TNG - Brothers

[Nealithi]

In the case of the situation in Brothers, what we had was a horrendous security breach. The mission of Starfleet security, here, was a complete failure. You might argue that this was possibly unforeseen, and was extraordinary given that it was Data who did it, but security is not meant to be simply reactive even if most of the time it is. It has to be proactively thinking about what possibly could happen, given the situation. Data, himself, as depicted, is a potential security threat, not just to the ship, but the entire Starfleet. No sane admiral would've EVER let Data be posted anywhere that could expose him not only to capture, but to any sensitive information willy-nilly. Even if posted to Starfleet Intelligence, his access would be circumscribed to whatever is necessary on a case-by-case basis. That's because he's not like a organic being, who, while interrogated, would reveal some things, but can't reveal too much because our memories are not very perfect. Data, on the other hand, remembers any fact he's exposed to, as he stated when talking to Admiral Leonard McCoy in Encounter at Farpoint. So, if he's captured, whatever information he has in that head of his might possibly be extracted with a great degree of detail, and that could be disastrous for national security if he was exposed to something especially sensitive.

I trimmed this mostly so the quote block does not take an entire page. But I will try to address all of it.

Anyone is a massive security breach. Not when Geordi was mind controlled he himself could bypass security and erase he did it. Telepaths and the borg exist and they seem more than capable of pulling Data quality information from organic minds. Data himself locked codes in his head that could not be removed by force. (Unless apparently you are Soong) That makes Data more secure than the average engineer on the Enterprise.

Now as I mentioned earlier the only in universe reason for the fail of security is the 'highly evolved' members of Starfleet consider it a barbaric relic. That is why they treat Worf like a small child when he wants to raise shields when an armed ship appears. Yet a nine year old boy is lectured as though he fed his brother poisonous fruit. Children are adults but security are small children.

Now the civilians on the D do not bother me as much as you might think. Everywhere has danger. What was supposed to happen almost never did because it was too expensive an effect. There was not supposed to be an evacuation of the warp section of the ship. All the families lived in the saucer. It detaches and the now much more limber and powerful drive section engages the enemy. Commanded from the battle bridge. A set I think was seen all of twice? The Enterprise was meant for two things. Ultra long distance exploration, being a flying starbase itself. If it was a galaxy class sent to the delta quadrant they would have done quite well. It is what it is designed for. The second mission is primarily being a flying embassy. Go fly the flag and host some parties. A non-combat role. It is when it was decided, nope the galaxy is still too dangerous, that the Sovereign class was designed without families.

[clearspira]

The Galaxy Class is horrendously designed though. There is no armour on this thing - and I mean, none at all. Look at how easy it is to destroy it when the shields are down. There is a lot of incompetence in ''Generations'' no kidding, but man, that old BoP makes the D its bitch so quickly. And during DS9 we see Galaxy Class after Galaxy Class during the big space battles falling despite the fact that at the time they were meant to be the Federation's capital ships barring the few Sovereigns that they were producing that were rarely seen.

Now compare this to Voyager during the ''Year of Hell''. The difference is night and day.

Actually, thinking about this, civilians aside, what the Galaxy Class reminds me of is why battleships were replaced by destroyers. There is just no need for these big, hulking, relatively slow and actually surprisingly weak ships when you can just build smaller and quicker ships full of top of the range tech AKA Voyager.


The Enterprise is Insanely Huge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx5uB0pyhQ

If you've never watched this one, here is a fun video on just how stupidly large the Galaxy Class is. Even for a society with replicators, this thing is very wasteful.

[Nealithi]

The Galaxy Class is horrendously designed though. There is no armour on this thing - and I mean, none at all. Look at how easy it is to destroy it when the shields are down. There is a lot of incompetence in ''Generations'' no kidding, but man, that old BoP makes the D its bitch so quickly. And during DS9 we see Galaxy Class after Galaxy Class during the big space battles falling despite the fact that at the time they were meant to be the Federation's capital ships barring the few Sovereigns that they were producing that were rarely seen.

Now compare this to Voyager during the ''Year of Hell''. The difference is night and day.

Actually, thinking about this, civilians aside, what the Galaxy Class reminds me of is why battleships were replaced by destroyers. There is just no need for these big, hulking, relatively slow and actually surprisingly weak ships when you can just build smaller and quicker ships full of top of the range tech AKA Voyager.


