Discovery starship discussion [SPOILERS]

[Timo]

Time to bump the all-encompassing DSC tech thread?

We're getting new tech goodies, after all. What to make of these S2 trailer highlights?

1) New spacesuits, similar to what we saw in "Context is for Kings". Color-coded by division. Fewer functions than Burnham's thruster suit? No major HUD stuff going on so far.

2) Faithful companion drones for the spacewalkers, vertical hovering blade things with lighting fixtures but no doubt other functionalities as well. Do they have cameras? Other sensors? Guns? Do they obey verbal commands? Do they have names?

3) Spherical one-person spacecraft. Fancy spinning tail ends, probably propulsion systems. Ion pods, anyone?

4) Something deploying from an apparent saucer bottom vertex. A gaggle of the above pods? How come they emerge from such a place? What happened to the dome capping all the known vertices on the two relevant ships?

5) A corridor with a transparent ceiling revealing the amassing of small free-fliers of some sort - the trusty companion drones, the nimble pods, workbees for repairing Pike's hurt starship, something else? Why such a corridor, and where?

What else techwise? We'll learn more of these winged aliens and distant red dots and whatnot in due time, but the Starfleet tech we might just as well start tackling now. Especially in terms of comparison.

Say, why no drones to assist Kirk's away teams on their wild landing parties in TOS? Were there instances where Kirk would have found comparable tech remarkable? Or would it slip into the TOS/TAS environment without much splashing?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

2) Maybe the drones are controlled by the new Red Shirt lady with the cybernetic looking mouth mic?

3/4) The flying pods seem to have launch tubes in a Battlestar Galactic-like fashion, though the exit point almost seemed like they went out the hanger deck. They seems to be two round tube opening in the upper part of the hanger now, with a clear path out of the hanger over the area the shuttles normally sit. The ones under the saucer down are likely a special sensor system.

5) The transparent ceiling corridor is likely one of Discovery's connecting spokes between sections of the saucer. We saw Michael and Tilly running through them during season one looking in from outside the transparency.

 

[Timo]

3/4) Yeah, Viper tubes confirmed, and nice spotting for their exit points. An odd thing to refit into a science ship, although perhaps something decided upon during the war (CAM Hurricanes, anyone?). Or could these things always have existed behind hatches? This is probably the bit we can nitpick the most until more material comes in.

5) It's the spoke set no doubt. But what are we seeing above? Not just the buzz of pods or drones, but some sort of a wall structure to the left and right, too?

As for the saucer bottom thing, perhaps this is the Enterprise bottom (what else could it be?), and instead of a cool dome retraction as a prelude to a cooler action sequence, it's a forgettable maintenance snippet where the heroes warp away in the Discovery while tech people get down to work with a damaged, exposed sensor array...?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

5) Discovery could have weird variable gravity oriented decks. Maybe that the underside part of the tube and we are seeing the secondary hull?

 

[oberth]

guys, i'm in europ trying to keep up - somebody got a link to all that stuff?

 

[Longinus]

5) Discovery could have weird variable gravity oriented decks.

No it couldn't.

 

[David cgc]

There are several reasons why it isn't, but I briefly thought the skylight corridor might be looking up through the Enterprise's neck (for one thing, all the computer screens in the corridor are showing diagrams of the Discovery). Could be Discovery's neck, I suppose.

guys, i'm in europ trying to keep up - somebody got a link to all that stuff?

This version of the trailer should work in Europe (and anywhere else that isn't the U.S. or Canada.

And the US Version, to be safe.

 

[oberth]

There are several reasons why it isn't, but I briefly thought the skylight corridor might be looking up through the Enterprise's neck (for one thing, all the computer screens in the corridor are showing diagrams of the Discovery). Could be Discovery's neck, I suppose.



This version of the trailer should work in Europe (and anywhere else that isn't the U.S. or Canada.

And the US Version, to be safe.

thx - firstone works in germany

 

[XCV330]

No it couldn't.

As they haven't shown much of the ship, why are you sure?

 

[Longinus]

As they haven't shown much of the ship, why are you sure?

Because people who design these things (I mean in real life) would not design it that way, as it would seem weird and silly to the viewers.

 

[XCV330]

Because people who design these things (I mean in real life) would not design it that way, as it would seem weird and silly to the viewers.

So you don't know.
Anyway, it would be interesting to show different grav areas or orientations. Hard to film but on a science lab it would make sense. The only reason to keep things at 1g constantly would be for the health of species that are used to that very specific gravity level, which every species in Trek seems miraculously to evolve around. Doesn't mean there isn't uses for fractional 1 g. Mayweather can't find the sweet spot everywhere.

