How big SHOULD the Defiant be?

[Arpy]

It’s officially four decks, yet the windows on the underside suggest it’s much larger. How big was it designed to be?

Some of the details would look better on a much smaller ship — maybe a deck or two. It seemed to be dramatized more that way, I think. The grills over the Bussard Collectors, for example, look rather silly when you add next to them a human figure to scale.

I wonder if playing around with the details, not so much a refit (though, hey, whatever works for people) as a remastering of the design to flesh it out more would be in order. Especially if, say, it were ever featured on the Big Screen where resolution would have been much higher.

 

[Oddish]

The smaller she is, the more Starfleet can build. And then they won't have to keep using ships meant for peaceful exploration to fight off the Dominion, the Borg, and other space pricks.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

It’s officially four decks, yet the windows on the underside suggest it’s much larger. How big was it designed to be?

Windows are often a poor metric when trying to determine ship size. SFX departments love to spam ships with them, such that any metric makes the ship larger than what was originally intended.

 

[kkt]

Didn't we establish that the Defiant carries a runabout at some point?

The Defiant can be run by a very small crew, something like 20 would be okay. In an extreme situation could a single person control her, at least if all she was doing was flying through space (not combat)?

 

[Arpy]

Windows are often a poor metric when trying to determine ship size. SFX departments love to spam ships with them, such that any metric makes the ship larger than what was originally intended.

What do you mean FX departments? Do they not follow the designer’s original plan?

The Grissom is another good one. How big was that supposed to be, going by the windows alone?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Surprise, surprise, they don't care about our pet theories.

Indeed, there are plenty of times the Defiant model was filmed in such a way that it looked large next to the ships it was fighting, like in Way of the Warrior.

 

[Timo]

The Defiant officially has at least six decks, as listed on the turbolift Okudagram. We just don't know where those decks are. (Deck Five appears in dialogue a couple of times, so four shall not be the number, and thou shall not count to four.)

Sizewise, the Defiant is pretty much the same as Miranda, as seen when the latter type docks with the same DS9 outer rim port in "Way of the Warrior". Relatively small, but we shouldn't think she was geared for mass production or anything. Sisko makes it sound more like a silver bullet project to defeat the Borg specifically; might be a ship of this type is prohibitively expensive to build for any other application.

No runabout was ever stowed aboard, but "The Sound of Her Voice" shows that a shuttlepod accommodating four can leave through the round bottom feature, specifically the inner part that opens up as a pair of sliding doors - and "By Inferno's Light" shows the ship tractoring a runabout so we get a comparison shot (incidentally, the tractor beam is in the middle of the round bottom feature, necessitating some telescoping trickery). Both work in favor of the Miranda'ish size.

As an aside on window rows, starship "walls" are actually acutely angled surfaces for the most part. So the one layout that does not make sense is putting round portholes at eye level, as if this were the Titanic or something. The folks inside would see out better if there were one row above their heads and perhaps another close to their knees...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[STEPhon IT]

It’s officially four decks, yet the windows on the underside suggest it’s much larger. How big was it designed to be?

Some of the details would look better on a much smaller ship — maybe a deck or two. It seemed to be dramatized more that way, I think. The grills over the Bussard Collectors, for example, look rather silly when you add next to them a human figure to scale.

I wonder if playing around with the details, not so much a refit (though, hey, whatever works for people) as a remastering of the design to flesh it out more would be in order. Especially if, say, it were ever featured on the Big Screen where resolution would have been much higher.

It does appear that way but suspected the hull was a lot thicker than conventional ships because it was built for extended battles. The Defiant was a grand design, not a fan of it having a cloaking device because I personally felt that was a weapon for cowards and the enemy was defeated with it many times over, but it was beautiful to look at. In the movie First Contact the Defiant looked very cinematic despite uncharacteristically getting its ass handed to it by the Borg.

 

[Timo]

The ship always gets her ass handed to her, from the introductory episode on. That's part of the charm.

Funnily, the ship was never designed to scale. Rather, an old drawing about a Maquis raider (with intended Bajoran origins, see common features with the ship we first saw in Wadi hands) was repurposed and there were multiple stages in trying to fit starship interiors to the outer shell. Thus, "FX departments following original plan" was never part of the picture: there was no real plan, only speculative ideas about first putting the bridge in the oddly jutting bow pod, then moving it to the top of the ship, and liberally adjusting the length from 50 meters to 200'ish. That is, accepting that the choices would affect the length, but not worrying about the length itself too much. Eventually, the VFX folks settled on a certain size that appears to be close to 170 meters, and rarely contradicted themselves - the ship is probably at her smallest in "Paradise Lost", flying atop the Excelsior class opponent.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Arpy]

The Defiant officially has at least six decks, as listed on the turbolift Okudagram. We just don't know where those decks are. (Deck Five appears in dialogue a couple of times, so four shall not be the number, and thou shall not count to four.)

