TOS Constitution Class Model In Marcus's Office!? (Deleted Scene)

[The Wormhole]

What always got me was why is there a CG ship hanging in Marcus's office as opposed to a practical model? Abrams is all about minimizing the use of CG and going practical wherever it's, eh... practical. Hell, just look at how many practical aliens, monsters, and droids he's created for Star Wars compared to what Lucas had in the prequels.

This was primarily the reason for my skepticism on this in the other thread when the first screencaps were posted. Unfortunately, it turned out they were legitimate and I was forced to dine on crow when the actual scene was released complete with CG TOS Constitution. But still, why was this CG? And what's so special about this ship that it gets a large model hanging from the ceiling as opposed to being on Marcus's desk along with all those other models?

 

[Ithekro]

Maybe that was Marcus' ship when he was a captain?

 

[Mudd]

There's no reason to assume that a TOS-style Constitution class vessel ever got past the design stages in the Abramsverse.

It may have been in planning stages and scrapped when the Narada destroyed the Kelvin. The need suddenly arose for larger, stronger ships.

That would be my guess.

And what's so special about this ship that it gets a large model hanging from the ceiling as opposed to being on Marcus's desk along with all those other models?

Fan service.

 

[The Wormhole]

Maybe that was Marcus' ship when he was a captain?

So now we're suggesting TOS Constitutions actually were in service at some point in the Abrams timeline? Besides, we know from the comics that Marcus took over command of the Enterprise after April left and eventually transferred to a desk job a Starfleet Command before climbing the flag ranks. And while the comics are not canon, this particular story was drafted from Orci himself, so I guess it has some weight to it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Was there ever any confirmation that this was the final shot and that wasn't some placeholder CGI?

The text at the bottom suggests they're perfecting the angle of the ship, so although it's not a final render, it's unlikely to be a placeholder.

In the concept art for Marcus' office, it's the reboot Enterprise hanging above.

 

[Mudd]

There's no reason to use a very high-detail CG model of the TOS ship - with a different name - as a placeholder unless they intended to use it in the final shot. The artists were not at a loss for all kinds of meshes of the reboot ship, had they intended to use it.

 

[Timo]

...They were not pressed for time, either (as all that beautiful CG art that ended up being cut shows - out of the many scenes available at YouTube, only one, the Klingon struggle, is devoid of all the eventual visual effects). They might well have chosen to have a little fun when doing the "perfecting the angles" stage of the CG work.

Would the wall screen of Marcus' office have showed post-production graphics in the final shot, too? Or was this to be a "quiet night scene"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Maurice]

And here's a lovely picture of the American SST:

There used to be a full-size picture of that plane painted on the side of a building at Boeing Field, back before the project's cancellation.

And that design was scrapped in favor of the 2707-300 fixed wing design before the whole project was canned.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

And here's a lovely picture of the American SST:

There used to be a full-size picture of that plane painted on the side of a building at Boeing Field, back before the project's cancellation.

And that design was scrapped in favor of the 2707-300 fixed wing design before the whole project was canned.

I remember the 2707 from Popular Science back in the day. The Boeing version would have been quite a lot bigger than the Concorde, yes?

 

[Lakenheath 72]

The name and registry of this model were repurposed for a Newton-type starship, which was seen as the Enterprise left Starbase 1. It is rumored that the number 0718 had significance for JJ Abrams.

 

[The Wormhole]

^^Abrams is from New York, and 718 is New York's area code. The leading zero was added because apparently three digit numbers aren't allowed to exist in the Abramsverse.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

You're not gonna glitch on the leading zero again, are you?

 

[fireproof78]

...Except the Kelvin already was a larger ship. Many ships of that size and general design were seen in the 2250s scenes, yet the existence of the Kelvin would seem to indicate that those were not a "reaction" to anything, but rather generic legacy ships dating back to the days before the TOS design.

Sure, Starfleet may have considered going midget and then decided not to. But Starfleet may also have decided that both midgets and giants have their role to play, and continued to build both. It just didn't choose to give the registry NCC-1701 or the name Enterprise or the class name Constitution to the smaller design in this timeline.

