Ship shape style

[C57D]

While contributing to a thread here around the (boring, uninspiring and inappropriate imho) design of the ENT Enterprise, I got thinking. How much does the exterior design of a ship generate a feeling? Why do fans often complain that a ship design isn't right. What do I mean?
Well..............
TOS Enterprise - majestic, sweeping galleon, speedy greyhound, tough old bird, not overly fancy, workhorse.
Klingon D7 - menacing, raptor like, sharp edges, swooping on it's prey, bulbous bridge like an all seeing eye "big brother is watching you".
Enterprise D - bloated, oversized, overweight, luxurious, old persons cruise ship - perfectly suits its geriatric captain.
ENT Enterprise - too sleak 24th C tech Akira, Enterprse-E looking, when it should have been a lot more "all hands to the pumps", "flying by the seat of your pants", about to fall apart at any minute, pioneering, looking.
I am sure there are plenty more examples - what do you think?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

EC Henry's video about the design of the original Enterprise and why it just looks so right is really interesting and, for me at least, really highlights why all modern redesigns of the ship just look wrong as they mess up the classic formula that made the original work. Watch for yourself and see what you think:

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[Timo]

TOS hero ship: some round blocks of grey-painted wood, expect dull, wooden acting and total lack of edge.
TNG hero ship: lots of plastic curves, expect more of the same inside.
ENT hero ship: bolted together out of solid metal plates, expect ramrod rigidity with plots, adherence to canon, and acting, too.

Add "be (happily) surprised instead" as needed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Angry Fanboy]

While contributing to a thread here around the (boring, uninspiring and inappropriate imho) design of the ENT Enterprise, I got thinking. How much does the exterior design of a ship generate a feeling? Why do fans often complain that a ship design isn't right. What do I mean?
Well..............
TOS Enterprise - majestic, sweeping galleon, speedy greyhound, tough old bird, not overly fancy, workhorse.
Klingon D7 - menacing, raptor like, sharp edges, swooping on it's prey, bulbous bridge like an all seeing eye "big brother is watching you".
Enterprise D - bloated, oversized, overweight, luxurious, old persons cruise ship - perfectly suits its geriatric captain.
ENT Enterprise - too sleak 24th C tech Akira, Enterprse-E looking, when it should have been a lot more "all hands to the pumps", "flying by the seat of your pants", about to fall apart at any minute, pioneering, looking.
I am sure there are plenty more examples - what do you think?

All just arbitrary assertions based on personal preference - you don't like the Galaxy-class for example, others adore it.

(For what's it's worth Picard was portrayed as what, late fifties when TNG started so hardly a 'geriatric captain')

You like the TOS Enterprise very much, but you don't like the TNG Enterprise - there's no right or wrong answer to matters of taste/preference with the aesthetics of Star Trek ships, just personal opinion.

 

[F. King Daniel]

TOS Enterprise - majestic, sweeping galleon

That's something I relate to, and this is sorely missing from the much-flattened Discovery/Strange New Worlds version of the Enterprise.

Kelvinverse Enterprise: Steroid monster, ready to kill you, eat you and shit you out. And I say that in a good way.

End of the day though, it's what happens to the people on board means the most.

 

[Delta Vega]

I always thought the design of the original Enterprise looked flimsy and would have difficulty staying complete in any space battle, also looked a little flimsy for the incredible stress on the structure during Warp travel.
This "flimsy" trait is still evident in today's Trek with Discovery.

 

[C57D]

All just arbitrary assertions based on personal preference - you don't like the Galaxy-class for example, others adore it.

(For what's it's worth Picard was portrayed as what, late fifties when TNG started so hardly a 'geriatric captain')

You like the TOS Enterprise very much, but you don't like the TNG Enterprise - there's no right or wrong answer to matters of taste/preference with the aesthetics of Star Trek ships, just personal opinion.

I am 59, so I guess I am judging myself too with my geriatric comment.
I do like the E-D, and TNG, but much prefer TOS. And I still find that E-D's wide open curves result in a fat, overstuffed appearance, like TOS -E was made into a balloon and then vastly overinflated.
But as I intially said, this thread is about the feelings that a ship engenders, not facts. And so is inherently abritary.

 

[C57D]

I always thought the design of the original Enterprise looked flimsy and would have difficulty staying complete in any space battle, also looked a little flimsy for the incredible stress on the structure during Warp travel.

