sovereign role

[joe5]

what is the Sovereign , i think their is little question she is one of the best ships in the fleet (or Picard would not have gotten her) but in what.

personally i think she is a command ship with good speed and shields. but that her true value is as a first foot. a good place for first contact.  note the wide impressive design of her corridors and rooms. but that her weapons are secondary as in fleet confrontations she would serve mostly to protect the command.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I'm sure command is probably a part of the Sovereign's design, though probably not as much as a true capital ship. The Sovereign was designed to replace the Excelsior as Starfleet's premier Heavy Cruiser, the mainstay of the fleet and the new iconic face of the Federation. The Galaxy's the fleet's big capital ship, but the Sovereign is the one that is going to be the true face of the fleet, much like the Excelsior was in the first half of the 24th Century (before her age caught up to her). You can see the design lineage in the Sovereign's lines, too, in how she very much resembles the Excelsior. The wide-open spaces, extra-large lounge areas, the wide, open main engineering, not so great for sustaining damage or emergency repairs (just try working on that core 5 meters in the air while getting rocked by enemy fire), but great for showing off. The Sovereign's engine room was built for show (and having the reaction chamber, the main part of the warp core, up out of the way is a handy security feature), and as Starfleet's premier Heavy Cruiser, she would be doing a LOT of 'showing the flag', and making First Contact and serving as the Federation's envoy would be among her main duties.

That said, the Sovereign's weapons are not inconsiderable for her size; she's no battleship, she's still 'only' a heavy cruiser, but she's the biggest heavy  cruiser Starfleet has ever built (20 years before she would have been a Battlecruiser), and the most powerful starship in the fleet that is not a capital ship.

[joe5]

i agree about her intenal designe but i think that she is ment to be a limited production not the next premier heavy cruiser

[Black Patriot]

i agree about her intenal designe but i think that she is ment to be a limited production not the next premier heavy cruiser

Well since she's so much smaller than the Galaxy, and still considerably well armed/armored it'd make sense for Starfleet to build more Sovereigns than Galaxys. The next closest ship in size and firepower is the Akira, and that's a bit too small for some of the missions that Starfleet seems to encounter.

[MajorD]

We don't know much about the Enterprise-E. It has a few labs, it's smaller than the Galaxy, and it was running diplomatic missions, and surveys.  Pretty much the stuff they were doing in the Enterprise-D.  However, on average, the Enterprise-E seems to stay closer to Earth based on how Diana Troi just happened to be nearby when Voyager was contacted, how it was close enough the Romulan Neutral Zone and Earth when the Borg attacked, and was close enough for a return to Earth just for Riker's wedding. 

Due to the smaller size, the Dominion War, the fact that we never see civilians, and they're never mentioned it's probable the Enterprise-E is not carrying civilians. 

Picard commands a Sovereign, and its name is part of the Enterprise lineage, and he wasn't placed on an Oberth, Miranda, or Nova.   He was sent on a high profile diplomatic mission in Nemesis as well, so it is likely he still has the same standing he has always had.  That means the Sovereign is probably considered prestigious, because Picard is on one, and it got the Enterprise name, but doesn't tell us anything concrete.

[Judge King]

I found this quite interesting for why the Sovereign-class exists.

The Galaxy class was originally intended as a proof of concept prototype for several new technologies, but ambitious designers at Utopia Planitia proposed Starfleet to replace both the by now obsolete Ambassador and Excelsior classes with a production model of the Galaxy.

It's known for;
- Having one of the shortest production runs in the history of Starfleet (effectively canceled before the first was even finished)
- Having the by far longest development and construction time of any class (20 years between design and production model)
- Being the largest and most expensive ship to build in the history of the Federation (up until 2381 at least)
- Having a replacement class start being designed less than a year after the first production model was launched

The prototype, USS Galaxy, was laid down in 2343 but wasn't ready for launch until 2357. It took another six years and the best and brightest in Starfleet (!) to iron out the bugs in the design and the first production models, the Enterprise-D and Yamato, weren't launched until 2363. The Enterprise-D was thus already 20 years out of date on the day it launched.

12 were originally ordered, with 6 of them as frames laid out for future production, but production was cancelled even before the Enterprise-D was launched due to the obsolescence of the production design and high expense of their construction. Only the first six which were almost finished were completed while the six frames were mothballed, and had to undergo continuous refits to bring them up to modern specs.

The Galaxy design was reworked and modernized while still designed to use the same existing stockpile of Galaxy parts, and after the new streamlined prototype, USS Nebula, proved successful Starfleet ordered several of the new class explorers, aiming to finally replace the aging Miranda and Constellation classes instead.

With the failure of the Galaxy to deliver what Starfleet had hoped and the reworked Nebula being primarily designed for long range exploration, a team of engineers began designing a new ship at the San Francisco Fleet Yards - a class intended to replace both the Galaxy *and* the remaining Ambassadors and Excelsiors, which the Galaxy had failed to do. The work on the design began in early 2364 (less than a year after 1701-D launched!), and the keel for the prototype USS Sovereign was laid down in mid-2365.