The Enterprise is Insanely Huge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx5uB0pyhQ

If you've never watched this one, here is a fun video on just how stupidly large the Galaxy Class is. Even for a society with replicators, this thing is very wasteful.

Most starships seem to have little armor. After all armor is weight and slows you down. The D is an over engineered balloon they stuck a bunch of empty corridors in though I agree.
I don't think I need the Dominion war to show the Galaxy class is somewhat of a glass cannon. Brush the nacelles with a Miranda and the D spins away and detonates. More than the consoles are made of explodium.

But the Enterprise was still not built as a warship. She was certainly armed. But it was tacking guns on a cruise vessel as opposed to a battleship.

[MaxWylde]

I trimmed this mostly so the quote block does not take an entire page. But I will try to address all of it.

Anyone is a massive security breach. Not when Geordi was mind controlled he himself could bypass security and erase he did it. Telepaths and the borg exist and they seem more than capable of pulling Data quality information from organic minds. Data himself locked codes in his head that could not be removed by force. (Unless apparently you are Soong) That makes Data more secure than the average engineer on the Enterprise.

Now as I mentioned earlier the only in universe reason for the fail of security is the 'highly evolved' members of Starfleet consider it a barbaric relic. That is why they treat Worf like a small child when he wants to raise shields when an armed ship appears. Yet a nine year old boy is lectured as though he fed his brother poisonous fruit. Children are adults but security are small children.

Now the civilians on the D do not bother me as much as you might think. Everywhere has danger. What was supposed to happen almost never did because it was too expensive an effect. There was not supposed to be an evacuation of the warp section of the ship. All the families lived in the saucer. It detaches and the now much more limber and powerful drive section engages the enemy. Commanded from the battle bridge. A set I think was seen all of twice? The Enterprise was meant for two things. Ultra long distance exploration, being a flying starbase itself. If it was a galaxy class sent to the delta quadrant they would have done quite well. It is what it is designed for. The second mission is primarily being a flying embassy. Go fly the flag and host some parties. A non-combat role. It is when it was decided, nope the galaxy is still too dangerous, that the Sovereign class was designed without families.

First, Data is less secure than Geordi. Why? Because he's a machine. Any machine can be cracked. And because of his artificial nature, given how he can remember anything he's exposed to, this makes him more dangerous as a security risk than any human, or even a Vulcan. Geordi may be captured, as he was, and subverted by the Romulans to become an assassin, in a scheme to undermine the alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. But, this is something that could easily be prevented and mitigated if Starfleet had any common sense. How did Geordi get captured in the first place? Because the Enterprise is doing God Knows What so far away that they give him a little shuttle, by himself, in a location where Romulans might lurk. How to defeat this? Simple: Don't send a sensitive officer alone on a shuttle to go to Risa. Create outlets for the Enterprise to be able to transfer officers and crew as needed for leave in a secure way.

But, how do you defeat the possibility of a unique android with meta-strength and terraflops of computer processing capabilities from commandeering a starship? Simple: Don't have that android serve aboard a starship. And there are a lot of other things that can be done.

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."

For one, if you have a ship meant to defend your country and go directly into combat have to deal with the civilian family members aboard to safeguard their lives, well, that interferes with what is known in the military as Readiness. Readiness is just what it sounds like, to be ready to go to do the mission, to go into combat, when you are expected to. Readiness can mean the difference between victory and defeat. It's one of the reasons why I object to having women serve in the military, not only because it's completely immoral, but they can easily become non-deployable at any time, day or night, thanks to something they are uniquely capable of: Getting Pregnant. The instant that happens, the unit has to stop whatever it's doing to get that woman out of a theater, and that can cost millions, literally, to accomplish, because she's non-deployable; the baby did not sign up for service. And neither did the family members of the crew of the Enterprise. So that interferes with Readiness.

Not to mention spending the resources just to accommodate these non-essential personnel. All of that interferes with Readiness.

[Nealithi]

I trimmed this mostly so the quote block does not take an entire page. But I will try to address all of it.

Anyone is a massive security breach. Not when Geordi was mind controlled he himself could bypass security and erase he did it. Telepaths and the borg exist and they seem more than capable of pulling Data quality information from organic minds. Data himself locked codes in his head that could not be removed by force. (Unless apparently you are Soong) That makes Data more secure than the average engineer on the Enterprise.

