Federation meta question: carrier fodder

As per the current zeitgeist (and Cryptic's profit strategy), it appears that the Federation is transferring towards incorporating carrier doctrines at some level, what with the Atrox, Armitage, and Vesta crunchies.

On the KDF side, I figure it makes sense, being it would be an honorable death in battle.

But on the Fed side, having living pilots seems...unlikely. I've been mentally figuring that the Fed uses low-AI retrofits to fly the carrier wings - nothing as advanced as an Emergency Hologram, let alone Soong-level androids but capable enough to have minimal command response and adaptation. (It would also explain why the Peregrines occasionally do their own damn thing.)

Thoughts? How do you write around the issue?

on my Jemmy Dreadnought when my attack ships decide to do ramming speed and ram an enemy ship, I see a text over them that says, setting auto pilot, preparing for emergency beamout. (or something of the sort)

Quote by WhiteOnmyoji

on my Jemmy Dreadnought when my attack ships decide to do ramming speed and ram an enemy ship, I see a text over them that says, setting auto pilot, preparing for emergency beamout. (or something of the sort)

So is that on the NPC chat tab or something? because I've never seen it on my Jemmy Dreadnought

Hey it's just like the old GIJoe cartoons where pilots would always bail out before their plane blows up ;)

Quote by Sthiss

Quote by WhiteOnmyoji

on my Jemmy Dreadnought when my attack ships decide to do ramming speed and ram an enemy ship, I see a text over them that says, setting auto pilot, preparing for emergency beamout. (or something of the sort)

So is that on the NPC chat tab or something? because I've never seen it on my Jemmy Dreadnought

I see it on mine often enough, it probably shows up on the NPC chat tab, yes. Otherwise you can see it in a NPC contact bubble above the Jem Hadar ship before she rams. Seeing that happen on the USS Royal Ascension is very fun!

I'd say you can definitely write it as that the fighters are manned by AI or even controlled remotely by personnel on the mother ship.

On Voyager, it was established that ships as advanced as the Prometheus class could be manned with only a few people thanks to advancements in computer AI. It seems likely that, more than 30 years later, Starfleet would have the ability to load shuttlecraft with non-sentient AI or control a large number of them from a starship.