Agreed... though, if you recall, the fake Dauntless had nacelles placed similarly close to each other. Perhaps SF didn't want to risk separating the nacelles and potentially ruining stability of the Quantum Slipstream. For me, the bigger (visual) offender is that huge hole with the grill on the inside of the back of the saucer (it just looks wrong).
I am certainly intrigued as to what that structure is supposed to be. There's no equivalent on Arturis's Dauntless. Unusual shuttlebay doors, perhaps?
I originally chalked it up to this being a generation 1 design of entirely SF built QS V2 drive (10 000 Ly's per minute with Quantum Matrix, Benemite crystals and Borg technology) which also has a Warp drive as standard. There is something that looks like a shuttlebay door further down the 'spine' of Arturis Dauntless... but there is no equivalent of that huge hole/grill on the back of the SF Dauntless saucer. Remember that Arturis Dauntless didn't use Antimatter nor dilithium (neither did it use Benamite crystals - but also, his QS version was slower and topped out at 714.285 Ly's per day (or 260,714.28 times Light speed) - and as far as we know, Arturis Dauntless also didn't have Warp drive... only Slipstream was mentioned. Plus,. the crew of VOY was able to make simple adjustments to VOY which equated Arturis Dauntless in speed and function... it was only because of the different hull geometry and inferior SIF (probably), VOY couldn't handle V1 QS for more than 1 hour (but that makes me wonder if it could sustain the slower 'cruising' speed for far longer - which would only make sense - but that would also stop the show by allowing the ship to return in the next few months - although, they could have just said that the Quantum Stresses could be handled at cruising speeds much better and that it would have taken a few years for the ship to return by occasionally stopping and making repairs - and then we'd just see VOY mostly in QS as opposed to Warp - that would have been interesting. The next iteration/refit of the Dauntless could pottentially get rid of that hole and close off that section by connecting it more smoothly to the rest of the ship's back (much like Arturis Dauntless did).
Did not like it there either. Whatever treknobabble used to explain it doesn't matter to me, the aesthetics matter and nacelles that narrow set just never click for me. I am torn on this area. This design causes my appreciation center to flux. Cannot decide if I like it or not, that is what makes it interesting though.
I looked into this and the background graphics created for PRO: "A Moral Star" suggest that Janeway's Dauntless had a shuttle bay in the same place as Arturis's Dauntless, even if it wasn't clearly visible on screen: So that grille isn't a strange shuttlebay door after all. I always assumed from the paired nacelles that Arturis's Dauntless did have warp drive capability too. The MSD certainly seems to suggest standard warp coils, and we know from "Hope and Fear" and "Timeless" that the quantum slipstream drive seems to rely on doing some clever routing of warp power through the main deflector, which would otherwise render the nacelles redundant.
Indeed. But those MSD's also indicate that SF's Dauntless is about 9 decks high... so it does appear to be larger than Arturis Dauntless (but smaller than the Intrepid class) - although the ship looks enormous next to the Protostar in the sneak peak (which is a bit odd, isn't it? Or is it just the camera perspective that's affecting No, according to Hope and Fear, this is what was stated: PARIS: I think we've found our engine core. CHAKOTAY: Some kind of new warp drive? PARIS: It's not antimatter, it's, I don't know what it is. (He checks another console.) PARIS: They call this thing a quantum slipstream drive. TUVOK: Quantum slipstream. CHAKOTAY: I've never seen that in the engineering manuals. PARIS: The ship's powering up. Auto-navigation is kicking in. Then shortly after. PARIS: Look at this. Energy from the quantum drive is being routed through the main deflector. CHAKOTAY: Is that what's creating the slipstream? PARIS: It looks that way. [/quote] The engine room did NOT have a warp core... it had a power core yes, but Arturis version of a Quantum core which seemed to NOT use Dilithium or Antimatter (VOY is different since SF makes use of antimatter and dilithium to generate energy onboard a ship which is also used to power the Warp engines). Standard Warp nacelles from what I understand generate a Warp field around the ship. Its possible the Arturis Dauntless nacelles do the same for Quantum Slipstream but otherwise it would have no regular Warp drive (other species don't necessarily share SF's need to have use several FTL technologies inside a ship - main reason SF does that is because antimatted/dilithium are standard means of power generation... so they have to use that as a baseline more or less - or at least VOY crew had to - we don't know what kind of power generation the SF Dauntless has). The use of the main deflector is pretty standard. You'd still need it to deflect stuff and protect the ship when using QS. The deflector is a kinda jack of all trades type of technology... it doesn't just deflect, but it can focus energy in a specific capacity to achieve desired effects... so it makes sense Arturis Dauntless would use it to focus the Quantum field.
