Revealing the TRUE Purpose of the Galaxy Class! Did the Enterprise Miss Out?

1701-D should have had a factory recall for the starboard power coupling. Seemed like it was always failing when taking the smallest of hits. Also, those phasers were somewhat ineffectual unless they were drilling into a planet or other lame tasks. "Yesterday's Enterprise" showcase some very weak pew-pews when battling the Klingons. Always bothered my when I watched that episode.

The ships could have been built after the Enterprise B rescued the survivors of Guinan's people. They knew "something/someone" large and dangerous was out there - so they built a ship that they hoped could go find out and get back safely. Maybe not all the way to the Delta Quadrant, but close enough to find out what was going on. OR maybe they had heard rumors of the Dominion and planned on sending a ship on a long range mission that way? No need to invent a mysterious ancient race of beings, there are plenty of known dangerous ones. Or they could have been looking for the Iconian Homeworld, for that matter.

Just like the Enterprise J being a Universe class ship - that was obviously designed to be a generation ship meant for a voyage to Andromeda or another Galaxy, but got it caught up in the war we see it fighting in.

How about the Federation discovers an Iconian transit path that allows them to explore the Andromeda Galaxy?

What if the galaxy class was developed to see if the opposite end of the wormhole actually was where it was supposed to be now that takes a multi year journey traveling but you have an instant way home once you confirm where the wormhole end is.

I've always guessed from the context of the show (or maybe I just remember people talking about it in the lead up to TNG coming out), that the Galaxy Class was designed for much longer (longer than 5-year) missions into very deep space, so would logically carry people's families, but also the ability to defend itself and more or less operate as a traveling city. I know the concepts of the different galactic quadrants like Delta and Gamma hadn't been come up with, but I could have sworn that's how the "new" Enterprise was described from marketing stuff back in the day.

galaxy was made of glass until the war refits of the dominion war. then they were not to be messed with

It's a capital ship for an organization who's tertiary role is combat. It's purpose is to do what other ships can do but with enough of a fist to deter rivals.

This is such obsolete, power hungry tech! There are much better options! Kepler ReCapture is working on a vastly superior technology.

A very interesting idea, concept/proposal to say the very least. I have subscribed so I can "chew-the-fat" on this later. Make It So.

Picard Season 3 rightfully showed the greatness of the Galaxy Class starship. In my opinion, overall, it's the best design in Starfleet.

Now everything make sense

An interesting fan theory. One thing I never quite understood about Star Fleet is that they rarely had ships moving about in squadrons. Roddenberry often drew on his military experience for much of Star Trek's inspiration, but it wasn't often we saw Star Fleet ships of the line operating together like navies of the world. I think this could make for a fun story seeing the different vessels, and how they are utilized to their intended function within a fleet squadron.

That is a falicy. Star fleet is the shield and sword of the federation. The united states navy does aid work and disaster relief. the seven year mission was a border/war patrol. The point is true. It is too big. It's travels were between Star bases. Who would build a base in an area they did not explore. Also they tended to do most of their science on either klingon or romulian border. Galaxy class was also not widely produced. It could not meet wartime production schedules. Every warship does wartime build runs on segments. This gives planners useful info about future fleet size. Some part was never able to be speedily produced. They build the other parts and hoped it would work itself out. Nebula was built to deal with this backlog. Galaxy was built in a peaceful time. They have had decades with major conflict. Cardassian war was a sideshow. They built a warship with people that had not had major conflicts to consider. The sovereign class was a war design and vastly different beast. The short klingon conflict, borg, and dominion laid the faults of the galaxy bare.

the Galaxy class was built as a first contact and mobile ambassadorial ship built during the golden age of the federation, its size was specifically to allow the inclusion of civilians on the ship, enterprise D had a active crew of 1000 with an additional 2000 civilians (mostly family of officers and civilian researchers) and boasted a large number of independently run research labs since the Galaxy class doubled as a since and research ship including 4 independent astrometric labs. basically starfleet wanted a deep space research and science cruiser equipped to run missions for years without the need of returning to a spaceport, it even had hydroponic gardens for situation when the replicator systems went offline

It seemed to me that the galaxy class would have been a great colony ship literally traveling to planets to drop a saucer section which is basically a fully functional city

The year is 2363, the name of the place: Enterprise D

Having families on board made her a Plan B in case earth got destroyed

As much as people make fun of the idea bringing your family with you on a Starship it actually makes sense.

