To go back to the maritime analogy, it's as though the Federation is sailing around with 1700s cargo ships while their peer powers are sailing around with Roman triremes. Yes, the Federation is shown to be on roughly equal military footing with the Klingon and Romulan empires, but we're both shown and told repeatedly that this is a direct result of the Federation having a raw technological advantage (I would posit their technological advantage includes personnel doctrine, but that's almost a thread by itself). Meanwhile, other polities in the galaxy do routinely build dedicated warships. That powerful warp core is extremely useful when it comes to MacGuyvering bespoke solutions for problems with their main deflector dish, and their sensor tech being so damn good for exploration has some obvious combat utility, but there's reasons why the main deflector dish is generally in its default mode and the crews generally try to get by with their purpose-built weapons first when things turn violent. All of that adds to the amount of "ship" there needs to be to contain its interior spaces, which makes the ship bigger, which demands a more powerful warp core to be able to move the ship and sustain shields and so on. Holodecks, lounges, individual private crew quarters for the entire crew, hallways wide enough for four people to walk shoulder to shoulder, that sort of thing. A few swivel guns and maybe a couple bits of proper artillery may seem heavily armed in a modern context, but they were still just meant to be deterrents to casual piracy rather than anything in the same grade of capability as a ship with several dozen guns in the 24-pounder+ range.įederation ships are not defenseless, but they dedicate a lot of their volume, mass, and energy to "extras". I think it's more like how merchant vessals in many eras wouldn't generally sail unarmed, but there's differences both qualitative and quantitative in armament between a treasure ship sailing low in the water under the weight of its cargo and the Ship of the Line escorting it.
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