Maybe some are twice as large, but look the same, like the B'rel and K'vort
And STO/Countdown started cutting off the arrow on the shoulders (Edit: Actually Elite Force did!)
Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard
- Thread starter pst
- Start date
"Symbolic reason" is no reason at all. Even if it's only 1% safer, you'd put the most important room in the saucer centre.
But they've never designed Trek ships to be sensible, it's always been to look impressive. And having a window gives us awesome zoom-in shots you couldn't do otherwise. So windows it is.
I'm just going to leave this here:
I'm with you, the Very Top/Bottom of the Saucer section is a VERY dumb place to put your bridge.
In my head cannon for future designs, the only thing at the very Top/Bottom of the saucer are the Mess Hall with Panoramic viewing windows or the Bar / Cafe on the opposite side.
The Bridge is buried in the saucer, hidden and not visible for easy pickings.
Fastest access to the core due to the shortest distance between the two?
It's not directly on top of the Galaxy Class.
There are several decks in between.
By the time the Intrepid Class is introduced, the Computer core has shrunk significantly and can do more compute in a smaller foot print.
Computer cores are something of an outdated concept. It's the old 80's big important mainframe thing.
Not 100% It's the modern "Data Center" approach in a secure room.
The only difference is that modern data centers are getting more physically dense thanks to AMD and it's many cores in one socket approach. Ergo the shrinking or densification of the Server Rack.
Just look at the size of the "Main Computer Core" on the Galaxy Class and Intrepid Class.
Look how much smaller the Intrepid Class is, yet it can do WAY more computing then the Galaxy Class at a fraction of it's power consumption and far less volume.
And if we learn anything from the borg, it's multiple redundancies spread about the whole of the ship.
The TNG Tech Manual gives a very simple reason for "mainframe" computing: computers in the 24th century simply are massive pieces of technology, and can't be miniaturized further.
You can't build a pocket-sized steam engine and expect it to perform efficiently. Similarly, you supposedly can't build a 24th century computer, complete with a FTL field generator that makes it perform, unless it's past a certain threshold size. Installing fifty smaller units means that every one of them fails to perform, and the sum total is vastly inferior to the one mainframe.
Is this "true" in the "actual" fictional universe? Might well be, is all we need to know.
...The Intrepid does more computing than the Galaxy? We see no signs of that. Sure, the newer (?) ship may process more fictioquads or fantasmabits, but unless that actually translates to observed better computing, it just goes to show that the newer (?) ship is inferior at computing, squandering its resources. Which is a feature of the real world, too, with home and business computing plateauing every now and then, and possibly also taking the occasional downturn, even when the processors get consistently more powerful.
Timo Saloniemi
You can't build a pocket-sized steam engine and expect it to perform efficiently. Similarly, you supposedly can't build a 24th century computer, complete with a FTL field generator that makes it perform, unless it's past a certain threshold size. Installing fifty smaller units means that every one of them fails to perform, and the sum total is vastly inferior to the one mainframe.
Is this "true" in the "actual" fictional universe? Might well be, is all we need to know.
...The Intrepid does more computing than the Galaxy? We see no signs of that. Sure, the newer (?) ship may process more fictioquads or fantasmabits, but unless that actually translates to observed better computing, it just goes to show that the newer (?) ship is inferior at computing, squandering its resources. Which is a feature of the real world, too, with home and business computing plateauing every now and then, and possibly also taking the occasional downturn, even when the processors get consistently more powerful.
Timo Saloniemi
For all we know, 2399 is largely about interstellar cloud computing via subspace link because of the need for the franchise to synchronize with the real world.
But what evidence do we have of such a need? While 2010s-20s Trek has introduced new technologies to the mix, it hasn't actually introduced real world ones. Quite to the contrary, the things it feels obligated to add are standard scifi cliches that every passing day in the real world makes less likely to ever come to pass for real.
Say, transparent holographic projections for display purposes are like flying cars: they may have sounded cool twenty years ago, until somebody thought again. They only appear in Trek now because they have become affordable to fake.
Trek isn't doing much to retcon tech progress between the 1960s and the 2020s in general. Spaceflight attributed to that period is as fantastic as ever; genetic engineering attributed to it has moved forward, not backward, and in strides not matched by reality. It's little different from visits by pointy-eared humanoids in the 2060s: one universe has those, another one doesn't, and the two shall never meet.
