Ambassador class assessment

[Sidewinder]

I'm considering using the Ambassador class starship as the Hero Ship in a story, but am curious why she's so rarely seen. Was there any reason why the class was so rarely seen in the TNG era (TNG itself, DS9, and Voyager)? Some throwaway line from canon and non-canon sources (novels, comics, technical manuals like the USS Enterprise Owners' Workshop Manual) identifying a design flaw that led Starfleet to quickly withdraw the Ambassador class from service?

Besides the obvious- the Excelsior class models were done on a movie budget, they was more detailed, and the TV studio wanted to take advantage of that- how did the Ambassador class compare to contemporary heavy cruisers or battle cruisers? Please limit the discussion to ships designed to fulfill the same requirement; I omitted the Miranda class from the comparison, because the latter was a LIGHT cruiser.

[DaveJB]

Canonically, the Ambassador class was never seen or mentioned again after the first episode of DS9, and Yesterday's Enterprise suggests that it was either on par with or slightly less powerful than a contemporary Romulan Warbird, so it doesn't appear that there was anything fundamentally wrong with the design. Especially when you consider that it took three Romulan Warbirds to take down the Enterprise-C, versus the single Klingon BoP that took down her successor.

I believe the DS9 (and possibly New Frontier) novels implied that during the Dominion War the Ambassador class ships were caught in an awkward intermediate position, being too good to use as cannon fodder like the Miranda and Excelsior classes, but being outclassed by the more modern ships like the Galaxy, Sovereign and Nebula classes, and so were mostly used to defend major targets like Sector 001 and Vulcan. That implies that Starfleet had at least some faith in the design.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I believe that the Ambassador class were the premier starship of their era, so there woudln't have been many of them, hence why so few are seen. The Excelsiors were plentiful as cruisers but the Ambassadors were the Galaxy's of the time. Not many built but most of them still in service.

[Crazedwraith]

Yes but we see many more galaxy classes than we do Ambassador. Which is like 3 over the whole run. (the E-C, one in Picard's fleet in Redemption ii, one at wolf 395 in Emmisaries opening.)

And the Excelsiors were the Galaxy of their time as well. Yet in later years there were oodles and oodles of them.

It's possibly the Ambassador's really were a flawed design that never got mass produced. Or that it was a good ship that never entered a full production run for some other reason; economic difficulties or politics or something of that nature.


edit: As to New Frontier. The Excalibur seems to a decent ship. But the only reason given for it not fighting in the dominion war was Shelby's theory they were keeping her in the rear and out of the fight as its Captain would be very experienced in forming rebellions and resistance to the Dominion in the event the Federation fell completely. Whereas on the front lines they'd just be another ship no better than any of the others.

[Eternal_Freedom]

True. Maybe they built a small number but relatively soon after some new breakthrough occurred and it was easier simply to abandon the design and create a new one, maybe even the Galaxy class given how long that took to design.

Or, they were the premier vessel but some other nation started fielding ships that greatly outstripped the Ambassadors. Maybe the Vor'chas or the D'deridexs appeared soon after the Ambassadorsandputthem to shame. So Starfleet stops building them, keeps the Excelsiors because of the existing numbers and starts on building the Galaxies and Nebulas.

[Crazedwraith]

Or possibly Akiras and Steamrunners. There are some theories (based on registry numbers) that they actually predate Galaxies/Nebulas and we just unseen through out TNG's run... for some reason.

It's not a great theory to me but it bears mentioning.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Every source I've read (which basically amounts to the ST encyclopedia and the ship descriptions for Starfleet Command 3) say that those designs came about in the same initiative as the Defiants did.

I suspect it's not a flawed design, it just turned up just too late. Like the classes of ironclad battleships built in 1905-6 when HMS Dreadnought appeared. Still good ships...just something much better has turned up.

