What was it about the Defiant that specifically made it a warship? I don’t remember. Just seems like an odd distinction to make when pretty much every Starfleet ship is armed to the teeth.
The majority of Starfleet vessels are made with peaceful intentions in mind. Exploration, science, etc. Weapons are for defense and last resort and all that.
The Defiant was made to fight the Borg. That’s it.
Well I guess that’s what I’m asking. I get that nearly all Starfleet ships have peaceful missions but they’re also decked out with photon torpedoes and phaser arrays because hey, never know what you’re going to run into out there, you know?
So when you say Defiant was made specifically to fight Borg, what was different about it to make it so (see what I did there)?
It’s a mindset thing I guess. While many Starships have weapons for defense and what not, the Defiant felt like a ship built around an engine and weapons platform. Meant purely for fighting.
Correct, also they factored in the limited loss of life if they did lose a Defiant Class ship, compared to say a Galaxy class with huge crew.
The implication of the Defiant is what I find somewhat intriguing. It appears to have tactical capabilities in the ballpark of a Galaxy-class ship like the Enterprise D, at like a 1/10 of the size. So what does that imply? It implies that the Enterprise is 10% tactical, 90% other (science, humanitarian, diplomatic), which seems in-line with Starfleet’s mission. So, the Defiant is Starfleet’s first warship not in the sense of what it has that the other frontline ships don’t, it’s what it doesn’t have compared to the other ships (the non-tactical 90%). Yet, the Enterprise is considered a match for frontline warships of the other major powers. So, the conclusion is that the Federation is incredibly more advanced than the other powers, when it comes to tactical and technical effectiveness. They pack into 10% what the other powers need 100% to do the same job. All of this is, of course, subject to the “they’re as weak or as strong as they need to be” rule.
OK, this makes sense to me, the Defiant is more defined by what it doesn’t have than what it does. I had forgotten it was so much smaller in size/crew than most other federation ships.
I never thought of it that way. So in a sense when a Romulan Warbird takes on Enterprise, it’s their 100% warship versus “I’m not even a warship” Enterprise. It puts into perspective how other races view the Federation, perhaps the bully on the block in a sense.
“I am not left handed either.”
Yeah, Enterprise had friggin’ families and artists on board.
It’s as if you sailed out your 50,000 ton warship, every ton dedicated to the art of war, and then the 50,000 Love Boat sailed up. . . . and blew you out of the water, without the retirees missing a beat at the buffet. I think that’d give you pause about the power of the Carnival Cruise Lines Hegemony.
Sure, but let’s see the Love Boat engage self-destruct.
Funny stuff. But what episode/movie did they turn a sun into a torus? Did I miss it or forget it?
Now that you mention it, I do remember them saying that in DS9.
I do wonder though if the concept that Starfleet was civilian not military is something they retrofitted into the canon in the TNG era (with their Galaxy cruisers complete with families on board) that was not originally meant to be in the TOS show.
In TOS the Enterprise was a Heavy Cruiser, which kind of sounds like a warship. In addition to the Heavy Cruisers, TOS Starfleet also had Dreadnoughts. We don’t actually see any but they are mentioned in several of the original TOS movies they also showed up in their triple-nacelle glory in the Starfleet Technical Manual.
Also consider the names of the TNG Galaxy-class Cruisers vs. their TOS counterparts.
Galaxy-class Cruisers: Challenger, Enterprise, Galaxy, Odyssey, Venture, Yamato also mentioned Gandhi, Madison, Magellan. With the exception of Yamato (which was explicitly named after the IJN Yamato) these are all great exploration ship names.
DC Fontana writer for TOS and Roddenberry’s secretary suggested using “famous fighting ships of the past” for ship names and that’s what happened. TOS Constituition-class Cruisers include USS Hood (named after British battlecruiser named after British Admiral), USS Lexington (named after US Aircraft Carriers which were named after a famous battle), USS Potemkin (the name of a Russian Battleship named after a Russian military leader), USS Constellation (could be a decent exploration ship name, but in this case named for famous US warship), USS Defiant (a fine warship name, but a rather poor name for a science ship named after British warship HMS Defiant), USS Exeter (named after British warship HMS Exeter). I did find two Constitution-class Cruisers not named for warships — USS Korolev (named for a Russian Scientist) and USS Ahwahnee (named for a Native American Indian tribe).
I do see how having Starfleet non-military does fit into a Roddenberry view of our future. But having grown up with episodes like Balance of Terror where Kirk goes toe-to-toe with the Romulans with a plot taken directly from a WW2 movie “The Enemy Below” along with a half-dozen episodes of steely-eyed Kirk facing off against the Klingons, Starfleet always felt like the Navy. In retrospect though, I suppose these are less than 1/4 of the TOS episodes, although they are some of my favorites.
Perhaps a better fit would be the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard personnel are under military discipline, but their purpose isn’t primarily military, even though they will serve in that capacity when needed.
If you’re talking TOS, I think it’s hard to ignore the intro: “Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”
It’s an exploratory fleet, even in the TOS. It follows a uniformed order with ranks and such, but offensive operations aren’t it’s main role. I think that’s somewhat akin to the US Army Corps of Engineers in that there is a focus that is clearly non-offensive, though it can, at times, play a role in offensive operations.
One could argue that the Federation and the Borg aren’t all that different: both seek to grow and advance through assimilation. The Borg do it by force whereas the Federation does it through Starfleet and its Diplomatic Corps. Mormons, too, when you think about it.
On that last point, the LDS church should consider advancing their reach through the power of mass media. Imagine the hit show, “Mormons in Space!”
From Gene Roddenberry in the guide he wrote to for other episode writers in TNG:
Starfleet is not a military organisation. It is a scientific research and diplomatic body.
Although the duties of the Enterprise may include some military responsibilities, the primary purpose of the Enterprise — as with all Starfleet vessels is to expand the body of human knowledge.
In practice this means that our armaments and militarism have been de-emphasized over the previous series and very much de-emphasized over the movies. We will not see saluting. We may hear the word “sir”, but it is extended as the same kind of courtesy used by junior and senior officers on civilian airliners. It is traditional, however, to use ship’s ranks on the bridge, an acknowledgment of the naval heritage of Starfleet.
This reads like Roddenberry is trying to have it both ways. I get that Starfleet is not a military organization, but all its officers have military training and are prepared to go to battle if the need arises.
From a stackexchange answer on the question:
By today’s standards, it is neither military or civilian.
The closest (poor) analog I could muster is the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which does conduct law enforcement operations (meaning they are armed) for limited purposes but NOAA’s primary mission is scientific.
Oh man, I just had an awesome image of NOAA scientists getting in running battles with pirates and giant squid. You guys go on ahead, I’m going to daydream a while.