Spoilers 31st/32nd Century Ships Revealed

[Vale]

Sudden for Disco’s POV. Very much non-sudden for everyone else in that timeline.

Since Discovery is the lens through which we see the 32nd century, then yes, it was still sudden. My point is that for a 931-year-time-jump the 32nd century seems remarkably... like someone wanted to tell stories in the 23rd century but not have to deal with any established 23rd century continuity. There's been seemingly less technological development between the end of the 24th century and the 32nd century we see in Discovery than there was between the 23rd and 24th centuries – and no, the Burn can't reasonably account for that at all, since we know that at the time of the Burn starships were still using the same conventional warp drive technology that they'd been using for centuries, with seemingly no significant technical evolution for hundreds of years. The Burn effectively froze technological development for 100 years. It does not explain why there was seemingly very little development in the previous 700 years.

The Whale Probe had that detached rotating bit.

That was held in place by some sort of energy beam; it was hardly free-floating. They could have done that in the 23rd century with a tractor beam. Hell, they could have done it in the 22nd century with a grappling line and a spotlight to make it look cool.

 

[Markonian]

The Iconian ships of the early 25th century are initially more advanced than their Starfleet/Khitomer Alliance counterparts. They have plenty of floating components.

With the Alliance capturing and using Iconian ships from 2410 onward, perhaps engineers found a useful aspect (like Saru’s maneuverability) that led to Starfleet and other factions adopting detached components by the 3000s.

Any Trek show (or, for that matter, novel) can and will contradict the shit out of STO.

And? Star Trek is all just make-believe anyway. Episodes contradict each other, too.

 

[Vale]

The Iconian ships of the early 25th century are initially more advanced than their Starfleet/Khitomer Alliance counterparts. They have plenty of floating components.

With the Alliance capturing and using Iconian ships from 2410 onward, perhaps engineers found a useful aspect (like Saru’s maneuverability) that led to Starfleet and other factions adopting detached components by the 3000s.

Or perhaps Star Trek Online is, at best, well-funded communal fanfic.

And? Star Trek is all just make-believe anyway. Episodes contradict each other, too.

"It's fiction so continuity is irrelevant" is such a terrible argument.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Iconian ships of the early 25th century are initially more advanced than their Starfleet/Khitomer Alliance counterparts. They have plenty of floating components.

With the Alliance capturing and using Iconian ships from 2410 onward, perhaps engineers found a useful aspect (like Saru’s maneuverability) that led to Starfleet and other factions adopting detached components by the 3000s.

STO has no bearing on Discovery, so I don't see how this is relevant.
I like the game too, but they're separate universes. STO is non-canon.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And? Star Trek is all just make-believe anyway. Episodes contradict each other, too.

The point is, nothing in STO is ever intended to apply to anything outside of the game. STO doesn't establish anything, it doesn't prove anything, it doesn't make anything official. STO is its own self-contained universe, completely separate from the rest of Trek.

 

[DaveyNY]

Picard has already contradicted STO, yeah.
The developer stance is they'll adapt any lore that don't contradict big parts of the game's existing story, and ignore anything that would invalidate entire storylines.

They've taken entire story lines out of the game a few times since its inception.
I've been playing since day one and some of them were pretty good.

 

[YouAreDooomed]

I'm not in a rush to see a 32nd century Enterprise, if only because I have been thoroughly underwhelmed with almost every 32nd century starship design we've seen to date. Honestly Discovery's 32nd century looks and feels more like it should be the late 25th century to me; perhaps a century post-TNG, but certainly not three-quarters of a millennium. Everything we've seen so far looks less advanced than the Enterprise-J. GOD FORBID it should be one of the 32nd century Constitution-class ships.

The Ent-J has clearly more in common with late 24th ships due to the colouring of the nacelles and Bussard collectors alone not to mention the undeniable resemblance to the nx-class. No matter whether you like floaty parts or empty cavities, these features are objectively new to Starfleet, which set the new ships apart from traditional designs.

On top of that, it's not like all 32nd century vessels have them, some of them also break at least one of the common conventions: Saucer + exposed nacelles

Because it's larger, more streamlined, and with a geometrically simpler, smoother, and more proportionally consistent silhouette. Not unlike the Enterprise 1701-D compared to the Enterprise 1701, for example. In comparison I find the 32nd century Constitution-class design to be fussy and over-designed. It's like a starship with a PC gamer aesthetic.

Larger doesn't mean more advanced, neither in ST nor in reality. The rest is subjetive ofc.

