My head cannon is that the Glaxy class war re-fits would have been total combat monsters. They had tons of room for extra shield generators, auxiliary power generators, extra phaser banks, Redundant EPS conduit runs, extra torpedo launchers and all the space needed for ammunition. Hell they could have fit extra thrusters for manoeuvrability, extra structural field emitters and ablative armour with the mass saved from not having swimming pools and Anbo-jyutsu rings.

The Galaxy Class is a perfect diplomatic vessel. It serves as a representation of the Federation. It's a ship that says "this is who we are. Explorers. Researches. Engineers. Families. And also armed to the teeth."

Some other little known facts: The main bridge has its own Shield Emitter, a fusion power generator, its own Subspace communications, and its own life support systems. It was also designed to act as a lifepod for the command crew on the bridge in case of an emergency. It could jettison from the main ship and could connect up with other life pods in a lattice to be a central nexus that supplies power and life support for the other pods. They had planned for this for a few episodes but budget issues stopped them from doing it on the show. This also explains why it appears to only take days to redesign the bridge in between some episodes, its because they don't, they simple remove the bridge unit and put a new one in.

The Hotel in space approach to the Galaxy class was almost genius in terms of narrative design considering how a large portion of Next Generation's stories were more character focused and even had Slice of Life elements. It feels like being home whenever I watch an episode of Next Gen, and the aesthetic of the ship sets mirror that perfectly

I had a fellow Trekkie coworker who had been a theater student. One acting teacher was Leah Brahms actress Susan Gibney. He found a set of Enterprise D “Blueprints” and had her sign them.

You know the older I get the more I appreciate the design of the galaxy class, as a kid I thought it looked really silly, but it's grown on me so much.

I love the idea of Starfleet finishing up the Galaxy Class and then going, "Crap, this thing is an absolutely OP destructive beast. How do we keep the entire galaxy from seeing it as an unofficial act of war?" "Ummmmm, kindergartens, violin concertos, and a bar and grill?"

The combination of combat, functionally and comfort makes me think of the old spanish galeons; which basically were renaissance castles at sea.

In '87 I thought it was ugly. 35 years later I have come to love its design.

If you look at the blueprints of this class ship, you’ll quickly see that we know very little about the Galaxy class. One thing is that it carried dolphins to aid in space navigation which is something never explored or mentioned. There were also many more lounges than just 10 forward that sat along the rim of the saucer section. There were many areas that were simply vacant rooms designed to be turned into things as needed during its deep space missions. There was so much more to explore about the Enterprise-D, that I was surprised they simply abandoned it during TNG’s movie phase. By all rights, the Galaxy Class would still be the flagship class if all newer technologies were installed into it as time went on, because this class ship was deliberately designed to be upgraded as new things were invented.

I like the idea of the captain of a ship allowing civilians to use the empty space for morale purposes. 10 Forward and the like.

As a commanding officer, you knew that you had arrived when offered command of a Galaxy. In the eyes of Starfleet, you were going places. Basically a Starfleet cruise ship that has all of the space and amenities one could possibly need. Plus your family can tag along too so that they could also understand just exactly how tense you felt as you rode into battle. I always liked how despite being dimensionally similar in saucer volume, the Nebulas appeared much more spartan than the galaxies did. In the same manner as buying an entry spec car and noticing that your dashboard doesn’t have as many switches and a smaller screen than if you’d ticked the options boxes.

I always thought that when a war started they could ditch the saucer and dock on a battle section with more shields and weapons..

The Galaxy Class is like a battleship heavy equipped with Luxury liner rooms, bars and many other things, it is also built like a mini airport in its aft section, especially witnessing the main shuttle bay in that virtual tour of the Enterprise D.

I've still always had the notion that the idea of the Galaxy-class ship was to start making the Federation a truly spacefaring civilization, and the armaments and other capabilities were there *because* it's basically taking a college town to space and it darn well better be protected from various known and unknown potential threats. Being a good battlewagon without all the 'town' stuff just came in handy. :)

My favourite class of starship in Trek. When a Galaxy Class comes over the horizon, you know you're safe. You know you're home. (So long as you're not in an episode of DS9!)

I bought the published deckplans years ago when they came out. The Galaxy-class shuttle bay was so huge that it could’ve served as a fighter carrier.

