Why was the Defiant class not mass produced?

[Saito S]

It wasn't just retained knowledge, he still has a connection to the Collective that lets him hear their thoughts. So he could hear them saying "Aw crap, these new weapons made our shields fail in this one spot and if we get hit there too much we'll blow!"

^ Right. And it wasn't just the Enterprise E that destroyed the cube. Picard sent the location of it's weak points to all that remained of the fleet, which then launched a simultaneous attack.

This. I doubt the Ent-E could have taken the cube down by itself, even with the weak spot. There was a lot of firepower on display during those seconds after Picard said "Fire."

Re: the Bozeman (not quoting here cause several people commented on this, and this post is gonna be huge as it is)... personally, I don't think there is any way that the Soyuz-class Bozeman was still in service after TNG "Cause and Effect." Geordi said that the CLASS had been retired for 80 years as of that ep. Starfleet's upgrade and refit capabilities have been shown to be quite impressive (see: Excelsior and Miranda), but still, for any class, there would come a time when you just couldn't keep it current anymore, and had to retire it. Since the Soyuz had been retired 80 years prior, it was obviously well past that point; there's no way it could just be "upgraded" to be viable in the late 2360's or beyond. I think the Bozeman referenced in FC is a newer ship class, named in honor of the Soyuz class ship and given to Bateson once he was brought up to speed.

I tend to think we just didn't see many Defiants because of a combination of would've been confusing to the viewer and they were on other fronts. Maybe the 7th Fleet had a lot of Defiants and other modern ships?

I agree with this view. We did after all only get a quite limited view of the Dominion War and even the battles we did see we mostly only saw what was going on around the Defiant. Even the largest Fed fleet we saw, that in Operation Return, who many of the six hundred vessels in the fleet did we actually see on screen? There is still enough wiggle room that there could have been more than just one Defiant class vessel in Operation Return or at Chin'toka or Cardassia.

Pretty much the same view I take with the Sovereign class and the Enterprise-E, even though we didn't seem them in the war I like to believe they took part.

Yeah, and it's been well-acknowledged IIRC that the main (only, really) reason we didn't see any Sovereigns in DS9 was that the producers didn't want "the movie ship" showing up in the current TV show, i.e. entirely out-of universe reasons.

No Akira Steamrunner and Saber were older vessels.

Akira and Saber were register in the 60,000's
and Steamrunner int he 52,000's

Registry numbers aren't always chronological by class. The Oberth-class is older than Excelsior, yet there are some Oberths that have higher registries than many Excelsiors or Ambassadors, due to being built later (the Pegasus, for example, was NCC-53847). Same deal occurs with Excelsior vs. Ambassador. And most telling, the Promethus from "Message in a Bottle", which was clearly a brand-new experimental prototype at that time, was NX-59650.

While Defiant was far superior to the Galaxy Class Starship. As seen in Chintoka as Defiant's shields held repeatedly against the Dominion defense satellites and all other ships were defenseless against them.

Defenseless? Every one of the many ships which flew alongside the Defiant and were still intact (and dishing out damage) after the defense satellites were shut down would disagree with that. As for "far superior," the fact that the Galaxy was mass-produced to the point where there were "wings" of them, and the fact that post-Odyssey, the only thing the Galaxy was ever seen doing on-screen was steamrolling anything that got in its way would seem to dispute that.

Lakota was said to be refitted.

Steamrunners, Akiras and Saberes are all inferior because they either have 3 or less phaser arrays and extremely limited firing arcs and no torpedoes.

And those classes couldn't be refitted in the same way the Lakota was... why?

Additional phaser arrays have been added to existing designs before (Venture in "Way of the Warrior" vs. original Galaxy-class).

These ships are inferrior in just about everyone. They can barely defend themselves. Even the Nova Class has at least 8 phaser arrays.

They can barely defend themselves. That explains why they were sent to fight the Borg, and why several of them survived the entire battle to still be intact after the cube was destroyed.
You've identified other parts of your posts as speculation or based on non-canon, so I assume this is as well, but still... "can barely defend themselves"? Seriously?
The way your posts are written, it's sometimes hard to tell when you ARE "just speculating" vs. stating something as canon, established in-universe "fact".

Lets say they did design the Akira with the "torpedo boat" mentality. It's not that way anymore. In full battle mode this vessel has never been seen firing from those launchers all out. My estimation is they've been pulled. These ships are relics of the early 24th century...designed bubble gum, if you will.

We hardly ever got a clear look at ANY Starfleet ships firing during most Dominion War battles, except the Defiant, the occasional Galaxy, an Excelsior or Miranda here and there... it was an oddity of the way the Dominion War battles were filmed.

It's not the process it's the space-frame.
The question is what do you have to work with. Excelsior has more than 16 phaser arrays and dual fore and aft torpedo launchers and very maneuverable on impulse.

More than sixteen?!


First: says who?
Second: that's WAY more than any Starfleet ship would ever need (considering that the Galaxy is the biggest one ever produced, and it has more than enough with its twelve arrays). The Sovereign is supposed to have sixteen post-refit, isn't it? That, too, is overkill. But where's the evidence that the freaking Excelsior has that many, let alone MORE?

I wouldn't call them arrays. More like turrets and Defiant has one in the nose and one on top of the bridge.

And they can be fired in multiple directions, like an array. The point of them, whatever you want to call them, seems to be to give the Defiant an additional weapon that DOESN'T have the limitations of the pulse phaser cannons, for when their enemies slip behind them. Someone in this thread (I can't remember who... the thread is kind of all over the place and really, I probably shouldn't have even bothered with this post, but I'm at work and bored ) mentioned the "can only fire forward" as a weakness of the Defiant, didn't they? These phaser "arrays" (or whatever) make up for that. I bet they aren't as powerful as the arrays on larger starships that serve as primary weapons for those ships; they seem like a "Back the *$%# off" weapon used to assist the ship in regaining proper positioning to bring the pulse phasers to bear.

I don't think so, Enterprise was refited from the Ground up

Says who?

and the class ship is likely to have the same issues. Most ships are constructed at the same time.

Not sure what you mean by this... further ships of a class are constructed at roughly the same time as the prototype? If that IS what you mean, that certainly doesn't seem to be how things work in Trek.

One last thing on the Sovereign being "a failure": they don't make Enterprise's members of failed classes.

