Starships of the 2230's

[Timo]

In what sense? It's level with a row of windows, and on the inside it's level with a catwalk that seems to be level with landing deck floor and above at least two identically dimensioned decks. Each such deck appears to be a bit higher than the saucer decks, but...

In the "three decks represented by two rows of portholes" Kelvin spine, the lower part of the docking port apparently extends uncomfortably to the space held by the middle deck. Might be that a docking port requires machinery spaces above and below anyway, though. Or that the port is well within the topmost of the three decks, in line with the upper row of spine windows, and it's just the couple of windows next to the port that are oddly placed slightly above the level of that upper deck.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

Well, for starters the Mayflower isn't "really" the size we see it when it collides with the Enterprise any more than the Bird of Prey is "really" the size it appears when it decloaks for the first time in STIII. As I said earlier - dramatic licence.

Yes, but you can't claim 'dramatic license' in this sense and use the very same VFX shots to determine it's 'real' (in the in-universe sense of the word) size, mass, and capabilities. Just as I wouldn't use the first season of TNG at all to tell me how big an Oberth class ship is or every try to figure out the size of the Defiant based on DS9's VFX. Your baseline is completely ruined for such things.

The Mayflower's "real" size is how we see it relative to the Enterprise and the rest of the fleet at spacedock. The saucers are all the same as the USS Kelvin's - about 3/4 the size of the Enterprise's and about half the thickness at the rim. Me and Timo have been arguing deck layouts all thread.

I noticed. My only point is that your baseline for these details is a bit muffed up to begin with so your comparisons have to make some assumptions somewhere which won't work with what's on screen. Different shots scale the Enterprise at vastly different sizes, after all, and since the VFX shows the same ships at different scales in various shots, even the comparisons get muddled. Spacedock may be a 'good choice' for where to begin, but you're still forced to make the assumption that they didn't screw that up to.

How it funtions technically is presumably: Whatever the Stargazer or Reliant uses in lieu of a navigatonal deflector, and a warp drive powered by a warp reactor in the saucer, not unlike many other Starfleet designs.

We don't know the role within the fleet, capabilities, etc. Granted, most people would never worry about this, and didn't, so this is not a comment on the movie's quality. But, as a Trek tech fan, I personally like a bit more grounding and a bit more solid of a baseline.

 

[Timo]

The Mayflower's "real" size is how we see it relative to the Enterprise and the rest of the fleet at spacedock.

We need not assume this, as we never see a starship named Mayflower at spacedock. Nor do we learn that there would not have been additional starships present at Vulcan besides the fleet of seven plus Enterprise.

And cadets and regular personnel being assigned to starships at the Academy hangar get vectored to at least six differently named assignments (not counting Regula One which may or may not be a starship named after a famous asteroid), none of which is the Mayflower.

Just as NCC-1701 is the newest flagship, the Mayflower, NCC-1621, may be an older flagship of the same gigantic scale, somewhat larger than the rest of the fleet we see, and totally unrelated to the CGI mesh that happens to bear that name in an illegible fashion in certain other scenes...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

@Timo - the floor of the docking port on the sec hull is higher than the floor of the catwalk which extends out to the flight deck. Andrew Probert has responded that there is a ramp that makes up the difference.

 

[Timo]

Not much room for a ramp here, alas:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmphd/tmphd0387.jpg

Possibly the catwalk (and the shuttlebay floor) is simply a bit higher up than would at first seem? Or the catwalk might droop down a bit on the way from the docking port to the shuttlebay floor, and the forced perspective in the two mattes would hide this fact.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[bryce]

Perhaps the "Mayflower" is an evac ship - hence it's HUGE size - that came in to Vulcan from another star system besides Sol...?

I am a proponent (one of the few, but not the only) of the theory that the changes in the "nuTrek" timeline, while *originating* with the Neurda's appearance - rippled both forwards *AND* backwards in time.

Hence the differences in Stardate methodology, etc...

It makes sense kinda when you think about it - in fact, it would almost HAVE to be the case - because, on account of time travel, Star Trek's (relative) "past", "present" and "future" are always interacting with, and influencing, each other (hence the mechanism for the backwards-effect of the changes.)

And if it's NOT the case...then in nuTrek's past, you would have people visiting (from Kirk to Picard to Sisko - and Spock in teh animated series episode "Yesteryear") from a future that *ISN'T* the nuTrek future - but an alternate one.

(Though, to be fair, that could still be the case if you look at them as just a *probable* alternate future - one of many...but, then again, since the changes the probability of THAT particular future happening would be nil...)

I still think that events like those in "First Contact" (the move) & others (such as those in any other Trek time travel story) *may* have happened...or not...but now they have/will have happened *differently*, with people from nuTrek's future timeline coming back. Or not. (I mean, maybe in the nuTrek timeline there's no *need* for Picard & the Enterprise-E crew to travel back an help Zefram Cochrane...because in the nuTrek universe contact with the Borg easily could have gone differently - and so the Borg may not have ever sent back a sphere to try and change history...or they may have done it at a different time perhaps...though I would probably guess that nuTrek's past history probably *does* have that event happening...since it's considered by the creators and fans that the past is pretty much the same as that of the Prime Trek timeline...and making it otherwise would confuse people...)

