I have been saying this for years. The Galaxy Class is, in a very literal sense, a mobile starbase. It is 640m of The Federation, sent out to wherever starfleet sees fit. Not merely the long arm of Starfleet power, but a very real, very tangible piece of the FEDERATION itself. A city that can just be sent and parked wherever it's needed.
I always liked and thought this as well. She's a mini starbase that's warp capable. But the show treated it as a nice ship instead of a massive mobile base.
Also it was so chock full of warp capable shuttles to do the most of the charting of systems and relay back to the Galaxy. It has plenty of room. I been on board with it being a genrational ship. The enterprise was mostly to show off what the frederation had accomplished as well as being its flagship. But an Average galaxy class would be mostly the former .
@@afterglow-podcast Not merely warp capable. She was, at the time of her construction, the fastest ship in Starfleet, thanks in large part due to having the largest, most powerful warp core that had ever been built up to that point. In fact, I would argue that this is why the Galaxy class never actually got sent on it's INTENDED missions. She was just so fast, and so powerful, that when starfleet needs to send something, "Send a Galaxy Class" tends to be the best available answer.
@@stargazerblue186 It could even be split in two, so the saucer could stay parked in orbit of a friendly planet or station, while the engineering hull was used for scouting or coming to the air of an embattled shuttle, while leaving the civilians and diplomats and science specialists in safety and comfort.
The reason the Enterprise was never sent on the mission you describe is very simply because the ship bore the name “Enterprise.” That automatically made her the Federation’s political showpiece and trouble shooter. You don’t send that ship out into nowheres on secret missions, you keep it close to home where it can be sent on “flag waving” missions around the known hotspots.
True... but Resurrection Starships does have a point there too... Waving the Flag doesn't necessarily seem like the kind of job that a man like Picard would jump at... Makes sense to me that exploration was going to be the Enterprise's primary mission at first, and while it was on the long journey out to the frontier of Federation space, the mission profiel changed. Not just for the Enterprise, but for most of the Galaxy class line.
@@Simmons8519 That could be, but to me, I think it makes more sense that the only two Galaxy Class ships that we saw in or near Federation space during TNG were the Enterprise and the Yamato, that the other ships of the class were indeed sent out on extreme long range missions, and the Enterprise was kept around for the reasons I described. And wants to build up to the Dominion War began, the call was transmitted out to reach the other Galaxy Class vessels that were well out beyond the range of the frontier, to return to Federation space because they were going to be going to war.
This is a brilliant explanation as to why Starfleet renamed Titan as Enterprise after retiring the ENT F, a critically flawed variant of the Odyssey Class.
@@HistoryNut-1701 issue there is by all counts the first batch run of Galaxy's were only 6 hulls with three comissioned three spares. now as the DW started to ramp up they made the second rush batch
The Federation had many "Flag" ships. A flagship is any ship that leads multiple vessels in either a battle group or other lead role. Flagships are often commanded by some kind of high level political/military leader such as an Admiral. The fact that someone with the rank of "Captain" was permitted to command the Enterprise directly tells me there was a lack of understanding of the specific role a flagship takes. It also shows that Starfleet must have had the utmost confidence in Captain Picard to give him command of this ship. A Flag officer is historically someone of a high rank that can "speak" for their government. On rare occasions we did see the Enterprise under Picard take command of battle groups and situations but this was not the norm. If the Enterprise was in fact "The" Federation flagship it is highly unlikely that Picard would not have been promoted prior to taking on the role. The Galaxy class was an expression of the Federations complacency and belief that their technology was unmatched, which at the time it technically was. I do not believe the Enterprise was "The" Federation flagship but rather "A" Federation flagship.
It was explained by the show runners decades ago (feels like yesterday but I'm old), its a multi-role long term explorer. Starfleet was retiring its aging fleet but they didn't want specialized ships, they wanted a ship that could do it all. It can explore, transport colonist, disaster relief, etc. It was meant to go on multi year missions without having to return for supplies or refit.This ship is the height of Star Fleets arrogance that gets crushed in Wolf 359 and then the Dominion War, thats why after the Federation goes back to smaller and more specialized ships Edit- In reference to the Enterprise, easy answer is she is the big stick and she was placed near Romuln and Klingon space as a show of force. Klingons made fun of her luxury but never her battle capabilities
Although we never had a good look at the inside of an Ambassador class (other than the bridge), we have seen a good deal of the interior of Excelsior class ships (Star Trek 3-6, Voyager). In the Excelsior class the Captain's room was TINY. All he had was a twin bed and about 10x10 feet to walk around in. Heck, ensigns were crammed at least 6 to a room in bunk beds. Even the Defiant class had more room per person than that. I think the Galaxy class was a flex in making the ship A LOT more livable than previous generations.
The federation never stopped building smaller and more specialized ships, even when the Galaxy Class was planned and built. To say that Galaxy Class ships were crushed in the Dominion War also feels oversimplified. The USS Odyssey was rammed by a Jem Hadar fighter after it took a massive beating because the Federation shields were useless against dominion weaponry. Every other starfleet vessel of the time would've likely fared far worse. After the galaxy class was refitted for the war it was the backbone of the fleet in a lot of engagements. After the dominion war the federation also built large ships like the Odyssey class (which the Enterprise F belonged to).
@Scitch87 if your referring to the Project Galaxy ships (New Orleans, Challenger, Freedom etc) from everything I read they were small batch ships made more for test beds except for the Nebulas which became important with their mission packs. I didn't mean to suggest the Galaxy were beat down, it's just this was a numbers game and the Dominion were able to build more small ships faster, they kept building Galaxies but they could punch out more Sabres, Akiras, Steamrunners, etc than the Galaxy. In some "canon" and beta Canon stories the Galaxy was something Cardassians avoided when possible
@@Psycodiver69 Starfleet tends to build a do everything starship every generation. And they are typically marked as a class by having an Enterprise in her number. The concept is consistently proven. Starfleet engineers are nothing if not problem solvers, so when something comes up that the do everything ship is ill suited to, they build something small to fill the gap until the next do everything ship that has that problem solved is ready. So you get a Galaxy, add variable Borg, solution=Defiant, reviews complete, build Sovereign. The Galaxy was designed as a literal generational leap forward, a foundation for everything that came after, and the designers were basically pushing to see just how far they could push on the bleeding edge. So the ship has maxed out everything, MAX engines, MAX power, MAX weapons, MAX shields, MAX space, MAX science labs, MAX sensors, MAX computer power, MAX luxuries, MAX family accommodation, MAX Captain. They probably went a bit overboard, but they were trying to do a ship that would last a century, a new Excelsior caliber ship.
@@3Rayfire I totally agree, the fact we don't see any in the Picard series really upsets me, even at that time it should STILL be the premier explorer ship, it has plenty of room for upgrades to keep it current.
"Captain's log, Stardate 41153.7. Our destination is Planet Deneb IV, beyond which lies the great unexplored mass of the galaxy. My orders are to examine Farpoint, a starbase built there by the inhabitants of that world. Meanwhile I'm becoming better acquainted with my new command - this Galaxy-class USS Enterprise. I'm still somewhat in awe of its size and complexity. As for my crew, we are short in several key positions, most notably a first officer, but I'm informed that a highly experienced man, one Commander William Riker, will be waiting to join the ship at our Deneb IV destination."
If i remember right, the original writer's bible that David Gerrold, Farpoint was the absolute furthest humanity explored. The rest of the series was going on a "reverse Voyager" where they would explore and come back something like 20 years later. It's also why families were aboard the ship because the mission was going to be too long to separate families. We also weren't going to see any of the original races unless one of those races caught up to the Enterprise.
Was also hinted at when on a return to Earth that it was said to be rare and unexpected for any Galaxy class ship to return to the nest. They were intended to keep going or to seed a new base someplace far away.
@@charlesmaurer6214 The term 5 or in the case of the Galaxy class 20 means that it leaves it's planet of registry and doesn't return for 20 years UNLESS something happens to the planet, like the Borg invasion, or it's too damaged to be repaired by a Starbase facility and has to go back to the "factory", like the "E" at the end of "Nemesis".
I was thinking for a moment that that would imply that Starfleet thought the existing Ambassadors, Excelsiors, Constellations Mirandas would be enough to hold the line in the event of war with Klingons or Romulans, but then I realized, that's what the Nebulas are for: Galaxy-class tech in a package optimized for shorter trips and more intense combat, with a Miranda-like modularity of mission pods mounted above the main hull.
A great point you made, the Galaxy Class is huge and powerful, but the Nebula is dynamic and efficient, especially in combat with its more compact profile and modular Pods, which is why the Phoenix was so effective in its attacks in Cardassian space.
The Nebula isn't that much smaller than the Galaxy. In fact with the mission pod I'd be willing to bet that the Nebula actually has a larger mass and internal volume. Just like the Miranda is actually larger than the Constitution when looking at volume.
@@jpc347 I believe you are correct about that. Someone has done a volume sheet based on the best models he could find. The Nebula class without the pod is just missing the neck of the Galaxy class. You add the pod and the pylon it sits on, it becomes larger. However based on what we think on how shield tech works, you would think the shield bubble would be more powerful due to if all things being equal between the two classes, the Nebula class would have a smaller shield bubble but equal amount of energy going into it. I guess you could say 15-25% more powerful.
@@jpc347yet the Nebula is described as being slightly smaller than the Galaxy in most sources. I reconcile these facts by assuming these sources were referring to the stock model without any pod installed.
The size of the Galaxy class is largely about showing the flag and diplomacy. It is the same reason why we might send an aircraft carrier and used to send battleships on a port visits especially to places that might not be 100% friendly. It's a way of showing how big and powerful the Federation is. This thing is stuffed to the gills with the latest tech and luxuries it is a flying city and is incredibly expensive It's about impressing but also telling people not to fuck about and find out as it also has big teeth. It's classic naval defence diplomacy in space. This thing is a very big not so subtle statement of intent if one of these rocks up at your door you listen and you listen hard. It's both an iron fist and a velvet glove
What always makes me angry about this, though, is the civilians. They put the civilians on the Enterprise in danger CONSTANTLY, and almost never even made mention of it. So much so that I think, if it were real life, they'd have canceled the civilian aspect of the ships almost immediately and crewed them solely with Starfleet personnel. It's just way too dangerous.
@@Revkor Perhaps so, but the saucer operating alone is incredibly vulnerable. With no warp capability it is limited to sub-light speeds, basically immobile with limited power, shielding and weapons. If an opponent detected it either during or after separating from the "Battle Section," it becomes a sitting duck unable to get those same families to safety, a two million ton "clay pigeon."
@@TheRogueX Thing is that the realpolitik element is background to Starfleet's primary function. The ship is supposed to go on twenty year deep space exploration missions. Nobody is going to leave their kids for twenty years, this ship removes that as an issue. Also, I'm sorry but staying planet side is not a safe thing in Star Trek. You can never tell when a giant space amoeba, indestructible omnicidal ice cream cone, Earth space probe that has achieved sentience with no corresponding ability to value organic life, telepathic fried egg with an attitude, passing black whole, or hostile alien race might just cruise by a planet. Or something banal like an asteroid, moon, or stellar core fragment might threaten to tear your planet's crust apart. The Klingon's almost wasted themselves with crappy mining safety. Frankly being on a starship in an interstellar society is like flying, despite the occasional plane crash it's still statistically the safest way to travel. That said, you're right, considering the size, I think the very first thing any refit of the Galaxy should have is a few Danube class Runabout warp cores installed in the saucer section so she can have her own warp drive. No saucer warp drive, that was dumb.
It’s awesome that you posted this video because recently I was thinking that the Galaxy class was originally designed for missions that could be generational in nature. I’m not surprised that the original Galaxy class was a potential launch point for a new series either. In my opinion, the Galaxy is best served as a command cruiser, sort of like a mobile star base. I agree that the enterprise likely was meant to serve that role as a true flagship on long term task force missions. It seems you have a lot of the same ideas. :)
@BazT47 ... If we're going off of the ... Discovery canon... than it would seem no. The Discovery makes an extragalactic jaunt out, and it's mentioned that Starfleet, until the... spore drive... lacked the ability to pierce the galactic barrier without unusual outside alien interference.
@@BazT47 I mean, the background information from the designer of the Universe-class said it had some new space-folding warp technology and did indeed explore other galaxies. Doubt it's canon but still pretty cool. No, I don't see Discovery or anything from Kurtzman Trek as canon. At least not canon to the prime universe. It's clearly some weird parallel reality.
The Enterprise D is meant to be show piece .....dealing with Diplomacy Exploration and fighting if need be. She's meant to show off the abundance and the power of the Federation
Watching Voyager, I remember thinking, “Gee, they’re stuck in this tiny ship on the far side of the GALAXY. Wouldn’t it have been convenient if a GALAXY class ship had gone instead? It seems like it was literally built to circumnavigate the Galaxy.”
The intrepids were long range science vessels along with being faster and having longer warp endurance than the galaxies...albeit much more limited in resources than a Galaxy. I personally think the galaxy goes to explore...the intrepids go to the visited areas to conduct more research.
She was a deep space explorer for missions of a decade or longer, but the writers constantly pulled stories out their ass that returned to Earth's backyard.
The Galaxy class being a deep space exploration ship does make sense, it has all the facilities to keep it's crew happy and healthy far from any space dock. The idea of a small fleet of ships supporting one is also a cool idea too.
The cut-out on the underside of the hull would be perfect for carrying two smaller ships, similar in size to the Saber, or Defiant. Having such an explorer be a mother ship to a pair of smaller, but very capable ships would be very useful.
Yeah, the galaxy class operating in the same capacity as a US aircraft carrier in a naval carrier group, surrounded by escorst and support ships is the impression I always had for the Galaxy class, except for long range, long duration peaceful exploration rather than defense.
One minor critique of the video is that you said the "area of interest" that the galaxy class intended for was only a year at warp away from Earth. By the 24th century according to manuals polublished during the airing of the Next Generation, Federation space had become so vast that it would take multiple years to go from one end of its widest border to the other... If you're going forward with the "where no one has gone before" concept here, the area of interest should be months or years beyond THAT instead. And in suggestion, the cruisikg speeds and maximum warp factor of the Galaxy class was notably higher than ships like the Miranda and Excelsior classes, at least until the Borg attack and Dominion war seemed to motivate Starfleet to overhaul these older vessels to add to fleet strength and numbers. So i would suggest that any fleet accompanying a Galaxy class would have to be one of the rarely ever seen "modern" ships of the era that came out of the Galaxy class development program: the Cheyenne, New Orleans, Apollo, Freedom, Challenger and of course the Nebula class, simply in order to keep up. And because most of these ships were still smaller and less advanced than the Galaxy, having the new flagships of the Federation as the fleet command ships still makes sense. With the galaxy class acting as a kind of starbase surrogate in the region from which the rest of the fleet could be deployed from and return to for rest and repairs while the Galaxy itself set up a small ground based starbase of a suitable planet from which long term operations could be hadled, and for subsequent fleets to arrive at and bouild up, should the region prove interesting enough upon analysis to warrant a greater Federtion presence.
