What if the PK won?

[CrateriaA]

As the title states. I think this one is likely to not work due to the immense number of variables that could result from this (or me failing to read the rules). I thought of this scenario in how similar it was to the J-25 one.

Anyway, the Doomsday Machine defeats the Enterprise by firing on it repeatedly until it's destroyed, instead of slowly trying to drag it inside the core of the machine. The Planet Killer/Doomsday Machine continues onto Rigel and presumably as Mr. Spock says into the most densely populated parts of the galaxy. Should Starfleet fail to stop it (or have massive destruction of planetary bodies, ie. a Pyrrhic victory) what is likely to happen in the near future? Will the other Alpha Quadrant Powers (especially the Klingons) be likely take advantage of weakened Federation if the PK is defeated? Will they send armadas of ships to stop the PK? Will a weakened Federation spend more time recovering from the attack than exploring?

EDIT: Will they not come into contact with Q, Borg or Dominion at all?

[Baffalo]

While Starfleet will no doubt be confused at first, I imagine someone, at some point, will try to ram the damned thing out of frustration, or drop a starship into it anyway. Regardless of how the circumstances arise, I doubt more than a couple of planets will fall victim to the planet killer. The worst casualties will be in the form of Kirk and his crew, and I say that because of the morale damage inflicted on the population.

[CrateriaA]

While Starfleet will no doubt be confused at first, I imagine someone, at some point, will try to ram the damned thing out of frustration, or drop a starship into it anyway. Regardless of how the circumstances arise, I doubt more than a couple of planets will fall victim to the planet killer. The worst casualties will be in the form of Kirk and his crew, and I say that because of the morale damage inflicted on the population.

If they ram the PK, will it work? The explosion inside the PK was caused by Kirk rigging the engines of the Constellation. If they simply ram the inside of the PK, it might not work. Then other starships will have to be sacrificed before the PK goes off to destroy another world and draw in raw materials that can help repair itself. Sulu said the Planet Killer was sucking in rubble from L-374, enabling itself to repair the damage done by the the Enterprise's phasers.

Would Photon Torpedoes work? I think they wouldn't given that the PK somehow disables antimatter. But if it does, how did the Enterprise flee? Don't their engines run on antimatter?

[Deathstalker]

The worst casualties will be in the form of Kirk and his crew, and I say that because of the morale damage inflicted on the population.

I don't think the morale damage would be that great. Starships were lost left and right in the TOS era. The Big E's crew would get a good memorial ceremony, the "great sacrifice, high ideals of Starfleet/UFP" speech and maybe a new starship named Enterprise but that would be the end of it.

[MKSheppard]

I don't think the morale damage would be that great. Starships were lost left and right in the TOS era. The Big E's crew would get a good memorial ceremony, the "great sacrifice, high ideals of Starfleet/UFP" speech and maybe a new starship named Enterprise but that would be the end of it.

Also, the 1701 crew had yet to really get legendary status yet. AFAIK, according to the fluff; the reason Kirk and everyone else got promoted so fast was because they were effectively the first large Starfleet capital unit to survive a five year exploratory mission.

Everyone else in that range got killed through various methods (Defiant, Republic, etc).

[Baffalo]

Also, the 1701 crew had yet to really get legendary status yet. AFAIK, according to the fluff; the reason Kirk and everyone else got promoted so fast was because they were effectively the first large Starfleet capital unit to survive a five year exploratory mission.

Everyone else in that range got killed through various methods (Defiant, Republic, etc).

Jesus, when you put it like that, how did Starfleet get ANYBODY to sign up for these missions? I can understand being cut orders to, but imagine being a commander and being told there's a Constitution Class ship come up needing a commander. There'd be this little whisper in the back of your mind, "How did the previous Captain die?"

Put like that, Starfleet must have to draft people every few years. You get a letter in the mail.. "OH NO! I've been drafted into Starfleet! I'm gonna die!" No wonder all the cadets were getting drunk before shipping out to the Academy in Star Trek (2009).

