I thought this was a very interesting read for us NX fans! here's the link, enjoy!http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/nx-tech-briefs-01/#more-7870
I wonder what we could deduce from the fact that the blue dome of the "warp field governor" is also to be found on ships from the late 23rd century, although it's absent from the TOS era and again goes extinct from Ambassador class onwards - and then apparently makes an octuple reappearance on the Defiant. Perhaps it's a game of leapfrog, where an increase in warp field strength is accompanied by a brief period where the nacelle-contained tech can't handle that strength and the blue dome has to be reintroduced for a while. Older tech literature considers the dome on the TMP ship an "impulse deflection crystal". We might split the difference and say that impulse drive on those ships was critically dependent on the use of a warp field governor crystal that manipulated the main subspace field so that it lowered the inertial mass of the ship for impulse maneuvering. Ships like the original NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-C would have a more refined package with an internally mounted set of special coils for generating the subspace field necessary for impulse maneuvering. Indeed, the TNG Tech Manual more or less states this for NCC-1701-C. So the powerplant for NX-01 would have been a line-replaceable unit? Cool. One wonders if the warp field governor wasn't unplug-and-play, too - the circular airlock/docking port thingamabob to the aft of the governor pod is suggestively inset, with "seams" and "rails". It would make more sense, then, that this orifice suddenly starts firing phase beams in Season 3: the airlock would have been pulled out and an extra cannon would have been plugged in. The "engineering crane cab" intrigues me the most. Where was this crane? Would it have been one of the "end effectors" that could emerge ventrally from the shuttlebay, much like the grabber gun? Timo Saloniemi
The blue dome wasn't the Symmetrical Warp Governor, that whole central unit it was attached to was - if the choice of crop/framing in the pic didn't show that clearly enough, he says you can see the bottom of it in the underside view, where you can't see the blue dome. (Moreover, he says you can't reach Warp 6 [on the TOS scale, presumably] unless you have symmetrical warp coils generating a naturally-symmetrical warp field, without the kludge of the SWG)
Okay, if you want to nitpick... Although we must concede that the pod contained more than just the field governor; Drexler himself refers to communications antennas, and the pod also fired phase beams and aft photon torpedoes after the ship had received the S3 refit. Apparently, the field governor thing wasn't what made or broke the Warp Five Engine: the older triangular UESF ships also have the blue dome - while curiously enough, the "more modern looking" Intrepid apparently does not. Timo Saloniemi
I mostly agree - clearly, the whole of the unit wasn't taken up by the SWG, and older ships had the blue domes. But I consider the latter part proof that the blue dome is NOT the SWG It may very well be an Impulse Deflection Crystal, in fact - given that the main impulse engines, per the same post, use warp plasma...
That is precisely my guess - the Impulse Deflection Crystal is the means that converts warp plasma into usable power for the impulse engines. I'd guess that its inclusion in the SWG module is not directly related to the functioning of the SWG. The TOS 1701 didn't have one, so evidently her impulse engines didn't have that direct warp plasma setup, and I'd argue the same to be true on any ship similarly equipped. Doug also noted that the Defiant had a variant fo the warp plasma to impulse engine setup, which would explain the eight smaller domes. Perhaps there are several smaller domes to reduce radioactive emissions somehow, or better handle the Defiant's 'overpowered' nature? Similarly, perhaps the Intrepid type had an SWG but did not have an integrated warp plasma impulse system? Or, alternatively, perhaps the delta-shaped ships were the high-speed ships of their pre-NX day, and the Intrepids only meant to supplement the NX as a slower workhorse?
That's a good theory ''Praetor'' but wasn't the NEPTUNE CLASS (delta-shaped ships) Slower then the Intrepid type?
Here's an update people!http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/nx-tech-briefs-02/#more-7984 NOW, this is what I'm talkin about!
I don't believe that class was ever named (beyond "warp delta" by the artists), and while a Neptune class was mentioned, we don't know if it referred to any of the ships we got to see. We never got performance stats on half-saucer or warp delta, so we don't know how they stack up, aside from obviously not having beaten NX-01 to Warp 5.
Good stuff. I was on the fence about the NX-01 when I first saw it, but the more I learn about the detail and the thought that went into it, the more I like it. Now I can't imagine any other ship in its place.
JNG beat me to it, miraclefan. There's a lot of speculation there that we just don't have canon answers to. However, I personally do think that the delta was the Neptune and that it just happened to have the warp-plasma based impulse, even if it had lower warp performance compared to the Intrepid type, which looks to me like it has an enclosed SWG and a configuration that might preclude warp-plasma based impulse, hence no deflection crystal. My sentiments exactly.
Me too It's almost ironic that while the NX-01 was very...controversial, the artists' efforts at filling out the rest of the contemporary Earth Starfleet went over quite well. The warp delta looks "early" without being a bit "clunky" and it wore the metallic texture well. That strange triangular Sarajevo looks a bit like a submarine and while its appearance is a matter of taste, it's got a distinct period style at least. I personally would have bought the warp delta as the NX-01, but maybe it didn't look "Trekky" enough without the separate hulls and such (although it's a little hard to understand initially wanting to leave "Star Trek" off the title of the series if echoes of the old were prioritized). The half-saucer, with its rakish angles and fins, feels kinda...punk rock. I wonder if fans would have liked that as their NX-01. On the idea of the warp delta having warp plasma-based impulse, 1.) more integration of systems makes some sense on the smaller ships and 2.) the model for the warp delta was based on the one for the ship with all the impulse exhausts from the opening credits, which was probably designed to be used mainly at impulse. Perhaps its shape was found to be not particularly warp-dynamic in the long run; it looks more like it evolved from the shape of earlier craft like that little model J. Archer was building.
No kidding! I'm just now starting work on my ''concept'' enterprise, but it's just getting tougher & tougher to imagine any other starship as the NX-O1!
NX-TECH BRIEFS! BRIDGE MODULE! http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/nx-tech-briefs-03-bridge-module/ Here is more info on this great design! ENJOY
Re: NX-TECH BRIEFS! BRIDGE MODULE! Doesn't hurt to help keep attention focused on the blog, though, since it's skyrocketing in popularity...and that seems to have helped a bit with getting Doug to retract his announcement of closing it the other day.