SG1: There But For The Grace of God

[Zatman]

The point isn't that Galaxy class ships are bad at combat it's that up until that point the enterprise had easily taken on all comers successfully and then a few small ships had taken it out even though the ship and crew were loaded for bear. It's the starship equivalent of the worf effect were they show an alien is a real threat by beating up worf.

They bypassed the shields. In a world where one of the primary space combat weapons (photon torpedoes) makes current nukes look like a dud firework, there aren't too many materials that can resist that, that are also practical to build a ship out of.

[McAvoy]

There is a point about the Galaxy class being Worfed. There were times in TNG could take on anything the galaxy had to offer.

The Yamato being a sister ship to the Enterprise and her being destroyed was a big point for the episode. But in that scene and leading up to it effectively put the Enterprise is peril.

The Borg capable of taking on the Enterprise while seemingly pulling punches on her just showed how powerful the Borg were.

Same goes for the Romulans where the Enterprise violently shakes from fire from the warbird(s).

Enterprise being heavily damaged by a obsolete bird of prey in Generations should have been done by a Vorcha tbh. But I am sure it was budget restraints preventing them from showing something other than a bird of prey with stock footage from the previous movie.

The Odyssey I think is the last time where we see a Galaxy class used specifically to show off how powerful the enemy is.

I think the bigger problems with the viewpoint of the Galaxy is episodes like where the Ferengi were able to capture the Enterprise. Or the exploding warp core problem.

[Madner Kami]

I think the phaser arrays can target multiple things simultaneously: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/start ... 0812194116

That's the only time this has ever been shown on-screen. In every other instance the strip prepares to emit it's beam, by running the charge along the entire stretch of the strip from both sides until they meet where they are supposed to emit. It is always a single beam being emitted from the strip, so I put this down entirely to SFX showing what would make sense from a technical and visually pleasing perspective, while disregarding the "canonical" technicalities of the issues.

As for the Enterprise being worfed, a fan edit shows how the fight in Generation should have gone down by all rights:


youtu.be/9mSY_p84daM

And it's true, a Galaxy is quite powerful. That still doesn't mean she doesn't have all the short-comings listed before though.

[TGLS]

And then there's the security-issue. Galaxies are huge and the shields are usually not activated. A small force of intruders in a cloaked or otherwise hidden vessel can easily infiltrate the ship, stay hidden and cause damage without much or even any ability of the crew to deal with it in a reliable way, as it happened in "The Hunted". I mean, picture this:

I dunno, it seems like a disconnect that happened at some point during production. i.e:
Producer: Well the new Enterprise ought to be impressive, like twice the size of the old Enterprise
Intern: Yes sir!
Producer: Now, on to crew size... I think a thousand should do. Maybe give it an odd number at the end because there are families on board.
Intern: Yes sir!
...
Tech Guy: These numbers don't make any fucking sense! The Constitution had a crew size of like 500, and by square-cube law scaling it up by a factor of two increases the volume by a factor of 8!
Other Tech Guy: Maybe the Enterprise can haul around thousands of dignitaries in luxury?

I mean seriously, comparing the Enterprise-D to the Enterprise Aircraft Carrier:

Source
Enterprise Aircraft Carrier (CVN-65) is roughly the size of the Constitution-class and would literally fit inside the saucer section of the Galaxy-class. Yet it also has a larger crew complement than any of the other Enterprises. Science fiction writers haven't had a sense of scale since.... Ever really.

[Madner Kami]

[...]

Science fiction writers haven't had a sense of scale since.... Ever really.

The funny part is how Ed Whitefire once commented on YouTube, to the video where I took the picture from. To those not in the know, Ed Whitefire is the guy who originally designed and maped the interior of the Enterprise-D along with Andy Probert, before the work was plagiarized by Rick Sternbach.

Ed's thoughts on that were:

I'm sorry that you're using Sternbachs' blueprints as a comparison as his are old and plagiarized the ones I made back in 1990. Back in 1988 I approached Paramount with the Enterprise-D blueprint project and gave them all these statistics about the ship; they almost didn't believe how large the ship actually was. Andy Probert and I then moved forward on the first set of blueprints of the the Enterprise-D which were finished in 1990 and handed out with the writers bibles from that point on. I later published the full finished set on Cygnus X-1, which includes all the pertinent size specs and capabilities of the ship. Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda also assisted with information on the project, but later Sternbach just went ahead and used my drawings as a template for his own and published his set, even going as far as admitting he had done so in his preface. Just sayin'.

