A Warp Fighter

[Timo]

And the real-world reason never seems to be "it would be expensive", as something even more expensive is done in its stead.

a dedicated Yacht set

From what little we learn in the TNG Tech Manual, the Yacht would have been done using the standard cabin set. The same wall curvature is there, the same window shapes, the same dimensions. Picard's table would just have been replaced by a helm console of some sort, apparently.

Might have looked silly. Might have been really cool if the miniature work were good. And if the thing was a success in TNG, it could have been done in more splendor with CGI and virtual sets in the TNG movies. But of course nothing ever came of it.

At least we have Probert's cool artwork of that which never was (incidentally, with what looks like phaser strips and recessed warp engines!).

Timo Saloniemi

[Hando]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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Tangental, but related: there's a blanket category of evidence against Voyager's aeroshuttle in the case of the Delta Flyer; this is a craft built from scratch to accomplish what the aeroshuttle should have been designed to do from the get go; indeed, the mission into that gas giant is the ONLY kind of mission you would ever need an aeroshuttle for, and if it was so ill-suited to the task they could have easily modified and enhanced it for that task instead of building a whole new ship from scratch. Conversely, if the shuttle was so badly damaged that they couldn't even use it (nothing on the USS Voyager was ever THAT badly damaged) they could have simply ejected and scrapped it and put the Delta Flyer into that saucer slot.

Two series' in a row where every single time a "captain's yacht" or similar craft ought to be used, they pick something else instead.

I was under the impression that they build the Delta Flyer withe idea in mind that this shuttle should withstand a lot of beating, more than a typical shuttle and by extension the Aerowing could take.

Timo wrote:

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And the real-world reason never seems to be "it would be expensive", as something even more expensive is done in its stead.

From what little we learn in the TNG Tech Manual, the Yacht would have been done using the standard cabin set. The same wall curvature is there, the same window shapes, the same dimensions. Picard's table would just have been replaced by a helm console of some sort, apparently.

Might have looked silly. Might have been really cool if the miniature work were good. And if the thing was a success in TNG, it could have been done in more splendor with CGI and virtual sets in the TNG movies. But of course nothing ever came of it.

At least we have Probert's cool artwork of that which never was (incidentally, with what looks like phaser strips and recessed warp engines!).

Timo Saloniemi

With the advent of Remastered TNG, we could very well see a CGI model of it in the near future. I wouldn't bet on it, but you never know.

[Crazy Eddie]

Hando wrote:

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I was under the impression that they build the Delta Flyer withe idea in mind that this shuttle should withstand a lot of beating, more than a typical shuttle and by extension the Aerowing could take.

In which case upgrading the runabout-sized Aerowing would have been their best option.

Realistically, anyway. But since this is Voyager what ACTUALLY happened was "Tom Paris built a new shuttlecraft! In a cave! With a bunch of scraps!"

With the advent of Remastered TNG, we could very well see a CGI model of it in the near future.

They haven't done anything NEARLY that ambitious with TNG-R. I doubt they're going to start now.

[Timo]

In terms of immediate need, the Delta Flyer came to be because the heroes needed a batyscaphe - a craft capable of diving deep into the atmosphere of a gas giant. Tom Paris just had some tangential fun when completing the construction work.

How did the DF do better than standard shuttlecraft in the pressure resistance thing? Was it a stronger hull (future materials might well suffice for that)? In that case, an all-new craft would be much better than any attempt at modifying an existing one. But if the trick were done with forcefields or structural integrity fields, all they'd really need would be a craft that could accommodate the required magic field generators - a good excuse to go for the Aeroshuttle, as its only known quality is its runabout-like size, at least equal to that of the DF, and probably a tad better.

Timo Saloniemi

[Crazy Eddie]

Timo wrote:

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But if the trick were done with forcefields or structural integrity fields...

IIRC, at some point during the mission the Delta Flyer actually cracked under the pressure and B'elanna quickly sealed the breach using a hand phaser and a bunch of spare parts.

At the end of the day, the delta flyer in the first place was an excuse to do the "space race" thing with the Malon to capture that space probe they lost. They wrote the aeroshuttle out of the series just to justify that bit of silliness and then expected nobody would ask the obvious background questions of "How the hell are they able to do all of this and have it always work?"

[Blip]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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"Tom Paris built a new shuttlecraft! In a cave! With a bunch of scraps!"

[Timo]

At the end of the day, the delta flyer in the first place was an excuse to do the "space race" thing with the Malon to capture that space probe they lost.