Now as I mentioned earlier the only in universe reason for the fail of security is the 'highly evolved' members of Starfleet consider it a barbaric relic. That is why they treat Worf like a small child when he wants to raise shields when an armed ship appears. Yet a nine year old boy is lectured as though he fed his brother poisonous fruit. Children are adults but security are small children.

Now the civilians on the D do not bother me as much as you might think. Everywhere has danger. What was supposed to happen almost never did because it was too expensive an effect. There was not supposed to be an evacuation of the warp section of the ship. All the families lived in the saucer. It detaches and the now much more limber and powerful drive section engages the enemy. Commanded from the battle bridge. A set I think was seen all of twice? The Enterprise was meant for two things. Ultra long distance exploration, being a flying starbase itself. If it was a galaxy class sent to the delta quadrant they would have done quite well. It is what it is designed for. The second mission is primarily being a flying embassy. Go fly the flag and host some parties. A non-combat role. It is when it was decided, nope the galaxy is still too dangerous, that the Sovereign class was designed without families.

First, Data is less secure than Geordi. Why? Because he's a machine. Any machine can be cracked. And because of his artificial nature, given how he can remember anything he's exposed to, this makes him more dangerous as a security risk than any human, or even a Vulcan. Geordi may be captured, as he was, and subverted by the Romulans to become an assassin, in a scheme to undermine the alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. But, this is something that could easily be prevented and mitigated if Starfleet had any common sense. How did Geordi get captured in the first place? Because the Enterprise is doing God Knows What so far away that they give him a little shuttle, by himself, in a location where Romulans might lurk. How to defeat this? Simple: Don't send a sensitive officer alone on a shuttle to go to Risa. Create outlets for the Enterprise to be able to transfer officers and crew as needed for leave in a secure way.

But, how do you defeat the possibility of a unique android with meta-strength and terraflops of computer processing capabilities from commandeering a starship? Simple: Don't have that android serve aboard a starship. And there are a lot of other things that can be done.

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."

For one, if you have a ship meant to defend your country and go directly into combat have to deal with the civilian family members aboard to safeguard their lives, well, that interferes with what is known in the military as Readiness. Readiness is just what it sounds like, to be ready to go to do the mission, to go into combat, when you are expected to. Readiness can mean the difference between victory and defeat. It's one of the reasons why I object to having women serve in the military, not only because it's completely immoral, but they can easily become non-deployable at any time, day or night, thanks to something they are uniquely capable of: Getting Pregnant. The instant that happens, the unit has to stop whatever it's doing to get that woman out of a theater, and that can cost millions, literally, to accomplish, because she's non-deployable; the baby did not sign up for service. And neither did the family members of the crew of the Enterprise. So that interferes with Readiness.

Not to mention spending the resources just to accommodate these non-essential personnel. All of that interferes with Readiness.

Except that the borg could not force the information to unlock the E out of Data, but can co-opt an organic mind. And claiming he is strong and smart so he should not serve means do not let vulcans aboard either. They might take over as a security threat. Pakleds would suddenly be ideal crew.

But you have skipped a point on the civilians. The saucer section is not supposed to go into battle. You drop off the civilian population and take the drive section to fight. Combined the Enterprise is a flying embassy. She is basically a destroyer pushing a luxury barge around. Lose the barge when fighting commences.

[McAvoy]

The Galaxy Class is horrendously designed though. There is no armour on this thing - and I mean, none at all. Look at how easy it is to destroy it when the shields are down. There is a lot of incompetence in ''Generations'' no kidding, but man, that old BoP makes the D its bitch so quickly. And during DS9 we see Galaxy Class after Galaxy Class during the big space battles falling despite the fact that at the time they were meant to be the Federation's capital ships barring the few Sovereigns that they were producing that were rarely seen.

Now compare this to Voyager during the ''Year of Hell''. The difference is night and day.

Actually, thinking about this, civilians aside, what the Galaxy Class reminds me of is why battleships were replaced by destroyers. There is just no need for these big, hulking, relatively slow and actually surprisingly weak ships when you can just build smaller and quicker ships full of top of the range tech AKA Voyager.


The Enterprise is Insanely Huge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx5uB0pyhQ

If you've never watched this one, here is a fun video on just how stupidly large the Galaxy Class is. Even for a society with replicators, this thing is very wasteful.

