Spoilers ST Lower Decks - Starships and Technology Season Two Discussion

Hypothetically speaking, one could say the NCC-2541 was still there, but it wasn't named Hood, as the shots of unnamed Excelsior-class ships seen throughout the run of TNG were re-uses of footage shot for "Encounter at Farpoint".

 

Sure enough. It's just a case of finding a satisfactory logic for cherry-picking one's pseudo-evidence, as usual: many of those ships would have different registries from other onscreen sources, many more still from offscreen ones that really don't trump a smudge at the tip of a nacelle.

If there's one "original batch" ship out there, several is a possibility. And many a ship design appears to be produced in batches that are separated by tens of thousands of NCC numbers. It's fun enough to think that a thousand numbers would be allocated every year (that is, for every year, even if that year doesn't see the commissioning of a thousand ships), and that a design might remain valid for 30-40 years before being replaced by newer stuff. And that the Californias would go for double that.

But perhaps there were three batches of Californias, too - one around NCC-12100, which is also when saucers of Ambassador size might start being commonplace, and one now around 75000-87000, but also something around 40000-50000 for a Starfleet that would burn those like it burns shuttlecraft... A "decade" between the two known "modern" registries might suggest constant construction as well, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I didn’t notice the nacelles were different in ‘Escape From Spacedock’! The original Excelsior is still in service in 2409 in STO. Or destroyed in a 2308 Lost Era novel. I prefer the former.

 

If this is indeed supposed to be a new design as opposed to a 'mere' Excelsior refit (as might be concluded from the wording of McMahan's tweet), then I wonder why Starfleet would feel the need to create "retro" starships - it's not like they're in the business of selling starships to nostalgics.

 

Because nostalgia appeals for more than just selling things.

 

Maybe they need to "sell" them politically or more likely from a public relations perspective - perhaps the public's baying for a recreation of the heroic Excelsior class from the Dominion war?

dJE

 

The original appears to have been retired by the TNG era, because there's another USS Excelsior in service with the number NCC-21445. So I'd say the novel version fits better with canon.

 

They had spare parts of an Excelsior and a Sovereign and made another kitbash - not the first one

 

https://trekmovie.com/2021/10/12/se...iew-of-star-trek-lower-decks-season-2-finale/

Pictures show what looks like an Akira-class starship model in the background. Also, to satisfy Ed Whitefire and anyone who liked the original TNG bridge designs, potted plants in common areas of a starship!

Mark

 

I think that’s the Titan. But I can see how one might confuse the two.

As for the Hood, it’s obvious that the 2541 and the 42296 are supposed to be the same ship, just like the 1305-E and the 71807 Yamato is the same ship. The problem with the Hood is that when we see it in EaF, it’s the NX-2000 version, but when we see it in DS9 (as a CGI model), it’s the NCC-2000 version. Sure, we can ignore the minuscule changes to the two designs just like we can ignore the 2541 registry because we couldn’t see it on screen (or say that the Hood was refitted between TNG and DS9.) We could also speculate that they are in fact two different ships, the 2541 being destroyed or decommissioned and the 42296 being commissioned afterward, but then we get into the monkey wrenches of why they’d commission a new Excelsior class post-2364, or why it would have a registry of 42296 and not 71XXX.

 

The Titan has a proper underslung secondary hull. The Akira has, as with this model, an oversized ventral "bump" that isn't really a separate hull. That said, this looks to be a hand-drawn picture and not a CG artifact, so there's still room for interpretation...

Mark

 

The TOS nacelles (you can see the spherical domed fronts and the three boxes behind them) combined with the super-long runabout-style pylons that arc straight out of the catamarans(?) all mark this as some kind of weirdo hybrid.

 

Random notes for 2x09 ahead of the finale:

- Dorsal torpedo launchers confirmed! The Cerritos still can't QUITE hold her own in a fight against a Pakled clumpship, let alone with Klingon help. Why didn't she ditch out of the fight, then? Was Freeman expecting to have the Klingons assist them at the beginning? And if so, would one California + one (smaller?) Bird of Prey be considered a match?

- The Klingon lower deckers sleep in hammocks. If it's meant to be less comfortable than the ranked-up officers, I guess Klingons would find a hammock less comfy than a hard shelf..?

- Vulcan ships of 2381 have holographic displays, but to date in Starfleet (or at least in this show) they still don't have them.

- On the topic of regenerative shielding - the USS Prometheus had it, but we don't know if it ever went fleet-wide as a technology in Starfleet. T'lyn's work suggests that it was a software over hardware solution, rerouting or rewiring the existing tech to do whatever it is regenerative shields do.

- Mariner and Freeman are seen playing Velocity, but they're playing it on the Voyager's holodeck as when we first saw it in "Hope and Fear". So either the Cerritos has two different kinds of holodeck (which could make sense as they have two kinds of escape pods as of this year's refit), or they were playing in a holodeck recreation of an Intrepid-class holodeck, which for this show is just as likely.

- Calling them "clumpships" makes narrative sense, of course. But is it a "clumpship" in the same way as everyone else has "starships", or is it a measure of how big or important it is in the Pakled fleet, like a cruiser or battleship? All the larger Pakled ships we've seen this season are of the same model, but not the same as the ones they fought last year and the beginning of this year.

- The Pakled ship's lower deckers are hungry in the same CG set as the ship Shaxs and Rutherford crashed into last year. It's got different (bubblier!) cargo pods, but the walls, robot arms and such are different. The computer console at the centre of the room is the same, down to the cables strewn on the floor.

Mark

 

Have you ever slept in a hammock for months on end?

It's not exactly the most ergonomic sleeping surface for your spine.

And many Asians prefer Hard surfaced beds with light padding, it's been a classic tradition amongst older generation Asian folks.

Or is it because they clumped their StarShip together from random StarShip parts?

 

Despite its size, the Klingons must be famously, ridiculously well-armed, and Captain Freeman started that fight pretty sure the Pakleds were accosting her allies.

Unclear to me why T’Lyn’s Vulcan colleague has deltas on his boot soles if the Vulcan ship ISN’T Starfleet, and yet aesthetically the cruiser seems like it isn’t. Having holographic displays if they exist is logical, but maybe not “cool”?

Uniformity should be unlikely in a clumpship. Also, are all clumpships called Pakled? Or was this the equivalent of their flagship?

I theorize that the cargo pods are frothing because they’re full of mushfruit, possibly a powerful intoxicant.

 

2x10

Spoiler

So, the California class doesn't have a bridge window? I wonder why that spot on the bridge module glows then in exterior shots.

 

It's one of the hull's large spot lights?

 

Probably more meant as a visual shorthand of Klingon ships being more primitive, like old sailing ships.

 

Spoilers are irrelevant! This is a spoiler thread!

And the USS Rubidoux last year had the window AS a window. Perhaps it's one of those things where it's optionally transparent if you have power, but opaque if you don't? Like a backwards version of those dimmable windows on the Boeing 787 or the even weirder transparent Japanese toilets?

There's a LOT to unpack out of this episode! Gotta watch it again. But for starters, the mini flotilla at the end of the epsiode had the Cerritos, Archimedes (NCC-83002), another California-class (in blue!), then one each of a Parliament, Oberth and non-RI Nova. There's also a smaller ship with warp nacelles that isn't a shuttle, under the Oberth in one shot. Maybe the Raven-type? Plus some worker pods, neat!

Mark

 

Ohh I forgot about that.