They could have done that with a claustrophobic "special space batysphere", though, for even greater dramatic effect. But they really wanted a big generic secondary craft for future storylines, as separating and stranding part of the cast is always a good driving force for drama.

I agree that if they had chosen to declare in this episode "Hey, we have this special craft here that is especially good for atmospheric operations - let's dust it off!" and then proceeded to refurbish the thing at the bottom of the forward hull, there would have been major upsides.

It would have been a sudden burst of forward-looking continuity, really: it would establish that the ship has some limited-use hardware aboard that was never quite brought to active status, so the heroes could in the future activate further special hardware the same way as needed. It would also perfectly allow for Tom Paris to insert his "Chaotica" strokes. And while it would require shooting of new type of miniature footage of the Voyager flying without the craft in place, it would OTOH free them from building all-new sets because the runabout ones would be available in full. (Any shots of the craft undocking or redocking would not be "extra" work, as they would merely be the counterparts of the shots of the DF flying in and out of the shuttlebay.)

Timo Saloniemi

[Mytran]

Knowing Voyager, the aerowing launch would probably have accomplished through the use of a hatch, much like the lifeboats. That way, they can continue to use the stock Voyager footage unencumbered.

[Timo]

It would have been fun to see what sort of a hatch they could have come up with for that weird-shaped hole... Just putting hinges on one end would have looked really ridiculous!

Timo Saloniemi

[Mytran]

Depending on the shape of the ship underneath, perhaps only part of it would need to fold out of the way?

The more I think about it, the more it feels like a missed opportunity to do something original and interesting - each time the Aerowing (or Delta Flyer if that's what it became) launched would be an event in its own right, not just another "fly out of the magic shuttlebay" shot.

[Timo]

Also, they managed pretty well through several seasons without really mocking up the Delta Flyer exterior - but as a mockup of the runabout doorway and wall was readily available, there would have been interesting possibilities.

Now, any "Hippocratic Oath" style "yeah, the entire craft is here, but the front and aft bits are, uh, covered by vegetation" silliness would have undermined the use of that prop. But VFX technology was on the verge of making it possible to extend the sets plausibly; the Raven didn't look halfway bad. It would have been impressive if they could have created a generic matte or miniature of a landed Aeroshuttle, something they could then surround with a plot-specific landscape and the occasional greenscreened or computer-generated miniature characters to create an establishing shot.

Timo Saloniemi

[tighr]

Mytran wrote:

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The more I think about it, the more it feels like a missed opportunity to do something original and interesting - each time the Aerowing (or Delta Flyer if that's what it became) launched would be an event in its own right, not just another "fly out of the magic shuttlebay" shot.

That shuttlebay was hilarious. Based on dimensions, it was truly a Mary Poppins room. Smaller on the outside than it is on the inside. The Delta Flyer itself would have been too large to fit in the shuttlebay, and there is no way they could have had that many shuttlecraft, either. Of course, there's the infamous "Shuttlebay 2", which doesn't even exist.

[Crazy Eddie]

Timo wrote:

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And while it would require shooting of new type of miniature footage of the Voyager flying without the craft in place...

IIRC, they were already using CGI at that point, so it wouldn't be a problem. And even if they weren't, it wasn't long before they WERE, so again, not really a problem.

[Timo]

It's the one thing they could skip by using the shuttlebay-carried Delta Flyer, though - the only VFX-related thing, really. Pennywise, really, but still a distinguishing factor between the two possibilities.

Regarding the original warp fighter issue, what do we make of the small Vulcan craft of ENT? We see some of these deployed near Vulcan, losing a fight to one of NX-01's shuttlepods, which is pretty pathetic. Yet we soon also witness them in very deep space, in formation with the heaviest known Vulcan combat starships:

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rshara_410.jpg

So, capable of self-deployment at interstellar speeds? Stowable aboard those big combatants? Likely to make any difference in the fight with the Andorians?

...The same as this identically shaped smallish craft from "Carbon Creek"? A craft that may have been a sublight auxiliary to an orbiting mothership, or an independent warpship on its own?

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...ncreek_548.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

[Crazy Eddie]

^ About runabout sized or larger, I should think. I don't recall any of those small craft actually engaging in battle with the Andorians and may have been used more in a support role, but you never know.

significantly, there's an Andorian craft in the "Babel 1" fleet that appears to be a scaleup of the shuttlecraft from Dear Doctor. It's probably meant to represent a second/older type of Andorian warship, but if you squint hard enough it could be the Vulcan shuttle's Andorian counterpart in a formation deceptively close to the camera.