The questions you're asking presuppose that Jefferies was told about the Valiant, or that the script crossed his desk. Do we know that? Or is this just a thought exercise?
^^ That's the thing. The reference might always have been intended to be solely verbal and with no thought to actually showing the ship. Maybe it's in the wording, but aridas might simply be asking "what if?" MJ had been asked to come up with something. Today, and even as early as second season's "Metamorphosis" we accept the idea early warp drive came into use sometime in the mid to latter 21st century. But as early as "The Cage" and during first season there was this apparent subtext that warp drive was a relatively recent (in universe) development. If we go strictly by what they seemed to be thinking early on then the Valiant could likely have been quite primitive, But if we allow for a bit of retconning and look at it from the context of TOS' inferences as a whole then you have more creative leeway. And the latter is the approach I used for my design, but of course I could have tried for something even more rudimentary. In my mind this also ties in to what Zefram Cochrane's prototype could look like. Suffice to say that I don't care at all for the design seen in FC along with all the stupid period world building that went with it.
I largely agree with what Warped wrote above, but on the specific question of whether Jefferies knew of the Valiant I'll just point out that he - or someone - did the "ship's disaster recorder, apparently ejected from the S.S. Valiant two hundred years ago" specified in the script. There are all manner of ships sketched in Jefferies' hand that we assume in many cases are ideas for Enterprise, but the fact is, we can't always be sure what it is we are looking at. One of them may represent Valiant. Who knows?
^^ True. There are any number of sketches and I feel reasonably sure we've seen only a small percentage of what MJ sketched. It's been said often that he made "hundreds of sketches" before he settled on a concept he liked for their hero ship and proceeded to flesh it out. It's possible "hundreds" is an exaggeration, an embellishment, but even so he could have done numerous sketches of which relatively few have been seen publicly. A sketch for the Valiant could conceivably be buried among sketches we've never seen or a disregarded sketch could serve as a basic concept to come up with a finalized design for the ship.
Also, one thing I'm finding as I'm beginning SU, is that the circle tool defaults to 24 sides. You can change it in the lower righthand textbox to be a higher number if you like (48, 96, etc).
^^ Yeah, I already knew about that for quite some time. Actually my model's main hull ia already set at 120 rather 24.
There are several sketches that led to the Leif Ericson design. I have sometimes wondered whether that was Jefferies' Valiant.
Your work is inspiring, Warped9. Truly beautiful! Has anyone discussed the possibility that XCV-330 Enterprise is a Valiant sister ship?
I think you're on to something; not to take away from Warped9's "valiant" efforts but I for one wouldn't mind if the Valiant looked like the Leif, since it looks like it could be a descendant of the DY design philosophy.
Yes. That seems like a reasonable assumption. But I was asking if there had been any discussion that they might be *sister ships*. IE, that Valient and the ringed Enterprise (XCV 330) are of the same class, and would therefor look the same.... I know nothing about this Enterprise, so maybe it's a stupid question.
Well the Valiant supposedly predates the ringship Enterprise by at least 50-70 years or so, so I don't think it likely they'd be the same class.
http://www.thomthom.net/thoughts/2012/06/soft-vs-smooth-vs-hidden-edges/ I leave that here. Perhaps it does help...