Any fairly trivial breaks from canon that make big differences to you?

Absolutely. Any even vaguely realistic depiction of space combat (or even current day naval or air combat) wouldn’t be very interesting visually.

It is not that simple. They knew the Borg would eventually come but they did not know when and where the Borg would strike. No one expected the incursion so soon. Starfleet thought that they had at least a decade or more and not just a little more than a year.
The situation with the Dominion was different. Starfleet knew were the Dominion would strike, no, had to strike, especially after the Cardassians allied themselves with the Dominion. And they knew that this war would start sooner than later.

(with that said, the galaxy-class bridge does appear to have a window - it just points straight UP)

All the cool starships have sunroofs.

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Which BTW is completely useless… :wink:

Not if the ship orbits with its back to the planet!

I have to say I’m fascinated by the interplay between defending Roddenberry’s decrees (Klingon foreheads) and objecting to them (position of bridge)… :smiley:

Personally, I like the bridge windows (it’s one of the few Abrams innovations I like): with “transparent aluminium” (ST III) and appropriate force field technology, it is not a weak spot in the ship’s defences.

Then again, I run games simulating the tv shows, not an extrapolated reality. Which view you take of a lot of in-show things will depend in part on this.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the esthetics of the Starfleet ships. Just pointing out the weak points again😅
A viewport doubling as the views reen is definetly better than having the bridge crew staring at a blank piece of bulkhead.
See voyager “one year hell” double episode and the arguably bad nemesis movie where they got their viewport forcefully😂

One issue with a clear viewport is what space would look like when a ship is traveling at warp speed is unknown - it may not provide any kind of useful reference. Likewise, the distances involved would be so large that it would also be hard to see anything.

They proably do have starships, but not the type you’re thinking, I suspect most in system work horses would be things like runabouts etc.

My Star Trek has several Scale 3 and a few Scale 4 vessels assigned to most member worlds. Key worlds, like Earth and Vulcan, would likely have considerably more and perhaps even a few semi-permanently assigned Scale 5 vessels (likely those ubiquitous Excelsior-class hulls). Ideally, the system monitor of choice would be Defiant-class starships (which I do not think are well-suited to extended deployments), but production of those will never be sufficient in my Federation.

This is in part because I do not think of runabouts as true ships, nor did I ever buy into the idea of Starfleet using fighters.

for me every world has a fleet of a dozen runabouts, each star base (and each sector of space will have at least one starbase) has a “patrol ship” attached to it. the Patrol ship will depend on the Importance of the sector, Oberths will commonly fill this role. although the Saber is intended to eventually be the standard “star fleet patrol vessel” the Defiant will slowly become popular for this as the dominion war heats up.

it just makes sense to me.

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I doubt that they will use either Oberths, which BTW are pure science vessels, or the Defiants as “partol ships”. They have a huge fleet of Mirandas and derivates to use. Although STA said that the Miranda-class had been introduced in 2274 I believe that this class (the Constellation-class and most similiar classes) are at least twenty years older, because they use the same design elements as the Constitution-class in the movies and the overall design is similiar to the one seen in DIS.
The Defiants are still too new and too rare to be used in such a fashion.

The Defiant class is rare and new at the time of the series, but it is very well-suited to the role of a system monitor. This is because it is heavily-armed, has a small crew requirement, has fairly high upkeep, and seems to have short legs (the Valiant mission being an exception) and minimal usefulness (for a Starfleet vessel) outside of combat. After the war, it would make good sense for production to increase. In contrast, I like to believe that the war significantly reduced the numbers of Miranda-class vessels in the fleet, and I don’t think Starfleet will be building any new hulls of that class. What Miranda-class vessels did survive, certainly make excellent system ships until they eventually get replaced.

annoyed the hell out of me that there weren’t a fleet of them in First Contact

I am loving this part of the discussion… :smiley: And this is definitely somewhere you’d see older Miranda’s put out to pasture, which may also explain where they came from when the war heated up.

I agree that most inhabited worlds would have access to some kind of vessels with defensive arms, but what those are would, I think, depend on the type of world: I look mostly at Movie-era stuff, but something equivalent would fit at other levels. So:

  • Homeworld, major colony (population above 10s of millions): Starfleet base of some description, possibly a starbase, depending on location, with a small permanent squadron of (4-6) medium ships (the largest would be Miranda-sized although larger cruisers would visit regularly), a flotilla of a dozen cutters (small armed vessels used for police and emergency operations) and numerous warp shuttles (runabouts)
  • medium significant colony (population in millions): Starfleet base, with a couple of destroyers (Saladin or equivalent, Sabre in later years), a pair of cutters and several warp shuttles
  • small colony (agricultural, mining, industrial): no Starfleet presence, but one or two armed civilian vessels* plus warp shuttles operated by private concerns, a pair of cutters would pass through on a regular basis to check up on things
  • outpost: lucky to have a warp shuttle…

Starfleet vessels are usually staffed by ex-Starfleet personnel on the reserve list and both ships and crews can be reactivated in time of crisis.

* based on an idea from the novels, I assume civilians operators need a license to arm their vessels (a prerequisite in dangerous regions). Those doing this on a professional basis (mercenaries basically) are usually called privateers and can be hired for defence by colonists.

Additionally, I pulled (and modified) an idea out of the old Jackill’s books: the Oberth-class is just one example fitout of a modular vessel (Vega-class in my version), which consists of the upper deck of an Oberth. Other arrangements include tugs, small hospital ships and gunboats (with phasers and/or torpedoes). Small, cheap and easy to staff, but not able to stand up to anything bigger than a bird of prey for long. Colonial governments will often buy and operate these off their own budgets.

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I disagree because the Defiant-class is officially an escort not a monitor. Escorts fulfil a completely different role than monitors or partol crafts. Their role is to escort and defend other vessels not to patrol whole systems.

No, because the whole existence of a warship, and the Defiant-class is a warship, is an anathema to Starfleet. So they would not build new ones. The only ones in service will be the ones build in the years before the war.

I can’t believe that the post Dominion War Starfleet is the same fleet as before. Some battlehardened Falcons will be in positions of Power, who will see, that Starfleet keep it’s teeth.

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I suggested the Oberth because they’re a fairly common small hull design that can be crewed with a minimal crew. which is what you want, keep in mind patrol duties aren’t going to mostly be combat related, but be stuff like replacing nav bouys ferrying engineering teams to help freighters out in emergancies. engage in research stuff. Basicly the type of stuff you see the Canadian coast guard doing

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Basicly the type of stuff you see the Canadian coast guard doing

Space, the final frontier, eh? These are the voyages of the USS Maple Leaf. It’s continuing mission, to monitor wildlife activity, provide medical attention to freighters, and defend federation citizens against the constant pervasive threat of space moose.

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Sorry, but according to the stats of the Saber-class in the The Command Division (pp.64-65) a good partol vessel needs good sensors, both a powerfull tactor beam and impulse drive and should have a bonus in the security department. The Oberth-class from the same book (pp.56-57) only has good sensors…

I think that Starfleet has much more classes of starship than shown on screen. The pre-2371 patrol vessels may be among those.

Someone really needs to write up stats and a background for Space Moose…

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