Spoilers ST Strange New Worlds - StarShips & Technology Season 1 Discussion

Same here It's a pretty funny nod to that (I think it's a nod). This episode also showed the cargo bay area location better than Memento Mori. It's pretty big.

 

So Connie : Sombra is like K'Vort : B'rel

 

I thought the K'Vort : B'rel difference were there sizes as in they were Large : Small? Connie : Sombra appear to be 1 : 1 in the size category although the Peregrine had half the crew size of the Enterprise.

Another thing I noticed was that it seemed like there is no physical external door or hatch for the cargo bay. Is that deliberate?

 

Was rather lazy of them to make it a different class but just use a Connie. At least give it different nacelles or something

 

We finally explicitly saw in this one that the cargo bay door is in the fantail under the shuttlebay. There are some panel lines on the model that mostly match up with that spot, but it doesn’t explain how (except for that one shot) the door seems to be always open from the inside and always closed from the outside on the Enterprise.

 

Maybe the Constitution-class is an improvement of the possibly older Sombra-class. The designs may be identical in appearance, but they could have different capabilities and even mission profiles. Constitution-class ships could be considered multipurpose vessels and Sombra-class ships aren't.

 

In "Memento Mori" the Enterprise's cargo hold "door" was also in the fantail under the shuttlebay. Maybe there is a physical door that slides down to cover it when the force field isn't in use? There looks like enough room for a physical sliding door.

Edit:

I'm not so sure if the Sombra-class is older now. If she was built with the same parts as a Constitution then they were peers? Or at the time were peers and one class received newer parts? They definitely have a different crew count (100 vs 200.)

La'an: A Sombra-class ship, that's unique.
M'Benga: I served on one. Fast. Built with the same parts as a Constitution.

 

I had that exact same thought as it passed by the camera towards the end of the episode!

 

Yes there are!

I’ve also realized that there are at least four spellings of the Somba/Sombra/Samba/Sambra class. I’m waiting for some smart ass to call it the Sombrero class.

 

The AMT models, yeah? After 3 months or less, the pylons have begun to twist and the nacelles pointing in any direction but forward? That was my first-ever engineering project; creating armatures that would keep the nacelles in place over a long period of time.

 

Pix please!

I thought the best way was to lean the saucer back.

 

That's why I specifically said "possibly older." The only thing we know about the Sombra-class is that it's been around the fleet long enough for M'Benga to have served on one before and that the Peregrine has a lower hull registry number than the Enterprise. Now, that doesn't mean that the Peregrine is necessarily older than the Enterprise because hull registries apparently are more randomly assigned than sequentially, but it's all we got to work with for the moment. For all we know, the Sombra-class could be variant of the Constitution-class (or vice-versa).

M'Benga's line of "Built with the same parts as a Constitution" could just his emphasizing how similar the designs are. A century from now, Doctor Crusher could say the same thing about a Nebula-class ship being built with the same parts as a Galaxy-class. The main thing to take away is that the Constitution- and Sombra-classes share a design connection or belong to a design family.

La'an referred to the design as "unique." That might mean that the design could be fairly rare within the Starfleet.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking that, with such a relatively tiny crew (99) on a ship with basically the same external volume as the Connies, I suspect it's a focus-purposed ship with most of the space originally reserved for crew quarters as being used for either cargo storage, specialty science labs or massive sensor palettes (or some combination thereof). Not much need for such ships, so they're probably one-off's that are easily cobbled together from existing parts. A leftover kitbash, basically!

Another potential case in point, Una's USS Archer (NCC-627) that we saw in the pilot episode looked like it could handle a crew of at least 50 but had only 3. Same concept. I figure everything on such ships were designed for high-level automation, with only the smallest number of crew required to accomplish a specific series of narrow-scope tasks.

 

I can't see something like a Constitution being used for cargo. The shape is all wrong, you'd want something blocky, Plus if it's faster than one then it's a lot of effort to make a transport ship. It would make more sense as a rapid response ship. Perhaps with a more tactical purpose. Combat or scouting. Or it could be for medical response (Science wouldn't require that much speed often enough). Perhaps the space is given over to medical facilities. When not needed for such duties the crew would be lower and hence it has only 99 on board when the Gorn infection happens. With a full medical staff the crew could grow by a lot, hence M'Benga having served on one.

 

Looked to me like the Hiawatha NCC-815 in DSC S2 was repurposed from another design as well, being referred to as a "medical frigate" - however oxymoronic that phrase remains - so that was likely once a "frigate" in Starfleet parlance, converted to hospital ship duty. We've not yet gotten a class name for that ship design, so maybe another of those will show up on SNW to allow filling in those blanks...?

 

Some other differences. The Sombra had a blue trim around the saucer, and all the normally red markings on the secondary hull and nacelles were also blue. It also doesn't have the larger lounge windows on the front of the saucer, they're the same size as the rest of the saucer rim windows.

Most of the measurements are taken from the TOS tech manual, except for the Overall Length and Height, those are the same as the RetConnie. The height of the Secondary Hull is taken from the overall height of the TOS Connie.
https://twitter.com/timothypeel1/status/1544405659663405059?

 

While frigates have historically been associated with warships, within Starfleet they may be considered just multipurpose starships that differ only from cruisers in that they may not be designed with high-warp operations in mind. Given that the term "frigate" has changed a few times and has been used to describe a wide variety of ships throughout history, it's not implausible that the term would change again by the time of Starfleet. Hospital ships and science vessels could otherwise be frigates if they're armed with weapons, IMO.

 

So what makes a certain type of ship a completely different class, and what makes it a variant of the same class?