Geeze, you've got my fanfic gears going... One thing that always bothered me about ST is the fact that starships never went out in convoy groups like you'd see in most navies (even nowadays you have multiple ships operating in a single location due to how they are designed). I'd definitely need to study up on the outfit of the Federation in the 2360s, but I'm in complete agreement with the use of the Galaxy-class as a fleet flagship with several smaller ships flying in support for extreme deep-space missions. Now, to be fair to Picard, as he is the ambassador and negotiator for the Federation, it would make sense to give him command of the largest ship in the fleet as a sort of power symbol ("Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.")
In TNG it did happen once (Redemption Pt 2, the Enterprise commanded a convoy of starship classes to the Klingon/Romulan neutral zone) and in DS9 it became common during the Dominion war.
The Mirandas are flying plot devices for the Galaxy crew to find abandoned or destroyed, and the Excelsior shuttles important people to and from the Galaxy, just like on TNG!
Capable but slightly incomplete. The task force needs 4 - 6 destroyer class vessels for picket/scouting duties and possibly a frigate with Starfleet Marines onboard (aka a Northampton), especially if you're heading out on a long-range exploration mission. J/S
For long term missions I wouldn‘t mix design eras for maintenance reasons. To minimize the amount of non-replicable spart parts that might be needed, I‘d only use ship classes born out of the Galaxy program. Not only would that reduce the variety of parts, it would also be easier for engineers to transfer between ships without having to adjust to different machinery everywhere they go.
I've always imagine the galaxy in the role of being basically a mobile star base. The thing is big enough enough that it can easily carry not just it's own crew but easily handle the extra load of crews for a couple defiant classes as given how unsuitable that ship is for long range missions so they can rotate on and off. It's hanger easily has the space a lot support craft like worker bees for maintenance of itself and other ships. And it seems like the kind of ship that'd have industrial grade replicatiors as standard or at least the space and extra power for them. Personally i think it's a ship that'll live long behind the lines frontline days are over all big replenishment ship
Give it a couple dozen runabout sized drone probes capable of high warp speed and maintaining cruising speed for at least a week or more, the ship could then survey far more at once.
The Galaxy-class is a command exploration battlecruiser, capable of acting as a mobile base when needed. The class was used extensively in all these roles in various combinations before, during, and after the Dominion War. Very good video.
@@D-Snyper-Grunt2 Now that I think about it, they could probably ferry around 4 Oberth science ships in that spot. What a true explorer that would be, ferrying the Oberths to a key sector, and sending them off to map out the area. They would be able to cover so much more space.
If you're talking about the concave arc at the bottom of the hull, that's where the most critical and sensitive systems of the ship are; the antimatter end of the warp core, the antimatter storage pods, and the emergency antimatter generator. That's not a place I'd want to have ships externally docked while at warp. A redesign might be able to accomodate that idea though... Ever heard of the Captain's Yacht?
Something mentioned in the TNG technical manual CA 1995, is that about two-thirds of the secondary hull is empty space just waiting to be configured for future mission needs.
The Borg is the main reason Starfleet basically ended the 5 years mission program because Starfleet didn't want to send ships into the uncharted space from federation space because they vessel would probably run into a Borg cube and get assimilated and the growing treat from the Romulan star empire so yeah Starfleet stoped exploring for a while.
An interesting fan theory. One thing I never quite understood about Star Fleet is that they rarely had ships moving about in squadrons. Roddenberry often drew on his military experience for much of Star Trek's inspiration, but it wasn't often we saw Star Fleet ships of the line operating together like navies of the world. I think this could make for a fun story seeing the different vessels, and how they are utilized to their intended function within a fleet squadron.
I remember reading somewhere that the Galaxy class was originally going to be a twin warp core design, but later in its development phase, it was downsized to a single warp core.
Ive always seen the later Odyssey class as a true second attempt at what they wanted the galaxy class to do while having it prepared to take up the roles that the galaxy class had to take up during its years of service.
At that, it is a fitting name to the class, since the USS Odyssey (NCC-71832) was possibly meant to fill that role, but was cut down by a force of ships specialized in combat and conquest. Naming an entire class of ships after a ship of exploration lost in combat, which itself was named after the poetic epic of Homer, about Odysseus who seeks to overcome the curse of the gods and return home, is its own type of poetic justice.
I've been enjoying SNW. But I don't like prequels. I have thought for ages now that instead of a TOS prequal that crew would have better suited for a post Picard Odessey based series. Same actors, different characters. The Federation desperate to show that it's dark days are behind it putting out an Odessey Class Enterprise with a idealistic Captain to show the Galaxy that Starfleet is back in the exploration game. If you throw in Disco' season 2 Anson Mount has shown he would have been the perfect great haired poster boy Captain for the Federation to roll out after Picard. Post DS9 there would still be enough tension with the Klingons to have that conflict, and it's easy to do a whole: Vulcan dealing with some issues storyline with any Vulcan so it didn't need to be Spock. I think they missed a chance to move the universe on in a fun and meaningful way.
I've mentioned on other channels that it is incredibly weird that they didn't use the star drive to drop off the saucer for long term studies/ space station duty and then send the star drive to go pick up a new saucer, explore, or act as a defense ship. The galaxy class is by design modular; it should've had other options besides a saucer section at its disposal. The nebula has a sensor pod / weapons pod that should've been able to dock with a galaxy star drive to turn it into a giant version of the defiant.
the ambassador is huge. it's like between 60% and 2/3 as large as the galaxy by habitable volume, depending on what sources you use, so the ambassador could easily do years-long missions, too. but the writing on star trek is often dumb af.
Realistically, they would have made a lot more of the Ambassador-class because being smaller than the Galaxy-class, it would have been easier to build.
4:35 Like a continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before? Like that kind of mission? Oh, I'm excited!
The galaxy class was meant for extreme deep space exploration. Like 30 to 40 year missions. However romulans the borg and Dominion threw that out the window but the galaxy did have a perfect role on the battlefield as a commamd, control and carrier ship since its sensor and communication systems were the best in the fleet. In star trek online the galaxy found a new purpose as a colony set up ship. It would provide new colonies the resources and protection they needed until a starbase was built or the colony grew enough to defend itself.
I'm of the belief that Section 31 had a hand in designing the Galaxy Class. They could easily have laid the groundwork for a militarized fleet while keeping the larger Federation in the dark. Just look at how effective the class was in the Dominion War when Starfleet got off their butts and actually kitted them up correctly. More space for shields/weapons and possibly fighters/drone-craft. Heck, you could even use the ship as a mobile barracks given the sheer number of people the class can hold.
@Tuning3434 It made sense to leave the shady nature of government agencies in the universe. It also helped to show that the "perfect" humanity was just a veneer. It helped me accept the humanity of humans in Star Trek.
Eh... not a fan of that idea. Rather perfer the idea to this day that the Galaxy class was an outward sign of Starfleet's hubris... They thought at the time, according to both Picard and Q in the episode "Q who?" that they were so ahead of the game, that their technolgy, defensive systems and tactics and diplomatic abilities had progressed so far that their was no problem too big for ghem to safely solve, so why not fly a small starbase with kids, schools and all the comforts of home out into the unknown? After all, even Riker im "Peak performance" bragged about how he felt that training in ship-to-ship battle was such a "minor provence" as to be almost unworthy of taking the time to do so. The Federation of this era WOULD build something Like the Galaxy, just because they COULD.
@@chrisdufresne9359 i always took Section 31 - at least in DS9 - to not be the reality of the Federation, but rather the devil on its' shoulder, taking advantage of moments of weakness.
@@Simmons8519 Not only is it the most fitting answer but it's also the canonical one. Given the fact that Q himself introduced the Enterprise to the Borg precisely because he found humanity to be too arrogant yet conversely woefully unprepared for the true horrors that lurked in deep space.
I completely agree with you on this concept, there is something that always bothered me about the Galaxy class and the Enterprise in particular in that we rarely see it being the Flagship of a task force or the like like how we typically think of flagships in modern navies. Not until DS9 with the Galaxy Wings do we see this play out so would have been amazing to see the Enterprise and its task force of recurring characters and ships
Thinking of it as a flagship in a modern navy was the first error. It's much more pioneering age of sail type stuff than Modern Navy. Hence the old trope that the Enterprise is "the only ship within range". As opposed to Star Wars which is all about the World War II aesthetic.
If Starfleet was more of an actual fleet, they would have sent out their ships in squadrons of some sort or another, like you propose. Imagine if you had squadrons of 1 capital ship, 2 medium cruisers, and 4 scouts. They would explore or patrol and support each other. Say you’ve got 4 Mirandas, just zipping through every star system in their designated area, looking for the anomaly of the week. 2 Excelsiors back them up, doing more thorough investigations of anything peculiar or bailing them out when said anomaly starts causing issues. The Galaxy sits back, coordinates, and acts as a mobile starbase. It is the most well-defended ship in the squadron, but that is *because* it houses the families of the crew on the other 6 ships, along with support facilities. Maybe it hangs out in orbit over some outpost or new colony, assisting the groundside needs in addition to coordinating the squadron’s mission. Almost a colony ship, but not quite. And maybe you go with 2 capital ships. Say 1 Galaxy class and 1 Ambassador class. The second capital ship would be the one sent in to address the really serious issues, where a real bruiser of a ship is required.
Oh, and also: Starfleet could use this system of organization to cycle through their new designs. With older designs moving down a tier, as appropriate. Maybe in Kirk’s time, its a squadron of 1 Connie w/ 2-3 Saladins or Hermes (later replaced with Mirandas). Then, an Excelsior could lead a squadron of a mix of Connies and Mirandas. When the Excelsiors and Mirandas are the bulk of the fleet, the Ambassador can come into its own. However, the design is not revolutionary enough to set it apart from the Excelsiors, so the Galaxy is designed specifically as a platform for coordinating Excelsiors from.
The Galaxy could be a literal mother ship. The cut out on the underside of the secondary hull would be perfect for a pair of Defiant or Saber class ships, or something of similar size. Imagine being able to transport the two smaller ships to a given region, and then dispatch them to explore/patrol the area, with the Galaxy acting as home base.
by TNG as well Starfleet became very egotistical, believeing they had no real threat at the time so it was mostly a flex and was a sign of major stagnation though the theories being shared is always great
@@CMVBrielman by the time they got their act together I felt like the sovereign became the backbone with intrepids, akiras and defiants feeling in those roles honestly.
@@SuperGamefreak18 Nothing says these squadrons have to be identical, of course. Or even have identical purposes. You could have tactical, short-range exploration, and long-range exploration, along with plenty others. And since so many starfleet ships are multi-purpose, this would make it easier to build squadrons for a given purpose. One squadron could be repurposed just by switching out one ship. You’ve got an Excelsior with 2 Mirandas, charting a nebula well within Federation space. Replace the Excelsior with a Sovereign, and now they can patrol the Neutral Zone.
The Galaxy Class was designed for long term, extreme distance deep space exploration. It was supposed to go 20 years before its first refit and have a service life of 100 years. They've explained this on the show and other media
Love the vids… Love the format… Love all of it as it relates to Trek. I appreciate what you and am thankful for your efforts! No. Damned. Doubt! Keep it up! Please!
I actually wrote a fanfic, years ago, where the USS Galaxy was modified for the Galaxy Project, intended to send lone starships out on long range, long term exploration missions with minimal support and resupply. Part of the modification was adding a third warp nacelle for greater warp speed and duration, a big phaser cannon in case they ran into a threat like the Borg, etc, basically resulting in the refit we see in All Good Things.
It’s a good idea however there is an issue I believe that the USS Galaxy was shown in DS9 during the dominion war battle scenes so it probably will have to be a different Galaxy class potentially one not seen on any of the trek series.
@@resurrectedstarships apologizes for barging into this discussion, but USS Galaxy was seen twice in DS9(the first time at Chin'Toka, and the second time over Cardassia). She was also part of the Battle Group that was on-route to Enterprise-E in Nemesis. Maybe Galaxy was sent out AFTER the Dominion War, maybe as part of Starfleet's attempt to pivot back to Exploration?
@@resurrectedstarships The USS Galaxy was at the 1st battle of Chin'Toka. It is seen on screen (in Tears of the Prophets) exchanging fire with a Cardassian weapons platform.
@@resurrectedstarships a lot of Galaxy class appeared during the Dominion war - in some shots so many of them that Starfleet must have restarted construction of them as after the loss of Yamato, Enterprise, and Odyssey there were only three left (plus frame stage only for a few provisional more).
They already had that episode. "The Arsenal of Freedom": The 21st episode of season 1, originally aired on April 11, 1988. The Enterprise encounters a planet that sells advanced weapons systems, and the away team is attacked by weapons. The planet is long dead but still functions as a showroom. Enterprise was no match as well.
From my understanding and the research I've done in the past, the Galaxy class was the final stage of Starfleet's plan of creating a ship to properly replace the Constitution class as the heart of the Federation fleet. The Excelsior class was initially supposed to do this, but after the failure of the transwarp drive it never quite recovered. Despite the Excelsior being a very reliable ship, it never quite lived up to the performance of the Constitution class. The Ambassador Class was the first step and was a test bed for a lot of new and innovative technological advancements. Once these were proven to be a resounding success the long process of designing the Galaxy Class begun. The idea, as I see it, is the Galaxy Class is supposed to be Starfleet's Golden Goose. A powerhouse that could form the heart of the Federation's defense in wartime, or perform long range exploration missions like the Constitution had. There were plenty of multipurpose vessels in Starfleet but the Galaxy was intended to be the ultimate form of this type of ship. Sure it would have to be replaced but it would serve quite a long time like the Constitution had back in its day. There were few ships that were as powerful or as efficient as the Constitution class was. Now as for the story idea you discussed, I do quite like it. I don't think it makes sense to design a ship like the Galaxy class specifically for this, but it would easily fit this kind of role. It would make sense that after the Galaxy Class was launched, a smaller vessel found a cluster of stars quite a ways from Federation space that seemed to contain the remnants of an ancient space faring civilization. Maybe it could be that what they did find from smaller ships that explored the outskirts of this region is that the civilization was very old, older than anything they've seen to date but the region is too dangerous for these smaller ships to explore too deeply on their own. There could be wild speculation that maybe this is an untouched region of space that once belonged to the Progenitors given how old some of what they found was. This would make the idea of exploring this region of space a top priority only interrupted by other concerns that threaten the Federation, something that would require the Galaxy Class to perform one of the roles it was designed for, to be the front line of Starfleet's defense of the Federation. It would make the Galaxy both the idea choice for this mission, but also make Starfleet hard pressed to spare one when it could be used to protect Starfleet should the Romulans or the Borg become a problem.
It's really simple. The story of the TNG series steadily morphed as it played out on television. Gene originally wanted the series to be a quantum leap above for the original series and thus the Galaxy class was born. The essentially it was designed to explore space so deep and away from federation borders that it would never need to return to a starbase. The writers took the helm and made the show a lot more conventional.
@@Revkor Admiral Hanson's communique from Wolf 359 was from a Galaxy class battle bridge. His ship was completely destroyed in the battle which is why there's no wreckage of her. But the script indicated it was a Galaxy class. There were several Nebulas though.
