Starfleet Jedi

I was wondering...what were the largest ships that could be built by Starfleet, Borg, or any major power in trek compared to warsie-verse. Like a Sovereign's size, compared to an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Memory Alpha states that the Sovereign-Class was 685 meters long, and was 88 meters at height.

The Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer was 1600 meters long with a height of 448 meters.

If you are pro-Wars, then you would say that the Death Stars are starships by definition and that those are the largest ships the Empire can build in practice (and theory).

As for the Federation, they could, it seems, build larger starships, but generally choose not to. The philosophy since the 2150s and 2160s has been a push towards advancing the state of the art of starship technology, not necessarily the size as evidenced by what we see in ST:ENT and TOS with the size of the 600-800 meter long Vulcan starships as compared to the 289 meter Constitution classfrom the mid 23rd centrury.. Not until the 2290's through the 2370's have we seen a general push back towards larger vessels. Even then Starfleet does not always favor enourmous bulk as witnessed by the 642 meter Galaxy class that immediately predates the slightly longer, but far slimmer Sovereign class starships.

Certainly the potential is there to build bigger spaceframes, even in the 23rd century as evidenced by the massive Spacedock space station, and in the 24th century by the gigantic Starbase 74.

By the 26th century, The Federation will be building at least one class of starship that will handily exceed the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the Enterprise-J based on the size of the E-J's saucer as compared to known vessels, like the 400 meter Prometheus class, which indicates a saucer section diameter of at least 2 miles!
-Mike

One should also note size really doesn't matter in Trek universe.

The Defiant's been often described as the most powerful warship in the galaxy(and has a track record to strongly back the claim) and is one of the smallest.

Klingon Birds of Prey, despite being generally regarded as outdated ships, contiue to serve as the workhorses of the Klingon Empire, and have repeatedly proven they can hang tough with the best in a fight. And they're slightly smaller than the Defiant.

Dominion Locusts aren't much bigger than the Defiant and they seem to be the workhorse s of the Dominion fleet.

Even Shuttles and Runabouts have gone up against larger vessels with mixed results.

The Defiant is very powerful for her size certainly, but one of the most powerful? Not really as the Defiant/Lakota battle in DS9' s"Paradise Lost" showed. The Lakota could have destroyed the Defiant using quantum torpedoes, but the captain of that ship came to her senses thankfully, and chose not to.

The Defiant's sister ship, Valiant was readily destroyed by the Dominion battleship.

Also, BoP performance must be weighed in by which class of BoP is involved. Some BoPs are bigger and more powerful than others as witnessed by the K'Vort class seen in "Yesterday's Enterprise" [TNG, S3], or the very large BoPs seen helping the E-D out against two Romulan D'Deridex class warbirds in "The Defector" [TNG, S3].
-Mike

The Defiant might not be the most powerful ship available to Starfleet, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot closer than you might guess looking at the size of it.

I'm guessing they took the firepower/shields of something big (say a Galaxy class cruiser or thereabouts) and crammed it into something small (being the Defiant). Scarily powerful for it's size ;)

Mike DiCenso wrote:If you are pro-Wars, then you would say that the Death Stars are starships by definition and that those are the largest ships the Empire can build in practice (and theory).

I don't see what being pro-wars has to do with it. According to Merriam-Webster a starship is "a spacecraft designed for interstellar travel" and a spacecraft is "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the earth's atmosphere". So is Death Star "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the erth's atmosphere and also designed for interstellar travel"? Obviously yes.
Secondly I don't see how you can determine whether Death Star is the largest ship Empire can build.
How does the largest starship Empire has built compare to the largest starship Federation has built (Galaxy class)? Death Star has a volume of 9*10^14m3 while Galaxy has a volume of roughly 10^7m3 which means that the largest ship Empire has built is 90 million times bigger than the biggest Federation ship. It is also 32,000 times bigger than Borg Cube.

Mike DiCenso wrote:As for the Federation, they could, it seems, build larger starships, but generally choose not to. The philosophy since the 2150s and 2160s has been a push towards advancing the state of the art of starship technology, not necessarily the size as evidenced by what we see in ST:ENT and TOS with the size of the 600-800 meter long Vulcan starships as compared to the 289 meter Constitution class from the mid 23rd centrury.. Not until the 2290's through the 2370's have we seen a general push back towards larger vessels. Even then Starfleet does not always favor enourmous bulk as witnessed by the 642 meter Galaxy class that immediately predates the slightly longer, but far slimmer Sovereign class starships.