I’m going by Memory Alpha with the four.

The Defiant class had four decks.

• Deck 1: main bridge, captain's ready room, transporter room 1, phaser cannons (2), upper main engineering, plasma exhaust vents, upper sensor array, officer and crew quarters, deuterium storage. (DS9: "The Search, Part I", "Rejoined", "To the Death", "Starship Down", "The Sound of Her Voice")
• Deck 2: lower main engineering, main impulse engines, computer core, targeting sensors, mess hall, warp coils, sickbay, medical and science laboratory, transporter room 2, officer and crew quarters, warhead control room. (DS9: "Defiant", "The Adversary", "Nor the Battle to the Strong", "Starship Down")
• Deck 3: main impulse engines, warhead impulse engines, shuttlebays 1-3, antimatterstorage, cargo bays 1-4, airlocks (2), aft torpedo magazine, warp coils, shuttle and cargo management unit maintenance. (DS9: "The Ship", "The Sound of Her Voice")
• Deck 4: landing struts, navigational deflector, phaser cannons (2), forward and aft torpedo magazines, aft torpedo launchers (2), forward torpedo launcher (1), lower sensor array, shuttlebay 1-2 exterior doors and elevator system, main tractor beam emitter. (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations", "One Little Ship")

Doug Drexler based the deck plans in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual on his master systems display, seen in "The Adversary" and many later episodes. A "Deck 5" was mentioned in dialogue three times during the fourth season: in "The Way of the Warrior", "Rejoined" and "To the Death". The first two citations were in reference to hull breaches; the third had Captain Sisko traveling to "Deck 5, Section 1" via turbolift​

Deck 5 is a bigger problem than 6. Okudagrams are meant to be ignored and have lots of in-jokes and inconsistencies that must be. For the most part, you’re not meant to actually read them. Dialogue is trickier. You still have to ignore it, but now you’re ignoring something they did mean for you to register. I think this is where dubbing future remasters of the episodes might be best. I mean, if they can change the reused matte paintings during the TNG remaster...or all of TOS’ FX scenes, they can do this.

As an aside on window rows, starship "walls" are actually acutely angled surfaces for the most part. So the one layout that does not make sense is putting round portholes at eye level, as if this were the Titanic or something. The folks inside would see out better if there were one row above their heads and perhaps another close to their knees...

The Defiant’s aren’t round, but now you have me thinking about all those round windows on the smaller Jem-Hadar fighters, too. Were they supposed to be as big as the Enterprise??

Surprise, surprise, they don't care about our pet theories.

I’m lost. What are you referring to? I’m just trying to figure out what’s up with the windows.

Funnily, the ship was never designed to scale. Rather, an old drawing about a Maquis raider (with intended Bajoran origins, see common features with the ship we first saw in Wadi hands) was repurposed and there were multiple stages in trying to fit starship interiors to the outer shell. Thus, "FX departments following original plan" was never part of the picture: there was no real plan, only speculative ideas about first putting the bridge in the oddly jutting bow pod, then moving it to the top of the ship, and liberally adjusting the length from 50 meters to 200'ish. That is, accepting that the choices would affect the length, but not worrying about the length itself too much. Eventually, the VFX folks settled on a certain size that appears to be close to 170 meters, and rarely contradicted themselves

I don’t imagine the producers settled on anything, then changed it. I’m mostly wondering what the ship makers were thinking during that first constructing/rendering when they added the windows. That initial vision at the point of creation.

 

[Oddish]

Didn't we establish that the Defiant carries a runabout at some point?

I think it packs shuttlecraft.

 

[Timo]

I’m going by Memory Alpha with the four.

Always a bad idea...

​

Deck 5 is a bigger problem than 6.

Absolutely. The "To the Death" reference more or less establishes that the heroes accommodate their Jem'Hadar guests there. We see the deck is full height, with corridor branches, and we hear it has "sections". Deck 6 as described in the Okudagram has only one potentially full-height facility listed, the Brig (or a Brig), and nothing listed was ever seen; this could be a crawlway for all we care, and not really contradict anything.

Deck 5 in the 'gram has Engineering, suggesting Deck 6 would be the lower parts of the engine cowlings. Given how big the ship "really" is, this is IMHO preferable to Deck 4 being the bottom of the main hull and Deck 5 the pontoons.