Having said all that... I kinda don't get this thread's original topic (that didn't stop me from writing a wall of text about all the various tangents, though. ) The Defiant-class was "mass-produced." They probably didn't start building any until sometime after "The Search", to give Sisko and O'Brien some time to try and shake out the flaws a bit more. But we saw others in "Call to Arms," there was the Valient, two in "Message in a Bottle", and the Sau Paulo wasn't built OVERNIGHT after Sisko lost his ship; it clearly was already built, then they decided to give it to him and allow him to rename it. "Mass" doesn't necessarily mean "tons". Others in the thread have pointed out reasons why building a Defiant-class to spec might not be so quick or easy, despite its small size.

And Cyke101 is right: there is a TON of speculation involved here, and various non-canon/semi-canon sources contradict each other, quite often.

 

[Rarewolf]

[And most telling, the Promethus from "Message in a Bottle", which was clearly a brand-new experimental prototype at that time, was NX-59650..

She'd just been on the drawing board a very long time....

 

[Xerxes1979]

What I am more interested in is its apparent lack of numbers given its small size. Size appears to dictate construction speed in Star Trek

If the uber tech Delta Flyer can be constructed in a week and the biggest capital ships take 5-10 years in peacetime, shouldn't a three deck relatively simple hull form take anywhere from a few weeks to months?

The Dominion War lasted long enough that shipyards should have turned out quite a few.

 

[Saito S]

[And most telling, the Promethus from "Message in a Bottle", which was clearly a brand-new experimental prototype at that time, was NX-59650..

She'd just been on the drawing board a very long time....

Exactly!

That actually makes perfect sense, and is preciesly the explanation I adopted long ago for my own Trek story ideas, for those times when a seemingly new design (either by dialog, implication, or simply feel) has a lower number. Once a ship class concept reaches a certain point in the design stage (basically, when Starfleet has approved the construction and deployment of a prototype), I think the project is assigned a registry number. If the project takes longer than expected or gets bogged down with some design flaws or gets pushed aside for a time, etc etc., if it DOES finally get launched, it keeps that number.

Of course, the Akira & friends from FC could just BE older, that's still just as possible as mine. Neither one has canon (or even close to it) backing, which just serves to further reinforce just how much of these questions come down to feel and speculation.

What I am more interested in is its apparent lack of numbers given its small size. Size appears to dictate construction speed in Star Trek

If the uber tech Delta Flyer can be constructed in a week and the biggest capital ships take 5-10 years in peacetime, shouldn't a three deck relatively simple hull form take anywhere from a few weeks to months?

The Dominion War lasted long enough that shipyards should have turned out quite a few.

I knew someone addressed this at some point in the thread. This may not even be the only post concerning this topic, but here:

Although not canon, the DS9 technical manual suggests that some of the Defiant's components, such as the ablative armour and the crystals for the pulse phasers, were slow and difficult to produce. So it seems that, up until Sisko and O'Brien had got the class ship operational, and it had proved it's worth, Star Fleet simply didn't bother with mass production.

Later, with the Dominion War under way, things changed. I believe that Doug Drexler said that once the kinks in the design were taken out they were built as fast as possible. This would explain how more ships are seen later on. Of course, given the manufacturing concerns mentioned in the TM, this still might be relatively slow.

And in the end, we DID see a total of nine Defiant class ships that were not the Defiant. Assuming none of them were the same ship showing up twice (which they could be, but there is nothing to suggest they are), that's ten ships total in the span of a few years (not counting any we simply didn't see on screen), which is pretty good if they really did have those construction issues mentioned above to contend with.

 

[CoveTom]

Yeah, and it's been well-acknowledged IIRC that the main (only, really) reason we didn't see any Sovereigns in DS9 was that the producers didn't want "the movie ship" showing up in the current TV show, i.e. entirely out-of universe reasons.

Exactly. It's the reason why, with I believe a total of three exceptions between the two series, we don't see Intrepid class ships on DS9 or Defiant class ships on Voyager. They don't like to use the design of the "hero" ships for anything other than, well, the hero ships.

 

[Jono]

And most telling, the Promethus from "Message in a Bottle", which was clearly a brand-new experimental prototype at that time, was NX-59650..

She'd just been on the drawing board a very long time....

Not even the Prometheus could decide what her reg was, inside the ship she had NX-74913, which would appear more timeline appropriate. It was its intended registry but the FX folks were not told of it so they used the 59650 number on her hull.

But the cloaking device was on loan from the Romulans, which was installed in the Defiant.

It could have been installed on an Akira too, it also seems roughly the same size as the Defiant.

The enter the territory with a deadly warship idea, makes sense though-would Starfleet be as forgiving (or believing) if the Dominion did the same thing?

If they did, actually that would be part of the problem..

The Akira is quite a bit bigger than the Defiant going by "Message in a Bottle", the DS9TM puts her at 464 m.

We don't know how effective a Romulan designed cloaking device would be for an Akira, would the Akira's hull configuration be a negative? Would the power requirements require a new warp core? Stuff like that. The Defiant is a compact, small ship with a massive powerplant (for its size), so it might be more suited for the installation of a cloaking device despite it probably not been designed to use one.

Further back I made some random speculation that Starfleet could have been unwilling to risk a ship like an Akira since a Galaxy got spanked. So Sisko negotiated the release of a ship that they didn't care about - the failed Defiant prototype. Also the other party involved, the Romulans, are a paranoid group. They might not be comfortable with given Starfleet a cloaking device and helping them install it on a Galaxy or Akira. While they agreed it would only be used in the GQ the Romulans would expect the Federation to break that, because they probably would if they were in the Federation's place.

Like I said, all speculation. The real reason is that they needed a ship that Sisko and Co from DS9 could operate themselves and not have to worry about crewing independently from the senior staff of the station...plus avoiding the possibility of having a person with the rank of captain there and the issues that would come up since Sisko was still a commander. Oh, and the Akira didn't exist at that point.

And in the end, we DID see a total of nine Defiant class ships that were not the Defiant.

9? I counted only 6.

Sao Paulo
Valiant
2 in "Message in a Bottle"
2 in "Call to Arms"

Where am I missing them?

 

[Cyke101]

9? I counted only 6.

Sao Paulo
Valiant
2 in "Message in a Bottle"
2 in "Call to Arms"

Where am I missing them?

