USS Enterprise-D was never meant to be a military ship
Posted by psyper76@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 64 comments
Hear me out. I'm sure there's going to be a fair amount of you that are going to say 'well duh thats obvious' or disagree but considering I first watched TNG when I was in my early teens and watched it off and on several times since I start to see it from a more 'functional' observation.
The Enterprise-D (& its sister Galaxy Class ships) was designed as a utilliary ship to administrate the Federation of Planets.
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Emergency Transport - If you need a large colony moved off of a planet asap Galaxy Class is your go to. The fact that most of the ships cabin space is largely empty will help with transporting large number of people - each cabin/deck can have its atmosphere customised as needed. Schools and a large restaurant (ten-forward) provides long term support. Large cargo bays provide a lot of room for infrastructure and large resources that are needed to more a colony from one location to another. It also has large transporter systems which can 'beam up' large number of people very quickly.
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Ambassadorial role / first contact- Its a huge stylish and top of range ship. Galaxy Class is the flagship class of the federation and nice to roll out when you need to show off what the federation has to offer - its the red carpet for impressing dignitaries and leaders of planets thinking of joining the federation. Theres not a sharp edge inside or out - theres no large pointy laser turrets, theres no obvious torpedo tubes - its designed to be big impressive but unintimidating. Large conference tables and the infamous buffet lounge its always ready to smooze those that need smoozing.
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Science and exploration - you need to map out a star system or reconfigure a planets atmosphere then the galaxy class starship is your guy. Countless episodes cover this because its exciting. Even those where they've spent 6 months just mapping a system of nothing special until the episode starts and an alien entity waltz in to the saucer section. Its sensor array is top of the line and can even fine tune its lasers to cut a whole in a planet or to open the uterus of a space alien. The torpedoes can be customised at a moments notice as required.
The crew reflect these needs. They are hand picked as the best of the best the federation has to offer. Picard is the ultimate diplomat; he can see similarities between waring factions where none could be seen. He has the backing of the federation to offer a lot in order to provide peace without resorting to a military response. Also his interest in xenoarchaeology is a plus for those long investigations is ancient civilisations they encounter on the way. LaForge and Data provide 1st class science support. Gordie can provide the answer to the most difficult of problems and the processing speed of an android makes Data an essential tool. Riker is a fantastic strategist - no chair can escape him. Worf and Yar have excellent tactics. Getting the shields up just before shit hits the whirly-thing on more than one occasion or pushing the captain out of the way just as a phaser gets pulled out. Dr. Crusher seems to solve the most strangest of medical conditions with ease. The fact she can go from 'I have no idea what this is' to 'I think I have an idea to cure this' in super quick time is amazing. Even Troi who doesn't get used as much as she should - having an empath (in starfleet uniform) quietly sitting at a negotiation table and able to communicate the intentions (to riker at least) without saying a word. Her official posting as a councillor is just a ruse.
This is all well and good but it does annoy me when I see it used as a military ship. It wasn't designed for that - yes it does have a battle bridge - but that is designed for when it needs to get the civilians out of the way - not as military. In star fleet you see a lot of different shaped ships but their different shapes and configurations don't really say that they are anything special. The only truly different ones are the medical ships - designed as something to sit behind the front line and provide medical support for ships dropping back that require aid.
If you lined up a modern navy or military side by side with star fleet you'll have a hard time finding a 1 to 1 fit. You dont see an aircraft carrier - a battlestar galactica if you will. or a light frigate like the Rocinate in The Expanse. The defiant is a good fast attack craft but they need 100's of those. They lack large battleships with several large laser turrets or small fighters like the starfurys in babylon 5 or the Hammerheads in Space:Above & beyond. Thats why star fleet always come out 2nd best against the dominion, the borg, the Klingons (yesterdays enterprise). I love a big battle with amardas on either side but when theres a load of saucers with nacelles sticking out of them it just seems laughable to me.
tl;dr - Starfeet ships have no place at the front line of a battle and I'll die on this hill.
aaaaaaand post...
PurpleHawkeye619@reddit
Yes it was a military ship. With the potential exception of the Cerritos and Athena all the main ships are military ships.
The Enterprise-D is repeatedly sent somewhere as the only federation vessel in the sector, often times explicitly to deal with known or potential threats.
Thats a mission profile for a well armed war ship.
Lets also not forget the Enterprise-D has 2 bridges, and the second is literally the Battle bridge, designed to ne used as the name suggests, in Battle, after sticking civilians in the saucer and disconnecting it.
