Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Dukhat]

It also has a lower registry than the California class U.S.S. Merced NCC-87075 which was operating in 2380. However, I doubt this means that the Inquiry class was built before 2380. It's more likely that whoever was responsible for giving the Merced such a high registry just didn't give a crap about chronological registries, much to my annoyance.

 

[Tuskin38]

just didn't give a crap about chronological registries, much to my annoyance.

No one working on Star Trek ever did, other than maybe Mike Okuda.

 

[Timo]

Then again, PIC is the offender here, unless Starfleet put a moratorium on shipbuilding in the 2380s or late 2370s. Should registries stop increasing at the rate established by the first three quarters of the century (that is, gaining three quarters of 100,000 in that time) - or should they pick up pace? LDS presents the likelier case here IMHO.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

No one working on Star Trek ever did, other than maybe Mike Okuda.

I'm pretty sure that Matt Jefferies, Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, Denise Okuda, et. al very much cared.

 

[Markonian]

It also has a lower registry than the California class U.S.S. Merced NCC-87075 which was operating in 2380. However, I doubt this means that the Inquiry class was built before 2380. It's more likely that whoever was responsible for giving the Merced such a high registry just didn't give a crap about chronological registries, much to my annoyance.

Presumably, it's intentionally not a neat system with a chronological progression of the registry number. One tactical advantage is not to give away the max size of your fleet to any hull-reading opponent.

At my work, we use a sequential counting system for part numbers but its not a strict 1 to 1000. Instead, it's...complicated.

Anyway, there's probably a good in-universe reason to "mess up" the numbers.

 

[Kzinti]

STO's rendition of Oh's command ship

https://twitter.com/ShipTalkingPod/status/1351939129429405698

They're calling it the "Dhailkhina Warbird"

I googled "Dhailkhina", I can't find that word existing outside of STO.
I wonder if it's a word from the the show team, they did create new Romulan words for Picard.

Those stripes are on the in show model, they're just really hard to see with the dark lighting and how shiny the ship is.

not bad kinda wish the bridge was on the other side though

 

[Tuskin38]

So the ship name, Dhaile means Identify, Khina means ship or Starship. According to fan made Romulan dictionaries online at least.

Here's another Picard ship in STO. This time the small thin ones you see around Oh's ship in the finale (and approaching mars in one of the early trailers)

You can tell that Eaves designed Oh's warbird, there's similarities with one of his Scimitar concepts (fun fact, STO took this concept and made a smaller ship out of it)

 

[Dukhat]

Well, the ship as shown in PIC wasn’t remotely as large as that concept art (with the Enterprise-E for scale.) It looks to only be about 50 meters in the show.

Is Eaves the principal ship designer for PIC season 2?

 

[Tuskin38]

Is Eaves the principal ship designer for PIC season 2?

He has Seasons 2 and 3 listed on his website.

Well, the ship as shown in PIC wasn’t remotely as large as that concept art (with the Enterprise-E for scale.) It looks to only be about 50 meters in the show.

Huh? Oh's ship def does not look 50 meters long, it's way bigger than that. Just look at the view screen window on the outside and inside of the ship.

Also I didn't say it was based off it, I just meant it has similarities because of it having the same designer.

 

[Dukhat]

He has Seasons 2 and 3 listed on his website.

Then I'm guessing that we'll see more of Eaves's recycled designs from decades before for new ships in PIC.

Huh? Oh's ship def does not look 50 meters long, it's way bigger than that. Just look at the view screen window on the outside and inside of the ship.

Okay then, 100 meters. Not my point. My point was that the ship as shown on screen was vastly smaller than the concept art it was based on.

Also I didn't say it was based off it, I just meant it has similarities because of it having the same designer.

Other than the wingtips, the two designs look 90% alike.

 

[DEWLine]

I'm going to assume that the Inquiry-class USS Zheng He was in fact built before the California-class USS Merced.

Not sure about the ship dimensions issue...

 

[Ronald Held]

Could the Inquiry class have been designed before the California class, but built later? Hence the registry numbers?

 

[Tuskin38]

Other than the wingtips, the two designs look 90% alike.

I'm not seeing that much of a resemblance.

There's a couple similarities that point to it being from the same designer, but that's only like 5-10% of the ship.

It's missing all the panelling greeble, the wing details, the prongs beside the bridge (which I don't think is the bridge on the concept art) are a different shape.

 

[Dukhat]

Could the Inquiry class have been designed before the California class, but built later? Hence the registry numbers?

The problem with the California class is that their registries are all over the map. There’s one with a 7XXXX registry, one with 8XXXX, and two with 1XXXX, and they all look exactly the same. So either a super long lasting design was created in the early 24th century but has attributes of a ship class that wasn’t introduced until the 2360’s, or the registries aren’t chronological.

I'm not seeing that much of a resemblance.

There's a couple similarities that point to it being from the same designer, but that's only like 5-10% of the ship.

It's missing all the panelling greeble, the wing details, the prongs beside the bridge (which I don't think is the bridge on the concept art) are a different shape.

The minute differences are negligible. The two designs are clearly more similar than you’re making them out to be. YMMV.

 

[Kzinti]

ship registry was never consistent so who cares lol

 

[Markonian]

So the ship name, Dhaile means Identify, Khina means ship or Starship. According to fan made Romulan dictionaries online at least.

Here's another Picard ship in STO. This time the small thin ones you see around Oh's ship in the finale (and approaching mars in one of the early trailers)

You can tell that Eaves designed Oh's warbird, there's similarities with one of his Scimitar concepts (fun fact, STO took this concept and made a smaller ship out of it)

The concept art reminds me of the Jaeih-class pilot-escort warbird: https://sto.gamepedia.com/Jaeih_Science_Pilot_Warbird#/media/File:Rom_Ship_Jaeih.png

 

[Dukhat]

ship registry was never consistent so who cares lol

Ship registries were extremely consistent during TNG, DS9, and VOY’s run, because the people who cared about such things, like Sternbach, Drexler, Jein, and the Okudas, were in charge of this. Registries were also consistent during DSC season 1, so whoever was in charge of giving those ships registries obviously cared as well. Because if they didn’t, we would have had registries like NCC-921457484 or NCC-B19Q.

 

[fireproof78]

ship registry was never consistent so who cares lol

This is a war we cannot win.

 

[Tuskin38]

The concept art reminds me of the Jaeih-class pilot-escort warbird:

Yeah I mentioned that in the post lol (though I didn't name the ship)

The problem with the California class is that their registries are all over the map. There’s one with a 7XXXX registry, one with 8XXXX, and two with 1XXXX, and they all look exactly the same. So either a super long lasting design was created in the early 24th century but has attributes of a ship class that wasn’t introduced until the 2360’s, or the registries aren’t chronological.

Mike described the ship class as being around for a while.
They could be constantly refitted.

 

[Timo]

...The round saucer certainly facilitates the longevity idea rather nicely.

In contrast, Inquiry seems to lean forward in terms of design language, that is, towards the STO/Eavesverse future that already has its distinct style. All we're missing are big holes in the hulls. (And perhaps the main baddies of S2 will help out there?)

Timo Saloniemi