There's at least one in the escort fleet in Endgame. I'm at a loss for any more, however. Maybe the USS Valiant briefly mentioned in Nemesis was a replacement ship for the one Red Squad lost (a la Sao Paulo as Defiant), but no visual = no proof. And maybe the ISS Defiant counts, since it's not the "proper" Defiant *shrug*

 

[Saquist]

My primary point was that it was pretty silly to say that the Akira had no torpedo launchers at all when the designer made profuse use of them, and even then firing only a few torpedoes, while it says nothing about being a torpedo boat, still clearly displays the ability to shoot torpedoes in the first place. Saying it can't fire torpedoes is one end of the spectrum, saying it has 15 torpedo tubes is at the other end of the spectrum; saying it can fire torpedoes, and then citing actual visual evidence for it, is right smack dab in the middle.

So what exactly are you saying?

Also, if we're going by registration as dates, I honestly don't think the Akiras are relics of early 24th century. They indicate mid-24th, which is a considerable jump in technology in the Trekverse.

True.

With my other point being that if we're taking non-canon sources, they often tend to contradict each other. So one can't "take them all" and then try to reconcile them in any way without a matter of fan-made preference and a rather large amount of cherry-picking.

Under formal debate yes.
But I chose my particular interpretation and that which best fits the facts and errors I've found in the design.

Registry numbers aren't always chronological by class. The Oberth-class is older than Excelsior, yet there are some Oberths that have higher registries than many Excelsiors or Ambassadors, due to being built later (the Pegasus, for example, was NCC-53847). Same deal occurs with Excelsior vs. Ambassador. And most telling, the Promethus from "Message in a Bottle", which was clearly a brand-new experimental prototype at that time, was NX-59650.

Registry shows us the earliest known vessel so as it stands. If we know Galaxy is 70,673 and the earliest Akira is 62,000 then it confirms it's an earlier class even if it doesn't tell us how much earlier

Star Fleet Registry History

Miranda Class NCC -1837 USS Lantree
Romulans destroy Federation Outpost
First Klingon War
Excelsior class NX-2000

-Constellation Class 2893(USS Stargazer)

-Khitomer Confrence
-Tomed Incident: results in 53 year Romulan isolation
-Earliest Ambassador class (Zhukov NCC-26136)
-Niagra Class USS Wellington (NCC - 28473)

2344 - ]Enterpise C destroyed at Narendra III
2346 -Khitomer Massacre by Romulans
2347 Start of Cardassian War
-Steamrunner USS Appalachia (NCC-52136)
-New Orleans class USS Rutledge(NCC 57295)
-Nebula Class NCC 60205 USS Honshu
-Sabre Class USS Yeager (NCC-61947)
-Akira Class 63549 USS Thunderchild

-Stargazer disabled by Cardassian war ship.
-Galaxy Class NCC 70637(USS Galaxy)

- Massacare at Setlik III
- Galaxy class (USS Enterprise D)

Federation Produces 68,637 units in 78 years. (879 units a year)

-Defiant Class Development Project
-Wolf 359 - Cardassian Truce Demilitarized Zone
-Nova Class USS Equinox NCC-72381

2368-Danube Class NCC -72452 (Rio Grande)
-Defiant Class[ (NX 74205)
-Intrepid Class (NCC-74600)

-NCC -74656 (Voyager)[ / Type 9 shuttlecraft
-Defiant pulled from Storage
-Enterprise E launched
-Battle of Sector 001 / Voyager encounters 8472 / DS9 start of the Dominion War.

( Federation produces 257 units)

2374 -Prometheus Class NCC-74913

Federation produces 314 units a year.

-Briar patch. -Scout 75227 / Voyager encounters (USS Equinox) /End Dominion war.
-Destruction of Borg Collective - Voyager returns to Earth
-Battle of Bassen Rift- USS TITAN (NCC -[80102])

Federation produces 5,189 units in Five Years. 1,037 ships a year after the star of the Dominion War.

Between the start of the Cardassian Federation wars some 1,156 ships are produced a year.

***It should be noted that the Romulans statement of the Klingon's being outnumber 20 to 1 correleates that the Registry is a count of number of ships***

Defenseless? Every one of the many ships which flew alongside the Defiant and were still intact (and dishing out damage) after the defense satellites were shut down would disagree with that.

I have to point out this doesn't mean anything tangible.

As for "far superior," the fact that the Galaxy was mass-produced to the point where there were "wings" of them, and the fact that post-Odyssey, the only thing the Galaxy was ever seen doing on-screen was steamrolling anything that got in its way would seem to dispute that.

The Galaxy was never seen firing on anything but inferior Cardassian ships the entire war so that's a bit of leap of faith.

And those classes couldn't be refitted in the same way the Lakota was... why?

Because they weren't all on Admiral Leyton's special list to over throw Jaresh Inyo.

Additional phaser arrays have been added to existing designs before (Venture in "Way of the Warrior" vs. original Galaxy-class).

Why bother.
There are better space Frames to modify. Why refit the Battleship Texas when you have Aegis Cruiser out there that were built from better methods and materials? In terms of the Excelsior they simply out produced every class. No other class shows up as often as Excelsior. It's the Backbone of the Fleet and likely has received the most refits.

They can barely defend themselves. That explains why they were sent to fight the Borg, and why several of them survived the entire battle to still be intact after the cube was destroyed.

SPAM Ships.

You've identified other parts of your posts as speculation or based on non-canon, so I assume this is as well, but still... "can barely defend themselves"? Seriously?

Most of the armament is in non strategic placements and not even concentrated forward. They have a major lack of armament even compared to most 23rd century ships.

We hardly ever got a clear look at ANY Starfleet ships firing during most Dominion War battles, except the Defiant, the occasional Galaxy, an Excelsior or Miranda here and there... it was an oddity of the way the Dominion War battles were filmed.

It's too bad but it's the record we have.

More than sixteen?!

27 in all. In 17 banks.

First: says who?

The model and on screen evidence.

Second: that's WAY more than any Starfleet ship would ever need (considering that the Galaxy is the biggest one ever produced, and it has more than enough with its twelve arrays).

Not quite. Galaxy and Excelsior have a slight blind firing arcs created by their nacelles. The Venture Variant corrects that. But on can argue on Galaxy is so small it doesn't matter since the nacelles don't sit above the highest phaser.

The Sovereign is supposed to have sixteen post-refit, isn't it? That, too, is overkill. But where's the evidence that the freaking Excelsior has that many, let alone MORE?

