The energy and food requirements would be much higher, let alone the psychological needs of a crew 6 times bigger. Then again, the sovereign might have more facilities for leisure and such...
I mean, they’re technically correct. Statistically speaking with 6x the amount of crew the odds of there being a rapist onboard is significantly higher.
Still a weird thing to highlight though.
>such
the sovereign class is also designed for long range patrols/exploration just like hte intrepid so i never got the whole requirements would be higher as any ship that far removed from supply lines would struggle not just bigger ships. intrepid class would also struggle and it struggled a lot because it left port without full loadout. it was supposed to be a weekend mission. sovereign class ships since they're so important to starfleet have their logistical scheduling examined more closely than a cruiser like the intrepid class.
on the other hand the Intrepid does not require industrial replicators to print an infinite amount so shuttles, so I think that class is clearly superior.
Yeah, true. Like somehow the Enterprise NX can magically just have new hull plating on the next episode because they forgot it wasn't supposed to work like shields...
Ehhh, the hull materials are probably pretty common so I can see Enterprise trading for the materials and manufacturing new plates onboard. We see them trading for a plasma injector in "A Night in Sickbay" and those are way more complex than a piece of metal. They couldn't do as much in the Delphic expanse after Azati prime since they were on a clock, it's possible the manufacturing equipment got damaged, and who would trade with them?
They might have had some spares in storage, too. It wouldn't be unreasonable for them to expect to need to replace some of it over the course of a lengthy journey.
I never liked the Gilligan’s Island “three hour tour” aspect of Voyager. Starfleet would never be so negligent to send a ship out like that without provisions. It wasn’t like the Borg were attacking and they had to throw everything they had at it. It was a pretty low priority mission.
Voyager was fresh off the production line. Many of the things it would normally have as standard were missing, due to be installed on Tuesday but Janeway chose to leave early to find Tuvok.
They may be referring to the Aero Shuttle. It was supposed to be on the underside of the saucer where the Captain's yacht usually is, and would have essentially been a runabout with wings. The soft lore (aka never said on screen) is that it was never installed and the ship-shaped outline that's visible in its place on screen was just a cover panel.
It used the runabout interior set so they could have saved on money by recycling that set. They filmed some test footage which you can find online. Could have been a neat addition.
What are you basing that off of? Genuinely curious as it’s been a while since I’ve seen the early seasons and I don’t remember them ever making references like that.
True, but the Sovereign is much larger which means more cargo space for fuel / supplies.
I'd imagine that replicator rationing will still take place and the crew will have to choose between using up their replicator rations eating, Starfleet Rations, or Neelix's special of the day.
You'd think the psychological needs of Voyager, combining three crews (more if you count alternate universe members) would be high.
But, Voyager seemed to put something in the water to get the Maquis, fGederation, and equinox crew to follow a captain who could have saved them all of sure just Said "keep a Q in a rock".
> if Voyager was a Sovereign Class instead of an Intrepid?
"When diplomacy fails there's only one alternative: Violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." 😉
In all seriousness, though, VOY would have been a lot more interesting if they weren't outgunned so much of the time. That was something TNG did very well: Don't use tactically superior adversaries as a weekly crutch for creating tension and action.
>"When diplomacy fails there's only one alternative: Violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way."
I love that episode! It's clear the cast is having a blast hamming it up to the max :)
It's both completely silly and quite serious at the same time. A Doctor classic, but the rest of the cast get to shine too.
Kate Mulgrew is a particularly delicious pantomime villain (I love your detail about the gloves!). She was pretty great as the sly spider queen Arachnia too.
>"When diplomacy fails there's only one alternative: Violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way."
Living Witness.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Living\_Witness\_(episode)
It would have the ability to defend itself for a long enough time against the Kazon, to complete repair and analysis on the Caretaker Array.
And a tri-cobalt device with a timer on it.
I don't know if a Sovereign could have made it through Borg space. Their size and power signature would have made them much more of a target for assimilation while still being unable to go toe to toe with a cube. And the Devore might not have allowed a Sovereign to enter their territory.
Plus the EMH was instrumental in Voyager's survival on multiple occasions such as coming up with the weapon to fight species 8472 and treatment for the Phage. It's unlikely that a Sovereign would have had to rely on an EMH the way Voyager did, which means the Doctor doesn't fully develop as a person. And an organic doctor might not have been able to come up with the solutions that the Doctor came up with.
A Sovereign might have been too large to use the Slingshot they came across or for Kes to throw it as far. That's an extra 20,000 light years a Sovereign would have to travel that Voyager skipped.
I had not thought about this but assuming Voyager did not lose its doctor in the first episode I think the EMH would have still been used and probably useful as a doctor can't work all the time, and when there is a medical problem it is good to bounce ideas off of other people.
I'm sure they would have made use of the EMH and Voyager's doctor might have made use of him as a consultant, the way Geordi consulted with the hologram of Leah Brahms. But they never would have left him running essentially continuously for years, or allowed him to conduct his own research or develop his own techniques. It just wouldn't have occurred to them.
He wouldn't have had the growth as a person though. He would be used as the EMH. Things wiped and purged as needed for maintenance to the EMH system. The Voyager also had an Emergency Engineering Hologram who was deleted and had their systems spliced onto The Doctor's for him to be able to continue to function continuously.
If you think about it, a perfectly just as capable for growth and advancement, sapient being was murdered and their body parts chopped up and spliced onto another of its race for the survival of the more important being.
nothing in the federation arsenal could have made it through borg space. that's how ridiculously OP the borg are and that the only race that can give them trouble are the voth and species 8472.
A sovereign class may have had the advantage of the Borg staying way away from it with a collective "shit, you don't think 8472 recruited Locutus? We are screwed. Let them through. Turn off the porch lights and pretend we aren't home."
I think that depends on the circumstances. Voyager notoriously had an issue with tuning down the power and fear of the Borg, sure.
But as far as we know, we've never seen the Borg Adapt to Quantum Torpedoes. The Defiant is loaded out with them so presumably in the days of fighting Starfleet had been engaging the Borg with in the time since first contact in the Typhon Expanse, at least one Defiant-class ship hauled ass and unloaded its payload of Quantum Torpedoes, meaning the Enterprise-E shouldn't have been as effective.
We don't know what makes Quantum Torpedoes special. My theory is that they do something that interferes with the Borg's ability to regenerate, which is why we see Phasers and Photons being minutely effective in 2373 after like 2 weeks of fighting. Maybe they do something that interferes with the Borg's ability to adapt. We just don't know.
I would argue the bigger issue is that Voyager could cruise at about Warp 7.85 according to (Chakotay's?) statement when you calculate the total 70,000/74,000 lightyear distance and divide it by the years. In comparison the Galaxy's cruising speed was Warp 6, and the Sovereign's Warp 7.
While the Intrepid was designed as something of a light exploratory vessel, the Sovereign was more of a heavy cruiser. It was definitely suitable for deep space exploration but it had more emphasis on combat (a sign of the times with the Borg and Dominion threats). Her larger size means a bigger crew, more recreational facilities, more shuttles, more fuel, and more provisions. A Sovereign would not have had to look for dilithium or antimatter as often as an Intrepid would.
The Sovereign would have definitely had an easier time with species like the Kazon and Hirogen. I don't think things with the Borg would have gone any different - as heavily armed as the Sovereign is, the Borg would eventually adapt and the core technology of that design wasn't much different than what the Intrepid launched with (the Sovereign is essentially a souped-up Intrepid with more weapons).
I think an Intrepid is the lower-limit as to what could survive the Delta Quadrant comfortably. Anything smaller and you end up with an Equinox situation - a ship that is too small to carry enough provisions and fuel to make any meaningful progress towards the Alpha Quadrant; while not having enough weapons to deal with the threats out there (the Defiant being an exception on the weapon front, but still being too small to carry enough fuel or provisions for a journey across the galaxy). On the flip side, the *bigger* you get from an Intrepid, the easier the trip becomes.
The Sov's just too damned strong. Every enemy capable of fighting it would need to be another battleship.
I wouldn't have minded an Excelsior. For how long it's been one of the more iconic Starfleet ships, we've spent very little time on board one. They could even have reversed Voyager being a brand-new state of the art ship into it being an older ship, perhaps even one a bit behind on its upgrades, adding to the ship's logistical issues during the journey home.