Certainly the potential is there to build bigger spaceframes, even in the 23rd century as evidenced by the massive Spacedock space station, and in the 24th century by the gigantic Starbase 74.

Switching from 600m to 300m and back to 600m doesn't prove they can suddenly jump higher. Neither does the existence of free floating structures that do not fit the definition of a starship and don't need to worry about stresses exerted during spaceflight.

Mike DiCenso wrote:By the 26th century, The Federation will be building at least one class of starship that will handily exceed the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the Enterprise-J based on the size of the E-J's saucer as compared to known vessels, like the 400 meter Prometheus class, which indicates a saucer section diameter of at least 2 miles!

I never saw any scalings of Enterprise-J. In fact I believe it was never even shown. Could you provide some screenshots?

Mike DiCenso wrote:If you are pro-Wars, then you would say that the Death Stars are starships by definition and that those are the largest ships the Empire can build in practice (and theory).

Kane Starkiller wrote: I don't see what being pro-wars has to do with it. According to Merriam-Webster a starship is "a spacecraft designed for interstellar travel" and a spacecraft is "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the earth's atmosphere". So is Death Star "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the erth's atmosphere and also designed for interstellar travel"? Obviously yes.

The Empire built one mobile battlestation and partially built a second, larger one. Though unlike the first battlestation, the second was never completed and able to demonstrate any interstellar or even signifcant sublight capability. Thus, it remains "in theory" that the Death Stars are the largest. We still don't even know what it really cost the Empire to do this.

Secondly I don't see how you can determine whether Death Star is the largest ship Empire can build.

As the Empire did not build dozens or thousands of Death Stars, it remains at best a notion that it could have constructed anything signficantly larger than the DS2, and it is telling that after centuries, the two battlestations were extremely unique in terms of size such that a highly experianced spacer would not even recognize them as stations or starships, but mistook them for a small local moon.

Kane Starkiller wrote: How does the largest starship Empire has built compare to the largest starship Federation has built (Galaxy class)? Death Star has a volume of 9*10^14m3 while Galaxy has a volume of roughly 10^7m3 which means that the largest ship Empire has built is 90 million times bigger than the biggest Federation ship. It is also 32,000 times bigger than Borg Cube.

Yes, yes. We know all of this. But with the destruction of the first Death Star, how quickly and easily did the Empire replace it with the second? How many more Death Stars did the Empire have in it's "fleet" of Death Stars? The Federation has shown that dispite losing three Galaxy class starships, it could readily build or have on hand many more. That is the difference. The Borg operate on a signficantly different philosophy all together, and making comparisons is problematic. A Borg cube is a highly efficent shape. It is 3 km long in comparison to a 17-19 km super star destroyer, but yet the 3 km Borg cube has more volume: 27,000,000,000 meters^3 versus 12,645,900,000 m^3. Linear dimensions are not everything.

Mike DiCenso wrote:As for the Federation, they could, it seems, build larger starships, but generally choose not to. The philosophy since the 2150s and 2160s has been a push towards advancing the state of the art of starship technology, not necessarily the size as evidenced by what we see in ST:ENT and TOS with the size of the 600-800 meter long Vulcan starships as compared to the 289 meter Constitution class from the mid 23rd centrury.. Not until the 2290's through the 2370's have we seen a general push back towards larger vessels. Even then Starfleet does not always favor enourmous bulk as witnessed by the 642 meter Galaxy class that immediately predates the slightly longer, but far slimmer Sovereign class starships.

Certainly the potential is there to build bigger spaceframes, even in the 23rd century as evidenced by the massive Spacedock space station, and in the 24th century by the gigantic Starbase 74.

Kane Starkiller wrote: Switching from 600m to 300m and back to 600m doesn't prove they can suddenly jump higher. Neither does the existence of free floating structures that do not fit the definition of a starship and don't need to worry about stresses exerted during spaceflight.