Especially since these are 5 year long missions.

Think about never seeing your wife, husband, children, or significant other for 5 years!

The divorce rate would be, for lack of a better term, astronomical.

Yes it could be dangerous but the danger would just be a part of being with someone who serves in Starfleet.

Don’t like it?

Don’t start a relationship with someone in Starfleet.

If Starfleet was properly designed it would have two separate divisions.

One would be the exploration and diplomatic side which has large Galaxy class style vessels with families that are designed for long term deep space exportation.

And there would be the military division which only have short range battlecruiser style ships like the Defiant that stay in the Federation borders for defensive purposes and only go on 6 month long missions then return to Federation planets to allow crew to be with their families like our contemporary Navy.

I believe it was designed as a very powerful colony ship. Being able to house families once dropped off it is powerful enough to protect that colony while the new planet is being colonized and planetary defense set up. It could then return to Earth and pick up next group of settlers.

In truth, neither this, nor what the creators "say" truly explains what this CLASS would be for. Lets remember this isn't just 1 ship, and a full class.

now first, - star fleet doesn't BUILD warships. as well armed as this ship is, it isn't a true warship...

the true point actually appears when you look at whats placed in the saucer section and whats placed in the engineering hull. The saucer section has its own power generation, sensors, weapons, has its own hanger, cargo, transporters, everything. So, what if saucers were meant to be swapped.

Consider, if the enterprise was supposed to be a long endurance multi-mission cruiser. Where the Saucer sections were made to be modular, flown to a location, and left in orbit for weeks or even months to act as space stations. While the engineering section flew back and picked up another module.

Now picture if it had different saucer section configurations. Dedicated Colony Saucer, designed with more crew space, industrial replicators, and better landing systems to be dropped on a planet and act as the hub for a new colony.

Evacuation module, more transporters and hanger space, and extra life support with massive passanger cap.

combat module, extra power generation, weapons, torp launchers, turrets, shielding.

now imagine if these modules were designed to be "attached" to outposts too. so an outpost base might have 4 "hard points" and 4 different saucer sections could be flown out and dropped off... allowing for even larger bases to be quickly assembled.

A ship that could be quickly configured for different mission... with sections that could be left in orbit for months or even years... seems far more likely for what the enterprise was.

The problem then becomes... cost... model cost... Since they were using large models and splitting and changing would have been a pain and cost a ton for the show.

I like this theory.

Thank you very much for this wonderful video! Live long and prosper! 🖖

Maybe those sentry drones were protecting the home world of the aliens from ST:TNG S1E25 "CONSPIRACY". They were just discovered at the far edge of Federation space...

Yeah, I mean... after that ECHenry video, I realise that I and most people, even those that worked on TNG, didn't truly understand how stupidly massive this ship was.

to be honest, I was not impressed with the performance of this class of ships in the war against the Dominion. flying hotels are anything but flying fortresses.

I'd rather not take my wife and children with me on a mission where they could get killed or captured. I always thought that was the dumbest thing about TNG. Every red alert would have me fearing for my family.

disney cruise ship

how does size matter in space. i hate when the crew is always astonished of the size of the romulsns, or that starship dreadnought thing in JJ's flick

the idea of sending children and civilians out to deal with the deadly alien artifacts or even just the monster of the week is bonkers and unethical.

I thought the Galaxy Class ships would be troop transports for the Dominion War. 😂

this 20 minute infomercial has nothing to do with Star Trek.

