It's almost like they went with what looked cool, and gave zero thought to anything beyond that.
But no, only mODeRn tREk people do that.
But no, only mODeRn tREk people do that.
The Excelsior - uncovering the design
- Thread starter yotsuya
- Start date
Um, no. What you are writing is your opinion. What I’m writing is fact, based on both what was shown on screen and accounts from the person involved. You’re just being sore because people are not agreeing with your opinion. This isn’t a game of ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ with me sticking my virtual tongue out at you. As I’ve stated multiple times, you’re welcome to your opinion, but the evidence is clearly against your opinion. This is the last thing I have to say on the matter.
P.S. And please don’t tell me what I should and should not be commenting on. That’s just rude.
P.S. And please don’t tell me what I should and should not be commenting on. That’s just rude.
Rude is saying you have facts when you don't. You have a few items and you are building your entire position on those items but that is far from the complete picture. The evidence is not against my opinion. The evidence is supporting my opinion. You just don't want to consider all the sources. You want your way and are being very belligerent about it. So much so that you are pulling this conversation very off topic. It is your opinion that the Centaur class should be scaled by the bridge and torpedo pod. It is not fact. We are dealing with a fictional world and unless the answer is presented on screen (and to my knowledge NCC-1701 is the only ship that has had actual measurements appear on screen) then it relies on production sources and those can be different from episode to episode and person to person.
We've seen identical parts (and whole ships, in the case of the BoP) at clearly different sizes in Trek over the years, so having parts from a different model clearly does not scale the ship one way or another. With their construction tech, it's quite evident (if nonsensical) that scalability does not work in a way we would find realistic by current construction methodology (or current science). It's basically a 'jokers wild' in terms of factors we can use to determine the size of ships. According to Yotsuya, intended scale is a primary determining factor, yet also multiple creators create inconsistencies in intent, therefore that is basically another wild card.
The fun with canon is that all the stories are true, especially the lies. The Defiant IS canonically all the various sizes it's appeared to be, for instance. The ceiling heights on TOS are simultaneously set contrivances that need not be taken literally and also are things we've seen on screen with our own eyes that should be taken literally. That's not especially satisfying to us Trek Techies, but it certainly lends itself to fun projects like this one, where we try to make a single, definitive version. And that's fun! So many of us have done our own spins on projects like these. I just popped over to check TrekkBBS to take a break from my own scaling of the TOS Enterprise decks, appropriately enough.
My aim here isn't to be sassy (unlike my aim most of the time in real life). So please take it as a general observation that Dukhat's facts are definitely correct facts, but that doesn't make Yotsuya's version wrong. Likewise, Yotsuya's selective interpretation of facts is keenly put together, and the rationale given for selection of facts is fascinating, yet it is not definitive except in the sense that this is Yotsuya's project and therefore those facts are definitive to this project. The trouble there is making it seem like something scientific in process.
There's a big difference between "I'm choosing not to include these data points because they don't align with how I want to do my project or they don't fit with my other data points" and "the evidence is not against my opinion" when some of it... is.
The fun with canon is that all the stories are true, especially the lies. The Defiant IS canonically all the various sizes it's appeared to be, for instance. The ceiling heights on TOS are simultaneously set contrivances that need not be taken literally and also are things we've seen on screen with our own eyes that should be taken literally. That's not especially satisfying to us Trek Techies, but it certainly lends itself to fun projects like this one, where we try to make a single, definitive version. And that's fun! So many of us have done our own spins on projects like these. I just popped over to check TrekkBBS to take a break from my own scaling of the TOS Enterprise decks, appropriately enough.
My aim here isn't to be sassy (unlike my aim most of the time in real life). So please take it as a general observation that Dukhat's facts are definitely correct facts, but that doesn't make Yotsuya's version wrong. Likewise, Yotsuya's selective interpretation of facts is keenly put together, and the rationale given for selection of facts is fascinating, yet it is not definitive except in the sense that this is Yotsuya's project and therefore those facts are definitive to this project. The trouble there is making it seem like something scientific in process.
There's a big difference between "I'm choosing not to include these data points because they don't align with how I want to do my project or they don't fit with my other data points" and "the evidence is not against my opinion" when some of it... is.
