And in TOS there was a ship the USS Intrepid crewed entirely by Vulcans in The Immunity Syndrome. Never seen on screen as it was destroyed the large amoeba creature at the start of the story.
Species segregation on star ships makes lots of sense when you take into account environmental needs. Andorians and Vulcans would murder each other over the thermostat.
@Joel Smith Who says the Borg are not racist? I recall 7o9 saying stuff as: "That makes for good combat drones" and stuff like that. The Borg utilize species based on their species traits only. That is one of the most racists things you could do, as The Borg (sounds Swedish) would never allow an individual to grow beyond it's potential, they are the ultimate generalizers based on DNA. And when you are not useful anymore to the collective, the overall goal, you are discarded. The Borg are the ultimate racists. Species good for battle? Make it a battle drone. Species good for computation? Make it a computational drone. Seriously the Borg are racist to the ultimate core. I'd say the Borg are the ultimate racist communists.
Real earth ships at least ocean bound ships contain concrete in there hulls. Star ships could...? the Queen Marry in LA has tons of exposed concrete visible all over the ship.
@@optimuscprime Yep. its a good way to make bulkheads and connecting walls & such. Its incredibly strong. Thinking of it now; wouldn't concrete be much more stable in a zero-g environment? It wouldnt be fighting itself with its own weight like with skyscrapers & such.
@@JamesTTierce It (concrete) from a radiation stand point may be useful as shielding? The two thing my science teacher said stopped radiation was lead and concrete? Space is full of radiation. Its a far fetched theory. But plausible.
Won't they have to do that for every sci-fi show, for I think even Star Wars ships suffer from exploding console, along with a loss of gravity to send crewmembers flying when given a few bad hits?
I believe Vulcan-crewed ships came up as an issue because the Romulan hospital they set up on Bajor's moon was refusing to treat them due to cultural animosity. I wouldn't be surprised if ships crewed entirely by one species was fairly common even though mostly human crews integrated with other species was still the majority.
Biggest flaw? Keeping the freaking holodeck running and open to crew for recreation when it either almost destroys the ship or kills someone every other week. Not to mention the time they casually created an artificial life form capable of commandeering the ship through a slip of the tongue, and then sentenced him to eternity in digital prison for wanting to be a real boy.
The times the holodeck causes major issues are almost numerous. Remember Reginald Barclay taking over the ship when he got super smart? I'm almost surprised that DS9 was not taken over by one of Quarks holodeck Orion slave girl programs. Seeing Quarks redlight disctrict programs seem to be running so often. No, we needed the "smart" holoprogram Vic to become the smart holo character, singing old songs no body likes but a wheeping Worf.... Darn! What a waste of potential story writing. ;-D
I love the last clause in your comment. I always thought that episode was a perfect example of the writers writing themselves into a corner. They didn’t really improve it on their second try when they sentenced him to a miniaturized matrix. You really think Moriarty won’t figure out what they did to him? I think he should come back and blow The Enterprise to hell with khan like gusto.
I always thought their biggest flaw was putting the command crew in the bulls-eye of a circle, instead of putting them in a more protected area deeper in the ship.
To be fair, Nog was made an officer in a time of war. If anything, two years seems excessively long. For comparison, the United States Navy's V-7 program produced ensigns in as little as eight months during the Second World War. I find Kelvin Kirk's jump from Cadet to Captain much less plausible.
Well the kelvin timeline equates rank with billet some how. Captain of the ship is a captain, if you get an xo slot your a commander. If you run a space station or are insane you get to be an admiral. Everone else just picks pips out of a bucket.
"I find Kelvin Kirk's jump from Cadet to Captain much less plausible." On a technicality no less. An extremely illogical one. Spock, the acting captain, steps down because he loses control of his emotions, and therefore Kirk replaces him. But Kirk was already in trouble for prior shenanigans. Literally ANYONE else on the bridge crew, such as Sulu or Uhura, would have been a more logical choice.
The lack of Vulcans and other aliens on Starfleet ships can be attributed to three things: 1) Costume budget, Star Trek was always a B budget series and had to limit how much was spent on creature design. This can be clearly seen in the animated series, where aliens are much cheaper to add and consequently the Enterprise picked up 2 additional alien crewmen and encountered more imaginative alien species. 2) Differences in culture, just because two species are allied doesn’t mean they see eye to eye on what their mission should be. Vulcans, for example, tend to avoid joining Starfleet because they view it as too militaristic and prefer to serve on Vulcan science vessels such as the ones in TNG’s Reunification episodes. By contrast the Klingon’s intensely honor based culture and use of violence as a means of problem solving means they’d have difficulty assimilating into Federation ships. 3) Differences in environmental conditions, in the original series it’s established that Vulcan is quite a bit warmer than Earth and that while Spock can tolerate the Enterprise’s temperature he finds it chilly. Other species have even more extreme environmental needs and may be better served on ships made for their species.
Casanova Frankenstein please remind me how Discovery did that. I can’t honestly remember. I do remember they did a lousy job in Season 2 explaining why Season 1 Klingons were bald
My Bridge crew consists of Mostly Humans, Two Male Klingons, and a Trill. I did have a Vulcan but she died. I also had a Bolian, but she was transferred to Engineering.
cqtaylor Utility belt my dude. Besides, the only people that would NEED pockets are red shirts and we all know Starfleet doesn’t want to waste fabric on their meat shields
"To his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat behind him in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys, watch, matches, pencil-case-all that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes the many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the inferior one-pocketed or no-pocketed productions that hop or trip about permissively, unequipped for the real contest." - Kenneth Grahame, "The Wind in the Willows"
@@gregknight1989 Exactly. And even leaving aside the moral issues and the threat of rebellion, non-sapient machines don't need to be fed or watered, don't need to sleep or have other periods of down time, don't get tired and make mistakes as a result, don't need hostile environment or vacuum suits, and aren't as vulnerable to hard radiation - all of which would be huge advantages when it comes to constructing large spacecraft in orbital facilities.
@@gregorygreenwood-nimmo4954 Machines do need down time, but only when they break down (Trust me production machine always break down) the upside is that all you need is a good engineer and spare part
@@gregknight1989 A small professional engineering corp dealing with machine breakdowns sounds much cheaper and more manageable than the large contingent of slavers (to find and capture the slaves), slave masters (to force the salves to work) and extensive security (to counter possible slave rebellions) that a slave system would require.
Or to put it from a sociopath's perspective. Its a lot easier to get people to do stuff for you when they like you. Diplomacy and good rep are actually one of the Federation's greatest resources. Helped out some rando stranger that's about to drift into the sun? Turns out it was the niece of some dignitary from a civilization you haven't met yet . Their culture is so impressed by your unexpected altruism that they want to be friends. Because they like the idea of strangers that are willing to help them out in their hour of need. They find out your entire government is built upon this very philosophy and want to join and then share their technology with you. Expansion through friendship is a very efficient and effective strategy that gets scoffed at by too many edgelords and shortsighted fools.
@@valen9835 Star trek economy is basically everyone does whatever they want. Internally, there are no markets, no money, you do work for fun, if at all.
The USS Intrepid (NCC-1631) was a 23rd century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet. This ship was crewed entirely by Vulcans. (TOS: "The Immunity Syndrome")
There are also all Andorian ships in the federation, though they don't appear to be similar to most federation cruisers in design. They do carry the USS prefix though. It's probably safe to assume Tellarites and all other federation members have a small fleet of their own, even if it's a single warp capable starship like the Phoenix (since only warp capable species are considered for first contact, a carryover from contact with Vulcans). Picard mentions (in Insurrection I think?) the federation being nearly desperate to make first contact with species after the Borg engagements and losses, just before hosting a delegation on diplomatic first contact aboard the Enterprise.
Andorians prefer colder climates, so it makes sense for them to have dedicated ships. Tellarites are rude to everyone, except maybe for that bounty hunter with beef against Miss.
Don't forget the standard "Thank you sir may I have another" maneuver which involves letting the enemy fire at you for a while and then deciding to do something
The USS T'Kumbra was a 24th century Federation Nebula-class starship operated by Starfleet. In the 2370s, the T'Kumbra was under the command of Captain Solok. The T'Kumbra had an all-Vulcan crew, similar to the USS Intrepid and USS Hera, which also had predominantly Vulcan crews. The Miranda and Excelsior class ships were far older than the relatively modern Nebula class. You mentioned the mostly-human bridge crews of the Enterprise D/E and Voyager, but you neglected to mention that Voyager had a half-Klingon chief engineer in the form of B'elanna Torres.
tba113 it's a funny thing about promotions, by the time Voyager got back home Harry Kim had to salute the kid working behind the bar when they left DS9. Poor dumb Harry
I do agree that the lack of dedicated warships and cloaking devices are major flaws, but I will say this; Starfleet has found ways to detect cloaked ships, thus I feel they neutralize that flaw. For example, in The Undiscovered Country, the Enterprise-A and Excelsior destroy General Chang's prototype Klingon Bird-of-Prey by finding the exhaust pipes on the ship. Picard later organizes a blockade along the Klingon-Romulan Border to detect any Romulan ships giving aid to the House of Duras against Gowron. Cloaking Devices were a major advantage, but one that the Federation learned to do without.
Which doesn't mean they wouldn't have been incredibly useful. Yes the Federation found ways to detect them _when they knew they were there_ , but who knows how many times cloaked Romulan ships crossed the border to spy on the Federation? They're okay for sneak attacks, but absolutely awesome for espionage purposes.
Well, they didn't really find Chang's Bird of Prey's "exhaust pipes", rather Spock and McCoy modified a torpedo with a device that is normally is used in probes to detect space gasses.
The main disadvantage of cloaking technology is the energy drain. When you uncloak you no shields and no weapons. A fast enough detection will obliterate an cloaking vessel.
Ahhh.. but Starfleet is based in San Francisco and so is judged by American standards. In America, one is racist if they fall short of an ever evolving ideal. Other countries, cultures and planets simply have their own ways of doing things, which should be accomodated and respected.
Ha yes... like trying to get "Tour of Duty" on DVD. I think you actually have a very good IRL point here. The "Tour of Duty" series had so much popular music, it was impossible, too expensive, to get it out on DVD with the all the original popular music. Great point! I never thought off that!
I also like to believe that in the future there is so much more leisure time that people have all day to experience complex literature and music, unlike our rushed, hectic society.
And we can't forget the SHEER STUPIDITY of beaming down the ENTIRE senior command crew to a possibly hostile environment every week! OG series: Kirk, Spock, Bones, McCoy, and Sulu beam down to a planet or Next Gen': Picard, Ryker, Geordi, Data, Crusher! So in the event of a catastrophe you lose, in ONE fell swoop: The Captain, 1st Officer, Chief Medical, Navigator, Science Officer and possibly your Communications Officer or Chief Engineer! Who does this? Oh, and a Red Shirt, LOL! Old Joke time! Stormtrooper fires at a Red Shirt: He misses, Red Shirt STILL dies!
Actually, that only in TOS that the ENTIRE command staff would beam down even in a hostile environment. In TNG and Voyager it rarely if ever happened. Riker wouldn't allow Picard to do it. I guess Tuvok lacked the guts to do the same with Janeway. Point is, you are wrong sir. TOS did it for dramatic effect in the 1960's, but TNG corrected that. Look again at TNG, Riker would NOT allow the entire command staff to beam down, leaving Picard back on the ship to rebuild his command staff if something happened.
mdyoung1971 interesting that they did set that limitation for themselves. It did make Picard seem awfully static at times-but Patrick Stewart made it work-and when P did beam down, it made things more dramatic, even if even then all he did was talk.
@@davidc.2878Yes he did make it work. But like I said, it was rare that he even left the ship. Riker wouldn't let him, and Riker was absolutely right in doing so. First officer, second officer, and chief engineer can all be replaced...if the captain survives. Yes, it would have been personally devastating for Picard, those people are easily replaceable. Captain's are not.
I agree somehow, but tv shows are about the main cast, not the redshirts. It would be weird if all away teams are redshirts only.. oh and 1st Officer on Voyager is Chakotay, not Tuvok.
@@nagash303 I know who the first officer was. Chakotay also must lacked the guts, or maybe those writers weren't in on the TNG writing. However, Tuvok had the closest relationship with Janeway in the early episodes, had he raised the alarm...she would have listened.
