And in TOS there was a ship the USS Intrepid crewed entirely by Vulcans in The Immunity Syndrome. Never seen on screen as it was destroyed the large amoeba creature at the start of the story.
Real earth ships at least ocean bound ships contain concrete in there hulls. Star ships could...? the Queen Marry in LA has tons of exposed concrete visible all over the ship.
@@optimuscprime Yep. its a good way to make bulkheads and connecting walls & such. Its incredibly strong. Thinking of it now; wouldn't concrete be much more stable in a zero-g environment? It wouldnt be fighting itself with its own weight like with skyscrapers & such.
@@JamesTTierce It (concrete) from a radiation stand point may be useful as shielding? The two thing my science teacher said stopped radiation was lead and concrete? Space is full of radiation. Its a far fetched theory. But plausible.
Biggest flaw? Keeping the freaking holodeck running and open to crew for recreation when it either almost destroys the ship or kills someone every other week. Not to mention the time they casually created an artificial life form capable of commandeering the ship through a slip of the tongue, and then sentenced him to eternity in digital prison for wanting to be a real boy.
The times the holodeck causes major issues are almost numerous. Remember Reginald Barclay taking over the ship when he got super smart? I'm almost surprised that DS9 was not taken over by one of Quarks holodeck Orion slave girl programs. Seeing Quarks redlight disctrict programs seem to be running so often. No, we needed the "smart" holoprogram Vic to become the smart holo character, singing old songs no body likes but a wheeping Worf.... Darn! What a waste of potential story writing. ;-D
I love the last clause in your comment. I always thought that episode was a perfect example of the writers writing themselves into a corner. They didn’t really improve it on their second try when they sentenced him to a miniaturized matrix. You really think Moriarty won’t figure out what they did to him? I think he should come back and blow The Enterprise to hell with khan like gusto.
Won't they have to do that for every sci-fi show, for I think even Star Wars ships suffer from exploding console, along with a loss of gravity to send crewmembers flying when given a few bad hits?
I believe Vulcan-crewed ships came up as an issue because the Romulan hospital they set up on Bajor's moon was refusing to treat them due to cultural animosity. I wouldn't be surprised if ships crewed entirely by one species was fairly common even though mostly human crews integrated with other species was still the majority.
Ahhh.. but Starfleet is based in San Francisco and so is judged by American standards. In America, one is racist if they fall short of an ever evolving ideal. Other countries, cultures and planets simply have their own ways of doing things, which should be accomodated and respected.
Species segregation on star ships makes lots of sense when you take into account environmental needs. Andorians and Vulcans would murder each other over the thermostat.
@Joel Smith Who says the Borg are not racist? I recall 7o9 saying stuff as: "That makes for good combat drones" and stuff like that. The Borg utilize species based on their species traits only. That is one of the most racists things you could do, as The Borg (sounds Swedish) would never allow an individual to grow beyond it's potential, they are the ultimate generalizers based on DNA. And when you are not useful anymore to the collective, the overall goal, you are discarded. The Borg are the ultimate racists. Species good for battle? Make it a battle drone. Species good for computation? Make it a computational drone. Seriously the Borg are racist to the ultimate core. I'd say the Borg are the ultimate racist communists.
I always thought their biggest flaw was putting the command crew in the bulls-eye of a circle, instead of putting them in a more protected area deeper in the ship.
One of the worst flaws in Star Fleet is the Starship prefix codes. any enemy that gains access to one ship essentially gets the prefix codes for all vessels and can then control the defenses of those ships.
cqtaylor Utility belt my dude. Besides, the only people that would NEED pockets are red shirts and we all know Starfleet doesn’t want to waste fabric on their meat shields
"To his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat behind him in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys, watch, matches, pencil-case-all that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes the many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the inferior one-pocketed or no-pocketed productions that hop or trip about permissively, unequipped for the real contest." - Kenneth Grahame, "The Wind in the Willows"
Don't forget the standard "Thank you sir may I have another" maneuver which involves letting the enemy fire at you for a while and then deciding to do something
@@gregknight1989 Exactly. And even leaving aside the moral issues and the threat of rebellion, non-sapient machines don't need to be fed or watered, don't need to sleep or have other periods of down time, don't get tired and make mistakes as a result, don't need hostile environment or vacuum suits, and aren't as vulnerable to hard radiation - all of which would be huge advantages when it comes to constructing large spacecraft in orbital facilities.
@@gregorygreenwood-nimmo4954 Machines do need down time, but only when they break down (Trust me production machine always break down) the upside is that all you need is a good engineer and spare part
@@gregknight1989 A small professional engineering corp dealing with machine breakdowns sounds much cheaper and more manageable than the large contingent of slavers (to find and capture the slaves), slave masters (to force the salves to work) and extensive security (to counter possible slave rebellions) that a slave system would require.
