Yeah, but how about exploring the exciting world of military violence now and then? Also, quite naive to believe, that the exploration of such a vast galaxy would always yield only peaceful encounters, especially seeing how certain founding members of Star Fleet themselves were quite militaristic and war like in nature. And then still keeping that stance even after encountering multiple militaristic empires and warrior cultures and ending up in military conflicts with them. Honestly, it's a major miracle that Star Fleet and Earth wasn't annihilated already in its early days. because si vis pacem...!
@@axelhopfinger533 Most Star Fleet vessel had good weapons and defense systems at the time of the construction, with updates and re-fits. So the idea was, we ain't looking of a fight, but we gonna lay down and die either. The Galaxy class for example, had some of the most advanced combat system available at the time so in the dominion war they were to central vessels of combat, with Akira and Defiant classes were support craft to.
Not a military organization, but has high power weaponry, military rank structure, and code of military justice, by just about any metric Starfleet is a military organization. Kirk called himself a soldier many times in TOS.
@@kdrapertrucker So, a military organization in denial then? Or a schizophrenic science and exploration organization, which really wants to be pacifist, but its militaristic alter ego just won't allow it to? Either way, the whole Star Trek universe pretty much is a vindication of the "dark forest" theory. If you go out searching for other alien civilizations, the chances are bigger for them to turn out to be an existential threat to you (or them seeing you as an existential threat) than not. And it's only due to the existence of universal translators, that diplomacy is even an option most of the times. And the fact that most alien races in the galaxy have been seeded by a common progenitor to follow a very humanoid evolutionary pattern.
@@axelhopfinger533 I agree they have to be a military organization they wouldn't survive otherwise. I see Starfleet like the British royal navy a couple of hundred years ago. They were explorers as well as a military organization. Defending there territory and shipping lanes/ trade routes aswell as finding new, but unlike the British they don't just stick a flag in the ground and say this land is there's. It's a wonder how the federation have survived with the prime directive rule vs other competing empires. The klingons etc just do what they want and take what they want, where as the feds leave a planet don't trade with it or take it's resources or use it as a base because the people are pre warp. The romulans and the rest would place weapons on there and even take over a civilisation to do there bidding. Does star fleet have a ship stay near the planet and try and stop another empire try and take over?
Seeing the Federation's capability for warfare reminds me of an old saying - "There are three things all wise men fear - a sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man." The Federation may be slow to violence, but once it reaches that point, that's how you get ships like the Defiant.
The federation is much like the Doctor. Oh sure they seem nice and they are truly trying to do good. But there is a reason everyone who knows their history fears them. For the Doctor he ended the time war. For the Federation? Well look what happens when they they start waking and realize the seemingly gentle giant can do a lot worse to you.
@@spartanonxy Dominion: "You can't win. You're a 'good people.' And good people have too many rules." Federation: "Good people don't need rules. *You don't want to know why we have so many."*
"Let me tell you something about hew-mons, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon."
Well… that and pausing at one side of the cube to transport The Sisko over, strafe around a bit for the look of the thing and pick him up from the opposite side once all the occupants had had their heads kicked in. But I get why they didn’t make that too obvious in the operating manual, not really very Starfleet.
Forget where I saw it, but a take someone had that I quite liked was "Humans are not sheep. They are wolves who learned how to wear the fleece of sheep, and chose to live as sheep do, because they know what a world of wolves looks like. Do not make them regret their choice."
@@SirDankleberry There was this story about a world of people who went out of their way to be peaceful ... because they'd already conquered the galaxy once and were sick and tired of war. It's sobering to think that this could actually be true of us humans in real life.
Since I first learned of it, I've felt the Nietzschean view of humans as divided into sheep and wolves was overly simplistic. Your quote is a good way to explain at least one way in which this is so.
It would have been awesome to have seen a Defiant "wolf pack" on screen. Imagine twenty of them going into battle with a well trained core of officers.
The best we got was the very shport battle between 2x Defiant 1x Akira vs 3x Warbirds in Voyager. And the large battles at the End of the Dominion War.
Play the Star Trek Armada 3 mod for Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion.. I have a fleet of about 30 Defiants doing tactical strikes against my enemies. They pretty much destroy anything you throw them at in one strafing with that many Defiants. Their pulse phasers combined with their Quantum and Photon torpedoes and phaser array all strike while strafing. It is GLORIOUS!
As someone who works in tech, "one space wizard" who comes in and fixes the issue nobody else has been able to fix is pretty accurate. Happens all the time. I've been both the space wizard before and have been the one the SW made look stupid.
Been there too. Funny how the knowledge that makes you the space wizard comes from things you learned banging your head against really stupid annoying problems till they yield. And fixing the things you broke trying to get them to yield.
The 'Pimp Hand' class. Worth the price of admission, right there. Also accurate. It was a fairly spartan vessel and for good reason: it didn't come out until Starfleet was DONE WITH YOUR SHIT. It didn't need a holodeck because it wasn't a rookie ship. When you got on the Defiant, there was a high likelihood you were going out to SHOOT things and you damn well better already have some training and experience or your captain was an idiot for selecting you. The Defiant was not a "fuck around" ship. It was a "fuck around and find out" ship. Now, just imagine if Sisko and O'Brien had got the Defiant up to snuff like they did and sent some updated design schematics back to Starfleet. Even just TWO of those monsters could've given the dominion one whopping bloody nose...imagine a fleet of them.
I get why the Defiant class didn't have a holodeck, the ship was designed to fight, filled to the gills with weapons and armor. While a holodeck is a great technology that could be used for training, it was primary a recreational device. The Defiant class to me wasn't designed to be out exploring or on long missions, it was stationed by starbases and patrolled areas or out on missions. So the crews would be out for weeks maybe a few months and then back for resupply and down time. It's like a submarine compared to other ships of the fleet, submarines are all business with no recreation centers while larger ships had the rec centers.
Submarines absolutely have recreational areas on them. The spaces are just multipurpose. A holodeck is also the ultimate training tool and on a vessel dedicated to war fighting would make for the perfect place to run dedicated drills and important practical qualification training. Not having a holodeck dedicated specifically for training is the greatest waste of that technology.
KDF B'Rel class ships don't have holodecks either. Though they do have room that they spar and practice with weapons in. I'm not sure what it's all used for. Canon really doesn't dive into it beyond that.
@@jasonritner9662 Weird, I Just looked up the article I read a few years ago about fitness on the USS North Dakota, a Virginia-class submarine where in it they state, "There is virtually no personal space, and any large space has more than one purpose. It’s not an environment conducive to training." That the only places to work out are in the mess or the torpedo room. That when you have down time "you can either lie in the environs of your bunk watching movies or playing video games that you loaded onto your phone before deployment, or you can go to one of the larger spaces where people gather: the galley or work zones that double as lounges or gyms." S Submarines don't have rec area's, it's not large enough to have them. Also yes the holodeck is the ultimate training tool but the Defiant class is the smallest starship that Starfleet fields. It's 190m long with 4 decks. The Klingon Bird of Prey, the smallest one is a little big bigger. The Defiant class is designed to go to war and while a holodeck would be nice, they don't have the space for one. Look at the Defiant MSD or Master Systems Display, there isn't and place to put a holodeck. The back half is engines, warp core, fuel and rear torpedo launcher. Front half is computer core, bridge small med bay, crew quarters, a small brig a mess and front torpedo launchers and ammo. There is literally no where they could put one without removing a needed space.
@@steeltimberwolf I'm a former submariner myself and have a bit of an insight into the spaces they have. The spaces are tight but there are areas that serve multiple purposes including recreation, like the crew's mess. On Ohio class SSBNs there's more than enough space for multiple leisure areas. All submarines have workout areas, it's just that it needs to be tucked away in very specific spots to maximize space usage. From an engineering perspective that useful of a space in a ship is such an important thing to add that anyone who is overseeing the design of it and doesn't make room for one is an idiot. (Which, let's face it, most of the on screen star fleet admiralty are either incompetent or corrupt). With how ridiculously useful that room is you could easily repurpose any other common space on board to be a holodeck and turn that space into whatever it needs to be at any other time. I don't buy that their crew's mess couldn't just exist as a holodeck program and then they use that space as a training area during non meal times. The engineering and design space possibility is there, especially as the tech for the decks became miniaturized with full replicator implementation. They replicate almost all of their meals anyways, they don't need actual food prep/storage areas like a modern warship does. I'm actually curious about later ships like the Prometheus Class thay have holo-projectors everywhere on board and how that works out for these types of multipurpose rooms and training in the post Voyager years.
@@jasonritner9662 First off thank you for your service. I will also defer to your personal knowledge about how recreation is done on a sub as all I know is from reading and documentaries about submarine life. While I agree that the holodeck is a great piece of tech, I think that the amount of energy needed to run it, even if they replaced the mess hall with the holodeck and used the holodeck to make a mess hall is to energy inefficient. In Voyager we are constantly told that when they ship starts to run low on deuterium, their fuel, they would shut down the holodecks as they use so much power they have their own reactors. Add in that the holodeck also has support systems that have to be used and it's a big part of the ship. Truth is that the Defiant classes weren't designed to be out in space for long. They were attached to space stations and sent out on patrols, or on specific missions. Look at the Defiant on DS9, unless the ship was out on patrol or on a specific mission it's moored at DS9 where the crew can use DS9's holosuites and other necessities. It wasn't a ship of exploration and as such didn't need to have the holodeck because they wouldn't be out for long. Had a Defiant class been taken to the Delta quadrant instead of Voyager, they wouldn't have lasted long since they didn't have the cargo capacity to keep their crew fed let alone entertained for years. I also did like the idea of having holo-projectors everywhere like on Prometheus, allows for the EMH to be sent anywhere their is a medical emergency. Hell they could have ESH or Emergency Security Holograms to repel borders, the only issue I can see with it is that it's probably very power intensive and if the power goes down then you can't use the EMH or any other holographic systems. On larger ships, holodecks and the tech surrounding them makes sense just not so on the Defiant class, given it's size limitations and that it's not a ship that's deployed on long term missions it's a wasted energy drain.
I've long since come to the conclusion that Starfleet and the Federation's relentless anti-war, pro-negotiation stance has nothing to do with arrogance or naivety, or cowardice. The Klingons and the Romulans and the Cardassians, they all viewed the Federation as a bunch of arrogant fools, too scared and too cowardly to fight. They couldn't be more wrong. Humans were at the heart of the Federation, the heart of Starfleet. Human sensibility, motivation, and culture drive that of the Federation. As such, the focus on negotiation had one reason and one reason only. Human beings weren't scared of losing a war. They weren't cowards. They didn't avoid the fight because they knew they'd lose. They avoided the fight because they knew they'd _win_. They knew from bitter experience that if they reverted to the old ways of Humans of War, they'd become a terror. They knew they'd been going toe to toe with the Klingons and Romulans dedicated warships with science and exploration vessels for years. It was always _obvious_ to me that should Starfleet decide to use Human ingenuity and war techniques to create a full on warship, it would be a devastating change to the balance of power. The others wouldn't stand a chance. Mind you... Can't say I'd hate to have seen it... "This is Admiral Riker, do you require assistance?" "No Admiral, thank you. You scared them off. But... Sir, what is that ship? I've never seen the like of it." "We only left spacedock a week ago. Behold, the USS Retribution, Starfleet's first dedicated Dreadnaught class Battlecruiser. This beauty will cruise at warp 9.9 for 6 months and carries a fleet of 9 Defiant-class escort ships and 70 combat fighters. There are 112 phaser and phased cannon emitters sprinkled around the hull, 56 quantum torpedo launchers, triple redundant shield emitters, warp drive, and main computer, and active armor derived from the USS Voyager. Next to this, a Negh'Var supercruiser looks like a water pistol. Do you like it?"
"- do you like it? Because the next few dozen are rolling out of the yards later this month." Never forget the Federation has terrific industrial and shipyard capacity. You do _not_ want a war with them that isn't over before it starts... because then it will be. (Because _you_ can't win it.)
@@Sorain1 wrong they surrendered to cardassians and other terror power and deliberetly sacrificed civilians to terror torture and death to achieve it cos starfleet was impotent posibly due having family abroad or it was too costly for fed
I think that has been the Vulcans plan for the last 300 years. Gently guide this humans towards something you can live with rather than let them go off on their own and start a Galactic scale crusade.
There's an ancient Andorian proverb that says don't push the pink skins to the thin ice. This is something both the Borg and the Dominion would find quite prophetic.
You have to also remember that at the time of TNG's first season, the Romulans had not been seen in 50 years, the Klingons had been allies for a couple of decades, and smaller skirmishes like the Cardassian border wars were coming to a close. It was probably the longest stretch of relative peace the Feds had seen since it's inception. That's why we have a somewhat relaxed stance to developing weapons of war at that time. We know from Gul Madred that when he was a boy, Cardassia was starving and resource deprived. This was at a time when the Federation was at it's absolute peak, flourishing and expanding.
Well with the cardassian it was a war. But even with their Galaxy-class mentality they dominated them. I mean the cardassian were Beat by the klingons on the other side of the quadron without any Support.
@@MrDeflador The Cardies may have declared war, but those were border skirmishes. The Federation is incredibly vast. The Cardassian border wars were nothing compared to the threat the Klingon and Romulan Empires posed a century earlier. Those were potentially Federation-ending rivalries. We know from Gul Madred's recollections that Cardassia was starving and resource deprived when he was a boy. That was at the same time the Federation was thriving, expanding, and at it's peak. There was never really a contest, and if the Feds weren't as egalitarian as they are, they could've wiped the Cardies back to the stone ages.
I think you're right. Wars like with the Cardassians were so small that Starfleet could just absorb them with relative ease and few casualties. As such the majority of the federation population probably didn't even know they went on.
@@JonathanDoyle-te4mt yes this was feds attitude thay had war with terrorist group that kidnapped and tortured fed colonist fed just didint give an fuck to do anything about them
One thing I do appreciate about the Defiant is that it is evidence of Starfleet's forgetting how to war. For all of its technology and economy... It was a fairly clumsy and imperfect warship. Until the Sorcerer Supreme got his hands on it, of course.
I have to disagree. Of all the Starfleet ships, the Defiant feels the most real of them all. They abandoned all frills, every space has a dual purpose to maximise internal volume usage (unlike the Galaxy which is to a large extent empty space), the ship is compact, the bridge while still being on Deck 1 isn't excessively exposed and above all is seen doing exactly what it was designed to do (kick the ass of ships larger than itself) time and again. It's comparatively rare to hear the words "shields down", "deflectors offline" or "we're losing main power" when the crew of DS9 are on the Defiant compared to even the Intrepid class. This lends to the theory that the Defiant is well built to sustain multiple hits and keep on operating (read: fighting) when other ships would have been disabled or at least have their fighting capabilities reduced. In just a few years in the Trek universe Starfleet went from 'Ensign Ricky sneezed and the warp core exploded' Galaxy class to 'a radiation haulage freighter managed to knock out our main power' Intrepid class and finally 'our shields are down, main power is offline and weapons are out but the ship is still in one piece after fighting the Borg for hours on end' Defiant. I'd say with the Defiant class they nailed it.
Lore keeps deleting all of my comments. This man cannot take an ounce of constructive criticism even though he super pessimistic about everything Star Trek and ridicules it in just about every video FYI the main bridge was not in the nose of the ship. Look up any online layout of the defiant and you'll see it was in the standard Starfleet location, Deck 1 Dead center on the top of the ship. Not sure where you got the bridge was in the nose of the ship
Deck 5 is "waste storage" where the septic tanks are located.A.K.A "Blackwater storage" under emergency conditions the contents of the tanks would be transported onto the enemy ships in both engineering and the command bridges. The resulting chaos from several hundred gallons of sewage suddenly appearing in critical locations can rapidly take enemy combats out of the fight.
As much as Q has been a problem, he did do everyone a favor and show how Dangerous the Borg are. Without him, the Borg would eventually get to Federation space and do some real damage since the Feds wouldn't understand who they are dealing with.
I think it could be reasonably debated that q did in fact do that to help starfleet. I don't think he was necessarily doing it out of the goodness of his heart. His motive in my opinion would be more on the lines of believing the Borg are boring and they wouldn't want them to be the only species in the quadrant to screw with.
