I keep thinking that the ship should have a giant deflector dish that is taller and wider than the whole ship, which would sit behind it, and that contours to the inner edge of the warp field. Almost like a Warshawski sail from the Honor Harrington series of novels, but with an actual material to it. I mean, if you had never seen a force shield and were told that the deflector shielded the ship, what would you think of? But then again, maybe not. Not sure it's impossible, or at least won't soon be possible. How about a blind artist? Or even better (maybe, not sure), a previously blind artist who is given a more advanced version of those implant chips like Stevie Wonder has, in the not too distant future, and is then asked to draw them without being shown any animals?
ooh i've got a few drawings that fit the idea of this thread somewhere but i can't remember where they are. will do some searching.
I've been looking at the ship you've drawn out, and should the nacelles be "sideways" so as to line up the rings of the Alcubierre drives with the direction the ship will generally travel in? (Also, am I correct to get the impression that turning at warp would be possible by microfluctuating the power to the drives on one side or the other?)
Make the nacelles more like the secondary hull ending in antenna farms You know--one of those alien video games whose title I have forgotten, where they made organisms that look like AT-ATs walking around--had something similar. To me USS Vengeance is a good place to start. Nacelle supports more gull wing like, a bigger saucer, lower down with high nacellse for a souped up look. uber detail My perfect fan boy wish list--a refit era ship with those modifications, but with Super star destroyer complexity
If we're going to stick with the Jefferies precedent of a modular ship with a saucer section, I'd like to offer a suggestion: Flip the saucer forward 90 degrees. Get away from Earthbound thinking with the up/down vector perpendicular to the direction of motion. The "top" of the saucer would face forward and would be covered in ablative armor as a meteoroid shield -- perhaps a thick coating of cometary ice would do. The dorsal connector would extend back from its center along its axis, leading to a cylindrical engineering module -- a mushroom shape with the cap facing forward. Then extending radially from the engineering module would be maybe four struts, each leading to a nacelle. Although if you wanted an Alcubierre-style drive, you'd need a solid toroidal collar surrounding the entire ship. Maybe some kind of nacelles that unwrap and snap together to form a toroid for warp drive, then fold back again at sublight? No, wait, like I said before, an Alcubierre drive could be used as a sublight gravity drive.
Well, I was thinking that all four of the "donuts" are required to make a "warp bubble". Increase the power to the front two units, and you get more compressed space up front, so the ship goes forward. Same thing with the back... increase power there, and you backwards. I was thinking that the "bubble" is pretty big too... much larger than the ship. Maybe that acts like it's own deflector shield? I like the ideas of lowering the saucer, and the gull wing nacelle pylons. What if I made the Nacelles longer, where they slightly overlap the saucer? I like both ideas, but it wouldn't resemble the Enterprise, at all. I'm really wanting to keep a similar profile. I just finished reading a bunch of Ian Douglas novels, and his ships are almost exactly what you describe. -Ricky
Sure, that's OK. It's actually had me thinking... I want to try to incorporate that idea, and keep a saucer section, with some kind of shielding on the front. Maybe I can make it part of the lower radiation shield? -Ricky
My suggestion is to keep a saucer section, just oriented differently. All the pieces are there -- saucer, engineering hull, nacelles, connective struts -- but the arrangement is changed, and not so limited by Earthbound, horizontal thinking.
I like the idea myself, and I've actually tried to imagine that before. But the image that keeps getting stuck in my head is Spacedock with some nacelles strapped on.
Yeah, that's what's coming to my mind, too. Since we have artificial gravity, we can really orient the habitable areas whichever way we want, right? If the saucer were rotated 90 degrees, it would make perfect sense if our only method of gravity production was acceleration, but I'm not sure if I want to go that way. I'm going to doodle some more, see if anything good comes out. -Ricky
Madman, I have to be honest. The sketch looks too much like current Trek with just the details changed. Not really a "re-imagine the Enterprise as if the show had never existed" concept. I also think trying to use a disc shaped primary hull oriented perpendicular to the direction of travel just doesn't work aesthetically. So, it either becomes a choice of using it horizontal to the direction of travel, which we've seen in 1000's of star trek ships, or come up with something completely different.
Yeah, but why would we want to? If the goal is to design something that looks like it belongs in space, then I think it's counterproductive to be a slave to the Earthbound convention that a vehicle's up-down vector needs to be perpendicular to its direction of motion. It makes sense for artificial gravity too. Think of an elevator. When it accelerates or decelerates parallel to the gravity vector, you just get lighter or heavier. Whereas on a bus or subway, the acceleration pushes you forward or back. The former seems less inconvenient. And sure, you can argue there would need to be inertial cancellation negating the effects of acceleration anyway, but I think the necessary effect would be much simpler if it were acting in the direction of motion, because then you'd simply have to increase or decrease the strength of the gravity field to cancel out the acceleration, rather than applying a force perpendicular to the gravity field. That's a more complicated approach that results from Earthbound thinking. I'm visualizing more of a dome shape, actually.
It's the wrong generation, and it might not be quite what you mean, but your description keeps making me think of Atolm's Chariot Class, Christopher.
Yeah, you're right. I'm re-thinking the saucer section big time... but I'm still trying to keep my profile. :-) I just had a thought. If we're using a space warp alcubierre drive, do you even get traditional acceleration anyway? Maybe the inertial dampneners aren't even necessary, if the drive is inertial less anyway. Just a thought. Going to tweak some more now. -Ricky
I've always liked that one... it would be better I think if it had a different style of surface details. -Ricky
No, that's not it at all. Well, you'd still need some form of conventional thrust to start yourself in the right direction before engaging warp, and for orbital maneuvering, docking, etc.
Not even if you turn it so that the top of the saucer is forward, and then turn the nacelles 90 degrees?