That would be correct. 16 post refit.
Count the model and watch Paradise Lost.

And they can be fired in multiple directions, like an array. The point of them, whatever you want to call them, seems to be to give the Defiant an additional weapon that DOESN'T have the limitations of the pulse phaser cannons, for when their enemies slip behind them. Someone in this thread (I can't remember who... the thread is kind of all over the place and really, I probably shouldn't have even bothered with this post, but I'm at work and bored ) mentioned the "can only fire forward" as a weakness of the Defiant, didn't they? These phaser "arrays" (or whatever) make up for that.

Defiant has only two other Turrets.
One in the nose that fires forward and the other on the bridge. There is no known aft weapons other than torpedoes mentioned in the Die is Cast, seen in Paradise Lost.

I bet they aren't as powerful as the arrays on larger starships that serve as primary weapons for those ships; they seem like a "Back the *$%# off" weapon used to assist the ship in regaining proper positioning to bring the pulse phasers to bear.

Defiant is seen using it's top turret with almost the same ferrocity as the Forward gun against the Super Neghvar in the Mirror Universe.

Says who?

John Eaves.

Not sure what you mean by this... further ships of a class are constructed at roughly the same time as the prototype? If that IS what you mean, that certainly doesn't seem to be how things work in Trek.

That's where the concept of Sister ship comes from. It's not just ships of the same class but ships that were built or born roughly at the same time...Or naval keels were laid at the same time.

One last thing on the Sovereign being "a failure": they don't make Enterprise's members of failed classes.

I wouldn't have thought so but the ship clearly had huge issues on screen and so does the original model.

 

[Jono]

9? I counted only 6.

Sao Paulo
Valiant
2 in "Message in a Bottle"
2 in "Call to Arms"

Where am I missing them?

There's at least one in the escort fleet in Endgame. I'm at a loss for any more, however. Maybe the USS Valiant briefly mentioned in Nemesis was a replacement ship for the one Red Squad lost (a la Sao Paulo as Defiant), but no visual = no proof. And maybe the ISS Defiant counts, since it's not the "proper" Defiant *shrug*

That's right, there were two in Endgame...I was only thinking of up to the end of the Dominion War when I put that number together. Throw in the mirror Defiant and you do get 9.

 

[Jono]

***It should be noted that the Romulans statement of the Klingon's being outnumber 20 to 1 correleates that the Registry is a count of number of ships***

How does a Romulan telling a Klingon that his fleet would be outnumbered 20 to 1 by the Dominion alliance fleet have anything to do with Starfleet ship registries?

The Galaxy was never seen firing on anything but inferior Cardassian ships the entire war so that's a bit of leap of faith.

So since its the Galaxy spanking "inferior" Cardassian ships that makes it immaterial, but the Defiant spanking weak Jem'Hadar bug ships makes it a super-star?

Because they weren't all on Admiral Leyton's special list to over throw Jaresh Inyo.

To steal an earlier line by you "I have to point out this doesn't mean anything tangible."

Why bother.
There are better space Frames to modify. Why refit the Battleship Texas when you have Aegis Cruiser out there that were built from better methods and materials? In terms of the Excelsior they simply out produced every class. No other class shows up as often as Excelsior. It's the Backbone of the Fleet and likely has received the most refits.

I guess Starfleet doesn't hold your view that the Defiant has made all other ships instantly obsolete.

Most of the armament is in non strategic placements and not even concentrated forward. They have a major lack of armament even compared to most 23rd century ships.

It seems like you're only considering the number of weapons ships have instead of factoring in the differences in types, technology, etc.

That is a very flawed system. By that the Danube has to be far superior a combatant than the Akira as it has 4 phasers while you only give the Akira 3. Plus the Excelsior should pants the Defiant with its 27 phasers verse the Defiant's 7.

The model and on screen evidence.

You've very selective about what you take from the models. You'll use it to as proof that the Sabre and Steamrunner are "defenceless" but when the model of the Akira disputes that you'll toss that away as "since we didn't see them fire they're not weapons".

Oops, I meant to edit my post above rather than post twice in a row.

 

[Saito S]

Under formal debate yes.
But I chose my particular interpretation and that which best fits the facts and errors I've found in the design.

But... see, that's fine. If you just want to say "Well, if you ask me, the Akira is junk, based on my interpretation of all the information available, and that's partly based on speculation as well as non-canon sources."... that's FINE. We all do that (those of us geeky enough to give a flying fark about how the ships work anyway ) to some degree, due to how nebulous, incomplete, and contradictory the information from all the canon and "semi-canon"/background works can be. No problem.

But, let's be clear: if you say that the Akira is a "relic from the early 24th century" that "can barely defend itself," that is YOUR interpretation only, and also happens to go against the generally accepted notion that the Akira is a combat-oriented ship.

Registry shows us the earliest known vessel so as it stands. If we know Galaxy is 70,673 and the earliest Akira is 62,000 then it confirms it's an earlier class even if it doesn't tell us how much earlier

Did you miss my example of the Prometheus entirely? It IS the prototype of its class, there are no other Prometheus-class ships during "Message in a Bottle". It is also clearly a brand-new experimental ship that was JUST built at the time of the ep... and it's NX-59650. Now, Jono correctly pointed out that the registry was listed on internal displays as NX-74913; there were some missed memos and cross communication lines out of universe that caused this. But it's another example of contradictory information; IF one chooses the registry on the hull (I do) as the "real" one, then registries absolutely do not always indicate, in chronological order, which classes are newer.

I have to point out this doesn't mean anything tangible.

The fact that a ship survives an encounter with a formidable defense system that cripples or destroys other ships in minutes "doesn't mean anything tangible" in regards to the surviving ship's durability or defensive capability.

If that is true, then NOTHING you have said in this entire thread means anything tangible either. We are debating fictional future starships; it's ALL a bunch of made-up stuff in the end anyway. This is what I mean: it's hard to tell when you are saying "This is just my speculation" and "This is how it is in the show according to canon evidence if you ask me."

Because they weren't all on Admiral Leyton's special list to over throw Jaresh Inyo.

So that one instance for that one reason in that one episode was the only time that an Excelsior or any other older ship will be refitted?

What are you getting at here?