I would argue that Q did the Federation a favor in two ways: first, by making Picard sit up and take notice that genuine existential threats that can't be reasoned with were still out there, and second, by giving the Borg a puzzle they would spend loads of time working out, thereby delaying their advance into Federation space. After Q snaps Picard And Friends into Borg space, Picard has the Enterprise scout around a bit before figuring out how to get back to Federation territory. They find a nearby habitable planet that Data reports has an extensive road network, indicating an industrial civilization, but where there should be cities, there are just massive scoops carved out of the surface. He then casually mentions that this looks an awful lot like what happened to a few Federation colonies near the Neutral Zone that mysteriously disappeared. The implication is clearly that the Borg were already probing Federation space, even though Starfleet had no idea who they were. Then the Borg cube shows up, and begins sending drones aboard to survey the Enterprise. My theory is that they already knew what Starfleet ships were like, but had _no idea_ how Picard had suddenly showed up in Borg space, and were mostly trying to figure out how they'd done that. After all, interference from a mysterious race of sarcastic space-Fey isn't a possibility one usually considers. When the crew's statements and ship schematics don't provide any answers - there's no prototype hyperdrive or unusual power source on board, the ship's logs have the Enterprise randomly teleporting from Point A to Point B, Picard clearly has no clue who the Borg even are, and then the ship just vanishes mid-pursuit as mysteriously as it arrived - the situation must have really confused the Collective. My headcanon is that this incident made the Borg back off and spend months, possibly a year or more, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Eventually the Collective concluded that whatever the root cause was, the situation must have just been a weird one-off, so they should go ahead and continue their plan to harvest Mankind - but Q dropping the Enterprise into the J25 system like that made the Borg hold off and gave the Federation not only early warning, but months of extra time to prepare.
You could even theorize that the Q are, deep down where they won’t admit it, afraid of the Borg. If the Borg actually managed to succeed even once in assimilating a Q, then that Q-Borg could assimilate more, and that’s it for the universe. Our Q, being a bit more proactive than most, decided to set a path that would ultimately remove the threat.
@@kevincornell1439 we got that when Tomas took it for a spin and just cut through those Cardassian ships. Dukat himself called one of the most powerful warships in the quadrant.
How do you show that todays opponent is powerful? have it smack down your good guy bad ass. the defiant is the worf of ships. tough as they come but not invincible.
Or in ship terms, I often compare her to some of the "super destroyers" from WW2 like the Japanese Shimakaze which was fast and had enormous torpedo armaments, or the German Z23 which could mount guns designed for much larger ships.
@@heavyarms01h Except the Defiant didn't pack the Lance Cannon of the Galaxy-X or other such special weapons. It was just a more compact and focused design without science labs, captain's yachts, big shuttle bays for a fleet of shuttles/runabouts/fighters or a Ten Forward.
The A-10 is said to have a next gen version! Basically the same plane design mostly but with newer stronger materials to make the Air-Frame from (maybe with a stealth coating but I doubt it!), More powerful and longer range engines, better Armour for the Cockpit, updated cockpit to better use data sharing and satellite connectivity most likely using HUD's like the F-22!
I always thought it was funny that the cloaking device on it was on loan from the Romulan Empire and one of the main conditions to use it on the Defiant was that only a romulan could operate it.. and that was the case... for like 2 or 3 episodes, then the Romulan crew member sort of vanished.
If she was aware of the Dominion simulation in that same episode she may have been considered compromised if she reported it properly to her superiors. Probably also the Federation just continued to negotiate and probably threatened to exclude the Romulans from participating if they didn't relax the terms a bit. The Romulans got a good deal, intelligence on the Dominion without any real risk. The Federation probably knew all about Romulan cloaking tech by this point anyway.
They would have had a cloaking/phasing tech in the episode with John Locke but of course they had to portray William and Picard as little boy.scouts. Oh how nice it would have been if the enterprise escaped the asteroid and Picard gave the technology to the federation while riker cried like a baby
It's a set of guns strapped to an engine. They settled on the name "Defiant" - a name which angrily shakes its fist at the Borg. And that was their second choice, because "USS Ben Sisko's motherfuckin' pimp-hand" was just too long.
Eh, it's understandable why the Federation turned a bit pacifist. After all, the Federation is HUGE compared to the other political entities of the period, larger than the Klingon and Romulan Empires combined. It would be as if the past 70 years since WWII the world was dominated by the US (Federation) and its only real competition were nations with the size/capability equivalent of say Japan or Germany. It's easy to become complacent when you know in your heart that there is no conceivable way your rivals could defeat you if you actually got serious or nasty. Now in the Star Trek universe, the Soviet Union (Borg) did eventually turn up and that prompted a rapid and ongoing military build-up, just as it did in real life.
Star Trek 9 should have been a TNG Dominion War movie, and we could see Picard commanding a fleet, including dozens of Defiant class. That would have been way better than Inserection!
Someone remember the game Birth of the Federation? The Defiant was pretty much the last ship you could unlock and was designated as "Heavy Escort". While the Sovereign was the "Battleship", the Defiant was so strong, that pretty much every fleet would try to escape in a battle, if you had a group of 9, or more, while they'd at least try to fight the Sovereign. It was pretty insane, though it also wasn't the most accurate game, so there is that.
I like that in the first of the Kelvin films, Pike described Starfleet as "a peacekeeping force." This indicates they were capable of fighting to protect the peace of the Federation's member worlds, though this was not necessarily Starfleet's default stance.
Never provoke Starfleet - AND THEN give them time to develop a counter-response. In Best of Both Worlds, if the Borg had sent 5-6 dozen cubes - Game Over The Dominion, if they had quietly waited a year or two while covertly & massively building fleets on the far side of their territory - the shock and awe of 7-8,000 ships pouring out of the wormhole would have quickly brought the Alpha Quadrant to its knees. Granted, that takes the fun out of long term script writing, and the creation of cool ships like the Defiant. So with situations scripted to give the Federation time to come up with a counter defense, I'm glad they developed ships like the Defiant and a more militarized Starfleet.
@@Bobsmith-xq2pr True enough. I'd like to think that if the Dominion hadn't destroyed New Bajor and the Odyssey flat out, DS9 wouldn't have been on such high alert, allowing the Founders to find a more covert way to eventually take out DS9 and that threat before those ships came pouring through. Who knows, so many 'never to be' story possibilities. All and all, I liked the way the DS9 writers took ST into a newer direction, and they gave us a lot of great lore to enjoy even all these years later.
Agree on the Borg. Disagree on the Dominion. A sudden Dominion invasion would have united everyone against them and without an ally in the alpha quadrant their logistics would be relying on a single choke point that could be cut off (the mouth of the wormhole could still be collapsed by then).
@@jerseykaari I read a fan fic once where a Founder copies the Federation President and orders Starfleet to surrender. Many go along, leaving Sisko and Picard to lead a rebel faction. Freed from Starfleet constraints they go hide out somewhere and start cranking out a fleet of Defisnts.
One could even stipulate, that the Federation only survived against such enemies through sheer luck. Or maybe Q just didn't want to see his favorite plaything destroyed.
The Coast Guard is a branch of the military, who conducts patrol, interdiction, and rescue, operations. They also maintained shore batteries. I've always considered Starfleet as a combination of the Coast Guard and NOAA, and in the original treatment for TOS the Enterprise was supposed to be a military ship working with a civilian/government organization to explore the space beyond the Federation border.
Can't get enough of the Defiant! Love it. Just wish they would have built dozens and dozens of them during the Dominion War. Less personnel being used to crew a smaller ship made for war. Logistically should have been efficient.
@@aurorathekitty7854 3 sctually (Defiant, Valiant, and Sao Paolo/Defiant A). But also more if you count the two we see briefly in the Voyager episode Prometheus.
I got the impression that after the retrofitting required to make the original design work well, it was probably a pretty expensive and difficult ship to make. Also love the fact that the Defiant is clear evidence that Sisco was good at out-of-the-box thinking and the beuracratic maneuvers needed to get it done, but a pretty crap engineer. He and O'Brien complimented each other very well.
My guess is they didn't have time. By the time the war was over, the Federation had only built a few new ships. If the war had dragged on longer, many more Defiant class ships would have been built.
@@vic5015 will never agree with the idea that the Prometheus is a good design or this terrifying warship.. how would that ship fight the Borg exactly? Zipping around a cube is 3 smaller easier to destroy bits? Even against something smaller it still seems stupid. Multi vector attack mode? As long as there is only one enemy maybe.. 3 defiants seems more logical to me
I've always liked the Defiant because it was a tank that punched _way_ above its weight class. Before the outbreak of WWII the Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats were scoffed at by top Naval brass because they were wood-hulled boats with little armament (though boat crews added their own armaments, including 20mm and 40mm cannons, rockets, and anything else they could bolt on), and not the giant steel-hulled, fire-sptting battleships which had come to dominate the waves. However, their size, speed and maneuverability were clear assets, as they were nimble, hard to hit, and had the firepower to get in close and sink cruisers (and sometimes converted aircraft carriers) whilst dancing around said enemy craft. The Defiant is essentially the spiritual successor to these boats (though the cloaking device is reminiscent of the U-boat). The Defiant was also necessary. About halfway through _TNG,_ Starfleet's pacifism was pushed to the point of being ridiculous, and IMO becoming a drag on the show. _DS9_ was more realistic because it showed how the rest of the galaxy worked, and displayed how said pacifism had become a crutch upon which the Federation relied. Sisko stating, "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" sums it up nicely. Yes the Galaxy class was a powerful ship. Yes the Miranda- and Excelsior-class refits were good ships. However, while they all excelled at being exploratory ships, the Defiant was a no frills, purpose-built killing machine. The reason it was necessary is because they were on the fringes of the Federation, where civilization was more a concept than a reality. A couple characters from _The Expanse_ sum it up nicely: "The thing about civilization is, it keeps you civil. Get rid of one, you can't count on the other." --Amos Burton, _The Expanse,_ season 5 "People like you always forget Civilization has a lag time...like light delay. You come out here and you think because you’re civilized civilization comes with you...we’re all just walking in the footsteps of history. The ancient frontier, all those post offices and railroads and jails cost thousands of lives to build. And this is no different. I am the kind of man the frontier needs. You’re the kind that comes after my work is done. You should have stayed at home until I built a post office." --Adolphus Murtry, _The Expanse,_ season 4
The Defiant to me is very much an attack vessel. Offensively we see everything Srarfleet had learned to use at this point rolled up into one vessel. It also hits home that this vessel was designed more for the Borg because it can handle any beam like weapon but isn't able to handle torpedoes because the Borg use tracker beams and cutting lazers to take out their enemies, know I know the Borg have missiles but they rarly use them, in fact we only see this on Starfleets first Borg ecounter and the Battle of Sector 001. The Defiant does do its job well because even when put at the first wave of a Borg Battle it is still fighting to the end at the last line with almost no warp power, weapons, or shields. Which also show why the Defiant can handle Borg but not Dominion ships. Now for the elephant in the room the biggest issue for this class of ship wasn't that the Federation hated it as a war ship I think because it wasn't designed as a long range vessel when compared to the Constitution variants which could travel for weeks, months, even years with no real issue. We this quite plainly when a similar Defiant class is stuck hehind enemy lines and is forced to travel for months through Dominion territory, the crew are basically needing to take stimulants to keep going at times. The other big issue might have been cost if the Defiant was many times more expensive than say a Miranda class which could do also everything the Defiant could as well as whay it couldn't hell by the TNG era we saw Miranda classes used as long range scientific vessels with the same compliment of crew. After realizing this I feel Starfleet kept the Defiant as a one off and use the Miranda as the support or pack like vessel class. Not to mention we see vessels like the Sovereign, Prometheus, Akira, Norway, and even Steamrunner classes that could handle both Borg and Dominion tactics. So the Defiant while a good attack vessel just didn't have the utility of its Starfleet counterparts and that was its biggests issue.
Yep.Warship, more so than a Miranda Class or an Oberth Class as a glass cannon with experimental technology or any ship named "Enterprise" with its top-tech and top experts on that ship. "escort" is a warship.
@@That80sGuy1972 well, sure. What is it an escort does/is? It's something heavily armed to scare off the bad guys. Or blow them to bits if intimidation fails.
I actually wouldn't use the term "attack" since when used as a military description it means a very specific role. If I were to borrow terms from the Air Force, I would call it "Space superiority". From the Navy its basically a "Destroyer". "Warship" and "Escort" do work just fine. I would also throw in "Combat Vessel".
Purpose built to be nimble, take a beating from energy weapons, and dish out massive short range damage. The compact shape helps with mobility for strafing attacks (Borg cubes not being known for complex flight patterns). Being a close range vessel, mobility is key to survival (don't get hit, don't explode).
The defiant is how you do a god ship right in my opinion. Sure, it’s overpowered, but it has its limits and the show acknowledges that fact. It doesn’t take on a whole fleet completely by itself, except in that one episode in the mirror universe where the Klingon fleet was lazy, complacent, expected an easy victory, and was arguably technologically inferior to a prime universe defiant at the time.
I always thought of the Defiant class as a heavily armed patrol craft - station one or two of them on colonies as a first line of defense and larger squadrons around strategic starbases. Their smaller size means they can be produced and crewed in numbers larger ships are incapable of. Their high speed and firepower means that reinforcements - with teeth - arrive quickly where they need to be.
TOS was created in the 1960's. TNG was in the late 1980's. Being started before the horrors of the US-Vietnam war were as widely known back home was a very different environment. The US Military had, historically taken on many exploration and scientific missions (exploration of North America and Antarctica, Space exploration and research etc.) and still is when you consider DARPA, the US Space Force, NASA, etc. The social view of the military at this time was much more pleasant. Being written with the scars of the US-Vietnam war behind it, TNG wanted to draw a harder line between the military and scientific sides of the government. This kind of mirrored what NASA was doing, having originally been barely definable as "not military" in the 1950's and 60's, to a (more) purely civilian organization. The evolution of this attitude of Starfleet after Desert Storm/Desert shield to admitting to being more of a military organization in the later seasons of TNG is honestly a very good allegory of the evolution of the US Military moving to become a professional force. It also helped that Roddenberry got his hooks out of the IP.
I find the notion that Starfleet never had warships before, given that the Constitution class was originally listed as a heavy cruiser or battlecruiser, amusing. 'Starship' was just a generic name for Starfleet vessels that had a warp drive. The Defiant was my second favorite ship all-time in Star Trek next to the original Enterprise. The original Enterprise was not the best armed or shielded but it did have one thing that made it superior, beyond a legendary chief engineer and bridge crew, it had luck. Luck goes a long way. Ask the crew of the USS Enterprise...by that I mean the CV-6.
Every flagship like an Enterprise could easily be considered a warship like a battleship. They just never called them warships is all. Classifications are funny that way.
I think the point being made was that most other starships were designed to at least be multipurpose being vessels of exploration that walked softly but had a big enough stick to deal with less than friendly ecounters outside known space the defiant was designed with the offense as priority and exploration as a secondary or even tertiary matter
"The nose (or bridge) would be directly in front of the ship" at 5:09. The bridge of the Defiant class is actually in the middle of the ship (at the top), consistent with the Federation design of a bridge module on top of the primary hull (as opposed to the Klingons who prefer to sit at the tip of the spear). I'm guessing this was just misspeaking since you cover the pod on the front later on.
Several other sources claim the front piece was a devastating warhead. I can't find where I found that it was supposed to be used in a season 5 episode, but I believe there was 3 total episodes that it was proposed being used, but they couldn't find a way to use it without basically going against everything federation. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just means it was a super sized nuke they never had to fire. Star trek lore continues to grow, I hope it is used in the future, somewhere.
I feel i had only ever seen the defiant used properly twice, in the mirror universe vs the Neg'var and the battle with the 3 romulan warbirds where you had 2 Defiant's and an Akira.
Some cool fan service would’ve been to have a massive fleet of modernized Defiants show up in that scene from Picard where Starfleet drops out of warp to meet the Romulan fleet poised to destroy the android home world , I don’t much like the Inquisitor class
There is a fan-made sequence on UA-cam where Riker is on the Ent-E and there are all the modern designs; Intrepid's, Akira's and Defiant's instead of the copy-pasta Inquisitor. I MUCH prefer that to that to what was actually screened.
@@deaks25 I would be fine with Riker on an Inquisitor, BUT I would have loved a proper varied fleet. At least a few Promethius as well since they where supposed to be badass ships too.
@@deaks25 still needs some new designs, it has been a while and newer ships should be mixed in. Also, I am familar with that video and felt the description was way too hostile.
Disagree with your comments on the holo-deck. This ship wasn't meant to have a permanent crew. Its a ship that is crewed and sent out only when needed. So the crew could easily do any training they need while they are in dock. No sense wasting resources on such systems for niche needs.
