I think space fighters are stupid because of the aforementioned medium issue so not a flavor of Trek I would be interested in.
Why Didn't Starfleet Command Use Starfighters? | The Templin Institute
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
- Start date
I guess that's where you and I differ in interpretation.
I don't mind it, we've seen it in ST.DS9 and ST.DISCO.
I'm sure we'll see more of it moving foreward.
I think it depends what you define as a "fighter".
Glorified single-purpose shuttlepods with attitude ala a "space F-14" or Cal Hudson's fighters... yeah, too limited and specialized for Starfleet doctorine, and that's even if you assume they work.
Combat-orientated but still multi-role platforms starting at runabout-sized up to the Raider or even standard KBoP, Hideki and Jem'hadar "bug"... no problem.
According to "The Search", Starfleet has a reputation for not deploying pure warships. Whether that reputation is in any way deserved is debatable. But if there's something to Kira's sarcastic quip, then the existence of the "combat-oriented" platforms must swing quite some ways towards "multi-role". Could something still exist between a Defiant and a Miranda, and not be a black project or an asset so rarely deployed that it doesn't mar Starfleet's squeaky-clean image? Or are "fighting super-runabouts" very much a thing and Kira's caricature take on Starfleet should not be a consideration to begin with?
I'm fine with space fighters even in the apparently unavoidable interpretation where they are boats rather than helicopters let alone jets. Small boats have made a difference in many a past war, and indeed those fought in my native Baltic have been decided by them often enough. As long as the big ships fight under Horatio Hornblower rules, it's perfectly legit for a gunboat to pack a heavy naval cannon, albeit just a single one, and to blast holes in capital ships with that. The boat simply has to accept that it can't maneuver worth anything and can't evade return fire; that it will be sunk with the first hit of said fire; and that what it has on its side, beside numbers thanks to relative ease of construction, is the ability to use terrain.
Space fighters seldom get to hide amidst the spatial equivalent of islands or coastlines. Also, we don't hear of the underlying structure of space having an effect in fighter battles - yet that structure is very much there, with rare subspace sandbars but an apparently common effect of warp becoming extremely slow close to stars. Many a fight takes place at impulse. Possibly this is the saving grace that would allow for small craft to triumph, including ones as small as the DS9 attack fighters? In deep space, a starship can use her vastly superior warp engines to choose engagement distance and (as per "Elaan of Troyius" and the like) to gain superior agility. Inside star systems, she cannot - so fighters can be built without warp engines, or with feeble, transit-only ones, and the power can be poured into those analogues of long-barrel 24-pounders.
The fighting boats of yore came in all sizes, too. A dinghy with a miniature mortar or bomb aboard could do its bit, but a galley of fifty men with cannon, carronade and mortar could wreak havoc against a sailing ship stuck in the shallows and deprived of wind by the nearby islands. Trek can go pick its preferred analogue or a dozen there.
Timo Saloniemi
I'm fine with space fighters even in the apparently unavoidable interpretation where they are boats rather than helicopters let alone jets. Small boats have made a difference in many a past war, and indeed those fought in my native Baltic have been decided by them often enough. As long as the big ships fight under Horatio Hornblower rules, it's perfectly legit for a gunboat to pack a heavy naval cannon, albeit just a single one, and to blast holes in capital ships with that. The boat simply has to accept that it can't maneuver worth anything and can't evade return fire; that it will be sunk with the first hit of said fire; and that what it has on its side, beside numbers thanks to relative ease of construction, is the ability to use terrain.
Space fighters seldom get to hide amidst the spatial equivalent of islands or coastlines. Also, we don't hear of the underlying structure of space having an effect in fighter battles - yet that structure is very much there, with rare subspace sandbars but an apparently common effect of warp becoming extremely slow close to stars. Many a fight takes place at impulse. Possibly this is the saving grace that would allow for small craft to triumph, including ones as small as the DS9 attack fighters? In deep space, a starship can use her vastly superior warp engines to choose engagement distance and (as per "Elaan of Troyius" and the like) to gain superior agility. Inside star systems, she cannot - so fighters can be built without warp engines, or with feeble, transit-only ones, and the power can be poured into those analogues of long-barrel 24-pounders.
