Daystrom Institute

3445 readers

4 users here now

Welcome to Daystrom Institute!

Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.

Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.

Rules

1. Explain your reasoning

All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.

2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.

This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.

3. Be diplomatic.

Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.

4. Assume good faith.

Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”

5. Tag spoilers.

Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.

6. Stay on-topic.

Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.

Episode Guides

The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What is the in-setting lore reason for the Constitution-class being retired so early while the Miranda-class was kept around for roughly a century longer? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I know the brand/studio reasons, but all I can come up with for in-setting lore reason is that Mirandas require less resources/crew/maintenance, but it still seems like a sharp contrast between the service lives of both ships where, as far as I can tell, the Excelsior-class may have required more resources/crew/maintenance and that judging by size and a history of jankiness alone (I love the ship, I really do, but it's still an in-setting thing) and even the Constellation seemed to be kept around at least a little longer than the Constitution.

Anyone got any sources about this that make it feel justified besides the studio/suits deciding "we don't want audiences to confuse anything on screen for the TMP refit" ?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think looking at the ships' different roles may answer that question. The Miranda-class is a backline support and science platform, only called to the front during extreme circumstances (Wolf-359, Dominion War). They can be efficient at simple taskings like specific missions or supply runs. Like its successor, the California-class, they're also the mass produced, easy to build/repair workhorse type, so a simple, tested design just works over a longer life time.

Whereas the Constitution-class is a much larger, more complex, and line serving Heavy Cruiser. Presumably being on the frontline of exploration and military intervention, they have a higher need for the bleeding edge tech The Federation can field, especially with the fleet flagship USS Enterprise. Its unique hardware would also make it harder to repair and maintain which probably affected the lifespan of the class as a whole.

Like others said, it's most likely more sensible to do a full redesign whenever a new frontline or special class is called for instead of relying on retrofitting to keep up with enemy tech advances. Especially with core components like warp core upgrades, computing types (ie Galaxy-class moving to isolinear), or completely new tech like the Intrepid-class' bio-neural circuitry. That could maybe answer the shorter lifespan only lasting 1-2 retrofits before class charge (ie NCC-1701-A/B to the NCC-1701-C to the NCC-1701-D/E)