Notably most of the ships weapons and all of its warp drives remain with the stardrive section..aka the bit with the Battle bridge. The saucer in effect becomes a lightly defended impulse only escape pod.
Creating a ship that can essentially jettison its not military bits, and also ensuring the military part of the ship is the part thats actually capable of fleeing is not a decision that suggests a scientific focus.
Furthermore, the crew complement doesn't really appear to be geared for science at all.
As you yourself pointed out OP, when the Enterprise needs to do science stuff, its assigned to a handful of ops division officers to do.
The ship lacks a Chief Science Officer for the entirety of its existence.
On the flipside, when the ships tactical officer (AKA the person in charge of using the weapons) is killed, that spot gets filled within an hour, and that person is always part of the senior staff.
Starfleet has always been a military organization that does some science and exploration, and everything about the D, from design to staffing epitomizes that.
HowardRabb@reddit
Take a peak at the blueprints for deck 10. 10 Forward is just one of the bars there. The ship has even more entertaining spaces than we ever see so yeah I 100 percent agree with you that the ship is meant for that administrative role
ComesInAnOldBox@reddit
As the old samurai adage goes, it's better to be a warrior in a garden than it is to be a gardener in a war.
Starfleet serves a dual role. It is both a science and exploration fleet and a military force, and the ships are designed to fulfill both roles as needed. There's a heavier emphasis on the science and exploration side of things, sure, but space is damn dangerous and the ships need to be able to hold their own when the crew finds itself in a sticky situation. In addition, while the Federation may not be an imperial power (openly, at least), their neighbors certainly are and the Federation would be derelict in its duty if it didn't have a military force ready to protect itself should one of those neighbors start feeling froggy.
Depending on which sourcebook you're reading from, the Vulcans used to give Earth a hard time about having its exploratory fleet armed to the teeth until the First Romulan War, when Starfleet was able to go toe-to-toe with the Romulans pretty quickly with minimal refit time because their ships were already built to fight. Same thing happened with the KIingons (pre-Discovery, at least), where (again, depending on which version of published future-history we're talking about) first contact lead straight into a shooting war, and Starfleet was able to hold the line until an uneasy truce was declared and the neutral zone established.
The fact that the Galaxy-class has a "battle bridge" alone should tell you that they were designed with these dual roles in mind.
settingdogstar@reddit
Well at no point does anyone claim it to be a military ship.
Starfleet is explicitly not a military ship, as related by both Picard and many others.
See I just summarized your whole post in 30ish words
tauri123@reddit
And then after the dominion war starfleet finally realized this was a serious flaw for when unexpected galactic wide threats presented themselves and designed the Prometheus, which they got 3 ships in one with that one so they could have built a small fleet of them and then when they separate their fleet is multiplied by 3, plus the sovereign class was really much more suited to combat, and I think starfleet plays the numbers game as opposed to the really big battleship game
Bruzie77@reddit
And in the 32nd C after the burn they finally realized they needed a war college
_Nacktmull_@reddit
Not the same timeline...
psyper76@reddit (OP)
Thats the thing that annoyed me the most. We have a major battle - the klingons on one side these strange saucers with necelles sticking out of them on the other. Where are the aircraft carriers, where are the battleships, where are the frigates and where are the small fighters. The Federation is missing half of their fleet - they need a military arm. Even a small battle fleet that can be dispatched to skirmishes would've been more believable. You'd never send a galaxy class ship on to the front line unless you needed a large army contingent to transport.
Nobodyinpartic3@reddit
The Akira class was the carrier, but like the Galaxy class, it's filled with shuttles.
psyper76@reddit (OP)
even if it has several delta flyers it'll be half decent
Nobodyinpartic3@reddit
Honestly, a lot of Runabouts too. I am watching DS9 and, wow, those things did a lot of work.
As much as the Akira class is the fighter carrier, with a lot of Runabouts an Akira class would be great in mass evacuations or large scale engineering projects.
Middcore@reddit
Yes, he says this to scoff at the idea of the Enterprise having to do war games. He says it while the Federation is probably still technically at war with the Cardassians, and he says it despite having commanded a Starfleet vessel in ship-to-ship combat on prior occasions.
Starfleet is not "officially" a military. They nonetheless use military ranks and procedures and function as the Federation's military for all purposes, and their ships carry armaments equivalent to or greater than ships of other galactic powers of similar size, enough to obliterate entire planets.
