Saucer Seperation

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Blackstar the Chakat
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Saucer Seperation

Post by Blackstar the Chakat »

Is it just me or is this the most useless feature ever? Now I admit the Engineering section does have an advantage by loosing the extra mass of the saucer to gain manuverabilty and increases available power since it it no longer powers the Saucer section, but what about the Saucer? It is a siting duck in battle. Even if it is used for evacuation purposes the saucer is only capable of sublight speeds. Even if it reaches near light-speed velocity it is could take years to get to another star system or starbase under its own power. It's an oversized lifepod. And for emergency landings, why doesn't it have a controled landing system like the Intrepid-class Voyager did. It shouldn't have been too difficult, even if they hadn't developed that system yet. At the very least a controlled landing should be possible.
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Post by Bryan Moore »

It wasn't so useless in saving the crew in Generations. But yes, in a battle situation, it seems rather ridiculous.
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Post by Captain Seafort »

"Rogue Saucer", one of the TNG novels, addressed the issue of the saucer being unable to carry out controled landings by being set around the Enterprise carrying out trials of a new design of Galaxy-class sauce able to do just that, and also commented on the relative helplessness of the saucer.

The big problem is that the Galaxy class is actually less combat effective without the saucer - in "Best of Both Worlds", Riker vetos Shelby's plan to separate the saucer section to act as a decoy on grounds that "we may need added power from the Saucer Module impulse engines" - demonstrating that those engines must be capable of producing a non-trivial fraction of the ships total power.
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Post by Graham Kennedy »

I can see that it has use... largely because of the nature of Federation ships.

They aren't designed as warships. They have to tote around holodecks and massiv crew quarters and conference centres and god knows what else. All useless in battle. Worse than useless - extra dead weight to lug around.

So it is useful to get rid of that for sure. BUT... as noted, this is only something that is useful if you can do it BEFORE the battle. Well before. Preferably hours before.

Imagine that US aircraft carriers towed a giant shopping mall around. It makes them slow and basically not very useful in battle. But then Iran invades Brazil (I know, but go with it). So they detach the mall and send the ship, which is now a great warship.

That's how saucer separation should work... when you have a crisis that develops slowly, with weeks or months of warning that combat is coming. And in the real world, that's usually how it is. It's rare that a warship is surprised by combat these days (though it does happen).

Of course, in Trek it's NOT unusual to be attacked just like that. So saucer seperation is pretty much a Bad Thing.

I had to laugh when they started saying "we will keep the ship united in case we need the extra power from the saucer's impulse engines". Yeah, right. Guess that never occurred to the designers.
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Post by Blackstar the Chakat »

I like the analogy of the carriers and the funny image that went with it. Purhaps they'll do something like that in a later series where ships don't pop up on the flagship of the Federation all the time. Although the extra power from the saucer section idea does explain why none of the Galaxys in the Dominion War were seperated.
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Post by Bryan Moore »

ChakatBlackstar wrote:Although the extra power from the saucer section idea does explain why none of the Galaxys in the Dominion War were seperated.
Right, and I'm sure most of those ships were free of civilians.

Honestly, that would have been a wonderful series: Tales of the Dominion Wars, and we see the way life on various ships changed in the war.

But back to the Saucer.

The saucer itself did not necessarily detract from the Galaxy's usefulness,no? I mean wasn't most mission equipment in the saucer?
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Post by Teaos »

Is the sauser still able to fire once seperated? If so it could almost be like Muti vector assult mode.
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Post by Bryan Moore »

Teaos wrote:Is the sauser still able to fire once seperated? If so it could almost be like Multi-vector assult mode.
Yes, but it's ability to maneuver is minimal, I believe.
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Post by Teaos »

Still if the situation is desperate at least it is something.
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Post by Bryan Moore »

Teaos wrote:Still if the situation is desperate at least it is something.
Certainly, and I'd hate to have to take them both on at once.

There's a site with various galaxy saucer designs, some are wild. Additional weapons pods, science pods, retractable warp engines (the additional warp core is horizontal). Some are pretty cool.
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Post by Teaos »

Yeah I've seen a few of those. Some are more or less totally new ships with a slightly similar design.
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Post by Bryan Moore »

Teaos wrote:Yeah I've seen a few of those. Some are more or less totally new ships with a slightly similar design.
Yeah, there was one that particularly impressed me with a pair of mini-nacelles similar to what the top section of the Promethius had. Quarters were taken out to make room for additional weaponry. There was also an additional cargo bay in the front to hold a couple of Peregrine class. It was almost reasonable, in time of war. Honestly, the great advantage of ahving a detachable saucer would be the ability to interchange based on missions. It'd be great to see too.
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Post by Teaos »

Also highly wasteful to have sauser sections just laying around. Those things arent easy to make.
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Post by Bryan Moore »

Fair enough... though you'd think there'd be a way to keep them. It seems practical enough. I mean you wouldn't need the drive section, which, I would assume would be the most expensive. Let the ones not being used served as orbital platforms, offices, etc.
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Post by Sionnach Glic »

I think they mentioned before that the Enterprise was more effective in combat with the saucer on. (BOBW I think)
Personally I'd just scrap the seperation idea and shove a few escape pods on board.
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