TNG - Brothers

[Madner Kami]

The whole saucer-separtion thing becomes more sensible once you consider, that the original Constitution and, by extension, nearly all saucer-based Starfleet-ships had the ability to detach their saucer in cases of emergency, to use it as a life-boat of sorts. Now this was an ability never shown on screen, but it was a design-consideration for the model. Now, that the Enterprise-D could do that doesn't seem so special anymore, but what's special was, both in-universe and without, that the drive-section and the saucer-section could recombine without the help of a stardock.

Also, from a reallife-perspective, I feel this ability is actually a fairly decent idea. The saucer is a self-contained habitat of sorts. You will not always be able to evacuate the civilians before shit hits the fan, but if you can, a floating, self-contained city has much better chances of survival than a fleet of shuttles and potentially thousands of escape-pods. And while it may not be able to travel at warp-speeds, it still has a hangar full of warp-capable shuttles, while being capable to travel at near-lightspeed on it's own, as well as having powerful shields and weaponry (energy can be produced by fusion reactors located at the impulse drive engineering spaces).

That it isn't used more often as a story-device is down to it taking time away from the story and budget-constraints (secondary bridge set, special effects and so ilon) and thusly writers forgetting it's an option over time.

[Nobody700]

Personally... the idea is just odd in general. I more than understand doing so before conflict, but sometimes time is a factor or you get jumped without warning. I dunno, I think every room in the Enterprise being able to split off and be a mini escape pod that sends off beacons makes more sense (And FAR more budget insane and frankly odd how to implement) than take like, 4 minutes to split open as a colony is being nuked by the Romulans.

[Nealithi]

I think one problem is, no one was thinking about Romulans when the ship was made. They were hiding behind the neutral zone with no contact for years. Why design for something that won't happen?
I personally like the idea that every cabin is an escape pod on its own. This way everyone is right by a way out in the event of catastrophe. But the Federation would call anyone designing like that at the time to be paranoid and needing psychiatric help. It is like the security changes at airports happening before 9/11. It was not conceivable.

Now the warp drive on the saucer has confused me. Because the first two times the ship split, the saucer is dropped in deep space and the drive section either waited for it to arrive at Far Point, or would catch up at a starbase. Doesn't that imply that the saucer does have a warp drive?

[clearspira]

I think one problem is, no one was thinking about Romulans when the ship was made. They were hiding behind the neutral zone with no contact for years. Why design for something that won't happen?
I personally like the idea that every cabin is an escape pod on its own. This way everyone is right by a way out in the event of catastrophe. But the Federation would call anyone designing like that at the time to be paranoid and needing psychiatric help. It is like the security changes at airports happening before 9/11. It was not conceivable.

Now the warp drive on the saucer has confused me. Because the first two times the ship split, the saucer is dropped in deep space and the drive section either waited for it to arrive at Far Point, or would catch up at a starbase. Doesn't that imply that the saucer does have a warp drive?

The saucer is meant to be impulse only. Generally in this era of Trek, if it isn't glowing blue or green, it isn't warp. There clearly is never a second warp core mentioned either.

Of course, it is dumb that it isn't. A better design in my head would be something akin to the NX-01 when it flies upside down with the NX-02. The ability to split into two actual ships makes far more sense than one impulse-only saucer.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think First Contact made it clear that Data had to 'assimilated' to gain the access codes to the Enterprise. The Borg did not gain access to Data. Data played them the entire time waiting for his moment.

Personally, this is just my head cannon but the concept of taking civilians away with the saucer while the battle section goes into danger reflects the time when the Galaxy class was designed and built. Prior to the Borg, Starfleet got complacent. They allowed families on board. They felt confident in any kind of threat that came their way.

So they designed and built their crowning jewel like a luxury liner that is too massive for what they actually do. Once shit hits the fan, the class seems to be under gunned with a glass jaw. The whole saucer seperstion seems to be designed during those peaceful times and designed with real world applications in mind.