Why bother.
There are better space Frames to modify. Why refit the Battleship Texas when you have Aegis Cruiser out there that were built from better methods and materials? In terms of the Excelsior they simply out produced every class. No other class shows up as often as Excelsior. It's the Backbone of the Fleet and likely has received the most refits.

There aren't better space frames to modify (or not many, anyway), because the Akira is a modern, badass warship.

SPAM Ships.

Right. They sent a whole armada of useless "SPAM" ships to fight the Borg, and several representatives of every class you are deriding just happened to survive all the way through to the end of the battle.

Most of the armament is in non strategic placements and not even concentrated forward. They have a major lack of armament even compared to most 23rd century ships.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is just speculation, since inspecting the visual models (something you love to tell others to do) shows three very large phaser arrays oriented forward on the Akira, and medium sized arrays oriented forward on the Steamrunner and Saber. The Akira was shown on-screen to have two forward torpedo launchers, and the Saber at least one. And the idea that the Steamrunner just can't fire torpedoes because we didn't see it happen in FC is silly.

It's too bad but it's the record we have.

This was in reference to the weird way many Dominion War battles were filmed; overemphasis on the Defiant meant we hardly ever saw other Starfleet ships even firing. You seriously want to just... what, take that at face value? The Federation held their own in a war in which most of their ships never fired while engaging in major fleet battles?

Not quite. Galaxy and Excelsior have a slight blind firing arcs created by their nacelles. The Venture Variant corrects that. But on can argue on Galaxy is so small it doesn't matter since the nacelles don't sit above the highest phaser.

That blind spot is... well, you said it: it doesn't matter. It's tiny.

Defiant is seen using it's top turret with almost the same ferrocity as the Forward gun against the Super Neghvar in the Mirror Universe.

"Almost" the same ferocity. They were also in REALLY close, and scoring a lot of direct hits (and ruffian-Bashir's little Maquis Raider looking thing was also scoring some nasty looking hits when it showed up; there's no way its weapons were equal to the pulse phasers on the Defiant.) Also, lolmirroruniverse. At normal range, under normal circumstances, against fully shielded enemy ships, the phaser "array turrets" wouldn't be AS effective per shot as the pulse phasers. That's all I was saying (and it's just my speculation anyway).

27 in all. In 17 banks.

The model and on screen evidence.

Count the model and watch Paradise Lost.

No. The Excelsior class model does not show sixteen (now it's seventeen? Or twenty-seven? What?) phaser arrays (or banks). I have watched "Paradise Lost" many times; there is nothing in that battle to suggest that number, either.

Again, if you are speculating that it has that many, fine. If a non- or semi-canon source says it has that many, fine. It is not supported by canon.

Not sure what you mean by this... further ships of a class are constructed at roughly the same time as the prototype? If that IS what you mean, that certainly doesn't seem to be how things work in Trek.

That's where the concept of Sister ship comes from. It's not just ships of the same class but ships that were built or born roughly at the same time...Or naval keels were laid at the same time.

Ok, I'm not sure what you're getting at here either. All I'm saying is this: In the universe of Trek, it seems pretty clear that when a new class is designed and approved, a single prototype is built and field tested, then later, if it's successful, they might build more. They might build some of those additional ships at the same time; my only point was that the prototype itself is built alone.

One last thing on the Sovereign being "a failure": they don't make Enterprise's members of failed classes.

I wouldn't have thought so but the ship clearly had huge issues on screen and so does the original model.

There are no "clear issues" with the Sovereign on-screen in the TNG movies or from inspecting the model. Any such issues are from non-canon sources or your own speculation.

Says who?

John Eaves.

John Eaves said the Ent-E was "refitted from the 'ground up'?"

One: link?
Two: Even if he said that, it's inaccurate. It was modified; it was clearly not refitted from "the ground up." That would imply that it was changed WAY more than it actually was. It was a refit, not a redesign.

All of that said, I'm not going to engage in these huge, blow-by-blow posts anymore. I think my points are made. Saquist may be just throwing out personal speculation anyway; I still find it hard to tell. This is pretty off-topic anyway, though.

Oh, and the number of Defiants seen besides the prototype is eight, not nine. I miscounted the number in "Call to Arms." Two there, two in "Message in a Bottle," Valient, Sau Paulo, and two in "Endgame" (visible right at the very end of the ep, as Voyager is being "escorted" back toward Earth.)

 

[Cyke101]

My primary point was that it was pretty silly to say that the Akira had no torpedo launchers at all when the designer made profuse use of them, and even then firing only a few torpedoes, while it says nothing about being a torpedo boat, still clearly displays the ability to shoot torpedoes in the first place. Saying it can't fire torpedoes is one end of the spectrum, saying it has 15 torpedo tubes is at the other end of the spectrum; saying it can fire torpedoes, and then citing actual visual evidence for it, is right smack dab in the middle.

So what exactly are you saying?

Okay, let me simplify it for you:


-"The Akira has 15 torpedo tubes" is ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira can't fire torpedoes whatsoever" is equally ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira is capable of firing torpedoes, as we saw in First Contact" is factually true and therefore not at all ridiculous to say. AND it's directly in between saying the Akira is an overpowered gunship and saying the Akira is a POS vessel, both of which are mere assertions.

There are no "clear issues" with the Sovereign on-screen in the TNG movies or from inspecting the model. Any such issues are from non-canon sources or your own speculation.

Aye. Throughout the three films, we don't really see the Sovereign falling prey to malfunctions, a la the Enterprise-A or the Defiant on their first runs. If we see the Enterprise-E failing, it's because she was getting beaten up and down or being pushed beyond her design parameters, hardly the fault of the ship herself. On the contrary, LaForge takes the extra step of explaining to the audience that after a year of shakedown, the Enterprise-E is the most advanced ship of the fleet (at the time), which seems out of the ordinary if she was still suffering from "clear issues."

 

[Saito S]

My primary point was that it was pretty silly to say that the Akira had no torpedo launchers at all when the designer made profuse use of them, and even then firing only a few torpedoes, while it says nothing about being a torpedo boat, still clearly displays the ability to shoot torpedoes in the first place. Saying it can't fire torpedoes is one end of the spectrum, saying it has 15 torpedo tubes is at the other end of the spectrum; saying it can fire torpedoes, and then citing actual visual evidence for it, is right smack dab in the middle.

So what exactly are you saying?