One of the key issues I have noticed with the Enterprise-D is when she suffers from damage, she develops a coolant leak. Which causes a warp core breach.

Compare that to the USS Galaxy herself in the Battle for Chintoka. She took took a big hit that destroyed basically the whole main engineering and warp core but flew past with no issue. The USS Odyssey took a direct hit by a kamikazi attack that did even worse damage but for a moment was okay until a piece of the nacelle broke off and hit the ship.

We could argue that the TNG ships had armor and that any thicker was pointless when phasers could gouge big holes in the ship anyway. That it required specialized armor to prevent that. As in ablative armor. Or that Starfleet relied on their advanced shields from any serious damage. Like one of the reasons why Picard seemed to have that tendnancy to allow opposing ships to fire a few times before returning fire.

There is also that fan speculation that Starfleet got way too complacent in it's technological superiority and designed the Galaxy class at first built too lightly. That she wasn't battle harded. As in the shields were powerful enough and the phasers were designed at a setting that was powerful enough to ward off enemies but not seriously damage them. Defensive weapons you could say.

Voyager was built later and given the lessons learned since the Enterprise-D was built. Defiant was a purpose built warship.

[MaxWylde]

Except that the borg could not force the information to unlock the E out of Data, but can co-opt an organic mind. And claiming he is strong and smart so he should not serve means do not let vulcans aboard either. They might take over as a security threat. Pakleds would suddenly be ideal crew.

But you have skipped a point on the civilians. The saucer section is not supposed to go into battle. You drop off the civilian population and take the drive section to fight. Combined the Enterprise is a flying embassy. She is basically a destroyer pushing a luxury barge around. Lose the barge when fighting commences.

You're employing a false equivalency. The Borg could totally force the information out of Data to unlock the Enterprise-E. And while they could also co-opt an organic mind, an organic mind could never have locked the Enterprise to such a degree as Data. And not only that, an organic mind, no matter even if it had "photographic memory," which is actually quite fallible, is not an artificial one, with a computer-capable accuracy. The Borg may be able to learn about Starfleet tactics from Picard, but they could only learn about Starfleet ships and equipment, deployment, communications and encryption, and other things from the Enterprise computer. And Data, if he knows it. A Vulcan is NOT an android. That seems hard for you to understand.

You also left out that we really don't know the full extent of Borg capabilities. It's just as likely that, because their ships were blown out from them, and they had to beam aboard the Enterprise in order to survive, they had some limitations in what they could do to Data on the Enterprise as opposed to being on a proper Borg ship with proper Borg facilities.

As for the saucer section supposing to drop civilians off before battle, I want you to think real hard about that. You're a Romulan Commander, in command of a Warbird. You're going to attack the Enterprise. Are you really going to decloak, and hail the captain to tell him that you want to fight, and so he better off-load the civilians or detach the saucer? Really?

Or, let's flip this around. You're the Captain of the Enterprise-D. There's an engagement at some place along the Neutral Zone; a Starfleet ship has called for assistance, as she is outgunned and outnumbered. You have to be there as fast as you can. Are you really going to detach the Saucer? That takes time, and every second could be important. The longer you delay, the greater chance that your fellow ship will be destroyed. Now, I suppose you could detach the saucer at warp 9, but that was implied to be very dangerous, given how the bridge crew reacted to Picard's order.

If you have to consider what to do with the civilians because you have them on the ship before you go into battle, you've got a serious problem. What's the best, optimal solution to this problem? Just spitballing here, but having no families aboard seems like the best option.

[McAvoy]

Actually, thinking about this, civilians aside, what the Galaxy Class reminds me of is why battleships were replaced by destroyers. There is just no need for these big, hulking, relatively slow and actually surprisingly weak ships when you can just build smaller and quicker ships full of top of the range tech AKA Voyager.

Totally missed this.

In naval history, battleships weren't replaced by destroyers because they were relatively slow or weak. It was because of cost.

There is this misconception that battleships were for some reason more vulnerable to air attack or underwater torpedoes. They are actually the least vulnerable of all ship types. They are bigger than destroyers and cruisers and the same size as an aircraft carrier. This means more weapons on their decks and superstructures. They have wider beams with elaborate underwater protection. They have heavy deck armor and side armor (which admittedly becomes less important in aerial battles).

