Ambassador Class pulled for mechanical problems?

[Baffalo]

I know the Ambassador class model, famous for its appearance in Yesterday's Enterprise, was broken by a clumsy stage hand. However, given that even when CGI became a thing, we never saw any Ambassadors (that I'm aware of), yet still see the Excelsiors in use even throughout the Dominion War and beyond, is it possible that something about the Ambassador class sidelined it from becoming the replacement for the Excelsior? And if so, what?

According to Memory Alpha, there are 4 appearances of the Ambassador in TNG (Conspiracy, Yesterday's Enterprise, Data's Day, Redemption), 1 in DS9 (Emissary) and 1 in Enterprise (Future Tense, saucer section only). Compared to the Excelsior (5 films, 17 TNG, 31 DS9, 6 VOY, 1 ENT) or the Miranda (4 films, 4 TNG, 23 DS9, 1 VOY).

[Lord Revan]

Well if we look at the time when Miranda (ST2) and Excelcior (ST3) where introduced in-universe it's likely that both of those classes were designed when the Romulan Star Empire was still hadn't gone into isolation and the Klingon Empire was still a clear and present threat to the federation. While the Ambassador was probably designed after the the Khitomer conference and thus at a time when while tense the relations with the Klingon Empire weren't outright hostile and the Romulans were a non-player as far as UFP knew and thus the Ambassador had emphasis on peaceful activities like exploring or diplomatic missions.

this could easily explain why we don't see the ambassadors in the Dominion War but do see the Excelciors and Mirandas and I think I might have seen ambassadors in those big fleet wide shots in the backround.

[Baffalo]

God damn it. Is this another case of Starfleet going "Welp, the Klingons are our friends now, the Romulans aren't there, so let's have a super awesome party and take away the guns! Kumbya..." ?

[Lord Revan]

God damn it. Is this another case of Starfleet going "Welp, the Klingons are our friends now, the Romulans aren't there, so let's have a super awesome party and take away the guns! Kumbya..." ?

could be, it certainly would be in character for them.

[Borgholio]

God damn it. Is this another case of Starfleet going "Welp, the Klingons are our friends now, the Romulans aren't there, so let's have a super awesome party and take away the guns! Kumbya..." ?

could be, it certainly would be in character for them.

Actually there was on-screen dialogue in Star Trek 6 about dismantling the military wing of Starfleet and most of the Neutral Zone defenses if they made peace with the Klingons after the Praxis accident.

[Ted C]

The Ambassador-class Enterprise-C apparently put up a good fight against three Romulan Warbirds, so it can't be that flimsy.

[Lord Revan]

The Ambassador-class Enterprise-C apparently put up a good fight against three Romulan Warbirds, so it can't be that flimsy.

well I didn't say it was flimsy, just that the ambassadors possibly had more of peace-time emphasis. For all we know that could mean that they had worse size to firepower ratio then the Excelciors and Mirandas.

Also are to certain that Ambassadors didn't play a role in the Dominion War, just a role that wasn't frontline combat.

[Borgholio]

Just remembered that they did have at least one Ambassador at Wolf 359, it was shown briefly in DS9 - Emissary. So they probably didn't simply build as many as they did the other classes, same as with the Galaxies.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Real life reason; ugly model that got broke.

We don't see too many nebula class either.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Given that the E-C was an Ambassador class, I think it's reasonable to assume that they were, at the time, the premier explorers of the fleet. Bigger than other ships, powerful (enough for the time anyway) and proud...with a rather stupid name for a flagship class of ships, but whatever. But maybe they were too uneconomical to build in any great numbers, or to maintain for long periods. Or they came up with newer, more advanced, more powerful systems that couldn't be easily retrofitted and it was easier to just build Galaxies and Nebulas to replace them.

In short, there are any number of reasons, but I would imagine that, as the top dogs of their day, there weren't many built and were (relatively) quickly superseded by new designs.

Oh, additional thought, we know that the war with the Cardassians was going on for a while, it's conceivable that several of the (limited) number of Ambassadors were lost in the skirmishes and/or the fighting exposed weaknesses in the design.

