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Jack_Bauer

The Oberth Class

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I was watching the Pegasus last night and I got to thinking, there have been a lot of Oberth class starships that have been destroyed in Star Trek. I guess they make a good derelict or something anyway check out this list:

 

-U.S.S. Grissom

Destroyed by Klingons in Star Trek 3

 

-U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky

Destroyed by Stellar fragment and Psi 2000 virus in The Naked Now

 

-U.S.S. Vico

Destroyed by Black Cluster in Hero Worship

 

-U.S.S. Pegasus

Destroyed by experimental phasing cloak device in The Pegasus

 

-U.S.S. Raman

Trapped in the atmosphere of Marijne 7 in Interface

 

-U.S.S. Yosemite

Caught in a plasma streamer in Realm of Fear

 

-U.S.S. Bonestell

Destroyed at Wolf 359 in The Best of Both Worlds 2

 

About the only Oberth classes that weren't seen destroyed were the Cochrane ,the Copernicus and the one that picked up Enterprise-D crew in Generations but that could have been one of the other two. Anyway, I just thought it was odd that almost every time we've seen one of these ships they've been destroyed or severely damaged. Oh well, they're kind of ugly anyway. :bow:

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Well, the think is, they're Starfleet's science vessels. That's pretty much their only function, and they're small too.

 

Here's a size chart:Click here!

 

Also, we saw 2 Nova-class ships in VOY "Equinox" and "Endgame, Part I". It's been my opinion that this is intended to replace the aging Orbeth-class.

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Well,to tell the truth,I fell in love with the Oberth the first time I saw one.I'm not sure whether it was the unconventional design,or the fact that the vessel was a pure science vessel.I found the whole idea very appealing.I'd bet the Starfleet doesn't usually allow this class of starship to conduct missions too far outside the "safe" confines of Federation space.And several have been lost and destroyed.They're small,slow,and underpowered with virtually no defensive capabilities.The Nova is an improvement(and I find that I like that class starship as well).I'm not sure I'd sleep too soundly at night if I were a crewman aboard an Oberth.

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I'm not sure why Starfleet would even have such a vessel. They could easilly equip a ship capable of better defense with the same scientific capabilities. Look at how many times the Enterprise D has been used for science. A great deal of the ships interior is used for non starfleet personnel use, so why not remove the civilians, the useless things, and put in some extra science equipment. That way defensless science vessels wouldn't need to get destroyed all the time.

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yeah, but an Oberth-class was designed for exploration inside Federation space, so it didnt need special defenses.

 

Thoughts?

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If you pay close attention to ST:FC, you can see a tiny Orbeth-class ship way off in the background in the top right corner of the screen, right after the Enterprise and fleet start attacking the cube.

 

Thing is, the Orbeth class ships are designed for explorration within the Federation and outside, but not far. They're short range science vessels, explorring planets, nebulas, that sort of thing.

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Well...the Federation controls a vast area of space and as there have been less than 20 Galaxy ships ever constructed it wouldn't make sense to rely on soley these kind of ships to explore space. StarFleet probably wanted a ship that could explore known space and could be produced in vast quantities. It was only meant to travel inside Federation space and so be (in theory) safe. It also could be that if StarFleet wanted to study , for example, a nebula near the Romulan border, an Oberth class ship would be able to collect the data without seeming threatening. Of course, I'd rather be in a Galaxy and be threatening then to be in an Oberth and be squished.

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... there have been less than 20 Galaxy ships ever constructed...

What episode did they say this in? I don't recall them ever saying that there were only 20 Galaxy-class ships, as there seemed to be more than that durring the Dominion War on DS9.

 

Anywho, as for the rest of your post, all excellent points about the Orbeth-class. Besides, what kind of aliens would wais their time picking on some little science vessel with nebula data or whatever? That's the Orbeth's advantage, I believe. It seems the ship could hide easilly with it's small size and scientific equipment, that, and it doesn't look like a target worth anyone's time. :o

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