>I see them as a Starfleet design for an Iowa Class killer.

I don't. The existence of the Galaxy class as an Iowa class killer shows that Starfleet, and Earthforce, aren't thinking along those lines.

In the Trekiverse, the Defiant class, and other warship designs (Akira, Prometheus) were designed first as Borg-killers, and then, later, Dominion-killers. They're fast, tough, and heavily armed (in the Trekiverse, the USS Defiant is probably more effectively armed than a Galaxy class starship, due to the Defiant's function as a weapons testbed, giving it far more modern, and more frequently updated, weapons than the Galaxy or Nebula class), and small to provide a smaller target, and lower cost to manufacture than a big ship. They're the closest the Trekiverse comes to starfighters; since starfighters exist in UF, and serve an important role (see Red's post elsewhere), I don't see Earthforce or Starfleet developing ships that size. There's just no need for them, in their eyes.

-- Sean --

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