CrippledVulture wrote:It seems I've started a thread that went way above my head. I had always just assumed that warp capabilities require warp nacelles, at least where Starfleet vessels are concerned. They don't have any ships with warp drives that lack nacelles.
Anyway, I'm not trying to say that a ship lacking nacelles can't go to warp or maintain a warp field. The Galaxy is a big ship, and a warp core isn't that large. Even without the ability to generate its own proper warp field, the saucer must be able to glide or piggyback on the stardrive section's field because otherwise the engineering hull would slam into the underside of the saucer the instant they separated.
Here's my point. A Galaxy-class starship is out exploring. She's loaded with non-combat essential personnel, scientists, family members, and other civilians, as seems to be the case with those ships unless they are part of a combat fleet (one would hope, anyway). An unidentified hostile vessel warps into the sector where the Galaxy is studying a particularly interesting gaseous anomaly. Although the crew of the ship (which we'll call the Hunley) is unaware, they are tampering with the spawning grounds of an alien lifeform which spends its early life in space within this gaseous cloud. Upon reaching maturity, they secrete a hard shell and leave the anomaly, where they are picked up by the older members of their species and begin their lives as bipedal, atmosphere-breathing, humanoids... with forehead ridges.
ANYWAY, violating the spawning grounds is a taboo without words in their culture, and they refuse all attempts at communication. The Hunley raises shields just before the alien vessel starts firing. The first hit all but drains the Hunley's forward shields, it seems to be a type of weapon designed for that very purpose. The Hunley returns fire, but fails to do any noticeable damage.
The captain of the Hunley realizes they're outmatched and decides to make a run for it. They take off at maximum warp. At first, the alien vessel does not pursue, but after a few moments (in which the crew was giving a status report on the breeding grounds to their superiors), they begin to chase the Hunley.
Even at maximum warp, the alien vessel is gaining on the Hunley, concerned for the lives of the civilians on board, the captain decides to go ahead with saucer separation.
Now, if the saucer contains the civilians and no warp drive, it'll coast out at warp for a little while and maybe get away, but their survival is based on the outcome of the battle between the stardrive section and the alien ship (which does not bode well in this case). Now, I have clearly tailored this situation to favor my argument, but if the civilian-occupied half has warp and the battle half does not, all non-essential personnel can be evacuated from the battle section and have a pretty good chance of getting away in most cases. In this case, the aliens are certainly going to be concerned with the battle section since it poses the biggest threat to the spawning grounds (i.e. not running away), but it seems that an alien race who has no idea what is contained on either section would be far more likely to attack the half that is currently engaged in hostile action against them.
I admit that this all falls apart when you consider the possibilities of combat at warp speeds, but let's face the facts, almost every battle in Star Trek takes place at impulse speed. I guess what I'm trying to say is that against odds like this, the way the galaxy class is constructed, everybody dies and they might as well face the threat with a complete Galaxy class starship, but if the civvies can flee at warp, then they have at least a fighting chance of getting away.
But I hope you all enjoyed the discussion I inadvertently started about stuff I don't know much about.
Allow me to go Vulcan for a moment here, and point out that your logic is flawed.
In your scenario, the Alien organism simply ignores the Hunley's battle section. It just spent several minutes moving away from the spawning ground at maximum warp. At the impulse speeds it is now restricted to, it would take forever for the Hunley's battle section to return to the spawning ground.
So, the Alien organism completely ignores the battle section, overtakes the civilians, destroys them, then comes back around and warp-strafes the Hunley's battle section, desroying them too.
With Warp drive, the Hunley's battle section can engage the hostile threat. Ram it if necessary, or otherwise buy time enough for the saucer section to find a place to hide