I disagree, the Defiant is classed as an escort, thus may may (and did) escort convoys, which move fairly slow. If a particular ship is assigned to escort duty it could spend long periods of time not seeing any action, just the ships in the convoys, with potentially very short layovers at star-bases where the crew may be busy doing maintenance on their ship over shore leave, and being sent back out on a long, slow, boring convoy run. a holodeck, or more likely a holosuite, would allow for training done without interfering is ship ops, and give the crew a place to get a change of pace for an hour or two
@@FltCaptAlan As I understand it, there is a reason we typically only see holodecks on the ships of hyper advanced species. They are extremely energy intensive. Star Trek: Voyager even goes so far as to say that the holodeck on the USS Voyager has its own reactor purely to power it. And the power being fueled to it by its reactor is incompatible with the ship's main power grid. Obviously we can't say for sure if this is a constant or if Voyager is a one off due to the nature of the ship, but if their system is that fundamentally incompatible with the holodeck, I struggle to believe the Enterprise-D's even larger holodeck suite wouldn't share that shortcoming.
Based on the fact that it has two stories of windows on the lower inner rim, I'd say the ship is actually closer to 7 or 8 decks and its probably twice as big as its often depicted
5:12 Granted, there's plenty of confusion about what's in the nose (supposedly, the nav deflector and the main docking tube), the latter of which we see every time the ship is docked at DS9 but never seen when in flight (seriously, where is the hatch for that thing supposed to be?). But the bridge is still at the top of the ship in the middle of the bull's eye, not the nose.
I’d say the modern day equivalent to the Defiant would be the Arleigh Burke Class destroyer. Formidable on its own yes but devastating in a fleet supporting a Carrier.
I do not think there are any good modern equivalents. The problem is the Defiant was an anomaly in that it had extremely high damage output for it's size. I would say the closest equivalent in general was the Freedom class LCS, except that she probably did hit as hard as an Arleigh Burke.
There's really no modern equivalent in my opinion. Historically, I'd say HMS Warrior. It was smaller than any ship of the line and infact classed as a frigate in 1860, but had armor and gun size that rendered every warship in the world obsolete. Seems pretty good comparison
It also did away with the idea that warp nacelles needed line of sight with each other in order to generate a warp field. This was why the D'deridex (my personal favorite Trek ship) had so much empty space.
The Akira, steamrunner, and prometheus classes were also apart of the anti borg ship designs. The sovereign class was also apart of this but was quickly augmented to be put against the dominion which is why it was the first ship to field poloron weapons.
Starfleet is an elegant solution to the problem of a large standing military in times of peace. Having a powerful military force just sitting around _twiddling it's thumbs_ and waiting for something to happen can be a destabilizing body in a government … *They may decide to become the government!* - That happens to the Romulans a lot, and the only thing preventing it from being a regular occurrence amongst the Klingons is that their military is divided between the various Houses, so it's not one unified body, which causes other issues, and the occasional civil war. Instead when not in times of war (or a cold war) Starfleet is actually a exploration and research organisation that also maintains order and security, and does 'Humanitarian' * work. Having so many duties keeps its personnel sharp and gives them experience, the mettle is constantly being tested, as are their ships and the organisational structure. And when War does come, Starfleet can _quickly transition into a fully fledged military_ the equal of any in the Quadrant. That is the secret of Starfleets success and the concept behind it; adaptability. It is what it it's needed to be for the circumstances. And that *veneer* of peaceful exploration and idealism is what keeps Starfleet in check, and prevents it from becoming a military dictatorship, which would be a risk with a large standing military in most sci-fi settings, as Admiral Adama once mused (He believed the solution was to have a rigidity defined area of responsibility for the military, but Starfleet has a different approach…). Look at _all the areas of responsibility_ that Starfleet has… keeping them focused on looking outwards (and doing _a lot_ of logistics) _when not at war_ is possibly a bit of social engineering to help create a 'ideal society'. • Humanitarian ideals are at the core of Starfleet, a ironic concept considering the history of Humanity itself. *But …* that may also be a bit of social engineering; a method to get Humanity to live up to its ideals, instead of as is all too common in Human history sinking to follow the lowest common denominator or just the most ruthless. It's my theory that Humans (and apparently Ferengi Bartenders) subconsciously know this about Humans and that's why they have Aliens closely integrated into their organisations and command structure - to keep themselves honest. Non Humans in their group act as a buffer on Humans darker impulses and act as a check on the natural Human tendency to follow the populist or the sociopath, our tribal instincts. What is telling is that the Ship's crew that most failed at living up to the ideals of Starfleet was Human only, the *Equinox* (whether the crew was originally all Human or the Aliens were killed in the Delta Quadrant is irrelevant, except that if they died it means that the checks and balances on the Humans were in place and _then removed)._ Starfleet may be a reflection of Humanity itself, in that "How do we structure this to keep it from turning evil?".
I believe in Star Trek, humanity is so diplomatic because we went so long without unifying. We *HAD* to master diplomacy because we never had a single government to decide things between factions without a war until right before we emerged onto the galactic stage. And having united a bunch of countries that were at each others' throats just a few years before, we naturally saw no objection in principle to uniting a bunch of *PLANETS* that were at each others' throats just a few years before. Even the Klingons have been united for ages, although its a kind of fractious unity.
I think another interesting thing about it is it has a small crew complement and size with the frills stripped out, perfect for mass production. Quantity has a quality all its own, especially for security, patrol, and combat operations across a quadrant or two of space.
The Defiant is without a doubt the best ship class in Starfleet... for warfighting & policing. Small, compact, agile and efficient. No nonsense like captain's yachts, vulnerable necks or pylons. Could try to take on any ship it wanted to, and if four of them were together anything is possible.
I like your line that DS9's "not you're dad's Star Trek" because it's my dad's least favorite Star Trek (at least from the TNG/DS9/Voyager era), but it's both my and my brother's favorite. I love the Defiant, it really shows what Starfleet can do when they set their mind to it. And it's probably my favorite Starfleet ship, although I do like the Sovereign Class too, for basically being a fusion of the Galaxy Class and the Defiant.
Even thought the Defiant is one of Starfleet's most powerful ships, it is a perfect escort. A small, manuvereable ship that can swarm any idiot stupid enough to try and attack whatever a Defiant class ship is protecting. If Picard had a couple of these ships watching his back in Nemesis instead of a couple of Romulan ships, Data would be alive.
@@Rebel-eq7ul I actually think they're MORE Canon than the original series... I hope they make a bunch of movies out of them and at least 6 more seasons each!!
@@arthurfisher1857 you are not a Trek fan. I wish I can have the drugs you are on, please tell me what drugs you are on and where to find them, please, we all need what you are trippin on, and you yourself know that’s a joke just like the whole production of the dumpster fire shows that aren’t canon.
Picard's Enterprise separated into a saucer section and a BATTLESHIP section. How can anyone say or believe that the federation did not have ships capable of war? Starfleet also teaches a whole lot of battle tactics in the academy.
I believe the point was that they never made ships dedicated solely to combat. No Enterprise was just a combat ship, they were made primarily for exploration and science with a bit of combat capabilities out of necessity
Technically, it had a saucer section and a STARDRIVE section, not a BATTLESHIP section. The stardrive section *did* contain the Battle Bridge - aptly named due to it only being used when the ship was in a battle harsh enough to require saucer separation - but the stardrive section itself wasn't designed primarily for battle, just that it can fight effectively and allow civilians to escape in the saucer
I can't wait for the Defiant class ships to appear in settings decades after DS9 serving in diminished capacities like the Miranda's did. Imagine a Defiant serving some mundane task for a colony world, two or three refits down the line, probably de fanged but still sporting a tough as nails design. Could make for an interesting story setting.
In time of war, I want Galaxy class star drive with 10 Defiants attached like aphids all over it. Star drive zips you there, the positioning of the Defiants could have all 10 be able to fire forward at one time.
The defiant, aside from obvious "hero" status, was a cool ship design. A small, highly maneuverable ship that is armed like a wolverine is a perfect answer to all trek warfare issues. The giant dreadnoughts didn't really make a lot of sense considering the tech. A straight line, generally continuous beam is screaming to be dodged. Also, consider that there is rarely an area-negation principle in the trek-style space warfare, maneuverability should be the design of all modern warfleets. No one on trek ever thought 3 dimensionally. The show Andromeda, did space warfare in a much more well thought out way. Being able to rapidly shoot flack into space, deny the enemy the ability choose unfavorable vectors of attack, and countering with small, well-armed, highly mobile and mass-producable fighters seems an ideal strategy for 3 dimensional space fights. Not to write a book here, but the ship-of-the-line in Andromeda also had, without the benefit of shields, a wide array of countermeasures and deterrents. Seems like starfleet could come up with rapid-fire, anti-projectile cannons without much effort. Too bad Andromeda kinda stunk, because Robert Hewitt Wolfe sure spend a lot of time thinking about how things would actually work. If money were no object, I would hire him, recast it, let him go nuts and make it just for me.
@mandellorian "dodging" may have been an overstatement, but the smaller the target, the harder to hit, especially at solar distances with notoriously poorly aimed weapons. As far as a defiant class ship not being able to destroy a dreadnought style ship, you are being flatly ridiculous. Weapons design and yield don't necessarily need size to work and every starship is just a big hallow space. Hit and run tactics could deliver crippling payloads. Finally, the very difficulty of area negation in a 3 dimensional solar space is the reason why a series of smaller, more maneuverable ships would be considerably better. You own name, mandalorian, comes from a series that operates on the very principles I'm discussing. What the fuck are tie fighers and x wings good for? What is the point of firing millions of laser blasts into space in all directions like they do in every single star wars battle ever. Andromeda wasn't a great show, but range of projection is a sound military principle used in every single science fiction series EXCEPT star trek. You need to rethink your ink.
As most people familiar with Star Trek know, in the USS Enterprise 1701 Refit, states "Heavy Cruiser", seen clearer in STIII when Chekov was reading the security display (after McCoy broke into Spock's quarters)!
I know very late to the game here, but I appreciate seeing someone acknowledge that, despite some throwaway comments about it being “one of the most powerful ships in the sector”, the Defiant wasn’t, and never intended to be, some 1v1 take all comers powerhouse. That one Voyager episode showcased the way it was actually intended to be used. Which also brings up the second point: I was always under the impression that the original Defiant was very much a singular ship, and the production models of the class weren’t quite on the same level of power as the prototype
When it comes to compact escort ships of the era, I will always much prefer the Saber-class. The Defiant is an okay experimental ship, but I feel like the Saber-class would fill the role better and look better doing it. Of course, I love the TNG look more than anything.
O’Brien wasn’t a wizard. He was a just the most versatile nco in star fleet. Where most essentially stay in their lane so to speak. O’Brien career gave him a variety of experiences. Tactical officer on the Rutledge, transporter chief, engineer, ect ect.
I think the lying is why the Q focused on the federation vs say the klingons. The klingons were violent but they knew they were violent. They didn't lie about it. The federation covered it with a thin veneer of politeness. Its the old saying about pressure makes diamonds. Humans had not fundamentally changed, they just lived in a world so removed from the nitty gritty that they were arrogantly magnanimous. But what happens when you strip away that thin veneer of politeness. What monster does the federation become?
Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.
I would argue that the Ptolemy was one if not the first war ship. While primarily a transport/tug with various specialized sendary hull sized containers, one was a weapon pod. It bolstered the primarily hulls weapon system with 23 phaser turrets and additional fore and aft torpedo launchers. Another pod was a military troop transport pod making the ship very versatile. It in effect it hid what amounts to a getting gun system in plain sight as a transport. This ship was in service during TOS period, by far predating the defiant.
I just wish we'd seen proper wolf packs of Defiant Class vessels in battle. Maybe have a specialized carrier that used the Phase cloak to carry 5-10 of them docked to the outer hull like the ships in Independence Day.
I kit bashed something along those lines a while back, basically a needle with 5 decks and a set of pylons that swept straight back, then split to hold hold 4 nacelles at a point a little wider than the width of a Defiant. The 5 decks of the carrier were wrapped around a central forward facing phaser lance. To make room for the phaser lance, the deflector shield emitter/subspace communications array would be designed into the leading edge of the nacelle pylons. The carrier could be built longer or shorter to handle more docked Defiant class similar to how we currently split ships in two and add sections to lengthen them. Standard compliment was 6 Defiant class mounted stern to bow facing forwards relative to the carrier. With the ventral side facing the carrier and containing the docking "lugs" power transfer conduits and a turboshaft connection. 3 on the ventral side and 3 on the dorsal side. A group of 6 Defiant class and 1 Needle class carrier would comprise one wolf pack. When combat is imminent, the 6 Defiant class preform a break away maneuver and swarm the attacker while the carrier stays further off ready to use the phaser lance. When caught by surprise the Defiant class take the blow acting like armor plates to the carrier. A potential configuration of the ship is to have Defiant class that are under going repairs docked at the front of the carrier where their weapons could still be utilized by the carrier even if the Defiant class has their propulsion, shields, and main power down.
the forward weapons were Phased pulse cannons. I had this ship in Star trek online... I still use it as my main ship. I configured the ship to be near perfect stealth. All skills of crew and ship stations were configured for 1 hit max damage. Basically the tactic for using that ship was to de-cloak, trigger everything and Fire all cannons, phasers and torpedoes.. Then run out of range and cloak again. The ship was a hit and run. I loved my PVP battles with friends... They could kill me, but If I got a good run... I could cripple a cruiser and escape. Leaving my team mate to drop in and destroy them. Once in a PVP battle I was sat on the hull of my friends ship while he was asking where I was. I replied "scratching my name on your aft thruster port"... He said I was lying... until I dropped the cloak and he was amazed at how close I was. Those times were fun. That ship was fun :P
Thank You!!! A holodeck is the best addition to a ship like the defiant! Not only to train people but to provide a room that can become anything the ship may need but not usually need. We see instances like Barkley creating a neural scanner device or the holodeck interacting with the Krigerwaves like the real laboratory. So why not simulate a additional laboratory? Or a luxury stateroom for diplomatic guests should the need arise? Or maybe a few additional sickbay beds? Instead of carrying all that spaces with you all the time while you need most of them only for short times and not at the same time just load a few presets into the Holodeck and simulate them if you need them while providing the ship with training and recreational spaces while in normal duty?
