+JR XTIN Well in reality, it looks like after seeing the success of the "whales" in Star Trek 4 in 1986 they were like "Yeah let's put an aquarium on the Enterprise-D!" in 1987 :)
Reg Clinton Brown Why would you even put those traitorous killer whales and dolphins on your ship? They were going to let the human race die when the whale probe showed up. An Orca's brain is half again as big as a Humpbacks - if Orcas were there, the probe should have talked to them. Either Orcas are genocidal murderers in the Star Trek universe or - Starfleet mastered time travel after the whale probe incident, went back in time and brought forward enough cetaceans to restock the oceans. I think I can live with the idea that Starfleet had a secret time travel cetacean recovery program. Come to think of it, I wonder how Starfleet explained away the sudden reappearance of whales after the whale probe incident?
Can't say I agree with that particular fan theory. I see the Galaxy in war time as a battleship in the world war 2 style. Slow and requiring escort, but with devastating long range fire power. A lot of problems the class has can be put down to bad, lazy, and rushed writing, or limited special effects budgets.
I would have to disagree with the conclusions of the cited Reddit article. While the Galaxy Class was not designed exclusively as a warship, the design is not a failure in combat. The Galaxy Class ships that we have seen destroyed involved substantial extenuating circumstances. Yamato- the invasive Iconian program, Enterprise- spy program in Geordi's visor, Odyssey- rammed (no ship would survive that). The other Galaxy Class ships we have seen have been in fleet actions because that's when we see the most ships in the whole show! That isn't necessarily a reflection on the combat effectiveness of the design. The Venture and 6 other ships, were seen as enough of a threat to force the Klingon withdrawal from DS9. And, in terms of Yesterday's Enterprise, single-handedly overcoming 3 Klingon cruisers is something that no Enterprise has ever done. Remember the Kobayashi Maru? The Enterprise Incident? The Deadly Years? So, while I appreciate a differing opinion, I do not believe it's correct.
really? I always thought it was too cruise ship like. the sovereign is much more in keeping with the warship mold. and before you claim starfleet isn't a military organization keep in mind they have ranks, campaigncitations, court martials, weaponry, military regulation. starfleet is referred to as a service. exploration has always been a function of the military, all the great explorers were military officers, including all the pioneering astronauts & cosmonauts.
Let's start this off by saying TREKYARDS loves the Galaxy class. But essentially it was a family RV pulled by a small tank, designed for a family road trip of exploration, and always being sent on delivery runs, business meetings and essentially thrust into a warzone. Not used to go out and explore and be comfortable. So it was under armored with a few gun ports. And on a battlefield. It's gonna get hit and go down quickly. It's not a Battle armored made for combat tank like the Defiant. Essentially designed for a purpose and thrust into situations it was not designed for. Great ship but not during wartime.
I'd love to see a full blown mirror universe version of the Galaxy. Imagine her bristling with weapons, such as movie era phaser turrets all over the hull in edition to the type x arrays it already has and instead of families just full of troops and landing craft and fighters. We already know it can be -very- maneuverable with reduced mass (a la DS9). Instead of a jack of all trades master of none space liner, it would be an invasion fleet. And yes I know I just described a Star Destroyer.... just like that, but with Trek
+Trekyards I'm going to give you a thumbs up for putting forth the Reddit theory. The Galaxy class looks awesome, but she usually doesn't come across as being particularly powerful in TNG or DS9. I was pretty disappointed in the writing for her in that regard. I think the writers took her in a different direction than what she was supposed to be at the beginning of the show. I don't like it, but it's what happened, and the theory that the Galaxy class was a failure as a combat vessel fits what the writers ultimately gave us.
+Trekyards While I think Galaxy class ships like the Odyssey performed well against the Dominion (She lasted for minutes with no shields, and was only destroyed in a ramming attack) I agree that the Galaxy is a ship of its time. Situated between wars, when the Klingons were allies and the Romulans were in seclusion. A time when philosophical ideals could trump practical considerations. Powerful, Huge, yet Benign, it projected exactly what the Federation wanted to project during the era of its construction. In a way, the Sovereign class was a sad concession that times had changed and that lofty ideals could not always be upheld in the face of a dangerous reality.
I don't think it's a conspiracy of silence re: The Ambassadors. They are something like 30-40 years younger than the Excelsiors, so they're just not as old and not as worthy of being mentioned in the context of an aging fleet.
So I scrolled through the comments to see if anyone else mentioned this, but the "D" was NOT destroyed by just four torpedoes. That's what was only on screen. If you watch the interior shots you can see and hear the ship being bombarded with torpedoes. Not to mention all the damage visible when the saucer separates. All with NO shields. Think it did pretty well if you ask me. Thoughts?
Calling the Galaxy Class a failure is a bold statement considering unfortunately not backed up by any evidence. The Yamato got done in by a computer virus that would've killed any other ship just as well, the Odyssey held it's own impressively long without her shields and only exploded because of a ramming maneuver, which also would've destroyed any other ship, and the Enterprise D became a victim of cheating; if anything the Enterprise provides the weakest performance in this regard as the Bird Of Prey got a few really good hits in (and SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to turn the main guns away from the enemey...), yet her robust design still allowed the survival of most of the crew. Then the Galaxy Class went on to become one of the most powerful assetts in the Dominion War with the U.S.S. Galaxy surviving until the end of the war, something not even the dedicated warship U.S.S. Defiant managed to pull off. There is a point to be made about poor utilization of the class but that's a matter of changing priorities, poor foresight and poor management - it does NOT indicate an inherent flaw in the design of the Galaxy Class. FIt was designed as a long range, long term exploration vessel and when utilized in that manner it excelled. Of course there were going to be more disasters on the edge of known space; compare how much Constitutions were lost over the course of TOS. That's why these ships were packed with facilities to remain indipendant.
+Commander Rotal though it was probably called a failure to starfleet,which with starfleet isn't new,though to defend Riker's poor move under stress he was trying to protect the bridge, as part of the reason for the D's lost was the crew were caught off-guard as they were overconfident...Riker especially
I wasn't really talking about Riker but Troi who had the Con at the time. Of course ultimately it comes down to Riker not giving the right orders; there very well might have been a status report about the Main Phaser Array being burned out (they DID receive some nasty ones after all) but we never hear that and Riker isn't exactly ordering Troi to turn the ship back. Really, in that scene just about everything went wrong in-universe just to kill off the Enterprise as an out-of-universe end goal. No one on that bridge escaped that scene with their dignitiy intact. Except maybe Worf.
+Commander Rotal I would rather think that Starfleet changed priorities after the Dominon war and the class was seen as not really relevant anymore rather than a failure. But this information is not agreed with personally by the Captain and Commander, its just some information that was found about it and presented.
+ErokCherokee the type 9 collminator phaser array are more powerful. however they did not have the ability to fire multiple streams of phasers at the same time, this was planned however as an upgrade that we never got to see. there was also a type 9 non-collminator phaser but this was not chosen to be used on the galaxy class. most of the ships at the time had upgraded ships phasers of class 7 or 8 but are not as powerful as the galaxy class phasers. they did have more mountings and more fireing arcs. but they could not sustain primary fire for a long time like the galaxy class can.
Before anyone starts freaking out about the failure of the galaxy class theories and speculation. Please at least watch the whole video! We do like the ship. We are just citing an article on Reddit. Done by Brancer. A lot of people have asked us for our facts and proof. And it is clearly stated why these points were made. That's not to say we agree with it, we just thought we would include it as an interesting point of view. We do go on to say we like the ship very much. And will be doing many more specials with her. But it was information that we felt needed to be added and at least talked about. So officially TREKYARDS loves of the galaxy class and those views do not necessarily reflect the views of us here. I want people keep this in mind before yelling at us in the comments as we were just reporting an article that was posted on Reddit.com. Thanks for your time and understanding. Captain Foley out!
+Trekyards But I think your choice to include the article rather than any of the countless others on the Galaxy Class is what you'll get reaction to. Its points could otherwise have been discussed without giving special credence to its conclusions. LLAP
+Trekyards I know that you like the Galaxy-class and I do not mind the fact that you presented this theory, if anything I would like to have seen points presenting both sides of the argument.
+Enterprise-H well....I can see that. But all of part 1 and part 2 show off how cool the ship is, I apologize for the way it seems presented. It wasn't meant to start anything. It was just an interesting theory I had never considered until we researched the episode. I guess we presented it incorrectly. Our apologies.
+Trekyards Some of the responses on this video are a fine example of how we occasionally let ourselves become too emotionally involved in fictional worlds. ^_^
Excellent work here. I didn't know about the Cetacean facilities and crew members on the Enterprise D. Incredible. Note: The Separation as shown on TV is 100% impossible. The docking latches must be retracted FIRST before the two halves are separated. Otherwise you'd have to thread 32 latches through their respectively holes completely with out internal or external error. The forward latches on the nose of the Stardrive wouldn't allow the saucer to lift off if they stayed up. *A Proper Separation Sequence* 1. Latches must first lift off the inner hull of the Saucer 2. Latch halves join together 3. Latches lower in the Stardive 4. Saucer moves free of the Stardrive. -Galaxy was not a failure: 29 unnamed Galaxy's were seen on screen. 15,000 evacuation ability. Speeds of Warp 9.65 have been achieved USS Galaxy survived every battle encounter!. It's an unparalleled scientific platform and has THE BEST weapons layout of any Federation starship Including Sovereign Defiant and Prometheus. It's essentially a weapons platform with every arc protected by phasers. The burst fire torpedoes deliver a staggering 448 Megatons onto a single target. Galaxy does have maneuverability issues and originally it had some power issues but 2 warp core upgrades since Enterprise launched that's no longer and issue. Both Nebula and Galaxy feature heavily in the new Federation Fleet. Admiral Paris regarded Galaxy as the best in the fleet even though the Sovereign Class was in production when speaking to Janeway about Voyager's capabilities. *USS Odyssey vs Attack Ship* Reddit post is not a viable -He makes the mistake of believing that the first volley completely disables the Odyssey that is NOT TRUE. DS9 abuses time skipping as bad as Dragon Ball Z abuses time filler. The First Officer said they ran through the entire electromagnetic spectrum but they couldn't do that in the first volley. The battle with the Odyssey took 10 minutes!!! Captain Keogh says" We'll give them another five minutes to find Captain Sisko. Captain Keogh lowered the shields because he didn't believe the Jem'Hadar would ram the Odyssey. He also should have excuted a saucer separation. My simulations show the ship survives 9/10 times 2 vs 3 rather than 1 vs 3. -Sovereign had maneuverability but lacked phaser array to defend it self from close attack Sovereign only has Quantum torpedoes and regenerative shields in it's favor. Nothing special about the space frame it's self. *USS Enterprise vs Kvort* Alternative Universe Enterprise took 46 hits from the Kvort battleship! While Enterprise apparently uses 5 torpedoes and 6 phaser strikes to destroy the K'Vort. LOGICALLY. 18 phaser strikes and and 15 torpedoes is all that was needed to take out the K'Vorts. The problem was position not the ship it's self. In a defensive posture Galaxy was not able to defend it's self properly. I don't know why this erroneous information was included despite Star Fleet thinks the Galaxy was a huge success. Remember for every dramatic failure their were tremendous successes. both seen and unseen.