Or to put it from a sociopath's perspective. Its a lot easier to get people to do stuff for you when they like you. Diplomacy and good rep are actually one of the Federation's greatest resources. Helped out some rando stranger that's about to drift into the sun? Turns out it was the niece of some dignitary from a civilization you haven't met yet . Their culture is so impressed by your unexpected altruism that they want to be friends. Because they like the idea of strangers that are willing to help them out in their hour of need. They find out your entire government is built upon this very philosophy and want to join and then share their technology with you. Expansion through friendship is a very efficient and effective strategy that gets scoffed at by too many edgelords and shortsighted fools.
To be fair, Nog was made an officer in a time of war. If anything, two years seems excessively long. For comparison, the United States Navy's V-7 program produced ensigns in as little as eight months during the Second World War. I find Kelvin Kirk's jump from Cadet to Captain much less plausible.
Well the kelvin timeline equates rank with billet some how. Captain of the ship is a captain, if you get an xo slot your a commander. If you run a space station or are insane you get to be an admiral. Everone else just picks pips out of a bucket.
"I find Kelvin Kirk's jump from Cadet to Captain much less plausible." On a technicality no less. An extremely illogical one. Spock, the acting captain, steps down because he loses control of his emotions, and therefore Kirk replaces him. But Kirk was already in trouble for prior shenanigans. Literally ANYONE else on the bridge crew, such as Sulu or Uhura, would have been a more logical choice.
Yes and no. It made Starfleet aware of the Borg but also it made the Borg aware of Starfleet. The Borg were quite happy assimilating species in the delta quadrant when they were introduced. It was only after their meeting that they started moving towards the alpha quadrant as they now knew there was someone there to assimilate.
@@sonuvabitch Weren't the Borg already in the alpha/beta quadrant by the season one finale? They were the ones removing colonies from Federation and Romulans planets which resulted in the Romulans coming out from hiding. Plus In the Enterprise episode with the Borg, before being blown up their ship sent a signal to the delta quadrant that would reach them around that time.
@@TheHulksternator The Borg were capable of travelling very fast if they knew where they wanted to go. Maybe they would have been there anyway, but maybe not.
@@Larsi1997 Yes and they sent a signal to the delta quadrant back to the collective that would have reached them around season 1 of next gen making them know something of interest is out there and then travel to where they collected the missing colonies.
tba113 it's a funny thing about promotions, by the time Voyager got back home Harry Kim had to salute the kid working behind the bar when they left DS9. Poor dumb Harry
The lack of Vulcans and other aliens on Starfleet ships can be attributed to three things: 1) Costume budget, Star Trek was always a B budget series and had to limit how much was spent on creature design. This can be clearly seen in the animated series, where aliens are much cheaper to add and consequently the Enterprise picked up 2 additional alien crewmen and encountered more imaginative alien species. 2) Differences in culture, just because two species are allied doesn’t mean they see eye to eye on what their mission should be. Vulcans, for example, tend to avoid joining Starfleet because they view it as too militaristic and prefer to serve on Vulcan science vessels such as the ones in TNG’s Reunification episodes. By contrast the Klingon’s intensely honor based culture and use of violence as a means of problem solving means they’d have difficulty assimilating into Federation ships. 3) Differences in environmental conditions, in the original series it’s established that Vulcan is quite a bit warmer than Earth and that while Spock can tolerate the Enterprise’s temperature he finds it chilly. Other species have even more extreme environmental needs and may be better served on ships made for their species.
Casanova Frankenstein please remind me how Discovery did that. I can’t honestly remember. I do remember they did a lousy job in Season 2 explaining why Season 1 Klingons were bald
My Bridge crew consists of Mostly Humans, Two Male Klingons, and a Trill. I did have a Vulcan but she died. I also had a Bolian, but she was transferred to Engineering.
The thing with Sisko's family is made even worse when you realize that the Federation had hours if not DAYS to prepare for the battle and NEVER THOUGHT TO EVACUATE THEIR FAMILIES! As for the Vulcans, in DS9 there was an all Vulcan crew of a starship in one of the episodes.
That "all vulcan" ship thing is unclear, and probably refers to the senior crew only, given how Sisko usually refers to them only when he talks about "his crew". Also, it's quite obvious that the high relative proportion of humans is due to budget issues. And maybe also creativity, I hate how most aliens look like humans with terrible skin conditions
Yes. And then they were destroyed, which would certainly affect the demographics of Starfleet. Vulcans reproduce their numbers more slowly, and as a species tend more toward scientific and philosophic pursuits. Many have moral objections to serving in Starfleet. It adds up to a smaller group of people much less interested in quasi-military service.
The USS Intrepid (NCC-1631) was a 23rd century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet. This ship was crewed entirely by Vulcans. (TOS: "The Immunity Syndrome")
There are also all Andorian ships in the federation, though they don't appear to be similar to most federation cruisers in design. They do carry the USS prefix though. It's probably safe to assume Tellarites and all other federation members have a small fleet of their own, even if it's a single warp capable starship like the Phoenix (since only warp capable species are considered for first contact, a carryover from contact with Vulcans). Picard mentions (in Insurrection I think?) the federation being nearly desperate to make first contact with species after the Borg engagements and losses, just before hosting a delegation on diplomatic first contact aboard the Enterprise.