The Protostar is ~139m long; Janeway's Dauntless does look somewhat larger and less streamlined than Arturis's Dauntless, but even assuming it's the same size as Voyager that scale is way off. The Protostar should be about the same size as the Dauntless's primary hull (do we still call it a saucer section when it's shaped like a trowel?). This looks more like the scale it should have against a Sovereign-class ship. Yes, but there's nothing intrinsically special about a warp core. it's just an extremely powerful energy source; the business end of a warp drive, the bit that actually does the warping, is in the nacelles. We've seen Romulan ships not using antimatter or dilithium to power their warp drives, and god only knows what powers a Borg ship. Arturis's ship could be running off a quantum singularity, or a zero-point energy extractor, or an omega particle reactor, or a star frozen in a state of permanent collapse and set in an eternally dynamic equation against the mass of the ship itself. You don't need antimatter for warp travel, it's just the most efficient fuel source Starfleet knows how to use. Don't tell that to the Miranda-class...
That's not a bad comparison, since the scale in the shot is almost certainly being cheated for the drama, just like that one shot of the Enterprise-E and the Defiant in FC.
Primary and secondary hull... primary being the saucer, and secondary the bottom bit of the ship... yeah, it works. If Janeway's Dauntless is as large as the Intrepid (something which the MSD doesn't support), then the scales in the sneak peak make sense because the Protostar would be almost 4x smaller in comparison. The Protostar being the size of the Dauntless saucer... well, if we go by the MSD, then the Dauntless saucer section alone has 5.5-6 decks (because half the deck goes into the secondary hull) and is definitely longer. Dunno, we'll have to wait for the part 2 to start airing so we can gauge the size of the Dauntless better... the sneak peak could have used erroneous scaling for drama, or it was just the camera perspective that was off intentionally. Yes, I am aware the Warp core is nothing more than a power generation device... so Warp drive could technically be powered by any sufficiently powerful reactor. I still maintain the idea that Arturis Dauntless never had or used Warp drive. From his species perspective, why bother when the QS drive works perfectly (for them)? Also, while we know that the whole situation was rigged by Arturis, in the end, the crew of VOY never mentioned use of a Warp drive at all. The Dauntless nacelles (like I said) could easily have more to do with generating a stable Quantum field which is then focused through the main deflector (which is differently shaped - but then again the Protostar uses a similar design for its Proto Warp). Or the Oberth and Constellation class ships for that matter. Some people stated that having a deflector is not 'strictly' necessary... and its possible that other systems these ships had would have used to replace the deflector dish. Maybe SF experimented with a few classes in the late 23rd century which resulted in ships without a deflector, but then decided that having one was actually better... and besides, most of those ships probably didn't venture too far from home - so, limited range perhaps compared to ships with deflector dishes?
Same reason the Voth and Borg still have warp as well as transwarp, or why Starfleet ships still have impulse as well as thrusters when warp drive works perfectly well for them. It's like having multiple gears, and it's useful to have a backup engine. Besides, what little information we have about how quantum slipstream works elsewhere suggests that nacelles are not necessary. Most notably when we see Voyager herself travelling in quantum slipstream in both "Hope and Fear" and "Timeless" her nacelles remain lowered and, presumably, unactivated.