[biostem]

This is pure speculation on my part, but I always assumed that the reason we saw so many Excelsior class ships in service in TNG was due to the fact that, when they were initially built, they were *THE* next-gen testbed of the day, and even though they weren't put into service with the transwarp drive they were originally intended to have, they were still a more "luxury" design than similar ships of the time. I also kind of interpreted it as Starfleet trying to get the most out of a design that they poured a lot of research effort into, which already had a lot of forward-looking concepts integrated into it - like a more unified saucer-hull integration and more robust/tightly located nacelles, (later seen in the Sovereign).

[Borgholio]

As I always understood it, even though the Transwarp project was a failure, the Excelsior design overall was actually such a damn good one that it was worth keeping around for a century.

[Simon_Jester]

It might be that the Ambassadors represented only an incremental improvement over the Excelsiors, such that a refitted and upgraded Excelsior could do most of the things an Ambassador could do. So they taper off construction of the Ambassadors and just keep turning out "Flight III Excelsiors" or whatever for several years.

Then later when they start having more demand for missions that the Excelsiors are just plain unable to accomplish due to lack of size or power, they go "well, we could build more Ambassadors but frankly we haven't built any in ten years, and the design team's all gone off to do something else so getting modifications made is going to be a pain. We might as well build a whole new ship that will really show the galaxy what we can do!"

And then you get the Galaxy-class, which makes an Excelsior look like a tugboat and drastically outperforms the Ambassadors, too.

[Sidewinder]

It might be that the Ambassadors represented only an incremental improvement over the Excelsiors, such that a refitted and upgraded Excelsior could do most of the things an Ambassador could do. So they taper off construction of the Ambassadors and just keep turning out "Flight III Excelsiors" or whatever for several years.

Then later when they start having more demand for missions that the Excelsiors are just plain unable to accomplish due to lack of size or power, they go "well, we could build more Ambassadors but frankly we haven't built any in ten years, and the design team's all gone off to do something else so getting modifications made is going to be a pain. We might as well build a whole new ship that will really show the galaxy what we can do!"

And then you get the Galaxy-class, which makes an Excelsior look like a tugboat and drastically outperforms the Ambassadors, too.

This argument is actually logical and convincing. (No sarcasm.) It also depressingly mirrors the thoughts of many in real-world military procurement.

[FedRebel]

I know the Ambassador class model, famous for its appearance in Yesterday's Enterprise, was broken by a clumsy stage hand. However, given that even when CGI became a thing, we never saw any Ambassadors (that I'm aware of), yet still see the Excelsiors in use even throughout the Dominion War and beyond, is it possible that something about the Ambassador class sidelined it from becoming the replacement for the Excelsior? And if so, what?

Maybe the Ambassador had to be treaty compliant, after Khitomer the Federation and Klingons agreed to something like START, so being likely a very new design at the time it had to conform to treaty stipulations, whereas the older Excelsior was exempt.

Think B-52 and B-1, the B-1 was supposed to replace the B-52 but being the newer design the B-1 had to conform to START (can only carry a faction of potential payload, can't carry nukes, and can't have wing hardpoints) so the far older B-52 has to soldier on...and the B-1 will be seeing a replacement before the B-52 does.

Could also explain why the GCS is a cruise-liner and had so many engineering flaws in the pre-Dominion batch. Starfleet needed a Dreadnaught, but had to stretch things to get around treaty constraints, so by having a reckless civilian compliment and minimizing warpcore safeties (with all the breaches, seems they can't easily eject or scram the damn thing) under treaty it wouldn't classify as a warship.

After Wolf 359 the Federation probably got a release from the treaty.

[Batman]

Um-the B-1 was designed to carry nukes from the word go, could carry them by the truckload, and didn't have wing hardpoints because variable geometry wings make those complicated and besides it already had belly hardpoints aplenty. If anything it was the Lancer's ability to carry conventional munitions that was lacking.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ignoring the flawed analogy, the idea of the Ambassadors being Treaty Battleships is quite an interesting one, especially given the discussion in TUC about greatly reducing the military side of Starfleet. Presumably the Excelsiors and Mirandas got grandfathered in somehow but the new-build Ambassadors did not.

