Star Trek 2009 and Federation Industrial Capacity

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:16 am

Okay, given the size of the Narada seen here:

Not to mention the size of the Alternate Enterprise seen under construction:

And finally there is the massive space station that the Enterprise and the seven other ships of the task force were seen docked to:

The question is this; what does this movie mean for the Federation's industrial capacity? We have seen in the 22nd century that the vulcans were able to readily build at least two classes of starships that were as long as anything in the 24th century as seen in this comparison of the D'kyr with the 225 meter NX-01:

Combined with what appears to be a 700-800 meter E-Alt, and the massive space station, and the fact that in the 24th century the Romulans (who are technological comtemporaries of the Federation) built the Narada, which is many kilometers long, I would say that the Federation can marshal a rather impressive ability to construct large starships when it needs to. The question is, why did they not do this?
-Mike

GStone · Post by **GStone** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:08 am

I'm suddenly imagining fleets of Death Stars. Ouch.

Maybe it's an issue of manning the ships. There just isn't enough people. Either from starfleet's high standards or maybe many just don't want to. With the continuing ease of life between the 22nd and 24th centuries, many people might be getting lazier, especially with the transition from money to credits and services freely provided by the government.

Edit: Oh, by the way, I know the ring drive is outdated by the 24th century, but the ringed vulcan ship just looks so cool. While it looks good in the vertical configurations, even if you wanted tos treamline ships for better warp drives, if you make it horizontal (kinda like the ori ships) and maybe make it a bit pointy on the back end (so it's kinda diamond shape), it'd still be good. Even a rotating ring would be good.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:31 pm

GStone wrote: Maybe it's an issue of manning the ships. There just isn't enough people. Either from starfleet's high standards or maybe many just don't want to. With the continuing ease of life between the 22nd and 24th centuries, many people might be getting lazier, especially with the transition from money to credits and services freely provided by the government.

I don't see it that way at all. During the Dominion War, there was never any statements made concerning a lack of manpower for any of the starships, and yet Starfleet kept churning out ships to replace those lost in the fighting as well as put crew and troops on them.
-Mike

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:22 pm

Ok, the scale for the new Enterprise was really borked.

On this picture, if you look at the crane in the middle of the picture, go up and right on the extended arm, there seems to be what looks like two human silhouettes, with a whitish lighting washed upon the ship's hull, in the background, and these silhouettes don't seem to be at odd with the height of the other tunnel-arms, notably the one passing underneath the saucer's center and behind the junction between the saucer section and the main cylinder section.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:11 am

I don't see any people there, I see some greeblings. In fact, looking at the higher quality pic I have of that in one magazine, it's much clearer that those are not people, just greeblings.
-Mike

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:16 am

You probably know my next question then... :D

scan pliiiz?

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:29 am

Possibly. Here's another Vulcan starship class that is very large:

The Sh'Raan-type also handily dwarfs the NX-01 and is quite comparable, or surpasses 24th century Federation starships in length, if not volume.
-Mike

GStone · Post by **GStone** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:30 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:I don't see it that way at all. During the Dominion War, there was never any statements made concerning a lack of manpower for any of the starships, and yet Starfleet kept churning out ships to replace those lost in the fighting as well as put crew and troops on them.
-Mike

I assumed you meant why don't they make ships the size of the narada more often.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 8:23 pm

Not necessarily of the Narada's size, but of all these various starships size, though the Narada suggests clearly that Super Star Destroyer sized vessels are possible for the Federation as well. Crewing them does not seem to be a problem, if they can use automation to keep the crew requirements down, also as I pointed out previously, thousands of starships were lost in the Dominion War, and no one complained ever about a lack of crew and troops to put on their replacements.

The Dominion itself naturally did better since they can not only build the ships quickly (no need for crew quarters or such) and they can churn out Jem'Hadar and Vorta crews for them in a matter of days, rather the weeks it would require for Starfleet and it's allies in rapid training programs.
-Mike

Sift Green · Post by **Sift Green** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:50 pm

It was probably a change in attitude, rather than capacity. Prior to the Narada's first attack, all of the Federations enemies where making ships around the same size as theirs. And all of a sudden a well armed Romulan ship has arrived, that dwarfs all of the Federations best ships of the line. Sense the Federation is currently unaware that the Narada is a one of a kind vessel, they probably felt the need to to make their ships larger so they could be outfitted with more weapons and larger engines to power those weapons.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:00 pm

That I think is closer to the real reason. The Federation seemed to be concentrating on a string of advanced technology, high-quality ships rather than just keep building them bigger. Suddenly the Narada pops up and the whole game is thrown for a loop. Now Starfleet has to rethink it's ships, incorporate new technologies in it's flagship class of starship, and make them much bigger, as you say, to power their weapons and shields.
-Mike

Mith · Post by **Mith** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:00 pm

I agree.

They probably had to supersize their ships in order to fit more space for reactors, as we saw later in the movie where they launch like six of them rather than just one.

The Kelvin's crew must have taken what information on the technology they could back to Starfleet command and they were forced to conclude that they would need much larger ships in order to rival the firepower of the Narada.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:07 pm

The potential problem in that is the Kelvin with its 800+ crew, quite possibly larger than the original Enterprise while purportedly existing also in the main timeline.

Why would the crew of Starfleet's largest ships go from 83 to 800+, then back down to 400? A 250m or so Kelvin with a crew of 200-300 would fit nicely between the NX and the CCS, but I'm not sure that's what we're seeing.

Mith · Post by **Mith** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:21 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:The potential problem in that is the Kelvin with its 800+ crew, quite possibly larger than the original Enterprise while purportedly existing also in the main timeline.

Why would the crew of Starfleet's largest ships go from 83 to 800+, then back down to 400? A 250m or so Kelvin with a crew of 200-300 would fit nicely between the NX and the CCS, but I'm not sure that's what we're seeing.

It's possible it was a sort of design test. The UFP might have been experimenting with building larger ship designs. Personally however, I think the Kelvin is some sort of heavy carrier ship. Basically, it's designed to carry a large number of personal. For peace, it could be used almost as a mobile research station or capable of transporting a great deal of supplies. For war, it would be able to deploy a impressive ground force via transporters and shuttles.

A little rough, but I think it works.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:45 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:The potential problem in that is the Kelvin with its 800+ crew, quite possibly larger than the original Enterprise while purportedly existing also in the main timeline.

Why would the crew of Starfleet's largest ships go from 83 to 800+, then back down to 400? A 250m or so Kelvin with a crew of 200-300 would fit nicely between the NX and the CCS, but I'm not sure that's what we're seeing.

The CCS mission profile is not necessarily the same as the Kelvin type's. We certainly know from TOS' "Journey to Babel" that the Enterprise was able to carry 114 ambassadors and delegates in addition to her normal crew of 430. So 544 people total, which is only 256 short of the Kelvin's compliment, and there was nothing to suggest that the Enteprise was being significantly strained in any way other than the inconvience of carrying a bunch of touchy politicans. In fact, there is some suggestion that starship crews could vary all over the place. Usually other CCS had crews of an even 400 or so, while the Enterprise routinely had 430. Why? Yet the starship in the original timeline under Pike had only some 200 personel.

So why 800 for Kelvin? I can think of several, including those already mentioned by Mith. The Kelvin is a survey vessel and needs all the crew to pilot shuttles and to work in the science labs during the survey ops. Evacuation in emergencies where transporters, especially in this time period, are not so reliable.
-Mike