Yes and no. It made Starfleet aware of the Borg but also it made the Borg aware of Starfleet. The Borg were quite happy assimilating species in the delta quadrant when they were introduced. It was only after their meeting that they started moving towards the alpha quadrant as they now knew there was someone there to assimilate.
@@sonuvabitch Weren't the Borg already in the alpha/beta quadrant by the season one finale? They were the ones removing colonies from Federation and Romulans planets which resulted in the Romulans coming out from hiding. Plus In the Enterprise episode with the Borg, before being blown up their ship sent a signal to the delta quadrant that would reach them around that time.
@@TheHulksternator The Borg were capable of travelling very fast if they knew where they wanted to go. Maybe they would have been there anyway, but maybe not.
@@Larsi1997 Yes and they sent a signal to the delta quadrant back to the collective that would have reached them around season 1 of next gen making them know something of interest is out there and then travel to where they collected the missing colonies.
Surprised you didn't talk about how bad the ships are structurally. Not only is the bridge in the open(although MUCH less obviously then in Star Wars) but somehow they managed to find a way to make the reactor and engines extremely obvious targets as well. Hell, they can literally be hit FRONTALLY, and somehow they are meant for space combat? Not to mention that their engines s are being held by flimsy pilons that can easily resultt in their engines being shorn clean off. How anyone thinks these things could survive in combat is beyond me. Hell, even getting around the ship must be a nightmare with how segmented and separated everything is from one another.
Funny thing is the ships designers always wanted to put it inside but producers basically said nope it has to look cool. Besides their ships have such a strong emphasis on shielding that it does not matter too much. Basically if they get through the shields they are fucked, but the shields are extremely powerful. We see phasers one shotting even large ships easily.
The thing with Sisko's family is made even worse when you realize that the Federation had hours if not DAYS to prepare for the battle and NEVER THOUGHT TO EVACUATE THEIR FAMILIES! As for the Vulcans, in DS9 there was an all Vulcan crew of a starship in one of the episodes.
That "all vulcan" ship thing is unclear, and probably refers to the senior crew only, given how Sisko usually refers to them only when he talks about "his crew". Also, it's quite obvious that the high relative proportion of humans is due to budget issues. And maybe also creativity, I hate how most aliens look like humans with terrible skin conditions
Yes. And then they were destroyed, which would certainly affect the demographics of Starfleet. Vulcans reproduce their numbers more slowly, and as a species tend more toward scientific and philosophic pursuits. Many have moral objections to serving in Starfleet. It adds up to a smaller group of people much less interested in quasi-military service.
13:20 Adm. Marcus was right about building warships. The Klingons were coming and Nero proved the Romulans were not to be taken lightly in any way. The real problem, in the that universe, was the one-sided "Peace at all costs" mentality of the Federation and Starfleet that forced Marcus to prepare BEHIND their backs. A ship like the Vengeance would be developed without undue restraint and debuted proudly before the Federation. As it was, Marcus had to keep it secret or the Federation (not Starfleet) would have the Vengeance star scuttled in heartbeat. If nothing else, Starfleet would have been prepared for war, with ships that could very decidedly win. Adm. Marcus was right and if the Federation let him prepare for war, not go to it but be ready for it if it came, 90% of the crap that hit the UFP would never have happened. Why would it when everyone knows Starfleet absolutely can and almost wants to kick their asses. The lack of and effective offensive/defensive force robs Starfleet and teh Federation on one seriously important thing, respect. It is easier to negotiate a peace when war is not a working option. Teh Federation is regularly behind this 8-ball and refuses to come out from behind it because...? Adm. Marcus was not the bad guy in this the Federation was. They forced him to take actions that would not be necessary, and so not done, like teaming up with Khan, if they would let Starfleet do its real job, defend the Federation. That includes building ships that can win a fight and walk home confidently from it.
You are mostly correct however remember Nero was from the future of a different timeline. As such he, his crew and ship weren't really representative of the Romulans of that timeline.
Nero's ship wasnt a mining ship? So it's like a upgunned cargo ship with some guns could beat the coast guard, if Nero was able to back in time what would prphibit someone else to do it? What about an unkown yet civilization(like the Borg) finding Earth
@@nahuelleandroarroyo someone didn't pay a lot of attention to the film. Nero wasn't the one responsible for him,his crew and ship traveling back in time. That was Ambassador Spock who ignited some red matter that created a blackhole in order to try and prevent Romulus and Remus from being destroyed by a supernova. The black hole somehow allowed them to travel back in time on accident.
Marcus also wanted to START a war with the Klingons. He used the Enterprise as a pawn to do this but fortunately they saw through the scheme. When they bothered to check what the fuck they were firing, they knew something was fishy with their orders. Marcus was tired of peace and wanted the Federation to be aggressive, not just prepared. Prime timeline/universe Starfleet has always met each escalation of threat with the appropriate level of force and combat innovation, and never more than that. War is a last resort for them, not one of the first. When a new threat shows itself, Starfleet will adapt again.
Playing devil's advocate here for a minute, in the show the reason why the Federation spread and been so successful is that it is forward thinking and outward looking, rather than more closed minded, conservative and militaristic societies like the Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians. That is reflected in the more balanced design of its starships which have to be able to carry out scientific and long duration exploration missions, as well as be capable of combat.
Battle of Chin'toka. Two survived with one destroyed. Three advanced Akira classes were destroyed at Chin'toka with many other advanced ships destroyed, but Miranda survives. Just because we see two get hammered in Sacrifice of Angels, after taking massive punishment protecting the Defiant and then being hit by more than one of the largest ships in the Dominion, does not mean they are weak. If they were so bad they would not have been escorting, protecting, the Defiant. If any of you go back and watch all the battle scenes you will see more destruction of other classes yet in all fleet starbase scenes we see more Miranda class ships. Reliant got shot all to hell but Enterprise was still capable of threatening to send a boarding party. Enterprise D would have a warp core breach all the time with lesser damage.
@ValorJ Omega hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha It's funny you say that since it was Defiant who was fighting a rolling retreat at every defensive line at Sector 001. This fighting was constant and the Defiant kept on going until the accumulated damage was two great. Defiant is the best ship Starfleet ever produce. You simply don't like the god man that built her. Enterprise D is the Kirito of Starfleet. The ship is ridiculously over powered. The ship can also get sick. Defiant would eat an upgraded Miranda for breakfast just as the ate an upgraded Excelsior.
One of the worst flaws in Star Fleet is the Starship prefix codes. any enemy that gains access to one ship essentially gets the prefix codes for all vessels and can then control the defenses of those ships.
I can pick apart most of these arguments with little effort, but you leave out some extremely obvious ones that can't really be explained, like how easy it is for consoles to explode and just obliterate anyone nearby. Why is there that much power running behind every damn display?
There isn't. It's the tremendous power surge that sometimes occurs when a ship is hit with energy weapons. The same thing would occur to a city if it were to be hit with a powerful EMP; i.e.: things attached to the grid, like your refrigerator, stove, microwaves, even your lights, could explode.
we've got surge protectors and such things against lighning attacks ... Surely they must have something similar in a universe where energy weapons are standard ? Especially when shields only last a few seconds ...
@snate56 You don't understand how the real world works... Real life isn't like TV or the movies. Things don't explode just because you shunt enough power to them. If you overload a lightbulb, the filament inside burns out and it's done. The glass doesn't shatter and embed in your eyeballs. Same is true for virtually every other electronic and electrical device we have. The biggest danger you have from overloading something is a fire. No explosion, just a fire.
@@snate56 thats not how a power surge works. and even if it was, fuses and strategic use of faraday cages would still fix the issue. a fuse works by physically breaking connections so that energy cant flow. as for where that energy goes now that it cant reach the console? without infrastructure for handling it, it would dissapate as heat, which means, worst case scenario, you'd probably have some fires (but not explosions), however they could design dedicated rails that could redirect that energy to anywhere they want (in modern electronics this is usually the ground). frankly, the ease with which we can redirect and control the flow of energy is why energy weapons will never really catch on. for example, many large buildings in big cites are covered in lightning rods to redirect lightning strikes to ground. these protect all manner of sensitive antenna and communications equipment on those same rooftops. you also mentioned EMP weapons, but we actually already know how to defend against those as well, although due to costs, and lack of demand, those defenses are currently mostly only found in high level military grade equipment, but if they ever did show up being used in a military capacity of significant force, we could theoretically adapt the rest of our systems to harmlessly redirect, or even harness, that energy. as another example, even many consumer electronics are able to protect themselves from pretty significant forces. several years back, our house was hit by a lightning strike. all of the electronic connections were fine, because they were protected, but we overlooked the phone lines, and the surge fried our DSL modem, followed by the router connected to it, and then everything connected to that... except my pc. our phones and my moms old prebuilt dell computer were all toast (only figuratively though, as there were no scorch marks on anything), but my mid-range custom gaming pc had special protections in its motherboard and only lost the port. even the controller was fine and since it had two ethernet ports, i continued to have internet through the second port on that computer for years to come (after we upgraded to surge protectors with ethernet, coaxial, and phone line connections, of course). in otherwords, even something as sensitive as a motherboard can defend itself against something as powerful as a lightning strike when properly designed. and the port didnt even go out with a "bang".
As in the old Royal Navy toast during the age of sailing ships..."To a bloody war and a sickly season"...when the military has to expand at the same time it is taking enormous war casualties a lot of people end up getting on the job training in roles they aren't prepared for.
True, and Nog wasn't an annoying little f*** like Wesley. He actually was a character I enjoyed when he got some time in the spotlight (Heart of Stone; Treachery, Faith, and the Great River, etc.). In his own right, he was competent and resourceful and got some cool character development along the way. As such, I don't question his promotions. Dude deserved it.
As the video points out Starfleet is not a purely military force, and most of its ships have a compromised design that has some military applications but also serves as science vessels, survey craft, and floating civilian communities in space. While pure military Starfleet ships exist, the preponderance of non-military ships leaves them at a disadvantage versus any adversary set up specifically for military engagements. But even more serious than that, Starfleet doesn't have the mindset of a pure military organisation.They don't think or act like soldiers, and seem to be seriously lacking in grit when things start to get desperate. Starfleet doesn't inculcate a mental fortitude or esprit de corps in its personnel that would enable them to hold the line when the blood and body parts really start flying. Add in the fact that most ship board Starfleet security personnel are armed only with sidearms and lack body armour, and their vessels are very vulnerable to boarding attacks, relying on force fields to try to contain enemy boarding parties, force fields that can be bypassed, overloaded, or disabled, which plays into the next issue Starfleet has. They are overwhelmingly reliant on their technology, but should that technology fail (due to unforeseen environmental factors, enemy action such as a cyber warfare attack, or for whatever other reason), Starfleet doesn't have much to fall back on. Despite the high level of in universe technical competency of many Starfleet officers (which often results in hilarious technobabble speeches delivered with commendably straight faces by various actors), the extreme technical complexity of their equipment will at the very least complicate any attempt at a hot fix in the midst of combat or other emergency situations. Sometimes, simpler is just better, if only for the increase in reliability. If your enemy has some technobabble particle weapon dampening field Mcguffin messing with your phasers, you might well be dearly wishing you just had a good, simple, old fashioned and particle dampener unaffected shotgun to hand. Similarly, if your foe has some total defence to ship scale phasers and proton torpedoes, a rail gun would come in rather handy. For the most part, their vessels also rely extensively on shielding for defence. Should those shields fail, their vessels typically have relatively little in the way of physical armour as a backup. And even where they do use armour, it is always some kind of technically complex, magnetically polarised smart armour of some kind, which itself is then open to being countered by cyber warfare attacks or loss of shipboard power. It is neevr just a good thickness of hyperdense physical armour that will pretty much always work no matter what. Should their hulls be breached, they tend to rely on structural force fields to maintain structural integrity rather than bulkheads, which means that a severe loss of power including backups (perhaps caused by something like a weapon that drains power or sabotage by a boarding party) will leave the ship in truly dire straits, possibly unable to even maintain atmosphere. Starfleet vessels also don't have any dedicated point defence network to engage swarms of small, agile attack craft. While their phasers are accurate enough to serve in the role at a push and possess a good range of coverage, this still seems like a serious design oversight against any dedicated military fleet that makes extensive use of such attack craft, since it would be relatively easy for them to overwhelm the Starfleet vessel with massed squadrons that present too many targets for its limited number of phasers to engage simultaneously.