+saquist I would say, Star Fleet consideres the Galaxy class not as a big success, although it's a great ship, because of following reasons: 1. It's an outdated configuration. They prefer know sleakier ships with less neck, because better in manouevers, more cost efficient in production and maintainance, and they don't disturb the subspace not as much as the old design. 2. They nowadays prefer ships with a specific mission profile, not the egg-laying-wool-milk-pig with 1000 crewmembers + 500 familymembers (who died too when for example the Yamato went down). 3. Even after 7 years major parts of the NCC 1701-D were still unused. So they used up much energy for transporting... air. And unlike Earth, where that's not a problem (or better said you cannot avoid air as air flows into your vehicle all the time from the atmosphere), transportating unneccessary air in space means, you have more mass than needed.
Acme. Nipp-on-AiR The Federation is 8,000 ly across. Galaxy was designed to service and Defend the Colonies and Border worlds. Right now they have no better ship capable of it's duration and capacity. It's fast, multi-mission and high capacity. It's a mission specific ship in peace time and a major capital command ship in wartime. It's not designed for heavy production. I call it a success namely because it so prominently used in every Fleet Battle except the Battle of Earth. Keep in mind that ships with a specific mission profiles like Intrepid, Defaint, Equinox are extremely short range three years or less. Yes there are draw backs but every class has drawbacks. Namely Sovereign and Prometheus which are so much less good for anything other than fighting.
My only gripe is with the assessment of the battle performance of the ship - especially in Yesterdays Enterprise, the ship is forced to operate in a very defensive, almost static manner in order to shield the fleeing Enterprise C, making for a poor means of measuring effective combat abilities. There is a general flaw in Starfleet designs - little to no armour, with the ship's reliant upon shields for protection. When an enemy can bypass that shielding, ship's become extremely vulnerable to critical damage - we see this multiple times throughout Star Trek and is ultimately rectified with ablative armour designs. So that's less an indictment of the Galaxy class itself and more of Starfleets entire approach to tactical engagements prior to the development of ablative armour in response to multiple threats that can easily ignore defensive shields. Other than that, another great episode.
The Titan novels mention this as well. With the reason Riker leaving the Enterprise for the Titan was because they never did any exploration with the D and E.
+Robert Hayes I could see the E (with the final scene of Nemesis being deleted), but the Enterprise-D explored beyond Federation space, did it not? Picard in Insurrection even says "Remember when we used to be explorers?" Iconia, Aldea, Zalkon (or does star charting not count?)
+Enterprise-H They did a little but they were more or less in Fed space throughout its tenure. The Titan series is all about going further in a he Beta Quadrant than any ship before it.
Here, here. So many great things in this episode, and so many specs and stats. So little of the Galaxy was shown but so much has been written. Some of the stuff dug up about the cetacean tanks and crew even I didn't know, and that's saying something lol
The Galaxy class was something of an issue with me. I loved it at first, then went off it round about season 3 or 4 and got critical to the point of abuse on the design. Then, Generations is released and I sudenly loved it again. Took me years to understand why - the 4 foot model with the extra deck stuffed into the saucer threw the look off ever so subtly. It just looked wrong all of a sudden.
15:05 "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat." ~Sun Tzu, The Art of War I am familiar with the theory you presented and I thought that the idea of the Galaxy-class project having problems was interesting but that does not mean that I agree with the notion that the class was a failure. Different ships have different roles in battle and the way the Galaxy-class was meant to fight was never properly illustrated on-screen. The best depiction would be the fight between the USS Phoenix and the Cardassian warship (TNG: The Wounded) which showed the range at which these type of ships work best. They are not made for "dogfighting" like the Defiant was, they are made for long-range combat.
Interesting perhaps, but incorrect. You can't express it as fact, when it is not fact. Many see what you say as fact. If this were a mission briefing, no problem. But this is a fact file video.
+bmused55 Well to be fair this isn't a Fact Files as those are short 5 minute videos with no video about a piece of tech usually. But I see your point. As stated in episode 1 this is to be something entertaining and not everyone will agree with the facts that we present. But the comments are here to allow you to share your opinions or "correct" facts. We filmed it in a single session and that disclaimer was made at the very beginning. So in Part 1.
+bmused55 I dont think your view of them trashing it is correct. They put something controversial in the video. I really think this is an over reaction. I found the information presented very interesting. I hope you are able to see past an episode you dont like or agree with
I think this was a well done and researched video. TNG itself showed more then 50% losses with the first 6 ships put into service. Just because situations don't put a fan favorite ship in it's best light, or best encounters doesn't mean the theory (and it was presented as a theory, not fact) is wrong. The ship was built as a peaceful long range explorer. for that role it was armed to the teeth, but for actual engagements, it was under armed and under powered. Granted the real world reasons for abandoning the Saucer Seperation differs from the in universe, but let's face it, The Ship did not even do what it was designed for. not a single Galaxy Class went on a long range exploration mission,.
Thoroughly enjoyed both part 1 & 2 of your analysis of the Galaxy class. You guys go a great job and provide hours of entertainment for us. Keep up the good job lads. If some people like your work and others hate it, that means you're on the right track.
1. Originally they did want to have the ship separate into two sections in major battles, though it was too expensive to do this so they didn't 2. Originally the specified crew was to be 3400 to 3800: It was however too expensive to hire that many extra's (though it would have definitely created a lot of jobs :p), so they cut it down to 1010 3. The lack of long-range exploration was a problem in the plot that extended back to Star Trek TOS at times.
+Peter O. The Enterprise D under Picard traveled to both the Pleiades and to one of our galaxies globular clusters. Each of these trips would take more than a year at warp 6. Therefore they did engage in long range exploring.
Great review guys, I always enjoy your work. The Galaxy Class is a difficult onion to unwrap. Her bulk and curved lines makes for an attractive starship, but I agree with your synopsis that she was too fragile and under armed to serve as a true front line combatant. Obviously, she was designed at the time when The Great Bird of the Galaxy had direct input, so 1701-D reflects Gene Roddenberry’s vision that Star Fleet is a exploration force but not a military navy.
The E-D was lost due to the fact the sisters were able to get the shield frequency. Any ship would have been severely damaged. I guess they could have put ablative armour on them to last longer in combat but it was not designed as a warship. Any vessel that has it's shield frequency known would have had it's shields penetrated the same way. It may have be been to late to change the frequency before the next barrage?
Alistair Shaw, I'm pretty sure Worf knew his job and if that is a common tactic he would have done it. So I assume he either did it and it didn't work or he knew that it didn't help.
Yeah I agree with that. but also the systems required to rotate the modulation could have been damaged in the first salvo. If I was gunning at a more powerful ship and I had the modulation then I would damage that system.
DS9 did a really great service in making the Galaxy 'make sense' in a combined arms fleet. Watching this, keeping that in mind and looking back at yesterdays Enterprise its truly baffling that the Enterprise-D was performing any actions unsupported. To the credit of the ship and to conflict with your point only slightly, the ship had taken a heavily defensive posture designed to take as many hits as possible for the Enterprise-C roughly a pre-decided suicide mission. Then again the galaxy has no maneuverability in a firefight so i am not sure what it could have done better than it did... should have at least gone for expending its magazine.... sci-fi is confusing. I don't know if it somehow could be worked in but I always wondered how much the crew was to blame, I always had a pretty strong memory of Jellico coming in and tearing the ship apart from duty shifts to secondary systems. Then again trading paint with a Miranda class is enough to blow the thing up.... sci-fi is confusing...
LaserAirsoftWeapons there is also the issue of screwing with the timeline. imagine if the D destroyed all the warbirds? how does the C get the credit for sacrificing itself?
If you look at the Constitution-class during the run of the TOS, the Constellation, the Excalibur, the Intrepid, and the Defiant were lost in four years. You guys forgot about the extensive battle experience during the Dominion War and the USS Galaxy surviving all the way until at least 2379.
+Eldarion H That was after a special war-time refit that the class got. Overall the ship was too large and cumbersome to perform well on their own in a fight. The Galaxy class was more of a cruise liner then a warship.
+Eldarion H But the Constitution was a large class of ship and the losses were tolerable. Like the Sovereign Class it was a class of ship crafted for the demands of a very dangerous service life.
The Constitution was the largest ship in its time. A loss of a Constitution should equate to the loss of a Galaxy. The class performed well many times against aggressors.
Bold final thoughts and statements - I like it! Great job, as usual, and I laughed out loud at the cetacean sequence, those uniforms - I'm still laughing. I have a "Shamu" teddy bear I've kept since my parents took me to Sea World (I know, booo right) when I was 4. I'm going to put a Starfleet Uniform on it and post pictures on the website now.
Good article, as usual,... Love the reference to the cetacean tanks,... I wish the guy who did the main shuttle bay walk-through did one for that as well... PS: You need to advertise this article on the I Hate the New Star Trek movies page on Facebook...
The Galaxy class, was a failure, not because she is a bad ship class, but because she was never deployed in such a manner that she we used to her full utility. There were flaws in her design, the federation was in a time of peace and never really updated her armament. The Ambassador class had MORE Independent phaser arrays then the galaxy class had meaning she could target more enemies at once. With only 2 torpedo tubes the aging excelsior class had twice as many. You guys did a good job on the video and I like that you all pointed out flaws as opposed to adhering to the fanboys. Think of a luxury cruise liner, that is the galaxy class.
SOOOO GOOOOOOD. This routinely becomes my favorite ship, (it changes for me a lot) So I really enjoyed this. I have no idea about the cetacean Stuff. (pronounced sa-ta-tion, not citation). Who know Dolphins and whales could wear uniforms!!??? I wonder if it was never shown on TV because of Seaqueast DSV, were they on at the same time? I can't remember.
+Jess Hull SeaQuest came out at the same time as Season 7 in Sept 1993. I imagine that it was more budget related than anything else. Even with infinite money, it would have been next to impossible to pull off really
I personally like controversy. It stimulates debate on the relative design merits of the Galaxy class. It was not a 'warship', as Starfleet does not believe in warships. It could be arguably the case that Starfleet was limited by its own idealism. I would imagine the Galaxy class would be a very good carrier of fighter shuttles. The other major downside of the design is the battle section. It could have housed more photon torpedo tubes, and phaser emitters. I often imagine the Galaxy class to be a luxury liner/space city. It could even be acted as a temporary space station at times. It would be interesting to see whether the Galaxy class could ever be conceived as a civilian liner for individuals to travel across the Federation and beyond.
(Speaking in Book cannon terms) Poor ol' Sisko he so wants to get out and play in the wider world with the Odyssey and yet as Stuart & Sam say - Those Galaxy class vessels tend to get stuck playing in the metaphorical back yard. However as a small compensation I tend to think the reason we don't see Ambassador class and it's related off shoots very much is because they are doing the job the Galaxy was designed to do - so are "out of sight" to us. I've always liked the idea that there may be some much more advanced variations of the excelsior space frame too, If Federation ship typically undergo major refit every 20 years then it's fun to think of all the things that could exist or could have existed. or did exist but were barely seen. Perhaps if we are lucky enough to get another TV show set somewhere between the Lost years and the early 25th century some of those gaps can be filled with how easy (relatively speaking) it is to make or modify a CGI model compared to make a physical model. Voyager the tail end of DS9 and the TNG Movies just peaked my interest for more of such things. One of many reasons I'd quite like a Tales of the Federation Mini series.
