I'm just glad BA is hearing it from someone else. I've tried to tell him that bent-up pylons are (for me) the first "no-no" when making a proper TOS design; TNG ships can have pylons that go every which way (and TMP started it with slanting the pylons back), but TOS should be straight and simple. Not bent in as many directions as Owen Wilson's nose. Even that description sounds fanwanky and silly, I hate to say.
Well, from a tech standpoint, bendy pylons are stupid. But hey, technology unbound and all that. Plus, it just looks kickass.
Well, exactly. And practicality is part of the TOS aesthetic - a clean, spartan, simplistic, functional, and eminently practical aesthetic that shows up in a lot of TOS designs. Bendy pylons are totally contrary to TOS design ideals and concepts.
Based on what ships? The Rom ship is curved (slightly), the Klingon battlecruiser is bent. We have exactly ONE TOS Fed ship to look at. I think the bend looks good. There may even be a really really good reason for it. When we start building massive warp-capable starships we might know what it is.
The TOS Enterprise provides the basis for ALL our accepted TOS starship design aesthetics, from the bridge to the nacelles. Using it as an example in this case is perfectly valid.
While I think it's frakkin' awesome that this thread is finally spurring some conversation, lol... I don't want to see it turn into a flame war or argument. The ship is 99.999% finished at this point, so it doesn't really do anything to debate the form of it. I took the design aridas had, I did what I thought was the best I could, to make it look like what it might have looked like if it was built as an 11-foot shooting model during TOS's time, and in keeping with the basic rules of Matt Jefferies design. Casimiro liked the approach I took, and was impressed by the fact that I didn't "go overboard" with my approach, which is why he agreed to build the model for me... pro bono, I might add. Did everyone like it? No. There were things aridas didn't like, and there were things TOS Purist didn't like. It's just a simple fact that you can never please everyone. But I did the best I could, IMO, and I personally am beyond happy with the results. I think I achieved what I originally set out to accomplish and more, and I think Casimiro really "got" what I was going for, and translated it beautifully.
Pfft, noone wants to hear reasonable discussion in here, BolianAuthor. Now, get back to your dirty bent-pylon loving, you english k-nigget! Your mother was a tribble, and your father smelt of quadrotriticale!
1. I thought it was a nice shot so I screen grabbed it off the beginning of Season 2. 2. I'm midway through Season 2 in revisiting TNG, a show I haven't watched in perhaps seventeen years. Go figure. I've committed myself to watching through to the end of Season 4, but folks are urging to watch the rest as well even though Seasons 5-7 don't really interest me. For me TNG started to slide downward then and I drifted away.
Yyyyes, yes, join the Galaxy Cult, young Warped9 and your journey to the... uum, whatever side it is will be complete! *Puts on hood and cackles*
No Star Wars references on here, sir! No matter how awesome they are! I can only imagine the fanboy flak you'll get for that... Warped9, you haven't been missing anything by not watching TNG for 17 years.
Candidly, I've been enjoying some of it. It will never replace TOS for me, but I'm finding a fair bit of TNG better than I remember. And there are some episodes I've seen that in their own right are as well done as some of the better TOS episodes. This isn't a matter of consistence in continuity. It's a matter of watching some decent television because, candidly, I haven't been watching any commercial television for year and a half now. Now back to our regularly scheduled subject...
I designed Surya to 1) serve as a logical precursor to Reliant 2) look like something Matt Jefferies might have designed. I heard (from someone... might have been Paul Newitt, might have been Mike Minor, might have been Andrew Probert. I can't recall who) that an early idea for Reliant was to have it be a TOS-styled ship. So Surya was my idea of what that ship might have looked like as well. The aft section and "nacelles down" arrangement were obviously to make it similar to Reliant. The saucer and nacelles were obvious uses of Jefferies' design vocabulary. But --and this might disappoint a few people -- the bent pylons were a specific nod to Jefferies' Klingon D7. Jefferies communicated aggressiveness with the D7's "hunched over" appearance and if Surya was to be a TOS precursor to the aggressive Reliant it was going to have to do it by using some Reliant design cues as well as some Jefferies/TOS design cues. So, that was the thinking. Bent pylons were from Jefferies and were TOS-approved. As for a Treknical reason... Surya is a frigate, designed for power and durability (versus a cruiser's emphasis of speed, efficiency and range). The "pylons up" position was asserted to be a speed position that left the ship a little more exposed and vulnerable in order to go faster farther longer. The "nacelles down" position shunned warp dynamics to conserve power for shields and weapons. Frigate versus cruiser, much as the Age of Sail had ship-rigged versus two-masted sloops, or frigates (Constitution) designed for power versus frigates (Constellation) designed for speed. For a ship meant to precede the Hornblower-esque Reliant, that was not an irrelevant consideration. So, sorry to disappoint, but the "Treknicality" and "TOS-ness" were pretty thoroughly considered when the ship was designed. Whether everyone agrees with the conclusions... Hell, when does everyone agree with anything? It has been a popular design with TOS fans for 30 years so I guess that counts for something.