Alien Ships in Service

[JALU3]

Back in the age of sail, when ships surrendered, they were considered prizes. And normally they were pressed into service into the victor nation's navy. I wonder how often this happens in space.

[Cut]

IMHO in the Star Trek universe this will happen seldom if at all. At least within the Federation and Starfleet. I don't see a lot of ships being captured that are of real interest that would fall intact into the hands of a fareign fleet. Romulans and Klingons would rather destroy there vessels when they were not part of the UFP (meaning the Klingons, obviously). Most of the time, ships that have superior technological means would most likely be used to develop new tech for new ship classes.
There are of course on screen examples of salvaged ships being used: In DS9 Sisko and company use a captured Jem'Hadar Vessel for an undercover mission behind enemy lines!

[black campbellq]

I think you would see alien prizes pressed into service. The smaller vessels might not be overly useful for Stafleet but could still be used for planetary protection (Coast Guard type stuff) or demilitarized (weapons removed) and sold to private individuals or the merchant marine. At the very least, having an example of technology and layout of enemy vessels is a vital training tool for boarding actions -- you know where things are, the likely position of high value targets, and you have experience with the technology...no "the computer is the only thing speaking" crap. It's also good intelligence. You get to study the vessel technology for flaws in the computers (are there back doors, prefix codes?), cloaking devices (oh, look! neutrinos!), is there a blind spot in fields of fire we'd never have noticed...

The Ferengi and Orions particularly strike me as the kind to do this.

The Klingons certainly wouldn't pass up a chance to capture and use a Federation vessel. They'd "bring honor to the house" or some nonsense "Look what I captured!" Romulans would use them for intelligence or training.

Contrary to the heroic image of Starfleet and the need to pump up the stakes with a "set the self-destruct system" in the final act, most people aren't going to be overly enthusiastic to scuttle their ships. It's a rare thing in modern war, and the culture of the Federation has "a respect for life." Ferengi, Orions, and other smaller races would probably rather be captured -- Federation justice is bund to be driven by "humane" notion of punishment; prison is probably a type of rehab where you have group counseling on how you're never going to do that again...right? You get captured, you skip bail or walk out of prison and go back to doing your thing. Klingons and Romulans might scuttle a vessel to avoid capture, I would think jemmies definitely would.

But there's always goingto be moments when the ship can't go to ramming speed, and the auto-destructs not working ("what's this blue screen..?")

[Cut]

My oppinion was based on the assumption, that a lot of the space battles don't leave floating hulks but see the defeated ship(s) blown into pieces by the mighty weapons used or by a warp core breach.

[Tricky]

IMHO, the more militarisic species (Klingon, Romulan, Dominon) would be keen on using a captured enemy ship. Or at least taking it as a trophy (you're gonna a need one helluva mantle though). I believe we've heard a Romulan tell somone (Kirk?) that his ship's hull would be a landmark for their people to commemerate for years to come.

The more opportunistic species (Orions, Ferengi) would be more interested in the value of the ships parts/tech/information. I mean, selling a Defiant class to the Romulans (pre-DW) would net you a lot of latinum, but breaking it up, selling it's various systems to various groups to be resold/copied, while at the same time having splicers hack data out of the memory core would net you astromomical profits!!!

I don't think the FED would do such a thing. In a time of war, they might capture ships, but only to learn what their omniscient sensors can't tell them. Conversely, I believe that they are also the most likely to scuttle their ships (Romulans second), to prevent their tech from falling into the 'wrong hands' (or manipulators, or paws, or tenticles, or .....you get it!)

[First of Two]

IMHO, the more militarisic species (Klingon, Romulan, Dominon) would be keen on using a captured enemy ship. Or at least taking it as a trophy (you're gonna a need one helluva mantle though). I believe we've heard a Romulan tell somone (Kirk?) that his ship's hull would be a landmark for their people to commemerate for years to come.

Puts on his Pedantic Hat:

You see Picard, after we dissect your Enterprise for every precious bit of information, I intend to display it's broken hull in the center of the
Romulan capital as a symbol of our victory. It will inspire our armies for generations to come.

Tomalak, The Defector.

Beyond that, I thihnk you've pretty much hit it spot-on. Warriors take trophies, Capitalists take salable tech and data, and the Feddies take intensive scans of everything and its cousin.

Oh, and the Borg just assimilate the whole kit and caboodle.

[Jem'hadar]

The reason why nations once pressed captured enemy ships into service was b/c it's a lot cheaper than building a new one.

I doubt that pressing alien vessels into service happens too often, as least not by Starfleet. Starfleet vesses have a lot of standardized systems, interfaces & equip. It would probably not be cost-effective or efficient to overhaul an alien vessel to make it Starfleet compatible. If the alien technology is inferior to Federation tech, they might just put in a museum. If the alien tech is superior or has some useful items, they probably would give to the Science Academy to study & maybe one day incorporate the tech into Starfleet vessels. But knowing the Federation, they would probably just make peace w/ the aliens & give them their ship back.

Klingons would probably just destroy the vessel. After all, if it couldn't beat a Klingon ship, what use is it?

Romulans & Cardassians would probably seize the vessel for study. Their fleets also have standardization of equip. & systems so I doubt they would press it into service & if you're talking pre-Dominion War, I don't see either in dire need of ships. Post-Dominion War: well Cardassia suffered badly so there may be some need for ships & perhaps converting an alien vessel might be cheaper & faster than building a new one, assuming the alien vessel can accept Cardassian computer systems & tech.

[Tobian]

Well in DS9 they did actually use a Dominion bug ship!

I can't see them using many ships of alien technologies very much for a number of reasons... training... This is HIGH technology, and warp drives, weapons, shields etc would probably work A LOT differently. As a stop gap maybe, but long term I suspect they would be of FAR more value for research of their systems: Even the Federation, at war time!

[Owen E Oulton]

I suspect that actual pressing of alien ships into service is rare, and usually only done for covert missions, or experimental purposes.

In the Age of Sail, everyone used exactly the same technology. and everthing was built as one-offs. With an alien ship, nothing fits Starfleet tools and facilities. You can't use standard docking ports, you have to use conformal adapters. Crew facilities aren't set up for Federation physiologies. Instrumentation doesn't work to specifications - watch the first season of DS9 and listen to every other line that comes out of O'Brien's mouth, then translate that to a ship where a lot of those things are much more critical.

The only alien ships I've pressed into Federation service in my game were an experiment in the TMS era to try to get cloaking devices to work on Federation starships without a miracle worker like Scotty having to baby them every second. I noted that all the cloaked ships we'd seen to date had more-or-less flat plan-forms, unlike Federation ships. Therefore, to test-bed the idea, Starfleet took two captured K'T'Ingas and refitted them with Federation engines, weapons systems, et cetera. The result was the USS Kahless NX-K-100 and USS Morath NX-K-200. Each ship took twice as much time and effort - and credits! - as building a Federation ship, and they were cranky. The Kahless was destroyed on a joint Federation/Klingon covert mission behind Romulan lines. The Morath is still sitting in a classified depot nearly 80 years later.

YMMV

[Tricky]

I had a little flash of Trek insight, about the FED looking over an enemies ships and possibly using them, or at least taking them appart to find weaknesses:

The FED, being the 'white hats' that they are (at least how they are SUPPOSED to be portrayed), would automaticly turn over the ships, and maybe even the data, the minute that hostilies ended, IMHO (except for the one ship that Section 31 kept, and the other that some rogue Admiral took for some secret, off the books, SF project ).