If I could choose any starship to cruise the galaxy, I would choose the Galaxy in a heartbeat. It is literally designed with the idea that the passengers onboard may never get off the ship, so they brought all the comforts with them. My only stipulation would be for it to be kitted out with Post-Dominion War weapons systems.

My head canon is that the loss of their status as the top-of-the-line ship of the Federation to ships like Sovereign-class has been a boon for the Galaxy-class after the Dominion war. Free from the curse of being the flagships, the ship is now free to embark on what the original designer has envisioned : a long-range exploratory vessel that can operate independently in uncharted territory for years. The new post-war batches of Galaxy-class, unofficially designated by some as "Galaxy-II" to denote upgrade derive from advancement on ships like Sovereign-class, form the core of the revitalized exploratory branch of Starfleet, which were massively curtailed following the Wolf-359 disaster and the following Dominion war, and launch the Federation into a new golden age of exploration.

Do you realize how good you've become at making these?

A neat idea for a star trek series could be a Voyager-esque show about the Civilians aboard a Galaxy Class attempting to reestablish contact with the federation after the Starfleet Crew is killed by some sort of phenomenon. It wouldn't even need to go anywhere: exploring the ship and learning how to repair it's systems and navigate it from aft to stern could be fascinating in itself.

Its an elegant sculpture of a ship. There was a design linage that culminated with the galaxy class and then oddly abruptly changed sadly. I miss Andy Proberts work on Star Trek.

The most beautiful of the Enterprises - elegant design, superb engineering and went way before her time.

I LOVE the Galaxy class ship. It's the most beautiful starship in Trek.

Peak Federation. Sleek and powerful. A statement to the friends and foes a like. Like watching a superhero arriving at a disaster and you just know, that everything is going to be ok.

This is actually my favourite Enterprise. Awesome episode.

Please make more of these videos featuring the Galaxy Class. I love this ship and have for 30 odd years.

Some more lore; The Galaxy class was the first starship series in the federation to use isolinear chips of all sorts for it's warp core processes, enabling it to reach and hold high warp speeds.

This ship IS the perfect ship for a TV series. Because of its civilian aspects, you can think of the people serving on the ship akin to modern military families that have their families living on-base... and it would cause the captain to be FAR MORE diplomatic than he should be because every battle is likely to kill civilians via ship damage.

I was always perplexed why the Galaxy class in the Dominion War was running around with the saucer attached. Why weren’t they just deploying the star drive sections and saving the saucer resources to produce more star drive units?

"COOLANT LEAK!! We got a coolant leak here!"- Every Galaxy-class Chief Engineer ever.

Ah yes, the infamous warp capable hotel in space! Glad you mentioned the design's temperamental warp core that made this flagship a glass cannon in TNG and according to its writers, the easiest way to apply tension to the plot! 😆

This is my favorite class ship. Defiant class second, sovereign third.

Im always torn on my "favorite" star trek ship, while I think the sovereign is beautiful and sleek, the Galaxy is the one i grew up watching, and i think I will always have a HUGE soft spot for her. Im hoping to see more Galaxy class models done in Picard S3, in some way or another, as showing that ship with modern CG make it look amazing.

The biggest thing that always bothered me about the Galaxy class was, as mentioned, the lack of warp capability of the saucer on separation. If the idea is to drop the saucer before going into an overly dangerous situation - and Starfleet had the impression that this would happen a lot more often than it did - it feels an oversight (to me) that they wouldn't stick a smaller core in there. Just enough to give the saucer warp one to gtfo if needed. We see with the Nova class that a ten to twenty deck core isn't really needed...though maybe its a mass relation thing, idk. But yeah, giving the saucer at least a /little/ warp, as a treat :) , would not have gone amiss.

She is a beautiful powerhouse of a ship! My favourite 😊 Awesome video once again Rick!

a hundred year lifetime... Starfleet's B-52!

the "uprated" Galaxy Class of the Dominion War had a faster warp drive (9.9) additional phaser arrays and two additional torpedo tubes. it's also likely they more fully utilised the saucer section fusion generators and impulse engines the uprated Galaxy Class was certainly increased capability.

Imagine if a galaxy class was stranded in the delta quadrant instead of Voyager?