My main two avenues of interpretation are that Hollywood has standard practices with sets and models and when they are obviously following these practices, we can't take what we see on screen too literally. Like the Millennium Falcon, if we take it literally the parts can never fit. It is not physically possible. The other is that story trumps continuity. So they do things in one episode that don't fit their method of telling the story in another episode so things change. When you look at those ways that Hollywood makes a TV series, it is hard to say there are facts that prove much of anything. We have a certain level of consistency that makes things firmly canon and then we have gray areas that lack consistency or follow typical Hollwood practices and short cuts. The size of any ship in Star Trek is one of those gray areas.
We first got a hint back in 1968. There was a drawing that was in TMOST and in The Enterprise Incident. Today on Blu-ray we can make out the scale, but back then the scale was only readable in TMOST, where there was also a dimensioned drawing. We don't see another dimension on screen until the season 1 finale of Discovery. Not all the dimensions are visible in the streaming version of the episode, but enough to solidly established that Jefferies numbers from 1968 have finally been seen on screen. A behind the scene frame has all the numbers legible. They are straight out of Franz Joseph's Tech Manual (Jefferies didn't provide that many dimensions). This extends to other ships via the model wall in the TNG briefing room. They were done to scale. Jefferies Phase II dimensions mostly carried over to the TMP refit, but Richard Taylor lengthened the nacelles to make an even 1000' for the ship and 100" for the model. Nilos Rodis-Jamero scaled the Excelsior to 1531'. Andrew Probert designed the Enterprise D at 2108' and then the Ambassador Class at 1721'. So the then current Aircraft Carrier Enterprise CVN-65, 1701, 1701-A, 1701-B, 1701-C, and 1701-D are shown in profile to scale on that wall. They also scaled Grissom at 395', the Bird of Prey at 360', and the Reliant at 765', but they were not show in exact scale to the other scaled ships. The Grissom and Reliant models were often shown larger, but we never scale them to those appearances. The Bird of Prey was scaled up so extremely that the DS9 tech manual has two distinct sizes and classes. Other sources even have 3 sizes and classes.
So the only fact of a particular FX shot is that the ships were scaled that way for that shot. That has more relation to how it looks than how the technical team behind Star Trek scaled the ships. Zimmerman, Sternbach, and Drexler listed a bunch of ship classes in that DS9 tech manual. They got the Excelsior class wrong, and several other sizes and they are the source for the 381 meters for the Centaur Class. They scaled all the Excelsior kitbashes to the Excelsior parts. Just the way I would do it based on the way the models were finished. The Centaur features very TNG era windows that scale perfectly to the Excelsior parts. The TNG kit bashes have a different scale to the saucer that is shown by the same thing - windows. The windows are too large to use the saucer scale of the TNG Enterprise. So it is never more than one detail I used to scale a model. It is the combination and what works best given the design. So logic, intent, and the finished product. There are times the intent of the designer or builder mean a lot. There are times they don't mean anything. And a lot of times the designer didn't have a precise scale in mind and wasn't quite as careful as others. The Excelsior is one such design. Ideally, from the windows, it should be slightly larger. I came up with 1780'. But that doesn't fit with the model wall or the gradual increase in size and length that they were going for. And with a bit of outside the box thinking, 1531' fits with no changes.
Take the JJ-prise for instance. It got scaled up immensely because of the hanger scene, but the rest of the design is clearly intended to be much smaller. If I actually liked the design or cared to try to scale it, I would use the familiar TMP refit design elements to start and just ignore the mis-sized hanger. And with Eaves Discovery 1701 design you can tell he intended it to be the same scale as Jefferies TOS design. The windows line up, even the bridge window fits that scale. Plus the dimensions acctually appear on screen. And for the TMP refit we get several scale shots in TMP that confirm the scale, including the crew actually coming out a hatch and walking on the hull. The TOS, TMP refit, and TNG Ent D are all very precisely scaled ships. Really all the other ships were scaled to these. But the models were all built in different scales so when they were shot together it was up to the FX people how ship sizes worked and sometimes they were fairly accurate and sometimes it was more to make the shot look good. The hanger on the JJ-prise was enlarged because they wanted that shot. It has nothing to do with intentionally scaling the ship, it was for the shot.
