clearspira wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 9:53 pm
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.
Think HMS Hood (although that was definitely a warship). In peace time it did a lot of "flying the flag" for the country (not that she was called the UK's flagship). In wartime the Bismarck blew her to pieces with a couple of shots. A similar sort of thing. The term "flagship" is often used in a non strictly correct meaning, e.g. a company's flagship product.
So that makes me think that the Enterprise D was the big public front of the Federation, whether that's diplomatically or off to somewhere unexplored. The latter especially means it could face unknown threats so it's reasonably well armed, and would be expected to take part in conflict closer to home if there is any (presumably dropping off non-combatants first), but it's really a multi-role sort of vessel of which there's no real world equivalent, and never really has been. Presumably the Federation felt confident that its ships carried enough clout to no require dedicated warships, until the Borg showed up.
The excessive amount of dangers it faced was pretty much as Fianna described.
I think that the concept actually works quite well for the positive vision of the future aspect of Trek.
clearspira wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 9:53 pm
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.
Think HMS Hood (although that was definitely a warship). In peace time it did a lot of "flying the flag" for the country (not that she was called the UK's flagship). In wartime the Bismarck blew her to pieces with a couple of shots. A similar sort of thing. The term "flagship" is often used in a non strictly correct meaning, e.g. a company's flagship product.
So that makes me think that the Enterprise D was the big public front of the Federation, whether that's diplomatically or off to somewhere unexplored. The latter especially means it could face unknown threats so it's reasonably well armed, and would be expected to take part in conflict closer to home if there is any (presumably dropping off non-combatants first), but it's really a multi-role sort of vessel of which there's no real world equivalent, and never really has been. Presumably the Federation felt confident that its ships carried enough clout to no require dedicated warships, until the Borg showed up.
The excessive amount of dangers it faced was pretty much as Fianna described.
I think that the concept actually works quite well for the positive vision of the future aspect of Trek.
Exactly. HMS Hood would be the best example of what the E-D was doing. Though fleet flagships did tend to be largest and most powerful ships in the fleet to begin with.
Usually with flagships you would have extra personnel on board because there would be the Admiral on board. The Captain wouldn't be in charge of the fleet, just the ship.