The cetacean labs are interesting as they actually had a cetacean officer appear as a main guest in the TNG novel, Dark Mirror. They never used the lab, rather they converted a guest quarter to an aquatic environment.
The Galaxy II's built during the Dominion war, according to other sources, took steps to correct those vulnerabilities. The PDF is obviously fan sourced "The ships of Starfleet Volume 1 :Cruisers" I forget where I found it on the internet, but I suspect you have it as a source already because some of the information you were reading was included in the reference. I think a google search might find the circa 2005 PDF
+Robert Hayes Because it was slow and cumbersome. Like the Romulan D'deridex. Only the Romulan ships could cloak, re-maneuver, and then decloak and attack again.
Another great episode I always like the Galaxy class and I agree it would have been better if it was sent on a five-year mission of expiration and not use as a combat platform as it's bunk and having a large civilian population on board was a massive handicap for the ship. But putting all that to one side it is one impressive looking ship and I do not feel it should be known as a failure but just a wrong turn in the evolution of federation starships as it help pave the way to the federations newer smaller and more agile starships.
Very good show, and i applaud you for using the controversy article, to which i do agree with it. For the top of the line ship, it was easily beaten at times, by less advanced ships. The Galaxy while an awesome ship, was flawed by the fact that it was so big and sluggish, where as most vessels it came up against where smaller and more agile, Odyssey Vs Dominion proves this. The Pre Dominion war Galaxy, was just big exploration ship and was not meant for combat, Were as the Galaxy class in the later series of DS9 i believe had a upgrade, as they had more phaser strips, than previously seen. I never understood why the Federation kept sending them to situations were they were totally outmatched(i know the script called for it).
chris clark were they totally out matched though? the battle of DS9 both exclesior class escorts to the defiant got totally trashed the galaxy class wings were chewing bubble gum and kicking arses. and they were all out of bubble gum.
Do you guys think it's possible that the V shaped warp pylons are for warships (Connie, Sovereign, Nova ((as a Defiant pathfinder)), Akira ), and the 90 deg angle warp pylons are for explorers and science vessels (Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, O'Berth). I don't think this was intentional on anyones part, but nevertheless it seems there is a trend where the ships designed for combat have the V shaped pylons, and the ones that are oriented towards exploration/science have the 90 deg pylons. Of course there are ships that appear to be exceptions (Defiant being the most obvious, but then again its warp engine arrangement doesn't fit either pattern. Then there's the NX class, but it's likely the NX design team didn't quite know what they were doing), but I think if you look at the major Federation ship designs, the trend is definitely there. It's even possible Probert's Ambassador fits into the pattern as a refit of the Sternbach Ambassador, if Probert's Ambassador is more militaristic in nature.
Great run down. I think it probably was a failure in time of war, but had there of been no war it would have been a success. It was born 20 years too late
I appreciate the Daystrom writeup's willingness to critique the Galaxy. However, I have to disagree with the Daystrom writeup (harsher than is warranted in my opinion) that suggests the Galaxy was used internally only, and not for Exploration. Meanwhile calling it a 'dud.' It was a ship of its time, expressing the philosophy and aspiration of Starfleet at the time. It most definitely was seen performing Exploration duties on the show. I'd also say that despite not being designed as a warship, she did fairly well when pressed into such duties. We were all aghast, for instance, at the destruction of the Odyssey. However, it fought against multiple assailants without the benefit of shields and was only defeated by a ramming attack. Often when we saw Galaxy class ships destroyed, it was because an enemy used unconventional means to get around defenses, because the vessel suffered a collision, or because it was outnumbered and in a situation where it could not adequately maneuver. These are situations where most any capital ship would find itself vulnerable. So, while I appreciate the willingness of the Daystrom writeup to take a critical eye to the class, I can't agree with all of their statements or conclusions.
The borg wrecked every single ship at the battle of sector 001 except the Enterprise-D. And lets not forget that by the time it got to earth it was the Enterprises second helping of that borg cube. I would say it was significantly more powerful than any starfleet ship up to that point. Unfortunately the writers like to utilize the holy crap factor of a galaxy going down in too many situations.
I don't think th Galaxy was a failure- I think it was mostly a product of its time- peaceful exploration, with a dash of naivety!! And unfortunately writers will blow up Galaxy's just for a shock reaction! If we are to base on looks, I much prefer the Sovereign. But the Galaxy still has its place in the Star Trek universe. Great episode guys, really enjoyed it!
I was never able to figure out why some people claim that Starfleet vessels, even from the TNG period, are unarmored and rely on shields for protection. Shields are strong, for sure, but the vessel hulls are composed of tritanium-duranium allow. Tritanium is over 21 times as hard as diamond and the duranium composite gives it much higher endurance against physical impacts and radiation. That IS armor. True it is not ablative armor like the Defiant and Sovereign class carry, but it is still armor. Hand phasers disintegrate steel, stone, and people. Yet it takes hand phasers potentially hours to cut through duranium. Ship phasers, of course, are another matter, but then, ship phasers tend to destroy anything unshielded this side of neutronium. Starfleet ships, including the Galaxy Class, definitely have an armor. How else would you have expected it to stand up as long as it did with no shields against Dominion Attack Fighters and even the old B'Rel Bird of Prey. Fourteen direct hits to the hull with no shields is nothing to scoff at.
As for the Galaxy's weakness. I do wonder which ones are still present in the Nebula Class ? - the lack of Armor is going to remain a problem. I would wonder though relatively speaking how fragile is the Enterprise compared to say Voyager ? - Voyager did get blown up an awful lot in dead timelines - but she also got the ever lovin' crap kicked out of her and yet didn't blow up. The different warp core, manoeuvrability and good speed may have helped with that though. If you were to enhance the Galaxy Class (say make some new ones from left overs but using some new parts) there is a lot of places than need addressing like hull armour, weapon arc coverage, engine armour and shielding. Lets be honest they'd likely be better off fitting old Ambassor type saucers on the galaxy Stardrive section and then using the saucers to make more Miranda style variations using the saucer as a main hull after all it has most of the systems in it so adding a warp core and a couple of nacelles should work without needing a whole new separate secondary hull - there are plenty of examples of such designs using earlier saucers. If not for relative size issues I would have even wondered if that is how Akira class was developed. But yeah the D bless her was a bit of a whale.
There's definitely enough in-canon data to suggest that the Galaxy Class project was a failure. Having said that, it could be argued that the same data could be extrapolated to retroactively consider the Galaxy Class a one-stop test bed for multiple mission-specific ships (Sovereign, Intrepid, Defiant, Prometheus), thus solving the Federation's issues with design stagnation.
In the books, Sisko is given command of a Galaxy class ship and moves his family on board. Furthermore, after the Borg invasion, Enterprise, while not suited for exploration, is sent on an exploration mission. Personally, I think Galaxy class ships would do just fine away from the battleline. Combat would be only as required. Leave combat to the Defiants and Sovereigns.
When I was young I really hated the Galaxy class's design, but as I got older it grew on me, and I realized what I really hated were the nacelles/struts. Something about them just don't work with the ship, maybe makes it look too front-heavy, maybe? I def know that from dorsal and ventral angles it looks utterly ridiculous, but I love the look of power it projects from just about every other angle. I hope they circle back around to the "flying outpost" concept and figure out how to marry the exploratory philosophy with formidability; I really feel that by the 24th century, it should be possible to focus on one without real loss to the other. I feel like something of the Galaxy's size and features offers story potential for a frontier ship carrying a big enough complement to populate whole new worlds. (AND HOW TF AM I JUST LEARNING THE SHIP HAD A WHOLE AQUATIC CREW ABOARD WHY WAS THIS NEVER TOUCHED UPON IN THE SERIES)
i must admit, i did not feel happy about how one of the best ships in star trek history could be considered a failure. however i did see your captens log and i do respect how this opinion can be reached. so iv now decided to leave this in my mined asa open question. lol . when i see star trek going to navy /army i always refer to the galaxy class as a source of comfort. harping to a trek thats more big explorer than big blow things up,,,,,,,,,. and with that fort in mined i then think of the Enterprise J. a ship thats going back to things like the galaxy class did,,,,,,,,,,. also source sep is brill ,,,,, need to see more of that. ,,,,,,,,, this ship is in my top 5
P.s. One last issue the D has is poor drive Balance - it has tiny engines compared to the mass - and they are poorly placed - not to mention how front heavy it is. What happens if all those structural Fields stop working the thing seems likely to tear itself to pieces as much as the TOS Enterprise might without such reinforcement - more so even as the interior bracing is extensive on the earlier designs compared to the D, she suffered repeated hull breaches too - further more showing how poor to respond the force field system was to hull breaches. Odd how some of the strongest bits on the hull seem to be the windows. But you can't hold all that against her - she was a product of her time - good job the Romulans had their own multiple design problems with their large ships too I guess. It's odd to ponder that Starfleet's cooperation with the Klingon's to help design their new ships likely in turn lead to the further militarisation of their own Starfleet. even before the Borg and the Dominion they may have been tip toeing in that Direction - they certainly would have starter to realise the Galaxy was both a lame and pregnant duck by that point too. thus all the subsequent ships being much smaller and relatively heavily armed & amoured. and in most case presenting a much smaller profile too. The D was a dream that just about managed to not end in a nightmare - but the existence of the Nebula Class can be taken as possible counter to many of the problems the galaxy has - the nebula has a much more compact shield envelope for a start. The engines are partially covered by the Saucer - and it seems in general more flexible in it's mission roles too. I like the joke idea that the class may have originally be developed as a means to rescue or deliver variant or replacement or recovered galaxy Saucers too - furthering the joke that they keep breaking the things. (though not as much as Miranda Class ships obviously)
I loved this episode. A lot of great information and much I didn't know. I thought is was all presented in an entertaining way!!. It's too bad that the "controversial" information wasn't so well received. I enjoyed it and learned a lot. I agree that the Galaxy class was a failure. A failure in the terms that it never fully was able to carry out the mission profile that it was designed for. It was built for peace but found itself in a time of war. The Enterprise D was a special ship but come on people, Galaxy class ships routinely got their asses handed to them. They were not warships. They cost too many resources to build and operate as well. I think you were right on the money with this. There is a reason they stopped production and started the Sovereign class. Galaxy class was a marvel of tech, but the wrong tech at the wrong time.
The Galaxy class could only be interpreted as a "failure" in that it did not match with the Michael Bay/T&A corruption of Trek by Rick Berman. It was a majestic ship that summed up what the Enterprise should be. A sweeping, awe inspiring vessel that just says explore. Unlike the emaciated, anorexic husk that is the Sovereign class. Boy was that a big step in the wrong direction.
While I cannot really deny that the Galaxy Class didn't fare well as a war ship, that wasn't really what the designers had in mind when the class was designed (in peace-time). The whole military or science fleet question is reflected in most ships in service during this period; not just the Galaxy. It also occurs to me that if the D crushed all comers, it would make for bad television. Being out-gunned and in danger was necessary for the show.
