Yeah the mixed-scales for some of these kitbashes never really made sense.
Miranda Class in the Dominion War.
- Thread starter ash's boomstick
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It was so ugly it was cute!
If you think the Elkins and some of her DS9 classmates were bad, you should be glad they never fielded the Merced-class USS Trieste. Now THAT thing...
I... don't hate this.
It does have some interesting aspects to it, admittedly. Someone was definitely thinking outside the box on that one. Maybe a little too far outside the box for some folks... 
Well, I've definitely seen a lot worse. It's just a bit fannish maybe... sticking so many big 'greeblies' on it, that probably wouldn't have ever been seen close up. Top mounted nacelles can also feel a bit odd with the layout, maybe.
Remember, these things were hastily made and purposely contained out-of-scale parts with the intent that they were supposed to look different from any hero ship or studio model they were currently using. So whoever made that model did exactly what they were supposed to do 
I love the turrets on there. Really disappointed it didn't make it on screen.It was so ugly it was cute!
If you think the Elkins and some of her DS9 classmates were bad, you should be glad they never fielded the Merced-class USS Trieste. Now THAT thing...
That's a good look and an interesting idea.I've had a similar idea:
- We know that the Miranda-class has a similar volume to the Constitution-class refit and so it's likely it has a similar overall crew size in the 2280s (between 200-400), but by the 2360s we're given very small sizes for Miranda-class crew sizes – 26 for the Lantree, 35 for the Brattain.
- We also know from the Enterprise-D technical manual and can infer from her crew density, which is around a tenth of the Constitution-class Enterprise, that automation has significantly increased and improved between the 2280s and 2360s – if a Miranda-class ship had the same crew density as the Enterprise-D, they would number just 38. We know the Lantree was a supply ship so may have been converted for cargo duty only (its lack of a weapons pod roll bar would agree with this), and the Brattain was a science ship and may have had more sensors or computers than a stock Miranda, thus having less room/need for crew. Of course, it could also be that the Miranda is simply a more basic, less complex ship than the Galaxy, and therefore is easier to automate.
- We see Miranda-class ships in the Dominion war being so much cannon fodder, being taken out in a single hit. But we also see them fighting, dodging, and weaving right alongside the Defiant, and they're certainly going to be more nimble than much larger ships like the Galaxy, Nebula, or even Excelsior.
- We see a Miranda variant in the Dominion war that we never see anywhere else, with a large delta-shaped dorsal pod of unknown purposes and, possibly, photon torpedo launchers mounted on the upper hull (the Antares variant). Some sources describe this as a "tactical frigate":
So I like to think that the Mirandas we see in Dominion war fleets are unmanned drones slaved to a larger ship, because they were hopelessly outclassed and outgunned by Dominion ships but every phaser and torpedo launcher helped, and at the very least they could provide a physical fighter screen for other ships. My headcanon is that the Antares-style "tactical frigates" had a long-range high-bandwidth subspace tranceiver array in the dorsal pod and so could be operated at a substantially greater range than a regular Miranda drone, such as from a starbase or a ship not actually in the immediate vicinity. Perhaps they also worked as signal boosters for the other unmanned Miranda drones.
Edited for clarity and grammar.
The turrets are odd for Star Trek, but I still don't hate it. It works well as a hastily constructed war-time vessel. The turrets make me think that Starfleet was throwing random tech at the wall to see what stuck, and one of their ideas was "big honkin space gun".
I agree that it is odd, and the placement is interesting, being so centered on the saucer. I would not mind seeing it in action just to get a sense of the purpose. Again, we see the Defiant with a lot more powerful weapons, despite its size, so these larger turrets seem intended to put out a lot of damage quickly, rather than the wind up and build up of traditional phaser strips.
Considering that the Trieste was supposed to be assigned to the tachyon-emitting task force in "Unification", my guess is that it was a mission-specific design, architected to be a kind of lynch-pin of the fleet, and a core control node of the tachyon field.
Sure. I can buy that.
That's my theory anyway. IIRC, that model was built for Unification but never filmed, yet it appeared on the map of ships in the flotilla. It fits what did make it on-screen for that episode, albeit circumstantial.
The map of ships has the Trieste center-back, with a registry of NCC-37124. The model is NCC-3724. One of the tachyon lines closely crossed over and semi-obscured the "1" on the graphic, which may be why they didn't see it when they made the model.
Close enough for government work, anyway.
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The AMT Reliant model kit wasn’t available until 1995. “Redemption pt. II’ (which I think you meant to say instead of ‘Unification’) was filmed in 1991. So it’s more likely that the model was built for DS9. The question is, was it one of the kitbashes built for ‘A Time to Stand,’ or was it built earlier? The earliest use of a Reliant model kit was in DS9’s ‘Way of the Warrior (1995), which showed a Reliant kit docked at DS9 at the end of the episode. Strangely enough, the dialogue called for 6 ships, but we only see 4 (the Reliant kit, 2 Excelsior kits, and the Galaxy class Venture studio model.) Was the Trieste supposed to be one of those two other ships that didn’t get filmed?
I recall the Jackill's entry for the Soyuz suggests the turrets on that design are "multi phasic" mega phasers, but without any context for that technobabble.
I recall the Jackill's entry for the Soyuz suggests the turrets on that design are "multi phasic" mega phasers, but without any context for that technobabble.
I remember the novel with Morgan Bateson (I think it was called Ship of the Line?) had the Bozeman as a Neutral Zone border patrol ship. Maybe they had the same idea about the turrets?
Oh yeah, forgot that little detail of the model kit vs episode timeframe. The thing that gets me is the close-but-not identical registry number of the Trieste. I firmly believe that model was meant to be the same vessel that was named in Unification but not actually realized until DS9. Has the builder who released these photos actually gone on record as to the provenance and motivation behind the build? I honestly don’t remember any background info on this ship, only just the photos.
