What ships SHOULD they have used in the Dominion War?

[Ithekro]

Pretty much writing at the time would generally be against drone weapons due to the general fear of them turning against you. Mix that with Starfleet generally wanting to explore in person and Klingons wanting personal honor and glory, it is fairly likely there aren't drone starships in any sizable numbers. There may be very heavy automation on the older starships. If Scotty could get the Enterprise to operate with a crew of three, they can probably get any late 23rd or early 24th century starships combat worthy with a crew of a dozen or two.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Given that some of the Mirandas actually hung in the fight longer than most, I'm not 100% sold on them being drones, but I do think that the "fighters" absolutely should have been, regardless of how the Maquis or Bajorans used similar platforms in the past.

I do agree with Fighters, Bits/Funnels, Drones, & even AI small ships like the Texas Class that we saw in ST:LDS.

Just who writes the AI software and how it's controlled is critical.
The way they went about the "Texas Class" was stupid in LDS; but as with all BAdmirals, they do it in the most incompetent ways that are prone to evil/failure.

The Texas-Class being smaller than even the smallest StarShips & larger than the largest Shuttle/RunAbout, was the right call / design choice.
It allowed it to be like the USS Defiant and punch about it's weight/size class.

Then mass produce it in huge volumes as "Helper AI/Drone Ships" to larger vessels along with Fighters.

It's not a Man or Machine future that is optimal.
It should be Man & Machine Teaming, that is the way forward to a better future IMO.

Spoiler: Task & Purpose - America's New Tank is Legitimately Insane

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The future will be a combination of Manned & Unmanned Platforms
That are integrated with Aerial UAV's.
The M1A3 is a first step in that direction.

Even the US Army is thinking the way that I'm thinking.
They're finally giving the giant engineering diet that needed to happen on the Abrams.
Also, lots of teaming with unmanned platforms and finally a new "Auto-Loader" for the Abrams.

 

[B.J.]

All that said, again, why are the lights on if there are no crew?

*If* they're drones (which I personally don't believe), it would kinda make sense to make your crewed and uncrewed ships look similar to prevent pointed targeting of the crewed ships.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Admiral Harriman could have supplied the Kiss, the Myas, and the ever-popular Limeball, but you'd have to wait until Tuesday. It seems they were all out on, ahem, "shakedown."

 

[Arpy]

The other thing about drones is that some exotic alien could hack them. Maybe part of the reason they don’t use drones as much in Trek is because of a great war or incident in which the drones proved undependable. Something in the offscreen past like the Butlerian Jihad or the Clone Wars from other franchises.

Maybe during the first Romulan War, Earth met existential calamity when its MACO defense fleet (or whatever it might have been) was hacked by far more advanced Romulan computer technology. Maybe older aliens like the Romulans, Vulcans, Klingons, and others are used to these tactics from incidents in their own longer histories, and it’s kind of a universal constant that you need crews to be sure. Same with outright AI’s—everyone’s had some Skynet/Kaylon incident that steered them away from fully independent artificial control.

All that said, it will be interesting to see if Trek lasts another 20 years (let alone another 60) how it deals with real world AI’s playing an ever larger part in our lives in-universe.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Maybe during the first Romulan War, Earth met existential calamity when its MACO defense fleet (or whatever it might have been) was hacked by far more advanced Romulan computer technology.

Hmm. I vaguely recall that "getting hacked by the Romulans" was an actual thing (maybe even a canonical "actual thing") during the "Archer era." And that this was the genesis (maybe canonically, maybe not) of "prefix codes."

