Yes, I know, they used them that one time. But you misunderstand my point. I didn't starfleet has no fighters, I said they don't use them in the role that was proposed upthread, as a colonial defense militia ship. We've seen dozens and dozens of federation colonies in the show, several of which involved the colony being attacked by enemies, and not once did they scramble fighters to defend themselves. The only defensive systems we've seen are shielded ground installations, satellite weapons, and I think sometimes some surface to space batteries.
Actually we do see fighters being scrambled from several times in defense of planets and stations.
Best of Both Worlds: After all the starships are taken out by the Borg cube at Wolf 359, we see a squadron of fighters make a suicide run on the cube once it enters the Sol System. Granted they get insta-gibbed but that's against a
Borg Cube. This is one of the things that suggested to me that Federation fighter pilots are crazy-loyalists who are the last line between enemies and worlds.
Conundrum: When the Enterprise attacks Lysian Central Command under amnesia, a swarm of fighters (Lysian Sentry Pods) are scrambled to protect it.
Dragon's Teeth: It was an attack rather than a defense, but once the Vaadwaur lure Voyager into close range they scramble fighters from their city and assault Voyager with them.
Dreadnought: When the Dreadnought gets close to their home planet, the Rakosans scramble squadrons of Rakosan fighters to intercept it.
Probably quite a few more I can't remember given how many years of show there are.
Yes, that was my point. Small, one or two man fighters are clearly viable combats in the setting, there's not a need to build them bigger so that they can have more crew spaces.
But we don't know of any viable one or two man fighters in the setting. We know the
peregrine courier is meant to hold one or two people but it's not a fighter but a civilian courier. The only vessel we can confirm is a combat craft with a two-person crew are the
scorpions in
Nemesis. As for the
scorpions, given that the Remans never deploy them in the raging battle they have even when the
Scimitar was disabled, I strongly suspect they were never intended for anti-ship work. They're also actually the size of large cars rather than the sizeable vessels we see being used as fighters everywhere else. When we see the thing in action, it's firepower is about on par with with a phaser/disruptor rifle rather than ship-scale weapons, nothing like actual fighters in the show.
If anything, this shows that tiny one-two man fighters are
not viable in trek. We know two-man craft are on the
Scimitar and it's in an extended battle and eventually disabled, and yet they
never bother to send them against the
Enterprise. I suspect the
scorpion was designed more as some sort of infantry support vehicle, or possibly a terror weapon meant to attack humanoids on the ground given that it's disruptors can't take out anything heavier than a door.
That's a plausible argument, but it has a peregrine class fighter sized hole in it. And also in some material, an even more massive, space carrier sized hole.
There is no such thing as the p
eregrine class fighter. There's a
peregrine class courier that nobody can identify though... Personally, I suspect the
peregrine is the tiny 10m Bajoran craft, anything larger clearly holds a pretty decent crew given Chakotay's Maquis Raider had a crew of about 40 and was only 50 meters long. Kira was able to identify the
peregrine instantly, while Sisko wasn't familiar with it, after all, which suggests to me that the
peregrine isn't Federation but Bajoran. That's pretty much all conjecture on my part though.
One other thing we can look at is how Star Trek itself views it. Memory Alpha has a listing specifically for canon
Fighter craft and the Jem'Hadar fighter is on the list alongside the Federation fighter and many others.
My point is ultimately that while size does matter, it does not matter enough so that small ships are automatically SOL when going up against a larger ship. There is a degree of overlap in capability. In any real case scenario, a ship that amasses 355,000 metric tons should not come anywhere close to the performance of a ship that amasses at around 5,000,000 metric tons. Granted, a lot of the Enterprise D's space is used for non-military purposes, but the Enterprise is about 14x more massive than the Defiant, but it's only getting a 4 second edge on engine performance? Granted, that adds up over 12 hours--specifically a day, which is what they gained in "The Sound of her Voice", but it's just not what you would expect.
I theorize that there's a tonnage area where you get the most "bang for buck" on a ship for combat purposes (with that varying a bit depending on your tech base). This is actually on the smaller side and you get diminishing returns as your ship gets bigger, and the
Defiant is right in that sweet spot., hence why it's not the size of a
Galaxy. Coincidentally several of the other most effective (per ton) combat craft, the B'Rel, Jem'Hadar fighter, etc. also have a similar general size.
