Why the Movement Toward Smaller Starfleet Hero Ships?
- Thread starter Knight Templar
- Start date
Probably for dramatic reasons and the desire to do something different. The varios Enterprise's were pretty big so they probably wanted to mix it up with smaller ships.
Knight Templar
Commodore
Why is that?
If I recall correctly, Ira Behr also strongly implied that the decision to make the Defiant a small ship was driven, in part, by the desire of Berman and Piller to not have DS9's new ship upstage the about-to-be-released Voyager. They considered Voyager to be the "hot new ship" and wanted it to get all the attention. It's the same reason Ron Moore was told he couldn't name the ship Valiant. They didn't want another "V name."
Then the question has to be asked did the Defiant upstage the Voyager anyway?
As for the crew compliment of Voyager itself, it could be that it only had 140 because it's mission was basically to be a quick trip to the badlands. Perhaps upon it's return it would have had it's crew bolstered.
Knight Templar
Commodore
That is one thing that never made sense to me in Star Trek.
Why is the crew size always precisely fixed? For example, IIRC the Enterprise-D when it was mentioned ALWAYS had 1,014 people aboard.
On a ship that size, the actual number of people aboard should be flunctuating constantly. Scientists temporarily aboard for research. Civilian engineers evaluating ships systems. Family members aboard for a visit. Hell, even minor Federation dignitaries onboard to jack a ride aboard the Feds most prestigous ship.
^Actually, early on it was said that the Enterprise-D had "a thousand" people on board. The exact figure of 1,014 was used for "Remember Me" and a few episodes onward. But, you make a good point about the crew count and families should constantly be in flux. I'd imagine that as a rule they try to keep the number in and around 1,000.
It always struck me as odd that when the Enterprise-D came up against credible threats it was generally against ships that were roughly her size or larger in cases like the Borg.
It seemed awfully convenient that the size of the baddie's ship was generally also scaled down to match that of the Defiant and Voyager. Apparently most races in the Delta hang out in the 350m range in regards to their ship scale. And the Jem'hadar happened to fly around in ships that were the same size as the Defiant.
It always struck me as odd that when the Enterprise-D came up against credible threats it was generally against ships that were roughly her size or larger in cases like the Borg.
It seemed awfully convenient that the size of the baddie's ship was generally also scaled down to match that of the Defiant and Voyager. Apparently most races in the Delta hang out in the 350m range in regards to their ship scale. And the Jem'hadar happened to fly around in ships that were the same size as the Defiant.
You do realize that the Jem'Hadar attack ship design you're talking about (the one slightly smaller than the Defiant class) was actually created before the Defiant was, right?
The U.S.S. Defiant was created for and first appeared in episode 3x01, "The Search, Part I," which aired on 26 September 1994. The Jem'Hadar attack ship was created for and first appeared in episode 2x26, "The Jem'Hadar," which aired on 12 June 1994 -- more than three months earlier. Indeed, the Jem'Hadar attack ships first went up against the Galaxy-class U.S.S. Odyssey, not the Defiant.
Which is fine, they just scaled the Hero ship accordingly. My main point still stands.
The Jem Hadar had some huge warships dwarfing anything in the UFP-IKE arsenal.
The bog standard Jemmie attack ship was roughly defiant-sized. (It's also interesting that the Defiant is also about the same size as a BOP, though much more solidly built and armoured than BOPs. Weapons power seems more similar though, seen when the Defiant and the Rotarran were taking turns pulling that bait - decloak - attack trick, both of them took about the same amount of shots to destroy the bugs)
The Jem Hadar battlecruiser is at about size parity with the Galaxy / Sovereign.
But that's where the parity ends. Next up is the Jem Hadar battleship (the one the Valiant fought) which is about a mile long, it's twice the length of the battlecruiser or the UFP's top line ships.