I expected you to mention Astartes with their bolters, the Imperial Navy and their macro cannons, or Titans with their warhorns that can literally kill any listeners (not even counting their actual weapons yet). I even expected possible mention of Guardian Spears or Chainswords. But you have committed heresy much greater than those omissions. When writing about the weapons of the Imperium of Man, NEVER FORGET THE HIGH AND MIGHTY LASGUN! (Yes this is a joke, I am fully aware that lasguns would be devastating to even the battle tanks of the modern day but are hilariously bad by grimdark standards, and I lack the qualifications to be a keyboard Inquisitor so I wasn't going to seriously tell you off for missing a meme-weapon that the Imperium uses anyways because stagnation and whatnot) What's a loyal citizen of the Imperium doing in a Star Trek comment section, though? You're fairly safe here, given that 40K just generally has bigger guns. But there are exceptions, even when discussing the often-considered-to-be-pansy Starfleet. Be warned, I'm about to start ranting about why the Adeptus Mechanicus needs to find a phaser STC! No, seriously. I'm a massive nerd and I'm about to start ranting about why, in my opinion, Star Trek has a better sidearm than most, if not all factions in 40K. I'm about to recommend tech-heresy in a public forum and the Inquisition will be here with the Arbites to execute me momentarily. The Adeptus Mechanicus might arrive first and leave the Inquisitors to clean up a meatbag filled with radium pellets. I am about to commit heresy by suggesting that the Imperium's technology is inferior to anyone else. And I'm about to throw obscure references to episodes you've likely never watched. Are you still here? I'm sorry if the post takes up too much of your time. I'm sorry you have to put up with me. The post is below. BEFORE WE CONTINUE, I would like to be the first to acknowledge that, to the best of my knowledge, we have NEVER seen a phaser used to the below effect on-screen. The phaser's ability to do so was mentioned in dialogue in a canon episode, but the gun itself hasn't been shown to have this ability, so all speculation below is based on a single line in a single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In video games, standard-issue phasers have been used to do things like melt a 5 meter wide and 30-meter long tunnel through the side of a glacier in a single 5-second burst, but since those games aren't exactly canon, I'll have to consider this as circumstantial evidence at best, and no evidence at worst. I am also venting my frustrations on the comments I found on a Spacedock video about the phaser, which seemed to all miss the part where we have evidence to support that phasers are so powerful that Starfleet captains are angry to be carrying a ship's worth of Age-of-Sail cannons worth of firepower on their hips (Star Trek Discovery novel "The Enterprise War", when Captain Pike is angry that during wartime, Starfleet put more firepower on his belt than the original US Navy USS Enterprise carried in total). About 16 cannons and cannonades packed into a tiny gun on your hip is nothing to scoff at. In public perception, Starfleet has its own lasgun, the high and mighty type-2 phaser. However, the phaser is actually tremendously underrated, based on the validity of a single line of dialogue in a one-off episode. During this episode, in which Riker acts in a play, goes on a commando raid, gets caught by the enemy, then has to live through the plot of the movie Inception except he's the one being interrogated and receiving inception, Riker says that a standard-issue phaser pistol could destroy HALF A BUILDING in a single pull of the trigger (he was standing inside the building, so if he was standing somewhere where he could hit the entire building, he could likely have done more), so I guess it's ironic that the pacifists of Starfleet always carry firepower on their hips to meet (or if Riker can be believed in this scene, EXCEED) the weapons of the Adeptus Astartes. A reminder that it wasn't a small building, either - it was pretty much a full-sized hospital/mental asylum, though we don't know how large exactly it is. Depending on how literal Riker is, a single Starfleet Security officer carries more firepower on their belt than the average Space Marine. Apparently, the phaser can so reliably destroy half a building in a single shot that if it failed to do so, Riker would know that he was in a nightmare and had to wake up (either this or Riker was batshit insane by this point, though this possibility seems unlikely, as the harder he shatters the dream sequence, the more logical and saner he seems to become) If we take this one scene to be literal, then a single redshirt could arguably do more damage to a swarm-based enemy (e.g. Orks with choppas or Tyranid swarming units) in a single shot than a squad of Astartes or a sizable wall of lasguns (and the guardsmen wielding them) in several seconds. Phasers aren't flawless by any means. On building-killer setting ("widespread 16"), the gun takes 6 seconds to cool down, presumably doesn't have many shots due to battery limitations, and due to a safety precaution, is totally ineffective against targets in melee range (the beam only becomes lethal a bit after leaving the gun, effectively leaving Redshirts in a worse position than Tau fire warriors in melee. Oof.). Also, type-2 phasers are not waterproof, meaning that in many environments, the phaser would simply not work (for example, the AdMech Forgeworld Lemuria, for anyone who gets the reference). However, their ability to shoot in many directions simultaneously would make it difficult for foes using Ion Shields to block their shots since Ion Shields, unlike Void Shields, don't envelop the vehicle in a bubble shield, but has to react to each individual incoming blast. Since a phaser can fire in a cone or several beams in several directions at once, they would be almost as effective as massed infantry fire against Ion Shields (and unlike lasguns, phasers can typically disintegrate targets whole, so each beam would be quite a punch indeed). When a literal redshirt, famous for their unfailing ability to die to anything and everything, can reliably wound a Chaos Knight (assuming Starfleet to be the good guys, which is a pretty good assumption), you know that the phaser isn't as horrible as everyone reverse-hypes it up to be, especially since they're literally standard issue. The main reason you'd want lasguns over phasers is probably that the Admech's industrial proficiency allows you to produce an obscene about of lasguns (a single forgeworld can arm armies), while we have no idea how difficult it is to produce phasers. In the time that it takes Starfleet to field a phaser, the Admech has armed several regiments of Imperial Guard, who will gloriously form living walls against all the enemies of mankind. Ironically, the standard-issue sidearm of a "pacifistic exploration organization" might do as much damage to enemy lines as a 40K main battle tank. I'm just trying to imagine Astartes dual-wielding comically small phasers, only firing a shot every 3 seconds, but killing 200+ points of Tyranids in every shot with guaranteed hits and the ability to destroy cover. Man oh man, if Riker was being honest (and he always is), then the humble phaser pistol would be just as broken on the battlefields of Armageddon as on the tabletop. "Destroy any cover in that general direction and any non-Elite troops unlucky enough to be caught in the blast, and deal wounds to the rest" would seem to be the gimmick of the phaser. It isn't even impossible for the Admech to find a phaser STC, since the current 40K events happen some 39000 years after even the latest in Star Trek. I'm sorry you had to put up with all of that, and only because of one line of dialogue in an often-overlooked episode. I wonder if Jonathan Frakes will be remembered as an inspiration for a controversial and admittedly very one-sided 40K/Star Trek fandom war. Though I imagine that John de Lancie's Q would be instant friends with Cegorach, since, in Star Trek beta canon, Q is worshipped by a planet as a "smiling god".
The no holodeck makes sense. This is a runabout - not long missions. You do not do training in it when you are out on a week of mission or two, and run shifts. Training happens in port, where you will be most of the time, and that - well - is where you have holodecks. This is totally NOT a longer term setup at all - keep it in space for 3 months and you have the crew morale breaking down to 0.
The annoying thing for me is the scale, how big or small the ship is shown to be sometimes. looking at the enterprise docked at DS9 in season 1 and the defiant docked at one of the main ports seasons later, it makes the defiant look almost the size of a Galaxy class' secondary hull. other times it looks tiny as it did when it battled an excelsior class in lost paradise.
1rst point - awesome intro 2nd point - great breakdown 3rd point - There wasn't considered enough space for a full holodeck om the defiant since it was suppose to be so barebones all teeth. However, it might have been possible to have a holosuit, it's smaller cousin. Still agree one should have been included but I guess starfleet wanted the full warship experience... bunkbeds, cramped conditions, no RnR... hey gotta keep Troi employed somehow and PTSD sounds like job security!!
I'd classify it as a life boat to have an excuse to make more and dodge all those regulations on "You can't fit that much gun and armor on a Corvette!" It'll definitely serve the function too, if you build enough of them they will be the only thing carrying people out of the battle!
The thing that always bothered me the most whenever the Defiant showed up in a battle was that it was frequently shown to be so "fast and maneuverable" that phaser banks would miss it. That's insane. Any sort of computer-targeted weaponry with essentially instant travel time should NEVER miss, especially something well more than 100 meters in length! That's literally the strength of phaser banks, which have low destructive force against material but do high damage to shields and are guaranteed to land a hit.
It's also a show set in space. You don't have to be pointed in the direction you're travelling, at least at sublight speeds depending on how warp fields are generated. Babylon 5 played with this a little bit, but I think the Expanse is the only show to really get what space combat would look like right.
Just found your vids.. You've got a good voice for this and do well holding the ear. The vids are well laid out and in a logical progression. I enjoyed the last three I watched.. but I'm half tempted to tweak your on screen LCARS for you. The little line on the side repeatedly seizes my ADD addled mind lol.. and the non columnated numbers make my OCD itch. Keep up the good work bro.
The cloaked Defiant being somewhat more detectable at warp was mentioned with respect to Dominion ships, as the Romulans hadn't really sent anything past the wormhole. After learning about that tidbit you can bet Starfleet sent the Defiant and a bunch of ships and class 9 probes through the worm hole to try and find how to detect the vulnerability and came up with nothing. As to why it wasn't an issue with Dominion after that maybe after failing to detect anything they asked the Klingons and got a "Oh that, phhht wow stupid Romulans here's how to fix that. Thanks for telling us what to look for to detect those p'takhs."
not s sure about that since Klingon cloaks are based on Romulan ones. thats what the guy in the first episode of Enterprise was getting to the Klingons the stolen plans.
It is totally a science ship if you look at its design. It can cloak itself to not cause unnecessary alarm and features four very powerful forward-facing analytical sensor arrays paired with plenty of passive sensors to gain insights from the resulting chemical reaction products. It can basically study even very large specimens inside and out. The Deviant ... I mean Defiant can have a great impact on the scientific pursuit, and thus its mission should be understood as historical forward-exploration.
I always disliked the Federation’s Golden Era’s peace ideals. Peace is great. Peace beats war, for sure. But you do have enemies. Those enemies don’t share your beliefs. Rarely did the Enterprise convince some hostile species to change their ways. They win because of technological superiority so the other side quits, but they don’t change. Peace through strength is not an archaic phrase. And all apologies to Vision, strength does not breed challenge but tamps it down. *Recall in Generations that what kept the Gowran sisters from attacking earlier is that they were outmatched by the Enterprise. They weren’t looking for a challenge but easy pickings. The Federation could be a peaceful organization and still maintain a war fleet … in fact, it may have helped that mission be more successful! “What king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet far off, sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.” - Luke14:31-32 The defiant is a necessary component to Star Fleets mission, and should have been complemented with some additional ships whose job it would be to make peace a more valuable proposition.
First Contact should have had a half dozen going in with Worf. Later we saw they built others and part of the smaller compact size, being a weapons platform on an engine was to be able to turn them out like liberty ships in WWII. Rolling off a line like a truck or car every couple weeks. Not built one or two at a time but with a dozen or so per yard at a time at mutiple yards in varied systems. It was basicly a trek version of a WWII fleet escort destroyer. Heavy guns, mine or depth charges and an engine wraped up in a simple hull. As Frakes called it, a tough little ship. The main fleet were general purpose ships geared to explore, defend when needed. The mirandas fitted for war was the closest to a "warship" prior. A light Cruiser that fitted war style was a match for the GP Heavy Cruiser 1701. The large narrow sections of fleet capital ships of starfleet also was an issue rarely corrected properly. The neck and nacelle supports were easy targets that could criple a ship.
Defiant class. The ideal ship for the Maquis resistance. Small, powerful, with a small crew needed for operations. Perfect for their style of Guerrilla Warfare. Hit and run and inflicting maximum damage. A shame that Michael Eddington didn't try and construct any of these using the industrial replicators he 'appropriated', given his access to the schematics and experience with the ship design.
Next to the the Reliant, the Defiant is one of my favorites. In the novel "The Return" there is a Defiant class stealth ship (I can't remember the name and I read it a very long time ago) that has a black hull and no visible markings. It was renamed "Enterprise" for one mission with the newly "regenerated and ressurected" Capt. Kirk. Yeah...it was probably a trash novel "authored" by the Shat but I remember enjoying the read immensely. 😁
The defiant and voyager are my favorite ship designs. I love the power of the defiant and the sleeker design of the voyager...both shios seem to embody the personalities of their captains....as they should.
RE The Defiant Controversy The claim here isn't that "Starfleet never made warships" It's that, "Starfleet doesn't believe in warships." As in currently. As pointed out, at this stage Star Fleet has more or less been in a "golden age" and stuff isn't built for military purposes as the primary (at least not anymore). Nor has it been for a long time. Having to go to another century to find when it was different just reinforces that point.
True, the detachable warhead was never used on screen or mentioned in any episode...but the Defiant was designed with one. As with all last resort options, it was likely never mentioned since the Defiant never really had the opportunity to use such a device. Bear in mind that this information is coming from the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, which was published in 1998, came out 6 years after the series started in 1992. As the Defiant was first seen in 1994, they had years to work on the book, and still the warhead made it into the plans. I would have mentioned the bridge not being in the nose, but a LOT of other people mentioned that, so I don't have to!
I find it odd how short (both fictional and nonfictional) Golden Ages are. For some reason I always figured them to be like epochs (200-300yrs) but generally they’re a generation, maybe two, long. Sad how fast things can fall apart. Makes me wonder if Golden Ages really only come about because the culture having it loses their hunger and coasts to ruin? It only seems golden because you’re living off the sweat equity of those before you … but since you’re not adding to it, it loses steam fast and then all hell breaks loose. It’s never Golden Age then a slow decline … it’s a hard slam into a new reality.
@@Noemo2000, the cycle of civilization. You also see it in Battletech, the Star League only existed for a few centuries before it was torn apart by the Great Houses that built it in the first place. The Succession Wars have lasted far longer than the League was around.
The Defiant was developed along side the steamrunner, norway, sovereign and akira classes as part of a unified borg defense fleet. The Defiant had the most structural difficulties due to its compact size and overpowered control systems. It's weapon systems are equal to a ship 2 to 3 times its size with 4 forward phaser pulse cannons, 2 type 10 beam phaser arrays on the top and bottom of the hull, two forward quantum torpedo launchers (1 more than the Enterprise E) and 1 rear photon launcher as well as ablative hull armor. I don't care what anyone says, the Defiant was a monster.
Starfleet is more then capable of building “we are going to kick your sorry ass and then make you sorry” ships, the easily have the tech to build warships but choose not to out of a over pacifistic view of themselves. Ships like the prometheus including the sovereign and galaxy “X” version, a heavily armed starfleet warship built with nothing but war and killing, depending on your source the 3rd warp nacelle would allow quantum slipstream, what we would call a dreadnaught.
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Cheesing the algorithm, shame on you Lore.
“Starfleet is not a military organisation, our purpose is exploration”
As Sisko once said, “it’s easy to be a saint in paradise.”
Yeah, but how about exploring the exciting world of military violence now and then? Also, quite naive to believe, that the exploration of such a vast galaxy would always yield only peaceful encounters, especially seeing how certain founding members of Star Fleet themselves were quite militaristic and war like in nature. And then still keeping that stance even after encountering multiple militaristic empires and warrior cultures and ending up in military conflicts with them.
Honestly, it's a major miracle that Star Fleet and Earth wasn't annihilated already in its early days. because si vis pacem...!
@@axelhopfinger533 Most Star Fleet vessel had good weapons and defense systems at the time of the construction, with updates and re-fits. So the idea was, we ain't looking of a fight, but we gonna lay down and die either. The Galaxy class for example, had some of the most advanced combat system available at the time so in the dominion war they were to central vessels of combat, with Akira and Defiant classes were support craft to.
Not a military organization, but has high power weaponry, military rank structure, and code of military justice, by just about any metric Starfleet is a military organization. Kirk called himself a soldier many times in TOS.
@@kdrapertrucker So, a military organization in denial then? Or a schizophrenic science and exploration organization, which really wants to be pacifist, but its militaristic alter ego just won't allow it to? Either way, the whole Star Trek universe pretty much is a vindication of the "dark forest" theory. If you go out searching for other alien civilizations, the chances are bigger for them to turn out to be an existential threat to you (or them seeing you as an existential threat) than not. And it's only due to the existence of universal translators, that diplomacy is even an option most of the times.
And the fact that most alien races in the galaxy have been seeded by a common progenitor to follow a very humanoid evolutionary pattern.
@@axelhopfinger533 I agree they have to be a military organization they wouldn't survive otherwise. I see Starfleet like the British royal navy a couple of hundred years ago. They were explorers as well as a military organization. Defending there territory and shipping lanes/ trade routes aswell as finding new, but unlike the British they don't just stick a flag in the ground and say this land is there's. It's a wonder how the federation have survived with the prime directive rule vs other competing empires. The klingons etc just do what they want and take what they want, where as the feds leave a planet don't trade with it or take it's resources or use it as a base because the people are pre warp. The romulans and the rest would place weapons on there and even take over a civilisation to do there bidding. Does star fleet have a ship stay near the planet and try and stop another empire try and take over?
Seeing the Federation's capability for warfare reminds me of an old saying - "There are three things all wise men fear - a sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man." The Federation may be slow to violence, but once it reaches that point, that's how you get ships like the Defiant.
The federation is much like the Doctor. Oh sure they seem nice and they are truly trying to do good. But there is a reason everyone who knows their history fears them. For the Doctor he ended the time war. For the Federation? Well look what happens when they they start waking and realize the seemingly gentle giant can do a lot worse to you.
@@spartanonxy Dominion: "You can't win. You're a 'good people.' And good people have too many rules."
Federation: "Good people don't need rules. *You don't want to know why we have so many."*
Sounds like something guys who idolize joker say
"Let me tell you something about hew-mons, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon."
"... all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
-- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, _Tora! Tora! Tora!_
As someone else posted somewhere: "The Defiant class was designed to strafe much larger vessels. Much larger, cube-shaped vessels."
Well… that and pausing at one side of the cube to transport The Sisko over, strafe around a bit for the look of the thing and pick him up from the opposite side once all the occupants had had their heads kicked in. But I get why they didn’t make that too obvious in the operating manual, not really very Starfleet.
Indeed.
@@smiddlehurst1 A Sisko double handed axe handle punch can kill a borg pretty easily
@@abedfo88 Kirk was the originator of that, not Sisko.
Also space wizards!
Forget where I saw it, but a take someone had that I quite liked was "Humans are not sheep. They are wolves who learned how to wear the fleece of sheep, and chose to live as sheep do, because they know what a world of wolves looks like. Do not make them regret their choice."
It Was Quark!
@@351linzdoctor do you remember the episode?
That's a good saying. Realistically we would be a warrior species that usually choses diplomacy first.
@@SirDankleberry There was this story about a world of people who went out of their way to be peaceful ... because they'd already conquered the galaxy once and were sick and tired of war. It's sobering to think that this could actually be true of us humans in real life.
Since I first learned of it, I've felt the Nietzschean view of humans as divided into sheep and wolves was overly simplistic. Your quote is a good way to explain at least one way in which this is so.
It would have been awesome to have seen a Defiant "wolf pack" on screen. Imagine twenty of them going into battle with a well trained core of officers.
With a couple of three Akira Class flinging volleys.
We kind of get that with the Pilot Escorts in STO.
