Stofsk wrote:For another thing, that war was implied to have gone on for ages, with Starfleet giving as good as it got (Picard or Riker comments on how the three BoPs weren't even bothering to cloak themselves, when they shouldn't be so smug after a huge defeat they had sustained recently).
To boil down the strategic situation to 'well maybe the klingons struck first' or 'well maybe klingons are just that good at fighting' seems unconvincing - wars are rarely decided by singular issues that you can point to and go 'ah ha!' like that. It was more than likely a variety of factors, none of which we know about, that contributed to the steady decline of Starfleet and the Federation's expected capitulation.
Well said!
Going back to my earlier point about small BoPs, yeah, I know the
Grissom was a poorly-armed science vessel
(though I find it incredible that Esteban didn't raise shields prior to that hapless gunner's "lucky shot"; he had time to say, "Oh my God!", watch the Bird close, then communicate with Saavik on the surface. IIRC, he said, "Stand by, we're under attack." Did he forget so obvious an order as, "Tactical, raise shields!" in that time?).
But look at all other Starfleet ships in that size range. A BoP's volume is about 40,000 m^3. Assuming its density is comparable to the 700,000 metric ton
Voyager, it probably masses somewhere around 40-50,000 tons. A
Nova-class ship is likely twice that massive, and yet we learn Captain Ransom
ran from a Bird-of-Prey and hid in a nebula for days until the Klinks got bored and fucked off somewhere else ("Equinox Pt. II").
Before anyone interrupts with nitpicks, let me back up for a minute
Yes, it is possible Ransom commanded another ship which, as luck would have it, happened to be inferior to the
Equinox. It is also "possible" the BoP that menaced his ship was of the cruiser variety.
But I find each possibility unlikely. For one, Memory Alpha says that he was promoted to captain after he made "first contact" with the Yridians. You know, those ugly fucks that were around, wheeling and dealing in Federation space at least as early as 2369, two years before Ransom and crew were pulled to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. There's no mention of him commanding another ship for a very brief period before assuming command of the EQ.
Further, when he was evading that Bird-of-Prey, the Klingon-Federation Alliance was still intact. The only rogue Klingons we've seen operated the scout variety (Kruge, Lursa and B'Etor). Why would he run away from it unless
Equinox didn't measure up?
Incidentally, the EQ was quite well-armed. Multiple phaser strips, fore and aft torpedo launchers ... she was no match for the
Voyager, but then, VGR was ~7 times her mass.
What I'm getting at is simple. Apart from the hapless
Oberth, some of Starfleet's other "science" vessels have teeth enough to at least deter a ship with a dozen officers and men to attack it. Yet, even with a 2-1 weight advantage, what happens? The Starfleet ship turned tail and ran away like a
bitch (OK, it's official: I've watched too much Breaking Bad lately
).
As such, my original point stands: the smallest Klingon ships can
fight and easily beat up anything that's in the Federation Starfleet's same weight class. It's not until the
Defiant -- half again as voluminous as the scout-type BoP, btw -- which debuted well after the Klingon-Federation War in "Yesterday's ..." would be over, that Starfleet learned how to pack a greater punch in such a small package. Even then, with the Borg, Klingon and Dominion threats looming on the horizon, how many D-class ships do we actually see in all of those massive fleet formations and other episodes? Maybe 10 total? 20?
I bet Alyeska would know
The Borg smell attacks would have made all the difference...