 

[Dukhat]

So on the subject of Mirandas as drones: I just read a hypothesis on FB about a scene in "Favor the Bold" where O'Brien informs Sisko that the starship Cortez is having trouble stabilizing the guidance thrusters on their port nacelle. The preceding scene shows the CGI fleet, and at the bottom right of the screen there's a Miranda class starship that is starting to list to one side. It's only for a few seconds, but the hypothesis is that this ship is the Cortez, and it was most definitely not a drone, since we find out later that its captain was Quentin Swofford. The only issue is that the ship's crew numbered 400, which would have been fine during the TMP era, but by the time of TNG/DS9, that would seem to be far too many people for a Miranda. But the ship could technically be able to hold that many people.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Far too many to be purely "ships company", but if it was actually crew and passengers, then a one or two security detachments similar to the one assigned to AR-558 (150 each) could easily make up the numbers.

 

[Tomalak]

On the subject of drones, the Prometheus is proof this kind of thing could be possible.

It executed sophisticated and devastating co-ordinated attack manoeuvres with three separate ships entirely under computer control, directed by two clueless Emergency Holographic Doctors.

Obviously the difference is that it was designed for that purpose, and was not facing the most challenging opposition. Century-old Mirandas in a real wartime situation would be a different proposition, even if the computer control would be technically possible.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

On the subject of drones, the Prometheus is proof this kind of thing could be possible.

It executed sophisticated and devastating co-ordinated attack manoeuvres with three separate ships entirely under computer control, directed by two clueless Emergency Holographic Doctors.

Obviously the difference is that it was designed for that purpose, and was not facing the most challenging opposition. Century-old Mirandas in a real wartime situation would be a different proposition, even if the computer control would be technically possible.

Notice how the optimal ships that are AI controlled seem to be smaller more nimbler craft.

Prometheus Class, each Section Split up makes for 3x fairly small craft.

The Texas Class is even smaller and naturally works in groups.

And with "Limited Fire-Power" on each craft, as long as humans maintain control of larger more powerful vessels along with command access & control of the AI craft, it's far harder for the little craft to become a threat unless they get turned by subversion or AI insurrection of some sort (Think Skynet from Terminator).

Make sure the AI SafeGuards cannot be removed / disabled like what Admiral Buenamigo did, it should be fine.

Also make sure higher ups can subvert the network like they did with the Synth Rebellion.

But that was a inside job.

 

[Mage]

The other thing about drones is that some exotic alien could hack them. Maybe part of the reason they don’t use drones as much in Trek is because of a great war or incident in which the drones proved undependable. Something in the offscreen past like the Butlerian Jihad or the Clone Wars from other franchises.

Maybe during the first Romulan War, Earth met existential calamity when its MACO defense fleet (or whatever it might have been) was hacked by far more advanced Romulan computer technology. Maybe older aliens like the Romulans, Vulcans, Klingons, and others are used to these tactics from incidents in their own longer histories, and it’s kind of a universal constant that you need crews to be sure. Same with outright AI’s—everyone’s had some Skynet/Kaylon incident that steered them away from fully independent artificial control.

All that said, it will be interesting to see if Trek lasts another 20 years (let alone another 60) how it deals with real world AI’s playing an ever larger part in our lives in-universe.

Hmm. I vaguely recall that "getting hacked by the Romulans" was an actual thing (maybe even a canonical "actual thing") during the "Archer era." And that this was the genesis (maybe canonically, maybe not) of "prefix codes."

The novels touched on this, correct. One of the complaints people had is that Starfleet computer tech seems more advanced in the 22nd century, and the novels went into Romulan tech taking over Starfleet ships and using them to attack Starfleet or even civilian ships, like cargoships and such.
The rational was that they went back to simpler tech, that was less likely to be controlled/taken over. Think nuBSG, with Galactica not being networked to prevent Cylon take over.
As a safety matter, this less networked system was kept in place by Starfleet, just in case.

 

[Deks]

On the subject of drones, the Prometheus is proof this kind of thing could be possible.

It executed sophisticated and devastating co-ordinated attack manoeuvres with three separate ships entirely under computer control, directed by two clueless Emergency Holographic Doctors.

Obviously the difference is that it was designed for that purpose, and was not facing the most challenging opposition. Century-old Mirandas in a real wartime situation would be a different proposition, even if the computer control would be technically possible.

