U.S.S. Enterprise and U.S.S. Antares

[Masao]

Sorry about your model, Norsehound.

I think my Antares would have been too uninteresting to appear on TOS-R, unless it had been attached to something, like a Franz Joseph cargo cylinder. The Robot Cargo ship looks attractive enough to play Antares, but I don't know if it makes a lot of sense. My Antares is definitely also TAS-ish, because I "borrowed" pieces of USS/SS Huron's bridge and shuttlebay.

Although my Capella wasn't used for TOS-R, I've recently found out that it was used in another book back in 2012: http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Hypatia_(NCC-S415) . I don't remember being asked about it. I haven't read the book either.

 

[Norsehound]

Someday I might rebuild it. It didn't look too bad. Wanted it for some interior shots for one of my many burned-out Trek projects.

 

[Shawnster]

This is a recreation of the Antares as depicted in Bjo Trimble's concordance

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/6e/b3/6a6eb390b3d611c892b7a8dbf346462f.jpg

 

[Praetor]

Here's my version of Antares, the Capella-class utility cruiser. http://www.starfleet-museum.org/capella.htm
I wanted Antares to be an older "jeep" ship that could be any of the types mentioned in the episode (survey, science, transport). So this is a precursor of both Oberth and Miranda which can be attached to almost any external module to do various jobs and whose nacelles can be mounted up or down.
(By the way, this was the first choice [by the publisher] for the Archer-class ship in the Vanguard book series, but I said "no." Capella is too plain-looking for book covers.)

@Masao, your work is consistently beautiful and well thought out. I dig it.

(And good call talking the publisher out of using it for the Archer. This one screams "utility" to me.

 

[Dukhat]

This is a recreation of the Antares as depicted in Bjo Trimble's concordance

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/6e/b3/6a6eb390b3d611c892b7a8dbf346462f.jpg

That artwork is a bit more of a TOS/TMP extrapolation than what the original artwork showed. And the underslung secondary hull is just conjectural since we can't actually see the ship's underside in the original artwork:

http://stevepugh.net/fleet/images/antares.gif

Now with that said, I would much rather have had this ship represent the Antares instead of the drone-with-command pod.

 

[Masao]

I've always wondered about that thing that looks like a dog collar on Brian Pimenta's design of Antares. What's it for?
This Antares might have been one of the earliest starship designs by fans. There were a lot of Enterprise kitbashes after ST:TMP and ST:WoK, but very few before. I made my first (very bad) designs during TAS.

(Thanks for the compliment, Praetor!)

 

[137th Gebirg]

If they did have to reuse the model instead of building a new design, it would have been nice to have had the lower hull swapped out for mission-specific pods for each use. Like for example, have the Biko’s pod be a cargo container, or the Tsiolkovsky’s pod be a science instrument package, etc. The problem with that, though, was that half the time we saw an Oberth it was just stock footage of the Cochrane from “The Drumhead.”

Rick Sternbach actually did design an MSD for the Pegasus that was supposed to be an Ambassador-era Nebula type. Sadly, as mentioned, the budget wouldn't allow for its construction and the redressed Grissom was used once again.

I took this and made a conjectural multi-view of the design from existing parts.

 

[Dukhat]

Rick Sternbach actually did design an MSD for the Pegasus that was supposed to be an Ambassador-era Nebula type. Sadly, as mentioned, the budget wouldn't allow for its construction and the redressed Grissom was used once again.

I took this and made a conjectural multi-view of the design from existing parts.

Nice diagram. I've seen Sternbach's concept art for the ship. Personally, I think the design is way too old for a ship built only a few years before the Enterprise-D was, and way too big for the minimal crew it was supposed to have.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Thank ye kindly.

For reference, here's the original:

 

[Masao]

I wonder, would it have been possible to take the model from Season 3 (Ent C) and modify it for Season 7 (to be Pegasus)? Or was a scale model kit of Enterprise C available yet?

 

[Dukhat]

I wonder, would it have been possible to take the model from Season 3 (Ent C) and modify it for Season 7 (to be Pegasus)? Or was a scale model kit of Enterprise C available yet?

“The Pegasus” was filmed in 1994. The first commercially available model kit of the Enterprise-C didn’t come out until 1997. But I doubt they’d have used a model kit anyway for such an up-close shot like what we got in the episode, even if half the ship was surrounded by an asteroid. I believe the studio model molds still existed, so Greg Jein could have made a ship from it like he made the Princeton and Firebrand. But I suppose there wasn’t time. And the original Ent-C model had been damaged at some point and was crated away, so apparently modifying it wasn’t an option.

 

[E-DUB]

I hate the design because it's so not Star Trek. I'm perplexed by the anatomy of the Grissom. Is main engineering in the saucer... I mean bowl section of the ship or it's in the lower levels? If it's in the lower levels, does anyone have a clue how Operations enter the lower levels???

Ski-lift on the port side, happy fun slide on the starboard.

 

[Masao]

I hate the design because it's so not Star Trek. I'm perplexed by the anatomy of the Grissom. Is main engineering in the saucer... I mean bowl section of the ship or it's in the lower levels? If it's in the lower levels, does anyone have a clue how Operations enter the lower levels???

Because Grissom had a round-ish primary hull and nacelles on the side, it looked like Starfleet to me when I saw it during ST:TSFS. At the time it seemed like a reasonable survey vessel with an enormously large viewing device attached. Problems occur when the design is forced into other roles that make less sense. If TNG had needed an aircraft carrier, it might as well have been a modified Grissom! (Reliant and Excelsior were saying "Please let us retire.")