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That one point I have no dispute with, shown as your point #3 - at the beginning of Insurrection, IIRC, there was a diplomatic function being held. This certainly may have been in a redecorated crew lounge, however, because there were no envitonmental changes made for the visitors.

Okay, back into it again...

Also at the beginning of Insurection they weren't doing anything with the Son'a.

Ah, I thought your point was that they were sent to Baku. I badly need to watch that film again...

And I believe dialogue indicated that they'd been spending a lot of time doing this sort of thing.

The Enterprise, or the Federation?

I think it was there just to start things off and show what the ship spends most of its time doing.

What does the opening scene have to do with the ships regular functions?
If they showed what the ship was normaly doing, wouldn't it just be scanning some anomaly, or inspecting some planet?

And the whole 'they were hosting a diplomatic meeting' thing is hardly unheard of for a warship. Japans surrender in WW2 was recieved on a battleship. Several treaties in the 18-19th century were also negotiated on warships.

In the first I believe they were supposed to have been going through their shakedown cruise, and possibly staying on hand for the borg attack.

IIRC, Picard was forbidon from helping in the attack, because the admiral feared that his Borg connections would make him a threat to the fleet.

the second they were actively enganged in a dedicated diplomatic mission at the start.

See above.

In the third they start off driving around Riker and then they're the first to detect a positronic signature. They weren't at the system in question, and presumably a fair number of starfleet vessels would be in the sol region of space. So it at least hints that the Sov has very advanced scientific sensors.

1) They were near the Romulan border, not Earth.
2) Why would any other ship care about a positronic signature? The Enterprise only knows the value of it because of Data. This hardly shows that the Sovereign has any more advanced sensors than the next ship.

They also are then sent off on a supposed diplomatic mission where the fun starts.

1) Because they were the nearest ship, as you yourself said.
2) Again, its not unheard of for a warship to take on diplomatic missions.
3) It would make sense to send your heaviest ship.

If we are given a new class of ship, and we don't know what its purpose is what are we looking for to tell if it's a warship.

We are looking for how it is deployed, its armament relative to civilian vessels of equal tonneage, the role it was originaly constructed for, etc.

So what does it take to add multirole capabilities to what would otherwise be a dedicated warship?

Okay, to show you how pointless the following comparisons are, I'm going to compare between the USS Nimitz, and some nuclear submarine.

1. It needs some extra crew quarters (and/or the abilities to add such) to house additional scientific/diplomatic personel. Though how many more isn't clear. Also not being efficiantly purpose built for war those crew quarters will tend to be plusher.

Nimitz, check.
Submarine, nope.

Do you not realise that the reason for this is size, not its role?

2. Again not being built dedicated to war, and for purposes of entertaining it will have luxuries like multiple holodecks and the like.

Nimitz, check.
Submarine, nope.

Again, this is a product of size. If you scaled the Defiant up to the size of a Sovereign, you could easily fit all that stuff in.

3. In order to host diplomatic functions there should be some internal space dedicated to conference rooms and open space for guests

Nimitz, check.
Submarine, nope.

Size.

EDIT: Upon reading a summary of the movie it seems that the Sov, in fact, has a large banquet hall. This seems to me to be proof of multirole capabilities, because it's something added just for diplomacy.

So did an 18th century Man-Of-War. Does this mean its not a warship?

4. Additionally a captains Yacht for regal transit to the surface would be useful. Granted they only showed the thing in use once, and that was going to the surface. But if you were making a dropship I doubt you'd build it like that. Also if it was a dropship I think it'd have been named differently.

Nimitz, check. (I believe they have some type of boat on board, correct?)
Submarine, nope.

Again SIZE!

5. For science you'd want a large prominent swiss army knife nav deflector. That isn't a neccesary technology, every other race gets by fine with a minimal deflector usually it isn't even visible.

The nav defs aren't designed as a swiss army knife, that's just a byproduct. Any nav def of sufficient size could be used like that, not just a science ship.
And a nav def is essential for FTL speed, other wise a pebble could tear your fancy ship in two in a second.

7. For exploration again you want luxuries for the crew to not go nuts and you want a focus on top speed over things like combat manuverability and system vulnerability.

Nimitz, check.
Submarine, nope.

Again to fit the extra stuff you need for multirole in you'd tend to have a bit of a "puffy" design. This could be a serious consideration in an era of ablative armor, debatably shields don't care how big you are, but when you add extra space it means you have to use more or thin out your ablative armor. Also being puffier than needed costs you combat manuverability, which we have seen can be a big deal tactiacally.

