Hello all, Ric here covering one of the most famous classes
of Trek ship, the Galaxy class cruiser. Development of the Galaxy class began in 2343
which makes it the longest development period of any of the Federation’s starships. Its development
was fraught with setbacks, both technological and from administration. The vessel from the outset
was supposed to be the most powerful class put into service, pushed for by Admiral Carstairs
while other voices cited the vessel as overpowered and
nothing but a provocation to other powers. What need did Starfleet have for such a powerful ship,
one that could bring such devastating firepower to bear
if not war? It is likely then for this reason; much more dedication was given to outfitting the
Galaxy class with extensive diplomatic, exploration, research and even civilian
facilities, readily creating the mission profile of a versatile
capital ship explorer. Developed during the “Golden Age of Exploration” as it was termed,
the non serving presence on the ship was not an overly contentious issue
considering how content and well… arrogant Starfleet had become in its security.
The ship was following on from the Ambassador class as the posterchild
of the Federation and that class of vessel had in many
ways done all the legwork and ironed out the technologies at play within
the Galaxy class. Not much new was added to the design,
it was just a refinement of all of Starfleet’s experiences up to that point. Forget 5 year
missions, the Galaxy class was potentially able to complete 10 years without major overhaul
needed and it was big. The grand scale of the
vessel would not be eclipsed until the emergence of the Odyssey a generation
later and much of this internal volume was down to the fact that the Galaxy was envisioned as
practically a mobile city, in many ways, more like a Starbase than a Starship. It would have the
facilities needed to operate in deep space for years without need to return,
and not only that, but operate comfortably.
It is borderline opulent, the level of facilities available on this ship from pools,
to barbers, many, many lounges, bars, holodecks and so on.
Perhaps in this light, it is no wonder the class too so long to develop.
Utopia Planetia was the primary site developing this class,
but with the resources it took to produce a single one, the workload was shared among other
facilities to, such as the San Francisco Fleet yards, which would develop later ships of this
line. The USS Galaxy NX-70637 was launched in 2356 and was still in service two decades later, now
with and NCC registry, which is nothing as it was envisioned to have a 100 year lifespan. Following
the life and details of the USS Galaxy is in many ways, a good indicator of the versatility and life
of the line as it received numerous upgrades, refits
and overhauls throughout its service, something that we do see reflected in other prototypes.
Unlike the, say, Sovereign however (which had modifications tested on
it before being implemented to its sister ships)
the USS Galaxy was the receiver of numerous upgrades and modifications derived
from the performance of other Galaxy classes. With the USS Galaxy launching for field tests
in 2356, Starfleet took its time with this one. The class
entered full production in the early 2360s with the USS
Enterprise and USS Yamato launching in 2363 meaning that the class effectively had a
twenty year development behind it. Even then, the rollout in
further Galaxy class ships was slow, with only one or two a year until the Battle of Wolf 359 when
Starfleet had that “wake-up” slap I keep referring to.
Then they accelerated their Galaxy class production, just in time of the Dominion War.
In fact, several Galaxy class Starships were launched in
a state of 65% completion during the early War, with almost all of their civilian facilities left
incomplete, due to the fact these vessels were expected to face combat. To clarify, these rushed
ships worked just fine as it was, they simply lacked many of the
comforts that class was originally supposed to launch with. In fact,
the Galaxy classes, even when completed had around 35% of their
internal rooms empty with the idea that mission specific technologies, diplomatic venues or other
such things would be added as required by the crew without having to sacrifice existing areas.
A part of the original design idea for the Galaxy class was to make it adaptable in the same way as
the Constitution was, although not quite as extreme. This made cycling out older systems and
components far easier than on other vessels so that
when a Galaxy class entered the field, you knew it was going to be a powerful ship, but perhaps
not the overall specs as the line was organically growing from its myriad of vessels all sharing
developments. Some such developments included overall warp core tuning and coil overhaul which
increase maximum warp factors by 5% when compared to its “factory default”. The
Galaxy class did have a major flaw though, that was that when
it sustained heavy damage, it was rather prone to warp core issues from the stress. The unexpected
bursting of a coolant pipe or a fracture to the casing could easily snowball into a full warp core
breach if not dealt with immediately. In essence, when a Galaxy class went down, there was
generally a higher chance than usual of it exploding in core detonation.
To combat this, extra magnetic buffers and a forcefield around
the core were installed to protect it. We also saw numerous improvements made to the Galaxy class’
computer core systems with additional subspace processors and evolution of the “battle bridge”.
