It would be interesting if she turns out to be a 24th century Vulcan design. Not all Vulcan ships have to have ring drives, as the Surak clearly demonstrated and nearly 130 years before the current show.
Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard
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So much this! I'm so sick of Eaves doing all the starship design work. It's not building on anything. It's the same shapes, the same lines over and over again.
Bring in Doug Drexler! That man creates fantastic starships even if some of them are a little on the weird side.
Iowa class was explicitly designed to escort aircraft carriers. Carriers typically had a top speed of over 30 knots. American "standard" battleships built around WW1 topped out at 22kts, and even the "fast" North Carolina and South Dakota classes could only hit 28kts. Foreign battleships typically operated between those numbers.
Iowa was designed for 32.5kts, hit 33 in real life, and USS New Jersey once hit 35kts fresh out of drydock...which is insanely fast for a ship. Nothing that size has hit that speed before or since. And it took insane amount of power and a hull design that somewhat sacrificed protection for speed.
Basically, they were the only battleships on Earth that fit into the new, faster carrier-oriented world.
So I like John Eaves as a person. I chatted with him on numerous occasions when he and Drexler were doing their blogs. He’s a bit ADD but he’s a nice guy.
Now with that said, he still doesn’t get a pass from me about his design style. Even his concept art is very derivative. He just has this certain style that is the same no matter what organization or time period the ship in question is from. He also has a habit of going back to his old concept designs when tasked with coming up with new things. Which in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if those concepts were supposed to fit the time period. But it’s all the same. He just seems pathologically unable to design stuff that’s completely different than what he’s used to.
They were never designed to escort carriers. The design for the Iowa class was finalized in 1939 before the shift to carrier warfare became necessary due to the destruction of the pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.
They were designed with the high speed to counter the Kongo sisters who were capable of 30 knots and other high speed Japanese cruisers.
He definitely has a recognizable style.
Yes.
I guess the big issue that makes people think "This just plain generic" is the lack of that very Trek thing, identifiable warp nacelles.
I mean, yeah, Eaves draws nacelles like the next guy, sometimes lots and lots of them per ship. But something simple, with the glowing bits at the right spots, would make this Trek - both by being simple, which is what all the hero designs in the shows are (Kirk's ship, DS9, now Discovery), and by having the one legitimizing design detail.
The poor Sirena has the glow all clustered in the butt. Which may be great for stealth or agility or whatever in-universe, but detracts from the "this is like Kirk's, but cooler" endeavor. I mean, not "Let's start with the Enterprise and then make her cooler", which ill served VOY. But even "Let's start somewhere completely different and then approach the Enterprise" requires actually doing the final approach.
Timo Saloniemi
I mean, yeah, Eaves draws nacelles like the next guy, sometimes lots and lots of them per ship. But something simple, with the glowing bits at the right spots, would make this Trek - both by being simple, which is what all the hero designs in the shows are (Kirk's ship, DS9, now Discovery), and by having the one legitimizing design detail.
The poor Sirena has the glow all clustered in the butt. Which may be great for stealth or agility or whatever in-universe, but detracts from the "this is like Kirk's, but cooler" endeavor. I mean, not "Let's start with the Enterprise and then make her cooler", which ill served VOY. But even "Let's start somewhere completely different and then approach the Enterprise" requires actually doing the final approach.
Timo Saloniemi
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Why would there be a definitive look for civvie ships built by hundreds of different member planets? We've seen plenty of Vulcan designs and a few Andorian and Tellarite.
I guess the big question is who built the ubiquitous Merchantman and Batris/Norkova designs.
You're right about this, I think.
Why would there be a definitive look for Starfleet, or for Vulcans? Purely for dramatic reasons, and in defiance of in-universe logic...
Indeedly. And the answer would depend on whether we want to accept the many reuses of those models for faraway ships, too, or pretend that they still come from the general vicinity of the UFP.
It would be cool for the Batris to really be an ancient design, its origins perhaps no longer known to those building more of the things out of alien blueprints. The heroes would long since have given up hope of discovering these origins, so they would just shrug when meeting the design in Delta or seeing it enter UFP space from parts unknown.
Timo Saloniemi
One thing I do like about the DSC Era of starships is that the variety of weird designs lets us speculate that some of them could be designed by and even crewed by officers from certain member worlds of the Federation. The Magee-class stands out very strongly in the mid-23rd century but could indeed be an Andorian design and thus why the Shran is a prominent starship seen at the Battle of the Binary Stars. She could be manned by Andorians in much the same way the Intrepid at the time of "The Immunity Syndrome(TOS)" was manned entirely by Vulcans.
Somebody once pointed out design similarities they saw between the Shran and the Andorian Kumari-class warships of ENT.
Somebody once pointed out design similarities they saw between the Shran and the Andorian Kumari-class warships of ENT.
Which is my preference, personally. So many different member worlds would allow for some variety in ship component and design language. As much as I love the original Enterprise there was no indication that its design language was the only one used.
I have no problem with Them adding all sorts of new starship designs.
I just wish that They would also insert a couple of familiar designs along the way.
What harm would there have been in DISCOVERY's first two seasons if we had seen in the background, some ships more akin to the TOS Enterprise?
That's what frustrates me, I don't understand the value of completely ignoring what has come before.
As far as I'm concerned Fuller was an idiot for going that route.
I just wish that They would also insert a couple of familiar designs along the way.
What harm would there have been in DISCOVERY's first two seasons if we had seen in the background, some ships more akin to the TOS Enterprise?
That's what frustrates me, I don't understand the value of completely ignoring what has come before.
As far as I'm concerned Fuller was an idiot for going that route.