+Dean Lewis The Galaxy was not designed during peace time, wars with the Cardassians, Tzenkethi, and the Talaxians all took place during the Galaxy's design phase, including to attacks from the Tholians. There was a near-Cold War type of atmosphere with the Klingons.
+Eldarion H there was no hint of war with the kilgons until the domin cam along also those wars where retcons after the galaxy class had been introduced to views
The Federation knew the Galaxy Class wasn't really a capitol warship the day it was designed. They referred to them as heavy cruisers. If you only consider the armaments, that's the correct category. The ship was a symbol for technology and dreams.
The mid 24th century, did show Starfleet underfunded, unequipped, and was under a period of stagnation. The Galaxy class was a failure to fulfill the demands of Starfleet. The Galaxy class was too big to fail, and it became an over large starliner. I agree that it has a potential to be a intergalactic cruiser, the Federation needed a new capital ship but it did not utilize its full design potential. USS Odyssey against the Jem Hadar, demonstrated how the ship could not take much of a pounding. USS Defiant had armour on its hull even when its shields were down could take a number of hits (ST:DS9 'The Way of the Warrior').
I don't agree the Enterprise did poorly in battle... the couple you referenced are outweighed by the several times they did well. The Borg carved them up like a roast and the Enterprise survived a few times.
What's also silly about calling it a failure (again, why, because it wasn't invincible?) is that for all we know, there are dozens of them exploring in deep space, defending the Neutral Zone, conducting cutting edge research, and administering authority throughout half the galaxy. Which is what the writers expect anyone not needing to see it 'sploding baddies week after week to think. What's the track record of the Negh'vars and D'Deridexes exactly? Were they failures for not being the ships that conquered the galaxy for their respective empires? Honestly, what's the point of bashing to conclusions?
Bracer makes some very good post war points. At best The Galaxy was more suited as Civilian Cruse liner or pure Science ship. As a Combat capital ship she did not fair well according to "Canon" but most Star Fleet ships fell short during the Dominion war so you could say it had more to do with the Federation "peace culture" then to the over all design of the Ship. I am not a fan of the Galaxy class as it just looks weird and never fit well with her predecessors but I can not fault her for not being something she was not designed to be.... a ship of war.
I think your assessment of the ship being a failure is valid. This is a jack of all trades vessel, and as such simply isn't as good as a fleet of specialists. But I think you overlooked one aspect of the ship - shock and awe. The Galaxy Class acts as a mobile display of Starfleet's political, cultural and technological might. When Federation dignitaries turn up in a Warp capable space station it creates a far more lasting impression than sending a smaller ship. Militarily, though its actual firepower is average at best, the sight of a large, imposing warship acts as a morale boost for Federation forces, while demoralising potential foes. Sticking with military aspects for a moment, it's possible the Galaxy Class represents a tipping point of Starfleet's military doctrine. She is akin to a First Rate ship of the line; a fierce foe, but from a practical perspective the resources are better spent building multiple Third Rates instead. We see the evolution away from battlecruisers to frigates and destroyers with the Defiant, and the use of attack squadrons. This is a ship that could only be made in times of relative peace and prosperity, and its failure is due to both the desire to have and display opulence, and the lack of evolutionary pressure on ship designers.
+TheStabbyBrit Not a complete failure, the USS Odyssey was the only Galaxy class ship lost to the Dominion, the rest of the surviving galaxy class ships survived the Dominion war.
Blood Raven Whether or not Galaxy class ships survived the war isn't an indication of their success or failure as warships. During World War 1 converted cruise liners were failures as both military and transport ships not because they couldn't fill the role, but because they required an insane amount of fuel to run compared to other ships. The Galaxy fails because there is nothing it can do that a dedicated ship couldn't either do better, or do with less resources. Just about the only role I can see a Galaxy succeeding at is a troop carrier and assault ship, but I don't recall Starfleet ever making use of large scale ground assaults during any conflict.
TheStabbyBrit You've got to bear in mind the Galaxy was developed when the Federation was at peace before the Borg and Dominion threats. As a diplomatic ship she did her job well
Seriously, though, this (including part 1) has explained very well why Starfleet didn't build too many. I mean, WHY? A couple of diplomatic cruisers with luxury features for VIPs I can understand, but there is no way you would send it into anything resembling harm's way. They could have build many more functional, practical ships instead, and not have been stuck using Movie-era ships nearly a century after they were launched. It would have been like using the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia during World War 2...
+Kieren Stevens When we reach our $800 on Patreon...we are at $788 so if you gave $15 a month we would be able to make the next one and start pushing for the one after that THEN once we reach the target of $1000 a month Fleetyards will become a regular show! www.patreon.com/Trekyards?ty=h
sorry I just got around to watching but got nervous based on the captains comment on Facebook. I wasn't disappointed in the episode at all! full of facts and the info that you presented that has people up in arms was not written by you, just read by you, and I think people don't like to hear bad things said about the ship they love. but I loved the episode and it can be said about many aircraft and ships of the past, they may have been flawed but in the right hands there inadequacies are forgotten. great show guys. looking forward to part three!
"The TNG Tech Manual definitely talks about a combined Orcinus orca takaya and Tursiops truncatus population on the ship to work out navigation problems (and more likely alien language challenges!). "We never got to show them in an episode, since the expense would have been prohibitive, but we did convince the writers to have Geordi ask a visiting official if they ever saw the dolphins. During "Yesterday's Enterprise", an intercom call was heard asking Dr. Joshua Kim to report to Cetacean Ops. "The dolphins and whales were my idea from the start; I'm convinced that, even if they're not intelligent enough to pilot a starship, they can still teach us a few things about other life forms." (Sternbach). ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/where-do-i-find-the-dolphins/
+Philip Guyott It still sounds rather silly to have them and whales onboard the ship though. I could see the J having them since that ship is massive but not this one.
+Robert Hayes - I found this very silly too. However the blueprints (i.imgur.com/QPb7are.png) show that the Cetacean area its only taking up a relatively small space (less then ¼) over just one or possibly two decks. Considering the overall size of the ship we only get to see a small portion of the ship on screen. What blows me away is the size of the upper shuttle bay, it’s massive!
@Trekyards humm another great video on the Galaxy class !! :) but i felt Starfleet is a bit Harsh to say the old GC is a Failure seeing as how i feel that the flaws that she ship has may have been deliberately put in there ! like ya make a super ship and if there is no flaws or weak spots then any enemy could use it to take over the Galaxy ! no pun indeed ! thus the flaws the ship has i see as a counter or back up plan if something happens to them .
The argument regarding the class's failings in 'Yesterday's Enterprise' aren't without merit (and I know you guys are just passing along information that originated elsewhere), it doesn't take into account that the Enterprise-D's objective was to stay between the Klingons and the Enterprise-C. So they weren't able to maneuver as much as they might in a normal battle setting. Having said all that, I dunno WHAT Riker's excuse is for 'Generations.'
This is a nit-picky thing, but in 'Yesterday's Enterprise,' what the hell was the Enterprise, with the Federation engaged in full-scale war with the Klingons, doing wandering around by itself in the first damn place?!
Grow the Hell up people if you have mean opinions say them in a constructive way that doesn't show as being assholish. That being said I loved this episode and it makes sense that the ship the...flagship of the fleet have areas specifically for cetacean? Federation member world crew. -----Captain Mura, USS Renaissance NCC-85632.
The Galaxy class was decent class but horribly underpowered because inept thinking by starflleet they had the technology to develop stronger weapons but the lack of conflicts really shows how they left the Galaxy class was a battleship classification of ship but really was only moderately powerful. However they rectified with the dominion war era Galaxy such as the Venture class being an indication of the growing capabilities of the class. I believe it will still be relevant into the the next century but I think it would serve a more general purpose vessel or first contact vessel while sovereigns take more of the combat roles.
The Dolphins in Star Fleet uniforms were cracking me the hell up! Hahaha :D
How do the dolphins activate there com badge lol
+Reg Clinton Brown The uniforms look like their main purpose is to be seen by humans, but the idea isn't totally ridiculous - dailym.ai/1MAvvfR
+Mustafa Mohamed lol
+JR XTIN Well in reality, it looks like after seeing the success of the "whales" in Star Trek 4 in 1986 they were like "Yeah let's put an aquarium on the Enterprise-D!" in 1987 :)
Reg Clinton Brown Why would you even put those traitorous killer whales and dolphins on your ship? They were going to let the human race die when the whale probe showed up. An Orca's brain is half again as big as a Humpbacks - if Orcas were there, the probe should have talked to them. Either Orcas are genocidal murderers in the Star Trek universe or - Starfleet mastered time travel after the whale probe incident, went back in time and brought forward enough cetaceans to restock the oceans.
I think I can live with the idea that Starfleet had a secret time travel cetacean recovery program.
Come to think of it, I wonder how Starfleet explained away the sudden reappearance of whales after the whale probe incident?
Can't say I agree with that particular fan theory. I see the Galaxy in war time as a battleship in the world war 2 style. Slow and requiring escort, but with devastating long range fire power.
A lot of problems the class has can be put down to bad, lazy, and rushed writing, or limited special effects budgets.
Shermos exactly. The Galaxy has by far the biggest phaser array and the biggest power plant in the fleet.
The Galaxy Class was as powerful as the writers needed it to be
I would have to disagree with the conclusions of the cited Reddit article. While the Galaxy Class was not designed exclusively as a warship, the design is not a failure in combat.
The Galaxy Class ships that we have seen destroyed involved substantial extenuating circumstances. Yamato- the invasive Iconian program, Enterprise- spy program in Geordi's visor, Odyssey- rammed (no ship would survive that).
The other Galaxy Class ships we have seen have been in fleet actions because that's when we see the most ships in the whole show! That isn't necessarily a reflection on the combat effectiveness of the design. The Venture and 6 other ships, were seen as enough of a threat to force the Klingon withdrawal from DS9.
And, in terms of Yesterday's Enterprise, single-handedly overcoming 3 Klingon cruisers is something that no Enterprise has ever done. Remember the Kobayashi Maru? The Enterprise Incident? The Deadly Years?
So, while I appreciate a differing opinion, I do not believe it's correct.
To quote the most sage and wise woman in the galaxy
"This isn't a ship of war. It is a ship of peace"
It haven't failure to what it was design for.
I love the Galaxy Class of starships. I love this ship more than I do the Sovereign Class. Great job Captain Foley and Commander Cockings.
really? I always thought it was too cruise ship like. the sovereign is much more in keeping with the warship mold. and before you claim starfleet isn't a military organization keep in mind they have ranks, campaigncitations, court martials, weaponry, military regulation. starfleet is referred to as a service. exploration has always been a function of the military, all the great explorers were military officers, including all the pioneering astronauts & cosmonauts.
As soon as you said, "dolphin," I immediately thought of seaQuest.
Yup
+stewart7521 I thought of Star Trek iV
"They like you very much, but they're not the hell your Whales."
(squeak, squeak) Translator: DAR-win, stuck on shitty failed Spielberg venture!