It's one of those things where they perpetually "dance on the edge of the neutral zone."
DerSnackpapst@reddit
I’m sure this is the most popular defense at every Starfleet court martial.
LOUDCO-HD@reddit
I mean, their primary mission is to seek out strange new worlds but sometimes those strange new worlds have badass MF’ers that need to get photon torpedo’ed. What makes the ship so remarkable is how quickly it can pivot between those two roles.
Thisbymaster@reddit
Yes, most federation ships were not designed for military use. Which is what was said when they introduced The defiant in DS9. After Wolf359 the ship designers realized there were threats they couldn't handle so they came up with a ship with engines too large and weapons over powered. It was mothballed after the borg threat was over but was put into service against the dominion.
Competitive-Fun-2889@reddit
Relax with the essay.
Its just a show....
dashsolo@reddit
Feel sorry for you.
Competitive-Fun-2889@reddit
Lol why?
dashsolo@reddit
Some people like to think about things and then express their thoughts and feelings, even when the topic is something trivial like a TV show.
Others enjoy reading these thoughts and exchanging ideas of their own. Subreddits exist for this reason.
I feel sorry for you because you don’t seem interested in your own imagination, nor do you seem to be able to tolerate others’.
Competitive-Fun-2889@reddit
Yikes, that is a lot of emotion for something as trivial as a TV show.
You can express your opinions in moderation, not go in excess.
dashsolo@reddit
Not really feeling any emotion about it, why are you even in this sub?
Competitive-Fun-2889@reddit
Everyone feels emotions, what are you talking about? Lol
dashsolo@reddit
I’m saying I don’t think calmly asking someone to be considerate is “getting emotional”. Thanks for giving permission to express my opinion (but only a little), btw.
Keep ending all your replies with lol, you seem like a delight.
Competitive-Fun-2889@reddit
Lol, you were being calm? If you say so.
psyper76@reddit (OP)
Competitive-Fun-2889@reddit
Good use of the gif. I give you my upvote.
atreidesspirit@reddit
The D is whatever you need her to be.
slobis@reddit
Stopped at "as a utilliary ship to administrate"
lol
froot_loop_dingus_@reddit
No shit, Sherlock. The mission of the Enterprise-D is exploration, not military conquest. In 'Yesterday's Enterprise' Guinan says it's weird that the Enterprise is a battleship full of soldiers, not an exploration ship with civilians on board.
MindlessNectarine374@reddit
I would still say the ships can be both.
psyper76@reddit (OP)
damn it - 'no shit sherlock' was my 2nd choice after 'well duh thats obvious'
ProgeriaJoe@reddit
If Starfleet isn't the Federations military...what is?
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
This is AI slop
psyper76@reddit (OP)
I keep reading this. I can't work out if I should be honoured or insulted!!
ProbablyStu@reddit
There used to be a meme that was "everyone I don't like on the internet is Hitler" (or something like that). it's become "everything I don't like is AI slop" Though in fairness there is a lot of AI slop these days.
OhNoIBoffedIt@reddit
Certainly not. Too many typos and grammatical errors. This is authentic human babble 😂
psyper76@reddit (OP)
hahaha yesss. AI ain't got shet compared to me
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
🤣
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
Ten Forward is a large restaurant? Sure it’s a bar for about 30 people tops, not a mess hall for thousand of refugees
FockersJustSleeping@reddit
Sometimes I wish they had mixed it up and had like 40 Aft, 15 Port, 32 Starboard. Just to be like, ok there are a 1000 people. They need more than one hangout.
ProbablyStu@reddit
In the Stage 9 sim they modelled some of the smaller rec rooms that fit maybe 15 people. They just have a replicator and a nice view if I remember correctly.
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
Agreed, it seems sized an Officers only area.
FockersJustSleeping@reddit
Totally! AND the civilian workers can use it, AND ship guests, passengers, interdimensional tricksters. Place gets crowded!
psyper76@reddit (OP)
Yeah you're right on that - might be able to provide a staggered mess hall like they used it for in yesterdays enterprise. However there is a buffet bar that they sometimes use for vip's so there might be large spaces here and there that can be repurposed for mess halls.
Middcore@reddit
The Galaxy class is the product of a fat and happy Federation enjoying a "peace dividend" from reduced Klingon and Romulan threats.
It's Starfleet's most powerful capital ship AND its most advanced exploration ship AND has all the cargo carrying capacity to haul whatever distant colonies need AND it's supposed to do it all while offering the crew and their entire families every creature comfort.
