some of the same upgrades (Berlin, Excelsior (2370s version) ?, Fearless, Intrepid, Okinawa and Tecumseh), and registrations in the 2000s series (Challenger, Excelsior, Excel, Repulse, NCC-2004 (Yorktown?)) are likely original configuration un-updated builds.

Any unnamed and "unregistered" hulls could go either way.

 

[Mage]

Not always, but at least a few of them probably were.

The Excelsior II (which might actually have been the third ship of that name) had a registration in the 42xxx series, so any Excelsior-class with a registration above that (Mestral, Eureka (registration swapped with Excelsior), Archer, Atlantis, Cairo, Charleston, Crazy Horse, Fredrickson, Gorkon, Hood, Lakota, Melbourne and Valley Forge) are (via retcon) likely to be Excelsior IIs, any hulls with registrations in the 10000s but below the 42000s might not be Excelsior IIs but probably have at least some of the same upgrades (Berlin, Excelsior (2370s version) ?, Fearless, Intrepid, Okinawa and Tecumseh), and registrations in the 2000s series (Challenger, Excelsior, Excel, Repulse, NCC-2004 (Yorktown?)) are likely original configuration un-updated builds.

Any unnamed and "unregistered" hulls could go either way.

Yes, exactly.
Normally I hate this entire 'what is canon and they violated canon/my childhood'. But retcons are fine. This works.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

IMO, it's perfectly reasonable to ask whether something fits into canon and if it doesn't as is... is there anyway to reconcile it?

Generally, in my experience most things that are truly important and actually were canon in the first place (rather than being assumed to be the case by the fans over the decades or a popular non-canon explanation from licensed media*) are rarely outright contradicted and if they are an explanation is typically provided in the form of an explicit, implicit or technical retcon. The last being the odd case where no explanation was actually provided originally.

* An example of this would the hate of the "holo simulator" and related communications technology in DSC, the existence of holographic environment simulators back in the TOS era was established in TAS (2270, The Practical Joker), and VOY established that sentient and semi-sapient holo characters were available by the late 2330s, so the idea that an experimental system could have been installed on Discovery is at worst surprising, not "canon-breaking" (IMO to do that a specific date for the invention of the holodeck would be required).

 

[Dukhat]

The thing is, it’s not really about ‘was the technology available at the time and just not used in a certain way.’ It’s more about how the tech was introduced initially in Star Trek productions. In TNG, everyone was acting like the holodeck was something new that nobody had ever experienced before. What was seen in DSC and TAS could quite effectively be described as a holodeck experience just like TNG, DS9 and VGR. But this is inconsistent because:

1. DSC is an after-the-fact retconny prequel.

2. The creator of TNG viewed TAS as apocryphal.

So if one wants to try to shoehorn in ways to explain the inconsistencies, fine. I myself don’t care all that much about it because that’s the nature of Star Trek television production. Prequels retcon stuff, and certain series go from canon to non-canon back to canon at the whim of whoever is currently in charge of the production.

 

[Macintosh]

Personal head canon; the Excelsior classes we saw during TNG are actually Excelsior II classes from Picard. They worked out better than the Ambassador classes and were build at around the same time. With the Excelsior II class outperforming the Ambassador class, production on the latter was stopped.

This will no doubt be a very unpopular piece of head canon, but meh, it works for me.

I have a similar personal head canon that all the Miranda-class ships we see in the 24th century are really supposed to be Constellation-class ships.

 

[Arpy]

^ especially in this shot of the two Mirandas being wingmen to the Defiant, I would replace them with other ships. If not something small like a Saber Class, something “new” (and small) like a Loki Class or this Freedom Class.

(I mean it’s absurd that they’re realistically anywhere near close enough to each other that they would act this way at all, but that’s another matter altogether that we should definitely get into at some point.)

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

In TNG, everyone was acting like the holodeck was something new that nobody had ever experienced before.

Maybe, but even ignoring TAS, it was Voyager that retcon'd that particular "vibe" (because it was never outright stated), not Discovery.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

So there's no reason why multiple Weapon types can't co-exist.