Let's start this off by saying TREKYARDS loves the Galaxy class. But essentially it was a family RV pulled by a small tank, designed for a family road trip of exploration, and always being sent on delivery runs, business meetings and essentially thrust into a warzone. Not used to go out and explore and be comfortable. So it was under armored with a few gun ports. And on a battlefield. It's gonna get hit and go down quickly. It's not a Battle armored made for combat tank like the Defiant. Essentially designed for a purpose and thrust into situations it was not designed for. Great ship but not during wartime.
I'd love to see a full blown mirror universe version of the Galaxy. Imagine her bristling with weapons, such as movie era phaser turrets all over the hull in edition to the type x arrays it already has and instead of families just full of troops and landing craft and fighters. We already know it can be -very- maneuverable with reduced mass (a la DS9). Instead of a jack of all trades master of none space liner, it would be an invasion fleet. And yes I know I just described a Star Destroyer.... just like that, but with Trek
+Shawn McDonald Agreed...... that would be awesome
+Trekyards I'm going to give you a thumbs up for putting forth the Reddit theory. The Galaxy class looks awesome, but she usually doesn't come across as being particularly powerful in TNG or DS9. I was pretty disappointed in the writing for her in that regard. I think the writers took her in a different direction than what she was supposed to be at the beginning of the show. I don't like it, but it's what happened, and the theory that the Galaxy class was a failure as a combat vessel fits what the writers ultimately gave us.
+Trekyards While I think Galaxy class ships like the Odyssey performed well against the Dominion (She lasted for minutes with no shields, and was only destroyed in a ramming attack) I agree that the Galaxy is a ship of its time. Situated between wars, when the Klingons were allies and the Romulans were in seclusion. A time when philosophical ideals could trump practical considerations. Powerful, Huge, yet Benign, it projected exactly what the Federation wanted to project during the era of its construction. In a way, the Sovereign class was a sad concession that times had changed and that lofty ideals could not always be upheld in the face of a dangerous reality.
I don't think it's a conspiracy of silence re: The Ambassadors. They are something like 30-40 years younger than the Excelsiors, so they're just not as old and not as worthy of being mentioned in the context of an aging fleet.
So I scrolled through the comments to see if anyone else mentioned this, but the "D" was NOT destroyed by just four torpedoes. That's what was only on screen. If you watch the interior shots you can see and hear the ship being bombarded with torpedoes. Not to mention all the damage visible when the saucer separates. All with NO shields. Think it did pretty well if you ask me. Thoughts?
"Well" is relative and has to be compared with other ships of similar technology.
Calling the Galaxy Class a failure is a bold statement considering unfortunately not backed up by any evidence. The Yamato got done in by a computer virus that would've killed any other ship just as well, the Odyssey held it's own impressively long without her shields and only exploded because of a ramming maneuver, which also would've destroyed any other ship, and the Enterprise D became a victim of cheating; if anything the Enterprise provides the weakest performance in this regard as the Bird Of Prey got a few really good hits in (and SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to turn the main guns away from the enemey...), yet her robust design still allowed the survival of most of the crew. Then the Galaxy Class went on to become one of the most powerful assetts in the Dominion War with the U.S.S. Galaxy surviving until the end of the war, something not even the dedicated warship U.S.S. Defiant managed to pull off.
There is a point to be made about poor utilization of the class but that's a matter of changing priorities, poor foresight and poor management - it does NOT indicate an inherent flaw in the design of the Galaxy Class. FIt was designed as a long range, long term exploration vessel and when utilized in that manner it excelled. Of course there were going to be more disasters on the edge of known space; compare how much Constitutions were lost over the course of TOS. That's why these ships were packed with facilities to remain indipendant.
+Commander Rotal though it was probably called a failure to starfleet,which with starfleet isn't new,though to defend Riker's poor move under stress he was trying to protect the bridge, as part of the reason for the D's lost was the crew were caught off-guard as they were overconfident...Riker especially
I wasn't really talking about Riker but Troi who had the Con at the time. Of course ultimately it comes down to Riker not giving the right orders; there very well might have been a status report about the Main Phaser Array being burned out (they DID receive some nasty ones after all) but we never hear that and Riker isn't exactly ordering Troi to turn the ship back. Really, in that scene just about everything went wrong in-universe just to kill off the Enterprise as an out-of-universe end goal. No one on that bridge escaped that scene with their dignitiy intact. Except maybe Worf.
+Commander Rotal I would rather think that Starfleet changed priorities after the Dominon war and the class was seen as not really relevant anymore rather than a failure. But this information is not agreed with personally by the Captain and Commander, its just some information that was found about it and presented.
Phasers aren't guns. longer arrays aren't more powerful than shorter ones. Just have a wider firing arc.
+ErokCherokee the type 9 collminator phaser array are more powerful. however they did not have the ability to fire multiple streams of phasers at the same time, this was planned however as an upgrade that we never got to see. there was also a type 9 non-collminator phaser but this was not chosen to be used on the galaxy class. most of the ships at the time had upgraded ships phasers of class 7 or 8 but are not as powerful as the galaxy class phasers. they did have more mountings and more fireing arcs. but they could not sustain primary fire for a long time like the galaxy class can.
Before anyone starts freaking out about the failure of the galaxy class theories and speculation. Please at least watch the whole video! We do like the ship. We are just citing an article on Reddit. Done by Brancer. A lot of people have asked us for our facts and proof. And it is clearly stated why these points were made. That's not to say we agree with it, we just thought we would include it as an interesting point of view. We do go on to say we like the ship very much. And will be doing many more specials with her. But it was information that we felt needed to be added and at least talked about. So officially TREKYARDS loves of the galaxy class and those views do not necessarily reflect the views of us here. I want people keep this in mind before yelling at us in the comments as we were just reporting an article that was posted on Reddit.com. Thanks for your time and understanding. Captain Foley out!
+Trekyards But I think your choice to include the article rather than any of the countless others on the Galaxy Class is what you'll get reaction to. Its points could otherwise have been discussed without giving special credence to its conclusions. LLAP
+Evan Green I suppose so. Yes. But all of those can be discussed in the discussion show we will be doing on the Galaxy class.
+Trekyards I know that you like the Galaxy-class and I do not mind the fact that you presented this theory, if anything I would like to have seen points presenting both sides of the argument.
+Enterprise-H well....I can see that. But all of part 1 and part 2 show off how cool the ship is, I apologize for the way it seems presented. It wasn't meant to start anything. It was just an interesting theory I had never considered until we researched the episode. I guess we presented it incorrectly. Our apologies.
+Trekyards
Some of the responses on this video are a fine example of how we occasionally let ourselves become too emotionally involved in fictional worlds. ^_^
Excellent work here. I didn't know about the Cetacean facilities and crew members on the Enterprise D. Incredible.
Note: The Separation as shown on TV is 100% impossible. The docking latches must be retracted FIRST before the two halves are separated. Otherwise you'd have to thread 32 latches through their respectively holes completely with out internal or external error. The forward latches on the nose of the Stardrive wouldn't allow the saucer to lift off if they stayed up.
*A Proper Separation Sequence*
1. Latches must first lift off the inner hull of the Saucer
2. Latch halves join together
3. Latches lower in the Stardive
4. Saucer moves free of the Stardrive.
-Galaxy was not a failure: 29 unnamed Galaxy's were seen on screen. 15,000 evacuation ability. Speeds of Warp 9.65 have been achieved USS Galaxy survived every battle encounter!. It's an unparalleled scientific platform and has THE BEST weapons layout of any Federation starship Including Sovereign Defiant and Prometheus. It's essentially a weapons platform with every arc protected by phasers. The burst fire torpedoes deliver a staggering 448 Megatons onto a single target. Galaxy does have maneuverability issues and originally it had some power issues but 2 warp core upgrades since Enterprise launched that's no longer and issue. Both Nebula and Galaxy feature heavily in the new Federation Fleet. Admiral Paris regarded Galaxy as the best in the fleet even though the Sovereign Class was in production when speaking to Janeway about Voyager's capabilities.
*USS Odyssey vs Attack Ship*
Reddit post is not a viable
-He makes the mistake of believing that the first volley completely disables the Odyssey that is NOT TRUE. DS9 abuses time skipping as bad as Dragon Ball Z abuses time filler.
The First Officer said they ran through the entire electromagnetic spectrum but they couldn't do that in the first volley. The battle with the Odyssey took 10 minutes!!! Captain Keogh says" We'll give them another five minutes to find Captain Sisko. Captain Keogh lowered the shields because he didn't believe the Jem'Hadar would ram the Odyssey. He also should have excuted a saucer separation. My simulations show the ship survives 9/10 times 2 vs 3 rather than 1 vs 3.
-Sovereign had maneuverability but lacked phaser array to defend it self from close attack Sovereign only has Quantum torpedoes and regenerative shields in it's favor. Nothing special about the space frame it's self.
*USS Enterprise vs Kvort*
Alternative Universe Enterprise took 46 hits from the Kvort battleship! While Enterprise apparently uses 5 torpedoes and 6 phaser strikes to destroy the K'Vort. LOGICALLY. 18 phaser strikes and and 15 torpedoes is all that was needed to take out the K'Vorts. The problem was position not the ship it's self. In a defensive posture Galaxy was not able to defend it's self properly.
I don't know why this erroneous information was included despite Star Fleet thinks the Galaxy was a huge success.
Remember for every dramatic failure their were tremendous successes. both seen and unseen.
+saquist I would say, Star Fleet consideres the Galaxy class not as a big success, although it's a great ship, because of following reasons:
1. It's an outdated configuration. They prefer know sleakier ships with less neck, because better in manouevers, more cost efficient in production and maintainance, and they don't disturb the subspace not as much as the old design.
2. They nowadays prefer ships with a specific mission profile, not the egg-laying-wool-milk-pig with 1000 crewmembers + 500 familymembers (who died too when for example the Yamato went down).
3. Even after 7 years major parts of the NCC 1701-D were still unused. So they used up much energy for transporting... air. And unlike Earth, where that's not a problem (or better said you cannot avoid air as air flows into your vehicle all the time from the atmosphere), transportating unneccessary air in space means, you have more mass than needed.
Acme. Nipp-on-AiR
The Federation is 8,000 ly across. Galaxy was designed to service and Defend the Colonies and Border worlds. Right now they have no better ship capable of it's duration and capacity. It's fast, multi-mission and high capacity.
It's a mission specific ship in peace time and a major capital command ship in wartime. It's not designed for heavy production.
I call it a success namely because it so prominently used in every Fleet Battle except the Battle of Earth.
Keep in mind that ships with a specific mission profiles like Intrepid, Defaint, Equinox are extremely short range three years or less. Yes there are draw backs but every class has drawbacks. Namely Sovereign and Prometheus which are so much less good for anything other than fighting.
The weakness of the Galaxy Class starship was the warp core. It never ejected, so the ship always blew up. That was a design flaw.