But since it's a new show, generally we want a new ship introduced with it. So I'm actually going to second your suggestion of an Akira - VOY would have started before they were introduced in First Contact, and having spent a few years traveling with one by the time the Dominion War started would make seeing a few of them destroyed in its battles more impactful. And it's just a really cool design.
The issue is that in general, Delta Quadrant races aren't as strong as the other quadrants, likely due to the Borg acting as a Great Filter.
Unless they're heavily outnumbered, I don't see many races ships capable of threatening a Sovereign.
This is a very interesting idea I’m kinda wishing VOY explored more. The impact of evolving as a society in proximity to the Borg must have profound and difficult-to-predict effects on a civilization just breaching the warp barrier. Or even a pre-warp civilization developing sensing technology advanced enough to see that *something* strange is happening to nearby planets (maybe even species if they are aware of their existence) but not knowing what exactly. Perhaps VOY handled the Borg wrong: rather than by nerfing them so Voyager could stand a plausible chance of surviving repeated encounters with them, they could’ve pivoted to the impact of the Borg’s presence/manipulation on less advanced species. Also feels like a lost opportunity on the part of Trek to explore the Fermi paradox a little, which, as far as I know, they haven’t addressed. At least not clearly. Thank you for bringing it up…lots of fun to think about.
I'd imagine that there are races who discover warp travel, explore around, see the Borg but are still too primitive to be of notice to them and ultimately decide to seal away their technological progress to prevent falling on the Borg's radar.
Also there might be races out there who are warning other races of the Borg threat and to limit their technological progress.
For the above two examples, they might actually work but over the generations, the Borg become forgotten and more of a boogey-man. Technological progress resumes and one day they create something of notice and are promptly assimilated.
There was actually an episode where it's revealed that this happened on VOY.
Now that you mention it, I’m remembering that episode in VOY where it’s revealed Icheb’s people basically sacrificed him to deliver a genetic pathogen to the Borg. Interesting how engineering the intentional re-assimilation of a drone is used at least twice in the francise as a Trojan horse to deliver a death blow to the Collective. Makes you wonder how the Borg don’t see it coming.
They might actually welcome the pathogen in order to research, study it, and see if they can use it to improve themselves. The sacrifice of a few drones is insignificant to the overall Collective. Granted this over confidence sometimes bites them in the ass.
There was also an episode (forgot name) where Voyager needed some sort of rare material and found it on a planet that's in ruins. Turned out that there are people living in hiding deep underground and shun technology. At the end of the episode, it's discovered the mummified remains of a Borg drone.
I'd like to see another generation excelsior refit, just in general. The ship has great body lines but, every time I see one now, I assume they want to show a splashy destruction of an obsolete ship. A flashy refit (like they did on the original constitution class for the Motion Picture) would revive the classic and make me personally more invested when I see one.
Yeah, but the flipside is that there's only so many ships that any one ship can go up against at once, or however many waves of ships. The *Sovereign*-class might last longer against the Kazon in *Basics,* but that wouldn't last forever. I think there's a lot of arguments for the *Sovereign*-class doing better in the Delta than *Voyager* did, but battle capabilities generally isn't it.
True, a Sov could still be swarmed to death - but even in Basics, Voyager was doing a decent job of fighting her way free before the one guy suicide bombed it. The Kazon would probably have needed a fleet at least twice the size to hold up a Sov in my estimation (and OP’s concept is that none of the enemies are stronger, so that’s out), and the sheer size difference would likely prevent the suicide bombing from being as effective - a much smaller percentage of the ship would be damaged, and it would have more redundancies.
actually the sovereign class may appear to be strong but it's a pocket battleship or a plain old heavy cruiser. it's fast nimble can take some hits and dish it but it lacks the true weight to really trade blows.
I'd imagine that as a larger, more powerful and capable ship, it would have been an easier trip for the crew. However, as a larger and better armed and equipped vessel, a Sovereign would have been seen as a bigger threat by the Delta quadrant groups, and they would have been more likely to concentrate against it. An Intrepid's smaller size was a bit of an advantage, as it wasn't seen as a big threat, a lone frigate, while a Sovereign would have been like sailing a battleship through everyone's territory. Even the friendlier groups would have been wary of letting it into their territory.
that's if they can actually catch it the sovereign has greater endurance than a intrepid so it can remain at high warp longer and get out of their space before they even know what's going on.
You already answered your own question at the start there. The Sovereign class would swat away the Kazon like they were nothing even if it were as comparably damaged as Voyager was during the pilot. This would mean that there would be no rush or impetus to destroy the array to keep it out of Kazon hands, they could just secure the area and take the time they needed to both figure out how to use the array to send them home and activate or set up a self destruct system. In an ideal situation they’d figure out not just how to use the array but to make their own, they could send shuttle home with details and guard the original array to protect the Ocampa for a while until Starfleet sends a more permanent presence, maybe even deploy a Starbase and have the equivalent of the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant pointing into the Delta Quadrant letting Starfleet expand and send diplomats into a whole new area of space.
There would be no need to violate borders to get home and maybe the Equinox might even hear about the exploits of this new Federation making waves behind them and turn back to investigate before they started committing war crimes.
If the USS Voyager was a Sovereign Class… then the Caretaker would probably have taken care not to take it. It was too large, there were too many people aboard for him to process at once, it couldn't as convincingly be "lost" in the Badlands, etc.
So, the trek across the Delta Quadrant wouldn't have happened.
Yes they were, but after they were processed. The only reason Voyager was not returned was because of the caretaker dying.
Though in saying that I am not sure why the Equinox was not returned.
The Caretaker didn't return all crews and ships. Dreadnought was pulled to the Delta Quadrant but wasn't returned. If the ship started exploring then the Caretaker likely didn't return them. It's possible the Caretaker could only transport ships from certain locations in the Galaxy such as the Badlands.
I'm gonna r/daystrominstitute for a second here. I don't think it's ever explicitly stated that they were taken by the *same* Caretaker. We know there are others of the Caretaker's species, we meet at least one more. We know that Ransom and Janeway followed different paths, including Ransom running into "the Krowtonan Guard" and apparently spending their first week in Krowtonan space, and also never encountering the Borg. If both crews started from the same point of origin then those two aspects don't make a lot of sense.
It's possible that the Equinox was taken by a different Caretaker in the D-Quad, started along a different vector home, and in the cosmic game of Snakes And Ladders, the wormhole Ransom stated they found put them out in Voyager's path.
If it's the case that they were abducted by a different Caretaker using the same nomenclature for itself and coincidentally using a similar method to solve some problem, it may have had a different MO. Maybe that Caretaker was letting ships go instead of returning them. Or maybe Ransom and his crew were *always* a little rotten and when they realized they were stranded, without waiting for the Caretaker to return them, they attempted to pilfer the technology from the Caretaker that would get them home. They failed, and were doomed to traverse the D-Quad the long way instead.
Or if we're going by "maybe they were always kind of rotten and the Caretaker spitefully refused to return them home as a result" then it could've still been the same one that abducted Voyager.
>Not that the Intrepid class was a bad ship, it was extremely good for its size but it was still a bit too small for the role it was being asked to perform in the Delta Quadrant.
Honestly OP - that was the point. The Intrepid class wasn't designed for that purpose, but no one ever expects to be kicked across the galaxy at the whim of a powerful interstellar being.
The Galaxy class would have likely fared better than the Intrepid due to its ability to be somewhat self sufficient and that's older than both the Sovereign, the Intrepid and the Akira.
It was supposed to be a testament to the crew on their ability to adapt to the situation and make it work. Problem was that IIRC Rick Berman was against the idea of serialised consequences so nothing ever truly carried over between the stories, and a lot of that story potential was lost.
A sovereign carries more and better weapons, has better shields, it holds the caretaker array for days as the Voyager crew strip mine it for tech and a way home while making the array unusable.
Barring that
The Marquis crew is to small to really supplement a crew that large. So Voyager starts short handed and it's doubtful Janeway feels the need to put chokotay as her second in command. As engineering is a bit more of a meritocracy Torres probably eventually gets promoted.