The continued existence of the ball turrets would be further indication these are not upgraded Miranda's, unless one wants to argue that newer phasers could somehow be fit into the exact same turrets. That's plausible, but again, if we allow for that, it means we never really know what we are seeing onscreen in terms of ship capability, and only know what shape the ships are.

We only saw it a few times, it doesn't seem to have any variants

To me, the Ambassador is related to the Excelsior but with more interior space and newer weapons, and bussard collectors that are obvious, so the reason that we would not variants of it is because variants of the Excelsior exist.

if DS9 ever gets a remaster, that they have the time and willingness to create a bunch of new ship designs for those fleets

If they add more ships it without overdoing it, it could be great. I really don't want to

Starfleet would not spend years of R&D to figure out how to not change the appearance of century old starships while updating them to current specs

I could see that they had upgraded ships that looked similar, but it would be highly unlikely that they would identical; even just making little modifications to the ship classes we saw could make a big difference. The red lights on the nacelles and red lights that look like impulse engines on the pods that they did include on some of the Miranda-class vessels are at least something.

So in the context solely of TOS, the Connie was all

That is not necessarily true. We heard mention of freighters and scouts, so there is no reason to think that these all had to look like Constitution class ships.

When I close my eyes, I can see a Norway-class zipping along, cutting through Dominion ships with great gusto

I honestly was not aware that there was so little of the Norway until I read it online.

Maybe upgraded Mirandas could still do most of the jobs a New Orleans class can do for cheaper

Or perhaps they only build new classes of ships to replace lost/decomssioned Miranda's and the built A LOT of Mirandas.*

Starfleet made an active purge of most of their ship classes, and only these 8 ships remained, however implausible that might be

I hat to say I could see this with the way some of TNG's early years were trying to separate TNG from TOS. Like Maybe the Constellation was all but wiped out, but not the Excelsior.

certain fleets only contained certain classes of vessels, and that we inconveniently only ever saw the fleet that had those 8 classes

That makes even less sense, like you suggest. A fleet should have different types of ships to do different jobs as it moves.

we can increase our scrutiny by orders of magnitude

I am guilty sometimes of that scrutiny. I once had a thread where I basically proved that the burnt foam "rocks" on TNG bridges were in fact burnt foam on the ship in the saw.

30-odd ships might have been offscreen

Fans have identified what some of these could be, and Ex Astris Scientia has a list.

This thread is about the ships they SHOULD have used

If this is about what they should have used, then there are

Would anyone like to explain why Admirals are always the last to get the new uniforms, too?

In the really military, higher ranks get new uniforms first and lower ranks get them last. If Starfleet flipped that, then cadets get the newer versions and Admirals keep the older versions the longest.

When you think about Finnegan's uniform having the black collar when the read of the fleet had sweaters, TNG cadets having only the shoulders colored before DS9 got regular uniforms like that, and so on, it looks like this might be the case.

With the Excelsior II class outperforming the Ambassador class, production on the latter was stopped.

I really don't consider anything made after 2009 part of my view on canon, but I do like the idea that Excelsiors were made in great numbers than the Ambassador, even though I really like the Ambassador. Somehow the Excelsior got the job done with less interior space.

I have a similar personal head canon that all the Miranda-class ships we see in the 24th century are really supposed to be Constellation-class ships.

I prefer the idea that when we see Miranda's many of them are really Centaurs.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The continued existence of the ball turrets would be further indication these are not upgraded Miranda's, unless one wants to argue that newer phasers could somehow be fit into the exact same turrets. That's plausible, but again, if we allow for that, it means we never really know what we are seeing onscreen in terms of ship capability, and only know what shape the ships are.

But that's been true with any beam weaponry.

How powerful they are is dependent on what it hits / defeats.

Half of how we know how powerful they are depends on what is told to the audience along with outside of show extra info.

 

[Ithekro]

It is possible that while designing new improved weapons to fight the Borg (the pulse phasers on the Defiant-class) Starfleet also made some sort of new ball turret design. Doesn't the Defiant have something like that for its alternative phasers. Having a new turret design would allow them to upgrade the Mirandas, Excelsiors and other 23rd century designs. Such a design update might be what they added to the Neo-Constitution-class in the 2390s.