Star Trek Star Trek Starship Captain Showdown

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
In the blue corner we have James T. Kirk and his crew from the TOS era on board the Excelsior-class Starship Enterprise-B.

And his partner, commanding the USS Defiant, Captain Benjamin Sisko along with his crew. No cloaking device cuz Romulans said so though lol.

In the red corner we have the one and only Captain Jean Luc Picard in command of the Enterprise-D, the Galaxy-class Flagship of The Next Generation.

Accompanying him is Kathryn Janeway, ready to lend her assistance like she failed to do in Nemesis and commanding the USS Voyager, the highly maneuverable Intrepid-class.

All ships come with the appropriate named bridge crew and especially in the case of Kirks crew and the Enterprise-B familiar with how their ship operates.

Battle is in SPAAAACE or something.

Three scenarios, one with no preptime beyond knowing your enemies right off the bat, one with a few hours of preptime for proper strategizing and one with several days of preptime if quick modifications can be made.

Worf and O'Brien etc will be dual use characters in this matchup I guess. :p

Who wins?
 
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S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
I mean... unless the Ent-B is heavily refit, the Red team has a significant advantage in this matchup. Ent-D and Voyager both have more advanced weapons, shields, sensors, and warp than the Ent-B does, and while Defiant is slightly more advanced than the Ent-D, Voyager and it are more or less peers technology wise.

However, Red Team has a significant speed advantage, with the top speed of the Ent-D being Warp 9.8 and Voyager's top speed of Warp 9.975 compared to the top speed of 9.5 for the Defiant and unknown, but still likely lower, of the Ent-B. While that seems insignificant, remember Warp speeds are a logarithmic scale, thus 9.8 is many times faster than 9.5 to say nothing of warp 9.975. Thus on overall technology Red teams gains a point.

That said, tactical ability heavily favors Blue team, and further both Sisko and Kirk have experience fighting opponents that have significant advantages over them and both are much more martially focused captains. On the other hand both Picard and Janeway tended to deal with opponents that were peer to inferior with a few exceptions that aren't really applicable here (the Borg). Further, Picard and Janeway both have serious ego that likely would lead to less than optimal cooperation with each other and personality clashes; whereas Sisko greatly respects* Kirk and has show strong capability to cooperate in tactical situations.

Thus when it comes to tactics, point goes to Blue team. Will it be enough to overcome the tech advantage of Red team? I'm not sure. A real question will be how well they leverage the abilities of their respective crews.

So, when it comes to science and analysis you have Jadzia Dax and Spock going up against Data and Seven of Nine. This is... hard to call. Dax has lifetimes of experience to call on and Spock is a legendary science officer whom everyone else is compared to. Meanwhile Data is a peerless intellect and Seven carries a wealth of knowledge of the Borg with her. Seven arguably has more knowledge than Dax, but because she was merely a drone that knowledge is often fragmentary, whereas Dax's knowledge is truly and hard gained... so while Seven may have more, she has a harder time leveraging it to be useful whereas Dax knows well how to apply what she knows. To be honest, given things here, I don't think either team has a strong advantage... so a tie in this category.

Tactical officers becomes the next question. Need to be able to hit with those weapons. On Blue Team we have Chekov and Worf going up against Red Team's Tuvok and... Worf. Chekov never was stated to be some brilliant officer in this category, but by showing in the space battles he was in he was level headed and generally highly accurate, even managing to hit targets well with minimal assistance from sensors (Battle of the Mutara Nebula). Meanwhile Defiant Worf has considerable experience and is on a ship that highly suits his combat style. His track record on Defiant seems to be better than on Enterprise-D, but in general, he's the same person with the same capabilities. Finally Tuvok has considerable experience with a starfleet career that included service on the USS Excelsior itself, and while the Ent-B is a refit, it's bones are still an Excelsior-class. Further through all the engagements Voyager found itself in he showed consistent ability to hit targets and maintain a level head. So with one identical character on both sides, the real question of advantage comes down to Tuvok vs Chekov, and for all I love the good ol' Russian, I think Tuvok showed greater ability as a tactical officer, plus brings extra knowledge of an opponent's ship. Point to Red team.