Honestly, I don't see the problem in using Mirandas like that.
Remember that all SF ships undergo regular upgrades, and even the Miranda's sported latest LCARS UI's in TNG - which likely means upgraded computer systems, power conduits, shields, weapons, etc.

All it would take are software modifications to slave a ship to a computer control from say another ship (or several in case that one is lost).

Control used this method over 100 years before the Dominion War in Disco S2, remember? And our heroes onboard Disco and ENT didn't even try to hack into the main ship, so their option was to destroy it.
A similarly aggressive security system without AI (to prevent hacking) could likely be implemented in the 24th century effortlessly... in which case, the only remaining option for the enemy would be to destroy the control ship - but this would be a losing battle since control of the ships would simply switch over to other ships automatically.

Still, the Dominion was disrupting comms through the combat in Sacrifice of Angels (at least temporarily) so that could potentially be a problem, but not if the ships are simply programmed to continue the assault even in the event of loss of comms.

Anyway, those Miranda's were likely upgraded to similar degree as Lakota was, minus the Quantum Torpedoes, and crew reduced to smaller numbers - enough to run the ship and conduct repairs efficiently.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Trek doesn’t make sense with smaller drones. It’s Napoleonic or early 20th century warfare that was outmoded by the advent of the airplane, yet the Enterprise is not a spacecraft carrier, let alone a dronecraft carrier. Nor are any of its adversaries. Clearly there must be some in-universe reason why larger starships are better in combat.

I agree there must be some reason starships operate the way they do.

Pretty much writing at the time would generally be against drone weapons due to the general fear of them turning against you. Mix that with Starfleet generally wanting to explore in person and Klingons wanting personal honor and glory, it is fairly likely there aren't drone starships in any sizable numbers. There may be very heavy automation on the older starships. If Scotty could get the Enterprise to operate with a crew of three, they can probably get any late 23rd or early 24th century starships combat worthy with a crew of a dozen or two.

This might be a good explanation without having to create a horrific reason why, although nothing says a horrific event did not happen.

Admiral Harriman could have supplied

I'm not sure what this references. Is the ship in your picture from somewhere official/unofficial or is this post meant to be humor?

Anyway, those Miranda's were likely upgraded to similar degree as Lakota was

I would say probably not since Sisko recommended that other ships of the Lakota's class not be upgraded with newer weapons for some reason having to do with more proven tech, though that was not fully explained.

Without being too negative, I think the people who worked on Star Trek just did not think that the general human population would be interested in artificial intelligence, or seemed to hoped not. That leaves fans with either saying that Star Trek has not predicted this, or that there is some reason that Star Trek ships don't use this tech much. Really, it seems like Star Trek would be less adventurous if artificial intelligence could do so many things for the characters, and "The Ultimate Computer" shows this could be the case.

Looking at TOS tech, the idea that communities would simply things to make them easier to use if they do less does not seem like much a stretch. A TOS PADD is a good size for holding and not breaking if dropped, even if it does less than an iPad. If all its does is turn written text into a computer record that would still be able to advance to a much more effective level than it is now. And that could use a form of artificial intelligence, just not one that runs a ship. Of course these are also somewhat military-like settings so that means there would be different priorities from what civilians might be interested in using to determine what they want to use in their lives.

So regarding drone Mirandas, if it got to the point that a ship that was once a major class of the fleet was now a disposable robot ship...well TOS says supposedly that does happen, and supposedly it happens to cargo ships, which the Miranda became...I was going to say that robot Mirandas would kind of ruin the sci-fi rules for Star Trek, but it suddenly seems more possible that I thought. Perhaps they are run for war by having a small crew of 5-7 like a shuttle mission with lots of automation and only artifical intelligence or drones unless the onbopard crew overrides it? Then a Miranda could carry 400 troops but not really have a very big "crew" technically speaking. The crew would be as small as 7 and be taking nearly 400 combatants to a planet to fight. Or maybe the crew will try to take over antoher ship That would make them something like marines

 

[Deks]

I would say probably not since Sisko recommended that other ships of the Lakota's class not be upgraded with newer weapons for some reason having to do with more proven tech, though that was not fully explained.