My only gripe is with the assessment of the battle performance of the ship - especially in Yesterdays Enterprise, the ship is forced to operate in a very defensive, almost static manner in order to shield the fleeing Enterprise C, making for a poor means of measuring effective combat abilities. There is a general flaw in Starfleet designs - little to no armour, with the ship's reliant upon shields for protection. When an enemy can bypass that shielding, ship's become extremely vulnerable to critical damage - we see this multiple times throughout Star Trek and is ultimately rectified with ablative armour designs. So that's less an indictment of the Galaxy class itself and more of Starfleets entire approach to tactical engagements prior to the development of ablative armour in response to multiple threats that can easily ignore defensive shields.
Other than that, another great episode.
The Titan novels mention this as well. With the reason Riker leaving the Enterprise for the Titan was because they never did any exploration with the D and E.
+Robert Hayes I could see the E (with the final scene of Nemesis being deleted), but the Enterprise-D explored beyond Federation space, did it not? Picard in Insurrection even says "Remember when we used to be explorers?"
Iconia, Aldea, Zalkon (or does star charting not count?)
+Enterprise-H They did a little but they were more or less in Fed space throughout its tenure.
The Titan series is all about going further in a he Beta Quadrant than any ship before it.
Great episode, its a shame that controversial information wasn't well received since I found it very interesting and well presented! :)
Thank you Skyla. 😊
Here, here. So many great things in this episode, and so many specs and stats. So little of the Galaxy was shown but so much has been written. Some of the stuff dug up about the cetacean tanks and crew even I didn't know, and that's saying something lol
The Galaxy class was something of an issue with me. I loved it at first, then went off it round about season 3 or 4 and got critical to the point of abuse on the design. Then, Generations is released and I sudenly loved it again.
Took me years to understand why - the 4 foot model with the extra deck stuffed into the saucer threw the look off ever so subtly. It just looked wrong all of a sudden.
They had whale tanks? That would have been handy for Kirk. :)
+Robert Hayes they had whale tanks as a result of kirk...
Admiral! There be whales here!
Great job to Stuart And Samuel. you have out done your selves yet again. great script and presenation of a ship that has a soft place in my heart for.
15:05 "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat." ~Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I am familiar with the theory you presented and I thought that the idea of the Galaxy-class project having problems was interesting but that does not mean that I agree with the notion that the class was a failure. Different ships have different roles in battle and the way the Galaxy-class was meant to fight was never properly illustrated on-screen. The best depiction would be the fight between the USS Phoenix and the Cardassian warship (TNG: The Wounded) which showed the range at which these type of ships work best. They are not made for "dogfighting" like the Defiant was, they are made for long-range combat.
We don't agree with it either. We just thought it made for an interesting point.
Interesting perhaps, but incorrect. You can't express it as fact, when it is not fact. Many see what you say as fact.
If this were a mission briefing, no problem. But this is a fact file video.
+bmused55 Well to be fair this isn't a Fact Files as those are short 5 minute videos with no video about a piece of tech usually. But I see your point. As stated in episode 1 this is to be something entertaining and not everyone will agree with the facts that we present. But the comments are here to allow you to share your opinions or "correct" facts. We filmed it in a single session and that disclaimer was made at the very beginning. So in Part 1.
+bmused55 I dont think your view of them trashing it is correct. They put something controversial in the video. I really think this is an over reaction. I found the information presented very interesting. I hope you are able to see past an episode you dont like or agree with
I think this was a well done and researched video. TNG itself showed more then 50% losses with the first 6 ships put into service. Just because situations don't put a fan favorite ship in it's best light, or best encounters doesn't mean the theory (and it was presented as a theory, not fact) is wrong.
The ship was built as a peaceful long range explorer. for that role it was armed to the teeth, but for actual engagements, it was under armed and under powered. Granted the real world reasons for abandoning the Saucer Seperation differs from the in universe, but let's face it, The Ship did not even do what it was designed for. not a single Galaxy Class went on a long range exploration mission,.
Galaxy class is my favorite of the later era. So much versatility.
Thoroughly enjoyed both part 1 & 2 of your analysis of the Galaxy class. You guys go a great job and provide hours of entertainment for us. Keep up the good job lads. If some people like your work and others hate it, that means you're on the right track.
Cetacean labs? Perhaps in case the Whale Probe returned? Funny they have no humpbacks on board...
Wow I never would've guessed that Dolphins were aboard but it actually does make a lot of sense to bring them on away missions to explore oceans
1. Originally they did want to have the ship separate into two sections in major battles, though it was too expensive to do this so they didn't
2. Originally the specified crew was to be 3400 to 3800: It was however too expensive to hire that many extra's (though it would have definitely created a lot of jobs :p), so they cut it down to 1010
3. The lack of long-range exploration was a problem in the plot that extended back to Star Trek TOS at times.
+Peter O. The Enterprise D under Picard traveled to both the Pleiades and to one of our galaxies globular clusters. Each of these trips would take more than a year at warp 6. Therefore they did engage in long range exploring.
Great review guys, I always enjoy your work. The Galaxy Class is a difficult onion to unwrap. Her bulk and curved lines makes for an attractive starship, but I agree with your synopsis that she was too fragile and under armed to serve as a true front line combatant. Obviously, she was designed at the time when The Great Bird of the Galaxy had direct input, so 1701-D reflects Gene Roddenberry’s vision that Star Fleet is a exploration force but not a military navy.
The E-D was lost due to the fact the sisters were able to get the shield frequency. Any ship would have been severely damaged. I guess they could have put ablative armour on them to last longer in combat but it was not designed as a warship.
Any vessel that has it's shield frequency known would have had it's shields penetrated the same way.
It may have be been to late to change the frequency before the next barrage?
NovaScotiaNewfie Maybe but also shield rotation shouldnt have to be ordered that would seem to be a tactical officer decision
Alistair Shaw, I'm pretty sure Worf knew his job and if that is a common tactic he would have done it. So I assume he either did it and it didn't work or he knew that it didn't help.
Yeah I agree with that. but also the systems required to rotate the modulation could have been damaged in the first salvo. If I was gunning at a more powerful ship and I had the modulation then I would damage that system.
DS9 did a really great service in making the Galaxy 'make sense' in a combined arms fleet. Watching this, keeping that in mind and looking back at yesterdays Enterprise its truly baffling that the Enterprise-D was performing any actions unsupported. To the credit of the ship and to conflict with your point only slightly, the ship had taken a heavily defensive posture designed to take as many hits as possible for the Enterprise-C roughly a pre-decided suicide mission. Then again the galaxy has no maneuverability in a firefight so i am not sure what it could have done better than it did... should have at least gone for expending its magazine.... sci-fi is confusing.
I don't know if it somehow could be worked in but I always wondered how much the crew was to blame, I always had a pretty strong memory of Jellico coming in and tearing the ship apart from duty shifts to secondary systems. Then again trading paint with a Miranda class is enough to blow the thing up.... sci-fi is confusing...
LaserAirsoftWeapons there is also the issue of screwing with the timeline. imagine if the D destroyed all the warbirds? how does the C get the credit for sacrificing itself?
If you look at the Constitution-class during the run of the TOS, the Constellation, the Excalibur, the Intrepid, and the Defiant were lost in four years. You guys forgot about the extensive battle experience during the Dominion War and the USS Galaxy surviving all the way until at least 2379.
+Eldarion H That was after a special war-time refit that the class got. Overall the ship was too large and cumbersome to perform well on their own in a fight. The Galaxy class was more of a cruise liner then a warship.
+Eldarion H But the Constitution was a large class of ship and the losses were tolerable. Like the Sovereign Class it was a class of ship crafted for the demands of a very dangerous service life.
The Constitution was the largest ship in its time. A loss of a Constitution should equate to the loss of a Galaxy. The class performed well many times against aggressors.
Eldarion H. was it the largest of its time? got any cannon sources for that?
Bold final thoughts and statements - I like it!
Great job, as usual, and I laughed out loud at the cetacean sequence, those uniforms - I'm still laughing. I have a "Shamu" teddy bear I've kept since my parents took me to Sea World (I know, booo right) when I was 4. I'm going to put a Starfleet Uniform on it and post pictures on the website now.
11 out of 12 original Constitution Class ships destroyed, not a failure. 3 out of 6 Galaxy Class ships destroyed, failure. Got it.
You could probably build 12 Constitution class ships for one Galaxy.
Good article, as usual,... Love the reference to the cetacean tanks,... I wish the guy who did the main shuttle bay walk-through did one for that as well... PS: You need to advertise this article on the I Hate the New Star Trek movies page on Facebook...
Grippingly honest breakdown guys. The Galaxy will always be "my" Enterprise. It may have it's military shortcomings, but what a pimpin ride it is!
The Galaxy class, was a failure, not because she is a bad ship class, but because she was never deployed in such a manner that she we used to her full utility. There were flaws in her design, the federation was in a time of peace and never really updated her armament. The Ambassador class had MORE Independent phaser arrays then the galaxy class had meaning she could target more enemies at once. With only 2 torpedo tubes the aging excelsior class had twice as many. You guys did a good job on the video and I like that you all pointed out flaws as opposed to adhering to the fanboys.
Think of a luxury cruise liner, that is the galaxy class.
Really good episode, this my favorite episode now!
dolphin tanks...really? btw: Cetacean pronounced "See-Tay-shun" not Citation. Great Episode, thanks.
SOOOO GOOOOOOD. This routinely becomes my favorite ship, (it changes for me a lot) So I really enjoyed this. I have no idea about the cetacean Stuff. (pronounced sa-ta-tion, not citation). Who know Dolphins and whales could wear uniforms!!??? I wonder if it was never shown on TV because of Seaqueast DSV, were they on at the same time? I can't remember.
+Jess Hull SeaQuest came out at the same time as Season 7 in Sept 1993. I imagine that it was more budget related than anything else. Even with infinite money, it would have been next to impossible to pull off really
I personally like controversy. It stimulates debate on the relative design merits of the Galaxy class. It was not a 'warship', as Starfleet does not believe in warships. It could be arguably the case that Starfleet was limited by its own idealism. I would imagine the Galaxy class would be a very good carrier of fighter shuttles. The other major downside of the design is the battle section. It could have housed more photon torpedo tubes, and phaser emitters. I often imagine the Galaxy class to be a luxury liner/space city. It could even be acted as a temporary space station at times. It would be interesting to see whether the Galaxy class could ever be conceived as a civilian liner for individuals to travel across the Federation and beyond.
Love the part about the dolphins!! Great idea!!
I don't care if this ship is considered a failure (by some), its still my fave. Another great episode, well done guys.
(Speaking in Book cannon terms) Poor ol' Sisko he so wants to get out and play in the wider world with the Odyssey and yet as Stuart & Sam say - Those Galaxy class vessels tend to get stuck playing in the metaphorical back yard.
However as a small compensation I tend to think the reason we don't see Ambassador class and it's related off shoots very much is because they are doing the job the Galaxy was designed to do - so are "out of sight" to us.
I've always liked the idea that there may be some much more advanced variations of the excelsior space frame too, If Federation ship typically undergo major refit every 20 years then it's fun to think of all the things that could exist or could have existed. or did exist but were barely seen.
Perhaps if we are lucky enough to get another TV show set somewhere between the Lost years and the early 25th century some of those gaps can be filled with how easy (relatively speaking) it is to make or modify a CGI model compared to make a physical model.