Andorians prefer colder climates, so it makes sense for them to have dedicated ships. Tellarites are rude to everyone, except maybe for that bounty hunter with beef against Miss.
@@valen9835 Star trek economy is basically everyone does whatever they want. Internally, there are no markets, no money, you do work for fun, if at all.
Ha yes... like trying to get "Tour of Duty" on DVD. I think you actually have a very good IRL point here. The "Tour of Duty" series had so much popular music, it was impossible, too expensive, to get it out on DVD with the all the original popular music. Great point! I never thought off that!
I also like to believe that in the future there is so much more leisure time that people have all day to experience complex literature and music, unlike our rushed, hectic society.
In short, the Federation's biggest flaws seem to stem from the very foundation of their existence. Namely, peace and exploration over all (including security), trust in others and honor/integrity above safety and survival. Not defending Earth is completely unforgivable, though, especially after the first Borg Cube.
I do agree that the lack of dedicated warships and cloaking devices are major flaws, but I will say this; Starfleet has found ways to detect cloaked ships, thus I feel they neutralize that flaw. For example, in The Undiscovered Country, the Enterprise-A and Excelsior destroy General Chang's prototype Klingon Bird-of-Prey by finding the exhaust pipes on the ship. Picard later organizes a blockade along the Klingon-Romulan Border to detect any Romulan ships giving aid to the House of Duras against Gowron. Cloaking Devices were a major advantage, but one that the Federation learned to do without.
Which doesn't mean they wouldn't have been incredibly useful. Yes the Federation found ways to detect them _when they knew they were there_ , but who knows how many times cloaked Romulan ships crossed the border to spy on the Federation? They're okay for sneak attacks, but absolutely awesome for espionage purposes.
Well, they didn't really find Chang's Bird of Prey's "exhaust pipes", rather Spock and McCoy modified a torpedo with a device that is normally is used in probes to detect space gasses.
The main disadvantage of cloaking technology is the energy drain. When you uncloak you no shields and no weapons. A fast enough detection will obliterate an cloaking vessel.
Surprised you didn't talk about how bad the ships are structurally. Not only is the bridge in the open(although MUCH less obviously then in Star Wars) but somehow they managed to find a way to make the reactor and engines extremely obvious targets as well. Hell, they can literally be hit FRONTALLY, and somehow they are meant for space combat? Not to mention that their engines s are being held by flimsy pilons that can easily resultt in their engines being shorn clean off. How anyone thinks these things could survive in combat is beyond me. Hell, even getting around the ship must be a nightmare with how segmented and separated everything is from one another.
Funny thing is the ships designers always wanted to put it inside but producers basically said nope it has to look cool. Besides their ships have such a strong emphasis on shielding that it does not matter too much. Basically if they get through the shields they are fucked, but the shields are extremely powerful. We see phasers one shotting even large ships easily.
The USS T'Kumbra was a 24th century Federation Nebula-class starship operated by Starfleet. In the 2370s, the T'Kumbra was under the command of Captain Solok. The T'Kumbra had an all-Vulcan crew, similar to the USS Intrepid and USS Hera, which also had predominantly Vulcan crews. The Miranda and Excelsior class ships were far older than the relatively modern Nebula class. You mentioned the mostly-human bridge crews of the Enterprise D/E and Voyager, but you neglected to mention that Voyager had a half-Klingon chief engineer in the form of B'elanna Torres.
I love how every time Worf has to go beam down for an away mission, the turbolifts just magically open and some guy walks up to take his station over while he's gone! What, do they have cold storage lockers back there????
I want to point out that according to most source books I've read: due to varying environmental and cultural needs Star Fleet and the federation as a whole actually found it easier to staff ships with most crew being from a specific species for that ship. Any crew members not of that species who were transferred to those ships typically volunteered for the assignment to learn about that species and how they operate ships under their command by direct observation. Though there were also ships crewed by a wide mix of species.
And we can't forget the SHEER STUPIDITY of beaming down the ENTIRE senior command crew to a possibly hostile environment every week! OG series: Kirk, Spock, Bones, McCoy, and Sulu beam down to a planet or Next Gen': Picard, Ryker, Geordi, Data, Crusher! So in the event of a catastrophe you lose, in ONE fell swoop: The Captain, 1st Officer, Chief Medical, Navigator, Science Officer and possibly your Communications Officer or Chief Engineer! Who does this? Oh, and a Red Shirt, LOL! Old Joke time! Stormtrooper fires at a Red Shirt: He misses, Red Shirt STILL dies!