I love how every time Worf has to go beam down for an away mission, the turbolifts just magically open and some guy walks up to take his station over while he's gone! What, do they have cold storage lockers back there????
In short, the Federation's biggest flaws seem to stem from the very foundation of their existence. Namely, peace and exploration over all (including security), trust in others and honor/integrity above safety and survival. Not defending Earth is completely unforgivable, though, especially after the first Borg Cube.
I want to point out that according to most source books I've read: due to varying environmental and cultural needs Star Fleet and the federation as a whole actually found it easier to staff ships with most crew being from a specific species for that ship. Any crew members not of that species who were transferred to those ships typically volunteered for the assignment to learn about that species and how they operate ships under their command by direct observation. Though there were also ships crewed by a wide mix of species.
I'm surprised to see Section 31 on this. Sure they caused a few problems, but a lot of what they did helped to circumvent other problems. Take the Vengeance for instance, it was a dedicated warship decades before the Defiant would be constructed (though granted they exist in two separate timelines). Additionally, the Founders virus was genius, and frankly would have led to total victory over the Dominion had Federation ideals not got in the way.
There was a constitusion class ship in starfleet that was crewed entirely by vulcans, over 400 in the crew. It was lost in the TOS episode "The immunity Syndrome"
Federation had dedicated warships by the time of the Battle of Sector 001. Sovereign, Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Defiant were preasent that we saw (we did not see the whole fleet involved, just what was left that fell back to the last fallback point). But the point is that the Federation was definitely integrating dedicated warships into their fleets well into the Dominion War timeline.
There was that thing about all-vulcan crews that was mentioned in "Take me out to the Holosuite" where Sisko's academy rival challenges him to a baseball game with his all-vulcan team from his all-vulcan crew.
They aren't really a military fleet though. They are more similar to...a police or guard force. A peacekeeping force. In addition, they are not a strict navy. They have numerous other functions, intelligence, etc... They shouldn't be in the space navy series, which is examining raw military forces, while Starfleet is a peacekeeping force meant to ensure a peaceful galaxy.
That's like saying the Blue beret are not like a military force because they are peace keepers. If you're going to be in combat you should be prepared for it and take as many precautions as you can
The issue is that Star Trek is a massive scifi space faring civilization, and during the Klingon and Romulan wars, functioned as an active military force. So you really cant claim that they dont function as a military force, or at minimum, a paramilitary force. Now you could make the claim that the main focus of Starfleet is exploration and science, but again, while not mainly a military force they still function as one when needed.
Riddle me this. If Starfleet is not a military, why do they have trial by court marshal? Which is a MILITARY tribunal? Starfleet is simply what would happen if NASA absorbed the US Military. Explorers first, but when the fecal matter hits the rotor blades, they are the boots on the ground fighting the war. Not like in the Dominion War Starfleet stepped aside for the Federation Navy.
They are a military fleet. That is also a exploratory force, a security force, a peacekeeping force and a emergency aid organization. They also do diplomacy sometimes. But they are a military.
@@XMysticHerox Fun fact. The US Military does more than just going places and blowing things up. US Navy oceanographic command. US Army Corps of Engineers do a lot of other things. Marine Expeditionary Units do a lot of Humanitarian Assistance jobs. But doesn't make front page news because not as sexy as blowing shit up.
KhaosByDesign UK Too bad the Terrans were all homicidal, genocidal and treasonous. But Star Trek needs the most relatable humans to all be a bunch of pricks.
@@bernieeod57 Worship 🤣 definitely not, I work in a hospital with a number of military wards so I know how fucked up shit can get. But in the context of a video series comparing the military strength of various fictional factions, I figured saying a faction with a better military is the better faction; again in the context of the video in case you were struggling to keep up.
@@bluenight104 Yeah Terrans are cool and all for purpose of comparing military stuff with other factions but definitely not a group you'd want to be anywhere near, at any time.
One of the Next Generation Novels I read back in the day stated that Star Fleet did in fact have single species ships other than humans. It specifically mentions at least one ship crewed entirely by Vulcans.
By the 24th century, there was no need for warships. The universe was a safe and wondrous place full of friendly aliens and exciting adventures to be had. The vast Federation were powerful and comprised of most of the known galaxy. Humans were peaceful, evolved and optimistic. At least, that was the Gene Roddeberry vision. After his death, the Federation was changed into a smaller, weaker, flawed faction among many, with the Star Trek universe becoming dark and dangerous, turning the idea of starships that carry families into a ridiculous one. By 1997, the 24th century human had de-evolved into a person not all that different to someone from the 20th century. The Orville continues where the Gene Roddenberry universe left off.
Meh some of those wouldn’t exists if budget limitations wasn’t a thing (ex. # of aliens). I also think Nog’s rise in rank could be attributed to wartime (look at the civil war or ww2 how quickly some people rose in rank), there’s no excuse for Wesley though. Section 31 makes sense in terms of why the paradise ideal of the federation wasn’t subverted but it is also the most problematic for that ideal. The various ethics playing out on Trek is interesting and I know some papers were written on the subject.
There was a Federation ship that was manned by nothing but Vulcans. The U.S.S. Intrepid (Connie Class), from the TOS episode "The Immunity Syndrome". I think too in DS9 there was mention of other ships being manned mostly by Vulcans.
I think one of their biggest flaws is lack of imagination when it comes to weapon concepts despite coming into contact with numerous species who are far more advanced they never seem to learn anything new from these encounters and the weapon systems ( while upgraded in some cases ) stay the same with phasers and Photon Torpedoes and no other attempt at any kind of new weapons system so I'd say innovative thinking is one of the major flaws in star fleet at least when it comes to weapon systems.
@@fuckologic1202 Actually there are many such as able to call a lot of reliable allies, many different weapons and technology that make a lot of what others navies depend on obsolete, well design multi-role combat and utility ships, highly trained officers, high level of adaptation and innovation, and EST. For example, their main weapon, phaser arrays is such a precise and powerful weapon that render fighters useless unless used in major fleet movements in the thousands. As every starship in Star Trek can shot them down in seconds before they even get in range to engage in mass numbers while also being capable to destroy capital ships. While replicators pretty much end the need for supply chains that other factions depend on and can operate years without stopping for supplies. Hell, even Warp Drive, while slower, has so many advantages compared to others for they are not limited by anything but very specific and rare particles instead of say gravity or FTL itself, and can do precise hit and run attacks from any direction.
@@raw6668 That's quite an article you wrote there sir... I guess you won the discussion, as I have nothing to back my claim xd I don't know much about the ST universe, so I'll have to trust you on this one
@@raw6668 also shields, wide mode phaser, immunity to lasers and conventional weapons. phasers can easily destroy a planet with a single hit. holograms can be projected on the outside of the ship to generate holographic ships, and those ships can actually shot photonic weapons that would do damage.
@@jesusmora9379 Phasers are super powerful... when plot demands it. 99.99% of the time, they are not capable to destroy a planet. This happened in TOS, basically, that's about it. Conventional weapons are effective. What are phasers mind you? The basic weapon in this universe, alongside disruptors and plasma based weapons (Borg, Ferengi, Romulans). So no, shields are not impervious to conventional weapons, not at all. Lasers? Writers thought they would be phased out in the future, because they underestimated their potential. They only had knowledge of their time. With today's technology we can build facilities housing lasers that are able to simulate nuclear explosions. We are developing and building it right now. Just imagine future ship mounted lasers. And yes, they were in use in the 23rd century (TOS), and rather powerful as handguns. They were phased out on United Earth ships in early 22nd century though.
There are entirely Vulcan crews/ships. In the DS9 episode ‘Take me out to the ballgame” (I think that’s what it’s called) Sisko challenges his nemesis, a Vulcan Starfleet Captain, to a game of baseball. The Vulcan’s team consists of his bridge crew, all of whom are Vulcans. This is probably the same for other major Federation species like the Andorians and the Tellarites.
The Federation wouldn't need slave labor to increase their industrial base. They possess incredible automation potential. If anything, their capacity to industrialize and automate would actually render slave labor a liability to productivity. A big flaw with a great many of their ships was their integrated systems. It can provide a short term benefit in terms of efficiency but if their ships had been built based on modular layouts and configurations, They could be built more quickly and upgraded more readily. Standardized production lines also allow for more standardized engineering courses thus allowing trained maintenance personnel to be more readily available. My biggest problem with the Federation is there over consolidation of power in Starfleet. They should have no fewer than 5 distinct organizations serving the Federation. In addition to Starfleet, they should have a dedicated military(MACO), a police service, an infrastructure service, and an emergency response service just to name a few. For a society that claims to value liberty and, they sure aren't that big on the division of power.
A C K T U A L L Y... Starfleet designs are relatively modular. Sure you can't just go around swapping saucers and nacelles but on board systems can be relatively easily swapped out at shipyards for refits etc .This goes even further with stuff like the Nebula and Miranda classes with the former's multi mission pod, and the latter's "rollbar".
@@inventor121 That's hardly standard practice. The ship's almost always lack any semblance of uniformity. They seem to have a very hard time building them with any modicum of efficiency. That would imply a lack of modular production lines. They are inexcusably inefficient.
I think that is the most baffling of all. Ok, so you can't use cloaking tech ... big deal. Add a big radar dish, to your space stations develop sonar equivalent ...
"could of reversed" - Looks like you are about as competent in reverse-engineering the English language as the Federation was in reverse-engineering cloaking technology.
9. In the TOS era, the average crew complement of a Constitution class starship was roughly 430, MOST OF WHOM WERE RED SHIRTS (engineering, maintenance, and general ship operations), and only a small portion of them were dedicated security personnel. So, given the crew size and distribution of positions, you were actually statistically more likely to survive a given mission if you wore a red shirt just based on sheer numbers.
When you talked about the cloaking device of the defiant and it's use in the gamma quadrant, you showed a map and highlighted the delta quadrant. The Gamma Quadrant is actually the top-left one.
I think that they did not feature more recent music was mostly a copyright issue. Certainly the Starfleet would knew the artistic value of bands like AC/DC, Queen and Die Ärzte.
I always felt that most sci-fi settings were stingy with their fleet sizes , even starwars. Warhammer 40k had a much better representation of both population and fleet sizes.
For some reason I always thought Siskos wife was still alive but trapped and seriously injured, though not conscious, which made it even harder for him to leave her behind. But its been a very long time since I watched that episode.
There are full vulcan crewded ships. Its mentiond in books. Micheal Burhnam and Spock wantwd to be on one of those at a time but the vulcans didnt liked them.
Yes there are all Vulcan ships. See the Vulcan baseball team Sisko and the Niners played against. Also, the Vulcan ship that Odo asked to transport his prisoner and prisoner's daughter to Vulcan.
Wolf 359 was a hard lesson for Starfleet indeed, but one needs to keep in mind that it hadn't faced an enemy of that magnitude before, One borg Cube is a much larger threat then a Klingon Fleet which had been the worst the Federation had faced up to that point, also seeing that the Earth Romulan War was Pre-Federation (and would've been the next season of Enterprise), to understand the Disaster of Wolf 359 one needs to understand that the Federation has had so far only Equal or Slightly superior foes, and up until the Dominion War not had a war that required the total mobilization of the Federation, (leaving out STD for I'm not even sure What the hell they're trying to accomplish and besides would require a rewrite of TOS>Voyager Lore), The Tactics and general doctrine of Attack of Fleet based operations at the time of Wolf 359 was Line tactics in which wave upon wave got released upon the Cube making the numerical advantage void, all due to the minimization of the risk of Friendly fire, something that got abandoned directly after the analysis of the disaster in favor of massed firepower to overwhelm the Cube. on the point of Generation Starships one does need to remember that Starfleet hasn't been at War for a Long time, they've had skirmishes but nothing that would truly endanger their ships, and the tenant was that those Generation Starships would be out there in the void for in excess of 5 Years doing a mission of exploration and only after Wolf 359 it truly resonated throughout the Federation that there are things out there that goes bump in the night that are truly terrifyingly powerful requiring ships made for the sole purpose of taking care of military threats
Voron Agrrav you forgot 1 tiny detail about Wolf 359. The commander of that Borg cube was none other than the borgified Capt. Jean Luc Picard. The same Picard who was the captain of Starfleet’s main flagship, Enterprise, which also meant that he knew all of the security codes and contingency plans!