The best we got was the very shport battle between 2x Defiant 1x Akira vs 3x Warbirds in Voyager. And the large battles at the End of the Dominion War.
Play the Star Trek Armada 3 mod for Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion.. I have a fleet of about 30 Defiants doing tactical strikes against my enemies. They pretty much destroy anything you throw them at in one strafing with that many Defiants. Their pulse phasers combined with their Quantum and Photon torpedoes and phaser array all strike while strafing. It is GLORIOUS!
It would have been great to see the defiant get into a pickle and have another defiant come to save her and then all three blow up a battleship.
As someone who works in tech, "one space wizard" who comes in and fixes the issue nobody else has been able to fix is pretty accurate. Happens all the time.
I've been both the space wizard before and have been the one the SW made look stupid.
Been there too. Funny how the knowledge that makes you the space wizard comes from things you learned banging your head against really stupid annoying problems till they yield. And fixing the things you broke trying to get them to yield.
That is so freakin' true, @@netsplit64 . So VERY true!
I just love the touch where he has O'Brian on screen every time he says 'space wizard'. Finally the man is getting his due.
@@netsplit64 sometimes it's just fresh eyes, too.
"Can't have your chief engineer sitting around when there's... Work to be done, CAN WE?"
"Officially classified as the 'Pimp Hand' class from the SF Debris Division"
Brilliant
Benjamin Sisko's mutha-f***ing pimp hand!
@@justinswinehart5361 thank you
@@jaybeeeasy See video: "Why Sisko is the most badass Captain"
Now I need to see Avery Brooks in full pimp regalia.
The Defiant's battles leave behind a lot of SF Debris.
The 'Pimp Hand' class. Worth the price of admission, right there. Also accurate. It was a fairly spartan vessel and for good reason: it didn't come out until Starfleet was DONE WITH YOUR SHIT. It didn't need a holodeck because it wasn't a rookie ship. When you got on the Defiant, there was a high likelihood you were going out to SHOOT things and you damn well better already have some training and experience or your captain was an idiot for selecting you. The Defiant was not a "fuck around" ship. It was a "fuck around and find out" ship.
Now, just imagine if Sisko and O'Brien had got the Defiant up to snuff like they did and sent some updated design schematics back to Starfleet. Even just TWO of those monsters could've given the dominion one whopping bloody nose...imagine a fleet of them.
I get why the Defiant class didn't have a holodeck, the ship was designed to fight, filled to the gills with weapons and armor. While a holodeck is a great technology that could be used for training, it was primary a recreational device. The Defiant class to me wasn't designed to be out exploring or on long missions, it was stationed by starbases and patrolled areas or out on missions. So the crews would be out for weeks maybe a few months and then back for resupply and down time. It's like a submarine compared to other ships of the fleet, submarines are all business with no recreation centers while larger ships had the rec centers.
Submarines absolutely have recreational areas on them. The spaces are just multipurpose.
A holodeck is also the ultimate training tool and on a vessel dedicated to war fighting would make for the perfect place to run dedicated drills and important practical qualification training. Not having a holodeck dedicated specifically for training is the greatest waste of that technology.
KDF B'Rel class ships don't have holodecks either. Though they do have room that they spar and practice with weapons in. I'm not sure what it's all used for. Canon really doesn't dive into it beyond that.
@@jasonritner9662 Weird, I Just looked up the article I read a few years ago about fitness on the USS North Dakota, a Virginia-class submarine where in it they state, "There is virtually no personal space, and any large space has more than one purpose. It’s not an environment conducive to training." That the only places to work out are in the mess or the torpedo room. That when you have down time "you can either lie in the environs of your bunk watching movies or playing video games that you loaded onto your phone before deployment, or you can go to one of the larger spaces where people gather: the galley or work zones that double as lounges or gyms." S Submarines don't have rec area's, it's not large enough to have them.
Also yes the holodeck is the ultimate training tool but the Defiant class is the smallest starship that Starfleet fields. It's 190m long with 4 decks. The Klingon Bird of Prey, the smallest one is a little big bigger. The Defiant class is designed to go to war and while a holodeck would be nice, they don't have the space for one. Look at the Defiant MSD or Master Systems Display, there isn't and place to put a holodeck. The back half is engines, warp core, fuel and rear torpedo launcher. Front half is computer core, bridge small med bay, crew quarters, a small brig a mess and front torpedo launchers and ammo. There is literally no where they could put one without removing a needed space.
@@steeltimberwolf I'm a former submariner myself and have a bit of an insight into the spaces they have. The spaces are tight but there are areas that serve multiple purposes including recreation, like the crew's mess. On Ohio class SSBNs there's more than enough space for multiple leisure areas. All submarines have workout areas, it's just that it needs to be tucked away in very specific spots to maximize space usage.
From an engineering perspective that useful of a space in a ship is such an important thing to add that anyone who is overseeing the design of it and doesn't make room for one is an idiot. (Which, let's face it, most of the on screen star fleet admiralty are either incompetent or corrupt). With how ridiculously useful that room is you could easily repurpose any other common space on board to be a holodeck and turn that space into whatever it needs to be at any other time.
I don't buy that their crew's mess couldn't just exist as a holodeck program and then they use that space as a training area during non meal times. The engineering and design space possibility is there, especially as the tech for the decks became miniaturized with full replicator implementation. They replicate almost all of their meals anyways, they don't need actual food prep/storage areas like a modern warship does.
I'm actually curious about later ships like the Prometheus Class thay have holo-projectors everywhere on board and how that works out for these types of multipurpose rooms and training in the post Voyager years.
@@jasonritner9662 First off thank you for your service. I will also defer to your personal knowledge about how recreation is done on a sub as all I know is from reading and documentaries about submarine life.
While I agree that the holodeck is a great piece of tech, I think that the amount of energy needed to run it, even if they replaced the mess hall with the holodeck and used the holodeck to make a mess hall is to energy inefficient. In Voyager we are constantly told that when they ship starts to run low on deuterium, their fuel, they would shut down the holodecks as they use so much power they have their own reactors. Add in that the holodeck also has support systems that have to be used and it's a big part of the ship.
Truth is that the Defiant classes weren't designed to be out in space for long. They were attached to space stations and sent out on patrols, or on specific missions. Look at the Defiant on DS9, unless the ship was out on patrol or on a specific mission it's moored at DS9 where the crew can use DS9's holosuites and other necessities. It wasn't a ship of exploration and as such didn't need to have the holodeck because they wouldn't be out for long. Had a Defiant class been taken to the Delta quadrant instead of Voyager, they wouldn't have lasted long since they didn't have the cargo capacity to keep their crew fed let alone entertained for years.
I also did like the idea of having holo-projectors everywhere like on Prometheus, allows for the EMH to be sent anywhere their is a medical emergency. Hell they could have ESH or Emergency Security Holograms to repel borders, the only issue I can see with it is that it's probably very power intensive and if the power goes down then you can't use the EMH or any other holographic systems. On larger ships, holodecks and the tech surrounding them makes sense just not so on the Defiant class, given it's size limitations and that it's not a ship that's deployed on long term missions it's a wasted energy drain.
I've long since come to the conclusion that Starfleet and the Federation's relentless anti-war, pro-negotiation stance has nothing to do with arrogance or naivety, or cowardice. The Klingons and the Romulans and the Cardassians, they all viewed the Federation as a bunch of arrogant fools, too scared and too cowardly to fight.
They couldn't be more wrong. Humans were at the heart of the Federation, the heart of Starfleet. Human sensibility, motivation, and culture drive that of the Federation. As such, the focus on negotiation had one reason and one reason only.
Human beings weren't scared of losing a war. They weren't cowards. They didn't avoid the fight because they knew they'd lose.
They avoided the fight because they knew they'd _win_.
They knew from bitter experience that if they reverted to the old ways of Humans of War, they'd become a terror. They knew they'd been going toe to toe with the Klingons and Romulans dedicated warships with science and exploration vessels for years. It was always _obvious_ to me that should Starfleet decide to use Human ingenuity and war techniques to create a full on warship, it would be a devastating change to the balance of power. The others wouldn't stand a chance.
Mind you... Can't say I'd hate to have seen it...
"This is Admiral Riker, do you require assistance?"
"No Admiral, thank you. You scared them off. But... Sir, what is that ship? I've never seen the like of it."
"We only left spacedock a week ago. Behold, the USS Retribution, Starfleet's first dedicated Dreadnaught class Battlecruiser. This beauty will cruise at warp 9.9 for 6 months and carries a fleet of 9 Defiant-class escort ships and 70 combat fighters. There are 112 phaser and phased cannon emitters sprinkled around the hull, 56 quantum torpedo launchers, triple redundant shield emitters, warp drive, and main computer, and active armor derived from the USS Voyager. Next to this, a Negh'Var supercruiser looks like a water pistol. Do you like it?"
fed is very anti war it was more than villing to sacrifice civilians so they coud avoid it as long treath was low
"- do you like it? Because the next few dozen are rolling out of the yards later this month."
Never forget the Federation has terrific industrial and shipyard capacity. You do _not_ want a war with them that isn't over before it starts... because then it will be. (Because _you_ can't win it.)
@@Sorain1 wrong they surrendered to cardassians and other terror power and deliberetly sacrificed civilians to terror torture and death to achieve it cos starfleet was impotent posibly due having family abroad or it was too costly for fed
I think that has been the Vulcans plan for the last 300 years. Gently guide this humans towards something you can live with rather than let them go off on their own and start a Galactic scale crusade.
“They studied war no more, because they had become too good at it.”
There's an ancient Andorian proverb that says don't push the pink skins to the thin ice. This is something both the Borg and the Dominion would find quite prophetic.
Capt Archer: Ancient?! I'm old, not ancient.
You have to also remember that at the time of TNG's first season, the Romulans had not been seen in 50 years, the Klingons had been allies for a couple of decades, and smaller skirmishes like the Cardassian border wars were coming to a close. It was probably the longest stretch of relative peace the Feds had seen since it's inception. That's why we have a somewhat relaxed stance to developing weapons of war at that time. We know from Gul Madred that when he was a boy, Cardassia was starving and resource deprived. This was at a time when the Federation was at it's absolute peak, flourishing and expanding.
@@agnosticnixie Good catch. thanks.
Well with the cardassian it was a war. But even with their Galaxy-class mentality they dominated them. I mean the cardassian were Beat by the klingons on the other side of the quadron without any Support.
@@MrDeflador The Cardies may have declared war, but those were border skirmishes. The Federation is incredibly vast. The Cardassian border wars were nothing compared to the threat the Klingon and Romulan Empires posed a century earlier. Those were potentially Federation-ending rivalries. We know from Gul Madred's recollections that Cardassia was starving and resource deprived when he was a boy. That was at the same time the Federation was thriving, expanding, and at it's peak. There was never really a contest, and if the Feds weren't as egalitarian as they are, they could've wiped the Cardies back to the stone ages.
I think you're right. Wars like with the Cardassians were so small that Starfleet could just absorb them with relative ease and few casualties. As such the majority of the federation population probably didn't even know they went on.
@@JonathanDoyle-te4mt yes this was feds attitude thay had war with terrorist group that kidnapped and tortured fed colonist fed just didint give an fuck to do anything about them
One thing I do appreciate about the Defiant is that it is evidence of Starfleet's forgetting how to war. For all of its technology and economy... It was a fairly clumsy and imperfect warship. Until the Sorcerer Supreme got his hands on it, of course.
Who's the sorcerer's supreme?
@@HalferLandPerformance I guess chief o'Brien?
@@loadingmikke7451 Yeah just heard that in the video. Appreciate the response anyhow
I have to disagree. Of all the Starfleet ships, the Defiant feels the most real of them all. They abandoned all frills, every space has a dual purpose to maximise internal volume usage (unlike the Galaxy which is to a large extent empty space), the ship is compact, the bridge while still being on Deck 1 isn't excessively exposed and above all is seen doing exactly what it was designed to do (kick the ass of ships larger than itself) time and again.
It's comparatively rare to hear the words "shields down", "deflectors offline" or "we're losing main power" when the crew of DS9 are on the Defiant compared to even the Intrepid class. This lends to the theory that the Defiant is well built to sustain multiple hits and keep on operating (read: fighting) when other ships would have been disabled or at least have their fighting capabilities reduced.
In just a few years in the Trek universe Starfleet went from 'Ensign Ricky sneezed and the warp core exploded' Galaxy class to 'a radiation haulage freighter managed to knock out our main power' Intrepid class and finally 'our shields are down, main power is offline and weapons are out but the ship is still in one piece after fighting the Borg for hours on end' Defiant. I'd say with the Defiant class they nailed it.
Lore keeps deleting all of my comments. This man cannot take an ounce of constructive criticism even though he super pessimistic about everything Star Trek and ridicules it in just about every video
FYI the main bridge was not in the nose of the ship. Look up any online layout of the defiant and you'll see it was in the standard Starfleet location, Deck 1 Dead center on the top of the ship. Not sure where you got the bridge was in the nose of the ship
Deck 5 is "waste storage" where the septic tanks are located.A.K.A "Blackwater storage" under emergency conditions the contents of the tanks would be transported onto the enemy ships in both engineering and the command bridges.
The resulting chaos from several hundred gallons of sewage suddenly appearing in critical locations can rapidly take enemy combats out of the fight.
Thats... actually not a bad tactic.
... kind of a fast-acting version of the tribble transport...
@@stevepalpatine2828 It would be considered a biological weapon, especially with Worf on board.
@@mleadenham1That prune juice probably means his gut bacteria is healthy…very healthy.
As much as Q has been a problem, he did do everyone a favor and show how Dangerous the Borg are. Without him, the Borg would eventually get to Federation space and do some real damage since the Feds wouldn't understand who they are dealing with.
I think it could be reasonably debated that q did in fact do that to help starfleet. I don't think he was necessarily doing it out of the goodness of his heart. His motive in my opinion would be more on the lines of believing the Borg are boring and they wouldn't want them to be the only species in the quadrant to screw with.
@@TheBigMclargehuge
"If the continuum's told you once they've told you a thousand times. DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG!!"
- Q to q
I would argue that Q did the Federation a favor in two ways: first, by making Picard sit up and take notice that genuine existential threats that can't be reasoned with were still out there, and second, by giving the Borg a puzzle they would spend loads of time working out, thereby delaying their advance into Federation space.
After Q snaps Picard And Friends into Borg space, Picard has the Enterprise scout around a bit before figuring out how to get back to Federation territory. They find a nearby habitable planet that Data reports has an extensive road network, indicating an industrial civilization, but where there should be cities, there are just massive scoops carved out of the surface. He then casually mentions that this looks an awful lot like what happened to a few Federation colonies near the Neutral Zone that mysteriously disappeared. The implication is clearly that the Borg were already probing Federation space, even though Starfleet had no idea who they were.
Then the Borg cube shows up, and begins sending drones aboard to survey the Enterprise. My theory is that they already knew what Starfleet ships were like, but had _no idea_ how Picard had suddenly showed up in Borg space, and were mostly trying to figure out how they'd done that. After all, interference from a mysterious race of sarcastic space-Fey isn't a possibility one usually considers. When the crew's statements and ship schematics don't provide any answers - there's no prototype hyperdrive or unusual power source on board, the ship's logs have the Enterprise randomly teleporting from Point A to Point B, Picard clearly has no clue who the Borg even are, and then the ship just vanishes mid-pursuit as mysteriously as it arrived - the situation must have really confused the Collective.
My headcanon is that this incident made the Borg back off and spend months, possibly a year or more, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
Eventually the Collective concluded that whatever the root cause was, the situation must have just been a weird one-off, so they should go ahead and continue their plan to harvest Mankind - but Q dropping the Enterprise into the J25 system like that made the Borg hold off and gave the Federation not only early warning, but months of extra time to prepare.
You could even theorize that the Q are, deep down where they won’t admit it, afraid of the Borg. If the Borg actually managed to succeed even once in assimilating a Q, then that Q-Borg could assimilate more, and that’s it for the universe. Our Q, being a bit more proactive than most, decided to set a path that would ultimately remove the threat.
Everything Q did was for a reason.
.....Except for his appearances on DS9 and Voyager.
For a superpowered warship, Defiant gets beaten up a lot. Only natural seeing that Worf is commanding it.
imagine one commanded by Riker.
@@kevincornell1439 we got that when Tomas took it for a spin and just cut through those Cardassian ships. Dukat himself called one of the most powerful warships in the quadrant.
Taking hits is part of the job.
Must be ramming things quite a bit.
How do you show that todays opponent is powerful? have it smack down your good guy bad ass. the defiant is the worf of ships. tough as they come but not invincible.
She fels like the A-10 warthogs. Tough with a big gun. Though most improvements to reworld weapons are in accuracy and range.