Just a beautiful design. I grew up with it, so naturally I'm a fan, but I always felt that, by accident mind you, Paramount or who ever designed this, made a true piece of art. And also rather fitting that it presents the Federation at the height of their hubris. Anyway, have a like and see you next time

This is still my favorite enterprise. This is the one I grew up on. Its still so beautiful to me. Just a small city with defensive capabilities flying through space LOL. Just a gorgeous ship.

The future galaxy-x from all good things was my favorite variant.

Perfect video for end of the week; thanks for making it a good

This ship and the Romulan Warbird ... I still remember thinking that they will merged together with the saucer section went inside the Warbird massive gap to create a super ship. And together they'll fight the enemy. Years later, I see that there are several others who thinks the same. I saw a fan art strip comic where the two ships merge in a Megazord-esque transformation style 😅

Thank you for making a playlist about this ship & the Akira & luna class etc, love all your videos, Rick Keep up the awesome work!

I like the thought process that the galaxy class of the dominion war were seen as a variant class in their own right as the galaxy titan class because they were set up with all weapons and shield systems built out to their best combat abilities and because if the extra unused volume when civilian were not installed, they carried large numbers of ground troops fighters and acted as command ships

This is an incredible video. Finally got the info I wanted about this awesome ship.

Various sizes and configurations made some sense for the saucer

This is an excellent overview of this ship class! I think knowing how big this ship really was sets a bizarre feeling seeing tng episodes because I never quite felt it's scale as I assume the show's creators really wanted to convey, but small ish tv show budgets only allow so much, and they did a fantastic job with what they had. Great video!

I always loved that they had a Bolian barber on board. The irony of a bald alien species cutting hair is just so star trek to me. I wouldn't doubt it if Roddenberry himself mandated it from the beginning. I could just imagine imagine "oh, we're gonna have a barber shop on board and make the barber a bald blue alien."

Last great explorer of the Golden age. Future generations would marvel at the ideas it represented… and how quickly they passed into history.

when I first saw the Galaxy, I thought what a "Love Boat"..but I was a fan of the show

The Galaxy Class Ship will always be my Favourite.

For such a big powerful ship class it sure couldn't take much of a punch to start with. I'm sure the Borg threat and Dominion War changed that in later ship builds but the early Galaxy class ships had a glass jaw imo. Don't get me wrong i loved the Enterprise D but it all ways seemed to me it and its sisters ships were more of a fancy luxury liner then any thing else.

What a beautiful starship

Yes, it may take hours. We eagerly await that video!!!!

For decades now, I've rated the Federation Galaxy Class starship as literally the most beautiful man-made object ever designed for the purpose of causing human beings to change location in all of fiction. And no design shown since then has even begun to rival the masterpiece. I would like to have one, with a phased cloak so that I can casually park it inside of the moon to evade any reasonable concern of 21st century mankind catching wise through direct observation of near-Earth space. And then with that out of the way I'd have to figure out how to marshal such an instrument to covertly (and hopefully constructively) ease worldwide poverty because that's muh prime directive. Gazing at the stars and sipping exotic drinks in the holodeck or transporting to vacation anywhere I'd like would probably also happen but only during off-hours. :S

The way it was described the Galaxy Class sounds like a combination of an Aircraft Carrier with a luxury liner as described by Captain DeSoto of the U.S.S. Hood from the Season 3 episode 'Tin Man' and a Battleship with how heavily armed these ships were armed with 14 type 10 phaser arrays and 2 photon torpedo launchers one forward and one aft and a high capacity shield grid with a warp core capable of generating 12.5 billion GigaWatts of power.

STILL my favorite starship class! She’s a beauty!

Lots of channels make much ado about the Galaxy's short comings. The trek stories needed to introduce weaknesses necessary for drama, but it was the "best ship yet" for its era. It was a step forward.

I think a new version of a city ship could be fun for a new series. But with all civilian and non essentials on the saucer and ACTUALLY USE IT! "We are heading to the natural zone. Separate the saucer and leave the civilians here are the starbase"

That was sooooo rad dude!

12:02 that's a really good line

its amazing that the Federation had it so good, that they thought nothing of sending families and children into uncharted space, making first contact with species, exploring dangerous space anomalies etc... even in what is essentially a warship dressed up for a party. it must have been a point of pride for a family to be able to live such an exploring lifestyle , "StarFleet families" kind of like today's military if you have a home on the base and family. or just a civilian scientist working for the UFP stationed on a Galaxy Class would be the chance of a lifetime. The Galaxy Enforcer however...