I agree that the dorsal and warp engine pylons are incredibly flimsy looking, but for me that is part of it's attraction. It looks like it shouldn't hold together - but still does. Whether you call that bad design, or (in universe) decide it is made with some super strong handwavium material or held together by mega powerful force fields of a type unknown today is your decision.
Either way, for me, it is a fighter / workhorse / survivor ideal for the stresses of deep space exploration in the 23rd C.

 

[BK613]

@C57D Agree about the struts. It is what an airplane's wing would look like if you stripped off the lift-generating airfoil parts: Wing spars and some stiffeners between them.

 

[1001001]

This "flimsy" trait is still evident in today's Trek with Discovery.

If by "flimsy" you mean "spinning awesomeness" then I agree....

 

[Angry Fanboy]

I am 59, so I guess I am judging myself too with my geriatric comment.

So you're the same age as Picard in Encounter At Farpoint - do you consider 59 to be geriatric then?

Apologies - when I read "bloated, oversized, overweight, luxurious, old persons cruise ship - perfectly suits its geriatric captain" my reaction (somewhat understandably I think) was that it had been written by someone far less mature! My mistake!

 

[Orphalesion]

Personally I think the ship design has continuously improved over the series.
Subjectively I like the Enterprise D the best, because of nostalgic reasons, but the Discovery is very cool as well.
And I like the original Enterprise and the Enterprise E the least.

I don't have long strings of random words to explain my preferences, it's just nostalgia.

Though to be completely honest, the ships in Star Wars are a lot cooler, imho.

 

[C57D]

So you're the same age as Picard in Encounter At Farpoint - do you consider 59 to be geriatric then?

Apologies - when I read "bloated, oversized, overweight, luxurious, old persons cruise ship - perfectly suits its geriatric captain" my reaction (somewhat understandably I think) was that it had been written by someone far less mature! My mistake!

Some days I certainly feel that 59 is geriatric, and maybe immature.
But I wasn't aware that offering my opinion of a ST ship and captain on a ST discussion forum was not mature.
bloated - As I stated earlier, to me the wide open curves of the design make the E-D look like a overblown blimp.
oversized - It has been stated (although probably not in canon) that a large percentage of the ship is unused. This along with the blimp shape leads me to feel it is oversized.
overweight - Okay, you got me here. Probably just a repeat of the first two points.
luxurious, old persons cruise ship - huge windows all over the surface, plenty of space (linked to the above points). A cruise liner for rich retirees is what it reminds me of.
geriatric captain - surrenders when really threatened, always trying to find reasons not to get involved when others need help, arrogant and superior. Sounds like he is ready to retire, not command an elite deep space explorer/"flagship". Hence my geriatric comment.
And, as I have said twice now it is the feelings that a ship design inspires that I was discussing.
Feelings = purely arbitrary!

 

[BillJ]

I like taller ships, so my personal favorites are the original Enterprise from TOS, and the Enterprise-D for TNG. The flattened look just never appealed to me.

 

[NCC-73515]

I always thought the design of the original Enterprise looked flimsy and would have difficulty staying complete in any space battle, also looked a little flimsy for the incredible stress on the structure during Warp travel.
This "flimsy" trait is still evident in today's Trek with Discovery.

That was part of the design process IIRC to show that these materials are stronger than today's and warp drive doesn't stress the hull like aerodynamic pressure and newtonian mechanics would

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I am 59, so I guess I am judging myself too with my geriatric comment.
I do like the E-D, and TNG, but much prefer TOS. And I still find that E-D's wide open curves result in a fat, overstuffed appearance, like TOS -E was made into a balloon and then vastly overinflated.
But as I intially said, this thread is about the feelings that a ship engenders, not facts. And so is inherently abritary.

You're 59 years young =D, I expect you to live to a healthy 120 years at least.

 

[Mage]

when it should have been a lot more "all hands to the pumps", "flying by the seat of your pants", about to fall apart at any minute, pioneering, looking.

Because when humanity does actually send a ship out there at several factors of lightspeed travel it's definitely going to be something that's likely to fall apart.......
If (HUGE if.....) we're ever going to go 'out there', do you honestly think we're going out there in something that resembles Serenity from 'Firefry'? Or is it possibly likely that the powers that be will only send living creatures God knows where at speeds we are really not capable of understanding out into the cosmos unless they're really EFFING sure the ship's gonna stay together?

I know your're thinking about ships from movies like Interstellar or that one with Matt Damon stuck on Mars. But those were NOT all hands to the pumps pioneering whatever kinda ships. They were the pinnacle of engineering and totally safe. Just like the NX-class.