[CrateriaA]

Also, the 1701 crew had yet to really get legendary status yet. AFAIK, according to the fluff; the reason Kirk and everyone else got promoted so fast was because they were effectively the first large Starfleet capital unit to survive a five year exploratory mission.

Everyone else in that range got killed through various methods (Defiant, Republic, etc).

Jesus, when you put it like that, how did Starfleet get ANYBODY to sign up for these missions? I can understand being cut orders to, but imagine being a commander and being told there's a Constitution Class ship come up needing a commander. There'd be this little whisper in the back of your mind, "How did the previous Captain die?"

Put like that, Starfleet must have to draft people every few years. You get a letter in the mail.. "OH NO! I've been drafted into Starfleet! I'm gonna die!" No wonder all the cadets were getting drunk before shipping out to the Academy in Star Trek (2009).

Forget being captains. There was a heavy redshirt turnover!

[MKSheppard]

Kirk alone lost 57 of his crew in on screen deaths.

If we accept the TMP novelization as canon; then the count goes up to 96.

[MKSheppard]

Jesus, when you put it like that, how did Starfleet get ANYBODY to sign up for these missions?

I think Starfleet sent out it's Constitutions on the five year missions on the same rough time frame; so there was nothing abnormal about them at the time; except that you had to be the best in Starfleet to be assigned to them, since the Connies were the flagships of the fleet.

[Baffalo]

Jesus, when you put it like that, how did Starfleet get ANYBODY to sign up for these missions?

The internet tells me about 4% of NASA astronauts lost their lives for spaceflight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sp ... _incidents

There's still no shortage of people to try: the odds aren't that bad and it's so fucking cool it's worth the risk.

I decided to do a little looking and according to Memory Alpha, there are only 12 Constitution Class ships seen in the TOS era that we can identify as separate vessels (Constellation, Defiant, Enterprise, Enterprise-A, Excalibur, Exeter, Hood, Intrepid, Lexington, Potemkin, NCC-1700 & NCC-1707) while Memory Beta lists 235 separate Constitution Class vessels ever built. Personally, given that we tend to favor Memory Alpha, it's normally hard to take non-cannon evidence at face value. However, given that the Constellation is listed as NCC-1017, and the Enterprise was NCC-1701, leads some credence to the idea that there were indeed over 200 ships of a single class. So if we only take the known vessels destroyed/decrewed (Constellation, Defiant, Enterprise, Excalibur, Exeter, Hood, Intrepid, Lexington, & Potemkin), that's 3.8%, or roughly 4%. That's... almost creepy how well that worked out, huh?

[CrateriaA]

The internet tells me about 4% of NASA astronauts lost their lives for spaceflight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sp ... _incidents

There's still no shortage of people to try: the odds aren't that bad and it's so fucking cool it's worth the risk.

I decided to do a little looking and according to Memory Alpha, there are only 12 Constitution Class ships seen in the TOS era that we can identify as separate vessels (Constellation, Defiant, Enterprise, Enterprise-A, Excalibur, Exeter, Hood, Intrepid, Lexington, Potemkin, NCC-1700 & NCC-1707) while Memory Beta lists 235 separate Constitution Class vessels ever built. Personally, given that we tend to favor Memory Alpha, it's normally hard to take non-cannon evidence at face value. However, given that the Constellation is listed as NCC-1017, and the Enterprise was NCC-1701, leads some credence to the idea that there were indeed over 200 ships of a single class. So if we only take the known vessels destroyed/decrewed (Constellation, Defiant, Enterprise, Excalibur, Exeter, Hood, Intrepid, Lexington, & Potemkin), that's 3.8%, or roughly 4%. That's... almost creepy how well that worked out, huh?

Wow. Seems they were more of a counterpart of NASA then thought.

But back on topic, what about my questions about the PK? What's in store for the Federation?