@@michaelangelotinaza Well, that certainly was a Factor, but even without that Little would've changed, Over and Over We've seen just how vastly superior the Borg are, a Single Cube being enough to tie down almost All ships the Federation has, just to counter the threat,
Nog is one of the most dedicated cadets to ever join and his unique life experiences give him an advantage over many other officers. He was driven to be something better, something other than a bartender. How much he grew up starkly contrasted with how his best friend remained largely the same since they were children for a long time.
believe he was promoted through sheer dedication to doing his best, huge competency and experience - especially combat experience, of which he had more than most ensigns (he was always front lines), and lastly - he never failed once! i can't recall an instance of him ever not achieving his assigned task, regardless of difficulty. the ability to simply get the job done goes along way! add to that ensign was largely a learning rank and you were expected to get promoted out of it quickly anyway, wartime - where people get promoted quickly to fill the void of dead superiors, and promotions are based on experience and skill - not the length of time served in the role (starfleet is meritocracy), and fast promotion seems reasonable for anyone. p.s. - tongo teaches one sound strategy skills :P
@@mzk1489 Doesn't help that their first contact involved attacking the Stargazer. And then the next time they met was after the Ferengi stole from a Federation research station and lied about stealing. Then there's that time they attacked unprovoked again during a wargame. Then there's daimon Bok's elaborate scheme to get Picard to destroy the Enterprise. Then there's that time they hijacked the Enterprise with two Klingon bops. A pattern of bad behavior doesn't give a good reputation.
They had dedicated War ships prior to "Defiant",just not many as the purpose of Star fleet was exploration. They bring their families because they would be gone for years, even decades, possibly never to see home again.
Wasn't schlepping around the galaxy with your family in tow an idea Roddenberry trotted out for TNG? Very specifically for the Galaxy Class explorer ships? Certainly it wasn't a feature of Kirk-era Starfleet -- best you'd get there would be to have your family living on the planet-based Starbase your ship was based out of...
The tea-drinking, no music made after the 1950's thing is why I liked the party scene in Discovery season 1. In that scene wee see Starfleet officers actually having fun. They listen to modern(ish) music, drink and play silly party games. And Earth is indeed shown as virtually defenseless in canon. But in beta material it seems the situation was quite different. Sol was one of the most heavily guarded systems in the Alpha and Beta quadrants. There was a defense perimeter between Mars and Jupiter as well as a planetary defense system in Earth's orbit which included (if I'm not mistaking) even weapons platforms on the moon. Also, there was a very extensive array of monitoring stations along the Federation border so any breach is detected and ships would converge on the enemy's location from pretty much all directions. And think about it this way. The klingons and romulans were not always on friendly terms with the UFP. But they still never dared to send an attack force to Earth.
Star fleets ships and technologies are generally nothing special. It's the captain and crews that make these space wagons work. A Generation Tech crewed and British Ben captained N.C.C. 1701-X would be unstoppable. MAKE IT SO!
On the 'cloaking device helping Voyager' thing, cloaks tend to restrict the speed at which a ship can travel at, while cloaked a 24th Century Romulan D'deridex-class can't go higher that Warp 6. Given the fact that Voyager's ultimate goal was to get back to the Federation as quickly as possible, a cloak would have slowed them down. Assuming that Voyager would face the same limitations, as Warp 6 = 1.075 light-years per day - which I shall round down to 1 light-year a day, and Voyager had to go 70,000 light-years, the journey under cloak would take around 191.5 years
You would think that after Kirk and the others re-purposed that torpedo with the gaseous anomaly sensors Starfleet would've developed an entire arsenal of similarly equipped torpedoes specifically to combat cloaking! And Kirk did that a few HUNDRED years prior to TNG!
@@nurse425 Kirk needed that trick, because Klingon cloaking tech had evolved. It's likely that the arms race between cloaking tech and detection technology was still happening. Although they never did learn how to shoot while cloaked for some reason ... which is a bigger mystery, unless that was the one thing the Romulans weren't allowed to do.
@@NotTheStinkyCheese I think Kirk's cloak-seeking torpedo is the reason they ended the research into firing while cloaked. Because that ship still couldn't run cloaks and shields at the same time (power reasons). Thus, with a seeking torpedo, once the enemy knew you were there, you were a sitting duck. So the real cloaking utility remained in sneaking by undetected, or one free shot.
The "every officer above captain" flaw is hillarious. The first one that pops into my head is Clyde Klusatsu in "Measure of a Man." One thought I've had about TNG is :"What makes Entreprise's crew so unique that officers coming from other assignments always come off as weird and unreasonable to them?"
If they were smart they would only run porn program on the holodeck. That way if something goes wrong you just have horny porn stars. Or people slipping up and falling because the previous user didn't clean up afterwards.
the episode of the space ameba The Intrepid was roomered to have an almost entirely Vulcan crew we knew of this by word only as we never saw the ship physically
His first flaw is invalid, the treaty of Algeron prevented the federation from developing cloaking technology, and during TOS we would have only been warp capable for less than a century, so we wouldn’t have been able to make it then.
There is an all Vulcan Starship crew. And they play baseball. You can see them in Deep Space 9 ticking off Capt Sisko.
And in TOS there was a ship the USS Intrepid crewed entirely by Vulcans in The Immunity Syndrome. Never seen on screen as it was destroyed the large amoeba creature at the start of the story.
USS T'kumbra wasn't it?
@@srptr_w perhaps..
Thank you
There was a all vulcan crew in TOS that was lost when they encounter the amoeba
Species segregation on star ships makes lots of sense when you take into account environmental needs. Andorians and Vulcans would murder each other over the thermostat.
the Vulcans seem more tolerant of human conditions than any other species save the Klingons and Betazoids
In DS9 there was a ship with a full Vulcan crew, it was captained by an old rival of Sisko.
@@ILikeMyPrivacytbt Neat, didn't know that!
@@ILikeMyPrivacytbt Same with TOS, a Constitution class ship with an All Vulcan crew is destroyed in one episode.
@Joel Smith Who says the Borg are not racist? I recall 7o9 saying stuff as: "That makes for good combat drones" and stuff like that. The Borg utilize species based on their species traits only. That is one of the most racists things you could do, as The Borg (sounds Swedish) would never allow an individual to grow beyond it's potential, they are the ultimate generalizers based on DNA. And when you are not useful anymore to the collective, the overall goal, you are discarded. The Borg are the ultimate racists. Species good for battle? Make it a battle drone. Species good for computation? Make it a computational drone. Seriously the Borg are racist to the ultimate core. I'd say the Borg are the ultimate racist communists.
Major flaw, loading their walls with rocks that explode outwards whenever they are hit during a battle.
Ah a junkball fan I assume
Real earth ships at least ocean bound ships contain concrete in there hulls. Star ships could...? the Queen Marry in LA has tons of exposed concrete visible all over the ship.
Rocks. Rocks! RoCkS! ROCKS!
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCKS!
@@optimuscprime Yep. its a good way to make bulkheads and connecting walls & such. Its incredibly strong. Thinking of it now; wouldn't concrete be much more stable in a zero-g environment? It wouldnt be fighting itself with its own weight like with skyscrapers & such.
@@JamesTTierce It (concrete) from a radiation stand point may be useful as shielding? The two thing my science teacher said stopped radiation was lead and concrete? Space is full of radiation. Its a far fetched theory. But plausible.
You forgot the biggest flaw. The bridge stations exploded after taking a few hits. They need some sort of power surge protection system or something.
Ah. Don't be silly, each point on the hull directly coralates with a red shirts console. Its for population control. Duh
Its the drawback of using electro plasma to move power around the ship. Like using water to move heat energy.
Won't they have to do that for every sci-fi show, for I think even Star Wars ships suffer from exploding console, along with a loss of gravity to send crewmembers flying when given a few bad hits?
@@raw6668 i believe there are rocks in the ship that fall when hit as well
@@raw6668 I think you're confusing Star Wars with Disney Wars. I wouldn't confuse Star Trek with Discovery.
16:16 Wasn't there a DS9 episode where we see a Starfleet ship crewed entirely by Vulcans? And then the crew of DS9 play baseball against them?
You are correct sir. Season 7 episode 4.
Imagine if good ol' Bones was assigned to that ship.
The T'kumbra, which had an all Vulcan command staff, thanks to their bigoted captain. No mention about the rest of the crew, if I remember right.
Yes there were a few all Vulcan ships mentioned.
I believe Vulcan-crewed ships came up as an issue because the Romulan hospital they set up on Bajor's moon was refusing to treat them due to cultural animosity. I wouldn't be surprised if ships crewed entirely by one species was fairly common even though mostly human crews integrated with other species was still the majority.
Biggest flaw? Keeping the freaking holodeck running and open to crew for recreation when it either almost destroys the ship or kills someone every other week. Not to mention the time they casually created an artificial life form capable of commandeering the ship through a slip of the tongue, and then sentenced him to eternity in digital prison for wanting to be a real boy.
😂
The times the holodeck causes major issues are almost numerous. Remember Reginald Barclay taking over the ship when he got super smart?
I'm almost surprised that DS9 was not taken over by one of Quarks holodeck Orion slave girl programs. Seeing Quarks redlight disctrict programs seem to be running so often.
No, we needed the "smart" holoprogram Vic to become the smart holo character, singing old songs no body likes but a wheeping Worf.... Darn! What a waste of potential story writing. ;-D
I love the last clause in your comment. I always thought that episode was a perfect example of the writers writing themselves into a corner. They didn’t really improve it on their second try when they sentenced him to a miniaturized matrix. You really think Moriarty won’t figure out what they did to him? I think he should come back and blow The Enterprise to hell with khan like gusto.
The holodeck was the biggest mistake ever and ended up being nothing more than a series filler when they ran out of proper ideas!
I just comment this after watching the video ,,, lol u beat me 2 it though
I always thought their biggest flaw was putting the command crew in the bulls-eye of a circle, instead of putting them in a more protected area deeper in the ship.
If you ever work for those butt heads you would be very happy about the bullseye in the center of the ship.
Hey, a good view's not cheap.
@@ArtzFenix They didn't have front windows. They had viewscreens.
It's not as bad as the alien ships that had them right up front.
@@gedias1 From the Kelvin Enterprise it looks like the window serves double duty with a screen built in. Now that's some good tech.
To be fair, Nog was made an officer in a time of war. If anything, two years seems excessively long. For comparison, the United States Navy's V-7 program produced ensigns in as little as eight months during the Second World War.
I find Kelvin Kirk's jump from Cadet to Captain much less plausible.
Well the kelvin timeline equates rank with billet some how. Captain of the ship is a captain, if you get an xo slot your a commander. If you run a space station or are insane you get to be an admiral. Everone else just picks pips out of a bucket.
-J.J.'s kelvin timeline- Star Trek actually _sucks_ *_! ! !_*
Wish there was a modern "original type" *Kirk, Spock and Friends.*
"I find Kelvin Kirk's jump from Cadet to Captain much less plausible."
On a technicality no less. An extremely illogical one. Spock, the acting captain, steps down because he loses control of his emotions, and therefore Kirk replaces him. But Kirk was already in trouble for prior shenanigans. Literally ANYONE else on the bridge crew, such as Sulu or Uhura, would have been a more logical choice.
@@residentmemberofhell That's interesting, like the Soviet rank system before WWII showed how inefficient it is.
Yes, and the U.S. Army has produced them in 3 months, hence the term for OCS grads back in the day as "90 day wonders."
The lack of Vulcans and other aliens on Starfleet ships can be attributed to three things:
1) Costume budget, Star Trek was always a B budget series and had to limit how much was spent on creature design. This can be clearly seen in the animated series, where aliens are much cheaper to add and consequently the Enterprise picked up 2 additional alien crewmen and encountered more imaginative alien species.
2) Differences in culture, just because two species are allied doesn’t mean they see eye to eye on what their mission should be. Vulcans, for example, tend to avoid joining Starfleet because they view it as too militaristic and prefer to serve on Vulcan science vessels such as the ones in TNG’s Reunification episodes. By contrast the Klingon’s intensely honor based culture and use of violence as a means of problem solving means they’d have difficulty assimilating into Federation ships.
