That just doesn't make sense!

Indricotherium

I think the defiants back story was wedged into it in order to explain away the "coolness" of it.

downwithpeace

Indricotherium wrote: »

As for doesn't make sense:

The defiant was designed to engage large static cube shaped ships with loads of shooters on it, and yet it can only shoot at things it is flying straight toward.

This makes no sense to me.

The Defiant was a prototype, it was armed with standard Federation phasers, photon torpedoes and pules phasers (Forward firing) , quantum torpedoes. Although DS9 doesn't really say it directly it does lead to the effect the ship was a failure and needed extensive work by O'Brien to get it fit for any purpose.

Cookie_Monster

downwithpeace wrote: »

The Defiant was a prototype, it was armed with standard Federation phasers, photon torpedoes and pules phasers (Forward firing) , quantum torpedoes. Although DS9 doesn't really say it directly it does lead to the effect the ship was a failure and needed extensive work by O'Brien to get it fit for any purpose.

it certainly was not a failure and had an entire class based on it, many of them seen on screen. Like any ship it just had some teething troubles.

FGR

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it certainly was not a failure and had an entire class based on it, many of them seen on screen. Like any ship it just had some teething troubles.

The class didn't come into existence until O'Brien was able to resolve the issues surrounding the ship though, am I right?

Indricotherium

FGR wrote: »

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it certainly was not a failure and had an entire class based on it, many of them seen on screen. Like any ship it just had some teething troubles.

The class didn't come into existence until O'Brien was able to resolve the issues surrounding the ship though, am I right?

I'm not arguing its merits one way or another, just that it's existence is a plot hole.

downwithpeace

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it certainly was not a failure and had an entire class based on it, many of them seen on screen. Like any ship it just had some teething troubles.

Your responding to only a part of my post, I posted about the Defiant not the class and how DS9 lead to the effect the ship was a failure and needed extensive work by O'Brien to get it fit for any purpose. What ever came after that came from the work O'Brien did to make the Defiant usable.

Myrddin

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it certainly was not a failure and had an entire class based on it, many of them seen on screen. Like any ship it just had some teething troubles.

It was actually deemed a stalled project, as Sisko mentioned directly the Defiant was 'moth-balled'.

O'Brien figured out how to balance the thing out, lest we forget, the Valiant suffered the exact same problems until Nog implemented the work documented by O'Brien...the class of ship definitely had design flaws, but were solvable.

Cookie_Monster

downwithpeace wrote: »

Your responding to only a part of my post, I posted about the Defiant not the class and how DS9 lead to the effect the ship was a failure and needed extensive work by O'Brien to get it fit for any purpose. What ever came after that came from the work O'Brien did to make the Defiant usable.

let's be honest though, it was solved in very short order as a plot contrivance more than anything. Maybe you could argue that with field testing O'Brien solved it slightly quicker but somehow I doubt him as one engineer hardly fixed all the faults in short order over a team of dedicated ship builders.
Don't forget it was moth balled due to the perceived diminished threat from the Borg rather than from it's technical failings so probably was not top priority, but still, to believe O'Brien solved what a massive team of engineers and designers could not is ridiculous IMO

Myrddin

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

but still, to believe O'Brien solved what a massive team of engineers and designers could not is ridiculous IMO

Nobody said Starfleet wouldn't have solved the issues had the ship not been mothballed...but nevertheless, it was O'Briens work that took the kinks out of the problems.

The project had stalled is all, & O'Brien finished the work

norrie rugger

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

let's be honest though, it was solved in very short order as a plot contrivance more than anything. Maybe you could argue that with field testing O'Brien solved it slightly quicker but somehow I doubt him as one engineer hardly fixed all the faults in short order over a team of dedicated ship builders.
Don't forget it was moth balled due to the perceived diminished threat from the Borg rather than from it's technical failings so probably was not top priority, but still, to believe O'Brien solved what a massive team of engineers and designers could not is ridiculous IMO

Hey Voyager built a beat all "Delta Flyer" and never seemed to need to be short of ship repair skills for Voyager itself

Cookie_Monster

True but it still strikes me as wrong and just plain invalid that they'd give up so easily on a ship/chassis/whatever that had so much work put into it because of minor and apparently easily solvable flaws.

