What if Voyager had been a Sovereign Class Starship ?

[TransporterBeam]

If Voyager had been delayed a year and had instead been a Sovereign Class Starship what would life have been like out in the DQ ? The Enterprise-E could have been destroyed in the opening backstory of Insurrection and a newer Class Starship, the Enterprise-F could have been seen. It would have been a cool mix of the SOV.class ship and the Akira Class ship which were cool looking.
Knowing the 1701-E had gone down in the Dominion War in a Firefight with a bunch of enemy vessels would have been heroic. Seeing an even newer Enterprise for Star Trek 9 would have been fun !

 

[Akiraprise]

I wouldn't have minded this, the Sovereign class is my favorite. I really don't think the show would have been all that different, except for the inclusion of quantum torpedoes once in awhile. Voyager was often portrayed as more powerful then it should have been.

 

[JNG]

I don't know if there are any more Sovereign-class starships than the two we know of, or if that ship can sustain speeds like Voyager can. However, it seems possible that that type of ship can operate longer without needing new fuel and other consumables, and carries a larger supply of spare parts, so that might have made things a bit easier for a ship in that situation.

However, I don't think a Sovereign-class ship would have ever been sent on the mission into the Badlands. The Defiant, an even smaller ship than Voyager and at least as nimble, would seemingly have been just right for such a mission. Perhaps it was otherwise occupied or its sensor capability was not up to the task of tracking the Maquis. In any case, a somewhat large ship like the U.S.S. Sovereign or her sister(s?) would have faced difficulty in those conditions.

 

[Michael]

It would have been the same series with different FX shots I guess.

 

[erastus25]

It would have been the same series with different FX shots I guess.

And the ship would still have been miraculously repaired week after week with no sign of damage despite several major battles a year. My point is that it wouldn't have mattered - the characters would have been the same, and the series would have turned out the same. It's not like the writers were sitting around saying "oh, a Sovereign class wouldn't survive that, but an Intrepid class would."

 

[Michael]

It would have been the same series with different FX shots I guess.

And the ship would still have been miraculously repaired week after week with no sign of damage despite several major battles a year.

A plus: It would actually seem plausible that they have so much shuttles as a Sovereign class ship should have more storage space than an Intrepid class ship.

I have to hide now, before Mrs. Paris comes into this thread with her "they just build all the shuttles" theory.

 

[shatastrophic]

They would've never given Janeway a Sovereign. But if they did there would've been an even more endless supply of shuttles, so much so Tuvok would've used them for target practice.

A Sovereign's capabilities all around are superior. However, I think Voyager had faster engines. I think from what I have read that Voyager has a higher cruising warp speed than a Sovereign. What's a few years when we are talking decimal points though.

A Sovereign is a lot larger. In an attack there is more to damage, if possible by enemies. There might be difficulties in keeping a larger vessel stored and repaired. However, it would kick the shit out of just about everything over there except Species 8472. We saw Voyager hold it's own with the Borg, if we hold those battles as accurate then a Sovereign would've given the Borg a run for their money. No doubt Sovereign Voyager would've been highly profiled by the Borg concerning it's location.

I don't think the Sovereign can land, it probably doesn't need to but they often used landing as an only way out to conserve fuel or make repairs on occasion. If because of these reasons they gave Intrepid Voyager landing capabilites in order to avoid starbase visits in emergencies then having a Sovereign could be a setback. Having a starship that can't land and being more reliant on starbases for repair in orbit would've have been a hassle. Starbases were tough to find.

Could Tom Paris have re-captured Voyager had she been a more powerful starship? Would she have been taken in the first place? Could Nelix serve a crew of 800 with his 2 pots?

Good topic, I always wondered how the TOS Enterprise would've managed. If Kirk could've somehow gotten them thru Borg territory in a Constitution.

 

[Michael]

^ Do you really believe that? Because I'm fairly certain the Voyager can do/not do exactly what the writers want it to do/not do.

 

[Hermiod]

Why does there have to be two Sovereign-class ships and no more ? Did the Federation spend all that time designing the ship and then only decide to build two ? The fate of the Enterprise-E and Voyager's class are not related subjects.

A Sovereign-class ship, in theory, can store more consumables and therefore make less stops, though presumably a larger ship means it uses more fuel. They would presumably have more room to convert in to areas for growing their own food too.