3) Differences in environmental conditions, in the original series it’s established that Vulcan is quite a bit warmer than Earth and that while Spock can tolerate the Enterprise’s temperature he finds it chilly. Other species have even more extreme environmental needs and may be better served on ships made for their species.
How about Some Aliens in Trek Look Like Humans on the Outside?
Casanova Frankenstein please remind me how Discovery did that. I can’t honestly remember. I do remember they did a lousy job in Season 2 explaining why Season 1 Klingons were bald
Read Star trek Titan, that ship had the most varied crew in star trek history,
My Bridge crew consists of Mostly Humans, Two Male Klingons, and a Trill. I did have a Vulcan but she died. I also had a Bolian, but she was transferred to Engineering.
Don't forget there was a star ship with an all Vulcan crew destroyed by the "space amoeba" I forget the name of the TOS episode.
Federation flaw for Starfleet? No pockets. How can you get things done without pockets!
cqtaylor Utility belt my dude. Besides, the only people that would NEED pockets are red shirts and we all know Starfleet doesn’t want to waste fabric on their meat shields
"To his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat behind him in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys, watch, matches, pencil-case-all that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes the many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the inferior one-pocketed or no-pocketed productions that hop or trip about permissively, unequipped for the real contest." - Kenneth Grahame, "The Wind in the Willows"
They had them on "Enterprise." Did we evolve to not need them anymore?!?
@@LuissenTheFox Anthropologists, Archeologists, and Botanists need pockets, and I've seen a fair amount of those on STTNG.
They had pockets. Geordi had one when he stowed a phaser at the time he was brainwashed.
Why would slave labour be necessary at all in a setting with more than enough technology to automate the construction process?
You're right, why use slaves that can/will rebel when you can use none sapient/sentient machines
@@gregknight1989 Exactly. And even leaving aside the moral issues and the threat of rebellion, non-sapient machines don't need to be fed or watered, don't need to sleep or have other periods of down time, don't get tired and make mistakes as a result, don't need hostile environment or vacuum suits, and aren't as vulnerable to hard radiation - all of which would be huge advantages when it comes to constructing large spacecraft in orbital facilities.
@@gregorygreenwood-nimmo4954 Machines do need down time, but only when they break down (Trust me production machine always break down) the upside is that all you need is a good engineer and spare part
@@gregknight1989 A small professional engineering corp dealing with machine breakdowns sounds much cheaper and more manageable than the large contingent of slavers (to find and capture the slaves), slave masters (to force the salves to work) and extensive security (to counter possible slave rebellions) that a slave system would require.
Or to put it from a sociopath's perspective. Its a lot easier to get people to do stuff for you when they like you. Diplomacy and good rep are actually one of the Federation's greatest resources. Helped out some rando stranger that's about to drift into the sun? Turns out it was the niece of some dignitary from a civilization you haven't met yet . Their culture is so impressed by your unexpected altruism that they want to be friends. Because they like the idea of strangers that are willing to help them out in their hour of need. They find out your entire government is built upon this very philosophy and want to join and then share their technology with you. Expansion through friendship is a very efficient and effective strategy that gets scoffed at by too many edgelords and shortsighted fools.
Biggest flaw: Uniforms that don't protect from the vacuum of space or basic knife attacks. So many lives lost...
you think if there's no money in starfleet they'd have the uniform be an eva suit, one of the many things that make you wonder how the economy works.
@@valen9835 Star trek economy is basically everyone does whatever they want. Internally, there are no markets, no money, you do work for fun, if at all.
The USS Intrepid (NCC-1631) was a 23rd century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet. This ship was crewed entirely by Vulcans. (TOS: "The Immunity Syndrome")
Geordie's mom was captain of the Hera with and almost entirely Vulcan crew. The Khutumbra was all vulcan
There are also all Andorian ships in the federation, though they don't appear to be similar to most federation cruisers in design. They do carry the USS prefix though. It's probably safe to assume Tellarites and all other federation members have a small fleet of their own, even if it's a single warp capable starship like the Phoenix (since only warp capable species are considered for first contact, a carryover from contact with Vulcans). Picard mentions (in Insurrection I think?) the federation being nearly desperate to make first contact with species after the Borg engagements and losses, just before hosting a delegation on diplomatic first contact aboard the Enterprise.
I believe it is in the Federation charter that each species is allowed to at least one ship that is exclusive crewed by the members of that species.
So this concludes the fact that vulcans were in fact racist.
Andorians prefer colder climates, so it makes sense for them to have dedicated ships.
Tellarites are rude to everyone, except maybe for that bounty hunter with beef against Miss.
Don't forget the standard "Thank you sir may I have another" maneuver which involves letting the enemy fire at you for a while and then deciding to do something
Based on experience, it would seem that any encounter with another ship or "entity" should be met with "Red Alert, shields up, ready all weapons."
I hated that. Shields would be down to 40% before the captain would decide to do anything.
The USS T'Kumbra was a 24th century Federation Nebula-class starship operated by Starfleet. In the 2370s, the T'Kumbra was under the command of Captain Solok. The T'Kumbra had an all-Vulcan crew, similar to the USS Intrepid and USS Hera, which also had predominantly Vulcan crews.
The Miranda and Excelsior class ships were far older than the relatively modern Nebula class.
You mentioned the mostly-human bridge crews of the Enterprise D/E and Voyager, but you neglected to mention that Voyager had a half-Klingon chief engineer in the form of B'elanna Torres.
Taking Points 8 and 9 together, Wesley's absurdly rapid promotion to a rank notorious for high death rates begins to make a lot of sense.
tba113 it's a funny thing about promotions, by the time Voyager got back home Harry Kim had to salute the kid working behind the bar when they left DS9. Poor dumb Harry
@@gargoyles9999 SFDebris take on Voyager's lack of character development, yes?
(I agree with that asessment, wholeheartedly, btw)
Shut up Wesley!!!
Brilliant observation!
@@gargoyles9999 I actually hope ST: Picard brings Harry Kim on board in season 3, and makes note that in the year 2402 or so he’s still an Ensign
I do agree that the lack of dedicated warships and cloaking devices are major flaws, but I will say this; Starfleet has found ways to detect cloaked ships, thus I feel they neutralize that flaw. For example, in The Undiscovered Country, the Enterprise-A and Excelsior destroy General Chang's prototype Klingon Bird-of-Prey by finding the exhaust pipes on the ship. Picard later organizes a blockade along the Klingon-Romulan Border to detect any Romulan ships giving aid to the House of Duras against Gowron. Cloaking Devices were a major advantage, but one that the Federation learned to do without.
Which doesn't mean they wouldn't have been incredibly useful. Yes the Federation found ways to detect them _when they knew they were there_ , but who knows how many times cloaked Romulan ships crossed the border to spy on the Federation? They're okay for sneak attacks, but absolutely awesome for espionage purposes.
@@GoranXII Probably why Section 31 invested so heavily in the technology.
Well, they didn't really find Chang's Bird of Prey's "exhaust pipes", rather Spock and McCoy modified a torpedo with a device that is normally is used in probes to detect space gasses.
The main disadvantage of cloaking technology is the energy drain. When you uncloak you no shields and no weapons. A fast enough detection will obliterate an cloaking vessel.
And you do realize Starfleet was working on phasing tech as a more advanced form of cloaking tech.
"starfleet is kinda racist"
Compared to every other species in the star trek universe who include ZERO interspecies crews.
Well, the Dominion was made of several species...
Klingons in STO have orions and nausicaans working for them
Ahhh.. but Starfleet is based in San Francisco and so is judged by American standards. In America, one is racist if they fall short of an ever evolving ideal. Other countries, cultures and planets simply have their own ways of doing things, which should be accomodated and respected.
I think the reason for the old music and literature has a simple reason; royalties. They didn't need to pay for them.
Plus that kind of thing ages better than modern music would. Watching reruns with music from the 80's and 90's might not go down well.
wouldn't be the same if will walked into a grimey bar with abba playing...
Ha yes... like trying to get "Tour of Duty" on DVD. I think you actually have a very good IRL point here. The "Tour of Duty" series had so much popular music, it was impossible, too expensive, to get it out on DVD with the all the original popular music. Great point! I never thought off that!
I also like to believe that in the future there is so much more leisure time that people have all day to experience complex literature and music, unlike our rushed, hectic society.
Rip ben, never wear a red shirt
He's in a command uniform from TNG he's safe for now.
@@barrybend7189 unless hes a secondary command person from another ship, then he is still in danger!
@@trinalgalaxy5943 well he is the only Trekkie aboard the Generations channels.
Only TOS redshirts are at risk, generally.
if he wore a yellow shirt then....ya
And we can't forget the SHEER STUPIDITY of beaming down the ENTIRE senior command crew to a possibly hostile environment every week! OG series: Kirk, Spock, Bones, McCoy, and Sulu beam down to a planet or Next Gen': Picard, Ryker, Geordi, Data, Crusher! So in the event of a catastrophe you lose, in ONE fell swoop: The Captain, 1st Officer, Chief Medical, Navigator, Science Officer and possibly your Communications Officer or Chief Engineer! Who does this? Oh, and a Red Shirt, LOL! Old Joke time! Stormtrooper fires at a Red Shirt: He misses, Red Shirt STILL dies!
Actually, that only in TOS that the ENTIRE command staff would beam down even in a hostile environment. In TNG and Voyager it rarely if ever happened. Riker wouldn't allow Picard to do it. I guess Tuvok lacked the guts to do the same with Janeway. Point is, you are wrong sir. TOS did it for dramatic effect in the 1960's, but TNG corrected that. Look again at TNG, Riker would NOT allow the entire command staff to beam down, leaving Picard back on the ship to rebuild his command staff if something happened.
mdyoung1971 interesting that they did set that limitation for themselves. It did make Picard seem awfully static at times-but Patrick Stewart made it work-and when P did beam down, it made things more dramatic, even if even then all he did was talk.
@@davidc.2878Yes he did make it work. But like I said, it was rare that he even left the ship. Riker wouldn't let him, and Riker was absolutely right in doing so. First officer, second officer, and chief engineer can all be replaced...if the captain survives. Yes, it would have been personally devastating for Picard, those people are easily replaceable. Captain's are not.
I agree somehow, but tv shows are about the main cast, not the redshirts. It would be weird if all away teams are redshirts only..
oh and 1st Officer on Voyager is Chakotay, not Tuvok.
@@nagash303 I know who the first officer was. Chakotay also must lacked the guts, or maybe those writers weren't in on the TNG writing. However, Tuvok had the closest relationship with Janeway in the early episodes, had he raised the alarm...she would have listened.
Q really did the Federation a favor when he introduced the Borg. It was a wake up call.
Yes and no. It made Starfleet aware of the Borg but also it made the Borg aware of Starfleet. The Borg were quite happy assimilating species in the delta quadrant when they were introduced. It was only after their meeting that they started moving towards the alpha quadrant as they now knew there was someone there to assimilate.
@@sonuvabitch Weren't the Borg already in the alpha/beta quadrant by the season one finale? They were the ones removing colonies from Federation and Romulans planets which resulted in the Romulans coming out from hiding. Plus In the Enterprise episode with the Borg, before being blown up their ship sent a signal to the delta quadrant that would reach them around that time.
@@TheHulksternator The Borg were capable of travelling very fast if they knew where they wanted to go. Maybe they would have been there anyway, but maybe not.
@@TheHulksternator the borg from Enterprise most likely came from the time travelling borg from First contact
@@Larsi1997 Yes and they sent a signal to the delta quadrant back to the collective that would have reached them around season 1 of next gen making them know something of interest is out there and then travel to where they collected the missing colonies.
Surprised you didn't talk about how bad the ships are structurally. Not only is the bridge in the open(although MUCH less obviously then in Star Wars) but somehow they managed to find a way to make the reactor and engines extremely obvious targets as well. Hell, they can literally be hit FRONTALLY, and somehow they are meant for space combat? Not to mention that their engines s are being held by flimsy pilons that can easily resultt in their engines being shorn clean off. How anyone thinks these things could survive in combat is beyond me. Hell, even getting around the ship must be a nightmare with how segmented and separated everything is from one another.
Funny thing is the ships designers always wanted to put it inside but producers basically said nope it has to look cool.