I'm still having trouble believing Starfleet would have found anything exceptional or worth reacting to in the Narada incident. Shit happens, especially in space. Starships didn't suddenly become larger or more powerful when the Space Amoeba or the Doomsday Machine were encountered; decades after the fact, Starfleet kept building ships of the approximate TOS Constitution size.

Now, as for an excuse to supersize... I guess even the likes of Marcus want to have excuses.

Timo Saloniemi

I always saw the Kelvin as new start for Starfleet after the Romulan War and the emphasis began (again) on colonization. Once the shadow of the war had passed, Starfleet began looking to more support style vessels, Constitution style, that were less emphasis on transporting colonists and more on patrol and responding to problems (Janus IV Argelius II, etc).

However, with Nero's incursion, there was a fear that the Romulans were trying to start the war again and that bigger ships would be needed to deal with such a threat.

That, of course, is just my view of it. But, the Narada posed not just because of size but because it was Romulan and the Earth-Romulan war would still be a fresh memory.

 

[Timo]

Why would the Narada be identified as Romulan, though?

During the encounter, Starfleet supposedly did not yet have any idea that Romulans would look like Vulcans. Apparently, this changed after the timeline split - in the late 2260s in the TOS universe, but at some point before the 2258 events in the new universe. But would it change soon enough after the Narada encounter to affect Starfleet shipbuilding, or long after it?

Sure, Starfleet might have known what language the Romulans speak, and if Nero spoke that language... But neither Robau nor any of his crew ever comment that Nero would be speaking Romulan. Instead, they wonder out loud who these people might be.

What changed, and when, would affect whether Starfleet would come to see the Narada as Romulan early enough to have consequences in shipbuilding.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Why would the Narada be identified as Romulan, though?

During the encounter, Starfleet supposedly did not yet have any idea that Romulans would look like Vulcans. Apparently, this changed after the timeline split - in the late 2260s in the TOS universe, but at some point before the 2258 events in the new universe. But would it change soon enough after the Narada encounter to affect Starfleet shipbuilding, or long after it?

Sure, Starfleet might have known what language the Romulans speak, and if Nero spoke that language... But neither Robau nor any of his crew ever comment that Nero would be speaking Romulan. Instead, they wonder out loud who these people might be.

What changed, and when, would affect whether Starfleet would come to see the Narada as Romulan early enough to have consequences in shipbuilding.

As big a TOS fan as I am, the idea that no human ever saw a Romulan during a full scale war makes little sense. It may not be known to the general populace that the Romulans are related to the Vulcans, but I'm sure in the upper echelons of Starfleet Command, it is known.

Heck, it would seem linguists would be able to begin making the connections that, even after 2,000 years, there are similarities to the languages each speak.

The truth about the connection was likely hidden to keep Earth's populace from turning on the Vulcan's after a bloody war.

 

[Kemaiku]

The Enterprise novels show that all but one battle were space based ship to ship. Communications were all audio only. Only Section 31 and their operatives undercover knew the Romulans looked like.

Berengaria was the only face to face battle, when the Romulans took Starbase 1 on the ground, their troops wore battle helmets that covered their entire heads.

When the MACO's retook SB1, the Dragons joined in after being abused by the Romulan occupation forces and incinerated any troops that hadn't been so mangled by phaser fire already as to be beyond medical recognition.

The peace treaty, was done entirely by long range Subspace radio, so it's hard to say how Starfleet would know anything was Romulan at all unless it resembled the warbirds or had a Romulan power signature.

Maybe with the Narada being more rustic and old, she doesn't have a singularity core but an more standard power generation system that is close to (just more advanced than) the higher end ships during the war.

Or simply the name Nero, with an imperial trident, was enough for them to conclude it.

 

[fireproof78]

Why would the Narada be identified as Romulan, though?

During the encounter, Starfleet supposedly did not yet have any idea that Romulans would look like Vulcans. Apparently, this changed after the timeline split - in the late 2260s in the TOS universe, but at some point before the 2258 events in the new universe. But would it change soon enough after the Narada encounter to affect Starfleet shipbuilding, or long after it?

Sure, Starfleet might have known what language the Romulans speak, and if Nero spoke that language... But neither Robau nor any of his crew ever comment that Nero would be speaking Romulan. Instead, they wonder out loud who these people might be.

What changed, and when, would affect whether Starfleet would come to see the Narada as Romulan early enough to have consequences in shipbuilding.