So the fact that so little deliberate action was taken to accurately scale the ships we see on screen, I totally discount the apparent scale on screen unless the ships were designed and built at the same scale and shot in the same frame of film. That wasn't common until they started using CG animation. The Centaur never appeared in DS9 as CG, only the kitbashed motion control. And in its first appearance the FX team scaled it by the Excelsior parts. As have official sources time after time. So what may be considered a mistake by the original model builder has become the defacto scale in all the sources I can find. Though it is amusing they take the dimensions from the DS9 tech manual which added an extra 100 meters to the width. And in a similar vein, the graphic file extension .gif. The original creator wanted it pronounced like the peanut butter jiff, but nearly everyone uses the hard g from graphics and gift. So sometimes the original intention does not turn out to be the accepted one. That is why so much of this is opinion, regardless of what tidbits of information get dug up.
OK so I had no idea that my comments on the small Centaur would cause such a row... I was merely working off what the designer Adam Buckner has said, the scale of the bridge and torpedo pod on the studio model, and the appearance in the episode, where it seemed about the same size as the bug ship and was out gunned by the appearance of several bug ships. I had thought it was the prevailing opinion, evidently I was mistaken.
Regardless of the scaling disagreement, though, I think we can all agree that it's basically from the same era as Excelsior, right? It's components are extremely similar if not identical in style, and it would make sense as a smaller compliment to Excelsior ala the Miranda & Nebula. It clearly wasn't produced much since we only see it once, in comparison to Miranda class starships.
Getting back to the subject of the Excelsior class, Yotsuta, here's some questions for you: how many Enterprise-B spec ships do you think were built? Do you think any other Excelsiors incorporated some of the 1701B modifications, either through refit or in later production? I have seen some fan art out there of "stock" Excelsior primary & secondary hulls but with 1701B nacelles that looked interesting. Also, in your opinion, are all the Excelsiors in TNG the NCC-2000 spec? Sorry if you've already answered these questions...
Regardless of the scaling disagreement, though, I think we can all agree that it's basically from the same era as Excelsior, right? It's components are extremely similar if not identical in style, and it would make sense as a smaller compliment to Excelsior ala the Miranda & Nebula. It clearly wasn't produced much since we only see it once, in comparison to Miranda class starships.
Getting back to the subject of the Excelsior class, Yotsuta, here's some questions for you: how many Enterprise-B spec ships do you think were built? Do you think any other Excelsiors incorporated some of the 1701B modifications, either through refit or in later production? I have seen some fan art out there of "stock" Excelsior primary & secondary hulls but with 1701B nacelles that looked interesting. Also, in your opinion, are all the Excelsiors in TNG the NCC-2000 spec? Sorry if you've already answered these questions...
Last edited:
You are not mistaken. Yotsuya is voicing his own opinion about the matter because he is trying to pick and choose things to suit his pet theory. And that’s fine; I never said it wasn’t. I said, as you pointed out, that both visual evidence of the one and only time we see the ship, coupled with the comments of the person who actually built the model, are in conflict with his opinion. I am choosing not to engage him in this debate anymore because he has already made up his mind on the matter and won’t listen to anything that diverges from his opinion. But he has an agenda, I don’t; I’m only pointing out the evidence to the contrary.
The problem is that there’s no set ‘era’ for the Excelsior class. The only facts we know are that the prototype was commissioned in 2285, and the Enterprise-B was commissioned in 2293. We can assume based on the registry numbers (2XXX to 4XXXX) that construction of the class continued until about 2350, when the more modern 5XXXX Galaxy class family of ships were introduced. So that’s a 55-65-year span of time where ships of the Excelsior family were being built. So it’s very hard to pin down an exact time when the Centaur would have been constructed.
Last edited:
No, the window is scaled for 442 meters. And the proportions of the Discovery Enterprise do not match those of the TOS ship, rendering those barely-legible numbers nonsensical.
I just compared stills of the bridge set, the exterior, and the TOS exterior and it scales very nicely to just a little bit longer than the TOS ship, maybe closer to the TMP refit. The window on the bridge is maybe 6'/2m tall and scaling the exterior widow to match come out at the 289 to 304 meter size very nicely. That also fits Eaves design sketches.
You mean the design sketches HERE which show the upscaling baked into the redesign from day one?
None of those sketches are the final design and none of those sketches are much over 300 meters. I think the final design from Eaves was labeled F (not shown there) and then the CG artists took over and made some further changes. But Eaves did not design a 442 meter ship. It was similar in size and configuration to the original. Mainly shorter in height and slightly longer (mainly in the nacelles).
I mean, there are pictures on my link overlaying the Enterprises and showing the scale change is very deliberate but okay whatever
My question is this: Why would they say the Enterprise was 442m if they hadn't "really" changed the size from the original? It's qanon-level ship size conspiracy stuff.
