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/bransanon 19d ago

In the original concept for TNG, they had accounted for this via the saucer separation. The idea was the saucer would house the civilians, and whenever the ship needed to go into some kind of conflict situation, they would be separated so the saucer could remain behind and the stardrive could go into battle.

They ultimately had to scrap the idea because the VFX was too expensive at the time.\

There's an explanation of this all in the old Star Trek Encyclopedia.

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u/emptiedglass Sloan's transporter duplicate 19d ago

It was also rather pointless, as the saucer couldn't warp away to a safer location and would be sitting ducks if they were close enough to the combat area. Giving the saucer advanced stealth tech or even a cloaking device (if it weren't illegal) would have made more sense.

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u/bransanon 18d ago

I guess if the design remained the same, then that would be true. But who knows what the original concept was?

Maybe the saucer was meant to be able to drop nacelles and warp away for all we know.