The fighting boats of yore came in all sizes, too. A dinghy with a miniature mortar or bomb aboard could do its bit, but a galley of fifty men with cannon, carronade and mortar could wreak havoc against a sailing ship stuck in the shallows and deprived of wind by the nearby islands. Trek can go pick its preferred analogue or a dozen there.
Timo Saloniemi
For my part, I've always liked the idea that Starfleet builds a small core of dedicated warships (like dreadnoughts) if it needs a specific tactical advantage, and I think that view makes sense in the context of fighting wars with many of its neighbors. Having military resources doesn't intrinsically make the Federation militaristic, although it's been the focal point for a number of stories focusing on that problem. I also like the idea hinted at by FASA that the Andorians, being the most martial of the core members, would have a larger percentage of crew serving in Starfleet and perhaps on such vessels. FASA had several ships comprising the Blue Fleet, made of ships with Andorian design influences and mainly Andorian crews.
I think the bulk of the fleet is indeed designed more around flexible, multi mission options with the ability to change as needs dictate. The years between the late movie era and the late TNG era, when the Klingon Empire had evolved into a loose ally and the Romulans had placed themselves in political isolation, would be an ideal time to experiment with a heavier emphasis on explorers and other multi role possibilities.
I think the bulk of the fleet is indeed designed more around flexible, multi mission options with the ability to change as needs dictate. The years between the late movie era and the late TNG era, when the Klingon Empire had evolved into a loose ally and the Romulans had placed themselves in political isolation, would be an ideal time to experiment with a heavier emphasis on explorers and other multi role possibilities.
In the early days, certainly up to the Archer presidency I imagine that was true.
However, by the mid-24th there's no way that new builds would be commissioned under as militaristic and aggressive name as a "dreadnought". Older, slower hulls that can't keep up with the fleet that would have been big enough to qualify in earlier eras might be deployed as short-range "planetary defense vessels", but even then they're probably mid-size by the prevailing standard of the era.
Then again, Starfleet can still build a Battleship as long as it chooses to call it an Explorer.
"Yesterday's Enterprise" might be more revealing there than at first meets the eye. Quite possibly NCC-1701-D is about 98% dedicated badass combat vessel by design, and Starfleet in the one timeline merely leaves the troop barracks (or, indeed, fighter hangars!) inside the saucer uninstalled and plops some laboratory modules, arboreta and malls in there and carpets everything over.
Timo Saloniemi
"Yesterday's Enterprise" might be more revealing there than at first meets the eye. Quite possibly NCC-1701-D is about 98% dedicated badass combat vessel by design, and Starfleet in the one timeline merely leaves the troop barracks (or, indeed, fighter hangars!) inside the saucer uninstalled and plops some laboratory modules, arboreta and malls in there and carpets everything over.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes and no.
IMO, Explorers are more correctly a shorthand for "heavy battlecruiser" as they are multi-role "cruising vessels" (ships designed mainly to operate solo) that are heavily armed enough to go toe-to-toe with most combat vessels.
On the other hand, battleships (particularly the Age of Sail "line of battle ship") on the other hand are "fleet vessels" (ships designed to mainly operate within a formation with close support) that are dedicated to going toe-to-toe with most combat vessels.
...yet IStarfeetHO they are synonymous with Battleship instead, apparently, what with the E-D being both. Or, actually, only ever being a Battleship on screen, and saving the Explorer bit to backstage books and the like.
There seems to be a bit of a doctrinal divide between Kirk's ship and Picard's there. Kirk's crew goes to panic when their ship is pummeled with hits, and sometimes there is talk of narrowly avoiding death. Yet Picard often calmly leans back in his chair when his ship is being bombarded, as if there were a relative rather than merely absolute difference in the armor levels of the two ships. A bit like, you know, between cruisers and battleships.
Timo Saloniemi
I agree with you about the Galaxy being relatively superior to the "heavy cruiser" Connie at least defensively, however even when they are described as a "battleship" they are till acting as a solo "cruising vessel" and don't have weapons that are objectively "bigger" than the standard (if anything their weapons are less effective than the mainline Galaxy), rather than say the phaser lance of AGT!Enterprise which does map as "battleship armament".
