TNG Era Ships

Another thread that might be of interest.

 

I wouldn’t classify the Curry/Raging Queen types as from the ‘TNG’ era (or even the pre-TNG era.) I’d classify them more as from what I call the ‘Lost era’ (circa 2295-2350) when starship design was relatively stagnant, with the proliferation of ship classes either based on the Excelsior and Miranda classes, or just those classes themselves.

On a related note, I’ve always felt there was a huge lost opportunity to showcase multiple classes based on the Ambassador. As it stands now, instead of having an entire design lineage based on that class, it just became a one-off design that seemed to go nowhere.

Also, we don’t actually know when the first California class ships were built. They are consistently referred to as ‘old,’ yet their design belies that.

 

My suggestion was that the OP consider designing something akin to a Galaxy Era equivalent of the Curry Class, as it’s a unique configuration so far.

For me, interesting fleets would have ships like the Galaxy, Nebula, Cheyenne, New Orleans, Olympic, Intrepid, Preble, and other such classes that are immediately distinguishable by shape from afar. It’s a very Trek idea and in part why DS9 also looks like it does. Curry could use some Galaxification. And the Sydney Class Galaxified Risa Express just needs a rebranding as a troop transport or colony ship.

 

Ah, I see that now. Sorry.

It always annoyed me about the circumstances that led to the specific ships used for the DS9 fleet scenes. This would have been the perfect opportunity to show newer CGI designs in an effort to both give Starfleet more variety and to show a force formidable enough to combat the Dominion/Cardassian/Breen threat. Instead we ended up getting a bunch of old Excelsiors and Mirandas, coupled with three FC ships (the designs of which I've always disliked), and a smattering of Galaxies, which was really the only logical design in that fleet. It should have consisted of Galaxies, Sovereigns, Intrepids, Prometheuses, Novas and any other new designs that they decided to create to pad out the fleet. At least it would have shown the forces were on equal footing.

 

Indeed. Considering we only saw them one time, and in destroyed condition.

 

I’m a big fan of the Probert Ambassador especially and would love to see other ships of the era “Probert Ambassadored.” Those might have been the most used ships in the Dominion War in my ideal version of it, as they’d been replacing all the older Ent-A/B ones for decades. The D era ships would still be spreading and the E era would have a handful here and there. Maybe a Sovereign as the flagship of each fleet.

 

I like the Probert Ambassador as well; however, if they ever actually showed that design on screen, I would prefer that it be a different class than the Ambassador, since upon examination they really don't look all that similar.

 

I like them both, but if I had to choose, I'd go with the Sternbach version as well.

 

Tbh I missed that in the transcript - I'd meant to search it for "Transport" right after "Bradbury" but got distracted!

That noted, I don't consider it particularly definitive - it remains just as likely IMHO that Riker is simply describing the Bradbury's assigned duty (which I'd say makes a lot of sense, bearing in mind aforementioned warp tests). In my "headcanon" those warp tests resulted in the second spaceframe of the class, partially complete and intended to be the USS Intrepid, undergoing a significant design overhaul - resulting in a new class being designated.

Looking at the timing of the Intrepid's construction, the extensive testing of the Bradbury and the Hekarans' previous research disclosed to the Federation council, it makes me suspect that some people had in fact quietly taken the initial findings seriously, and that the Bradbury tests and thus the Intrepid-class were the result of Starfleet conducting their own research to get ahead of the problem sooner rather than later...

But as you say, YMMV

 

I always preferred the proportions and overall shape of the Sternbach version myself (especially the Yamaguchi refit!) but I also love the surface detailing on the Probert version... To me the best look would be a combination of those elements.

 

That's perfectly valid reasoning. I based my opinion on a couple factors:

1. The fact that Riker specifically mentions 'Academy transport ship' rather than just the ship's name indicates to me that this is the actual function of the ship rather than just the duty it was assigned that day. It's not like people would suddenly refer to the Enterprise as an ambassadorial transport when it was assigned to ferry T'Pel back to Vulcan.

2. Going along with this logic, I feel that it would be odd for a Starfleet ship-of-the-line to be given the mundane task of ferrying a cadet to Starfleet Academy. Again, it's not like a U.S Navy aircraft carrier, destroyer, cruiser, etc. would ever be given the job of ferrying a cadet to the Naval Academy. I would assume that the Academy employs its own transportation services for that job, which was why we never saw a Bradbury class starship on screen or in any Starfleet fleet scenes even though it was a brand-new class as of the start of TNG (and it's not just a made-up name like most of the conjectural starship class listing in the Encyclopedia; the ship and class name appears on several Okudagrams on screen.) The warp performance tests could be the Academy's efforts to produce a faster transport to get cadets from new, further away member worlds to Earth in a quicker amount of time.

 

Sternbach and members of the team that designed the ship themselves were apologetic about what they came up with. It was the best they could do in such short notice. And it shows. Look at the profile against other Enterprises in one of those fleet charts and it looks like a clunky unrefined mess, like a cartoon version of a C Enterprise that Lower Decks might have come up with, not something you’d build in the real world to fit between the Excelsior and Galaxy.

I do like the ship (and, again, Ambassadors should have been ubiquitous in those fleet battles), but it’s like if you put TOS Enterprise in TMP with a Refit next to it…you’d be wondering why they did TOS wrong like that.

Not to mention it doesn’t match the model on the wall of the Observation Lounge. E-B doesn’t either, but that another story.

 

A round saucer was cheaper and less time-consuming to produce than an elliptical saucer (which, despite Probert's and Eaglemoss's after-the-fact design, the C was originally supposed to have), and a round, tubular secondary hull was cheaper and less time-consuming to produce than an angular secondary hull like what the C (and D) originally had.

Now with that said, I still think Sternbach and Jein came up with a great design. No, it's not as smooth and streamlined as Probert's version, but they still both have qualities that make them the 'mid-point' between the Excelsior and the Galaxy classes. And considering that the producers didn't even want to spend budget money on a new filming model at all (which would have necessitated the reuse of the Excelsior or TMP Enterprise-A models), I am extremely happy with what we got.

 

To me it looks more like a midpoint between the A and the D than the B and the D.

Again, I didn’t hate it, but upon closer inspection it leaves a lot to be desired. I’d love to see another Yamaguchi-like refit of it to maybe address some things.

Some things I’d do: put more curves in the secondary hull, elongate the hotdog nacelles and cap them with more sophisticated Bussard collectors, thin out the pylons and make them less clunky (including around the shuttlebay), replace the navigational dome with something busier, to begin with.

Or they could have not done the episode at all until they had the budget for the ship. It was a timeless (and brilliant) story.

 

Andrew Probert's design that didn't make it onto the screen was better IMO.

 

I think they would have just used the Excelsior model and changed the script to make the ship the B instead of the C. That would have been the cheapest and easiest option.

 

Their mistake to make. Even so…I wonder if we would have gotten a Probert Ambassador later anyway. Fans and designers alike are constantly looking at older concept work to inspire new designs. That’s basically was the Probert Ambassador is anyway. Maybe it would have shown up in GEN or “Emissary” or somewhere else. Plus an Excelsior would have corrected for the B looking like the model in the Observation Lounge, and we might not have gotten that fop Harriman in GEN.

Is there anything you would like to see in a refit of the Sternbach Ambassador?