Theta-Class

I was wondering if anyone had/knew of/was working on plans of the "Theta-Class" raider seen in 'Gambit' (TNG) and 'Vortex' (DS9)?

Cheers.

 

pic?

 

He's talking about the Miradorn raider seen in DS9's "Vortex" and reused as Baran's pirate ship in TNG's "Gambit."

To answer your question, the only "official" schematics are from the Star Trek Fact Files. Official is in quotes because their drawing is highly inaccurate to the actual model:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/pirate.jpg

The Miradorn raider model was a great design that was completely wasted. The Miradorn were never seen again, and after the reuse for the pirate ship, the model was never reused again. That's quite a shame, because its design is very reminiscent of a more-advanced Klingon BoP. That's what it should have been used for, IMHO, and the movie BoP should have been phased out:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x12/vortex199.jpg

 

They were kind of cool-looking! But, I wonder if those extended wings might be more vulnerable to enemy fire than if the vessel were more aerodynamically designed--more like an arrow.

 

^It's no more vulnerable than a Klingon Bird of Prey. And why does a spacecraft need to be aerodynamically designed?

 

Actually, the model was used once more as the Tareisian ship in the Voyager episode "Favorite Son". (It was also included with the third Micro Machine set).

As for phasing out the BoP? Naaah!

 

Thanks, I'd forgotten that one.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, however wrong it is

 

I guess they just didn't have any particular reason to show the Miradorn again, especially when some far more compelling aliens would be introduced the following season.

They did reuse the model twice, though I think if you recycle a model a lot (especially without modifying it, as they did with most other alien-of-the-week ships), it gets easier to spot and it can start taking you out of the episode.

It's certainly an aggressive-looking ship (though not as much as, say, the enemy ship in "Fight or Flight"), but I'm not sure it would work as a Klingon ship.

 

Well considering that the Klingons used alien vessel designs on no less than three occasions (the Cardassian freighter Groumall, the Vidiian ship which was a redress of the Merchantman, and the Promellian battlecruiser, none of which looked like Klingon ships either), I see no problem in them 'acquiring' the Miradorn raider as a new BoP.

 

It would not need to be aerodynamically designed for interstellar space, or even orbiting a planet, but it might be good for ships designed to enter a planet's atmosphere and to even land on a planet.

It's probably no big deal, but it just is a question of aesthetics.

 

I think of it as the Klingon Defiant, and the Miradorn just bought or stole one from the triangle.

 

I rather like to think of it as the loss leader from Honest Harry's Buccaneering Vessels: it's very similar conceptually to what we saw of the Orion ship in TAS "Pirates of Orion", and was in pirate hands in the TNG and DS9 episodes as well. Perhaps those tentacle-like components are how you do Menacing on a discount? Or how you grapple ships you have first disabled with the weapons mounted in the main body of the vessel?

ENT showed us what Orion design looks like in the 22nd century, but this angular-tentacle fashion could either be what the Orions adopted a century later, or what they purchased from a third party for their nefarious purposes exactly because it so radically differed from the classical Orion ship...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I had forgotten about the TAS Orion ship. It does look similar.