Achernar subclass: What Is It?

[Ithekro]

There was this version based on the FASA line of thinking (which takes Franz Joseph's stuff and then tosses it around to do their own thing.)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steven.bacon/achernar.htm

 

[Marsden]

Thank you for the pictures!

I see the subtle differences. I also would like to mention that my AMT model Enterprise resembled the middle picture the most, but then I got a smaller model, still from AMT, but with a small Klingon and Romulan in the same box and it had the grid lines on the saucer like the bottom picture.

I still haven't found the pictures I was talking about, but if I find them I will certainly post, some of them are very strange, it must have been a fan produced thing just to make more ships, but it just looked like a cut an paste job with the saucer and the engines down but not upside down. I didn't like it.

 

[publiusr]

Achernar (FJ's Constitution) has a lovely secondary hull, even if the saucer is a little chunky. The blueprint that showed the Fesarius has a good saucer on that better secondary hull.

The large white painted Franklin Mint I have is pure Achernar. One like it for sale
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Franklin-Mi...268?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d210feb94

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The Achernar subclass - the Constitution class as redesigned by Franz Joseph. More grid lines, more rounded bridge, thicker and curvier engineering hull.

Funny thing about the FJ version is that for years, so many fans just accepted it as "right" or "official" because it was a technical drawing. It did not really matter how inaccurate certain sections were, even when looking at a side-by-side comparison with the studio miniature.

Same goes for TAS' 1701.

Any have a technical manual-style illustration of that version?

 

[BillJ]

Funny thing about the FJ version is that for years, so many fans just accepted it as "right" or "official" because it was a technical drawing. It did not really matter how inaccurate certain sections were, even when looking at a side-by-side comparison with the studio miniature.

Probably because, for most, the Enterprise was primarily a vehicle of the imagination. The minor differences really didn't matter.

 

[PCz911]

Interesting thread. Looking at some of the links leads me to this question: did franz Joseph designs work with fasa to develop some ship designs?

 

[Wingsley]

Very interesting thread. Let's take a critical look at the turbolift scene in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday":

KIRK: Bridge.

CHRISTOPHER: Must have taken quite a lot to build a ship like this.

KIRK: There are only twelve like it in the fleet.

CHRISTOPHER: I see. Did the Navy..?

KIRK: We're a combined service, Captain. Our authority is the United Earth Space Probe Agency.

CHRISTOPHER: United Earth?

KIRK: This is very difficult to explain. We're from your future. A time warp placed us here. It was an accident.

CHRISTOPHER: You seem to have a lot of them. However, I can't deny the fact that you're here. With this ship.

Note that the conversation between Kirk and Christopher seems to emphasize the parent organization and loosely implied industrial/military/financial might to build such an impressive spacecraft. At no time during the conversation is the Constitution-class of Federation starships, or even the notion of starship classes, mentioned or implied. It is therefore reasonable to observe that Kirk's "only twelve like it in the fleet" remark is not necessarily a meditation on starship class or classification at all.

Kirk appears to be talking to Christopher about (1: identifying the Enterprise and her crew as friendly and non-threatening, (2: generally of Terran origin, "little green men" or Vulcans aside, (3: that the "authority" responsible for producing the impressive spaceship are the future "United Earth", specifically a "combined service" organization called the "United Earth Space Probe Agency". In this specifically articulated context, it should be clear that Kirk was trying to convey that the Enterprise and her crew are from Earth, not that he was trying to educate a 20th century U.S. Air Force pilot on the specifics of starship classifications.

So, was Kirk's "twelve like it in the fleet" a line about the specific number of Constitution-class space vessels, or something else? It isn't really that clear. It could have been 12 Constitution-class vessels from Earth, or it could have been 12 U.E.S.P.A.-sponsored starships-of-the-line as part of a larger Federation fleet, or something else entirely, like maybe only 12 starships (out of a pool of a much larger number) are outfitted for 5-year missions of deep space exploration. The thrust of the conversation is about trying to assure Christopher that "you're among friends", not to school him on fleet strength or technical details.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Kirk's line about there being only 12 like it in the fleet is in reply to a question regarding what it took to build such a ship. It's not any kind of stretch to assume that the intent was to imply that there are only 12 ships in the same class in all of Starfleet, as of the moment that the Enterprise was thrown back in time.

