What is the deal with the Saravejo? When I first saw it I thought it was an alien ship. Then on a forum I read it was an Earth-built ship. And my headcanon has been it was an alien ship that Starfleet bought or loaned.
Enterprise Era Starship Thread
- Thread starter HotRod
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It was meant to be an Earth Starfleet vessel. The concept art seems to indicate that. But the nacelles were integrated into the hull. It doesn’t resemble any of the other designs at all. Not sure why this ship had such a radical design departure.
I can sorta see a connection between it and the Arctic One with the overall shape and lack of protruding Nacelles. That and they both seem to have large windows on their bridge/cockpit. Plus, it does have the one thing all larger Earth ships have, the round planetary sensor on the bottom.
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Suurok type
D'kyr type. I always liked this ship.
A Freedom class ship, introduced by BEY. This is the USS Franklin, the first Warp 4 vessel launched between 2146 and 2151. This makes this ship class canon for ENT.
The USS Pioneer, which was the concept illustration for Freedom class before they decided on the final version.
D'kyr type. I always liked this ship.
A Freedom class ship, introduced by BEY. This is the USS Franklin, the first Warp 4 vessel launched between 2146 and 2151. This makes this ship class canon for ENT.
The USS Pioneer, which was the concept illustration for Freedom class before they decided on the final version.
Hot take: I think the Conestoga design should have been the hero ship, which also should have been named anything but "Enterprise." My pick would have been "Endeavour."
It's always been a head canon idea of mine that the classic Federation starship design of saucer/secondary hull/nacelles was the result of the UFP founders working together to design the very first Federation starship class. As a result, pre-Federation ships from the founding worlds would have different elements of that final design but they wouldn't all be found in one ship.
It's always been a head canon idea of mine that the classic Federation starship design of saucer/secondary hull/nacelles was the result of the UFP founders working together to design the very first Federation starship class. As a result, pre-Federation ships from the founding worlds would have different elements of that final design but they wouldn't all be found in one ship.
I do like the design of the Conestoga! And a part of me agrees with you that it would've made for an interesting hero ship.
But....
I love the design of the NX-01 so much that I can't picture anything else in the role.
Plus the saucer and nacelle look is so quintessentially "Star Trek."
I think it's of an earlier era when they were still experimenting with designs, such as the Ring ship Enterprise we see a painting of.
I tend to agree. Something like the Conestoga would have been great. I would choose the name Dauntless though.
Which is kinda strange since this was a prequel and they were trying to get away from it being too Star Trek.
Since names of designers have been brought up here, I have to say that while I love Drexler's work, I've never been a fan of anything Eaves has done. The Sovereign Class is especially atrocious, IMO, and much of his other work just doesn't have the Star Trek aesthetic like the output of Probert and Sternbach.
I remember reading somewhere years ago that the Conestoga was going to be the hero ship until the Akira was "repurposed" for the NX-01. That could have been someone's conjecture or mistake, but the model is very well developed for a ship only seen on a computer screen.
That the planned hero was what became the Conestoga is conjecture AFAIK, however that there was a different hero ship planned before Executive Meddling forced the repurposing of the Akira-class model has been confirmed by several different sources over the years.
However, I agree that it's plausible conjecture/speculation at worst and a nice model that I would have been happy to see more of.
However, I agree that it's plausible conjecture/speculation at worst and a nice model that I would have been happy to see more of.
I've mentioned my disappointment with Eaves's derivative design style on several occasions, but I will say that I do like the Sovereign class, if anything because it looks completely different from the previous Enterprise that came before it, and was original for its time. However, most new ship designs these days are just boring knockoffs of past designs.
From what I understand, Eaves initially drew up some concept art of ships that either resembled the TOS Enterprise a little too much, or designs that looked nothing like an Earth ship from a century before TOS. Drexler also made some low-poly CGI models of three designs that also still looked too much like TOS designs. Then either Berman or someone at UPN decided that they wanted to use the Akira class from FC, completely unaltered, as the NX-01, the rationale being that it was only on screen for a few seconds and fans would never notice that it was the same ship.
However, I have never heard any concrete evidence that the Conestoga was originally supposed to be the NX-01.
According to Eaves, the direction for that design came from Herman Zimmerman who was inspired by Syd Mead.
From Eaves' Blog via Memory-Alpha
the early NX-01
When Enterprise was starting up the first and foremost top of the list was the new ship, and orders were to try everything under the sun and don’t go for the obvious… Doug…
johneaves.wordpress.com
And here are some of Drexler's concepts
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According to Eaves, the direction for that design came from Herman Zimmerman who was inspired by Syd Mead.
From Eaves' Blog via Memory-Alpha
the early NX-01
When Enterprise was starting up the first and foremost top of the list was the new ship, and orders were to try everything under the sun and don’t go for the obvious… Doug…
Yep, that's the design I was referring to. It looks quite unlike something I would expect to see for an Earth ship in the 2150's.
And here are some of Drexler's concepts
I knew of the first three, but I've never seen the fourth. That's from Drexler too? Just looks like the NX-01 that somebody took photoshop to.
The memory-alpha credits says the entire image comes from a scan of the instruction booklet that came with a Bandai model kit.
I can't find anything else on that side shot. Guessing it's an earlier concept of the final NX-01 design.
Thanks, I was unaware of that last design actually being Drexler concept art.
Edit: I just checked a Youtube video on the Bandai NX-01 and that concept is indeed in the booklet.
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Top is way to advanced looking, the next 3 are fugly. 4th is an NX.
Proof the NX is the best ship.
Proof the NX is the best ship.
Definitely like the Second One.According to Eaves, the direction for that design came from Herman Zimmerman who was inspired by Syd Mead.
From Eaves' Blog via Memory-Alpha
the early NX-01
When Enterprise was starting up the first and foremost top of the list was the new ship, and orders were to try everything under the sun and don’t go for the obvious… Doug…
And here are some of Drexler's concepts
These are the ones I was talking about in an earlier post. I believe they were the designs lost on Doug Drexler's hard driver.
The top 3 I remember someone posting on the Trek BBS 20 years ago and I bet that's where these actually come from. Whoever on Trek BBS bought that NX model and scanned the booklet with an early 2000s scanner. It's amazing to me that after all these years nobody scanned a higher res version.
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A lot of those artifacts seem to be from the printing process, so I'm not sure you could get a better scan (and that image does look a lot larger than the one posted back in the day, but I'm not even going to try and dig through my drive to see if I saved them). Maybe better post-processing to try and blur out the pattern, but I'm not sure how much blood we can get from that particular stone.
I've got that booklet around here somewhere. I should try and find it.