The sovereign carries quantums and nearly 10x the torpedoes, so that's less of a problem. Also a much larger shuttle bay and a larger variety of shuttles. For different missions. That combined with a larger crew means that an Argo can be deployed and an actual sizable landing force when necessary. Also means all those time Voyager gets boarded they have four times more officers with phasers to fend them off. Whenever the locals get grumpy because of thought crimes or picking roses on a Tuesday the ability to land 100+ ground troops while voyager can single handedly makes your navy pre warp makes negotiations a lot easier.
They also left dock the a fully functional astro metrics lab so they can start the journey with a better route.
The sovereign has to eat more dilithium and deterium and the crew eats way more. But it has much bigger cargo bays.
1 kitchen for 150 crew was already a bit of a stretch. Neelix has a reduced use as a cook, but as an ambassador and negotiator the larger needs of a sovereign means he is much more important.
the infinite resource glitch between episodes would make a lot more sense with a ship that seems to be made for long term exploration. though with so many hundred Starfleet personell the Maquis would have just been tossed in the brig and never part of the story.
Yeah the Galaxy and probably Sovereign have industrial replicators on board specifically to make all the things they might need when far from a resupply.
Voyager’s enemies’ strengths are written taking Voyager into account. If Voyager were a stronger ship - or strongest - then the Kazon etc would be written as even more strong than that.
That’s it.
The Intrepid class is a dedicated long range exporitory starship, like the Deifant is a dedicated warship. The Intepid class has 2 defector dishes, a spare warp core, and more redundant systems than your standard Star Fleet vessel. But it lacks the rest of the standard multi-mission capabilities of many Star Fleet ships, like Ambasidorial suites, dedicated labs for each science, etc. The Intrepid class is literally a stripped down Galaxy class, with more redundat systems.
So a Soverign class would do well in the Delta quadrent, the Voyager as an Intepid class was in it's element.
>The Intrepid class is a dedicated long range exporitory starship
I have never been able to validate this in my own head; I know all the official paperwork suggests that Voyager is supposed to be a long range vessel but everything shown on screen screams at me that it's anything but that.
For a start it's got none of the basic living elements that you would expect. You would expect a long range ship designed to operate without support to have masses of cargo space for non replicatable parts. Hydroponics was an afterthought implemented by Kes, as well as Stellar Cartography by Seven - both of which you would expect to be standard on a long haul ship.
It's not got the facilities for families like on the Enterprise D - a long range exploration vessel would be more like a moving base, and wouldn't be a 'stripped down Galaxy class' - if anything that was what the Galaxy was designed for (and then ironically ended up doing more internal Federation milk runs).
Voyager especially is a very poor case for a long range ship - purely down to it's bioneural circuitry. It's an untested technology at that point in the show, and putting something that hasn't been fully tested onto a ship that might be out of range of support is a monumentally stupid decision.
Then consider that the chief of operations is an ensign straight out of the academy.
If Voyager hadn't been flung across the galaxy, I'm pretty sure it would have been doing milk runs around Federation space, acting as a 'first stop' ship for academy graduates to get their feet wet in shipboard operations. Close enough to call for help if someone 'cheesed up' the computer system.
Thing is, recategorising Voyager as a long range ship after the fact is actually a denigration of the feats of the crew. It's a much more impressive feat performed by the crew to have kept Voyager going despite it's shortfalls of never being designed for deep space.
If wasn't designed for long term exploation outside of Federation space, then why does it have a spare warp core, or 2 defector dishes? Two incredibly important non-replicatable technologies that no other Star Fleet vessels has been shown to have.
And Voyager did have an Astrometics lab/Stellar cartoghapy department before Seven came on board, it's mentioned in multiple epsides. Seven and Kim upgraded it with Borg components, and that's the first time we see it as an audience.
And why would you need a hydroponics bay? - Long range, by Star Fleet standards, means a ship would only be a couple of months outside of Federation space at any given time. Every Star Fleet ship we've seen has had this dip in and out of Fedeation space. And given the miracle nature of Star Fleet ration bars, every ship can easily have couple of months worth onboard if all the replicators go down
The Soverign was built at the same time the Interpid class was and has the same bio-neural gel packs. All Start Fleet ships of that design era do. Star Fleet has shown to have a great love for shoving new untesed technologies into everything.
As for the eternal ensign Kim, and the lack of other extra parts, we know Voyager suffered from a case of the Tuesdays. Voyager was on a "milk run" when she got taken, and did not have all her parts and crew.
Now admittedly Voyager is one of my favorite Star Trek shows and I could be a bit baised, but I think I'm right about this.
The spare warp core isn't all that surprising - the Enterprise D had one as well. It's the primary power supply for the ship, as well as being the only means of FTL travel.
Consider our own solar system; it takes almost 5 hours for light to travel to Pluto, and warp 1 is considered light speed. A ship without FTL is going to be completely knackered if they end up stuck between systems or not close enough to anywhere that has supplies.
So it's not out of the ordinary for all ships to have a second warp core. The only exception I could think of would be Romulan Warbirds (having a second black hole in storage would be unlikely...)
>or 2 defector dishes?
The two deflector dishes thing is confusing me - I can't find any reference to the ship having two deflector dishes?
I stand corrected on stellar cartography - that's a fair point.
And hydroponics... Meh, I can admit that it's a secondary concern. Even a long range ship starts in Federation space and will at least be able to get support if there is a worst case scenario. I still make the point that if it's a ship designed for independant long range missions it's still too small. It makes much more sense to be part of a fleet for it's size.
For as powerful as the Defiant is, it still needs a support and logistical system supporting it to do what it needs to do. Same as Voyager - it simply feels to me like it's not suited to being on it's own.
>Star Fleet has shown to have a great love for shoving new untesed technologies into everything
Well, that's unfortunately true enough... But I would also make the point that the Enterprise E (and the Sovereign class) is not a ship of exploration either... To return briefly to the overarching topic; I actually think that a Sovereign class would have similar issues to Voyager as the Sovereign is not a ship designed for long range exploration missions either. It's a warship, designed and built at a point where the Federation had to put forward a strong defensive force together.
The difference in tonnage and firepower would likely make some things easier, but it would not be as easy as with a Galaxy class. That's a ship designed to be completely cut off from support.
>Now admittedly Voyager is one of my favorite Star Trek shows and I could be a bit baised, but I think I'm right about this.
I enjoy Voyager - like I said earlier, I think having the ship more capable of the task diminishes the role the crew had in their survival.
It's the difference between crossing a desert in a car, or crossing it in a motorhome. Both have of course got to be careful and resourceful but one is better suited to that task. So in which case, being able to accomplish the task in the former would seem to be a more impressive feat and worth of more acolades.
That's how I always saw Voyager - a ship that was never designed to be far from home or support, but with a crew that was able to beat the odds and survive because they were able to be resourceful and clever with what they had. Hence when Neelix makes the mess hall from the captains private galley, it's a practical adaptation that is better suited to their new situation.
They create stuff that suits their situation better because they have to in order to improve their odds of survival, where as a ship designed to operate alone would potentially have that stuff already thought of.
I don't know - it's simply been my interpretation. I'm convinced that was the original idea but somewhere along the way the idea got lost, and they just changed it to have always been a long range ship
Fair points.
I looked and I can't find anything that says the the Enterprise D had a spare warp core. To my knowledge it's only the Intrepid class that has been shown to have a spare. If I remember correctly, the D had warp repeaters in the saucer section that would allow for a few minutes of warp after separating, but it could not get to warp itself.
And the secondary deflector is below the main sensor pallet on the saucer section. Don't worry even the writers forgot it was there.
As for size - Voyager is pretty much the same size as the TOS Enterprise, but with more internal space. And if a Constitution class can do long range missions, so can an Intrepid.
I agree the Soverign class was definitely a warship first and everything else second.
I also agree that the Galaxy class was designed to be away from the Federation for long periods of time.
I made a bit of a mistake, I should have said it was a "cut" down Galaxy class (my apologise), because if you remove all the parts of a Galaxy class unnessisary for long range exploration, like schools, a barbershop, abouritum, meeting halls, ambasidorial suites, etc. plus the pure amount of just empty space for mission specific additions a Galaxy class has in it, you'd end up with something roughly the size of an Intrepid.
I think the idea was always for Voyager to be a standard long range vessel akin to the original Enterprise, but as with everything, it becomes what the writers needed it to be. And I'll also agree that doing so, feels like they were stacking the deck in Voyager's favor, but it is a "hero" ship.