Not sure 'bout that: battleships are characterized by parity armament (parity with peers but also with the armor of the ship herself), while the lance goes above and beyond.
And while battleships and first-rates ITRW seldom sailed solo, Starfleet doesn't seem to believe in formations to begin with. So it's difficult to tell.
Timo Saloniemi
And while battleships and first-rates ITRW seldom sailed solo, Starfleet doesn't seem to believe in formations to begin with. So it's difficult to tell.
Timo Saloniemi
StarFleet needs vessels that are able to explore by themselves, fight by themselves, and can still work well in groups.
They don't need vessels that are so specialized that they create a critical vulnerability that the enemy can exploit.
Even the "Defiant Class" was able to do basic exploration and science missions, the scale of the science wasn't up to Galaxy Class standards, but it can do some of it on a smaller scale.
Not every place worth exploring deserves sending the Galaxy Class towards when you can send smaller probes, then eventually smaller vessels like the Defiant Class to do preliminary exploring and analysis before you summon the bigger vessels like the Galaxy Class towards.
They don't need vessels that are so specialized that they create a critical vulnerability that the enemy can exploit.
Even the "Defiant Class" was able to do basic exploration and science missions, the scale of the science wasn't up to Galaxy Class standards, but it can do some of it on a smaller scale.
Not every place worth exploring deserves sending the Galaxy Class towards when you can send smaller probes, then eventually smaller vessels like the Defiant Class to do preliminary exploring and analysis before you summon the bigger vessels like the Galaxy Class towards.
Or then the E-D explores first and calls in "science vessels" afterwards, as also pretty often happens. After all, "things worth exploring" generally don't advertise themselves and often require a starship to make orbit and send an away team; bold frontline units would be the first to such frays.
But smaller vessels preceding happens a lot, too - it's just that those operations also appear to be of the "we stumbled onto something actually interesting" type, in which the bigger ships are called in to sort out the resulting crises.
I gather Starfleet is wary of establishing a hierarchy of ships since its primary business case is in the weird and the surprising. "Pure warships" might still be a starting point, with science sprinkled on - perhaps in certain eras, perhaps for a certain percentage of the fleet. And the Galaxy could well be one of those, being a battleship and fightercarrier by built-in capacity, and then abusing those capacities into making her a big and mean explorer.
Timo Saloniemi
But smaller vessels preceding happens a lot, too - it's just that those operations also appear to be of the "we stumbled onto something actually interesting" type, in which the bigger ships are called in to sort out the resulting crises.
I gather Starfleet is wary of establishing a hierarchy of ships since its primary business case is in the weird and the surprising. "Pure warships" might still be a starting point, with science sprinkled on - perhaps in certain eras, perhaps for a certain percentage of the fleet. And the Galaxy could well be one of those, being a battleship and fightercarrier by built-in capacity, and then abusing those capacities into making her a big and mean explorer.
Timo Saloniemi
Just imagine how much exploring can be done via deploying all your shuttles at once you reach a star system and have each shuttle visit each planet and moon and do some analysis along with probes.
Then the StarShip can sit around a central point and wait for results to feed into the parent StarShip.
Then the StarShip can sit around a central point and wait for results to feed into the parent StarShip.
I gather fairly little exploration is done that way because the results aren't of any interest. Starfleet doesn't want to know what planets look like - merely whether they have resources worth coveting or protecting, threat forces present, or signs of suspicious activity. Sensor sweeps from afar ought to suffice. In one case out of 50, it might turn out to be worthwhile to send a team to make contact or pick some flowers or blast a Klingon listening post, in which case the starship herself can do the honors, bringing her greater fire support and situational awareness capabilities to direct play.
The scans can then be studied at leisure, and if there's something of additional interest there, a mission optimized to exploit the findings can be organized. Civilian prospectors might move in on Starfleet cues, or with Starfleet permission, it being too risky to venture out before a starship has done so. Or then cooperative civilians already swarm all over the galaxy and Starfleet thus doesn't need to.
Otherwise, I'd expect to see some of what you describe, and I never do. Starfleet's brand of "exploring" is confirmed as glossing over, time and again, with the occasional backfiring further establishing that the glossing over has previously taken place. All of which is partially to be blamed on the very might of the starships, which really don't need to mind... Well, pretty much anything. Thus, no obsession with detailed charts or surveys.