Myrddin

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

True but it still strikes me as wrong and just plain invalid that they'd give up so easily on a ship/chassis/whatever that had so much work put into it because of minor and apparently easily solvable flaws.

I'd say as you mention though, it was long-fingered because of the diminished Borg threat...rather than unsolvable technical flaws

norrie rugger

Starfleet still believed, at the time, that it did not need warships. Defiant has no real exploration capabilities and that is the fleet's primary mission. Given that they have hundreds of heavy cruisers and frigates, that are exploration vessels, the need for a dedicated warship was put on the top shelf

downwithpeace

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

let's be honest though, it was solved in very short order as a plot contrivance more than anything. Maybe you could argue that with field testing O'Brien solved it slightly quicker but somehow I doubt him as one engineer hardly fixed all the faults in short order over a team of dedicated ship builders.
Don't forget it was moth balled due to the perceived diminished threat from the Borg rather than from it's technical failings so probably was not top priority, but still, to believe O'Brien solved what a massive team of engineers and designers could not is ridiculous IMO

The quick time was very convenient and probably came about, in part, to show O'Brien as a skilled engineer, Star Trek time and science
The moth-balling makes sense in Federation ship usage, they mainly use ships that can accommodate families with suitable medical and science abilities, the Defiant didn't fit any of those and the need for a war ship, the Borg, was no longer a priority. It was the only ship of that class at the time so the loss wasn't major.

Myrddin

The Defiant made perfect sense to use against the Dominion, look at what a handful of attack ships did to the Odyssey

Indricotherium

EnterNow wrote: »

The Defiant made perfect sense to use against the Dominion, look at what a handful of attack ships did to the Odyssey

But that's not what it was built for.

It was built as an emergency measure after wolf 359 when there was a perceived imminent Borg threat.

I think this backstory is a little bit too much of a plot contrivance though as, while it fits the bill perfectly for up close and personal dog fighting vs Klingons or dominion, it strikes me as singularly unuseful for attacking something big and relatively static. It only really gives you a very limited field of fire. Ie you can only fire your big gun while goin straight toward your target.

This is bad against a static target in 3d.

Ideally you would stand off at a distance and lash into it with long range artillery. Change your angle of engagement as much as possible.


I'm not saying its not effective in universe, or saying theat it doesn't lend itself well to some of the best sfx scenes the francise has ever had. Just that it's backstory is a contrivance and a plot hole.

downwithpeace

Indricotherium wrote: »

But that's not what it was built for.

It was built as an emergency measure after wolf 359 when there was a perceived imminent Borg threat.

I think this backstory is a little bit too much of a plot contrivance though as, while it fits the bill perfectly for up close and personal dog fighting vs Klingons or dominion, it strikes me as singularly unuseful for attacking something big and relatively static. It only really gives you a very limited field of fire. Ie you can only fire your big gun while goin straight toward your target.

This is bad against a static target in 3d.

Ideally you would stand off at a distance and lash into it with long range artillery. Change your angle of engagement as much as possible.


I'm not saying its not effective in universe, or saying theat it doesn't lend itself well to some of the best sfx scenes the francise has ever had. Just that it's backstory is a contrivance and a plot hole.

Defiant has the standard phasers, the more powerful phasers only fire forward but the standard can fire at any 360 degree above ship angle, not sure if it had phasers on its underside.

norrie rugger

Remember also that for 1 Galaxy class you could build a squadron of Defiants. Imagine several dozen of these against a cube? The loss of a single ship would not impact weapon force. Also the are much harder to hit. Basically a squad of highly mobile weapon platforms, at any time there would be ships moving around, towards and away from the cube. The Federation heavy ships were too small and underpowered to go toe to toe with a cube

Myrddin

Indricotherium wrote: »

But that's not what it was built for.