With Starfleet's experiences from the Borg during the early design phase the design was augmented both in 2365 and 2366 to dramatically augment the Sovereign's offensive and defensive capabilities, and the other 6 Galaxy frames were ordered to be rushed to completion as a stop-gap after the massive losses at Wolf 359. Many of them were completed using Nebula parts and some missing up to 60% of their internal structure - but they were spaceworthy and although the design was obsolete they were still more advanced than most of the rest of the aging Starfleet.

Starfleet's thirst for a rapid renewal of the fleet made them give approval for six additinal spaceframes to be built parallel to the Sovereign herself, but ordered them left at a point where they could still be scrapped and recycled as with the recent failure of the Galaxy to match expectations Starfleet wanted to test the design before committing to it.

The USS Sovereign launched in 2370, and her space trials went so well that Starfleet put the six spaceframes on rush to completion with another twenty new frames laid down. A number of changes were however made, including changing the nacelles to a new variant which didn't damage subspace. Still, by canon, Starfleet only ever had a total of 13 Galaxy class starships. No new ships were ordered after the USS Sovereign was launched and proved she not only far outclassed the Galaxy but was also both much faster and cheaper to build.

The six prepared spaceframes were quickly completed, with the expected first production model being called the USS Honorius until the destruction of the Enterprise in 2371, just months before the scheduled launch of the ship. She was renamed and the Enterprise-E thus became the first production model when she launched in 2372, but issues during the Enterprise shakedown delayed her sister ships and the Bozeman-A, which should have been completed only days after the Enterprise, launched six months later. By the time the Borg attacked Sector 001, those were the only two Sovereigns in service and both participated in the battle which instantly proved the design's worth.

Shortly after the battle the Destiny, Atlas, Musashi and Gibraltar were completed, and Sovereign herself finished her refit to the production model, but with these seven being the only ships capable of holding their own against the Borg they were kept out of the raging Dominion War and instead sent to deal with brush fires along the other borders.

The Federation didn't see the real influx of Sovereigns until after the Dominion War, but by 2379 at least the originally ordered 27 (1 + 6 + 20) were in service with even more of them being built at both the San Francisco, Antares and Utopia Planitia yards.

[Black Patriot]

That's interesting, but without a source I can't comment on how accurate it is. There's certainly nothing in the canon that confirms any of this, though there's also nothing to my knowledge that contradicts it either.

[MajorD]

Some of it is simply wrong, while the rest is made up.  It only needs to be compared to the History on the Galaxy page at Memory Alpha.  There is more to what is wrong with it, but I don't care to pick apart every line.  Over all, I think it over emphasizes class replacement.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Galaxy_class#Design_and_development

Judge King's excerpt is from the thread linked below.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=150878

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Well, as the premier Heavy Cruiser of the fleet, one of the largest ships in the fleet, and a brand-new, bleeding edge state-of-the-art starship, the Sovereign WOULD be a prestigious command. She wouldn't be the everything-and-a-dozen-kitchen-sinks capital ship that the Galaxy is, but she would be doing much more day-to-day operational work. The Galaxy would be used when there was a need for a stand-off, or when the Federation wanted to be extremely impressive. The Sovereign, however, would be the iconic face of the Federation.

Think on how the Excelsior was used in the first half of the 24th Century. No longer Starfleet's premier capital ship, the Excelsior still served with distinction as Starfleet's premier and workhorse Heavy Cruiser. They built a crap ton of them, and they were everywhere, doing everything both locally and in deep space. After the 2350s, when their age really started catching up with them and Starfleet started fielding newer cruisers, they got bumped down to a lot of the muckity-muck crap assignments that the newer, more capable cruisers would have been wasted on, but before that, they would have been the representative of Starfleet, the ship that got out there, and got its hands dirty, but still carried the image of the Federation.

The Sovereign is taking over that lineage. In a lot of ways, it's what the original Constitution class was (and the naming of a Sovereign class USS Enterprise is a return to that role), and like the original Connie and the Excelsior, the Sovereign is going to be the face of Starfleet and the Federation going into the 25th Century. It's not prestigious like the Galaxy class is, but it's not less prestigious (though the Galaxy class gains prestige points from rarity that the Sovereign, which will probably be produced in relatively high numbers, won't get). The Sovereign has a different kind of prestige than the Galaxy class,  or perhaps it would be better to say that it is prestigious for different reasons. The Galaxy is the biggest and most powerful ship in the fleet, the no-holds-barred, everything-and-a-dozen-kitchen-sinks class. It's the awesomely powerful ship that represents the pinnacle of what the Federation and Starfleet can achieve. The Sovereign class isn't that, but it's prestigious because it represents the core of what the Federation is on a day-to-day basis, and really represents the heart of the Federation: It's sleek, fast, very advanced and powerful for its size, and while it only has five kitchen sinks instead of a dozen, it's not going to be reserved for special cases. It's comfortable, presentable, more than capable on all fronts, and it's going to be there even when it's not a special occasion, unlike the Galaxy which is going to largely be reserved for special, higher-profile duties, because they're so resource-intensive and relatively few in number.