[Baffalo]

Ignoring the flawed analogy, the idea of the Ambassadors being Treaty Battleships is quite an interesting one, especially given the discussion in TUC about greatly reducing the military side of Starfleet. Presumably the Excelsiors and Mirandas got grandfathered in somehow but the new-build Ambassadors did not.

The question then is with who do these treaties fall upon? Between the Klingons and the Federation? If so, what about the Romulans and other potential threats? It's sort of like the Washington Naval Treaty limiting the size and armament of battleships... it sounds nice and everyone pats themselves on the back, but it was dead in about 5 years after Japan and Italy said to hell with it and started building bigger ships.

... oh who the hell am I kidding? Starfleet has entered all sorts of backwards ass treaties to maintain the status quo, including the disastrous treaties with the Cardassian Union trying to prevent war only to make it even worse when war did occur.

Federation Ambassador: "So this treaty, in addition to saying we can't build warships over a certain tonnage, can't carry more than so many weapons, and are so flimsy a rat's fart will set off the anti-matter containment field, stipulates that that you have the right to declare war on us for slights against your bizarre notions of honor and nobility for the slightest offense?"
Klingon Ambassador: "In short, yes."
Federation Ambassador: "Ok let me get my pen here..."

Federation Ambassador: "So you massacred innocent civilians and basically fought us for no reason, have been openly hostile from the start, and only approached us when we were going to defeat you, so that you can try and spin this to your people that you were winning all along? And we have to give you some of our territory for the pleasure?"
Cardassian Ambassador: "In short, yes."
Federation Ambassador: "Ok let me get my pen here..."

Federation Ambassador: "Ok so you want us to never investigate any cloaking technology, never cross your borders despite you doing so to attack our territory, and you still get to keep this incredible tactical weapon that could let you spy on us without detection?"
Romulan Ambassador: "In short, yes."
Federation Ambassador: "Ok let me get my pen here..."

Federation Ambassador: "You don't want us using the wormhole because it's your territory, you're openly hostile towards us, have a huge battlefleet and trained supersoldiers, and your gods have the ability to infiltrate us without detection and thus turn us against each other to soften us up for an eventual invasion by you?"
Dominion Ambassador: "In short, yes."
Federation Ambassador: "Ok let me get my pen here..."

I think someone in the Foreign Office needs to sit down and read a book on how to make treaties that don't hurt you down the line...

Federation Ambassador: "The ultimate goal of the Borg is to conquer and assimilate all life and stamp out free will in the hope of achieving perfection and you have already attacked without provocation in every single encounter, meaning that as soon as I sign this paper we're all slaves to the Borg?"
Borg Drone: "Resistance is Futile."
Federation Ambassador: "Ok let me get my pen here..."

[Knife]

Could be just a quirk of design post Excelsior and just prior to new breakthroughs that immediately made the Ambassador obsolete. I also think the Federations/Cardassian war might have played into it as well.

Looks like the Excelsior was launched in 2285. Some time between that and 2343 the Ambassador was designed and built because according to various timelines the Galaxy class was being designed in 2343. In 2344 the Ent C was destroyed. The Federation/Cardassian war started in 2347 lasting into the 2350's and then going cold in the 2360's until the treaty in 2367 and again in 2370.

So it would appear that scores of Excelsior's were built late 23rd century and early 24th. Some where in the early 24th, they designed the Ambassador early enough in the century that at least two were build prior to 2344 (Ambassador and Enterprise C). After 50 years of service, it would seem to me that they might have started to replace Excelsior's with Ambassador's prior to the Cardassian wars and putting the hulls in reserve. This gives you multiple Excelsior hulls to pull out of mothballs and refit either for the Borg threat after Wolf 359 or a bit later for the Dominion threat. I would then suggest that the Ambassadors took a beating in the Cardassian wars but since the Galaxy was already being developed and was supposed to be technically superior, there was no reason to pull out Excelsior's to replace losses. The huge losses to the Borg and later to the Dominion necessitated the recommission of the older designs.