Okay, let me simplify it for you:


-"The Akira has 15 torpedo tubes" is ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira can't fire torpedoes whatsoever" is equally ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira is capable of firing torpedoes, as we saw in First Contact" is factually true and therefore not at all ridiculous to say. AND it's directly in between saying the Akira is an overpowered gunship and saying the Akira is a POS vessel, both of which are mere assertions.

There are no "clear issues" with the Sovereign on-screen in the TNG movies or from inspecting the model. Any such issues are from non-canon sources or your own speculation.

Aye. Throughout the three films, we don't really see the Sovereign falling prey to malfunctions, a la the Enterprise-A or the Defiant on their first runs. If we see the Enterprise-E failing, it's because she was getting beaten up and down or being pushed beyond her design parameters, hardly the fault of the ship herself. On the contrary, LaForge takes the extra step of explaining to the audience that after a year of shakedown, the Enterprise-E is the most advanced ship of the fleet (at the time), which seems out of the ordinary if she was still suffering from "clear issues."

Preciesly.

Addendum: okay, with the Excelsior, are we talking about "banks" or "arrays"? You sorta used the terms interchangeably up there, but THIS, specifically, is a "phaser array": http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/290/ussenterprisedphaserarr.jpg

And I will say that even this is somewhat nebulous: no one on any of the shows (that I recall, anyway) ever said "By the way, this is a phaser bank, but this over here is a phaser array, and here is how they differ..." All we can go on is what makes sense, and what we have from non-canon sources like the TM. The definition the TNG TM of an array as a newer, generally more effective emitter technology may not be confirmed, per se, by canon, but there is nothing to contradict it either.

And that said, when you look at the Excelsior model, it doesn't have ANY "arrays." Its phaser are seen firing (for example, in "Paradise Lost") from points, not lines. So it's possible that while the power behind those emitters has been upgraded many times over the years to stretch the Excelsior's viability, the ship does not support arrays. So those are just hugely upgraded "phaser banks." Whatever advantages arrays have (possibilities include the ability to fire multiple beams from a single array simultaneously, greater versatility in fluctuating the power levels or rate of fire - i.e. the rapid-fire sequence of phaser beams with all different frequencies seen in "Best of Both Worlds", etc) would be lost with Excelsiors. So, they refit the class by simply adding more, and better, emitters, making the "banks" as effective as they can be, despite not being "arrays." And in that case, there could very well BE something like 15+ or even 20+ of them, in total. Those numbers might be necessary to compensate for the disadvantages of having banks instead of arrays.

Now, I freely admit that a ton of that is not "supported" by canon, but I think it makes a certain degree of sense, given that - despite being upgraded to the point where it was almost a match for the Defiant - the Lakota does NOT, in fact, have any "arrays" visible on the model, despite said arrays being present on every single 24th century Starfleet design (indicating they had become quite commonplace).

 

[Saquist]

Okay, let me simplify it for you:


-"The Akira has 15 torpedo tubes" is ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira can't fire torpedoes whatsoever" is equally ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira is capable of firing torpedoes, as we saw in First Contact" is factually true and therefore not at all ridiculous to say. AND it's directly in between saying the Akira is an overpowered gunship and saying the Akira is a POS vessel, both of which are mere assertions.

That doesn't mean anything substantive.
More importantly it's not reasonable. The simple logic is if the Akira could use all it's tubes then it would have in the Many and various situations we've seen it in.

Cut and dry...

 

[RyuRoots]

Okay, let me simplify it for you:


-"The Akira has 15 torpedo tubes" is ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira can't fire torpedoes whatsoever" is equally ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira is capable of firing torpedoes, as we saw in First Contact" is factually true and therefore not at all ridiculous to say. AND it's directly in between saying the Akira is an overpowered gunship and saying the Akira is a POS vessel, both of which are mere assertions.

That doesn't mean anything substantive.
More importantly it's not reasonable. The simple logic is if the Akira could use all it's tubes then it would have in the Many and various situations we've seen it in.

Cut and dry...

Uh...no. For one thing, (as has just been said in the quoted bits) the Akira DOES fire torpedoes in its first appearance ever (that is, First Contact). Besides which, what "various situations" are you referring to? We see them in the background (and pretty hard to see unless you TRY to pick them out more often than not) in the Dominion War and in one part of Message in a Bottle. As such, showing the Akira blowing shit up MAYBE might not have been foremost on the showrunners' minds.

Absence of evidence != evidence of absence. And even with that in mind, it DOES fire torpedoes onscreen, so the assertion is flatly incorrect anyway. And you didn't acknowledge the silliness of the 15 launchers thing, so I would like to reiterate that point of Cyke101's.

 

[Cyke101]

Okay, let me simplify it for you:


-"The Akira has 15 torpedo tubes" is ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira can't fire torpedoes whatsoever" is equally ridiculous to say.
-"The Akira is capable of firing torpedoes, as we saw in First Contact" is factually true and therefore not at all ridiculous to say. AND it's directly in between saying the Akira is an overpowered gunship and saying the Akira is a POS vessel, both of which are mere assertions.

That doesn't mean anything substantive.
More importantly it's not reasonable. The simple logic is if the Akira could use all it's tubes then it would have in the Many and various situations we've seen it in.

Cut and dry...

What the? I'm saying that the Akira having either all those tubes or none of those tubes are both equally unreasonable to say. Just because the Akira probably doesn't have 15 torpedo tubes doesn't mean she has no tubes whatsoever. After all, as has been hammered repeatedly by everybody, she fires torpedoes onscreen. That's a fact that overrides personal canon. You know what's cut and dry? That the Akira has at least one torpedo tube, as evidenced in the movie. You want hard numbers for substantive? How about starting with "at least 1" or "greater than 0"?

Let me repeat with emphasis:
Just as it is unreasonable for the Akira to have fifteen tubes, it is unreasonable to say the Akira can't fire torpedoes at all when we see her firing torpedoes in First Contact.

On a side note, your logic that if it had all those tubes, it would use them, doesn't hold up. The Enterprise-D has 12 phaser arrays, but we only see her use three in her entire run. According to your logic, since the ship doesn't use the other 9, she doesn't have them. Voyager didn't use all her phaser arrays either. We never saw all of the Constitution's weapons in action. You want to believe the Akira doesn't have 15 torpedo tubes? That's great, join the club, which is pretty much everyone here and the tech manuals themselves. Let me repeat: That is not to say that the Akira definitely has 15 tubes. But to say the Akira doesn't have torpedo tubes at all despite onscreen evidence contradicts the numbers you want to believe (which is zero tubes). Shipboard weapons systems in Star Trek have never been all-or-nothing on screen.