 

[bryce]

^I just wish that the "Staar Trek" 2009 designers would have gone with the original concept art and given the kelvin & the rest of the nuTrek starfleet a more TOS-inspired look.

But I also wish that they would have tried to make the nuEnterprise look a bit more inside and out like the TOS Enterprise...obviously, there WOULD ave to be changes to suit a moder aesthetic...but I think they still could have given it...more similarities. Like for example, they did with the Kelvin-era communicators & phasers...they weren't copies of the TOS props...but you can obviously see they have similarities...and belong in the same design lineage...I think it would have been possible to compromise and radically updated the Enterprise look...without making it as radically different as it was in the film...in my mind I see something that would be halfway between what we saw in the new "Star Trek" and what we saw in Enterprise's "These Are The Voyages"...if that makes any sense. But all of this is neither here nor there. I really loved the new movie...but there is also a lot I would like to have seen done somewhat differently...

ETA: Actually, I would like to have seen them do with the ships and the props what they did with the uniforms...they are clearly NOT the same as the TOS uniforms...but at the same time...you can see that they are instantly recognizable! (Something similar was done on nuBSG with the MK II Viper's...it's not the clunky looking BSG:TOS Vipers...but right away,..you recognize them.

The bridge, for example, could have been made bigger...and even had such additions as glass HUD viewscreen and those standing see-thru glass touch-interfaces...but the colors could have been made a muted version of the TOS bridge colors...and the controls could have incorporated TOS colors and subtle touches...maybe given Spock a updated hooded viewer...touches...so you could squint and go "Yeah, that's exactly how Roddenberry would have done it, if Star Trek TOS had been made today, on a big movie budget!" So you could squint and imagine that's how TOS REALLY looked...

I think you could have drastically redesigned the ship, inside and out.and STILL made it recognizable...

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What does that mean for the spine docking port, though? Is it situated between two decks or what?

I invite you to ponder on the various uses for Common Berthing Mechanism on the International Space Station. With its wider aperture (compared to a standard docking port) it can be used to load and unload cargo and heavy equipment into the station, although the simpler design means a craft can only dock with it using a canadarm.

In Kelvin's case, and for Enterprise for that matter, this could be a cargo hatch, in which case it would open directly into a large open cargo bay (which, I'm sure, would look alot like the loading dock of an American brewery).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Perhaps the "Mayflower" is an evac ship - hence it's HUGE size - that came in to Vulcan from another star system besides Sol...?

For the sake of everyone in this thread, let's make this clear: none of the filmed scenes DO establish the Mayflower as being unusually large; the only thing that does is Vance's gift for hyperbole. This, I assume, based on a single three-second shot from the Debris Field sequence, just before the Enterprise dips down and below the ruined ships hull to avoid a collision.

Most of us forget this particular moment is shot from two different angles: one from a far-off, wide angle which shows the Enterprise approaching a normal-sized saucer, one from a narrow angle which shows Enterprise and Mayflower in the same shot. In NEITHER of them does the Mayflower appear any larger than the Enterprise.

I just wish that the "Staar Trek" 2009 designers would have gone with the original concept art and given the kelvin & the rest of the nuTrek starfleet a more TOS-inspired look.

The closest we will ever get to a "TOS-inspired" look was the Enterprise as it appeared in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Which, by the way, is now my second favorite Trek movie behind STXI.

 

[Vance]

Alpha's being blatantly dishonest now. We've all seen the screenshot where the Mayflower's saucer dwarfs the entirety of the Enterprise... and then doesn't.

http://img99.imageshack.us/i/startrektlr3720p3031.jpg/

Careful clicking on that link, though - ImageShack's tripped my virus alert a few times now with their ads.

In addition, this thread: http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=84674 has other screenshots which show in great detail the VFX issues as you look through them.

Seriously, Alpha, I know you're a huge NuTrek fan and all, but resorting to outright lying now just so we "have" to include the Kelvin in the TOS timeline? That's kinda rediculous, isn't it?

 

[Timo]

Two things to ponder about that shot...

One is that the NCC-1701 is moving at a walking pace in the scene. Her bow could be basically touching that wrecked saucer in the shot, meaning the diameters of her saucer and the wrecked one would be close matches.

The other is that there are two half-saucers in the wreckage scene that are dissimilar in orientation and in the type of damage incurred. In the first shot of the NCC-1701 flying through the debris, she clears the Mayflower saucer by pitching up, so the final shot of this maneuver is one of the Enterprise belly being seen through the wrecked Mayflower-labeled saucer. Then follows a sequence where the NCC-1701 and the wreckage field are seen from a distance, with Vulcan as the background; there are several half-saucers floating around, and our heroes head for one that is apparently slightly larger in diameter than the Enterprise saucer. Then follows another close-up sequence where the NCC-1701 goes beneath the big half-saucer, scraping it - and this saucer, too, is labeled the Mayflower, despite being in a different location altogether (unless Sulu ran in circles) and being bigger than the first.