What most fail to realise is that the advanced 29th and 30th centuries shown in voyager and enterprise would have been incredibly limited in the types of stories they could tell. Brannon braga himself stated this is why enterprise was a prequel and not set post 24th century. Watching federation starships be reduced to tiny pods that were bigger on the inside like the ship from 'future tense' would have been incredibly alienating and none of you complainers would have been happy with that either.

With available time travel, the 23rd and 24th centuries are already more limited than writers were (and are) willing to admit. Besides, Starfleet may have self-imposed restrictions but what about the Borg, why don't they exploit it to at least save themselves from Species 8472 or avoid wasting that valuable boronite ore?
Actually we don't know whether hundreds of thousands or millions of cubic metres can be reduced to tiny pods in the first place.

I don't see the point in the empty cavities / negative space.

Do you see the point in saucers? The Romulan warbird's (TNG) negative space?

Given that Floor Space / Volume is at a premium on a StarShip, why would you want to make inefficient Cut-outs in your StarShip unless it serves a technical purpose?

Perhaps there is some technical purpose we are not aware of. One could probably pick holes in pretty much any design.

If this was your 'Personal StarShip' like the "La Sirena" or "Book's Ship".

Then yeah, you should do whatever you want; even if it's Form over Function.

But I have a hard time seeing StarFleet, a very practical organization going that route for the sake of Aesthetics.

I wouldn't call things like exposed bridges practical. If everyone were truly practical, they would probably all use spherical vessels or something. Kind of boring.

They don't seem to be using TARDIS tech where it's bigger on the inside by the time we hit the 32nd century.

They may very well do, not literally like the TARDIS though which has infinite internal space I think.
The Discovery-A's interior seems quite spacious.
If it's indeed not a thing anymore, it might be because the technology is inextricably linked with time-travel gear.

I think my biggest problem with the "floaty nacelles" thing is that we've never seen it before, despite some races being significantly more advanced than Starfleet; and now suddenly it's everywhere. It's never been a logical design progression so much as hinted at before.

It's almost as if there were some kind of interspecies federation that had also influenced other worlds resulting in technological proliferation and common standards. It would explain why everyone we meet shares the same kind of transporters (same effect), programmable matter etc.
Being more advanced doesn't necessarily lead to floaty parts, there is no universal master plan of development.
A logical design progression doesn't exist.

And why do Earth ships suddenly look like blocky can openers when we know that the classic saucer-nacelles arrangement was originally an Earth design?

Because they are sick of it? Who knows, but there isn't even proof they had actually abandoned the arrangement, we see ONE of their ship classes.

You're actually agreeing with me here, but you don't realise it. 32nd century starships are still using the same basic FTL drive technology as the NX-01 – matter/antimatter reactions moderated by dilithium crystals, which have to be mined and can't be replicated/substituted by anything else. There's not even any indication that the ships are substantially faster with conventional warp drive than anything we've seen up until the late 24th century. This is absurd.

Wrong.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/22n...gies-still-in-use.310496/page-2#post-14042389
post # 26 (roughly in the middle)

In addition, I can't remember anyone or anything stating 32nd century ships (except that warp-capable moon) use matter/antimatter reactions, and even if they do, it doesn't matter (no pun intended) since "super antimatter" (by 23rd c.) already has unlimited potential (aka whatever the writers want).
Famously advanced Species 8472 makes use of antimatter as well.
Braxton mentions 29th century warp cores, he implies an "implosion" could destroy an entire solar system.

JANEWAY: How do you know all this? What evidence do you have that it will be your timeship that causes the disaster?
(Braxton rummages for a piece of brown paper.)
BRAXTON: Ah, I've spent thirty years answering that very question. Ah, yes, when the explosion first happened, my sensors recorded a whole variety of chronometric data. The pulses were highly chaotic. At first I thought it was a warp core implosion, but then I found debris from Voyager and my theory seemed to be confirmed. It was you. But then someone here stole my timeship and it started to dawn on me. If someone were to fly my timeship into the future without recalibrating the temporal matrix then that could cause the kind of explosion that I witnessed in the twenty ninth century.

http://chakoteya.net/Voyager/304.htm

Since Discovery is the lens through which we see the 32nd century, then yes, it was still sudden. My point is that for a 931-year-time-jump the 32nd century seems remarkably... like someone wanted to tell stories in the 23rd century but not have to deal with any established 23rd century continuity. There's been seemingly less technological development between the end of the 24th century and the 32nd century we see in Discovery than there was between the 23rd and 24th centuries.

Not really.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Do you see the point in saucers? The Romulan warbird's (TNG) negative space?

Saucers allow alot of Horizontal Floor Area that is easily accesible from a central Elevator / Turbo-Lift shaft.