Actually, that only in TOS that the ENTIRE command staff would beam down even in a hostile environment. In TNG and Voyager it rarely if ever happened. Riker wouldn't allow Picard to do it. I guess Tuvok lacked the guts to do the same with Janeway. Point is, you are wrong sir. TOS did it for dramatic effect in the 1960's, but TNG corrected that. Look again at TNG, Riker would NOT allow the entire command staff to beam down, leaving Picard back on the ship to rebuild his command staff if something happened.
mdyoung1971 interesting that they did set that limitation for themselves. It did make Picard seem awfully static at times-but Patrick Stewart made it work-and when P did beam down, it made things more dramatic, even if even then all he did was talk.
@@davidc.2878Yes he did make it work. But like I said, it was rare that he even left the ship. Riker wouldn't let him, and Riker was absolutely right in doing so. First officer, second officer, and chief engineer can all be replaced...if the captain survives. Yes, it would have been personally devastating for Picard, those people are easily replaceable. Captain's are not.
I agree somehow, but tv shows are about the main cast, not the redshirts. It would be weird if all away teams are redshirts only.. oh and 1st Officer on Voyager is Chakotay, not Tuvok.
@@nagash303 I know who the first officer was. Chakotay also must lacked the guts, or maybe those writers weren't in on the TNG writing. However, Tuvok had the closest relationship with Janeway in the early episodes, had he raised the alarm...she would have listened.
Federation had dedicated warships by the time of the Battle of Sector 001. Sovereign, Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Defiant were preasent that we saw (we did not see the whole fleet involved, just what was left that fell back to the last fallback point). But the point is that the Federation was definitely integrating dedicated warships into their fleets well into the Dominion War timeline.
As in the old Royal Navy toast during the age of sailing ships..."To a bloody war and a sickly season"...when the military has to expand at the same time it is taking enormous war casualties a lot of people end up getting on the job training in roles they aren't prepared for.
True, and Nog wasn't an annoying little f*** like Wesley. He actually was a character I enjoyed when he got some time in the spotlight (Heart of Stone; Treachery, Faith, and the Great River, etc.). In his own right, he was competent and resourceful and got some cool character development along the way. As such, I don't question his promotions. Dude deserved it.
Battle of Chin'toka. Two survived with one destroyed. Three advanced Akira classes were destroyed at Chin'toka with many other advanced ships destroyed, but Miranda survives. Just because we see two get hammered in Sacrifice of Angels, after taking massive punishment protecting the Defiant and then being hit by more than one of the largest ships in the Dominion, does not mean they are weak. If they were so bad they would not have been escorting, protecting, the Defiant. If any of you go back and watch all the battle scenes you will see more destruction of other classes yet in all fleet starbase scenes we see more Miranda class ships. Reliant got shot all to hell but Enterprise was still capable of threatening to send a boarding party. Enterprise D would have a warp core breach all the time with lesser damage.
@ValorJ Omega hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha It's funny you say that since it was Defiant who was fighting a rolling retreat at every defensive line at Sector 001. This fighting was constant and the Defiant kept on going until the accumulated damage was two great. Defiant is the best ship Starfleet ever produce. You simply don't like the god man that built her. Enterprise D is the Kirito of Starfleet. The ship is ridiculously over powered. The ship can also get sick. Defiant would eat an upgraded Miranda for breakfast just as the ate an upgraded Excelsior.
There was that thing about all-vulcan crews that was mentioned in "Take me out to the Holosuite" where Sisko's academy rival challenges him to a baseball game with his all-vulcan team from his all-vulcan crew.
As the video points out Starfleet is not a purely military force, and most of its ships have a compromised design that has some military applications but also serves as science vessels, survey craft, and floating civilian communities in space. While pure military Starfleet ships exist, the preponderance of non-military ships leaves them at a disadvantage versus any adversary set up specifically for military engagements. But even more serious than that, Starfleet doesn't have the mindset of a pure military organisation.They don't think or act like soldiers, and seem to be seriously lacking in grit when things start to get desperate. Starfleet doesn't inculcate a mental fortitude or esprit de corps in its personnel that would enable them to hold the line when the blood and body parts really start flying. Add in the fact that most ship board Starfleet security personnel are armed only with sidearms and lack body armour, and their vessels are very vulnerable to boarding attacks, relying on force fields to try to contain enemy boarding parties, force fields that can be bypassed, overloaded, or disabled, which plays into the next issue Starfleet has. They are overwhelmingly reliant on their technology, but should that technology fail (due to unforeseen environmental factors, enemy action such as a cyber warfare attack, or for whatever other reason), Starfleet doesn't have much to fall back on. Despite the high level of in universe technical competency of many Starfleet officers (which often results in hilarious technobabble speeches delivered with commendably straight faces by various actors), the extreme technical complexity of their equipment will at the very least complicate any attempt at a hot fix in the midst of combat or other emergency situations. Sometimes, simpler is just better, if only for the increase in reliability. If your enemy has some technobabble particle weapon dampening field Mcguffin messing with your phasers, you might well be dearly wishing you just had a good, simple, old fashioned and particle dampener unaffected shotgun to hand. Similarly, if your foe has some total defence to ship scale phasers and proton torpedoes, a rail gun would come in rather handy. For the most part, their vessels also rely extensively on shielding for defence. Should those shields fail, their vessels typically have relatively little in the way of physical armour as a backup. And even where they do use armour, it is always some kind of technically complex, magnetically polarised smart armour of some kind, which itself is then open to being countered by cyber warfare attacks or loss of shipboard power. It is neevr just a good thickness of hyperdense physical armour that will pretty much always work no matter what. Should their hulls be breached, they tend to rely on structural force fields to maintain structural integrity rather than bulkheads, which means that a severe loss of power including backups (perhaps caused by something like a weapon that drains power or sabotage by a boarding party) will leave the ship in truly dire straits, possibly unable to even maintain atmosphere. Starfleet vessels also don't have any dedicated point defence network to engage swarms of small, agile attack craft. While their phasers are accurate enough to serve in the role at a push and possess a good range of coverage, this still seems like a serious design oversight against any dedicated military fleet that makes extensive use of such attack craft, since it would be relatively easy for them to overwhelm the Starfleet vessel with massed squadrons that present too many targets for its limited number of phasers to engage simultaneously.