[Sidewinder]

Question for fellow Trekkies: If you had to choose between the Ambassador class and an upgraded Excelsior (like the USS Lakota), which would you choose? Or would you rather choose one of the non-Federation designs listed in Memory Alpha's "Heavy cruiser" article, i.e., the D'deridex, Keldon, K't'inga, or Vorcha classes?

[Skywalker_T-65]

Personally I would go for the Excelsior but I'm a major fanboy of said ship, so take what you will.

As for the lack of Ambassador's...well, it is a good question. My own head-canon is that they were just unlucky enough to get caught in the middle. The Excelsior was such a good design that the Feddies built TONS of the darn things, so they didn't need as many of the later Ambassador, and then you toss in the fact that the GCS is only a little ways off (in ST terms).

Just a victim of the times I think.

EDIT: Plus think of when the ships were built. The Excelsior was built at a time when the Feddies were still in the TOS-bent. More militaristic, thus more ships. Whereas the Ambassador was coming up on the happy peacenik days of TNG, so they would have built less ships anyway.

[FaxModem1]

Yeah, the Ambassador was built during a time of relative peace in the Federation. Klingons were their allies. The Romulans were becoming more and more isolationist. And the Tholians, Gorn, etc, hadn't done anythiing.

By the time the Galaxy was in production, the Romulans reappeared, the Cardassian war had happened, and so Starfleet was building those in bigger quantities, along with their little brother, the Nebulas.

[Stark]

Isn't this just making an issue of nothing? If there were twelve Ambassadors and we never saw them, they'd be just as numerous as most other large ships of their time except Excelsior. If they had a similar track record to the Constitution half of them could have been destroyed in the first ten years and it wouldn't have been unusual.

Keeping cutting edge or high-end designs in low numbers for easy turnover while building heaps of smaller, cheaper, proven designs isn't a hard concept to grasp. Starfleet loses heaps of their flagship explorer classes anyway, and they probably feel they're better off having small runs of different designs rather than keeping one around for thirty years, getting it stolen and having to rebuild it, etc.

[Batman]

How can anybody choose the refit Excelsior over the Ambassador? Those things are ugly as sin (when the original Excelsior actually doesn't look half bad. Thank you, Generations, for ruining a perfectly OK ship design) when the Ambassador is what the E-D should have looked like?

And wasn't the sacrifice of the E-C at Narendra III what triggered the UFP/Klingon Empire alliance? IIRC, there was nothing more than an uneasy truce before that.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I'm a fanboy of the original Excelsior design. I just block out the refit parts mentally...thanks for reminding me of that by the way.

Also, yes, the Alliance was more or less triggered by the death of the E-C.

[Batman]

I'm not the one who brought up the abomination that was the Excelsior refit you know.
As for why there aren't more Ambassadors, I vote insufficient data. We simply don't know enough about the class (at least not from canon sources). Could be cost, could be she was too warship, could be she wasn't warship enough, could be somebody in Starfleet Command had a family member in the Executive Board of the yard building the Excelsiors.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Yes but you brought up the specific reasons that I blocked out. Namely the ugliness.

In all seriousness, I do tend to when I see 'refit Excelsior' just think original design with new weapons, since I prefer not to think about the abomination that was the E-B.

As for the Ambassador...who really knows.

[Batman]

My point exactly. Thanks in no small part to the dearth of Ambassadors in Trek we have virtually nothing to base any deductions as to why there's such a dearth of Ambassadors to begin with on.

[Feil]

The Ambassador is a beautiful ship. Far better looking that the squashed duck that the Galaxy resembles. If you're worried about a throwaway line from a non-canon source, just make up your own throwaway line from your own non-canon source to justify it.

For instance, one might make up:
"The Ambassador's exceptional independence from lines of supply made her an ideal exploration ship, and most of them were deployed to remote missions of discovery. Unfortunately, this also meant that most of them were too far from any particular crisis within the Federation's borders to join the fleet in battle."

Justification for few Ambassadors appearing on screen, and an excuse to be boldly going where no-one has gone before.

