The relationship between the Connie and the Miranda

[Sionnach Glic]

If I buy a pair of shoes for $100 I'll wear them all the time and have them last me 3 years. They are comfortable, look good and are quality made. I'd much rather that then buy $30 shoes that last 6 months and arent comfortable.

Ah, a subscriber to the Sam Vimes "Boots" theory of socio-economics?

[stitch626]

And then theres me, who buys $10-$20 shoes and they last 4-5 years.

[Atekimogus]

And then theres me, who buys $10-$20 shoes and they last 4-5 years.

Which is pretty much Sam Vimes' modus operandi

[Mark]

As an attempt to point this thread somewhere back in the direction of it's topic, why do you suppose that the Miranda is still in use in TNG, but the Connie have been decommissioned and retired? If they are contemporaries then age shouldn't be an issue, and if the Miranda IS really newer, even yet 20 years isn't THAT big a deal when your looking at ships that have been in service for that long.

[Lighthawk]

As an attempt to point this thread somewhere back in the direction of it's topic, why do you suppose that the Miranda is still in use in TNG, but the Connie have been decommissioned and retired? If they are contemporaries then age shouldn't be an issue, and if the Miranda IS really newer, even yet 20 years isn't THAT big a deal when your looking at ships that have been in service for that long.

Hard to say really, but if we're throwing the floor open to any old theory...I'd say it's because the Connie was a more high performance ship than the miranda. It was a faster, more powerful ship, yet it's frame is clearly less sturdy over all. It's rather delicate looking really, while the miranda...well it's not quite a flying brick, but merging the saucer and engineering section rather than connecting them with a thin neck means greater strength, less stress across the frame. So between a sturdier build and not pushing the tech limits of the day, I'd say the mirandas are still around because they took less wear and tear in everyday use, so their hulls didn't wear down as fast as the connies.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

As an attempt to point this thread somewhere back in the direction of it's topic, why do you suppose that the Miranda is still in use in TNG, but the Connie have been decommissioned and retired? If they are contemporaries then age shouldn't be an issue, and if the Miranda IS really newer, even yet 20 years isn't THAT big a deal when your looking at ships that have been in service for that long.

Hmmm... given that a Connie served as flagship for so long, it's dubious whether one can argue that the Miranda was a significantly more robust design. Given the numbers of Miranda's we've seen, could it just be that for whatever reason, the Miranda was made in much larger numbers? If it wasn't worth it to maintain the smaller fleet of Connies, perhaps the Miranda's were kept around a/o mothballed as a reserve more or less due to sheer number?

OOU, I'd guess the Connie design wasn't reused to maintain the mystique of the Big E, of course, but the Miranda was up for grabs (and perhaps popular).

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Hard to say really, but if we're throwing the floor open to any old theory...I'd say it's because the Connie was a more high performance ship than the miranda. It was a faster, more powerful ship, yet it's frame is clearly less sturdy over all. It's rather delicate looking really, while the miranda...well it's not quite a flying brick, but merging the saucer and engineering section rather than connecting them with a thin neck means greater strength, less stress across the frame. So between a sturdier build and not pushing the tech limits of the day, I'd say the mirandas are still around because they took less wear and tear in everyday use, so their hulls didn't wear down as fast as the connies.

Do we really know that the Connie is that much more powerful than the Miranda, though? They seemed pretty evenly matched in TWOK.

The Miranda is a more compact design, though... that may have made it easier and cheaper to build and maintain.

[Lighthawk]

Do we really know that the Connie is that much more powerful than the Miranda, though? They seemed pretty evenly matched in TWOK.

It's fairly more, not leaps bounds, but a bit, at least if we trust the numbers on the DITL site any. The connie is faster, and has a slightly higher combat score. And the battle in TWOK really isn't too much to go on, because it was an unusual fight. Both ship's first tricked the other so they could score unshielded hits, then they went and hid in a nebula. That fight was much much more decided by the tactics involved than the ships.

The Miranda is a more compact design, though... that may have made it easier and cheaper to build and maintain.

Numbers certainly could have lead to there still being mirandas around, and again, that compact design should have been more sturdy, thus the hulls lasting longer.

[Mikey]

The Connie is, quite possibly, an older design. There is no evidence in canon AFAIK for the Miranda being a TOS ship and then refit as the Connie was. A combination of age and the far fewer numberd of Connies could be the simple reason for the ubiquity of Mirandas in DS9 and the absence of Connies.

[Mark]

I was thinking about the age as well. In ST III it's directly quoted that "The Enterprise is 20 years old", which REALLY doesn't seem to old to me, but what do I know about starship engineering. Assuming that the other Connies are of a SIMILAR age, the design REALLY isn't very old at all, by the time it was retired.

Now the Mirands smaller size and similar function would give similar results with less materials and expense. That WOULD lead to greater numbers, and thus why they are still around. I can accept that.

[Mikey]

That "20 years old" could even be a colloquialism indicating the time since the TMP refit.

[Captain Seafort]

It can't be anything else - even if the ship was brand-new in "The Cage", she'd still be over thirty years old.

[Aaron]

I was thinking about the age as well. In ST III it's directly quoted that "The Enterprise is 20 years old", which REALLY doesn't seem to old to me, but what do I know about starship engineering. Assuming that the other Connies are of a SIMILAR age, the design REALLY isn't very old at all, by the time it was retired.

Now the Mirands smaller size and similar function would give similar results with less materials and expense. That WOULD lead to greater numbers, and thus why they are still around. I can accept that.

20 years old, yeah but it was a hard twenty years.

[Mikey]

I'm surprised Scotty never had a line like that - "She was ridden hard and put away wet," or something like that.

[Mark]

It can't be anything else - even if the ship was brand-new in "The Cage", she'd still be over thirty years old.

Wait.......5 years under April, 5 under Pike, 5 under Kirk (TOS), and 5 under Kirk (between TMP and TWOK)....that's 20. Am I losing 10 years somewhere?