Why not have specialized saucers?

[Will_Carter]

TL;DR: Why not have the galaxy class star drive be able to attach to specialized saucers to better fit mission profiles?

The Longer version:
We all know the saucer seperation gimmick was just that, a gimmick. I assume at one point production was going to have as a thing to do in each episode was to have 'oh no the actual threat. drop the saucer and go to the battle bridge' as way to differentiate threat severity. that was dropped for presumably budgetary reasons. Then you have the Nebula and all the other kitbashed together craft. This left me wondering. What if the Galaxy Program was far more elaborate than a singular starship design and had been an entire fleet refresh?

Example: The enterprise's star drive swaps saucers at a star base in preparation for a tour around a variety of xenoarcheological sites so have a more science focused saucer with more labs and related facilities. Enterprise is on a medical errand of mercy? More facilities to deal with the sick and possibly synthasizing medicine. Help establish colonies? Well bolt on the saucer that has facilities for the colonists alongside industrial scale replicators and possibly more shuttle bays to ferry resources to and from to supplament transporters. Etc.

But let's go one step further. Instead of 'just' a lot of saucers. you have all those saucers that aren't in active field rotation flying around in system under impulse. Put them to work.

Differing star drives to go along with for differing configurations. Same philosophy at play. Lean into the specialization. all able to combine through those easy to use deck couplings so that you can effectivly in the span of a couple hours, have whole new ship configurations to play with.

Plus from an out of universe perspective? That would have allowed so much ease in making kits. Standardized coupler between saucer and drive so you can sell specific drives or saucers, or named ships and hot swap parts between them.

Why wasn't this done?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It's a lot easier to reconfigure from the inside out than the outside in; you can do so wherever you are, instead of needing to pick up a replacement at a rest stop.

 

[evilchumlee]

I think the Galaxy-Class was meant to be something more of a long range, jack-of-all-trades vessel. It wasn't intended to be a specialized ship.

What you're looking for here is essentially the mission pod of a Nebula-Class.

 

[Jedi Marso]

a) The saucers of the Galaxy-Class type ships are so large that such specialization isn't really needed. There's plenty of room.

b) With 24th Century transporter / replicator technology, mission modules are as easy as reorganizing raw matter inside a transport buffer. Need to transform a stellar cartography lab to an archaeology lab? Clear the room and energize, baby. Way easier than replicating food with tastes, textures, and actual nutritional value.

 

[Will_Carter]

b) With 24th Century transporter / replicator technology, mission modules are as easy as reorganizing raw matter inside a transport buffer. Need to transform a stellar cartography lab to an archaeology lab? Clear the room and energize, baby. Way easier than replicating food with tastes, textures, and actual nutritional value.

You raise a valid point. However as counter.

Why then does anything have to be manufactured? Why aren't star bases gigantic replicator bays where ships simply... materialize as a local asteroid along with select feed stocks of materials are depleted?

As for the galaxy saucer? Fine sure that saucer is a do everything, but what of smaller saucers? The concept of molecularity provides a flexibility that usually doesn't exist. Admittedly I love yoru idea of rooms just beaming everything out and new equipment just... materializing. I could be wrong but the galaxy class saucers were built with an amount of slack space to be filled as needed.

 

[Jedi Marso]

You raise a valid point. However as counter.

Why then does anything have to be manufactured? Why aren't star bases gigantic replicator bays where ships simply... materialize as a local asteroid along with select feed stocks of materials are depleted?

As for the galaxy saucer? Fine sure that saucer is a do everything, but what of smaller saucers? The concept of molecularity provides a flexibility that usually doesn't exist. Admittedly I love yoru idea of rooms just beaming everything out and new equipment just... materializing. I could be wrong but the galaxy class saucers were built with an amount of slack space to be filled as needed.

That's because Hollywood writers are seldom capable of mentally extrapolating many of the possibilities offered by the amazing futuristic technology in their show bibles. And Trek is NOTORIOUS for introducing tech and such in any given episode which is then never mentioned or revisited again, because if it was followed through on, it would radically alter the entire nature of the show's milieu.

 

[Deks]

That's because Hollywood writers are seldom capable of mentally extrapolating many of the possibilities offered by the amazing futuristic technology in their show bibles. And Trek is NOTORIOUS for introducing tech and such in any given episode which is then never mentioned or revisited again, because if it was followed through on, it would radically alter the entire nature of the show's milieu.

