I don't know why, but for some reason that theme very much reminded me of this ... I'm adding this one just because of all the really great shows displayed. (I didn't realize how many of my childhood TV memories were from ABC)
Thank you for compiling these images and sharing them here. Easier to look at in stills than rewatching the intro in a loop. I presume that flap/ramp hanging down from the bow of the ship when we see it derelict on Tars Amura is either retractable, or not part of the Protostar at all.
I wonder if they will ever mass produce these "Little StarShips" for retired Captains like Jean Luc Picard. A nice "Going Away/Retirement Gift". Have a fully integrated AI + Holographic crew + actual crew.
They could just buy one with their wages Something like a captain's yacht, or a shuttle (ala Scotty in Relics) or runabout would be more appropriate
The Shuttle they gave Scotty was barely bigger than a modern day Full Size van. Not exactly very comfy or fun to live in.
Here, elderly captain slowly losing his facilities: Have a personal weapon of mass destruction. They have enough trouble with current captains and admirals going bonkers.
If they're losing their facilities, then put them in the retirement home. But Jean Luc Picard has a very long & nice time since he "Retired" that he can go about exploring / spelunking the galaxy. Imagine how much fun it would be to explore the Universe like Captain Rios, with your own personal StarShip, even if it's on a smaller scale =D The La Sirena was a small ship (85.57 meters according to Eaglemoss) My current estimates for the size of the USS ProtoStar are LxWxH = 110m x 75m x 30m The ProtoStar has about 7 decks
Quark's Treasure was a weapon of mass destruction. Any ship is, no need for phasers, or even for warp and a suicide ramming, just nudge some rocks into the right orbit and wait. Platinum rods if you are keen to go quickly. Therefore planets in a space faring civilisation must have enough shielding and other defence measures to be able to cope with that type of attack. Sure a Borg Cube can rip your defence to shreds, but something must be able to stop a shuttle traveling at warp towards Earth, or even traveling at high sublight velocity. A 1 tonne shuttle hitting a planet at 0.1c would be in the 100+megaton nuke range.
So the ship has a variable geometry nacelle and pylon assembly, and a hidden third nacelle that pops up during warp speed. Nice. It's configuration during warp reminds of an unused starship design from First Contact pic share Note: This is not the original concept art image, but a recreation.
^ That looks a lot like the unused Rick Sternbach concept design for Voyager, just with larger and meatier warp nacelles and a somewhat different secondary hull. Looks like they wanted to recycle ideas from the initial designs of Voyager in the next theatrical film but they never made it to screen.
And then some two-bit coast guard cutter slaps a tractor beam on them and stops them on their tracks. Kinetic energy doesn't count in Star Trek. C.f. the many times when a tractor beam creates zero force feedback on the ship or limp-wristed teenager applying the beam, even when great forces obviously are at play at the other end of the momentum arm. And what would be more natural than that? If it takes so little effort to accelerare mass to high velocity, then obviously it also takes little effort to reverse the process. Shooting down the shuttle sounds like the trivial approach there. Even a Borg Cube can apparently be forced out of warp simply by shooting a lot at it - or at least Starfleet assumes so, creating a blockade at Wolf 359 based on the premise (even though the Borg voluntarily stop to kill/assimilate everybody), and another at Typhon (even though all the shooting achieves nothing much). Of course, shields are better than death rays in that they have 100% hit rate. But death rays also tend to have 100% hit rate in the mid-24th century, and probably consume less power, hence they exist while planetary shields do not. Until they, too, do, in the late 24th. Timo Saloniemi
I like the opening. It´s kiddy but that´s the point. It has a good dose of TOS/TNG/VOY feel in its DNA.
Given the Animation for even faster "Streaks" going by when the USS ProtoStar pops out a 3rd Nacelle; I'm guessing it's a ProtoType Voth-style Transwarp Drive. Voyager did encounter the Voth and I'm sure they more than gleaned some info on how Voth TransWarp drives work. If the Voth can go TransWarp without a Conduit, I'm sure StarFleet can eventually reverse engineer it. Has anybody else noticed how the Warp Nacelles are in it's traditional upwards position and when they need to go "Faster", they swing down to a horizontal stance, below the saucer and pop out the 3rd Nacelle on the back? It's almost like a reverse Variable Geometry setup from Voyager. Which is fascinating.
I love the ship design. Perfect fit to the Trek universe. I was very disappointed in the name. I really wanted the name of the show and the name of the ship to be synced.