A few years later when the (small g) galaxy doesn't seem like such a safe and optimistic place, the flaws in this design philosophy start to become apparent.
psyper76@reddit (OP)
Couldn't have said it better myself. Every-time its up against a D'deridex class warbird or Vor'cha class bird of prey and Picard's like - we're equally matched and we're both gonna die today, test me. I cringe - there are children on board. The warships have a lot less to lose there is no way they will back down. If he had said 'we have a battleship 5 minutes away do you really want to wait around for that' then I could understand because I think if the Federation really put their minds to it they could design and build a ship that could take out 3 D'deridex or Vor'cha's without loosing a single shield.
Comrade-Stoneroad@reddit
I like to imagine when the Dominion war started they called all the current and former chief engineers together and they told Starfleet to install batter shield and weapons.
psyper76@reddit (OP)
Stick a laser cannon on the bottom and an extra nacelle on the top it'll be fine
thanatossassin@reddit
The only place this argument fits is Yesterday's Enterprise, where it was considered a warship. Even in that scenario, I'd say the Galaxy was already past the drawing board phase when it was determined it would be needed for battle instead of exploration. Otherwise it never was a military ship, and it's armament was really there to just be taken seriously by agitators and aggressors, like the Romulans and Cardassians.
psyper76@reddit (OP)
It does look like it was shoe-horned as a military ship after it was built and I think starfleet look at it and said 'troop carrier' - it'll be ideal to transport a large amount of troops at a very fast speed to a much needed planet - drop them off mass transporter and run home fast.
fish_custard@reddit
No shit. Have you seen Star Trek? Starfleet is, expressly, not a military organization. Thanks for attending my TED talk.
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
Sure it is. Every single time the Earth or Federation was threatened, it was only Starfleet that was sent. Please tell me about the other military org of the Federation that had the battleships etc.
Malnurtured_Snay@reddit
You're confusing "Starfleet has a military role" with "Starfleet is not a military organization."
Like, when the US Navy is conducting research on stuff, do you think the Navy is a research organization? No. It's a military organization conducting research.
Now flip it around for Starfleet.
Starfleet is a science organization that sometimes does military stuff.
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
Nah, not buying it. I’ll offer 50/50 split. It has naval naming of the ships, military rank structure, the captain is not a scientist. The science is done and is important for Enterprise sure, but is a military org that performs tasks including some science oriented ones.
mcgrst@reddit
Captain isn't a military man either, he is a archeologist diplomat. If it was a military organisation the COs would all be more like Lorca or Jellico than Picard, Janeway or even Sisko who was a bit of a soldier but still deep down an engineer.
OhNoIBoffedIt@reddit
Starfleet was not a military. Their vessels were equipped with weapons for defensive purposes, not to wage war. This has been clearly stated, multiple times, in multiple series. Sisko even explicitly points out that the Defiant was Starfleet's very first warship, specifically built to counter the Borg.
Starfleet is more analogous to NASA and the US Coast Guard, the latter of which has some military-grade equipment, but is not considered a military (in fact they used to fall under the Dept of Treasury before Homeland Security existed). At best they are law enforcement organization, but they are still—first and foremost—explorers.
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
The cost guard IS a branch of the military
salamander_salad@reddit
Not during peacetime. It’s under DHS when we aren’t at war.
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
It is still a military branch
xMisterSnrubx@reddit
Not all military ships wage war. You are the confused one.
starfleethastanks@reddit
Starfleet is a military organization whether they admit it or not. It has other purposes as well, but defending the Federation in a conflict is clearly established as part of their mission.
It's the military, NASA, and humanitarian relief rolled into one.
OhNoIBoffedIt@reddit
Pretty sure a debate on this with u/StarfleetHasTanks is going to go exactly nowhere 😂
Fuzzy_Builder_2153@reddit
They should've had an Ambassador At Large on board. Lwaxanna is perfect as a Permanent Cast Member.
Equal_Pop211@reddit
I don’t think this is a controversial take. They expressly state this in the show on several occasions. That said, I would argue that its successor, the sovereign class was designed in an environment of heightened military threats to the Federation from the Borg and Dominion and was designed to be able to function as a dedicated warship. I don’t think it’s in canon, but the theory is that the Akira, Defiant, and Sovereign were part of a group of post-Borg ship designs that were specifically dedicated to fighting or at the least with much more explicit military capabilities.