Why the Defiant never "Caught On"?

[Tomalak]

The Federation would also have to consider the possibility of large numbers of Defiant-class warships eventually being mothballed in the event that the Dominion invaders would be defeated and the war ended. What then? If large numbers of Defiant-class warships had been produced, Starfleet would wind up with a large number of dunsels on its hands. So, what would the Federation do? Hollow-out an asteroid and store abandoned warships inside? Decommission most/all of these ships? (What if they were needed again to repel a Borg invasion?) And even if the Federation did mothball these little space-tanks inside "a great rock in space", Starfleet would have to protect and secure these crown jewels lest they be stolen or otherwise attacked while unmanned. To put it bluntly, would you want Roger Korby to have a chance to infiltrate Starfleet and get his hands on one of these bluejays?

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Surely they'd be treated exactly as the Defiant was - as an ancillary ship? The Defiant wasn't an independent ship, it was attached to the station, apparently spending most of the time docked rather than on patrol.

After the war you just dish out the surviving ships to various starbases and space stations across the Federation. They are useful deterrents, especially in other remote sectors. That way you don't have trained personnel sitting around doing nothing on these warships in peacetime.

Alternatively, you retire those ageing Miranda-class ships, and replace them with Defiants. They need smaller crews, are armed to the teeth, and seem competent at general scientific tasks - the Defiant was assigned to a few missions of that type over the years.

 

[MacLeod]

Unless the Defiant itself were in charge of the operation to recover the Prometheus, it wouldn't be their job to do any hailing. If the Akira class, or the second Defiant class, were in command, they'd be the ones doing any hailing.

There's no real reason to send out a message, "Hello, just calling to let you know we're from Deep Space 9."

True, but from a viewers point of view it would have been a nice little crossover.

 

[Wingsley]

While I agree with Tomalak's view that it would be a good idea to disperse Defiant-class warships among Federation bases and other major installations for defense, and it would make a great deal of sense to assign temporary crews to a rotating roster of starship personnel to reserve warships like this, I'm not sure that Defiant-class warships would necessarily replace Miranda-class starships. As we saw in TNG's "Unnatural Selection" and "Night Terrors" Mirnadas (or Miranda-like ship types) were being used for a variety of non-military uses on a (presumably) routine basis. Old Federation starships of this type may be more flexible in their non-military usefulness to routine Federation business than a dedicated warship.

 

[publiusr]

I could have swore that I saw a Sovie' in the distance behind DS-9 in one brief scene...

 

[Hugh Mann]

I could have swore that I saw a Sovie' in the distance behind DS-9 in one brief scene...

According to Memory Alpha, the Sovereign class appeared in LCARS graphics during three DS9 episodes ("Sacrifice of Angels," "Tears of the Prophets," and "What You Leave Behind)". This image appeared in all three:

It's only the forward saucer section as you can see, but it's clear enough to positively identify the vessel as Sovereign class. I think we may be able to assume therefore that these vessels were probably present at these engagements, but were simply not seen on-screen (save for these images).

 

[GulGoneCrazy]

I think that there is no need to worry about defiant ,they will be produced in much larger numbers when Borg decides to pay a visit to Alpha quadrant again.Defiant is a warship built to fight threats like Borg but it proved good against Dominion forces as well.So it is multi purpose vessel and relatively easy & cheap to built ,so there will be a lot of them as soon new threat for federation emerges.I believe there is around 40 Defiants left ,but a lot of them is about to be constructed in incoming times.

The Sovereign class vessel is extremely complicated to built ,they require special technology.So i believe that there is around 10 Sovereigns left to perform flagship duties while shipyards produce more reliable and cheaper vessels.

 

[The Badger]

Defiant is a warship built to fight threats like Borg but it proved good against Dominion forces as well.So it is multi purpose vessel...

I'd have do disagree with you on that point. Excellent at fighting, capable of some surveys, and that seems to be it. It's small size rule it out for cargo or personnel transport, for example.

...and relatively easy & cheap to built...

This is an idea a lot of people have put forward, but I've never heard a reason behind such a view, apart from 'the Defiant is small, therefore it must be cheap and easy to build'. Well, a Porsche 911 is smaller than a Ford Transit, but I'm fairly sure it's not cheaper.

Furthermore, we know the Defiant itself was extremely difficult to put together, so much so that the miracle workers of Starfleet Engineering gave up on it. Even when assigned to DS9, it needed a hell of a lot of extra work to get it going. Now, as the prototype you'd expect some teething problems, and production models would undoubtedly be easier, but given the emphasis on how difficult it all was, I can't see it being an easy task.

And again, going back to the DS9 Technical Manual, the Defiant class requires specialist materials and construction techniques, that take a long time.

 

[Timo]

Also,

they will be produced in much larger numbers when Borg decides to pay a visit to Alpha quadrant again

...but only if they are any good against the Borg. And ST:FC doesn't exactly convince me that they would be.

And again, going back to the DS9 Technical Manual, the Defiant class requires specialist materials and construction techniques, that take a long time.