There is no canonical dialogue which supports this statement.
Sisko never recommended anything pertaining to Miranda or Excelsior class ships. He did on the other hand have a hand in putting Defiant class ships into active service once the structural integrity was patched onboard the Defiant (as we saw a several of those in the Dominion War).

The Miranda's being upgraded make sense because SF upgrades all its ships in active service regularly (major upgrades occur once every 7 odd years if I'm not mistaken, and some smaller ones in between if the ships are near drydocks).

In TNG they featured up to date LCARS and I suspect the ships wouldn't be used in active service if they were sporting 75 year old weapons, shields, etc. (because that would just be plain reckless and stupid - I don't think people would be serving on those ships in the first place if that was the case).

The Lakota being upgraded by the time Season 4 episode 'Paradise Lost' gives us an indication SF took the Dominion threat seriously, and because they had a LOT of Excelsior and Miranda class ships in active service, it was probably easier to give them such upgrades than build new ships from scratch since most of the time this would entail switching out the Warp core for more powerful one, upgraded power conduits, shield generator, and modified phaser turrets.

Honestly, with transporters, the work is relatively easy for simple swap outs, while the older hw can simply be recycled.

Without being too negative, I think the people who worked on Star Trek just did not think that the general human population would be interested in artificial intelligence, or seemed to hoped not. That leaves fans with either saying that Star Trek has not predicted this, or that there is some reason that Star Trek ships don't use this tech much. Really, it seems like Star Trek would be less adventurous if artificial intelligence could do so many things for the characters, and "The Ultimate Computer" shows this could be the case.

I agree on the premise that Trek writers had a bit of a lack of imagination when it came to automation, but I disagree it would make Trek less adventurous.
Good writers make an effort to work with the technology in question and integrate it into a good story.

Since we know SF doesn't want to go 100% with automation, that leaves us with the obvious ways of integrating AI/automation to radically enhance different things such as:
1. Starship construction (this would easily benefit from 100% automation - and can be acomplished via combination of replicators, transporters and tractor beams).
2. Repairs, maintenance and upgrades - Discovery actually added DOT drones to the equation which actually fills up the role of assistive auto-repairs, maintenance and upgrades on the go (the ENT-D was said to be able to self-repair too, so there you go).
Its just that back in the 90-ies, they didn't really see inclusion of antigrav drones as a viable VFX option I imagine - or they never thought about them (but arguably, you don't need them technically, because the ships in 24th century would technically have the ability to repair 'wirelessly' via replicators and transporters for intricate systems).

In cases where the ship suffered damage and automation is not fully functional, the crew would obviously have to step in.

Looking at TOS tech, the idea that communities would simply things to make them easier to use if they do less does not seem like much a stretch. A TOS PADD is a good size for holding and not breaking if dropped, even if it does less than an iPad. If all its does is turn written text into a computer record that would still be able to advance to a much more effective level than it is now. And that could use a form of artificial intelligence, just not one that runs a ship. Of course these are also somewhat military-like settings so that means there would be different priorities from what civilians might be interested in using to determine what they want to use in their lives.

I suspect it depends on the use case scenario.
There's no reason to think the pads in TOS are any less capable than pads we use today... in fact, they'd probably be MORE capable... BUT, we're talking about a ship of exploration which uses specialized tools for different things.
Its possible that they just prefer to set these pads to present a specific data/information to not have to clog it up with other less relevant stuff - since people evidently work in specific departments.