@@3Rayfire the part that threw me, from the first time I watched BOBW through to the mind boggling number of times I have watched since, is one of the LCARS panels behind Hanson is a TOS era display which suggested he was still on the same Excelsior he rendezvous with the Enterprise in earlier even though it also seemed he was on a Galaxy battle bridge. It was also said it was intended that Hanson commanded a Galaxy. My brain has never being able to reconcile the differences as no Galaxy would have been running such an old version of the OS and the producers didn't intentionally install it for no reason... it's like there were conflicting ideas between the production staff.
@@3Rayfire no it was not. for it it was why was he not using thew battle bridge or the main bridge? Note we see both in the episode and Hanson is clearly not using either. at this time there would be 5 galaxys remotely operational and 2 were reserved as spares. and SINCE hanson arrived to the Enterprise in an Excelsior it was likely he was still using it. a script draft may point to a galaxy but scripts can be ignored or changed.
I’ve hypothesized that the Galaxy was a portable colony starter. Travel to distant planet, land saucer, send drive section back for its next saucer and next delivery.
I was really hoping that we would see the Galaxy class in Star Trek Discovery's final season as Burnham looks for clues on their treasure hunt. Instead we get a Romulan scout ship not seen since ST:TNG "The Defector" (1990) We got the ISS Enterprise but it's a messy canon suggesting it was an Alternate Universe of Alex "ManDark" Kurtzman. We can't have nice things anymore...
Voyager wasn’t meant to be a long term ship of exploration-it just got stuck out there, with constant power and supply shortages. The Galaxy was, and for deep space exploration at that. It was meant to be away for 20 years at a time, and I like to think that many were. Many others were mobile starbases, and, when needed, battleships.
They said, either in the series or in one of the novels that the galaxy class was meant to be a generation ship, where they did these long-term missions into deep space
One of the underrated features of the Galaxy-class is it's main computer. It's gigantic with enormous storage and processing. Sensors and communications are useless without a computer system to cope with the information load. Whether it's exploring or clearing interference from an enemy's jammers or cloaking device, the Galaxy-class is probably the best equipped to handle it in Starfleet, even with the introduction of newer ships and technologies. The sheer size and complexity of it would be difficult to outmatch. This lends to the idea that it's a ship of the line, able to scan and dictate the field of battle with long range bombardments, both with phasers and torpedoes.
Wow I just remembered how badly the Galaxy Class was portrayed in that Picard series. Here we have what is essentially a mobile starbase. it's a command ship, it's a battlecruiser, it's a floating city in space..... And in Picard they fly it around like ^*%$*^% X-Wing
Maybe they'll find out. That's the location where the doomsday machine from the original star. Trek actually came from. Perhaps they'll be several. They're waiting around and one just simply wandered off on its own, possibly from some other effect. Maybe a rogue planet or something similar? That caused it to fall out of its normal Position, and that would be interesting because so far we have not. Proud out anything else about the dim's day machine.
I tended to think it was an exploration ship, but with war fighting capabilities. I think that’s why the saucer section separates. I remember a quote from one of the first episodes of TNG. Something about “with the saucer section separated it’s a much more sleek and capable fighting ship”. That quote leads one to assume that in the event of a forseen war or battle, the saucer section would separate and depart, leaving an extremely fast, maneuverable, and powerful ship to duke it out.
Perhaps the Galaxy was dual use? I think you've pointed out how >Vast< the Galaxy class is compared with its crew complement of 1000. (Either you or EC Henry) Perhaps the Galaxy class was also used by Section 31 as a secret mobile base? Those ships are so huge, entire departments could be hidden onboard. Especially if the technology used for observing less advanced planets without violating the Prime Directive is utilized to aid this purpose.
The Galaxy-class could carry up to 6,000 people, I imagine as a military ship it could serve very well, with Section 31 having a modified version of it similar to the alternate timeline's Galaxy-X.
@@Obiwan7100 Section 31 could have had its own ships. But in particular, I was thinking that Section 31 could also have hidden onboard the Enterprise-D or other Galaxy class ships.
Just no. No Section 31 please. @@Obiwan7100 Yeah Probert designed her with a 6000 crew compliment. She has an emergency evacuation capacity of 15,000 which is, that's a lotta people.
Nobody successfully 'hides' or stows away on a space vessel for very long, esp. one with internal sensors. The risks of being discovered by a crew and a potentially righteously angry captain are enormous. Dummy mission specialties, aliases, and cover stories are probably a better strategy.
I recall a trivia contest that stated that at the time the Galaxy class was launched, the Ambassador Class was the most prolific vessel in the Federation Fleet. I can only imagine that Starfleet saw success in larger exploration vessels, as they would have more labs and departments to facilitate exploration. This trend started with the success of the Constitution Class and its 10 labs - prompting the next generation of explorer to be even larger.. and the next generation followed suit and so on. I also believe that the Federation encountered and befriended alien organizations that helped influence the evolution of their vessels. I like your theory about Starfleet sending Galaxies out to that very specific part of space to explore the abandoned worlds. It would certainly take a team to accomplish that sort of mission.
I have always felt that the Galaxy had to be originally intended for very long duration deep space missions far from Federation space. This mission profile could be why Picard was chosen to command one of the first ships of the class. The Stargazer seems to have been similarly on deep space missions. I like the idea that the Romulan and Borg threats were the reason the Enterprise was kept close to home. But I also wonder if there were unresolved design problems. It seems like the Galaxy-class warp core was particularly unstable and prone to exploding. Maybe they were pushing the bleeding edge of technology too far with a core that could power a huge starship at high warp for years on end.
I’ve always thought, Janeway would have had a much easier time if Voyager had been a Galaxy class. Thing was basically purpose built for that kind of mission.
@@AdmiralKareliaVoyager was purpose-built to venture beyond the supporting infrastructure of the Federation proper. I'm not sure that a lone Galaxy class had that capability built-in at construction, even if that was the intent behind its design.
I think the Enterprise-D fulfilled the Galaxy class’s role potential well. It traveled far beyond known space thanks to the Traveler’s abilities, served as a fleet command ship during the Klingon civil war, and routinely investigated new worlds and unknown scientific phenomena. As the flagship, its job was to be an unmistakable indicator of Starfleet’s interest in a matter. It serves as the ideal platform for defensive, scientific, exploratory, and diplomatic missions because all of those were priorities in that time period.
what you proposed wouldn't apply. The Galaxy was already in the Dominion War. We even get to see her at the first battle of Chin'toka. She was also mention in Insurrection as part of battle group 15 waiting for the Enterprise E to come through the Nebula to take of the Scimitar. So yeah, her being lost for several years and then being recovered after the end of the Dominion War wouldn't work.
This is the most intelligent and well thought out theory that I’ve come across for the purpose of the Galaxy class starship. Your idea would make for a fascinating television series. It’s just a shame that the producers and writers of new Trek can’t come up with these sorts of ideas.
How about instead of some mystery box BS where we uncover all the adventures of a life time second hand with every episode ending on a clif hanger we instead make a show ABOUT the adventure of a life time? Guess they didn't want either...
Best mysteries in story telling are the ones that are actually tangible and solvable! I also abhore the 'mystery box' method....there shoudl be something ni the box! Even if the something is another box!
@@resurrectedstarships Absolutely. Unless the nesting doll box is purely to stall up a huge nothing burger. Either way the box is not a place to put a "once in a life time adventure". If it's really that cool make that the main story. I can't fathom (other than budgeting reasons maybe) why you would make a movie about a guy hearing a second and story about the greatest adventure ever instead of making that adva run into the movie itself.
I think she’s a mix of three vessel types. Battleship / Aircraft Carrier / Exploration. Her armor and armaments are strong and powerful like a battleship. Her main hangar bay was meant to support many small craft according to schematics like an aircraft carrier. She has family’s onboard with science labs and recreation facilities. A ship built for long term mission (5 year missions) as well as a ship that can dump the families some where and go on combat patrols/sorties. She does a little bit of everything. I think between TNG and DS9, they do a pretty good job at defining the ships roles and capabilities.
The Dyson Sphere builders! That's a storyline that would fit perfectly into this scenario. And also an excuse to return to the sphere. Say The Federation found tech/relay on the Dyson sphere pointing to the space just outside the Milky Way, or even crib from Star Wars and call it a mini galaxy. You'd thus have two anchor points for the series narrative. One on the original sphere within known federation space, and the task force sent to explore.
imagine having a squadron of galaxy class ships go wherever. each deploys their saucer sections to form a mini or starter star base. the ships then, sans saucer section, go on to do what ever it is they are supposed to do, coming back to the star base whenever they need to.
The canon TNG Technical Manual explains the Galaxy Class ships were designed to be 100 year vessels with refits and major upgrades every 15 to 30 years. Additionally, approximately 35% of their internal volume was left purposely empty for future expansion and mission specific uses.
This would be a truly interesting series that could be done. Even if it is just a mini-series that focused on the core elements of Trek. Thank you for the video and I would love to hear more thoughts and ideas of this nature.
The series began at a place "beyond which lies the vast unexplored area of the galaxy" they pretty quickly abandoned deep space long term missions for putting around federation space charting anomalies and studying pulsars. Doing diplomatic missions, then cardasdians, romulans and kilngom civil wars.
The Enterprise D was their "test-bed" at what they had planned as a mutlti-generational, long-range exploration ship that can double as a mini-starbase, front line defense guard, ambassadorial duties, relief/aid/rescue, and colonization. Hence the families and SCHOOLS on board. The only other ship they tried (and somewhat succeeded) with what was planned for the Enterprise D was the Enterprise J - and yet the J still got turned into a spearhead ship used in the temporal cold war despite it's role as a multi-generational exploration ship.
I designed a prototype cross between Romulan and Federation starships about 40 years ago. It was for a next gen author, for the cover of his book. I can't remember the title, but it was a what if thing, where the Federation and Romulans formed an alliance and it was a New Fed.
Kinda reminded of the Titan novels. It's mission was to go off and explore. One of the places they found turned out to be the birthplace of a bunch of the Interstellar lifeforms the D encountered: the space jellies from the pilot, the space pizza pockets from Galaxy's Child, the Crystalline Entity, etc.
If you are going down that route. A homeworld of the Q before they ascended would make sense. Would also tie in why the Q we know is so fascinated by humanity and particularly Picard, someone with a fascination with archeology
In addition to what @HistoryNut-1701 said. I'd like to point out that even if your hopping from one federation system to the next. The vast amount of the year is spent onboard. So even if the Enterprise is only a few hundred light years from home. The crew still needs to _LIVE_ onboard most of the year, year to year. In this case that would include children, who have their own needs apart from the adults. So you'll need accommodations necessary to stave of cabin fever for a large diverse group of people over a long period of time. Hence it's huge size.
I think something that would be _far_ more interesting, is if a Starfleet explorer ship had actually discovered a stable wormhole waaaay out past the edge of explored space, that linked to the Small Megallanic Cloud (SMC). This would ultimately reveal a galactic-level network of stable wormholes - built by the Iconians - that connects the Milky Way to both Megallanic Clouds, and to the Andromeda galaxy...Obviously, Starfleet/Section 31 want to close-hold the secret of the one wormhole they've discovered, but they have to assume that a potentially hostile race in the SMC might find its way to the Federation from the other side (TOS: _By Any Other Name,_ as well as whoever built the _Doomsday Machine_ ), and need a plan to hold the opposite end of that first wormhole....but, as you've pointed out, as they were quietly spinning up the _Galaxy_ class, first the Romulans, then Wolf-359, then the Dominion appear and short-circuit the main program -- but, they _did_ send out the _USS Galaxy_ task force that you outline in your animation, as an initial scouting group...but, they never hear back from them, and assume that all ships are lost, because they cannot spare the vessels to go look for them by that point (i.e., the dawn of the Dominion War), but _THEN_ someone detects the _USS Galaxy_ adrift in space on the very edge of explored space......That's good for 10+ seasons, and a couple of spinoffs, right there.
My theory on the Galaxy class has always been that it was initially designed to support colonization efforts. Indeed we see the Enterprise used this way from time to time in episodes like Silicon Avatar. With all the space and capabilities of the Galaxy, you could transport the whole colony, prefab buildings, infrastructure, colonists, etc in one go and just beam it all down.
I think it was meant for extended exploration missions that would take years at a time. It's a pretty self-sufficient ship, and I believe the reason families can live on it is because it was planned for Starfleet officers to do tours of duty on it that would run so long that they'd be alienated from their families if they didn't come along. Maybe it was intended to take a trip into the Delta quadrant? At least get near to it. There were rumours of a new enemy scooping up colonies at the time the Enterprise went on the Farpoint mission, an enemy that would later turn out to be the Borg, a Delta-quadrant resident. Interesting side-note. The Enterprise (and possibly other Galaxy-class ships) had an entire unused deck. A deck that could in theory accommodate an even bigger crew, or more labs, manufacturing facilities, public amenities, storage for consumables and equipment, etc. All the stuff you'd need to keep a crew and their families self-sufficient and with satisfactory morale for a decade or more, and that's on top of all the amenities the ship already had. It's little wonder that those guys from the 20th century thought it was a luxury liner!
The Enterprise D is a full space faring town complete with military base, or at least that's how I saw it. It lacks the amenities a full sized star base or planet based city does which is why I don't think of it as a city like a lot of people do, but I'd say it definitely fits the criteria of an industrialized, self sustaining town.
I seem to recall that the so-called “dark age” between TOS and TNG was an especially peaceful period for the Federation, that there were no large scale conflicts going on, and so the Federation started to build ships like the Galaxy specifically for both long range exploration and “showing the flag” mission. Honestly, I never liked the idea of the Intrepid or the Luna class starships as long-range explorers. They are both a bit small to take care of themselves far from home (Janeway’s heroic efforts notwithstanding), and the extra residential and manufacturing facilities built in to the Galaxy class make it more suitable as a long range explorer, capable of 20+ year missions. The fact that the ship has large scale, on-board manufacturing capabilities, saucer separation, and an ungodly amount of storage space lend credence to the idea that this ship truly was meant to travel far from the Federation, even on missions much like the Voyager accidentally found itself undertaking.
I had an idea when I was watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Voyager last winter, a Star Trek series I called Galactic Tour, where Starfleet sends out a fleet of ships to essentially circle the galaxy (Something like 160 000 light year journey), just to get an idea of what's all out there, partially inspired by Voyager's success at getting home with all kinds of cool technology and such, and it made sense to use the Galaxy Class as the center of the fleet, but I eventually changed my mind and made a unique ship that was basically a super Galaxy Class that was designed specifically for this mission, and included a lot of new technology developed by Starfleet and was brought back by Voyager, as this would probably take place is the 2380s, but I'm not exactly set on a date yet.
The main thing that never made sense to me was, how damned small the sickbay was. It had to care for 6000 people and potentially more if it's providing medical aid to a planet it was visiting or for a fleet it was commanding. One of the occasions it did this, it had to convert a cargo hold. It seemed like a glaring under provision given that it seemed to have only one operating theatre and be capable of looking after half a dozen people at a time.
