Ambassador Class pulled for mechanical problems?

[Borgholio]

Where was that stated? At that point there were only six galaxies, five of which were still in service, and IIRC all five are later accounted for (E-D, Galaxy, Odyssey, Venture and Challenger I think).

According to Memory Alpha, he was supposed to be on a Galaxy class bridge as per the script. He was actually filmed on the Galaxy battle bridge. With that said however, there was nothing on screen to indicate that he was on a Galaxy class ship aside from a bridge that really could have been any ship. I've always assumed he was still on the Excelsior.

[Prometheus Unbound]

(I think Admiral Hanson was on an Excelsior at Wolf 359,

He was on board a Galaxy class ship during the actual battle, but traveled to the Enterprise in an Excelsior.

Where was that stated?

He was on a battle bridge of a galaxy class ship, and there's nacelles from a Galaxy class in the graveyard scenes.

You'd put the admiral in command of the fleet on the most powerful vessel - it makes sense.

At that point there were only six galaxies, five of which were still in service, and IIRC all five are later accounted for (E-D, Galaxy, Odyssey, Venture and Challenger I think).

Ah but where was it ever said there were 6 galaxies, in canon? That's from Gene's mouth but not canon as far as I know.

[Borgholio]

Ah but where was it ever said there were 6 galaxies, in canon? That's from Gene's mouth but not canon as far as I know.

Star Trek TNG technical manual.

[Tribble]

According to the TM, 6 ships were initially put into service and another 6 hulls were partially completed and stored for later use. After the loss of the Yamato Starfleet could have taken one of the hulls out of storage and had it finished by BOBW.

[Thanas]

You'd put the admiral in command of the fleet on the most powerful vessel - it makes sense.

This is an assertion that is unsupported and flat-out contradicted by almost every war in history. Jellicoe wasn't on a QE class at Jutland. Scheer wasn't on a König class. Heck, even in the Napoleonic wars the Admiral in command wasn't on the most powerful vessel per se. See for example Trafalgar, where the commander of the allied fleet wasn't aboard any of the Spanish three-deckers or the four-decker.

[Crazedwraith]

Ah but where was it ever said there were 6 galaxies, in canon? That's from Gene's mouth but not canon as far as I know.

Star Trek TNG technical manual.

So as he said then: Nowhere in canon.

[Borgholio]

Is the TM no longer considered canon?

[Captain Seafort]

It never was.

[Borgholio]

So the idea that there were only 6 Galaxies built with 6 hulls in storage should be discarded, since that came from the TM.

[Baffalo]

To be fair, a lot of what Roddenberry has said off hand has come back to bite the franchise in the ass.

[Tribble]

Originally, only the TV series (excluding TAS) and movies were considered canon. Eventually, TAS was included. Today there is no official canon policy that I am aware of (as far as I can tell StarTrek.com and Paramount removed references to a canon policy), so technically speaking anything goes.

With things like the TNG TM I tend to take the approach that it can be treated as supplementary canon if it does not contradict events established in the tv series or films. After all, it was written by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda with Gene Roddenbery's approval, and some elements did end up becoming direct canon (like the saucer section being designed to handle an emergency crash landing).

In the case of the TM's suggestion that Starfleet's original plan was to build 6 Galaxy-class starships and keep 6 hulls in reserve, I don't see there being any problem. It would explain why the Galaxy-class was relatively rare in TNG, and we know that Starfleet was in a relative state of complacency at the time the Galaxy-class was being designed and produced. But things happened, and Starfleet ended up building more of them.

[Baffalo]

The Galaxy was originally intended to be the Explorer-Class, designed to be big and fancy because she would be travelling far from established bases and would be gone for long periods of time, hence the desire to bring families aboard. Given how Starfleet treats exploration and such, it's possible that they viewed the project as a 24th century version of the original 5-year missions of the 13 original Constitutions. And in that context you can see why it would be interesting to have families aboard, since it would mean that long-established career officers with families can come aboard and still command the ship while keeping their families around. And since they're not defense projects, they can be big and flashy and look good on the news networks while only having 6.

