Well, speaking for myself--I'd love to see a ready room! BTW, Clawhammer, I'd recommend a "step" that separates Ezri's "half" of the room (the desk, and everything behind it) from the other "half" (from the door to the desk). That way, Ezri can sit and look commanding--i.e., not short--without suffering from having to dangle her feet over the floor, as happened in the previous books....
A step would be totally unexpected in just one room, people would be tripping over it endlessly - Yes, I can see how it'd improve appearances, but it'd be a nightmare from virtually every other perspective.
Ezri isn't Tom Cruise. She can cope with her height just fine. Failing that, she can wear an 8-foot tall holographic avatar of herself that shoots phasers out it's eyes when she's angry.
Janeway's ready room had steps. http://www.st-spike.org/images/interiors/voyager_readyroom.jpg Although they separated the "office" area from the "lounge" area, rather than dividing the "office." And by the way, Kate Mulgrew and Nicole DeBoer are both 5'5". Ezri's height shouldn't be any more of an issue than Janeway's.
Granted. But, again, the books made it clear that the relatively high desk is a bit of a problem for our gal....
A futile attempt to bring this on topic again: Finished partly with the "armor" layer. (15 cm all around) Colors are placeholding for now. http://www.ewe-squad.com/mk2/armor2.jpg Enjoy!
^Looks great! Question: Why doesn't Aventine have the super-shield plates from Voyager: "Endgame"? While I could understand why they weren't used against the Borg in Destiny (the queen said they assimilated the shield tech at the end of the episode rendering it useless against them), surely it's far in advance of any other alpha quadrant spiecies.
The "Batmobile" ablative armor from "Endgame" is really a terrible idea for the most part. That kind of heavy armor would reduce the ship's maneuverability, block its sensors and thrusters, trap its heat and risk cooking the crew, draw enormous power from the replicators required to create and maintain it, and actually make the ship more vulnerable to damage from high-energy impacts (because those would cause neutron cascades in the dense material and expose the crew within to dangerous levels of neutron radiation). Really the only advantage of the Batmobile armor was that the Borg hadn't dealt with it before, so it was effective against them for a few minutes until they found a way to adapt. Probably the reason the Borg never encountered it before is because it's just such a very, very bad idea to use it at all. And the Borg did quickly adapt to it in "Endgame," so it became useless even as an anti-Borg defense after that point.
That's certainly not the impression I got from "Endgame". That depicted it as near-invincible, and Voyager seemed fine absorbing everything the Borg could throw at it. And when you can take a full-on attack by several cubes, I don't think there's anything you need to worry about manuevering around.
I never said it wouldn't work at all, just that it wasn't practical for extended or regular use. It's the sort of thing you might use briefly if nothing else will do, but it's still a cumbersome, energy-draining system that has more drawbacks than advantages. A turtle's shell will protect it very well, but there's a reason why every animal doesn't have a heavy shell. It's a specialized defense that comes with its own disadvantages. And they didn't depict it as "near-invincible." It took less than a minute of fire for the Borg to wear it down to 40 or 50% effectiveness. Yeah, until the internal heat buildup kills you all. And the "turtle" defense has limited applications. There are many contexts in which a ship in combat would need to be fast and maneuverable, for instance if it was on a mission to rescue another ship or get through a blockade.
That's exactly the look I was thinking of! Although it wouldn't be much use for novel covers, the engine room might be interesting too - I'd guess that first-generation slipstream drive would be huge. A bit like those unused STXI engine room concepts, but something that goes from the deflector all the way to the warp core, and combines them both.
I like it a lot! The pointer saucer is definitely growing on me, although from this angle at least it seems to make the whole ship look a bit smaller.
Looks great. Looks a lot better than the batmobile armor. LOL. Can't wait to see what it looks like once its finished.
Goddamn, I'm so in love with this ship... When she's done I wanna see full schematics (orthos and MSD), interiors of the bridge, engineering, sickbay, ready room, transporter room, etc., and many many hi-res wallpapers... Please.
Mark has posted an update on his Vesta-class model: http://mark-rademaker.blogspot.com/2010/04/vesta-class-mk2-update.html He's also toying with the idea of building the Voyager Fleet too! Do it, Mark. Do it.