To me, it's relatively straightforward. 1) Flagship - This should be almost overkill in design and possess the "latest and greatest" while at the same time reliable. It's not necessarily the "future" of the starships to be designed but instead should be one that enemies do not want to encounter. 2) Exploration & Command - I would see this ship as more of a long term exploring ship while at the same time providing a military presence there. I would agree that any "areas of interest" that would likely include military operations should have a ship like this. It very well may be that this requires as much resources as building both a science vessel + attack vessel but by combining you can have a fast vessel as well plus be able to claim "peaceful intentions" while having enough firepower when needed. For Command, pretty straightforward when you have a clearly "superior" ship as who will be in command. Other vessels might have more firepower, but there would be no question about who is in command. As others have mentioned, more of a Command Base or "Mothership".
Well a few years ago I was thinking about how I had responded to the Borg. What I came up with was a 2 parted plan. Part 1 was of cause to create a task force to investigate the Borg. We know they are from the Delta Quadrant so why not send a fleet there. Have some Galaxy's as the backbone with a few Nebulas and smaler ships. Once close to Borg space establish an outpost and start investigating. Part 2 on the other hand is to send simular fleets to establishing some colonys far from home to ensure the Federation survives if the core teretory is overrun by the Borg. In both parts the Galaxy's were equiped with industrial replicators and everything you need to set up a starbace, a colony, some mining outposts and a fleetyard. I proberbly had choosen some Intrepeds to follow and catch up to those fleets, once they were constructed. To provide additional new tec and plans for new ships like the Defiant and Soverain classes.
In Discovery season 2, it's revealed that the Enterprise never fought in the Klingon war. It was sent to deep space. The reason, Captain Pike was the opitome of the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation. He was to be the future of humanity if the Klingons won. Captain Picard also fits this description, possibly even more so. I think the Enterprise is so big and with the addition of families, it could easily be used as an ark for humanity.
It was also designed with ambassadorial roles and hosting peace talks etc in mind, it was intended to be in every way a show case of the federations capabilities and intentions.
Nice concept, but I think the actual described Five Year Mission Plan where the ship spends months and years exploring beyond the frontiers makes the most sense. Of course we never actually get that 5 year Mission plan on screen, whether its Kirk or Picard, half the missions are Starfleet orders of the week. Ferrying personnel and supplies around as often as not.
Your points are sound across the board, and Galaxy class ships were always the command center for any fleet engagements for which they were involved. Being designed for missions such as described in the video are very good reasons for having such a ship design.
I always thought of the Galaxy Class as more of an "Area Command and Control" type of vessel. Able to perform almost any task that might be required. In combat, she can hold her own, while coordinating the fleet action. Peace time, like you outlined here, a literal flying laboratory, once again, acting as the center of a Task Force. Like if the events of the loss of Romulus had happened while the Federation was trying to assist with the evacuation in the Galaxy's time, you could almost bet there would be a couple out there acting as Command Centers. Even in the range of exploration, Once again, she could operate on her own or part of a small fleet sent way out there on Deep or Ultra Long Range Exploration missions, with the amount of supplies and near self reliance the Galaxy has. Long story show, The Galaxy was at it's core a Command Ship that could fill whatever role Starfleet needed her to be. This is also the reason I believe that the Galaxy was chosen to carry on the legacy of the Enterprise, the Flag Ship of the Federation. A ship that could do what ever the Federation asked of her, and do it well, almost a meeting of all of Starfleet and the Federations ideals. Exploration, Research, Defense, she could do it all.
I feel that the Enterprise D was meant to be a swiss knife. Enough space to evacuate a colony, state of the art labs for research, a fortress in case they find a hostile small fleet in deep space that the Federation was not aware as well as have enough space for the crew and civilians on board to feel relaxed.
I've always guessed from the context of the show (or maybe I just remember people talking about it in the lead up to TNG coming out), that the Galaxy Class was designed for much longer (longer than 5-year) missions into very deep space, so would logically carry people's families, but also the ability to defend itself and more or less operate as a traveling city. I know the concepts of the different galactic quadrants like Delta and Gamma hadn't been come up with, but I could have sworn that's how the "new" Enterprise was described from marketing stuff back in the day.
It was pretty much established from day one that the Next generation wasn't just about the new crew. It was about a ship that was a fully equipped city, a small mobile federation space station Enterprise NCC-1701-D. They were able to take on tasks and long missions no other smaller ship should or could. If you remember the Romulans had a ship comparable to the Enterprise D. Seriously there is a reason these were called Galaxy Class ships. Sure the prequel Enterprise defined a much smaller ship, a prototype, as the defacto explorer, the Enterprise NX-01. But it was made clear how over whelmed the crew was in that ship, and it's lack of weapons. The original Enterprise was a very capable ship, Enterprise NC-1701. But ultimately given it's crew and armament it was probably only slightly better equipped than Voyager. Now Voyager was a true explorer ship. But all three of these ships were never designed for deep space, long running missions, so would always need frequent stops to replenish food and even fuel. There are only a few federation ships in later story lines with incredible capabilities to defend themselves against insane enemies and also traverse incredible distances, that allowed much smaller designs because a large ship was no longer needed, Prometheus and Protostar.
I've never seen the purpose of the Galaxy Class has difficult to understand: Its a basically something like a mobile colony ship or mobile starbase. The first 4-5 seasons of TNG demonstrated this pretty concretely. As DS9 and Voyager came along, there was a sea change in the ideas behind Star Trek, and frankly less interesting and far less weird ideas took over. Trek's world shrunk back down until now you have the 'new enterprise' they unveiled in Picard season 3 and its just kind of a throwback to the 1701 A with shinier floors, sort of absurdly huge rooms, and bad lighting. Having families with children on the Enterprise D was a masterstroke. It raised the stakes on every story as well as gave a much richer field of possibilities on what kinds of stories they could tell. This is why the Enterprise E in the films always felt like it was missing something and was strangely empty...they kind of literally took the life out of the core of TNG. The Enterprise D was kind of carrying the Federation on its back everywhere it went, and so it was a living, breathing community in every episode. The Enterprise E was, in the end, just kind of a 'warship to fight the Borg'...because as I said before, Trek writers just started leaning on less and less interesting ideas for Star Trek until finally everything just became about fighting the Borg. Picard Season 3 was really interesting and had some brilliant moments...but once again they just can't think of anything more interesting to do with Star Trek anymore than "....suddenly the Borg shows up! (please clap!)"
I’ve always seen the Galaxy class as more of a mobile star base than a simple starship. It was likely intended for fleet support duties on the farthest frontiers of the Federation. The Federation likely had multiple areas of interest, similar to what you described, that the Galaxy class was ideal for deployment to.
Makes sense when you think of the writing for Encounter at Farpoint being about how it was the edge of known space etc. shows how when coming up with the pilot they had in their minds that it would be going out beyond federation space into the unknown
This is an interesting theory. The Galaxy class vessel very much could have been intended to function as an aircraft carrier and have a half dozen smaller, more specialized ships around it for really far or long term missions. The idea of the families of all the crews live on the big ship that has all the amenities of a city to have a regular life but also be the most powerful and safe place to keep them protected.
The Galaxy Class saucer section was well-armed, defended with shields, and capable of independent flight and (allegedly) controlled surface landing. We also know from Picard that the saucer is interchangeable, able to couple to any Galaxy stardrive section. This is a recipe for deploying full-fledged colonies in contested or otherwise dangerous space. A Galaxy-class could be deployed at high warp, annihilate any orbital threats around the target planet on arrival, then detach a saucer section already equipped with power generation, transporters, all manner of medical and scientific equipment, a full complement of personnel, and even a large shuttle bay to receive supplies too large for the transporters. Once landed, the ventral phaser array and impulse drives could be shut off to redirect power to other systems, or disassembled and repurposed. Even the Captain's Yacht could be useful as a more heavy-duty transport, able to handle more threatening situations than a simple shuttlecraft. Meanwhile, the stardrive section and ship's command crew returns to Federation space to be re-equipped with a new Saucer, ready to repeat the process the next time such a world is identified, and capable of extensive independent exploration in the meantime.
The Galaxy Class was designed for extreme long range, extreme duration, missions. Meant to go out on 10-year exploration missions with minimal contact back to the Federation. That's why they needed schools onboard because you leave with the children of crewmembers and depending on ages pretty much return with their grandchildren in tow. Didn't quite work out that way though, a little too ambitious.
I think people forget that starships would normally be sent out on a 5 year mission into deep space, the galaxy class reflects this, a ship made for a large crew, families and comfort, all thos to help a crews mental state on a long voyage, start fleet just learned over time that a ship needs to be ready for anything, just imagine if voyager had been a galaxy class, thier trip home may have been less Intense
I had always had in mind that -- although it was never used in this way -- it was designed as a _generational_ exploration ship. Those kids aboard the Enterprise would grow up to be the next generation of the Enterprise crew, including senior staff.
The USS Galaxy is seen on screen during the Dominion War in DS9. And in extended canon / beta canon, it is mentioned that the Galaxy spent much of its early career in or around the Sol system as a kind of technology test bed ship. So she was never actually lost. I've read different sources on this over the years that state different numbers but essentially the Galaxy class was only ever built in small numbers (I'm talking on screen canon now). The USS Galaxy and USS Enterprise were part of the initial first four Galaxy classes built with a further 4 Galaxy class space frames built and put into storage for later construction,. But some other sources state that there were six initial Galaxy's built with a further 6 space frames put into storage. These space frames were later built for the Dominion war but with a lot of crew amenities and science facilities omitted and missing to rush production. Additional cargo bays were added to carry the single seater star fighters Starfleet used in the war. These later ships also did not carry families or civilians. Its only really in the books, comics etc where you see a lot more Galaxy class ships operating.
The reasoning behind the Galaxy-class project has already been explained in canon: The Galaxy was commissioned during the Federation's "Golden Age", that time right after the Klingons had signed the Khitomer Accords and become allies, right up until TNG. The Federation had no major threats at this time; the Klingons were allies, the Romulans had retreated behind the Neutral Zone and isolated themselves again, the Cardassian "war" was a very minor conflict with a minor power, and the Borg weren't even a twinkle in Picard's eye at the time. Federation membership had expanded greatly, new technologies were being developed at a rapid scale, and the known galaxy was, for the most part, at peace. The Galaxy was commissioned to be the symbol of the Federation's prosperity and power in the Alpha/Beta quadrants. It was meant to be an all-in-one ship, a grand design that could do it all: diplomacy, science and exploration, defense, engineering, medical missions, and more. It was really meant to be a sort of mobile starbase, able to provide aid and show the flag where needed, as well as acting as the C&C vessel for fleet operations. Officers were allowed to have family on board to show that the Federation was so powerful and safe that this could be allowed. It had an arboretum, classrooms, numerous holodecks for civilian, crew, and diplomat's comfort. It's power was also meant to intimidate those minor powers into thinking twice before picking a fight with the Federation (obviously the Cardassians didn't get the memo, but they're not very good at getting those kind of messages). It had twelve Type-X phaser arrays providing 360 degree coverage, and fore and aft torpedo launchers with a 250 round capacity each, with programmable warheads that could be fired in patterns and configured for various purposes. It was the most advanced tactical platform the Federation had, bigger than anything the Klingons or Romulans had built up to that point. (The D'Deridex was not revealed to the Federation until after the Enterprise's launch). One of these ships was always going to be named Enterprise, and was meant to be the flagship, so they'd do even more flag-waving missions and showing the rest of the galaxy why it's a good idea to join the Federation or to stay out of their way if you had hostile intentions. Loaded with the most advanced technology known, the biggest guns, the most comfortable living and working spaces, it was the most advanced ship anyone known had ever built. It was also equipped to go on any long-range exploration mission that was needed, as it was better equipped than any other ship for science, but also for crew morale and recreation, so a long term exploration mission wouldn't be as burdensome as prior ones had. There was no secret or unknown mission for the class; this was it. During the Dominion War their role as a command and control hub for the various combat fleets showed what they were capable of in large-scale conflict, especially with even more upgrades and refits as production of these spaceframes ramped up. So needed was the firepower they could bring to bear they were rolled out of the fleetyards with minimal crew quarters and life support, a barebones ship bristling with weapons and shielding. Starfleet could have chosen to use those resources on constructing other vessels, but the Galaxy was so powerful that it couldn't be ignored. So there you have it, the true purpose of, and the real reason the Galaxy-class was created. The GCDP was also used as a testbed for new technologies on other, more specialized classes derived from the Galaxy, such as the Challenger, Cheyenne, and Niagara classes.
the galaxy class is basically a cruise ship strapped to the top of a warship, remove the saucer section and you have a much cheaper and probably more maneuverable warship
I always thought the Galaxy class would make an excellent long range colony ship. It had the facilities for exploration, defense and research, but also had the capacity for large numbers of colonists.
The Galaxy Class is what everyone below has said it is. It's the centerpiece of any fleet and indeed as a carrier itself, carries a fleet-worth of highly capable shuttles and runabouts as auxiliary craft. It would have been great to see the Galaxy go up against a D'deridex Warbird and immediately before hostilities began spew out dozens of shuttles and runabouts with weapon and electronic warfare pods to augment its firepower and screen the ship from Romulan weapons via sensor jamming and holographic decoys. Imagine trying to fight a Galaxy, but big as it is, every time you shoot at it, it turns out to just be another holographic decoy or sensor ghost, or your launched photon torpedoes are shot down by dozens of shuttlecraft phasers immediately after launch, while the Galaxy hammers your shields with phasers.
I have been saying this for years. The Galaxy Class is, in a very literal sense, a mobile starbase. It is 640m of The Federation, sent out to wherever starfleet sees fit. Not merely the long arm of Starfleet power, but a very real, very tangible piece of the FEDERATION itself. A city that can just be sent and parked wherever it's needed.
@@vp21ct ah. Something akin to the way the US uses our bigger carriers?
I always liked and thought this as well. She's a mini starbase that's warp capable. But the show treated it as a nice ship instead of a massive mobile base.
Also it was so chock full of warp capable shuttles to do the most of the charting of systems and relay back to the Galaxy. It has plenty of room. I been on board with it being a genrational ship. The enterprise was mostly to show off what the frederation had accomplished as well as being its flagship. But an Average galaxy class would be mostly the former .
@@afterglow-podcast Not merely warp capable. She was, at the time of her construction, the fastest ship in Starfleet, thanks in large part due to having the largest, most powerful warp core that had ever been built up to that point.
In fact, I would argue that this is why the Galaxy class never actually got sent on it's INTENDED missions. She was just so fast, and so powerful, that when starfleet needs to send something, "Send a Galaxy Class" tends to be the best available answer.
@@stargazerblue186 It could even be split in two, so the saucer could stay parked in orbit of a friendly planet or station, while the engineering hull was used for scouting or coming to the air of an embattled shuttle, while leaving the civilians and diplomats and science specialists in safety and comfort.