Besides their ships have such a strong emphasis on shielding that it does not matter too much. Basically if they get through the shields they are fucked, but the shields are extremely powerful. We see phasers one shotting even large ships easily.
There's some in universe reason why the Warp nacelles are outboard.
Look up USS Defiant NX-74205. That ship was made for combat.
At least our shields are not giant balls on our ships
@@XMysticHerox the defiant & prometheus(and others) have ablative armour instead of "tin foil for a hul" and also and less exposed nacels
Tighten up your collar Crewman !
The thing with Sisko's family is made even worse when you realize that the Federation had hours if not DAYS to prepare for the battle and NEVER THOUGHT TO EVACUATE THEIR FAMILIES! As for the Vulcans, in DS9 there was an all Vulcan crew of a starship in one of the episodes.
Yeah, even if they literally only had enough time to divert to Wolf 359 to fight the Borg they could have evaluated civilians on the shuttles.
@@cathygrandstaff1957 Or some of the ships escape pods.
That "all vulcan" ship thing is unclear, and probably refers to the senior crew only, given how Sisko usually refers to them only when he talks about "his crew". Also, it's quite obvious that the high relative proportion of humans is due to budget issues. And maybe also creativity, I hate how most aliens look like humans with terrible skin conditions
The Intrepid, of the Original series, was crew solely by Vulcans.
Yes. And then they were destroyed, which would certainly affect the demographics of Starfleet. Vulcans reproduce their numbers more slowly, and as a species tend more toward scientific and philosophic pursuits. Many have moral objections to serving in Starfleet. It adds up to a smaller group of people much less interested in quasi-military service.
13:20 Adm. Marcus was right about building warships. The Klingons were coming and Nero proved the Romulans were not to be taken lightly in any way. The real problem, in the that universe, was the one-sided "Peace at all costs" mentality of the Federation and Starfleet that forced Marcus to prepare BEHIND their backs. A ship like the Vengeance would be developed without undue restraint and debuted proudly before the Federation. As it was, Marcus had to keep it secret or the Federation (not Starfleet) would have the Vengeance star scuttled in heartbeat.
If nothing else, Starfleet would have been prepared for war, with ships that could very decidedly win.
Adm. Marcus was right and if the Federation let him prepare for war, not go to it but be ready for it if it came, 90% of the crap that hit the UFP would never have happened. Why would it when everyone knows Starfleet absolutely can and almost wants to kick their asses.
The lack of and effective offensive/defensive force robs Starfleet and teh Federation on one seriously important thing, respect. It is easier to negotiate a peace when war is not a working option. Teh Federation is regularly behind this 8-ball and refuses to come out from behind it because...?
Adm. Marcus was not the bad guy in this the Federation was. They forced him to take actions that would not be necessary, and so not done, like teaming up with Khan, if they would let Starfleet do its real job, defend the Federation. That includes building ships that can win a fight and walk home confidently from it.
You are mostly correct however remember Nero was from the future of a different timeline. As such he, his crew and ship weren't really representative of the Romulans of that timeline.
Nero's ship wasnt a mining ship? So it's like a upgunned cargo ship with some guns could beat the coast guard, if Nero was able to back in time what would prphibit someone else to do it? What about an unkown yet civilization(like the Borg) finding Earth
@@nahuelleandroarroyo someone didn't pay a lot of attention to the film. Nero wasn't the one responsible for him,his crew and ship traveling back in time. That was Ambassador Spock who ignited some red matter that created a blackhole in order to try and prevent Romulus and Remus from being destroyed by a supernova. The black hole somehow allowed them to travel back in time on accident.
Marcus also wanted to START a war with the Klingons. He used the Enterprise as a pawn to do this but fortunately they saw through the scheme. When they bothered to check what the fuck they were firing, they knew something was fishy with their orders. Marcus was tired of peace and wanted the Federation to be aggressive, not just prepared. Prime timeline/universe Starfleet has always met each escalation of threat with the appropriate level of force and combat innovation, and never more than that. War is a last resort for them, not one of the first. When a new threat shows itself, Starfleet will adapt again.
Playing devil's advocate here for a minute, in the show the reason why the Federation spread and been so successful is that it is forward thinking and outward looking, rather than more closed minded, conservative and militaristic societies like the Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians. That is reflected in the more balanced design of its starships which have to be able to carry out scientific and long duration exploration missions, as well as be capable of combat.
No one has mentioned the lack of Seatbelts yet it seems
That got "corrected"in Kelvin timeline movies.
@@vladimirdilworth7242 In Star Trek Enterprise they have a 5 point belt for combat.
Exactly. All they really needed was a "Laser Restraint System". Just tech words. Never even needed to be seen.
The inertial dampers would take care of that
Chris Paulson the inertial dampeners seemed to fail quickly after a few hits to their shields. Belts would make sense still
You mispronounced the "Miranda class".
It's actually pronounced "Cannon fodder". Because when has a Miranda ever survived anything.
Battle of Chin'toka. Two survived with one destroyed. Three advanced Akira classes were destroyed at Chin'toka with many other advanced ships destroyed, but Miranda survives. Just because we see two get hammered in Sacrifice of Angels, after taking massive punishment protecting the Defiant and then being hit by more than one of the largest ships in the Dominion, does not mean they are weak. If they were so bad they would not have been escorting, protecting, the Defiant. If any of you go back and watch all the battle scenes you will see more destruction of other classes yet in all fleet starbase scenes we see more Miranda class ships. Reliant got shot all to hell but Enterprise was still capable of threatening to send a boarding party. Enterprise D would have a warp core breach all the time with lesser damage.
You misspelled "Oberth Class"
the engineers at utopia planitia are all underpaid and only build miranda vessels. so it is no surprise if those are always on the front line.
Miranda’s at the time they were built were quite powerful
And beta is pronounced bayta not beeta.
You forgot about the USS Intrepid which was an all Vulcan Starfleet ship. It was also destroyed by the giant amoeba.
Also that all Vulcan ship in take me out to the holosuite
Starfleet does have a all Vulcan ship feature in DS9 when the captain challenged Sisko to a baseball game.
British Ben you need to do more vids show everyone who the best Ben is
agreed. british ben is really the only one i enjoy watching on both channels
Ben: .....”Let’s not go there....” 🤣🤣. Classic..!!! 😋👍
@@punkypink83 Yeah he's the best yeah
3:10
You pronounced the ship's name wrong.
It's the U.S.S Ben Sisko's Muther F@%$&*^ Pimp Hand.
Basically
The BBC of the Federation!
Pun intended! Heheheheh! ;)
@ValorJ Omega hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha
It's funny you say that since it was Defiant who was fighting a rolling retreat at every defensive line at Sector 001. This fighting was constant and the Defiant kept on going until the accumulated damage was two great. Defiant is the best ship Starfleet ever produce. You simply don't like the god man that built her.
Enterprise D is the Kirito of Starfleet. The ship is ridiculously over powered. The ship can also get sick.
Defiant would eat an upgraded Miranda for breakfast just as the ate an upgraded Excelsior.
@ValorJ Omega did I forget to mention that besides the shields and stealth tech, the only thing protecting the ship was Ablative armour?
@ValorJ Omega Sisko never let the Defiant be captured by Ferengi and never lost a fight to a 30 year old bird if prey.
One of the worst flaws in Star Fleet is the Starship prefix codes. any enemy that gains access to one ship essentially gets the prefix codes for all vessels and can then control the defenses of those ships.
On the racism element - in the TOS episode "Immunity Syndrome" a wholly Vulcan-crewed starship is specifically mentioned. It's also destroyed.
In the First series ( Kirk-era), The Intrepid was all Vulcan; however, they were destroyed, much to Spock's dismay.
Does this guys even Star Trek?
"dismay" is putting it mildly, poor dude literally felt the mental screams of hundreds of dying people.
Seat belts and no surge protectors on EPS conduits.
I can pick apart most of these arguments with little effort, but you leave out some extremely obvious ones that can't really be explained, like how easy it is for consoles to explode and just obliterate anyone nearby. Why is there that much power running behind every damn display?
There isn't. It's the tremendous power surge that sometimes occurs when a ship is hit with energy weapons. The same thing would occur to a city if it were to be hit with a powerful EMP; i.e.: things attached to the grid, like your refrigerator, stove, microwaves, even your lights, could explode.
we've got surge protectors and such things against lighning attacks ...
Surely they must have something similar in a universe where energy weapons are standard ?
Especially when shields only last a few seconds ...
@snate56 You don't understand how the real world works... Real life isn't like TV or the movies. Things don't explode just because you shunt enough power to them. If you overload a lightbulb, the filament inside burns out and it's done. The glass doesn't shatter and embed in your eyeballs. Same is true for virtually every other electronic and electrical device we have. The biggest danger you have from overloading something is a fire. No explosion, just a fire.
@@snate56 thats not how a power surge works. and even if it was, fuses and strategic use of faraday cages would still fix the issue. a fuse works by physically breaking connections so that energy cant flow. as for where that energy goes now that it cant reach the console? without infrastructure for handling it, it would dissapate as heat, which means, worst case scenario, you'd probably have some fires (but not explosions), however they could design dedicated rails that could redirect that energy to anywhere they want (in modern electronics this is usually the ground). frankly, the ease with which we can redirect and control the flow of energy is why energy weapons will never really catch on. for example, many large buildings in big cites are covered in lightning rods to redirect lightning strikes to ground. these protect all manner of sensitive antenna and communications equipment on those same rooftops. you also mentioned EMP weapons, but we actually already know how to defend against those as well, although due to costs, and lack of demand, those defenses are currently mostly only found in high level military grade equipment, but if they ever did show up being used in a military capacity of significant force, we could theoretically adapt the rest of our systems to harmlessly redirect, or even harness, that energy.
as another example, even many consumer electronics are able to protect themselves from pretty significant forces. several years back, our house was hit by a lightning strike. all of the electronic connections were fine, because they were protected, but we overlooked the phone lines, and the surge fried our DSL modem, followed by the router connected to it, and then everything connected to that... except my pc. our phones and my moms old prebuilt dell computer were all toast (only figuratively though, as there were no scorch marks on anything), but my mid-range custom gaming pc had special protections in its motherboard and only lost the port. even the controller was fine and since it had two ethernet ports, i continued to have internet through the second port on that computer for years to come (after we upgraded to surge protectors with ethernet, coaxial, and phone line connections, of course). in otherwords, even something as sensitive as a motherboard can defend itself against something as powerful as a lightning strike when properly designed. and the port didnt even go out with a "bang".
@@Speedj2
Don't tell me, tell the Federation...
Nog got his promotion due to the fact that the Dominion war was going on and Star Fleet was taking huge casualties. Lots of open spots.
Agreed. Battlefield promotions would be normal, due to the lack of manpower.
As in the old Royal Navy toast during the age of sailing ships..."To a bloody war and a sickly season"...when the military has to expand at the same time it is taking enormous war casualties a lot of people end up getting on the job training in roles they aren't prepared for.
True, and Nog wasn't an annoying little f*** like Wesley. He actually was a character I enjoyed when he got some time in the spotlight (Heart of Stone; Treachery, Faith, and the Great River, etc.). In his own right, he was competent and resourceful and got some cool character development along the way. As such, I don't question his promotions. Dude deserved it.
but nog was a casualty as well, he lost a leg and serious case of ptsd that prevented him from being a functional officer/soldier.
@Daniel Gooden- Well spotted!
Some nerds figured out.
Says the man wearing a fricking red shirt.
don't forget the badge
he's gonna die
Riker is a red shirt.
Underrated comment.
As the video points out Starfleet is not a purely military force, and most of its ships have a compromised design that has some military applications but also serves as science vessels, survey craft, and floating civilian communities in space. While pure military Starfleet ships exist, the preponderance of non-military ships leaves them at a disadvantage versus any adversary set up specifically for military engagements.
But even more serious than that, Starfleet doesn't have the mindset of a pure military organisation.They don't think or act like soldiers, and seem to be seriously lacking in grit when things start to get desperate. Starfleet doesn't inculcate a mental fortitude or esprit de corps in its personnel that would enable them to hold the line when the blood and body parts really start flying. Add in the fact that most ship board Starfleet security personnel are armed only with sidearms and lack body armour, and their vessels are very vulnerable to boarding attacks, relying on force fields to try to contain enemy boarding parties, force fields that can be bypassed, overloaded, or disabled, which plays into the next issue Starfleet has.