That would be my take on it anyways, pure speculation though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Of course, it's equally possible that the Ambassador class is simply a flawed design in some way. Maybe they used a new technology that turned out to be a blind alley and fell back on tried-and-tested Excelsiors and Mirandas until they got the new Galaxys and Nebulas rolling. Possibly something like the Imperial German "battlecruiser"Blucher.

[Knife]

Thinking about it some more, the Ambassador has the distinction of being the first in a long line of ships that do not have kitbash variants either. The Constitution series (Constitution/Miranda/arguably the Constellation), Excelsior series (Excelsior, Centaur type, Curry type), the Ambassador....., then the Galaxy series (Galaxy, Nebula, Freedom, and arguably the Challenger, Cheyenne, and the New Orleans).

The Ambassador has nothing, which might imply it wasn't in service long enough to get variants.

[Lord Revan]

Btw it seems that most ships named "Enterprise" are among the first of their classes, Ent-A and Ent-B seem to be the only exceptions. with NX-01 being literally the first of it's class and IIRC it's implied that Enterprise (NCC-1701) was a first batch constitution-class ship and same with Enterprise (NCC-1701-D and NCC-1701-E) hell even the non-canon Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) is implied been among the first of it's class. With Ent-C and Ent-J we don't really know

but it could be that when the previous ship named Enterprise is decommissioned, the new Enterprise will in "show case" class, so that could explain why the Ambassador was so rare it was simply too advanced for it's own good meaning some of it's systems were not quite perfected yet, which in a peace time isn't that big of an issue as long as the ship isn't a deathtrap, but with a Cardassian war it might be that Starfleet wanted to focus on the classes known to work.

[Tribble]

IMO the key reason why there were so few Ambassadors is because of when they were designed and built, and not due to any particular technical design flaw.

When the Ambassador class was designed and built the Federation had entered an era of relative peace and Starfleet's priorities switched from defence to exploration, diplomatic missions flag-waving etc. Sure there were skirmishes with the Cardassians and whatnot, but during that time there was never any serious threat to the very existence of the Federation itself. IMO the class was called "Ambassador" for a reason - it was basically that era's version of the Galaxy class, meant to be the "flag-ship" model that showed off what Starfleet could do. Given its intended role and function and the abundance of Excelsiors and Mirandas already in service Starfleet didn't need to build Ambassadors in large numbers, especially after the Klingons joined in an alliance.

Compare that to the timeframe of the Galaxy-class, where soon after its introduction Starfleet faced the return of the Romulans, the Borg and the Dominion. Given the dire circumstances Starfleet was forced to ramp up production of the Galaxy-class and others in order to combat the multiple threats it faced.

Basically the Ambassador-class was in the unfortunate position of being a peace-time ship for a peace-time fleet, and there was never any real need to mass-produce it. And by the time the Borg and the the Dominion showed up, it was an obsolete design, so why build more?

I love the look of it though.

[tezunegari]

IMO the key reason why there were so few Ambassadors is because of when they were designed and built, and not due to any particular technical design flaw.

Another reason for not producing more Ambassadors could be the newer ships the other factions were beginning to produce.

I think the Galaxy class was a response to the klingons pushing the new Vorchas into production and rumors about the new D'deridex class warbird of the romulans.

There was an episode were a D'deridex got the drop on the E-D and shot the shields down to 20% in a surprise attack and another were three decloaking D'deridex were considered enough to win against the E-D until Picard ordered his klingon friends to decloak.

And the Battle of Narendra III in the 2340s might have given Starfleet an "Oh-Shit" moment when the flagship went down against 4 warbirds.
Now those warbirds might not have been D'deridex but considering those appear to be the workhorse of the romulans in 2360-2370 and even beyond it could be that Starfleets knowledge about new romulan warbirds come from this incident.

So, if the last known incident with the romulans had a severe power-gap in favour of the Federation, a sudden reversal might lead to a hastened production of a more powerful, bigger class that is supposed to recreate the situation.
Which in return might have lead to the horrible design decisions explained on the mainsite of this forum (the Leah Brahms scandal).

[The Romulan Republic]

I would not consider one ship losing a battle with four warbirds a sign that Starfleet was in trouble unless they were rather small or otherwise low-end Romulan ships.