Timo Saloniemi

I'm not sure what changed but Kirk comments Pike right before arriving at Vulcan that the attack is from the same ship as the one that attacked the Kelvin and that the Romulans were in one massive ship.

So, I agree that if it had been just a random encounter then it probably would not have changed Strafleet's design protocol. But, since they knew that it was a ship of a recent enemy that might be a prelude to war again, they would need to be prepared.

Again, just my thoughts.

 

[Timo]

Intuitively, the "Who are these Romulans?" thing makes sense. It was a space war - naturally everybody wore helmets!

Whether Starfleet would know anything would depend on things like the scale of the war, the duration of the war, and who won. The xenophobic Romulans might have been the hands-down winners, settling after Earth's unconditional capitulation to the establishing of the RNZ, but only if everybody who knew about their biological nature agreed to being executed first; mankind was saved through these valiant if humiliating sacrifices.

Or then the humans saw through the Romulan subterfuge and holographic attempts at framing, tore these otherwise primitive space pirates a new one, and locked them up behind the RNZ. They just didn't realize that they had failed to remove the final layer of camouflage, and the masters of disguise were at first mistakenly believed to look like, say, Nausicaans - but they then sent a "Nyah, nyah!" message explicating that this was just holo-makeup, thus establishing that nobody had seen their true faces.

In any case, the Narada strikes me as more akin to the Space Amoeba or the Doomsday Machine than an enemy vessel. Never seen before, never seen after, and orders of magnitude worse than any starship built or imaginable; preparing against such a beast might be both futile and superfluous!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[fireproof78]

Intuitively, the "Who are these Romulans?" thing makes sense. It was a space war - naturally everybody wore helmets!

Whether Starfleet would know anything would depend on things like the scale of the war, the duration of the war, and who won. The xenophobic Romulans might have been the hands-down winners, settling after Earth's unconditional capitulation to the establishing of the RNZ, but only if everybody who knew about their biological nature agreed to being executed first; mankind was saved through these valiant if humiliating sacrifices.

Or then the humans saw through the Romulan subterfuge and holographic attempts at framing, tore these otherwise primitive space pirates a new one, and locked them up behind the RNZ. They just didn't realize that they had failed to remove the final layer of camouflage, and the masters of disguise were at first mistakenly believed to look like, say, Nausicaans - but they then sent a "Nyah, nyah!" message explicating that this was just holo-makeup, thus establishing that nobody had seen their true faces.

In any case, the Narada strikes me as more akin to the Space Amoeba or the Doomsday Machine than an enemy vessel. Never seen before, never seen after, and orders of magnitude worse than any starship built or imaginable; preparing against such a beast might be both futile and superfluous!

Timo Saloniemi

This is where we will have to agree to disagree. I imagine Starfleet viewing it as a possible preemptive strike from an enemy that had only recently fought a war against the Federation.

Also, it might have been the excuse that more hawkish types would use to push larger starship design rather than the original Constitution design.

Couple that with a possible Klingon increase in development of tech because of the Narada's attack (if that happened) that would have Starfleet worried.

Again, its just my thoughts but the whole attitude of Starfleet seems to have shifted to a more "bigger is better" attitude for many reasons, and the Narada may have tipped the scales.

 

[Kemaiku]

The Earth Romulan war spanned 2154 to 2160 overall, but we see the Kelvin closely monitoring Klingon space in 2233 and the ship to shore chatter from her to Starfleet HQ seems tinged with worry about a possible Klingon attack by then.

Marcus is entirely convinced enough to throw all Federation/Section 31 resources into the Vengeance project as a prelude to a war with the Empire.

Apart from one offhand remark from Spock regarding using any mercy to Nero as a gesture to Romulus to be friends, no one really seems to think that the Romulans are a threat, or even look their way.

The great span of silence after 2161 that TOS implied lasting until Balance of Terror in the Prime Timeline, is pretty much intact here, as we see no other Romulans at all.

We don't know when the Constitution 0718 was built, if it ever was at all and that was a model of what could have been, or when Marcus came in and beefed up the fleet.

I still think Starfleet only overreacted so much to the Narada, and gave Marcus the opening he needed to be head of SF, everything after that, all the changes, were something he brought in with his rampant paranoia/war mongering.