The Kelvin Timeline Starship Thread

[Christmas Canon Spock]

I get WHY things are different... they just... really don't need to be huge for the sake of being huge.

That's kind of my view though. They're not huge for the sake of it. They are a legitimate response to an existential threat who pop up out of nowhere and struck with devastating effect. To me, it's a direct proportional response. It would be like what militaries would do 100 years ago if a modern day carrier popped up randomly, blew a ship up, and then disappeared. It would increase fears of a coming war with a past hostile actor (The Romulans) and foreshadow a new devastating conflict like the past, since the Earth-Romulan War was recent enough for people to still remember it.

 

[evilchumlee]

That's kind of my view though. They're not huge for the sake of it. They are a legitimate response to an existential threat who pop up out of nowhere and struck with devastating effect. To me, it's a direct proportional response. It would be like what militaries would do 100 years ago if a modern day carrier popped up randomly, blew a ship up, and then disappeared. It would increase fears of a coming war with a past hostile actor (The Romulans) and foreshadow a new devastating conflict like the past, since the Earth-Romulan War was recent enough for people to still remember it.

I think a more apt comparison would be that a modern aircraft carrier appeared 100 years ago, blew a ship up and disappeared... so they responded by building a bunch of aircraft carriers that were 10x the size of the ships they were building.

Because the only way to fight a... large thing is by building an even bigger thing? Right? Bigger is always better?

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

I think a more apt comparison would be that a modern aircraft carrier appeared 100 years ago, blew a ship up and disappeared... so they responded by building a bunch of aircraft carriers that were 10x the size of the ships they were building.

Because the only way to fight a... large thing is by building an even bigger thing? Right? Bigger is always better?

A fair comparison, I would say.

That is the natural reaction of humans. Make yourself bigger, come back with a bigger weapon, or larger arsenal, or bigger army.

I don't feel this is a strange concept at all. I feel like 09 and ID make perfect sense...

 

[Spaceship Jo]

I get WHY things are different... they just... really don't need to be huge for the sake of being huge.

Admiral in charge of Starfleet construction orders: Did you see how big that thing was? We need bigger ships!
Starfleet Corps of Engineering: That... isn't how that works. We can pour resources into technology that will respond to that kind of threat without going big, in fact smaller will...
AicoSco: We need big things! I give the orders!
The rest of folks in Starfleet: that was one time like 20 years ago anyway and we all kind of treat it as a historical oddity anyways, not any kind of present threat, so we'll definitely be dubious if someone says there's another big thing out there, especially not the same one again.
AicoSco: Big ships now! Get me one with a saucer so wide you can't comprehend it!


I do like the idea that folks were literally laughing at Marcus and his predecessors, not just disagreeing with the threat assessments or thinking there were other ways to respond, just literally laughing at the idea of Bigger Ships Better because it is indeed so laughable.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Is it?

While the size of the JJprise has generally been accepted at 725m, I'm not sure if a definitive size was ever agreed upon for the Kelvin.

Eaglemoss listed her at 315m long....

Which is what Moebius Models went with when they released their 1:1000 scale model kit. Which looks pretty good when compared to a 442m long Enterprise of the same scale.

The Kelvin is 457m in length officially (the ST2009 bluray extras and Art of the Film book), although many of her innards require 655m in order to fit, much like the Enterprise shuttlebay requires 1200m but the bridge 725m. Scales changed a lot throughout production and one set of people were working to one scale and others another.

The Eaglemoss magazine is wrong, they used the sizes from Ex Astris Scientia, which the author admits are how he imagines it should be and not what the creators are depicting. Eaglemoss also messed up the sizes of the Armstrong, Newton and Mayflower the same way, even when they had the size comparison chart inside the magazine showing the relative sizes of the vessels.

Remember though, we can no longer agree if the Prime-1701 was 289m or 447m, or what she looked like nowadays so these things matter far less than ever. It's whatever the people making the current thing want it to be.

 

[F. King Daniel]

People seem to forget that both ships were designed as a response to a massive Romulan ship attacking.

Well really it's because they made much bigger shuttles (imagine trying to film the evac and birth scene in the shuttle from TOS)and filmed the Kelvin engineering and shuttlebay in a massive disused power plant.

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

Remember though, we can no longer agree if the Prime-1701 was 289m or 447m, or what she looked like nowadays so these things matter far less than ever. It's whatever the people making the current thing want it to be.

Since I never knew TOS was 289 I was unaware this should matter.

Well really it's because they made much bigger shuttles (imagine trying to film the evac and birth scene in the shuttle from TOS)and filmed the Kelvin engineering and shuttlebay in a massive disused power plant.

How boring.

 

[HollyJollyHotRod]

Isn't it kinda Starfleets modus operandi to respond to the threat of a large ship by building bigger ships?