 

[Saquist]

But, let's be clear: if you say that the Akira is a "relic from the early 24th century" that "can barely defend itself," that is YOUR interpretation only, and also happens to go against the generally accepted notion that the Akira is a combat-oriented ship.

It's not combat oriented.
3 phasers and all of 2 tubes seen firing on screen in an invasion situation against a superiorly large and powerful ship...nope.

It would be one thing if you were going to call it that HAVING NEVER SEEN IT IN ACTION....but we have and it's sad and pathetic...

Did you miss my example of the Prometheus entirely? It IS the prototype of its class, there are no other Prometheus-class ships during "Message in a Bottle". It is also clearly a brand-new experimental ship that was JUST built at the time of the ep... and it's NX-59650.

OH YEAH...
Okuda already explained that was a mistake between the CGI team and the set builders. He confirms the hull registry and not the bridge registry. It's newer than the Intrepid class. It's not an issue. Mistakes are made all the time. They don't upset me I just file them as mistakes and move on.

If that is true, then NOTHING you have said in this entire thread means anything tangible either.

My points have no relationship with your points. Your previous point of surviving doesn't mean anything tangible because of the factors involved and direct observation. We don't know how long they had been fighting, How many ships the Cube dispatched and what it's current status operationally was. What we see is an undamage Akira get trashed by the SAME BEAM that Defiant is hit with having no shields, (and I'd guess no armor too.)

So that one instance for that one reason in that one episode was the only time that an Excelsior or any other older ship will be refitted?

What are you getting at here?

Lakota was refuted to take on other inferior Federation ship in order to make a stand in a civil war. In other words O'Brien makes it clear this was not a normal refit. (There's no telling what they did to her engines)

There aren't better space frames to modify (or not many, anyway), because the Akira is a modern, badass warship.

I disagree Registry tells me this design is old not modern. If anything it could be considered current but nothing more.

Right. They sent a whole armada of useless "SPAM" ships to fight the Borg, and several representatives of every class you are deriding just happened to survive all the way through to the end of the battle.

You speculated before that the Defense sats were down.
I speculate with similar logic that these were last ditch vessels. I do not believe that the Borg ran unchecked through the Federation untill it got to this point in the visual record...

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is just speculation, since inspecting the visual models (something you love to tell others to do) shows three very large phaser arrays oriented forward on the Akira,

Size doesn't tell us anything.
And these are not strategic locations. It's all forward. The ship has massive blind spots.

And the idea that the Steamrunner just can't fire torpedoes because we didn't see it happen in FC is silly.

That's fine...but it's canon.
And there is none on the model.

This was in reference to the weird way many Dominion War battles were filmed; overemphasis on the Defiant meant we hardly ever saw other Starfleet ships even firing. You seriously want to just... what, take that at face value? The Federation held their own in a war in which most of their ships never fired while engaging in major fleet battles?

I can only take what I''m given.
Inference happens on top of that. But outside of that I have no reason to believe otherwise as you have become fond of saying it would merely be speculation. I call it conjecture.

"Almost" the same ferocity. They were also in REALLY close, and scoring a lot of direct hits (and ruffian-Bashir's little Maquis Raider looking thing was also scoring some nasty looking hits when it showed up; there's no way its weapons were equal to the pulse phasers on the Defiant.) Also, lolmirroruniverse. At normal range, under normal circumstances, against fully shielded enemy ships, the phaser "array turrets" wouldn't be AS effective per shot as the pulse phasers. That's all I was saying (and it's just my speculation anyway).

But we're not talking about the raider.
We're talking Defiant. It's reasonable to assume the Raiders weapons were exaggerated sure...but we're looking at the Defiant..are we really going to put it's armament on the level of a normal ship?

No. The Excelsior class model does not show sixteen (now it's seventeen? Or twenty-seven? What?) phaser arrays (or banks). I have watched "Paradise Lost" many times; there is nothing in that battle to suggest that number, either.

I just looked at the video again.
It's actually 28.
20 turrets on the saucer
4 turrets on the Belly
2 turrets on either side of the neck near the impulse engines
1 Turret on top of the impulse engines
1 turret on the nacelles junction

All canon.

Ok, I'm not sure what you're getting at here either. All I'm saying is this: In the universe of Trek, it seems pretty clear that when a new class is designed and approved, a single prototype is built and field tested, then later, if it's successful, they might build more. They might build some of those additional ships at the same time; my only point was that the prototype itself is built alone.

That's not necessarily true that's speculation many have based on Air force Contracts like Boeing and Lockheed that build ONE prototype for testing (not even that is true but that's the perception) When a Navy orders a ship they don't build "prototypes", that's too much resource to go into just testing, it's not a fighter. They make a contract to build a set number of ships and begin laying down a keel.

Now Trek does something in between.
Galaxy and her sister ships were roughly built at the same time and so was Voyager and Intrepid. But Defiant was a special project, I DOUBT they were putting down multiple keels for this ship and the same for Prometheus. I say this because there were systems indicative to these ships that actually required deep space testing to figure if they would work.

There are no "clear issues" with the Sovereign on-screen in the TNG movies or from inspecting the model. Any such issues are from non-canon sources or your own speculation.

I disagree. the refit is clear on screen evidence.

Says who?

John Eaves.

John Eaves said the Ent-E was "refitted from the 'ground up'?"

One: link?
Two: Even if he said that, it's inaccurate. It was modified; it was clearly not refitted from "the ground up." That would imply that it was changed WAY more than it actually was. It was a refit, not a redesign.

In Star Trek the Magezine he clearly says that the Nacelles were moved to slightly new position. Whether you're familar with structural engineering or not that required a substantial dismantling of large area of the Secondar hull and completely different set of pylons.

All of that said, I'm not going to engage in these huge, blow-by-blow posts anymore. I think my points are made. Saquist may be just throwing out personal speculation anyway; I still find it hard to tell. This is pretty off-topic anyway, though.

Don't worry about it. It's all in fun right?

What the? I'm saying that the Akira having either all those tubes or none of those tubes are both equally unreasonable to say. Talk about "cut and dry.