 

[Noah_23]

I think the skylight corridor is inside one of greebly pits we see on the secondary hull. Note the blue strips, possibly skylights to corridors. Also explains the weird tech pieces we see outside the window as part of the surrounding greebles inside the pit itself. That's the best location candidate as far as I can tell. I highly doubt it's in one of the spokes because those corridors are much wider than standard, and also have windows in the walls too, which aren't seen in the corridor from the trailer.

 

[Timo]

Good candidate! And apparently a new standing set that, if placed as suggested above, might have to do with an enhanced Main Engineering.

The more depth from the greeblie wall, the less need to do outside-view VFX for the average shot, or to keep the camera pointed artificially low... And the distorting plexiglass makes a simple backlit starfield canvas look fine if need be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[137th Gebirg]

IIRC, the "skylight" corridor was one of four connecting structures between the inner and outer primary hull rings. We saw Michael and Tilly jogging through it once on their morning PT routine.

 

[Noah_23]

IIRC, the "skylight" corridor was one of four connecting structures between the inner and outer primary hull rings. We saw Michael and Tilly jogging through it once on their morning PT routine.

I stated in my post why it's likely not in one of the spokes. The spokes are nearly double the width of a standard corridor, and also have windows in the walls, which aren't seen in the skylight corridor from the trailer.

 

[Noah_23]

Here's what the spoke looks like. Note the wider hallway and the windows in the sides of the tube. The details are entirely different from what we see in the trailer which is why I think it's located in one of those pits in the secondary hull.

 

[Timo]

...Some of the set elements, or their backups, may have been reused, of course (the big plexiglass piece is probably a fairly expensive physical set element that will get mileage in the show, say). But every single segment of the new corridor appears somewhat differently shaped to me. Although the side holes that in the trailer contain greeblies can no doubt be turned into portholes when this new set needs to be reused as another type of corridor, it won't be trivial to accurately turn it into one of those spoke corridors.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[David cgc]

...Some of the set elements, or their backups, may have been reused, of course (the big plexiglass piece is probably a fairly expensive physical set element that will get mileage in the show, say). But every single segment of the new corridor appears somewhat differently shaped to me. Although the side holes that in the trailer contain greeblies can no doubt be turned into portholes when this new set needs to be reused as another type of corridor, it won't be trivial to accurately turn it into one of those spoke corridors.

The plexiglass skylight is almost certainly CG, given how much trouble it would be to isolate reflections out from the greenscreen. It'd be easier to just put in the glass after the fact along with everything outside the window.

As far as converting the standard-width corridor to match the spoke, they already did it in "The Wolf Inside," where they used the regular corridor set for a spoke rather than the big CG carpet from "Lethe" that took up the entire width of the structure. And we can't even say the spokes are different, since both times they zoomed into the aft-starboard spoke (and neither time did they detail the other three spokes to match. Sloppy, sloppy).

Strangely enough, the narrow version from "Wolf" still has the windows on the sides, even though they aren't up against the outside of the spoke anymore. The scaling of the whole thing gets a little weird during the transition from CG to soundstage, honestly, it looks like they cheated a lot to make the shot work.

 

[Noah_23]

The plexiglass skylight is almost certainly CG, given how much trouble it would be to isolate reflections out from the greenscreen. It'd be easier to just put in the glass after the fact along with everything outside the window.

As far as converting the standard-width corridor to match the spoke, they already did it in "The Wolf Inside," where they used the regular corridor set for a spoke rather than the big CG carpet from "Lethe" that took up the entire width of the structure. And we can't even say the spokes are different, since both times they zoomed into the aft-starboard spoke (and neither time did they detail the other three spokes to match. Sloppy, sloppy).

Strangely enough, the narrow version from "Wolf" still has the windows on the sides, even though they aren't up against the outside of the spoke anymore. The scaling of the whole thing gets a little weird during the transition from CG to soundstage, honestly, it looks like they cheated a lot to make the shot work.

Yeah, I've also noticed the difference between those two zoom in shots. The one from Lethe makes far more sense scaling wise. Could you be more clear on the "windows up against the outside of the spoke" idea? I looked at the two scenes and the windows on both seem to be the same, it's the interior corridor that's different.

 

[David cgc]

Yeah, I've also noticed the difference between those two zoom in shots. The one from Lethe makes far more sense scaling wise. Could you be more clear on the "windows up against the outside of the spoke" idea? I looked at the two scenes and the windows on both seem to be the same, it's the interior corridor that's different.

That's what I was saying. On both versions, there are windows on the sides of the exterior, and in "Wolf," you can see them in the interior, even though that version of the corridor is much narrower than the spoke, so the interior windows are far from the exterior windows.