Was Voyager really small?

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Numerous times throughout the show, Tom Paris often alluded to Voyager being a small ship, but I never really got this. Given its size and crew of about 150, it seemed pretty huge to me, only small when watching the show after 7 seasons of TNG and 2 seasons of DS9, I guess. Honestly, I always thought of Voyager as a mid-size ship. To me, small means something like the Defiant or Equinox. With them alone in the Delta Quadrant, size becomes kind of irrelevant, because they won't be running into bigger and smaller Starfleet ships. Well. Except for that "Equinox" two-parter. And Tuvok's memories of the Excelsior. And that time the Doctor went to the Prometheus.

Do you feel like Voyager (and the Intrepid-class) being able to land was a size thing, or more of a "design feature?" I always felt like it was kind of a mix of both. When Tom and Janeway talk about having never landed a starship before, it sounded less like a new feature, and more just like something had neither done yet.

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

I mean, the Enterprise-D had a crew of, if I remember correctly, 2000, so in relativity, yeah, Voyager would have been a small ship. Just for a point of reference how small were the Defiant or Equinox? I'm not exactly a Voyager buff, lol.

Do you feel like Voyager (and the Intrepid-class) being able to land was a size thing, or more of a "design feature?"

I think it was a size thing. But you're probably right in it being both.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I mean, the Enterprise-D had a crew of, if I remember correctly, 2000, so in relativity, yeah, Voyager would have been a small ship. Just for a point of reference how small were the Defiant or Equinox? I'm not exactly a Voyager buff, lol.

I think it was a size thing. But you're probably right in it being both.

I think 1,000, but that's reflective of the crew, not the ship. There's also the fat that the Galaxy-class was the biggest thing Starfleet put out. Starfleet's biggest ships were the Ambassadors, Galaxies, and Nebulas. Compared to everything else, Voyager strikes me mid-size.

The Defiant had 4 decks and a crew of 50 or so.
This should give you a sense of scale for the Defiant.

The Equinox had about 8 decks and a crew of about 80 or so.
This seems to be a good representation of Voyager & Equinox scaling.

 

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Let me put it this way - for the research of one of my fanfics I needed to know how long Voyager was, and I was surprised. Voyager - in its length - roughly the distance between Heckscher Fields- Field #4 and the central-park side of W59th Street in New York City, of course in beeline distance, not walking distance.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Here's a shot from "Nightingale" (S7) that shows the true scale of the ship.

 

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Der Kahn is nich sonderlich groß, hm? (That ship isn't *that* big, eh?)

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Der Kahn is nich sonderlich groß, hm? (That ship isn't *that* big, eh?)

The image I shared is from the actual episode, so it absolutely is that big, and with a crew of about 150. The crew had a cozy ship to cruise the Delta Quadrant in, and that ship could take a real pounding from the bad guy of the week too.

Das Bild, das ich geteilt habe, stammt aus der eigentlichen Folge, es ist also absolut so groß und mit einer Besatzung von etwa 150 Mann. Die Besatzung hatte ein gemütliches Schiff, auf dem sie durch den Delta-Quadranten kreuzen konnte, und dieses Schiff konnte dem Bösewicht eine ordentliche Tracht Prügel einstecken auch der Woche.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I found a site once which had calculated the volume of each ship using a 3D plugin, which gives an idea of just how big the ships are in relation to each other... if you trust numbers you come across on the internet.

In Voyager's day the top of the scale for Starfleet ships is the Galaxy-class and Nebula-class, which are in a tier above everything. So those are the large ships. A thousand people on board and the corridors are still empty. The Enterprise F is even bigger, but that wasn't built yet.

The Ambassador-class has half the volume of the Galaxy, and then underneath that you've got classes like the Sovereign. The Akira is only half the size of them, but I'd still count them all as being medium-sized ships.

The Intrepid-class and Prometheus-class are maybe 1/5th the size of the Ambassador, so they could be considered small ships in the late 24th century. This is where SNW's scaled up Enterprise would probably be too. Crew size 150-400.

The NX-class seems to be 1/3rd of the size of the Intrepid and the Nova class might have just 1/7th the volume, so that's absolutely tiny. This tier is about where the Defiant, Oberth and Protostar classes are too. Crew about 50.

And then you've got the Runabouts, which are the smallest vessels to count as starships. They're maybe 100 times smaller than the Defiant. Even smaller if they take a shortcut through a shrinking anomaly.

 

[Oddish]

She was 343m long, or about 1100 feet. That's as big as a large aircraft carrier.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It's all relative, IMO. Voyager was presumably smaller than an Excelsior-class starship, which may have been something of a standard for comparison perhaps (a ship may have been considered big or small compared to that).

In my own head canon, I like to think the Intrepid-class was a mid-size cruiser and fell in the middle of ship sizes during the 2370s.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Going off windows and airlocks, Excelsior-class easily dwarfs Voyager.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The size of the Excelsior class is a whole other discussion!

 

[Oddish]

Even California class ships are substantially larger. I think Voyager is considered to be basically a scout ship, kind of equivalent to a light cruiser.

 

[kkt]

In ocean navy terms, a light cruiser is pretty big. Bigger than destroyers and other small ships, big enough to go around the world in reasonable comfort without being resupplied except for fuel if necessary. Heavy cruisers are bigger, but mostly in how thick their armor is. For the 1900-1940 era, light cruisers would be sent out to distant spots in the colonial empires, where they would be bigger than anything else they would be likely to come across. Heavy cruisers and battleships would be in European waters where they might have to fight an enemy that had their own heavy cruisers and battleships.

 

[Dukhat]

Here's a shot from "Nightingale" (S7) that shows the true scale of the ship.

I'm confused. If you have a screenshot showing the true scale of the ship, why are you asking if Voyager was really small? Doesn't this screenshot answer your question?

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I'm confused. If you have a screenshot showing the true scale of the ship, why are you asking if Voyager was really small? Doesn't this screenshot answer your question?

My OP answers your question.

 

[Dukhat]

It does?

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

It does?

Yes, it does. Read my OP.

 

[Dukhat]

Yes, it does. Read my OP.

I did. Still confused as to why you asked a question you already knew the answer to.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Since Voyager reused rebuilt TNG sets, and had wider corridors, it kinda gives a skewed impression of size. Like the TNG ship was HUGE, but used recycled TMP sets and we never saw any huge innards (due to budget) like in the Kelvin movies or Strange New Worlds.