Also WW2 battleships were getting fast. Not all of them, US Treaty Battleships like the North Carolina class, South Dakota class, Britain's King George V class and the Japanese super battleships had slower speed of 26-28 knots. But the rest of them could hit speeds above 30 knots. Yes destroyers are far faster than this but it has been shown in fleet operations in heavy seas where the battleship can plow through the waves, destroyers have to ride on top of the waves. Their speed being meaningless due to their smaller size.

What made the obsolete? Missiles and aircraft. Once planes went go the jet age and it became increasingly unlikely to down a jet plane with the sheer amount of guns you could put on a ship, you start using missiles and aircraft to defend those ships from aerial attack. Missiles also got more powerful and even during WW2 they could hit a battleship and cripple or sink that ship in one hit. No realistic amount of armor or armor scheme (how it's placed especially in deck armor, height and layout) could protect battleships anymore. Not without making the battleship well in excess of 100k tons.

In the long run, they were these costly ships that could take direct hits better than any other ship but not enough to warrant building and maintaining them where for the same cost you could do the same for several destroyers.

The real and only advantage a battleship has and hasn't been replicated is their big guns. Despite their short range, they are very effective shore bombardment ship. You really cannot shoot their shells down once fired short of being lucky, and they can penetrate up to 32 feet of concrete and each shell is a fraction of the cost of a missile that could do the same.

[Nealithi]

You're employing a false equivalency. The Borg could totally force the information out of Data to unlock the Enterprise-E. And while they could also co-opt an organic mind, an organic mind could never have locked the Enterprise to such a degree as Data. And not only that, an organic mind, no matter even if it had "photographic memory," which is actually quite fallible, is not an artificial one, with a computer-capable accuracy. The Borg may be able to learn about Starfleet tactics from Picard, but they could only learn about Starfleet ships and equipment, deployment, communications and encryption, and other things from the Enterprise computer. And Data, if he knows it. A Vulcan is NOT an android. That seems hard for you to understand.

You also left out that we really don't know the full extent of Borg capabilities. It's just as likely that, because their ships were blown out from them, and they had to beam aboard the Enterprise in order to survive, they had some limitations in what they could do to Data on the Enterprise as opposed to being on a proper Borg ship with proper Borg facilities.

As for the saucer section supposing to drop civilians off before battle, I want you to think real hard about that. You're a Romulan Commander, in command of a Warbird. You're going to attack the Enterprise. Are you really going to decloak, and hail the captain to tell him that you want to fight, and so he better off-load the civilians or detach the saucer? Really?

Or, let's flip this around. You're the Captain of the Enterprise-D. There's an engagement at some place along the Neutral Zone; a Starfleet ship has called for assistance, as she is outgunned and outnumbered. You have to be there as fast as you can. Are you really going to detach the Saucer? That takes time, and every second could be important. The longer you delay, the greater chance that your fellow ship will be destroyed. Now, I suppose you could detach the saucer at warp 9, but that was implied to be very dangerous, given how the bridge crew reacted to Picard's order.

If you have to consider what to do with the civilians because you have them on the ship before you go into battle, you've got a serious problem. What's the best, optimal solution to this problem? Just spitballing here, but having no families aboard seems like the best option.

First off it is not a false equivalence. One of the most dangerous species out there can subvert all the organic beings but could not force the same information out of Data makes him very secure. When they thought Data was lying to them and betrayed them. No one simply hacked him or downloaded the information in his brain. Though Picard said they would strip him to his wires to find out the truth.

The borg capabilities seen seems to be able to access rather comprehensive information out of an organic mind, no matter how fragile memory might be. They failed against Data. Conjecture that they might be even better if they had one of their own ships also says they might be better with organics too.

Switching to the Enterprise issue. The Enterprise as said is meant to be an embassy in space. If we toss off all civilians for they might be attacked then we better never let civilians travel at all. Just in case of surprise attack. It fails the basic test of any ship has the same weakness.
Your reversal at first seems quite good. Enterprise is the closest ship and is doing absolutely nothing. No shuttles to bring back aboard, no diplomats or away teams to recover because they were on their own mission. Things that also take time when seconds matter. The separation sequence has never seemed to be that long, about as long as it would take to land a shuttle. So yes it could be detached as they do a quick wrap up of current operations to depart. Heck if they were in diplomatic talks with someone the detaching the saucer could allow them to continue that mission while the drive section went on the combat mission.

[McAvoy]

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.