They are overwhelmingly reliant on their technology, but should that technology fail (due to unforeseen environmental factors, enemy action such as a cyber warfare attack, or for whatever other reason), Starfleet doesn't have much to fall back on. Despite the high level of in universe technical competency of many Starfleet officers (which often results in hilarious technobabble speeches delivered with commendably straight faces by various actors), the extreme technical complexity of their equipment will at the very least complicate any attempt at a hot fix in the midst of combat or other emergency situations. Sometimes, simpler is just better, if only for the increase in reliability. If your enemy has some technobabble particle weapon dampening field Mcguffin messing with your phasers, you might well be dearly wishing you just had a good, simple, old fashioned and particle dampener unaffected shotgun to hand. Similarly, if your foe has some total defence to ship scale phasers and proton torpedoes, a rail gun would come in rather handy.
For the most part, their vessels also rely extensively on shielding for defence. Should those shields fail, their vessels typically have relatively little in the way of physical armour as a backup. And even where they do use armour, it is always some kind of technically complex, magnetically polarised smart armour of some kind, which itself is then open to being countered by cyber warfare attacks or loss of shipboard power. It is neevr just a good thickness of hyperdense physical armour that will pretty much always work no matter what. Should their hulls be breached, they tend to rely on structural force fields to maintain structural integrity rather than bulkheads, which means that a severe loss of power including backups (perhaps caused by something like a weapon that drains power or sabotage by a boarding party) will leave the ship in truly dire straits, possibly unable to even maintain atmosphere.
Starfleet vessels also don't have any dedicated point defence network to engage swarms of small, agile attack craft. While their phasers are accurate enough to serve in the role at a push and possess a good range of coverage, this still seems like a serious design oversight against any dedicated military fleet that makes extensive use of such attack craft, since it would be relatively easy for them to overwhelm the Starfleet vessel with massed squadrons that present too many targets for its limited number of phasers to engage simultaneously.
Damn you public domain music, also I love the Orville's explanation that humans are the most gung ho and therefore most likely to join the military.
Simple yet believable.
I love how every time Worf has to go beam down for an away mission, the turbolifts just magically open and some guy walks up to take his station over while he's gone! What, do they have cold storage lockers back there????
In short, the Federation's biggest flaws seem to stem from the very foundation of their existence. Namely, peace and exploration over all (including security), trust in others and honor/integrity above safety and survival.
Not defending Earth is completely unforgivable, though, especially after the first Borg Cube.
I want to point out that according to most source books I've read: due to varying environmental and cultural needs Star Fleet and the federation as a whole actually found it easier to staff ships with most crew being from a specific species for that ship. Any crew members not of that species who were transferred to those ships typically volunteered for the assignment to learn about that species and how they operate ships under their command by direct observation. Though there were also ships crewed by a wide mix of species.
15:11 "They can't kill off the main characters."
Denise Crosby: Hold my synthale.
Meh I didn't like Tasha anyway
um, jadzia too
That was a mercy killing
"Come to Quark's, Quark's is fun, come right now, don't walk run!"
There was at least one Vulcan ship in TOS, but it got blown up.
"Wives, children and pets." What about husband's? 🙄
AWESOME SHIRT!!
be careful though, you know what happens to redshirts.
Fireblade Entertainment well it’s a tng redshirt which is safe if it was a yellow shirt from tng I would be worried so no British Ben is safe
It's a TGN uniform, so I think that gives him a better chance of making it.
It would be safest to wear a blue shirt in any case
But no rank markings
I'm surprised to see Section 31 on this. Sure they caused a few problems, but a lot of what they did helped to circumvent other problems. Take the Vengeance for instance, it was a dedicated warship decades before the Defiant would be constructed (though granted they exist in two separate timelines). Additionally, the Founders virus was genius, and frankly would have led to total victory over the Dominion had Federation ideals not got in the way.
There was a constitusion class ship in starfleet that was crewed entirely by vulcans, over 400 in the crew. It was lost in the TOS episode "The immunity Syndrome"
Yes, the U.S.S. Intrepid
Couldn't help but noticed "British Ben" just finished his taxes (H&R Block folder on desk).
Federation had dedicated warships by the time of the Battle of Sector 001. Sovereign, Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Defiant were preasent that we saw (we did not see the whole fleet involved, just what was left that fell back to the last fallback point). But the point is that the Federation was definitely integrating dedicated warships into their fleets well into the Dominion War timeline.
There was that thing about all-vulcan crews that was mentioned in "Take me out to the Holosuite" where Sisko's academy rival challenges him to a baseball game with his all-vulcan team from his all-vulcan crew.
They aren't really a military fleet though. They are more similar to...a police or guard force. A peacekeeping force. In addition, they are not a strict navy. They have numerous other functions, intelligence, etc...
They shouldn't be in the space navy series, which is examining raw military forces, while Starfleet is a peacekeeping force meant to ensure a peaceful galaxy.
That's like saying the Blue beret are not like a military force because they are peace keepers. If you're going to be in combat you should be prepared for it and take as many precautions as you can
The issue is that Star Trek is a massive scifi space faring civilization, and during the Klingon and Romulan wars, functioned as an active military force. So you really cant claim that they dont function as a military force, or at minimum, a paramilitary force.
Now you could make the claim that the main focus of Starfleet is exploration and science, but again, while not mainly a military force they still function as one when needed.
Riddle me this. If Starfleet is not a military, why do they have trial by court marshal? Which is a MILITARY tribunal?
Starfleet is simply what would happen if NASA absorbed the US Military. Explorers first, but when the fecal matter hits the rotor blades, they are the boots on the ground fighting the war. Not like in the Dominion War Starfleet stepped aside for the Federation Navy.
They are a military fleet. That is also a exploratory force, a security force, a peacekeeping force and a emergency aid organization. They also do diplomacy sometimes. But they are a military.
@@XMysticHerox Fun fact. The US Military does more than just going places and blowing things up. US Navy oceanographic command. US Army Corps of Engineers do a lot of other things. Marine Expeditionary Units do a lot of Humanitarian Assistance jobs.
But doesn't make front page news because not as sexy as blowing shit up.
This is why I prefer the Terran Empire's Starfleet, just a fully militarised version
KhaosByDesign UK Too bad the Terrans were all homicidal, genocidal and treasonous. But Star Trek needs the most relatable humans to all be a bunch of pricks.
You obviously never served in the military. Only civilian wannabes worship military's
@@bernieeod57 Worship 🤣 definitely not, I work in a hospital with a number of military wards so I know how fucked up shit can get.
But in the context of a video series comparing the military strength of various fictional factions, I figured saying a faction with a better military is the better faction; again in the context of the video in case you were struggling to keep up.
@@bluenight104 Yeah Terrans are cool and all for purpose of comparing military stuff with other factions but definitely not a group you'd want to be anywhere near, at any time.
KhaosByDesign UK Dammit! Now I’ve got the Terran Empire’s theme stuck in my head for the next few hours! 😖
One of the Next Generation Novels I read back in the day stated that Star Fleet did in fact have single species ships other than humans. It specifically mentions at least one ship crewed entirely by Vulcans.
By the 24th century, there was no need for warships. The universe was a safe and wondrous place full of friendly aliens and exciting adventures to be had. The vast Federation were powerful and comprised of most of the known galaxy. Humans were peaceful, evolved and optimistic. At least, that was the Gene Roddeberry vision. After his death, the Federation was changed into a smaller, weaker, flawed faction among many, with the Star Trek universe becoming dark and dangerous, turning the idea of starships that carry families into a ridiculous one. By 1997, the 24th century human had de-evolved into a person not all that different to someone from the 20th century.
The Orville continues where the Gene Roddenberry universe left off.
Next episodes with Roddenberry still had a lot of conflicts etc. In my opinion Star Trek becoming “darker” made it better.
Except that there was a need for strfleet warship[s.The cardasian border wars showed that need.
Meh some of those wouldn’t exists if budget limitations wasn’t a thing (ex. # of aliens). I also think Nog’s rise in rank could be attributed to wartime (look at the civil war or ww2 how quickly some people rose in rank), there’s no excuse for Wesley though. Section 31 makes sense in terms of why the paradise ideal of the federation wasn’t subverted but it is also the most problematic for that ideal. The various ethics playing out on Trek is interesting and I know some papers were written on the subject.
There was a Federation ship that was manned by nothing but Vulcans. The U.S.S. Intrepid (Connie Class), from the TOS episode "The Immunity Syndrome". I think too in DS9 there was mention of other ships being manned mostly by Vulcans.
I think one of their biggest flaws is lack of imagination when it comes to weapon concepts despite coming into contact with numerous species who are far more advanced they never seem to learn anything new from these encounters and the weapon systems ( while upgraded in some cases ) stay the same with phasers and Photon Torpedoes and no other attempt at any kind of new weapons system so I'd say innovative thinking is one of the major flaws in star fleet at least when it comes to weapon systems.
Aren't we going to vote, or is this one skip. I can understand why for the latter.
I don't think they'll be able to find 10 advantages
@@fuckologic1202 Actually there are many such as able to call a lot of reliable allies, many different weapons and technology that make a lot of what others navies depend on obsolete, well design multi-role combat and utility ships, highly trained officers, high level of adaptation and innovation, and EST.
For example, their main weapon, phaser arrays is such a precise and powerful weapon that render fighters useless unless used in major fleet movements in the thousands. As every starship in Star Trek can shot them down in seconds before they even get in range to engage in mass numbers while also being capable to destroy capital ships. While replicators pretty much end the need for supply chains that other factions depend on and can operate years without stopping for supplies. Hell, even Warp Drive, while slower, has so many advantages compared to others for they are not limited by anything but very specific and rare particles instead of say gravity or FTL itself, and can do precise hit and run attacks from any direction.
@@raw6668 That's quite an article you wrote there sir... I guess you won the discussion, as I have nothing to back my claim xd
I don't know much about the ST universe, so I'll have to trust you on this one
@@raw6668 also shields, wide mode phaser, immunity to lasers and conventional weapons. phasers can easily destroy a planet with a single hit. holograms can be projected on the outside of the ship to generate holographic ships, and those ships can actually shot photonic weapons that would do damage.
@@jesusmora9379 Phasers are super powerful... when plot demands it. 99.99% of the time, they are not capable to destroy a planet. This happened in TOS, basically, that's about it. Conventional weapons are effective. What are phasers mind you? The basic weapon in this universe, alongside disruptors and plasma based weapons (Borg, Ferengi, Romulans). So no, shields are not impervious to conventional weapons, not at all. Lasers? Writers thought they would be phased out in the future, because they underestimated their potential. They only had knowledge of their time. With today's technology we can build facilities housing lasers that are able to simulate nuclear explosions. We are developing and building it right now. Just imagine future ship mounted lasers. And yes, they were in use in the 23rd century (TOS), and rather powerful as handguns. They were phased out on United Earth ships in early 22nd century though.
There are entirely Vulcan crews/ships. In the DS9 episode ‘Take me out to the ballgame” (I think that’s what it’s called) Sisko challenges his nemesis, a Vulcan Starfleet Captain, to a game of baseball. The Vulcan’s team consists of his bridge crew, all of whom are Vulcans. This is probably the same for other major Federation species like the Andorians and the Tellarites.
The Federation wouldn't need slave labor to increase their industrial base. They possess incredible automation potential. If anything, their capacity to industrialize and automate would actually render slave labor a liability to productivity. A big flaw with a great many of their ships was their integrated systems. It can provide a short term benefit in terms of efficiency but if their ships had been built based on modular layouts and configurations, They could be built more quickly and upgraded more readily. Standardized production lines also allow for more standardized engineering courses thus allowing trained maintenance personnel to be more readily available. My biggest problem with the Federation is there over consolidation of power in Starfleet. They should have no fewer than 5 distinct organizations serving the Federation. In addition to Starfleet, they should have a dedicated military(MACO), a police service, an infrastructure service, and an emergency response service just to name a few. For a society that claims to value liberty and, they sure aren't that big on the division of power.