This... one thing that annoys me in Trek is that it introduced extremely versatile and powerful technology as a baseline, and then the writers just decided to 'ignore' it as opposed to USE it to the fullest potential.

I mean, the possibilities SF tech alone in the 23rd or even 24th century could do are RIDICULOUS... what's more, it could have opened up new story telling possibilities that would have forced the writers to think on how to properly integrate even more advanced technology into the story, so as to keep things engaging.

The problem was never how advanced the technology was... it was how the characters used it to push the narrative forward (while NOT dumbing things down - and lets face it, the writers apparently often fell into the crux of dumbing stuff down and just ignoring it as opposed to trying to make it work properly).

And there's no reason why you can't have a compelling story with ridiculously advanced technology while maintaining consistency (what's more, today its easier than it ever was).

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

This... one thing that annoys me in Trek is that it introduced extremely versatile and powerful technology as a baseline, and then the writers just decided to 'ignore' it as opposed to USE it to the fullest potential.

I mean, the possibilities SF tech alone in the 23rd or even 24th century could do are RIDICULOUS... what's more, it could have opened up new story telling possibilities that would have forced the writers to think on how to properly integrate even more advanced technology into the story, so as to keep things engaging.

The problem was never how advanced the technology was... it was how the characters used it to push the narrative forward (while NOT dumbing things down - and lets face it, the writers apparently often fell into the crux of dumbing stuff down and just ignoring it as opposed to trying to make it work properly).

And there's no reason why you can't have a compelling story with ridiculously advanced technology while maintaining consistency (what's more, today its easier than it ever was).

This is your typical "Hollywood Writers", they aren't the most "Technologically Minded" or "Sophisticated".

If it's not about "Character Emotions" or some sort of "Politically Motivated Narative" or about "Witty Banter", they would SUCK at writing about anything that is about a purely (technological/scientific) piece of writing if it wasn't for dedicated staff writers & specialists to handle that for them.

If the writers aren't tech heads from the beginning, I doubt they would understand anything about what they were writing or why it's even useful/cool along with the consequences of the technology.

This is why they need specialists on staff to help them with so many specialty fields in technology, science, medicine, etc.

Both you and I can probably run circles around them when it comes to discussing tech and how it expands into the future.

You're dealing with mostly "normies" who do the writing.

 

[Deks]

You raise a valid point. However as counter.

Why then does anything have to be manufactured? Why aren't star bases gigantic replicator bays where ships simply... materialize as a local asteroid along with select feed stocks of materials are depleted?

As for the galaxy saucer? Fine sure that saucer is a do everything, but what of smaller saucers? The concept of molecularity provides a flexibility that usually doesn't exist. Admittedly I love yoru idea of rooms just beaming everything out and new equipment just... materializing. I could be wrong but the galaxy class saucers were built with an amount of slack space to be filled as needed.

It was actually never fully explained in canon how things are done.
Given how extensively Transporters are used in the 24th century, its very likely starships themselves are actually manufactured with replicators in pieces (in drydocks for example using principles much like prefabrication) and then just assembled with assistance of tractor beams, force fields, and transporters - all could be easily automated to the point of triviality really with a few words to the computer - replicating even whole ships into existence isn't much of a problem if you scale up the technology to do just that - and with SF tech, its relatively easy to do).

Arguably, the more time demanding process would be starship DESIGN - which could conceivably take years in comparison - at least until a point in time they begin using computers to expedite the process... so what were once incremental changes with every new design, it now translates to more revolutionary advances in much less period of time (say it took a few years to develop the Galaxy class design - after its introduction, things would have started changing dramatically and new ship designs could also be created FAR faster in comparison).

Internal rooms are probably modified with transporters whenever possible to make it easier for the crew... but I'd also surmise there is a 'standard' to how rooms are organised onboard certain ships - so beds are placed into specific areas of the rooms, which are then decorated per inhabitants wishes - but this can also be modified.

For Galaxy class ships, its very likely internal rooms are modified to missions extensively using transporters for quick modifications (dependent on the mission profiles).
To be fair though, for something as big as the Galaxy class, it would make more sense to fill those rooms with people.
The ship would already be outfitted with a large number of science labs, etc. so people can do their thing... plus, if you need more space, use the holodecks.