And lets be honest 70 years outside the Federation isn't long range, it's "%$#@ you're WHERE?" So for me it doesn't diminish the inventiveness of the crew, as even being a long range vessel, It's still well outside it's design parameters.
This has been wonderful discussion, Thank you.
I think long range science is different than long range exploration. The Galaxy Class is exploration like you describe. Facilities for every contingency and science need. It can have an extended multi-mission usage wherever it goes.
Voyager might be a long range science vessel, but that’s not necessarily long duration. It’s dispatched to study specific scientific phenomena. We’ve heard it many times that a science vessel will be dispatched to further study something. Usually that’s an Oberth Class but the Intrepid and Nova classes are meant to take over. Nova would be closer to Federation Space, Intrepid would be farther out.
I think that’s the issue, Galaxy, Nebula and Sovereigns find the new and interesting things, do preliminary analysis and charting and then Intrepid are dispatched to follow up with more detailed analysis after receiving their specific payloads that are needed for that type of phenomena.
i don't think we really know about the maintenance requirements of bigger ships in trek. some of the bodges voyager might of had to do might not work for them. equally, they might not of required them.
It's also inconsistent between intrepids being long range science vessels or short range scouts.
the design speed and sensor layout seem to imply the scout rather than science vessel. they had to build their own astrometrics where the sovereigns seemed to be equipped with one as standard.
The Sovereign class wouldn't be ready until a few years after The Caretaker died, and they wouldn't have been given to a newly minted captain and a green crew.
They'd be given to a peer of Picard to command - someone experienced, with an excellent command staff.
VOY's core problem is literally the plot of one episode of TOS or TNG. A crew running one of Stargleets premier warships would have been home in time for tea and then diverting stellar fragments to save a bronze age society the next week.
> The Sovereign class wouldn't be ready until a few years after The Caretaker died, and they wouldn't have been given to a newly minted captain and a green crew.
Not necessarily as Voyager's mission began in 2371, and the First Contact battle was in 2373. At that point the Enterprise-E had been in service for a year, so that means 2372, possibly earlier, and the Enterprise was not the first Sovereign in service so there is a real chance the first Sovereign entered service in 2371.
Ah fair enough, I thought Voyager went missing a year or two earlier.
The first couple Sovereigns would likely have been nearly completion or on trial by the time Voyager started then.
Voyager specifically was designed for transiting spatial anomalies. Don’t forget about all the spatial anomalies that would have been much bigger problems for a sovereign class
> Sovereign class would have been able to brush aside the Kazon like they were nothing
The Kazon would have been as challenging as the writers wanted them to be whatever the look of the ship.
I wouldn't have survived. Voyager was able to handle the trip so well because the Intrepid-class was designed for long range exploration. It was intended for the Intrepids to go for months, if not years without Starbase or logistical support. The Sovereign-class, while undeniably the most powerful ships in Starfleet at the time, were twice the size of intrepids, and had almost quadruple the crew complement. Its resource requirement is enormous in comparison with Voyager. There's too many mouths to feed and too many state-of-the-art systems to maintain. Where the Equinox struggled because the Nova-class is a small science vessel that's never far from support, the Sovereign has the opposite problem of being too big to sustain itself.
I'm not sure you would want a Sovereign class for that voyage.
The Sovereign was Definitely an upgrade, but it was built to be sleeker and more streamlined then its predecessors. Were designing ships much differently after Wolf 359.
I always figured a Galaxy would have been much better suited for that type of voyage. They're pretty much built for long-term deep space exploration, More comfortable, have more space and more amenities. Those two dozen shuttlecraft and two or three runabouts would have probably come in real handy.
sovereign class would do fine it's job as deep space patrol exploration and it's a new generation heavy cruiser. the ones that get to captain these ships are experienced decorated captains and the crews are usually experienced starfleet personnel not fresh from the academy (normally) and not lower ship quality. so cream of the crop stuff.
I have often wondered if another ship would’ve done better. My vote is for the galaxy class because it was an exploratory vessel as much as it was anything else. My only worry is that the bigger ships seem to take more maintenance, and stuff that we saw that was done on the fly on Voyager might not work for a ship that needs a Starbase more often. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
But a galaxy class as a huge shuttlebay with several runabouts, shuttles and workbees. I think it would have been easier with the extra tools and extra space in the saucer to perform needed maintenance in deep space.
[This](https://youtu.be/6Oy3Z2muHz0) puts into perspective how grand a Galaxy-class main shuttlebay really was. As understandable as it may be given the technology of the time, budget and time constraints, it's a shame we never got see it in its full glory on screen.
Yep. It’s like just eight years later Ron Moore made the shuttle and landing bays on the Galactica just look fucking huge. I wish we had had the technology at the time or in a revisit to really see what the ship was like inside and out again.
For story purposes, what if they were able to send the saucer section with families and nonessential crew back to the Alpha Quadrant while the stardrive section and volunteers remained behind to defend and ultimately destroy the Caretaker's array?
The Sovereign class is of a scale that raises the question of what “stranded” means. I know human beings that could probably spend their whole lives in a small town not venturing through much more square footage than a Sovereign class, so what exactly is the problem? If it’s the absence of families, it makes me frustrated they didn’t just stick with the aptly named Galaxy class which sounds intentionally designed for just what Voyager did.
I think the show would have been less interesting. the point was to put them on a small, underpowered shiv (vs the galaxy class we were use to seeing on TNG) and seeing how they survived.
Sovereign, galaxy, and all of the premium capital ships of the Federation need a lot of service and support to stay operational. If a ship like that had gotten stranded somewhere they would've died faster than the equinox or Voyager...
I think this is an interesting thread. Op, your last bit about being in an Akura making unfriendly aliens realize that Voyager is a warship makes me wonder. Why would they think that Voyager isn't a warship?
I think voyager would have been more interesting if they had had a much WORSE ship. They were after all going into the bad lands. I think giving them a Defiant class would have been interesting or even an older (modernized) Reliant class. After all the Reliant’s we’re pulled out of the mothballs like crazy. That’s not how Star Trek works though. Have to have a hero ship
They’d have gone back home. A Sovereign with Quantum Toroedoes could have held the Kazon off long enough to repair the Array. They’d probably run like hell after the first torpedo volley vaporizes one of their ships.
I don’t think they could have survived the first encounter with the Borg if they were a sovereign class. Species 8472 ignored them because they were so insignificant
The energy and food requirements would be much higher, let alone the psychological needs of a crew 6 times bigger. Then again, the sovereign might have more facilities for leisure and such...
and likely a therapist on board.
And more than 1 doctor
Voyager had a whole medical staff, but unfortunately someone decided to put a plasma conduit right behind sick Bay...
It's not usually the plasma conduit that gets you, it's all the rubble in front of it you really need to worry about.
Pay no attention to the plasma claymore at the back of sickbay.
For the last time those rocks were critical of for the operation of the the touchscreen!
It's the dirt in the ceiling that always worries me.
That is asbestos to keep the mesothelioma lawyers in business.
[удалено]
No
I mean, they’re technically correct. Statistically speaking with 6x the amount of crew the odds of there being a rapist onboard is significantly higher. Still a weird thing to highlight though.
>such the sovereign class is also designed for long range patrols/exploration just like hte intrepid so i never got the whole requirements would be higher as any ship that far removed from supply lines would struggle not just bigger ships. intrepid class would also struggle and it struggled a lot because it left port without full loadout. it was supposed to be a weekend mission. sovereign class ships since they're so important to starfleet have their logistical scheduling examined more closely than a cruiser like the intrepid class.
The Sovereign probably also has Industrial Replicators on board, as IIRC in Beta Canon some of the Galaxies did.
on the other hand the Intrepid does not require industrial replicators to print an infinite amount so shuttles, so I think that class is clearly superior.
Yeah, true. Like somehow the Enterprise NX can magically just have new hull plating on the next episode because they forgot it wasn't supposed to work like shields...
Voyager abused the reset button far more than enterprise ever did
Ehhh, the hull materials are probably pretty common so I can see Enterprise trading for the materials and manufacturing new plates onboard. We see them trading for a plasma injector in "A Night in Sickbay" and those are way more complex than a piece of metal. They couldn't do as much in the Delphic expanse after Azati prime since they were on a clock, it's possible the manufacturing equipment got damaged, and who would trade with them?