I don't know if anyone else's commented on this but I'm hammering the nail home during the domain War the Galaxy class starship was serving as a Frontline battleship but before that it was about my eyes anyway

Wow, that had to take some work. Great Job.

The Galaxy Class was just a huge flex 💪.

As I recall many Galaxy class ships were also fighter carriers during the war.

Love the galaxy class

What I always thought was take advantage of the modular nature of the detachable saucer section. Have a saucer that was effectively a battlestation or weapons platform - nothing else, no crew except for maintenance access, minimal life support (or uses drive sections life support) ect. It's fitted to a Galaxy's secondary hull when needed, swapping out the 'nice' friendly peacetime hull, and relying on the battle bridge, warp core and shields (although it may have extra shielding and armour, along with fusion reactors or even another warp core) ect of the drive section. And then it just rains down massive long range barrages of photons at range, sort of like a souped up version of the homewold missile destroyer. Imagine a fleet manoeuvre where as an opening salvo hundreds of photons rain down on the enemy fleet as they approach for engagement. And while fitting it with an arsenal of phasers is tempting and useful, it's still just one ship with one set of shields and can be destroyed as such, if you can withstand the fire. At close range it would be priority target number one of the enemy fleet, and it needs the power for all the extra phasers (secondary reactors?). Still some more phasers would be handy for missile defense and eliminating fighters and corvettes, say double the number of phasers wouldn't tax the systems too much. Using it as a missile truck/artillery barrage is a better use of it's abilities. The saucer could hold thousands of photon torpedoes (not quantum torpedoes, they are 'expensive' and in limited supply, and space is not an issue) and dozens of launchers for simultaneous launch of large salvos. Plus the massive computer systems of the Galaxy could handle the processing of all that targeting information. It could have similar firepower to DS9 (which had 5000 photon torpedoes), but in a mobile package. It could also be disguised to look like a regular saucer section to sensors, with dampening fields hiding the arsenal if the extra expense was warranted in peacetime. If expecting trouble (say going to Romulan space on a piece of unconfirmed intelligence) it could be swapped into the drive section and potential adversaries would never know what they were facing. Or just keep them in reserve in Federation facilities without the extra build requirements of *Q-ship systems in case of a hot war. Also since they are just a standard hull design without a warp core, navigation, sensors or other complicated components they are easy to build. Since the same saucer is used for the Nebula class saucer Starfleet obviously has mass production for it. *Q-ships were used in WW2, it was a freighter turned into a gunboat with hidden rapid fire cannons behind panels ect. It was designed to sucker submarines into surfacing to use their deck guns to destroy lone unarmed ships instead of wasting expensive, limited torpedoes. As soon as the sub surfaced and before the deck gun could be manned the panels fell away and the sub was sunk before they could react.

I can imagine the Glaxy Class and the Texas Class (if done a bit smaller and less falty) could very well be very effective in constructing fully operational outposts. Just imagine the Sorcer secction being detached in order to land on a plannet as a fully operational base with additional structures being provided by the Texas class. Since the Galaxy Class has two bridges I would say if the one in the body would actually be the main tachtical bridge and the body being equipped with some propper defence mechanisms and put it on the helm of at least two Texas class ships with predetermined flight patters after being detached. The sorcer secction would have more of anti air weapponry and ground forces as well as the main medical and research ficilitys as well as housing. This would bring two things 1. A fully operational base with all the equipment and comodetys needed to house the reserchers for more long term projects and can ve retrived when the Mission is over to be used in other places 2.A planetary defence force squadron orbiting the planet as the first contact with attacking enemy forces. Even if they couldn't defeat them it would certainly buy enough time for the sorces secction on the ground hail for help and or get away.

I've long been intrigued by the idea of multiple variant saucers being the best way of refitting the class. In particular, mini starbase and carrier saucers could be interesting tools in Starfleet's chest.

Great, very informative video about my absolute favorite ship in Star Trek. Thanks a lot, Rick! Just one thing: You refer to the D's bulk bringing down its top speed. Maybe within an atmosphere, somewhere. But, space is big and empty, so...

