No, because they did a whole thing where Janeway had a sextant replicated for her and she guilted over if she should return it to the replicator to turn it into something more useful or if she should keep it for the symbolism.
On the one hand canon seems to strongly agree with you. On the other hand, Section 31 exists too. Kind of an odd contradiction that the writers never really reconciled. Particularly since Section 31 seems to go way past the "necessary pragmatists" mark and straight into the "morally alarming" territory without the pragmatism or characterization to make them make sense.
I personally think section 13 only makes sense if the original members self radicalized once already part of Starfleet. From there they worked to radicalize others and use patronage to push Starfleet to accept and promote people they otherwise wouldn't.
Possible to do if they're made using non-strategic resources at the cost of performance. So more like civilian-grade warp cores and nacelles, older or surplus weapons systems and shields. Not something to be expected to take on missions other than just getting trainees some experience with voyages and their jobs.A dedicated class of training ships (if of a low number produced) might be an interesting project in the future. They often play a diplomatic role when on cadet cruises, and at least a few of them are sufficiently militarised that on the outbreak of war thry can be slotted into the navy and carry out regular duties.
Like the Deutschland of the cold war era.
German training cruiser Deutschland - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
It's something you do with ships from last generation in the period between when they are replaced by something better and when you stop having enough of them being scrapped that parts to keep them in repair get logistically difficult.
This is outrageous, Red Squad deserves a fully specced Federation class heavy cruiser of their very own for Starfleet's future elite leaders to prove their mettle.
Here's Sayle's post on Section 31:
It's unfair!
Maybe a workhorse basic hull designed so that it's very easy to produce new variants? You lose on efficiency on each role, but a new small research ship becomes a new loadout for the multipurpose boat. Need something new and medical? Boat. Engineering? Boat. A bit of everything for the cadets to learn on?
An updated Selachii, effectively?
The Klingons and Romulans can do it because they have a high tech base, low industrial base. It makes sense to compromise a lot in favor of cost because they are a reasonable match even with the tradeoffs.
No that's dumb as hell for a variety of reasons that we've gone into before.
That sounds completely plausible. Those initial concerns were even accurate. Starfleet had gotten smug after the long peace leading up to the end of the 24th century. And then the Cardassian conflicts before that, leading up to the Dominion War.
...So the Federation lives as if lives are expendable? No. Never. If we accept that Axiom, the Federation fights with the very highest quality, incredibly tanky ships that preserve their crew. And even the warships have additional utility in peacetime.