[Tsyroc]

I decided to do a little looking and according to Memory Alpha, there are only 12 Constitution Class ships seen in the TOS era that we can identify as separate vessels (Constellation, Defiant, Enterprise, Enterprise-A, Excalibur, Exeter, Hood, Intrepid, Lexington, Potemkin, NCC-1700 & NCC-1707) while Memory Beta lists 235 separate Constitution Class vessels ever built. Personally, given that we tend to favor Memory Alpha, it's normally hard to take non-cannon evidence at face value. However, given that the Constellation is listed as NCC-1017, and the Enterprise was NCC-1701, leads some credence to the idea that there were indeed over 200 ships of a single class. So if we only take the known vessels destroyed/decrewed (Constellation, Defiant, Enterprise, Excalibur, Exeter, Hood, Intrepid, Lexington, & Potemkin), that's 3.8%, or roughly 4%. That's... almost creepy how well that worked out, huh?

If there had been 200 Connies wouldn't there at least have been a few around at some point in TNG or it's follow on shows? If there were only 12 Connies it would have been a much bigger deal to have been the Captain of one. It would also make more sense for why the Enterprise was being called on so often and why people were aware of the exploits of the ship and her crew. Then again, if there were 200 Connies then the Enterprise was seriously the shit if it were so legendary that the ship's logo became the logo for all of Starfleet.



As for the 5 year mission thing. I think it was in the Star Trek Encyclopedia that Roddenberry supposedly stated that Captain Pike had completed one 5 year mission with the Enterprise before Kirk assumed command. Also, I think Kirk & Crew completed one 5 year mission before ST:TMP and then another 5 year mission before TWoK. I may be getting the timeline mixed up but I'm pretty sure that Kirk was supposed to have completed at least 2 five year missions with the Enterprise and I am fairly sure one of those was supposed to have been after he got command of the Enterprise back during TMP. I know the real life timeline doesn't match up with the Trek timeline but I think some of the issues with the timing have more to do with Phase 2 if it had gotten going right when it was proposed.

Does anyone know whether Kirk's first ship, the Farragut was a Connie or not? I know it was in the comics, heck for all I know the comic might be the only place where it was his first ship. Anyway, the comics had that ship being destroyed while Kirk was a lieutenant.

[Baffalo]

Ok let's do a little logical analysis. The USS Enterprise is NCC-1701. The USS Constellation is NCC-1017, or roughly 700 ships in between. Now, let's use the statement from Admiral Morrow when he comes aboard the Enterprise, stating that the Enterprise is 20 years old. We also saw the Excelsior, which sits at NX-2000. That means that in roughly 20 years we've seen approximately 300 ships built. Now, that little number mentioned earlier, the 700, means that if we assume it takes 20 years to build 300 ships, it took 46.666 years, or roughly 45 years, to construct the fleet of 700 Constellation class ships. Considering they were being put out to pasture with the adoption of the Excelsior line, and given the earlier 20 year comment, that means the Constitution Class saw over 65 years of service before being replaced. The reason we never saw any in TNG when we did see the Excelsior line was because the Constitution Class was simply too old and that they simply settled on the Excelsior as a replacement because of advancements in technology.

An excellent analogy would be the Los Angeles Class submarines in use by the United States Navy. The Los Angeles Class was built from 1972 to 1995, but advancements in technology meant they were eventually too dated to keep up. So they were replaced with the Seawolf Class of submarine, and finally by the Virginia Class. The reason the ships were replaced was not because there was a problem with the design, but rather that the mission, equipment and technology had progressed, and so while refits might keep an aging fleet going, it's just going to keep getting more and more expensive. It's easier sometimes to just rip a ship apart and take what you can, melt down the rest, and build a new ship from scratch. The effort it would take to pull out the engines and replace them with something better just gets to be too much of a problem after a while.

[Connor MacLeod]

The PK can't win forever. If the Federation loses two major starships and several planets in that same vicinity they're going to realize something serious is going on and mobilize a more serious response. And despite how fearsome the planet killer may seem, it's pretty damn vulnerable if you attack it right. They don't even need to ram a starship down it, I'm pretty sure Starfleet either has (or can rig up) some sort of 100 megaton nuclear surprise (or a number of them if they need to saturate point defense) to ram down its throat. Nothing is going to be lost in spamming masses of firepower in order to preserve planets and ships.