13:20 Adm. Marcus was right about building warships. The Klingons were coming and Nero proved the Romulans were not to be taken lightly in any way. The real problem, in the that universe, was the one-sided "Peace at all costs" mentality of the Federation and Starfleet that forced Marcus to prepare BEHIND their backs. A ship like the Vengeance would be developed without undue restraint and debuted proudly before the Federation. As it was, Marcus had to keep it secret or the Federation (not Starfleet) would have the Vengeance star scuttled in heartbeat. If nothing else, Starfleet would have been prepared for war, with ships that could very decidedly win. Adm. Marcus was right and if the Federation let him prepare for war, not go to it but be ready for it if it came, 90% of the crap that hit the UFP would never have happened. Why would it when everyone knows Starfleet absolutely can and almost wants to kick their asses. The lack of and effective offensive/defensive force robs Starfleet and teh Federation on one seriously important thing, respect. It is easier to negotiate a peace when war is not a working option. Teh Federation is regularly behind this 8-ball and refuses to come out from behind it because...? Adm. Marcus was not the bad guy in this the Federation was. They forced him to take actions that would not be necessary, and so not done, like teaming up with Khan, if they would let Starfleet do its real job, defend the Federation. That includes building ships that can win a fight and walk home confidently from it.
You are mostly correct however remember Nero was from the future of a different timeline. As such he, his crew and ship weren't really representative of the Romulans of that timeline.
Nero's ship wasnt a mining ship? So it's like a upgunned cargo ship with some guns could beat the coast guard, if Nero was able to back in time what would prphibit someone else to do it? What about an unkown yet civilization(like the Borg) finding Earth
@@nahuelleandroarroyo someone didn't pay a lot of attention to the film. Nero wasn't the one responsible for him,his crew and ship traveling back in time. That was Ambassador Spock who ignited some red matter that created a blackhole in order to try and prevent Romulus and Remus from being destroyed by a supernova. The black hole somehow allowed them to travel back in time on accident.
Marcus also wanted to START a war with the Klingons. He used the Enterprise as a pawn to do this but fortunately they saw through the scheme. When they bothered to check what the fuck they were firing, they knew something was fishy with their orders. Marcus was tired of peace and wanted the Federation to be aggressive, not just prepared. Prime timeline/universe Starfleet has always met each escalation of threat with the appropriate level of force and combat innovation, and never more than that. War is a last resort for them, not one of the first. When a new threat shows itself, Starfleet will adapt again.
Playing devil's advocate here for a minute, in the show the reason why the Federation spread and been so successful is that it is forward thinking and outward looking, rather than more closed minded, conservative and militaristic societies like the Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians. That is reflected in the more balanced design of its starships which have to be able to carry out scientific and long duration exploration missions, as well as be capable of combat.
There was a constitusion class ship in starfleet that was crewed entirely by vulcans, over 400 in the crew. It was lost in the TOS episode "The immunity Syndrome"
There are entirely Vulcan crews/ships. In the DS9 episode ‘Take me out to the ballgame” (I think that’s what it’s called) Sisko challenges his nemesis, a Vulcan Starfleet Captain, to a game of baseball. The Vulcan’s team consists of his bridge crew, all of whom are Vulcans. This is probably the same for other major Federation species like the Andorians and the Tellarites.
KhaosByDesign UK Too bad the Terrans were all homicidal, genocidal and treasonous. But Star Trek needs the most relatable humans to all be a bunch of pricks.
@@bernieeod57 Worship 🤣 definitely not, I work in a hospital with a number of military wards so I know how fucked up shit can get. But in the context of a video series comparing the military strength of various fictional factions, I figured saying a faction with a better military is the better faction; again in the context of the video in case you were struggling to keep up.
