Resurrecting "GCS upgrade" idea

[Darth Wong]

Alyeska once wrote:

As you can see the Enterprise continualy had upgrades over the years. The E-D had a 36% increase in saftey to its warp drive since the begining. Even then we know the E-D was a pre War-GCS model in Generations. Its obvious the Galaxy class had recieved some rather nice upgrades over times. AGT shows significant upgrades to the drives when it comes to subspace and other affects knock it out. We already know the War GCS model had other structural upgrades designed to keep it alive in sustained combat. The Galaxy-X had a nearly 100% inrease over the original and thats pretty good. Factor in more power generation and you have a rather nice upgraded Galaxy there.

Rather than revive the dead thread in which this was originally posted (and in which this would be a tangent anyway), I'm starting a new one in order to ask this question: why is it assumed that the increased survivability of the late-season E-D is due to major equipment upgrades?

In the first season, they had a brand-new crew and a brand-new ship, which had not undergone a lot of shakedown or testing time according to the captain of the Yamato. In the 7th season, they had an experienced, seasoned crew and a ship with the bugs worked out. Damage-control teams would be more experienced, able to react more quickly and with fewer missteps or hesitations caused by uncertainty. Geordi Laforge himself now knows the ship inside and out. Is it so inconceivable that the first-season GCS failed more quickly due to a relatively inexperienced crew rather than wholesale core component upgrades?

[Master of Ossus]

While an interesting theory, wasn't the E-D one of the ships that was supposed to get the best crew members? It seems that way from their staff listing (in which everyone and the barber graduated first in their class). On the other hand, the crew would obviously be unfamiliar with the systems as they first came on board, and so there would be some re-adjustment time. Still, I think that the "bugs" they would have worked out of the system do represent upgrades, and I doubt that the experience would improve ship surviveability by that much, although I also think that it accounts for some of the improved safety records.

[Howedar]

There are visible differences on several Dominion War-era GCSs. More phaser strips, a darker neck, or a larger shuttlebay. Thats pretty clearly a refit/upgrade.

But as for upgrades to the core itself, I don't know. I don't think there's any clear evidence; rather, we see improved survivability on a frame that we know has undergone significant changes. A safer core, while not strictly required by what we see, does make sense.

[Darth Wong]

While an interesting theory, wasn't the E-D one of the ships that was supposed to get the best crew members? It seems that way from their staff listing (in which everyone and the barber graduated first in their class). On the other hand, the crew would obviously be unfamiliar with the systems as they first came on board, and so there would be some re-adjustment time. Still, I think that the "bugs" they would have worked out of the system do represent upgrades,

I guess it depends on how you define "upgrade". I would define it as an increase in performance specifications, rather than bugfixes. For example, fixing a flaky electrical connection in a computer is not really an upgrade, but replacing the CPU with a faster unit is.

and I doubt that the experience would improve ship surviveability by that much, although I also think that it accounts for some of the improved safety records.

The importance of experience depends on just how delicate the equipment is. Well-designed, robust equipment would not improve that much with experienced operators. Very unstable equipment, on the other hand, could benefit tremendously from experienced operators, or conversely, suffer very badly from inexperienced operators. I feel that the latter scenario is more applicable to the GCS.

[TurboPhaser]

Well, I suppose you could say its a little of both.

More experienced crew and better equipment.

Is that unreasonable?

[Darth Wong]

Well, I suppose you could say its a little of both.

More experienced crew and better equipment.

Is that unreasonable?

No, but my concern was with the apparent certainty that it must have been a hardware upgrade. Such great certainty, in fact, that a percentage figure for the magnitude of this upgrade performance was given, thus indicating that no other variability was accounted for in the analysis.

[Alyeska]

The improvements weren't necessarily hardware, but it does show how good a seasoned crew and broke in ship can do. The AGT Enterprise clearly shows what the upgrades allow for.

