Galaxy Class Capability

[Sonic Glitch]

It is completely unfair I know that but let me tell you my tale of woe and how I came to dislike the sovereign . First seen in First Contact I thought she was really really cool. New ship, beautiful design seemingly very powerful altough smaller than the previous Enterprise. I liked the model and I liked the layout of the ship. Then came Insurrection and the first fight against rather conventional Aliens and no super threat like the borg and it was disappointing. The cream of starfleet design got pounded by Sona-aliens which are compared to pre-warp romulans when their threat level is discussed. Sure they may be super smart but shouldn't an interstellar federation of 150 members be able to field something better than a rather small alien culture we never heard from? Also what did happen to the ship? The beautiful white model of First Contact just looked better, bigger and more real than the very dark coloured ship from Insurrection. True this may be due to the lightning in the nebula but I just did not like the special effect shots of her.
And then came Nemesis. Altough you have here a great space battle you are once again in a position were the supposed height of starfleet design is no match for a ship some slave-rebels on a moon were able to develop. It makes me wonder why the bajorans never just build a super-space ship and kicked the cardassians out, I guess our space vampires are just smarter . The ship itself looks much better than in Insurrection but what happened is that they added a multitude of torpedo-launchers for no reason and without consideration of the ships design imho. What about torpedo rooms etc. you cannot just slap torpedo launcher onto a hull where it would look cool that is not very sensible imho.
I admit though that this is just my opinion and that I therefore tend to dress down the sovereign a bit. I just do not see the super ship in her many others think her to be.

I realize this was quite a bit back but I have not yet had to time to catch up on pages 7 & 8, but I remember reading in an interview in the old Star Trek: The Magazine about the additions/refit to the sovereign. The designer said that it ended up being a rush job to get the model done for FC, so they didn't get to do all the touch-ups they wanted and with Insurrection they didn't have the time/money to change the physical model, but for Nem. they had a CGI model so they were finally able to do what they wanted to do in the first place. Apparently the ship supposed to always look like it did in Nemesis. OOU of course.

[Captain Seafort]

Thank you for the explanation. If that is the case it makes me wonder why the dominion did use a ramming tactic in the first place. The whole battle one get the idea that the Odyseey is able to stand her ground but is loosing and retreating but if they could have her destroyed with one good torpedo shoot the dominion also must have suffered greatly to fall back on suicide tactics.

Two possibilities:

1) Their torpedoes weren't powerful enough. BoP torps, for example, are significantly less powerful than their GCS equivalent, otherwise the E-D would have been able to stand up to so many in "Generations".

2) That ramming action wasn't just intended to destroy the Odyssey - it was intended to put the Federation on notice that the Jem'Hadar considered their lives expendable.

Just a side question: I do not want to sound like a complete newbie but does the dominion has/use torpedoes? When I think about it I cannot remember having seen a dominion ship firing one. The DITL page about the attack ship also doesn't seem to have hard data about this....... .

They do: two were fired at the Defiant in "Starship Down". One missed and the other was a dud.

[Tsukiyumi]

Not to mention the (possibly) tri-cobalt type torpedoes the Battleship used in "Valiant".

[Mark]

Hmm........I always wondered about that. Was it a tri-cobalts device, or a similar looking Dominion weapon?

[Tsukiyumi]

Hmm........I always wondered about that. Was it a tri-cobalts device, or a similar looking Dominion weapon?

There's really no way to know for sure, but the visual evidence suggests the same type of weapon.

Voyager:


Battleship:

[Mark]

Similar looking, but it COULD be a "tri-giveashit" bomb as well

[Tsukiyumi]

Similar looking, but it COULD be a "tri-giveashit" bomb as well

Thing is, I don't recall any other weapon that looks like that, and it would explain why the Valiant went down after just a few shots.

[Atekimogus]

And what is the exact difference between a normal photon torpedo of the current mark, a tricobalt defice and the quantum torpedo? (Aside from the visual effect and the colour?)

Altough there is probably no hard evidence it seems that the quantum torpedo is slowly replacing the normal photon torpedo so what about the tricobalt torpedo? Better than a photon torpedo or quantum torpedo but just more expensive?

[Mikey]

A tricobalt device seems to be a conventional explosive or nuke of some super-high power, as opposed to the M/AM photon or quantum torpedo. On the UFP side, at least, they seem to be favored for use against a fixed installation over ship-to-ship combat; perhaps they don't have the same targetting/guidance/acquisition capabilities as PT's/QT's.

[Captain Seafort]

And what is the exact difference between a normal photon torpedo of the current mark, a tricobalt defice and the quantum torpedo? (Aside from the visual effect and the colour?)

The difference between PTs and QTs is unclear, other than QTs are a different colour and are treated as something better. Since there doesn't seem to have been a significant increase in firepower, most people assume that they have better guidance/ECCM/what-have-you, or that they're shaped charges.

Tricobalts, according to "The Voyager Conspiracy" are subspace weapons. As Mikey saidm they're usually used against static or nearly static targets, and may therefore trade accuracy for firepower.

[Mikey]

Tricobalts, according to "The Voyager Conspiracy" are subspace weapons.

Forgot about that bit.

[Atekimogus]

Now wait a minute...I may be completely wrong on this but has the UFP not ruled out subspace weaponry? I do not remember the exact lines in Insurrection but wasn't there something about subspace-weapons beeing illegal?

[Captain Seafort]

Now wait a minute...I may be completely wrong on this but has the UFP not ruled out subspace weaponry? I do not remember the exact lines in Insurrection but wasn't there something about subspace-weapons beeing illegal?

There are two explanations for that; either a) the 2nd Khitomer Accords were signed after Voyager went into the Badlands, or b) they're 24th century WP - illegal but effective, so everyone uses them anyway.

[Mikey]

Actually, IIRC according to INS, isolytic subspace weapons were banned by the Khitomer Accord, not all subspace weapons. I could be wrong, though,

[Sonic Glitch]

Now wait a minute...I may be completely wrong on this but has the UFP not ruled out subspace weaponry? I do not remember the exact lines in Insurrection but wasn't there something about subspace-weapons beeing illegal?

There are two explanations for that; either a) the 2nd Khitomer Accords were signed after Voyager went into the Badlands, or b) they're 24th century WP - illegal but effective, so everyone uses them anyway.

WP?

The difference between PTs and QTs is unclear, other than QTs are a different colour and are treated as something better. Since there doesn't seem to have been a significant increase in firepower, most people assume that they have better guidance/ECCM/what-have-you, or that they're shaped charges.

Supposedly they utilize Zero-point energy in their payload. I think thats the DS9TM tho, in "real life"? Who really knows? I think they're supposed to have higher yields/better effects on shields, etc.