You think it's ridiculous. I don't know what that means.
Either it has the tubes or it doesn't, either it's used them or hasn't. If it hasn't used them then it's likely it doesn't have them.

Tell me where I ever said that I myself personally state the Akira as having 15 tubes as fact rather than speculation?

I really don't know.
But I do know the model does show that many lauchers just like the Nebula shows that many launchers.

Never. What I'm saying is that saying the Akira has 15 tubes is every bit as ridiculous as you saying she has zero tubes whatsoever. I'm stating two different extremes, but you're taking one extreme for your own personally-believed "fact" and setting up a strawman with the other extreme.

That wasn't my intention I'm just stating that ripping out the launchers isn't extreme it's logical and it happens on naval ships all the time. Canon even shows that the Miranda's may have been combat vessels in the 23rd century but the USS Lantree was clearly reduced to transport at this time. At such time that roll bar isn't necessary.

Additionally, it's not reasonable at all to say the Akira has no torpedo tubes when it clearly fires torpedoes on screen.

Then I call strawman.
I never said Akira had no tubes.

On a side note, your logic that if it had all those tubes, it would use them, doesn't hold up. The Enterprise-D has 12 phaser arrays, but we only see her use three in her entire run. According to your logic, since the ship doesn't use the other 9, it doesn't have them. Voyager didn't use all her phaser arrays either. We never saw all of the Constitution's weapons in action.

Please don't call that my logic.
We've seen Galaxy use 6 of it's 12 phaser arrays and all tubes. So at least half. The majority used in a Alpha Strike against a Borg Cube and the Husnock.

We've seen Voyager use 7 of it's 15 arrays. (again about half) And a Fourth tube fired actually between the aft torpedo tubes and a fifth fireed aft from the belly.

In comparison the Constitution Refit was was never seen in a fair fight. The Akira was constantly seen in fleet battles. That's a problem.

 

[Jono]

^ The Excelsior appeared in just as many fleet battles as the Akira and has been shown firing in more of them than the Akira but we never saw it open up with all of its apparent 28 phaser banks, so by the logic you apply to the Akira the Excelsior should only have around 8.

Plus what are you basing the Akira being sad and pathetic on? The only time we've seen Akiras getting destroyed is against the Borg, who hand everyone their arse, and the Cardassian Weapons platforms, which were very well armed. Hardly a strong case for the Akira being pathetic. Throw in the fact that there were multiple Akiras (including, Steamruuners and Sabres) still battling it out with the Dominion fleet that outnumbered them 2 to 1 in Operation Return four to five hours after the battle began, this further puts your claims on shaky ground.

 

[Jono]

Double post: It was all my connection's fault! I swear!

 

[Saito S]

OH YEAH...
Okuda already explained that was a mistake between the CGI team and the set builders. He confirms the hull registry and not the bridge registry. It's newer than the Intrepid class. It's not an issue. Mistakes are made all the time. They don't upset me I just file them as mistakes and move on.

This is cute, this is very cute.

When I point to a registry seen on screen that could be taken to prove that registries don't always go chronologically, you handwave it away. "Well, mistakes happen. It's fine."

But the visuals of certain ships not firing as much as you'd think they would if they really WERE designed for combat? Well, that is hard, indisputable, no-room-for-debate evidence that those ships suck! Naturally!

My points have no relationship with your points. Your previous point of surviving doesn't mean anything tangible because of the factors involved and direct observation. We don't know how long they had been fighting, How many ships the Cube dispatched and what it's current status operationally was.

Wait... what? I was talking about the fleet vs. the defense platforms in "Tears of the Prophets," not FC.

What we see is an undamage Akira get trashed by the SAME BEAM that Defiant is hit with having no shields, (and I'd guess no armor too.)

You don't know the Akira was undamaged.

Lakota was refuted to take on other inferior Federation ship in order to make a stand in a civil war. In other words O'Brien makes it clear this was not a normal refit. (There's no telling what they did to her engines)

"other inferior Federation ship" is Defiant? Now the Defiant is inferior again?

No, it wasn't refit for that purpose, it was refit in case of a Dominion invasion. Leyton & co. may have secretly also intended for it to be used that way, but the refit itself wasn't hidden.

You speculated before that the Defense sats were down.

Uh... no. I didn't "speculate" anything. I pointed out that after the defense satellites went down, there were a bunch of ships still flying along with the Defiant, so clearly they were all tough enough to survive.

Size doesn't tell us anything.
And these are not strategic locations. It's all forward. The ship has massive blind spots.

You said in your previous post that the Akira/Saber/Steamrunner sucked because they DIDN'T have any substantial forward-facing offense!

Inference happens on top of that. But outside of that I have no reason to believe otherwise as you have become fond of saying it would merely be speculation. I call it conjecture.

con-jec-ture
-noun
1. the formation of expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof.
2. an opinion or theory so formed or expressed; guess; speculation.

I just looked at the video again.
It's actually 28.
20 turrets on the saucer
4 turrets on the Belly
2 turrets on either side of the neck near the impulse engines
1 Turret on top of the impulse engines
1 turret on the nacelles junction

All canon.

Twenty-eight... Not even close. We only see the ship fire from six (SIX) different locations during the "Paradise Lost" battle. We do see other "points" on the saucer that look exactly like the points we see actually fire; there is no doubt these are also phaser emitters. There are ten of those total (five dorsal, five ventral), plus one on the belly, one on each side of the impulse engines, one above the impulse engines, and one between the nacelles. 15 total on-screen. Everything else is speculation on your part.

I disagree. the refit is clear on screen evidence.

Refit != massive problems. Starfleet ships were refit left and right throughout Trek.

This is getting ridiculous. You say I'm making leaps of faith, yet declare that "Paradise Lost" somehow proves twenty-eight phaser banks (or "emitters"... they're not arrays by the way, you ignored that entirely) on the Excelsior. You hand-wave away on-screen evidence of out-of-order registry numbers as meaningless, yet declare that the Steamrunner is the first Starfleet ship in history with no torpedo launchers because we can't see them. You call ships practically defenseless, then cite all the ships blowing up in "Tears of the Prophets" as evidence, then when I mention all the ships that DID survive that same event as counter-evidence, it "doesn't mean anything tangible." And you still refuse to acknowledge that you are speculating. A lot more than you want to admit.

Double post: It was all my connection's fault! I swear!

A likely story!
(Good points in your "real" post, by the way.)