What kind of ship is it for Starfleet, more workhorse or more flagship?
It is a classic exploratory vessel that is a bit of an underdog in the situation that it gets into. So we really wanted to take a moment here and think about where Starfleet is at and how it would see advantages in the diversification of ship designs including purpose-built ships that were designed for specific types of missions. The new Titan is more of a long-range workhorse of a ship. Harkening back to the Constitution class that was designed for the long 5-year missions. It is an exploratory vessel with some serious maneuvering capabilities. Have you seen those impulse engines? Phew!
Can you talk about the design process, and maybe who worked on it?
The Luna class felt like it was more TNG-era than the Picard-era we set up with the new Stargazer, so we looked at many, many designs. I sat with [Picard production designer] Dave Blass along with Doug Drexler and John Eaves – both of which are Trek legends. One of the things we noticed was that the ships were starting to get a bit too aerodynamic. Oval and arrowheads. All curves, no angles. No proper saucers. We were quickly heading to Enterprise-J territory. So, we asked ourselves what if Starfleet designers looked backward to some of those old retro designs and updated them? – not unlike today’s modern car designers. But there needed to be a logic to it.
Doug Drexler had the idea that the round saucers and the wide saucers are inherently more stable in an emergency atmospheric entry. Not that we would see that in the season, but hey! It happens! His notion was that the elongated primary hull is more dependent on aerodynamic force fields, and ship’s computers to glide them in. So, we started to tell ourselves some Trek stories to flesh it all out. Starfleet experienced an incident during an emergency atmospheric entry where a certain Sovereign class primary hull maybe inverted and perished. Then a repeat incident happened with an Intrepid class primary hull. Doug noted that nothing like this had ever happened in the long history of circular and wide-tracking hulls. Software solutions were computer tested but not 100% successful. Why this weakness did not show up in computer trials of the Sovereign is still a matter of debate amongst Starfleet engineers. Just ask Geordi. [laughs]
And that is why it has more of a retro design compared to ships like the Enterprise-E?
Well, the Enterprise-E was also created during the time of the Borg invasion and had a specific design put in it for that purpose. Now that the Borg are no longer seen as a major threat, the new designs would revert back to previous “scientific exploration” type designs. It’s also worth noting that with the Federation growing it’s harder and harder to get consensus on anything in Starfleet. One admiral pushes for building a bunch of the same design ships so that they can be replicated quickly and then parts can be exchanged. Thus, you end up with the Zheng He or Inquiry class fleet. The problem is once an enemy finds a flaw, they can exploit that on an entire fleet. You only learn this until you lose a whole squadron of ships, which is what Doug Drexler theorized happened with the Inquiry class.
Doug had an amazing take on this. He’d say, “A Jeep still is a Jeep.” And there are logical utilitarian reasons why the Jeep still works and hasn’t gone away, and won’t go away. Classic Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses were designed in 1932. They haven’t changed! Because it’s a perfect design. C’mon, the P-51 Mustang hasn’t been surpassed. And that’s why Maverick flies one in Top Gun. That design is almost 100 years old! And the Constitution Class starship is a perfect design. So, this is simple aircraft logic. That’s what defines Star Trek tech. You can thank Matt Jefferies.