There's a difference in having sublight engines to be able to travel and maneuver at sublight, whereas its something else to have a much slower version of FTL when a much faster and more efficient one (QS) exists. The Borg are an outlier because they assimilate information, so they are versatile by nature of assimilation. Very few species actually have similar approaches and mostly use just 1 version of FTL technology. The Voth have been using TW for a while, but TW in itself is a direct outgrowth of Warp... its still Warp, just a lot faster, so it stands to reason that slower FTL speeds as used by Warp capable species can be achieved through a single drive... although, they have said 'Take us out of TW, we don't want to pass them'... so it implies two drives - but again, maybe its just a single type of engine that allows both Warp and TW speeds... so its just a matter of 'speed' that differentiates TW to regular Warp, but both seem to be mostly same technology. And besides, both the Borg and Voth were seen using regular Warp. The Dauntless did not nor were we told its capable of regular Warp speed. Voyager's nacelles not being up when it was inside Slipstream doesn't necessarily mean anything... they still could have been used for QS... just didn't have to raise them to do that. As we've seen in 'Basics - Part I'... VOY was traveling at Warp 2 towards Kazon Nistrim stronghold, and its nacelles were lowered (which suggests the idea the ship can in fact achieve Warp without raising its nacelles - either that, or it was a VFX error). At any rate, the Dauntless nacelles were not capable of moving, they were stationary (like most other ships nacelles)... so, it stands to reason that they had a function in QS field generation and nothing to do with actual Warp drive. Or, because Arturis Dauntless was a FAKE SF ship... the nacelles might not have had ANY function that we'd be familiar with whatsoever and may NOT have in fact been nacelles in the first place (they could have been something else entirely). And because Arturis used particle synthesis technology, he could have made those two pieces of the hull to LOOK like nacelles... but otherwise they might not have been. Starfleet replicating the Dauntless by itself may have figured that since the original had what LOOKED like nacelles in those positions, perhaps they thought they may as well use them for their own Dauntless which would in fact have both Warp and Slipstream.
That's an infamous VFX error. We see Voyager raise its nacelles even when generating a non-propulsive warp field in "Learning Curve".
There are likely situations where warp drive is a more practical alternative than quantum slipstream. IE, if the destination isn't that far away, travelling at warp for an hour might be seen as more logical than engaging the slipstream only for a minute or two. Isn't this like asking why do ships have impulse drive if they're warp capable?
Not the same. There are limitations between sublight and warp speed which extend to the area of gravity wells etc. (Which can affect warp drive and force a ship to use sublight). If warp doesn't work, it's likely slipstream won't either (or it may be using a different subspace domain which may make it impervious to whatever limitations warp is subject to). Also using slipstream for a minute vs warp for an hour is still saving you 59 minutes of travel time. And for Arturis dauntless, the drive was highly efficient. Warp is more or less a brute force way of doing FTL.
But the wear and tear of dropping out of slipstream nearly immediately after engaging it is a concern. Indeed, that's basically the whole reason why warp within a solar system is frowned upon.
We've seen starships go to warp next to stars and even within the atmosphere of planets. Even a relatively primitive ship such as the NX-01 had little issue functioning next to a black hole. This seems more like a concern for Star Wars's hyperspace engines rather than Star Trek's warp drive.
But there have been numerous instances where use of Warp drive was stated it should be AVOIDED near gravity wells... which is why starships (usually) drop out of warp before entering a solar system. Wear and tear? For the SF built Dauntless perhaps because they need to use Benemite crystals for Slipstream. For Arturis Dauntless which used v1 of the Slipstream and didn't need Benemite crystals, its not an issue because it would be no different than using Warp for 1 minute (which has been done). Besides, you wouldn't be doing this constantly.