The risk with lists like this is that they could get filled with Dominion War battles so I am limiting it to just one to give the list a bit of variety.
So here goes…
5. Ramming the Doomsday Machine (Star Trek “The Doomsday Machine”)
This whole episode left fans in awe when it first aired in 1967. The fact was that we saw for the first time that ships like the Enterprise weren’t all powerful and we saw another Constitution-class starship, the USS Constellation, getting the decks blown out from it. Only once more did we ever feel the same way again and that was when we saw the Galaxy-class USS Odyssey destroyed in the Dominion’s first episode of DS9 having seen the Enterprise-D being nearly immortal for the past seven years in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
4. Firing through the cloak (Star Trek VI)
Probably one of the tensest battles to have ever taken place during Star Trek’s history the whole engagement was long and nerve wracking yet never boring. On the contrary it feels like you are on the Enterprise-A being shot at by an invisible enemy. The battle is stolen by General Chang quoting Shakespeare. I know this angered some fans but boy did it give this fight drama.
3. Battle of Wolf 359 (Deep Space Nine)
An amazing thing about this battle is that it was so infused in to Star Trek’s folklore that we didn’t really need to see it on screen. We knew it was the Federation’s biggest loss (up to that point) in a single battle and the name of some of the ships but seeing it in the opening scene of DS9 was still a treat. For me the most memorable scene was watching the USS Melbourne get it’s saucer section blown off.
2. Battle of Sector 001 (Star Trek: First Contact)
Oh how things had changed. In “Best of Both Worlds/Emissary” firepower alone was not enough to defeat the Borg at Wolf 359. Now however the Federation fleet can penetrate the dampening field surrounding Borg ships. Data even says that the Cube had sustained heavy damage by the time the Enterprise-E arrived but as a testament to the Borg the ship can still fight. Only Picard’s knowledge of the Borg finally tips the balance and the Cube is reduced to scrap. As the old saying goes Payback’s a bitch!
1. Retaking Deep Space Nine (Deep Space Nine: Sacrifice of Angels)
Compiling this list very nearly became a list of DS9 only battles. There were so many good ones but I had to chose one that I thought was the most interesting and tactically sound. I chose this battle therefore for several reasons. Firstly we hadn’t really seen anything on this scale before or since in Star Trek; two massive fleets slugging it out. The scale even surpasses the movie battles! Secondly, for the first time we saw some real effort in devising tactics – targetting the Cardassian ships to create a hole, having the Galaxy-class ships with their superior firepower and shields take flanking positions for the smaller ships and finally the Klingons outflanking the Dominion fleet and breaking up their lines.
The scene stealer was of course watching the Galaxy-class ships burning that Cardassion Galor-class. Imagine if they had the three nacelled dreadnought version from “All Good Things”.
Thanks for reading…
Eurylade Reviews 