[Vadek]

I found this quite interesting for why the Sovereign-class exists.

That is the best Non-Cannon explanation to why the Sov was never what of the Dom-War.

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

The Sov is everything and then some that the Galaxy class was supposed to be but fell short of achieving.

[Vadek]

In other words, she may not be a Battleship, but she was designed to be the Crown jewel of Starfleet.

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

In other words, she may not be a Battleship, but she was designed to be the Crown jewel of Starfleet.

Starfleet do not have a battleship yet although id like to see them build one to rival the size of the ones the dominion had (even if those were also refered to as battle cruisers in the series), however the sov is the most powerful fighting ship they have barring perhaps the promethues.

[Vadek]

Starfleet do not have a battleship yet although id like to see them build one to rival the size of the ones the dominion had

Make a 5km long Galaxy class, sprinkle a little glitter on it, BAM!, Battleship.

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Make a 5km long Galaxy class, sprinkle a little glitter on it, BAM!, Battleship.

Do not forget to add a massive forward phaser/energy weapon with the relative power compared to other phasers that the main weapon the Victory class destroyer in B5 crusade had compared to its normal guns.

[thelasthallow]

Some of it is simply wrong, while the rest is made up.  It only needs to be compared to the History on the Galaxy page at Memory Alpha.  There is more to what is wrong with it, but I don't care to pick apart every line.  Over all, I think it over emphasizes class replacement.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Galaxy_class#Design_and_development

Judge King's excerpt is from the thread linked below.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=150878

i dont care if its canon or not. it sounds very plausible so this is what im going to tell everyone. also i find that memory alpha while nice has very little actual info.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

i dont care if its canon or not. it sounds very plausible so this is what im going to tell everyone. also i find that memory alpha while nice has very little actual info.

So you would knowingly perpetuate falsehoods and inaccurate information?

How is that any different from lying?


Very little of the overview above has any relation to fact or can be substantiated, and several points are directly contrary to easily-verifiable facts. The Galaxy class was NEVER portrayed as a failure as design; it was portrayed throughout TNG as one of the greatest starships Starfleet had ever built, and that continued into DS9 where the Galaxy class repeatedly demonstrated its prowess in combat (except for The Jem'Hadar, every Galaxy we see in combat is steamrolling through the enemy; in Sacrifice of Angels, we see Galaxies ahead of the Defiant, turning back or maneuvering perpendicular to the Defiant's course, to engage the Dominion, and the same in What You Leave Behind). Comments from non-Federation characters, belligerent and othewise, make it clear that the Galaxy has a vaunted reputation even outside of the Federation as an exceptional starship.

The number built, too, is easily disproven. Before the Dominion War even began, Starfleet lost at least three Galaxies (the Yamato, the Enterprise-D, and the Odyssey), yet in the opening stages of the battle in Sacrifice of Angels, we see at least twelve Galaxies visible on-screen at the same time.  This means that Starfleet had to have built at least 15 Galaxies, and that assumes we were seeing every single Galaxy in that battle, and that they represented every single Galaxy in the entire fleet. Considering that half the intended 1200 ships weren't able to make it before they had to launch the attack, and that they were coming from more critical fronts, including the defenses of critical core worlds like Earth, and that those 1200 ships in total were comprised of only elements of several different fleets, it is very unlikely that all of the Galaxies in a fleet that supposedly has some 30,000 ships according to the DS9 producers, all happened to be visible in that narrow field of view.

Based on the numbers we see during the Dominion War, Starfleet could easily have well over a hundred Galaxies in service during the 2370s.

[MajorD]

i dont care if its canon or not. it sounds very plausible so this is what im going to tell everyone. also i find that memory alpha while nice has very little actual info.

When compared to the show it is not plausible, and Memory Alpha has sufficient information to show that.

[Zer]

The Galaxy was built just prior to one of the most turbulent eras in Starfleet history. Even during the Dominion war she was an extremely potent ship that provided excellent support to many battles throughout.  The Galaxy was, however, expensive to replace. It makes sense that they would maintain the current Galaxy's as they do provide for a great ship, therefore, having extensive refits done could have still been considered an economically viable option. I do think that Starfleet still had to work out a new, more cost effective design. As such I think Starfleet's goal in making the Sovereign was to get Galaxy class oomph in a smaller, more efficient package. The original Galaxy wasn't built with the Borg in mind, the Sovereign was.

I have a feeling that many of the advancements that were made during the Sovereign's development were implemented into some of the Enterprise - D's major refits, especially after the Borg encounter.

By the time we see the Sovereign refit in Nemesis, I tend to believe she has surpassed the Galaxy's potential, though.

[joe5]

sorry to reopen the topic but i was wondering if anyone knows of a mod that portrays the sovereign as a battlecruiser like magorD was saying?