[Eternal_Freedom]

On the matter of the results of kirk and Co being killed, I would think that the long-term damage resulting in their absence from future events rather than the morale damage.

Just from the films we have three very serious crises (at the least) which are averted by Kirk and Co:

-Khan returning and going batshit insane. Except this time, he finds out Kirk is dead and walks off with the Genesis device to set up shop somewhere, probably to return in force in a while. ("Space Seed" took place before "The Doomsday Machine" so Khan will still be pissed).

-There will be no-one to hot-foot it to the past to retrieve humpback whales. Earth is destroyed by the Whale Probe.

-Kirk, Spock and Sulu are not around to stop General Change, Colonel West and the Romulan Ambassador from igniting a war between the Federationa dn the Klingons.

Now obviously those events might not necessarily occur with the events specified in the OP, but I think they rather neatly describe the bigass problem NOT having Kirk and Co around becomes.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Whale Probe will still be coming though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

This is true. The question is, would said other starship arrive before Earth suffered irreparable damage? It's impossible to say, I know.

nevertheless, the absence of Kirk and Co from future events would be a major problem for the Federation methinks.

[CrateriaA]

What about the Amoeba? With no Enterprise, is the Amoeba going to be stopped? There's another big threat on the horizon, right? Or did the Enil destroy it?

[Stofsk]

Yeah. Also, they destroyed Nomad. Actually no-one but Kirk could have killed Nomad, as his name was similar enough to fool Nomad's damaged memory cores to the point where it misheard Kirk say his name as Jackson Roykirk, the name of Nomad's original creator.

Had Nomad not been destroyed he likely would have gone on to sterilise many more worlds before someone powerful enough to destroy the probe came along. The entire malurian race was wiped out and they likely weren't the first to have had that happen to them.

I can see where Adam is coming from, after all the crew is not depicted as being supernaturally gifted nor do they have superpowers, they're just highly competent - a product of training and education more so than any other factor. Similarly the Enterprise is not a uniquely designed vessel, there's bare minimum twelve ships of the same class which would have identical capabilities or close to it at any rate. Other Constitution-class vessels would have similarly trained and competent crew onboard them. However, several times during the show we see how other ships fared when faced with extraordinary events: the Constellation was virtually destroyed, her crew wiped out, her commander suffering a nervous breakdown due to guilt; Captain Ronald Tracey of the Exeter thought he found the secret to eternal life on a planet and decided to break every law and oath he swore in order to seize that secret for his own profit; the vulcan crew of the Intrepid were wiped out by the amoeba, completely unable to respond to that threat; the crew of the Defiant were driven mad by being stuck in a pocket of space where dimensions intersected - they could not extricate themselves in time. In all these situations, the crew of the Enterprise also encountered the same threat that brought about the demise their fallen comrades, and yet they prevailed.

I can see what Adam means; if it weren't the Enterprise who responded to each of the above threats, and other threats for that matter, then it may have been some other ship and crew and they could do just as well assuming training and capability were the same (and given Constitution-class starships were supposed to be the flagship vessels of the Fleet, this might be considered a given). But at the same time, many of those instances were resolved through luck as well. The Nomad incident for example. Or Kirk gambling that Doctor Daystrom had also encoded into M5's computer core his own personal sense of morality. What about the Dikuronium Gas Creature? Only Kirk would have put everything, even a rendevouz with the Potemkin to get urgently needed medical supplies to a colony suffering a plague, on the backburner in order to hunt down that creature and kill it. Anyone else would not have been obsessed with doing so, or had a science officer who recognised that the creature actually was intelligent. The crew of the Enterprise were not only highly competent but they were also extremely lucky; it's that combination which made them legendary, where other ships and crews had their luck run out.

[Baffalo]

This is where I would've loved to see a series about the Excelsior. Commanded by Sulu, we would've seen a different crew without the Enterprise namesake take on the challenges of a hostile, unstable galaxy. And yet they gave us Enterprise.