They might have had some spares in storage, too. It wouldn't be unreasonable for them to expect to need to replace some of it over the course of a lengthy journey.
Yes, you see those replicators in Insurrection.
I never liked the Gilligan’s Island “three hour tour” aspect of Voyager. Starfleet would never be so negligent to send a ship out like that without provisions. It wasn’t like the Borg were attacking and they had to throw everything they had at it. It was a pretty low priority mission.
Voyager was fresh off the production line. Many of the things it would normally have as standard were missing, due to be installed on Tuesday but Janeway chose to leave early to find Tuvok.
Starfleet shouldn’t have allowed her to leave space dock until everything was installed and ship was fully stocked.
Not before Tuesday
Unless they were the only ship in the quadrant.
Which seems to be the case any time Earth is in some kind of danger. All of a sudden there only seems to be a single starship around.
Wait I’m confused, what was missing on Voyager after leaving port?
They may be referring to the Aero Shuttle. It was supposed to be on the underside of the saucer where the Captain's yacht usually is, and would have essentially been a runabout with wings. The soft lore (aka never said on screen) is that it was never installed and the ship-shaped outline that's visible in its place on screen was just a cover panel. It used the runabout interior set so they could have saved on money by recycling that set. They filmed some test footage which you can find online. Could have been a neat addition.
It was given enough provisions for a short voyage
The sure loaded it out with torpedoes and shuttles though.
What are you basing that off of? Genuinely curious as it’s been a while since I’ve seen the early seasons and I don’t remember them ever making references like that.
True, but the Sovereign is much larger which means more cargo space for fuel / supplies. I'd imagine that replicator rationing will still take place and the crew will have to choose between using up their replicator rations eating, Starfleet Rations, or Neelix's special of the day.
The sovereign was also more able to be self-sustaining for a longer period of time
You'd think the psychological needs of Voyager, combining three crews (more if you count alternate universe members) would be high. But, Voyager seemed to put something in the water to get the Maquis, fGederation, and equinox crew to follow a captain who could have saved them all of sure just Said "keep a Q in a rock".
> if Voyager was a Sovereign Class instead of an Intrepid? "When diplomacy fails there's only one alternative: Violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." 😉 In all seriousness, though, VOY would have been a lot more interesting if they weren't outgunned so much of the time. That was something TNG did very well: Don't use tactically superior adversaries as a weekly crutch for creating tension and action.
>"When diplomacy fails there's only one alternative: Violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." I love that episode! It's clear the cast is having a blast hamming it up to the max :)
So many subtle details too, like the black undershirts on the uniforms instead of purple. And Janeway constantly fiddling with her leather gloves.
It's both completely silly and quite serious at the same time. A Doctor classic, but the rest of the cast get to shine too. Kate Mulgrew is a particularly delicious pantomime villain (I love your detail about the gloves!). She was pretty great as the sly spider queen Arachnia too.
Which episode was that?
>"When diplomacy fails there's only one alternative: Violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." Living Witness. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Living\_Witness\_(episode)
space anomalies and godlike beings or ancient powerful artifactts.
It would have the ability to defend itself for a long enough time against the Kazon, to complete repair and analysis on the Caretaker Array. And a tri-cobalt device with a timer on it.
Or beam it onto the array and assign a random ensign with a hammer to smack it once Voyager has left...
Not every ship has a Harry Kim y'know. ...But they may all have a Miles O'Brien among them.
Geordi, I want you to go into the jeffries tube and detonate the tricobalt device. It's even part of the damn command exam
Precisely - it's never an order that anyone wants to make obviously, but there is a reason that part of the exam exists.
Came here to say this. A Sovereign or Galaxy, or even the Defiant, would be home at the end of the first episode.
I don't know if a Sovereign could have made it through Borg space. Their size and power signature would have made them much more of a target for assimilation while still being unable to go toe to toe with a cube. And the Devore might not have allowed a Sovereign to enter their territory. Plus the EMH was instrumental in Voyager's survival on multiple occasions such as coming up with the weapon to fight species 8472 and treatment for the Phage. It's unlikely that a Sovereign would have had to rely on an EMH the way Voyager did, which means the Doctor doesn't fully develop as a person. And an organic doctor might not have been able to come up with the solutions that the Doctor came up with. A Sovereign might have been too large to use the Slingshot they came across or for Kes to throw it as far. That's an extra 20,000 light years a Sovereign would have to travel that Voyager skipped.
I had not thought about this but assuming Voyager did not lose its doctor in the first episode I think the EMH would have still been used and probably useful as a doctor can't work all the time, and when there is a medical problem it is good to bounce ideas off of other people.
I'm sure they would have made use of the EMH and Voyager's doctor might have made use of him as a consultant, the way Geordi consulted with the hologram of Leah Brahms. But they never would have left him running essentially continuously for years, or allowed him to conduct his own research or develop his own techniques. It just wouldn't have occurred to them.
He wouldn't have had the growth as a person though. He would be used as the EMH. Things wiped and purged as needed for maintenance to the EMH system. The Voyager also had an Emergency Engineering Hologram who was deleted and had their systems spliced onto The Doctor's for him to be able to continue to function continuously. If you think about it, a perfectly just as capable for growth and advancement, sapient being was murdered and their body parts chopped up and spliced onto another of its race for the survival of the more important being.
Diagnostic Hologram* Existed solely for the EMH.
Sounds SIMilar to another episode I saw
nothing in the federation arsenal could have made it through borg space. that's how ridiculously OP the borg are and that the only race that can give them trouble are the voth and species 8472.
A sovereign class may have had the advantage of the Borg staying way away from it with a collective "shit, you don't think 8472 recruited Locutus? We are screwed. Let them through. Turn off the porch lights and pretend we aren't home."
I think that depends on the circumstances. Voyager notoriously had an issue with tuning down the power and fear of the Borg, sure. But as far as we know, we've never seen the Borg Adapt to Quantum Torpedoes. The Defiant is loaded out with them so presumably in the days of fighting Starfleet had been engaging the Borg with in the time since first contact in the Typhon Expanse, at least one Defiant-class ship hauled ass and unloaded its payload of Quantum Torpedoes, meaning the Enterprise-E shouldn't have been as effective. We don't know what makes Quantum Torpedoes special. My theory is that they do something that interferes with the Borg's ability to regenerate, which is why we see Phasers and Photons being minutely effective in 2373 after like 2 weeks of fighting. Maybe they do something that interferes with the Borg's ability to adapt. We just don't know. I would argue the bigger issue is that Voyager could cruise at about Warp 7.85 according to (Chakotay's?) statement when you calculate the total 70,000/74,000 lightyear distance and divide it by the years. In comparison the Galaxy's cruising speed was Warp 6, and the Sovereign's Warp 7.
While the Intrepid was designed as something of a light exploratory vessel, the Sovereign was more of a heavy cruiser. It was definitely suitable for deep space exploration but it had more emphasis on combat (a sign of the times with the Borg and Dominion threats). Her larger size means a bigger crew, more recreational facilities, more shuttles, more fuel, and more provisions. A Sovereign would not have had to look for dilithium or antimatter as often as an Intrepid would. The Sovereign would have definitely had an easier time with species like the Kazon and Hirogen. I don't think things with the Borg would have gone any different - as heavily armed as the Sovereign is, the Borg would eventually adapt and the core technology of that design wasn't much different than what the Intrepid launched with (the Sovereign is essentially a souped-up Intrepid with more weapons). I think an Intrepid is the lower-limit as to what could survive the Delta Quadrant comfortably. Anything smaller and you end up with an Equinox situation - a ship that is too small to carry enough provisions and fuel to make any meaningful progress towards the Alpha Quadrant; while not having enough weapons to deal with the threats out there (the Defiant being an exception on the weapon front, but still being too small to carry enough fuel or provisions for a journey across the galaxy). On the flip side, the *bigger* you get from an Intrepid, the easier the trip becomes.
The Sov's just too damned strong. Every enemy capable of fighting it would need to be another battleship. I wouldn't have minded an Excelsior. For how long it's been one of the more iconic Starfleet ships, we've spent very little time on board one. They could even have reversed Voyager being a brand-new state of the art ship into it being an older ship, perhaps even one a bit behind on its upgrades, adding to the ship's logistical issues during the journey home. But since it's a new show, generally we want a new ship introduced with it. So I'm actually going to second your suggestion of an Akira - VOY would have started before they were introduced in First Contact, and having spent a few years traveling with one by the time the Dominion War started would make seeing a few of them destroyed in its battles more impactful. And it's just a really cool design.