The Defiant’s aren’t round, but now you have me thinking about all those round windows on the smaller Jem-Hadar fighters, too. Were they supposed to be as big as the Enterprise??

There we have yardsticks, which are consistently poor: a Klingon BoP, say. Or the TMP Orbital Office flipped to Wrath of Khan orientation and used as a starbase. But we also have the partial build from "The Ship", suggesting much smaller size.

The small windows of the Defiant are on the inward, canted sides of the engine cowlings. A perfect place to argue that they are not at eye level (where they could only ever provide vistas to each other!) and aren't necessarily laid out one row per one deck, either.

I don’t imagine the producers settled on anything, then changed it. I’m mostly wondering what the ship makers were thinking during that first constructing/rendering when they added the windows. That initial vision at the point of creation.

That isn't the initial point, though. The initial point is the scale-less Maquis/Bajoran ship with fancy cheek and bow pods. The makers were doing some thinking when trying to turn the cheeks to escape pods and the bow to the bridge, then doing some rethinking; it's not certain if the folks who put the windows on the exterior were even informed of the stage of interior set design, or just given a carte blanche of Starfleetizing the exterior.

I think it packs shuttlecraft.

We see two types: the pods introduced in "Destiny", and the probably only marginally larger Chaffee of "Sound of Her Voice". Tech Man blueprints give separate drop bays for the former, but there could just as well exist an internal hangar with the single round ventral door. The latter would give ambiguity and the ability to pack more than we are shown.

Why give the ship two types with basically the same capabilities, though? The pods have warp in "Destiny". The Chaffee is probably on board from the get-go, too, its imaginary version propelling Sisko and Bashir to fictional safety and having an aft rather than side hatch in "The Search". Could this be taken as a sign that the ship has dedicated berths for just these two (perhaps three) craft, rather than a generic hangar? That is, the Tech Man interpretation?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Arpy]

There we have yardsticks, which are consistently poor: a Klingon BoP, say. Or the TMP Orbital Office flipped to Wrath of Khan orientation and used as a starbase. But we also have the partial build from "The Ship", suggesting much smaller size.

I’m not questioning its settled upon “smaller” size so much, just wondering about alternate universes and might-have-beens. My suspicion is that they were still thinking huge capital ships when they built the model and gave it a weird beetle design to suggest toughness and exotic Gamma Quadrant-ness.

For whatever reason the design didn’t work for people so when they went bigger, they did more the Dominion’s blade-looking larger ships they introduced later.

The small windows of the Defiant are on the inward, canted sides of the engine cowlings. A perfect place to argue that they are not at eye level (where they could only ever provide vistas to each other!)

My third-story kitchen window looks directly across the way to my neighbor’s third-story kitchen window. Them’s the breaks sometimes. Better that the windows face each other than gray exterior hull anyway. Plus, if the ship is bigger per the windows, they’d be fairly far apart.

The initial point is the scale-less Maquis/Bajoran ship with fancy cheek and bow pods. The makers were doing some thinking when trying to turn the cheeks to escape pods and the bow to the bridge, then doing some rethinking; it's not certain if the folks who put the windows on the exterior were even informed of the stage of interior set design, or just given a carte blanche of Starfleetizing the exterior.

The Bajoran ship may be where the element was used earlier...didn’t that rounded bridge also appear on the Hideki Class Cardsssian ships as well? Anyway, they can scale that however they want at the time they’re finalizing the model and sticking on the windows. That’s the part that interests me. I can’t imagine they were given any kind of interior layout if they put the windows on like that. I’m more curious what their version of the ship, whoever either stuck the windows on of their own accord, or designed it larger at the outset, what they were imagining for it.

If it’s supposed to be, I dunno, a dozen decks high, it changes the character of the ship to a more brutish vessel. Less of a tough little escort, more of a domineering battle cruiser.

 

[Timo]

I’m not questioning its settled upon “smaller” size so much, just wondering about alternate universes and might-have-beens. My suspicion is that they were still thinking huge capital ships when they built the model and gave it a weird beetle design to suggest toughness and exotic Gamma Quadrant-ness.

I wonder... The design probably would have been customized for the needs of "Jem'Hadar", where the point would be that the new foe sacrifices one of his in order to prove his toughness. A cluster of lesser vessels would then appear to be in demand. Especially if the idea also was to let the runabouts do their bit; pitting them against either a single huge enemy or a group of said would have been, uh, unfair.

