Just how much exploration did the Enterprise-D do?
Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 2:08 am
So I got thinking about this topic recently when I read one of the Titan novels. Encounter at Farpoint has Picard saying that the Farpoint station is on the edge of explored space - I forget the exact line but it's something like "Past this point lies the great unexplored mass of the galaxy". And as Picard says at the end, "Let's see what's out there!" The indication seems to be that after Farpoint, they're due to head off into the great unknown.
So... here's a breakdown of the missions the Enterprise-D undertook in the ships first year :
1 Encounter at Farpoint : Sent to check out the suspicious Farpoint starbase.
2 The Naked Now : Sent to investigate the loss of contact with the SS Tsiolkovsky.
3 Code of Honor : Sent to Ligon to collect a vaccine and deliver it to another planet.
4 The Last Outpost : Sent to pursue a Ferengi ship which stole Federation property.
5 Where No One Has Gone Before : No mission. Rendezvous with another ship to collect a propulsion specialist for an upgrade.
6 Lonely Among Us : Transporting delegates from two planets to a third planet.
7 Justice : No mission; the ship was on R&R. However they had just finished establishing a new colony.
8 The Battle : No mission. Conducting a meeting with the Ferengi.
9 Hide and Q : On a disaster relief mission after an explosion on a nearby planet.
10 Haven : No stated mission; visiting Haven. Possibly a "show the flag" mission?
11 The Big Goodbye : Meeting an already contacted species.
12 Datalore : No stated mission. Stopping off at Omicron Theta, apparently to have a look around.
13 Angel One : Checking up on missing civilians, seven years after the fact.
14 11001001 : No mission. In Spacedock for upgrades.
15 Too Short a Season : Hostage rescue mission.
16 When the Bough Breaks : Investigating the faint energy readings coming from the Epsilon Mynos.
17 Home Soil : Cataloging young planets in the Pleiades Cluster. On the way, vising a terraforming project.
18 Coming of Age : No stated mission. Visiting a planet, apparently so a couple of kids can do Starfleet entrance tests.
19 Heart of Glory : Investigating a disturbance in the neutral zone.
20 The Arsenal of Freedom : Investigating the disappearence of the USS Drake.
21 Symbiosis : Studying a star undergoing flares.
22 Skin of Evil : No stated mission. Meeting a shuttle to pick Troi up.
23 We'll Always Have Paris : No mission. On their way to Sarona VIII for shore leave.
24 Conspiracy : No mission. On the way to Pacifica, no stated reason.
25 The Neutral Zone : Sitting around waiting for Picard to come back. Mission to the Neutral Zone.
Of those, seven might be described as "security related" (1,2,4,15,19,20,25) - eight, if we assume they were visiting Haven to show the flag. Of course any mission might involve that aspect, but I suggest it as a possibility for Haven because the episode has Haven's leader specifically state that they have no defence capability and the Federation has guaranteed their defence itself. Such an agreement probably involves a ship visiting every few weeks or so.
Four (3,6,7,22) have the ship acting as a transport for personnel or cargo of one sort or another.
Three (16,17,21) involve doing some kind of science or exploration.
Two (8,11) might be described as diplomatic meetings of some sort. You could move 6 to here as well, but it was only transport of diplomats, not actual diplomacy.
Three (16,17,21) have the ship doing scientific research of some sort.
The rest are either no mission at all, shore leave, or miscellaneous minor tasks.
Now one can quibble about these - for instance going to the Edo planet was technically "exploration" since they had obviously not been contacted before... but I haven't classified it that way because exploration wasn't the focus of their being there. They were there to relax and (apparently) screw the locals.
In other words, the ship spends practically no time at all doing any actual exploring. The sum total of their "exploration" is to visit Epsilon Mynos to see what the energy readings are - and that's a system famous for having a legendary lost planet, so it's certainly not unexplored territory. And Cataloging planets in the Pleadies cluster. And studying a star that's flaring up a lot.
And that's pretty much the sum total of the "boldy going" that the Federation flagship does in season 1.
The book I read actually had an interesting take on this. Riker is contemplating whether the Federation got too complacant and/or arrogant - their willingness to accept Farpoint with little to no explanation of it is given as an example. He does accept that the Federation sent the Enterprise to explore that exact question, but as he puts it "Not until 'Farpoint Station' was already completed. Why did we wait so long?"
They talk it back and forth a bit, and he goes on to add :
"The hell of it is, we never really did that much exploring of the Cygnus Reach anyway. The Enterprise was supposed to be the flagship of this new long-term venture into the unknown... but after the Farpoint incident, with no base that far out, it never really took off. The Bandi tried to rebuild Farpoint, but they just weren’t up to the task. Then Starfleet’s priorities shifted and the Enterprise spent most of its tour closer to home, conducting diplomatic or relief missions. In the end, everything that creature suffered, it was all for nothing. We compromised our principles for nothing, and all in the name of an ideal."
I love when the books do stuff like this, expanding on and giving context and detail to the stuff in the series and movies. And I especially like this one because it depicts a Federation failure, and not in some grand sense, not something where a terrible enemy defeated them... but the more mundane failure that comes from just bad planning, or lack of will to follow through, or things just plain not working out as you expected and hoped. I can easily imagine the GCS project was driven by some grand intent to go and explore past known space, and then just as that was about to happen, there's the Farpoint stumble. And perhaps a new administration was looking to cut back on Starfleet's budget (or future-moneyless-space-commie-utopia-equivalent of a budget), and just said "screw it, those Galaxy class ships can stay in known space and do what the rest of the fleet does."