My question is this: Why would they say the Enterprise was 442m if they hadn't "really" changed the size from the original? It's qanon-level ship size conspiracy stuff.
These are the idiots who took Eaves design, claim it's larger, and put Franz Joseph's dimensions on screen making that the canon size of the ship. Just one example of the plethora of mistakes they have made. No conspiracies, just wanton carelessness. And I hate this fad of needlessly gigantic ships. So of course, given the choices, I will take the one closest to the canon TOS size. I don't consider a single thing out of the Discovry production to be part of the TOS, TMP, TNG, DS9, VOY canon to start with. I'm just tickled that FJ's numbers finally appeared on screen (his smaller classes had that good fortune nearly 40 years ago).I mean, there are pictures on my link overlaying the Enterprises and showing the scale change is very deliberate but okay whatever
My question is this: Why would they say the Enterprise was 442m if they hadn't "really" changed the size from the original? It's qanon-level ship size conspiracy stuff.
There's no "claim" about it. The Discoprise even has a tiny CGI bridge set inside the window. With the precision of CG, it's made at a specific size to sync up with the (all CGI) front of the Enterprise bridge set. This isn't hand-carved details of models in decades past where there's wiggle room depending how much you squint - it was made to be a very specific size.
Same window, same bridge. One possible size.
And as said before, the size stats on-screen are placeholders as was the Discoprise concept art used on the graphic. And once again, they do not match the altered height and width proportions of the model, the adjusted nacelle lengths etc.
That's fair, it's a reboot where everything deliberately looks totally different.
It's either a window or a screen. If it's a window it's on the outside of the hull. Today again you're showing looks like a screen which means there is no inside to outside correspondence. That also isn't a cannon image, it's a fan recreation. I compared the window on the bridge set to the apparent window on the outside of the ship. Scaled that way the Enterprise in Discovery is approximately 350 m. That's the way Eaves drew it next to Jeffrey's original. The CG artist after that upscaled it for no apparent reason other than to make it bigger. And in doing so they apparently had to disconnect the window from the outside of the ship and make it a view screen. Again carelessness. In attention to detail. Exactly the opposite of how TOS and TMP were made.There's no "claim" about it. The Discoprise even has a tiny CGI bridge set inside the window. With the precision of CG, it's made at a specific size to sync up with the (all CGI) front of the Enterprise bridge set. This isn't hand-carved details of models in decades past where there's wiggle room depending how much you squint - it was made to be a very specific size.
Same window, same bridge. One possible size.
And as said before, the size stats on-screen are placeholders as was the Discoprise concept art used on the graphic. And once again, they do not match the altered height and width proportions of the model, the adjusted nacelle lengths etc.
That's fair, it's a reboot where everything deliberately looks totally different.
It's a window with a HUD, so it's both. It's one of the many things they imported from the Abramsverse into the PU in this latest generation of the franchise on the formerly-CBS side.
No, it's a behind the scenes rendering of the VFX model, scanned from the Eaglemoss magazine accompanying their first desktop model. If it was fan-art, why would it be covered in printing artifacts?
What I mean is that a window has to be on the outer hull. I guess I'll have to watch the rest of season 2 to be sure, but it looks like there is something covering what would make it a window. In its original appearance it looks like a window and its size and placement match the scale Eaves drew it at. You know, the same episode where the numbers from FJ's Tech manual appear on screen. At either of those scales it works as a window. Scale up the ship and the bridge (which is also about the size of the TOS bridge) starts to get further and further inside the ship and the correspondence between interior and exterior breaks.
Also, this feature goes back to the modification of the 11 foot TOS model made in 1965 for Where No Man Has Gone Before. It was not a window, but there was a lit panel on the front of the bridge.
Not only that, but from the Eaglemoss XL model and the screen captures I can find that look like they are from the series (instead of fan art), it appears that the whole thing is covered and it is no longer even imagined as a window, but only a view screen. Discovery really couldn't manage to keep that 1701 design consistent at all. FJ's dimensions and Eaves design F show up on the Discovery bridge screens, the ship outside is different. And then when it comes back in season 2 it is different again. Got to love that consistency. Par for the course. That is how Discovery has done everything from the beginning. Can't stand the show. But I do love Eaves design. I think it is the perfect design (appropriately scaled down) to be the ship design prior to the Constitution Class. And it is so convenient that the Round 2 models happen to be the the same length as the TOS models, just labeled with different scales.
Similar threads