The reason the Enterprise was never sent on the mission you describe is very simply because the ship bore the name “Enterprise.” That automatically made her the Federation’s political showpiece and trouble shooter. You don’t send that ship out into nowheres on secret missions, you keep it close to home where it can be sent on “flag waving” missions around the known hotspots.
True... but Resurrection Starships does have a point there too...
Waving the Flag doesn't necessarily seem like the kind of job that a man like Picard would jump at...
Makes sense to me that exploration was going to be the Enterprise's primary mission at first, and while it was on the long journey out to the frontier of Federation space, the mission profiel changed.
Not just for the Enterprise, but for most of the Galaxy class line.
@@Simmons8519 That could be, but to me, I think it makes more sense that the only two Galaxy Class ships that we saw in or near Federation space during TNG were the Enterprise and the Yamato, that the other ships of the class were indeed sent out on extreme long range missions, and the Enterprise was kept around for the reasons I described. And wants to build up to the Dominion War began, the call was transmitted out to reach the other Galaxy Class vessels that were well out beyond the range of the frontier, to return to Federation space because they were going to be going to war.
This is a brilliant explanation as to why Starfleet renamed Titan as Enterprise after retiring the ENT F, a critically flawed variant of the Odyssey Class.
@@HistoryNut-1701 issue there is by all counts the first batch run of Galaxy's were only 6 hulls with three comissioned three spares. now as the DW started to ramp up they made the second rush batch
The Federation had many "Flag" ships. A flagship is any ship that leads multiple vessels in either a battle group or other lead role. Flagships are often commanded by some kind of high level political/military leader such as an Admiral. The fact that someone with the rank of "Captain" was permitted to command the Enterprise directly tells me there was a lack of understanding of the specific role a flagship takes. It also shows that Starfleet must have had the utmost confidence in Captain Picard to give him command of this ship. A Flag officer is historically someone of a high rank that can "speak" for their government. On rare occasions we did see the Enterprise under Picard take command of battle groups and situations but this was not the norm. If the Enterprise was in fact "The" Federation flagship it is highly unlikely that Picard would not have been promoted prior to taking on the role. The Galaxy class was an expression of the Federations complacency and belief that their technology was unmatched, which at the time it technically was. I do not believe the Enterprise was "The" Federation flagship but rather "A" Federation flagship.
It was explained by the show runners decades ago (feels like yesterday but I'm old), its a multi-role long term explorer. Starfleet was retiring its aging fleet but they didn't want specialized ships, they wanted a ship that could do it all. It can explore, transport colonist, disaster relief, etc. It was meant to go on multi year missions without having to return for supplies or refit.This ship is the height of Star Fleets arrogance that gets crushed in Wolf 359 and then the Dominion War, thats why after the Federation goes back to smaller and more specialized ships
Edit- In reference to the Enterprise, easy answer is she is the big stick and she was placed near Romuln and Klingon space as a show of force. Klingons made fun of her luxury but never her battle capabilities
Although we never had a good look at the inside of an Ambassador class (other than the bridge), we have seen a good deal of the interior of Excelsior class ships (Star Trek 3-6, Voyager). In the Excelsior class the Captain's room was TINY. All he had was a twin bed and about 10x10 feet to walk around in. Heck, ensigns were crammed at least 6 to a room in bunk beds. Even the Defiant class had more room per person than that. I think the Galaxy class was a flex in making the ship A LOT more livable than previous generations.
The federation never stopped building smaller and more specialized ships, even when the Galaxy Class was planned and built.
To say that Galaxy Class ships were crushed in the Dominion War also feels oversimplified. The USS Odyssey was rammed by a Jem Hadar fighter after it took a massive beating because the Federation shields were useless against dominion weaponry. Every other starfleet vessel of the time would've likely fared far worse. After the galaxy class was refitted for the war it was the backbone of the fleet in a lot of engagements. After the dominion war the federation also built large ships like the Odyssey class (which the Enterprise F belonged to).
@Scitch87 if your referring to the Project Galaxy ships (New Orleans, Challenger, Freedom etc) from everything I read they were small batch ships made more for test beds except for the Nebulas which became important with their mission packs.
I didn't mean to suggest the Galaxy were beat down, it's just this was a numbers game and the Dominion were able to build more small ships faster, they kept building Galaxies but they could punch out more Sabres, Akiras, Steamrunners, etc than the Galaxy. In some "canon" and beta Canon stories the Galaxy was something Cardassians avoided when possible
@@Psycodiver69 Starfleet tends to build a do everything starship every generation. And they are typically marked as a class by having an Enterprise in her number. The concept is consistently proven. Starfleet engineers are nothing if not problem solvers, so when something comes up that the do everything ship is ill suited to, they build something small to fill the gap until the next do everything ship that has that problem solved is ready. So you get a Galaxy, add variable Borg, solution=Defiant, reviews complete, build Sovereign.
The Galaxy was designed as a literal generational leap forward, a foundation for everything that came after, and the designers were basically pushing to see just how far they could push on the bleeding edge. So the ship has maxed out everything, MAX engines, MAX power, MAX weapons, MAX shields, MAX space, MAX science labs, MAX sensors, MAX computer power, MAX luxuries, MAX family accommodation, MAX Captain. They probably went a bit overboard, but they were trying to do a ship that would last a century, a new Excelsior caliber ship.
@@3Rayfire I totally agree, the fact we don't see any in the Picard series really upsets me, even at that time it should STILL be the premier explorer ship, it has plenty of room for upgrades to keep it current.
"Captain's log, Stardate 41153.7. Our destination is Planet Deneb IV, beyond which lies the great unexplored mass of the galaxy. My orders are to examine Farpoint, a starbase built there by the inhabitants of that world. Meanwhile I'm becoming better acquainted with my new command - this Galaxy-class USS Enterprise. I'm still somewhat in awe of its size and complexity. As for my crew, we are short in several key positions, most notably a first officer, but I'm informed that a highly experienced man, one Commander William Riker, will be waiting to join the ship at our Deneb IV destination."
If i remember right, the original writer's bible that David Gerrold, Farpoint was the absolute furthest humanity explored. The rest of the series was going on a "reverse Voyager" where they would explore and come back something like 20 years later. It's also why families were aboard the ship because the mission was going to be too long to separate families. We also weren't going to see any of the original races unless one of those races caught up to the Enterprise.
and with the original TNG warp scale go to the another 2 cuadrants sems more logical
I want to watch that show.
Was also hinted at when on a return to Earth that it was said to be rare and unexpected for any Galaxy class ship to return to the nest. They were intended to keep going or to seed a new base someplace far away.
That actually makes a lot of sense when you look at the plot of the first episode.
@@charlesmaurer6214 The term 5 or in the case of the Galaxy class 20 means that it leaves it's planet of registry and doesn't return for 20 years UNLESS something happens to the planet, like the Borg invasion, or it's too damaged to be repaired by a Starbase facility and has to go back to the "factory", like the "E" at the end of "Nemesis".
I was thinking for a moment that that would imply that Starfleet thought the existing Ambassadors, Excelsiors, Constellations Mirandas would be enough to hold the line in the event of war with Klingons or Romulans, but then I realized, that's what the Nebulas are for: Galaxy-class tech in a package optimized for shorter trips and more intense combat, with a Miranda-like modularity of mission pods mounted above the main hull.
A great point you made, the Galaxy Class is huge and powerful, but the Nebula is dynamic and efficient, especially in combat with its more compact profile and modular Pods, which is why the Phoenix was so effective in its attacks in Cardassian space.
The Nebula isn't that much smaller than the Galaxy. In fact with the mission pod I'd be willing to bet that the Nebula actually has a larger mass and internal volume. Just like the Miranda is actually larger than the Constitution when looking at volume.
@@jpc347 I believe you are correct about that. Someone has done a volume sheet based on the best models he could find. The Nebula class without the pod is just missing the neck of the Galaxy class. You add the pod and the pylon it sits on, it becomes larger. However based on what we think on how shield tech works, you would think the shield bubble would be more powerful due to if all things being equal between the two classes, the Nebula class would have a smaller shield bubble but equal amount of energy going into it. I guess you could say 15-25% more powerful.
@@jpc347yet the Nebula is described as being slightly smaller than the Galaxy in most sources. I reconcile these facts by assuming these sources were referring to the stock model without any pod installed.
The Nebula class is what happens when a Miranda class knocks up a Galaxy class.
I see the light purple on those satellites. Iconian time, babyyyyy.
Thank you very much for this wonderful video! Live long and prosper! 🖖
The size of the Galaxy class is largely about showing the flag and diplomacy. It is the same reason why we might send an aircraft carrier and used to send battleships on a port visits especially to places that might not be 100% friendly. It's a way of showing how big and powerful the Federation is. This thing is stuffed to the gills with the latest tech and luxuries it is a flying city and is incredibly expensive It's about impressing but also telling people not to fuck about and find out as it also has big teeth. It's classic naval defence diplomacy in space. This thing is a very big not so subtle statement of intent if one of these rocks up at your door you listen and you listen hard. It's both an iron fist and a velvet glove
What always makes me angry about this, though, is the civilians. They put the civilians on the Enterprise in danger CONSTANTLY, and almost never even made mention of it. So much so that I think, if it were real life, they'd have canceled the civilian aspect of the ships almost immediately and crewed them solely with Starfleet personnel. It's just way too dangerous.
@@TheRogueX that's why she has the saucer seperation move. civies go into the saucer as the stardrive went to fight
@@Revkor Perhaps so, but the saucer operating alone is incredibly vulnerable. With no warp capability it is limited to sub-light speeds, basically immobile with limited power, shielding and weapons. If an opponent detected it either during or after separating from the "Battle Section," it becomes a sitting duck unable to get those same families to safety, a two million ton "clay pigeon."
@@robertf3479 depends where it was dropped off. not saying there is an issue but again first ship to do this and reattach without a ship yard.
@@TheRogueX Thing is that the realpolitik element is background to Starfleet's primary function. The ship is supposed to go on twenty year deep space exploration missions. Nobody is going to leave their kids for twenty years, this ship removes that as an issue.
Also, I'm sorry but staying planet side is not a safe thing in Star Trek. You can never tell when a giant space amoeba, indestructible omnicidal ice cream cone, Earth space probe that has achieved sentience with no corresponding ability to value organic life, telepathic fried egg with an attitude, passing black whole, or hostile alien race might just cruise by a planet. Or something banal like an asteroid, moon, or stellar core fragment might threaten to tear your planet's crust apart. The Klingon's almost wasted themselves with crappy mining safety. Frankly being on a starship in an interstellar society is like flying, despite the occasional plane crash it's still statistically the safest way to travel.
That said, you're right, considering the size, I think the very first thing any refit of the Galaxy should have is a few Danube class Runabout warp cores installed in the saucer section so she can have her own warp drive. No saucer warp drive, that was dumb.
It’s awesome that you posted this video because recently I was thinking that the Galaxy class was originally designed for missions that could be generational in nature. I’m not surprised that the original Galaxy class was a potential launch point for a new series either. In my opinion, the Galaxy is best served as a command cruiser, sort of like a mobile star base. I agree that the enterprise likely was meant to serve that role as a true flagship on long term task force missions. It seems you have a lot of the same ideas. :)
The Enterprise J was universe class lol. Does that mean it visited other galaxies LOL. It was huuuuuuge.
@BazT47 ... If we're going off of the ... Discovery canon... than it would seem no.
The Discovery makes an extragalactic jaunt out, and it's mentioned that Starfleet, until the... spore drive... lacked the ability to pierce the galactic barrier without unusual outside alien interference.
@@Simmons8519 Yes that happemed in Disco. Aliens, you mean like God. Who needs a starship lol.
@@BazT47 God, the Kelvins from the Andromeda galaxy... the walking amber alert that was the Traveler...
Yeah, things like that.
@@BazT47 I mean, the background information from the designer of the Universe-class said it had some new space-folding warp technology and did indeed explore other galaxies. Doubt it's canon but still pretty cool.
No, I don't see Discovery or anything from Kurtzman Trek as canon. At least not canon to the prime universe. It's clearly some weird parallel reality.
The Enterprise D is meant to be show piece .....dealing with Diplomacy Exploration and fighting if need be. She's meant to show off the abundance and the power of the Federation
Watching Voyager, I remember thinking, “Gee, they’re stuck in this tiny ship on the far side of the GALAXY. Wouldn’t it have been convenient if a GALAXY class ship had gone instead? It seems like it was literally built to circumnavigate the Galaxy.”
The intrepids were long range science vessels along with being faster and having longer warp endurance than the galaxies...albeit much more limited in resources than a Galaxy.
I personally think the galaxy goes to explore...the intrepids go to the visited areas to conduct more research.
She was a deep space explorer for missions of a decade or longer, but the writers constantly pulled stories out their ass that returned to Earth's backyard.
The Galaxy class being a deep space exploration ship does make sense, it has all the facilities to keep it's crew happy and healthy far from any space dock. The idea of a small fleet of ships supporting one is also a cool idea too.
The cut-out on the underside of the hull would be perfect for carrying two smaller ships, similar in size to the Saber, or Defiant. Having such an explorer be a mother ship to a pair of smaller, but very capable ships would be very useful.
Yeah, the galaxy class operating in the same capacity as a US aircraft carrier in a naval carrier group, surrounded by escorst and support ships is the impression I always had for the Galaxy class, except for long range, long duration peaceful exploration rather than defense.
One minor critique of the video is that you said the "area of interest" that the galaxy class intended for was only a year at warp away from Earth.
By the 24th century according to manuals polublished during the airing of the Next Generation, Federation space had become so vast that it would take multiple years to go from one end of its widest border to the other...
If you're going forward with the "where no one has gone before" concept here, the area of interest should be months or years beyond THAT instead.
And in suggestion, the cruisikg speeds and maximum warp factor of the Galaxy class was notably higher than ships like the Miranda and Excelsior classes, at least until the Borg attack and Dominion war seemed to motivate Starfleet to overhaul these older vessels to add to fleet strength and numbers.
So i would suggest that any fleet accompanying a Galaxy class would have to be one of the rarely ever seen "modern" ships of the era that came out of the Galaxy class development program: the Cheyenne, New Orleans, Apollo, Freedom, Challenger and of course the Nebula class, simply in order to keep up.
And because most of these ships were still smaller and less advanced than the Galaxy, having the new flagships of the Federation as the fleet command ships still makes sense. With the galaxy class acting as a kind of starbase surrogate in the region from which the rest of the fleet could be deployed from and return to for rest and repairs while the Galaxy itself set up a small ground based starbase of a suitable planet from which long term operations could be hadled, and for subsequent fleets to arrive at and bouild up, should the region prove interesting enough upon analysis to warrant a greater Federtion presence.
Obviously, someone discovered where all the missing socks we lose when doing laundry. So, they decided to build a ship to go and get them back.
Gonna need a bigger boat.
That’s a lot of socks.
Geeze, you've got my fanfic gears going... One thing that always bothered me about ST is the fact that starships never went out in convoy groups like you'd see in most navies (even nowadays you have multiple ships operating in a single location due to how they are designed). I'd definitely need to study up on the outfit of the Federation in the 2360s, but I'm in complete agreement with the use of the Galaxy-class as a fleet flagship with several smaller ships flying in support for extreme deep-space missions.
