The peaceful exploration label and wartime conversion

Starfleet's 24th-century mandate rejects ships built purely for defence or combat, yet the Galaxy design retains a rapid path to heavier roles. Removing scientific spaces makes room for carrier facilities, weapons, and other military systems, so classification depends partly on the peacetime fit. Borg encounters matter because they change doctrine before the Dominion conflict forces wartime mobilisation. That sequence raises a counterfactual: would Defiant-class ships and improved torpedoes have existed if the Dominion threat had arrived before the Borg? HMS Unicorn, the Royal Navy's interwar aircraft-maintenance ship that was also a functional carrier, provides a historical analogy for preserving capability behind a politically convenient label.