Now we get to how well will the ships be piloted. Helmsmen of the respective ships were generally Sulu for Ent-B, Jadzia for Defiant, Tom Paris for Voyager, and Random Extra #552 for Enterprise-D (no, seriously, there was no formal "helmsman" character for TNG... sometimes it was an extra, sometimes they had Worf or Data or Wesley handle maneuvers). As good as Tom Paris is, and he's by far the best SINGLE helmsman here, he's only the helmsman of one ship. Meanwhile both Jadzia and Sulu are highly competent helmsmen with long experience and respected in their craft. Paris can't really make up for the fact that an extra is piloting the Ent-D and as such the edge here likely goes to the Blue Team.

Engineering will be critical for damage control and getting every last miocum of ability from their ships. In this case, well... it's honestly no contest. In the Blue corner you have the literal engineering legend of Montgomery Scott, the literal Miracle Worker himself teamed up with Miles O'Brian, one of the single most brilliant and adaptable engineers Starfleet ever produced. LaForge and Torres are both highly competent, adaptable, and skilled, but they're not Scott and O'Brian. Those two managed their ships in some of the worst situations and they've held through it all. Point to Blue Team.

Medical personnel I'm not sure how critical they'll be, but to rate them you have McCoy and Bashir against Crusher and The EMH. This is... again REALLY HARD. All these doctors have some brilliant accomplishments to their names and have pulled out medical miracles to save more lives than any other four doctors in Star Trek. I think... I'd have to call tie on these ones too.


So going by points you have Red 2 - Blue 3, but one of the points Red has: Technology is a major advantage.

So I'd guess that in scenario 1, no prep, that tech edge is going to be the deciding factor, and likely goes to Red Team. The firepower differential is just to great between an Intrepid + Galaxy vs a Defiant + Excelsior-Refit. Clever tactics and general analysis won't be enough to overcome those advantages.

However, I think scenarios 2 and 3 go to Blue Team. Once you give them time to prep and adapt, O'brian and Scotty will figure out ways to bridge or nullify the tech gap, and Kirk and Sisko, along with their core teams will figure out creative strategies to use against Picard and Janeway. Meanwhile Picard and Janeway both tend towards arrogance and strictly by the book thinking, this tendency will make them more predictable and further they'll get into an argument of "who's in charge", with both holding they should be the one in overall command (meanwhile, Sisko and Kirk will have a quick talk about it and decide which one of them is in charge, and that will be that). Overall what this means is that the more prep time they have, the more likely it is that Sisko and Kirk wins, and the less cohesive Janeway and Picard become.

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* "Fanboys" might be a more accurate term for his attitude towards Kirk as seen in "Trials and Tribbleations".
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
By the time of TNG, the Excelsior was only really being used to ferry around old admirals. At the beginning of the Dominion War we see a heavily damaged Excelsior being repaired in the fleet. An Excelsior class put up a respectable fight against the Defiant in the Starfleet coup two parter, but both sides were pulling their punches. I think a Galaxy/Intrepid is overall more powerful than Excelsior/Defiant.

Scenario 1: Kirk/Sisko lose.

Scenario 2: Sisko might be able to inform Kirk of general vulnerabilities of TNG era ships. What phaser frequencies to use, which parts to target, etc, but in general I think they will still lose.

Scenario 3: Kirk/Sisko can put up a better effort if the Defiant is able to use its replicator technology and augment the Enterprise-D with modern tech. There might also be time to warp to a more defensible position that mitigates Picard/Janeway's advantages, like a dense nebula.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
I think Sisko and the Defiant are going to win.

The Defiant is a pure warship designed by Sisko. The others aren't warships and don't have the designer - who knows all the strengths and weaknesses - in command and sitting in the Captain's chair.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
I think Sisko and the Defiant are going to win.

The Defiant is a pure warship designed by Sisko. The others aren't warships and don't have the designer - who knows all the strengths and weaknesses - in command and sitting in the Captain's chair.
Honestly, I don't think that's a big deal here. Each Captain and Crew has worked those ships long enough that they know them inside and out.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
Honestly, I don't think that's a big deal here. Each Captain and Crew has worked those ships long enough that they know them inside and out.
Sisko has an advantage in that he got to look at and go "yea or nea" to the plans and specs before the Defiant was even laid down. The Defiant-class is his baby in ways that Kirk, Picard, and Janeway can't match.
 