Are you seriously suggesting that, becuase its big, it must be a multi-role?
Nimitz, check.
Submarine, nope.

Last thing I can think of. A multirole ship would tend to have multiple shuttlebays and NOT fill them up with fighters the way an Akira is supposed to.
Sov check. This is supported by cannon, there is a lot of space dedicated to multiple shuttle bays and in NONE of the fights it got into did it ever belch out a swarm of fighters no matter how dire the situation. And we know starfleet had fighters at that point. I consider this extremely strong evidence in fact.

Yes, clearly this is because they didn't have them, rather than the fact that Picard wouldn't throw away the lives of good crewmen.

So what I'm saying is we have the ship in cannon being used for pure diplomacy missions, and it has all the hallmarks of being a multirole ship.

So does the USS Nimitz, and an 18th century Man of War. Does this mean that neither of these are warships?

Oh and writing up that list it occurs to me that most of what you need to be multirole is complimentary and cheap.

What?

And they don't seem resource intensive to make

Prove it.

Extra crew quarters and things like ships libraries? Seems pretty easy to replicate.

Prove it.

And if they're on one ship the extra systems can possibly benefit from being connected.

That is not a benefit. Do you recall how every system on the E-D was infected by a virus, because they were interconnected? Do you recall the numerous times that all weapons go down to a sinlge hit, becuase they're interconnected?
Connecting all your systems together is idiocy.

I gotta go but my point is that all starfleet ships, even the Galaxy, are designed to be able to fight.

That's because the Galaxy has a role as a warship, in addition to its other roles. How often do we see pure science ships going into combat?

The point of the above is that the Sov has a wide array of things a pure warship would not need, and that the defiant, actually being nearly pure warship, does not have.

Do you really not understand that you cannot take a 150 metre long craft, and compare it to a 700 metre long craft?
Due to its size it can never have the same features the larger ships have.

Also I edited things probably while you were posting. In cannon they are clearly performing diplomatic roles and clearly have facilities purely dedicated to that.

So does the USS Nimitz. And and 18th century Man of War. And lets not forget the diplomatic missions the US warships went on in WW2.

Wow, it's like having my posts come in stereo!

However, I did fail to include one key example which Rochey didn't forget: The Japanese surrendered to MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri, a (North Carolina-class, I believe, but Seafort could correct me) BATTLESHIP! I don't call it a battleship because of any value judgement - I call it that because that's how the ship class was officially described, and because that's what it was. Can anyone legitimately state that the "Mighty Mo" was NOT a warship because a diplomatic function was held aboard her?

Wow, it's like having my posts come in stereo!

Sorry, but I just wanted to make sure he knew that I wasn't ignoring his pioints.

I don't mind - having you back me up is like finding supporting evidence in the Bible!

Again before getting into things nobody is saying that a Sov is not a ship that can go to war. Hence you could call it a warship, same as you could call a Connie or even a Galaxy a warship. It's obviously that. What you're trying to say is that it's ONLY a warship, and that equipment and facilities not dedicated to battle have not been added.

My position is that things have been added that raise production costs at least somewhat, and likely impact combat manuverability.

I suppose you could make a third argument that at this point being a multirole ship is simply automatic. Once you have all the stuff to be a proper warship you are essentially fully capable as a science, exploration and diplomacy craft. I have suspicions about that due to the fact we know the feds can build differently because of the Defiant. Big saucers, external nacells and many millions of tons of mass are not required to load a heavy armament of Federation weaponry. But there could be something to that argument, especially if one of you can give a good cannon argument why the ship needs to be all spread out like that militarily. And to some degree it's certainly true. As mentioned you can have the Japanese surrender on a torpedo boat if you want to.

Rochey wrote:
The Enterprise, or the Federation?

Picard was refering to his command. He wanted to get out exploring again instead of doing diplomacy stuff.

What does the opening scene have to do with the ships regular functions?
If they showed what the ship was normaly doing, wouldn't it just be scanning some anomaly, or inspecting some planet?

It might do that to, but the diplomacy thing was more amusing. I still feel the dialogue supports the fact that diplomacy is something done regularly by the ship, and I think the dining hall was extravagently large. But it has been too long to say that with 100% certainty.

1) They were near the Romulan border, not Earth.
2) Why would any other ship care about a positronic signature? The Enterprise only knows the value of it because of Data. This hardly shows that the Sovereign has any more advanced sensors than the next ship.