@@bluenight104 Yeah Terrans are cool and all for purpose of comparing military stuff with other factions but definitely not a group you'd want to be anywhere near, at any time.
One of the Next Generation Novels I read back in the day stated that Star Fleet did in fact have single species ships other than humans. It specifically mentions at least one ship crewed entirely by Vulcans.
I can pick apart most of these arguments with little effort, but you leave out some extremely obvious ones that can't really be explained, like how easy it is for consoles to explode and just obliterate anyone nearby. Why is there that much power running behind every damn display?
There isn't. It's the tremendous power surge that sometimes occurs when a ship is hit with energy weapons. The same thing would occur to a city if it were to be hit with a powerful EMP; i.e.: things attached to the grid, like your refrigerator, stove, microwaves, even your lights, could explode.
we've got surge protectors and such things against lighning attacks ... Surely they must have something similar in a universe where energy weapons are standard ? Especially when shields only last a few seconds ...
@snate56 You don't understand how the real world works... Real life isn't like TV or the movies. Things don't explode just because you shunt enough power to them. If you overload a lightbulb, the filament inside burns out and it's done. The glass doesn't shatter and embed in your eyeballs. Same is true for virtually every other electronic and electrical device we have. The biggest danger you have from overloading something is a fire. No explosion, just a fire.
@@snate56 thats not how a power surge works. and even if it was, fuses and strategic use of faraday cages would still fix the issue. a fuse works by physically breaking connections so that energy cant flow. as for where that energy goes now that it cant reach the console? without infrastructure for handling it, it would dissapate as heat, which means, worst case scenario, you'd probably have some fires (but not explosions), however they could design dedicated rails that could redirect that energy to anywhere they want (in modern electronics this is usually the ground). frankly, the ease with which we can redirect and control the flow of energy is why energy weapons will never really catch on. for example, many large buildings in big cites are covered in lightning rods to redirect lightning strikes to ground. these protect all manner of sensitive antenna and communications equipment on those same rooftops. you also mentioned EMP weapons, but we actually already know how to defend against those as well, although due to costs, and lack of demand, those defenses are currently mostly only found in high level military grade equipment, but if they ever did show up being used in a military capacity of significant force, we could theoretically adapt the rest of our systems to harmlessly redirect, or even harness, that energy. as another example, even many consumer electronics are able to protect themselves from pretty significant forces. several years back, our house was hit by a lightning strike. all of the electronic connections were fine, because they were protected, but we overlooked the phone lines, and the surge fried our DSL modem, followed by the router connected to it, and then everything connected to that... except my pc. our phones and my moms old prebuilt dell computer were all toast (only figuratively though, as there were no scorch marks on anything), but my mid-range custom gaming pc had special protections in its motherboard and only lost the port. even the controller was fine and since it had two ethernet ports, i continued to have internet through the second port on that computer for years to come (after we upgraded to surge protectors with ethernet, coaxial, and phone line connections, of course). in otherwords, even something as sensitive as a motherboard can defend itself against something as powerful as a lightning strike when properly designed. and the port didnt even go out with a "bang".
I'm surprised to see Section 31 on this. Sure they caused a few problems, but a lot of what they did helped to circumvent other problems. Take the Vengeance for instance, it was a dedicated warship decades before the Defiant would be constructed (though granted they exist in two separate timelines). Additionally, the Founders virus was genius, and frankly would have led to total victory over the Dominion had Federation ideals not got in the way.
9. In the TOS era, the average crew complement of a Constitution class starship was roughly 430, MOST OF WHOM WERE RED SHIRTS (engineering, maintenance, and general ship operations), and only a small portion of them were dedicated security personnel. So, given the crew size and distribution of positions, you were actually statistically more likely to survive a given mission if you wore a red shirt just based on sheer numbers.
They aren't really a military fleet though. They are more similar to...a police or guard force. A peacekeeping force. In addition, they are not a strict navy. They have numerous other functions, intelligence, etc... They shouldn't be in the space navy series, which is examining raw military forces, while Starfleet is a peacekeeping force meant to ensure a peaceful galaxy.
That's like saying the Blue beret are not like a military force because they are peace keepers. If you're going to be in combat you should be prepared for it and take as many precautions as you can
The issue is that Star Trek is a massive scifi space faring civilization, and during the Klingon and Romulan wars, functioned as an active military force. So you really cant claim that they dont function as a military force, or at minimum, a paramilitary force. Now you could make the claim that the main focus of Starfleet is exploration and science, but again, while not mainly a military force they still function as one when needed.
Riddle me this. If Starfleet is not a military, why do they have trial by court marshal? Which is a MILITARY tribunal? Starfleet is simply what would happen if NASA absorbed the US Military. Explorers first, but when the fecal matter hits the rotor blades, they are the boots on the ground fighting the war. Not like in the Dominion War Starfleet stepped aside for the Federation Navy.