I mean.... within a few decades of these showing up on the scene.....

We had at least a dozen of these monsters built.

 

[evilchumlee]

Remember though, we can no longer agree if the Prime-1701 was 289m or 447m, or what she looked like nowadays so these things matter far less than ever. It's whatever the people making the current thing want it to be.

The Big E is more confusing now. Not only can we not agree on the size, we have literally two versions that exist concurrently. Paramount has been adamant than DSC, SNW, and TOS are all canon and exist within the same universe. So. They do...

 

[evilchumlee]

The Kelvin is 457m in length officially (the ST2009 bluray extras and Art of the Film book

The Eaglemoss magazine is wrong, they used the sizes from Ex Astris Scientia, which the author admits are how he imagines it should be and not what the creators are depicting.

EAS does like to just kind of... make up things. HOWEVER... the numbers did it make it into an "official" work... i'm not sure the blu ray extras and artbook have a higher standing that the Eaglemoss publication.

 

[F. King Daniel]

EAS does like to just kind of... make up things. HOWEVER... the numbers did it make it into an "official" work... i'm not sure the blu ray extras and artbook have a higher standing that the Eaglemoss publication.

The Bluray is like, the same thing film itself is on, made with direct involvement of the people who made the film conveying their intent.

The magazine was just poorly researched.

 

[SantaEddie74]

The Enterprise-F was roughly 1,061m in length and thus roughly 40% longer than the Enterprise-E. In canon she's the second-biggest Enterprise in the franchise, surpassed only by the monstrous 1701-J which isn't even launched until around the mid-26th century, nearly 150 years later.

 

[HollyJollyHotRod]

The Bluray is like, the same thing film itself is on, made with direct involvement of the people who made the film conveying their intent.

The magazine was just poorly researched.

But there is also Moebius Models. Where did they get their numbers from?

 

[F. King Daniel]

But there is also Moebius Models. Where did they get their numbers from?

Nowhere that fits dozens of escape shuttles or fits with the CG model bridge windows.

 

[HollyJollyHotRod]

Nowhere that fits dozens of escape shuttles or fits with the CG model bridge windows.

At the risk of reigniting a very old argument....

We already know that the size of ships in that film was very prone to..... fluctuations. And while the size of the Enterprise was generally agreed upon, with nearly everything settling on 725m, I feel we cannot say the same for the Kelvin.

I don't know if Eaglemoss pulled their numbers from EAS. If they did, that seems rather foolish, knowing his reputation. Regardless, they did get their numbers from somewhere. Same with Moebius, A model company with a good reputation had to get their numbers from someone of authority.

Now in regards to shuttles and crew size...being that a Nimitz class carrier, with far less internal volume can store over 80 Aircraft and a crew of over 5000, I've never had a hard time believing the Kelvin could store a shit ton of shuttles and a crew of 800. For all we know, the entire secondary hull was all shuttle storage.

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

I've never had a hard time believing the Kelvin could store a shit ton of shuttles and a crew of 800. For all we know, the entire secondary hull was all shuttle storage.

I also never held to the idea that the 800 people saved were all crew. I figured it was colony ship or had evacuated a colony.

 

[HollyJollyHotRod]

I also never held to the idea that the 800 people saved were all crew. I figured it was colony ship or had evacuated a colony.

Indeed. I should have said crew or passengers. I've always kinda liked the idea that it was, or was at least being used as a colony transport. Would explain the large number of shuttles.

 

[HollyJollyHotRod]

Thinking about it..... I do indeed think that the entire secondary hull is all Shuttlebay/cargo hold.

We see ships like the 3 nacelled Armstrong and the 2 nacelled Mayflower not even have secondary hulls, while still being kitbashes of the Kelvin. Meaning their Warp core/engineering sections are within their saucers. Which is likely where it was located on the Kelvin. Leaving the secondary hull one big, perhaps even removable, shuttlebay.

 

[F. King Daniel]

We see Robau's walk though engineering to the shuttlebay, so we know they're in the same hull.

Why are we trying to "fix" the Kelvin to be small when Discovery gave us a Battle of the Binary Stars fleet of ships mostly if not all dwarfing the classic Enterprise and similarly scaled to the Kelvin? The Shenzou, Europa and others make the TOS Enterprise look tiny.

 

[HollyJollyHotRod]

We see Robau's walk though engineering to the shuttlebay, so we know they're in the same hull.

Well let's be honest, we saw Robau walk through an industrial looking part of the ship. Nothing about that says it has to be Main Engineering. It just tells us that the shuttles are stored in an industrial looking part of the ship.

Why are we trying to "fix" the Kelvin

For Funsies.

make the TOS Enterprise look tiny.

TOS Enterprise is yesterdays news. Get onboard the 442m express!