They weren't trying to go there. They were going between Earth and Betazed. And simply detected something that far out. However the bit about Data is why I said hints instead of proves. That and the fact they may have called dibs or whatever. Though I'd contend that the rest of starfleet knows about the positronic thing, or at least the computers do.


Still tight on time so I have to stop the point by point and go a little broad.

While the Nimitz is big it isn't excessivly so. If you look at it your impression is that this ship is trying to be as small as possible while maintaining a sufficiantly long flight deck. Any extra space it has on the inside is a byproduct of needing to be big enough for that flightdeck. I put it on you to prove that there is some similar requirement on a Sov, because the defiant proves they can go without. I also question how posh the crew quarters are in the Nimitz, but I don't know.

As for the navigational deflector I know what it's for, but don't the starships in every other race need to have the same technology? I believe it's that they get by with very small ones, smaller or similar in size to the backup deflector on the intrepid class. Hence why we can't see them. The tradeoff being that they can't do nearly the same amount of crazyness.

And I can't go without commenting on the fighters. If the imminent destruction of the Earth or the Enterprise itself does not merit deploying fighters, exactly what does? I know you don't think that fighters are worthless in combat. I remember a bunch of you crowing about them in another thread. You can't deny the thing has room for them in its shuttlebays, lots of them, or at the least could easily have been designed to accommodate them. I contend they do not carry fighters as part of their regular loadout because, unlike the Nimitz, on a day to day basis they are not acting primarily as a warship. Instead they have much of their internal volume taken up in order of host shuttlecraft and runabouts to enhance their ability to complete non military missions.

Also some age of sail ships were multi purpose. Galleons for example were used both for war and bulk transport. Probably more ships were multi purpose. Certainly a number of them were designed for long distance sailing and exploring while having battle as a secondary or complimentary role, compared to being proper ships of the line. Frigates and sloops fit that bill. My knowledge of the era is spotty though.

Again we are back into the old 'What is a warship' bit.

I'll refer to the coast guard angle. A coast guard ship is not armored and has limit capabilites yet it usually has a form of weapon on it. Is it a warship?

A Whaleing boat has a harpoon gun on it, that gun can be classed as a weapon. Is it a warship?

Sir Peter Blakes yaught that he was doing reserch on up the amazon had a weapon on board. Does that make it a warship.

But you may say that ships are only warships if they particiapte in a war.

What about all the small boats used in Dunkirk? They all rescued soilders while under fire. Does that make them warships?

Starfleets ships are not warships. They are ships that hav the capability to defend themselves when needed.

sunnyside wrote:And I can't go without commenting on the fighters. ...

Yes, a number of us went on about the value of fighters in the 'Trek universe. But we cannot assume that ship-borne fighters are EVER used, because nobody's EVER seen a fighter launched froma ship onscreen! By your argument, Starfleet has NO warships at all, even ones like the Akira, because they've never been seen to launch a fighter.

And yes, there is a reason for the ginormous size of the Sov compared to the Defiant. We've all seen that in respect to warp speed in the 'Trek universe, bigger is better. The Sov is the shiznit when it comes to top speed; the Defiant isn't, nor was it meant to be - it's classed as an "escort." From there, it is very easy to extrapolate the fact that all those extras - crew comforts, big lounges/dining rooms, these mysterious unseen sensor suites, etc. - are there simply because the design and size of the Sov allowed for them... not because the Sov was designed FOR them.

I'm with Teaos mostly. Though I'd contend what makes something a warship is when it's design is, almost without exception, dedicated purely to battle. Once you start adding things on not needed purely for battle you have a multi role ship.


Anyway I can back because I thought of something in relation to Rocheys "how it's used" comment.

We never see the Sov "used" as a warship. It is never ordered by starfleet into battle or a battle situation, ever.

It is ordered to undertake diplomatic missions on multiple occasions
It is used to Investigate strange positronic readings
It is used as a courier ship.

That's what the thing has done under starfleet orders.

As for fights? It just gets into those. Because of Picard having a pissed off clone out to get him in one case and due to disobeying orders in the other two. If he'd still been in a Galaxy he'd have done the exact same things.

So all the evidence as for as how the ship is used is on my side.

EDIT : In fact I just found an online script. Here's a snippit



RIKER
They need us to mediate some
territorial dispute...

PICARD
(frustrated)
We can't delay the archaeological
expedition to Hanoran Two. It
would put us into the middle of
monsoon season...