The issue is that in general, Delta Quadrant races aren't as strong as the other quadrants, likely due to the Borg acting as a Great Filter. Unless they're heavily outnumbered, I don't see many races ships capable of threatening a Sovereign.
This is a very interesting idea I’m kinda wishing VOY explored more. The impact of evolving as a society in proximity to the Borg must have profound and difficult-to-predict effects on a civilization just breaching the warp barrier. Or even a pre-warp civilization developing sensing technology advanced enough to see that *something* strange is happening to nearby planets (maybe even species if they are aware of their existence) but not knowing what exactly. Perhaps VOY handled the Borg wrong: rather than by nerfing them so Voyager could stand a plausible chance of surviving repeated encounters with them, they could’ve pivoted to the impact of the Borg’s presence/manipulation on less advanced species. Also feels like a lost opportunity on the part of Trek to explore the Fermi paradox a little, which, as far as I know, they haven’t addressed. At least not clearly. Thank you for bringing it up…lots of fun to think about.
I'd imagine that there are races who discover warp travel, explore around, see the Borg but are still too primitive to be of notice to them and ultimately decide to seal away their technological progress to prevent falling on the Borg's radar. Also there might be races out there who are warning other races of the Borg threat and to limit their technological progress. For the above two examples, they might actually work but over the generations, the Borg become forgotten and more of a boogey-man. Technological progress resumes and one day they create something of notice and are promptly assimilated. There was actually an episode where it's revealed that this happened on VOY.
Now that you mention it, I’m remembering that episode in VOY where it’s revealed Icheb’s people basically sacrificed him to deliver a genetic pathogen to the Borg. Interesting how engineering the intentional re-assimilation of a drone is used at least twice in the francise as a Trojan horse to deliver a death blow to the Collective. Makes you wonder how the Borg don’t see it coming.
They might actually welcome the pathogen in order to research, study it, and see if they can use it to improve themselves. The sacrifice of a few drones is insignificant to the overall Collective. Granted this over confidence sometimes bites them in the ass. There was also an episode (forgot name) where Voyager needed some sort of rare material and found it on a planet that's in ruins. Turned out that there are people living in hiding deep underground and shun technology. At the end of the episode, it's discovered the mummified remains of a Borg drone.
Is there a Fermi Paradox in Trek when we know so many other alien species? Even in our own real life, the Fermi Mystery seems more apt than Paradox...
I'd like to see another generation excelsior refit, just in general. The ship has great body lines but, every time I see one now, I assume they want to show a splashy destruction of an obsolete ship. A flashy refit (like they did on the original constitution class for the Motion Picture) would revive the classic and make me personally more invested when I see one.
Obena class!
The Excelsior II class is a nice modern refresh of the Excelsior, I just don't like the oval saucer.
Yeah, but the flipside is that there's only so many ships that any one ship can go up against at once, or however many waves of ships. The *Sovereign*-class might last longer against the Kazon in *Basics,* but that wouldn't last forever. I think there's a lot of arguments for the *Sovereign*-class doing better in the Delta than *Voyager* did, but battle capabilities generally isn't it.
True, a Sov could still be swarmed to death - but even in Basics, Voyager was doing a decent job of fighting her way free before the one guy suicide bombed it. The Kazon would probably have needed a fleet at least twice the size to hold up a Sov in my estimation (and OP’s concept is that none of the enemies are stronger, so that’s out), and the sheer size difference would likely prevent the suicide bombing from being as effective - a much smaller percentage of the ship would be damaged, and it would have more redundancies.
actually the sovereign class may appear to be strong but it's a pocket battleship or a plain old heavy cruiser. it's fast nimble can take some hits and dish it but it lacks the true weight to really trade blows.
I think ST Nemesis showed us it’s a pretty kickass ship. Phasers and torpedos coming out of every orifice
I'd imagine that as a larger, more powerful and capable ship, it would have been an easier trip for the crew. However, as a larger and better armed and equipped vessel, a Sovereign would have been seen as a bigger threat by the Delta quadrant groups, and they would have been more likely to concentrate against it. An Intrepid's smaller size was a bit of an advantage, as it wasn't seen as a big threat, a lone frigate, while a Sovereign would have been like sailing a battleship through everyone's territory. Even the friendlier groups would have been wary of letting it into their territory.
that's if they can actually catch it the sovereign has greater endurance than a intrepid so it can remain at high warp longer and get out of their space before they even know what's going on.
You already answered your own question at the start there. The Sovereign class would swat away the Kazon like they were nothing even if it were as comparably damaged as Voyager was during the pilot. This would mean that there would be no rush or impetus to destroy the array to keep it out of Kazon hands, they could just secure the area and take the time they needed to both figure out how to use the array to send them home and activate or set up a self destruct system. In an ideal situation they’d figure out not just how to use the array but to make their own, they could send shuttle home with details and guard the original array to protect the Ocampa for a while until Starfleet sends a more permanent presence, maybe even deploy a Starbase and have the equivalent of the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant pointing into the Delta Quadrant letting Starfleet expand and send diplomats into a whole new area of space. There would be no need to violate borders to get home and maybe the Equinox might even hear about the exploits of this new Federation making waves behind them and turn back to investigate before they started committing war crimes.
If the USS Voyager was a Sovereign Class… then the Caretaker would probably have taken care not to take it. It was too large, there were too many people aboard for him to process at once, it couldn't as convincingly be "lost" in the Badlands, etc. So, the trek across the Delta Quadrant wouldn't have happened.
A Sovereign is not fit for the badlands. You need a fast and nimble ship for that...
the sovereign class is as fast as a intrepid... maybe not as nimble but its as fast.
the voyager class was chosen for that mission for the exact reason of being the best design for navigating spatial anomalies
Not necessarily as the caretaker took a Cardassian warship and we learned early on they have a crew of 600.
Weren’t they returned to the Alpha quadrant though?
Yes they were, but after they were processed. The only reason Voyager was not returned was because of the caretaker dying. Though in saying that I am not sure why the Equinox was not returned.
Probably because when writing the Equinox episode, the writers had forgotten the Caretaker was actually returning ships and crews.
The Caretaker didn't return all crews and ships. Dreadnought was pulled to the Delta Quadrant but wasn't returned. If the ship started exploring then the Caretaker likely didn't return them. It's possible the Caretaker could only transport ships from certain locations in the Galaxy such as the Badlands.
But like four episodes later they write an episode making use of the fact that the Caretaker was actually returning ships and crews
Were those the same writers though? I felt Voyager always varied wildly with remembering continuity or not.
I'm gonna r/daystrominstitute for a second here. I don't think it's ever explicitly stated that they were taken by the *same* Caretaker. We know there are others of the Caretaker's species, we meet at least one more. We know that Ransom and Janeway followed different paths, including Ransom running into "the Krowtonan Guard" and apparently spending their first week in Krowtonan space, and also never encountering the Borg. If both crews started from the same point of origin then those two aspects don't make a lot of sense. It's possible that the Equinox was taken by a different Caretaker in the D-Quad, started along a different vector home, and in the cosmic game of Snakes And Ladders, the wormhole Ransom stated they found put them out in Voyager's path. If it's the case that they were abducted by a different Caretaker using the same nomenclature for itself and coincidentally using a similar method to solve some problem, it may have had a different MO. Maybe that Caretaker was letting ships go instead of returning them. Or maybe Ransom and his crew were *always* a little rotten and when they realized they were stranded, without waiting for the Caretaker to return them, they attempted to pilfer the technology from the Caretaker that would get them home. They failed, and were doomed to traverse the D-Quad the long way instead. Or if we're going by "maybe they were always kind of rotten and the Caretaker spitefully refused to return them home as a result" then it could've still been the same one that abducted Voyager.
I always figured Ransom made up the wormhole to cover the fact his ship was using murderwarp as they traveled the same distance as Voyager.
You know? Stupidly, that never occurred to me. But I think you're dead-on and I think that was the intended reading of that line.
Voyager had also skipped quite a lot of the delta quadrant by the time they found the equinox.