Good comparison
Well, a large, cube shaped vessel is very strafeable...
Or in ship terms, I often compare her to some of the "super destroyers" from WW2 like the Japanese Shimakaze which was fast and had enormous torpedo armaments, or the German Z23 which could mount guns designed for much larger ships.
@@heavyarms01h Except the Defiant didn't pack the Lance Cannon of the Galaxy-X or other such special weapons. It was just a more compact and focused design without science labs, captain's yachts, big shuttle bays for a fleet of shuttles/runabouts/fighters or a Ten Forward.
The A-10 is said to have a next gen version!
Basically the same plane design mostly but with newer stronger materials to make the Air-Frame from (maybe with a stealth coating but I doubt it!), More powerful and longer range engines, better Armour for the Cockpit, updated cockpit to better use data sharing and satellite connectivity most likely using HUD's like the F-22!
I always thought it was funny that the cloaking device on it was on loan from the Romulan Empire and one of the main conditions to use it on the Defiant was that only a romulan could operate it.. and that was the case... for like 2 or 3 episodes, then the Romulan crew member sort of vanished.
If she was aware of the Dominion simulation in that same episode she may have been considered compromised if she reported it properly to her superiors. Probably also the Federation just continued to negotiate and probably threatened to exclude the Romulans from participating if they didn't relax the terms a bit. The Romulans got a good deal, intelligence on the Dominion without any real risk. The Federation probably knew all about Romulan cloaking tech by this point anyway.
@@alexmckee4683 Plus, there's no way the Romulans would be lending a fully up to date cloaking device.
Well, the Chairman of the Tal Shiar is on the Federation's payroll so......
They would have had a cloaking/phasing tech in the episode with John Locke but of course they had to portray William and Picard as little boy.scouts.
Oh how nice it would have been if the enterprise escaped the asteroid and Picard gave the technology to the federation while riker cried like a baby
Keep in mind, Sisko designed them with the expressed purpose of killing Borg.
The Sisko: "You killed my wife. Now you must perish!"
It's a set of guns strapped to an engine. They settled on the name "Defiant" - a name which angrily shakes its fist at the Borg. And that was their second choice, because "USS Ben Sisko's motherfuckin' pimp-hand" was just too long.
@@techsilver7761 the guy who compared the Defiant to an A-10 warthog was spot on. Big guns (and a couple torpedo tubes) strapped to engines.
@@vic5015 And it will shake itself apart if you fire them too long.
Yup. Pure revenge
When I was a diehard Trekker, my favorite ship was "The Defiant." The design seemed to make more sense than the bulk of the Federation's fleet.
Eh, it's understandable why the Federation turned a bit pacifist. After all, the Federation is HUGE compared to the other political entities of the period, larger than the Klingon and Romulan Empires combined. It would be as if the past 70 years since WWII the world was dominated by the US (Federation) and its only real competition were nations with the size/capability equivalent of say Japan or Germany. It's easy to become complacent when you know in your heart that there is no conceivable way your rivals could defeat you if you actually got serious or nasty. Now in the Star Trek universe, the Soviet Union (Borg) did eventually turn up and that prompted a rapid and ongoing military build-up, just as it did in real life.
Star Trek 9 should have been a TNG Dominion War movie, and we could see Picard commanding a fleet, including dozens of Defiant class. That would have been way better than Inserection!
Insurrection was pretty weak
Totally agree
Insurrection it's a Master piece for me
What insurrection? Star Trek Insurrection is a myth. Never proven.
the Son'a were interesting but ya they could have included them as part of a the larger dominion war.
Someone remember the game Birth of the Federation?
The Defiant was pretty much the last ship you could unlock and was designated as "Heavy Escort".
While the Sovereign was the "Battleship", the Defiant was so strong, that pretty much every fleet would try to escape in a battle, if you had a group of 9, or more, while they'd at least try to fight the Sovereign.
It was pretty insane, though it also wasn't the most accurate game, so there is that.
Loved that game, I wish they'd make another or just an enhanced edition.
The Defiant is always a win and O`Brian was indeed quite the space wizard. Essay checks out.
I like that in the first of the Kelvin films, Pike described Starfleet as "a peacekeeping force."
This indicates they were capable of fighting to protect the peace of the Federation's member worlds, though this was not necessarily Starfleet's default stance.
“"peacekeeping and humanitarian armada"”
well, the war with the Klingons wasn't that long ago for them at that time.
@@Slopmaster Maybe it should be 'altruistic' or something. Humans are still so self centered even after all these centuries smh
If we are to stick with the Kelvin Timeline the Dreadnought Class USS Vengeance was the purpose built warship.
@@joeclaridy that is JJ trek wars, not Star Trek.
Never provoke Starfleet - AND THEN give them time to develop a counter-response.
In Best of Both Worlds, if the Borg had sent 5-6 dozen cubes - Game Over
The Dominion, if they had quietly waited a year or two while covertly & massively building fleets on the far side of their territory - the shock and awe of 7-8,000 ships pouring out of the wormhole would have quickly brought the Alpha Quadrant to its knees.
Granted, that takes the fun out of long term script writing, and the creation of cool ships like the Defiant.
So with situations scripted to give the Federation time to come up with a counter defense, I'm glad they developed ships like the Defiant and a more militarized Starfleet.
I'm pretty sure the DS9 would have attempted to destroy the wormhole, and/or use the prophets to deus ex the whole situation.
@@Bobsmith-xq2pr True enough. I'd like to think that if the Dominion hadn't destroyed New Bajor and the Odyssey flat out, DS9 wouldn't have been on such high alert, allowing the Founders to find a more covert way to eventually take out DS9 and that threat before those ships came pouring through. Who knows, so many 'never to be' story possibilities. All and all, I liked the way the DS9 writers took ST into a newer direction, and they gave us a lot of great lore to enjoy even all these years later.
Agree on the Borg. Disagree on the Dominion. A sudden Dominion invasion would have united everyone against them and without an ally in the alpha quadrant their logistics would be relying on a single choke point that could be cut off (the mouth of the wormhole could still be collapsed by then).
@@jerseykaari I read a fan fic once where a Founder copies the Federation President and orders Starfleet to surrender. Many go along, leaving Sisko and Picard to lead a rebel faction. Freed from Starfleet constraints they go hide out somewhere and start cranking out a fleet of Defisnts.
One could even stipulate, that the Federation only survived against such enemies through sheer luck. Or maybe Q just didn't want to see his favorite plaything destroyed.
The Coast Guard is a branch of the military, who conducts patrol, interdiction, and rescue, operations. They also maintained shore batteries.
I've always considered Starfleet as a combination of the Coast Guard and NOAA, and in the original treatment for TOS the Enterprise was supposed to be a military ship working with a civilian/government organization to explore the space beyond the Federation border.
Can't get enough of the Defiant! Love it. Just wish they would have built dozens and dozens of them during the Dominion War. Less personnel being used to crew a smaller ship made for war. Logistically should have been efficient.
They did build dozens and dozens just we only saw 2 on screen
@@aurorathekitty7854 3 sctually (Defiant, Valiant, and Sao Paolo/Defiant A). But also more if you count the two we see briefly in the Voyager episode Prometheus.
I got the impression that after the retrofitting required to make the original design work well, it was probably a pretty expensive and difficult ship to make.
Also love the fact that the Defiant is clear evidence that Sisco was good at out-of-the-box thinking and the beuracratic maneuvers needed to get it done, but a pretty crap engineer. He and O'Brien complimented each other very well.
My guess is they didn't have time. By the time the war was over, the Federation had only built a few new ships. If the war had dragged on longer, many more Defiant class ships would have been built.
@@vic5015 will never agree with the idea that the Prometheus is a good design or this terrifying warship.. how would that ship fight the Borg exactly? Zipping around a cube is 3 smaller easier to destroy bits? Even against something smaller it still seems stupid. Multi vector attack mode? As long as there is only one enemy maybe.. 3 defiants seems more logical to me
I've always liked the Defiant because it was a tank that punched _way_ above its weight class. Before the outbreak of WWII the Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats were scoffed at by top Naval brass because they were wood-hulled boats with little armament (though boat crews added their own armaments, including 20mm and 40mm cannons, rockets, and anything else they could bolt on), and not the giant steel-hulled, fire-sptting battleships which had come to dominate the waves. However, their size, speed and maneuverability were clear assets, as they were nimble, hard to hit, and had the firepower to get in close and sink cruisers (and sometimes converted aircraft carriers) whilst dancing around said enemy craft. The Defiant is essentially the spiritual successor to these boats (though the cloaking device is reminiscent of the U-boat).
The Defiant was also necessary. About halfway through _TNG,_ Starfleet's pacifism was pushed to the point of being ridiculous, and IMO becoming a drag on the show. _DS9_ was more realistic because it showed how the rest of the galaxy worked, and displayed how said pacifism had become a crutch upon which the Federation relied. Sisko stating, "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" sums it up nicely. Yes the Galaxy class was a powerful ship. Yes the Miranda- and Excelsior-class refits were good ships. However, while they all excelled at being exploratory ships, the Defiant was a no frills, purpose-built killing machine. The reason it was necessary is because they were on the fringes of the Federation, where civilization was more a concept than a reality. A couple characters from _The Expanse_ sum it up nicely:
"The thing about civilization is, it keeps you civil. Get rid of one, you can't count on the other."
--Amos Burton, _The Expanse,_ season 5
"People like you always forget Civilization has a lag time...like light delay. You come out here and you think because you’re civilized civilization comes with you...we’re all just walking in the footsteps of history. The ancient frontier, all those post offices and railroads and jails cost thousands of lives to build. And this is no different. I am the kind of man the frontier needs. You’re the kind that comes after my work is done. You should have stayed at home until I built a post office."
--Adolphus Murtry, _The Expanse,_ season 4
The Defiant to me is very much an attack vessel. Offensively we see everything Srarfleet had learned to use at this point rolled up into one vessel. It also hits home that this vessel was designed more for the Borg because it can handle any beam like weapon but isn't able to handle torpedoes because the Borg use tracker beams and cutting lazers to take out their enemies, know I know the Borg have missiles but they rarly use them, in fact we only see this on Starfleets first Borg ecounter and the Battle of Sector 001. The Defiant does do its job well because even when put at the first wave of a Borg Battle it is still fighting to the end at the last line with almost no warp power, weapons, or shields. Which also show why the Defiant can handle Borg but not Dominion ships. Now for the elephant in the room the biggest issue for this class of ship wasn't that the Federation hated it as a war ship I think because it wasn't designed as a long range vessel when compared to the Constitution variants which could travel for weeks, months, even years with no real issue. We this quite plainly when a similar Defiant class is stuck hehind enemy lines and is forced to travel for months through Dominion territory, the crew are basically needing to take stimulants to keep going at times. The other big issue might have been cost if the Defiant was many times more expensive than say a Miranda class which could do also everything the Defiant could as well as whay it couldn't hell by the TNG era we saw Miranda classes used as long range scientific vessels with the same compliment of crew. After realizing this I feel Starfleet kept the Defiant as a one off and use the Miranda as the support or pack like vessel class. Not to mention we see vessels like the Sovereign, Prometheus, Akira, Norway, and even Steamrunner classes that could handle both Borg and Dominion tactics. So the Defiant while a good attack vessel just didn't have the utility of its Starfleet counterparts and that was its biggests issue.
Yep.Warship, more so than a Miranda Class or an Oberth Class as a glass cannon with experimental technology or any ship named "Enterprise" with its top-tech and top experts on that ship. "escort" is a warship.
@@That80sGuy1972 well, sure. What is it an escort does/is? It's something heavily armed to scare off the bad guys. Or blow them to bits if intimidation fails.
I actually wouldn't use the term "attack" since when used as a military description it means a very specific role. If I were to borrow terms from the Air Force, I would call it "Space superiority". From the Navy its basically a "Destroyer". "Warship" and "Escort" do work just fine. I would also throw in "Combat Vessel".
Purpose built to be nimble, take a beating from energy weapons, and dish out massive short range damage. The compact shape helps with mobility for strafing attacks (Borg cubes not being known for complex flight patterns). Being a close range vessel, mobility is key to survival (don't get hit, don't explode).
The defiant is how you do a god ship right in my opinion. Sure, it’s overpowered, but it has its limits and the show acknowledges that fact. It doesn’t take on a whole fleet completely by itself, except in that one episode in the mirror universe where the Klingon fleet was lazy, complacent, expected an easy victory, and was arguably technologically inferior to a prime universe defiant at the time.
I always thought of the Defiant class as a heavily armed patrol craft - station one or two of them on colonies as a first line of defense and larger squadrons around strategic starbases. Their smaller size means they can be produced and crewed in numbers larger ships are incapable of. Their high speed and firepower means that reinforcements - with teeth - arrive quickly where they need to be.
TOS was created in the 1960's. TNG was in the late 1980's. Being started before the horrors of the US-Vietnam war were as widely known back home was a very different environment. The US Military had, historically taken on many exploration and scientific missions (exploration of North America and Antarctica, Space exploration and research etc.) and still is when you consider DARPA, the US Space Force, NASA, etc. The social view of the military at this time was much more pleasant. Being written with the scars of the US-Vietnam war behind it, TNG wanted to draw a harder line between the military and scientific sides of the government. This kind of mirrored what NASA was doing, having originally been barely definable as "not military" in the 1950's and 60's, to a (more) purely civilian organization. The evolution of this attitude of Starfleet after Desert Storm/Desert shield to admitting to being more of a military organization in the later seasons of TNG is honestly a very good allegory of the evolution of the US Military moving to become a professional force.
It also helped that Roddenberry got his hooks out of the IP.
I find the notion that Starfleet never had warships before, given that the Constitution class was originally listed as a heavy cruiser or battlecruiser, amusing. 'Starship' was just a generic name for Starfleet vessels that had a warp drive.
The Defiant was my second favorite ship all-time in Star Trek next to the original Enterprise. The original Enterprise was not the best armed or shielded but it did have one thing that made it superior, beyond a legendary chief engineer and bridge crew, it had luck. Luck goes a long way. Ask the crew of the USS Enterprise...by that I mean the CV-6.
Montgomery Scott and Miles O'Brien are hoisting a pint and shaking their heads in....
Every flagship like an Enterprise could easily be considered a warship like a battleship. They just never called them warships is all. Classifications are funny that way.
Star Fleet was basically low-key "full of sh*t" when it came to their image. It was a great plot point that they explored in DS9.
I think the point being made was that most other starships were designed to at least be multipurpose being vessels of exploration that walked softly but had a big enough stick to deal with less than friendly ecounters outside known space the defiant was designed with the offense as priority and exploration as a secondary or even tertiary matter
I’d rather be lucky than skilled. You don’t have to work at being lucky.
The vast over abundance of Snark and sarcasm in this video is a delight to behold!
"The nose (or bridge) would be directly in front of the ship" at 5:09. The bridge of the Defiant class is actually in the middle of the ship (at the top), consistent with the Federation design of a bridge module on top of the primary hull (as opposed to the Klingons who prefer to sit at the tip of the spear). I'm guessing this was just misspeaking since you cover the pod on the front later on.
Several other sources claim the front piece was a devastating warhead.
I can't find where I found that it was supposed to be used in a season 5 episode, but I believe there was 3 total episodes that it was proposed being used, but they couldn't find a way to use it without basically going against everything federation. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just means it was a super sized nuke they never had to fire.
Star trek lore continues to grow, I hope it is used in the future, somewhere.
I feel i had only ever seen the defiant used properly twice, in the mirror universe vs the Neg'var and the battle with the 3 romulan warbirds where you had 2 Defiant's and an Akira.
There was also the Dreadnoughts dating back to TOS. The USS Entente (NCC-2120) for example.
The defiant is the only dedicated warship of the federation.
Some cool fan service would’ve been to have a massive fleet of modernized Defiants show up in that scene from Picard where Starfleet drops out of warp to meet the Romulan fleet poised to destroy the android home world , I don’t much like the Inquisitor class
There is a fan-made sequence on UA-cam where Riker is on the Ent-E and there are all the modern designs; Intrepid's, Akira's and Defiant's instead of the copy-pasta Inquisitor. I MUCH prefer that to that to what was actually screened.
@@deaks25 I would be fine with Riker on an Inquisitor, BUT I would have loved a proper varied fleet. At least a few Promethius as well since they where supposed to be badass ships too.
I don't mind having the new design or even it being the majority, but every. Single. One. Just boring and lazy. Throw in those old ships, damn it!
@@deaks25 still needs some new designs, it has been a while and newer ships should be mixed in.
Also, I am familar with that video and felt the description was way too hostile.
When measuring the width of any vessel, it's referred to as the "Beam". The beam of Defiant is 134 meters.