The D'Deridex having the giant negative space seems to be for the Warp Nacelle's "Line of Sight" to each other so they can interact.

Perhaps there is some technical purpose we are not aware of. One could probably pick holes in pretty much any design.

And usually you can figure out or deduce why many holes are there, most of the time it serves a practical & obvious purpose.

I wouldn't call things like exposed bridges practical. If everyone were truly practical, they would probably all use spherical vessels or something. Kind of boring.

I agree, I've never been a fan of having the Bridge on top or exposed on the outside.

I've been a big proponent of burying the Bridge inside the saucer section, very deep inside.

They may not be "Spherical", but they would have less cut-outs and more solid mass.

Just look at the Borg Cube, lots of internal Floor Area to traverse for us BiPaBs.
~3 km per side of the Cube. Just imagine how much potential Floor Space you can have.

They may very well do, not literally like the TARDIS though which has infinite internal space I think.
The Discovery-A's interior seems quite spacious.
If it's indeed not a thing anymore, it might be because the technology is inextricably linked with time-travel gear.

Yup, that's why I think they're not using it anymore since it's too closely linked to Time Travel tech or only a short hop away from it. Ergo it got banned.

 

[Vale]

The Ent-J has clearly more in common with late 24th ships due to the colouring of the nacelles and Bussard collectors alone not to mention the undeniable resemblance to the nx-class. No matter whether you like floaty parts or empty cavities, these features are objectively new to Starfleet, which set the new ships apart from traditional designs.

They also seem to be found in the 23rd century ships of the Discovery era – only the Constitution-class has traditional Bussards and blue warp engine field grilles, though it has also inherited the new aesthetic's negative spaces.

On top of that, it's not like all 32nd century vessels have them, some of them also break at least one of the common conventions: Saucer + exposed nacelles

So did some 24th century ships. Hell, so did some 22nd century class ships.

Larger doesn't mean more advanced, neither in ST nor in reality. The rest is subjetive ofc.

I find it odd that the Enterprise-J seems to be wildly out of scale with every subsequent design of ship we've seen, as well as significantly more capable (able to explore other galaxies, etc).

Do you see the point in saucers? The Romulan warbird's (TNG) negative space?

Sure:

The saucer design is a way of minimising floor space for a given deck and can be seen as a natural evolution of a more spherical hull. It is also suggested in the TNG Technical Manual that it improves the ship's ability to survive atmospheric re-entry and touchdown on a planetary surface in the event of a catastrophe, as well as improving the ship's "subspace streamlining" (not the specific term they use, but it suffices here). Interestingly the original Enterprise's saucer's characteristic ventral undercut has been shown to significantly improve its aerodynamic qualities in real-world tests of models in wind tunnels.

Regarding the negative space of the D'deridex-class warbird – Andrew Probert, who designed it, said that this was to ensure the nacelles had maximum line-of-sight between them, thus maximising their efficiency.

Perhaps there is some technical purpose we are not aware of. One could probably pick holes in pretty much any design.

Well, sure, but I'm not sure if going down the road of "it's all fiction so they can do anything they want for any reason and it doesn't have to make sense" is quite the argument-winner that you think it is.

I wouldn't call things like exposed bridges practical.

It allows bridges to be easily customisable and upgradable – important when it's the ship's command centre – and it being "exposed" is something of a fallacy, since the ship's true armour is its shields.

If everyone were truly practical, they would probably all use spherical vessels or something. Kind of boring.

Not necessarily. Modern-day spacecraft are entirely practical out of necessity and we don't have spherical ones now.

They may very well do, not literally like the TARDIS though which has infinite internal space I think.

It is "unlimited" and "unmeasured". It is not "infinite". It's basically as big as it needs to be and can be easily expanded, contracted, or reconfigured as required. "Well, how big's big? Relative dimensions, you see. No constants."

It's almost as if there were some kind of interspecies federation that had also influenced other worlds resulting in technological proliferation and common standards. It would explain why everyone we meet shares the same kind of transporters (same effect), programmable matter etc.

Being more advanced doesn't necessarily lead to floaty parts, there is no universal master plan of development.
A logical design progression doesn't exist.

It does for things that are actually designed. We're not talking biological evolution here. You might have noticed that things such as high-performance aircraft all tend to look very similar for a reason, because there's a significant convergence on designs that optimise performance and efficiency. If nacelles make ships with warp drive more efficient, then we should see other races also adopting that principle. If it doesn't, then there's no reason for multiple groups to maintain that principle, especially if they're attempting to distance themselves politically and culturally.