They are a military fleet. That is also a exploratory force, a security force, a peacekeeping force and a emergency aid organization. They also do diplomacy sometimes. But they are a military.
@@XMysticHerox Fun fact. The US Military does more than just going places and blowing things up. US Navy oceanographic command. US Army Corps of Engineers do a lot of other things. Marine Expeditionary Units do a lot of Humanitarian Assistance jobs. But doesn't make front page news because not as sexy as blowing shit up.
For some reason I always thought Siskos wife was still alive but trapped and seriously injured, though not conscious, which made it even harder for him to leave her behind. But its been a very long time since I watched that episode.
The Federation wouldn't need slave labor to increase their industrial base. They possess incredible automation potential. If anything, their capacity to industrialize and automate would actually render slave labor a liability to productivity. A big flaw with a great many of their ships was their integrated systems. It can provide a short term benefit in terms of efficiency but if their ships had been built based on modular layouts and configurations, They could be built more quickly and upgraded more readily. Standardized production lines also allow for more standardized engineering courses thus allowing trained maintenance personnel to be more readily available. My biggest problem with the Federation is there over consolidation of power in Starfleet. They should have no fewer than 5 distinct organizations serving the Federation. In addition to Starfleet, they should have a dedicated military(MACO), a police service, an infrastructure service, and an emergency response service just to name a few. For a society that claims to value liberty and, they sure aren't that big on the division of power.
A C K T U A L L Y... Starfleet designs are relatively modular. Sure you can't just go around swapping saucers and nacelles but on board systems can be relatively easily swapped out at shipyards for refits etc .This goes even further with stuff like the Nebula and Miranda classes with the former's multi mission pod, and the latter's "rollbar".
@@inventor121 That's hardly standard practice. The ship's almost always lack any semblance of uniformity. They seem to have a very hard time building them with any modicum of efficiency. That would imply a lack of modular production lines. They are inexcusably inefficient.
I always thought it was the Khitomer Accords that forbid the federation from using cloaking devices. Didn't that treaty also prevent romulans from using photon torpedoes?
There was a Federation ship that was manned by nothing but Vulcans. The U.S.S. Intrepid (Connie Class), from the TOS episode "The Immunity Syndrome". I think too in DS9 there was mention of other ships being manned mostly by Vulcans.
On the 'cloaking device helping Voyager' thing, cloaks tend to restrict the speed at which a ship can travel at, while cloaked a 24th Century Romulan D'deridex-class can't go higher that Warp 6. Given the fact that Voyager's ultimate goal was to get back to the Federation as quickly as possible, a cloak would have slowed them down. Assuming that Voyager would face the same limitations, as Warp 6 = 1.075 light-years per day - which I shall round down to 1 light-year a day, and Voyager had to go 70,000 light-years, the journey under cloak would take around 191.5 years
I always felt that most sci-fi settings were stingy with their fleet sizes , even starwars. Warhammer 40k had a much better representation of both population and fleet sizes.
Meh some of those wouldn’t exists if budget limitations wasn’t a thing (ex. # of aliens). I also think Nog’s rise in rank could be attributed to wartime (look at the civil war or ww2 how quickly some people rose in rank), there’s no excuse for Wesley though. Section 31 makes sense in terms of why the paradise ideal of the federation wasn’t subverted but it is also the most problematic for that ideal. The various ethics playing out on Trek is interesting and I know some papers were written on the subject.
I think one of their biggest flaws is lack of imagination when it comes to weapon concepts despite coming into contact with numerous species who are far more advanced they never seem to learn anything new from these encounters and the weapon systems ( while upgraded in some cases ) stay the same with phasers and Photon Torpedoes and no other attempt at any kind of new weapons system so I'd say innovative thinking is one of the major flaws in star fleet at least when it comes to weapon systems.
@@fuckologic1202 Actually there are many such as able to call a lot of reliable allies, many different weapons and technology that make a lot of what others navies depend on obsolete, well design multi-role combat and utility ships, highly trained officers, high level of adaptation and innovation, and EST. For example, their main weapon, phaser arrays is such a precise and powerful weapon that render fighters useless unless used in major fleet movements in the thousands. As every starship in Star Trek can shot them down in seconds before they even get in range to engage in mass numbers while also being capable to destroy capital ships. While replicators pretty much end the need for supply chains that other factions depend on and can operate years without stopping for supplies. Hell, even Warp Drive, while slower, has so many advantages compared to others for they are not limited by anything but very specific and rare particles instead of say gravity or FTL itself, and can do precise hit and run attacks from any direction.
@@raw6668 That's quite an article you wrote there sir... I guess you won the discussion, as I have nothing to back my claim xd I don't know much about the ST universe, so I'll have to trust you on this one
@@raw6668 also shields, wide mode phaser, immunity to lasers and conventional weapons. phasers can easily destroy a planet with a single hit. holograms can be projected on the outside of the ship to generate holographic ships, and those ships can actually shot photonic weapons that would do damage.