Even on starships, we've seen that fairly large objects were made despite the ship not having industrial grade replicators.
This to me implies they make frequent use of modular parts to assemble a larger piece of hardware or whatever is needed onboard ships that lack industrial grade replication capabilities which could otherwise conceivably create much larger items (and where energy concern is minimal since they would be used on planets or stationary objects like starbases with ample energy).

 

[publiusr]

Early Nova class drawings looked to have modular saucers

Nova class

The Nova-class was a type of Federation science vessel and scout starship in service in the 24th century, first entering service in 2368. The class was designed for short-range and limited duration research missions such as planetary or system surveys. Nova-class vessels were also tasked with...

memory-beta.fandom.com

 

[MikeReed013]

If I'm remembering some of the technical materials correctly, a large volume within the saucer section of a Galaxy class is empty space with the intention of filling it in as modular requirements present themselves over the lifespan of the ship. Specialized labs, cargo or transport storage rooms, internal equipment, etc. was all planed to be ad-hoc added later making the internals of the saucer itself modular enough to not require wholesale swapping of starship parts.

In retrospect, this makes the stardrive section being what was destroyed versus the saucer section in Generations better for bringing back the Ent-D in Pic S3 since the saucer would be much more unique to that specific ship versus an otherwise standardized stardrive section.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Erm, budget.

Although I should point out, there was a TNG novel called ROGUE SAUCER where the Enterprise tested a specialised saucer section. I'm sure the title indicates how it went.

 

[Will_Carter]

Erm, budget.

Although I should point out, there was a TNG novel called ROGUE SAUCER where the Enterprise tested a specialised saucer section. I'm sure the title indicates how it went.

I did not know that!

 

[BillJ]

Early Nova class drawings looked to have modular saucers

Nova class

The Nova-class was a type of Federation science vessel and scout starship in service in the 24th century, first entering service in 2368. The class was designed for short-range and limited duration research missions such as planetary or system surveys. Nova-class vessels were also tasked with...

memory-beta.fandom.com

From the TNG Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach and the Okudas.

I did not know that!

Ebook is on sale for $1.99.

 

[drt]

We all know the saucer seperation gimmick was just that, a gimmick. I assume at one point production was going to have as a thing to do in each episode was to have 'oh no the actual threat. drop the saucer and go to the battle bridge' as way to differentiate threat severity. that was dropped for presumably budgetary reasons.

They had the saucer seperation stock footage available, so it wouldn't have really cost anything extra, the issue was that pausing the action to actually do a seperation killed an episode's pacing (even though there were numerous times they really should have been doing it in-universe).

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

They had the saucer seperation stock footage available, so it wouldn't have really cost anything extra,

Not in the first couple of seasons, no.

However, the smaller (4ft?) model used for most of the show wasn't rigged for saucer separation, so they probably would have needed a whole new "battle section model" if they were doing it regularly (assuming that the smaller model wasn't rigged for separation for physical reasons of course), beyond a few seconds footage at middle distance (as in BoBW).

 

[DonIago]

I still wonder how the franchise progressed in the timeline where TNG didn't end up deviating so much from its original premise.

 

[drt]

Not in the first couple of seasons, no.

However, the smaller (4ft?) model used for most of the show wasn't rigged for saucer separation, so they probably would have needed a whole new "battle section model" if they were doing it regularly (assuming that the smaller model wasn't rigged for separation for physical reasons of course), beyond a few seconds footage at middle distance (as in BoBW).

Presumably they would have incorporated separation into the four-footer if they hadn't abandoned the concept. Although, I suppose the separated sections of the the six-footer were easier to film than the entire ship, so maybe they wouldn't have needed to build new models.

I still wonder how the franchise progressed in the timeline where TNG didn't end up deviating so much from its original premise.

It's funny, I think they spent way more time in preproduction really thinking about the details and how TNG should work than they did with any of the other shows, only to jettison 95% of it.

 

[publiusr]

I still wonder how the franchise progressed in the timeline where TNG didn't end up deviating so much from its original premise.

I kinda liked how they seemed to have a community of engineers—not just one Scotty as Geordi wound up being.

Lots of Anime have a large ensemble…

 

[DonIago]

I always appreciated the rare moments when Geordi (or hell, anyone) was shown as actually having a team of people working with them. And I don't mean ordering other people to do things, but rather actually collaborating with them.