“Starfleet, can I have a detachable saucer?”
“To protect the civilians aboard the ship in a time of crisis?”
“Yes…
…Actually to make the most powerful Federation warship, like a boss!”
After season 1 (mostly):
In season 1, it was mostly a gimmick. But after that, TNG did it with intention. It honestly felt more realistic that way.
But once you got to the Dominion War, yeah, it just wasn’t worth the effort (for the production crew or the Captains).
As cool as it was to see all the galaxy class ships fighting in the dominion war, how cool would it have been to just see ten star drives going in formation?
I always thought the standalone stardrive section looked like a headless goose lol.
When I was little and the show was first airing, I called it the “duck ship.”
To me it looked terrible. They should have had that “neck” part fold forward and flat or something.