@@jesusmora9379 Phasers are super powerful... when plot demands it. 99.99% of the time, they are not capable to destroy a planet. This happened in TOS, basically, that's about it. Conventional weapons are effective. What are phasers mind you? The basic weapon in this universe, alongside disruptors and plasma based weapons (Borg, Ferengi, Romulans). So no, shields are not impervious to conventional weapons, not at all. Lasers? Writers thought they would be phased out in the future, because they underestimated their potential. They only had knowledge of their time. With today's technology we can build facilities housing lasers that are able to simulate nuclear explosions. We are developing and building it right now. Just imagine future ship mounted lasers. And yes, they were in use in the 23rd century (TOS), and rather powerful as handguns. They were phased out on United Earth ships in early 22nd century though.
I think that is the most baffling of all. Ok, so you can't use cloaking tech ... big deal. Add a big radar dish, to your space stations develop sonar equivalent ...
"could of reversed" - Looks like you are about as competent in reverse-engineering the English language as the Federation was in reverse-engineering cloaking technology.
I do agree, a lot of this became apparent during the Dominion War, the federation are so peace loving and consider themselves only explorers that their fleet is so weak
By the 24th century, there was no need for warships. The universe was a safe and wondrous place full of friendly aliens and exciting adventures to be had. The vast Federation were powerful and comprised of most of the known galaxy. Humans were peaceful, evolved and optimistic. At least, that was the Gene Roddeberry vision. After his death, the Federation was changed into a smaller, weaker, flawed faction among many, with the Star Trek universe becoming dark and dangerous, turning the idea of starships that carry families into a ridiculous one. By 1997, the 24th century human had de-evolved into a person not all that different to someone from the 20th century. The Orville continues where the Gene Roddenberry universe left off.
The tea-drinking, no music made after the 1950's thing is why I liked the party scene in Discovery season 1. In that scene wee see Starfleet officers actually having fun. They listen to modern(ish) music, drink and play silly party games. And Earth is indeed shown as virtually defenseless in canon. But in beta material it seems the situation was quite different. Sol was one of the most heavily guarded systems in the Alpha and Beta quadrants. There was a defense perimeter between Mars and Jupiter as well as a planetary defense system in Earth's orbit which included (if I'm not mistaking) even weapons platforms on the moon. Also, there was a very extensive array of monitoring stations along the Federation border so any breach is detected and ships would converge on the enemy's location from pretty much all directions. And think about it this way. The klingons and romulans were not always on friendly terms with the UFP. But they still never dared to send an attack force to Earth.
His first flaw is invalid, the treaty of Algeron prevented the federation from developing cloaking technology, and during TOS we would have only been warp capable for less than a century, so we wouldn’t have been able to make it then.
Objection. Even with a cloaking device, Voyager wouldn't have travelled any fast. Janeway was like a magpie. She had to stop and check out anything even remotely shiny along the way
She was so up herself when the episode featuring the Trabe was ending. I would have salvaged anything that improved ship performance and would have had an entire deck dedicated to hydroponics
Star fleets ships and technologies are generally nothing special. It's the captain and crews that make these space wagons work. A Generation Tech crewed and British Ben captained N.C.C. 1701-X would be unstoppable. MAKE IT SO!
If you are a trekkie and have not been on the star trek cruise, i highly recommend it. its a great chance to meet a ton of the actors in a pretty relaxed atmosphere. best week of my life.
the episode of the space ameba The Intrepid was roomered to have an almost entirely Vulcan crew we knew of this by word only as we never saw the ship physically
I think that they did not feature more recent music was mostly a copyright issue. Certainly the Starfleet would knew the artistic value of bands like AC/DC, Queen and Die Ärzte.
You would think that after Kirk and the others re-purposed that torpedo with the gaseous anomaly sensors Starfleet would've developed an entire arsenal of similarly equipped torpedoes specifically to combat cloaking! And Kirk did that a few HUNDRED years prior to TNG!
@@nurse425 Kirk needed that trick, because Klingon cloaking tech had evolved. It's likely that the arms race between cloaking tech and detection technology was still happening. Although they never did learn how to shoot while cloaked for some reason ... which is a bigger mystery, unless that was the one thing the Romulans weren't allowed to do.
@@NotTheStinkyCheese I think Kirk's cloak-seeking torpedo is the reason they ended the research into firing while cloaked. Because that ship still couldn't run cloaks and shields at the same time (power reasons). Thus, with a seeking torpedo, once the enemy knew you were there, you were a sitting duck. So the real cloaking utility remained in sneaking by undetected, or one free shot.
When you talked about the cloaking device of the defiant and it's use in the gamma quadrant, you showed a map and highlighted the delta quadrant. The Gamma Quadrant is actually the top-left one.
Yes there are all Vulcan ships. See the Vulcan baseball team Sisko and the Niners played against. Also, the Vulcan ship that Odo asked to transport his prisoner and prisoner's daughter to Vulcan.