Timo Saloniemi
The scans can then be studied at leisure, and if there's something of additional interest there, a mission optimized to exploit the findings can be organized. Civilian prospectors might move in on Starfleet cues, or with Starfleet permission, it being too risky to venture out before a starship has done so. Or then cooperative civilians already swarm all over the galaxy and Starfleet thus doesn't need to.
Otherwise, I'd expect to see some of what you describe, and I never do. Starfleet's brand of "exploring" is confirmed as glossing over, time and again, with the occasional backfiring further establishing that the glossing over has previously taken place. All of which is partially to be blamed on the very might of the starships, which really don't need to mind... Well, pretty much anything. Thus, no obsession with detailed charts or surveys.
Timo Saloniemi
Similar to my observations on the OP, I think that runabouts would be better option, at least for starships like the Galaxy class and it's successors that are large enough to accommodate 3+ hulls, although larger shuttles like the Type-7, Type 9A Cargo Shuttle, and even more so the Type-11 and the Type-17 (Argo-type) of the TNG-M era would be a reasonable option if the results are likely to be helpful.
FWIW, the Hansens looked for the Borg in a ship quite a bit larger than a runabout; the various TNG scientists used Oberths bigger still. We don't quite know what sort of hardware and facilities it takes to hunt down Space Bigfoot, but it might not be much. These independent surveyors would probably be using the bigger ships for range and endurance first and foremost.
Craft operating out of a starship wouldn't need to mind range and endurance. Kirk liked to survey by beaming down half a dozen people without as much as a backpack between them. Perhaps the best way to deploy survey teams for an all-out systemwide survey would be to give each team member a barebones pod of DIS S2 ilk, or at most pack the half a dozen in a space van no bigger than the TOS one after all?
Runabouts are good for Sisko, who needs the range, and occasionally the firepower. Would they have something else to offer to these teams that generally are happy to take stock of a planet by waving a tricorder?
Timo Saloniemi
Craft operating out of a starship wouldn't need to mind range and endurance. Kirk liked to survey by beaming down half a dozen people without as much as a backpack between them. Perhaps the best way to deploy survey teams for an all-out systemwide survey would be to give each team member a barebones pod of DIS S2 ilk, or at most pack the half a dozen in a space van no bigger than the TOS one after all?
Runabouts are good for Sisko, who needs the range, and occasionally the firepower. Would they have something else to offer to these teams that generally are happy to take stock of a planet by waving a tricorder?
Timo Saloniemi
Pretty much.
Range and endurance are the most obvious insolvable limitations of smaller auxiliary vessels like the standard fighters, shuttlepods and smaller shuttles like the Type 9 (less so the Type-F, 6 and 8 though).
The lack of survival gear and provisions carried by the typical Starfleet away team is partly a separate issue and IMO even more nonsensical given that the average beat cop carries more equipment than they do.
Accommodations, provisions, storage space for equipment, long range communications and sensors... Now, admittedly the smaller shuttles provide this to extent, so the question is more why don't Starfleet consider these things to be worth having?
I gather "transporter". That is, getting a tent or a tank is as simple as extending one's hand (and then flipping open the communicator and saying a few words, but that's minimal extra hassle), so there's no point in carrying one along.
In contrast, a team utilizing a small craft would need to pack up rather serious piles of gear, for the absurdish contingencies that may arise on an average away mission. In general, such a team might be much worse off than a starship-based one, especially when threat forces isolate it from further support. A starship suffering from transporter jamming is at least there to try and do something about it. A lone shuttle that didn't remember to pack trimccoyium or polaric drills or duraweed is out of luck for good.
Timo Saloniemi
I would not necessarily agree that Star Fleet Command did not ever use fighter-type weapons in space.
However, I would agree mostly with this quote:
For a fighter-type weapon to operate successfully in space; that is to accomplish its purpose of attacking the enemy, engineers would have to maximize its combat advantages over other types of vessels at the expense of all other types of advantages.