[Sidewinder]

The Ambassador is a beautiful ship. Far better looking that the squashed duck that the Galaxy resembles. If you're worried about a throwaway line from a non-canon source, just make up your own throwaway line from your own non-canon source to justify it.

For instance, one might make up:
"The Ambassador's exceptional independence from lines of supply made her an ideal exploration ship, and most of them were deployed to remote missions of discovery. Unfortunately, this also meant that most of them were too far from any particular crisis within the Federation's borders to join the fleet in battle."

Justification for few Ambassadors appearing on screen, and an excuse to be boldly going where no-one has gone before.

Excellent idea! Thank you, Feil.

[Skywalker_T-65]

One can even add onto that to explain the dearth of Ambassador's in DS9.

'The Ambassador's were very exceptional exploration cruisers, only rivaled by their successor, the Galaxy. With the onset of the Dominion War, the larger Galaxy's were called to the front line, leaving the smaller and older Ambassador's to continue their exploration and diplomatic missions."

That even works in-universe when one takes into account the E-E going to the Baku in Insurrection

EDIT: As far as looks go, I will always prefer the original Excelsior. But I will say that the Ambassador is a nice looking starship, certainly better than the GCS.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Actually there is a line about that already in cannon (sort of). One of the DS9 books, Antimatter, has as a plot device a new Ambassador class starship being built on Bajor. The rationale was that while the AMbassador was an older class it could go a lot further on a given antimatter load than newer designs. Which makes sense for an exploration cruiser.

[Skywalker_T-65]

And that is irony right there considering I haven't read that book and got something similar.

[Sidewinder]

Question for people who believe "there's nothing the [Ambassador class] can do that the Excelsior can't do better," namely: Why do you believe the Excelsior is superior in all fields of performance? Because it's a smaller ship, and likely cheaper to buy and to operate?

What if you need a bigger ship, e.g., to evacuate Federation citizens from endangered colonies? Say, "Damn the price," and get a Galaxy class ship?

[Skywalker_T-65]

I didn't actually vote in the poll, but if I had my Excelsior fanboyism would have taken over

That being said, if one gives an Excelsior the upgrades like the Lakota received, it is probably about equal to an Ambassador in firepower/shields, if not better. Being smaller (Feddies lack money...so I doubt that factors in ), you can also get more of them than you could Ambassadors.

And by the time you needed a swarm of ships (Dominion War) it was already too late to expand production of the Ambassador...easier to build more Ex's and Gal's.

At least, that's my view on it.

[Batman]

I didn't actually vote in the poll, but if I had my Excelsior fanboyism would have taken over
That being said, if one gives an Excelsior the upgrades like the Lakota received, it is probably about equal to an Ambassador in firepower/shields, if not better. Being smaller (Feddies lack money...so I doubt that factors in ), you can also get more of them than you could Ambassadors.

As based on-what, exactly? We hardly ever see Ambassadors to begin with (and the Lakota refit abominations aren't all that more prominent either) so what basis do you judge their respective performance on?

[Skywalker_T-65]

The only real things we have to base them on. The Lakota is able to go up against the Defiant, while the one time we see an Ambassador in combat (I think...and we don't even really SEE it) is the E-C against three warbirds (highly doubtful they were TNG style ones). The Lakota came out about even with the Defiant, while the E-C lost rather badly from all indications. But this is just based on what I saw, if there is ST EU stuff that clarifies, I haven't read it.

That's just my own idea though, and again, probably my Ex fanboyism coming out. We really don't know how they compare truly. Which is a shame, it would be nice to get a better idea.

(note, I haven't read novels, so if one of those shows something different, feel free to correct me )

Note: I'm going off the idea that those 'Warbirds' are closer to the TOS Bird of Prey, than the MASSIVE TNG style ones. We don't know, unless a book has clarified. So its possible that those Warbirds would have taken the Defiant/Lakota down too. We just don't know (or at least I don't)