Fighter capacity can displace dedicated escort ships

Why use carrier-based starfighters instead of attached dedicated escort ships?

In this setting, fighters provide more flexible defensive firepower for less crew and carrier capacity, though that balance was deliberately designed to support starfighter warfare.

Clarke proposes attaching compact escort ships to a carrier so they can defend it against fighter attack. Stewart answers that, within this setting, the same capacity buys a larger and more flexible fighter group with greater aggregate firepower. A dedicated escort would consume more crew and resources while displacing roughly a third of the carrier's aircraft. He also makes the design caveat explicit: the universe was built to support starfighter warfare, so this force-structure tradeoff follows the setting's economics rather than serving as a universal rule.