To turn your own words against you: it does not disprove the Federation can do it either. It does illustrate a signficant difference in shipbuilding philosphy, though as the Federation went from 600-800 meter sized ships in the 22nd century down to 300 meter ones in the middle 23rd, then over the next 80 some odd years went back up to 600-700 meter range starships. Could the Federation build bigger? Probably, if they were so inclined as both the Dominion and the Romulan Star Empire, two technologically equivalent starfaring contemporary rival powers did so, and not just once or twice, but many times (D'Deridex warbirds, Dominion Battleships, ect).

Mike DiCenso wrote:By the 26th century, The Federation will be building at least one class of starship that will handily exceed the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the Enterprise-J based on the size of the E-J's saucer as compared to known vessels, like the 400 meter Prometheus class, which indicates a saucer section diameter of at least 2 miles!

Kane Starkiller wrote: I never saw any scalings of Enterprise-J. In fact I believe it was never even shown. Could you provide some screenshots?

We never saw the E-J in her entirety except for a few glimpses on a MSD-like readout display that Archer and Daniels are standing next to.

The Trekcore site does not have good shotsof the Prometheus class starship flying underneath the E-J's saucer, but the Star Trek Sickbay site has at least a couple decent ones. It's fith row down. The 130 meter wide unidentfied Prometheus is shown just having destroyed a Sphere Builder ship and is flying under a section of the E-J's saucer section that is visible outside the window Archer and Daniels are standing next to. Just that section alone that is visible would span up to 1,300 meters. Since the E-J saucer is symetrical, just doubling that would give you some 2,600 meters. This fits in line with the nearly 1,400 meter "backstage" number that has been bandied about on various sci fi tech forums.
-Mike

If Death Star is a ship Starbases are too. Or have them just magically appeared where they are?

Mike DiCenso wrote:The Defiant is very powerful for her size certainly, but one of the most powerful? Not really as the Defiant/Lakota battle in DS9' s"Paradise Lost" showed. The Lakota could have destroyed the Defiant using quantum torpedoes, but the captain of that ship came to her senses thankfully, and chose not to.

The Defiant's sister ship, Valiant was readily destroyed by the Dominion battleship.

Also, BoP performance must be weighed in by which class of BoP is involved. Some BoPs are bigger and more powerful than others as witnessed by the K'Vort class seen in "Yesterday's Enterprise" [TNG, S3], or the very large BoPs seen helping the E-D out against two Romulan D'Deridex class warbirds in "The Defector" [TNG, S3].
-Mike

The Lakota was suped up in unspecified ways and operating well beyond normal capacity for a ship of it's make, AND Worf was deliberately trying to avoid inflicting casualties on the Lakota in the beginning of the fight since he did not want to kill starfleet officers who thought they were doing their jobs. When Worf finally stopped holding back, the Defiant and the Lakota more or less stalemated each other. Had Worf taken the fight more seriously from the start the Lakota might not have fared nearly so well.

And the Dominion Battleship was a super-calafrastically-uber-mega-duper-ship. It was almost the Dominion equivalant of the Death Star, figuratively speaking. There was big hype and massive effort involved in it's construction. It was supposed to be the Dominion's new superweapon(Twice the size of a Galaxy and three times as powerful). And, for all their Red Squad talent, the Valiant's crew was made up of cadets and one ensign. When their plan failed, they were dumbfounded on what to do next, and got plastered while they were stuck on stupid.

Defiants easily rival and possibly surpass Galaxies, and maybe even Sovereigns in terms of pure firepower. And with their ablative armor, compact size and maneuverability i'd wager they're alot harder to destroy than the aforementioned capital ships. I'd say the defiant-class deserves to be called one of the msot powerful warships in the galaxy.

It is in fact the only Ship design starfleet has ever built exclusively for War. So on that technicality alone, it IS the most powerful warship in all of starfleet. Also, the only warship in all of starfleet, but still. lol


Anyway, my point stands. Unlike Star Wars, size is not the end-all be-all indicator of power when it comes to Star Trek

While the Defiant certainly has power well above what one might expect from a ship of her size, I wouldn't rate her above the Sovereign by any means. The uprated Excelsior class Lakota did prove an effective adversary for her. Worf was not holding back in the beginning of the battle but at the end, as per the dialogue. KIRA: One good hit will probably finish them. OBRIEN: And kill everyone on board. WORF: That is not an option. By the time Captain Benteen powered down her weapons, there were already as many as 24 casualties aboard the Lakota. The Dominion battleship was the most potent vessel the Dominion produced, more akin to the Executor than to the Death Star. However, the Scimitar was more akin to the Death Star, in other words a superweapon, and the Sovereign held its own quite nicely in view of the fact that it was seriously outgunned. In terms of pure firepower, I'd put the Sovereign, Akira, Prometheus, and Galaxy classes all ahead of the Defiant. But with her small profile and high maneuverability, the Defiant would certainly present a credible threat to any of the aforementioned vessels, though I'd still wager on any of the four defeating her.

