The Galaxy Class Problem

----
==The Galaxy Class Problem==
In 2364, Starfleet Launched the Galaxy class . It was the biggest cruiser yet built.  It was the most technologically advanced starship the Federation had ever made.  It was a quantum advance in Starship design and technology. 
This is a standard Starfleet practice .  When current starships start showing their age, Starfleet goes back to the drawing board and does a huge engineering push to design a new Starship that advances the field of Starship design. Once this big, tentpole starship is successful, the technology is adapted to secondary ships and roles. The Galaxy class was such an advance. 
The Galaxy class was meant to be able to handle every problem a starship could reasonably be expected to address.  They were designed to support a large crew for a long period of time.  They were meant to do deep space exploration cruises as well as responding to crises and incursions from military or criminal rivals.  One Starship, one problem. 
The Galaxy class was also designed to support in-depth investigation of scientific questions, with long stay times and superior crew support and science facilities. 
Even as the design was being finalized and construction started, the Vulcans objected. They pointed out that the Galaxy, being a flagship, and a central unit for crises response, they would always be in demand, and therefore unlikely to be able to complete any long-term investigation before being called away to deal with a new crises. 
Starfleet has always worked this way, so they plunged ahead. 
After the first six Galaxy class ships had been in service for a bit the Vulcans analyzed their logs and presented their report.
They had been correct all along.  The Galaxy's were not using their science and long duration cruise capacities well. They were chronically being interrupted by crises response calls. 
Starfleet also has a chronic staffing shortage. Starfleet demands a high level of competence and training from Starfleet people, and this makes it slow and expensive to "produce" Starfleet qualified people. 
To address this, as soon as engineering data came in from the Galaxy class, Starfleet pushed through the Intrepid class.  The Intrepid class were an advanced class of medium multirole cruisers. 
For many tasks, a fleet flagship is too much ship. Ideally, you'd want just the right amount of resources assigned to any given task to get the job done and no more. 
So the Intrepid class was intended to allow available crews and ships to be spread further. 
The Galaxy class ships were still not being used according to their design intentions.
So Starfleet took the military and crises response capability of a Galaxy class and wrapped it in a super-Intrepid. This was the Sovereign class starship. It's a very good all around multirole Starship, but not as expensive to produce or operate as the Galaxy class.
Every Sovereign class in the Starfleet line up frees a Galaxy class to go do what they were meant for, Exploring.
Properly updated, a Galaxy class should equal an updated Sovereign class in combat effectiveness.  But Galaxy class ships have their huge modular saucer hull to be specialized for specific missions and greater long-term duration. 
Category:ST-OM
Category:Starfleet
Category:Ships