A Warp Fighter

[Timo]

Also, they managed pretty well through several seasons without really mocking up the Delta Flyer exterior - but as a mockup of the runabout doorway and wall was readily available, there would have been interesting possibilities.

Now, any "Hippocratic Oath" style "yeah, the entire craft is here, but the front and aft bits are, uh, covered by vegetation" silliness would have undermined the use of that prop. But VFX technology was on the verge of making it possible to extend the sets plausibly; the Raven didn't look halfway bad. It would have been impressive if they could have created a generic matte or miniature of a landed Aeroshuttle, something they could then surround with a plot-specific landscape and the occasional greenscreened or computer-generated miniature characters to create an establishing shot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[tighr]

The more I think about it, the more it feels like a missed opportunity to do something original and interesting - each time the Aerowing (or Delta Flyer if that's what it became) launched would be an event in its own right, not just another "fly out of the magic shuttlebay" shot.

That shuttlebay was hilarious. Based on dimensions, it was truly a Mary Poppins room. Smaller on the outside than it is on the inside. The Delta Flyer itself would have been too large to fit in the shuttlebay, and there is no way they could have had that many shuttlecraft, either. Of course, there's the infamous "Shuttlebay 2", which doesn't even exist.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

And while it would require shooting of new type of miniature footage of the Voyager flying without the craft in place...

IIRC, they were already using CGI at that point, so it wouldn't be a problem. And even if they weren't, it wasn't long before they WERE, so again, not really a problem.

 

[Timo]

It's the one thing they could skip by using the shuttlebay-carried Delta Flyer, though - the only VFX-related thing, really. Pennywise, really, but still a distinguishing factor between the two possibilities.

Regarding the original warp fighter issue, what do we make of the small Vulcan craft of ENT? We see some of these deployed near Vulcan, losing a fight to one of NX-01's shuttlepods, which is pretty pathetic. Yet we soon also witness them in very deep space, in formation with the heaviest known Vulcan combat starships:

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x09/kirshara_410.jpg

So, capable of self-deployment at interstellar speeds? Stowable aboard those big combatants? Likely to make any difference in the fight with the Andorians?

...The same as this identically shaped smallish craft from "Carbon Creek"? A craft that may have been a sublight auxiliary to an orbiting mothership, or an independent warpship on its own?

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x02/carboncreek_548.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ About runabout sized or larger, I should think. I don't recall any of those small craft actually engaging in battle with the Andorians and may have been used more in a support role, but you never know.

significantly, there's an Andorian craft in the "Babel 1" fleet that appears to be a scaleup of the shuttlecraft from Dear Doctor. It's probably meant to represent a second/older type of Andorian warship, but if you squint hard enough it could be the Vulcan shuttle's Andorian counterpart in a formation deceptively close to the camera.

 

[Timo]

Hmm. We could speculate that whenever a warfleet from the eventual Federation member cultures slows down to impulse, it wants to deploy a protective screen of small craft, at any era (including those where the small craft are incapable of warp). Their role might simply be to be the first to get blown up by an approaching enemy, thus providing warning. Or, since they are (also?) deployed in the immediate vicinity of the fleet where they can provide no real advance warning, perhaps they rather serve to intercept small kamikaze craft or missiles in a second-to-last layer of defense.

The absence of such craft from Picard's "Redemption" fleet would simply emphasize that this was not a warfleet, not establish that fighters were unavailable or in disfavor in the 2360s.

Fast-moving raiding flotillas of Klingon battle cruisers or Romulan warbirds would be a somewhat different issue...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

In the ENT-continuity were not the weapons ranges fairly short, even for the advanced Vulcans and Andorians? They might have had "advanced tech" relative to the Earth fleet, but with short weapons ranges having small fighting craft (like fighters) might be necessary for early stand-off.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The absence of such craft from Picard's "Redemption" fleet would simply emphasize that this was not a warfleet, not establish that fighters were unavailable or in disfavor in the 2360s.

On the other hand, there are no fighters present in fleet actions against the Borg, not at Wolf 359 or again at the battle of Earth, despite the presence of the Akira class ships that in the latter case, ships that are supposedly designed as fighter carries.

Also of note is the lack of fighter craft by the joint Romulan/Cardassian fleet at the Battle of the Omarian Nebula. The closest thing the Alpha Quadrant forces had to a fighter in any of those engagements was the Defiant herself, and I've been saying for years that that's essentially what the Defiant is: a Federation heavy fighter.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

In the ENT-continuity were not the weapons ranges fairly short, even for the advanced Vulcans and Andorians? They might have had "advanced tech" relative to the Earth fleet, but with short weapons ranges having small fighting craft (like fighters) might be necessary for early stand-off.

Only Starfleet's weapons ranges were ever stated canonically, and then only for plasma cannons, with an effective range of about 5km. Vulcans and Andorians both used some kind of heavy particle beams with ranges in the tens to hundreds of kilometers during the 22nd century.

 

[Unicron]

One might argue that against an enemy like the Borg, Starfleet wouldn't bother deploying small craft like fighters against a cube that can shred capital ships easily. I've seen several different designations for the Akira class over time, and I don't know that the carrier function was ever established canonically (although it may be what John Eaves intended the Akira to be).

