Skip to main content

Why aren't there any main Federation battleships in the Star Trek universe?


All of the ships seem to have offensive/defensive capabilities as secondary considerations. The galaxy seems to be loaded with fearsome enemies and the promise of even more powerful adversaries yet to be encountered.


When a single Borg ship can wipe out an entire Federation fleet, I would expect the Federation to come up with a Battleship or Ship-Of-The-Line capable of delivering devastating firepower and multiple independent shield generators as defense. Something similar to the ship that the Dowd Kevin Uxbridge created in TNG 'The Survivors'.



(The 'Husnock' ship fires)


WORF: Shields down! Captain, they hit us with four hundred gigawatts of particle energy!


PICARD: Damage?


WORF: Superficial -- but I am having trouble reassembling the shields!


(The Husnock ship fires again)


WORF: Shields down! There is thermal damage to the hull!



DATA: The warship is in possession of enormous energy reserves. It is capable of striking us with far more powerful bursts.


WESLEY: They're maneuvering to come between the Enterprise and Rana Four.


PICARD: Number One, we have been exemplary in our patience.


RIKER: Lieutenant Worf, fire phasers on full with a simultaneous spread of torpedoes.


(The Enterprise finally returns fire)


DATA: The vessel appears undamaged. Its defenses are apparently able to absorb incoming matter and energy.


RIKER: Commence rapid fire with all weapons on full!


(The Enterprise unloads on the Husnock ship, with a nice display of at least a dozen torpedoes and a similar number of phaser blasts. The Husnock ship returns fire and numerous bridge consoles erupt in showers of sparks)


WORF: Shields are down! There is internal damage -- weapon systems control has been lost!


RIKER: Riker to Sickbay. Medical assistance to the bridge!



PICARD: Mister Crusher, move the Enterprise out of range of the attacking vessel!
- "Star Trek Canon Database (Queried By Episode 'Survivors')", stardestroyer.net



The Enterprise is the Federation's Flagship and probably the toughest they have, yet it got creamed with 3 shots and couldn't even scratch the paint of the opposing ship.



Answer




When a single Borg ship can wipe out an entire Federation fleet, I would expect the Federation to come up with a Battleship or Ship-Of-The-Line capable of delivering devastating firepower



They did. The Defiant:




Development on the Defiant began around 2366 in response to the Borg threat. Although officially classified as an escort vessel, the Defiant was nothing less than Starfleet's first design of warship; intended to fight, and ultimately defeat, the Borg.
From: "USS Defiant (2370)", Memory Alpha



However, it isn't mentioned in The Next Generation (aside from Riker's "tough little ship" one-liner in First Contact). It was revealed in Deep Space Nine’s season 3 premiere, The Search, when it was sent on a mission to find the Dominion.


When Sisko introduces it to his senior staff, O'Brien mentions that Starfleet didn't believe in warships. Starfleet's mission is one of peace, exploration, science, and general universal love and understanding. (Why yes, the show was conceived in California in the 1960s. Good guess!) It's harder to convince new species that you want to be friends if you show up in a ship capable of blowing up their planet.


Out-of-universe, the show's premise is an optimistic one about the future of humanity - it assumes we've developed the better aspects of our nature, and prospered as a result. It’s not about kicking the crap out of aliens.


(Except for the episodes — mainly in Deep Space Nine — featuring massive space battles where Starfleet kicks the crap out of aliens. They’re awesome.)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more