So regarding drone Mirandas, if it got to the point that a ship that was once a major class of the fleet was now a disposable robot ship...well TOS says supposedly that does happen, and supposedly it happens to cargo ships, which the Miranda became...I was going to say that robot Mirandas would kind of ruin the sci-fi rules for Star Trek, but it suddenly seems more possible that I thought. Perhaps they are run for war by having a small crew of 5-7 like a shuttle mission with lots of automation and only artifical intelligence or drones unless the onbopard crew overrides it? Then a Miranda could carry 400 troops but not really have a very big "crew" technically speaking. The crew would be as small as 7 and be taking nearly 400 combatants to a planet to fight. Or maybe the crew will try to take over antoher ship That would make them something like marines

As we saw in TNG, the Miranda's were still crewed ships - and there's no reason to think they weren't continued to be manned by living crews during Ds9.

They were simply upgraded with modern technology to make them viable in modern times because SF had so many of them in active service it seems - but either way, SF ships are designed to last 200 years at least... so, why would you have a ship in active service that doesn't have modern technology at its disposal?

During the Dominion War, I imagine that families on ships notion was rescinded for their own safety... most ships experienced a downsizing in ships crew compliment as a result, meaning that only SF officers would now be seen on those ships (at least while the Dominion War was in effect and on ships in active combat).

Apart from this, I would agree with the premise that despite the hw upgrades to older ships, they may have relied on more automation than more modern vessels during the war, but sadly, we have little to no confirmation that SF turned them into proverbial drone ships to such an extent even during the war.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'm not sure what this references. Is the ship in your picture from somewhere official/unofficial or is this post meant to be humor?

Evidently you haven't read Peter David's short story in Enterprise Logs. With the exception of the "Tuesday" reference to Generations, all the allusions in that paragraph reference that opus.

 

[Dukhat]

Honestly, I don't see the problem in using Mirandas like that.
Remember that all SF ships undergo regular upgrades, and even the Miranda's sported latest LCARS UI's in TNG - which likely means upgraded computer systems, power conduits, shields, weapons, etc.

All it would take are software modifications to slave a ship to a computer control from say another ship (or several in case that one is lost).

The main problem I have with the idea of Mirandas being drones is that it makes Starfleet look even weaker than they already were.

Let's analyze the Federation fleet.

1. Galaxy class: Only 4 or 5 of these ships were ever seen on screen at the same time, as opposed to the multitudes of other ship classes. This implies that very little production was done on the Galaxy class and not many of them are around in general (especially since at least three of them had been destroyed prior to the war anyway.)

2. Nebula class: seen extremely rarely. There might have been only one in the fleet.

3. Defiant class: While we see a couple in "A Call to Arms" and "Message in a Bottle" (VOY), once the actual showdown starts at the start of DS9 season 6, the only Defiant class ship we see is the Defiant herself. This was done to made sure that the audience didn't confuse some other random Defiant class ship with the hero ship, but the result makes it look like Starfleet did not mass produce these ships either.

4. Excelsior class: Tons of these, which imply that they are ships that have lasted for the last 80 years, and while they might have been upgraded over time, they are wholly obsolete against the more advanced Dominion/Cardassian/Breen forces.

5. Miranda class: Ditto above.

6. Akira class: One of three FC ships ported over from the film, but were low-poly and were only used in the far background. But at least they are somewhat contemporary to the time period and there are a lot of them.

7. Saber class: Ditto above.

8. Steamrunner class: Ditto above.

9. Federation fighters: Dialogue from other episodes suggests these fighters are old (since the Maquis, who scrounge up older ships, used them regularly.)


Imagine if DS9 wasn't able to use the FC ships. The whole fleet would have been made up primarily of ships that were far outdated in comparison to their enemies. While they were only able to use them in the FB, at least it made the fleet look somewhat more believable. But still, they seemed quite outmatched. The thing is that the DS9 VFX people didn't care about the ships themselves. They just needed padding out for the fleet. So the idea of the Mirandas as drones undoubtedly did not cross their minds.

