Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Timo]

I never thought that the warp jumps between Earth and Vulcan and other locations were that quick, only that the movies chose to show little or no narrative between the warp jump and the arrival sequence. I don't for a moment believe that the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise got to Vulcan that quickly but J.J. simply chose to ramp up the drama and the action by not showing us the gap in time between the ship leaving Earth and arriving at Vulcan.

Indeed, story logic actually demands that some time passes during that trip - Kirk has to sleep off his medication, McCoy has to get a change of clothes, all the amateurs have to get familiarized with their new positions enough to keep the ship running without blatant onscreen on-the-run tutoring going on.

It's not that bit of the Abrams movies that features dubious "jumping" - it is ST:ID and the trip from Klingon space back to Earth, explicitly taking only as long as it takes for Carol Marcus to run the length of the ship (and that's generously assuming she was too stupid to operate a turbolift). The thing about the trip from Earth to Klingon space is more subtle, with Scotty at one point remarking the whole thing happened within a single day; the return trip is blatant and places story logic demands of the opposite sort to the 2009 ones.

Even Discovery seemed to be taking the normal amount of in-universe time to travel from Earth to Vulcan in the Season 1 cliffhanger before she received the distress call from the Enterprise.

DSC normal-warp travel wasn't "jumping", certainly. There are a few contradictions with previously established speeds and distances, though - mainly the Talos vs. SB 11 affair. But that's fine detail on an issue that was already muddy back in TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

I never thought that the warp jumps between Earth and Vulcan and other locations were that quick, only that the movies chose to show little or no narrative between the warp jump and the arrival sequence.

I agree with you about the warp time between Earth and Vulcan in ST09, but I think Tarek was referencing the instantaneously travel of the spore drive in DIS when talking about the difficulty reconciling DIS with depictions of Starfleet's tech level in TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY.

For me it was more about the context of the scene. When Picard states, "This is all a damned inconvenience, and while you're happily settling in on the Titan, I will be training my new first officer," the way he emphasizes the name 'Titan' made me think he was trying to compare Riker's outsize personality to the ship he was being given. Or at least, that was my interpretation at the time.

Well -- totally fair interpretation! I just never got that idea myself.

That's why I said "JJ and his current and former people". That includes former. JJverse and Disco share this in common.

Gotcha. Apologies -- I get mildly frustrated when people attribute things in DIS and PIC to Abrams, since he's literally been replaced as Grand High Poombah of All Star Trek at this point, and I thought that was what you were trying to do.

 

[fireproof78]

I miss Abrams.

 

[Gonzo]

I still think the Kelvin Enterprise 1701 and 1701 A are great.

I actually believe that those two ships would be viable for 5 year missions all on their own.

Still think they should have recovered the Vengeance, sanded down the edges, painted it white and called it the 1701 A, mark it as the flagship but don't build any more.

Although I suspect it would have caused a meltdown in the forums.

 

[fireproof78]

I still think the Kelvin Enterprise 1701 and 1701 A are great.

I actually believe that those two ships would be viable for 5 year missions all on their own.

Still think they should have recovered the Vengeance, sanded down the edges, painted it white and called it the 1701 A, mark it as the flagship but don't build any more.

Although I suspect it would have caused a meltdown in the forums.

I agree. I think I saw a redesign of a "good guy" Vengeance and it looks quite good.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I agree. I think I saw a redesign of a "good guy" Vengeance and it looks quite good.

Can you find the pics of the "Good Guy" Vengeance and link it here?

 

[Spock Must Diet!]

Can you find the pics of the "Good Guy" Vengeance and link it here?

Here's an example:
https://www.deviantart.com/calamitysi/art/U-S-S-ASCENDANT-Orthos-620877695
https://www.deviantart.com/calamitysi/art/U-S-S-Ascendant-1-620052091

Now, I would have been happy to see Riker show up in this ship. It is directly from STO, but I like her lines:

Chimera class, details here:
https://www.startrek.com/news/hero-collector-logs-in-to-star-trek-online

 

[Timo]

The ships we got in "Arcadia" certainly cater to the expectations of those playing or following STO. The curvature of the hull and nacelles is in that very ballpark, the departure from the classically simple geometric shapes of circles and ovals is in that very direction, and even the dark hull highlights yell "2404!".

Doing something else altogether would have been an option. But doing STO on screen is fine and well, too. It certainly spells "future" in clearer lettering than most other choices.

The "Look, it's the Future!" bit we never got was the introduction of an all-new piece of treknology. TNG had the strip phasers to immediately separate the show from its predecessors. A new century would probably warrant this sort of a visually distinct leap, too. Perhaps a warp gimmick, an all-new light show associated with the engines? Or moving parts, making Voyager the herald of a new era even if she never got immediate successors? The ships we see do have their nacelles oddly tilted in two distinct angles: are they hinged and mobile, perhaps?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[valkyrie013]

http://vektorvisual.com/blog/2011/0...next-enterprise-contest-entry/comment-page-1/
Megelanic Class actually..
Love this design, have been tootling on a 3d model of it for years.. need to break that back out again.. have PLENTY of time due to the late unpleasantness..

as for the "Time" in the kelvin movies.. its screwed up, but its not the first time time/distance/warpspeed has been fudged due to plot.. so I'm not bent sideways on it.. though the quiznos to Earth jump taking 10 minutes was a BIG Stretch.. even if she stopped for a pit stop, bathroom, cup of coffee..