Loving your videos Rick! Been watching through them again, I love the detailed information you give. I’m debating what my favourite ship is, for a long while it was the Intrepid class but after watching your videos again there are couple of new contenders for my top spot, the Galaxy class and Steamrunner class…..sorry Rick no Excelsior class in my top picks 😂

I would have used a bunch of that extra space and added another warp core to the saucer. Put a whole bunch more weapons and such on both and you have one heck of a battle ship. Put everything on it from the all good things future with that extra warp core lol

It truly is a shame they killed the virtual recreation program. There are so many different games and other projects that could of been built off that platform. Counter Strike style games, hide and seek, vr chat, and so on.

i can imagine a purpose built battleship version with ablative armor. the extra space used for troop transport, medical facilities and act as a carrier.

I think the problems with the Galaxy Class design stem from the fact that it was supposed to be so powerful that it would never have to fight, leading to it underperforming its specs when in reality there were plenty of ships or races ready to challenge it. The tall and wide design gave it a ridiculously large hitbox, and its overly large saucer section compared to the stardrive section made it slow in turning. This meant that even with its powerful shields, it was going to take a ton of punishment in any fight that lasted more than a few seconds. Moreover, the engineering section was not designed with the kind of protection one would expect for any vessel expected to face combat, leading to the problem of potential war core breaches if any damage was done to the secondary hull. The ship classes designed to fight the Borg and the Dominion got rid of the tall profile and went for shapes that would turn much faster, reducing the chances of the enemy hitting them in combat, which really shows the problems in the Galaxy's design. In large-scale battles like Operation Return, the Galaxy Class actually lived up to its potential because it wasn't the sole focus of the enemy fire. Other ships that maneuver better at impulse speeds went in first and took the brunt of the enemy's attacks while the Galaxies came up behind to support, getting the chance to use their own powerful weapons without taking enough hits to overwhelm their shields in the process. The best way to use Galaxys in combat wasn't to have them get up close and personal like the Defiant class, but to hang back and fire from afar where it wouldn't be targeted as often and have to do much fancy maneuvering and where its command and control functions would be better served watching the whole battle.

I can see it now. An alternate timeline featuring a Federation-Romulan War in the late 2360s to early 2370s. In the lead-up to conflict Section 31 has several Galaxies discreetly refitted for combat, as they were always meant to be. In the opening engagement USS Odyseey's shields eat over fifty plasma torpedo hits before a lucky shot triggers a catastrophic warp core breach, but not before she takes down with her in detail three whole D'deridex class Warbirds destroyed and another half dozen out of action for the majority of the war, buying enough time for the rest of her task force to complete their mission relatively unmolested. The Romulans quickly learned to deploy in large, concentrated formations when facing a potential Galaxy class.

One little detail you got slightly wrong, in the Star Trek the Next Generation Technical Manual, written by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, it was revealed that the galaxy class ship had 3 photon torpedo launchers, though we never saw the third in the show. The third launcher was mounted in the Saucer section, but could only be used when the Star Drive section was separated. Once separation was complete, the launcher would drop from it's stored location, into the main turbo shaft connecting the Main Bridge with the Battle Bridge, facing aft, and could fire torpedoes aft of the Saucer. I suppose the theory being to discourage hostiles from chasing the Saucer as it attempted to evade whatever hostile might have caused the need to separate in the first place.

65% Completion and yet the ships were not only space worthy but combat capable as well with all being core capital ships in a Galaxy wing fleet groups during the war. So Starfleet really did create something like a floating hotel rather than a mission oriented capital ship.

In TNG canon I actually think the Galaxy class was severely underpowered in terms of weapons and shielding. We see Enterprise pretty consistently underperform for it's scale and it's not until very late seasons where it typically seems to perform a little better. It's not that it's a *weak* vessel, more that for the sheer scale of the thing it performs like a much smaller ship, and seems to have a way smaller tolerance for hull damage *especially* if we compare it to contemporaries such as the Intrepid

My fav. ship after the legendary Constitution.

Used to have the technical manual. Knew every page by heart

Cheers

Imagine if they beefed up the weapons, shields, and added ablative armor, then converted a good bit of the saucer section to a hangar deck, and added a secondary warp core. You could then have a carrier/dreadnought hybrid that can act as a command ship as well. Warp into a system, deploy a flotilla of nebula class and a few others e.g. Akira, steam-runner, defiant, and a few others. Separate the saucer section leaving it in the rear and deploy strike and interceptor craft.