And the funniest thing is that in this final encounter with a half-saucer, the markings on said half-saucer change, so that first we see "1620" and parts of the name, with "NCC" clearly cut off by the destruction, but then in the scraping part of the scene we see "NCC" and not "1620". There's no time for the half-saucer to flip around, so essentially Sulu narrowly dodges three half-saucers that are all labeled "USS Mayflower, NCC-1620"!

And they thought we wouldn't notice?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ST-One]

And they thought we wouldn't notice?

I didn't...

 

[blssdwlf]

That pic shows the interior door but not the exterior door (think torpedo bay). You can see from the outside that the opening is higher than the flight deck and from the inside you can see that the matte painting shows the catwalk is level with the flightdeck. When I asked about the difference, Mr Probert said there was a ramp between the two doors

Not much room for a ramp here, alas:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmphd/tmphd0387.jpg

Possibly the catwalk (and the shuttlebay floor) is simply a bit higher up than would at first seem? Or the catwalk might droop down a bit on the way from the docking port to the shuttlebay floor, and the forced perspective in the two mattes would hide this fact.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

One is that the NCC-1701 is moving at a walking pace in the scene. Her bow could be basically touching that wrecked saucer in the shot, meaning the diameters of her saucer and the wrecked one would be close matches.

It's not the most egregious shot for that saucer, unfortunately. While we know that these are VFX composition errors, if they're being used as 'evidence' of ship sizes, etc, then what we see is the 1000m long Enterprise is one of the smallest ships fielded at the time, which is pretty rediculous.

This is why I say that VFX alone should never be used to determine anything in Star Trek, regardless of series.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Ahem.

 

[Vance]

Dude, we still debate the length of the TOS Enteprise.. what do you think that chart, made by a fan, proves? :P

 

[F. King Daniel]

Ahem.

The Kelvin's 655m on the old art book chart where the Enterprise is 1200m. The 725m Enterprise is to scale with a 457m Kelvin, as seen on the Bluray, and the spacedock scene with the same-saucered kitbashes .

I tested out little 6' people on my Kelvin deck chart at both 457m and 655m - they were a more comfortable fit at the latter, but on the former the deck heights matched up with Franz Joseph's TOS Enterprise blueprints and the NX-01 cutaway deck heights. If the people fit on those decks (they don't, at least not nearly as comfortably as we see on TV), they fit just as well on a 457m/1500' USS Kelvin.

So if the TOS Enterprise is 289m and the NX-01 is 225m, then the USS Kelvin is 457m.

 

[Wingsley]

I'm confused here:

Wasn't the JJ Abrams' 2009 movie the ultimate repudiation of both canon and any previously established tendency in TREK toward any kind of technical logic of any kind? In essence, the size of the various JJ space vessels in the 2009 movie is pretty much irrelevant, isn't it? Unless you can tie some kind of measurement to some relevance in the movie's plot, it's immaterial.

So trying to superimpose these extrapolations on spatial size from still frames in the 2009 movie over the pre-2009 TOS continuity (pretty clearly un-related) is pretty much a fruitless exercise, no?

It seems pretty obvious that when JJ Abrams rebooted the STAR TREK franchise, it spilt in two. There's an old-school TREK and now a Gen Y TREK, and the two seem only very vaguley related.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Alpha's being blatantly dishonest now. We've all seen the screenshot where the Mayflower's saucer dwarfs the entirety of the Enterprise... and then doesn't.

http://img99.imageshack.us/i/startrektlr3720p3031.jpg/

Never seen that version of the image before. It was arguable when the narrower version from the preview was first posted, but this shot makes it ENTIRELY clear that the Mayflower's saucer is almost the same size as the Enterprise' saucer.

I'm not sure by what logic you suggest it "dwarfs the entirety of the Enterprise," unless you mean that Mayflower's saucer is wider than Enterprise is tall (not sure why that matters, since the same is true of the Enterprise).

Seriously, Alpha, I know you're a huge NuTrek fan and all, but resorting to outright lying now just so we "have" to include the Kelvin in the TOS timeline?

When did I say you HAVE to do anything at all? You're free to include or not include anything you want, the writers have the final say. But Kelvin can and does fit just fine into the TOS timeline and there's no logical reason TO exclude it, only personal reasons, which you clearly have.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm confused here:

Wasn't the JJ Abrams' 2009 movie the ultimate repudiation of both canon and any previously established tendency in TREK toward any kind of technical logic of any kind?

No.

Primarily because canon and technical logic only hold the importance they do for a small, esoteric subset of trek fans. If anything it's a (highly successful) attempt to repudiate the practice of pandering to an elite fanbase at the expense of alienating a broader audience. So no expense has been provided and little official sanction has been given for technical details other than the most bare bones details of the film. On some level even JJ Abrams knows that the fans will fill in the blanks with their own imaginations anyway, and we're probably better off for it: people who care will commit their imaginations to it (as we are doing right here and now in this thread) and people who don't care about the details don't have to.

It seems pretty obvious that when JJ Abrams rebooted the STAR TREK franchise, it spilt in two. There's an old-school TREK and now a Gen Y TREK, and the two seem only very vaguley related.

To the extent that any two iterations of Trek are actually related, anyway.