The one argument against that is the ease with which the Mirror Universe folks built their own Defiant. That didn't take much time... Both "Through the Looking Glass" where Smiley supposedly got the specs and "Shattered Mirror" where we saw the ship were stardate-free episodes in the middle of long streaks of stardate-free episodes, but the process can't have taken much more than a year.

However, time may proceed at different rates in the different universes, so an interval of years in the regular one may amount to several years in the Mirror one. There are no Mirror-internal references to the passage of time in these episodes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

In any case, it was my understanding that the main engineering difficulty with the Defiant was that it's power profile was RIDICULOUSLY overpowered for it's weight class, which implied the early prototype that Sisko had was essentially a flying bomb, which could barely keep itself from bleeding through the cloaking device, even when doing silent running.

One has to give Chief O'Brian credit where it's due, though, for managing to make it work and, apparently, improving and stabilizing the design, which no doubt encouraged more of the things to be built.

Overall, this seems to come down to a couple of points.

-Construction difficulties- Not much of a surprise, given how much power is being crammed into such a small form factor. I don't have the relevant specs, but I imagine the Defiant is small enough to (barely) fit in the Enterprise's main shuttlebay, and yet, the two ships are probably comparable in terms of tactical power. It's really no surprise the Defiant has unique construction difficulties--It's the only starship I've noticed that has explicit (and effective) ablative shielding, for example, which I imagine can't possibly be easy to manage, given the kind of things one would need to defend against in the even of a deflector shield failure (exotic energies, antimatter, etc). In fact, I might even go so far as to say that the ablative shielding may be the limiting factor, forcing both the small size and the limited run, given that, if it WASN'T made of exotic materials, then it would be a standard starship feature and not something exclusive to a tiny warship class.

-Related to the first point, it may be possible that Starfleet desires to keep the production run of the Defiant limited in order to keep it cutting edge. I'm not sure I've ever seen one of this ships with an NCC designation, if I'm not mistaken, they've all been NX models so far. That may be an indication that they want to the Defiant to always be 'experimental' in that it's always going to have the latest offensive and defensive gear and that new models are always going to have the fanciest designs. As such, the class may never 'stabilize' and will always be a testbed model, which isn't the worst idea from a cold equation standpoint, since, if the worst should happen, the Defiant only has a crew of a couple of dozen, as opposed to a full on starship with a crew of hundreds...

-Design philosophy- The Defiant is a single purpose ship, which Starfleet seems to have some resistance to, preferring their starships to be at least somewhat modular and adept at nearly any task put to it. While the Defiant is certainly great at tactical tasks, and possibly a bit of surveillance here and here, that's about it. I would certainly hesitate to assign it for many peacetime exploration/tasks, as it's design and philosophy would send entirely the wrong message to other races, diplomatically speaking. Especially as compared to classes like the Galaxy, which, while heavily armed, were obviously primarily designed for a more peaceful purpose, even if said purpose was eventually shown to be a bit too naive, given the events of later seasons of TNG and DS9 (namely, the Borg and the Dominion).

So while I'm sure the Defiant class is certainly something that Starfleet won't allow to lie fallow, I'm also not sure we'll ever see it in large numbers, but I'm more than willing to be wrong, as I'm just speculating...

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure I've ever seen one of this ships with an NCC designation, if I'm not mistaken, they've all been NX models so far.

The Valiant from the episode by the same name had an NCC registry (as did another Valiant mentioned in an Okudagram in ST:Nemesis, although there's no particular reason to think that this would be a Defiant class vessel, other than the precedent of one such vessel already having been succeeded by a namesake/classmate).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

The Sao Paulo was an NCC as well.

 

[Ian Keldon]

I think that there is no need to worry about defiant ,they will be produced in much larger numbers when Borg decides to pay a visit to Alpha quadrant again.Defiant is a warship built to fight threats like Borg but it proved good against Dominion forces as well.So it is multi purpose vessel and relatively easy & cheap to built ,so there will be a lot of them as soon new threat for federation emerges.I believe there is around 40 Defiants left ,but a lot of them is about to be constructed in incoming times.

The Sovereign class vessel is extremely complicated to built ,they require special technology.So i believe that there is around 10 Sovereigns left to perform flagship duties while shipyards produce more reliable and cheaper vessels.

Problem with that is that, per Sternbach, the Sovereigns were meant to be the new "workhorse" class, replacing the Excelsiors as they retired.

 

[Timo]

In the real world, many a workhorse design has been followed up by a "successor" with plenty of bells and whistles - and then the successor has been quietly discontinued, leaving the predecessor to serve on. The Seawolf and Virginia SSNs were overengineered for replacing good old Los Angeles in the post-cold-war environment. OTOH, the penetrating abilities of the B-1 never were sufficient to allow the sort of strikes the old B-52 would be incapable of, so the entire doctrine was changed in favor of continuing B-52 ops. Something similar might yet happen with the Excelsiors and the Sovereigns.