I’ve always considered the Galaxy class to be the new “5-year mission” ship that addressed the downsides of the Constitution - namely no families and limited crew entertainment facilities. But by the time the ships were built (let’s not forget the Enterprise was the first with families - Galaxy was a testbed and Yamato was the first in deep space) the 5-year mission was a) put on hold for the Enterprise because there were other pressing needs for the “flagship” and b) wholly cancelled by the Dominion War.

I wanna watch this galaxy x show !

It’s a show of strength :) if you’re going to unkown civilizations your going to bring everything you need to survive I mean really are you going to take a humvie on an expedition, no your going to take an unassuming vessel that can bring it’s own army to bear it’s like . When Tng enterprise shows up the enemy is like hey there’s a shinny ship I’m going to try and take it . And Jean Luc Picard like any Roman / British gentleman/ general is like , let’s talk but let’s be ready to destroy them if they decide to f around and find out .

Watching Voyager, I remember thinking, “Gee, they’re stuck in this tiny ship on the far side of the GALAXY. Wouldn’t it have been convenient if a GALAXY class ship had gone instead? It seems like it was literally built to circumnavigate the Galaxy.”

I always thought the galaxy class was like a flying city and would have had a high passenger turn over. I also thought it could have been used for colonization with its high passenger capacity and saucer separation.

An alternative explanation might be that the Galaxy class were designed for an era of rapid Federation colonial expansion, since the Galaxy class is the first line of ships that could comfortably transport thousands of passengers and their cargo very long distances. Maybe Starfleet wanted to expand the Federation's colonial reach to new worlds rapidly, and wanted well-armed transports to take people there.

I don't know that 'expensive' is a Federation planet's consideration. But, the configuration and scale and essssspecialllly unused personnel capacity is very very interesting. Begs these questions and more, for sure. Also? These graphics, particularly the clean and realistic look of the phaser-fire... it's all very excellent.

Potentially they could be generation(!) Ships sent out to explore and colonise distant systems expanding the Federation away from Romulan, Klingon and Cardassian space. As you say the Borg probably changed this maybe even Q did.

Let’s say the uss galaxy goes off on a five year mission in deep space like the core or beyond the rim. Its escort could be a pair of nebula class. They could encounter all sorts of strange things. Resulting in the loss of the escorts and maybe a lot of wear on the galaxy class itself. Maybe the crew has to swap thier galaxy with a mirror universe version at some point. Maybe Captain Worf is sent to recover the Iss. Galaxy? You could tell a great story. Lost ship found but, you need an expert on its class and to bring her home safely and secretly.

Isnt this what the G was for esp with it attack ship

You know the Yamato was destroyed.

The galaxy class was designed for versatility. It could be overhauled into whatever it needed to be as the situation in the galaxy changed. Unfortunately, the default config was kind of jack of all trades, master of none. This didn't wash in the dominion war, so it was mothballed after a fairly short service life and replaced by a fleet of other more specialized ships.

The Galaxy class is a power flex.

Very interesting. In some ways it doesnt make sense but it does make for great TV!

The canon TNG Technical Manual explains the Galaxy Class ships were designed to be 100 year vessels with refits and major upgrades every 15 to 30 years. Additionally, approximately 35% of their internal volume was left purposely empty for future expansion and mission specific uses.

There is another explanation for the size, power and luxury of the enterprise D, soft power and intimidation.

When making first contact with other civilisations, the federation wants to look both desirable and intimidating. The galaxy class fits that purpose

? Purpose of a galaxy isn’t that complex.

It’s no different than the intro to TOS.
A five year journey to go explore and return.


Zzzz. Galaxy class have been flag ships many times.

It was a cruise ship, with weapons. Probably the worst usage of empty space ever. 800 people, with giant amounts of empty space. Keep in mind that a modern aircraft carrier, witch is about the size of TOS 1701…. Has 5000 people on it… and planes….

One could say it was a troop transport, but the accommodations are too posh. Maybe a 2nd line, colonization vessel, housing diplomats, and colonists. But that’s really again..

…just a cruise ship….

Maybe that's where the Ambassador class ships all went to.