Voyager's top speed is meaningless since they were never able to sustain it. A Sovereign can do warp 7 just as easily as Voyager can.

Voyager had a significant technological advantage over the Kazon but not a firepower advantage when they eventually became outnumbered in "Basics". A Sovereign-class ship has considerably greater firepower and would have broken through the Kazon's defences much more easily. Voyager did not even carry quantum torpedoes while a Sovereign-class ship has them amongst its standard armaments.

Intrepid-class Starships were, however, designed for exactly the kind of job that Janeway and co were sent to do in the first place - find Tuvok, Chakotay and his Maquis group. Sovereign-class ships are not designed for that.

 

[Deks]

From what we are lead to know ... the Intrepid class is supposed to be a downsized version of a Galaxy class.
It's not unrealistic when you look at it from a certain POV.
SF had issues with the Borg and they wanted to focus on making new ships which were smaller but for the most part retained most of the abilities of larger vessels ... most notable would have been the defensive/offensive systems.

I agree that larger vessels would essentially have larger internal space, more dedicated labs and would be more self-sufficient on long voyages, still in terms of defensive/offensive capabilities they'd be comparable to smaller vessels with a notable possible exception to hold out more in combat.

So Voyager in my opinion was able to do most of the things a Galaxy class would do and hardly unrealistic when it came on what the producers wanted it to do.

Had Voyager been a Sovereign class ship ... well, I think it was stated somewhere online (not officially of course) that a Sovereign class is supposed to be about 2 or 3x as powerful as a Galaxy class ship.
If that is the case ... then most of the battles Voyager faced would have gone much smoother.
As for 'Basics' ... I think the ship would have been again taken by the Kazon regardless of how you put it.
Had it not been for Tyerna who self-destructed and blew out the power transfer conduits during the fight, Voyager would probably end up victorious in the battle as their shields were still pretty high because the Kazon were dividing their firepower between the holo-ships and Voyager.
But I agree how it's quite probable that a Sovereign class would be able to wipe the floor with those 4 carriers with it's quantum torpedoes and phasers ...
Had it been 8 carriers from the start, then that would probably force the crew to to think of possible solutions to divide the Kazon firefight.
If you remember, Voyagers shields were overwhelmed relatively fast when the remaining 3 carriers opened fire on it due to the holograms vanishing.
Inferior technology or not, the Kazon were much less advanced than the Federation true, but with 3 of their 'top class' ships which are armed to the teeth ... any Federation shields would be overwhelmed as a result.
A Sovvie would be able to hold out longer, but not overly so if it didn't utilize mostly Quantum torpedoes for the fight (and they had to be used sparingly even in the Alpha Quadrant ... or so we were lead to think)

 

[Hermiod]

^If it was a choice between using their stock of torpedoes or potentially losing the ship, they would have used them.

The plan wouldn't have worked quite so easily against a Sovereign-class ship. The "random" attacks on Voyager that damaged the command processors would not have been successful or might even have failed entirely.

 

[Deks]

^If it was a choice between using their stock of torpedoes or potentially losing the ship, they would have used them.

The plan wouldn't have worked quite so easily against a Sovereign-class ship. The "random" attacks on Voyager that damaged the command processors would not have been successful or might even have failed entirely.

Quite possible ... but keep in mind that Seska was already with the Kazon at that point in time and would again be well versed in ship operations, technology and other vulnerabilities the ship had.
The Kazon were able to step up their attacks against Voyager for the most part because of Seska and her knowledge of Federation technology.
Plus, she was one of the engineering crews on Voyager before leaving the ship which gave her access to all of the technology, so she would become intimately knowledgeable of the technology had Voyager been a Sovereign class ship.
And it would have been much more difficult for Paris to retake the ship on his own using a mere shuttle in a nebula ... however, he would utilize any weak spots just as he did so on Voyager and probably the number of Talaxian vessels attacking the ship would have been at least 4 or 5.

And yes ... I have no doubt that the crew would have used more powerful Quantum torpedoes to make a short work of the Kazon ... but even the photons were quite deadly to them.
Remember that Voyager used phasers for the most part when initially fighting the carriers and only used torpedoes as a finishing blow.
A Sovereign class could easily use the same tactic as it's phasers would be about 2 or 3x more powerful with about 2 torpedoes to finish a carrier, so resorting to Quantums may not be necessary.

