I've been poorly lately.
Starship Size Argument™ thread
- Thread starter WarpFactorZ
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I've been poorly lately.
Depends on your perspective. If you want to believe that the AltVerse was always different from the start, you can use that to support that theory.
But, if you want to go with what was said by the writers, director, and in the film itself (that the divergence began with the Narada's entrance to the AltVerse and attack on the Kelvin), then you can say that the Kelvin was an experimental testbed unlike any other contemporary and more conventional TOS-type starship at the time, testing out a new larger hull, a new brewgineering and enhanced warp drive, new bridge control systems, new shuttles, etc. Once it held up as reasonably as could be expected against the massive and powerful new threat posed by the Narada, Starfleet decided to model its subsequent starships on that design (and with specs reverse engineered from the Narada recordings) in an arms race against this new type of Romulan ship. They had no idea it was a rogue ship from an alternate future at first, they probably just thought it was an incredibly advanced new Romulan design.
Here, I made this. There are five full decks on the rim of the saucer, with a half deck above and below for piping and machinery and so forth. You can see the giant 5-Deck impulse control(?) center where the explosion rips off the aft section of the saucer.
^Where did you find that cross-section?
I have no idea where it originated from, but I found it here (the link is in the image above as well) through Google Image Search. Strangely though, I can't find the Imageshack link on that page to track it back any further than that.
Where did the writers, director, the film say that the Kelvin was an experimental testbed unlike any other ship, and if it worked so well, why didn't the Prime Universe go with that design?
Well it's excellently detailed!
I didn't say they did. Here's what I said about the writers, director, and film, and the rest after the parenthesis was my speculation:
But, if you want to go with what was said by the writers, director, and in the film itself (that the divergence began with the Narada's entrance to the AltVerse and attack on the Kelvin)...
IMO, because the Prime Universe Starfleet of the TOS-era never faced the Narada in battle, and never had any motivation to continue building starships of that type to face ships like it. Maybe they were too labor or resource costly to build, maybe they were overpowered like the Defiant, maybe they were not a design philosophy a more peacetime oriented Starfleet wished to pursue further. There are any number of possible reasons.
Really? So why do three of the five decks on the saucer have no windows, while the other two have 2.5m x 9m luxury windows? Who inhabits those three windowless decks? Steerage? The Irish? Huh?
Your lines suggest the windows take up the ENTIRE DECK HEIGHT. That's ridiculous. Look at any building, and ask yourself if the windows take up the entire floor -- including the space between floors for piping, electrical conduits, HVAC, etc...
Jesus Christ, this ship is like Oscar the Grouch's trash can, with its swimming pool, giant living room etc... It just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I could draw a diagram dividing the saucer into 20 decks, too. Doesn't mean they're really there.
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You keep posting this picture where you just guess at the perspective so that your lines match in each picture, as if it's some kind of argument-ender.
In fact, all you do is post photoshopped pictures with slogans, as if they're some kind of argument enders.
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OK, gotya. Actually, that's a pretty good theory that covers most of the bases.
I spent a little time tonight looking up exactly what Orci et al. said about the time travel premise, and I found this little gem, an interview on TrekMovie.com dated December 11, 2008. It seems to go against the "standard interpretation" of the Prime Universe currently pervasive on the board. A highlight:
This is a loophole big enough to drive anything through. The timeline that Spock Prime is from need not be any timeline that we saw any pre-2009 Trek end up in. Orci said so. Based on this interview, there's nothing that guarantees that the TOS past of the Spock Prime in STXI is exactly the same TOS past that we saw on TV. Any number of temporal incursions could have happened after all the events of pre-2009 Trek and before Spock Prime went back in time, in order to set up any differences that might exist in the Kelvin era versus what existed in the pre-Pike era of the original The Cage.TrekMovie.com said:
Is this their intent? I don't know. But Orci did make a point of stressing that the final timeline Spock Prime went back from isn't necessarily any of the ones we ever saw before.
But, again, it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other. What I'm comfortable with is that it was a foregone conclusion that the precise look of TOS was never going to be seen on screen. That was always a non-starter. Therefore, to somehow suppose that, if Nero's incursion hadn't occurred, the Kelvin era of STXI was somehow headed that way (to that precise look) seems silly.
Of course, that doesn't discount the idea that the Kelvin is a prototype. To me, it's not exclusively one extreme or its opposite. I'd agree that maybe the timeline was heading towards a reimagined TOS ship with fewer phasers, and without those other white phasers/particle cannons/whatever they were, that would have been much more in line with what one might call a conservatively "modernized" vision of the TOS ship. The ideas of the Kelvin being too costly, not really being made to convey a message of peaceful exploration, and so forth, fit. It really did seem kind of like a battle wagon made for border patrol, but given the families aboard, obviously not one intended for invasion.
I think the main thrust of what Orci et al. said about STXI not being a reboot is that they intended to provide us with a version of the characters that was true to the original, but not slavishly bound by the trappings of the original era in which TOS was produced. It blew me away that STXI evoked, and channeled if you will, TOS so effectively, while at the same time providing the necessary upgrades in terms of production design and effects.