ThatZenoGuy

Zealous Evolutionary Nano Organism
Comrade
This is in the Red Corner's favor.

Enterprise D isn't especially good at combat but it's the closest thing there is to a Federation Battleship. The Defiant is a tough, strong little ship but I don't give it good odds against a well captained Galaxy class, and the Enterprise D has had various improvements and tinkering by Geordie over the show.

Couple that with the Voyager, thing has improvements by a !FUTURE! Borg, various other tinkering, it took on a god damned tactical Borg Cube at one point.

The Enterprise B might not survive the initial salvos at all, it's an older ship and up against the largest Federation ship and one of the most modern.

Quantum torpedoes range from 'basically photons' to 'ten times the power!' depending on the scene and film, Sisko's best chance is a full salvo of everything he has on the Enterprise D's bridge or warp chamber. Otherwise he's just going to get obliterated with a huge amount of phaser arrays.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
This is in the Red Corner's favor.

Enterprise D isn't especially good at combat but it's the closest thing there is to a Federation Battleship. The Defiant is a tough, strong little ship but I don't give it good odds against a well captained Galaxy class, and the Enterprise D has had various improvements and tinkering by Geordie over the show.

Couple that with the Voyager, thing has improvements by a !FUTURE! Borg, various other tinkering, it took on a god damned tactical Borg Cube at one point.

The Enterprise B might not survive the initial salvos at all, it's an older ship and up against the largest Federation ship and one of the most modern.

Quantum torpedoes range from 'basically photons' to 'ten times the power!' depending on the scene and film, Sisko's best chance is a full salvo of everything he has on the Enterprise D's bridge or warp chamber. Otherwise he's just going to get obliterated with a huge amount of phaser arrays.
Here's the thing: a Galaxy-class from around when TNG ended was shown to be completely helpless when faced with three Dominion fighters not much larger than a runabout.

The Defiant-class starships are purpose-built warships. The others are not.
 

ThatZenoGuy

Zealous Evolutionary Nano Organism
Comrade
Here's the thing: a Galaxy-class from around when TNG ended was shown to be completely helpless when faced with three Dominion fighters not much larger than a runabout.

The Defiant-class starships are purpose-built warships. The others are not.
Dominion fighters destroyed a Galaxy class because their polaron weapons ignore shields and they rammed it.
The phasers on the Defiant do not ignore shields.
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Yeah, as I said, the tech edge the Red Team has is significant. That said, the Excelsior spaceframe was very resilient and modular, allowing easy upgrades, which is how it stayed in service so long. Far from just being an "admiral ferry", we saw a fully modernized Excelsior manage to hold its own against the Defiant and while both sides were fighting to disable rather than kill, it is telling how well it held up.

That said, Ent-B isn't modernized per the OP, but it's still not going to go down in few shots. The Excelsior class was considerably more powerful than the older Constitutions (see the Excelsior's reaction to getting hit with Klingon Photons in the Battle over Khitomer in Star Trek VI compared to Enterprise's) and the Ent-B is improved over Excelsior. It's not going to go down in a single volley, Starfleet's weapon improvements have not been THAT extreme.

As noted, the more time they have to prepare, the better Team B does. Scenario 3 gives them plenty of time to figure out ways to upgun and account for the Ent-B's weaknesses, and, again, frankly Sisko and Kirk's crews are the better team when it comes to having to adapt to those circumstances, along with the two engineers best suited to implementing those ideas. Meanwhile Picard and Janeway are not going to use the prep time as well and would be under less pressure to do so because they would see themselves in the tactically superior position. Both Picard and Janeway suffer from Arrogance in ways Kirk and Sisko do not, and that character flaw in them would play out in the longer prep time as they'd not utilize it as effectively as Sisko and Kirk's crews would.