TheRedFear wrote:

Mike DiCenso wrote:The Defiant is very powerful for her size certainly, but one of the most powerful? Not really as the Defiant/Lakota battle in DS9' s"Paradise Lost" showed. The Lakota could have destroyed the Defiant using quantum torpedoes, but the captain of that ship came to her senses thankfully, and chose not to.

The Defiant's sister ship, Valiant was readily destroyed by the Dominion battleship.

Also, BoP performance must be weighed in by which class of BoP is involved. Some BoPs are bigger and more powerful than others as witnessed by the K'Vort class seen in "Yesterday's Enterprise" [TNG, S3], or the very large BoPs seen helping the E-D out against two Romulan D'Deridex class warbirds in "The Defector" [TNG, S3].
-Mike

The Lakota was suped up in unspecified ways and operating well beyond normal capacity for a ship of it's make, AND Worf was deliberately trying to avoid inflicting casualties on the Lakota in the beginning of the fight since he did not want to kill starfleet officers who thought they were doing their jobs. When Worf finally stopped holding back, the Defiant and the Lakota more or less stalemated each other. Had Worf taken the fight more seriously from the start the Lakota might not have fared nearly so well.

And the Dominion Battleship was a super-calafrastically-uber-mega-duper-ship. It was almost the Dominion equivalant of the Death Star, figuratively speaking. There was big hype and massive effort involved in it's construction. It was supposed to be the Dominion's new superweapon(Twice the size of a Galaxy and three times as powerful). And, for all their Red Squad talent, the Valiant's crew was made up of cadets and one ensign. When their plan failed, they were dumbfounded on what to do next, and got plastered while they were stuck on stupid.

Defiants easily rival and possibly surpass Galaxies, and maybe even Sovereigns in terms of pure firepower. And with their ablative armor, compact size and maneuverability i'd wager they're alot harder to destroy than the aforementioned capital ships. I'd say the defiant-class deserves to be called one of the msot powerful warships in the galaxy.

It is in fact the only Ship design starfleet has ever built exclusively for War. So on that technicality alone, it IS the most powerful warship in all of starfleet. Also, the only warship in all of starfleet, but still. lol


Anyway, my point stands. Unlike Star Wars, size is not the end-all be-all indicator of power when it comes to Star Trek

Now I'm not the person who designed the Sovereign, but I thought it was 'common knowledge' that both the Sovereign class and the Defiant class where reactions to the more hostile environments Starfleet had to face. In fact, many of the design elements (quantum torpedoes for one, more warship like interior for another example) carry over between the two classes.

I always thought that the Sovereign was more or less the capital ship version of the Defiant, power wise.

A telling moment was when the E-E entered conflict with the Borg cube: Picard did not seem all that worried the Borg would break their shields any time soon. In fact, the entire scene gave me the impression that no one on the ship was. Their reactions where very calm for facing their most lethal enemy. Coupled with Laforge's earlier comments "We're the most advanced ship in the fleet", I think the E-E was in fact quite a bit above the rest of the fleet in that battle.

(Another good example would be the combat endurance of the E-E vs the Scimitar relative to the other Romulan ships present. Although clearly outmatched by the Scimitar, the E-E managed to hold out many, many times longer than the Romulan reinforcements where)

SailorSaturn13 wrote:If Death Star is a ship Starbases are too. Or have them just magically appeared where they are?

The difference is, naturally, that Starbases are not designed to move about much, if at all (witness DS9 to see what I mean). They could have easily been towed into place (like a drilling platform is) or built on site.

The DS is obviously designed to move. It's not likely to be as agile as smaller ships, but it's definitely capable of independent motion.

Hence, the DS is a starship (which also acts as a fortress/base and quite big) and a Starbase is more of a stationary fortress/base.

Admiral Leyton ordered Benteen to use the quantum torpedoes before the scene with Dax, Worf, and Kira:



LEYTON
(to com)
Put it through.