Disagree with your comments on the holo-deck. This ship wasn't meant to have a permanent crew. Its a ship that is crewed and sent out only when needed. So the crew could easily do any training they need while they are in dock. No sense wasting resources on such systems for niche needs.
Agree. A holodeck would be useful if the crew lived on the ship long term.
I disagree, the Defiant is classed as an escort, thus may may (and did) escort convoys, which move fairly slow. If a particular ship is assigned to escort duty it could spend long periods of time not seeing any action, just the ships in the convoys, with potentially very short layovers at star-bases where the crew may be busy doing maintenance on their ship over shore leave, and being sent back out on a long, slow, boring convoy run. a holodeck, or more likely a holosuite, would allow for training done without interfering is ship ops, and give the crew a place to get a change of pace for an hour or two
@@FltCaptAlan At least a small Gym for working out. That's the part that they're missing a place to keep your body toned.
I think a small holodeck/suite would be appropriate. Enough to put in one or two stations of a bridge, or one or two pieces of exercise equipment.
@@FltCaptAlan As I understand it, there is a reason we typically only see holodecks on the ships of hyper advanced species. They are extremely energy intensive. Star Trek: Voyager even goes so far as to say that the holodeck on the USS Voyager has its own reactor purely to power it. And the power being fueled to it by its reactor is incompatible with the ship's main power grid. Obviously we can't say for sure if this is a constant or if Voyager is a one off due to the nature of the ship, but if their system is that fundamentally incompatible with the holodeck, I struggle to believe the Enterprise-D's even larger holodeck suite wouldn't share that shortcoming.
I love your Wolfpack analogy on the Defiant Class.
Based on the fact that it has two stories of windows on the lower inner rim, I'd say the ship is actually closer to 7 or 8 decks and its probably twice as big as its often depicted
5:12 Granted, there's plenty of confusion about what's in the nose (supposedly, the nav deflector and the main docking tube), the latter of which we see every time the ship is docked at DS9 but never seen when in flight (seriously, where is the hatch for that thing supposed to be?). But the bridge is still at the top of the ship in the middle of the bull's eye, not the nose.
I’d say the modern day equivalent to the Defiant would be the Arleigh Burke Class destroyer. Formidable on its own yes but devastating in a fleet supporting a Carrier.
Absolutely. I often describe this class as a destroyer to my friends who are less familiar with "Trek" but more familiar with real life navies.
I do not think there are any good modern equivalents. The problem is the Defiant was an anomaly in that it had extremely high damage output for it's size. I would say the closest equivalent in general was the Freedom class LCS, except that she probably did hit as hard as an Arleigh Burke.
A defiant is way more like a torpedo boat than a warship, its utterly dependent on maneuver. He'll if it didn't have ftl I'd call it a fighter.
It's definitely built more to act like a Fast Attack Sub. That's kind of where it gets weird comparing space ships to surface and submarines.
There's really no modern equivalent in my opinion. Historically, I'd say HMS Warrior.
It was smaller than any ship of the line and infact classed as a frigate in 1860, but had armor and gun size that rendered every warship in the world obsolete.
Seems pretty good comparison
It also did away with the idea that warp nacelles needed line of sight with each other in order to generate a warp field. This was why the D'deridex (my personal favorite Trek ship) had so much empty space.
The Akira, steamrunner, and prometheus classes were also apart of the anti borg ship designs. The sovereign class was also apart of this but was quickly augmented to be put against the dominion which is why it was the first ship to field poloron weapons.
Love that ship, had it as my desktop background for years
Starfleet is an elegant solution to the problem of a large standing military in times of peace.
Having a powerful military force just sitting around _twiddling it's thumbs_ and waiting for something to happen can be a destabilizing body in a government … *They may decide to become the government!* - That happens to the Romulans a lot, and the only thing preventing it from being a regular occurrence amongst the Klingons is that their military is divided between the various Houses, so it's not one unified body, which causes other issues, and the occasional civil war.
Instead when not in times of war (or a cold war) Starfleet is actually a exploration and research organisation that also maintains order and security, and does 'Humanitarian' * work. Having so many duties keeps its personnel sharp and gives them experience, the mettle is constantly being tested, as are their ships and the organisational structure.
And when War does come, Starfleet can _quickly transition into a fully fledged military_ the equal of any in the Quadrant.
That is the secret of Starfleets success and the concept behind it; adaptability. It is what it it's needed to be for the circumstances.
And that *veneer* of peaceful exploration and idealism is what keeps Starfleet in check, and prevents it from becoming a military dictatorship, which would be a risk with a large standing military in most sci-fi settings, as Admiral Adama once mused (He believed the solution was to have a rigidity defined area of responsibility for the military, but Starfleet has a different approach…).
Look at _all the areas of responsibility_ that Starfleet has… keeping them focused on looking outwards (and doing _a lot_ of logistics) _when not at war_ is possibly a bit of social engineering to help create a 'ideal society'.
• Humanitarian ideals are at the core of Starfleet, a ironic concept considering the history of Humanity itself.
*But …* that may also be a bit of social engineering; a method to get Humanity to live up to its ideals, instead of as is all too common in Human history sinking to follow the lowest common denominator or just the most ruthless.
It's my theory that Humans (and apparently Ferengi Bartenders) subconsciously know this about Humans and that's why they have Aliens closely integrated into their organisations and command structure - to keep themselves honest. Non Humans in their group act as a buffer on Humans darker impulses and act as a check on the natural Human tendency to follow the populist or the sociopath, our tribal instincts.
What is telling is that the Ship's crew that most failed at living up to the ideals of Starfleet was Human only, the *Equinox* (whether the crew was originally all Human or the Aliens were killed in the Delta Quadrant is irrelevant, except that if they died it means that the checks and balances on the Humans were in place and _then removed)._
Starfleet may be a reflection of Humanity itself, in that "How do we structure this to keep it from turning evil?".
I believe in Star Trek, humanity is so diplomatic because we went so long without unifying. We *HAD* to master diplomacy because we never had a single government to decide things between factions without a war until right before we emerged onto the galactic stage. And having united a bunch of countries that were at each others' throats just a few years before, we naturally saw no objection in principle to uniting a bunch of *PLANETS* that were at each others' throats just a few years before. Even the Klingons have been united for ages, although its a kind of fractious unity.
I think another interesting thing about it is it has a small crew complement and size with the frills stripped out, perfect for mass production. Quantity has a quality all its own, especially for security, patrol, and combat operations across a quadrant or two of space.
The Defiant is without a doubt the best ship class in Starfleet... for warfighting & policing. Small, compact, agile and efficient. No nonsense like captain's yachts, vulnerable necks or pylons. Could try to take on any ship it wanted to, and if four of them were together anything is possible.
I like your line that DS9's "not you're dad's Star Trek" because it's my dad's least favorite Star Trek (at least from the TNG/DS9/Voyager era), but it's both my and my brother's favorite. I love the Defiant, it really shows what Starfleet can do when they set their mind to it. And it's probably my favorite Starfleet ship, although I do like the Sovereign Class too, for basically being a fusion of the Galaxy Class and the Defiant.
Imagine designing a soverign class exactly how the defiant was designed. That would be a pure warship from hell
Oh man its been a while since I watched Lore Reloaded. Damn nice to be back.
"Starfleet never had a warship", they say. Meanwhile, Star Trek III classified the Constitution refit as a heavy cruiser.
Star Trek Lower Decks did in one episode refer to O’Brien as the most important person in starfleet history
Even thought the Defiant is one of Starfleet's most powerful ships, it is a perfect escort. A small, manuvereable ship that can swarm any idiot stupid enough to try and attack whatever a Defiant class ship is protecting. If Picard had a couple of these ships watching his back in Nemesis instead of a couple of Romulan ships, Data would be alive.
Discovery and Picard are not canon
@@Rebel-eq7ul why do you keep posting this comment? Are you trying the whole "repeat a lie often enough it becomes truth" thing?
@@arthurfisher1857 DISCOVERY AND PICARD ARE NOT CANON JUST FACTS ALL SHOWS THAT ARE ACTUAL TREK ARE CANON
@@Rebel-eq7ul I actually think they're MORE Canon than the original series... I hope they make a bunch of movies out of them and at least 6 more seasons each!!
@@arthurfisher1857 you are not a Trek fan. I wish I can have the drugs you are on, please tell me what drugs you are on and where to find them, please, we all need what you are trippin on, and you yourself know that’s a joke just like the whole production of the dumpster fire shows that aren’t canon.
“Mr. Worf, prepare a high-yield photon torpedo and write on it ‘Don’t f with The Sisko.’”
Picard's Enterprise separated into a saucer section and a BATTLESHIP section. How can anyone say or believe that the federation did not have ships capable of war? Starfleet also teaches a whole lot of battle tactics in the academy.
I believe the point was that they never made ships dedicated solely to combat. No Enterprise was just a combat ship, they were made primarily for exploration and science with a bit of combat capabilities out of necessity
Technically, it had a saucer section and a STARDRIVE section, not a BATTLESHIP section. The stardrive section *did* contain the Battle Bridge - aptly named due to it only being used when the ship was in a battle harsh enough to require saucer separation - but the stardrive section itself wasn't designed primarily for battle, just that it can fight effectively and allow civilians to escape in the saucer
Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
I can't wait for the Defiant class ships to appear in settings decades after DS9 serving in diminished capacities like the Miranda's did.
Imagine a Defiant serving some mundane task for a colony world, two or three refits down the line, probably de fanged but still sporting a tough as nails design. Could make for an interesting story setting.
Only for it to still have the hardpoints for weapons incorporated in the design, and some mothballed weaponry still fitting onto the hull.
In time of war, I want Galaxy class star drive with 10 Defiants attached like aphids all over it. Star drive zips you there, the positioning of the Defiants could have all 10 be able to fire forward at one time.
The defiant, aside from obvious "hero" status, was a cool ship design. A small, highly maneuverable ship that is armed like a wolverine is a perfect answer to all trek warfare issues. The giant dreadnoughts didn't really make a lot of sense considering the tech. A straight line, generally continuous beam is screaming to be dodged. Also, consider that there is rarely an area-negation principle in the trek-style space warfare, maneuverability should be the design of all modern warfleets. No one on trek ever thought 3 dimensionally. The show Andromeda, did space warfare in a much more well thought out way. Being able to rapidly shoot flack into space, deny the enemy the ability choose unfavorable vectors of attack, and countering with small, well-armed, highly mobile and mass-producable fighters seems an ideal strategy for 3 dimensional space fights. Not to write a book here, but the ship-of-the-line in Andromeda also had, without the benefit of shields, a wide array of countermeasures and deterrents. Seems like starfleet could come up with rapid-fire, anti-projectile cannons without much effort. Too bad Andromeda kinda stunk, because Robert Hewitt Wolfe sure spend a lot of time thinking about how things would actually work. If money were no object, I would hire him, recast it, let him go nuts and make it just for me.
@mandellorian "dodging" may have been an overstatement, but the smaller the target, the harder to hit, especially at solar distances with notoriously poorly aimed weapons. As far as a defiant class ship not being able to destroy a dreadnought style ship, you are being flatly ridiculous. Weapons design and yield don't necessarily need size to work and every starship is just a big hallow space. Hit and run tactics could deliver crippling payloads. Finally, the very difficulty of area negation in a 3 dimensional solar space is the reason why a series of smaller, more maneuverable ships would be considerably better. You own name, mandalorian, comes from a series that operates on the very principles I'm discussing. What the fuck are tie fighers and x wings good for? What is the point of firing millions of laser blasts into space in all directions like they do in every single star wars battle ever. Andromeda wasn't a great show, but range of projection is a sound military principle used in every single science fiction series EXCEPT star trek. You need to rethink your ink.
As most people familiar with Star Trek know, in the USS Enterprise 1701 Refit, states "Heavy Cruiser", seen clearer in STIII when Chekov was reading the security display (after McCoy broke into Spock's quarters)!
Non Miltary part was pushed by GR when( TNG first two seasons) had change of heart from when the TOS started
Roddenberry Always hated the military elements from my understanding. That’s why TNG was different because he had a substantial amount of control
@@LoreReloaded Season One and Two were the best of TNG.
I know very late to the game here, but I appreciate seeing someone acknowledge that, despite some throwaway comments about it being “one of the most powerful ships in the sector”, the Defiant wasn’t, and never intended to be, some 1v1 take all comers powerhouse. That one Voyager episode showcased the way it was actually intended to be used. Which also brings up the second point: I was always under the impression that the original Defiant was very much a singular ship, and the production models of the class weren’t quite on the same level of power as the prototype
🖖😎👍Very nicely well done and very well informatively executed and explained indeed 👌.
"Be prepared for war but hope for peace" a good motto to live by when you have an empire
When it comes to compact escort ships of the era, I will always much prefer the Saber-class. The Defiant is an okay experimental ship, but I feel like the Saber-class would fill the role better and look better doing it. Of course, I love the TNG look more than anything.
Blasphemy
I hate how exposed the nacelles are on the Saber. It makes sense to keep them close and protected like on the Defiant
O’Brien wasn’t a wizard. He was a just the most versatile nco in star fleet. Where most essentially stay in their lane so to speak. O’Brien career gave him a variety of experiences. Tactical officer on the Rutledge, transporter chief, engineer, ect ect.
I think the lying is why the Q focused on the federation vs say the klingons. The klingons were violent but they knew they were violent. They didn't lie about it. The federation covered it with a thin veneer of politeness. Its the old saying about pressure makes diamonds. Humans had not fundamentally changed, they just lived in a world so removed from the nitty gritty that they were arrogantly magnanimous. But what happens when you strip away that thin veneer of politeness. What monster does the federation become?
Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.
@@noahbody9875 Quark really nailed it.
I would argue that the Ptolemy was one if not the first war ship. While primarily a transport/tug with various specialized sendary hull sized containers, one was a weapon pod. It bolstered the primarily hulls weapon system with 23 phaser turrets and additional fore and aft torpedo launchers.
Another pod was a military troop transport pod making the ship very versatile. It in effect it hid what amounts to a getting gun system in plain sight as a transport. This ship was in service during TOS period, by far predating the defiant.
I just wish we'd seen proper wolf packs of Defiant Class vessels in battle. Maybe have a specialized carrier that used the Phase cloak to carry 5-10 of them docked to the outer hull like the ships in Independence Day.
I kit bashed something along those lines a while back, basically a needle with 5 decks and a set of pylons that swept straight back, then split to hold hold 4 nacelles at a point a little wider than the width of a Defiant. The 5 decks of the carrier were wrapped around a central forward facing phaser lance. To make room for the phaser lance, the deflector shield emitter/subspace communications array would be designed into the leading edge of the nacelle pylons. The carrier could be built longer or shorter to handle more docked Defiant class similar to how we currently split ships in two and add sections to lengthen them. Standard compliment was 6 Defiant class mounted stern to bow facing forwards relative to the carrier. With the ventral side facing the carrier and containing the docking "lugs" power transfer conduits and a turboshaft connection. 3 on the ventral side and 3 on the dorsal side. A group of 6 Defiant class and 1 Needle class carrier would comprise one wolf pack. When combat is imminent, the 6 Defiant class preform a break away maneuver and swarm the attacker while the carrier stays further off ready to use the phaser lance. When caught by surprise the Defiant class take the blow acting like armor plates to the carrier. A potential configuration of the ship is to have Defiant class that are under going repairs docked at the front of the carrier where their weapons could still be utilized by the carrier even if the Defiant class has their propulsion, shields, and main power down.
@@thomasschulz2167 That sounds glorious. It'd be ugly as hell, but it would be a great carrier.
the forward weapons were Phased pulse cannons. I had this ship in Star trek online... I still use it as my main ship. I configured the ship to be near perfect stealth. All skills of crew and ship stations were configured for 1 hit max damage. Basically the tactic for using that ship was to de-cloak, trigger everything and Fire all cannons, phasers and torpedoes.. Then run out of range and cloak again. The ship was a hit and run. I loved my PVP battles with friends... They could kill me, but If I got a good run... I could cripple a cruiser and escape. Leaving my team mate to drop in and destroy them.
Once in a PVP battle I was sat on the hull of my friends ship while he was asking where I was. I replied "scratching my name on your aft thruster port"... He said I was lying... until I dropped the cloak and he was amazed at how close I was.
Those times were fun. That ship was fun :P
If it was so hard to build, how did Smiley build one in the MU without parts or a proper shipyard?
I assume it was because, even in the mirror universe, he’s still Miles O’Brien.
@@mjjoe76 but this Miles never went to Fleet engineering school.
Space. Magic.
@@davidpickens8800 He attended the Terok Nor School of Hard Knocks.
Miles "Sorcerer Supreme" O'Brien plus The Sisko who knew his baby's weak spots. What else do you need?