Timo Saloniemi
Say, transparent holographic projections for display purposes are like flying cars: they may have sounded cool twenty years ago, until somebody thought again. They only appear in Trek now because they have become affordable to fake.
Trek isn't doing much to retcon tech progress between the 1960s and the 2020s in general. Spaceflight attributed to that period is as fantastic as ever; genetic engineering attributed to it has moved forward, not backward, and in strides not matched by reality. It's little different from visits by pointy-eared humanoids in the 2060s: one universe has those, another one doesn't, and the two shall never meet.
Timo Saloniemi
Main deflector versus diffuse deflector array...
Just an idea that has been rattling around inside my head since I first watched the episode:
Lots of folks have commented on the apparent absence of a main deflector in the new Starfleet ships. Looking at the array of illuminated areas around the rim of the primary hills of these designs, and the way that they appear to be the source of that blue glow as Riker orders the fleet to fire up their weapons and shields (although why they wouldn’t already have done that in this situation is beyond me...), I wonder if one of the big technological developments of these ships is some sort of diffuse deflector / shields array that (a) does away with the need for a single main deflector and (b) gives a much more robust defensive system with built-in redundancy, overlapping the functions of the navigational deflector and the more traditional defensive shields.
It might help to explain why those ships look the way that they do.
Thoughts anyone?
Just an idea that has been rattling around inside my head since I first watched the episode:
Lots of folks have commented on the apparent absence of a main deflector in the new Starfleet ships. Looking at the array of illuminated areas around the rim of the primary hills of these designs, and the way that they appear to be the source of that blue glow as Riker orders the fleet to fire up their weapons and shields (although why they wouldn’t already have done that in this situation is beyond me...), I wonder if one of the big technological developments of these ships is some sort of diffuse deflector / shields array that (a) does away with the need for a single main deflector and (b) gives a much more robust defensive system with built-in redundancy, overlapping the functions of the navigational deflector and the more traditional defensive shields.
It might help to explain why those ships look the way that they do.
Thoughts anyone?
G
Gonzo
Guest
Voyager had its own auxiliary deflector at the front of the saucer but it was not as powerful and forced the ship to travel at much lower warp speeds compared to usual.
They could have found a way around the need for one at all, or as you say just use a more distributed approach, without a deflector dish there is little need for a neck on the ships at all as we see in episode 10, which certainly helps to lower the vertical profile of the ships.
That blue glow looked like special shields going up to me.
Its never been made clear if deflectors are required for Transwarp or Quantum Slipstream travel.
They could have found a way around the need for one at all, or as you say just use a more distributed approach, without a deflector dish there is little need for a neck on the ships at all as we see in episode 10, which certainly helps to lower the vertical profile of the ships.
That blue glow looked like special shields going up to me.
Its never been made clear if deflectors are required for Transwarp or Quantum Slipstream travel.
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I would love for that unsightly row of lights to have a function like that, but I don't think they are the source of the blue glow (I just pulled the scene up on my tablet to take another look).
Indeed.
The mere fact that starships have deflector shields, means that the bridge can be anywhere. Any attack powerful enough to punch through a ship's shields can and will hit the bridge, no matter where it is.
Thus, the bridge is no less safe being on the top of the saucer than it would be deep within the hull.
Besides, having the bridge on top makes it easier to replace (all ship bridges are designed to be replaceable at will).
Subspace speeds are fast but finite. I would not be running a ship using anything but internal processing, especially in combat.
Again, if we can make it even 1% safer then it is worth it. Same with seat belts, FFS
Sorry, I can think of several technological ideas to make the bridge safer, but the top one is moving in to the center of the ship.
I have a thing about keeping leaders safe and operational. I feel like them being able to operate in safety is going to make making combat decisions more helpful in ensuring the shields, the guns or the engines are functioning at optimal capacity.
If the shields fail a good leader can find a way to recover. We have seen that time and time again in Trek.
The pushback against this is very strange to me.
For what it's worth the bridge of the NX-01 was not once destroyed in ENT except possibly in an alternate timeline that was erased from existence. That ship had no shields whatsoever and was built over 100 years before TOS yet even during the mission in the Delphic Expanse did not suffer catastrophic damage to the bridge or lose it despite a lot of the rest of the vessel being significantly damaged.
