Graham's Galaxy Class Diplomatic Capability

[Deepcrush]

[Mikey]

So I farked this math up big time, but you're still looking at an exceptional amount of space. 18,000 square meters is roughly the equivalent of the average square footage of about American homes, just reserved for diplomatic quarters. Add the other quarters, and its still a lot of space. I guess I'm just having difficulty conceptualizing this. I stated in a five-star hotel once, in a huge room that was probably 12x10 meters or 120 square meters. You're telling me that the Enterprise has staterooms that are potentially 10x25 meters?! That's a LOT of space for one diplomat.

Most American free-standing homes (colonials, bi-levels, etc.) have about 1250-1800 square feet of living space.

[Sionnach Glic]

It's a lot of space, agreed, but not an impossible amount.

[Tsukiyumi]

My apartment is 920 sq ft, and it ain't exactly stately. I could imagine a GCS diplomatic suite being quite a bit larger.

[Mark]

Have we ever seen 75 ambassidors in one place at one time other than on a planet? Seems like kind of a lot of space used for this to me as well. Could have used the space for some more holodecks, then if you REALLY needed the space, you could always create some additional quarters or rooms in the holodecks themselves.

[Bryan Moore]

Have we ever seen 75 ambassadors in one place at one time other than on a planet? Seems like kind of a lot of space used for this to me as well. Could have used the space for some more holodecks, then if you REALLY needed the space, you could always create some additional quarters or rooms in the holodecks themselves.

Exactly. 18,000 square meters would hold how many shuttles, how much science equipment, etc. How big do we think the shuttle bays are supposed to be? Lets say the main shuttle bay is a very liberal 70 meters x 50 meters. So that's 3500 square meters (right?) The diplomatic quarters alone would be the rough equivalent of 5 shuttle bays. Yikes.

[Graham Kennedy]

The thing about the Galaxy is that it's so flaming BIG. 5.8 million cubic metres! With an average deck height of 3.33 metres, that's 1,740,000 square metres of deck space.

So 18,750 m^2 of ambassadorial quarters would take up about 1% of the ship's deck space.

Put another way, the largest decks of the saucer are about 138,000 m^2. So the ambassadorial quarters in total would occupy less than one seventh of Deck 10 of the saucer section.

That does not seem unreasonable to me.

[Bryan Moore]

The thing about the Galaxy is that it's so flaming BIG. 5.8 million cubic metres! With an average deck height of 3.33 metres, that's 1,740,000 square metres of deck space.

So 18,750 m^2 of ambassadorial quarters would take up about 1% of the ship's deck space.

Put another way, the largest decks of the saucer are about 138,000 m^2. So the ambassadorial quarters in total would occupy less than one seventh of Deck 10 of the saucer section.

That does not seem unreasonable to me.

Holy crap. I never thought of it that way.

Which brings up the next question: Isn't this an incredible waste of resources on Starfleet's part? I mean, if I were them, I'd fill that ship with all sorts of science equipment and only empty it if a major diplomatic mission arose. And lets be honest, 75 top officials don't show up unannounced. Farking economics of Starfleet.

[kostmayer]

If the Galaxy class ship was built with all the same capabilities, but without the diplomatic facilities, how much smaller would it be. And how many resources would it save?

It seems to me that fitting out diplomatic quarters would cost next to nothing when compared with the overall cost of a Starship - whilst I've always felt that the crew quarters on a Galaxy class are way to big, I'm wondering how much it actually adds to the cost of the ship to have a larger frame, and have larger quarters.

[Mark]

Excellent point. That thing is friggin' massive. Wonder why they couldn't throw in a couple of other amenities....like chairs for everybody, seatbelts, more holodecks, and some security stations would have been nice. May have helped with all those times people are running around the ship causing mischief.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Having a mobile diplomatic facility isn't a bad idea, however neutrality would be an issue. But having a diplomatic meeting on a starship makes it that much more secure, since it's harder to attack the diplomats, since everything coming on board would be monitored intensely making it difficult for assassination attempts, and the ship's armaments making a brute force attack difficult.

[Aaron]

If the Galaxy class ship was built with all the same capabilities, but without the diplomatic facilities, how much smaller would it be. And how many resources would it save?

It seems to me that fitting out diplomatic quarters would cost next to nothing when compared with the overall cost of a Starship - whilst I've always felt that the crew quarters on a Galaxy class are way to big, I'm wondering how much it actually adds to the cost of the ship to have a larger frame, and have larger quarters.

Part of my problem with the Galaxy quarters is that there size is simply not required. A modern naval crew spends it's time either on duty, sleeping or in the common areas and judging from what I''ve seen in TNG, they offer little more than what they had in TOS. Just spread out. Having a massive spread of couches and TV's just wastes space, resources and power.

[Mark]

Having a mobile diplomatic facility isn't a bad idea, however neutrality would be an issue. But having a diplomatic meeting on a starship makes it that much more secure, since it's harder to attack the diplomats, since everything coming on board would be monitored intensely making it difficult for assassination attempts, and the ship's armaments making a brute force attack difficult.

Good point, Blackstar. Would have been kind of interesting to see something similar to "Journey to Bable" (did I remember the name right) with all kinds of different ambassadors causing all kinds of different mischief as well 8)

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Part of my problem with the Galaxy quarters is that there size is simply not required. A modern naval crew spends it's time either on duty, sleeping or in the common areas and judging from what I''ve seen in TNG, they offer little more than what they had in TOS. Just spread out. Having a massive spread of couches and TV's just wastes space, resources and power.

If the GCS was used for long-range exploring, being 5-10 years away from the federation at a time I could understand it, keeping the crew from going stir crazy. But the E-D spent a lot of time in the Federation's core systems, so not quite as justifiable.

[Aaron]

If the GCS was used for long-range exploring, being 5-10 years away from the federation at a time I could understand it, keeping the crew from going stir crazy. But the E-D spent a lot of time in the Federation's core systems, so not quite as justifiable.

Yup, TNG really could have been on an Excelsior, Miranda or any other ship of the week. They totally wasted the E-D's potential and the reason for the entire series.