 

[C57D]

Because when humanity does actually send a ship out there at several factors of lightspeed travel it's definitely going to be something that's likely to fall apart.......
If (HUGE if.....) we're ever going to go 'out there', do you honestly think we're going out there in something that resembles Serenity from 'Firefry'? Or is it possibly likely that the powers that be will only send living creatures God knows where at speeds we are really not capable of understanding out into the cosmos unless they're really EFFING sure the ship's gonna stay together?

I know your're thinking about ships from movies like Interstellar or that one with Matt Damon stuck on Mars. But those were NOT all hands to the pumps pioneering whatever kinda ships. They were the pinnacle of engineering and totally safe. Just like the NX-class.

The pinnacle of late 21st C engineering, yes, but not the pinnacle of (established, on screen canon) 24th C engineering.
It would be just like using a modern warship design to represent an 18th C sailing galleon.
And no, I don't expect that Terra's early warp drive vessels would literally be falling apart. If you read my post you will see the word "looking" after my list of phrases. That they will look and seem that way, in comparison to the 24th C design we got lumbered with.
The same as the wood, cloth sails and gunpowder cannons galleon would look like it was about to fall apart at any minute, in comparison with the modern metal, high strength composites, turbine or even nuclear power, radar and cruise missiles ship. And yet, both ships can voyage around the world and fight their equals - but just with different methods of propulsion, crew skills, accomodation, weaponary, construction methods and sensory tools. And so, ultimately with a whole different atmosphere and "feel". And so back to my purely arbitrary original post.

 

[Imaus]

Rambling: The style of the NX is okay, the main problem is that Trekkers had years going over the Akira (it's an oddly popular ship) and then they get the NX which is just...the shape is too similar. The Akira was on screen in FC (96), DS9 (97), VOY (98), ST Armada (2000) & II (2001).

Now I do not know when the "Akiraprise" breached into the 'fandom' as I was busy out Montana way preparing for y2k and stocking bunkers as a snotling kid with my leftist militia clan but I'm guessing a year before the show premiered, so around '00.

EAS says the first pics came out in July '01, so there goes that, and honestly the other proposals presented seem also lackluster, focused around a saucer and two nacelles. I think I've seen some snippets saying there were more proposals but I can't find any from my off-the-hand sleuthing of that beautiful period of '99-'00. A Daedalus is supposed to be somewhat after that area (and now moved further back as it's more 'primitive'), but honestly it's just the shape of the NX that was the problem.

But that raises the question of what it SHOULD had been. If the Daedalus is some Federation-groundbreaker class, the Enterprise could be right on its heels; so maybe something more like the 'Icarus' class, that looks like the Amarillo from Starfleet Museum.

And the reason 'why' this is is, as I see it, is that these shows take a century long break. From FC to ENT it's 90 odd years. From Ent to TOS it's 90ish; with the Connie being built in 2245 or so. Let's say 5 years for design or less, but that still means the Connie comes from some lineage, from 2161 to 2240~ is eighty years. If a new ship class comes along every 20, 10 years, that's around four to seven odd 'mainline' ship classes to grow the design of the Connie, add to that whatever impetus grew the Daedalus and the proposed Icarus or so; and those ships arose from, of course, more primitive designs. Hell as I see it the Saucer was just a way to have the RCS further out for more maneuverability and armor around the main 'core' that matured from there.

But then comes the NX and the NX 'upgrade' which basically is already a connie, and if you put DIS and the 09 movie into the mix the ship layout/silhouette were already mostly matured by the 2220s. So much so that the Connie no longer feels anything special or a step up from anything before, it feels too much of just upgrading a old design by that point.

ENT could had allowed us to see what mankind had done since 2063 but all we got was 'Earth hid under the skirt of Vulcan for farrrr too long save for some plucky cargo ships (!?) and little in the way of Starfleet which is barely a generation old by the show. Whatever we have of the Daedalus juggles it around as either some old Earth design from the early 22nd century or some mass-produced fossil to win the Romulan War which - by the way - I'm so glad we never saw the damn Romulan war, because the show would had just had one big ambush, a few dark episodes of moaning, no real world building of the local universe, a climatic battle for Earth with five ships or just the Enterprise and some friends and then an immediate counter attack to Cheron with little in between.

 

[Mudd]

If by "flimsy" you mean "spinning awesomeness" then I agree....

That is a gobsmackingly stupid and awful effect both in concept and execution. How can anyone not just laugh when they see it?