Defiant questions

[SicOne]

(1) Why are the Defiant-class warp nacelles angled outwards in the front, instead of being straight forward to aft like all other Federation ships we've seen onscreen? As far as I can remember, the warp nacelles need to be straight forward to aft in order for warp drive to function properly. Is there a suitable in-universe explanation for this? Only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that Defiant's warp coils are probably indeed aligned straight forward to aft under the nacelle cowlings and the outward canting of the nacelles is for periphery equipment related to targeting scanners for the phaser cannons or something of other importance.

(2) Are Defiant's phaser cannons movable and therefore capable of firing at multiple angles, or can they only fire straight ahead and the ship has to maneuver in order to fire pinpoint shots? I remember the episode "The Search" and when it opened up on a Jem'Hadar attack ship, all blasts seemed to strike the front of the attack ship (itself smaller than the Defiant), but I also seem to remember when Defiant was firing upon the Borg cube in "Star Trek:First Contact", the shots spread out in a fan pattern. Or maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly?

(3) Is there any information to suggest that Defiant's phaser cannons are more powerful than the Type-10 phasers carried by the Galaxy-class? Or are Defiant's phasers weaker, but able to be fired faster and thus able to put more energy on target more quickly than a Galaxy's phasers? There must be some advantage of phaser cannons over conventional phasers, or they never would have been implemented in the first place. I don't know if there's ever been any in-universe explanation for this, or behind-the-scenes discussion from the makers of the ship or the show.

 

[Timo]

(1) Why are the Defiant-class warp nacelles angled outwards in the front, instead of being straight forward to aft like all other Federation ships we've seen onscreen? As far as I can remember, the warp nacelles need to be straight forward to aft in order for warp drive to function properly. Is there a suitable in-universe explanation for this? Only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that Defiant's warp coils are probably indeed aligned straight forward to aft under the nacelle cowlings and the outward canting of the nacelles is for periphery equipment related to targeting scanners for the phaser cannons or something of other importance.

We have this canon top-down view on the ship that shows five coils per side, arranged straight.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb..._MSD.jpg/180px-Defiant_class_original_MSD.jpg

So yes, that sounds like the theory with the most support. (And never mind the various problems with using MSDs for evidence. This image doesn't match the actual shape of the ship too well, but this is a feature of many MSDs that we have to accept as part of the Trek reality.)

(2) Are Defiant's phaser cannons movable and therefore capable of firing at multiple angles, or can they only fire straight ahead and the ship has to maneuver in order to fire pinpoint shots? I remember the episode "The Search" and when it opened up on a Jem'Hadar attack ship, all blasts seemed to strike the front of the attack ship (itself smaller than the Defiant), but I also seem to remember when Defiant was firing upon the Borg cube in "Star Trek:First Contact", the shots spread out in a fan pattern. Or maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly?

The ship sprays and prays a lot, but we could attribute it to the actual boresight being moved, rather than the cannon being swiveled, at least in those two cases.

Then again, in "Paradise Lost", there is a very explicit case of the guns swiveling. The Defiant overflies the Lakota lengthwise and fires down with the main weapons, at a really acute angle.

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x12/paradiselost_536.jpg

So yes, I'd say the guns can swivel - but I'd also argue that they are normally fired straight ahead possibly because individual pulses do virtually no harm and one always has to land several in the same place. And this is really hard to do even with steerable guns, so usually the ship both flies straight towards the target and fine-tunes by steering the guns for better dead-ahead firing.

This might be an original anti-Borg concept, with each pulse being differently tuned. Or something.

(3) Is there any information to suggest that Defiant's phaser cannons are more powerful than the Type-10 phasers carried by the Galaxy-class? Or are Defiant's phasers weaker, but able to be fired faster and thus able to put more energy on target more quickly than a Galaxy's phasers? There must be some advantage of phaser cannons over conventional phasers, or they never would have been implemented in the first place. I don't know if there's ever been any in-universe explanation for this, or behind-the-scenes discussion from the makers of the ship or the show.

I'd say the reason for the pulses was the anti-Borg intent of the ship: rapidly modulating a constant beam might have been too demanding technically, but doing the modulation during pauses was doable, hence the pulse guns.

As for firepower, we have few direct comparisons. The Defiant often fires to distract, disable or demonstrate, and fairly seldom to destroy. Yet there is the direct comparison between "Jem'Hadar", where a Galaxy fires phasers to kill a Jemmie battlebug but completely fails, and the subsequent "The Search", where the Defiant fires pulses and scores an immediate kill.

What to make of that? Were the Jem'Hadar surprised by the modulated pulses? Did the Founders have a saboteur aboard the Odyssey but not aboard the Defiant? Was the Defiant deliberately allowed to win so that the heroes could be plausibly captured for the VR interrogation? Possibilities are too many to contemplate. And alas, later on we do not see Galaxy class ships kill Jem'Hadar vessels.

Indeed, curiously enough, no Federation ship other than the Defiants actually manages to kill any Jem'Hadar ships on screen in any of the battles! But a meek Klingon Bird of Prey easily matches the Defiant's bug-squashing skills at the start of the sixth season arc.

Personally, I feel the Defiant is tough but indeed also little, and only has heavy firepower relative to her size, not in absolute terms. But canon offers no real proof either way.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SicOne]

Thanks for the info, Timo. Good points made.

In regards as to why the Odyssey was unable to damage the Jem'Hadar attack ship in "The Jem'Hadar", I am thinking more along the lines of that first shot with the polaron beam that blew out one of Odyssey's warp nacelles also wreaked some feedback havoc on the ship's entire power system and caused any phaser power the ship could emit to be but a ghost of its full power. Maybe with some more time to properly do damage control (which the Dominion wasn't going to give), Odyssey could have recovered and dealt greater damage, but clearly the needs of the story required the Odyssey's single shot to be weak or ineffective. This seems to serve as a suitable in-universe explanation.

 

[Timo]

We would also need to explain why the runabouts could do little or nothing in "Jem'Hadar" but could fight back in a number of late war arc episodes, but that could be covered by the rationalization of "better aim thanks to better intel", as in "Treachery, Faith and the Great River".

We also cannot discount the possibility that Captain Keogh did not wish to actually kill his opponents. He was on a rescue mission and the victim of an unprovoked attack (if we conveniently forget about him trespassing): he wouldn't be motivated to kill if he could possibly avoid it. And we didn't exactly hear that the enemy would have killed any of his crew before the final plunge. The ship was taking a beating, but taking it gracefully, and after the initial shock the repair crews appeared to be keeping pace with the accumulating damage. Why kill?

Another fun issue: the phaser beams of Starfleet ships in the 24th century have a hit rate of 100% (either because they are really good, or because they aren't fired unless they have a perfect firing solution), but the Jem'Hadar battlebug in "Jem'Hadar" is the one uncloaked opponent in the history of Star Trek that actually manages to dodge a Starfleet beam - namely, the beam fired by Kira's runabout when the bug initiates the suicide run. It's a bit surprising, then, that the seemingly boresight-only guns of the Defiant manage to score such easy hits on these slippery opponents!

Timo Saloniemi