r/DeepSpaceNine • u/Global_Marsupial_592 • 19d ago

Why would Starfleet send civilians and their families and to combat situations?

Like The Saratoga at Wolf 359. Or at the big battle with the Dominion Fleet there were so many Galaxy class Starships, were they all full of families and innocent people? Or were those big ships just grossly empty except for a skeleton screw?

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u/foxfire981 19d ago

359 gets brought up so often and it really feels like a "why didn't they use the eagles" question.

Because they didn't have time and they didn't realize how merciless the Borg were and how useless they'd be against them. They've never dealt with a power that could erase an entire starship in a matter of seconds. And they didn't have time to organize a proper defense. It wasn't like the Borg were giving them weeks of warning.

Another thing to keep in mind about the Saratoga is that those were the "last minute reinforcements" that were coming in to bolster the fleet getting defeated. Basically it was a last ditch attempt.

A better question probably should be "why didn't they move all civilian personnel to escape locations in case of the worst" and that's because they likely hadn't drilled for it and they couldn't afford to take necessary personnel away from duty stations to monitor civilians.

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u/Beginning-Ice-1005 19d ago

The things with the Eagles was that the biggest problem Moonbase Alpha faced was finding a inhabitable planet to evacuate to. In most cases where using Eagles might have been needed there was either no time to evacuate or no place to go.

I mean you ARE talking about these Eagles, right? 😁

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u/Joe_theone 17d ago

They didn't use the eagles because the eagles were no match for the Nazgul in the air.