During the Dominion war, the USS Galaxy, and several other ships were taken and adapted to be
command centres for fleet coordination, chosen for their powerful shielding and defensive
capabilities. To manage this roll, a “Flag Bridge” was installed on
Deck 8 or 9 depending on the ship, potentially replacing the battle bridge.
This secondary command centre was more like a CIC for
planning, tactical decisions and relaying fleet movements. It had its own dedicated subspace
transmitters that were incredibly powerful with backups added to
the midline of the dive section. It also had a tactical holodeck built
onto the rear of the Flag Bridge for real time simulations and maps.
Not every Galaxy class needed such additions in the war, but it goes to show the esteem and
important role they played in the fleet, considering this was
at the height of the Starship’s production and its replacement,
the Sovereign was still early in its life. So then it should be evident
the blow to morale that the loss of the USS Odyssey was that heralded the
beginning of hostilities with the Dominion,
considering Starfleet considered that Galaxy-class vessel to be more than
sufficient to display the Dominion a warning, only for it to be taken down.
Of course, one of the most notable features of the Galaxy class was the Saucer separation ability
which most actual Starfleet designs featured some version of. However in these older iterations, it
was more of an emergency evacuation kind of thing, whereas the Galaxy class would be able to do
this with more versatility in mind and more importantly,
reconnect without a facility welding it back together. In part, this was so that the civilian
presence did not have to be pulled into every dangerous scenario. In practice however, this was
seldom the case because it was still an intensive and alarming procedure that involved a degree of
risk in itself. When separated, the Saucer section was also deprived of warp travel but it did
have the ability to sustain an active warp field, allowing it
to coast along if separation was conducted at warp speeds.
The Galaxy class was 642.5 meters long, 473 wide and 133 tall with a mass of 5,000,000 tons. It was
42 decks tall and had a crew of 1012 people. However with its extreme internal volume it could
house up to 15,000. It could cruise at warp 6,
which was not the fastest speed in the fleet, probably due to its mass,
although it could easily push this to warp 8 without ill-effect.
It’s maximum speed was initially warp 9.2 for 12 hours although with the sheer power its
core provided, it could reach 9.8, but that was exceeding safe velocities. Generally,
I think the Galaxy-class’ sheer scale and mass worked against it
here, forcing a bulk like that through subspace was not fantastic, and indeed later proved to be
detrimental to subspace itself. It was armed too with eleven to fourteen
type-10 phaser emitters and two photon torpedo launchers, 1 fore and 1 aft however these could
simultaneously fire up to 10 torpedoes at once. It also had sturdy deflector shielding that could be
easily adapted and re-modulated for a variety of hazards.
Befitting its role as a capital ship, it had numerous shuttle
bays and a large amount of auxiliary craft with the main shuttle bay covering the majority of
two decks, 3 and 4 of the saucer section with two smaller bays on Deck 13 of the engineering hull.
It also had five hangers for storage and maintenance of it small craft located adjacent
to the bays. It could easily accommodate multiple runabouts and had a shuttle compliment 25 shuttles
and 12 smaller shuttlepods of various types. It also had room to spare for more,
which was always a possibility for the transports of dignitaries and
the like. The galaxy class
starship was envisioned as a powerhouse ship that would cruise the stars and bring
the Federation’s presence to any sector it arrived in for show. A galaxy class arriving was a
statement, less of “A Starfleet ship is over there” and more of “The Federation is here”. Its
reputation was well earned for effectively it was could operate as a battleship, just one draped in
pomp and circumstance. In fact, if one were to simply read
through its schematics and ignore all the frills, it could easily be assumed as such.
As alternate realities and the Dominion War have shown,
when the excesses are cut away, you are left with in incredibly powerful ship and had events
unfolded differently, maybe this class would have stayed true to its 100 year vision as a Federation
flagship. But technology evolved, Starfleet’s approach to warp radically changed and it stopped
sending untrained families into deep space. As such,
the Galaxy class took a back seat to the newer ships that came after, but it retained its value
as a symbol of the Federation’s Golden Age. Thanks for watching this video on the Galaxy
class, there is so much material covering its specifications, rivalling the Constitution class,
that a full video covering everything would likely take
hours to do from its Cetacean ops to actual schools. Like I said,
it was basically a mobile city. This is unlikely to be the last video I make concerning
the Galaxy class so until the next one, thanks for watching, I’ve been Ric and goodbye!