Now, to be fair to Picard, as he is the ambassador and negotiator for the Federation, it would make sense to give him command of the largest ship in the fleet as a sort of power symbol ("Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.")
In TNG it did happen once (Redemption Pt 2, the Enterprise commanded a convoy of starship classes to the Klingon/Romulan neutral zone) and in DS9 it became common during the Dominion war.
The group of ships you have featured is pretty slick.
2 Miranda…
1 Excelsior…
1 Galaxy….
Pretty capable little unit right there.
Nicely done.
Gives me aircraft carrier and it's carrier strike group feel..
The Mirandas are flying plot devices for the Galaxy crew to find abandoned or destroyed, and the Excelsior shuttles important people to and from the Galaxy, just like on TNG!
Capable but slightly incomplete. The task force needs 4 - 6 destroyer class vessels for picket/scouting duties and possibly a frigate with Starfleet Marines onboard (aka a Northampton), especially if you're heading out on a long-range exploration mission. J/S
For long term missions I wouldn‘t mix design eras for maintenance reasons. To minimize the amount of non-replicable spart parts that might be needed, I‘d only use ship classes born out of the Galaxy program. Not only would that reduce the variety of parts, it would also be easier for engineers to transfer between ships without having to adjust to different machinery everywhere they go.
would have been better with Akira and intrepid class make the whole fleet more modern🤣🤣
I've always imagine the galaxy in the role of being basically a mobile star base. The thing is big enough enough that it can easily carry not just it's own crew but easily handle the extra load of crews for a couple defiant classes as given how unsuitable that ship is for long range missions so they can rotate on and off. It's hanger easily has the space a lot support craft like worker bees for maintenance of itself and other ships. And it seems like the kind of ship that'd have industrial grade replicatiors as standard or at least the space and extra power for them.
Personally i think it's a ship that'll live long behind the lines frontline days are over all big replenishment ship
Give it a couple dozen runabout sized drone probes capable of high warp speed and maintaining cruising speed for at least a week or more, the ship could then survey far more at once.
The Galaxy-class is a command exploration battlecruiser, capable of acting as a mobile base when needed. The class was used extensively in all these roles in various combinations before, during, and after the Dominion War.
Very good video.
The cut-out on the underside of the secondary hull, would have been perfect for carrying two Defiant class ships.
Or an Intrepid class
@@D-Snyper-Grunt2 Now that I think about it, they could probably ferry around 4 Oberth science ships in that spot. What a true explorer that would be, ferrying the Oberths to a key sector, and sending them off to map out the area. They would be able to cover so much more space.
@@nunya3163 As long as nothing ever hits the Oberths.
If you're talking about the concave arc at the bottom of the hull, that's where the most critical and sensitive systems of the ship are; the antimatter end of the warp core, the antimatter storage pods, and the emergency antimatter generator. That's not a place I'd want to have ships externally docked while at warp.
A redesign might be able to accomodate that idea though...
Ever heard of the Captain's Yacht?
Something mentioned in the TNG technical manual CA 1995, is that about two-thirds of the secondary hull is empty space just waiting to be configured for future mission needs.
The Borg is the main reason Starfleet basically ended the 5 years mission program because Starfleet didn't want to send ships into the uncharted space from federation space because they vessel would probably run into a Borg cube and get assimilated and the growing treat from the Romulan star empire so yeah Starfleet stoped exploring for a while.
An interesting fan theory. One thing I never quite understood about Star Fleet is that they rarely had ships moving about in squadrons. Roddenberry often drew on his military experience for much of Star Trek's inspiration, but it wasn't often we saw Star Fleet ships of the line operating together like navies of the world. I think this could make for a fun story seeing the different vessels, and how they are utilized to their intended function within a fleet squadron.
I remember reading somewhere that the Galaxy class was originally going to be a twin warp core design, but later in its development phase, it was downsized to a single warp core.
Thank you for the best SciFi-channel in RUclips.
Ive always seen the later Odyssey class as a true second attempt at what they wanted the galaxy class to do while having it prepared to take up the roles that the galaxy class had to take up during its years of service.
At that, it is a fitting name to the class, since the USS Odyssey (NCC-71832) was possibly meant to fill that role, but was cut down by a force of ships specialized in combat and conquest. Naming an entire class of ships after a ship of exploration lost in combat, which itself was named after the poetic epic of Homer, about Odysseus who seeks to overcome the curse of the gods and return home, is its own type of poetic justice.
@@HuntingTarg yup sure is, now if canon treated the class with the respect it deserved....
I've been enjoying SNW. But I don't like prequels. I have thought for ages now that instead of a TOS prequal that crew would have better suited for a post Picard Odessey based series. Same actors, different characters. The Federation desperate to show that it's dark days are behind it putting out an Odessey Class Enterprise with a idealistic Captain to show the Galaxy that Starfleet is back in the exploration game. If you throw in Disco' season 2 Anson Mount has shown he would have been the perfect great haired poster boy Captain for the Federation to roll out after Picard. Post DS9 there would still be enough tension with the Klingons to have that conflict, and it's easy to do a whole: Vulcan dealing with some issues storyline with any Vulcan so it didn't need to be Spock. I think they missed a chance to move the universe on in a fun and meaningful way.
I've mentioned on other channels that it is incredibly weird that they didn't use the star drive to drop off the saucer for long term studies/ space station duty and then send the star drive to go pick up a new saucer, explore, or act as a defense ship. The galaxy class is by design modular; it should've had other options besides a saucer section at its disposal. The nebula has a sensor pod / weapons pod that should've been able to dock with a galaxy star drive to turn it into a giant version of the defiant.
Surprised you didn’t bring up the Ambassador-class, because sizing wise it’s also quite a bit smaller than the Galaxy-class.
the ambassador is huge. it's like between 60% and 2/3 as large as the galaxy by habitable volume, depending on what sources you use, so the ambassador could easily do years-long missions, too.
but the writing on star trek is often dumb af.
Realistically, they would have made a lot more of the Ambassador-class because being smaller than the Galaxy-class, it would have been easier to build.
4:35 Like a continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before? Like that kind of mission? Oh, I'm excited!
The galaxy class was meant for extreme deep space exploration. Like 30 to 40 year missions. However romulans the borg and Dominion threw that out the window but the galaxy did have a perfect role on the battlefield as a commamd, control and carrier ship since its sensor and communication systems were the best in the fleet.
In star trek online the galaxy found a new purpose as a colony set up ship. It would provide new colonies the resources and protection they needed until a starbase was built or the colony grew enough to defend itself.
I'm of the belief that Section 31 had a hand in designing the Galaxy Class. They could easily have laid the groundwork for a militarized fleet while keeping the larger Federation in the dark.
Just look at how effective the class was in the Dominion War when Starfleet got off their butts and actually kitted them up correctly. More space for shields/weapons and possibly fighters/drone-craft.
Heck, you could even use the ship as a mobile barracks given the sheer number of people the class can hold.
I wish Section 31 was never invented. Yes, it resulted in a few enjoyable episodes in DS9, but at what cost? In hindsight, not worth it!
@Tuning3434 It made sense to leave the shady nature of government agencies in the universe. It also helped to show that the "perfect" humanity was just a veneer. It helped me accept the humanity of humans in Star Trek.
Eh... not a fan of that idea.
Rather perfer the idea to this day that the Galaxy class was an outward sign of Starfleet's hubris...
They thought at the time, according to both Picard and Q in the episode "Q who?" that they were so ahead of the game, that their technolgy, defensive systems and tactics and diplomatic abilities had progressed so far that their was no problem too big for ghem to safely solve, so why not fly a small starbase with kids, schools and all the comforts of home out into the unknown?
After all, even Riker im "Peak performance" bragged about how he felt that training in ship-to-ship battle was such a "minor provence" as to be almost unworthy of taking the time to do so.
The Federation of this era WOULD build something Like the Galaxy, just because they COULD.
@@chrisdufresne9359 i always took Section 31 - at least in DS9 - to not be the reality of the Federation, but rather the devil on its' shoulder, taking advantage of moments of weakness.
@@Simmons8519 Not only is it the most fitting answer but it's also the canonical one. Given the fact that Q himself introduced the Enterprise to the Borg precisely because he found humanity to be too arrogant yet conversely woefully unprepared for the true horrors that lurked in deep space.
I completely agree with you on this concept, there is something that always bothered me about the Galaxy class and the Enterprise in particular in that we rarely see it being the Flagship of a task force or the like like how we typically think of flagships in modern navies. Not until DS9 with the Galaxy Wings do we see this play out so would have been amazing to see the Enterprise and its task force of recurring characters and ships
Thinking of it as a flagship in a modern navy was the first error. It's much more pioneering age of sail type stuff than Modern Navy. Hence the old trope that the Enterprise is "the only ship within range". As opposed to Star Wars which is all about the World War II aesthetic.
If Starfleet was more of an actual fleet, they would have sent out their ships in squadrons of some sort or another, like you propose.
Imagine if you had squadrons of 1 capital ship, 2 medium cruisers, and 4 scouts. They would explore or patrol and support each other. Say you’ve got 4 Mirandas, just zipping through every star system in their designated area, looking for the anomaly of the week. 2 Excelsiors back them up, doing more thorough investigations of anything peculiar or bailing them out when said anomaly starts causing issues. The Galaxy sits back, coordinates, and acts as a mobile starbase. It is the most well-defended ship in the squadron, but that is *because* it houses the families of the crew on the other 6 ships, along with support facilities. Maybe it hangs out in orbit over some outpost or new colony, assisting the groundside needs in addition to coordinating the squadron’s mission. Almost a colony ship, but not quite.
And maybe you go with 2 capital ships. Say 1 Galaxy class and 1 Ambassador class. The second capital ship would be the one sent in to address the really serious issues, where a real bruiser of a ship is required.
Oh, and also: Starfleet could use this system of organization to cycle through their new designs. With older designs moving down a tier, as appropriate. Maybe in Kirk’s time, its a squadron of 1 Connie w/ 2-3 Saladins or Hermes (later replaced with Mirandas). Then, an Excelsior could lead a squadron of a mix of Connies and Mirandas. When the Excelsiors and Mirandas are the bulk of the fleet, the Ambassador can come into its own. However, the design is not revolutionary enough to set it apart from the Excelsiors, so the Galaxy is designed specifically as a platform for coordinating Excelsiors from.
The Galaxy could be a literal mother ship. The cut out on the underside of the secondary hull would be perfect for a pair of Defiant or Saber class ships, or something of similar size. Imagine being able to transport the two smaller ships to a given region, and then dispatch them to explore/patrol the area, with the Galaxy acting as home base.
by TNG as well Starfleet became very egotistical, believeing they had no real threat at the time so it was mostly a flex and was a sign of major stagnation though the theories being shared is always great
@@CMVBrielman by the time they got their act together I felt like the sovereign became the backbone with intrepids, akiras and defiants feeling in those roles honestly.
@@SuperGamefreak18 Nothing says these squadrons have to be identical, of course. Or even have identical purposes. You could have tactical, short-range exploration, and long-range exploration, along with plenty others.
And since so many starfleet ships are multi-purpose, this would make it easier to build squadrons for a given purpose. One squadron could be repurposed just by switching out one ship. You’ve got an Excelsior with 2 Mirandas, charting a nebula well within Federation space. Replace the Excelsior with a Sovereign, and now they can patrol the Neutral Zone.
The Galaxy Class was designed for long term, extreme distance deep space exploration. It was supposed to go 20 years before its first refit and have a service life of 100 years. They've explained this on the show and other media
Love the vids…
Love the format…
Love all of it as it relates to Trek.
I appreciate what you and am thankful for your efforts!
No. Damned. Doubt!
Keep it up!
Please!
I actually wrote a fanfic, years ago, where the USS Galaxy was modified for the Galaxy Project, intended to send lone starships out on long range, long term exploration missions with minimal support and resupply. Part of the modification was adding a third warp nacelle for greater warp speed and duration, a big phaser cannon in case they ran into a threat like the Borg, etc, basically resulting in the refit we see in All Good Things.
It’s a good idea however there is an issue I believe that the USS Galaxy was shown in DS9 during the dominion war battle scenes so it probably will have to be a different Galaxy class potentially one not seen on any of the trek series.
You're talking baout the Odyssey is that right? You might be right, Of course this seems like a minor thign we could uncanon if it must be the Galaxy.
@@resurrectedstarships apologizes for barging into this discussion, but USS Galaxy was seen twice in DS9(the first time at Chin'Toka, and the second time over Cardassia). She was also part of the Battle Group that was on-route to Enterprise-E in Nemesis. Maybe Galaxy was sent out AFTER the Dominion War, maybe as part of Starfleet's attempt to pivot back to Exploration?
@@resurrectedstarships The USS Galaxy was at the 1st battle of Chin'Toka. It is seen on screen (in Tears of the Prophets) exchanging fire with a Cardassian weapons platform.
@@resurrectedstarships a lot of Galaxy class appeared during the Dominion war - in some shots so many of them that Starfleet must have restarted construction of them as after the loss of Yamato, Enterprise, and Odyssey there were only three left (plus frame stage only for a few provisional more).
@@resurrectedstarships the USS Galaxy was also a part of Task Force Omega in Nemisis
They already had that episode.
"The Arsenal of Freedom":
The 21st episode of season 1, originally aired on April 11, 1988.
The Enterprise encounters a planet that sells advanced weapons systems, and the away team is attacked by weapons. The planet is long dead but still functions as a showroom. Enterprise was no match as well.
From my understanding and the research I've done in the past, the Galaxy class was the final stage of Starfleet's plan of creating a ship to properly replace the Constitution class as the heart of the Federation fleet. The Excelsior class was initially supposed to do this, but after the failure of the transwarp drive it never quite recovered. Despite the Excelsior being a very reliable ship, it never quite lived up to the performance of the Constitution class. The Ambassador Class was the first step and was a test bed for a lot of new and innovative technological advancements. Once these were proven to be a resounding success the long process of designing the Galaxy Class begun.
The idea, as I see it, is the Galaxy Class is supposed to be Starfleet's Golden Goose. A powerhouse that could form the heart of the Federation's defense in wartime, or perform long range exploration missions like the Constitution had. There were plenty of multipurpose vessels in Starfleet but the Galaxy was intended to be the ultimate form of this type of ship. Sure it would have to be replaced but it would serve quite a long time like the Constitution had back in its day. There were few ships that were as powerful or as efficient as the Constitution class was.
Now as for the story idea you discussed, I do quite like it. I don't think it makes sense to design a ship like the Galaxy class specifically for this, but it would easily fit this kind of role. It would make sense that after the Galaxy Class was launched, a smaller vessel found a cluster of stars quite a ways from Federation space that seemed to contain the remnants of an ancient space faring civilization. Maybe it could be that what they did find from smaller ships that explored the outskirts of this region is that the civilization was very old, older than anything they've seen to date but the region is too dangerous for these smaller ships to explore too deeply on their own.