Because they are sick of it? Who knows, but there isn't even proof they had actually abandoned the arrangement, we see ONE of their ship classes.

Earth is isolationist to the point of not wanting to deal with other members of its own solar system; where were these fleets of radically different ship designs hiding? Behind the moon?

Wrong.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/22n...gies-still-in-use.310496/page-2#post-14042389
post # 26 (roughly in the middle)

Your base assumption is faulty.

We know from season three of Discovery that quantum slipstream is technically very accessible even on small ships if you have the fuel, and there are plenty of "subspace conduits" that large Starfleet ships can access since they are apparently permanent and at least some are full of Burn-era ship debris.

In addition even Bajor had a temporary colony in the Gamma Quadrant during the 24th century due to the Wormhole – it didn't mean they suddenly had ships capable of warp 9.999... .

There's no indication that the conventional Cochrane-style warp drives in use in the 32nd century are significantly faster than we've previously seen.

In addition, I can't remember anyone or anything stating 32nd century ships (except that warp-capable moon) use matter/antimatter reactions, and even if they do, it doesn't matter (no pun intended) since "super antimatter" (by 23rd c.) already has unlimited potential (aka whatever the writers want).

Back with the "it's fiction therefore continuity and logic don't matter" argument again...

If they don't use antimatter why would they need dilithium, since the whole role of dilithium, the sine qua non for its addition to Star Trek lore, its explicit purpose aboard starships, to moderate matter-antimatter reactions?

Famously advanced Species 8472 makes use of antimatter as well.

Are they "famously advanced"? We don't really see them do anything significantly beyond Starfleet capabilities. The Borg can't fight them because they can't assimilate them, therefore they can't understand them or adapt to them.

Braxton mentions 29th century warp cores, he implies an "implosion" could destroy an entire solar system.

http://chakoteya.net/Voyager/304.htm

You mean when he's a half-crazed old man living on the streets? "I never experienced that timeline."

Not really.

I disagree.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

The D'Deridex having the giant negative space seems to be for the Warp Nacelle's "Line of Sight" to each other so they can interact.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Vale]

Forgive me for discussing 32nd century starship design in the 31st/32nd Century Ships Revealed thread. I should have known better.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

STO has established the F

No it hasnt

 

[Markonian]

The point is, nothing in STO is ever intended to apply to anything outside of the game. STO doesn't establish anything, it doesn't prove anything, it doesn't make anything official. STO is its own self-contained universe, completely separate from the rest of Trek.

I don’t think so.
DSC referenced elements from STO. The STO novel The Needs of the Many referenced TrekLit, and TrekLit has made at least one reference to STO. The Countdown to PIC comic from IDW contains STO elements. The 2399 PIC uniform is from STO.
STO’s storylines acted as sequel to 24th century Trek while the Kelvin movies we’re playing in their own sandbox, and STO has continued to play that role with the new shows, e,g, bringing in T’Kuvma’s sister from IDW.

Thus, there’s no reason to blanket-discount relevant contributions from any official Trek source.
Not all Trek is canon, but all licensed Trek is official.

 

[Tuskin38]

The 2399 PIC uniform is from STO.

No it isn't.

 

[Tuskin38]

Is a space station a ship?

Jorg on Twitter thinks he’s found where SFHQ’s shuttle bay is

https://twitter.com/gaghyogi49/status/1494736974564892673?s=21

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Check out this 1/350 USS Hood build. No slots in the pylons and a more "TOS color".
https://twitter.com/BuckAdmiral/status/1494720495119486979



Is this Bill Krause here in the BBS? I recognize the other Hood model here: https://twitter.com/BuckAdmiral/status/1494708776489869316

 

[fireproof78]

Check out this 1/350 USS Hood build. No slots in the pylons and a more "TOS color".
https://twitter.com/BuckAdmiral/status/1494720495119486979

View attachment 26415

Is this Bill Krause here in the BBS? I recognize the other Hood model here: https://twitter.com/BuckAdmiral/status/1494708776489869316

Looks like a constitution.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Looks like a constitution.

The original TOS Hood was a Connie. She was one of the ships damaged by M-5, those were all Connies.

That Twitter model is kinda like the DSC Enterprise, but a little more TOS in look. But is it enough for the naysayers?

 

[fireproof78]

But is it enough for the naysayers?

Magic 8 ball says probably not.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Magic 8 ball says probably not.

Give it another shake

IDK, I'm not too arsed about the DSC Enterprise, but some thought they might like it better if it was colored more like the old TOS version. Add in the true TMP pylons and it's a little closer to something we've seen before.