There may also be some kind of super-dreadnought up to 3 miles long, but that's a matter of debate. Supposedly some of these appeared in the Cardassia defence fleet, but it's been claimed it was a VFX error and they were supposed to be the standard battleship.
The little info I've seen from Drexler regarding the Jay indicates she's more than a mile long with a crew in the thousands so yup, she dwarf's even the Motion Picture style starbases we see throughout the shows.
So, the parity ends at about the 95% mark with the Dominion fleet, is what you're saying?
While the Hero ships shrunk for a multitude of in-universe and out-universe reasons, its seems that the adversary fleets also shrunk as a rule. Though there are exceptions, but thats what they are... exceptions.
I assume you're referring to the Jem'Hadar battleship introduced in the episode "Valiant?"
I'm not sure I'd say it "dwarfs" anything in the Federation Alliance fleets. She's apparently twice the size of a Galaxy-class starship, but it's unclear whether that's referring to length/width/beam, or if that's referring to its overall volume. For a comparison, the Romulan D'deridex-class warbird is also roughly twice as long as the Galaxy class, but it's also unclear how its internal volume would compare to the Galaxy's. But either way, I'd say that the Jem'Hadar battleship is comparable to the D'deridex class in size.
The size of the Jem'Hadar battle cruiser is unclear. DSN Visual Effects Supervisor David Stipes gave her an intended length of 760 meters. Over at Ex Astris Scientia, Bernd Schneider estimates her length at 650 meters, 110 meters less. (Interestingly, he also estimates the Jem'Hadar battleship at 1,500 meters.)
The Galaxy class, by comparison, is about 642.5 meters long. The Sovereign class is between 685 and 700 meters long, depending on who you ask.
Schneider places the D'deridex class at 1,353 meters long. This was apparently designer Andrew Probert's intended length.
There's also the Klingon Negh'Var class, which Stipes gave an intended length of 686 meters. Schneider estimates her length as 682 meters (and ups it to 718 when spikes are added to it in the voDIeH-class variants seen in the alternate futures of "All Good Things..." and "Endgame").
If we take the Jem'Hadar battleship's being "twice the size of a Galaxy class" figure literally in terms of length, Memory Alpha notes that that yields a length of 1,284 meters. Schneider estimates her length at 1,500 meters.
So, we're looking at lengths of:
D'deridex class: 1,353 m
Jem'Hadar battleship: 1,284-1,500 m
Sovereign class: 685-700 m
Negh'Var class: 682-686 m
Jem'Hadar battle crusier: 650-760 m
Galaxy class: 642.5 m
So, broadly-speaking, we're looking at the D'deridex and Jem'Hadar battleship classes being roughly twice as long as the Sovereign, Negh'Var, Jem'Hadar battle cruiser, and Galaxy classes. That's certainly big, but I don't think it "dwarfs" them -- I'd say the smaller ships couldn't exceed 25% of the lengths and/or volumes of the larger ships before we could say they've been "dwarfed."
(Also: "IKE?" Does that mean "Imperial Klingon Empire?" You do realize that "imperial" is just the adjective form of "empire," right? Calling it the "Imperial Klingon Empire" would be like calling it the "Federal Russian Federation," or the "Republican French Republic." Its name is just "the Klingon Empire.")
The D is already pretty large, anything bigger risks being a fanboy ubership.
The USS Fanboi Ubership - You could fit a Borg cube inside the Shuttle Bay
I don't agree at all. I mean, it's outer space -- why would there be any limits to how big a ship could credibly become? Other science fiction franchises, most famously Star Wars, already have larger ships without anyone accusing it of being "a fanboy ubership."
Knight Templar
Commodore
That is something I've never understood.
What is "fanboyish" about a big starship? Or why do some critics label really large starships as "portable starbases" when they are not remotely as large as a starbase.
Why are the huge Romulan ships. From the Warbirds to the Scimitar not called "fanboyish" or "mobile starbases"?
What about the huge Dominion battleships or the huge Klingon Neghvar class vessels?
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