On a personal level, I've never been comfortable with the Romulan/Cardassian strategy against the Founders because its execution doesn't make sense to me. There doesn't seem to be a tactical need for fighters if it had worked as intended, and both groups seemed to think that a small fleet of 20 warships would succeed because they had cloaks, when it was known that the Dominion's tech could easily match or even surpass most AQ technology. The basic strategy of a surprise bombardment is fine, I just think they didn't have enough ships to cover the necessary contingencies.

 

[T'Girl]

On the other hand, there are no fighters present in fleet actions against the Borg, not at Wolf 359 or again at the battle of Earth

It's impossible to know if fighter were or were not used at Wolf359, however they may have been tried in the defense of Earth's system in BoBW.

Admittedly it hard to said definitely what these are, but they easily could be fighters who fared no better than the larger ships.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^ And no worse, either.

 

[Albertese]

Does anyone have pics of these models? The one's in T'Girl's post above; from BoBW?

I understand they were made of submarine kits and markers, but I'd love to get as closer look at them since it's hard to really see what they look like in their few seconds of screen time.

--Alex

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Admittedly it hard to said definitely what these are, but they easily could be fighters who fared no better than the larger ships.

Backstage sources suggest those were actually humongous anti-starship missiles, hence the reason they never bother to open fire. They were supposed to HIT the cube, not fire at it.

More to the point: we don't see any fighters engaging the Borg at the Battle of Earth years later in First Contact, despite the fact that the Akira class was supposedly designed as some kind of starfleet fighter carrier.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Backstage sources suggest those were actually humongous anti-starship missiles, hence the reason they never bother to open fire. They were supposed to HIT the cube, not fire at it.

In that case, they probably should have made the model more cylindrical and less like a Y-Wing knockoff.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

They WERE cylindrical. The protrusions on the sides of the hull were supposed to be warp nacelles; each one of those pods would have been almost as large as a Klingon bird of prey.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

They WERE cylindrical. The protrusions on the sides of the hull were supposed to be warp nacelles; each one of those pods would have been almost as large as a Klingon bird of prey.

I meant more like a rocket, without additional nacelles [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-25C_Titan_II].

 

[Timo]

A missile capable of warp would be a fairly natural thing for Starfleet to have, though - and warp capacity for Starfleet hardware is generally indicated by the presence of nacelles.

Cardassians, of course, needed no stinking nacelles for their warp-capable missile. Then again, their ships don't use nacelles, either.

I'm sort of fancying a compromise interpretation here: those things in "BoBW" could well be former small starships, of "corvette" or "patrol boat" size judging by how they aren't invisibly small against the multi-kilometer Cube - but converted into suicide drones by removal of crew and addition of explosives. We do see the exact same design up close in "New Ground", after all, serving as a test vessel for the warp soliton, and the detailing there suggests a relatively substantial craft or vessel. (Also note the cameo in the "Unification" junkyard!)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

A missile capable of warp would be a fairly natural thing for Starfleet to have, though - and warp capacity for Starfleet hardware is generally indicated by the presence of nacelles.

Cardassians, of course, needed no stinking nacelles for their warp-capable missile. Then again, their ships don't use nacelles, either.

I'm sort of fancying a compromise interpretation here: those things in "BoBW" could well be former small starships, of "corvette" or "patrol boat" size judging by how they aren't invisibly small against the multi-kilometer Cube - but converted into suicide drones by removal of crew and addition of explosives. We do see the exact same design up close in "New Ground", after all, serving as a test vessel for the warp soliton, and the detailing there suggests a relatively substantial craft or vessel. (Also note the cameo in the "Unification" junkyard!)

Timo Saloniemi

Photon torpedoes seem to get by just fine without nacelles.

Nevertheless, while the nacelle argument does seem reasonable, especially for a craft larger than a photon torpedo, my purpose in that constructive criticism was simply to point out that certain types of profiles suggest unmanned vehicle more so than others, simply because of the tropes involved. In the case of this profile, it's hard to get a read on it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

A missile capable of warp would be a fairly natural thing for Starfleet to have, though - and warp capacity for Starfleet hardware is generally indicated by the presence of nacelles.

Cardassians, of course, needed no stinking nacelles for their warp-capable missile. Then again, their ships don't use nacelles, either.

I'm sort of fancying a compromise interpretation here: those things in "BoBW" could well be former small starships, of "corvette" or "patrol boat" size judging by how they aren't invisibly small against the multi-kilometer Cube - but converted into suicide drones by removal of crew and addition of explosives. We do see the exact same design up close in "New Ground", after all, serving as a test vessel for the warp soliton, and the detailing there suggests a relatively substantial craft or vessel. (Also note the cameo in the "Unification" junkyard!)

Timo Saloniemi

Photon torpedoes seem to get by just fine without nacelles.

And depending on who you ask, a photon torpedo IS a disembodied warp nacelle.

Nevertheless, while the nacelle argument does seem reasonable, especially for a craft larger than a photon torpedo, my purpose in that constructive criticism was simply to point out that certain types of profiles suggest unmanned vehicle more so than others, simply because of the tropes involved. In the case of this profile, it's hard to get a read on it.

Other than producer's intent, of course. Basically, we know they're missiles because they were INTENDED to be missiles. If there was any sort of crew on board, it would just be a couple of tribbles that happened to crawl into the number three impulse manifold before it launched.