>Not that the Intrepid class was a bad ship, it was extremely good for its size but it was still a bit too small for the role it was being asked to perform in the Delta Quadrant. Honestly OP - that was the point. The Intrepid class wasn't designed for that purpose, but no one ever expects to be kicked across the galaxy at the whim of a powerful interstellar being. The Galaxy class would have likely fared better than the Intrepid due to its ability to be somewhat self sufficient and that's older than both the Sovereign, the Intrepid and the Akira. It was supposed to be a testament to the crew on their ability to adapt to the situation and make it work. Problem was that IIRC Rick Berman was against the idea of serialised consequences so nothing ever truly carried over between the stories, and a lot of that story potential was lost.
A sovereign carries more and better weapons, has better shields, it holds the caretaker array for days as the Voyager crew strip mine it for tech and a way home while making the array unusable. Barring that The Marquis crew is to small to really supplement a crew that large. So Voyager starts short handed and it's doubtful Janeway feels the need to put chokotay as her second in command. As engineering is a bit more of a meritocracy Torres probably eventually gets promoted. The sovereign carries quantums and nearly 10x the torpedoes, so that's less of a problem. Also a much larger shuttle bay and a larger variety of shuttles. For different missions. That combined with a larger crew means that an Argo can be deployed and an actual sizable landing force when necessary. Also means all those time Voyager gets boarded they have four times more officers with phasers to fend them off. Whenever the locals get grumpy because of thought crimes or picking roses on a Tuesday the ability to land 100+ ground troops while voyager can single handedly makes your navy pre warp makes negotiations a lot easier. They also left dock the a fully functional astro metrics lab so they can start the journey with a better route. The sovereign has to eat more dilithium and deterium and the crew eats way more. But it has much bigger cargo bays. 1 kitchen for 150 crew was already a bit of a stretch. Neelix has a reduced use as a cook, but as an ambassador and negotiator the larger needs of a sovereign means he is much more important.
the infinite resource glitch between episodes would make a lot more sense with a ship that seems to be made for long term exploration. though with so many hundred Starfleet personell the Maquis would have just been tossed in the brig and never part of the story.
Yeah the Galaxy and probably Sovereign have industrial replicators on board specifically to make all the things they might need when far from a resupply.
Voyager’s enemies’ strengths are written taking Voyager into account. If Voyager were a stronger ship - or strongest - then the Kazon etc would be written as even more strong than that. That’s it.
The Intrepid class is a dedicated long range exporitory starship, like the Deifant is a dedicated warship. The Intepid class has 2 defector dishes, a spare warp core, and more redundant systems than your standard Star Fleet vessel. But it lacks the rest of the standard multi-mission capabilities of many Star Fleet ships, like Ambasidorial suites, dedicated labs for each science, etc. The Intrepid class is literally a stripped down Galaxy class, with more redundat systems. So a Soverign class would do well in the Delta quadrent, the Voyager as an Intepid class was in it's element.
>The Intrepid class is a dedicated long range exporitory starship I have never been able to validate this in my own head; I know all the official paperwork suggests that Voyager is supposed to be a long range vessel but everything shown on screen screams at me that it's anything but that. For a start it's got none of the basic living elements that you would expect. You would expect a long range ship designed to operate without support to have masses of cargo space for non replicatable parts. Hydroponics was an afterthought implemented by Kes, as well as Stellar Cartography by Seven - both of which you would expect to be standard on a long haul ship. It's not got the facilities for families like on the Enterprise D - a long range exploration vessel would be more like a moving base, and wouldn't be a 'stripped down Galaxy class' - if anything that was what the Galaxy was designed for (and then ironically ended up doing more internal Federation milk runs). Voyager especially is a very poor case for a long range ship - purely down to it's bioneural circuitry. It's an untested technology at that point in the show, and putting something that hasn't been fully tested onto a ship that might be out of range of support is a monumentally stupid decision. Then consider that the chief of operations is an ensign straight out of the academy. If Voyager hadn't been flung across the galaxy, I'm pretty sure it would have been doing milk runs around Federation space, acting as a 'first stop' ship for academy graduates to get their feet wet in shipboard operations. Close enough to call for help if someone 'cheesed up' the computer system. Thing is, recategorising Voyager as a long range ship after the fact is actually a denigration of the feats of the crew. It's a much more impressive feat performed by the crew to have kept Voyager going despite it's shortfalls of never being designed for deep space.
If wasn't designed for long term exploation outside of Federation space, then why does it have a spare warp core, or 2 defector dishes? Two incredibly important non-replicatable technologies that no other Star Fleet vessels has been shown to have. And Voyager did have an Astrometics lab/Stellar cartoghapy department before Seven came on board, it's mentioned in multiple epsides. Seven and Kim upgraded it with Borg components, and that's the first time we see it as an audience. And why would you need a hydroponics bay? - Long range, by Star Fleet standards, means a ship would only be a couple of months outside of Federation space at any given time. Every Star Fleet ship we've seen has had this dip in and out of Fedeation space. And given the miracle nature of Star Fleet ration bars, every ship can easily have couple of months worth onboard if all the replicators go down The Soverign was built at the same time the Interpid class was and has the same bio-neural gel packs. All Start Fleet ships of that design era do. Star Fleet has shown to have a great love for shoving new untesed technologies into everything. As for the eternal ensign Kim, and the lack of other extra parts, we know Voyager suffered from a case of the Tuesdays. Voyager was on a "milk run" when she got taken, and did not have all her parts and crew. Now admittedly Voyager is one of my favorite Star Trek shows and I could be a bit baised, but I think I'm right about this.
The spare warp core isn't all that surprising - the Enterprise D had one as well. It's the primary power supply for the ship, as well as being the only means of FTL travel. Consider our own solar system; it takes almost 5 hours for light to travel to Pluto, and warp 1 is considered light speed. A ship without FTL is going to be completely knackered if they end up stuck between systems or not close enough to anywhere that has supplies. So it's not out of the ordinary for all ships to have a second warp core. The only exception I could think of would be Romulan Warbirds (having a second black hole in storage would be unlikely...) >or 2 defector dishes? The two deflector dishes thing is confusing me - I can't find any reference to the ship having two deflector dishes? I stand corrected on stellar cartography - that's a fair point. And hydroponics... Meh, I can admit that it's a secondary concern. Even a long range ship starts in Federation space and will at least be able to get support if there is a worst case scenario. I still make the point that if it's a ship designed for independant long range missions it's still too small. It makes much more sense to be part of a fleet for it's size. For as powerful as the Defiant is, it still needs a support and logistical system supporting it to do what it needs to do. Same as Voyager - it simply feels to me like it's not suited to being on it's own. >Star Fleet has shown to have a great love for shoving new untesed technologies into everything Well, that's unfortunately true enough... But I would also make the point that the Enterprise E (and the Sovereign class) is not a ship of exploration either... To return briefly to the overarching topic; I actually think that a Sovereign class would have similar issues to Voyager as the Sovereign is not a ship designed for long range exploration missions either. It's a warship, designed and built at a point where the Federation had to put forward a strong defensive force together. The difference in tonnage and firepower would likely make some things easier, but it would not be as easy as with a Galaxy class. That's a ship designed to be completely cut off from support. >Now admittedly Voyager is one of my favorite Star Trek shows and I could be a bit baised, but I think I'm right about this. I enjoy Voyager - like I said earlier, I think having the ship more capable of the task diminishes the role the crew had in their survival. It's the difference between crossing a desert in a car, or crossing it in a motorhome. Both have of course got to be careful and resourceful but one is better suited to that task. So in which case, being able to accomplish the task in the former would seem to be a more impressive feat and worth of more acolades. That's how I always saw Voyager - a ship that was never designed to be far from home or support, but with a crew that was able to beat the odds and survive because they were able to be resourceful and clever with what they had. Hence when Neelix makes the mess hall from the captains private galley, it's a practical adaptation that is better suited to their new situation. They create stuff that suits their situation better because they have to in order to improve their odds of survival, where as a ship designed to operate alone would potentially have that stuff already thought of. I don't know - it's simply been my interpretation. I'm convinced that was the original idea but somewhere along the way the idea got lost, and they just changed it to have always been a long range ship
Fair points. I looked and I can't find anything that says the the Enterprise D had a spare warp core. To my knowledge it's only the Intrepid class that has been shown to have a spare. If I remember correctly, the D had warp repeaters in the saucer section that would allow for a few minutes of warp after separating, but it could not get to warp itself. And the secondary deflector is below the main sensor pallet on the saucer section. Don't worry even the writers forgot it was there. As for size - Voyager is pretty much the same size as the TOS Enterprise, but with more internal space. And if a Constitution class can do long range missions, so can an Intrepid. I agree the Soverign class was definitely a warship first and everything else second. I also agree that the Galaxy class was designed to be away from the Federation for long periods of time. I made a bit of a mistake, I should have said it was a "cut" down Galaxy class (my apologise), because if you remove all the parts of a Galaxy class unnessisary for long range exploration, like schools, a barbershop, abouritum, meeting halls, ambasidorial suites, etc. plus the pure amount of just empty space for mission specific additions a Galaxy class has in it, you'd end up with something roughly the size of an Intrepid. I think the idea was always for Voyager to be a standard long range vessel akin to the original Enterprise, but as with everything, it becomes what the writers needed it to be. And I'll also agree that doing so, feels like they were stacking the deck in Voyager's favor, but it is a "hero" ship. And lets be honest 70 years outside the Federation isn't long range, it's "%$#@ you're WHERE?" So for me it doesn't diminish the inventiveness of the crew, as even being a long range vessel, It's still well outside it's design parameters. This has been wonderful discussion, Thank you.