 

[Deks]

The main problem I have with the idea of Mirandas being drones is that it makes Starfleet look even weaker than they already were.

Let's analyze the Federation fleet.

1. Galaxy class: Only 4 or 5 of these ships were ever seen on screen at the same time, as opposed to the multitudes of other ship classes. This implies that very little production was done on the Galaxy class and not many of them are around in general (especially since at least three of them had been destroyed prior to the war anyway.)

2. Nebula class: seen extremely rarely. There might have been only one in the fleet.

3. Defiant class: While we see a couple in "A Call to Arms" and "Message in a Bottle" (VOY), once the actual showdown starts at the start of DS9 season 6, the only Defiant class ship we see is the Defiant herself. This was done to made sure that the audience didn't confuse some other random Defiant class ship with the hero ship, but the result makes it look like Starfleet did not mass produce these ships either.

4. Excelsior class: Tons of these, which imply that they are ships that have lasted for the last 80 years, and while they might have been upgraded over time, they are wholly obsolete against the more advanced Dominion/Cardassian/Breen forces.

5. Miranda class: Ditto above.

6. Akira class: One of three FC ships ported over from the film, but were low-poly and were only used in the far background. But at least they are somewhat contemporary to the time period and there are a lot of them.

7. Saber class: Ditto above.

8. Steamrunner class: Ditto above.

9. Federation fighters: Dialogue from other episodes suggests these fighters are old (since the Maquis, who scrounge up older ships, used them regularly.)


Imagine if DS9 wasn't able to use the FC ships. The whole fleet would have been made up primarily of ships that were far outdated in comparison to their enemies. While they were only able to use them in the FB, at least it made the fleet look somewhat more believable. But still, they seemed quite outmatched. The thing is that the DS9 VFX people didn't care about the ships themselves. They just needed padding out for the fleet. So the idea of the Mirandas as drones undoubtedly did not cross their minds.

The problem with making statements based on purely visual effects from the series is that what we saw also doesn't mesh with the dialogue.
In Sacrifice of the Angels episode, we heard of 'galaxy wings' and the total UFP fleet was comprised of 600 ships - but we only ever saw a few dozen on screen at any given time.

As such, I'm inclined to think that the dialogue is more accurate than the VFX representation in terms of actual numbers.

TNG and VOY, and even DS9 sometimes had ships firing phasers from all sorts of ports as opposed the actual phaser arcs or torpedo tubes.
In short, VFX in Trek shouldn't always be taken at face value because the dialogue is probably more what matters.

 

[Dukhat]

The problem with making statements based on purely visual effects from the series is that what we saw also doesn't mesh with the dialogue.
In Sacrifice of the Angels episode, we heard of 'galaxy wings' and the total UFP fleet was comprised of 600 ships - but we only ever saw a few dozen on screen at any given time.

As such, I'm inclined to think that the dialogue is more accurate than the VFX representation in terms of actual numbers.

TNG and VOY, and even DS9 sometimes had ships firing phasers from all sorts of ports as opposed the actual phaser arcs or torpedo tubes.
In short, VFX in Trek shouldn't always be taken at face value because the dialogue is probably more what matters.

Sure, and if DS9 were ever remastered, they could change all those ships to other ship and it wouldn't affect the dialogue at all. The thing is, until and unless that happens, we have to take what we see on screen as literal, despite the dialogue. In TNG's "The Game," the dialogue states that Wesley Crusher arrived on the Enterprise by a shuttle, but the establishing shot shows stock footage of an Oberth. Are we to believe that an Oberth class starship is now a 'shuttle' because the dialogue says so?

 

[Tomalak]

If we're critiquing the use of old ships, the Klingons are right there!

We just have to accept that an old design isn't unusual in Star Trek and doesn't necessarily mean a ship is obsolete.

 

[Dukhat]

If we're critiquing the use of old ships, the Klingons are right there!

But they are old ships, despite whether they are obsolete or not. They're the result of VFX not making newer designs.