Keep in mind, the saucer section has no warp capability in itself. If the battle section is destroyed, that saucer section as well equipped as it is, is stranded in the middle of space and potentially a target for whatever destroyed the battle section. Separating into two separate ships sounds OK in principle too since they did go one further with the Prometheus, but the saucer section isn't exactly packing heavy firepower in itself. It's manuverability is questionable and while it does have the longest phasers strips, it doesn't have forward facing torpedo tubes. Nor a warp core.

Yeah but aside from the Enterprise, the fact that the defiant in ds9 was the first wartime ship entails that much of Starfleet was really made for the contingency of a world war.

The galaxy isn't a very war driven space. Surely if such contingencies were necessary then the very idea of letting planets develop warp speed on their own before contacting them would be counterintuitive considering they would probably be ransacked for exploitation by people doing what the Klingons were already doing in the early days, but it would be a much more regular thing.

[Riedquat]

Having the families of the crew reside aboard a warship is fantastically stupid, and immoral. It's a Luxury belief that comes from having so much in the way of resources and power that one becomes stupid; "stupid rich."

The Enterprise D isn't a warship.

[Fianna]

Yeah, the Enterprise gets into a lot of battles and other dangerous situations, but that's not really supposed to happen.

It's what I like to call the "Cabot Cove Effect". On Murder, She Wrote, Cabot Cove is portrayed as a very quiet, peaceful, ordinary small town. But because it's the setting of a murder mystery series, it ends up being home to upwards of a dozen murders each year. Yet we're never meant to view Cabot Cove as a hotbed of crime and violence - each murder is treated as an unusual aberration in the peace that normally presides there. All those other times we've seen the brutal slaying of Cabot Covians: those happened in other episodes - we're not meant to be thinking about them when watching the current episode.

The Enterprise (at least in the TNG era) has a similar deal. It's all about peaceful exploration and diplomacy - the people aboard being put in danger is meant to be a rare and remarkable occurrence. Sure, it happens every other week, but that's just a TV adventure series being a TV adventure series.

[Nobody700]

Yeah, the Enterprise gets into a lot of battles and other dangerous situations, but that's not really supposed to happen.

It's what I like to call the "Cabot Cove Effect". On Murder, She Wrote, Cabot Cove is portrayed as a very quiet, peaceful, ordinary small town. But because it's the setting of a murder mystery series, it ends up being home to upwards of a dozen murders each year. Yet we're never meant to view Cabot Cove as a hotbed of crime and violence - each murder is treated as an unusual aberration in the peace that normally presides there. All those other times we've seen the brutal slaying of Cabot Covians: those happened in other episodes - we're not meant to be thinking about them when watching the current episode.

The Enterprise (at least in the TNG era) has a similar deal. It's all about peaceful exploration and diplomacy - the people aboard being put in danger is meant to be a rare and remarkable occurrence. Sure, it happens every other week, but that's just a TV adventure series being a TV adventure series.

While I fully agree with you, at least with Enterprise the dangers are a part of the job. Not the usual, but it's expected. One of their jobs is to defend ships and colonies from attacks. Cabot Cove's explanation is they have a Hellmouth under it, like Sunnydale!

[TGLS]

Yeah, the Enterprise gets into a lot of battles and other dangerous situations, but that's not really supposed to happen.

Because of this, I kinda wish the Cerritos was a Galaxy class ship; some peril, lots of grunt work

[clearspira]

Why did they make a Galaxy-Class the Federation flagship anyway? And what does that title even mean in the context of this flying daycare?

It is not the first into battle, it is not serving as a command and control ship, it is not flying the admiral's flag.

When Sisko was put in charge of the war effort the Defiant fulfilled the first two of these criteria and maybe even the third whenever Admiral Ross was on board. And yet that was never made the flagship.

Starfleet (and probably once again USAF Gene dabbling with Navy terms) is weird.