Anyway, I thought that was an interesting perspective on TNG' so I thought I'd share it.
So... here's a breakdown of the missions the Enterprise-D undertook in the ships first year :
1 Encounter at Farpoint : Sent to check out the suspicious Farpoint starbase.
2 The Naked Now : Sent to investigate the loss of contact with the SS Tsiolkovsky.
3 Code of Honor : Sent to Ligon to collect a vaccine and deliver it to another planet.
4 The Last Outpost : Sent to pursue a Ferengi ship which stole Federation property.
5 Where No One Has Gone Before : No mission. Rendezvous with another ship to collect a propulsion specialist for an upgrade.
6 Lonely Among Us : Transporting delegates from two planets to a third planet.
7 Justice : No mission; the ship was on R&R. However they had just finished establishing a new colony.
8 The Battle : No mission. Conducting a meeting with the Ferengi.
9 Hide and Q : On a disaster relief mission after an explosion on a nearby planet.
10 Haven : No stated mission; visiting Haven. Possibly a "show the flag" mission?
11 The Big Goodbye : Meeting an already contacted species.
12 Datalore : No stated mission. Stopping off at Omicron Theta, apparently to have a look around.
13 Angel One : Checking up on missing civilians, seven years after the fact.
14 11001001 : No mission. In Spacedock for upgrades.
15 Too Short a Season : Hostage rescue mission.
16 When the Bough Breaks : Investigating the faint energy readings coming from the Epsilon Mynos.
17 Home Soil : Cataloging young planets in the Pleiades Cluster. On the way, vising a terraforming project.
18 Coming of Age : No stated mission. Visiting a planet, apparently so a couple of kids can do Starfleet entrance tests.
19 Heart of Glory : Investigating a disturbance in the neutral zone.
20 The Arsenal of Freedom : Investigating the disappearence of the USS Drake.
21 Symbiosis : Studying a star undergoing flares.
22 Skin of Evil : No stated mission. Meeting a shuttle to pick Troi up.
23 We'll Always Have Paris : No mission. On their way to Sarona VIII for shore leave.
24 Conspiracy : No mission. On the way to Pacifica, no stated reason.
25 The Neutral Zone : Sitting around waiting for Picard to come back. Mission to the Neutral Zone.
Of those, seven might be described as "security related" (1,2,4,15,19,20,25) - eight, if we assume they were visiting Haven to show the flag. Of course any mission might involve that aspect, but I suggest it as a possibility for Haven because the episode has Haven's leader specifically state that they have no defence capability and the Federation has guaranteed their defence itself. Such an agreement probably involves a ship visiting every few weeks or so.
Four (3,6,7,22) have the ship acting as a transport for personnel or cargo of one sort or another.
Three (16,17,21) involve doing some kind of science or exploration.
Two (8,11) might be described as diplomatic meetings of some sort. You could move 6 to here as well, but it was only transport of diplomats, not actual diplomacy.
Three (16,17,21) have the ship doing scientific research of some sort.
The rest are either no mission at all, shore leave, or miscellaneous minor tasks.
Now one can quibble about these - for instance going to the Edo planet was technically "exploration" since they had obviously not been contacted before... but I haven't classified it that way because exploration wasn't the focus of their being there. They were there to relax and (apparently) screw the locals.
In other words, the ship spends practically no time at all doing any actual exploring. The sum total of their "exploration" is to visit Epsilon Mynos to see what the energy readings are - and that's a system famous for having a legendary lost planet, so it's certainly not unexplored territory. And Cataloging planets in the Pleadies cluster. And studying a star that's flaring up a lot.
And that's pretty much the sum total of the "boldy going" that the Federation flagship does in season 1.
The book I read actually had an interesting take on this. Riker is contemplating whether the Federation got too complacant and/or arrogant - their willingness to accept Farpoint with little to no explanation of it is given as an example. He does accept that the Federation sent the Enterprise to explore that exact question, but as he puts it "Not until 'Farpoint Station' was already completed. Why did we wait so long?"
They talk it back and forth a bit, and he goes on to add :
"The hell of it is, we never really did that much exploring of the Cygnus Reach anyway. The Enterprise was supposed to be the flagship of this new long-term venture into the unknown... but after the Farpoint incident, with no base that far out, it never really took off. The Bandi tried to rebuild Farpoint, but they just weren’t up to the task. Then Starfleet’s priorities shifted and the Enterprise spent most of its tour closer to home, conducting diplomatic or relief missions. In the end, everything that creature suffered, it was all for nothing. We compromised our principles for nothing, and all in the name of an ideal."
I love when the books do stuff like this, expanding on and giving context and detail to the stuff in the series and movies. And I especially like this one because it depicts a Federation failure, and not in some grand sense, not something where a terrible enemy defeated them... but the more mundane failure that comes from just bad planning, or lack of will to follow through, or things just plain not working out as you expected and hoped. I can easily imagine the GCS project was driven by some grand intent to go and explore past known space, and then just as that was about to happen, there's the Farpoint stumble. And perhaps a new administration was looking to cut back on Starfleet's budget (or future-moneyless-space-commie-utopia-equivalent of a budget), and just said "screw it, those Galaxy class ships can stay in known space and do what the rest of the fleet does."
Anyway, I thought that was an interesting perspective on TNG' so I thought I'd share it.