 

[fireproof78]

Can you find the pics of the "Good Guy" Vengeance and link it here?

@Spock Must Diet! beat me to it. The coloring and the lack of the wedge cut out really appeal to me.

 

[Ronald Held]

Miss effectively nothing from the Kelvin universe and those who created it.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I don't mind the primary hull cutout on the Vengeance at all. Engines and pylons, too - all good. Probably the biggest thing that bothers me about that ship is the angular and boxy secondary hull that looks like a low-poly model from an early-90's video game. Give that thing some curves and it will look a million times better, IMO.

 

[Arpy]

Part of the problem I have with these ships is that they’re not all that futuristic. They’re kewler, with busier hulls and Tron lines...they look like they’re peacocking for their lives (which, in a pick me! pick me! MMORPG, they are) but I don’t buy them as the next generation of advanced technology. To me they look like they belong in an earlier, less evolved, less chill time.

I’d like to see a future ship whose hull is more organic or crystalline or energy-based or whatever, heading in a direction of being more advanced in some way. Maybe this is the slipstream Transwarp problem — they should be heading to something more advanced, but then you run the risk of losing that which is familiar and identifiably Trek.

TNG pulled it off after TOS. That being my childhood Trek, maybe I’m spoiled expecting others to do the same.

 

[Kpnuts]

Not b

Here's an example:
https://www.deviantart.com/calamitysi/art/U-S-S-ASCENDANT-Orthos-620877695
https://www.deviantart.com/calamitysi/art/U-S-S-Ascendant-1-620052091

Now, I would have been happy to see Riker show up in this ship. It is directly from STO, but I like her lines:

Chimera class, details here:
https://www.startrek.com/news/hero-collector-logs-in-to-star-trek-online

Not bad at all given what we've seen in more recent Trek. There aren't a million cutouts everywhere and the nacelles are actually ok looking so I'd be surprised if Eaves had a hand in this.

I’d like to see a future ship whose hull is more organic or crystalline or energy-based or whatever, heading in a direction of being more advanced in some way.

Sort of on a similar heading to the above... I think this obsession with packing tons of details and greebles to the surface + lots of angular lines everywhere is what makes them appear less futuristic. It worked for the NX-01 for obvious reasons, but future ships should be smoother, not rougher looking.

If our brains hadn't been trained to associate the Contitution, Miranda, Oberth etc with past Trek I think people would see those as more advanced looking than some of the battlestar type grittier designs of modern times. Or in Picard's case, weird bulging ugly messes.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't mind the primary hull cutout on the Vengeance at all. Engines and pylons, too - all good. Probably the biggest thing that bothers me about that ship is the angular and boxy secondary hull that looks like a low-poly model from an early-90's video game. Give that thing some curves and it will look a million times better, IMO.

But then you lose the stealth fighter look, which it was designed to evoke. You need harsh angles for that, and sadly harsh angles = low poly to some.

 

[Arpy]

I don’t know that it was meant to appear stealth so much as mean and eeeeeeevil. The stealth thing maybe is a beneficial afterthought. I mean, I don’t think sensors work like radar, and the ship can’t cloak.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I don't like the cut-outs in the Vengeance. It made little to no sense from a pure logic point of view. So much usable volume wasted for no reason.

As far as Greeblies, I'm not a fan of them. I prefer the smooth new car, new fighter look.

Greeblies for Greeblies sake is silly IMO, if something is going to be painted on, or put on a hull, it must serve a logical purpose, not just Greeblies because of StarWars Aesthetic.

Same with Aztecing, while it's popular because of TNG era design, I've never liked the Aztecing. Modern Warships / Aircraft don't really go that route. A nice flat shade of color that has the "New Car" finish is what I prefer.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I don’t know that it was meant to appear stealth so much as mean and eeeeeeevil. The stealth thing maybe is a beneficial afterthought. I mean, I don’t think sensors work like radar, and the ship can’t cloak.

Once you knock out their sensors and you choose to fight at a distance and force them to rely on optical targeting, being painted close to pure black will have a huge advantage.

 

[Tuskin38]

Megelanic Class actually.

That's what the designer called it, but STO calls it the Chimera class, so it's the Chimera class.

There aren't a million cutouts everywhere and the nacelles are actually ok looking so I'd be surprised if Eaves had a hand in this.

Please define cutouts, because as far as I can tell a vast majority of Eaves designs don't have cutouts, unless we have a different definition of cutout.

And no Eaves didn't design that. It's a design from the Ent-F Design contest CBS and Cryptic held for Star Trek Online, it didn't win, but Cryptic kept the design and made it later as a separate ship.

https://sto.gamepedia.com/Chimera_Heavy_Destroyer

 

[Arpy]

Once you knock out their sensors and you choose to fight at a distance and force them to rely on optical targeting, being painted close to pure black will have a huge advantage.

I really don’t think so. Ships are traveling fast enough that manual targeting doesn’t mean much as distances, and even sub-light “video” recognition targeting is probably not going to be fooled by a paintjob. Their computers are pretty sharp.