A big thing that's an advantage to Blue team is their pilots, especially against the Ent-D. Ent-D is the least maneuverable ship here, with every other ship definitely being able to outmaneuver it at sublight speeds, and while Voyager is a nimble ship with an excellent helmsman, it's still not quite as maneuverable as Defiant, thus the likely engagement plan would be for Defiant to try and keep Voyager off Ent-B and then have Ent-B try and keep maneuvering out of fire from Ent-D. This is made even further possible in that Ent-B can be advised of all the firing patterns and preferences of the Ent-D's tactical officer... by Ent-D's tactical officer who's also on their team.

That's another major thing here, the shared characters are not equal. Blue Team Worf gives considerable intel on Red Team's tactical capabilities and options, where as Red Team O'Brian is not a core member of the bridge crew and staff and thus even if he knows things about the Defiant, he's not in a position to share them due to just being a transporter chief. That said, if the Red Team O'Brian and Worf are those versions from their time on Ent-D, whereas Blue Team O'Brian and Word are their versions from DS9, that means the information flow is one-way, with the DS9 versions knowing everything the Ent-D versions know but not vice versa.

So yeah usually a victory for Red Team when there's no prep time... can't overcome the tech edge. Middle scenario is more even, but probably still leans towards Red Team. The longer the prep time though the better Blue Team does, thus the third scenario likely sees Blue Team taking it the majority of the time.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
This is an interesting match-up. Assuming this is a TNG-era fitted Enterprise-D and Voyager then Red team might not have as great a firepower advantage as one might first assume since they're equipped with only photon torpedoes while the Defiant has quantum torpedoes which, IIRC, are supposed to be twice as powerful. Further the Enterprise-B is an Excelsior class starship basically a heavy cruiser/battleship while Voyager seemed to be more of a mid-sized workhorse and all around generally not that impressive. The Enterprise-B, being the larger if less advanced ship, might be able to take her with a little luck in a straight fight.

And we know both Kirk and Sisko are not going to play fair with both being fairly resourceful, out of the box thinking captains. Picard isn't a slouch by any means but his strength seems more in the diplomatic and strategic level than tactical brinkmanship. And Janeway is...Janeway. While I think her incompetence is flanderized a lot I don't think this scenario plays to any of her strengths.

Because of this, I'm actually leaning on Blue team making a surprising sweep of all three rounds. I think Kirk and Sisko clever enough to catch Picard and Janeway off guard and thanks in large part to the Defiant they have enough firepower combined to be able to take down either ship in a salvo or two.
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Picard would win by blinding the others with his shiny head allowing him to open up an avenue of attack as the crews of his opponents take time to recover.
Are you forgetting whom you're up against?

Sisko's got a better dome than Picard:
BenSisko.jpg
 

Sailor.X

Cold War Veteran
Founder
In the blue corner we have James T. Kirk and his crew from the TOS era on board the Excelsior-class Starship Enterprise-B.

And his partner, commanding the USS Defiant, Captain Benjamin Sisko along with his crew. No cloaking device cuz Romulans said so though lol.

In the red corner we have the one and only Captain Jean Luc Picard in command of the Enterprise-D, the Galaxy-class Flagship of The Next Generation.

Accompanying him is Kathryn Janeway, ready to lend her assistance like she failed to do in Nemesis and commanding the USS Voyager, the highly maneuverable Intrepid-class.

All ships come with the appropriate named bridge crew and especially in the case of Kirks crew and the Enterprise-B familiar with how their ship operates.

Battle is in SPAAAACE or something.

Three scenarios, one with no preptime beyond knowing your enemies right off the bat, one with a few hours of preptime for proper strategizing and one with several days of preptime if quick modifications can be made.

Worf and O'Brien etc will be dual use characters in this matchup I guess. :p

Who wins?
Question will the Enterprise B get a Lakota style upgrade for fairness sake? Because it is you know 7 decades behind the Enterprise D and Voyager.
 

ThatZenoGuy

Zealous Evolutionary Nano Organism
Comrade
Question will the Enterprise B get a Lakota style upgrade for fairness sake? Because it is you know 7 decades behind the Enterprise D and Voyager.
Because the OP specifies "Enterprise B" it can only get the best refit the Enterprise B got in the franchise.
Lakota was a one-off refit as far as I am aware of.
 

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