I know But it's still perfect for the job

it strikes me as singularly unuseful for attacking something big and relatively static. It only really gives you a very limited field of fire. Ie you can only fire your big gun while goin straight toward your target.

This is bad against a static target in 3d.

Ideally you would stand off at a distance and lash into it with long range artillery. Change your angle of engagement as much as possible.


I'm not saying its not effective in universe, or saying theat it doesn't lend itself well to some of the best sfx scenes the francise has ever had. Just that it's backstory is a contrivance and a plot hole.

Wrong, it went up against a Negh'Var...& won. It defeated a fully upgraded & modernised Excelsior...."one more good hit should finish them".

Look at the video of how it defeated both, it's perfect for both types of combat. A plot hole it may be, but it's one of the best ones I've ever seen.

Beefy78

I can't remember this being mentioned in this thread but the whole Ocampan race seemed very poorly conceived. It doesn't take much genius to realise that saying that each Ocampan female can only have one child means that the species would half in size every generation. Which seems to be the opposite of how evolution works.

The nine year life span didn't make much sense either.

downwithpeace

Beefy78 wrote: »

I can't remember this being mentioned in this thread but the whole Ocampan race seemed very poorly conceived. It doesn't take much genius to realise that saying that each Ocampan female can only have one child means that the species would half in size every generation. Which seems to be the opposite of how evolution works.

The nine year life span didn't make much sense either.

That does explain how they can live underground and survive with the Caretaker as their only source of water and energy. Remember he destroyed the plants ability to produce water and some other things required for life to flourish.

Cookie_Monster

unless it's normal for twins or triplets...

IvySlayer

Also about the Ocampans, Kes comes back in time to destroy Voyager, why? Go back and destroy the Array!!

Ocampans basically turn into powerful beings, surely they can protect themselves.

downwithpeace

IvySlayer wrote: »

Also about the Ocampans, Kes comes back in time to destroy Voyager, why? Go back and destroy the Array!!

Ocampans basically turn into powerful beings, surely they can protect themselves.

Voyager.

downwithpeace

Prometheus-class has me wondering, first off it can be flown with a skeleton crew without any issues and the over all crew complement is 200-225, 200 personnel and 25 officers. The ship was built to have all the defensive abilities of the Avalon-class but at a much smaller size and with a massively reduced crew size but at the same time incorporating more offensive capabilities. If you consider all that and then think about the Defiant-class could the Prometheus-class be another unofficial Warship.

Myrddin

downwithpeace wrote: »

If you consider all that and then think about the Defiant-class could the Prometheus-class be another unofficial Warship.

I would say so yeah, I know it was sold as a 'deep-space exploration' vessel, but its offensive capabilities are so strong, you'd have to wonder if that was just a guise.

norrie rugger

EnterNow wrote: »

I would say so yeah, I know it was sold as a 'deep-space exploration' vessel, but its offensive capabilities are so strong, you'd have to wonder if that was just a guise.

And it was stationed at Earth, according to the last Voyager episode. Not doing much exploration there so.

Myrddin

norrie rugger wrote: »

And it was stationed at Earth, according to the last Voyager episode. Not doing much exploration there so.

Was that the Prometheus that was in the fleet that greeted Voyaged at Earth?

Goldstein

EnterNow wrote: »

Was that the Prometheus that was in the fleet that greeted Voyaged at Earth?

Indeed there was a Prometheus class (Not sure how many of them they had at that stage)

helimachoptor

People can call ships what they want but Prometheus was a war vessel, ok they were sending into deep space but they were making sure it wasnt going to come off second best in a fight.

I mean the defiant was an "escort" so essentially its meant to tag along with a supply run or whatever.. i think they did that in one episode