Could be there was a call for a generic adversary ship before the basic premise of "Jem'Hadar" got nailed down, though. But a large foe would be wasted if the idea wasn't to pit it against the largest Starfleet ship, while smaller foes could continue to be deployed against the main heroes who don't have large ships themselves.

In any case, "many tiny portholes" is especially ambiguous here when we learn the ship has no windows in evidence on the inside, or even a main viewer for the bridge team!

The Bajoran ship may be where the element was used earlier...didn’t that rounded bridge also appear on the Hideki Class Cardsssian ships as well?

Yup. Somebody out there just loved that feature, and it results in interesting interconnectedness: did Bajor get to keep Cardassian ships left behind in the withdrawal, or did Cardassia steal Bajoran ones during the occupation?

Another nicely reused element is the hexagonal panel that may be the warp engine of a couple of the Bajoran transports. The modelmakers sure knew how to make the most of these pieces of plastic in building a new corner to the universe.

If it’s supposed to be, I dunno, a dozen decks high, it changes the character of the ship to a more brutish vessel. Less of a tough little escort, more of a domineering battle cruiser.

Also, the crew of 47 begins to look odd when we hear hundreds is more normal for medium ships of that era in times of conflict, and the Galaxy has a thousand.

Then again, small crews for big ships is a thing in other eras. And the TNG hero ship was basically empty despite the 1,014 anyway, so the DS9 one could do the same with its 47 and a somewhat smaller ship. But there are some limits... Four people per deck?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[danellis]

Also, the crew of 47 begins to look odd when we hear hundreds is more normal for medium ships of that era in times of conflict, and the Galaxy has a thousand.

Then again, small crews for big ships is a thing in other eras. And the TNG hero ship was basically empty despite the 1,014 anyway, so the DS9 one could do the same with its 47 and a somewhat smaller ship.

Doesn't the Galaxy have a population - including civilians - of a thousand, rather than a crew? That would suggest the Starfleet crew would be nearer 300-400.

I wonder if anyone's ever calculated a GIA (Gross Internal Area) of the Galaxy. I bet the sq.ft per person would be huge.

dJE

 

[valkyrie013]

https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/defiant-problems.htm

My usuall site for sizes. Article on the wishy washy size

 

[Boris Skrbic]

The problem with 560 feet is that I’ve yet to see a solid explanation for why the ubiquitous MSD should be viewed as so terribly misleading. The odd reference to Deck 5 can easily be missed and the mostly illegible turbolift schematic overlooked, but ignoring the MSD relies on the viewer looking at it on multiple occasions and wrongly assuming that sure, there are four regular-sized decks, maybe five with the little space at the bottom, and the ship’s proportions are such that of course it’s 560 feet long with such a deck height — all of which falls apart when the MSD is measured so the interior details make sense.

 

[Oddish]

A Galaxy's population would include all manner of personnel, including but ceetainly not limited to astrophysicists, stellar cartographers, exobiologists, first contact specialists, soil analysts, maintenance techs, botanists, weapons specialists, shield and armor experts, security, tactical officers, doctors, nurses, engineers, waste management, cadet trainees, counselors, replicator techs, waiters, bartenders, teachers, nursery staff, students, and adorable moppets.

A Defiant class would pretty much need a captain, weapons techs, tactical officers, shield and armor techs, engineers, and a doctor.

 

[Arpy]

A Galaxy Class is a city in space. I adore it. If there is a future, that’s what you want it to be. And I do mean if. I saw a headline yesterday that the Chinese are looking to amass as many nuclear weapons as the United States has now, by 2030 — in nine years. We lucked out surviving the Cold War, and we lucked out COVID wasn’t as bad as the Bubonic Plague say, or something out of Children of Men. Plus Yellowstone could go off at any time, or an asteroid we missed might come closer than we noticed, or the UAP’s might decide, okay, now.

The 1000 crew/population of the Galaxy Class could be a starting point. With future automation, maybe a crew of one (Beverly in “Remember Me”) or none (SNW short story “Of Cabbages and Kings”) could run the ship. But maybe its mission and all that extra space starts with 1000, and over time could balloon from there. What was the emergency evacuation number, 7000?

Imagine a Galaxy returning from a twenty-year mission (as it was designed to) with 3000. Or staying put more locally as a local starbase of 7000.

Breathtaking.

 

[kkt]

Why would they want a huge nuclear arsenal? As long as at least one other country has an arsenal big enough to inflict unacceptable damage, they're not useful.

A Galaxy is an awfully big ship. It's sort of a flaw - I wouldn't want to send 1000 people and such a huge ship on a risky mission. But TNG Enterprise was put at risk all the time.