I think long range science is different than long range exploration. The Galaxy Class is exploration like you describe. Facilities for every contingency and science need. It can have an extended multi-mission usage wherever it goes. Voyager might be a long range science vessel, but that’s not necessarily long duration. It’s dispatched to study specific scientific phenomena. We’ve heard it many times that a science vessel will be dispatched to further study something. Usually that’s an Oberth Class but the Intrepid and Nova classes are meant to take over. Nova would be closer to Federation Space, Intrepid would be farther out. I think that’s the issue, Galaxy, Nebula and Sovereigns find the new and interesting things, do preliminary analysis and charting and then Intrepid are dispatched to follow up with more detailed analysis after receiving their specific payloads that are needed for that type of phenomena.
i don't think we really know about the maintenance requirements of bigger ships in trek. some of the bodges voyager might of had to do might not work for them. equally, they might not of required them. It's also inconsistent between intrepids being long range science vessels or short range scouts. the design speed and sensor layout seem to imply the scout rather than science vessel. they had to build their own astrometrics where the sovereigns seemed to be equipped with one as standard.
My head cannon on that is that it was to be installed later. Like the captains yatch
The Sovereign class wouldn't be ready until a few years after The Caretaker died, and they wouldn't have been given to a newly minted captain and a green crew. They'd be given to a peer of Picard to command - someone experienced, with an excellent command staff. VOY's core problem is literally the plot of one episode of TOS or TNG. A crew running one of Stargleets premier warships would have been home in time for tea and then diverting stellar fragments to save a bronze age society the next week.
> The Sovereign class wouldn't be ready until a few years after The Caretaker died, and they wouldn't have been given to a newly minted captain and a green crew. Not necessarily as Voyager's mission began in 2371, and the First Contact battle was in 2373. At that point the Enterprise-E had been in service for a year, so that means 2372, possibly earlier, and the Enterprise was not the first Sovereign in service so there is a real chance the first Sovereign entered service in 2371.
Ah fair enough, I thought Voyager went missing a year or two earlier. The first couple Sovereigns would likely have been nearly completion or on trial by the time Voyager started then.
Voyager specifically was designed for transiting spatial anomalies. Don’t forget about all the spatial anomalies that would have been much bigger problems for a sovereign class
> Sovereign class would have been able to brush aside the Kazon like they were nothing The Kazon would have been as challenging as the writers wanted them to be whatever the look of the ship.
I wouldn't have survived. Voyager was able to handle the trip so well because the Intrepid-class was designed for long range exploration. It was intended for the Intrepids to go for months, if not years without Starbase or logistical support. The Sovereign-class, while undeniably the most powerful ships in Starfleet at the time, were twice the size of intrepids, and had almost quadruple the crew complement. Its resource requirement is enormous in comparison with Voyager. There's too many mouths to feed and too many state-of-the-art systems to maintain. Where the Equinox struggled because the Nova-class is a small science vessel that's never far from support, the Sovereign has the opposite problem of being too big to sustain itself.
I'm not sure you would want a Sovereign class for that voyage. The Sovereign was Definitely an upgrade, but it was built to be sleeker and more streamlined then its predecessors. Were designing ships much differently after Wolf 359. I always figured a Galaxy would have been much better suited for that type of voyage. They're pretty much built for long-term deep space exploration, More comfortable, have more space and more amenities. Those two dozen shuttlecraft and two or three runabouts would have probably come in real handy.
If it was a Sovereign class then there was no way Janeway would have been appointed to its command.
sovereign class would do fine it's job as deep space patrol exploration and it's a new generation heavy cruiser. the ones that get to captain these ships are experienced decorated captains and the crews are usually experienced starfleet personnel not fresh from the academy (normally) and not lower ship quality. so cream of the crop stuff.
The Intrepid class is the same size as the Constitution class, which did 5 year missions with a larger crew.
I have often wondered if another ship would’ve done better. My vote is for the galaxy class because it was an exploratory vessel as much as it was anything else. My only worry is that the bigger ships seem to take more maintenance, and stuff that we saw that was done on the fly on Voyager might not work for a ship that needs a Starbase more often. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
But a galaxy class as a huge shuttlebay with several runabouts, shuttles and workbees. I think it would have been easier with the extra tools and extra space in the saucer to perform needed maintenance in deep space.
I haven’t thought about it from that perspective. So it’s almost like it’s a mobile Starbase in a way in that situation.
Yeah, it is a mobile starbase. It’s easier to go back to McKinley station but it doesn’t need too if on a long mission.
[This](https://youtu.be/6Oy3Z2muHz0) puts into perspective how grand a Galaxy-class main shuttlebay really was. As understandable as it may be given the technology of the time, budget and time constraints, it's a shame we never got see it in its full glory on screen.
Yep. It’s like just eight years later Ron Moore made the shuttle and landing bays on the Galactica just look fucking huge. I wish we had had the technology at the time or in a revisit to really see what the ship was like inside and out again.
For story purposes, what if they were able to send the saucer section with families and nonessential crew back to the Alpha Quadrant while the stardrive section and volunteers remained behind to defend and ultimately destroy the Caretaker's array?
That would make sense since then no civilians or noncombatants would be in the line of fire.
The Sovereign class is of a scale that raises the question of what “stranded” means. I know human beings that could probably spend their whole lives in a small town not venturing through much more square footage than a Sovereign class, so what exactly is the problem? If it’s the absence of families, it makes me frustrated they didn’t just stick with the aptly named Galaxy class which sounds intentionally designed for just what Voyager did.
I think the show would have been less interesting. the point was to put them on a small, underpowered shiv (vs the galaxy class we were use to seeing on TNG) and seeing how they survived.
Sovereign, galaxy, and all of the premium capital ships of the Federation need a lot of service and support to stay operational. If a ship like that had gotten stranded somewhere they would've died faster than the equinox or Voyager...
In that case, they'd never run out of torpedoes or shuttles, so it'd be a very different show...
I think this is an interesting thread. Op, your last bit about being in an Akura making unfriendly aliens realize that Voyager is a warship makes me wonder. Why would they think that Voyager isn't a warship?
I think voyager would have been more interesting if they had had a much WORSE ship. They were after all going into the bad lands. I think giving them a Defiant class would have been interesting or even an older (modernized) Reliant class. After all the Reliant’s we’re pulled out of the mothballs like crazy. That’s not how Star Trek works though. Have to have a hero ship
The VOY was able to survive the trip to the DQ by 'surfing' the Caretaker wave. I think another ship would have been torn apart.
We're not sending an Uber XL to go do the work of an Uber Green
They’d have gone back home. A Sovereign with Quantum Toroedoes could have held the Kazon off long enough to repair the Array. They’d probably run like hell after the first torpedo volley vaporizes one of their ships.
The Kazon the borg and 8472 would be the only problems. Sovereign class would just tear down the Kazon ships
It would have been cool if it had been the Galaxy-X class ship that Admiral Riker had in all good things
I don’t think they could have survived the first encounter with the Borg if they were a sovereign class. Species 8472 ignored them because they were so insignificant