@ 10:49 if memory serves there is actually a 3rd photo torpedo launcher that was in the saucer section, but would only be clear for firing after a saucer separation. (edited for spelling mistake)

If this were the real world but with all the same technology, we'd have ditched all the windows and gutted the entire interior living space in favor of a massive holodeck. Then simulate a general holographic command and living center that mimics a virtual adjunct to Starfleet headquarters. All ships would just be an extension of the Earth base and would allow a separation of ship assignment from the reality of the inside of the ship. Essentially, you would be living on Earth but would be able to visit a "building" that was the bridge, or the shuttle bay. Mobile emitters would allow crew members to participate in landing party expeditions if they were on another ship or on Earth physically. Every crew member would have their own bubble of holodeck space and everything (including other crew members) would be simulated from inputs from the other crew members' bubbles. Meaning no more passing of transmittable disease, and even a central location for bridge functions. Since the subsystems would manage where you physically were in the holodeck layout, you could always have the crew close to wherever the subsystem would think you need to visit (shuttle bay, engineering, etc.) Wherever you go, there you are, so to speak. Let the ship manage crew relocation ultra fast via either transporters or using holodeck forcefield tech. Could move the people around pretty quickly without them even knowing. Good for fast evacuation or separations. Even the escape pods could have holo-emitters so in the event of an emergency, they would still be able to perform their normal duties until contact was lost with the ship. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind doing my work on my back deck in the sunshine on an actual planet in a house. 🙂Why sit in a box (crew quarters) or fight over limited holodecks? (Since everyone is in a holodeck, they would all have the option at all times to visit a holodeck whenever they wanted to). It would technically allow for long duration missions to become permanent ones as social interactions and where you live would be entirely software defined. Getting relocated for relationships would not effect your duties. Just where your physical body would be.

I'd like to think that a few massive galaxy class starships served as troop carriers during the Dominion War considering their incredible internal capacity - 15,000. Starfleet could have even configured it with extra transporters or shuttle bays for combat deployments. With its ability to separate the saucer, the Galaxy class is an ideal troop carrier, able to send the troop carrying saucer to relative safety under the protection of the drive section. I imagine a galaxy class carrying an entire division of Klingon warriors into battle. As the warriors step onto the massive modified transporter pads, the Starfleet transporter techs salute them with a "Qapla'!" before energizing the beams and sending them to the planet or station below.

The Flying Hotel. How I love the Galaxy class.

If I remember my TNG technical manual correctly there was a third torpedo launcher in the saucer section somewhere near the rubber ducky room. Although I might me misremembering that. Excellent overview of the galaxy class, thank you 🖖🏽

The Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum Model of interstellar space. Still my favorite Star Trek ship.

That's what I always thought. The Galaxy class has so much room, it's like a Starbase. And it 's good to put lots of weaponry in the spare space.

I always feel like the Galaxy Class was born out of Starfleets belief that there was nobody who would want anything more than to join them and nothing they couldn't handle if they didn't. I believe the arrogance people like to cite came from hope, not from obnoxiousness. (Always thought Obnoxion was a better version but maybe one day)

I always wondered why there wasn't a star base sized replicator for pumping out ships.

This is THE Star Trek ship.... even today

What really tickles me is that the Galaxy is supposed to be able to go on long missions without the need for starbases, yet in every other episode of TNG they are setting course for Starbase such and such or at the beginning of an episode just leaving one, makes me wonder if the Enterprise D actually went anywhere other than starbases, lol

I loved the Galaxy class. It was definitely an exploration ship even though it was armed to the teeth (how well that offensive capability was depended on the episode). I never understood why they'd send the saucer section into battle during the Dominion War. Seemed like building a ship 2/3 bigger for a few more phaser banks was a bit much.

yes the starboard power coupling and containment field generator 3 being its flaw,first seen in yesterdays enterprise, then the wounded, rascals and finally star trek generations

I honestly don't hate that the ship was designed to host the crew's families. Sure it was naïve, but that was the beauty of it. The Federation's optimistic confidence in a more peaceful present and future, that would be free of major conflicts, who thought of their ships and crews being their own unique communities, as well advertising the brand (as a Ferengi might describe it) to any and all that the Federation encountered. And at worst non-essential personnel could always be dropped off somewhere if the ships were expected to engage in more dangerous missions. The problem of course with excessive pacifism is that the ideology falls apart when your neighbours aren't willing to play peacefully with you.