 

[Ithekro]

Interestingly, in real world terms, 12 is a lot for most capital ship classes. While there were 24 completed Essex-class aircraft carriers, that is the exception rather than the rule. The super carriers of the 1950s and 1960s were in classes of up to four ships each, wit maybe plans for having built six at one point. The Forrestal-class carriers were originally going to be a class of six ships, but the Kitty Hawk and Constellation were a heavily modified design that became its own class. This class had USS America added to it, though America has a different hull designs. The USS John F. Kennedy was suppose to be like American, or the nuclear USS Enterprise, but was different from both and generally considered a class by itself.

the nuclear carrier USS Enterprise was suppose to be the lead ship in a class of six ships, but it cost so much that the nuclear carrier programs were cancelled for at ten years before they started on the Nimitz-class carrier, of which ten were built.

Most battleship classes only had two or three ships in there class, with the most being I think an old British battleship class that had nine ships in it.

Cruisers would sometimes have more that that in it, but are not the size of USS Enterprise.

 

[Marsden]

Very interesting thread. Let's take a critical look at the turbolift scene in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday":

KIRK: Bridge.

CHRISTOPHER: Must have taken quite a lot to build a ship like this.

KIRK: There are only twelve like it in the fleet.

CHRISTOPHER: I see. Did the Navy..?

KIRK: We're a combined service, Captain. Our authority is the United Earth Space Probe Agency.

CHRISTOPHER: United Earth?

KIRK: This is very difficult to explain. We're from your future. A time warp placed us here. It was an accident.

CHRISTOPHER: You seem to have a lot of them. However, I can't deny the fact that you're here. With this ship.

Note that the conversation between Kirk and Christopher seems to emphasize the parent organization and loosely implied industrial/military/financial might to build such an impressive spacecraft. At no time during the conversation is the Constitution-class of Federation starships, or even the notion of starship classes, mentioned or implied. It is therefore reasonable to observe that Kirk's "only twelve like it in the fleet" remark is not necessarily a meditation on starship class or classification at all.

Kirk appears to be talking to Christopher about (1: identifying the Enterprise and her crew as friendly and non-threatening, (2: generally of Terran origin, "little green men" or Vulcans aside, (3: that the "authority" responsible for producing the impressive spaceship are the future "United Earth", specifically a "combined service" organization called the "United Earth Space Probe Agency". In this specifically articulated context, it should be clear that Kirk was trying to convey that the Enterprise and her crew are from Earth, not that he was trying to educate a 20th century U.S. Air Force pilot on the specifics of starship classifications.

So, was Kirk's "twelve like it in the fleet" a line about the specific number of Constitution-class space vessels, or something else? It isn't really that clear. It could have been 12 Constitution-class vessels from Earth, or it could have been 12 U.E.S.P.A.-sponsored starships-of-the-line as part of a larger Federation fleet, or something else entirely, like maybe only 12 starships (out of a pool of a much larger number) are outfitted for 5-year missions of deep space exploration. The thrust of the conversation is about trying to assure Christopher that "you're among friends", not to school him on fleet strength or technical details.

That's a great point. One which I feel like more people should realize instead of taking as if Kirk was pronouncing the total strength of the Federation.

The Federation didn't even "exist", yet. It was still an Earth ship, with it's half Vulcanian science officer from the planet the Earth either conquered or liberated from another race.
I really wish everybody didn't try to do backflips trying to rationalize that in universe more that what it is, the Federation concept developed in the middle of the 1st season and when they say "Earth" they mean Federation, end of story.

 

[Marsden]

BTW, is this the one with the engines and saucer on backwards? I can't remember where I saw it, but they had a whole bunch of different designs which were basically 3 tubes and a saucer attached in different ways.

I finally found the pictures I was talking about. I started to think I imagined them.

It's on Orion Press. I just can't figure out how to post the picture, but this links to the file and they are the last three ships.