Different design for the NX-01

[Vanyel]

Ok, I know that there are people on this board who are...not pleased with the NX-01. Personally I like the NX design. It looks just enough like a Federation ship to be as part of future designs.

Anyway. Looking at Daystrom Institute Technical Library and Ex Astris Scientia and found the Conestoga Class ship. I don't think it was ever shown on screen.

I would like NX-01 fans and haters take on this ship if it were the one designed to be the ship of Star Trek: Enterprise?

If TPTB had designed this ship or a similar design instead of the NX I think it might have been a good hero ship.

Here are some pictures.

And mods, if this should be moved, please move it. Thank you.

 

[Timo]

It would IMHO have been a good idea to get rid of the "Kirk-style" saucer. Other Trek hero ships have managed without one, and a design lacking the saucer would have been a good way to show that this isn't your nerdy parents' Trek any more.

However, it would probably have been better to have some other relatively simple and memorable hull shape or configuration for the hero ship of ENT. The Conestoga is a nice bit player, but perhaps not sufficiently memorable as such. Possibly with enough zoom-ins to characteristic parts of the hull... Say, if the bridge set had matched those large windows at the bow of the Conestoga, this might have been "iconic" enough to carry the design.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JuanBolio]

I agree, and have thought so since I first saw the Conestoga design. With a few tweaks she would've made a beautiful NX-01. However, the design actually got for the NX-01 has really grown on me over the years, especially when I learned how much thought went into it. I'll stick with it, but the Conestoga is a first-rate ship. Especially those nacelles - love 'em.

 

[RyuRoots]

The NX-01...I can't even say it's "just a flipped Akira" because if it was, I'd at least like it if you looked at it upside-down. But no, it somehow manages to blatantly rip off the Akira yet have none of the Akira's grace or general coolness. Bizarrely impressive.

But THIS would be perfect as a ship for ENT. It looks more appropriate to the era, and it only has one visual aesthetic connecting it to TOS, which is cool (the nacelles). I think it's a great design for a more primitive warp ship, and it looks very human, very "made on Earth" way more than any other Trek ship.

 

[The Wormhole]

Conestoga is a wonderful design. While I'm not sure if it would have worked as the NX-01, it's certainly a step in the right direction, and shows a lot more creativity and fits better with the design lineage than making "retro modifications" to the Akira did.

 

[John Picard]

That would have been awesome. As an example, compare the USS Langley to the USS Nimitz.

Both were aircraft carriers, yet it took time to evolve from the former to the latter.

 

[Misfit Toy]

This is a great thread, but it really belongs in the Enterprise Forum, so...

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

I like the NX design, a lot actually. I DON'T see the Akira 'rip off' aspect at all. Hell if you want to go with that idea than the Ent-D was just a rip off from the *.

Anyway, that ship fits in fine as a transition from the early Earth ships and the Fed ships, but I don't see it as hero ship. More of a supporting role type of ship.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I like the NX design, a lot actually. I DON'T see the Akira 'rip off' aspect at all.

Agreed on both counts.

We might think that a ship of ENT's timeframe shouldn't look as polished, but in the end, the ship has to do its part in selling the series. If the ship is too ugly, people won't watch.

It's like that ass-ugly Daedalus class (or whatever that ship model is that has the globular primary hull - never conclusively identified as Daedalus, come to think of it). I'd hate to have a series with a ship like that as the centerpiece.

 

[Yug]

I honestly felt any ship design for this show would have had to have some TOS Enterprise features and that means a saucer section. This particualr design in question looks a bit more like the ship from Firefly.

 

[Skywalker]

I do like what we got for the NX-01, but that Conestoga design just looks so awesome. It would have been perfect for a primitive pre-Federation human starship. Let one of the other founding species use saucers for their ships.

 

[FormerLurker]

I like the NX design, a lot actually. I DON'T see the Akira 'rip off' aspect at all.

Agreed on both counts.

We might think that a ship of ENT's timeframe shouldn't look as polished, but in the end, the ship has to do its part in selling the series. If the ship is too ugly, people won't watch.

It's like that ass-ugly Daedalus class (or whatever that ship model is that has the globular primary hull - never conclusively identified as Daedalus, come to think of it). I'd hate to have a series with a ship like that as the centerpiece.

You and Rick Berman both.

 

[Vanyel]

I like the NX design, a lot actually. I DON'T see the Akira 'rip off' aspect at all.

Agreed on both counts.

We might think that a ship of ENT's timeframe shouldn't look as polished, but in the end, the ship has to do its part in selling the series. If the ship is too ugly, people won't watch.

It's like that ass-ugly Daedalus class (or whatever that ship model is that has the globular primary hull - never conclusively identified as Daedalus, come to think of it). I'd hate to have a series with a ship like that as the centerpiece.

You and Rick Berman both.

I think the Daedalus Class is UGLY too.

 

[Skywalker]

I think the Daedalus class is ugly in most forms, but I remember seeing a fanmade ENT-inspired version of the ship that actually looked really cool.

 

[Arpy]

I thought the Conestoga was way more similar to something one would have expected as a design for a pre-Federation Enterprise. I think the idea pre-ENT was that the saucer of the Constitution Class evolved from the sphere of the Daedalus Class. Subsequent speculation was that the odd Daedalus came about from a merging of technologies from the founding worlds of the Federation...maybe one had nacelles, another the sphere, another dual hulls configurations, another the transporter, another phasers, another photon torpedoes, another replicators, etc. You can see the Daedalus sphere worked into early designs for that first Vulcan ship we saw on ENT.

I imagine pre-UFP Earth ships looking like something out of Starship Troopers or Babylon 5 or Aliens, etc, but with nacelles. Or, earlier, with rings like from the ringship Enterprise, which though you'd think was negated with the advent of the nacelled Phoenix from FC was then seen in the background on ENT. ...Making me think it was an earlier warp technology testbed (maybe for the Phoenix itself) like the NASA shuttle Enterprise was for the fist spaceworthy shuttle, the Columbia.

 

[Skywalker]

Something like the Conestoga also makes sense to me as a primitive Earth ship because it evokes Cochrane's Phoenix--basically just a hull built around a giant warp core.

 

[eepruls]

That looks like the back end of the actual NX-01 and an elongated front of the Defiant. When I look at it, I totally see the Defiant with NX warp nacelles. I like what they actually came up with better than this Conestoga.

 

[nx1701g]

Something like the Conestoga also makes sense to me as a primitive Earth ship because it evokes Cochrane's Phoenix--basically just a hull built around a giant warp core.

I agree.

Personally the NX-01 has grown on me over the years, but something about this seems far more like it would be the first Warp 5 ship built by Earth.

 

[Wes-Cutting]

I wonder what it would be like if this design was used instead of the NX design. I mean a few years after that show was cancelled would someone post the designs for the NX and say "Hey doesn't that look cool, we should have used that instead of this. Looking back it would have been nice but we got stuck with this."

 

[RandyS]

I like it. It's better than what we actually got. And more in line with the SS Valiant from a century earlier seen in the Chronolgy.