How big is the USS Reliant?
Careful scaling of onscreen sizes reveals that the size of the Reliant seems to fluctuate from scene to scene. Now we have to decide what the “true” size of the ship is. Literary analysis: the size of the Reliant changes from scene to scene, but the author obviously didn’t intend for this to happen (except in the case of that stupid “Honey, I shrunk the starship” episode from DS9 for which the author should have been strung up and shot). Therefore, the Reliant has a true size, but it was never stated onscreen. However, we can scale the ship by assuming that its most common appearance onscreen is most indicative of the author’s intent, and dismiss outliers. Suspension of Disbelief: there is no known scientific mechanism through which the size of the Defiant could actually change from scene to scene. There was a technobabble shrinkage process in that horrible “Honey, I shrunk the starship” episode, but it is extremely doubtful that it is being constantly used in order to grow and shrink