[Stofsk]

I think he means the show, Enterprise. I'm on record as saying that they should have made the fourth show be Star Trek: Excelsior. But then B&B would have just messed that up too.

[CrateriaA]

If Excelsior would have been a go, hope it wouldn't have been similar to that Shattered Universe game. What a piece of garbage.

[Tsyroc]

Ok let's do a little logical analysis. The USS Enterprise is NCC-1701. The USS Constellation is NCC-1017, or roughly 700 ships in between. Now, let's use the statement from Admiral Morrow when he comes aboard the Enterprise, stating that the Enterprise is 20 years old. We also saw the Excelsior, which sits at NX-2000. That means that in roughly 20 years we've seen approximately 300 ships built. Now, that little number mentioned earlier, the 700, means that if we assume it takes 20 years to build 300 ships, it took 46.666 years, or roughly 45 years, to construct the fleet of 700 Constellation class ships. Considering they were being put out to pasture with the adoption of the Excelsior line, and given the earlier 20 year comment, that means the Constitution Class saw over 65 years of service before being replaced. The reason we never saw any in TNG when we did see the Excelsior line was because the Constitution Class was simply too old and that they simply settled on the Excelsior as a replacement because of advancements in technology.

An excellent analogy would be the Los Angeles Class submarines in use by the United States Navy. The Los Angeles Class was built from 1972 to 1995, but advancements in technology meant they were eventually too dated to keep up. So they were replaced with the Seawolf Class of submarine, and finally by the Virginia Class. The reason the ships were replaced was not because there was a problem with the design, but rather that the mission, equipment and technology had progressed, and so while refits might keep an aging fleet going, it's just going to keep getting more and more expensive. It's easier sometimes to just rip a ship apart and take what you can, melt down the rest, and build a new ship from scratch. The effort it would take to pull out the engines and replace them with something better just gets to be too much of a problem after a while.

That's a good argument for a lot more ships and for why the Connies aren't around during TNG. I would add that we hardly see any Constitution class ships during the TNG era and those came after the Connies.

Going by some of the books an argument could be made that a lot of the registration numbers were used up by all sorts of smaller ships. I think there was one book where what was essentially a construction tug boat in space had a starship registration number. Personally I think that is a big reach and would go with your logic instead.

[Baffalo]

I will also point out that not all ships decommissioned are sent to the breakers to die. Memory Alpha lists two ships at Wolf 359 as being Constitution Class, which suggests that some of the Constitution class were merely mothballed, a common enough practice even now. Taking a ship and removing most of its more valuable components out and just leaving the hull to float harmlessly out of the way. Most likely, Starfleet saw the value of stashing a few heavy cruisers out of the way for an emergency, which the Borg threat certainly was. So while not all Constitution class ships are destroyed, the majority are probably either in support roles far from the frontier or are empty hulls waiting to be drug out and used again.

[MKSheppard]

However, given that the Constellation is listed as NCC-1017, and the Enterprise was NCC-1701, leads some credence to the idea that there were indeed over 200 ships of a single class.

Better analysis.

Hull numbers are assigned when the ship is authorized by the Federation Senate (or whatever the hell the legislative body is named).

So; the Federation Senate authorizes construction of such and such heavy cruisers, such and such destroyers, such and such transports, etc for that year's Shipbuilding Program.

The ships for that year's shipbuilding all get assigned sequential numbers.

This would explain the craziness of known Constitution numbers:

NCC-1017: Constellation

NCC-1631: Intrepid

NCC-1657: Potemkin
NCC-1664: Excalibur
NCC-1672: Exeter

NCC-1700: UNNAMED Constitution
NCC-1701: Enterprise
NCC-1703: Hood
NCC-1707: UNNAMED Constitution
NCC-1709: Lexington

NCC-1764: Defiant

Because the ships were not all authorized by the Federation Senate at the same time, but instead were part of a multi-year procurement plan; with the hull numbers in between being taken up by smaller ships or auxiliaries.