In any case ... realistically speaking, if the writers went in that direction, then the Kazon would have been stronger or would have more ships to confront a Sovereign class ship.

 

[shatastrophic]

^ Do you really believe that? Because I'm fairly certain the Voyager can do/not do exactly what the writers want it to do/not do.

No, I don't believe any of it. It's a TV show. This thread is just something to ponder about. To have fun with in discussion. I'm fairly certain that, as always, your stating the obvious. Of course the writers can do what they like, that's how we got Enterprise. But the show is no longer on and there are no writers currently working on it. My bad, I was basing my opinions, ideas, or thoughts on what was already established and what Voyager could/couldn't do and not on what she can/cannot do. I could say that if the writers wanted it to, Voyager could shit sno-cones and that the Enterprise-E could shit quantum sno-cones. I never saw that happen in the show or movies, and haven't heard anyone here say that is in a book so naturally I wouldn't base an opinion concerning which ship would fare better in the DQ on it. So what's your point?

 

[Michael]

^ Do you really believe that? Because I'm fairly certain the Voyager can do/not do exactly what the writers want it to do/not do.

No, I don't believe any of it. It's a TV show. This thread is just something to ponder about. To have fun with in discussion. I'm fairly certain that, as always, your stating the obvious. Of course the writers can do what they like, that's how we got Enterprise. But the show is no longer on and there are no writers currently working on it. My bad, I was basing my opinions, ideas, or thoughts on what was already established and what Voyager could/couldn't do and not on what she can/cannot do. I could say that if the writers wanted it to, Voyager could shit sno-cones and that the Enterprise-E could shit quantum sno-cones. I never saw that happen in the show or movies, and haven't heard anyone here say that is in a book so naturally I wouldn't base an opinion concerning which ship would fare better in the DQ on it. So what's your point?

I want to apologize. I was just an asshole.

Please carry on with the disuccsion.

 

[starburst]

The Defiant, an even smaller ship than Voyager and at least as nimble, would seemingly have been just right for such a mission. Perhaps it was otherwise occupied or its sensor capability was not up to the task of tracking the Maquis.

I have no idea how Caretaker fits into the timeline but Ive always assumed that it took place before The Search meaning Defiant was not yet stationed at DS9.

 

[Crewman47]

For one thing also you'd have more Red Shirts to kill of and to add, in Caretaker you'd probably have to kill of around a quarter of the crew anyway so that the 50 or so Maquis crew would fit in okay and be visible for most of the series so that we'd know they were there. As someone stated above there is around a complement of 800 on a Sovereign, I doubt Chakotay and his band of Maquis would fit in the same way if there were more crew to move up the ranks, especially if there were more candidates for an XO (I do know why Chakotay was chosen as XO I'm just saying it might be different with a larger crew). Also instead of having 2 or 3 red shirts an episode we could always have up to a dozen red shirts an episode, have them arrive back at Earth at the end of the 7th Season with less than a quarter of the crew left.

 

[EmoVulcan]

Considering Sovereign class ships are a lot more powerful... They'd probably have had less trouble battlewise. However their speed has saved them and I'm pretty sure Intrepids are faster so who knows.

 

[erastus25]

The Defiant, an even smaller ship than Voyager and at least as nimble, would seemingly have been just right for such a mission. Perhaps it was otherwise occupied or its sensor capability was not up to the task of tracking the Maquis.

I have no idea how Caretaker fits into the timeline but Ive always assumed that it took place before The Search meaning Defiant was not yet stationed at DS9.

According to stardates Caretaker should be placed betweeen Fascination and Past Tense. According to airdate it should be after Past Tense. I, personally, put it before Past Tense.

Back on topic, the reason Voyager went was because it was Janeway's ship and she was the one who had been working on that mission. She was the one who had to recruit Paris and also had an operative with the Maquis. And just because the Defiant may have been better suited, there's no reason to believe that Voyager was incapable of negotiating the plasma fields. And at that point the Defiant may not have been more nimble as Miles was probably still working on overhauling its systems to make it more manageable.

 

[AlboOfBorg]

It would have been the same series with different FX shots I guess.

I completely agree, but the bridge would've had to be bigger.

 

[Michael]

It would have been the same series with different FX shots I guess.

I completely agree, but the bridge would've had to be bigger.

It would? Why?