BENTEEN
We haven't been able to stop the
Defiant. Someone's equipped her
with ablative armor and neglected
to inform Starfleet operations.

DEEP SPACE NINE: "Paradise Lost" - REV. 11/14/95 - ACT FIVE 49.

45 CONTINUED:

LEYTON
Under no circumstances is that
ship to reach Earth.
(a beat)
The Lakota's carrying quantum
torpedoes, isn't she?

BENTEEN
Yes, sir.

LEYTON
Then use them.

BENTEEN
Admiral, my orders were to disable
the Defiant, not destroy her.

LEYTON
Your orders are to keep the
Defiant from reaching Earth by any
means necessary. Is that
understood?



You also forgot this one:



DAX
Shields are almost gone. We have
major systems failures on decks
one, three and four.

The Defiant was in pretty bad shape herself, and the Lakota could have finsihed her off, if the quantum torpedoes had been used. Both ships could have wiped out each other, and both ships had pretty heavy casulties (note causlties is used here, not deaths, except where stated, the Defiant herself had 2 dead):


SISKO
What's your status, Mister Worf?

WORF
(on monitor)
The Lakota has powered down its
weapons and is allowing us to
proceed to Earth.

Sisko looks over at Leyton, who is surprised and
disappointed. He thought he could count on Benteen.

SISKO
Casualties?

WORF
(on monitor)
Bartlett and Ramsey are dead, sir.
Seven more seriously injured.
Captain Benteen thinks there may
have been as many as two dozen
casualties on the Lakota.


SISKO
Get here as soon as you can. The
President's expecting you.

Leyton clearly expected Benteen to destroy the Defiant, and all we know is that there are 24 "casualties" on Lakota, and more specifically 2 dead, and seven injured on Defiant. So it is more of a true tie between the two, with things slightly more on Defiant's side. So an uprated ship from the 23rd century was able to hold out and had the potential of destroying a dedicated (small) warship of the 24th.
-Mike

TheRedFear wrote: It is in fact the only Ship design starfleet has ever built exclusively for War. So on that technicality alone, it IS the most powerful warship in all of starfleet. Also, the only warship in all of starfleet, but still. lol

No, there is nothing to indicate that the Defiant class is the most powerful ship in all of starfleet. There is also nothing to indicate either that the Defiant class is the only warship, as the Sovereign class appears to have a dedicated warship purpose as well, too.

TheRedFear wrote:Anyway, my point stands. Unlike Star Wars, size is not the end-all be-all indicator of power when it comes to Star Trek.

I think that we both agree apon. Size is not everything to the Federation's starship design philosphy.
-Mike

I think we both took that very different ways. Leyton's quote to start using the Quantum Torpedoes simply indicated(To me at least) that he wanted the Lakota to take a "No Holds Barred" approach to the fight. Not that he somehow expected Quantum Topedoes to instantly win the fight for the Lakota. I also think you're under-estimating the "We suped up the ship in an unspecified manner" aspect of the story. Trek writers are notorious for using that as an excuse to re-use the same old ship models, while having it perform wildly beyond normal limitations. They did it during that story where Thomas Riker tried to capture the Defiant and they encountered Galor class warships that were signifigantly stronger than usual. They did it again when the Dominion somehow made a simple runabout's shields powerful enough to withstand an attack from the defiant. And they did it again when they needed the Lakota to be able to go toe to toe with the Defiant. A Defiant which, again, was holding back in the beginning of the fight. Which apparently the Lakota was doing too by not bringing out their Quantums, but if memory serves wasn't the Defiant even restricting their fire to non-essential systems in the beginning?

Oh and this comment isn't directed to you mike, but to whomever commented earlier about the Sovereign also being a dedicated Warship. While certainly powerful, I don't perceive the Sovereign as being anymore a "Pure warship" than the Galaxies were. The Sovereign class was chosen for the new flagship of the Federation so I have to beleive it can serve just as capably in medical, exploratory, and scientific pursuits as the Galaxies could, in addition to being immensely potent in battle.

It was often a plotpoint that the Defiant lacked medical facilities, sensors, and was generally rather spartan when it came to non-combative bells and whistles so common on other Federation ship designs. Which ties into the fact it's the Federation's only ship design dedicated purely to combat(as far as I know)