There could be wild speculation that maybe this is an untouched region of space that once belonged to the Progenitors given how old some of what they found was. This would make the idea of exploring this region of space a top priority only interrupted by other concerns that threaten the Federation, something that would require the Galaxy Class to perform one of the roles it was designed for, to be the front line of Starfleet's defense of the Federation. It would make the Galaxy both the idea choice for this mission, but also make Starfleet hard pressed to spare one when it could be used to protect Starfleet should the Romulans or the Borg become a problem.
It's really simple. The story of the TNG series steadily morphed as it played out on television. Gene originally wanted the series to be a quantum leap above for the original series and thus the Galaxy class was born. The essentially it was designed to explore space so deep and away from federation borders that it would never need to return to a starbase. The writers took the helm and made the show a lot more conventional.
The Galaxy Class was the command ship for Wolf 359 for a reason. We know.
except there was no galxy there. those could be neublas
@@Revkor Admiral Hanson's communique from Wolf 359 was from a Galaxy class battle bridge. His ship was completely destroyed in the battle which is why there's no wreckage of her. But the script indicated it was a Galaxy class. There were several Nebulas though.
@@3Rayfire the part that threw me, from the first time I watched BOBW through to the mind boggling number of times I have watched since, is one of the LCARS panels behind Hanson is a TOS era display which suggested he was still on the same Excelsior he rendezvous with the Enterprise in earlier even though it also seemed he was on a Galaxy battle bridge. It was also said it was intended that Hanson commanded a Galaxy. My brain has never being able to reconcile the differences as no Galaxy would have been running such an old version of the OS and the producers didn't intentionally install it for no reason... it's like there were conflicting ideas between the production staff.
@@tillsy1701 The Red Alert? I mean I guess. It never fazed me as I like that old graphic.
@@3Rayfire no it was not. for it it was why was he not using thew battle bridge or the main bridge? Note we see both in the episode and Hanson is clearly not using either. at this time there would be 5 galaxys remotely operational and 2 were reserved as spares. and SINCE hanson arrived to the Enterprise in an Excelsior it was likely he was still using it. a script draft may point to a galaxy but scripts can be ignored or changed.
I’ve hypothesized that the Galaxy was a portable colony starter. Travel to distant planet, land saucer, send drive section back for its next saucer and next delivery.
I was really hoping that we would see the Galaxy class in Star Trek Discovery's final season as Burnham looks for clues on their treasure hunt.
Instead we get a Romulan scout ship not seen since ST:TNG "The Defector" (1990)
We got the ISS Enterprise but it's a messy canon suggesting it was an Alternate Universe of Alex "ManDark" Kurtzman.
We can't have nice things anymore...
that show was alternate from the start, they bait and switched
Well, since Discovery isn't actually Star Trek, I'm not surprised.
Voyager wasn’t meant to be a long term ship of exploration-it just got stuck out there, with constant power and supply shortages. The Galaxy was, and for deep space exploration at that. It was meant to be away for 20 years at a time, and I like to think that many were. Many others were mobile starbases, and, when needed, battleships.
Wow, the Federation did it, they found the Forerunners
They said, either in the series or in one of the novels that the galaxy class was meant to be a generation ship, where they did these long-term missions into deep space
One of the underrated features of the Galaxy-class is it's main computer. It's gigantic with enormous storage and processing. Sensors and communications are useless without a computer system to cope with the information load. Whether it's exploring or clearing interference from an enemy's jammers or cloaking device, the Galaxy-class is probably the best equipped to handle it in Starfleet, even with the introduction of newer ships and technologies. The sheer size and complexity of it would be difficult to outmatch.
This lends to the idea that it's a ship of the line, able to scan and dictate the field of battle with long range bombardments, both with phasers and torpedoes.
Wow I just remembered how badly the Galaxy Class was portrayed in that Picard series. Here we have what is essentially a mobile starbase. it's a command ship, it's a battlecruiser, it's a floating city in space..... And in Picard they fly it around like ^*%$*^% X-Wing
Maybe they'll find out. That's the location where the doomsday machine from the original star. Trek actually came from. Perhaps they'll be several. They're waiting around and one just simply wandered off on its own, possibly from some other effect. Maybe a rogue planet or something similar? That caused it to fall out of its normal Position, and that would be interesting because so far we have not. Proud out anything else about the dim's day machine.
I tended to think it was an exploration ship, but with war fighting capabilities. I think that’s why the saucer section separates. I remember a quote from one of the first episodes of TNG. Something about “with the saucer section separated it’s a much more sleek and capable fighting ship”. That quote leads one to assume that in the event of a forseen war or battle, the saucer section would separate and depart, leaving an extremely fast, maneuverable, and powerful ship to duke it out.
Perhaps the Galaxy was dual use? I think you've pointed out how >Vast< the Galaxy class is compared with its crew complement of 1000. (Either you or EC Henry) Perhaps the Galaxy class was also used by Section 31 as a secret mobile base? Those ships are so huge, entire departments could be hidden onboard. Especially if the technology used for observing less advanced planets without violating the Prime Directive is utilized to aid this purpose.
The Galaxy-class could carry up to 6,000 people, I imagine as a military ship it could serve very well, with Section 31 having a modified version of it similar to the alternate timeline's Galaxy-X.
@@Obiwan7100 Section 31 could have had its own ships. But in particular, I was thinking that Section 31 could also have hidden onboard the Enterprise-D or other Galaxy class ships.
Just no. No Section 31 please.
@@Obiwan7100 Yeah Probert designed her with a 6000 crew compliment. She has an emergency evacuation capacity of 15,000 which is, that's a lotta people.
Nobody successfully 'hides' or stows away on a space vessel for very long, esp. one with internal sensors. The risks of being discovered by a crew and a potentially righteously angry captain are enormous. Dummy mission specialties, aliases, and cover stories are probably a better strategy.
I recall a trivia contest that stated that at the time the Galaxy class was launched, the Ambassador Class was the most prolific vessel in the Federation Fleet. I can only imagine that Starfleet saw success in larger exploration vessels, as they would have more labs and departments to facilitate exploration. This trend started with the success of the Constitution Class and its 10 labs - prompting the next generation of explorer to be even larger.. and the next generation followed suit and so on. I also believe that the Federation encountered and befriended alien organizations that helped influence the evolution of their vessels.
I like your theory about Starfleet sending Galaxies out to that very specific part of space to explore the abandoned worlds. It would certainly take a team to accomplish that sort of mission.
I have always felt that the Galaxy had to be originally intended for very long duration deep space missions far from Federation space. This mission profile could be why Picard was chosen to command one of the first ships of the class. The Stargazer seems to have been similarly on deep space missions. I like the idea that the Romulan and Borg threats were the reason the Enterprise was kept close to home. But I also wonder if there were unresolved design problems. It seems like the Galaxy-class warp core was particularly unstable and prone to exploding. Maybe they were pushing the bleeding edge of technology too far with a core that could power a huge starship at high warp for years on end.
I’ve always thought, Janeway would have had a much easier time if Voyager had been a Galaxy class. Thing was basically purpose built for that kind of mission.
@@AdmiralKareliaVoyager was purpose-built to venture beyond the supporting infrastructure of the Federation proper. I'm not sure that a lone Galaxy class had that capability built-in at construction, even if that was the intent behind its design.
I think the Enterprise-D fulfilled the Galaxy class’s role potential well. It traveled far beyond known space thanks to the Traveler’s abilities, served as a fleet command ship during the Klingon civil war, and routinely investigated new worlds and unknown scientific phenomena. As the flagship, its job was to be an unmistakable indicator of Starfleet’s interest in a matter. It serves as the ideal platform for defensive, scientific, exploratory, and diplomatic missions because all of those were priorities in that time period.
what you proposed wouldn't apply. The Galaxy was already in the Dominion War. We even get to see her at the first battle of Chin'toka. She was also mention in Insurrection as part of battle group 15 waiting for the Enterprise E to come through the Nebula to take of the Scimitar. So yeah, her being lost for several years and then being recovered after the end of the Dominion War wouldn't work.
This is the most intelligent and well thought out theory that I’ve come across for the purpose of the Galaxy class starship.
Your idea would make for a fascinating television series.
It’s just a shame that the producers and writers of new Trek can’t come up with these sorts of ideas.
How about instead of some mystery box BS where we uncover all the adventures of a life time second hand with every episode ending on a clif hanger we instead make a show ABOUT the adventure of a life time?
Guess they didn't want either...
Best mysteries in story telling are the ones that are actually tangible and solvable! I also abhore the 'mystery box' method....there shoudl be something ni the box! Even if the something is another box!
@@resurrectedstarships Absolutely. Unless the nesting doll box is purely to stall up a huge nothing burger.
Either way the box is not a place to put a "once in a life time adventure". If it's really that cool make that the main story. I can't fathom (other than budgeting reasons maybe) why you would make a movie about a guy hearing a second and story about the greatest adventure ever instead of making that adva run into the movie itself.
I think she’s a mix of three vessel types. Battleship / Aircraft Carrier / Exploration. Her armor and armaments are strong and powerful like a battleship. Her main hangar bay was meant to support many small craft according to schematics like an aircraft carrier. She has family’s onboard with science labs and recreation facilities. A ship built for long term mission (5 year missions) as well as a ship that can dump the families some where and go on combat patrols/sorties. She does a little bit of everything. I think between TNG and DS9, they do a pretty good job at defining the ships roles and capabilities.
Forget your head canon. Roddenberry wanted a ship far larger and luxurious than the constitution and there we have it.
The Dyson Sphere builders! That's a storyline that would fit perfectly into this scenario. And also an excuse to return to the sphere. Say The Federation found tech/relay on the Dyson sphere pointing to the space just outside the Milky Way, or even crib from Star Wars and call it a mini galaxy.
You'd thus have two anchor points for the series narrative. One on the original sphere within known federation space, and the task force sent to explore.
You got this wrong. The entire point of Voyager was fast, short missions. So no, it wasn't designed for 5y long missions.
imagine having a squadron of galaxy class ships go wherever. each deploys their saucer sections to form a mini or starter star base. the ships then, sans saucer section, go on to do what ever it is they are supposed to do, coming back to the star base whenever they need to.
Hello all!
The canon TNG Technical Manual explains the Galaxy Class ships were designed to be 100 year vessels with refits and major upgrades every 15 to 30 years. Additionally, approximately 35% of their internal volume was left purposely empty for future expansion and mission specific uses.
This would be a truly interesting series that could be done. Even if it is just a mini-series that focused on the core elements of Trek. Thank you for the video and I would love to hear more thoughts and ideas of this nature.
The series began at a place "beyond which lies the vast unexplored area of the galaxy" they pretty quickly abandoned deep space long term missions for putting around federation space charting anomalies and studying pulsars. Doing diplomatic missions, then cardasdians, romulans and kilngom civil wars.
The Enterprise D was their "test-bed" at what they had planned as a mutlti-generational, long-range exploration ship that can double as a mini-starbase, front line defense guard, ambassadorial duties, relief/aid/rescue, and colonization. Hence the families and SCHOOLS on board. The only other ship they tried (and somewhat succeeded) with what was planned for the Enterprise D was the Enterprise J - and yet the J still got turned into a spearhead ship used in the temporal cold war despite it's role as a multi-generational exploration ship.
I designed a prototype cross between Romulan and Federation starships about 40 years ago. It was for a next gen author, for the cover of his book. I can't remember the title, but it was a what if thing, where the Federation and Romulans formed an alliance and it was a New Fed.
Kinda reminded of the Titan novels. It's mission was to go off and explore. One of the places they found turned out to be the birthplace of a bunch of the Interstellar lifeforms the D encountered: the space jellies from the pilot, the space pizza pockets from Galaxy's Child, the Crystalline Entity, etc.
If you are going down that route.
A homeworld of the Q before they ascended would make sense. Would also tie in why the Q we know is so fascinated by humanity and particularly Picard, someone with a fascination with archeology
In addition to what @HistoryNut-1701 said. I'd like to point out that even if your hopping from one federation system to the next. The vast amount of the year is spent onboard. So even if the Enterprise is only a few hundred light years from home. The crew still needs to _LIVE_ onboard most of the year, year to year. In this case that would include children, who have their own needs apart from the adults. So you'll need accommodations necessary to stave of cabin fever for a large diverse group of people over a long period of time. Hence it's huge size.
I think something that would be _far_ more interesting, is if a Starfleet explorer ship had actually discovered a stable wormhole waaaay out past the edge of explored space, that linked to the Small Megallanic Cloud (SMC). This would ultimately reveal a galactic-level network of stable wormholes - built by the Iconians - that connects the Milky Way to both Megallanic Clouds, and to the Andromeda galaxy...Obviously, Starfleet/Section 31 want to close-hold the secret of the one wormhole they've discovered, but they have to assume that a potentially hostile race in the SMC might find its way to the Federation from the other side (TOS: _By Any Other Name,_ as well as whoever built the _Doomsday Machine_ ), and need a plan to hold the opposite end of that first wormhole....but, as you've pointed out, as they were quietly spinning up the _Galaxy_ class, first the Romulans, then Wolf-359, then the Dominion appear and short-circuit the main program -- but, they _did_ send out the _USS Galaxy_ task force that you outline in your animation, as an initial scouting group...but, they never hear back from them, and assume that all ships are lost, because they cannot spare the vessels to go look for them by that point (i.e., the dawn of the Dominion War), but _THEN_ someone detects the _USS Galaxy_ adrift in space on the very edge of explored space......That's good for 10+ seasons, and a couple of spinoffs, right there.
My theory on the Galaxy class has always been that it was initially designed to support colonization efforts. Indeed we see the Enterprise used this way from time to time in episodes like Silicon Avatar. With all the space and capabilities of the Galaxy, you could transport the whole colony, prefab buildings, infrastructure, colonists, etc in one go and just beam it all down.
I think it was meant for extended exploration missions that would take years at a time. It's a pretty self-sufficient ship, and I believe the reason families can live on it is because it was planned for Starfleet officers to do tours of duty on it that would run so long that they'd be alienated from their families if they didn't come along.
Maybe it was intended to take a trip into the Delta quadrant? At least get near to it. There were rumours of a new enemy scooping up colonies at the time the Enterprise went on the Farpoint mission, an enemy that would later turn out to be the Borg, a Delta-quadrant resident.
Interesting side-note. The Enterprise (and possibly other Galaxy-class ships) had an entire unused deck. A deck that could in theory accommodate an even bigger crew, or more labs, manufacturing facilities, public amenities, storage for consumables and equipment, etc. All the stuff you'd need to keep a crew and their families self-sufficient and with satisfactory morale for a decade or more, and that's on top of all the amenities the ship already had. It's little wonder that those guys from the 20th century thought it was a luxury liner!
The Enterprise D is a full space faring town complete with military base, or at least that's how I saw it. It lacks the amenities a full sized star base or planet based city does which is why I don't think of it as a city like a lot of people do, but I'd say it definitely fits the criteria of an industrialized, self sustaining town.
I seem to recall that the so-called “dark age” between TOS and TNG was an especially peaceful period for the Federation, that there were no large scale conflicts going on, and so the Federation started to build ships like the Galaxy specifically for both long range exploration and “showing the flag” mission.