If anything All Good Things is an indication of better damage control and better warp core saftey. These are factors that were upgraded even more so with the War Galaxy ships (they had no warp core problems ever observed).

[Sea Skimmer]

While an interesting theory, wasn't the E-D one of the ships that was supposed to get the best crew members? It seems that way from their staff listing (in which everyone and the barber graduated first in their class). On the other hand, the crew would obviously be unfamiliar with the systems as they first came on board, and so there would be some re-adjustment time.

Throw the best crew on a completely new and unknown ship and they'll do extremely poorly. A typical training period would be six months for a 20th century warship, Enterprise-D seems to have simply been sent out on a mission at once, which would leave many personal too busy drinking tea and doing there jobs to conduct intensive training. And if you transfer in a bunch of new crewmembers, you need to do it all over again in addition to normal refresher training.

[Solauren]

The reason the Enterprise's safety factors jumped through the roof in later seasons was they got Wesley Crusher the hell off the ship and away from the warp core.

Him playing with it every few hours couldn't have been good for it.

[RedImperator]

Considering how fragile the warp core was on the E-D (detonated by a low speed collision with a nacelle at one point), and how much of a pounding later Galaxies took during the Dominion War without suffering warp core breaches, I'd have to say there has to have been some kind of hardware upgrade along the line.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Considering how fragile the warp core was on the E-D (detonated by a low speed collision with a nacelle at one point), and how much of a pounding later Galaxies took during the Dominion War without suffering warp core breaches, I'd have to say there has to have been some kind of hardware upgrade along the line.

I have to think that there is a specific nacelle-related vulnerability about equivlant to hitting the powder magazine of a warship--an unarmoured powder magazine. The poor targeting capabilities of starships in ST prevent this from being regularly exploited, however.

[RedImperator]

Considering how fragile the warp core was on the E-D (detonated by a low speed collision with a nacelle at one point), and how much of a pounding later Galaxies took during the Dominion War without suffering warp core breaches, I'd have to say there has to have been some kind of hardware upgrade along the line.

I have to think that there is a specific nacelle-related vulnerability about equivlant to hitting the powder magazine of a warship--an unarmoured powder magazine. The poor targeting capabilities of starships in ST prevent this from being regularly exploited, however.

Reliant had one nacelle blown clean off and her warp core didn't detonate. There were, IIRC, ships drifting in the Wolf 359 graveyard with nacelles damaged or missing, and a number of ships with damaged nacelles in the Dominion War. It could be that the strike on the E-D (what the HELL is the name of that episode?) was a one-in-a-million shot and doesn't represent the ship's actual vulnerability, but nevertheless, the warp core on the Enterprise-D was hideously vulnerable, and by its very nature (requiring active systems to prevent catastrophic detonation, and more active systems to eject the core in an emergency), should have routinely exploded on GCSs in the Dominion War.

[Howedar]

The episode in question is TNG: "Cause and Effect"

[RedImperator]

The episode in question is TNG: "Cause and Effect"

Thank you.

[SPOOFE]

I replaced $70 worth of filters and lubricant in my car and got a 30% increase to my gas mileage. Would that count as a "major equipment upgrade"?

[Publius]

Starfleet technology appears to be fairly modular and standardised; interfaces and procedures generally seem to be interchangeable among different ship types. If the Nebula-class predates the Galaxy-class, shouldn't the ship's company already be at least partially familiar with the latter's systems?

Publius

[Lord Pounder]

I seem to remember the woman who designed the warp core for the E-D having kittens when she inspected them. Lara i think she was called. From the time Geordi took over as Chief, remember he started off in a red shirt and as a helmsman, he spent a lot of time adding to them to the point where they where nothing like they started off.

[RedImperator]

I replaced $70 worth of filters and lubricant in my car and got a 30% increase to my gas mileage. Would that count as a "major equipment upgrade"?

I think what happened to the GCS would be more along the lines of installing a reinforced gas tank because other cars of the same model were blowing up in rear-end collisions.