Thank You!!! A holodeck is the best addition to a ship like the defiant! Not only to train people but to provide a room that can become anything the ship may need but not usually need. We see instances like Barkley creating a neural scanner device or the holodeck interacting with the Krigerwaves like the real laboratory. So why not simulate a additional laboratory? Or a luxury stateroom for diplomatic guests should the need arise? Or maybe a few additional sickbay beds? Instead of carrying all that spaces with you all the time while you need most of them only for short times and not at the same time just load a few presets into the Holodeck and simulate them if you need them while providing the ship with training and recreational spaces while in normal duty?
The baneblade is the reason you don't provoke the imperium of man, as well as the cyclonic torpedoes.
I expected you to mention Astartes with their bolters, the Imperial Navy and their macro cannons, or Titans with their warhorns that can literally kill any listeners (not even counting their actual weapons yet). I even expected possible mention of Guardian Spears or Chainswords. But you have committed heresy much greater than those omissions.
When writing about the weapons of the Imperium of Man, NEVER FORGET THE HIGH AND MIGHTY LASGUN!
(Yes this is a joke, I am fully aware that lasguns would be devastating to even the battle tanks of the modern day but are hilariously bad by grimdark standards, and I lack the qualifications to be a keyboard Inquisitor so I wasn't going to seriously tell you off for missing a meme-weapon that the Imperium uses anyways because stagnation and whatnot)
What's a loyal citizen of the Imperium doing in a Star Trek comment section, though? You're fairly safe here, given that 40K just generally has bigger guns. But there are exceptions, even when discussing the often-considered-to-be-pansy Starfleet. Be warned, I'm about to start ranting about why the Adeptus Mechanicus needs to find a phaser STC!
No, seriously. I'm a massive nerd and I'm about to start ranting about why, in my opinion, Star Trek has a better sidearm than most, if not all factions in 40K.
I'm about to recommend tech-heresy in a public forum and the Inquisition will be here with the Arbites to execute me momentarily.
The Adeptus Mechanicus might arrive first and leave the Inquisitors to clean up a meatbag filled with radium pellets.
I am about to commit heresy by suggesting that the Imperium's technology is inferior to anyone else.
And I'm about to throw obscure references to episodes you've likely never watched.
Are you still here? I'm sorry if the post takes up too much of your time.
I'm sorry you have to put up with me. The post is below.
BEFORE WE CONTINUE, I would like to be the first to acknowledge that, to the best of my knowledge, we have NEVER seen a phaser used to the below effect on-screen. The phaser's ability to do so was mentioned in dialogue in a canon episode, but the gun itself hasn't been shown to have this ability, so all speculation below is based on a single line in a single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In video games, standard-issue phasers have been used to do things like melt a 5 meter wide and 30-meter long tunnel through the side of a glacier in a single 5-second burst, but since those games aren't exactly canon, I'll have to consider this as circumstantial evidence at best, and no evidence at worst.
I am also venting my frustrations on the comments I found on a Spacedock video about the phaser, which seemed to all miss the part where we have evidence to support that phasers are so powerful that Starfleet captains are angry to be carrying a ship's worth of Age-of-Sail cannons worth of firepower on their hips (Star Trek Discovery novel "The Enterprise War", when Captain Pike is angry that during wartime, Starfleet put more firepower on his belt than the original US Navy USS Enterprise carried in total). About 16 cannons and cannonades packed into a tiny gun on your hip is nothing to scoff at.
In public perception, Starfleet has its own lasgun, the high and mighty type-2 phaser. However, the phaser is actually tremendously underrated, based on the validity of a single line of dialogue in a one-off episode. During this episode, in which Riker acts in a play, goes on a commando raid, gets caught by the enemy, then has to live through the plot of the movie Inception except he's the one being interrogated and receiving inception, Riker says that a standard-issue phaser pistol could destroy HALF A BUILDING in a single pull of the trigger (he was standing inside the building, so if he was standing somewhere where he could hit the entire building, he could likely have done more), so I guess it's ironic that the pacifists of Starfleet always carry firepower on their hips to meet (or if Riker can be believed in this scene, EXCEED) the weapons of the Adeptus Astartes. A reminder that it wasn't a small building, either - it was pretty much a full-sized hospital/mental asylum, though we don't know how large exactly it is. Depending on how literal Riker is, a single Starfleet Security officer carries more firepower on their belt than the average Space Marine. Apparently, the phaser can so reliably destroy half a building in a single shot that if it failed to do so, Riker would know that he was in a nightmare and had to wake up (either this or Riker was batshit insane by this point, though this possibility seems unlikely, as the harder he shatters the dream sequence, the more logical and saner he seems to become)
If we take this one scene to be literal, then a single redshirt could arguably do more damage to a swarm-based enemy (e.g. Orks with choppas or Tyranid swarming units) in a single shot than a squad of Astartes or a sizable wall of lasguns (and the guardsmen wielding them) in several seconds.
Phasers aren't flawless by any means. On building-killer setting ("widespread 16"), the gun takes 6 seconds to cool down, presumably doesn't have many shots due to battery limitations, and due to a safety precaution, is totally ineffective against targets in melee range (the beam only becomes lethal a bit after leaving the gun, effectively leaving Redshirts in a worse position than Tau fire warriors in melee. Oof.). Also, type-2 phasers are not waterproof, meaning that in many environments, the phaser would simply not work (for example, the AdMech Forgeworld Lemuria, for anyone who gets the reference). However, their ability to shoot in many directions simultaneously would make it difficult for foes using Ion Shields to block their shots since Ion Shields, unlike Void Shields, don't envelop the vehicle in a bubble shield, but has to react to each individual incoming blast. Since a phaser can fire in a cone or several beams in several directions at once, they would be almost as effective as massed infantry fire against Ion Shields (and unlike lasguns, phasers can typically disintegrate targets whole, so each beam would be quite a punch indeed). When a literal redshirt, famous for their unfailing ability to die to anything and everything, can reliably wound a Chaos Knight (assuming Starfleet to be the good guys, which is a pretty good assumption), you know that the phaser isn't as horrible as everyone reverse-hypes it up to be, especially since they're literally standard issue. The main reason you'd want lasguns over phasers is probably that the Admech's industrial proficiency allows you to produce an obscene about of lasguns (a single forgeworld can arm armies), while we have no idea how difficult it is to produce phasers. In the time that it takes Starfleet to field a phaser, the Admech has armed several regiments of Imperial Guard, who will gloriously form living walls against all the enemies of mankind.
Ironically, the standard-issue sidearm of a "pacifistic exploration organization" might do as much damage to enemy lines as a 40K main battle tank. I'm just trying to imagine Astartes dual-wielding comically small phasers, only firing a shot every 3 seconds, but killing 200+ points of Tyranids in every shot with guaranteed hits and the ability to destroy cover. Man oh man, if Riker was being honest (and he always is), then the humble phaser pistol would be just as broken on the battlefields of Armageddon as on the tabletop. "Destroy any cover in that general direction and any non-Elite troops unlucky enough to be caught in the blast, and deal wounds to the rest" would seem to be the gimmick of the phaser. It isn't even impossible for the Admech to find a phaser STC, since the current 40K events happen some 39000 years after even the latest in Star Trek.
I'm sorry you had to put up with all of that, and only because of one line of dialogue in an often-overlooked episode. I wonder if Jonathan Frakes will be remembered as an inspiration for a controversial and admittedly very one-sided 40K/Star Trek fandom war. Though I imagine that John de Lancie's Q would be instant friends with Cegorach, since, in Star Trek beta canon, Q is worshipped by a planet as a "smiling god".
@@ananonymousnerd.2179 I firmly belive Star Trek stomps Warhammer 40k
The no holodeck makes sense. This is a runabout - not long missions. You do not do training in it when you are out on a week of mission or two, and run shifts. Training happens in port, where you will be most of the time, and that - well - is where you have holodecks. This is totally NOT a longer term setup at all - keep it in space for 3 months and you have the crew morale breaking down to 0.
The annoying thing for me is the scale, how big or small the ship is shown to be sometimes. looking at the enterprise docked at DS9 in season 1 and the defiant docked at one of the main ports seasons later, it makes the defiant look almost the size of a Galaxy class' secondary hull. other times it looks tiny as it did when it battled an excelsior class in lost paradise.
1rst point - awesome intro
2nd point - great breakdown
3rd point - There wasn't considered enough space for a full holodeck om the defiant since it was suppose to be so barebones all teeth. However, it might have been possible to have a holosuit, it's smaller cousin. Still agree one should have been included but I guess starfleet wanted the full warship experience... bunkbeds, cramped conditions, no RnR... hey gotta keep Troi employed somehow and PTSD sounds like job security!!
So would the Defiant be considered a large Corvette or Jack Frigate in old naval parlance?
With such a small crew, I'll go with a Corvette.
I'd classify it as a life boat to have an excuse to make more and dodge all those regulations on "You can't fit that much gun and armor on a Corvette!" It'll definitely serve the function too, if you build enough of them they will be the only thing carrying people out of the battle!
A corvette.
Old Officer training maxim "Sergeants are the solution to every problem". Never underestimate a man who works for a living!
The thing that always bothered me the most whenever the Defiant showed up in a battle was that it was frequently shown to be so "fast and maneuverable" that phaser banks would miss it.
That's insane. Any sort of computer-targeted weaponry with essentially instant travel time should NEVER miss, especially something well more than 100 meters in length! That's literally the strength of phaser banks, which have low destructive force against material but do high damage to shields and are guaranteed to land a hit.
It's also a show set in space. You don't have to be pointed in the direction you're travelling, at least at sublight speeds depending on how warp fields are generated. Babylon 5 played with this a little bit, but I think the Expanse is the only show to really get what space combat would look like right.
Just found your vids.. You've got a good voice for this and do well holding the ear. The vids are well laid out and in a logical progression. I enjoyed the last three I watched.. but I'm half tempted to tweak your on screen LCARS for you. The little line on the side repeatedly seizes my ADD addled mind lol.. and the non columnated numbers make my OCD itch. Keep up the good work bro.
The cloaked Defiant being somewhat more detectable at warp was mentioned with respect to Dominion ships, as the Romulans hadn't really sent anything past the wormhole. After learning about that tidbit you can bet Starfleet sent the Defiant and a bunch of ships and class 9 probes through the worm hole to try and find how to detect the vulnerability and came up with nothing.
As to why it wasn't an issue with Dominion after that maybe after failing to detect anything they asked the Klingons and got a "Oh that, phhht wow stupid Romulans here's how to fix that. Thanks for telling us what to look for to detect those p'takhs."
not s sure about that since Klingon cloaks are based on Romulan ones. thats what the guy in the first episode of Enterprise was getting to the Klingons the stolen plans.
It is totally a science ship if you look at its design. It can cloak itself to not cause unnecessary alarm and features four very powerful forward-facing analytical sensor arrays paired with plenty of passive sensors to gain insights from the resulting chemical reaction products. It can basically study even very large specimens inside and out.
The Deviant ... I mean Defiant can have a great impact on the scientific pursuit, and thus its mission should be understood as historical forward-exploration.
I always disliked the Federation’s Golden Era’s peace ideals. Peace is great. Peace beats war, for sure. But you do have enemies. Those enemies don’t share your beliefs.
Rarely did the Enterprise convince some hostile species to change their ways. They win because of technological superiority so the other side quits, but they don’t change.
Peace through strength is not an archaic phrase. And all apologies to Vision, strength does not breed challenge but tamps it down. *Recall in Generations that what kept the Gowran sisters from attacking earlier is that they were outmatched by the Enterprise. They weren’t looking for a challenge but easy pickings.
The Federation could be a peaceful organization and still maintain a war fleet … in fact, it may have helped that mission be more successful!
“What king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet far off, sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.” - Luke14:31-32
The defiant is a necessary component to Star Fleets mission, and should have been complemented with some additional ships whose job it would be to make peace a more valuable proposition.
First Contact should have had a half dozen going in with Worf. Later we saw they built others and part of the smaller compact size, being a weapons platform on an engine was to be able to turn them out like liberty ships in WWII. Rolling off a line like a truck or car every couple weeks. Not built one or two at a time but with a dozen or so per yard at a time at mutiple yards in varied systems. It was basicly a trek version of a WWII fleet escort destroyer. Heavy guns, mine or depth charges and an engine wraped up in a simple hull. As Frakes called it, a tough little ship. The main fleet were general purpose ships geared to explore, defend when needed. The mirandas fitted for war was the closest to a "warship" prior. A light Cruiser that fitted war style was a match for the GP Heavy Cruiser 1701. The large narrow sections of fleet capital ships of starfleet also was an issue rarely corrected properly. The neck and nacelle supports were easy targets that could criple a ship.
Defiant class. The ideal ship for the Maquis resistance. Small, powerful, with a small crew needed for operations. Perfect for their style of Guerrilla Warfare. Hit and run and inflicting maximum damage.
A shame that Michael Eddington didn't try and construct any of these using the industrial replicators he 'appropriated', given his access to the schematics and experience with the ship design.
Defiant has and will always be my fav ship in all of sci fi, I love her
Next to the the Reliant, the Defiant is one of my favorites. In the novel "The Return" there is a Defiant class stealth ship (I can't remember the name and I read it a very long time ago) that has a black hull and no visible markings. It was renamed "Enterprise" for one mission with the newly "regenerated and ressurected" Capt. Kirk.
Yeah...it was probably a trash novel "authored" by the Shat but I remember enjoying the read immensely. 😁
Yeah those Shatner books weren't Shakespeare but they sure were fun.🙂
Sisko sitting in the escape pod:
"Someone get me a pad, a ship design programme and my god damned stylus because I gotta get some rage and grief out."
The defiant and voyager are my favorite ship designs. I love the power of the defiant and the sleeker design of the voyager...both shios seem to embody the personalities of their captains....as they should.
RE The Defiant Controversy
The claim here isn't that "Starfleet never made warships"
It's that, "Starfleet doesn't believe in warships." As in currently. As pointed out, at this stage Star Fleet has more or less been in a "golden age" and stuff isn't built for military purposes as the primary (at least not anymore).
Nor has it been for a long time. Having to go to another century to find when it was different just reinforces that point.
"It's dumb not to have this technology..."
Exactly! Where the hell are you supposed to store the lightning cannon?!
They could defo do with installing the Captain Proton 'Death Ray' 😊.
True, the detachable warhead was never used on screen or mentioned in any episode...but the Defiant was designed with one. As with all last resort options, it was likely never mentioned since the Defiant never really had the opportunity to use such a device. Bear in mind that this information is coming from the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, which was published in 1998, came out 6 years after the series started in 1992. As the Defiant was first seen in 1994, they had years to work on the book, and still the warhead made it into the plans.
I would have mentioned the bridge not being in the nose, but a LOT of other people mentioned that, so I don't have to!
Golden Age Starfleet was like the Jedi Order right before the Clone Wars in many ways. The Dominion War was the Clone Wars for Star Trek
I find it odd how short (both fictional and nonfictional) Golden Ages are.
For some reason I always figured them to be like epochs (200-300yrs) but generally they’re a generation, maybe two, long. Sad how fast things can fall apart.
Makes me wonder if Golden Ages really only come about because the culture having it loses their hunger and coasts to ruin? It only seems golden because you’re living off the sweat equity of those before you … but since you’re not adding to it, it loses steam fast and then all hell breaks loose.
It’s never Golden Age then a slow decline … it’s a hard slam into a new reality.
@@Noemo2000, the cycle of civilization. You also see it in Battletech, the Star League only existed for a few centuries before it was torn apart by the Great Houses that built it in the first place. The Succession Wars have lasted far longer than the League was around.
The Defiant was developed along side the steamrunner, norway, sovereign and akira classes as part of a unified borg defense fleet. The Defiant had the most structural difficulties due to its compact size and overpowered control systems. It's weapon systems are equal to a ship 2 to 3 times its size with 4 forward phaser pulse cannons, 2 type 10 beam phaser arrays on the top and bottom of the hull, two forward quantum torpedo launchers (1 more than the Enterprise E) and 1 rear photon launcher as well as ablative hull armor. I don't care what anyone says, the Defiant was a monster.
Starfleet is more then capable of building “we are going to kick your sorry ass and then make you sorry” ships, the easily have the tech to build warships but choose not to out of a over pacifistic view of themselves. Ships like the prometheus including the sovereign and galaxy “X” version, a heavily armed starfleet warship built with nothing but war and killing, depending on your source the 3rd warp nacelle would allow quantum slipstream, what we would call a dreadnaught.
There's also the Starfleet Dreadnought (USS Vengeance I think it was called) fron the Kelvin Timeline.
Remember for all that the Galaxy class was a space liner, it could still more than stand up to other races warships.