-Ed Whitefire

Another commenter dropped this gem:

The Galaxy-class is so large and like a cruise ship for a reason, and Star Trek has been using it wrong for budget reasons.
If the ship was real. It would head a taskforce. Much like how Aircraft carriers operate today. And if the crews were real, it would be also like today. with 70% of the officers and 50% of the enlisted married with 50% of those having children. That is why the Galaxy class had families aboard, schools. The Galaxy-class is in fact a mobile starbase. Also carrying the families of all the ships assigned to its taskforce. It is like a cruise ship, so when crew from smaller ships go on leave. They go to the Galaxy to be with their families. That is why, in the Ed Whitefire's original blueprints. A galaxy had a 5 deck mall, a 3 deck arboretum, a 5 deck lounge down the back of the neck with a waterfall. A casino underneath the large windows in front of the main Shuttlebay. That's why the Shuttlebay is so huge. due to traffic between the Galaxy and the ships of its taskforce. But thanks to budget. so many ideas from the Ed Whitefire blueprints were dropped. Sad really.

-Jim Tilley

So the designers were fully aware of what kind of monstrosity they created and they were doing so with intent. It's lateron and for budgetary concerns, that any of that gets thrown straight out the window and ignored, instead of just scaling the ship down to more reasonable dimensions.

[TGLS]

[...]

Science fiction writers haven't had a sense of scale since.... Ever really.

So the designers were fully aware of what kind of monstrosity they created and they were doing so with intent. It's lateron and for budgetary concerns, that any of that gets thrown straight out the window and ignored, instead of just scaling the ship down to more reasonable dimensions.

Well maybe the production designers, but on the producers (with the probable exception of Roddenberry) and possibly the writers side it sounds a lot more like my silly vignette. Mostly from this bit here:

Back in 1988 I approached Paramount with the Enterprise-D blueprint project and gave them all these statistics about the ship; they almost didn't believe how large the ship actually was.

I honestly can't really say if the situation started with Gene going to the production designers and told them all about how the Enterprise-D was going to be a flying space town, so they made the ship huge to compensate, then Rick Berman (or whoever) came in and told the writers that they were just going to humor Gene and to not do that. Or maybe someone on production said: "We want the Enterprise to look good next to the Excelsior" as they had the good model for that, and that resulted in a huge ship.

Honestly I just stick "the size of the ship isn't consistent" next to "why didn't they ask the whale-probe builders for help against the Borg or the Dominion" and "the pre-2063 future history doesn't add up right" as things that need to be laid aside or go mad.

[clearspira]

Budget and 1980s special effects combined to give us most of the problems we have here.

If you were to design this ship in 2021 using the same ''exploration in comfort'' philosophy that they were going with here, then I have a feeling that we would end up with something that looks like the inside of the ship from Wall-E. You would have a whole deck that is a stadium, another that is a resort, another that is a mall etc. All the extra space would suddenly make a whole lot more sense. As it is, we get rooms such as the arboretum, but it looks more like someone's yard than a majestic place full of flowers and plants from across the Quadrant.

As an aside, could you imagine being a child on this ship? What is there to do?

[Rocketboy1313]

So the designers were fully aware of what kind of monstrosity they created and they were doing so with intent. It's lateron and for budgetary concerns, that any of that gets thrown straight out the window and ignored, instead of just scaling the ship down to more reasonable dimensions.

You all talking about this reminds me of something from two episodes.

In the first episode Riker can't find his way around the ship, so he asks a random crew member (who might be the only person he has seen in an hour) how to get around, and it turns out those random panels in the hallways exist with a "You are here, follow these flashing lights" features, because the thing is so big people can and do get lost inside of it.

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/t101.php
https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/t102.php

The other is "Remember Me" where Beverly is on the Enterprise as all the crew disappear one by one and she asks, "Why the hell is this ship so big if we only have 150 people on it!?" And Data has to concoct a bunch of bullshit.

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/t179.php

[McAvoy]

Budget and 1980s special effects combined to give us most of the problems we have here.

If you were to design this ship in 2021 using the same ''exploration in comfort'' philosophy that they were going with here, then I have a feeling that we would end up with something that looks like the inside of the ship from Wall-E. You would have a whole deck that is a stadium, another that is a resort, another that is a mall etc. All the extra space would suddenly make a whole lot more sense. As it is, we get rooms such as the arboretum, but it looks more like someone's yard than a majestic place full of flowers and plants from across the Quadrant.

As an aside, could you imagine being a child on this ship? What is there to do?

The Enterprise and TNG was designed during the 80's. With their own view of what 100 years of technology development would look over TOS.

Just like many shows or movies made before and after showing their version of the future usually looks very dated.

But TNG and Enterprise also had Roddenberry having a heavy influence at that time too. I'd imagine a 21st century Galaxy class would look far less like what we saw. I'd imagine they would make a point of seperating the Starfleet part of the ship away from the civilian side. I'd also think they would have made a point of making the ship seem to more busy too.

[Deledrius]

As an aside, could you imagine being a child on this ship? What is there to do?

Are you kidding? Replicators that can get you any book you want to read, or any toy you want to play with? Computer games you'll never run out of playing, either on screens or in the holodeck? Plenty of kids your own age, presumably, given the families on board... Parks to play in, scientists to apprentice with... sounds like a dream come true for Kid Me.