Voyager the tail end of DS9 and the TNG Movies just peaked my interest for more of such things.
One of many reasons I'd quite like a Tales of the Federation Mini series.
The cetacean labs are interesting as they actually had a cetacean officer appear as a main guest in the TNG novel, Dark Mirror. They never used the lab, rather they converted a guest quarter to an aquatic environment.
The Galaxy II's built during the Dominion war, according to other sources, took steps to correct those vulnerabilities. The PDF is obviously fan sourced "The ships of Starfleet Volume 1 :Cruisers" I forget where I found it on the internet, but I suspect you have it as a source already because some of the information you were reading was included in the reference. I think a google search might find the circa 2005 PDF
That's because it didn't bloody move in most of these battles. It always looked so stupid in those situations.
+Robert Hayes Because it was slow and cumbersome. Like the Romulan D'deridex. Only the Romulan ships could cloak, re-maneuver, and then decloak and attack again.
+Zachary Turner slow yes but they can still move. These ships were at a stand still.
I wish you guys would do a presentation format like this for the Sovereign class. This was a great presentation.
We will. Be patient. 😉👍
Trekyards Fantastic! Can't wait to see it :D
By the way, I wanted to mention I loved the nice tilt-camera warp-in animation at the beginning.
+CubanWriter Thank you! :D
Another great episode
I always like the Galaxy class and I agree it would have been better if it was sent on a five-year mission of expiration and not use as a combat platform as it's bunk and having a large civilian population on board was a massive handicap for the ship.
But putting all that to one side it is one impressive looking ship and I do not feel it should be known as a failure but just a wrong turn in the evolution of federation starships as it help pave the way to the federations newer smaller and more agile starships.
Very good show, and i applaud you for using the controversy article, to which i do agree with it. For the top of the line ship, it was easily beaten at times, by less advanced ships. The Galaxy while an awesome ship, was flawed by the fact that it was so big and sluggish, where as most vessels it came up against where smaller and more agile, Odyssey Vs Dominion proves this. The Pre Dominion war Galaxy, was just big exploration ship and was not meant for combat, Were as the Galaxy class in the later series of DS9 i believe had a upgrade, as they had more phaser strips, than previously seen. I never understood why the Federation kept sending them to situations were they were totally outmatched(i know the script called for it).
chris clark writers wanting to beat on it.
chris clark were they totally out matched though? the battle of DS9 both exclesior class escorts to the defiant got totally trashed the galaxy class wings were chewing bubble gum and kicking arses. and they were all out of bubble gum.
Do you guys think it's possible that the V shaped warp pylons are for warships (Connie, Sovereign, Nova ((as a Defiant pathfinder)), Akira ), and the 90 deg angle warp pylons are for explorers and science vessels (Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, O'Berth).
I don't think this was intentional on anyones part, but nevertheless it seems there is a trend where the ships designed for combat have the V shaped pylons, and the ones that are oriented towards exploration/science have the 90 deg pylons. Of course there are ships that appear to be exceptions (Defiant being the most obvious, but then again its warp engine arrangement doesn't fit either pattern. Then there's the NX class, but it's likely the NX design team didn't quite know what they were doing), but I think if you look at the major Federation ship designs, the trend is definitely there. It's even possible Probert's Ambassador fits into the pattern as a refit of the Sternbach Ambassador, if Probert's Ambassador is more militaristic in nature.
Great run down. I think it probably was a failure in time of war, but had there of been no war it would have been a success. It was born 20 years too late
I appreciate the Daystrom writeup's willingness to critique the Galaxy. However, I have to disagree with the Daystrom writeup (harsher than is warranted in my opinion) that suggests the Galaxy was used internally only, and not for Exploration. Meanwhile calling it a 'dud.' It was a ship of its time, expressing the philosophy and aspiration of Starfleet at the time. It most definitely was seen performing Exploration duties on the show. I'd also say that despite not being designed as a warship, she did fairly well when pressed into such duties. We were all aghast, for instance, at the destruction of the Odyssey. However, it fought against multiple assailants without the benefit of shields and was only defeated by a ramming attack. Often when we saw Galaxy class ships destroyed, it was because an enemy used unconventional means to get around defenses, because the vessel suffered a collision, or because it was outnumbered and in a situation where it could not adequately maneuver. These are situations where most any capital ship would find itself vulnerable. So, while I appreciate the willingness of the Daystrom writeup to take a critical eye to the class, I can't agree with all of their statements or conclusions.
The Galaxy was the ship version of the Worf Effect.
If the Galaxy was a failure in its original configuration, then upgrading it to the 3-nacelle future configuration may be the best thing for it!
What dolphins on the Enterprise! Really, Wow Sentient Dolphins! I wonder if they survived the crash of the Enterprise-D
The borg wrecked every single ship at the battle of sector 001 except the Enterprise-D. And lets not forget that by the time it got to earth it was the Enterprises second helping of that borg cube. I would say it was significantly more powerful than any starfleet ship up to that point. Unfortunately the writers like to utilize the holy crap factor of a galaxy going down in too many situations.
That was the E-E at Sector 001, not the E-D
Overall I did think this was an excellent review of the class & really enjoyed it.
Very good episode!!
I don't think th Galaxy was a failure- I think it was mostly a product of its time- peaceful exploration, with a dash of naivety!!
And unfortunately writers will blow up Galaxy's just for a shock reaction!
If we are to base on looks, I much prefer the Sovereign. But the Galaxy still has its place in the Star Trek universe.
Great episode guys, really enjoyed it!
+Fox Piano To Quote Qui Gon Jin - " There is always a bigger fish "
I was never able to figure out why some people claim that Starfleet vessels, even from the TNG period, are unarmored and rely on shields for protection. Shields are strong, for sure, but the vessel hulls are composed of tritanium-duranium allow. Tritanium is over 21 times as hard as diamond and the duranium composite gives it much higher endurance against physical impacts and radiation. That IS armor. True it is not ablative armor like the Defiant and Sovereign class carry, but it is still armor. Hand phasers disintegrate steel, stone, and people. Yet it takes hand phasers potentially hours to cut through duranium. Ship phasers, of course, are another matter, but then, ship phasers tend to destroy anything unshielded this side of neutronium.
Starfleet ships, including the Galaxy Class, definitely have an armor. How else would you have expected it to stand up as long as it did with no shields against Dominion Attack Fighters and even the old B'Rel Bird of Prey. Fourteen direct hits to the hull with no shields is nothing to scoff at.
As for the Galaxy's weakness. I do wonder which ones are still present in the Nebula Class ? - the lack of Armor is going to remain a problem.
I would wonder though relatively speaking how fragile is the Enterprise compared to say Voyager ? - Voyager did get blown up an awful lot in dead timelines - but she also got the ever lovin' crap kicked out of her and yet didn't blow up.
The different warp core, manoeuvrability and good speed may have helped with that though.
If you were to enhance the Galaxy Class (say make some new ones from left overs but using some new parts) there is a lot of places than need addressing like hull armour, weapon arc coverage, engine armour and shielding.
Lets be honest they'd likely be better off fitting old Ambassor type saucers on the galaxy Stardrive section and then using the saucers to make more Miranda style variations using the saucer as a main hull after all it has most of the systems in it so adding a warp core and a couple of nacelles should work without needing a whole new separate secondary hull - there are plenty of examples of such designs using earlier saucers.
If not for relative size issues I would have even wondered if that is how Akira class was developed.
But yeah the D bless her was a bit of a whale.
Citation?
+LuckyStriker That kinda grated on me.
it is spelt Cetacean. They pronounced it Citation, it is supposed to have an e sound at the start, not and I sound. Sah-tay-sion....not Sigh-tay-sion
I was thinking they had a Principal's Office and Detention on board for the delinquents.
There's definitely enough in-canon data to suggest that the Galaxy Class project was a failure. Having said that, it could be argued that the same data could be extrapolated to retroactively consider the Galaxy Class a one-stop test bed for multiple mission-specific ships (Sovereign, Intrepid, Defiant, Prometheus), thus solving the Federation's issues with design stagnation.
But did it have a swimming pool?
I'd settle for air hockey or ping pong.
In the books, Sisko is given command of a Galaxy class ship and moves his family on board. Furthermore, after the Borg invasion, Enterprise, while not suited for exploration, is sent on an exploration mission. Personally, I think Galaxy class ships would do just fine away from the battleline. Combat would be only as required. Leave combat to the Defiants and Sovereigns.
I don't believe the galaxy class was a bad designed ship but I do believe it was bad mission profile by the Admiralty.
When I was young I really hated the Galaxy class's design, but as I got older it grew on me, and I realized what I really hated were the nacelles/struts. Something about them just don't work with the ship, maybe makes it look too front-heavy, maybe? I def know that from dorsal and ventral angles it looks utterly ridiculous, but I love the look of power it projects from just about every other angle.
I hope they circle back around to the "flying outpost" concept and figure out how to marry the exploratory philosophy with formidability; I really feel that by the 24th century, it should be possible to focus on one without real loss to the other. I feel like something of the Galaxy's size and features offers story potential for a frontier ship carrying a big enough complement to populate whole new worlds.
(AND HOW TF AM I JUST LEARNING THE SHIP HAD A WHOLE AQUATIC CREW ABOARD WHY WAS THIS NEVER TOUCHED UPON IN THE SERIES)
totally agree with the Galaxy's fragility. the only saving grace were the phasers.
Okay, my other question: Do you suppose there were any Xindi Aquatics in the Cetacean sections?
There were no Xindi in the Federation at that time. They were in a self imposed exile.
i must admit, i did not feel happy about how one of the best ships in star trek history could be considered a failure. however i did see your captens log and i do respect how this opinion can be reached. so iv now decided to leave this in my mined asa open question. lol . when i see star trek going to navy /army i always refer to the galaxy class as a source of comfort. harping to a trek thats more big explorer than big blow things up,,,,,,,,,. and with that fort in mined i then think of the Enterprise J. a ship thats going back to things like the galaxy class did,,,,,,,,,,. also source sep is brill ,,,,, need to see more of that. ,,,,,,,,, this ship is in my top 5
The Galaxy Class wasn't really a failure it was designed primary for Exploration not war...For what it was Designed for it was a Success....
P.s.
One last issue the D has is poor drive Balance - it has tiny engines compared to the mass - and they are poorly placed - not to mention how front heavy it is.
What happens if all those structural Fields stop working the thing seems likely to tear itself to pieces as much as the TOS Enterprise might without such reinforcement - more so even as the interior bracing is extensive on the earlier designs compared to the D, she suffered repeated hull breaches too - further more showing how poor to respond the force field system was to hull breaches.
Odd how some of the strongest bits on the hull seem to be the windows.
But you can't hold all that against her - she was a product of her time - good job the Romulans had their own multiple design problems with their large ships too I guess.
It's odd to ponder that Starfleet's cooperation with the Klingon's to help design their new ships likely in turn lead to the further militarisation of their own Starfleet. even before the Borg and the Dominion they may have been tip toeing in that Direction - they certainly would have starter to realise the Galaxy was both a lame and pregnant duck by that point too. thus all the subsequent ships being much smaller and relatively heavily armed & amoured. and in most case presenting a much smaller profile too.