[Crazedwraith]

I seem to remember the woman who designed the warp core for the E-D having kittens when she inspected them. Lara i think she was called. From the time Geordi took over as Chief, remember he started off in a red shirt and as a helmsman, he spent a lot of time adding to them to the point where they where nothing like they started off.

Leah Brahms?

[seanrobertson]

Considering how fragile the warp core was on the E-D (detonated by a low speed collision with a nacelle at one point), and how much of a pounding later Galaxies took during the Dominion War without suffering warp core breaches, I'd have to say there has to have been some kind of hardware upgrade along the line.

Good thinking Red.

Like always, Publius had a nice point, as well, inasmuch as the GCS bugs should'vebeen worked out circa early/mid TNG given Starfleet's experience with the somewhat older but very similar Nebula.

Lord Mike is always convincing in my eyes, too...and I have to think that theoretical knowledge garnered from the NCS's operation is just that--potential, not necessarily realized. Maybe, in spite of their modularity, some components of the GCS make it altogether different than the NCS; consequently, all of the bugshadn'tbeen worked out.

One other note, and I'll probably fade back into obscurity again for a month: it'd be a false dichotomy to suggest it's either hardware OR the crew that makes all the difference. I've seen no one do this--this is all spit-balling really--but I thought I'd run that up the flagpole. I imagine that competence with the Galaxies definitely allowed the crew to use it to more effective ends; after discussing "The Nth Degree" in another thread, I have no doubt that this is the case. (With no physical changes to the ship itself, Barclay was easily able to boost shield power by 300%--something LaForge never even considered.)

OTOH, competence or no, GCSs in TNG went down HARD and FAST. They didn't in late DS9 (we'll ignore Keogh's ship), and we saw upwards of a dozen different GCSs taking punishment that'd easily smash TNG-era Galaxies. So we're looking at hardware improvements, too.

Thus, I think it's a bit of both.

[Sea Skimmer]

There are lots of possibility for what might have occurred. It might have been an upgraded and replacement of existing systems that simply didn't work or it may have been minor flaws, which major consequences introduced late in the design stage being resolved. When the North Carolina was completed it took two years to resolve massive vibration problems. This was caused by some relatively minor changes no one had thought much of but the result was the make the ship unserviceable. In any case I'd bet many ir not most problems where purely software related, and the crew fucked around with the ship enough to make locating and resolving such issues near impossible.

[Macross]

Well, we do know that the Enterprise-D did go through a least one major refit, right after the Borg attack in Best of Both Worlds.

[Kerneth]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the Nebula class was designed at the same time as the Galaxy, and meant to supplement the more expensive Galaxy class's capabilities, rather than being a predecessor.

Going by Star Trek Intelligence.com's website, at any rate, the Nebula class should have come into service at approximately the same time as the Galaxy.

[edit]
In all fairness, ST-I.com's information seems a little screwy, so maybe I shouldn't use it as a source.

[Lord Pounder]

I seem to remember the woman who designed the warp core for the E-D having kittens when she inspected them. Lara i think she was called. From the time Geordi took over as Chief, remember he started off in a red shirt and as a helmsman, he spent a lot of time adding to them to the point where they where nothing like they started off.

Leah Brahms?

Yeah. She was kinda dumb but i'd have screwed her brains out.

[Lord Poe]

Sorry, But I saw no major upgrade to the E-D, especially the warp core. In Generations, the warp core ejection system STILL failed, like it always did. So where is the new safety upgrades?

Toward the end of its run, the E-D was defeated by two Klingon BoPs, piloted by FERENGI (Rascals, season 6) gets a new warp core infested with parasites (Phantasms, season 7), find out that, even with a new warp core, it still destroys the fabric of space like it always has (Force of Nature, season 7), and in Genesis (also season 7) they test new weapons systems, which results in a torpedo flying off course.

So where do these new "upgrades" manifest themselves?