OTOH, it may be just a matter of time. Give a decade or two more, and the Excelsiors may start bowing out, and hundreds if not thousands of Sovereigns will take their place.

As regards "flagship duties", the E-E never was credited with those. For all we know, she indeed is a workhorse, a run-of-the-mill vessel, as befits a ship quite a bit smaller than the E-D. Perhaps Picard got "demoted" to the command of such a humble ship because he screwed up his E-D command and lost that prestigious ship?

We never got explicitly told that a Sovereign would be difficult or slow to build. LaForge boasts on her being "the most advanced", but that's just his pride talking: the aspects on which the design is advanced may be unrelated to construction difficulties or even to practical performance.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Santaman]

Russians usually make TWO successors in case one fails, like with the Kirov and Slava classes, one is the new tech untested kind, the other one build on stuff they know, might be starfleet does this as well...

 

[Tomalak]

Also,

they will be produced in much larger numbers when Borg decides to pay a visit to Alpha quadrant again

...but only if they are any good against the Borg. And ST:FC doesn't exactly convince me that they would be.

Indeed. I've always assumed the Defiant was the culmination of those new technologies and weapons Shelby talked about in BoBW - i.e., when all they had to go on was the Enterprise-D's single encounter at J-25. The Wolf 359 massacre and other subsequent encounters with the Borg, plus the design difficulties of the Defiant, presumably led Starfleet to believe the design wouldn't be effective against the Borg in any case.

As regards "flagship duties", the E-E never was credited with those. For all we know, she indeed is a workhorse, a run-of-the-mill vessel, as befits a ship quite a bit smaller than the E-D. Perhaps Picard got "demoted" to the command of such a humble ship because he screwed up his E-D command and lost that prestigious ship?

Well quite, the films didn't exactly suggest she was the pride of the fleet. Picard seemed to get the shitty missions - "putting out brushfires" and showing the flag to minor races in the middle of the war is always an odd one.

We never got explicitly told that a Sovereign would be difficult or slow to build. LaForge boasts on her being "the most advanced", but that's just his pride talking: the aspects on which the design is advanced may be unrelated to construction difficulties or even to practical performance.

And of course "most advanced" doesn't mean "best" or "most effective". The Apple Newton was advanced for its time, but couldn't really be considered a success.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Firstly, the Sovereign is LONGER than the Galaxy by over 40 meters. True her saucer is narrower, but she's not "significantly smaller" by any means.

And being chosen to extend the olive-branch to the Romulans is hardly a "shitty mission".

 

[Tomalak]

Firstly, the Sovereign is LONGER than the Galaxy by over 40 meters. True her saucer is narrower, but she's not "significantly smaller" by any means.

I don't know the exact numbers, but the internal volume must be significantly less. There's not much room in the engineering hull that isn't taken up with the propulsion system, hanger deck, main deflector etc, there's no neck section to speak of, and the saucer isn't as large.

And being chosen to extend the olive-branch to the Romulans is hardly a "shitty mission".

I had in my mind that the new Praetor asked for Picard personally, for reasons which became obvious, but it's been so long since I saw the film I can't be certain. It seems logical, after all without Picard, Schinzon's plan (such as it was) would have made entirely no sense.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

I think that there is no need to worry about defiant ,they will be produced in much larger numbers when Borg decides to pay a visit to Alpha quadrant again.Defiant is a warship built to fight threats like Borg but it proved good against Dominion forces as well.So it is multi purpose vessel and relatively easy & cheap to built ,so there will be a lot of them as soon new threat for federation emerges.I believe there is around 40 Defiants left ,but a lot of them is about to be constructed in incoming times.

The Sovereign class vessel is extremely complicated to built ,they require special technology.So i believe that there is around 10 Sovereigns left to perform flagship duties while shipyards produce more reliable and cheaper vessels.

Problem with that is that, per Sternbach, the Sovereigns were meant to be the new "workhorse" class, replacing the Excelsiors as they retired.

Did I say that? I don't recall specifying that the Sovereigns were to replace the Excelsiors; I'm not sure I would talk about the design that way. If anything, they would replace the Galaxy class.

 

[SchwEnt]

Russians usually make TWO successors in case one fails, like with the Kirov and Slava classes, one is the new tech untested kind, the other one build on stuff they know, might be starfleet does this as well...

I'm going OT, but that reminds me of the one of the fans pubs (maybe Starfleet Prototype) which suggested just that.

Needing a successor for the Constitution class, Starfleet took two approaches--the Excelsior, which was The Great Experiment, the new tech choice. The alternative was the Constellation class, which used familiar components as the "stuff they know" to build a better class of ship similar in capabilities to the Excelsior (long range explorer or some such)

We never saw much of that story, that the Excelsior and Constellation classes may have been developed concurrently as competing designs. Seemingly Excelsior "won" based on frequency of appearances yet Constellation class still went into production, maybe as an "also-ran" yet distinguished itself anyway. Or some story.

Okay back on topic...

 

[blssdwlf]

If the Defiant-class never caught on, how come they could spare one for a training ship?