The D was a dream that just about managed to not end in a nightmare - but the existence of the Nebula Class can be taken as possible counter to many of the problems the galaxy has - the nebula has a much more compact shield envelope for a start. The engines are partially covered by the Saucer - and it seems in general more flexible in it's mission roles too.
I like the joke idea that the class may have originally be developed as a means to rescue or deliver variant or replacement or recovered galaxy Saucers too - furthering the joke that they keep breaking the things. (though not as much as Miranda Class ships obviously)
I loved this episode. A lot of great information and much I didn't know. I thought is was all presented in an entertaining way!!. It's too bad that the "controversial" information wasn't so well received. I enjoyed it and learned a lot. I agree that the Galaxy class was a failure. A failure in the terms that it never fully was able to carry out the mission profile that it was designed for. It was built for peace but found itself in a time of war. The Enterprise D was a special ship but come on people, Galaxy class ships routinely got their asses handed to them. They were not warships. They cost too many resources to build and operate as well. I think you were right on the money with this. There is a reason they stopped production and started the Sovereign class. Galaxy class was a marvel of tech, but the wrong tech at the wrong time.
The Galaxy class could only be interpreted as a "failure" in that it did not match with the Michael Bay/T&A corruption of Trek by Rick Berman. It was a majestic ship that summed up what the Enterprise should be. A sweeping, awe inspiring vessel that just says explore. Unlike the emaciated, anorexic husk that is the Sovereign class. Boy was that a big step in the wrong direction.
The Galaxy class was perfect for the 2360s, the Sovereign perfect for the 2370s, though they were designed at roughly similar times.
WHAT 6:52
Riker in 2100+ (PS fan but not hardcore)!! WHAT EP!!!
While I cannot really deny that the Galaxy Class didn't fare well as a war ship, that wasn't really what the designers had in mind when the class was designed (in peace-time). The whole military or science fleet question is reflected in most ships in service during this period; not just the Galaxy. It also occurs to me that if the D crushed all comers, it would make for bad television. Being out-gunned and in danger was necessary for the show.
+Dean Lewis The Galaxy was not designed during peace time, wars with the Cardassians, Tzenkethi, and the Talaxians all took place during the Galaxy's design phase, including to attacks from the Tholians. There was a near-Cold War type of atmosphere with the Klingons.
+Eldarion H Talaxians? How did they get involved? :)
I mean Talarians, sorry
+Eldarion H there was no hint of war with the kilgons until the domin cam along also those wars where retcons after the galaxy class had been introduced to views
The Federation knew the Galaxy Class wasn't really a capitol warship the day it was designed. They referred to them as heavy cruisers. If you only consider the armaments, that's the correct category. The ship was a symbol for technology and dreams.
don't blame the design blame the script writer for the sake of plot development....
The mid 24th century, did show Starfleet underfunded, unequipped, and was under a period of stagnation. The Galaxy class was a failure to fulfill the demands of Starfleet. The Galaxy class was too big to fail, and it became an over large starliner. I agree that it has a potential to be a intergalactic cruiser, the Federation needed a new capital ship but it did not utilize its full design potential. USS Odyssey against the Jem Hadar, demonstrated how the ship could not take much of a pounding. USS Defiant had armour on its hull even when its shields were down could take a number of hits (ST:DS9 'The Way of the Warrior').
I don't agree the Enterprise did poorly in battle... the couple you referenced are outweighed by the several times they did well. The Borg carved them up like a roast and the Enterprise survived a few times.
What's also silly about calling it a failure (again, why, because it wasn't invincible?) is that for all we know, there are dozens of them exploring in deep space, defending the Neutral Zone, conducting cutting edge research, and administering authority throughout half the galaxy. Which is what the writers expect anyone not needing to see it 'sploding baddies week after week to think. What's the track record of the Negh'vars and D'Deridexes exactly? Were they failures for not being the ships that conquered the galaxy for their respective empires? Honestly, what's the point of bashing to conclusions?
Bracer makes some very good post war points. At best The Galaxy was more suited as Civilian Cruse liner or pure Science ship. As a Combat capital ship she did not fair well according to "Canon" but most Star Fleet ships fell short during the Dominion war so you could say it had more to do with the Federation "peace culture" then to the over all design of the Ship. I am not a fan of the Galaxy class as it just looks weird and never fit well with her predecessors but I can not fault her for not being something she was not designed to be.... a ship of war.
I think your assessment of the ship being a failure is valid. This is a jack of all trades vessel, and as such simply isn't as good as a fleet of specialists.
But I think you overlooked one aspect of the ship - shock and awe. The Galaxy Class acts as a mobile display of Starfleet's political, cultural and technological might. When Federation dignitaries turn up in a Warp capable space station it creates a far more lasting impression than sending a smaller ship. Militarily, though its actual firepower is average at best, the sight of a large, imposing warship acts as a morale boost for Federation forces, while demoralising potential foes.
Sticking with military aspects for a moment, it's possible the Galaxy Class represents a tipping point of Starfleet's military doctrine. She is akin to a First Rate ship of the line; a fierce foe, but from a practical perspective the resources are better spent building multiple Third Rates instead. We see the evolution away from battlecruisers to frigates and destroyers with the Defiant, and the use of attack squadrons.
This is a ship that could only be made in times of relative peace and prosperity, and its failure is due to both the desire to have and display opulence, and the lack of evolutionary pressure on ship designers.
+TheStabbyBrit Not a complete failure, the USS Odyssey was the only Galaxy class ship lost to the Dominion, the rest of the surviving galaxy class ships survived the Dominion war.
Blood Raven Whether or not Galaxy class ships survived the war isn't an indication of their success or failure as warships. During World War 1 converted cruise liners were failures as both military and transport ships not because they couldn't fill the role, but because they required an insane amount of fuel to run compared to other ships.
The Galaxy fails because there is nothing it can do that a dedicated ship couldn't either do better, or do with less resources.
Just about the only role I can see a Galaxy succeeding at is a troop carrier and assault ship, but I don't recall Starfleet ever making use of large scale ground assaults during any conflict.
TheStabbyBrit You've got to bear in mind the Galaxy was developed when the Federation was at peace before the Borg and Dominion threats.
As a diplomatic ship she did her job well
Seriously, though, this (including part 1) has explained very well why Starfleet didn't build too many. I mean, WHY? A couple of diplomatic cruisers with luxury features for VIPs I can understand, but there is no way you would send it into anything resembling harm's way. They could have build many more functional, practical ships instead, and not have been stuck using Movie-era ships nearly a century after they were launched. It would have been like using the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia during World War 2...
Timothy Page its more like using the Nimtiz now. which some of the class are still
Very interesting guys. But when are you going to do another episode of fleet yards??
+Kieren Stevens When we reach our $800 on Patreon...we are at $788 so if you gave $15 a month we would be able to make the next one and start pushing for the one after that THEN once we reach the target of $1000 a month Fleetyards will become a regular show! www.patreon.com/Trekyards?ty=h
When will episode 3 arrive at the Space dock?
sorry I just got around to watching but got nervous based on the captains comment on Facebook. I wasn't disappointed in the episode at all! full of facts and the info that you presented that has people up in arms was not written by you, just read by you, and I think people don't like to hear bad things said about the ship they love. but I loved the episode and it can be said about many aircraft and ships of the past, they may have been flawed but in the right hands there inadequacies are forgotten. great show guys. looking forward to part three!
Sela should have been the villain in Generations in my opinion. It's just odd how she disappeared until 2409.
+Robert Hayes Dinese Crosby had her fill of Star Trek and decided to make a clean break of it.
"The TNG Tech Manual definitely talks about a combined Orcinus orca takaya and Tursiops truncatus population on the ship to work out navigation problems (and more likely alien language challenges!). "We never got to show them in an episode, since the expense would have been prohibitive, but we did convince the writers to have Geordi ask a visiting official if they ever saw the dolphins. During "Yesterday's Enterprise", an intercom call was heard asking Dr. Joshua Kim to report to Cetacean Ops. "The dolphins and whales were my idea from the start; I'm convinced that, even if they're not intelligent enough to pilot a starship, they can still teach us a few things about other life forms." (Sternbach). ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/where-do-i-find-the-dolphins/
+Philip Guyott It still sounds rather silly to have them and whales onboard the ship though. I could see the J having them since that ship is massive but not this one.
+Robert Hayes - I found this very silly too. However the blueprints (i.imgur.com/QPb7are.png) show that the Cetacean area its only taking up a relatively small space (less then ¼) over just one or possibly two decks. Considering the overall size of the ship we only get to see a small portion of the ship on screen. What blows me away is the size of the upper shuttle bay, it’s massive!
+Philip Guyott Well that's just cruel then. Those dolphins and whales need their space.
I wonder what PETA would say about this.
I just take a wild guess and say you recorded all the Eisodes in one go right? :)
So i don't need to point out the YamAto every Video. :D
+Tao Yep we always film the episode in its entirety and then split it where it makes sense! :D
... which is the best way to do it normally. :)
Kepp it up!
the dolphins are kinda wierd imagine how the dolphins on the yamato or the oddysey must have felt
@Trekyards humm another great video on the Galaxy class !! :) but i felt Starfleet is a bit Harsh to say the old GC is a Failure seeing as how i feel that the flaws that she ship has may have been deliberately put in there ! like ya make a super ship and if there is no flaws or weak spots then any enemy could use it to take over the Galaxy ! no pun indeed ! thus the flaws the ship has i see as a counter or back up plan if something happens to them .
The argument regarding the class's failings in 'Yesterday's Enterprise' aren't without merit (and I know you guys are just passing along information that originated elsewhere), it doesn't take into account that the Enterprise-D's objective was to stay between the Klingons and the Enterprise-C. So they weren't able to maneuver as much as they might in a normal battle setting. Having said all that, I dunno WHAT Riker's excuse is for 'Generations.'
Galaxy class a failure? You shattered my dreams ;(
But anyway, a good video gentlemen!
This is a nit-picky thing, but in 'Yesterday's Enterprise,' what the hell was the Enterprise, with the Federation engaged in full-scale war with the Klingons, doing wandering around by itself in the first damn place?!
Why would people get so worked up about the "failure" comment? All of it is made up since the ship never actually existed.
lol space dolphins. Did they make it out in time in Generations?
Grow the Hell up people if you have mean opinions say them in a constructive way that doesn't show as being assholish.
That being said I loved this episode and it makes sense that the ship the...flagship of the fleet have areas specifically for cetacean? Federation member world crew.
-----Captain Mura, USS Renaissance NCC-85632.
The Galaxy class was decent class but horribly underpowered because inept thinking by starflleet they had the technology to develop stronger weapons but the lack of conflicts really shows how they left the Galaxy class was a battleship classification of ship but really was only moderately powerful.
However they rectified with the dominion war era Galaxy such as the Venture class being an indication of the growing capabilities of the class. I believe it will still be relevant into the the next century but I think it would serve a more general purpose vessel or first contact vessel while sovereigns take more of the combat roles.
The galaxy class needs armor and a battleships shield array and her weapons are fine I would captain one
that's star fleets faught they do not want war ships except when its too late
Were you saying "citation" instead of "cetacean"?