A C K T U A L L Y... Starfleet designs are relatively modular. Sure you can't just go around swapping saucers and nacelles but on board systems can be relatively easily swapped out at shipyards for refits etc .This goes even further with stuff like the Nebula and Miranda classes with the former's multi mission pod, and the latter's "rollbar".
Starfleet designs aren't modular? Please explain how swapping every internal component of the ship is considered a "minor refit"
@@inventor121 That's hardly standard practice. The ship's almost always lack any semblance of uniformity. They seem to have a very hard time building them with any modicum of efficiency. That would imply a lack of modular production lines. They are inexcusably inefficient.
They could of reversed the cloaking tech to better detect them in future battles.
but that would mean that romulans and klingons could detect their own cloaked ships thus being able to detect starfleet
@@jakes8409Reverse engineering has it's advantages and disadvantages I suppose. It would make for an interesting topic of debate never the less.
I think that is the most baffling of all.
Ok, so you can't use cloaking tech ... big deal.
Add a big radar dish, to your space stations develop sonar equivalent ...
"could of reversed" - Looks like you are about as competent in reverse-engineering the English language as the Federation was in reverse-engineering cloaking technology.
@@Anvilshock eerga lyetelpmoc I
9. In the TOS era, the average crew complement of a Constitution class starship was roughly 430, MOST OF WHOM WERE RED SHIRTS (engineering, maintenance, and general ship operations), and only a small portion of them were dedicated security personnel. So, given the crew size and distribution of positions, you were actually statistically more likely to survive a given mission if you wore a red shirt just based on sheer numbers.
Federation "Phased Cloak" was a step in the right direction.
hm season7 of DS9 has a mention of an all vulcan crew....let me look it up.
USS T'Kumbra, Nebula class
Or the USS Intrepid (NCC-1631) from TOS
Don't forget the Vulan ships in the two-part TNG episode "Unification". These were not Star Fleet vessels.
T Bear - very good!
Did you forget about the USS Intrepid (NCC-1631)? It was a constitution class starship, one of only 12 in the fleet, manned exclusively by Vulcans.
There was an episode of DS9 where a Vulcan crew was at the station. The Vulcans were speciesist. Season 7: Episode 4
"Perhaps theres ships with purely vulcan crews"
Yeeeeeeeah about that----eaten by a giant space amoeba.
Well put together. As Captain Janeway said to the Doctor, 'I admire your attention to detail'.
There was one Federation starship to have an all vulcan crew, that was the USS Intrepid from TOS episode The Immunity Syndrome.
So in DS9 where they play baseball.
Section 31 is a benefit to Starfleet and the Federation.
The federation would've died many times over without section 31, and it was their plague on the founders that truly ended the dominion war
@MAx Musterman no, Starfleet.
When you talked about the cloaking device of the defiant and it's use in the gamma quadrant, you showed a map and highlighted the delta quadrant. The Gamma Quadrant is actually the top-left one.
I think that they did not feature more recent music was mostly a copyright issue.
Certainly the Starfleet would knew the artistic value of bands like AC/DC, Queen and Die Ärzte.
I read a fan theory that DRM and copyright laws go so out of hand that humanity lost most music, tv, movies from the 1990 and early 2000s.
@@JoelFeila That´s one terrifying theory you got there, just imaging being forced to grow up without good music!
@@JoelFeila as i recall but dont quote me on that there have been much things lost into ww3 and the Eugenic Wars
The late 80's and early 90's saw a resurgence of soft jazz.
I always felt that most sci-fi settings were stingy with their fleet sizes , even starwars. Warhammer 40k had a much better representation of both population and fleet sizes.
For some reason I always thought Siskos wife was still alive but trapped and seriously injured, though not conscious, which made it even harder for him to leave her behind. But its been a very long time since I watched that episode.
There are full vulcan crewded ships. Its mentiond in books. Micheal Burhnam and Spock wantwd to be on one of those at a time but the vulcans didnt liked them.
USS Intrepid NCC-1631
It's mentioned on screen, therefore canon fodder. 😜
@Ellisar Atranimus Fully Vulcan crewed ship, not a whole fleet.
Yeah, the all Vulcan crew that played in the baseball game in that DS9 episode.
@Ellisar Atranimus there is a vulcan fleet but its not starfleet. But there are ships in star fleet with full vulcan crew
Yes there are all Vulcan ships. See the Vulcan baseball team Sisko and the Niners played against.
Also, the Vulcan ship that Odo asked to transport his prisoner and prisoner's daughter to Vulcan.
The federation is it's own worst enemy it takes so much loss for them to learn a very costly lesson but when they learn they really do do better
Wolf 359 was a hard lesson for Starfleet indeed, but one needs to keep in mind that it hadn't faced an enemy of that magnitude before, One borg Cube is a much larger threat then a Klingon Fleet which had been the worst the Federation had faced up to that point, also seeing that the Earth Romulan War was Pre-Federation (and would've been the next season of Enterprise),
to understand the Disaster of Wolf 359 one needs to understand that the Federation has had so far only Equal or Slightly superior foes, and up until the Dominion War not had a war that required the total mobilization of the Federation, (leaving out STD for I'm not even sure What the hell they're trying to accomplish and besides would require a rewrite of TOS>Voyager Lore),
The Tactics and general doctrine of Attack of Fleet based operations at the time of Wolf 359 was Line tactics in which wave upon wave got released upon the Cube making the numerical advantage void, all due to the minimization of the risk of Friendly fire, something that got abandoned directly after the analysis of the disaster in favor of massed firepower to overwhelm the Cube.
on the point of Generation Starships one does need to remember that Starfleet hasn't been at War for a Long time, they've had skirmishes but nothing that would truly endanger their ships, and the tenant was that those Generation Starships would be out there in the void for in excess of 5 Years doing a mission of exploration and only after Wolf 359 it truly resonated throughout the Federation that there are things out there that goes bump in the night that are truly terrifyingly powerful requiring ships made for the sole purpose of taking care of military threats
Voron Agrrav you forgot 1 tiny detail about Wolf 359. The commander of that Borg cube was none other than the borgified Capt. Jean Luc Picard. The same Picard who was the captain of Starfleet’s main flagship, Enterprise, which also meant that he knew all of the security codes and contingency plans!
@@michaelangelotinaza Well, that certainly was a Factor, but even without that Little would've changed,
Over and Over We've seen just how vastly superior the Borg are, a Single Cube being enough to tie down almost All ships the Federation has, just to counter the threat,
Actually with Nog he developed yes developed upgrades for the defiant during his training and O'brian used them to fix the ship.
Nog is one of the most dedicated cadets to ever join and his unique life experiences give him an advantage over many other officers. He was driven to be something better, something other than a bartender. How much he grew up starkly contrasted with how his best friend remained largely the same since they were children for a long time.
believe he was promoted through sheer dedication to doing his best, huge competency and experience - especially combat experience, of which he had more than most ensigns (he was always front lines), and lastly - he never failed once! i can't recall an instance of him ever not achieving his assigned task, regardless of difficulty. the ability to simply get the job done goes along way!
add to that ensign was largely a learning rank and you were expected to get promoted out of it quickly anyway, wartime - where people get promoted quickly to fill the void of dead superiors, and promotions are based on experience and skill - not the length of time served in the role (starfleet is meritocracy), and fast promotion seems reasonable for anyone.
p.s. - tongo teaches one sound strategy skills :P
TNG was ridiculously racist against the Ferengi - stand-ins for capitalists.
@@mzk1489 Doesn't help that their first contact involved attacking the Stargazer. And then the next time they met was after the Ferengi stole from a Federation research station and lied about stealing. Then there's that time they attacked unprovoked again during a wargame. Then there's daimon Bok's elaborate scheme to get Picard to destroy the Enterprise. Then there's that time they hijacked the Enterprise with two Klingon bops. A pattern of bad behavior doesn't give a good reputation.
Ben, you rock man. I would love to have a friend like you to hang out with and talk about these things :-)
in DS9 the was a Nebula-class USS T'Kumbra with a all Vulcan crew
DS9 - there is a ship that is completely Vulcan, and vs Sisko on the holodeck in a game of american cricket.
And also in the original series there was the Intrepid, entirely crewed by Vulcans that got eaten by a space amoeba.
great edition of the May clip and who knew so many months ago we'd be sitting where we are now because of her bungling of the situation!
"So long, and thanks for all the fish"
"So sad that it should come to this"
They had dedicated War ships prior to "Defiant",just not many as the purpose of Star fleet was exploration.
They bring their families because they would be gone for years, even decades, possibly never to see home again.
Wasn't schlepping around the galaxy with your family in tow an idea Roddenberry trotted out for TNG? Very specifically for the Galaxy Class explorer ships? Certainly it wasn't a feature of Kirk-era Starfleet -- best you'd get there would be to have your family living on the planet-based Starbase your ship was based out of...
The tea-drinking, no music made after the 1950's thing is why I liked the party scene in Discovery season 1. In that scene wee see Starfleet officers actually having fun. They listen to modern(ish) music, drink and play silly party games.
And Earth is indeed shown as virtually defenseless in canon. But in beta material it seems the situation was quite different. Sol was one of the most heavily guarded systems in the Alpha and Beta quadrants. There was a defense perimeter between Mars and Jupiter as well as a planetary defense system in Earth's orbit which included (if I'm not mistaking) even weapons platforms on the moon. Also, there was a very extensive array of monitoring stations along the Federation border so any breach is detected and ships would converge on the enemy's location from pretty much all directions.
And think about it this way. The klingons and romulans were not always on friendly terms with the UFP. But they still never dared to send an attack force to Earth.
Star fleets ships and technologies are generally nothing special. It's the captain and crews that make these space wagons work. A Generation Tech crewed and British Ben captained N.C.C. 1701-X would be unstoppable. MAKE IT SO!
I think Starfleet is pretty segregated because of logistics not everyone breats oxygen
On the 'cloaking device helping Voyager' thing, cloaks tend to restrict the speed at which a ship can travel at, while cloaked a 24th Century Romulan D'deridex-class can't go higher that Warp 6. Given the fact that Voyager's ultimate goal was to get back to the Federation as quickly as possible, a cloak would have slowed them down. Assuming that Voyager would face the same limitations, as Warp 6 = 1.075 light-years per day - which I shall round down to 1 light-year a day, and Voyager had to go 70,000 light-years, the journey under cloak would take around 191.5 years
Cloaking was deemed illegal after star trek the undiscovered country
You would think that after Kirk and the others re-purposed that torpedo with the gaseous anomaly sensors Starfleet would've developed an entire arsenal of similarly equipped torpedoes specifically to combat cloaking! And Kirk did that a few HUNDRED years prior to TNG!
@@nurse425 Kirk needed that trick, because Klingon cloaking tech had evolved.
It's likely that the arms race between cloaking tech and detection technology was still happening.
Although they never did learn how to shoot while cloaked for some reason ... which is a bigger mystery, unless that was the one thing the Romulans weren't allowed to do.
@@NotTheStinkyCheese I think Kirk's cloak-seeking torpedo is the reason they ended the research into firing while cloaked. Because that ship still couldn't run cloaks and shields at the same time (power reasons). Thus, with a seeking torpedo, once the enemy knew you were there, you were a sitting duck. So the real cloaking utility remained in sneaking by undetected, or one free shot.
"Biggest flaw"?
NO POCKETS!!!
The "every officer above captain" flaw is hillarious. The first one that pops into my head is Clyde Klusatsu in "Measure of a Man." One thought I've had about TNG is :"What makes Entreprise's crew so unique that officers coming from other assignments always come off as weird and unreasonable to them?"
You missed one -
The holodeck is always on the fritz and trying to kill everyone.
I bring this up all the time. That machine is a killer! And worst of all, NO ONE seems to know how it works or how to turn it off when it breaks.
If they were smart they would only run porn program on the holodeck. That way if something goes wrong you just have horny porn stars. Or people slipping up and falling because the previous user didn't clean up afterwards.
What about the transporters? Surely every time they are used, they just create a clone of you and vaporise the original?
the episode of the space ameba The Intrepid was roomered to have an almost entirely Vulcan crew we knew of this by word only as we never saw the ship physically
Roomered?
Perfect introduction as I'm literally making Earl Grey tea LOL
His first flaw is invalid, the treaty of Algeron prevented the federation from developing cloaking technology, and during TOS we would have only been warp capable for less than a century, so we wouldn’t have been able to make it then.