For the life of me, I can't think of a single time in Star Trek where the outcome of a story has hinged upon the actual length of the Enterprise in meters. Or, upon the color of the Vulcan sky. Or, of Kirk's eyes. Or, Chekov's age. Just because Kirk's cabin has a different number in two different episodes, that doesn't necessarily mean that he switched cabins, anymore than Kirk's middle initial changed from R. to T.
Honestly, I think we're supposed to squint and gloss over anything that can't be explained by Nero's incursion, as if that's now the way the TOS era always was, just like we did for Kirk's middle initial.
Anyway, that's my take on it.
During the design process they started out with the ship being about 250ft longer than the TMP Enterprise, realized it wouldn't fulfill their needs for interior sets and shuttle mockups, and therefor supersized the ship to the much larger size it was in the final movie. Unfortunately, while they did alter the exterior features somewhat to match the larger size, they did not include windows on each deck, which would have gone a long way toward making the larger size more obvious, much as it does on the Enterprise-D.
First of all, neither the lines or I suggested anything of the sort. There is plenty of space both above and below the windows, roughly a meter and a half worth on either side if the figures you gave for the window size above are accurate. Plus, the lines are thick to be more visible (so they block some space), and it was something I just threw together quickly to illustrate the deck structure after you asked where he was getting the four-to-five-deck figure from and were not willing to look it up yourself, so it's hardly precise. It's just a rough layout of the decks to give an idea of the internal structure.
Could you draw it to correspond to actual external features with known dimensions (like the bridge viewport) and the breached multi-deck internal sections shown in the trailers?
Also, I think you've mistaken me for someone who is deeply invested in this frankly irrelevant to the quality of the movie, IMO, size argument. If it's important to you, more power to you, but please dial back on the rhetoric a bit toward myself and others. Some of us are just doing this for fun.
Gracias.
What about, "they built them bigger in those days"? There was no evidence they built them bigger before simply because we never saw anything (in canon) from that era prior to Star Trek.
The models of the Phoenix, the Ringship Enterprise XCV-330, the Enterprise NX-01, USS Kelvin and the USS Vengeance on Admiral Marcus' desk give the impression that the pre-2233 timeline was the same.
Perhaps Admiral Nogura or his predecessor preferred smaller ships (what can the Enterprise-D do that the much-smaller Voyager can't?), and Admiral Marcus wanted bigger and bigger.
Nice! Although I thought that damage was the aft engineering hull and not the saucer? Sounds like I'm gonna have to see the film again. Oh well...Here, I made this. There are five full decks on the rim of the saucer, with a half deck above and below for piping and machinery and so forth. You can see the giant 5-Deck impulse control(?) center where the explosion rips off the aft section of the saucer.
If we'd seen a single window from the inside except for the one on the bridge which is floor-to-ceiling, your argument may have some weight. Also if we hadn't seen the deck heights in the Into Darkness corridor intersection.
Well, unless the "NCC-1701" is written in magical resizing paint, I post it as proof that the shuttlebay/shuttlecraft size is constant, despite repeated claims otherwise.
A picture is worth a thousand words - particularly in cases like this.
Here are some more:
(that's from the ultra-HD shot of the Enterprise rising from Titan's atmosphere available HERE)
Nice! Although I thought that damage was the aft engineering hull and not the saucer? Sounds like I'm gonna have to see the film again. Oh well...
Oh no, I defer to you on that, since the film is not out here yet. I've only got the trailers to go on, and from that I thought the breached section was on the saucer (could have sworn there was a clip of people being blown out of a breach with the nacelles in the background of the shot, but I could be misremembering). But since you've seen the movie, that's a much better source.
Nice! Although I thought that damage was the aft engineering hull and not the saucer? Sounds like I'm gonna have to see the film again. Oh well...
Secondary hull, starboard side just below the neck, next to the pylon
It's shown in the new clip at 0:12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pg8Bq0qxPIM
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Anyway, why is there any argument at all in the first place. Starhip sizes in Star Trek have never been consistent. Alone the Galaxy's size varied from episode to episode (as viewed compared to Excelsiors/Constellations/Oberths/Birds of Prey/Warbirds).
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USS Vengeance scale. To quote Mr. Scott: Holy shit!
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Not that it matters, but off the top of my head I'd say the E-D's escape from the dyson sphere doors in RELICS qualifies, and you could probably say the same thing about the refit's passage out of the spacedock doors in SFS.
(though I still maintain the latter is a blown visual opportunity. A narrower cross-section presented to the slowly opening doors would have been more exciting, like Sulu putting the ship through a-quarter of a slow barrel roll.)
If the Enterprise had been ten feet wide the doors would've been just slightly bigger. The same would've applied if it had been a thousand feet wide.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
If the Enterprise had been ten feet wide the doors would've been just slightly bigger. The same would've applied if it had been a thousand feet wide.
You're talking about how they made an effects shot. I'm talking about what was mentioned in somebody's post, which if I recall right was about a STORY hinging on the size of the thing.
If the ship was a half-mile long at that speed it would have got chopped going through.
Believe me, this is not enough to get worked up over -- stick with fighting the guy over TheAbramsThing's ship size (though every time you post a pic it looks so much like concept art I think you guys should be debating why the ship looks so fake rather than how big it looks.)
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