Honestly, I never liked the idea of the Intrepid or the Luna class starships as long-range explorers. They are both a bit small to take care of themselves far from home (Janeway’s heroic efforts notwithstanding), and the extra residential and manufacturing facilities built in to the Galaxy class make it more suitable as a long range explorer, capable of 20+ year missions.
The fact that the ship has large scale, on-board manufacturing capabilities, saucer separation, and an ungodly amount of storage space lend credence to the idea that this ship truly was meant to travel far from the Federation, even on missions much like the Voyager accidentally found itself undertaking.
I had an idea when I was watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Voyager last winter, a Star Trek series I called Galactic Tour, where Starfleet sends out a fleet of ships to essentially circle the galaxy (Something like 160 000 light year journey), just to get an idea of what's all out there, partially inspired by Voyager's success at getting home with all kinds of cool technology and such, and it made sense to use the Galaxy Class as the center of the fleet, but I eventually changed my mind and made a unique ship that was basically a super Galaxy Class that was designed specifically for this mission, and included a lot of new technology developed by Starfleet and was brought back by Voyager, as this would probably take place is the 2380s, but I'm not exactly set on a date yet.
The main thing that never made sense to me was, how damned small the sickbay was. It had to care for 6000 people and potentially more if it's providing medical aid to a planet it was visiting or for a fleet it was commanding. One of the occasions it did this, it had to convert a cargo hold. It seemed like a glaring under provision given that it seemed to have only one operating theatre and be capable of looking after half a dozen people at a time.
To me, it's relatively straightforward.
1) Flagship - This should be almost overkill in design and possess the "latest and greatest" while at the same time reliable. It's not necessarily the "future" of the starships to be designed but instead should be one that enemies do not want to encounter.
2) Exploration & Command - I would see this ship as more of a long term exploring ship while at the same time providing a military presence there. I would agree that any "areas of interest" that would likely include military operations should have a ship like this. It very well may be that this requires as much resources as building both a science vessel + attack vessel but by combining you can have a fast vessel as well plus be able to claim "peaceful intentions" while having enough firepower when needed.
For Command, pretty straightforward when you have a clearly "superior" ship as who will be in command. Other vessels might have more firepower, but there would be no question about who is in command. As others have mentioned, more of a Command Base or "Mothership".
Well a few years ago I was thinking about how I had responded to the Borg. What I came up with was a 2 parted plan.
Part 1 was of cause to create a task force to investigate the Borg. We know they are from the Delta Quadrant so why not send a fleet there. Have some Galaxy's as the backbone with a few Nebulas and smaler ships. Once close to Borg space establish an outpost and start investigating.
Part 2 on the other hand is to send simular fleets to establishing some colonys far from home to ensure the Federation survives if the core teretory is overrun by the Borg.
In both parts the Galaxy's were equiped with industrial replicators and everything you need to set up a starbace, a colony, some mining outposts and a fleetyard. I proberbly had choosen some Intrepeds to follow and catch up to those fleets, once they were constructed. To provide additional new tec and plans for new ships like the Defiant and Soverain classes.
In Discovery season 2, it's revealed that the Enterprise never fought in the Klingon war. It was sent to deep space. The reason, Captain Pike was the opitome of the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation. He was to be the future of humanity if the Klingons won. Captain Picard also fits this description, possibly even more so. I think the Enterprise is so big and with the addition of families, it could easily be used as an ark for humanity.
It was also designed with ambassadorial roles and hosting peace talks etc in mind, it was intended to be in every way a show case of the federations capabilities and intentions.
Nice concept, but I think the actual described Five Year Mission Plan where the ship spends months and years exploring beyond the frontiers makes the most sense.
Of course we never actually get that 5 year Mission plan on screen, whether its Kirk or Picard, half the missions are Starfleet orders of the week. Ferrying personnel and supplies around as often as not.
Your points are sound across the board, and Galaxy class ships were always the command center for any fleet engagements for which they were involved. Being designed for missions such as described in the video are very good reasons for having such a ship design.
I always thought of the Galaxy Class as more of an "Area Command and Control" type of vessel. Able to perform almost any task that might be required. In combat, she can hold her own, while coordinating the fleet action. Peace time, like you outlined here, a literal flying laboratory, once again, acting as the center of a Task Force. Like if the events of the loss of Romulus had happened while the Federation was trying to assist with the evacuation in the Galaxy's time, you could almost bet there would be a couple out there acting as Command Centers. Even in the range of exploration, Once again, she could operate on her own or part of a small fleet sent way out there on Deep or Ultra Long Range Exploration missions, with the amount of supplies and near self reliance the Galaxy has. Long story show, The Galaxy was at it's core a Command Ship that could fill whatever role Starfleet needed her to be.
This is also the reason I believe that the Galaxy was chosen to carry on the legacy of the Enterprise, the Flag Ship of the Federation. A ship that could do what ever the Federation asked of her, and do it well, almost a meeting of all of Starfleet and the Federations ideals. Exploration, Research, Defense, she could do it all.
I feel that the Enterprise D was meant to be a swiss knife.
Enough space to evacuate a colony, state of the art labs for research, a fortress in case they find a hostile small fleet in deep space that the Federation was not aware as well as have enough space for the crew and civilians on board to feel relaxed.
I've always guessed from the context of the show (or maybe I just remember people talking about it in the lead up to TNG coming out), that the Galaxy Class was designed for much longer (longer than 5-year) missions into very deep space, so would logically carry people's families, but also the ability to defend itself and more or less operate as a traveling city. I know the concepts of the different galactic quadrants like Delta and Gamma hadn't been come up with, but I could have sworn that's how the "new" Enterprise was described from marketing stuff back in the day.
It was pretty much established from day one that the Next generation wasn't just about the new crew. It was about a ship that was a fully equipped city, a small mobile federation space station Enterprise NCC-1701-D. They were able to take on tasks and long missions no other smaller ship should or could. If you remember the Romulans had a ship comparable to the Enterprise D. Seriously there is a reason these were called Galaxy Class ships.
Sure the prequel Enterprise defined a much smaller ship, a prototype, as the defacto explorer, the Enterprise NX-01. But it was made clear how over whelmed the crew was in that ship, and it's lack of weapons. The original Enterprise was a very capable ship, Enterprise NC-1701. But ultimately given it's crew and armament it was probably only slightly better equipped than Voyager. Now Voyager was a true explorer ship. But all three of these ships were never designed for deep space, long running missions, so would always need frequent stops to replenish food and even fuel. There are only a few federation ships in later story lines with incredible capabilities to defend themselves against insane enemies and also traverse incredible distances, that allowed much smaller designs because a large ship was no longer needed, Prometheus and Protostar.
I've never seen the purpose of the Galaxy Class has difficult to understand: Its a basically something like a mobile colony ship or mobile starbase. The first 4-5 seasons of TNG demonstrated this pretty concretely. As DS9 and Voyager came along, there was a sea change in the ideas behind Star Trek, and frankly less interesting and far less weird ideas took over. Trek's world shrunk back down until now you have the 'new enterprise' they unveiled in Picard season 3 and its just kind of a throwback to the 1701 A with shinier floors, sort of absurdly huge rooms, and bad lighting.
Having families with children on the Enterprise D was a masterstroke. It raised the stakes on every story as well as gave a much richer field of possibilities on what kinds of stories they could tell. This is why the Enterprise E in the films always felt like it was missing something and was strangely empty...they kind of literally took the life out of the core of TNG. The Enterprise D was kind of carrying the Federation on its back everywhere it went, and so it was a living, breathing community in every episode. The Enterprise E was, in the end, just kind of a 'warship to fight the Borg'...because as I said before, Trek writers just started leaning on less and less interesting ideas for Star Trek until finally everything just became about fighting the Borg. Picard Season 3 was really interesting and had some brilliant moments...but once again they just can't think of anything more interesting to do with Star Trek anymore than "....suddenly the Borg shows up! (please clap!)"
I’ve always seen the Galaxy class as more of a mobile star base than a simple starship. It was likely intended for fleet support duties on the farthest frontiers of the Federation. The Federation likely had multiple areas of interest, similar to what you described, that the Galaxy class was ideal for deployment to.
Makes sense when you think of the writing for Encounter at Farpoint being about how it was the edge of known space etc. shows how when coming up with the pilot they had in their minds that it would be going out beyond federation space into the unknown
This is an interesting theory. The Galaxy class vessel very much could have been intended to function as an aircraft carrier and have a half dozen smaller, more specialized ships around it for really far or long term missions. The idea of the families of all the crews live on the big ship that has all the amenities of a city to have a regular life but also be the most powerful and safe place to keep them protected.
The Galaxy Class saucer section was well-armed, defended with shields, and capable of independent flight and (allegedly) controlled surface landing. We also know from Picard that the saucer is interchangeable, able to couple to any Galaxy stardrive section.
This is a recipe for deploying full-fledged colonies in contested or otherwise dangerous space. A Galaxy-class could be deployed at high warp, annihilate any orbital threats around the target planet on arrival, then detach a saucer section already equipped with power generation, transporters, all manner of medical and scientific equipment, a full complement of personnel, and even a large shuttle bay to receive supplies too large for the transporters. Once landed, the ventral phaser array and impulse drives could be shut off to redirect power to other systems, or disassembled and repurposed. Even the Captain's Yacht could be useful as a more heavy-duty transport, able to handle more threatening situations than a simple shuttlecraft.
Meanwhile, the stardrive section and ship's command crew returns to Federation space to be re-equipped with a new Saucer, ready to repeat the process the next time such a world is identified, and capable of extensive independent exploration in the meantime.
The Galaxy Class was designed for extreme long range, extreme duration, missions. Meant to go out on 10-year exploration missions with minimal contact back to the Federation. That's why they needed schools onboard because you leave with the children of crewmembers and depending on ages pretty much return with their grandchildren in tow.
Didn't quite work out that way though, a little too ambitious.
I think people forget that starships would normally be sent out on a 5 year mission into deep space, the galaxy class reflects this, a ship made for a large crew, families and comfort, all thos to help a crews mental state on a long voyage, start fleet just learned over time that a ship needs to be ready for anything, just imagine if voyager had been a galaxy class, thier trip home may have been less Intense
I had always had in mind that -- although it was never used in this way -- it was designed as a _generational_ exploration ship. Those kids aboard the Enterprise would grow up to be the next generation of the Enterprise crew, including senior staff.
The USS Galaxy is seen on screen during the Dominion War in DS9. And in extended canon / beta canon, it is mentioned that the Galaxy spent much of its early career in or around the Sol system as a kind of technology test bed ship. So she was never actually lost.
I've read different sources on this over the years that state different numbers but essentially the Galaxy class was only ever built in small numbers (I'm talking on screen canon now). The USS Galaxy and USS Enterprise were part of the initial first four Galaxy classes built with a further 4 Galaxy class space frames built and put into storage for later construction,. But some other sources state that there were six initial Galaxy's built with a further 6 space frames put into storage.
These space frames were later built for the Dominion war but with a lot of crew amenities and science facilities omitted and missing to rush production. Additional cargo bays were added to carry the single seater star fighters Starfleet used in the war. These later ships also did not carry families or civilians.
Its only really in the books, comics etc where you see a lot more Galaxy class ships operating.
The reasoning behind the Galaxy-class project has already been explained in canon: The Galaxy was commissioned during the Federation's "Golden Age", that time right after the Klingons had signed the Khitomer Accords and become allies, right up until TNG.
The Federation had no major threats at this time; the Klingons were allies, the Romulans had retreated behind the Neutral Zone and isolated themselves again, the Cardassian "war" was a very minor conflict with a minor power, and the Borg weren't even a twinkle in Picard's eye at the time. Federation membership had expanded greatly, new technologies were being developed at a rapid scale, and the known galaxy was, for the most part, at peace.
The Galaxy was commissioned to be the symbol of the Federation's prosperity and power in the Alpha/Beta quadrants. It was meant to be an all-in-one ship, a grand design that could do it all: diplomacy, science and exploration, defense, engineering, medical missions, and more. It was really meant to be a sort of mobile starbase, able to provide aid and show the flag where needed, as well as acting as the C&C vessel for fleet operations. Officers were allowed to have family on board to show that the Federation was so powerful and safe that this could be allowed. It had an arboretum, classrooms, numerous holodecks for civilian, crew, and diplomat's comfort.
It's power was also meant to intimidate those minor powers into thinking twice before picking a fight with the Federation (obviously the Cardassians didn't get the memo, but they're not very good at getting those kind of messages). It had twelve Type-X phaser arrays providing 360 degree coverage, and fore and aft torpedo launchers with a 250 round capacity each, with programmable warheads that could be fired in patterns and configured for various purposes. It was the most advanced tactical platform the Federation had, bigger than anything the Klingons or Romulans had built up to that point. (The D'Deridex was not revealed to the Federation until after the Enterprise's launch).
One of these ships was always going to be named Enterprise, and was meant to be the flagship, so they'd do even more flag-waving missions and showing the rest of the galaxy why it's a good idea to join the Federation or to stay out of their way if you had hostile intentions. Loaded with the most advanced technology known, the biggest guns, the most comfortable living and working spaces, it was the most advanced ship anyone known had ever built. It was also equipped to go on any long-range exploration mission that was needed, as it was better equipped than any other ship for science, but also for crew morale and recreation, so a long term exploration mission wouldn't be as burdensome as prior ones had. There was no secret or unknown mission for the class; this was it.
During the Dominion War their role as a command and control hub for the various combat fleets showed what they were capable of in large-scale conflict, especially with even more upgrades and refits as production of these spaceframes ramped up. So needed was the firepower they could bring to bear they were rolled out of the fleetyards with minimal crew quarters and life support, a barebones ship bristling with weapons and shielding. Starfleet could have chosen to use those resources on constructing other vessels, but the Galaxy was so powerful that it couldn't be ignored.
So there you have it, the true purpose of, and the real reason the Galaxy-class was created. The GCDP was also used as a testbed for new technologies on other, more specialized classes derived from the Galaxy, such as the Challenger, Cheyenne, and Niagara classes.
the galaxy class is basically a cruise ship strapped to the top of a warship, remove the saucer section and you have a much cheaper and probably more maneuverable warship
I always thought the Galaxy class would make an excellent long range colony ship.
It had the facilities for exploration, defense and research, but also had the capacity for large numbers of colonists.
The Galaxy Class is what everyone below has said it is. It's the centerpiece of any fleet and indeed as a carrier itself, carries a fleet-worth of highly capable shuttles and runabouts as auxiliary craft. It would have been great to see the Galaxy go up against a D'deridex Warbird and immediately before hostilities began spew out dozens of shuttles and runabouts with weapon and electronic warfare pods to augment its firepower and screen the ship from Romulan weapons via sensor jamming and holographic decoys.
Imagine trying to fight a Galaxy, but big as it is, every time you shoot at it, it turns out to just be another holographic decoy or sensor ghost, or your launched photon torpedoes are shot down by dozens of shuttlecraft phasers immediately after launch, while the Galaxy hammers your shields with phasers.