One obvious advantage would be to reduce unnecessary size and mass; that is any volume and mass that does not enhance but rather detracts from combat performance. That does not mean that fighter-type weapons would need to be small in size and mass. It just means that they would be smaller and less massive than they would be if they were also equipped with unnecessary things that would detract from their only purpose.
Constructing a very large combat vessel solely for the purpose of combat, however, would seem to go against Star Fleet design philosophy. While there could be political reasons for this, there are more likely practical, tactical reasons for not doing this. For example, size matters when it comes to targetting and evading. Concentrating resources by constructing a single very large weapon would invite a concentrated attack. Constructing numerous smaller weapons would have a marked increase in survivability and still possess the ability to jointly concentrate thier attack potential to a single target. In addition, it seems to be a long-standing philosophy that Star Fleet vessels must support a crew with its mandate to explore, help others, police borders, etc., effectively trading away combat effectiveness for other types of advantages that do not appear in fighter-type weapons.
Starships like the U.S.S. Enterprise are full of unnecessary—for combat—space and mass in order to make long periods of time in space bearable for a crew: things such as bedrooms, toilets, lounges, kitchens, machine shops, cargo bays, etc.—things that you would never find on a true fighter-type weapon. Of course, the Enterprise has energy and combat systems too, in order to defend itself and its crew, but it has the added disadvantages of increased size and mass relative to its own energy and combat systems. As a result, even when optimized for combat at Red Alert, the Enterprise could hardly be considered a true fighter-type weapon system.
Another unnecessary thing for a true fighter-type weapon is a pilot and/or crew that sits in the weapon itself. The best fighter-type weapons that would have truly maximized their attack potential would not require a pilot to physically accompany the fighter. They could be operated remotely or even independently. It would be quite arrogant of us to believe that a human pilot physically present in a fighter could do better than Star Trek computers, such as the old M-5 multitronic system.
Considering the design philosophies above, we could safely argue that Star Fleet Command certainly has used “starfighters” almost from its beginning.
They were called photon torpedoes.
However, I would agree mostly with this quote:
For a fighter-type weapon to operate successfully in space; that is to accomplish its purpose of attacking the enemy, engineers would have to maximize its combat advantages over other types of vessels at the expense of all other types of advantages.
One obvious advantage would be to reduce unnecessary size and mass; that is any volume and mass that does not enhance but rather detracts from combat performance. That does not mean that fighter-type weapons would need to be small in size and mass. It just means that they would be smaller and less massive than they would be if they were also equipped with unnecessary things that would detract from their only purpose.
Constructing a very large combat vessel solely for the purpose of combat, however, would seem to go against Star Fleet design philosophy. While there could be political reasons for this, there are more likely practical, tactical reasons for not doing this. For example, size matters when it comes to targetting and evading. Concentrating resources by constructing a single very large weapon would invite a concentrated attack. Constructing numerous smaller weapons would have a marked increase in survivability and still possess the ability to jointly concentrate thier attack potential to a single target. In addition, it seems to be a long-standing philosophy that Star Fleet vessels must support a crew with its mandate to explore, help others, police borders, etc., effectively trading away combat effectiveness for other types of advantages that do not appear in fighter-type weapons.
Starships like the U.S.S. Enterprise are full of unnecessary—for combat—space and mass in order to make long periods of time in space bearable for a crew: things such as bedrooms, toilets, lounges, kitchens, machine shops, cargo bays, etc.—things that you would never find on a true fighter-type weapon. Of course, the Enterprise has energy and combat systems too, in order to defend itself and its crew, but it has the added disadvantages of increased size and mass relative to its own energy and combat systems. As a result, even when optimized for combat at Red Alert, the Enterprise could hardly be considered a true fighter-type weapon system.
Another unnecessary thing for a true fighter-type weapon is a pilot and/or crew that sits in the weapon itself. The best fighter-type weapons that would have truly maximized their attack potential would not require a pilot to physically accompany the fighter. They could be operated remotely or even independently. It would be quite arrogant of us to believe that a human pilot physically present in a fighter could do better than Star Trek computers, such as the old M-5 multitronic system.
Considering the design philosophies above, we could safely argue that Star Fleet Command certainly has used “starfighters” almost from its beginning.
They were called photon torpedoes.
Similar threads
