I thought that the .U.S.S. Enterprise XCV 330 was a Civilian ship not a .U.E.S.P.A. warship. From Memory Alpha: Space Flight Chronology states that the USS Enterprise, Declaration class, is a 300m long starliner for 800 passengers. As Paul Cargile pointed out some time ago, this is complete bogus. At 300m, the inhabitable section would be smaller than the Defiant, and imagine 800 people in there on a long interstellar journey! The name and registry is "USS Enterprise XCV 330". As the ship must have been launched prior to the foundation of the Federation, "USS" may stand for "United States Ship". Of course the size of the ship and the habitable section would have to be increased, but it would still make more sense as a civilian ship then a warship. Think about it, who would build a ship with the warp engine so vunerable? With no sheilds, (it woulod have none, one volley of the nucleur missiles both sides used in the war and that plyon connecting the engine to the ring is destroyed and artificail gravity is offline. I'm not saying the civilian or US Air Force/ Lockheed Martin Skunk Works builders would be shoddy, just cost cutting.
The Enterprise has been called many things through out time. The only thing we really know is it's shape. This gives us authors and designers a lot of room for personal interpretation. Mine is that this ship started as the S.S. Enterprise UEV-47. A UESPA Science ship. It gets brought into the Romulan war in some capacity that I haven't figured out yet. Then After the war is over and the Federation is founded it gets donated to the new Federation. Afterwhich it gets a new registry as the U.S.S. Enterprise XCV-330.
Not to steal any thunder, but here's what I completed recently: http://www.fleetyard.net/temp/trek/declaration-final-1.png I've tried to stay as close as possible to the shape and dimensions of the Jefferies '74 "Starship" blueprints, with coloring and signage based on aridas's work. Those blueprints describe the ship as proposed for the aborted "Starship" show. Lincoln Enterprises ran an ad on those blueprints, and the show: http://www.trekplace.com/article13.html It basically explains that the sphere on the starboard side is a "metatransit system", basically a holographic environment that channels data from a probe, allowing exploration without leaving the ship. I don't know how all that could be made to fit into the Star Trek universe, or whether we'd really want to do that in the first place.
In the SFC, all Federation ships were "USS", even the civilian ships. As for the rest, it goes back to what I was arguing earlier: the Declaration-class and the XCV cannot be the same ship. They could be ships with similar configuration in different time periods, but there is no "clean" way to adapt the Declarations to what we know of the XCV.
That's awesome work harry. I've been building up my courage to do some 2D schematics of my version. That's encouraging to see one already done. I like your interpretation. I wish I could find some good info about the "Starship" series.
I'm not sure any "good" information about the series even exists, since it never got off the ground. That sketch may be the best "tech" thing that survives. (and anything else that would have been good about the show was likely later worked into TNG scripts, much like a number of "Phase II" scripts were. Harry-- I'll join the chorus i appauding your orthos. What do you think of my argument up-thread that with all the changes that have happened since the Spaceflight Chronology came out (i.e., accurate pics of the UEV-47 vs. Rick Sternbach's book art; completely different timelines, and placement in the timelines), the Declaration class is probably better treated as a completely different ship class than whatever the UEV-47 was?
Well, apart from the general shapes, the ringship in the SFC definitely seems completely unrelated to the Jefferies-ringship(s). I personally chose to ignore the SFC version of the ship, since it seems so incompatible in both size and function with what the original sketches show. I did only take over the "Declaration" name for the type of ship, imagining at least three ships: Declaration, Constitution and Enterprise. I did a very quick mockup of the Declaration, assuming its configuration of modules made it look a bit more like the SFC artwork: http://www.fleetyard.net/temp/trek/declaration-sfc.png
I rather imagine Roddenberry wasn't yet very invested in the 'Starship' premise when that initial information about it was released and was just using the pre-existing Jefferies design to try to sell the premise. That might explain why it doesn't really match with the capabilities the ship was supposed to have. Had their been generated interest for it, they might have redesigned the concept or came up with a new design. Oh, and nice work there, Harry.
Hi all, I'm new here, and while brousing the site, I came across this topic. Interesting debate you all are having. One thing none of you have mentioned yet, is the fact that there are copies of Jefferies blueprints out there for the XCV-330. Yes, they were published back in the 70's in a Sci-Fi mag (I don't remember which one thou). Some of those blueprints servived the decades, I still have my original mag copies, and so do a few other people out there (including "Fantastic Plastic", who have mada a model from those plans. Uniderth, Your design is kool, very good, but there are tiny discrepencise from Jefferies original design. I'm going to try to upload the scanned blueprints, but if I can't, I have them in my PhotoBucket album. Here's the link: http://s829.photobucket.com/albums/zz212/Vahmp/Blueprints/ Laterz.... Vahmp
Ok, now that I know it works, here's the rest.... Those are the extirior, next is the interior blueprints of the main bridge, the head part of the ship. And BTW.... XCV|-330 = Science vessel. Not a liner, not a warship, simply a Science Vessel...
The interior..... Hope you guys enjoy them, and hope it settles any doughts about this ships function, and true size. Have a good one, Laterz... Vahmp
Just out of curiosity, has anyone come up with the idea yet that this design might be Earth's attempt to reverse-engineer the type of warp nacelles on Vulcan ships from the Star Trek Enterprise era...?
That's been my theory since we first saw that Vulcan ringships in Enterprise. Makes sense that humans would try to mimic Vulcan designs thinking that was the key to higher warp speeds.
I guess that could also depend on who actually invented warp drive. I know that cannon on screen states that the Vulcans had warp drive first and Zefrem Cochrane, my spelling might be wrong there, came up with it for the human race, but in the spaceflight chronology I get the impression that it's stated that humans came up with it first. I might be remembering wrong since it's been many years since I've looked through the book, but I seem to recall that they state that Zefrem was from Alpha Centauri and had theorized about the possibility of warp drive, but with the appearance of humans from Earth, he was able to bring his theories to reality and everyone else got it from that.
In Spaceflight Chronology, Zefrem Cochrane developed the theory behind warp drive and shared it with humans who visited Alpha Centauri in a sub-light ship in 2048. The humans transmitted the data back to Earth, which allowed Earth to develop a working warp drive in 2055. (It seems Alpha Centauri knew how to make a warp drive, but lacked the materials and/or resources to do so...) In 2065, humans made first contact with Vulcans, who had already developed warp drive more than a century earlier...