Then along came a shift in Federation policy. The Borg, the Dominion, the Cardassians, the instability in the Klingon Empire, all of them suddenly growing unstable and putting exploration on the back burner. The grand exploration project was put on indefinite hold so they could focus on defense preparations, and the Galaxies were kept closer to home to serve as capital ships for command and control. Then they realized they needed more defense while still keeping a somewhat multi-function vessel, hence the introduction of Akiras and Sovereigns, putting the focus of exploration into the hands of dedicated vessels like the Intrepid and Nova. I would imagine the Nova was probably built as a short-range scout as well, small and nimble to slip in and out of enemy space to sniff around and report back. You saw ships like the Defiant, built to be easily churned out in big numbers for escort and defense.

[Prometheus Unbound]

So the idea that there were only 6 Galaxies built with 6 hulls in storage should be discarded, since that came from the TM.

Pretty much, yes.

AFAIK on this forum, the TM is not treated as "canon", but can be refereed to as long as it doesn't really contradict the TV shows, for background fluff.

It's possible there were only 6 galaxy class ships built - we certainly don't see very many of them throughout the years, but to my knowledge, it has never been stated on screen.

[Prometheus Unbound]

You'd put the admiral in command of the fleet on the most powerful vessel - it makes sense.

This is an assertion that is unsupported and flat-out contradicted by almost every war in history. Jellicoe wasn't on a QE class at Jutland. Scheer wasn't on a König class. Heck, even in the Napoleonic wars the Admiral in command wasn't on the most powerful vessel per se. See for example Trafalgar, where the commander of the allied fleet wasn't aboard any of the Spanish three-deckers or the four-decker.

Fair enough, I'll concede that.

But we still have a galaxy-class partial wreck and visual evidence of him being on a galaxy class battle-bridge.

There's nothing to contradict him being on a galaxy, save for that he was sent to the Enterprise for tactical discussions, on an excelsior class ship.

[Baffalo]

Makes sense if you think about it. You leave your flagship with its heavier firepower and use a different ship to quickly get out there and back. That way, your flag captain can still take command and lead the fighting if you're not back in time.

[Tribble]

So the idea that there were only 6 Galaxies built with 6 hulls in storage should be discarded, since that came from the TM.

Pretty much, yes.

AFAIK on this forum, the TM is not treated as "canon", but can be refereed to as long as it doesn't really contradict the TV shows, for background fluff.

It's possible there were only 6 galaxy class ships built - we certainly don't see very many of them throughout the years, but to my knowledge, it has never been stated on screen.

Keep in mind that could have simply been the original policy. Or a stated objective if you will. When all the shit hit the fan, the Feds simply built more.

[Simon_Jester]

You'd put the admiral in command of the fleet on the most powerful vessel - it makes sense.

This is an assertion that is unsupported and flat-out contradicted by almost every war in history. Jellicoe wasn't on a QE class at Jutland. Scheer wasn't on a König class. Heck, even in the Napoleonic wars the Admiral in command wasn't on the most powerful vessel per se. See for example Trafalgar, where the commander of the allied fleet wasn't aboard any of the Spanish three-deckers or the four-decker.

True, but you do put your admiral and command staff aboard one of the capital ships, as a rule: the ships that are most survivable, that have the most sensors, that have the most physical space for the command staff, that would never normally be ordered to take special risks by flying on detached missions.

A Galaxy-class starship in the Federation isn't just a marginally more advanced version of its predecessor class, the way that the Queen Elizabeths were a slightly tougher and considerably faster kind of dreadnought broadly similar to what had come before. The Galaxies are a lot larger, they have more advanced capabilities, they're not laboring under the limitations of being refits of a century-old design like the Excelsiors.

So while it is not always true that the admiral commands from the strongest ship, if the Federation goes to war, the Galaxies (and their follow-on class, the Sovereigns) are the most logical choice for fleet flagships.

Unless of course there exist even larger and heavier 'dreadnought' classes, but we don't see those in the TV series.