RIKER
(can't be helped)
The Diplomatic Corps is busy with
Dominion negotiations.

PICARD
(sighs)
... so they need us to put out one
more brush fire.
(beat)
Anyone remember when we used to
be explorers?



So add to the jobs of the ship freaking ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPIDITIONS.

Also note that the thing was NOT deployed to the dominion war despite being launched a year before the war.


It's starting to look like war is a secondary role for this thing.

EDIT MIKEY: We wouldn't have seen a launch presumably because fighters would be launched shortly after the ships leave warp, before the battle proper is joined, because of having to get past the shields. However in Nemesis the shields were down, and I believe in first contact there was an opportunity to deploy, though I could be wrong. I want to say shields were down in Insurection as well. Certainly a swarm of fighers could have been launched while the Enterprise was returning to lay the smack on the Son'a.

As for the space maybe you could argue that you need the size for speed. Although the need for speed on ships that fight as impulse is debatable. Also the internal volume on a pure warship could have been used to, oh I don't know, bring enough photon torpedos that you don't run out.

Certinly seems as if its a explorer science ship doesnt it.

Not really... those notes fromt he script indicate only that Starfleet misuses the ships it has built, not for what the ship was built.

BTW Sunnyside: I understand your point, but I can't accept the fact that bearing fighters is an identifying quality of a warship if we have never seen a spaceborne fighter. Your reasons are correct as to why we MIGHT NOT have seen it onscreen, but there is no evidence that any ships were intended to carry fighters.

Not really... those notes fromt he script indicate only that Starfleet misuses the ships it has built, not for what the ship was built.

No it doesn't. It uses them exactly as they were intended to be used. As explorers and science ships with the ability to fight if and only if they need to. Its only because you mislabel it as a warship that you think it is misused.

Oh come on now Mikey. By your argument starfleet accidentally built a multirole vessel. They meant to build a battleship, but they did a crappy job. In fact building a ship that looks more like a multirole craft. And then, whoops, they used their battleship only for things that were not battle. Apperantly subspace communications on the ship went down for a few years and they just missed out on the entire Dominion war. Damn.

Or they made the ship the way it is deliberatly and used it the way they planned to. As a multirole ship that can also kick some tail.

Which is supported by the writers and designers and other non-cannon people.

Also, you know who tend to come along on Archeological expiditions. That's right. Civilians. Though I admit starfleet personel should be able to pull off an expidition on their own, I just couldn't resist.

Also fighters, it's fine not to have fighters on a dedicated warship, but when you don't have fighters and you give over a lot of space to shuttlebays it indicates, possibly proves on its own, that the ship is designed as multirole.

I mean seriously, in the space of three movies it would have been hard to pack in more stuff that supports my side of things. About the only extra thing they could have done would be to add civis all over the place. And that was kind of a fluke of the Galaxy as it had families on board. Not going on a long range mission yet the Sov wouldn't have had a reason to do that. And again civies may be implied due to the expidition.

Really give me any evidence that this thing is designed as a pure warship. I can find absolutly nothing to support that claim to even argue against aside from the most trivial arguments:

It has weapons. So do Oberths.
It has the best weapons in the fleet. So did the Galaxy.

It is never called a battleship, never even a battlecruiser, which was applied to some other ships I believe. Even an "escort" implies a military vessel whose job is to fight off threats to ships it is escorting.

The Sov is only refered to as a "Heavy Cruiser", same as the Galaxy and an "Explorer type II" . It is never used as a battleship, it is only used by starfleet on diplomatic, transport, scientific and exploritory missions.

There is never a shred of dialogue along the lines of "this ship was built to fight". Nothing.

Give me something.

Created it by accident? I think not. I believe you have it reversed - they designed a battleship, and by the way of having a few alternate facilities you now label it a multirole vessel. I can't and won't argue what it had been doing - except for the Sov's lack of appearance during the Dominion War; that is due to the fact that the CGI/models hadn't been made yet. Anyway, my opinion on the state of Starfleet's upper brass is well-known.

As far as exploring the nomenclature applied to it: it has been called a "heavy cruiser," which is a military taxonomy. It has never canonically been called an "Explorer Type whatever." The Ticonderoga-class is called a "cruiser," and it's the most feared non-carrier warship around.

BTW, "escort" does not merely imply a military vessel, it means outright a military vessel - it's shorthand for "destroyer escort."

So they send a Battleship to do the arceological mission rather than a Nova or and Intrepid? Top brass may not be military master minds but they are not that stupid.